Warning: Minor Profanity.

Dubs are probably the worst crap I've ever seen.
I was looking up for Gungrave back then, I was waiting and waiting.
I loaded one file, started watching it... and suddenly, I heard some English voices.

What the hell!? It's not that I don't like the voices, but the way how they are presented, try to translate expression disgusts me. I was so disapointed with dubs, that it took me 2:39 minutes to close it, and it's fucking rare I close anime just like that (The last one I recall closing it was I"s, the OAVs. The Manga is kickass, just like Love Hina based, but why the hell would they do a crappy animated 3-frame-guy-riding-his-bike for 30 seconds!? The animation sucked ass and it lowered the Manga's name.)

Has any one seen DragonBall in Japanese? I'm talking about the serious episodes, with lots of fighting and all. When Goku enrages or attacks and yells, you can actually feel his rage, leaving you filled with "anime-goosebumps". Now take the fucking FUNimation studio, who licensed DragonBall in America, how Goku yells: his 0scream is nonetheless compared to a spoiled, a missed orgasm scream.

FullMetal Alchemist, I followed the Anime since it came out in Japan. Started watching it via satelitte over Japanese channels straight from Tokyo, and decided to download the subs over the net in which people have already recorded and started dubbing them. (I could of understand 25% of the dialogues, but I figured I wanted to know the whol story after the second episode). For those who've seen the eighth episode in japanese (no worries, I'm not spoiling anything, continue reading), when Ed hits someone and cries, his voice really matched the part, it had a powerful place over the Anime. Now take the same piece of shit FUNimation studio, how they took a 17 year old to dub Ed Elric's voice and a 7 year old kid to make Alphonse's voice. Alphonse doesn't talk for most of the time, his voice sounds like he's always whining for fuck's sake. And the bastard also took the dubbing over their games! I bought FullMetal Alchemist: The Broken Angel for PlayStation2 from a hobo who knocked at my door for 20$, it was sealed, mint, brand new. I was surprised with the animation (of course, no one was talking..) but as you start playing you hear a cat-voice whiney-like yelling "Ed, let's go!" and when you recall Alphonse, he goes "Ok!". It ruined the whole game... litterally. I stopped playing right after the first saving spot and didn't continue playing ever since.

Ok, dubs would be good for people who want to constantly see the images, what's happening, and whatever.
But subs are more for people who want to know beyond the rough translation that the piece of crap companies did. I remember over one Inuyasha episode I've seen over Cartoon Network's AdultSwim, around the 130s, you hear one of the bad guys saying "I will cut you and you will be sorry" something like that. I decided to downlaod the episode, just for the heck of it. What did I get on that part, over the subbed? "I will tear you apart and crunch you over; you will then bow to me".

Some of you people say "There's a fricking problem with dubs since they concentrate mostly over closing-mouths") Well, fucking problem you mean! That ruines the whole story, the plot and the movie's ambiance. What is the closing-mouth issue? It's simple. It's when the person who's talking, when he closes his mouth, the dialogue has to end, period. Now that sucks, litteraly: since the majority of dubbers just keep on filling shit over and over until the guy finally closes his mouth. It's not only for Japanese to English, it's worldwide. I've seen a movie in French at first, and then in English. It was Forest Gump (yeah, it was a while back then). I can tell you straight off that I acted different over the English version, since I learned more stuff and heard stuff that was not mentioned over the French version and actually loved it after (I hated it when I saw the French version, until I decided to watch teh English version).

Basically, if you don't want to spoil a movie, make sure you watch it over the native language's version or else, you're in for some serious doddle-shitzelnitzel and if you are going to give feedback to movie afterwards, for fuck's sake don't send it to the company or shitty "team" who dubbed it (better yet, send not a negative but a deceiving feedback such as "Dear dubbing company, at the end of the movie I had a 5 minute reflexion on where the fuck you guys get the money or license to dub this art into a piece of rotten crap. Why do you guys keep on dubbing? Yours Truly, Anonymous") and help support the great subbing teams over the net by giving them motivation to keep up their work, and while you're at it, donate if you find it nessessary.

