Fruits Basket – one of the best dubs ever
Despite what we may think nowadays, the majority of us got our start with anime through dubs on TV, whether it was shows like Astro Boy and Voltron in the old days, Pokemon and Dragon Ball in the semi-old days, or Cowboy Bebop and Inuyasha in the newer days. Ever since anime began to be recognized as a medium that should be separated from typical cartoons and not necessarily be edited and Americanized, most non-kids anime, especially DVD-only releases, have had dubs that stay faithful to the Japanese script. So what is it about dubbed anime that spawns so much debate?…
Like many others, I got my start with anime through dubs of kids anime like Sailor Moon and Pokemon. But I didn’t come to understand the whole sub vs dub debate until I watched both the dub of Cardcaptor Sakura (changed to Cardcaptors) and the original uncut Japanese version. Despite Cardcaptors being one of the worst dubs ever, I didn’t lose my taste for anime dubs. In my earlier years of fandom, I continued to watch kids anime like Digimon and Sonic X dubbed, and later on, Toonami/Adult Swim shows like Tenchi Muyo! and Inuyasha. From around 2002 to 2007, I spent roughly the same amount of time watching anime dubbed as I did subbed. Although I usually preferred the Japanese version, I enjoyed most English dubs as well and got to know popular seiyuu as well as English VAs. Some, like the dubs of Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Wolf’s Rain, and Fruits Basket, particularly impressed me.
Two things caused me to fall out of the loop with dubbed anime in the past three years – 1) the lack of new dubs in general, both on TV and DVD, and 2) the ease of accessibility to subbed anime online. The reason I haven’t watched dubbed anime much lately is because I prefer subs, which have become more easily accessible to me than they were before, and not because I’ve come to hate dubs.
My overall thoughts about dubbed anime are this – watching an anime dubbed provides me with a different interpretation, one that let’s me focus more on the visuals since I don’t have to look at subtitles, and hear the dialogue spoken in my familiar native language. Watching the anime in Japanese is its original interpretation, which is what I’m more interested in, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy seeing a translation. Watching a sub and a dub is a different experience, but unless the dub is blatantly rewritten or has terrible voice acting, seeing the original interpretation as well as a secondary interpretation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As long as I find the dub at least tolerable, if I really love the show I would watch the dub just to get that different perspective of the story and characters.
I’m not saying that all dubs are worth watching. Besides dubs that are edited for whatever reason, like the dubs of most kids anime on TV, there are many, like Shakugan no Shana and Love Hina, where I personally feel the voices and acting just don’t match up well to the characters, even if the script is well translated. The appeal of moe characters just doesn’t carry on well to English voices either. Others are the opposite; anime comedies like Azumanga Daioh that rely heavily on jokes involving Japanese language and culture, have no choice but to be changed, and I don’t usually find the translated jokes as funny. Also in Japan, anime voice actors interact with each other in the same room while the animation that they’re recording for is played, unlike American voice actors who are often recorded alone in a room. Many fans claim that the intimacy and spontaneous-ness of the way the Japanese actors are recorded makes them seem more emotional and real than the English dubs. While I agree this has merit, it doesn’t apply to all cases. But in general, I think it’s more appropriate to say that you don’t like dubs rather than make the statement that all dubs are bad. Making such a statement implies that all English VAs and dub script writers have no talent, which is horribly unfounded. Like a fan of intellectual anime stating that all moe anime sucks, the dub vs sub debate is more about taste than fact. Nowadays I’ll only watch the dub of an anime if it’s a title I really liked and want to watch again in a slightly different way. But if I don’t watch a dub, that doesn’t mean I think it’s bad (how would I know it’s bad unless I watch it?)
After not watching any dubbed anime for the past three years, I just recently watched some via Bandai’s release of Haruhi season 2, and watching the dub of Fruits Basket with my mom. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too hard to get back into them. After only watching the Japanese version of the Haruhi episodes, I enjoyed the dubbed interpretation as a change of pace. I know many fans hate when an anime they especially like gets dubbed, thinking it’s a “defilement” of their precious show. I’ve never had that problem – before Haruhi, I loved the Inuyasha dub despite recognizing its flaws. I overlooked some of the weird dialogue in favor of its excellent casting. And the only reason I stopped watching the Pokemon dub is because the voices were completely recast and I just plain don’t like the new voices and scripts. Actually, watching Haruhi and Fruits Basket dubbed again has made me want to rewatch some of my other favorites, like Wolf’s Rain and Noir, dubbed. Again, even though I prefer the original, I like seeing this other interpretation, in my native language, of stories and characters that I love, especially when I feel the dub does them justice. Fans are free to think what they do about dubs, but that’s how I feel.
