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Subbed vs Dubbed


Optic

Sub or Dub  

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Another thing with the original audio track, is when characters speak english from time to time, or even in just one scene. But in the english dub, that would make no sense since they're already speaking english.

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Another thing with the original audio track, is when characters speak english from time to time, or even in just one scene. But in the english dub, that would make no sense since they're already speaking english.

 

There is some truth to that, but there's also a stronger counterargument against it than you might think. In several forms of media translated from Japanese to English, we're supposed to still be under the impression that they are speaking Japanese to one another. Take Persona 5 for example, where the character Ann Takamaki often reads translated letters and the like to the rest of the group because she has the best English. Obviously, they are speaking English to us the whole time if we're playing a dubbed version of the game, but because Ann has several moments where she's either translating something or someone points out her English skills, you get the illusion that they are speaking Japanese to one another, even though you can understand them perfectly. Conversely, a scene where characters are speaking English rarely and it confuses the Japanese people who are hearing it even though we hear English, reminds us briefly that they don't speak the language, and oddly enough, in settings where English would be spoken by the people in whatever show their in, those scenes of English should don't confuse the character speaking Japanese. It's an odd conundrum that Japan would make shows that clearly should have English speaking people, or at least not Japanese speaking people, speak Japanese, and therefore are not confused by English, but they also have scenes where English is spoken by all the characters in a dub, and the confusion is there, but can be felt and understood. Back in the early days of plays, only men were ever hired to play roles, but of course females were written into scripts and actors at best had to learn how to sound like women. In today's anime, we have a variation of that, that favors the type of single scene where English is spoken but not understood to others speaking it. We can pretend for that moment even though we hear English from the Japanese characters, they don't actually speak it, because we've without a doubt had to pretend for far worse things. You can't really pretend that everyone is speaking English when well known Japanese lines are being spoken constantly without a enough reminders that we are supposed to pretend that everyone is speaking the language they should be and Japan can be notoriously bad at that.

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Why should anime not be allowed to bring this topics up if others can?

 

I think he means that he does not like it when the dub adds something to a show that was not there to begin with, or that was not what the show was about.

 

Yes, there are dubs that turns the show into something that it is not, resulting in a different show, but what he complains of is worse.

 

I, myself, will not give up dubs though because some groups do not know how to produce good subs, since there are subs out there that are unreadable because of color contrast and font size.

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I think he means that he does not like it when the dub adds something to a show that was not there to begin with, or that was not what the show was about.

 

Yes, there are dubs that turns the show into something that it is not, resulting in a different show, but what he complains of is worse.

 

I, myself, will not give up dubs though because some groups do not know how to produce good subs, since there are subs out there that are unreadable because of color contrast and font size.

 

Even if that's true, dubs do have to change things sometimes. It's difficult to make things the same word for word.

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Even if that's true, dubs do have to change things sometimes. It's difficult to make things the same word for word.

 

Yes, I agree with that. Some things do not translate over too well. Heck, sub translations change things a bit, but that does not mean that our views should be inserted into a translation for a show that does not deal with such matters. After all, would the FMA dub been as highly liked as it is if it started talking about things other than the struggles of the brothers and those they encountered that were not seen on television or the DVDs and Blu Rays?

 

No, I do not expect perfect word for word translations, but I still expect the same story to be presented.

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Yes, I agree with that. Some things do not translate over too well. Heck, sub translations change things a bit, but that does not mean that our views should be inserted into a translation for a show that does not deal with such matters. After all, would the FMA dub been as highly liked as it is if it started talking about things other than the struggles of the brothers and those they encountered that were not seen on television or the DVDs and Blu Rays?

 

No, I do not expect perfect word for word translations, but I still expect the same story to be presented.

 

I would say that depends on what other issues are brought in. In Conquer of Shambala, where the focus is also largely on War and the failing economy of Germany and not just on Ed and Al, we got a pretty good story. As for a story being different in some ways, that might actually make it more interesting, because you might end up seeing something you didn't expect that works really well.

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As for a story being different in some ways, that might actually make it more interesting, because you might end up seeing something you didn't expect that works really well.

 

That's true, but I can not thing of any, unless you take into dubs that purposely turned the whole thing into a parody.

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I'm sorry but I have to say that this is a foolish argument. There is no better or worse. Some dubbed anime stay true to the sub some don't, but if you take a look all of them are actually good shows. You have to look at each as it's own entity. My personal Library has over 350 titles ( that's series not shows) and most are both sub and dub. Well dub if it exists lol. I tend to love both they all have there charms.

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I'm sorry but I have to say that this is a foolish argument. There is no better or worse. Some dubbed anime stay true to the sub some don't, but if you take a look all of them are actually good shows. You have to look at each as it's own entity. My personal Library has over 350 titles ( that's series not shows) and most are both sub and dub. Well dub if it exists lol. I tend to love both they all have there charms.

I feel like I've been called dumb for having an opinion with this post. Care to explain what you mean a little better because I hope that wasn't your intent.

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I prefer Dub over sub, but i do enjoy sub. I just find the words distract me from whats happening and I'm constantly pausing. Also, subs already have to be translated into english so I may as well hear the English instead of read it.

But I agree some shows just don't work in DUB, for example

 

Servamp

Shonen maid

 

I found both of theses titles lacking in English but hilarious in japanese

 

Even though the DUB was almost identical to the SUB

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I would never label anybody dumb or foolish for their opinion, and if you took it that way I'm sorry. I simply meant that the argument is pointless it's the same as book or movie. There really is no right or wrong in my opinion. Both have good and bad points, but if you look at each one separately and try not to compare them then you get two shows to like instead of one.

