Anime Addiction : Anime Subbed VS Anime Dubbed

I know it has been some time since I have posted something substantial or at all really, but I will address it in another post. In this post I want to address one of the biggest rivalries in the history of anime. English Sub or English Dub. To put in a more detailed manner; I want to address the two sides of the coin. Should you watch anime with subtitles or should you watch anime which has been dubbed into English, or any other language for that matter.

Let’s forget about anime for a second here. I am a guy who watches a lot of films from other languages, and most of the time, it is a language that I do not know. Some of my favorite movies are from countries like Russia, Germany, France and Sweden. That being said I also watch and, sometimes, even enjoy more regional and national films; say Tamil films, Malayalam films or Hindi Films. Heck I have even watched a film in Telugu just to see how over the top it can get, and trust me guys, they have anime beat in that aspect. Forget Attack on Titan, a guy did a heart transplant when he was fighting bad guys. If that is not spectacular, I don’t know what is.

Jokes apart though, a large chunk of films that I do watch aren’t in a language that I know or understand. Sure I understand Tamil, and I do know to speak Hindi, but that is the extent of my linguistics skills. It is because of this that, ninety nine percent of the time, when I watch movies form a different language, I either read subtitles or go for a dub. This applies to anime too.

If I were to tell you my preference, be it anime or any other media, I would choose subtitles over dubs any day. But that doesn’t mean that once in a while I won’t watch dubbed anime. Here is what I am going to do, I am going to discuss both the sides and give you what I think are the pros and cons of both, in the hope that I can help you decide on whether you want to watch anime dubbed or subbed.

Subtitles

One thing about watching the original is that it will be voiced to perfection. Japanese as a language has a lot of quirks and so does any language. Since anime in itself is a very “Japanese” product, the best voice will be provided in Japanese.

The way that anime works is that all the animation will be done before hand and the cast will provide voice directly for each episode. They won’t be involved until the very end of the production cycle. Since this is the case, most anime characters don’t move their mouth in different ways when they speak. You can only see them open and close it approximately when the dialogues are spoken. But here is the thing; sometimes an animator may just give precise lip movements to a character, like in the case of Akira, and the animation will sync up with the way that Japanese is spoken and not any other language. We always tend to notice it when lip synching is off even by a small percent. Well what if we see that throughout the run time of the show or movie. That’s right, not exactly flattering.

Ninety five percent of the time, the subtitles are a direct translation of what the characters are saying on the screen and this means that you get the actual meaning behind the words. A brilliant example of this is when Motoko Kusanagi remarks that she may be out of focus because of her menstrual cycle, or lack thereof, in the beginning of Ghost in the Shell, is actually completely omitted and changed in the original English-dub of the film but, for some odd reason, the official subtitles do not change that dialogue in any way.

I have also noticed that the Japanese voices just seem more natural when the characters are shouting or cursing and also surprisingly quirky in certain places. This could also be attributed to the fact that in most voice acting sessions the Japanese cast works together with the final cut of the film, but most of the English cast just voice them alone. This situation provides the Japanese voice actors with the chance to play off each other depending on how someone phrases their lines.

All of this being said though, subtitles can also be very distracting, when the characters are speaking rapid fire Japanese. I have paused to read some of the complex scenes in certain shows and it can get quite frustrating at times. It is also difficult when many characters are speaking on screen at the same time. Unless the subtitles are color coded, you have no idea who is saying what. And there are also the few times that the actual translation of the dialogues is done in the worst possible manner and the subtitles have no grammar whatsoever.

Dubbed

What’s great about watching anime dubbed is that you can concentrate all your attention on what is happening on the screen. You don’t have to follow something on the bottom, only to miss an important detail because you were too busy reading the subtitles.

The greatest fact that nobody can deny is the fact that dubbing brings a large audience to the material. Not everybody has the patience to read subtitles, and dubbing removes that problem altogether. It makes anime more accessible and that is a very good thing. Like I mentioned earlier, it is so much easier to hear characters talk over each other in a language that you know rather than having to pause and wonder who the hell said what.

Most of the time, an English dub is the first dub which is done after the Japanese version. Provided the dubbing is actually good, this will open the chances of the anime getting dubbed into other languages, and that is always a great thing.

But the greatest problem with dubbed anime is that, in my opinion at least, it loses an integral part of itself. Unless the dub is exceptionally good, most of the dialogues end sounding a bit off and sometimes even devoid of emotion. This is particularly evident in scenes where the characters are shouting, where in they sound constipated when they are dubbed over, and also in emotional or innocent characters, where the voice actors sound disinterested. This is probably English words in general doesn’t allow much flex room in terms of actual pronunciation without coming off as sounding stupid.

I classify English dubs into three categories; bad, okay and great. Here is a small video showcasing some examples, and yes I did make the video, and no, I don’t legally own any of the content in it as they are properties of their respective studios.

In conclusion, personally I prefer the subbed version over the dubbed version. But, if a good enough dub as in the case of Black Lagoon I will watch that. I hope this post provided you with some idea about whether you want to watch anime dubbed or subbed. There are a lot of anime fans who say that “Real Fans don’t watch the Dubs”. To that I say, stop being an obnoxious prick, and be happy about the fact that the thing that you enjoy so much is actually becoming more popular. Until next time;

Peace!!!