The dub vs sub debate isn’t as hot as it used to be because, as many of us know, there’s hardly any new anime dubs being made anymore. Since I still prefer subs 99% of the time, I’m not terribly upset about this. But it’s sad that the English VAs won’t be getting as much work, and “subbed-only” isn’t nearly as successful as dubs are at getting new people into anime. Honestly, I can’t predict whether dubs will eventually disappear completely, stay as they are now, or suddenly get a revival. Alas, the times they are a changin’.
I seem to recall that one of the more famous anime directors (I forget which) stated that in his opinion, anime should be watched in one’s native language, because subs prevent you from fully experiencing the artwork and animation.
I can see that for some people. Myself, my reading skills are at a level where I can read as easily as I hear. Does hearing something distract you from looking at it? True, the eyes can only look at one or the other, but if you’re a very quick reader you can absorb the text in microseconds and spend the rest of the time watching the scenery, or even listening to the Japanese words that you have already seen translated.
I think for those who are slower readers, the experience is quite different. It is disappointing that dubs are going away in one sense – what does that say about anime in general? Its popularity, specifically? True, it seems there is an explosion of popularity on the net, but without dubs, it will always be something that has to be sought out, and never become a part of the mainstream.
My subtitle experience is just like yours – I can read fast enough to absorb the text and still have enough time to look at the image. It also helps that anime is typically made with fewer frames of movement than American animation, so you don’t miss out on as much by glancing at the subs. It does get a bit tricky when you have dialogue-heavy anime like Spice and Wolf and Katanagatari though. One way to remedy this is to watch the show subbed first, and then raw. The reason I don’t do this is because I don’t want to take the extra time to watch the episode again when I could use that time to watch something I haven’t yet seen. My Japanese is at a low-advanced/high-intermediate level, which let’s me understand most conversational Japanese that’s not too riddled with uncommon words, but I stick with subs because I hate missing out on any detail ;)
I think that the majority of America’s audience who’s not already into anime won’t be unless dubbed anime returns to TV. It’s still easier to turn on the TV than search for anime online, as well as hear a show in one’s native language than having to read subtitles. Providing subbed anime quicker online is what most fans want, but it won’t pull in many new potential fans.
True. I have a friend who won’t watch anything subbed, even though she’s a rather intelligent person.
The problem I find with English dubs is that you have fifty bazillion people voiced by Crispin Freeman or Johnny Yong Bosch or however the hell you spell his name.
I get that feeling enough from PS2 RPGs, I really like to avoid it in my anime.
LOL, that is a good point. But from the perspective of the dubbing companies, they’d rather go with someone who has a good voice acting background than take a risk with new people. Obviously, anime voice acting is a way larger industry in Japan than in the U.S., so there’s many more seiyuu talents to choose from than English VAs. I personally don’t get tired of a VA/seiyuu if they’re very good, but I can imagine it could get tiring hearing them in video games as well as anime =P
Oh, the seiyuu “market” so to speak is so diverse, it’s not an issue.
With seiyuu, you can go “oh hey, Norio Wakamoto’s in this show, I bet he’s gonna do a good job!”
With voice acting, it’s “son of a motherless goat, yuri lowenthal AGAIN?”
Sadly, voice acting will never reach the heights I want it to, so I’m just going to stick with subtitled anime and use it as an excuse not to read more books than I already do.
I’ve not actually watched a show again after watching it one way or the other but I have read some of the debates. After watching subbed for the most part over the past few months I have to say that I tend to prefer it as well.
I can see where some aspects of the original show could be lost in a dubbed version but then again if it is done well I think a dubbed version could be as good as the original. I’ve only seen The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya dubbed and I loved it (waiting for my BD) but others like Clannad I’ve only seen subbed. I’m almost scared to attempt to watch the dubbed version after hearing all of the horror stories of a dub not doing the original any justice (not Clannad but others I’ve heard about).
