deathnote, subbed or dubbed?

Tar.Aldarion

Which do you prefer and why? I find English quality is usually not so great, how is it for deathnote?

Numina

Subbed, because I'll take a potato chip and eat it.

Tar.Aldarion

ahaha

Nody

Subbed 4 life! The English voices always fail to express the appropriate tones of Japanese.

Evade

Nody wrote: »

Subbed 4 life! The English voices always fail to express the appropriate tones of Japanese.

I'm the complete opposite. I almost exclusively watch dubs because with subs even though I know what they're saying, I don't know how they're saying it.

cocoshovel

I havent watched Death Note, but Im going to go ahead and say subbed because subbed is always better than the dub. Dubs are usually pretty poor in general and what Nody said above me.
Hell even the so called good dubs aren't even that great to be honest, they're just a lot better than the usual cringeworthy crap.

cocoshovel

Evade wrote: »

I'm the complete opposite. I almost exclusively watch dubs because with subs even though I know what they're saying, I don't know how they're saying it.

This is something that can be lost with dubs too. If you watch subs you eventually get an understanding for how they're saying it from hearing the language so much. Avoid poor fansubbers too (horriblesubs/Crunchyroll & GG to name a few)

Nollog

Evade wrote: »

I'm the complete opposite. I almost exclusively watch dubs because with subs even though I know what they're saying, I don't know how they're saying it.

Really?
How can you tell any emotion at all from someone just blankly reading a line from a page?
The Japanese voices express feeling with their words, and I think feelings of how a word is said and what it means in the context is universal.
I'd compare it to someone saying "row", are they on a boat, are they in a fight?
I can't tell any emotion when I watch a dub, but subs allow me to hear the way the character is saying what's there in subtitles.

I watch dubs when I can, because reading is a pain though.

Evade

/\/ollog wrote: »

Really?
The Japanese voices express feeling with their words, and I think feelings of how a word is said and what it means in the context is universal.

The thing is I don't know what the word that's said in a particular way means so it's lost on me.

Also, I rarely watch TV without doing something else at the same time which makes subs even more awkward.

ArtOfEscape

Evade wrote: »

The thing is I don't know what the word that's said in a particular way means so it's lost on me.

Also, I rarely watch TV without doing something else at the same time which makes subs even more awkward.

This is me pretty much to a tee. I have no ear for Japanese expression of emotion and don't really have much time to devote to developing one, so I prefer dubs where they're available. Even the rubbish ones communicate more clearly to my untrained ear than the subtitles! Personally I found Deathnote to be one of the better voiced series.

Besides, I presume it is possible to have not-great Japanese voice actors as well as English ones? I think blanket statements on the dub/sub debate invariably come down to personal preference rather than broad generalisations about quality.

ArtOfEscape

Nody wrote: »

Subbed 4 life! The English voices always fail to express the appropriate tones of Japanese.

That's what you'd expect, though, surely? The words aren't a direct translation so neither can the expression of the tone be exactly the same. And it's not like English-speaking actors do the whole thing monotone - they do inject emotion into their performances.

Nody

ArtOfEscape wrote: »

That's what you'd expect, though, surely? The words aren't a direct translation so neither can the expression of the tone be exactly the same. And it's not like English-speaking actors do the whole thing monotone - they do inject emotion into their performances.

But by comparison to how the tone of voice is used in Japanese anime the English narrators in a dubbed are monotone in their use of tone.

Here's an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfn9HqZKrfM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7ks9jMSXe4

zero19

Subbed all the way always.

NinjaNinja

Personally I think that the dubbing on Death Note is quite good.

120percentDash

Not a sub vs dub argument :mad: I prefer dubs but that's just me, I really don't understand the people who say that dubs have no emotion, I mean I have come across a few dubs with crappy acting but that's just a minority. Most dubs have great acting, for instance the baccano dub sounds almost like it's meant to be in english.

CastorTroy

Personally I prefer dubbed for anime and sub for live action. My reason being that bad dubbing/syncing is not as obvious in animated characters and, unlike live action, there's usually stuff happening onscreen that you want to concentrate on without reading the subtitles.

That and a lot of time there are some girls with very high pitched annoying voices that can go through me in the sub.

Of course I watched the live action movies with subs. So guess you could say I prefer both.

Sweded

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Which do you prefer and why? I find English quality is usually not so great, how is it for deathnote?

I'll go for subbed, I really find original actor, actresses voice much appealing.