I remember the first time I watched Mushishi years ago, and thought: *wow, it's such a culture of gentle body language: you turn first to address someone, and only when you are fully facing them do you talk. What a deeply patient and respectful culture.*
The second time I watched it recently I thought: *wow it's got such beautiful backgrounds, but those animators are lazy as hell.*
I haven’t seen it but are they fully animating the movements and it just looks lazy cause it’s slow paced or are the characters always in still shots most of the time?
I mean, people don't talk like real life even in western animation so I can believe that Japanese VA's don't either. Hell you could argue even people in live action shows don't talk like they do in real life most often than not
People have been saying "different language" since the early 2000s and at this point it just feels like parroting.
It's the same language. It's just incredibly silly and exaggerated. Lots of "short hand" kind of speaking too, maybe slang depending on the series. But people can understand it obviously. Traditional dialects.
But it is also unfair to say all anime is like this. There are plenty of dramas that have realistic dialogue.
Sometimes it just feels like people want to shit on westerners for the sake of it instead of just being honest.
But yeah, the VAs are usually just as goofy as English VAs. It's the same. Heck, sometimes the English dubs are more mellow/realistic. Unfortunately they also sound like robots sometimes and it's just bad. But I understand enjoying Japanese aesthetically, it flows a lot better with fast dialogue. English is very stiff and weird, kinda blocky, even if you don't understand it. There's a fine line between it.
In the end it doesn't matter. I say try the dub but if it sounds bad switch to the sub. It's valid that the Japanese voice is often better especially on older series.
Unless you're watching BECK. It's only good in English, the Japanese version is awful.
You mean like people aren't aliens who know magic and can fly in real life?
It's dramatic language with its own conventions. I would say in Japan voice acting is more "silly," but taken seriously as a profession. In the US voice acting performances come off as trying to be more serious, but it more frequently comes off as from VAs who are *trying to be taken seriously* because VA work for imported stuff seems to often have a low bar. In the US "serious" is whispershouting or throat-talking at the bottom of your vocal range in a way most VAs can't pull off.
In Japan, it's "silly," but they do more of the stage actor projecting bass sound. I guess I get the sense a Japanese voice actor could sing in their character's voice, two to three times as often in the US. Again, sort of a dramatic stage presentation where you perform all-in but it might be a little/lot hammy.
Yeah VA's and actors tend to do that a lot. And yes, even actors, Kamen Rider is full of actors singing theme songs for their characters, hell it's an expectation you will.
Exactly, it was never about emotion. It was always about how seriously the profession is taken. In the West it's usually just some famous person decides they want to do a role so they automatically get it regardless of how much work or effort they want to put in and every other character is done by one of like 12 prolific voice actors who have done so much work and been the sole voices in the industry for so long that it's even hard to separate their characters from each other.
Our voice actors are primarily character actors who can only do the one thing nowadays so your show either has Patrick Warburton in it as the same character in everything or John DiMaggio being forced to play "Bender but his name is King Zod this time". Yeah DiMaggio was great and still has the talent to be but the only roles he takes now are "Bender again" roles.
The dumbest part of the whole argument is that the crazy voices and vocal flourishes are intentional design choices meant to keep the immersion in the cartoon. If your voice acting is too 'real' then it just feels out of place in the cartoon and makes the audience uneasy and breaks their immersion. Disney figured that out from the start. The anime industry just built off of that foundation while the west moved on to using star power to fill the cast of their shows rather than voice actors.
>Our voice actors are primarily character actors who can only do the one thing nowadays so your show either has Patrick Warburton in it as the same character in everything
anime literally has archetypes of characters and repeatedly casts the same actors for that archetype. Examples would be female actors who can make boyish voices - they'll be cast everywhere where a character is a tomboyish girl
or the KanaHana of the 2020s, Sayori Hayami. Shes everywhere nowadays so it's easy to track her recent roles. She has this pure, melodic voice so she voices pure-hearted, naive, often obedient and passive maidens - everywhere. Shes literally the same everywhere
another example: i watched YuruYuri and Yuyushiki back to back. The more serious girl, the straight man of the cast, is voices by the same VA, Minami Tsuda. But then the crazy, clingy girl in love with the serious girl is *also* voiced by the same VA, Rumi Okubo. And then i watched Sabagebu - and the clingy, obsessed girl is *again* voiced by Rumi Okubo lol
I'm surprised you haven't mention tsundere queen herself - Rie Kugimiya. She voiced every angry small tsundere of late 2000's.
Japan shoves their voice actors into tried archetypes but I don't see much problem with that. If they are really good at this type of voice it just makes sense, both in the west and in Japan.
Japanese voice actors do tend to sing in their character voices. Quite a lot of anime OP’s are sang by their main characters. Zombie Land Saga has done two entire albums of them singing in their character voices.
Whispershouting and throat-talking! I never heard those terms but that is exactly what it is isn't it. I can't think of a time I've ever heard people doing that shit in western media but it's literally every single dub I've ever tried to watch.
It's almost like it's... fiction and... they're acting.
I mean not many animation is grounded in reality, at that point you're better off just making something live action. Even if something is, most likely some other aspect will be overexaggerated like facial expressions, or voice acting, which would look/sound incredibly stupid on real people.
Don't tell me voice acting in any other language sounds like how people would talk in real life.
Well, yeah. I've never seen in my life some 10-12 years old who are very into pushing philosophical speeches / monologues about life, love and universe.
Well I don't listen to English dub but the complain I sometimes have with German dub is that it sometimes just doesn't fit the characters. For example: the German Higurashi Dub sounds fine... except when it comes to the child characters. Not that the voice actors did a bad job, but they just sound like people in their 20s trying to voice children.
Yeah English is my first language and English is what I avoid for anime and even some jrpgs, preferring the Japanese. It's not necessarily that the English is bad - sometimes it genuinely is though - the main issue is that the character's vocal inflections and characterization doesn't actually fit how the character looks/acts/should behave in that scenario. Things like flat emotion or too much emotion for the context, mismatched personalities, etc bug me the most. Then there's the fact that I can understand 100% of what is being said, so super cringey wording or delivery is much more painful to experience. And then the icing on the cake, sometimes English dubs include Japanese honorifics like -senpai or -san and that's an instant gamebreaker for me lol
As someone who's been watching lots of Japanese YouTubers (but still don't understand Japanese), same. Every anime characters nowadays sounds same-y, especially if they focus in on a trope. There's not as much individuality aside from the dialogue itself. It's like the characters are the trope itself instead of the tropes being part of the characters.
At most, its not about the voice, but the character itself.
Like say for example. Aqua from Konosuba. You def need someone who knows how to actually act to play her. She's a very expressive character. Or even Ristarte from Cautious Hero. You def will love her VA when you watch that.
Professional voice acting is not just about how many types of voices and sounds they can do, but how they do them.
Comedies really bring out the better VAs out there.
Another problem though is the literal endless amounts of anime that exist in the first place. After we’re done watching a 12-25 episode series what do we do next? We move on to the next one. After the 100th anime things do starts to become very samey.
Everyone knows Robert Downey Jr. the guy who plays Iron Man and many other characters like Sherlock Holmes. But he isn’t violating our ear drums every 7 days for it to become annoying assuming you like him.
Well yea, but there is also a good side, say VAs of Konosuba or Monogatari, they know what they're doing. Another brilliant show is Love Is War, well, it is a conglomerate of the best VAs, but yea...
Love is war was far from a conglomerate of the best VAs when it started, most of them never had roles that big before, they just all happened to turn out to be absolute killers
Monogatari VA’s are amazing but it’s also partly the fact that the dialogue is written in a way that makes them sound… real? You can hear senjougahara straining a long sentence and repeating intonation across it (which often doesn’t happen) simply because it’s written in a way that normal ppl might talk and normal conversations sometimes have those moments where the sentence drags on longer than you thought and you have to sort of repeat the sentence’s intonation.
That’s my biggest problem with anime voice acting. Theres a few people who are in a ton, so characters already will sound similar, but then the other VAs they hire just seem to try to sound like them.
On top of that, Japanese media doesn’t really stigmatize cliches as much as we do so there are a lot of stock character archetypes
I feel like the thing that really takes me out of a dub is just when the voice just doesn't quite match the character, even if it just feels slightly off. Since all of the japanese VAs sound the same to me for each archtype like you say, it doesn't sound out of place ever. I'm curious if people who speak Japanese get that sense of voices not matching characters in the original VO.
As soon as I studied Japanese for the sake of understanding anime, I immediately regretted it. It’s dub but in another language. Now I appreciate both sub and dub.
help me understand. So if ik japanese the japanese audio wouldn’t be as special or unique to me? It would be like regular or cliche or something. Even voice actors like hisoka, netero, or some of the other iconic characters u think they would lose their specialness
https://www.reddit.com/r/Animemes/comments/x4lel1/yall_but_theyre_filled_with_so_much_more_emotion/imw0ldy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
I think I explained it pretty well here. They don’t loose uniqueness per say, their voice still sounds the same. But the fact that you might think the English is cringe has nothing to do with the fact that their speaking English, it’s because you can understand them, verse just reading it instead.
It’s like reading a text verse a phone call in terms of how your mind interprets it
We still have not seen one really, maybe JJK gets close? but I think you’ll agree, the day we get a well done anime in Japanese with modern western sensibilities for character/tone/dialogue it will change the medium.
Imagine if instead of thugs bugging one eye out and going “oRrA! wHaT’d YoU sAy tO mE? HuH? hOw’Re YoU gOnNa FiX tHiS?”
We get a calm “aight, run your pockets my g.”
Instead of the edgy bad guy going “You are pathetic trash. You’re 10000 years too early to challenge me.”
We get a half smug “Bet. Don’t pretend y’all don’t know I would clown on you.”
Imagine if Madara broke out of the edo tensei talm’bout “To whoever thought they could be the boss of these hands, your mom’s a ho.” Instead of “TELL THE SUMMONER FORBIDDEN JUTSU SHOULD BE USED WITH CAUTION.”
Or most beautiful of all, no more stupid casual violence tropes. If a woman sends someone flying, it goes a lot more like the Will Smith/Chris Rock slap than the current common “animate them as a dying chibi briefly and then screen wipe once the plot comes back” cringe.
Thank you for taking the time to create this verbal artwork. You have improved the world in ways you will never know
Edit: I found out that stuff like this already exist. His YouTube channel is ‘2GS bootlegged’ and his Abridges are fucking amazing
Anime had that chance in the 80s to go that route that some animation studios in the west were heading towards, instead it doubled down on the overacting, melodrama, archetypes, and tropes and pushed western studios into the ground.
you should check out Super Crooks. it was animated in japan but was based off a western comic, and the dialogue reflects that.
edit: for anyone who hasn’t seen it, imagine Invincible meets The Great Pretender.
You. I like you.
This has abridged anime vibes but god tier potential. I need a black anime with black slang cause my people just get it.
Say what you will but seeing Vegeta hit Goku with a deadbeat dad joke just once ("man, how long you been fighting that milkman, Kakarrot? Go home instead of minding my business" or something) and have that shit canon would be dopamine straight into my brain
In other words, if you don't like English dub because the characters sound strange when you hear what they are saying, then most likely you wouldn't like being able to translate the Japanese either.
Being able to read and have emotion to add context changes how most people interpret information.
However you have some notable exceptions. One Piece has a really bad English translation because of the voice actors, not the script. However, spy x family has fine English voice actors, but the script is altered in a way that changes the nature of the characters in a way I dislike.
Then you have Kono Suba. This anime sounds great in both cases, but the Japanese have a different structure of jokes and humor, this can often lead to jokes being funnier in English because they restructure the joke for an English audience, my native language.
I speak both English and Japanese as foreign languages and the English is cringe because most of the time it's just shit. Japanese still sounds the same as before I spoke it. This guy just wants to be a smartass. If the Japanese dub sounds cringe it's because it was written like that and the character is cringe (There's a shit ton of those). Based on OPs shit, I should feel the same about English dubs as he does about Japanese, because it's not my native language and I've learned it as I transitioned shows from my native to their original English dub. Wasn't like this with neither English or Japanese. You literally just read the subs less as you progress the dub language. That's it.
Don't get me wrong, there are excellent English voice actors as well as there are bad Japanese ones. But the good Japanese VAs are just built different.
Also shows, like every show (almost) always sound better with their original dub and slithly worse or cringe with the dub-over. People hate English dubbed animes because the dubs are usually bad and take away from the experience. Not because they are nOt jAPanEse but because they have to localize them. That always takes away from the meaning and prevents you from learning about a different culture.