I think dubbing is the way to the mainstream or at least a way to get people hooked and as mentioned some dubs are tolerable if not good. The fact that is seems to be fading away is just sad. I realize my tastes probably aren’t as mainstream as the target audience but I think what is needed is to start dubbing some of the more popular shows and to give them some prime time exposure. Nothing against “Monster” but I think some of the shows that are currently being shown during prime time are downright boring. I realize they have to be moderate type shows for prime time viewers but they could at least choose some more upbeat shows. Just my opinion.
I’ve found it harder to watch a dub after watching the subbed first as opposed to vice versa. In my earlier years of fandom I tended to watch dubs first, but now it’s the other way around since there’s so little dubbed anime on TV anymore and I haven’t watched as many newer U.S. dubs on DVD either.
Like Alvin B. stated above, dubs are the only way to reach the mainstream audience and branch out to potential fans who don’t spend as much time as we do on the Internet. I hope there will be a “dubbed anime on TV” revival some day.
I agree with your point about the English dubs providing an alternative interpretation. Some people really despise dubs, but there are some shows where the dub is equally good, if not even superior, to the original Japanese (one anime that comes to mind here is Black Lagoon season 1 – the Japanese dub sounded really dull and lifeless after I watched some of it in English, especially Revy’s voice). Unfortunately there aren’t too many well-dubbed anime… I find that the English VAs tend to overexaggerate voices, so a lot of characters end up sounding grating and annoying which might be why a lot of people don’t like them.
As for me, I studied some Japanese in high school so I used to watched subbed anime to improve my listening and learn some new vocab. Nowadays watching subs doesn’t really require much more effort than watching dubbed, because I can just skim the sub and piece it together with what I can understand by listening. Not to mention a lot of the shows I watch don’t have dubbed versions anyway so, like you, I’m not avoiding dubs because I hate them, but because most of the time they’re not available.
Anime titles that don’t take place in Japan tend to have better dubs, especially those that take place in a Western world, like Cowboy Bebop, or a complete fantasy world that could be anywhere, like Naruto and Fullmetal Alchemist. But it just depends.
I know plenty of people who find the high-pitched Japanese voices, especially for girls, more “grating and annoying” than the English voices. But I agree that often the English voices don’t match the emotion of the Japanese seiyuu – either they over exaggerate or don’t put in enough effort. But again, it depends.
Watching subs is great Japanese practice for me as well =)
In my honest opinion, I think dubs aren’t bad because the dubbers, so to speak , are bad – I feel that they’re doing what they wanted, and what they can do. Seeing as how dubs are aimed , after all, towards the western community, what better way to promote the show than voicing it in mimicry of other Western shows? You’d find that dubbed anime have a lot in common with some American cartoons out there….
What you’re saying is definitely true for kids dubbed anime, where they throw in more American slang and expressions, or phony accents, that weren’t in the original version. But for none-kids shows, we may have the occasional “southern accent in place of Osaka-ben” or something like that, but most dub voices nowadays sound pretty normal to me.
You’re right, we all started with dubbed anime at some point because the lack of internet and torrent back in my days. I wasn’t into those dubbed anime to begin with. I bought DVD anime that has dual language to make sure that I would not suffer through it again. Dubbed anime tend to loose the “japanese” feels, imo. Like I said in my post, one of the reason why I like anime so much is because of the language. And most of the voice actors don’t make justice to the characters.
No more dubbed for me.
Preferring the original Japanese language is one of the reasons I prefer subs as well. Obviously there can’t be a “Japanese feel” if there’s no Japanese. And even if the anime takes place in Japan, English often sounds out of place in such settings.
Overall, I am completely neutral to dubbed anime. I don’t really mind it unless it sounds horrible (e.g. Pokemon after they changed the damn voices). So far, the dubs are rather decent with a few flaws and its easier to understand the story without having to read the subs on the screen. The ones I have seen so far with a dub are Haruhi, Lucky Star, Kanon, Air, Clannad, Nanoha, and 5cm/s. The lack of a dub is never a factor when I decide to buy a DVD since I watch fansubs and listen to jpop… I don’t really see a difference.
I should really learn the language so I don’t have to depend on the subs… but I’ll save that for next year.
Yeah, I’m neutral to dubs in general unless I’ve actually seen specific ones. It’s also not a factor for me when determining whether to buy the DVDs or not.