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There is some truth to that, but there's also a stronger counterargument against it than you might think. In several forms of media translated from Japanese to English, we're supposed to still be under the impression that they are speaking Japanese to one another. Take Persona 5 for example, where the character Ann Takamaki often reads translated letters and the like to the rest of the group because she has the best English. Obviously, they are speaking English to us the whole time if we're playing a dubbed version of the game, but because Ann has several moments where she's either translating something or someone points out her English skills, you get the illusion that they are speaking Japanese to one another, even though you can understand them perfectly.

 

In a case where it's clear when they're truly speak english and the dialogue's not just being translated for us, I suppose it's alright.

 

Conversely, a scene where characters are speaking English rarely and it confuses the Japanese people who are hearing it even though we hear English, reminds us briefly that they don't speak the language,

 

When they just randomly say a english word in the original version, you mean? Yeah, I was wondering about that. There might be a few english words that are popular in japan, but I don't think most japanese people know english well enough so as to understand a entire sentence spoken in english, which is clear when the characters try to say a sentence and end up adding syllables, this is also clear when one is saying a foreign name, and there are times when they say the words right but their grammer is just terrible.

In short, it doesn't make sense to do this if it's just going to cause confusion. It's especially strange to hear english in a sub when you're watching a show aimed at children.

 

and oddly enough, in settings where English would be spoken by the people in whatever show their in, those scenes of English should don't confuse the character speaking Japanese. It's an odd conundrum that Japan would make shows that clearly should have English speaking people, or at least not Japanese speaking people, speak Japanese, and therefore are not confused by English, but they also have scenes where English is spoken by all the characters in a dub, and the confusion is there, but can be felt and understood. Back in the early days of plays, only men were ever hired to play roles, but of course females were written into scripts and actors at best had to learn how to sound like women. In today's anime, we have a variation of that, that favors the type of single scene where English is spoken but not understood to others speaking it. We can pretend for that moment even though we hear English from the Japanese characters, they don't actually speak it, because we've without a doubt had to pretend for far worse things. You can't really pretend that everyone is speaking English when well known Japanese lines are being spoken constantly without a enough reminders that we are supposed to pretend that everyone is speaking the language they should be and Japan can be notoriously bad at that.

 

RepentantSky-senpai, not to be rude, but can you please add spaces within your paragraphs? It can be hard to read through a long post when you don't. Also a lot of what you said seems to have little to do with what I was talking about, I apologize, this is probably my own fault for not going into depth about what I meant.

 

So let me try again, there are a few anime where english is spoken commonly. A example of this is Ichigo Mashimaro, where one is the characters (Ana) is from the United Kingdom but doesn't speak english. She initially tries to hide this fact while learning it again and the other characters also try to speak english because of this. So with a anime like that I think it would make for a poor dub where a lot is lost in translation.

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Can we veer things back away from politics?

 

Per the community guidelines,

 

No political or religious topics: these topics can ignite a lot of passion and debate which can clash with various beliefs and values. We are an anime discussion forum and feel strongly that these type of topics are better held in other places.

 

It's okay to hold strong opinions on whatever you want to, however when it comes to things of a political or religious nature this isn't really the place to air those opinions out. There are other places on the internet that are more suited to those topics than this forum.

 

Thank you.

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  • 1 month later...

So, my situation is a little different than most people. I'm dyslexic and I can't physically keep up with the subtitles I've heard a lot of "quit crying and learn to read faster! It isn't even hard!" And I understand that for most people it isn't that bad, but for someone like myself, not having dubbed redily availible is disheartening, i push through it as much as I can and through anime it's actually helped, but at the same time I still Love dubbed because I see it as not having to work for something that is supposed to be enjoyable. People make fun of me for only watching dubbed but I'm not hurt by it. It's just how I am

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So, my situation is a little different than most people. I'm dyslexic and I can't physically keep up with the subtitles I've heard a lot of "quit crying and learn to read faster! It isn't even hard!" And I understand that for most people it isn't that bad, but for someone like myself, not having dubbed redily availible is disheartening, i push through it as much as I can and through anime it's actually helped, but at the same time I still Love dubbed because I see it as not having to work for something that is supposed to be enjoyable. People make fun of me for only watching dubbed but I'm not hurt by it. It's just how I am

 

I am not dyslexic, but I have read through those claims in other dub vs subs threads and I view such comments to be stupid, since they do not know people have problems.

 

Saddest thing though is when the anime you want is only available subbed.

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Subbed. English isn't my first language, and while I can understand it without dubbed(like when I watch a Hollywood movie in theatres, and there's no subtitles), I'd rather watch it with subtitles. Now, this isn't exactly a good analogy, since anime is mostly in Japanese, but, I feel like I can understand stuff better with English translation written at the bottom, than just listen to English being spoken. Plus, like 99.9% of the anime I've seen are its subbed version, so, I got used to it, so, I feel like if I watch dub it'd be like uncanny valley to me.

That being said, I watched a couple of anime in dubbed(back when I started watching anime around 2012). These are:

Death Note

Steins;Gate

I thought these dubs were completely amazing. I watched both of them after I watched the subbed version, and they were as good as the original. Pretty good that the only dubs I've seen are top-notch ones. That's why I don't have unfavorable opinions of dubs, I haven't seen a bad one.

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I respect dubbing a lot, because I feel like good dub is a science and art form in itself. With Japanese <--> English I feel like it's even harder because of the reversed syntax, and with how (I don't know Japanese but this is the impression I get?) Japanese seems to take more syllables than English to state a similar thought. So if a good dub is really good, I applaud it. But as much as I respect dub, it's still just hard to listen to sometimes if the language sounds unnatural :S

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  • 5 months later...

Sub for sure, though I dislike generic high pitched anime girl voices. Kana Hanazawa is my favorite voice actor. Kayano Ai doing very well in some animes too. Some animes were just meant to be dubbed however (FMA).

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