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Hope this is okay to post here, looked for similar topics but was unable to find any. If mods are unhappy with this post feel free to remove Smile

Simple question... Do you prefer to watch your anime Subbed or Dubbed?

I'm going to admit, I think I'm apart of the very small minority that actually prefers to watch their anime dubbed.

Personally for me, after 3 or 4 episodes of watching subbed anime my brain starts to get fed up of reading subtitles. However when I watch Dubbed anime, I feel it's a lot easier to binge watch and turn my brain off; one instance of this happened recently while watching Monster.

I understand that realistically Subbed is clearly better, I just prefer watching dubbed as it feels a lot easier and relaxing.

Well,xtorm. Good news. You're not the only one who likes his anime dubbed. I do as well. For me,it makes it easier to watch it. It's easier to watch the show in your own language than watching it in another language with words flashing at the bottom of the screen. While there are people who like seeing anime subbed,that's good for them. For someone like me,it's a bit difficult for me to take. I can deal with some subtitles when it's translating a word into English. It's a little more difficult when those words are constantly flashing on screen.
I hope you and others understand this. I tend to prefer anime dubbed instead of subbed. It's just simple personal preference,that's all. I like hearing it in my own language. Others may feel different,but that's just me.

Ah, one of the oldest debates in anime. I'm surprised you think that preferring dubs puts you in a "very small minority." If that were true, dubs would be quite rare. Dubbing is one of localization's biggest expenses and companies only pay for it because they know doing so generally increases a title's popularity. They have a history of sales figures/streaming numbers to back this up.

For myself, I'm solidly a sub guy because I love listening to Japanese audio (even though after years of listening, I still can't translate very many words) and because I don't often find dubs to be particularly high quality. It helps that I'm a very fast reader, so reading subtitles is easy for me.

Having said all that, I think it's great to have the choice.

Dubbed due to eyes focus and watching restrictions. I used to watch subs and thought they were better and they were because early dub was often terrible. Just rewatched Ghost in the Shell and the first dub was like robots reading off cue cards.

But today a lot of talented voice actors and a bit more technical acumen make a big difference. Seems like the last 10 years at least with seinen titles the quality is there. A bad sub isn’t good either and I don’t speak Japanese so Dub may actually clean up some things for me.

At a certain age your eyes don’t refocus as quickly btw so it becomes very difficult to switch focus between small letters and what’s going on elsewhere on the screen fast. This makes many titles with a lot of dialogue challenging for subs as well.

So I’m comfortably watching dubs. Just wish more interesting titles I want to see had a dub option but starting to find a bunch that still don’t.

Really, I prefer to hear a 7/10 dub over an 8/10 sub unless the emotion is a huge selling point. Basically I default to the dub unless it's particularly bad or the sub is particularly iconic or noticeably better.

I almost exclusively choose subs. Over the years I've brainwashed myself into associating anime with Japanese voice acting so much that hearing English in anime just sounds extremely weird.

Some more reasons I prefer subs:

1) I find Japanese female voices to be very cute and appealing.

2) I have a way easier time accepting an adult Japanese voice playing a child than an English adult voice playing a child.

3) Similar to point 2, I find it easier to listen to adult Japanese voices doing teenager roles than adult English voices doing teenager roles... especially males roles. And there are a lot of teenage male roles in anime.

I see that we are cut from the same cloth when it comes to preferring to watch anime subtitled, Blood-! For me, it also comes down to the fact that my early days of anime watching involved watching a lot of anime in Japanese without any subtitles at all since there weren't any domestic releases available yet. Part of the fun was trying to figure out the story based solely on the visuals alone.

I haven't watched a full episode of anime in English for a good decade-and-a-half. I sometimes sample one just out of curiosity to hear if the English voice was a good casting choice. But ever since I started treating anime like foreign movies, I just stick with the native language.
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Me: "What's your favorite movie?"

Person: "The Shawshank Redemption."

Me: "Would you watch it dubbed in Hindi?"

Person: "No."

Me: "Why not?"

Person: "Because it was made in English."
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If you just don't like reading subs or can't because of ADD or something, that's cool. I'm not gonna' hold it against anyone. Just enjoy the content.

Personally, I find Japanese voice acting way more over-the-top and, thus, more entertaining. If you listen to Japanese people speaking normally, it's usually very formal, and almost a little sheepish. But depending on the anime or game (most of which, coincidentally, are over-the-top), I feel there's a pretty large gap in the energy between normal speaking and voice acting.