I watch the new episodes of Pokemon in raw Japanese and understand approx. 75-90% of all the dialogue, but I still have a ways to go with most other anime XD
I grew up watching anime dubbed in Mandarin Chinese, and I’d rather listen to a Mandarin dub than an English dub. I think the Mandarin dub voice actors (and they’re almost all done in Taiwan) have a better grasp of the emotional subtleties of the characters, whereas I sense a lot of English voice actors seem to be going through motions or over-acting. Part of this is because — based on what I’ve read of their CVs/biographeis — the American voice actors often come from a theater background, and when you’re on stage you need to be more forceful, heightened, and expressive to engage a live audience in a large, dark theater. The transition from live stage to dubbing studio isn’t always successful (the same problem applies when you go from acting on stage to film or TV. The camera picks up so much more nuance on your face that you simply can’t exaggerate or it’ll look awful). That said, there are some dubs I think are impressive. Ghost in the Shell:SAC, for example, has a wonderful Major Kusanagi thanks to Mary Elizabeth McGlynn.
That’s a very good point about VAs that I never thought about. While being an anime seiyuu is its own industry in Japan, voice acting for animation is often lumped together with acting in general here in America, and as you described, it doesn’t always work well.
For me, I don’t usually care which it is in, dubs or subs, but the one that I watch first is usually the only one that I can watch for that show until the end. An example would be InuYasha. I saw the whole series dubbed and when Final Act came out, I made it to episode 14 but for some reason I couldn’t get used to the voices. Another one in the oppisite way would be Higurashi. I orginally saw it subbed and when I saw the dub I couldn’t believe how horrible it was. The emotions weren’t there at all compared to the japanese.
One exception to this is kaleido star. I got the dvds and I didn’t even make it past the first scene. Sora’s voice just grated againist my ear and my sister agreed with me so we switched to japanese and enjoyed it more.
I currently watch more subs than dubs because it’s much easier to get subs than dubs and another reason is the choice of voice actors. Johnny Yong Bosch, although he is a great voice actor, I’m just sick and tired of his voice. I’ve heard it in enough animes and he does video games as well(some of my favorites too-Rune Factory Frontier, Fragile Dreams) that his voice has become overused. At least in japanese there are a lot of voice actors and some have amazing ranges that they don’t even sound like themselves. An example would be the voice actor(I can’t remember his name at the moment) of Luka from Uraboku(one of the tall sexy male characters with the deep voice) also does an old lady from Soredemo. The difference is astounding that when I found out it was the same voice actor I couldn’t believe it.
Heh, I know some English VAs like Johnny Young Bosch and Crispin Freeman are in everything, but like I stated in an above comment, it’s just because anime voice acting is only a fraction the size of the seiyuu industry in Japan, so dub companies want to play it safe with actors who are already confirmed successes. But that’s good that you’re one of the few fans who’s still willing to give dubs a chance even if you prefer subs =)
I, too, got started on dubs (my first were Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh). Then I started watching Toonami, and later discovered the magic of Japanese audio.
Since the majority of dubs seem to be awful, I tend not to watch them. HOwever, there are many dubs that are dear to my heart and I will always love them: Cowboy Bebop, Yuyu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, Pokemon and Outlaw Star are my favorites.
Do I try to avoid dubs when I can? Yes. Do I have anything against decent/good dubs or dubbers? Of course not. (Except Vic Mignogna, I think he’s a little overrated.)
You should watch this (other parts and the Best List you can find on their profile/related videos): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xr7-raYj1Y&feature=related
Nowadays, I think the majority of dubs are at least okay. Ten plus years ago that wasn’t the case though. As that video you linked shows, it’s mostly kids anime and older anime that have the worst dubs.
Strangely, besides FMA I haven’t seen any anime dub where Vic Mignogna has a major role. From what I’ve heard about him, maybe that’s a good thing =P
Inuyasha and Cowboy Bebop are probably the best dubs I’ve watched. DBZ and Ghost in the Shell were good too.
Usually, I watch anime movies dubbed, because they’re usually done very well, but for the most part, dubs suck.
In a lot of cases, dubs censor out everything and change things for no reason that cause the show to make less sense. A good example of this is the One Piece dubs, which turn what I consider to be a good anime into complete trash. They censor out the guns and even Sanji’s cigarettes. But wait, I was talking about dubs.
