Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2010-05-08]
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Sven Viking
Posts: 1039 |
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Just clarifying in case of misunderstanding: I was saying that in my opinion they do too good a job of timing the words to lip-flaps in English dubs, often at the expense of natural delivery. |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Agreed! That's why you get a lot of "filler" lines, since English isn't as insanely polysyllabic as Japanese can be. I've always felt they should try to follow the original's lead. If the Japanese dialogue didn't much match the lip flaps, neither should the English. Natural delivery should always trump lip motion in any dub. You want them to sound good more than they look good. |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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I'm all about the subs - I watched the Bebop dub, but that's the only one that comes to mind. Heck, I'll often pick the sub on a live action foreign film that has an English dub. I got used to reading subtitles on the foreign language films on SBS in Australia, well before I ever saw their broadcast of Evangelion in 1999.
I have, however, never understood why people treat it like a religious question. To me, its like whether you'd rather have duck sauce or soy sauce with your chinese take-out - a matter of personal preference. And I am happy when a series I like has a dub, because it opens it up to a wider audience. On one of the earlier questions, on whether DMCA C&D notices can be used to take down bootleg material - there is a substantial difference between torrent downloads and leech streaming sites. Some people do not understand that the term "leech streaming" is not just a put-down ... its a technical description of sites that have all sorts of surrounding material - comments, chat streams, series description, blogs or forums ... but the video is not streamed at the site. The banner and click through advertising at those sites only yield a tenth of a cent or less, which is enough to cover the cost of the "wrapper" ... but cannot pay for the candy inside the wrapper. Instead, they upload their bootlegs to Veoh or Megavideo or MySpace and have javascript that streams the video from those sites. The problems of C&D letters to those leech streaming sites is exactly as described - shutting down one of them is like pulling up a dandelion without pulling up the root, As long as the stream is still up on the external video streaming site, someone else or even the same group just opens up another site with a different logo and colors and they are right back in the business. However, its fairly easy to automate the harvesting of their streaming links to the external upload sites. And when Veoh or Megavideo gets 1,000 links from a rights holder, they just take the content down. For one thing, the leech video streams are normally costing the free video servers money without generating revenue to cover it, so Veoh and Megavideo are better off financially without those streams on their sites. So while there is little that can be done to block someone determined to get bootleg fansubs and rips by torrent download ... it really is quite feasible to do get quite a bit of weeding at the leech streaming sites. |
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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To answer last week's question, I prefer dubs but I would consider buying sub only but only if it's something I really want. As for manga scans, the only one I'm reading is Vampire Knight. Of course, I'm buying the legally released volumes as they come out, and I was following it in Shojo Beat until it folded.
Personally, I prefer physical copies to computer screens. The only reason I'm reading VK in scans is because I like the story so much, I have to keep up with the latest chapters. I used to download from a site but I found a place dedicated to VK yaoi fanfiction that also includes the latest chapter scans. The translations are pretty good and they do encourage people to buy the legal product. Not only that, they even mention the merchandise, though most of it's import only. I've been tempted to check out some other series, mostly non-licensed, to try out but I've never gotten around to it. |
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Wrathful
 Posts: 372 |
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All those DVD's I bought, if it wasn't for dubbed, I wouldn't have bothered with. More specifically, I wouldn't be as interested in anime as I'm right now.
I agree with Laurel for the same reason, I don't find it enjoyable to listen to high-pitched voice (There's an exception.) And anime DVD's as expensive as it is. In fact I used to never go around spending $ 70 - 80 a day even for games. |
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luffypirate
 Posts: 3186 |
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Expensive?!? R1 anime is the cheapest its EVER been!! Its so dirt cheap we are pretty much being spoiled! How much cheaper can it get? I remember I used to be excited to get a 100 minute single for under $20 lol. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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* are too small relative to the video resolution * are positioned at the very bottom of the screen, forcing viewers to bounce their eyes up and down between the subtitles and the action. * have single lines spanning the entire width of the image, forcing viewers to scan side to side to read them (You don't want viewers using peripheral vision, you want them using foveal vision, which is why competent subs divide long lines into two shorter lines in the center of the image) * are in colors specifically chosen not to be visible against the most common colors in the anime itself * have little or no border or shadow * appear in overly fancy decorative fonts that "fit the anime" * put too much on the screen in too little time, in the name of being strictly faithful to the original dialogue ... and a large percentage of fansubs do most or all those things. I'd say I'm "used to subs," but that doesn't mean I want to go through excessive challenges when I sit down to watch a piece of entertainment. It's no wonder people like the next one I'm quoting don't want to rewatch subtitled anime. Most fansubs are deliberately designed to strain and fatigue the eyes in the name of "aesthetics," thereby creating a subconscious aversion to ever seeing that show in subtitled format again.
