Forum - View topicWhy do people hate Dubs so much?
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The Frankman
 Posts: 1160 Location: Binary Culture HQ |
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Product A tastes great and Product B tastes good, therefore B must suck. Okay, let's say people are talking about who's a better home run hitter, Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa. McGwire hit more HR's in a season then Sosa and careerwise (I believe) so McGwire's a better HR hitter. By your fuzzy logic, Sammy Sosa then sucks. Just because a dub may lose a little (or a lot) in translation doesn't mean it automatically is bad. What about Cowboy Bebop, which most coin as better than the original? Any loss of translation can instantly be made up for with solid VAing, good music, crisp animation and a interesting story. I really dislike blanket statements like that because in most cases there is so much evidence to the contrary. |
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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Point made, but still, people would generally drink product A rather than B when it is available. 
I don't think anyone's yet said that they hate dubs to the point that they would swear off anime completely if tasteful dubs were the only option (although many pro-dub people have suggested that because some prefer subs, they should swear off dubs completely).
Losing out in aspect A doesn't always mean a total loss, but it does mean that the series needs to compensate in other areas. In bebop's case, the music, animation, and story would be irrelevant, since those were identical in both versions, it was a wash, so the dub vs. sub debate would have to come down entirely on the relative quality of the dialog tracks. In some cases the music is different, but I've yet to see an American show that changes the music actually improve upon it, so that rarely helps. |
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Kazuki-san
 Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
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And what does 100% accuracy have to do with anything? No sub is 100% accurate either. The only 100% accurate method of watching something is in its original language with no translations of any kind. In any case, how exactly do most dubs, which do a great job of not changing anything having important (i.e. plot , characters, etc.) "suck" because a localized joke does not translate over properly?
Possibly, but subjective. There would not be a consensus as to which was which, since taste is a matter of preference. There would also be a number of people who would drink b for any number of reasons (It wakes them up and gets them through the day perhaps? Or maybe it's just something kids their age do, cause it's cool and stuff?) |
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Cowboy Cadenza
Posts: 243 Location: Poughkeepsie, NY |
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Hmm...just a side note, but I felt like the English VA sounded a bit gay as well. That was my analysis. Also note that there's nothing wrong with being gay.
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mahoro
 Posts: 307 |
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Honestly, I do not even know why people continue asking this if they enjoy dubs. Some people prefer the original Japanese dialogue versions over the inconsistently occassionally well done dubbed. Accept this reality and it gets easier dealing with the often crazed fandom.
I am one such person that generally does not enough dubbed versions, but my opinion should not matter to you even remotely. If you enjoy the dubs support them, if you do not, do not support it it is as simple as that. In the end with dvds being multilingual it does not matter which version people prefer. Honestly, I could care less if 99% of the newers anime were also dubbed, so long as the dvd version had a Japanese track too. |
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Yashouzoid
 Posts: 411 |
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For me, if a dub has a nice, flowing script that maintains a respectable level of accuracy, combined with a good overall voice performance, then it's okay in my book. Above all, if it correctly portrays the characters, drama, storyline, emotion, etc. etc., then they've done their job. I'd point out the illogical argument that if B isn't better than A then B sucks, but that's already been taken care of. It's not like subtitles are exactly ideal either. I don't know about you, but I'd rather watch a dub where the jokes make sense to an American viewer, as opposed to a version that makes constant Japanese puns. As far as "but omgeez u have 2 reed itz" goes, I can read fast while keeping up with the on-screen action - I do it all the time with One Piece, and I never really miss anything vital. |
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Jigen
Posts: 5 |
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Lets face it some people like myself are just lazy bastards. I exclusively watch dubs even on multiple repeat viewings. I keep telling myself "I'll watch it subbed next time" but my sorry ass NEVER does. I fully realize that I'm cheating myself out of many aspects of anime that can't be properly expressed in a dub, but I still err on the side of wanting to watch my anime rather than reading it. I truly realized how much of a difference subs made when I watched Samurai Champloo fansubbed earlier this year and then started watching the dubs recently. I felt Mugen's dubbed voice was a big departure from his Japanese counterpart and made the character a lot less scary. And of course there were so many cultural references that were so much clearer with the excellent fansubs. Ultimately I would still like to watch the subbed versions of all the anime I've seen dubbed. I think It would be very hard for me to watch certain anime subbed for the first viewing. I mean, trying to watch GITS:SAC made my head want to explode. My head still hurts from it
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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One thing I love about fansubs is that if there's too much information going on to read at once, you can always pause it and read it, while in a dub, if they're talking too fast you just miss what they said (although maybe you can pick it up on repeat viewing).
For example, when a voice is talking in the background, it's much easier to read both dialog tracks then it is to listen to both. |
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Killer 7
Posts: 68 Location: "America,F&&k Yeah"! |
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Mainly because most of the english voice acting is of poor quality compared to the japanese. sure you have your few exceptions like cowboy bebop,hellsing,sayuki,The Professional and even old school series like robotech and star blazers.
i just can't take most of the english dubs seriously. case in point The fist of the Northstar movie. "are these yours"? and anything localized and distributed by manga ent. need i say more? |
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Mugen The Great
Posts: 189 |
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Um, when did this discussion become "fansub vs. TV dub" instead of the much more appropriate and logical "sub vs. dub" debate? Because if you actually spend money on DVDs (hell, you don't even need to buy them, you can just rent them at Blockbuster or, if you want to be even cheaper, at the library), you can still pause while watching the subs, and use the rewind button if you miss a line in the dub, you know.