A good example of dubs sucking is Tenchi Muyo. First of all, I hate a lot of the voices in the dubbed version, except for Ryoko’s at times, and Washu’s at times. I have the good fortune to have both the sub and dubbed versions on my computer, and after comparing one scene, I found out serious changes (well not really) in dialogue. In one scene Ryoko said something to Tenchi about wanting to bang the shit out of him (the usual). In the subbed version, the dialogue matched the hand motions and made sense in correlation to the rest of the scene, while in dubbed version, although what she said was similar to the subbed version, it was totally out of wack with everything, and just made the whole part seem odd and out of place. It interrupted what little flow that the episode contained (this was Tenchi in Tokyo, aka the shittiest piece of shit ever, but still).
Through a series of anonymous yet effective scientific test, I’ve revealed that shit like this is everywhere, and dubs pretty much will try hard to fuck with any shows natural flow, while subs do a much better job at displaying emotions correctly and matching up (for obvious reasons).
Fruits Basket did have a decent dub, but that show was so bad that it didn’t matter how I watched it.
Yes, 4Kids’s dub of One Piece is quite infamous. Luckily they didn’t dub many episodes and it was since taken over by Funimation. I’ve only seen a tiny bit of their dub, but it seems to be a lot better.
Major editing, censoring, and Americanizing are attributes of dubs from the past…excluding kids anime, the only major flaw I’ve found in dubs of the past few years is the quality of the voices themselves.
For a dub of its time, the Tenchi Muyo! dub was pretty good. Obviously all the scenes of nudity, etc., from the first two OVAs had to be edited out, but it’s surprising that it was even aired at all. Geneon even included all the scenes not shown on Toonami on their DVD releases. As a whole it ,it’s an okay dub but I agree some of the voices aren’t great.
English language ADR has improved so much over the past ten years it’s quite amazing. The level of knowledge and background research translators and ADR directors put into their work nowadays, compared to the mid- to late-1990s is impressive. But even so, with the market condensing like it has over the past two to three years, certain voice actors become oversaturated, and with the demise of certain producers so too do certain preferred dub studios fade away.
Yea, there are some poor dubs out there, but far fewer now than some time ago. The worse English ADR work, ironically, I think, are for titles whose original studio (Japan) is contractually required to have a say in the casting and scripting processes.
To the question of dub availability… English language audio tracks will only be around as long as there are active licensors and distributors of Japanese animation in the U.S. Dubbing is the chief marketing tactic of any western producer; and without it, there would be extraordinarily few home video sales, and absolutely zero broadcast or standard tier cable television agreements.
Not to make the case that dubbing is what keeps the industry afloat. Only to clarify that without dubs, commercial brand awareness is stymied. Indisputably, companies licensing anime make more money from character licensing and merchandise than DVD sales.
I totally agree with you about how dubbing has improved over the years and how it’s an important component for anime to flourish in the U.S. I do hope dubs will make a comeback someday, perhaps better than they’ve ever been.
Good points, it could be many of us simply haven’t given modern dubs a chance because we were burned by early dubs.
Also, it’s easier I think to put up with a mediocre sub than with a mediocre dub. With the sub, everything sounds right and you know the mistakes are due to the translation. With a dub, you’ve got no backup if they did a bad job. I think many dubs in the past were slapped together just to say they did it, and it turned a lot of folks off. Has it seriously improved now?
Dubbing has improved a lot, but as is the central point to the original thread, audience reception to English language voice-over to Japanese animation has become increasingly personal. I try watch as much anime in English as I do in Japanese, but only because I’m comfortable in doing so.
I know it sounds like a pain, but sometimes we have to think it through: does this type of title, given its genre and its spectrum of characters, probably lend itself well to translation? For me, cutesy shows usually don’t; slice-of-life and character-dramas always do; boys’ adventure usually does (for a while); and titles produced for selling toys never do. In the early DVD/VHS days, we could quit a series after just purchasing three to five episodes… clearly, this isn’t the case anymore.
I personally don’t mind dubs unless they are absolutely horrible (e. g. Higurashi and Kiddy Grade, those gave me nightmares). However, I believe that most of the time English voice actors really don’t have enough range and expression to convey the feelings of the original character. That, and there are less English voice actors than there are Japanese seiyuu, so most of the time the voices mainly sound the same.
