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Subbed or Dubbed?


ItsOnRandom

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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 :)

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.

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2 hours ago, ItsOnRandom said:

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 :)

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.

Ah, the age old perennial question, also known as the "Great Sub vs Dub Debate".

When I first started watching anime everything was on VHS tape and dubs were all that were available from my local video shop* and as I got more into watching anime I was introduced to subs from another source, (no names no pack drill).  After watching subs for a while I came to the view that I preferred to hear the original voice actors so now I only watch subs. Initially I had problems reading the subs quick enough, but now I find I don't actually read the subs word for word my brain seems to just 'absorb' the text, I do the same thing when reading books, which probably accounts for why I find it so difficult to read out loud in public.

Ultimately there is no "right" or "wrong" answer to the question and people should be free to watch anime in whatever from they prefer and while I'm a sub only person I object to those who try to claim that you're not a "true anime fan" if you watch dubs.

 

* For several years I had the advantage of working in London and within easy travelling distance of Tottenham Court Road where there were a couple of large video shops and a specialist Sc--Fi shop all of which had quite large collections of anime tapes and if I searched their shelves diligently I could occasionally find a sub release or two.

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6 minutes ago, Animedragon said:

Ultimately there is no "right" or "wrong" answer to the question and people should be free to watch anime in whatever from they prefer and while I'm a sub only person I object to those who try to claim that you're not a "true anime fan" if you watch dubs.

I don't entirely understand people's points when they explain watching dubs as not being a true anime fan personally, Glad to know someone agrees.

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40 minutes ago, ItsOnRandom said:

I don't entirely understand people's points when they explain watching dubs as not being a true anime fan personally, Glad to know someone agrees.

I've encountered similar attitudes in other areas, it's a kind of "elitism" promoted by a small group of people usually to make themselves feel superior. When I was a member of the local photographic club there were those who claimed that if you didn't use a certain make of camera you weren't a "true photographer", it was the same when CB was popular if you didn't have a rig from a certain manufacturer you weren't a "true CBer". I was once told that I couldn't take part in my employer's hobbies exhibition because my models were constructed from kits, and no "real modeller" made models from kits. ( I suspect that they didn't know how complicated and difficult to build a Tamiya kit could be!)

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5 hours ago, Animedragon said:

I've encountered similar attitudes in other areas, it's a kind of "elitism" promoted by a small group of people usually to make themselves feel superior. When I was a member of the local photographic club there were those who claimed that if you didn't use a certain make of camera you weren't a "true photographer", it was the same when CB was popular if you didn't have a rig from a certain manufacturer you weren't a "true CBer". I was once told that I couldn't take part in my employer's hobbies exhibition because my models were constructed from kits, and no "real modeller" made models from kits. ( I suspect that they didn't know how complicated and difficult to build a Tamiya kit could be!)

They sound like lovely people...

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30 minutes ago, ItsOnRandom said:

They sound like lovely people...

One of the really great things about this forum is that everyone accepts other people's choices and preferences, there's no "elitist attitudes", and that's how it should be. After all, we're all here because we like watching anime.

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I always like this question, there are the two sides to it who always have their more vocal advocates on other parts on the internet. When in reality most people don't care. I'd say more newcomers to anime prefer dubs, but that's because anime is becoming more mainstream for younger people. The fact is that there is no real answer to this, some subs are better, some dubs are better. It's really a subjective thing entirely.

I personally prefer to watch subbed, but I always give the dub a chance unless it's not available. Subs usually just have a different feel to them, it's an entirely different experience than most subs. However there are some absolutely great dubs out there, some of them beat the subs out of the water.

 

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3 minutes ago, Admiral_Fall said:

However there are some absolutely great dubs out there, some of them beat the subs out of the water.

 

Death Note is definitely a contender for beating the original.  L's voice is other worldly.

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My preferences run in this order:

1) A well done dub - ie. skilled, professional voice actors that fit the character

2) A well done sub - ie. subtitled text is an accurate translation and has correct spelling and grammar

3) A badly done dub - ie. Poor audio quality or mediocre voice actors

4) A badly done sub. - Spelling and/or grammar seem to have been done by someone barely familiar with the language

 I'll highlight a failure that pushed one anime from a 1) to a 3) in my mind - the Negima!? anime, For some reason, they made Negi sound like a snooty young English professor. This was annoying by itself, but especially irksome since his character he grew up in Wales, not England. To make things worse, Evangeline sounded like a haughty English noblewoman. She was't English either though. They never indicate where she was from exactly but eastern europe would be more likely.