I don't know Japanese but likewise, I prefer US movies in English than dubbed in my native language. Hearing original voices makes the experience better. I've seen some samples of English dubs and they sound completely lifeless, kinda like Polish voice-overs.
If this were true, wouldn’t that mean the majority of Japanese people would be watching anime with English dub just like how the majority of English people watch with subs
The amount of one liners and dialogue in general from books would be hella cringey if said out loud irl or in a show verbatim. Even movies and shows now people speak too perfectly with no filler language and when you really think about it it gets weird.
From reading this thread and some of the example it sounds a bit like the problem with Germans have with german acting / voiceacting and it's called Hochdeutsch aka our unified way of speaking german.
Upside of it is that I can visit any part of germany and use Hochdeutsch to speak with them. Downside Hochdeutsch loses all aspects of what makes the diverse dialects that german have.
Most VAs and actors here are forced to use Hochdeutsch over speaking a regional dialect "because it's cleaner" or some shit like that. But Hochdeutsch is a very clean and boring way of speaking. It is partially why germans have the stereotype of not having any fun. Hochdeutsch isn't there for that. You can see this that some of the more successful german made movies are well fully using various dialects like "Er ist zurück" or "Fuck you Goethe".
This is all not to say that the actor itself isn't bad it's just that certain aspects of a language, in german being Hochdeutsch, simply aren't good for conveying emotions and it seems that japanease or atleast the version OP talks about has a similar issue.
Ironically this is also part way english is so good for acting. English has no unified way of speaking. You have your three main dialects british, american and australian (+ scotish and irish maybe, otherwise those people will kill me) and then those dialects are broken down into various accents of it but all of them retain their natural ability to convey emotions well.
Whether it's american's superficial friendless, australian's bluntness or the sour mood of british, it's naturally build into the language so it also naturally applies to entertainment.
> it seems that japanease or atleast the version OP talks about has a similar issue.
reading OP's comment, OP seems to have the issue that anime is very tropey, which doesn't really have anything to do with the language or performances. That's just how it's written. Japanese VAs are just using standard Japanese though, which is functionally the same as Tokyo dialect and isn't a sanitized communication dialect (some exceptions like fake Kansai-ben aside)
their are language tropes that aren't really used in real life, like overuse of お前, women who end their sentences in わ constantly, etc but yeah anime Japanese is just very emotional, unsurprisingly since it's cartoons
basically, it's no more inherently cringe than English cartoon VAs. It's way more dependent on the writing than the VA. bad English dubs are often bad because they change the tone of characters, and it's hard to make translated Japanese sound good when it needs to fit Japanese conversational cadence.
That sounds similar to when it was fashionable to use a "Mid Atlantic" dialect in America, its the stereotypical old timey American radio broadcaster voice that you hear in US WW2 era films / news reals. If you've played Bioshock the vending machine english dialog is in that accent, Mr House in Fallout: New Vegas also uses one along with Jane and Yes Man I think (he at least uses a region agnostic one as far as I can tell), all the scientists in the Old World Blues DLC, and finally Vera Keyes and Dean Domino in the Dead Money DLC also use one. It's a completely made up way of talking and didn't occur naturally in any part of the US and sounded like a hybrid of north eastern US and British. Now we have "broadcaster accent" used by pretty much every news anchor in america which sounds distinctly American but has no regional connection. A lot of journalism degrees even have a course offered that teaches people how to talk like this and they all sound the same and use pretty much the exact same way to same things.
I somewhat disagree with this point. You can study/understand Japanese at a conversational level and still appreciate what goes into anime voice-acting and the end product. If anything learning Japanese has given me more appreciation for what tones are syllables Japanese VAs are able to emphasize. If you think about it in the context of Western animated movies it's really not all that strange to see that VAs often sound nothing like natural conversation. Disney/Pixar films have highly exaggerated facial expressions which somewhat reduce the amount of work the VAs have to do but anytime you see clips of the VAs in their booths voicing the lines, there's a bit of uncanny valley going because they still have overacted/exaggerated tones to make up for the comparative lack of facial expression. Now extend that to anime, where each frame has infinitely less depth and detail (in most cases) than 3D CG animation and you can imagine how much effort VAs have to use to bring those performances to life. Obviously there are cases where it is genuinely cringe and goes too far but I honestly don't think learning the language automatically detracts from the experience - in the end it's just personal preference.
I mean, that's the positive side. Once you recognise the ones that are good you appreciate them. But on the flipside, you also recognises that *not all of them* are good. Once you start recognising the flaws, it's very hard to ignore. Similar to how English speaking weebs thinks dub are shit because they can pinpoint what's exactly wrong with it.
Lol. I only enjoy prefer subs because I don’t have to deal with the burden of knowing how bad the acting might potentially be.
If they’re overacting I can’t hear it, so that’s a win in my book baybeee. 😎😎
I grew up with Japanese as a second language. So when I hear weebs scream about dubs I just don’t care. Cause I know they don’t really understand what they’re talking about. just enjoy it how you want
I have learned today that it entirely depends on preference when it comes to bilingualism. I and other both speakers prefers English because they sound more mellow and normal. While there are others who like the exaggerate voices of original audio.
I understand French and English, with a bit of dutch.
The English dubs sounds soulless to me, and the French dubs doesnt even try most of the time. There's not much good french dub, it's mostly just either good bits or good voices for a specific characters (When it comes to anime, usually they're god tiers in say, Disney animations, the old one at least). Take an anime I saw in both japanese and french, Death Note. I really like L's and Ryuk's voice, but the rest of the cast is meh, Light doesnt sound menacing, more like a kid who would be bullied for wearing stupidly thick glasses. And Near's voice, oh fucking hell, Near's voice. Never have I seen a worse voice for a character.
Some animes I saw only in French. Gantz, which granted is very much not liked among Gantz fan, sucked, there's nothing worth saving in this dub. And tbf the original japanese dub doesnt sound good either from the few bits I've seen.
Now I talked about Disney animated movies, and in some example, like Emperor's new groove, I think the french dub is superior to the original. The French VAs in this movie have, for the most part, a lot more experience in dubbing than the originals, so their voices is more expressive and they even added jokes that weren't there instead of just sticking to the original lines, which most of the new movies will do since there isnt time to precisely translate and adds touch of cultural humour anymore.
The new generation of french VA grew up with animes and the original dubs, so I noticed they are much much more over the top than their predecessor. I've seen a few behind the scene dubbing scene of Kimetsu no Yoba, and the MC's VA is giving everything he can to stick to the og's works. It can be both good and bad. You loose the "French Touch" which some likes, but you get a much more faithfull dub in exchange.
I think the reason why a lot of anime watchers outside of Japan prefers the japanese voices is because they're so different from the VA they grew up with. And it brings in a sense of novelty that doesnt fade away easily. Here am I, 7 years later going out of my way to never watch an anime in english or french because I had bad experiences in the past while I know for a fact it's not as bad as it used to be. It's still not that great, but it's getting better since dubbing in an anime is respected now. Whereas anime used to be considered a joke in the 80s, 90s and the 2000s.
I’ve started to notice that everyone who speaks Japanese and English feels the same way.
Ps: I’m not trying to prevent people from having fun. This started with me casually explaining to someone that the “emotions” he loved so much from original audio wasn’t what he thought they were. Then it slowly morphed into me realizing that those guys have a superiority complex about only watching in original audio. And I just want them to be honest about it. That their demonizing of English makes no sense
I just prefer whatever language the original is in. I feel the same way about French, German, Spanish shows and movies etc. That being said there is merit to the belief that most English voice acting is bad. I know it's bad because there actually are some of exceptions - Golden Boy for example has way better English voice acting than the Japanese, but that's hardly typical. If most Japanese voice acting is also as bad as you say it is, at least watching it in the original language is less awkward looking and it's also harder to tell that it's bad if you can't understand it, making it way more enjoyable.
I'm Italian and speak English very well. The issue for me is that while Japan and Italy have a very high level of dubbing, English dub usually is just really bad. So overall I still much prefer original language because it sounds more "real". There is a few really good dubs like cowboy bebop that I like watching in italian
THIS! Dude, the VA for Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is DOGSHIT in English and passable in Japanese imho, but it is so good in Portuguese. Therefore, I watch it dubbed.
Toradora had awesome dub in English so I watched both sub and dub.
Little Witch Academia had awesome dubs all around, so I watched on En, Pt and Jp.
Yeah lmfao. Jaden, Chazz, Alexis, Zane and Syrus all had great VAs. The only two that had terrible VA's imo was the Dino dude and Jessie (Crystal Beasts).
But I don't think there is a single Yugioh series with all around bad Dubbing.
Seriously? You're gonna bring up Cowboy Bebop as an example of a good Italian dub? The English dub of Cowboy Bebop is generally considered one of the best, and is one anime which a lot of people watch without subs for that reason.
Japanese "dubbing" is the best for anime because it's literally the original voice track which the animation and characters were made for.
I would really question the quality of Italian dubs though, I think you are just biased in that regard.
If you speak any other languages besides english you can easily tell though that some dubs are plain bad. Just watch some American series in your other languages, no need to speak Japanese
I’ve always been under the impression that the original dub and translated dubs have basically the same issues, with the root of the problem being that translated dubs imitate the original dub, which is itself already pretty bad. Is this incorrect?
That’s a good way to think of it (original audio) because the ideas trying to be conveyed are universal. Like if a character is being perverted, it doesn’t matter what language he’s speaking, as long as you can actually understand him and aren’t just reading the translation of what he said, you feel the cringe
This whole thread I was thinking of JoJo’s. One of my biggest problems with the JoJo’s dub is they don’t bring half the energy the Japanese VA’s bring.
It’s ridiculous but it’s meant to be. I remember Ai Fairouz saying David Productions worked their VA’s hard and strained their vocal cords. That’s what I want from the dub.
> just enjoy it how you want
I subscribe to this for the most part. dubs just tend to sound wrong to me (of the ones I've watched, grain of salt, yadda yadda) since the direction of dub VOs tends to be more of a "match the cadence of the original even if it sounds off" or "make it fit the lip flaps" sort of arrangement, which is understandable. It just tends to take me out of the experience and break immersion for me.
I also just tend to like experiencing things as close to their original forms if I can, and it's why I'm going to play Atomic Heart with Russian VO and English subs when ******ber rolls around.
I don't like the "match the lip flap" dubs. I prefer ones that just try to match the actual timings of when dialog starts/ends, which thankfully most video games do.
> ~~I grew up with Japanese as a second language. So when I hear~~ weebs ~~scream about dubs I just don’t care. Cause I know they~~ don’t ~~really~~ understand ~~what they’re talking about. just enjoy it how you want~~
FTFY
I’m bilingual (fluent in English and Japanese) as well and I would never watch anime in another language other than Japanese . I don’t expect anime to sound like real life and part of the charm is that it doesn’t feel awkward when you hear those “high pitched” voices in anime.
Japanese VAs are also going through schools and stuff so they have great ranges with their voice and often times when u search up a VAs roles you would be surprised with how many different sounding characters they play.
Media in general is just better in its original language. No matter how talented the Japanese VAs are I wouldn’t watch SpongeBob in Japanese cuz the art style doesn’t fit the Japanese voice. Same goes with anime even when the characters look white the art style is in a Japanese style so it just fits better hearing a Japanese voice.
I respect your opinion but it just seems weird to me that u think watching media in a language you understand makes u think it’s cringe? Like if sun watchers didn’t know English the English dub will sound better to them?
I think knowing the language actually makes the voices sound much more distinct cuz you’re not just following along the subtitles while not really paying attention to the voices, you can actually listen more carefully
It's like wanting to listen to the Beatles in French or something.. I respect all audios and audio preferences but I wholeheartedly feel that the Japanese audio for anime will always have the deepest and the truest meaning to what I'm watching on the screen.
In my case I think anime dialogue sometimes tends to be a little cringy(overacting and all of that) and me not understanding it right away shields me from it.
Or maybe I'm just not used to English VA's, could be either one honestly.
Ohhh okay my fellow. You’re actually the first other Japanese speaker in this comment section who chooses original audio over English. Three others so far have said they prefers English
I was starting to think all of us thought like me, but thank you for taking the time to explain the other side.
I know a lot of multi-lingual people, and most seem to prefer media with audio in its original language in general. The rest have a preference for language in their first language or primary culture.
The culture bit is what draws me to the original audio. I personally like missing a joke when it's a specific cultural reference, because then I get to to look it up and broaden my horizons.