Some decent dubs I’ve heard are Death Note and Code Geass. The only dubs I’ve heard to absolutely best the originals are Baccano! and Black Lagoon, which, to take note of, have settings where people should be speaking English anyways.
Yeah, the relatively small size of the anime English VA community means that voices tend to sound alike. And as I mentioned in the post, the way the voices in English are recorded compared to Japan makes a difference as well. I also believe that the Japanese seiyuu receive more information beforehand about their character and the story they hail from, but I’m not certain.
BLACK LAGOON has a great English language track, but I think it’s hard to put the work for that title into the context of a greater spectrum of quality ADR if we use the series’ environment as a basis. There are three or more different languages used off-hand in that series, initially, so it’s convenient when all you have to do in translation is account for the tonal quality and maybe an accent rather than being culturally or grammatically persnickety.
Because there are anime with similar ADR parameters, with different “native” languages, I think the overall quality of product could be attributed more to individual performance than anything else.
(It’s complicated, and get get worse. In the latest CASSHERN SINS anime, there is an episode where a Japanese voice actress sings a song in English. The end result on our end was an English voice actress singing the song in English, and it was terrible. Should the song have been left alone? Untranslated? Or un-dubbed? Or even, as is the rare occurrence, dubbed back into Japanese to “flip” the language?)
I usually have the problem of hating the dubbed anime at the beginning and finally, deciding that it’s not that bad at all in the end.
I prefer watching subbed because I can read faster… [and due to that I read faster when I try to read topics on my finance books.]
but, in the Philippines… Filipino dubs have been effective on delivering the thoughts and feelings of a certain character, I guess all I can complain for now is the english-dubbed shows that I usually hate at first.
It also takes me a while to get used to dubs. I feel like the actors take a while to get into their role and learn about the character. I don’t get that feeling with seiyuu though. Inuyasha’s dub was a prime example of this – I thought the voices sounded good but the acting wasn’t so great. In later episodes however, the acting greatly improved. Seiyuu usually have more experience with anime roles than English VAs, so that’s probably why they can get into any role right away.
As an anime fan, I like subs 100%. Only time I watched dubs was when I was a kid, and that’s a long time ago. Now, for any anime or even non-animated movie or TV shows, I always watch subs.
However, as a student of media business school of thoughts, I agree with you that dubs are extremely vital for anime to remain as a mainstream media. If only companies purchasing a certain anime’s distribution rights can easily get an extra Creative-Commons kind of rights; that is, to be able to put the first episodes of it online and allow voice talents to freely create dubs for them, in one condition that names of distributing company and the original company that holds the rights… are credited properly.
On 1 hand, the companies’ names would be known and respected by online communities, which can act as a superior marketing tactic. On the other hand, it helps to provide a playground for nurturing new anime voice talents, which would build up a positive cultural effect in the long run.
Notice that Anime, as a whole media export product, is facing more local competitors (aka. local talk shows, reality shows, dubbed non-animated TV series) than ever. The situation is much more different than 10 or 20 years before, when media production in 1 country alone is not enough to satisfy the audience. Now, we have an over abundance supply of media products everywhere, so competition is much harsher for Anime. It is necessary for anime studios and distributing channels to embrace new tactics and do the impossible, that is, be more open about copyrights.
I wonder if channels like CrunchyRoll can get that kind of rights and build an ultimate platform where every user can upload dubs for half the videos of every series they are distributing. That would be a perfect win-win-win situation where the site can thrive with more traffic, the audience can have more options to enjoy anime, and also for Anime to thrive even higher as mainstream media products.
But as far as I understand business, and to a certain degree in which I’ve been involved with IPR contracts, any addition in a contract regarding the transfer of intellectual property means more money is involved. If anime every stays less popular than other media products, I would blame that to the foolish greed of anime studios, who prefer short-term profits for themselves over long-term advantage as a whole economical ecosystem.
Of course running a business always means you have to think about profit first, but I dare say that, while the world of copyrights is too chaotically different nowadays, wishing things to go the same way like 10 years ago is much unwise for any media company, not just anime studios themselves.
Thanks for the insight! I have no head for business stuff, so your comment was very informative =) I agree that dubs are important and your suggestions for what anime companies should do sounds great. Perhaps you should get into the industry one day?
To be frank, that’s never going to happen.
