Dubbed or Subbed: Which is better?

[Draw it blank]

2 questions, one related to the other:

1) Do you speak Japanese?
2) If not, then how can you tell the Japanese dub is better than the English?

I agree unless you speak Japanese you really have no place deciding weather the subs are dominant to the dubs.
Majority of people who hate dub's are just picky on what they expected their version of the voices to sound like.
The only way an English only speaking person can truly tell if the sub is awesome is from the reactions (emotions).
This is my opinion but those don't really change within the language barrier.

[Jasta85]

and the original is usually better than the dub anyway

2 questions, one related to the other:

1) Do you speak Japanese?
2) If not, then how can you tell the Japanese dub is better than the English?

you took only a part of my comment without reading it through, i was talking about how the voices sound when matched with the characters they are portraying. The japanese original are usually better at portraying emotion and the personality of the characters, that's what i meant.

[Qyot27]

and the original is usually better than the dub anyway

2 questions, one related to the other:

1) Do you speak Japanese?
2) If not, then how can you tell the Japanese dub is better than the English?

I agree unless you speak Japanese you really have no place deciding weather the subs are dominant to the dubs.
Majority of people who hate dub's are just picky on what they expected their version of the voices to sound like.
The only way an English only speaking person can truly tell if the sub is awesome is from the reactions (emotions).
This is my opinion but those don't really change within the language barrier.

After listening to enough Japanese out of necessity, you do start to recognize good work from bad work, even if you don't speak the language. If you do, you can instantly tell whether a dub - or the original, as the case may be - sucks or not. I only know a basic smattering of the language, enough to get really irritated by some fansubbing and scanlating practices that take aspects of the translation process way too literally - I object to it not just because of Japanese->English translation, but because I studied both German and French in school and there are simply some things you *can't* do when translating something from language A to language B; and to be honest, fan translation is not the only one at fault here - 'professional' jobs can fall into the same holes if they don't get good translation staff.

Also, when you know the proper pronunciation for items that the dub leaves in Japanese, like names, it can just about make your ears bleed when you hear English actors mangle them (two examples off the top of my head - Chitose in Happy Lesson being referred to as 'Cheetos', and practically every single time someone in Bleach says 'Kuchiki' - the Japanese clearly pronounce the i in the middle of the name, and it's also supposed to be three syllables instead of two; the latter is a pretty good example of English companies using Japanese pronunciation rules at entirely the wrong times).

My sticking point is simply that I got absolutely tired of the same small English talent pool doing just about everything that gets licensed over here, with the majority of said domestic releases ending up pretty spectacular in their mediocrity. It's all only made worse because of some of the fawning-over the English voice actors get, just because they may have had a competent and quality-attentive ADR director for one or two of the roles they've portrayed. I just got to the point that I don't want to bother with any of it anymore. The one that finally tipped the scales for me was the dub for This Ugly Yet Beautiful World. I couldn't listen to it, and it was the first time I willingly went with the Japanese track and subtitles over the English dub on a domestic DVD if there was a choice.

That said, there are still certain things I will go for the dub on, simply for nostalgic value. Stuff from the 80s and 90s, primarily. I'm already pretty much a heretic for liking Robotech, but Tony Oliver is still the only voice for Hikaru (Rick) I'll accept in English.

[Knowname]

1998 called. It wants its flame war back.

I rarely get to see a smarmy comment as good as that

The thing that likely annoys me the most, is if you listen to an English dub with sub titles visible, shouldn't they be saying the same damned thing?
Common people, it's not rocket science, they say something in Japanese, and then you translate it. And the translation should be the same spoken or written. It's f**king English.

You do know why that happens right?
More times than not, it takes a different amount of time to say something in Japanese than it does in English. Heck, next time you watch a sub, try it out for yourself.
So unless you want to sound really stupid (talking really slow...or at the very least speaking adjacent sentences at differing speeds and being out of sync with the animated mouths,) you tweak the script so that it has a similar meaning but fits both with the length and mouth movements.

So to answer your question, it would be nice but is often impossible...unless you want bad kung-fu dub quality

no, obviously it's cuz the fansubbers are better than the profesionals .

lol if ya don't get me (and obviously you dorks never would) I'm being sarcastic. WHAT DO YOU THINK?? of coarse the dubbers could do a LITERAL translation (as in ADV's Macross) or they can do a little bit of improv. their not stupid lol. And while I won't say that sometimes the improv sucks (as in Robotech... which doesn't suck so much as is dumbed down), but it's also good. They're professionals, they got their jobs for a reason, it's not like some amatuer fansubber is about to show them up.