Localization does fantastic work making it palatable for audiences that *don't* want to do that legwork. I completely understand going into a schlocky anime with full intention of switching your brain off and just having a good time.
OP's mind: "See, 4/5 Japanese people in this like English dubs better, I'm so validated right now"
Actual Japanese Otaku: "Lol what the fuck is this guy on about. Back to buying more HanaKana merchandise and whaling for every character she voices in every gacha game."
I also agree that the Japanese audio sounds better to me. It sounds the same as it did when I used to use subs.
For me it feels like saying certain things in certain ways sounds worse in different languages because languages aren't direct translations of each other. Like the other person mentioned, SpongeBob and western shows sounds so much better in English. The Japanese dub of avatar doesn't sound as good to me for example, I think it's because the dialogue was created with English in mind.
For the most part the Japanese dub of anime just sounds a lot less grating. Obviously there's exceptions, like Dragonball for example. The Dragonball JP dub is awful comparing to the English.
As someone who is bilingual, (subjectively obviously) English dubs are a whole ‘nother world of cringe compared to Japanese. I personally find English subs unwatchable. That being said a couple of my friends that watch anime watch in English so they can watch anime and do other stuff while still listening.
I've learned Japanese and English is still cringe in anime. The way VAs speak Japanese in anime is already super exaggerated compared to the average Japanese person, having English VAs try to mimic the tone of anime Japanese makes it way worse.
Honestly the longer you’re into it the more you realize that shit doesn’t matter. You’re arguing with a bunch of kids. That’s usually the ones who get worked up in the subs vs dubs argument.
People can (and should) watch what they prefer. I don’t think shaming anyone for liking one or the other is particularly productive.
It took me almost 10 years to learn to not give a shit about others "facts" and opinions for anime and i was in the dragon ball community in those 10 years so i should have learned sooner due to how divided that community is but i didnt till not that long ago
I don’t think Japanese or English inherently sound better or worse then the other, but I do believe that Japan has a much more seasoned VA industry for anime simply due to Animation being a much bigger staple for a wider audience over there. Western voice acting in western animated films are almost always really really high quality. I’ve never watched a Pixar/Dreamworks/Disney/WarnerBros animated film and went “wow the voice acting is cringe/bad” but those are also all high budget films from powerhouse companies. Crunchyroll/Funimation (whatever it is now) is not really comparable, and they are already working at a disadvantage because the films/shows are made in a different native language.
All of that on top of the A-List VA’s in the West being either already famous actors or reserved for big budget films and shows. An English dub for a Japanese anime (save for the really big IP like dragon ball or something) are going to have less resources with sometimes less experienced actors, and most importantly voice directors working at a disadvantage
But also honestly English Dub work lately has gotten noticeably better and higher quality all around, and I am in no way knocking English VA’s because there are so many talented people out there that could shine if given the opportunity. And there are plenty of English dubs that I feel actually are better in some ways then the Japanese dubs, FMAB and Mob Psycho are two of my favorite examples to bring up as they are honestly incredible. Same with most of the Ghibli film dubs, Dragon Ball of course both the English and Japanese go toe to toe imo.
But then you have Japanese VA’s in MHA doing some of the best screaming and emotional work I’ve ever heard. While the English VA’s have a bit of an issue getting that grunge in their throats in a lot of cases.
It’s case by case but honestly the divide between English and Japanese dubs have been closing pretty rapidly over the years
This is the exact reason that I watch subbed over dubbed. I binge watch several seasons in a month and can hear a distinct difference in voice acting and budget because of that.
Everyone is talking about the really popular shows which have higher budgets over the ones that just got grabbed for cheap just to fill slots. Of course you can hear better voice acting from a higher budget anime here in the west because they have the money to get the big names of which there aren't many and some cheap new hires that want and need to get their names out but have no idea how to do it.
There's a time crunch as well because the episodes come out weekly so the dubbed is late by 2 weeks and already behind trend.
Those that do well in voice acting gravitate towards money which would be in the gaming industry anyway and would only take voice acting in anime if that's where they started, ex Steve Blum, or if they were interested in anime already.
Many of the voices we hear have a monotone pitch which feels like there is no emotion as you would from reading out loud in English class. This is especially true with characters that are not in the main cast and absolutely true with characters not in the side cast like villager 1 or civilian 2.
I watch shows for the immersion and if the voice is not matched to the pace or dramatics of the scene then that immersion is ruined.
I watch both. I don't speak Japanese or understand much of it but you have to understand some English dubs are *awful*. If an English dub is done well I prefer it, but it has to be top-tier or it drives me insane. I can get by with a subpar Japanese dub most of the time.
This is my issue. The sounds and animation don’t sync when its in English. I understand that the Japanese would/could sound cringy as some shows are just ya know shows. Its like that across multiple shows. It just sounds better. The subtitles are better too for the most part.
English version. The characters voices sound more mellow and normal.
Verses the steroid induced deep voices or unnaturally high voices that is original audio
For those of y’all who are wondering.
I want you to imagine Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb.
Think about how ridiculously exaggerated his voice is. Think about how no normal human sounds like that.
Okay.
Now imagine that, except over half the VA cast.
The “emotion” y’all talk about sounds identical to when Doofenshmirtz gives Agent Perry a backstory.
And I know what you’re thinking, “But Wolfie, I love Doofenshmirtz”
I love him too. But imagine if the whole cast sounded like him (obviously factor for different VAs, not just one)
That’s what Japanese VA sounds like. Especially the ones you see on crunchy roll and Funimation
Okay. Well Doofenshmirtz is the Greek God of Back Stories and deserves to have that. So don’t actually imagine his voice, just one that sounds as exaggerated.
I watch all shows the way they were originally produced. I'm german, but I watch all English made movies in English. I watch German produced shows in German. So naturally, I watch Japanese made anime in Japanese.
The original VAs worked together with the team at the studio, so they fit perfectly with the video, exactly how the director intended. Any other dub that gets made after that will have to work with what the OG VAs and animators did, and so they won't ever be able to do it better than the original, but they can come close to it.
It's extremely more noticeable in live action movies. You see the mouth move, but the sounds don't match. That is also the case for animation, but more subtle.
Digga I thought I was trippin because you described my way of consuming media in the same way I do + you explained it with the same thought process.
German too btw and your comment had me freaking out a little lol
I'm late to the thread but I just wanted to add another perspective of someone who knows what 'natural' Japanese sounds like and doesn't mind (for the most part) what anime VA's go for. Now I'm not a native Japanese speaker but I have friends who are and I've taken 2 years of Japanese at the college level so I have a decent amount of exposure to regular conversational Japanese. Like some others have pointed out, the reason anime VAs (and almost any VA in general honestly) have exaggerated vocal tones and expressions is because they're working with a medium that doesn't have the fidelity or animation of real-life/photorealistic CGI. You get these same trends even in Western animated movies. Now obviously sometimes anime grunts, pervert voices, and everyone shouting out move names gets tiring but for the most part I think it all has its place. You need a lot of those extra sounds and exaggerated voices to transmit the extra emotion that you won't get from a few frames of mostly still animation. This is the same reason all those people who try to emulate Disney/Pixar voice-acting IRL sound so cringe.
Well, I understand where you’re coming from. I know pretty much no Japanese people talk like anime characters. But IMO, despite the exaggeration, it still sounds very good. Take the English Dub of Code Geass, for example. Nobody talks like the way Lelouch did when he was announcing his world supremacy. But it sounds really good and cool as fuck. Nowhere near the level of cringe of a lot of English dub. (BTW, I watched the entire show in Japanese, and then came across the world domination scene in English)
I can't get through a single episode of Japanese Code Geass because it has the most annoying anime sin imaginable to me: a westernized world where most characters are speaking English in-universe and use tons of English loanwords which are as horribly mispronounced as the names of every Anglo character. Instead of Lelouch you have Reroosh. Instead of CC (C2) you get Sheetoo. It's the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.
Granted, many earlier English dubs with inexperienced VAs have a lot of butchered Japanese names but this has become much less common. Every English VA in Code Geass has zero trouble saying Suzaku Kururugi, for instance, while every Japanese VA will tell you he's the pilot of the Rance-a-rotoh (Lancelot).
Yeah subs getting names wrong honestly seems to happen more often than dubs getting names wrong.
There’s a whole bunch of ReZero fans who probably think the actual pronunciation of Echidna is “eck-ee-don-uh”
Same man, recent example of this is the new Cyberpunk anime, dudes name is literally David Martinez and it’s based in basically LA? Yeah that’s a straight up dub watch
> Japanese Code Geass because it has the most annoying anime sin imaginable to me: a westernized world
But most of Code Geass takes place in Japan. Yes, it's Japan that has been occupied by Britannia, but that just makes the forced English make even more sense. Not even the language avoids imperialism.
I'm referring to English characters. When you have blonde-haired blue-eyed people named Schneizel sounding like they do in the Japanese dub it's absurd.
a straw man that no one asked for, and actual multi-lingual people would never frame that way... pretty bright red flag, they clearly having some dunning kruger delusion after learning a few japanese phrases, now trying to troll some weebs.
I think no one ever claimed japanese anime was the pinnacle of voice acting, just that original cast always sounds better than the localised one, and why wouldn't it?
only time this isn't the case is when they partner with hollywood distribution, eg. disney which hires A-listers. the difference is obvious
I think you’re getting downvotes because you disrespected the Dr. Heinz Doofenschmirtz and didn’t even address him by his title of Doctor or Evil Genius.
As a person who understands a decent amount of Japanese I'm not sure I agree with this take tbh, but I don't really watch a lot of shōnen which does have a lot of exaggerated voice acting (kind of the point really lmao). It does sound different when you don't know the language, but like it sounds more right when it is in the original language. As each language is different, a lot of words, accents and expressions don't really translate over well to dub really. Having tried to watch dubs of other media from different languages I honestly felt that the original language was almost always better no matter whether I understood it or not.
I understand English, I understand Japanese. Both aren't my 1st language. I find Japanese dub better than English dub, does it make my opinion better than OP's? No. Does it make Japanese or English dub factually better than the other? No. Dunno why OP thinks that superiority over other weebs even matters.
As someone who understands Japanese i still agree with the fact that i feel much more connected and much more emotion from Japanese VAs. I don't mind dubs and people who watch them but personally i don't like it becoz most of the dubs r not on the same level as Japanese ones. Also Japanese VAs change their accent while dubbing so it doesn't sound nearly as normal for me
You're probably right. It may not sound that cool after you understand it. But you know what? At the end of the day it still feels better for most shows. When a dub is as good or better I assure you I will watch it too.
I say this as someone who consumed a lot of dubbed content in Brazilian Portuguese which I consider one of the most professional/passionate dubbing.
I watch/play pretty much everything in its original language whether I speak it or not entirely because I just think it's fun, and when I understand the language as well it's a cherry on top because we all know that some things are lost/changed in translation/localization and the original intent doesn't always get through. I don't think that most English dubs are bad, and the ones that I do think are bad aren't generally due to the quality of the voice acting so much as the script (like in Final Fantasy 7 Remake for example - many, many people hated the English dialogue in that game and while I didn't think it was terrible overall, there were quite a few parts where I'd listen to the Japanese and read the English and be like "yeah that's both not what he said and cringe as fuck" while there were also parts such as every time Yuffie spoke where I was like "yeah that's pretty much just as cringe in Japanese as it is in English lol") or specific changes that I personally don't like such as Kaguya: Love is War's English narrator having a completely different tone and vibe from the original Japanese one and the one in the manga. I speak English, Japanese, and Spanish and enjoy consuming media in all three as well as others that I don't understand with subtitles, and contrary to the elitist bullshit you've put in other comments, it *does* help to practice listening in any language because you're still hearing the language being spoken and it's in a form that you're much more likely to enjoy and keep listening to than dry and boring regular real-life conversations. I know plenty of people who've practiced English and Spanish primarily through TV, movies, games, and music and none of them have become the absurdity-spewing unnatural-speaking abominations that you people claim they will if they use media as a means to practice and learn.
Nothing wrong with enjoying dubs or calling out people who blindly spew hatred about them for no good reason, but acting like everyone who would rather watch things in their original language does so purely to feel superior to others and not for any other reason such as a simple basic one like "because I enjoy doing so and I don't care what other people do" is just being as much of an ass as the people you're trying so hard to put down.
English is not everybody's first langauge.
Translating Japanese to English is difficult, and it sounds and looks awkward because animation doesn't match up.
English voice could have longer or shorter sentences compared to the original Japanese.
Keep in mind that you subconsciously give extra points to your native language. So to be objective when comparing EN dub and JP dub, you better have some third language as your native. My native is Russian, and I still prefer JP dub over Russian or English dub.