True. There are subbing teams that work only for the name, while others work their ass off to make the greatest dubs. Let's take ANBU, Keep when they teamed up to make FullMetal Alchemist subbed over the net. They were great, and it took almost like a week to dub an episode, to sharpen every expression and word feastured in that same episode. When it got licensed, they desguised themselves as Spoon, so they wouldn't lower their original names when if they would have been caught. But then came another subbing company, publishing episodes like 5 days before ANBU Keep, came along. A friend of mine who dubs for ANBU explained to me how disgused, how frustrating that is: they take it as competion. He was mostly pissed off becaused of how they will ruine the Anime, not because of any competition. And it was true, I downloaded one episode from them (I don't recall the subbing team's name, not worth having in mind I guess) and what was in it? The introdcution was like a RAW, no karaoke thingy (Not that I need it, buy hey..) Over the introduction, as you see the names in Japanese written over Kanji, they were litterally striked off and text such as "Encoder - Billybob345" were roughly appearing and sliding, since it was poorly encoded. As the episode starts, the subtitles's letters were like if you try to enter a text, Arial, 12, over MSPaint: crappy, not sharped, pixelish, ugly. The font was gothic-like, and you couldn't understand or read shit. When an episode finishes, it has an ending right? Well, just before it ends, the subbed version I got litterally cut through and a text such as "Missed part on the next episode, visit us over IRC (I visited it once, 4 users onli... err AFK.) and email us at username_company <at> hotmail <dot> com!!1! (Yes. The 1 was there too)" Why can't I remember the name! It should of kept the file to show it to you guys. It was in AVI and since it was wrongly encoded, the size was 320x240, blurried, 250 MBs, and for the record: it was made with Windows Movie Maker. Another great example of that kind of "competiton" would be the two subbing teams: SoulSociety and Lunar, in which Lunar is heading forward at a rapid speed, skipping lots of Japanese expressions while SoulSociety is concentrating on the expressions and ideas that the Anime realy want to bring in to the watchers. Anyway, I remember when SC was over the 42s and Lunar was already over 48 over AnimeSuki. I was forced to watch one of Lunar's subbed episode since I really wanted to know what would happen in teh next episode, and really... it wasn't confortable. It's not like switching your dog that you lived with for a brand new one, it's far from that: it's like switching into a smaller, dirty puppy... Ok, enough with the puppy comparasion, Lunar was actually working constantly without heading back to fix some expressions and voila, you get that kind of feeling that simply lowers your motivation from watching the next episodes, just because of that sub. Also for the record, I checked the same episode again, this time over SoulSociety... it was better in lots of ways: how they interpret the words, the timing was also perfect, the double-background-voices were given 50% transparency on top of the subtitles, the colors were changed whether for a person or if the person was talking but wasn't in the scene: it was great. Just make sure before you head into a subbed Anime, to actually do a small research about the subbing team (What are their projects? Where are their reputation? How many projects have they done so far? Why are they so popular? Where are the feedbacks?) and then jump into the action: download the files and play qRO while their being transfered to wherver you're downlaoding them.

Heh, I know I got loose explaining my point of view, but dubs is a topic I cannot evade or ignore. It just irks me seeing people who are so attached to dubs without ever seeing a single dub (whether they were attached too AdultSwim and the producers brainwashed them with their pointless shitty commercials such as answering mail questions, in which they never receive.., into stupid answers: I saw once "Why don't you show Hentai!!" and they answered, "Alright, just for you.". They showed a blank square over a black background... and then it jumped into another commercial... what the hell!?) or just that they are people who don't like reading while watching a movie. If you are one, I suggest you start watching subbed Anime. Why? As UnknownPG would say, cause. It's mostly popular and easy to find over the net, than crappy dubbed pile of trash that are hard to find(I hit the jackpot with Gungrave...). Test it out: go rent The Matrix for an example (It doesn't have to be anime). Turn the subtitles on. Watch the movie. I can garantee you that you will learn something new, know something you haven't known before, if you haven't seen it subbed of course.

Anyhow, my two cents.
Oh by the way, I don't want to go over the whole text to correct some typos.

