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Subtitled or Dubbed?
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11-03-2010 11:31am#1This may have been asked before. As a matter of fact, I'd be very surprised if it hasn't. How do you prefer watching anime? Dubbed or subtitled?
I prefer subtitled myself. I just have bad memories of the p1ss poor dubbing that was done originally way back when. I know it has improved a lot (esp when Lasseter oversaw the Ghibli translations/dubbings) and some people have even said that the dubbing can be better than the original soundtracks: Cowboy Bebop is normally mentioned.
However I find it grating. I normally find the voice acting jars with what is on the screen. It's normally ridiculously OTT and melodramatic (IMO of course). Also, a lot of times there is just unnecessary additions to the dialogue: A manly or girlie "Yeah, sure, why not" or something where originally there was a silent nod or a nod and a simple "eh".
Sometimes there are just additions to make a scene "more dramatic" I'm thinking of the scene in Castle In The Sky where Patzu (sp?) "sees" his father in the storm. Originally the dramatic storm music faded out to silence and, as far as I can recall, you see him yelling silently. In the dubbing the dramatic music stays and you hear him yell "Dad". I thought the fading out was much more effective. In Kiki, when she leaves the family originally you hear, but don't see, her smacking off buildings, trees, bins etc and it was pretty funny. In the dubbing the music plays over that.
So basically, sub or dub?Which do you prefer when watching anime? 44 votes
Sub0%Dub68%
30 votes
Depends2%
1 vote
I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!29%
13 votes
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DubThe only dub I ever listen to is the Akira rerelease, mostly for nostalgias sake.
Besides the generally much higher standard in the Japanese VA industry, another reason I watch subs is that I find fansubs to be much more accurate and uncompromising in their translations than the licensing companies and their translators. Some of the better ones even include notes on signs and culture references in the dialogue. Not to mention the complete lack of censoreship with fansubs.
Yeah, I pretty much hate localisation, almost with a passion. Your job is to help me understand the dialogue - do that and don't feck around with anything else
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DubSubtitled 99.9% of the time...not just for animated films but any film/show.
I find dubs distracting as the animator has spent time animating to the mouth movements of the original sound track and I find it hard to watch dubs that don't match up. A few studios spend the time on the dubs but only the big ones that can afford to. Some cheaper animated films and shows there's not much difference as the animation is super limited and in a very very few rare cases the dub is better [the only example I can ever think of for this is Golden Boy where the voice actor for the english is so insanely over the top it really works with the show
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I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!You people are weird. Why would you forsake this kind of QUALITY?
In all honesty some dubs are well done like Hellsing Ultimate or Ghost in the Shell. It really helps if the series is set somewhere where they're supposed to be speaking English or where there are no children, teenagers or everyday living. In those situations you quickly get into jokes or mannerisms that don't work in English.
The problem with dubs is they have to translate the Japanese script and fit it into the scenes timing all while trying to make it sound like natural English. Usually this involves changing the script slightly. Which sometimes works out really well in stuff like Yu Yu Hakasho. The subbed version of that was really bland. Saying English dubs should be easy because they animate the mouth movements first is a load of horse dung. They're working off a Japanese script in a Japanese scene with Japanese mannerisms.
Another thing is animes sometimes have a lot of yelling or emphasizing every syllable. They're much easier in Japanese as nearly all their words and syllables have vowel endings. But it ****s up the dub timings. People really don't give dub companies enough credit when they get it right.The only dub I ever listen to is the Akira rerelease, mostly for nostalgias sake.
Besides the generally much higher standard in the Japanese VA industry, another reason I watch subs is that I find fansubs to be much more accurate and uncompromising in their translations than the licensing companies and their translators. Some of the better ones even include notes on signs and culture references in the dialogue. Not to mention the complete lack of censoreship with fansubs.
Yeah, I pretty much hate localisation, almost with a passion. Your job is to help me understand the dialogue - do that and don't feck around with anything else
A translations job is to seamlessly represent the scene in another language. Those "cultural notes" take it way too far. You shouldn't be reading about the Meiji restoration or some **** like that in the middle of a scene. Or having Japanese honorifics thrown in with English. Or using Japanese names when they have perfectly good English translations. Some even go so far as to explain things even the Japanese audiences didn't get. Wtf? Fansubbers know better than the creators now? And those are the GOOD subs. Don't get me started on the **** for brains that stick in notes with their own observations on the scene. That's hardly not fecking around with things.
Comparing well done fansubs to crappy professional jobs with tons of localisation and censorship is unfair. Get subs from a real licensing company and you'll see they're much better than fansubs.0 -
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I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!Here's a good parody of everything wrong with fansubbers complete with obnoxious Karaoke:
Honorifics do not enrich anything. They only degrade proper English. If you want them just listen for them yourself. You talk about high degree of accuracy in fansubs translations. Just because they put in notes about how much they know about Japanese pop culture and don't blatantly localize doesn't make them accurate. You'd be surprised how much they make up when it gets too hard. Remember, a lot of these people are just fansubbing to learn Japanese. Which is why their fansubs look like transliterations and they have a load of notes. A transliteration is not a proper translation.
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Dub
Okay, we'll put it down to a matter of opinion. At this stage, I've learned what they mean and like being able to instantly tell where one character stands in relation to another and to what degree. For someone who isn't familiar with them, I'll admit, it could be annoying, but then the effort required to learn them is absolutely minimal, and I imagine someone who wishes to hear the original language wouldn't mind picking up a thing or two.DingChavez wrote: »Honorifics do not enrich anything. They only degrade proper English. If you want them just listen for them yourself.
No, I was probably generalising before, but I didn't mean there was a high degree of accuracy in fansubs, I meant that I enjoy fansubs that do have a high degree of accuracy. The whole point of that comment was that for a given anime, you could likely find a translation from a fansub group more accurate than the licensed version.DingChavez wrote: »You talk about high degree of accuracy in fansubs translations. Just because they put in notes about how much they know about Japanese pop culture and don't blatantly localize doesn't make them accurate.
It entirely depends on which group you're talking about. And yes, I do know the difference between a transliteration and translationDingChavez wrote: »You'd be surprised how much they make up when it gets too hard. Remember, a lot of these people are just fansubbing to learn Japanese. Which is why their fansubs look like transliterations and they have a load of notes. A transliteration is not a proper translation.
Okay, I'm realising now that much of the problem is with me over-generalising in my original post - apologies for that, I didn't really expect to be called up on it. You'd be right in a lot of your points there when talking about certain groups but you can't paint them all with the same brush. For every group that get's it right, there are obviously several that get it wrong.
I guess the point I'm really trying to make here is not that fansubs are inherently more accurate (blatantly not true, licensed translators are paid for a reason :pac:), more that fansub groups aren't under any pressure to appeal to as wide an audience as possible and that allows them a greater freedom in their translation which some groups do take advantage of to great effect.0 -
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I can't read you inconsiderate jerk!As I've said, sometimes I like subbed, but at time I also like dubbed.
I however do hate having to pause scenes in action scenes, or having to rewind and play back scenes if a character has an argument with a foe, with paragraphs of reading
Happened in Gundam Wing 00 and FMP sometimes. Quite annoying 0
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