Creative Commons for such intensely marketable audiovisual material, or at least the likelihood of the copyright holders of anime agreeing to them, is light-years away. Distribution agreements aren’t provided for indefinite periods of time… licenses expire, are re-bid, and usually have stipulations (e.g., only home video and broadcast, but not merchandise; only home video and merchandise and not digital).
Marketing institutions, television/satellite companies, and multi-billion Yen publishers own the rights of most anime titles, not the physical production studios. This means that any effort to deliver content in such a raw form could invariably prove detrimental to the agreed upon representation of the property in question. If they put the title out there, it’s seriously and genuinely out there, in this day and age, the internet pretty much is “forever”… and these copyright holders have zero control over the quality and/or earnestness of consumers (or leeches) who will repurpose their media, and possibly for financial gain.
Japanese copyright holders have been increasingly paranoid over reverse-importing for about a year and a half or two years now, and have already adjusted the way they do business with legitimate licensors… which leads me to believe something of this magnitude you suggest is pretty much impossible.
“Like a fan of intellectual anime stating that all moe anime sucks”
But they do!
Seriously though, I’m definitely a dub person. Only on rare occasions will I willingly watch a sub over a dub (generally stuff that is so overwhelmingly Japanese that a dub would just sound awkward). My primary reason for this is that no matter how well acted the show might be in Japanese, it’s still going to be no more than well acted unintelligible gibberish to me.
You know I’ll have to disagree that all moe anime sucks, but I don’t think there’s any convincing you ~_^
Anyway, your reason for sticking with dubs is a perfectly good one. There’s nothing wrong with relating better to a show in your native language. Unless a lot is changed from the original, but with modern non-kids anime dubs, that hasn’t been a problem.
I actually don’t mind heavily edited stuff. Pokemon was a metric fuckton better in English than in Japanese, partially due to all the work of what were obviously a bunch of very bored translaters.
Sorry I’m late to this, but… thanks for the trip down memory lane! Though, that wasn’t as far back for me seeing as Fruits Basket was the first anime series that I watched (first anime being Spirited Away). I completed FB through a mixture of subbed and dubbed episodes (just whatever I could find online at the time on the site that I was using, for which the users had uploaded a mixture of dubbed and subbed epis). I’ve since bought and watched the series both subbed and dubbed, and it’s only added to my enjoyment of the show. Re: the wider debate, I agree with your take on it as being a matter of taste, but I defo prefer subs to the dubs; even though I don’t understand everything, you get a real feel for the language and a more accurate flow of the emotions, which is of course aided by a good translation. Speaking of which, I’d also be interested in your take on a ‘close’ translation Vs one that is less accurate but uses localisations to convey context? Finally, thanks for the read!
Thanks you for reading ^_^
I first watched Fruits Basket around 2004 when I graduated from high school (bought all the DVDs as a present to myself XD) I watched it dubbed first and then subbed. I kinda liked them both the same, but I actually prefer the dub ’cause I don’t like how Funimation did the subs for their FB DVDs.
I’ll think about a future post about close translations =)
I for one love dubs, I only watched dubs first and never had a problem with them. I personally never wanted to watch a subbed anime, because the point of watching something is to listen and watch; not watch and read at the same time. Otherwise it’s better to just read a book! xD But also, lot’s of times the text goes too fast and you’ll miss something. One of the first times I watched a sub, I felt like I was in another world on an alien planet, because everyone was speaking a language I didn’t know; it felt really weird. (Even though that is true cause I don’t know Japanese and all) It was very weird for me :S I like to hear a language I understand I suppose. Although I have adjusted to it now though.
Dubs however are in your language so you don’t have to worry about reading it, you can just sit, relax and watch.
I just prefer watching something where the voices are in a language I know, although subs are good for eating cause you don’t have to worry about paying attention to what they’re saying
The only subs I watch are for anime’s that I know will probably not come in english, or that I really wanted to see them.
But I will take a dub over a sub anyday!
Yeah i have to say when it comes to either dubbed or subbed id choose english dubbed. The main reason being it is what i grew up with and as you said when your reading subtitles you often don’t get the chance to appreciate the animation as much.
