Dubs are awesome now

[SineSwiper]

Seriously, dubs are like my default download in terms of anime nowadays. All of these are awesome in dubs:

Hellsing
Excel Saga
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Ghost in the Shell: SAC
Darker Than Black (even though I couldn't really get into the series)
Psycho Pass
Steins;Gate (haven't started yet, but the English clips I've seen are great)

The only thing I really can't watch is Naruto, because they screwed up Naruto's dialogue. Even then, from what I've heard with the other characters isn't all that bad.

[Zeus]

Seriously? You liked FMA:Brotherhood's dubbing? I saw one ep and couldn't do it anymore. The Japanese voice acting is so good and fits so well I couldn't go down to that.

And yeah, Naruto himself is atrocious in the English dubbing, makes it unwatchable. On a side note, man the show's good when it's not on filler....

[Shrinweck]

Steins;Gate and Darker than Black both have decent dubs but since my original viewing was with the Japanese voice actors I just can't stand watching the series with different people doing the voices. When I liked Hellsing I feel like 80% of the reason I watched was Jouji Nakata's portrayal of Alucard with his amazing deep and evil voice so I'd probably include that, too.

I'd recommend trying to get back into Dark than Black, though. Probably one of my all time favorites. I just can't get into Liebrecht's portrayal of Hei. He doesn't get the desperation in his voice the way it is in the original Japanese. Series at the very least ends up having some of the coolest fight choreography I've ever seen. The second season is typically disliked since the first episode is like 80% a high school soap opera (obviously this changes) but the fights are arguably better than the first season for reasons that get spoilery.

But, yeah, there are a couple studios out there doing amazing dub work like Funimation whose work with series like Mushishi arguably surpasses the original. Truly terrible dubs seem to be a generally solved problem these days. The only unfortunate thing (don't get me wrong, I'm happy for anyone who can get steady work in show business) is that the same voice talent tends to be overused and only in rare cases do you get someone who can actually change their voice such that it's basically unrecognizable.

[Eric]

Dubs are better, still prefer Japanese 99% of the time though.

[Julius Seeker]

I always go with dubs regardless. My reasoning is simply that Japanese audio is completely unintelligible noise to me; I also find the high pitched Japanese screeching which is in many different anime shows to be some of the most unpleasant noise I have ever come across. My second objection is the act of reading subtitles which - in anime - is often a major distraction to the animation itself - subtitles are often pasted right in the middle of action scenes or other scenes that shouldn't have any such visual distractions. Adding to the distraction is that they are most often in Engrish - very poorly written.

[Shrinweck]

Sounds like all you need to do is avoid the original Japanese in shitty action anime. The screaming is definitely off putting, but there isn't much of it if you stay away from anime that doesn't portray women as shitty damsels in distress. The Japanese in anime is also very slow so if you watch enough of it it isn't difficult to discern words and emotion. In the end, the better acting usually comes from Japan because the mouth movements are literally written for them. The reason dubbing is classically shit is that it's hard to write and act within the confines of the 'mouth flaps' of another language.

Dubbed anime is certainly easier to watch for a bunch of obvious reasons. Basically unless it's an anime where the humor is going to get lost in the dubbing process (i.e. comedic timing) or that the writing is going to get localized and barely resemble what was originally written, it's usually just better to go with the dub. In the end I just try to go with whoever does the better voice work performance.



Somewhat off topic, but did anyone else notice that Netflix has its own anime original series? I think it's like two months old. It's called Knights of Sidonia. I only found it last night a little before bed so I'm only 1.5 episodes in. It's interesting, and in multiple languages. I haven't given the English version of it a go yet.

[SineSwiper]

I'd recommend trying to get back into Dark than Black, though. Probably one of my all time favorites. I just can't get into Liebrecht's portrayal of Hei. He doesn't get the desperation in his voice the way it is in the original Japanese. Series at the very least ends up having some of the coolest fight choreography I've ever seen. The second season is typically disliked since the first episode is like 80% a high school soap opera (obviously this changes) but the fights are arguably better than the first season for reasons that get spoilery.