I think there's also the advantage of the Japanese voices being recorded before the show is even animated, hence a more natural flow to the rhythm of the dialogue. Whereas, the main problem I discovered with dubs is having to sync with the mouth flaps of an already-made production. I feel that's a giant deterrent in giving a dub actor for any language the freedom to really put more emotion or emphasis into their lines, because they're essentially trying to record over somebody else and are limiting themselves by default.

And as Blood- mentioned, Japanese actors tend to sound more believable for younger-aged characters, since they have naturally higher-pitched voices. I'll never forget hearing Sanosuke's English voice for the first time in Rurouni Kenshin (1997). He's supposed to sound like a 19 year-old, but I just couldn't get the image of a guy in his late 30s out of my head when I did hear it. Children's voices in English sounded notoriously fake in '90s and early 2000s dubs. I'm just gonna' go out on a limb and claim they've gotten better, since then.

I would mostly watch the dub, if the dub is respectful to the original source material, a redub that is better than the old dub, or just for the voice actors and music alone.

One thing I wonder about is while a lot of people prefer the Japanese voice for anime, I’m not sure if it matters as much to me when the characters are drawn overly western. Different issue I know, but when I’m watching and see an old Asian monk I don’t expect Billy Bob’s voice (god that was terrible) but when I’m watching say 7 Deadly sins (crap) I don’t expect any of them to to have a Japanese voice.

Just depends for me I suppose. Not to flail on another topic but that’s one element of the new AI movement that is intersecting. The ability (eventually) to dub something in the voice tone of the original actor. We shall see.

What is the feeling about English voices what have a Japanese accent?

Ooo, an English voice with a Japanese accent would be pretty cringe. I'm getting flashbacks to Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese landlord complete with fake buck teeth and thick Emperor Hirohito style glasses in Breakfast at Tiffany's. By the way, I have a similar reaction when a Japanese voice actor speaks in English AND is supposed to be a native English speaker. You have to be fluently bilingual to pull that off and the seiyuus often aren't even close. Awful. One notable exception from last season was Sally Amaki who voiced Carol Olston in both the Japanese and English audio of Tomo-chan is a Girl! But she was born and raised in LA so it's understand that she could handle both.

Oh sorry let me clarify. I’m talking about legit Asian actors who also speak English. Not some white guy going Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I agree with you 100% there.

The Tomo-Chan example was what I was shooting for.

@InfiniteJest

While I can support your statement that advancing age can cause some vision problems, especially with focusing, I can't say that it has caused me any problems following subtitles. Of course everyone ages differently.

I started out as a confirmed dub fan. However, as you have noted, a lot of good old stuff has never been dubbed and it is unlikely that it ever will. Slowly, watching sub only shows I got used to it. When DVDs came along and we could get both versions on the same disk, I more or less quit watching any thing dubbed. The only exceptions are shows like Baccano and Black Lagoon where the cast would have been speaking English. And also when I have tried to get my wife to watch a show.

If I understand you, you think that AI would produce dubs where the dubbed voice would use the same inflections and emphasis as the original Japanese voice actor. I really don't think this will work. To begin with, most dub fans I've seen comment here want the dub to sound natural in English with the least things likely to take them out of the story. Also, Japanese and English are vastly different languages. Sentence structure is very different with words showing up in different places in a sentence. Also as far as I know, legal translators for dubs are in most cases working off a script provided by the Japanese company and not off of what they think they hear of the broadcast video.

@Alan45,

Thanks for engaging and celebrate that vision. A retinal tear after mono-vision lasik then combine that with normal presbyopia (which most anime watchers haven’t dealt with yet) and yeah it’s not fun. Have my 4th visit to an Ophthalmologist in 3 months . But what can ya do.

As for understanding the difference in languages I’ll admit that I never studied Japanese. But I did take a couple of semesters of Mandarin Chinese and travelled throughout China so I’m familiar with some of the hurdles.

The issue of translation from native tongue to another with accuracy is a challenge for many medium. But it does seem to be evolving and improving. Wonder how a good UN translator would assess it all. Realizing some concepts never translate 100%…like reading continental philosophy in German/ lFrench vs English, certain gestalt ideas just don’t exist in English. But with a degree in the subject I can say that it’s possible to get close enough with some effort. The argument might be made that expressive tones somehow work as a partial substitute. I also can understand liking one mode over another. Some voices can make or break an animated character or scene quickly.

Anyway it’s been an interesting discussion and underlying it all is personal taste and one’s view as anime as a distinctive art form anssiciated with Japanese culture etc.

Fun to have these topics to discuss in a civilized manner.

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