While i do prefer english dubbs many anime are often not dubbed at all, or in the case of long running animes such as Naruto Shippuden and Bleach the subbed episode numbers greatly surpass the rate at which the dubbed episodes come out so who wants to wait a week or more just for one dubbed episode while you can get further in the story line via subs? =/
Hey, I know this post is really ancient, but it’s certainly interesting, and something that raises my curiosity a bit. I’m not “heart & soul” into anime like some are, but I have a lot of friends that are, and I’ve come across many online. However I do watch a lot of anime like DBZ, Slayers, Tenchi Muyo, Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2, Yu Yu Hakusho, One Piece, Case Closed, Studio Ghibli stuff, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Bubblegum Crisis, Sailor Moon and a few other shows. I watch them all “dubbed,” but I would have no problem watching something with subtitles if that’s all that’s available. Most of the US voice acting tends to be good enough, however I admit that some like Bubblegum Crisis have terrible voice acting, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the show (after all, there are western cartoons with bad voice acting too, such as the original Thundercats, and video games too, such as Devil May Cry). I guess I just feel more comfortable with it that way, especially since I grew up watching some of those shows when I was younger (I could never THINK about watching DBZ in anything other than what I’ve listened to for 14 years). I do check out some episodes in Japanese for curiosity, but nothing more. It’s just not something that interests me a whole lot. Plus, as an actor myself, like to support the US voice actors, and I enjoy keeping up with the US voice acting scene. This post is interesting because the industry has recovered a LOT in three and a half years. Only the more obscure shows are released sub-only, Sentai Filmworks (one of ADV’s children) dubbed more shows than FUNimation in 2013 (someone counted about 90 different anime dubbed in all last year). Plus with Toonami back, Cartoon Network, Nicktoons, and The CW showing some anime, and Hulu, Neon Alley, and especially Netflix legally streaming a lot of dubbed anime, dubbing seems to be back in full swing, although it’s now being done a bit cheaper and faster.
My biggest curiosity: which preference is more popular? My guess is that a lot of hardcore otaku prefer anime in it’s original Japanese, but pretty much everyone else seems to just watch it in English (with exceptions to both of course). Even then, many otaku seem to still watch the “big” shows in English like Pokemon, DBZ, Inuyasha, FMA, Bebop, etc. It makes sense since even in this bad economy, dubs are still an important part of the US anime industry, despite it being so expensive to do, and many online services such as Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon refusing to take most subtitled anime unless it’s Attack on Titan (while companies purposefully limit their dubbed content on Hulu for a reason). There has to be a huge market for it if this is the case. Maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part? I don’t know. I still see quite a bit of dub-bashing on places like YouTube, and other social media, and me being, I guess, an “outsider” to a lot of the anime/otaku community, it annoys me a bit as a viewer of “dubbed” anime (it gives me relief that in my other film/TV interests, there is NONE of this)…
I realize that this thread is old, but the debate will always be alive and therefore I thought I’d chime in my two cents. Note that five years later things have changed and the environment as a whole has changed, but the general debate it still alive. I mean, I wasn’t even watching anime when this post came out. Since then dubbed anime has become more prevalent and well in my opinion better acted (although I feel this is also a general consensus as well). I watch both dubbed and subbed, but prefer dubbed. I guess this is because my feelings toward the subject is that if I wanted to get the initial interpretation and read then I would pick up the manga or short novel that it is based on. However, I’m into the anime to actually watch and I feel that subtitles can hamper that experience. Not mention somethings (even when translated perfectly and subbed) can just sound funnier when said rather than read. Sometimes discourse in a native language gets a laugh when said while not so much when read. I do realize that there are many bad dubs out there, but I truly believe that they are starting to get better and some of them surpassing their original counterparts. As a general rule I tend to only watch dub past 2008 or so because before that is a shame (and considering this post what 2010 makes sense the difference between 2 and 7 years of quality dubs). This is not a hard rule and there are exceptions, but the general rule of thumb or guideline I stick to and find helpful. That doesn’t mean I don’t watch subbed, but this is more often than not because dubbed releases a year after the original and well I’m impatient (or worse they don’t release a dubbed version). If the show is good then I can always watch it again and compare the two. While uncommon, it does irk me when the message, feeling, or plot is changed through translation (that’s not translation IMO), but luckily that is not problem most of the time. Not to mention I also see dubbing as a unintentional way to weed out bad anime. I mean one would think that only good animes are successful and only successful animes receive the funding to make a dub. It a good thought at least ;).