 If I have one minor peeve it's that some type 1) anime still has voice acting where you can't quite make out what someone is saying on occasion. Switching on the subtitles doesn't help since they are a translation of the japanese dialog and not the localised dialog that the actor is speaking.

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13 hours ago, holywhippet said:

If I have one minor peeve it's that some type 1) anime still has voice acting where you can't quite make out what someone is saying on occasion. Switching on the subtitles doesn't help since they are a translation of the japanese dialog and not the localised dialog that the actor is speaking.

Quite a few years ago I had a sort of similar experience.  I bought the UK release of an anime film rather than the US release but when I started watching it I found that the "English subtitles" that were mentioned on the cover were in fact English subtitles for the hard of hearing, which are a totally different type of subtitles!

Top marks to the company for thinking of people with hearing difficulties, but they should have made the type of subtitles clearer on the packaging.

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On 5/27/2023 at 8:13 AM, Clayton said:

Sometimes dubs are even better... 

 

 

 

 

 I know two decades ago that political correctness wasn't nearly as prevelant as it is today. But how the [insert expletive here] did that dub ever get approved?

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Usually prefer to watch things in their original language. Feels like some movies and shows loose emotion and some things are lost in transition to a dub. I may not get a joke or a reference but allows me to look up what they are talking about and find something new.

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I generally prefer the subtitled version. Like @Key Visual said, I feel like a lot of times the original VAs bringing emotion & energy to the role that the dubs miss. Plus I’ve watched anime long enough that I can usually get the cultural humor & references that they sometimes try to localize in the dub with questionable results.

Exceptions where I prefer the english dub: Cowboy Bebop • Star Blazers 2199 & 2205 • Monster • Steel Angel Kurumi.

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I used to be something of a "Sub elitist," but I wasn't gatekeeping. I just only ever watched my anime subbed. Eventually though, I got a girlfriend who had dyslexia, so we ended up watching a lot of dubbed anime together. Today, I'm really just indifferent. 

8 hours ago, holywhippet said:

 I know two decades ago that political correctness wasn't nearly as prevelant as it is today. But how the [insert expletive here] did that dub ever get approved?

 

The studio just told their over-seas dubbers to more or less just make it popular in the U.S. Other than that they were given a lot of freedom in the dubbing. They decided to come out with this. To their merit it did end up incredibly popular.

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It really depends for me like sometimes I would watch english dub because the comedy is funny since it has that sarcasm part of it & in the sub it's not as funny because  they don't have that sarcasm beccause their culture has a different style of jokes plus I'm sure they have their own way of sarcasm.

Also the other times I will watch it in sub if I feel like it's a broken translation or for some reason cut out the part & I notice this just by feeling like something feels out of place for some reason. For instance I watched Rave Master in English Dub, but I feel like something was wrong with it so I went with the sub & I was really pleased with it or the Spyxfamily because Anya voice actress just gave me that wholesome child like character & the English Dub was okay, but I will have an opnion on what voice I like to hear from that series. 

The part where I transfered from English Sub to English Dub on an anime for the comedy would be like Mob Psycho & there's nothing wrong with the sub part it's okay, but I have a perfence of what I like.

So I guess what I am saying is I will usually hear it first in dub for 1 episode & go for the next episode in sub & whichever I like better I would stick to that version all the way at the end of the series becuase I think the voice actor or voice actress is what makes me stick to that version because I either like their voice or because that voice really fits the character. So all in all I really like both & I don't think one is better than the other.

Also I have been watching Monster as well & I agree that I like the dub better for that series, but it helps with the fact that they did remastered it in HD for the dub version & they haven't done that to the sub version so that's a bit unfortunate. However none the less it's still good

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honestly, it depends for me...

usually subs have better voice acting (makes sense, as the anime voice acting industry is much bigger in japan), and especially with more serious and emotional anime dubs can take me out of it due to goofy voices.

however, for things more focused on comedy, i honestly think dubs are often better. subs, i find, often try very hard to be "accurate", which can sometimes seem unnatural, and with comedy, the timing and structure of a joke is often lost in translation. however, since dubs have a higher level of localisation, and need to sound natural to some extent, often comedy just flows better. for example, take saiki k. i honestly think that anime is funnier in dub, which is partly due to the fact it doesn't try super hard to be an exact translation.

