Subtitled or Dubbed?

TheIrishGrover

This may have been asked before. As a matter of fact, I'd be very surprised if it hasn't. How do you prefer watching anime? Dubbed or subtitled?

I prefer subtitled myself. I just have bad memories of the p1ss poor dubbing that was done originally way back when. I know it has improved a lot (esp when Lasseter oversaw the Ghibli translations/dubbings) and some people have even said that the dubbing can be better than the original soundtracks: Cowboy Bebop is normally mentioned.

However I find it grating. I normally find the voice acting jars with what is on the screen. It's normally ridiculously OTT and melodramatic (IMO of course). Also, a lot of times there is just unnecessary additions to the dialogue: A manly or girlie "Yeah, sure, why not" or something where originally there was a silent nod or a nod and a simple "eh".
Sometimes there are just additions to make a scene "more dramatic" I'm thinking of the scene in Castle In The Sky where Patzu (sp?) "sees" his father in the storm. Originally the dramatic storm music faded out to silence and, as far as I can recall, you see him yelling silently. In the dubbing the dramatic music stays and you hear him yell "Dad". I thought the fading out was much more effective. In Kiki, when she leaves the family originally you hear, but don't see, her smacking off buildings, trees, bins etc and it was pretty funny. In the dubbing the music plays over that.

So basically, sub or dub?

kaki

Dub

Sub for me too.

You're right, they have gotten better in recent times...but, in my opinion, the emotional range of the Japanese voice actors in general seems to far exceed that of Western dubbers (fyi Italian dubs are just as bad if not worse than cheezy American ones)

L31mr0d

Dub

Subs for me.

It's not really that I have a problem with the dubs (never listened to them so I couldn't comment) but I like the sound of the Japanese language, it seems a lot more inflective and melodic to listen to compared to English.

Cy_Revenant

I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!

More often than not, I'll watch the subtitles. Though I have exceptions.

There are some very high quality dubs. I usually watch Studio Ghibli films dubbed, as well as Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop.

James G

Dub

I always prefer subbed. When I was getting into anime I used to watch dubbed, but the voice acting was horrible. Also, the dubbed episodes I watched skipped over certain scenes because they were too violent and a few were edited to make them more mild. The reason for that is probably because they were dubbed for American viewing. With subbed, you don't miss anything out, and I'm perfectly fine with reading the subs.

rgt320q

Dub

The only dub I ever listen to is the Akira rerelease, mostly for nostalgias sake.

Besides the generally much higher standard in the Japanese VA industry, another reason I watch subs is that I find fansubs to be much more accurate and uncompromising in their translations than the licensing companies and their translators. Some of the better ones even include notes on signs and culture references in the dialogue. Not to mention the complete lack of censoreship with fansubs.

Yeah, I pretty much hate localisation, almost with a passion. Your job is to help me understand the dialogue - do that and don't feck around with anything else

Konata

I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!

Subs usually. I love the Japanese language and generally find the voice acting and soundtracks to be of a higher quality.

A few exceptions of course - I've seen several of the Studio Ghibli films dubbed and I think they're quite good. I've always found the dub of Neon Genesis Evangelion to be excellent as well.

Most dubs are quite grating though. Sailor Moon is probably the worst I've ever seen, the dub absolutely ruined the series. No comparison to the original version whatsoever.

Karl Hungus

Dub

Subbed 99% of the time. The dubs often ruin the films, unless you get a really good cast for the dub. As Hotaru said, a lot of the Ghibli films are quite good in their dubbed versions. Although I still cannot stomach the dub of Castle in the Sky.

the_syco

I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!

Cy_Revenant wrote: »

Ghost in the Shell

Aye. I find some anime better dubbed, if the action is fast flowing: dislike having to pause the action to read a long paragraph.

rgt320q wrote: »

Some of the better ones even include notes on signs and culture references in the dialogue. Not to mention the complete lack of censoreship with fansubs.

Aye. A fansub of Gundam Wing & a few others would often explain certain words, their full meaning, and how it relates to what they're saying in the anime.

TheIrishGrover

Dub

rgt320q wrote: »

...

Besides the generally much higher standard in the Japanese VA industry, another reason I watch subs is that I find fansubs to be much more accurate and uncompromising in their translations than the licensing companies and their translators. Some of the better ones even include notes on signs and culture references in the dialogue. Not to mention the complete lack of censoreship with fansubs.
....

Yeah, I intentionally left out fansubs as I wasn't too sure how the legality of them would play with mods etc. I agree with you, some fansubs are brilliant. One of the best I've seen is Samurai Champloo which does include translating signs, giving info on cultural references etc

Karl Hungus wrote:

Subbed 99% of the time. The dubs often ruin the films, unless you get a really good cast for the dub. As Hotaru said, a lot of the Ghibli films are quite good in their dubbed versions. Although I still cannot stomach the dub of Castle in the Sky.