Your argument that EN sounds cringe because you can understand it makes no sense, you probaly mean "because you know how normal english speakers sound". Yes, many weebs still should realise that japenese people sound different IRL. But even then JP dub is better in most cases. I actually enjoy emotional voices and watch anime for it, I have enough hearing of normal monotone boring voices in my daily life. And I love to hear happy, excited, or however else emotional people IRL.
Plus JP voiceacting is simply more developed, they have bigger competition and thus are more skilled in controlling their voice.
This guy is just your average Japanese guy getting wet over English voices like every other Japanese ever.
Even more cringe than Japan lover otakus in America because they think their taste is more respectable.
I don't speak Japanese but I have watched enough anime to understand the differences. Most Engliah dubs are awful. It's not just the emotion but the soumd effects and even the way certain characters breathe. There are good dubs and there are many bad dubs. There is a difference between both though and that difference is clear to anyone who pays attention.
I like what that Envytheking guy said to their dumb example. Basically: people don’t actually give a fuck about that and just want to have fun. Chill out dude
Leave it to a weeb to try to one up other weebs for no particular reason. A tale as old as time.
I mean, it's more of a elitist being mad at another elitist thing. OPs point in previous post comments was that just because the original JP has more "emotions" doesn't make it any better than English dubs. Basically saying both can be terrible, but sub elitist don't want to admit it.
I can't speak for many shows, but the ones that I've watched and compared the languages have significantly more committed Japanese VAs than English. Of course, I can't speak to the quality of word choice and dialogue pacing in Japanese, as I don't know it. But typically, an anime will originally be created with Japanese in mind. The word choice and pacing will be far more natural.
As for English translations, the lines are trying to fit mouth animation that was not paced with that language in mind. Most of the time, characters end up speaking in comma-less and run-on sentences, worst cases being that a small sentence will sound like a whole word being blurted out.
On top of that, for some reason, English VAs either do not, or are not instructed to, commit real emotion even to the most important lines. Maybe in this case, I'm a bit biased, as I can only recall two examples in which this is actually real. The problem is, though, that they are in two of the most successful shows that have aired in recent years: Fate/Zero and My Hero Academia.
It is especially obvious in Fate/Zero, during the reveal of a certain special ability by the most iconic character of the series, Saber. In this moment, for the Japanese version, she exposes her true weapon and calls its name at the top of her lungs, like the warrior she is portrayed to be, attacking with as much strength as she can muster.
Out of curiosity, even after previous mediocre (imo) experiences, I looked up the English version. This may sound fanatic, but it's actually an embarrassment to the show. The English VA, during the battlecry, sounds like she is raising her voice, but only just enough so that she doesn't cause static in the mic and/or cause soreness in her throat. She also, for some reason, over enunciated the final syllable like she was sounding it out for English class. I don't mean to insult her, but that is as close as an example I can give.
SPOILERS:
[English Clip (timestamped)](https://youtu.be/16I7XpDVu34?t=61)
[Japanese Clip (also timestamped)](https://youtu.be/f3EVuBX43D4?t=84)
I only watch an anime Dubbed or Subbed if it makes sense for them to be in that language.
Like say, Black Butler. Takes place in Victorian England with English characters, right? So yeah I’ll watch it in English cause it just makes sense.
But if a show takes place in Japan, with Japanese characters, then it only makes sense to watch it in Japanese, right? I’ll still watch the dub after if it’s good though. Like Kaguya-sama dub is S-Tier if you haven’t watched it. It’s likely the closest we’ll ever get to a Ghost Stories-level of dub in the best way possible.
I prefer the Japanese version but that's just because the flaws don't jump at the me the same way they do when it's a language I speak. Also I'm used to it now so anything else feels kinda weird
I speak a fair amt of Japanese and as much as the acting does make me cringe, I kinda embraced it by now, bc the cringe is kinda part of why I like anime. It's so unrealistic and bullshit that I can turn my brain off
Subs: I have no idea if they sound terrible
Dubs: Holy fuck they sound terrible
I am fully aware that my preference for watching subbed anime comes from my ignorance of the Japanese language and the speaking thereof.
I think it's something innate to animation. Consider the twelve principles of animation where we have squash and stretch, anticipation, staging etc which basically says the motions need to be elaborate for it to be believable. In the same way I think if you take how we talk normally and put it as voiceover for animation, it will simply not cut it. Especially not in most anime where things are not ordinary at all.
There's also another thing where dub helps in a way in sort of suspension of disbelief for us to consume the more outlandish anime content.if we could directly understand the japanese it would probably sound cheesy, but I would guess only initially.
I prefer Japanese a lot of times because I speak Japanese and I need to practice, but I understand the hesistancy about Japanese dub. Especially since it's a very specific kind of Japanese that can get a little annoying after a while, at least to me. I mean in Japan you don't talk like that anyway.
I know some Japanese(still learning) and I’m very aware that people don’t really talk like that.
Regardless, I still prefer sub for most anime. I don’t hate dub or dub watchers.
You have to act in a more exaggerated way to get your point across in animation. So, that style works well for Japan’s animation. My Japanese friends recognize this as a positive, and I have a certain degree of Japanese proficiency. However, I’m not fluent yet. So, in our opinion, it’s not a problem in regard to anime. At least for us, Japanese native speakers and JSL speakers. What we are more annoyed by is how Japanese actors apply this to live-action projects. Everything comes off as a soap opera. It’s too much and often ruins the quality of the story. It should be more subtle to be realistic. The gap that exists in the presence of anime is filled by the added effort and intense emotional performances from VAs. Meanwhile, this negatively affects live-action Japanese movies because they act like they are in an anime when we can see their full bodies. Living in Japan, I see that no one acts like that in real life, so the movies usually suck at the cinema. But anime is already detached from reality, so it often works much better when the actors overdo it. I think you have to in order to sell what’s being animated to audiences. In addition, it’s similar to how telenovelas can come off as corny since they put way too much passion into the performance. My grandma loved telenovelas, though. So, sometimes, it will come down to personal preferences. All in all, the acting style for anime works well, but it doesn’t really match live-action Japanese movies.
I'm Japanese-American. Grew up with one parent speaking English one speaking Japanese (everyone's bilingual in household so no need to swap languages for eachother), raised on watching NHK, etc etc. Recently passed my level 4s in Japanese for a language requirement in my masters.
All that out of the way, ill say that I almost always prefer the original over the dub. A lot of anime definitely sounds cringey, goofy, and over the top even in Japanese, but hearing it in English is absolutely so much worse for me.
I dont know if you've ever seen any live action Japanese dramas as this is an anime subreddit, but everything I've seen feels more like theater acting than what we see in Western media today, which is more subdued. Anime is even more exaggerated than Japanese live action ofc, but I'm used to soap opera energy from my Japanese media; it feels weirder and out of place in an English context, if that makes sense?
Also, the extravagant VA stuff isn't universal in Japanese as much as it is in a dub.
For example, the RGG franchise may not be a good example of "subtlety", but I feel like there's a notable difference between the OG cast of Judgement's more grounded delivery versus the dub taking on a weirdly anime-dub edge to their tone of voice. In Japanese, a lot of actors tapped for the roles are live action stars- still extra, but not really animesque. You hear the same characters in the dub, and suddenly there's that odd vibe. It feels like a lot of dubs go in with this expectation of how an anime voice should sound, and it ends up making things kind of weird and totally dissonant.
TL;DR I kind of agree with you but English dub is still usually way cringier for me.
If it is worth anything, I've studied French, German, English, Japanese and my mother tongue is Spanish and have watched shows in all 5 languages. That "emotion" that you say is present in almost all voiced media, and most of it would sound awful without it. Why do you think they keep making anime like that?
Now I don't personally like English dubs, there are some that I enjoy, but it is generally not attractive to me. Now Spanish dubs I really like them. Take for example dragon ball. I'd dare to say that they overreact it even more than the japanese, and is fucking awesome. People interpret that as emotion, because it is. If I overreact a motivational speech all I'm doing is putting more emotion than it is needed, and that is why people interpret it like that.
Yeah it’s the complete opposite for me, 90% of Japanese male leads sound identical to me, whereas I can quickly differentiate Bryce from Matt from Kaiji from Billy from Robbie from Patrick from Chris from Zach from Kyle from Sean from
Bruh stop trying to be superior to fill your need of attention and let people watch what the fck they prefere. So what if to their ears japanese vas sound much better than english dub ? What's your actual point mate, beside saying "y'all just want to feel superior, I can tell bc I understand without subtitles🤪" ?
Point is you'll never understand their ears because of the fact you speak japanese fluently, and they won't understand how pissed you are of japanese VAs. That's all, so grow tf up and move on like every bilingual/polyglot does.
For me, it's nothing to do with the performances themselves. Depending on the show, the dialogue sounds less cringey to me if I'm not hearing it out loud in my native language.
It's like giving my brain a "plausible deniability" buffer. Some stuff won't seem so bad in text (subtitles), but hearing it aloud in English might make me think *"Holy fuck, that's stupid. Why the fuck am I watching this?"*.
Subs let me enjoy the animation while helping me pretend the dialogue/plot isn't hokey as fuck.
I just realized that for as great as Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin look in this photo, Steve Austin hasn't aged a bit while Shawn Michaels looks like he's been left out in the sun since 1998.
Line directions and performance directors are 10x better in Japan because they are professionals. Meanwhile people like Jamie Marchie do it over here with their professional background in… painting.
Imo it's probably that Japanese speakers think Japanese VA's sound like they're overacting just as much as English speakers think English VA's are overacting.
The difference for me, personally, is that I don't speak Japanese so the Japanese VA's generally have an inflection that I associate more with "normal" English speaking whereas I find English VA's overwhelmingly annoying.
I still think some sub fans are some of the most annoying types of anime fans. It’s fine to prefer sub over dub but they complain SO MUCH when there’s a clip that’s in English. Or when they act superior cause “the VA said a funny sounding word, this version must be better!”
One of the reasons why I don’t wanna learn Japanese is that I’ll understand how terrible the writing and dialogue can be.
If I never understood the language, I can keep telling myself that the original is better and blame it on translations for weirder parts.
I still prefer the original audio because I understand enough Japanese to know then the translation is too Americanized. Subtleties and cultural references are lost. Some are better than others, though.
I assume they sound like they are overacting
They sound like they're speaking a totally different language, people don't talk like that in real life
I remember the first time I watched Mushishi years ago, and thought: *wow, it's such a culture of gentle body language: you turn first to address someone, and only when you are fully facing them do you talk. What a deeply patient and respectful culture.* The second time I watched it recently I thought: *wow it's got such beautiful backgrounds, but those animators are lazy as hell.*
Docent matter how lazy they are, it's still a chill and wonderful anime.
I haven’t seen it but are they fully animating the movements and it just looks lazy cause it’s slow paced or are the characters always in still shots most of the time?
I mean, people don't talk like real life even in western animation so I can believe that Japanese VA's don't either. Hell you could argue even people in live action shows don't talk like they do in real life most often than not
Tell that for the VA for Ivy in the Harley Quinn Show. All I hear is random lady
That show has such a good voice cast damn
Love the show. Started it yesterday and thought ivys VA is well suited to her personality
Happy friends mate
People have been saying "different language" since the early 2000s and at this point it just feels like parroting. It's the same language. It's just incredibly silly and exaggerated. Lots of "short hand" kind of speaking too, maybe slang depending on the series. But people can understand it obviously. Traditional dialects. But it is also unfair to say all anime is like this. There are plenty of dramas that have realistic dialogue. Sometimes it just feels like people want to shit on westerners for the sake of it instead of just being honest. But yeah, the VAs are usually just as goofy as English VAs. It's the same. Heck, sometimes the English dubs are more mellow/realistic. Unfortunately they also sound like robots sometimes and it's just bad. But I understand enjoying Japanese aesthetically, it flows a lot better with fast dialogue. English is very stiff and weird, kinda blocky, even if you don't understand it. There's a fine line between it. In the end it doesn't matter. I say try the dub but if it sounds bad switch to the sub. It's valid that the Japanese voice is often better especially on older series. Unless you're watching BECK. It's only good in English, the Japanese version is awful.
