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I Don't Like Dubs

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EDIT July 2013: Since this has come up a few times lately, the "makes my ears bleed" phrasing is just HYPERBOLE! Geez! It sounded more entertaining for a stamp to say "makes my ears bleed" than "I very very strongly dislike most dubs but there are exceptions such as ______". That's what description spaces are for! :|

I swear to God some of you are too damn touchy about things like this. It's an AUDIO PREFERENCE, not political or religious debate that insults your mother. Lighten up!




EDIT September 2012: Good God do those of you who love dubs ever get bent out of shape when someone dislikes them! This is just a stamp for my own personal use in my shout box, not a mission to convert everyone to subtitles.

There have been plenty of you who have disagreed with me in a perfectly polite and civil manner and the resulting conversations about it have been cool, but those few who get so angry about it? Yeesh. Obnoxious, name calling, rude, making assumptions about me, you name it and they've done it. Because of these few, I've decided to make my previously short description into a long-winded essay just to make them get off my back.

People have opinions. They will not always be in sync with yours. That is okay. There is no need to get belligerent with people just because they dislike something you like. I have tried my best to be as civil as possible to those of you who have gotten their undies in such a twist over this (despite the nasty attitudes I've received from you in return), but come ON, people. Some of your reasons for me being "wrong" are absolutely ridiculous!

That being said, these are some of the things I keep getting over and over from the ones who get so pissed off over this stamp (with answers that are my OPINION, not fact):

You say all this stuff like it's a fact when it isn't!

That would be why I have repeatedly said "I think", "to me", "in my opinion", "my personal preference", "we'll agree to disagree", etc. At no time do I ever state any of my opinions as fact because they aren't. They're my personal opinions and the reasons that I hold those personal opinions.

You just like subs because you've never listened to dubs. If you'd just listen to the dub before the sub then you'd like it!

That's an assumption, and an incorrect one at that. I've watched dubs. It's how I got started with anime via Adult Swim in 2002. Furthermore, my dad is severely dyslexic with letters so if I watch anime with him it MUST be in English because he can't keep up with subtitles. When my niece was little I watched dubs with her because at first she couldn't read at all and then once she learned how, her reading skills weren't advanced enough to keep up with subtitles. Now that she's 16 she watches both dubs AND subs and enjoys them both.

I watched the first 40 or so episodes of Inuyasha when they debuted in 2002. I was okay with the dub because I didn't know any better, but once I found fansubs of later episodes (when CN started the episodes over for re-runs) I vastly preferred the Japanese cast. I have heard several other dubs on Adult Swim and in my viewings with my dad, and based on those viewings I have come to the conclusion that I prefer the original Japanese casts when it comes to anime.

How dare you "bash" dubs and say all of them suck!

Giving reasons for disliking something isn't "bashing" it, so calm down. I've seen plenty of you say terrible things about Japanese casts, so chill and try to hold yourselves to the same standards that you hold me to if you absolutely do not like anything negative being said about your audio choice.

At no time in my conversations in the comments here do I say that all dubs suck no matter what. It's a stamp, so the words are short. It isn't meant to be a soap box statement, it's just for my personal use. To make a blanket statement that ALL dubs suck would be incorrect and rather stupid since 1) it wouldn't be true and 2) blanket statements are never correct no matter what you're talking about. This stamp isn't literal. I thought that was obvious given the hyperbole, but apparently it isn't.

There ARE dubs that I like! They are rare, but they exist. Any of Studio Ghibli's movies from the last 15 years or so have wonderful dubs, Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle to be specific, and I watch them frequently. I dislike Disney's dub of My Neighbor Totoro (Dakota Fanning's Satsuki was very hollow in her emoting, imo), but I adore the Fox dub from the 80s. If any of you haven't heard that one, you should try to track it down. It's charming. For regular television anime, I don't mind Cowboy Bebop (for what little I've seen of it) and I prefer the dub for Black Jack. There are some others, but you get my drift.

You hate dubs just because they're not Japanese and you're a weeaboo who hates English and thinks Japan is wonderful.

More than one of you have said that to me. Come on, seriously? Me thinking that the source language has more depth and subtle emotion to it than the dub doesn't make me a weeaboo, nor does it mean I hate English. Why the hell would I hate a language? Sure, I think Japan has an interesting culture and I would love to visit there sometime, but that doesn't make me a weeaboo, either. As far as permanent residency goes, I'm just fine staying right here in the States, thanks.

I don't dislike dubs just because they aren't Japanese. That's a stupid reason to dislike something. I generally dislike dubs for everything, no matter what language it's dubbed from. Whenever I watch ANYTHING foreign, I always listen to it in its original language with English subtitles turned on. I don't do it because I hate English, I do it because I want to watch whatever it is I'm watching the way the creators originally intended it to be portrayed. Whether it be movies like Amelie, Pan's Labyrinth, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or anime, I listen to the original language track. I don't believe I'm hurting anyone by doing so.