Yeah, the overall dubbing of Castle did not appeal to me at all. Along with my points above I thought a lot of the dubbing was pretty much phoned in (Which is surprising for Mark Hamil)

The extremely high pitched dubbing of the Disney edition of Totoro really set my teeth on edge too.

ztoical

Dub

Subtitled 99.9% of the time...not just for animated films but any film/show.

I find dubs distracting as the animator has spent time animating to the mouth movements of the original sound track and I find it hard to watch dubs that don't match up. A few studios spend the time on the dubs but only the big ones that can afford to. Some cheaper animated films and shows there's not much difference as the animation is super limited and in a very very few rare cases the dub is better [the only example I can ever think of for this is Golden Boy where the voice actor for the english is so insanely over the top it really works with the show ]

johnny_ultimate

Subbed if there is a choice, always. I just find it weird having American or other voices against Japanese animation. As lots have said, Japanese is a fantastic sounding language, and even if I don't understand what is being said, the sound of it just fits the film better, and of course is a more accurate representation of the creator's vision. I find subs tend to be slightly more literal translations of the material too, which while it might lose some character can be a closer reading of the original dialogue.

That said, it is slightly easier to stomach dubs in animation - I genuinely couldn't watch a live action film with dubs because the lack of lip-sync is so distracting.

ChocolateSauce

Dub

The only one I'ver ever seen where I thought the dub was better than the sub was Princess Mononoke.

Some dubs, like DBZ to take the finest example, are so bad that they actually distort the plot to the point where some things don't make sense.

Zen 2nd

I watch both a mixture of sub and dub. Sometimes if you actually listen to the sub, the Japanese voice actors don't really match the character they are playing and vice versa with the dub.

Karl Hungus

Dub

As far as I know, in Japan films are animated before the vocal performances are recorded, so a Japanese voice actor is still trying to match the timing of the character's mouth movements, rather than have his vocal performance recorded first and the animation fit it. Original language or dubbed really makes very little difference in terms of matching mouth movements. Dubs are usually bad because of poor acting, bad translation, or both.

Blueboyd

Dub

Dubbing is a crime against Humanity.

DingChavez

I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!

You people are weird. Why would you forsake this kind of QUALITY?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LISmPmdUhYA

In all honesty some dubs are well done like Hellsing Ultimate or Ghost in the Shell. It really helps if the series is set somewhere where they're supposed to be speaking English or where there are no children, teenagers or everyday living. In those situations you quickly get into jokes or mannerisms that don't work in English.

The problem with dubs is they have to translate the Japanese script and fit it into the scenes timing all while trying to make it sound like natural English. Usually this involves changing the script slightly. Which sometimes works out really well in stuff like Yu Yu Hakasho. The subbed version of that was really bland. Saying English dubs should be easy because they animate the mouth movements first is a load of horse dung. They're working off a Japanese script in a Japanese scene with Japanese mannerisms.

Another thing is animes sometimes have a lot of yelling or emphasizing every syllable. They're much easier in Japanese as nearly all their words and syllables have vowel endings. But it ****s up the dub timings. People really don't give dub companies enough credit when they get it right.

rgt320q wrote: »

The only dub I ever listen to is the Akira rerelease, mostly for nostalgias sake.

Besides the generally much higher standard in the Japanese VA industry, another reason I watch subs is that I find fansubs to be much more accurate and uncompromising in their translations than the licensing companies and their translators. Some of the better ones even include notes on signs and culture references in the dialogue. Not to mention the complete lack of censoreship with fansubs.

Yeah, I pretty much hate localisation, almost with a passion. Your job is to help me understand the dialogue - do that and don't feck around with anything else

A translations job is to seamlessly represent the scene in another language. Those "cultural notes" take it way too far. You shouldn't be reading about the Meiji restoration or some **** like that in the middle of a scene. Or having Japanese honorifics thrown in with English. Or using Japanese names when they have perfectly good English translations. Some even go so far as to explain things even the Japanese audiences didn't get. Wtf? Fansubbers know better than the creators now? And those are the GOOD subs. Don't get me started on the **** for brains that stick in notes with their own observations on the scene. That's hardly not fecking around with things.

Comparing well done fansubs to crappy professional jobs with tons of localisation and censorship is unfair. Get subs from a real licensing company and you'll see they're much better than fansubs.

cherryghost

I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!

Blueboyd wrote: »

Dubbing is a crime against Humanity.

oh come on, its not all bad. it depends really. I watched both the subbed and dubbed versions of some anime based on recommendations. Haruhi Suzumiya dubbed is nothing short of excellent. Great voice talent, it pinpoints the characters brilliantly.

FMA is also an excellent dub, as is the Cowboy Bebop etc etc

rgt320q

Dub

DingChavez wrote: »

A translations job is to seamlessly represent the scene in another language. Those "cultural notes" take it way too far. You shouldn't be reading about the Meiji restoration or some **** like that in the middle of a scene.