What side are you on? Why?
Discuss.

Dude I am so sorry. But I could not read all that lmao.
"2 cents"? Ahahaha
Well anyway, I really don't like dubs.
It just ruins everything. I know some people like dubs because they can "enjoy the great artwork" instead. And I think that is a good defense. Because no matter how good you are at reading, it'll be hard to focus on both at the same time.
However, I just can't stand the voices. They suck. I know it's a bit mean because they try their best and whatever. But still. It doesn't feel the same.
When dealing with anime, you should go with the original.

O_o !

I read through maybe 1/4 of that, but I know what you mean. Haha sorry, it was too long for me to read.

I agree with you, I'd rather watch subtitled animes than dubbed ones. The Japanese seiyu are just much better at doing the voices that anyone else.

I remember watching Inuyasha on tv and it irritated me so much. Compared to the Japanese version, everyone sounded way wrong for their character and personality. They were either too goofy sounding, whiny or just didn't sound right. They also couldn't pronoun the names or Japanese words right!

And like in Shaman King, Ren has an English accent. What's that all about? Isn't he supposed to be chinese?? Argh >.<

Those people that dub the anime just don't project the personalities of the characters they're doing the voice for as well. It all comes out wrong. I definately try to avoid watching dubs if possible.

I prefer subs.
After some times you can read the subs and watch the anime without many problems.
And, if it is a beautiful anime, you can always watch it one more time :)

In defense of the dubbers there are some (few) works that are really good.
I talk about italian dubs.
The italian dub of Cowboy Bebop is pretty good, for example.
In plus i prefer the Spike's italian voice than the original one (it's an exception) ^^.

I have tryed to watch some animes dubbed in english for curiosity but i didn't like the voices. Never.


Enjoy :)

Well , I prefer subs , too.
Because they show only crap on TV in Germany and the Dvd's are freaking expensive. And if you want to download Dubs you can search for years. And I remember they used a girls voice for a boy -.- .
And English dubs are ... ugh. I watched one of Fruits Basket . After hearing the lovely voice of Tohru in the first 15 episodes for some reason I had to watch the 16. one in English. It was simply horrible. The japanese voice sounded shy , gently and reserved. But the english voice ... sounded like a girl , who's selfconfident and all the day busy with hunting boys -_- ' . I guess it's the same like german dubs - rubbish.

I prefer dubs

yes, there are horrible dubs out there, but there are some that are good

subs annoy me: sometimes there's one that disappears before i finish reading it, sometimes they make no sense, and it distracts me from what's going on in the background

dubs make it so much easier for me to understand the story

It's good to know the majority who posted here until now prefered subs or dubs.
And yeah, I tried to make short. I always write long posts when it comes to rants, haha.

Normally i would say subs...
But there are dubs that i think are better than their sub versions.
And that's because it fits the show more..
Like the dub of Lodoss and Orphen just fits these shows more.

And i know i would just run away in terror if LoTR had a japanese version with subs...
For some fantasy anime's dubs just fits better

In my experience, some dubs turn out OK but most... *gah*

I'm very firmly situated in the Subtitles camp. Have been for a long time and nothing I've experienced will likely change that in the near future.

Look a lot of things that people don't understand is that sure, Dubs change some words, but it's THE SAME STORY THROUGHOUT! The basic story does NOT change it's the same shit it's only a few words that change. And these are two really different languages we're talking about so it's OBVIOUS that the wording would have to be different!

I dislike Subs quite a bit, it's annoying to read the whole thing instead of watching comfortably. And Japanese voices are too high-pitched most of the time...and they scream too much >.>
Dubs are easier to watch and you understand them. Same story, same Anime, just a different Language.

I think,most of the people like subs better than dub.
it just doesn't seem right the japanese cartoon talk in english.
I think only children who can't read who will like dub.
But for me,i want the originality of the movie itself.
It work both way,i also don't like to watch american cartoon speak japanese/other language.
I think it will sound funny.
Can you imagine if bart simpsons talk japanese?