although, since i'm learning japanese, i usually just watch in japanese with japanese subs 😛

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In my opinion, subs all the way. I can understand people who prefer dubbing for anime (plenty of dubs are on par if not better than the Japanese counterparts, such as Cowboy Bebop and Black Lagoon), but most of the time I want to watch an anime as close to the originally intended experience as possible. I can't enjoy it to exactly what was originally intended, as I don't understand a fluent level of Japanese and I don't have a perfect comprehension of all the cultural references an anime may present. However, the attempt at getting as close to what was originally intended is what matters to me, personally. Having a text reference that directly translates what is being said is a much more enjoyable experience to me. Dubbing has to abide by the pacing of the movie and the lip movements of the characters, so the dialogue can end up sounding "off" at times. Dubbing also tends to localize cultural references to a close western equivalent, which I don't hate outright but prefer not done. I won't throw a hissy fit over not being exact in the text translation (insert yet another "Keikaku" joke here) but learning about cultural references and understanding certain Japanese wordplay is a very rewarding experience, which makes watching Anime and reading Manga that much more of an enjoyable experience. These are just my personal gripes with dubbing, however.

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5 hours ago, Kleiner said:

Dubbing also tends to localize cultural references to a close western equivalent, which I don't hate outright but prefer not done.

I agree with you about that, but to be fair it happens in subtitles sometimes as well, and as the substituted Western equivalent is usually a North American one as a British person I sometimes find these as obscure as the original Japanese reference.

5 hours ago, Kleiner said:

but learning about cultural references and understanding certain Japanese wordplay is a very rewarding experience, which makes watching Anime and reading Manga that much more of an enjoyable experience.

I totally agree with that.  It also can have amusing consequences. Because I have no children of my own, and few friends with school age children, I know more about the Japanese school system than I do about our British school system, which has changed a lot since I went to school. 

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18 minutes ago, Animedragon said:

I agree with you about that, but to be fair it happens in subtitles sometimes as well, and as the substituted Western equivalent is usually a North American one as a British person I sometimes find these as obscure as the original Japanese reference.

I never thought about that, thanks for pointing this out. It's interesting how something as simple as local vernacular can impact the overall translation effort, with slang being vastly different overall depending on various regions. Localization tends to originate from what the translator thinks is a good equivalent people will associate from the original Japanese, which tends to be what the translator is used to in their culture as normal vernacular (e.g., translating a money symbol in a game from ¥ to or £ depending on region). What people think is the "best" translation for something can differ vastly. The obvious solution would be to avoid using slang outright and try to be as "neutral" when translating, but a lot of basic wording depending on region (apartments vs flats) tends to make this, I imagine, difficult for translators.

Again, thanks for pointing this out, I wouldn't have taken this into account when thinking and talking about translation and localization otherwise. It has me thinking about how often translators will include slang that I find as difficult to understand as the Japanese references. (Reminds me of a Girls und Panzer sub I saw that randomly translated certain words and phrases into German and didn't provide an English translation for said German words and phrases.)

45 minutes ago, Animedragon said:

I totally agree with that.  It also can have amusing consequences. Because I have no children of my own, and few friends with school age children, I know more about the Japanese school system than I do about our British school system, which has changed a lot since I went to school. 

That is very amusing. I've learned a lot about how their schooling system works through anime as well. Like I said, a lot of the fun from anime and manga is learning about Japanese culture vicariously. The honorifics system that is used is also very fascinating to me, and I have learned the vast majority of it purely through hearing them being used in differing scenarios over the years repeatedly. It's the peak of Japanese soft power I guess lol.

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4 hours ago, Kleiner said:

I never thought about that, thanks for pointing this out.

I don't think I would have thought about it if I lived in America. One of the oddities, or curiosities, between American english and British english is that the same words can be used to describe different things, sometimes with amusing consequences. And that's before we get into the fun of differences in spelling.  🙂

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I personally prefer to watch anime dubbed. I find it a lot easier to follow along with the story, and sometimes it can be tiring to constantly have to listen to a language you don't understand aa well as having to read subtitles.

But yeah, unless the anime has a really bad dub (Komi Can't Communicate, I'm looking at you 👁👁) I'll watch it dubbed.

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