Well it's hard to argue with such a strong a defense as that, but I believe I've stumbled onto something about why people have such a great bias against dubs.
Many people say that the reason they dislike dubs is that American actors just say the lines incorrectly, that they mess up the peaks and valleys of intensity that are uttered in the Japanese versions. Well, frankly, I've studied Japanese myself, and I've seen enough subs, I can tell you this: Japanese is spoken with VERY little emotion - so little, in fact, that most of the time they seem to be, or are in fact, speaking in monotone.
Next, the argument is made that is made is that they don't pronounce the names correctly... Naruto for instance. In both the Dub and Sub, they say his name is NAruto, but people whine that they use an American "R." I'll cover why this is a foolish stand later.
Another common complaint is that the voices "don't match" the Japanese, that often a character sounds differently, usually has a deeper voice, than the original voice actor.
Finally, the complaint that is made most often is that "they screwed up what they said!" This usually means that what the characters say in Japanese, and shown to us in subtitles, is simplified for dubbing.
I have rebuttles for each, which hopefully will make you think differently about what goes into the dubbing process.
1. True, English-speaking actors don't put the same tension on the same words at the same time. But remember, these people are speaking ENGLISH. There are very specific rules in English about placement of stress in a sentence in order to produce a meaning. For instance: "I don't CARE about you" - this means that the subject is meaningless or of no concern to the speaker; however "I don't care about YOU" hints that the speaker instead is concerned about someone else, and as speakers of English, we naturally wait for the second part to come and explain who the speak cares about, a sensation we don't get from the prior sentence. If the actors were to simply say english words and follow the beats of the Japanese sentence, it would sound HORRIBLE - it wouldn't make sense to anyone listening. So quit youd belly-aching and remember what language is being spoken, and if what is being said would make sense.
2. Pronouncing Japanese correctly is MUCH harder than one would believe. And you ask, "why?" Because, though you don't believe it, there are sounds taht exist in Japanese that DO NOT exist in English. For instance, the TS sound at the beginning of a word in Japanese. There are words in, say, Hebrew that begin with TS, but no word in English BEGINS with TS - many end, but only when preceded by another letter, more like the last little sound before a word ends. It takes a surprising amount of concentration to learn to say the TS sound. Then there's the Japanese "r." This is a problem, because even though the Japanese write R in Romaji, the R actually sounds more like a D, L, or a fraction of a Spanish "Erre" - the trilled "rr". The way to make the "r" sound in oriental languages is to half-way perform a trill, specifically just ONE flick of the tongue, not multiple like when singing or speaking a Romantic Language. So, yes, the actors do not ALWAYS pronounce the names correctly, but I'd like to see you go into the middle of Manhattan, pick out 100 white Americans, and have them try to pronounce the R and TS sounds in Japanese... mast people physically cannot make those sounds, the same way most Europeans cannot make the TH sound in English.
3. The quality of the actor's voice is often in conflict with the Japanese voice actor's. This is usually that they "don't sound like they're supposed to," usually because the English actors have voices of a different pitch than the Japanese. This problem stems simply from the fact that perception of a person's voice depth varies between the two cultures. For those of us in the European half of the world, a person's voice gets deeper as they get older - it's commonly accepted that it's to happen. In the orient, however, it's a long-held tradition that the depth of the voice is directly related to the personal, not physical, maturity of the person's character. This explains why Gokuu has a child's voice in Japanese; Future Trunks, in contrast, is incredibly serious and mature, and as such has one of the deepest voices in the show. If Gokuu had a child's voice in English, American audiences would think that he's actually a child, or that it's just strange - perhaps his gonads haven't fallen yet
. To make the characters seem natural and correct to an American audience, they gave Gokuu a man's voice and Trunks a teenager's.4. "THAT'S NOT WHAT THEY SAID!" How often have we heard this? We know the subtitles of the shows and movies, and we hear what is being said in Japanese. Very often they don't match up exactly. Why? There is no such thing as an "exact" translation - no two languages translate exactly one to the other. But that's not the only thing. When you're watching the subs, people are translating, yes, and often the translations are more proper and informative than the dubs, so why don't the voice actors and translators for dubs do the same? First reason: The Japanese voice actors aren't speaking in such proper words - they're speaking in slang most of the time, just as Englsih speakers do with English. Part of translating is to accurately translate what's being said, but the other half is to correctly translate the connotation given to the phrase. This often means changing it so that what is being said holds the same weight as how it was said in Japanese. The other problem, stemming from the "no direct translation" fact, is that often, if we were to say everything that was said in Japanese, IT WOULDN'T FIT! Remember how quickly they spoke in Speed Racer or the original Astro Boy? That's because they WERE trying to say everything they said in Japanese. Take for instance "Onegashimasu," a Japanese phrase meaning, "I wish to duel you." Tranlating it exactly as such poses a problem, because mroe mouth movements need to be performed in English to produce the phrase than the animation in Japanese allows. Thus, translators would change it to "Let's duel" in order to keep the meaning, though perhaps not ALL it's weight, intact, and make it visually and orally pleasing. But if you want Fullmetal Alchemist to sound like Speed Racer, just so you can hear EXACTLY what was said in Japanese, do ahead and protest, I'm SURE you'll like the consequences.
Now, why have I rambled on like this? Because I've come up with a theory: Had the animes been produced in America, there would be no argument as to how the actors sounded or spoke, and that the whole idea that dubs are "bad" simply stems from a completely biased comparison between the "original" - the Japanese version - and the "copy" - the English dub.
This bias doesn't exist in just Anime, but in almost ALL entertainment; the recreation is ALWAYS compared to, and almost inevitably ostricized and disliked, because it is not the original, and there lies a bias in the original's strengths that is completely unfair and in no means objective. Even in Anime, people dislike the newer manifestation of the original - Astro Boy, for instance, isn't considered as good by many as the original. Many people dislike Pierce Brosnan as Bond because "he's not as good as Sean Connery." But why? Because he's not copying Connery? If he did, it wouldn't seem natural, and it would be even worse than people say it is already.
Every actor has to come up with their own way they represent a character, and if they just copy another's preformace, there's becomes robotic and unnatural.
Again, I've come to the conclusion that the underlying reason for disliking a dubbed Anime is NOT because of the acting or vocal quality of the characters, but that it is simply viewed as a "remake," and a bias exists therefore, blindly preferring the original actors to the newer ones without regard to actually quality of acting on the part of the Japanese voice actors (hasn't anybody ever noticed that nobody calls their acting quality into question), and had the shows and movies been made in America, even with the same English voice actors, there would be no debate as to the quality of the resulting acting and quality, even if there did exist a Japanese version made afterwards, so much so to the point that even the most hardcore Otaku would prefer the American version.
I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on the matter, so go ahead (I am expecting many flames for this blasphemous theory, but bring 'em, I wanna hear!")