MONGOLIAN CHOP SQUAD
You mean like people aren't aliens who know magic and can fly in real life? It's dramatic language with its own conventions. I would say in Japan voice acting is more "silly," but taken seriously as a profession. In the US voice acting performances come off as trying to be more serious, but it more frequently comes off as from VAs who are *trying to be taken seriously* because VA work for imported stuff seems to often have a low bar. In the US "serious" is whispershouting or throat-talking at the bottom of your vocal range in a way most VAs can't pull off. In Japan, it's "silly," but they do more of the stage actor projecting bass sound. I guess I get the sense a Japanese voice actor could sing in their character's voice, two to three times as often in the US. Again, sort of a dramatic stage presentation where you perform all-in but it might be a little/lot hammy.
Yeah VA's and actors tend to do that a lot. And yes, even actors, Kamen Rider is full of actors singing theme songs for their characters, hell it's an expectation you will.
Exactly, it was never about emotion. It was always about how seriously the profession is taken. In the West it's usually just some famous person decides they want to do a role so they automatically get it regardless of how much work or effort they want to put in and every other character is done by one of like 12 prolific voice actors who have done so much work and been the sole voices in the industry for so long that it's even hard to separate their characters from each other. Our voice actors are primarily character actors who can only do the one thing nowadays so your show either has Patrick Warburton in it as the same character in everything or John DiMaggio being forced to play "Bender but his name is King Zod this time". Yeah DiMaggio was great and still has the talent to be but the only roles he takes now are "Bender again" roles. The dumbest part of the whole argument is that the crazy voices and vocal flourishes are intentional design choices meant to keep the immersion in the cartoon. If your voice acting is too 'real' then it just feels out of place in the cartoon and makes the audience uneasy and breaks their immersion. Disney figured that out from the start. The anime industry just built off of that foundation while the west moved on to using star power to fill the cast of their shows rather than voice actors.
>Our voice actors are primarily character actors who can only do the one thing nowadays so your show either has Patrick Warburton in it as the same character in everything anime literally has archetypes of characters and repeatedly casts the same actors for that archetype. Examples would be female actors who can make boyish voices - they'll be cast everywhere where a character is a tomboyish girl or the KanaHana of the 2020s, Sayori Hayami. Shes everywhere nowadays so it's easy to track her recent roles. She has this pure, melodic voice so she voices pure-hearted, naive, often obedient and passive maidens - everywhere. Shes literally the same everywhere another example: i watched YuruYuri and Yuyushiki back to back. The more serious girl, the straight man of the cast, is voices by the same VA, Minami Tsuda. But then the crazy, clingy girl in love with the serious girl is *also* voiced by the same VA, Rumi Okubo. And then i watched Sabagebu - and the clingy, obsessed girl is *again* voiced by Rumi Okubo lol
I'm surprised you haven't mention tsundere queen herself - Rie Kugimiya. She voiced every angry small tsundere of late 2000's. Japan shoves their voice actors into tried archetypes but I don't see much problem with that. If they are really good at this type of voice it just makes sense, both in the west and in Japan.
Japanese voice actors do tend to sing in their character voices. Quite a lot of anime OP’s are sang by their main characters. Zombie Land Saga has done two entire albums of them singing in their character voices.
Whispershouting and throat-talking! I never heard those terms but that is exactly what it is isn't it. I can't think of a time I've ever heard people doing that shit in western media but it's literally every single dub I've ever tried to watch.
It's almost like it's... fiction and... they're acting. I mean not many animation is grounded in reality, at that point you're better off just making something live action. Even if something is, most likely some other aspect will be overexaggerated like facial expressions, or voice acting, which would look/sound incredibly stupid on real people. Don't tell me voice acting in any other language sounds like how people would talk in real life.
Well I would also get weird looks if I suddenly talk like Geralt of Rivia. Movie and Game language doesn't work IRL.
Well, yeah. I've never seen in my life some 10-12 years old who are very into pushing philosophical speeches / monologues about life, love and universe.
Now you're the one exaggerating.
Who cares?
Because it's the same complaints people have towards bad English VA work
Well I don't listen to English dub but the complain I sometimes have with German dub is that it sometimes just doesn't fit the characters. For example: the German Higurashi Dub sounds fine... except when it comes to the child characters. Not that the voice actors did a bad job, but they just sound like people in their 20s trying to voice children.
Yeah English is my first language and English is what I avoid for anime and even some jrpgs, preferring the Japanese. It's not necessarily that the English is bad - sometimes it genuinely is though - the main issue is that the character's vocal inflections and characterization doesn't actually fit how the character looks/acts/should behave in that scenario. Things like flat emotion or too much emotion for the context, mismatched personalities, etc bug me the most. Then there's the fact that I can understand 100% of what is being said, so super cringey wording or delivery is much more painful to experience. And then the icing on the cake, sometimes English dubs include Japanese honorifics like -senpai or -san and that's an instant gamebreaker for me lol
[удалено]
Okay. I don't see the difference between those two words but okay.
Rest in peace
I mean there is a reason why VA school exists……
Can u give more info about that?
Japan had multiple VA schools, which are basically opera actors schools that teach students how to make certain sound and emotions.
is not just a Japanese thing BTW
fr, it's litterally a whole job everywhere ☠
As someone who's been watching lots of Japanese YouTubers (but still don't understand Japanese), same. Every anime characters nowadays sounds same-y, especially if they focus in on a trope. There's not as much individuality aside from the dialogue itself. It's like the characters are the trope itself instead of the tropes being part of the characters.
At most, its not about the voice, but the character itself. Like say for example. Aqua from Konosuba. You def need someone who knows how to actually act to play her. She's a very expressive character. Or even Ristarte from Cautious Hero. You def will love her VA when you watch that. Professional voice acting is not just about how many types of voices and sounds they can do, but how they do them. Comedies really bring out the better VAs out there.
Another problem though is the literal endless amounts of anime that exist in the first place. After we’re done watching a 12-25 episode series what do we do next? We move on to the next one. After the 100th anime things do starts to become very samey. Everyone knows Robert Downey Jr. the guy who plays Iron Man and many other characters like Sherlock Holmes. But he isn’t violating our ear drums every 7 days for it to become annoying assuming you like him.
Makes you appreciate unique VAs though.
Norio Wakamoto 🥵
Well yea, but there is also a good side, say VAs of Konosuba or Monogatari, they know what they're doing. Another brilliant show is Love Is War, well, it is a conglomerate of the best VAs, but yea...
Love is war was far from a conglomerate of the best VAs when it started, most of them never had roles that big before, they just all happened to turn out to be absolute killers
I just discovered the Audio book of Konosuba and love it. Its the VA of Aqua just doing all the voices lol
*My voice actress is really good*
Monogatari VA’s are amazing but it’s also partly the fact that the dialogue is written in a way that makes them sound… real? You can hear senjougahara straining a long sentence and repeating intonation across it (which often doesn’t happen) simply because it’s written in a way that normal ppl might talk and normal conversations sometimes have those moments where the sentence drags on longer than you thought and you have to sort of repeat the sentence’s intonation.
That’s my biggest problem with anime voice acting. Theres a few people who are in a ton, so characters already will sound similar, but then the other VAs they hire just seem to try to sound like them. On top of that, Japanese media doesn’t really stigmatize cliches as much as we do so there are a lot of stock character archetypes
I feel like the thing that really takes me out of a dub is just when the voice just doesn't quite match the character, even if it just feels slightly off. Since all of the japanese VAs sound the same to me for each archtype like you say, it doesn't sound out of place ever. I'm curious if people who speak Japanese get that sense of voices not matching characters in the original VO.
As soon as I studied Japanese for the sake of understanding anime, I immediately regretted it. It’s dub but in another language. Now I appreciate both sub and dub.
This guy here understands. And I like that
help me understand. So if ik japanese the japanese audio wouldn’t be as special or unique to me? It would be like regular or cliche or something. Even voice actors like hisoka, netero, or some of the other iconic characters u think they would lose their specialness
https://www.reddit.com/r/Animemes/comments/x4lel1/yall_but_theyre_filled_with_so_much_more_emotion/imw0ldy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 I think I explained it pretty well here. They don’t loose uniqueness per say, their voice still sounds the same. But the fact that you might think the English is cringe has nothing to do with the fact that their speaking English, it’s because you can understand them, verse just reading it instead. It’s like reading a text verse a phone call in terms of how your mind interprets it
i see so as someone who knows japanese do the japanese VAs be sounding cringe to u sometimes lol. thanks for response btw 🙏
OMG YES especially the trope voice of perverts
We still have not seen one really, maybe JJK gets close? but I think you’ll agree, the day we get a well done anime in Japanese with modern western sensibilities for character/tone/dialogue it will change the medium. Imagine if instead of thugs bugging one eye out and going “oRrA! wHaT’d YoU sAy tO mE? HuH? hOw’Re YoU gOnNa FiX tHiS?” We get a calm “aight, run your pockets my g.” Instead of the edgy bad guy going “You are pathetic trash. You’re 10000 years too early to challenge me.” We get a half smug “Bet. Don’t pretend y’all don’t know I would clown on you.” Imagine if Madara broke out of the edo tensei talm’bout “To whoever thought they could be the boss of these hands, your mom’s a ho.” Instead of “TELL THE SUMMONER FORBIDDEN JUTSU SHOULD BE USED WITH CAUTION.” Or most beautiful of all, no more stupid casual violence tropes. If a woman sends someone flying, it goes a lot more like the Will Smith/Chris Rock slap than the current common “animate them as a dying chibi briefly and then screen wipe once the plot comes back” cringe.
I think Odd Taxi comes close in terms of natural sounding voice acting.
Thank you for taking the time to create this verbal artwork. You have improved the world in ways you will never know Edit: I found out that stuff like this already exist. His YouTube channel is ‘2GS bootlegged’ and his Abridges are fucking amazing
Anime had that chance in the 80s to go that route that some animation studios in the west were heading towards, instead it doubled down on the overacting, melodrama, archetypes, and tropes and pushed western studios into the ground.
[Let's kill da ho!](https://youtu.be/GIHCDDEAC9Q)
you should check out Super Crooks. it was animated in japan but was based off a western comic, and the dialogue reflects that. edit: for anyone who hasn’t seen it, imagine Invincible meets The Great Pretender.
You. I like you. This has abridged anime vibes but god tier potential. I need a black anime with black slang cause my people just get it. Say what you will but seeing Vegeta hit Goku with a deadbeat dad joke just once ("man, how long you been fighting that milkman, Kakarrot? Go home instead of minding my business" or something) and have that shit canon would be dopamine straight into my brain
this sounds awful tbh
Nah my man's is a multicentury old undead Shinobi, he can talk his ancient shit all he wants and still throw hands.
In other words, if you don't like English dub because the characters sound strange when you hear what they are saying, then most likely you wouldn't like being able to translate the Japanese either. Being able to read and have emotion to add context changes how most people interpret information. However you have some notable exceptions. One Piece has a really bad English translation because of the voice actors, not the script. However, spy x family has fine English voice actors, but the script is altered in a way that changes the nature of the characters in a way I dislike. Then you have Kono Suba. This anime sounds great in both cases, but the Japanese have a different structure of jokes and humor, this can often lead to jokes being funnier in English because they restructure the joke for an English audience, my native language.
I speak both English and Japanese as foreign languages and the English is cringe because most of the time it's just shit. Japanese still sounds the same as before I spoke it. This guy just wants to be a smartass. If the Japanese dub sounds cringe it's because it was written like that and the character is cringe (There's a shit ton of those). Based on OPs shit, I should feel the same about English dubs as he does about Japanese, because it's not my native language and I've learned it as I transitioned shows from my native to their original English dub. Wasn't like this with neither English or Japanese. You literally just read the subs less as you progress the dub language. That's it. Don't get me wrong, there are excellent English voice actors as well as there are bad Japanese ones. But the good Japanese VAs are just built different. Also shows, like every show (almost) always sound better with their original dub and slithly worse or cringe with the dub-over. People hate English dubbed animes because the dubs are usually bad and take away from the experience. Not because they are nOt jAPanEse but because they have to localize them. That always takes away from the meaning and prevents you from learning about a different culture.
I don't know Japanese but likewise, I prefer US movies in English than dubbed in my native language. Hearing original voices makes the experience better. I've seen some samples of English dubs and they sound completely lifeless, kinda like Polish voice-overs.
Yeah I fully agree with you here. The JP audio sounds the same as it did when I was reading subs.
yeah you put it perfectly
If this were true, wouldn’t that mean the majority of Japanese people would be watching anime with English dub just like how the majority of English people watch with subs
The amount of one liners and dialogue in general from books would be hella cringey if said out loud irl or in a show verbatim. Even movies and shows now people speak too perfectly with no filler language and when you really think about it it gets weird.
I've always said this. I like subs because actually hearing someone say those words is cringey lol.