As was covered on the recent ANNCast, you can get the dubs for free in .mkv a week after the DVDs come out, too. So why are dubs so intrinsically worth paying for (despite the opportunity to get them for free), while the subtitled form of the anime isn't? You said it yourself, "the artwork so many people worked hard to bring to your busy eyes" -- don't those people deserve compensation? And if you think subtitles are so awful and distracting, why do you watch fansubs? (Especially since fansubs are far more mentally taxing than DVD subs, as outlined above.) |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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I must be strange, it's easier for me to read subtitles than to figure out what people are saying in English (well, not so much in anime but there have been dozens of times I'm watching a tv show and wish that I had subtitles). I think Bakemonogatari was the only one to give me trouble but let's face it, you had to have one finger on the pause button with all the on-screen text there.
That said I don't care if the discs have a dub or not since I usually watch the subs. But I do like the option and really hope that dubs stay around for a good long time since so many people prefer them or have trouble with the subs. And it seems like that's what it comes down to, the anime companies will continue to have them as long as they can and pray that a lack won't turn away too many fans. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14761 |
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Most of what's on Japanese TV is dubbed too. I guess Japanese aren't good at subtitles neither. 
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Richard J.
 Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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At least for me, I have several reasons for preferring English dubs beyond the simple "I like them better." First, I have visual problems that make it harder for me to read subtitles and, quite frankly, reading them gives me a headache. Plus I have problems keeping up if a scene is extremely fast paced, again due to visual problems. I just can't read subtitles in a way that is comfortable for me. Second, I HATE reading while there is sound. Back when I was in high school, one of the very few things I enjoyed was reading books. I read virtually every single day at school, before classes. It drove me to teeth-grinding fury that people were literally screaming at each other some days. I mean, I didn't expect people to just shut up and let me read in peace but people would literally be yelling in the classroom right up until the bell. I developed a severe hatred for any noise while I was reading as a result. Third, I don't connect as emotionally well with the characters when I watch something sub-titled. I don't speak Japanese. It becomes like background noise to me with rare exceptions and the subs are the characters' "voices" to me. And when I read, I "hear" the words in a characterized voice. (Basically I imagine the character speaking in English when I read, usually using a particular VA or person I know as the template voice.) So hey, subs aren't going to give me the same anime viewing experience as some people. If both language tracks are available, then why should it matter which one people want to listen to? It's only when one is absent that there's a problem in my opinion. If it's the English dub, I have no desire to spend my money on a product that's not going to achieve maximum possible entertainment for me. I have a limited amount of money to spend, less all the time with the rising taxes and cost of living. (If I had unlimited money, I'd pay for the dubs I wanted myself.) I wish I could be a sub preferring fan but for me it's not phsyically possible. I can only watch 1 or 2 episodes subbed in one sitting. I can watch whole sets of English dubbed if I have the time. Even if I were willing to buy sub-only, I couldn't watch it nearly as fast and thus I'd still buy far less anime! I got into anime through English dubs and I'll leave when they're no more. Simple as that. |
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RenTers
 Posts: 48 |
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The whole sub or dub matter simply comes down to personal preference. I just hate it when someone of an opposing view tries to force their opinions down your throat. Like others said before, it's almost being treated as a religion.
You like subs? That's great. You like dubs? That's great too. |
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sypherman
Posts: 40 |
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The lack of a dub is a deal breaker for me, because I prefer an acting performance I can judge. I don't prefer dubs because I have trouble following subtitles or have bad eyesight. It seems every time someone here says they watch dubbed anime it's always prefaced with how they have trouble keeping up with the subtitles, as if a justification has to be made. As far as i'm concerned unless you are fluent in both japanese language and culture a good localization is necessary.
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nishime
Posts: 27 |
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My hearing is so erratic (i.e. I hear you said something, but usually I have no clue what you said, because I heard something entirely different) that I always put on the subtitle option for DVDs, regardless of the original language, when available. I grew up watching subtitled Japanese shows on tv, so I look at the bottom of the screen even if it's raw Japanese DVDs. Just in the hope that subtitles will show up miraculously. |
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malik_chan
 Posts: 134 |
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Yes. Some people can't read fast enough, some have trouble because of learning disorders, and some like to multitask while watching shows, and it's really hard to watch subbed anime if you don't know what's going on. Plus, while you read, you can't catch the action. I make exceptions for live-action films and shows, otherwise the voices and off lip flap drive me nuts. |
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nishime
Posts: 27 |
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I thought there was some understanding amongst scanlators that once a series was announced as licensed and began production of actual physical volumes, the scanlations would stop? One of my friends who loves scanlations was complaining that the scans for something or the other were taken down when the license was announced, but the company hadn't actually produced the title in question before going out of business. So she was left in limbo, with neither scans nor physical volumes. I can see scanlating titles that a) have not been licensed, b) have not seen any physical publication, or c) have a rat's chance in hell of being finished in English due to terrible sales and/or a production rate of one volume per decade. It's the current scans of titles which are coming out in English that the publishers are worried about when they say that scanlations are cutting into their sales, right? Or do they mean that scanlations floating around from way way back would hurt current sale of say... Kizuna? Me, I don't know. I don't do scanlations. Not from any moral ground. I don't do scanlations the way some people don't do subtitles. If I could find a way to use a computer lying down, maybe... |
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