Well the good fansubs usually put the cultural notes on a separate sub track. They make it optional for those who want it, which is the essence of any good translation job - options. Some want dubs, some want subs.

DingChavez wrote: »

Or having Japanese honorifics thrown in with English. Or using Japanese names when they have perfectly good English translations. Some even go so far as to explain things even the Japanese audiences didn't get. Wtf? Fansubbers know better than the creators now? And those are the GOOD subs. Don't get me started on the **** for brains that stick in notes with their own observations on the scene. That's hardly not fecking around with things.

Well I think there should be some give-and-take on both sides, in particular for honorifics. Look at Del Rey, for example, in their manga translations they keep the honorifics intact and include a short primer on them which taskes only 2 minutes to read but does really add to the narrative. There are lot of nuances to the Japanese language but some are easy enough to explain and they really do enrich the overall experience.

My main point is, if people don't care about these nuances or a high degree of accuracy in translations and simply want to enjoy anime in their own language, then dubs are there for them and offer a more streamlined experience. However, if people obviously care enough to read subs, then why half-ass them? Why forsake one group in order to appease the other when it's possible to do both?

DingChavez wrote: »

Comparing well done fansubs to crappy professional jobs with tons of localisation and censorship is unfair. Get subs from a real licensing company and you'll see they're much better than fansubs.

Yes, but the problem lies in different companies picking up different licenses. You can't always rely on the good companies to get ahold of the anime you want them to. Also, if one fansub group does a crappy job, another one can come along and re-do it - that's just not possible after a company pays for the exclusive license rights to a series.

DingChavez

I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!

Here's a good parody of everything wrong with fansubbers complete with obnoxious Karaoke:


Honorifics do not enrich anything. They only degrade proper English. If you want them just listen for them yourself. You talk about high degree of accuracy in fansubs translations. Just because they put in notes about how much they know about Japanese pop culture and don't blatantly localize doesn't make them accurate. You'd be surprised how much they make up when it gets too hard. Remember, a lot of these people are just fansubbing to learn Japanese. Which is why their fansubs look like transliterations and they have a load of notes. A transliteration is not a proper translation.

rgt320q

Dub

DingChavez wrote: »

Honorifics do not enrich anything. They only degrade proper English. If you want them just listen for them yourself.

Okay, we'll put it down to a matter of opinion. At this stage, I've learned what they mean and like being able to instantly tell where one character stands in relation to another and to what degree. For someone who isn't familiar with them, I'll admit, it could be annoying, but then the effort required to learn them is absolutely minimal, and I imagine someone who wishes to hear the original language wouldn't mind picking up a thing or two.

DingChavez wrote: »

You talk about high degree of accuracy in fansubs translations. Just because they put in notes about how much they know about Japanese pop culture and don't blatantly localize doesn't make them accurate.

No, I was probably generalising before, but I didn't mean there was a high degree of accuracy in fansubs, I meant that I enjoy fansubs that do have a high degree of accuracy. The whole point of that comment was that for a given anime, you could likely find a translation from a fansub group more accurate than the licensed version.

DingChavez wrote: »

You'd be surprised how much they make up when it gets too hard. Remember, a lot of these people are just fansubbing to learn Japanese. Which is why their fansubs look like transliterations and they have a load of notes. A transliteration is not a proper translation.

It entirely depends on which group you're talking about. And yes, I do know the difference between a transliteration and translation

Okay, I'm realising now that much of the problem is with me over-generalising in my original post - apologies for that, I didn't really expect to be called up on it. You'd be right in a lot of your points there when talking about certain groups but you can't paint them all with the same brush. For every group that get's it right, there are obviously several that get it wrong.

I guess the point I'm really trying to make here is not that fansubs are inherently more accurate (blatantly not true, licensed translators are paid for a reason :pac:), more that fansub groups aren't under any pressure to appeal to as wide an audience as possible and that allows them a greater freedom in their translation which some groups do take advantage of to great effect.

Ginja Ninja

I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!

I love how no one has picked dubbed yet.Persoanlly,I prefer dubbed just out of sheer laziness,sometimes I just can't be bothered keeping up with the subtitles[go ahead,judge me]

but I will admit that quality wise subbed is a better option[Dingchavez has some epic evidence otherwise] but in my limited experience your better off with subbed

Gentlemanne

I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!

One of the best anime OVAs ever, FLCL, also has one of the best English dubs.

Usually depends on the show though.

the_syco

I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!

As I've said, sometimes I like subbed, but at time I also like dubbed.

I however do hate having to pause scenes in action scenes, or having to rewind and play back scenes if a character has an argument with a foe, with paragraphs of reading Happened in Gundam Wing 00 and FMP sometimes. Quite annoying