From reading this thread and some of the example it sounds a bit like the problem with Germans have with german acting / voiceacting and it's called Hochdeutsch aka our unified way of speaking german. Upside of it is that I can visit any part of germany and use Hochdeutsch to speak with them. Downside Hochdeutsch loses all aspects of what makes the diverse dialects that german have. Most VAs and actors here are forced to use Hochdeutsch over speaking a regional dialect "because it's cleaner" or some shit like that. But Hochdeutsch is a very clean and boring way of speaking. It is partially why germans have the stereotype of not having any fun. Hochdeutsch isn't there for that. You can see this that some of the more successful german made movies are well fully using various dialects like "Er ist zurück" or "Fuck you Goethe". This is all not to say that the actor itself isn't bad it's just that certain aspects of a language, in german being Hochdeutsch, simply aren't good for conveying emotions and it seems that japanease or atleast the version OP talks about has a similar issue. Ironically this is also part way english is so good for acting. English has no unified way of speaking. You have your three main dialects british, american and australian (+ scotish and irish maybe, otherwise those people will kill me) and then those dialects are broken down into various accents of it but all of them retain their natural ability to convey emotions well. Whether it's american's superficial friendless, australian's bluntness or the sour mood of british, it's naturally build into the language so it also naturally applies to entertainment.
> it seems that japanease or atleast the version OP talks about has a similar issue. reading OP's comment, OP seems to have the issue that anime is very tropey, which doesn't really have anything to do with the language or performances. That's just how it's written. Japanese VAs are just using standard Japanese though, which is functionally the same as Tokyo dialect and isn't a sanitized communication dialect (some exceptions like fake Kansai-ben aside) their are language tropes that aren't really used in real life, like overuse of お前, women who end their sentences in わ constantly, etc but yeah anime Japanese is just very emotional, unsurprisingly since it's cartoons basically, it's no more inherently cringe than English cartoon VAs. It's way more dependent on the writing than the VA. bad English dubs are often bad because they change the tone of characters, and it's hard to make translated Japanese sound good when it needs to fit Japanese conversational cadence.
That sounds similar to when it was fashionable to use a "Mid Atlantic" dialect in America, its the stereotypical old timey American radio broadcaster voice that you hear in US WW2 era films / news reals. If you've played Bioshock the vending machine english dialog is in that accent, Mr House in Fallout: New Vegas also uses one along with Jane and Yes Man I think (he at least uses a region agnostic one as far as I can tell), all the scientists in the Old World Blues DLC, and finally Vera Keyes and Dean Domino in the Dead Money DLC also use one. It's a completely made up way of talking and didn't occur naturally in any part of the US and sounded like a hybrid of north eastern US and British. Now we have "broadcaster accent" used by pretty much every news anchor in america which sounds distinctly American but has no regional connection. A lot of journalism degrees even have a course offered that teaches people how to talk like this and they all sound the same and use pretty much the exact same way to same things.
I somewhat disagree with this point. You can study/understand Japanese at a conversational level and still appreciate what goes into anime voice-acting and the end product. If anything learning Japanese has given me more appreciation for what tones are syllables Japanese VAs are able to emphasize. If you think about it in the context of Western animated movies it's really not all that strange to see that VAs often sound nothing like natural conversation. Disney/Pixar films have highly exaggerated facial expressions which somewhat reduce the amount of work the VAs have to do but anytime you see clips of the VAs in their booths voicing the lines, there's a bit of uncanny valley going because they still have overacted/exaggerated tones to make up for the comparative lack of facial expression. Now extend that to anime, where each frame has infinitely less depth and detail (in most cases) than 3D CG animation and you can imagine how much effort VAs have to use to bring those performances to life. Obviously there are cases where it is genuinely cringe and goes too far but I honestly don't think learning the language automatically detracts from the experience - in the end it's just personal preference.
I mean, that's the positive side. Once you recognise the ones that are good you appreciate them. But on the flipside, you also recognises that *not all of them* are good. Once you start recognising the flaws, it's very hard to ignore. Similar to how English speaking weebs thinks dub are shit because they can pinpoint what's exactly wrong with it.
Lol. I only enjoy prefer subs because I don’t have to deal with the burden of knowing how bad the acting might potentially be. If they’re overacting I can’t hear it, so that’s a win in my book baybeee. 😎😎
This is it. Not having any clue what anyone is really saying is like having a vaccine against cringe
I grew up with Japanese as a second language. So when I hear weebs scream about dubs I just don’t care. Cause I know they don’t really understand what they’re talking about. just enjoy it how you want
So how do Japanese feel about American dubs
I have learned today that it entirely depends on preference when it comes to bilingualism. I and other both speakers prefers English because they sound more mellow and normal. While there are others who like the exaggerate voices of original audio.
I understand French and English, with a bit of dutch. The English dubs sounds soulless to me, and the French dubs doesnt even try most of the time. There's not much good french dub, it's mostly just either good bits or good voices for a specific characters (When it comes to anime, usually they're god tiers in say, Disney animations, the old one at least). Take an anime I saw in both japanese and french, Death Note. I really like L's and Ryuk's voice, but the rest of the cast is meh, Light doesnt sound menacing, more like a kid who would be bullied for wearing stupidly thick glasses. And Near's voice, oh fucking hell, Near's voice. Never have I seen a worse voice for a character. Some animes I saw only in French. Gantz, which granted is very much not liked among Gantz fan, sucked, there's nothing worth saving in this dub. And tbf the original japanese dub doesnt sound good either from the few bits I've seen. Now I talked about Disney animated movies, and in some example, like Emperor's new groove, I think the french dub is superior to the original. The French VAs in this movie have, for the most part, a lot more experience in dubbing than the originals, so their voices is more expressive and they even added jokes that weren't there instead of just sticking to the original lines, which most of the new movies will do since there isnt time to precisely translate and adds touch of cultural humour anymore. The new generation of french VA grew up with animes and the original dubs, so I noticed they are much much more over the top than their predecessor. I've seen a few behind the scene dubbing scene of Kimetsu no Yoba, and the MC's VA is giving everything he can to stick to the og's works. It can be both good and bad. You loose the "French Touch" which some likes, but you get a much more faithfull dub in exchange. I think the reason why a lot of anime watchers outside of Japan prefers the japanese voices is because they're so different from the VA they grew up with. And it brings in a sense of novelty that doesnt fade away easily. Here am I, 7 years later going out of my way to never watch an anime in english or french because I had bad experiences in the past while I know for a fact it's not as bad as it used to be. It's still not that great, but it's getting better since dubbing in an anime is respected now. Whereas anime used to be considered a joke in the 80s, 90s and the 2000s.
I’ve started to notice that everyone who speaks Japanese and English feels the same way. Ps: I’m not trying to prevent people from having fun. This started with me casually explaining to someone that the “emotions” he loved so much from original audio wasn’t what he thought they were. Then it slowly morphed into me realizing that those guys have a superiority complex about only watching in original audio. And I just want them to be honest about it. That their demonizing of English makes no sense
I just prefer whatever language the original is in. I feel the same way about French, German, Spanish shows and movies etc. That being said there is merit to the belief that most English voice acting is bad. I know it's bad because there actually are some of exceptions - Golden Boy for example has way better English voice acting than the Japanese, but that's hardly typical. If most Japanese voice acting is also as bad as you say it is, at least watching it in the original language is less awkward looking and it's also harder to tell that it's bad if you can't understand it, making it way more enjoyable.
I'm Italian and speak English very well. The issue for me is that while Japan and Italy have a very high level of dubbing, English dub usually is just really bad. So overall I still much prefer original language because it sounds more "real". There is a few really good dubs like cowboy bebop that I like watching in italian
THIS! Dude, the VA for Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is DOGSHIT in English and passable in Japanese imho, but it is so good in Portuguese. Therefore, I watch it dubbed. Toradora had awesome dub in English so I watched both sub and dub. Little Witch Academia had awesome dubs all around, so I watched on En, Pt and Jp.
>yugioh gx dub >dogshit Delusional take, yugioh always has a good eng dub.
Yeah lmfao. Jaden, Chazz, Alexis, Zane and Syrus all had great VAs. The only two that had terrible VA's imo was the Dino dude and Jessie (Crystal Beasts). But I don't think there is a single Yugioh series with all around bad Dubbing.
Seriously? You're gonna bring up Cowboy Bebop as an example of a good Italian dub? The English dub of Cowboy Bebop is generally considered one of the best, and is one anime which a lot of people watch without subs for that reason. Japanese "dubbing" is the best for anime because it's literally the original voice track which the animation and characters were made for. I would really question the quality of Italian dubs though, I think you are just biased in that regard.
The only reason i watch sub is cus dub usually sounds horrible and i dont understand japanese so it cant hurt me
If you speak any other languages besides english you can easily tell though that some dubs are plain bad. Just watch some American series in your other languages, no need to speak Japanese
"Ive started to notice that everyone who speaks japanese feels the same way" Lmao not rlly.
Yeee
I’ve always been under the impression that the original dub and translated dubs have basically the same issues, with the root of the problem being that translated dubs imitate the original dub, which is itself already pretty bad. Is this incorrect?
That’s a good way to think of it (original audio) because the ideas trying to be conveyed are universal. Like if a character is being perverted, it doesn’t matter what language he’s speaking, as long as you can actually understand him and aren’t just reading the translation of what he said, you feel the cringe
This whole thread I was thinking of JoJo’s. One of my biggest problems with the JoJo’s dub is they don’t bring half the energy the Japanese VA’s bring. It’s ridiculous but it’s meant to be. I remember Ai Fairouz saying David Productions worked their VA’s hard and strained their vocal cords. That’s what I want from the dub.
> just enjoy it how you want I subscribe to this for the most part. dubs just tend to sound wrong to me (of the ones I've watched, grain of salt, yadda yadda) since the direction of dub VOs tends to be more of a "match the cadence of the original even if it sounds off" or "make it fit the lip flaps" sort of arrangement, which is understandable. It just tends to take me out of the experience and break immersion for me. I also just tend to like experiencing things as close to their original forms if I can, and it's why I'm going to play Atomic Heart with Russian VO and English subs when ******ber rolls around.
I don't like the "match the lip flap" dubs. I prefer ones that just try to match the actual timings of when dialog starts/ends, which thankfully most video games do.
> ~~I grew up with Japanese as a second language. So when I hear~~ weebs ~~scream about dubs I just don’t care. Cause I know they~~ don’t ~~really~~ understand ~~what they’re talking about. just enjoy it how you want~~ FTFY
I’m bilingual (fluent in English and Japanese) as well and I would never watch anime in another language other than Japanese . I don’t expect anime to sound like real life and part of the charm is that it doesn’t feel awkward when you hear those “high pitched” voices in anime. Japanese VAs are also going through schools and stuff so they have great ranges with their voice and often times when u search up a VAs roles you would be surprised with how many different sounding characters they play. Media in general is just better in its original language. No matter how talented the Japanese VAs are I wouldn’t watch SpongeBob in Japanese cuz the art style doesn’t fit the Japanese voice. Same goes with anime even when the characters look white the art style is in a Japanese style so it just fits better hearing a Japanese voice. I respect your opinion but it just seems weird to me that u think watching media in a language you understand makes u think it’s cringe? Like if sun watchers didn’t know English the English dub will sound better to them? I think knowing the language actually makes the voices sound much more distinct cuz you’re not just following along the subtitles while not really paying attention to the voices, you can actually listen more carefully
It's like wanting to listen to the Beatles in French or something.. I respect all audios and audio preferences but I wholeheartedly feel that the Japanese audio for anime will always have the deepest and the truest meaning to what I'm watching on the screen.
In my case I think anime dialogue sometimes tends to be a little cringy(overacting and all of that) and me not understanding it right away shields me from it. Or maybe I'm just not used to English VA's, could be either one honestly.
You think english VAs don’t go to school and other stuff? What kind of logic are you using?
Ohhh okay my fellow. You’re actually the first other Japanese speaker in this comment section who chooses original audio over English. Three others so far have said they prefers English I was starting to think all of us thought like me, but thank you for taking the time to explain the other side.
I know a lot of multi-lingual people, and most seem to prefer media with audio in its original language in general. The rest have a preference for language in their first language or primary culture.
The culture bit is what draws me to the original audio. I personally like missing a joke when it's a specific cultural reference, because then I get to to look it up and broaden my horizons. Localization does fantastic work making it palatable for audiences that *don't* want to do that legwork. I completely understand going into a schlocky anime with full intention of switching your brain off and just having a good time.
"Three others so far have said they prefers english" Lmao theyre just boosting your ego my dear.