And don't you think that professionals can't edit the video?? Heck, AMVers can edit the video to say whatever the damned well please, you don't think profesionals, who take months to localize, don't lip sync?? Seriously? They could do a literal translation if they wanted too (ADV's Macross) but the Japanese language is just VERY quirky in that many of us won't understand it without notes. Ever seen Excel Saga? Without Vid Notes? Not only does Japanese have no accents (instead they have vocal rhythms), they don't understand sarcasm, they base their humor on limericks that make NO Damned sense AND Sukunai still loves them cuz he's fuckin gay.

Sukunai prefers subtitles cuz (s)he's in touch with his inner niponese. Don't know why anybody else does.

Anyway dubbers do their best to translate this quirkiness, They can't fit the literal translation in all the time because there just isnt enough b/g cells to go around :/ (if you ever tried to lip sync you'd know what I mean). It's just hard to say 'the scientific prognosis says the agent ran in, was splashed by very flammable hydrogen peroxide, tripped over the volatile nitro glycerine and subsequently got blasted acrossed the room, into the brick wall, and fell into the vat of hydrochloric acid which all burnt away with the evidence' when all there is room for is 'he dead dog'.

I like dubs and what's more is I respect what dubbing companies go through to make a sub par dub.

[Garylisk]

and the original is usually better than the dub anyway

2 questions, one related to the other:

1) Do you speak Japanese?
2) If not, then how can you tell the Japanese dub is better than the English?

Emotion is universal.

I could tell the difference between emotion-filled Japanese voice acting and flat-ass English voice acting before I learned Japanese.

Post-Japanese-learning, my preconceptions from when I only knew English still stand, so it makes sense to me.

That being said, there are definitely good English dubs. They are rare. The actors are also sometimes whiny. Take for example the English Dub of Excel Saga. The woman who voiced Excel in the first half of the series stepped down and someone else had to take over. Why? Because she thought that voicing that character would damage her vocal chords.

Meanwhile, you have Japanese voice actors who shout, scream, panic, cry, breathe heavily, tense their abdomens, clench their teeth, and put forth a ton of effort for the work they do, and I haven't heard of any quitting a job in fear their voice might be ruined.

And as a result of all that shouting, screaming, panicing, crying, breathing, abdomen-tensing effort, the work is wonderful, believable, and full of spirit.

Voice acting, like Kendo, takes kiai. Most of the people who get hired to do English dubs don't have it, or don't get paid enough to bring it to the workplace, plain and simple. And if that's not true, they aren't doing much to prove me wrong.

[Garylisk]

Oh, and if you can't watch subbed anime because you can't read the subtitles and watch the video at the same time: Learn to read faster. It's not actually hard to do. There's only a few words at a time at the bottom of the screen. Some of the slowest readers I know IRL still prefer subbed and don't have much trouble watching and reading subs. Seems like a pretty lame excuse if you ask me.

[Knowname]

It's not when yee only have one eye! *arrgh*

[Qyot27]

Take for example the English Dub of Excel Saga. The woman who voiced Excel in the first half of the series stepped down and someone else had to take over. Why? Because she thought that voicing that character would damage her vocal chords.

According to the ANN and Wikipedia entries, she actually did damage her vocal cords. I seem to remember something similar happening to one of the actresses in the Sailor Moon dubs, but I'm not sure.

[Garylisk]

Take for example the English Dub of Excel Saga. The woman who voiced Excel in the first half of the series stepped down and someone else had to take over. Why? Because she thought that voicing that character would damage her vocal chords.

According to the ANN and Wikipedia entries, she actually did damage her vocal cords. I seem to remember something similar happening to one of the actresses in the Sailor Moon dubs, but I'm not sure.

lol that makes it even funnier.

[Jasta85]

i think japanese voice quality is better than their american counterparts because it's a much bigger industry in japan. the competition to be voice actors/actoress's is much higher so those who strive to excel in that field have to put in much more training, effort and enthusiasm into their work which naturally results in better quality. Those who don't try or don't have enough talent never make it into production.

There are very few professional american voice actors and most voice actors who involve themselves in anime dubs are part timers at the job, especially when it comes to anime movies many of them are actors who took on the role of voice acting for that particular part (the cat returns has a very notable english dub cast as an example). Some of these are actually pretty good but as there are few specialists who concentrate entirely on being voice actors they don't compare to the japanes IN GENERAL. there are always exceptions of course.