I think Subs are much preferred over Dubs. Subs may not be very accurate but it makes the anime worth watching while Dubs may be accurate but almost many of Dubs provide you with cheesy dubbing and sometimes dubs can come out with the wrong expression of the dialogue. I think Subs are the best because when you watch a subbed anime you get a great satisfaction in watching it while dubbing can leave you in a fix at times and sometimes leave you confused because some of the characters don't express what they're originally about to say or express. SO SUBS ARE BETTER THAN DUBS!

I agree with you 100%. First of all, ALL ANIME THAT HAS BEEN MADE HAS BEEN MADE WITHOUT THE INTENTION OF BEING DUBBED IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE. Thus, anime was never made to be viewed dubbed. Dubs are so bad. The Japanese voice acting much much more expressive. And people say that Japanese voices are so high pitched, well hello, the actual animation in the anime was made to take advantage of the fact that Japanese voices are of a certain pitch. When you see an english voice try to voice the same scene of that caliber, it's like bleh.

Oh and another thing, people who say subs are annoying to read or that they distract from the viewing, you might want to give Hooked on Phonics a try. Seriously, if you can't keep up with subs, you've got some other problems to worry about instead of the sub vs. dub wars. Honestly, if you're really that dumb, I don't know how you will get a lot of the real world implementations that the Japanese put into their anime. For instance, Full Metal Alchemist is a good example. Like in the last episode when Edward was talking to his father about going into space to try to get back to his own world and his father then says haven't you read Einstein's theories. Then Ed replied yes but there's ether in space. If you don't know Einstein purposed a theory about the existence of ether or gravitational ether. Where gravitational ether could be described by the curvedness of 4-dimensional space-time. Essentially, what Ed wants to do is use the fact of this existense of ether to transfer back to his dimension by using the ether thoery to manipulate the space-time continuum. And the fact that he only said this after his father asked about Einstein's theories is that Einstein's ether theory isn't a mainstream topic and mostly goes forgotten. Another less intensive example is in the Full Metal Alchemist movie, where the scene with a group of men arguing the fact that Marks (German currency) isn't worth anything. This was true in post world war 1 Germany when their economy collapsed and workers were being paid with wheel-barrels full of money because the currency wasn't worth anything. And surprise, surprise Ed ended up in the post world war 1 Germany, so the writers were emphasizing this fact. Of course there are many animes with examples like these. It is this fact that the Japanese audience is typically smarter than the North American audience. And I find this fact to be true when viewing a lot of animes and then seeing other North American reactions when they say "I don't get this."

Ok, don't get me wrong, I used to like dubs, but that was when I was an anime noob (I've watch thousands of hours of anime by now btw, check my profile for a list of the animes that I've seen and are currently watching). If you're any type of true fan, you'll soon realize that anime was meant to be viewed in Japanese, since that's the audience it was made for and intended for.

But the main reason why I prefer subs, is that you can watch anime that's currently airring in Japan at approximately the same time. You don't have to wait for it to be dubbed. And of course there's a huge variety in subs than in dubs due to the shear number difference of available anime between the two.

Dubs are definitely the worst possible. Dubs do often (or always) remove special effect sounds, which is very annoying. The original japanse version has always better empathy then the english and the music i much better. so the conclude is that subs is much better than dubs.

First, I will say that there is no such thing as a dub being better than the original. The creators of the anime choose the voice actor that they feel best represents that character. When a dub is made, you have replaced the voice that was initially intended for that character, thus changing the original work. No matter how "good" you think a dub is, it cannot even get close to matching the quality of the original. Also, as mentioned above, dubs in the US try to match the lip movements of the character. Doing this requires that a sentence in Japanese be converted in English to equal the time the lips move. Doing this process destroys the original sentence that was spoken in Japanese because that sentence in English could be shorter or longer when said. For people who say that subtitles take away from the artwork and that they can't keep up with subtitles because they go away to fast, you need to seriously learn how to read. I have no problem reading a sentence while thoroughly watching the show. If the subs have a good translation, then you understand the show far more than watching it dubbed. So yes, I am a dub hater. I'd rather watch the show in Japanese without subs, than watch the dub of it.