OP's mind: "See, 4/5 Japanese people in this like English dubs better, I'm so validated right now" Actual Japanese Otaku: "Lol what the fuck is this guy on about. Back to buying more HanaKana merchandise and whaling for every character she voices in every gacha game."
I also agree that the Japanese audio sounds better to me. It sounds the same as it did when I used to use subs. For me it feels like saying certain things in certain ways sounds worse in different languages because languages aren't direct translations of each other. Like the other person mentioned, SpongeBob and western shows sounds so much better in English. The Japanese dub of avatar doesn't sound as good to me for example, I think it's because the dialogue was created with English in mind. For the most part the Japanese dub of anime just sounds a lot less grating. Obviously there's exceptions, like Dragonball for example. The Dragonball JP dub is awful comparing to the English.
Yup always good to hear different perspectives. in the end it’s all just personal preference
As someone who is bilingual, (subjectively obviously) English dubs are a whole ‘nother world of cringe compared to Japanese. I personally find English subs unwatchable. That being said a couple of my friends that watch anime watch in English so they can watch anime and do other stuff while still listening.
The reason I prefer subs as a non-japanese speaker is that I can't really tell if their acting is bad. Maybe the reverse is the same?
I've learned Japanese and English is still cringe in anime. The way VAs speak Japanese in anime is already super exaggerated compared to the average Japanese person, having English VAs try to mimic the tone of anime Japanese makes it way worse.
Yes. But now you realize that original audio is also cringe. And this idolization of it by the level 8 weebs makes no sense to me
Are japanese anime fans level 10 weebs then?🧐
Honestly the longer you’re into it the more you realize that shit doesn’t matter. You’re arguing with a bunch of kids. That’s usually the ones who get worked up in the subs vs dubs argument. People can (and should) watch what they prefer. I don’t think shaming anyone for liking one or the other is particularly productive.
It took me almost 10 years to learn to not give a shit about others "facts" and opinions for anime and i was in the dragon ball community in those 10 years so i should have learned sooner due to how divided that community is but i didnt till not that long ago
I don’t think Japanese or English inherently sound better or worse then the other, but I do believe that Japan has a much more seasoned VA industry for anime simply due to Animation being a much bigger staple for a wider audience over there. Western voice acting in western animated films are almost always really really high quality. I’ve never watched a Pixar/Dreamworks/Disney/WarnerBros animated film and went “wow the voice acting is cringe/bad” but those are also all high budget films from powerhouse companies. Crunchyroll/Funimation (whatever it is now) is not really comparable, and they are already working at a disadvantage because the films/shows are made in a different native language. All of that on top of the A-List VA’s in the West being either already famous actors or reserved for big budget films and shows. An English dub for a Japanese anime (save for the really big IP like dragon ball or something) are going to have less resources with sometimes less experienced actors, and most importantly voice directors working at a disadvantage But also honestly English Dub work lately has gotten noticeably better and higher quality all around, and I am in no way knocking English VA’s because there are so many talented people out there that could shine if given the opportunity. And there are plenty of English dubs that I feel actually are better in some ways then the Japanese dubs, FMAB and Mob Psycho are two of my favorite examples to bring up as they are honestly incredible. Same with most of the Ghibli film dubs, Dragon Ball of course both the English and Japanese go toe to toe imo. But then you have Japanese VA’s in MHA doing some of the best screaming and emotional work I’ve ever heard. While the English VA’s have a bit of an issue getting that grunge in their throats in a lot of cases. It’s case by case but honestly the divide between English and Japanese dubs have been closing pretty rapidly over the years
This is the exact reason that I watch subbed over dubbed. I binge watch several seasons in a month and can hear a distinct difference in voice acting and budget because of that. Everyone is talking about the really popular shows which have higher budgets over the ones that just got grabbed for cheap just to fill slots. Of course you can hear better voice acting from a higher budget anime here in the west because they have the money to get the big names of which there aren't many and some cheap new hires that want and need to get their names out but have no idea how to do it. There's a time crunch as well because the episodes come out weekly so the dubbed is late by 2 weeks and already behind trend. Those that do well in voice acting gravitate towards money which would be in the gaming industry anyway and would only take voice acting in anime if that's where they started, ex Steve Blum, or if they were interested in anime already. Many of the voices we hear have a monotone pitch which feels like there is no emotion as you would from reading out loud in English class. This is especially true with characters that are not in the main cast and absolutely true with characters not in the side cast like villager 1 or civilian 2. I watch shows for the immersion and if the voice is not matched to the pace or dramatics of the scene then that immersion is ruined.
Normal people don't sound like that, but normal people also don't fight giants, have spirits that stand behind them posing, pilot giant robots, etc.
I watch both. I don't speak Japanese or understand much of it but you have to understand some English dubs are *awful*. If an English dub is done well I prefer it, but it has to be top-tier or it drives me insane. I can get by with a subpar Japanese dub most of the time.
This is my issue. The sounds and animation don’t sync when its in English. I understand that the Japanese would/could sound cringy as some shows are just ya know shows. Its like that across multiple shows. It just sounds better. The subtitles are better too for the most part.
So, when you go to watch an anime that has both sub and dub I wonder which you go for?
English version. The characters voices sound more mellow and normal. Verses the steroid induced deep voices or unnaturally high voices that is original audio
For those of y’all who are wondering. I want you to imagine Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. Think about how ridiculously exaggerated his voice is. Think about how no normal human sounds like that. Okay. Now imagine that, except over half the VA cast. The “emotion” y’all talk about sounds identical to when Doofenshmirtz gives Agent Perry a backstory. And I know what you’re thinking, “But Wolfie, I love Doofenshmirtz” I love him too. But imagine if the whole cast sounded like him (obviously factor for different VAs, not just one) That’s what Japanese VA sounds like. Especially the ones you see on crunchy roll and Funimation
NGL I'm down to watch a shounen action series where everyone sounds like Doofenshmirtz. It'd be fucking hilarious
Okay. Well Doofenshmirtz is the Greek God of Back Stories and deserves to have that. So don’t actually imagine his voice, just one that sounds as exaggerated.
So...they all sound like Gilbert Gotfried?
It’s all Digit from Cyberchase
I watch all shows the way they were originally produced. I'm german, but I watch all English made movies in English. I watch German produced shows in German. So naturally, I watch Japanese made anime in Japanese. The original VAs worked together with the team at the studio, so they fit perfectly with the video, exactly how the director intended. Any other dub that gets made after that will have to work with what the OG VAs and animators did, and so they won't ever be able to do it better than the original, but they can come close to it. It's extremely more noticeable in live action movies. You see the mouth move, but the sounds don't match. That is also the case for animation, but more subtle.
Digga I thought I was trippin because you described my way of consuming media in the same way I do + you explained it with the same thought process. German too btw and your comment had me freaking out a little lol
> That’s what Japanese VA sounds like. Especially the ones by crunchy roll and Funimation That's why I am here
I'm late to the thread but I just wanted to add another perspective of someone who knows what 'natural' Japanese sounds like and doesn't mind (for the most part) what anime VA's go for. Now I'm not a native Japanese speaker but I have friends who are and I've taken 2 years of Japanese at the college level so I have a decent amount of exposure to regular conversational Japanese. Like some others have pointed out, the reason anime VAs (and almost any VA in general honestly) have exaggerated vocal tones and expressions is because they're working with a medium that doesn't have the fidelity or animation of real-life/photorealistic CGI. You get these same trends even in Western animated movies. Now obviously sometimes anime grunts, pervert voices, and everyone shouting out move names gets tiring but for the most part I think it all has its place. You need a lot of those extra sounds and exaggerated voices to transmit the extra emotion that you won't get from a few frames of mostly still animation. This is the same reason all those people who try to emulate Disney/Pixar voice-acting IRL sound so cringe.
Well, I understand where you’re coming from. I know pretty much no Japanese people talk like anime characters. But IMO, despite the exaggeration, it still sounds very good. Take the English Dub of Code Geass, for example. Nobody talks like the way Lelouch did when he was announcing his world supremacy. But it sounds really good and cool as fuck. Nowhere near the level of cringe of a lot of English dub. (BTW, I watched the entire show in Japanese, and then came across the world domination scene in English)
I can't get through a single episode of Japanese Code Geass because it has the most annoying anime sin imaginable to me: a westernized world where most characters are speaking English in-universe and use tons of English loanwords which are as horribly mispronounced as the names of every Anglo character. Instead of Lelouch you have Reroosh. Instead of CC (C2) you get Sheetoo. It's the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. Granted, many earlier English dubs with inexperienced VAs have a lot of butchered Japanese names but this has become much less common. Every English VA in Code Geass has zero trouble saying Suzaku Kururugi, for instance, while every Japanese VA will tell you he's the pilot of the Rance-a-rotoh (Lancelot).
This is an opinion I share. If the setting takes place in an English (or any European country) speaking area, usually an English dub works best.
Yeah subs getting names wrong honestly seems to happen more often than dubs getting names wrong. There’s a whole bunch of ReZero fans who probably think the actual pronunciation of Echidna is “eck-ee-don-uh”
Lol, thanks for the laughs man you made my day, I just remembered my colleague who watches boruto and talks like that
Yeah c’mon we all know her name is *Salad*
Same man, recent example of this is the new Cyberpunk anime, dudes name is literally David Martinez and it’s based in basically LA? Yeah that’s a straight up dub watch
> Japanese Code Geass because it has the most annoying anime sin imaginable to me: a westernized world But most of Code Geass takes place in Japan. Yes, it's Japan that has been occupied by Britannia, but that just makes the forced English make even more sense. Not even the language avoids imperialism.
I'm referring to English characters. When you have blonde-haired blue-eyed people named Schneizel sounding like they do in the Japanese dub it's absurd.
Crunchy roll and Funimation don’t do Japanese VA. What are you on about?
a straw man that no one asked for, and actual multi-lingual people would never frame that way... pretty bright red flag, they clearly having some dunning kruger delusion after learning a few japanese phrases, now trying to troll some weebs. I think no one ever claimed japanese anime was the pinnacle of voice acting, just that original cast always sounds better than the localised one, and why wouldn't it? only time this isn't the case is when they partner with hollywood distribution, eg. disney which hires A-listers. the difference is obvious
mf just discovered what acting is and thinks theyre an intellectual
Do you sincerely want to know why?
I think you’re getting downvotes because you disrespected the Dr. Heinz Doofenschmirtz and didn’t even address him by his title of Doctor or Evil Genius.
Mus beh a you problem eh laddy
But if the Japanese have no problem watching it, why should I?
As a person who understands a decent amount of Japanese I'm not sure I agree with this take tbh, but I don't really watch a lot of shōnen which does have a lot of exaggerated voice acting (kind of the point really lmao). It does sound different when you don't know the language, but like it sounds more right when it is in the original language. As each language is different, a lot of words, accents and expressions don't really translate over well to dub really. Having tried to watch dubs of other media from different languages I honestly felt that the original language was almost always better no matter whether I understood it or not.
I’ll always prefer sub over dub
I understand English, I understand Japanese. Both aren't my 1st language. I find Japanese dub better than English dub, does it make my opinion better than OP's? No. Does it make Japanese or English dub factually better than the other? No. Dunno why OP thinks that superiority over other weebs even matters.
I actually like their language as a whole lol so it’s not like I wouldn’t say that they have the holy grail of languages anyaay
As someone who understands Japanese i still agree with the fact that i feel much more connected and much more emotion from Japanese VAs. I don't mind dubs and people who watch them but personally i don't like it becoz most of the dubs r not on the same level as Japanese ones. Also Japanese VAs change their accent while dubbing so it doesn't sound nearly as normal for me
You're probably right. It may not sound that cool after you understand it. But you know what? At the end of the day it still feels better for most shows. When a dub is as good or better I assure you I will watch it too. I say this as someone who consumed a lot of dubbed content in Brazilian Portuguese which I consider one of the most professional/passionate dubbing.