I watched halfway through the first season before I gave up. My main beef with DtB is that instead of using an audience surrogate to explain elements of the story, they just steamroll ahead with mass confusion, and expect you to understand what's going on through osmosis.

I'm okay with mystery, where both the characters and the audience is trying to figure out some mystery within the series and are slowly trying to solve it. I have a problem when the characters KNOW what's going on, but you DON'T.

It was a series that badly needed exposition, and actually needed to slow down a bit, which is highly unusual for anime.

The only unfortunate thing (don't get me wrong, I'm happy for anyone who can get steady work in show business) is that the same voice talent tends to be overused and only in rare cases do you get someone who can actually change their voice such that it's basically unrecognizable.

That's a problem with all voice acting. Even the Japanese tend to use the same guys over and over again.

In the end, the better acting usually comes from Japan because the mouth movements are literally written for them. The reason dubbing is classically shit is that it's hard to write and act within the confines of the 'mouth flaps' of another language.

You do realize that they re-animate and sync the animation to fit the new dialogue, right? Granted, they have some time constraints, but it's the reason why the anime dubbing doesn't look like bad movie dubbing.

You could try to make the dialog match the lip animation, but then you would end up with something like Bad Lip Reading. Sure, it's funny, but it is nonsensical half the time.

[Shrinweck]

Most anime doesn't have any re-animation or syncing. They're bringing in the voice talent and it's almost entirely ADR where the actors come in and have to time their translated dialog with the mouth flaps. Big budget anime movies may have some syncing and animation touch ups but most animation series don't get this treatment. It's more expensive. It's what the voice talent complains about the most. It's why you get unnatural line readings even in good dubs where there's like a 1-2 second pause before they finish the line. It's common as all hell and basically the best reason these days to never watch dubs.

Only big leaguers like, say, Disney put in the budgets required for syncing and re-animating. That's why anime has Japanese characters or engrish all over the place 99% of the time. If they were going to go in and change minute lip movements then they could surely change the lettering.

Also there's a MUCH MUCH bigger pool of voice actors (especially women) to pull from in Japan.. it's basically a dream gig for a lot of people. In the United States places like Funimation have contracted voice talent that they pull from... It's a much more limited pool of people with a minimal 'try out' process since they know what everyone is capable of. I've heard a couple cases of people surprising them and getting a part that no one thought they'd get during the casting process, but that was still a member of said contracted voice talent.

I didn't really watch Darker than Black for the murky at best story of the incident and why everyone can do what they do. It's much better to watch the characters grow and unravel what's going on with Hei. If you try to make sense out of the dub and iffy translation (TBH I've probably seen 3-4 translations of the first season and it took about that many to even really begin to know what's going on) then yeah it isn't very solid. I'm convinced (I did get bored enough to listen to the one episode of commentary Funimation put out with the lead voice actor doing Hei on it) that even the people who translated it didn't properly understand parts of the story.

DtB is a fun story that happens to have some sci-fi in it... If you want a sci-fi story that stands on its own explanations then watch Steins;Gate ASAP. I've never actually watched it but I played the visual novel when it got released here officially back in April. It's good shit and the anime supposedly takes the 'true route' and delivers it mostly untouched. It is definitely a series where I could never, ever watch a dub of it. The guy who voices the protagonist knocks it out of the fucking park. I did watch the movie though. I recommend that, too, for the most part.

[Don]

The Japanese's idea of voice acting is whether you can replicate the 5 or so generic voices that matches each character prototype so they're very consistent if you're into that kind of thing but if not then it's pretty stupid. The English guys tend to be more freeform. For example I think it's the same person voice for Spike and Solid Snake and the Jedi Knight in SWTOR and they're not exactly alike. Similar, yes, but it's not like someone say 'you got to do Spike's voice again'.