Which animes have been dubbed well?

[Daio Kaji]

yeah, i think you get the best experience when you watch anime (or anything else foreign) in the original language in addition to watching it in the easiest language for you to understand
example:
i know spanish+english (english more)
i don't know japanese
i watch anime dubbed in english then
i watch anime dubbed in spanish (if it's available and decently done) then
i watch anime dubbed in japanese with english subtitles (i never do spanish subtitles because i can't read as fast in spanish as i can in english)

i sit back and say '..sweeeet'

[haven't finished completey watching kiki's delivery service in spanish, kaji out!]

[AtomicWeezleman]

i prefer subs,however, i live in england, i cant be choosy..i just watch whatever comes my way...

[dwchang]

There is only on thing that urks me when I read about most people that are subtitles only, they speak as if they are better than others for it. Not everyone does it, but there are a good bit that do. I hate meeting new people who are into anime that disrespect me because they find out I watch both subbed and dubbed. The worst ones are the ones that I still have to explain to them what something in an anime mean, then they get insulted that I knew more and act as if what I say is no longer important to them.

This only applies to people who have at some point said:

"I used to watch dubbed but grew out of it and am know for enlightened."

If you have said this shut it.

I agree. I may prefer subs considerably, but it doesn't make an anime fan "holier than thou" or whatever...

If you haven't and preffer subbes than where still cool .

[dwchang]

Crap screwed up my quotes, it should look like this:

There is only on thing that urks me when I read about most people that are subtitles only, they speak as if they are better than others for it. Not everyone does it, but there are a good bit that do. I hate meeting new people who are into anime that disrespect me because they find out I watch both subbed and dubbed. The worst ones are the ones that I still have to explain to them what something in an anime mean, then they get insulted that I knew more and act as if what I say is no longer important to them.

This only applies to people who have at some point said:

"I used to watch dubbed but grew out of it and am know for enlightened."

If you have said this shut it.

If you haven't and preffer subbes than where still cool .

I agree. I may prefer subs considerably, but it doesn't make an anime fan "holier than thou" or whatever...at the same time I still stand by the statements that you are missing out and in some cases missing content. However, let me reiterate that it has nothing to do with your "otaku status" or whatever that people seem to think.

[Propyro]

If you haven't and preffer subbes than where still cool .

Yay i'm cool! i think ...

[Illia Sadri]

I come from the side of I generally prefer subs but give bother versions a chance when available and I loathe the elitist mentality of certain individuals who declare subs is the only way to go.

Now, I know only very basic Japanese so thus I can't understand a whole lot with it raw. I rely on the subs to understand the Japanese version at all. However, should I misplace my glasses, or want to watch an anime but need to also do a little housework while semi-paying attention then a dub is useful.

Also there are improvement being made as far as dubbing quality. Heck, I remember back in my youth when the few titles that were available were recorded in monotone (Macross and Robotech come to mind) or it was simply ridiculous. I will say in all honesty, while most dubs still are not perfect, they have become at the very least much more endurable.

So I do think some companies are catching on a bit which is a good thing but goodness, with anime being released almost exclusively on DVD now there is no need for sub vs dub wars and trashing of one particular title over another.

However we do need speak out because if a company is going to listen at all it will be through not accepting absolute crap. In fact I personally was appalled when I got my Gatekeepers 21 disk and heard such awfulness. However, that doesn't mean you have to come across as 'all dubs suck so nobody should watch them.'

I dunno, perhaps I am in the minority as someone who wants improvements made to the dubs. As i mentioned, it is nice to have a choice for various situations.



Also people are too quick to pass blame entirely on the voice actors. Some dubs simply don't work for various reasons.

A good actor, if teamed up with a poor director can be disasterous. I see this happen quite often with ADV in general as their voice actors get a lot of roles, some of which can be spot on with one character or completely off on the next role. The director is supposed to guide the performance and if this isn't done properly, as happens often in dubs, it seems the voice actors go in their own directions and thus the quality is diminished.

Also there are times where translation can hurt a dub. The English versions do pay a lot more attention to matching the mouth flaps in general than many of the Japanese recordings. Also, Japanese is a very different language in its structure and vocabulary meanings from English which adds another layer of difficulty. Now you have to be able to make dialogue that matches those requierments and still retain the meaning of the show. A good case in point is Serial Experiments Lain, which I felt was decently acted and directed but I cannot get past the fact some of the dialogue adaptations lose much of the meaning. Is it really anybody's fault? Not really because Lain is a very surreal show where those necessary changes are going to change how a viewer interprets the show. Another case of this came in Trigun where a couple places the script simply was a bad translation and thus made no sense. One scene in the fifth episode was butchered do to this error and not to mention the things like plurals (whcih the Japanese don't have a distinct form for) were mistranslates which will make anything beyong that point sound silly.

Also some shows have a very distinctivly Japanese feel to them which means that unless you are a dedicated anime fan who studies Japanese culture, much of this will go over the head of the casual viewer. So thus a choice has to be made in do you keep more true to the original to supplement the more avid fans? Or do you adapt it so it would make more sense to the casual anime viewer who is more likely to watch the dub anyway? Many times the compromise is made in they will offer the more direct translation in the subtitles and then adapt the dub for a more general audience. (Love hina is a perfect example of this) It is a difficult decision from a production standpoint because they want to please as many individuals as possible so they can sell the maximum number of tapes and DVD's. Now while most of us here would say of course keep it true to the original, with anime coming into the mainstream in recent years, it is understandable why this happens.

It isn't quite as cut and paste as many here thing and I agree with those who are behaving as 'it's all about what I want. There is no way to please everyone and it is time that that is simply accepted.