Why is it deemed totally acceptable by fanatical dub lovers to listen to movies from other countries in their original language with subtitles, but if you do it with anime it's suddenly a CARDINAL SIN? It's the same damn thing!

I generally dislike dubs because (for television) the acting always seems rather shallow, over-the-top, or flat. The acting pool just isn't that deep for English dubs, imo, and is why the Disney dubs of Studio Ghibli movies are really great: they use A-list Hollywood actors. That makes the voice acting on-par with the depth the original language has. That being said, I have nothing against dub actors. I just don't like the way they portray their characters. Scott McNeil is a perfect example in that I absolutely ADORE him as a person from the times I've chatted with him at conventions, but I can't STAND his version of Kouga. It's so over-the-top it just sounds silly to me.

Japanese has a different flow and sentence structure to it than English does, so many times the places within English dubbing that are vocally accentuated aren't the same places in Japanese. It's like how we say "He has green pants" but in Spanish, for example, they literally say "He has pants green". It doesn't mesh. Because of that, the action of the characters on the screen doesn't always fit the cadence of the dubbing, which throws things off. Matching mouth movements to English words also screws around with the script sometimes.

In the worst dub examples the English actors twist the portrayals of their characters into something completely different than in Japanese. Again using Inuyasha as an example since it's the series I'm most passionately familiar with: Monica Stori butchered Kagome in the dub, and that butchering has caused a lot of really unfair hatred toward the character. She made Kagome ditzy and annoying as hell when she's anything but in the Japanese. Her voice is actually pretty sweet when she's not yelling, and she isn't a ditz, she's just completely out of her element at first. Richard Cox, even though he's a sweetheart in interviews and I love him as a person... he did not do good things for Inuyasha. He made Inuyasha whiny and more than a bit dense. I can't STAND Jaken in English because he's so friggin' annoying, but he's one of my favorite characters in Japanese because he's just humorous rather than grating.

Combine that with a lot of other shortcomings of the dub and I really do think it has tarnished the overall view of the series by American audiences as I have experienced at conventions. Most people roll their eyes if you tell them your favorite anime is Inuyasha, as though it's just so silly, childish, and inferior that it's ridiculous to like it so much. In my opinion, the dub DOES dumb it down and make the characters more shallow and in some cases infinitely more annoying. It saddens me since the series has so much depth in it's characters and their relationships with each other that, in my opinion, is lost in English.

You are trying to convert people to dubs!

Or any variation of that sentiment, also false. I don't give a rat's patootie if you prefer dubs. Really, I don't. Enjoy them! Watch all the dubs you want. More power to you! I just don't watch them when I pop in a DVD. It's really not that big of a deal.

You don't speak Japanese, so how do you know it's better than English? You don't understand what they're saying!

Even if you can't understand a language fluently doesn't mean you can't recognize sadness, anger, tenderness, seriousness, joking, angst, or happiness. The vocal tone and actions within the animation do that job just fine. It's like that Fiat commercial with the Italian woman rattling off a bunch of Italian to a guy who doesn't know Italian. The commercial gives NO subtitles, but you can still tell that she's pissed off and offended at first, then serious, then seductive. Japanese is no different, nor is any other foreign language you don't speak.

Acting is conveying emotions of a character. The vocal tone and body language/facial expression give you the feel for the quality of the acting. The subtitles tell you what they're saying while conveying the emotions you hear.

Even Japanese people prefer dubs over the Japanese casts!

All I can say to that is what the fuck. It's one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard about the issue and it makes absolutely no sense at all, common or statistical. What is this I don't even.

If you don't like dubs you're not supporting the anime industry in the United States!

This is a weak argument. American released DVDs have a Japanese audio track with English subtitles as an option. My money is just as green as anyone else's when I buy those DVDs, and that money still goes to Funimation/VIZ/whatever licensing company owns that franchise. I also buy the merch and manga for those series. Again, the money goes to the same people.

You're an asshole for insulting dub lovers!

At no time have I ever insulted someone or called them names just because they like dubs. Saying I have makes it a lot easier to make me out to be an asshole, but just saying it doesn't make it true. Insulting someone because of an audio preference opinion is painfully stupid.

Now, this isn't directed at every single person who has disagreed with me on this stamp. I have had pleasant conversations with some of you about the issue whether we agree or not, and that's totally cool. To those select few who are seemingly incapable of doing so, though:

Dubs vs. subs is a ridiculously stupid thing to get so bent out of shape over. It's an AUDIO PREFERENCE, not a personal insult to your existence as a human being. A stranger's audio preference really shouldn't be that friggin' important to you! There's no need to insult someone for having a differing opinion.
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Artsy-Pasty's avatar
Especially the 4kidz dubs.