Also, I find the Cowboy Bebop dub to be a huge improvement over the Japanese version. The actors fit the parts better (probably because Bebop feels more like a live-action American show or at least a Chinese-type thing than your typical anime), and if you want to get into the topic of TV censorship (although I don't personally feel that has much relevence in the debate about the quality of dubs that have proper uncut releases), Bebop got less censorship on Cartoon Network than it did on Japanese television (admitedly there was an uncut showing on WoWoW, but that's a pay channel ala HBO and therefore I consider it to be more similar to an uncut DVD than to your average TV broadcast). In fact I can think of a few dubs where there have been improvements from the Japanese version. The 1st season of Duel Masters for one thing (it sucked in Japanese but was at least good for a cheap laugh in English, though it needs an uncut and subbed release before I can really consider the dub to be of any real quality beyond "better than the original"), and the Disney dub of Castle in the Sky (the acting was better in the original Japanese version, but I found the soundtrack in the dub to be a vast improvement over the original, and apparently Joe Hisashi thinks the same). |
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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same dif.
I can imagine that being true, but Duel Masters is a horrid show in any language, so it really isn't a poster boy for dub quality. |
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patch
 Posts: 677 Location: New York, NY |
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Ohoni, hey now your really trolling. Thread should be locked since your obviously being an ass.
Absolutely, great point bro. If someone can't agree to this, then you are either extremly ignorant or just trolling. |
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Ruri-chan
 Posts: 47 Location: tampa |
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Man, it's amazing how this debate never gets old. ^^;;
It just boils down to a matter of opinion. People will always have their reasons to why they like subs or dubs. Each definitely has their pros and cons. Talking to many fans, you hear a lot of different reasons why they prefer watching anime a certain way. Neither is better than the other (relatively speaking). As a thought, the whole "hating dubs" pretty much arose when anime was starting to become popular and they had limited choice in voice actors. Hence the "bad dubbing". They really weren't that great. But nowadays, companies are more serious in their choice of actors and the quality of the product that they're coming out with. So the dubbing is better than what it used to be. Not to mention with DVDs, you have your pick of how you want to watch the anime. =D DVD banzai!! |
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AnimeGreen0813
Posts: 39 |
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Personally, I don't hate dubs. I listen to them so I can get a feel for what's going on in the story so If I desire to listen to it in the original Japanese, it be somewhat easier to understand. I think some people hate dubs because they might tarnish the original storyline, or because it might just suck. I was reading this critics' views on a show that had a dub that sucked so bad he never looked at it again. Many anime companies like Geneon and ADV put out some great dubs. Basically, you gotta like what you like.
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Steve Berry
Posts: 522 Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA |
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It seems to me that the preference for subs or dubs is merely a matter of different logical steps trying to get to the same goal-- a viewing experience as close to the original viewing experience as possible. Now, how you define that is what is so different for different viewers.
Those who prefer dubs tend to like the ease of the viewing experience (which, frankly, is probably much more like the aural experience of a native Japanese speaker, who isn't reading subs when they watch a show), they like that they can watch the video in closer detail during dialogue-heavy moment (also frequently true), and they like to have idiomatic expressions and jokes that are translated into comparative idiomatic expressions in English, thus duplicating the, so to speak, personal viewing "experience"-- that moments are funny when they are supposed to be, or feel fresh or hip, or retro the way they would for a Japanese person familiar with their own pop culture. Basically, dubs work on the philosophy of "equivalent cultural viewing experience." Equivalent being the key word there. Those who prefer subs are also, of course, generally looking for the viewing experience that they feel is "closest to the original experience" as well. Thus, you often get more direct, word for word, literal translations of jokes or pop culture references in subs. You also get the original, native language voice track, with all that occured with that voice-acting ensemble. I think those are also perfectly reasonable arguements for a viewing experience that is as "representative" of the original experience as the dub arguements I gave above. It's really just a matter of how a particular viewer regards the matter-- whether they can be (on occasion) very quick readers (often required for lovers of subs) or prefer to listen with greater ease and soak up the visuals in more detail, and (the biggee) whether they think the current pool of English language voice actors is as good as the general Japanese voice actors. I happen to feel that the Japanese VA's are often better simply because their VA's for cartoons seem to have more experience with complicated material, and acting in that purely oral form. Anime is often a more sophisticated emotional experience than the bulk of American cartoons (IMO), and that is demonstrated in Japanese VA's skills. Still, I think as more anime is dubbed here, the pool of dubs VA's will grow and get more experienced as well, thus improving (in my mind) the quality of the dubs. And I've always thought that the dubs of Disney films (both the Ghibli imports and Disney's and Pixar's original releases) are notably better than the English dubs of many anime TV shows and movies, mostly because the pool of actors that Disney can pull from is better and (perhaps) more talented (i.e. Hollywood name actors, and others) than what some of the companies dubbing anime can pull from. I think that other films like Shrek are a good example of how other animated films in English can have perfectly fine "dubs", if the talent of the acting pool is good enough. I also think the frequently referenced dub of Cowboy Bebop is a good example of how far dubs have come in the last twenty years for anime, as well as "dubs" (or simply, the voice acting) for films such as Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust or the non-Disney dub of Totoro, or the voice acting for the Animatrix. Outside of that though, I think the personal preference of each viewer goes back to the two thought processes I mentioned above. The debate really has much in common with the (also) never-ending debate brought up in the translation of literature-- whether to be more colloquial or literal, and which reading experience is more equivalent to the experience one has reading it in the original language. Any thoughts on that? |
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