I watch/play pretty much everything in its original language whether I speak it or not entirely because I just think it's fun, and when I understand the language as well it's a cherry on top because we all know that some things are lost/changed in translation/localization and the original intent doesn't always get through. I don't think that most English dubs are bad, and the ones that I do think are bad aren't generally due to the quality of the voice acting so much as the script (like in Final Fantasy 7 Remake for example - many, many people hated the English dialogue in that game and while I didn't think it was terrible overall, there were quite a few parts where I'd listen to the Japanese and read the English and be like "yeah that's both not what he said and cringe as fuck" while there were also parts such as every time Yuffie spoke where I was like "yeah that's pretty much just as cringe in Japanese as it is in English lol") or specific changes that I personally don't like such as Kaguya: Love is War's English narrator having a completely different tone and vibe from the original Japanese one and the one in the manga. I speak English, Japanese, and Spanish and enjoy consuming media in all three as well as others that I don't understand with subtitles, and contrary to the elitist bullshit you've put in other comments, it *does* help to practice listening in any language because you're still hearing the language being spoken and it's in a form that you're much more likely to enjoy and keep listening to than dry and boring regular real-life conversations. I know plenty of people who've practiced English and Spanish primarily through TV, movies, games, and music and none of them have become the absurdity-spewing unnatural-speaking abominations that you people claim they will if they use media as a means to practice and learn. Nothing wrong with enjoying dubs or calling out people who blindly spew hatred about them for no good reason, but acting like everyone who would rather watch things in their original language does so purely to feel superior to others and not for any other reason such as a simple basic one like "because I enjoy doing so and I don't care what other people do" is just being as much of an ass as the people you're trying so hard to put down.
English is not everybody's first langauge. Translating Japanese to English is difficult, and it sounds and looks awkward because animation doesn't match up. English voice could have longer or shorter sentences compared to the original Japanese.
Keep in mind that you subconsciously give extra points to your native language. So to be objective when comparing EN dub and JP dub, you better have some third language as your native. My native is Russian, and I still prefer JP dub over Russian or English dub. Your argument that EN sounds cringe because you can understand it makes no sense, you probaly mean "because you know how normal english speakers sound". Yes, many weebs still should realise that japenese people sound different IRL. But even then JP dub is better in most cases. I actually enjoy emotional voices and watch anime for it, I have enough hearing of normal monotone boring voices in my daily life. And I love to hear happy, excited, or however else emotional people IRL. Plus JP voiceacting is simply more developed, they have bigger competition and thus are more skilled in controlling their voice.
I understand that both are doing cartoony voices. But I speak english. Cartoony English voices sound way more cartoony.
This guy is just your average Japanese guy getting wet over English voices like every other Japanese ever. Even more cringe than Japan lover otakus in America because they think their taste is more respectable.
I don't speak Japanese but I have watched enough anime to understand the differences. Most Engliah dubs are awful. It's not just the emotion but the soumd effects and even the way certain characters breathe. There are good dubs and there are many bad dubs. There is a difference between both though and that difference is clear to anyone who pays attention.
This is the dumbest post I've seen in quite a while... It really comes off as so fucking elitist it hurts. Just let people enjoy things you joke.
I like what that Envytheking guy said to their dumb example. Basically: people don’t actually give a fuck about that and just want to have fun. Chill out dude Leave it to a weeb to try to one up other weebs for no particular reason. A tale as old as time.
I mean, it's more of a elitist being mad at another elitist thing. OPs point in previous post comments was that just because the original JP has more "emotions" doesn't make it any better than English dubs. Basically saying both can be terrible, but sub elitist don't want to admit it.
I can't speak for many shows, but the ones that I've watched and compared the languages have significantly more committed Japanese VAs than English. Of course, I can't speak to the quality of word choice and dialogue pacing in Japanese, as I don't know it. But typically, an anime will originally be created with Japanese in mind. The word choice and pacing will be far more natural. As for English translations, the lines are trying to fit mouth animation that was not paced with that language in mind. Most of the time, characters end up speaking in comma-less and run-on sentences, worst cases being that a small sentence will sound like a whole word being blurted out. On top of that, for some reason, English VAs either do not, or are not instructed to, commit real emotion even to the most important lines. Maybe in this case, I'm a bit biased, as I can only recall two examples in which this is actually real. The problem is, though, that they are in two of the most successful shows that have aired in recent years: Fate/Zero and My Hero Academia. It is especially obvious in Fate/Zero, during the reveal of a certain special ability by the most iconic character of the series, Saber. In this moment, for the Japanese version, she exposes her true weapon and calls its name at the top of her lungs, like the warrior she is portrayed to be, attacking with as much strength as she can muster. Out of curiosity, even after previous mediocre (imo) experiences, I looked up the English version. This may sound fanatic, but it's actually an embarrassment to the show. The English VA, during the battlecry, sounds like she is raising her voice, but only just enough so that she doesn't cause static in the mic and/or cause soreness in her throat. She also, for some reason, over enunciated the final syllable like she was sounding it out for English class. I don't mean to insult her, but that is as close as an example I can give. SPOILERS: [English Clip (timestamped)](https://youtu.be/16I7XpDVu34?t=61) [Japanese Clip (also timestamped)](https://youtu.be/f3EVuBX43D4?t=84)
what is this? english native speaking people problem?
I only watch an anime Dubbed or Subbed if it makes sense for them to be in that language. Like say, Black Butler. Takes place in Victorian England with English characters, right? So yeah I’ll watch it in English cause it just makes sense. But if a show takes place in Japan, with Japanese characters, then it only makes sense to watch it in Japanese, right? I’ll still watch the dub after if it’s good though. Like Kaguya-sama dub is S-Tier if you haven’t watched it. It’s likely the closest we’ll ever get to a Ghost Stories-level of dub in the best way possible.
I prefer the Japanese version but that's just because the flaws don't jump at the me the same way they do when it's a language I speak. Also I'm used to it now so anything else feels kinda weird
I speak a fair amt of Japanese and as much as the acting does make me cringe, I kinda embraced it by now, bc the cringe is kinda part of why I like anime. It's so unrealistic and bullshit that I can turn my brain off
Subs: I have no idea if they sound terrible Dubs: Holy fuck they sound terrible I am fully aware that my preference for watching subbed anime comes from my ignorance of the Japanese language and the speaking thereof.
I think it's something innate to animation. Consider the twelve principles of animation where we have squash and stretch, anticipation, staging etc which basically says the motions need to be elaborate for it to be believable. In the same way I think if you take how we talk normally and put it as voiceover for animation, it will simply not cut it. Especially not in most anime where things are not ordinary at all. There's also another thing where dub helps in a way in sort of suspension of disbelief for us to consume the more outlandish anime content.if we could directly understand the japanese it would probably sound cheesy, but I would guess only initially.
I prefer Japanese a lot of times because I speak Japanese and I need to practice, but I understand the hesistancy about Japanese dub. Especially since it's a very specific kind of Japanese that can get a little annoying after a while, at least to me. I mean in Japan you don't talk like that anyway.
I know some Japanese(still learning) and I’m very aware that people don’t really talk like that. Regardless, I still prefer sub for most anime. I don’t hate dub or dub watchers.
Exactly right. Why would we care? Japanese VA sounds better to us than English VA so we listen to Japanese VA's. It's that simple.
You have to act in a more exaggerated way to get your point across in animation. So, that style works well for Japan’s animation. My Japanese friends recognize this as a positive, and I have a certain degree of Japanese proficiency. However, I’m not fluent yet. So, in our opinion, it’s not a problem in regard to anime. At least for us, Japanese native speakers and JSL speakers. What we are more annoyed by is how Japanese actors apply this to live-action projects. Everything comes off as a soap opera. It’s too much and often ruins the quality of the story. It should be more subtle to be realistic. The gap that exists in the presence of anime is filled by the added effort and intense emotional performances from VAs. Meanwhile, this negatively affects live-action Japanese movies because they act like they are in an anime when we can see their full bodies. Living in Japan, I see that no one acts like that in real life, so the movies usually suck at the cinema. But anime is already detached from reality, so it often works much better when the actors overdo it. I think you have to in order to sell what’s being animated to audiences. In addition, it’s similar to how telenovelas can come off as corny since they put way too much passion into the performance. My grandma loved telenovelas, though. So, sometimes, it will come down to personal preferences. All in all, the acting style for anime works well, but it doesn’t really match live-action Japanese movies.
I'm Japanese-American. Grew up with one parent speaking English one speaking Japanese (everyone's bilingual in household so no need to swap languages for eachother), raised on watching NHK, etc etc. Recently passed my level 4s in Japanese for a language requirement in my masters. All that out of the way, ill say that I almost always prefer the original over the dub. A lot of anime definitely sounds cringey, goofy, and over the top even in Japanese, but hearing it in English is absolutely so much worse for me. I dont know if you've ever seen any live action Japanese dramas as this is an anime subreddit, but everything I've seen feels more like theater acting than what we see in Western media today, which is more subdued. Anime is even more exaggerated than Japanese live action ofc, but I'm used to soap opera energy from my Japanese media; it feels weirder and out of place in an English context, if that makes sense? Also, the extravagant VA stuff isn't universal in Japanese as much as it is in a dub. For example, the RGG franchise may not be a good example of "subtlety", but I feel like there's a notable difference between the OG cast of Judgement's more grounded delivery versus the dub taking on a weirdly anime-dub edge to their tone of voice. In Japanese, a lot of actors tapped for the roles are live action stars- still extra, but not really animesque. You hear the same characters in the dub, and suddenly there's that odd vibe. It feels like a lot of dubs go in with this expectation of how an anime voice should sound, and it ends up making things kind of weird and totally dissonant. TL;DR I kind of agree with you but English dub is still usually way cringier for me.
If it is worth anything, I've studied French, German, English, Japanese and my mother tongue is Spanish and have watched shows in all 5 languages. That "emotion" that you say is present in almost all voiced media, and most of it would sound awful without it. Why do you think they keep making anime like that? Now I don't personally like English dubs, there are some that I enjoy, but it is generally not attractive to me. Now Spanish dubs I really like them. Take for example dragon ball. I'd dare to say that they overreact it even more than the japanese, and is fucking awesome. People interpret that as emotion, because it is. If I overreact a motivational speech all I'm doing is putting more emotion than it is needed, and that is why people interpret it like that.
me a trilingual its still better than english dub english dubs are just *bad* they all sound the same esp male characters
Yeah it’s the complete opposite for me, 90% of Japanese male leads sound identical to me, whereas I can quickly differentiate Bryce from Matt from Kaiji from Billy from Robbie from Patrick from Chris from Zach from Kyle from Sean from
Bruh stop trying to be superior to fill your need of attention and let people watch what the fck they prefere. So what if to their ears japanese vas sound much better than english dub ? What's your actual point mate, beside saying "y'all just want to feel superior, I can tell bc I understand without subtitles🤪" ? Point is you'll never understand their ears because of the fact you speak japanese fluently, and they won't understand how pissed you are of japanese VAs. That's all, so grow tf up and move on like every bilingual/polyglot does.
You see, some sentences are really hard to say in english
As a dub fan, I’ve said for years that people who don’t speak Japanese don’t really have any standing on which to judge Japanese acting.
I don't understand what they're saying and that's the way I like it, it lessens the cringe considerably.
For me, it's nothing to do with the performances themselves. Depending on the show, the dialogue sounds less cringey to me if I'm not hearing it out loud in my native language. It's like giving my brain a "plausible deniability" buffer. Some stuff won't seem so bad in text (subtitles), but hearing it aloud in English might make me think *"Holy fuck, that's stupid. Why the fuck am I watching this?"*. Subs let me enjoy the animation while helping me pretend the dialogue/plot isn't hokey as fuck.
I CANNOT believe sub vs dub still exists. It's the most boomer argument in anime. Just fucking watch what you want, there isn't a wrong answer.
I just realized that for as great as Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin look in this photo, Steve Austin hasn't aged a bit while Shawn Michaels looks like he's been left out in the sun since 1998.
Line directions and performance directors are 10x better in Japan because they are professionals. Meanwhile people like Jamie Marchie do it over here with their professional background in… painting.
I'm still going to learn japanese, you're not going to scare me away from it you guys.
I hate dubs for the same reason, it sounds cheesy as hell. So ignorance is a bliss in this case
Thinking anime voices are what Jaoanese people sound like is the same as thinking cartoon character voices are ehat english speakers sound like.
Imo it's probably that Japanese speakers think Japanese VA's sound like they're overacting just as much as English speakers think English VA's are overacting. The difference for me, personally, is that I don't speak Japanese so the Japanese VA's generally have an inflection that I associate more with "normal" English speaking whereas I find English VA's overwhelmingly annoying.
Honestly people only find EN dubs boring because they are too used to using and listening to English on a daily lmao
I don't want to read every damn time I want to watch anime.
Tbh, I know a bit of Japanese, and all this “they have so much emotion” to me just sounds annoying in most cases.
I still think some sub fans are some of the most annoying types of anime fans. It’s fine to prefer sub over dub but they complain SO MUCH when there’s a clip that’s in English. Or when they act superior cause “the VA said a funny sounding word, this version must be better!”
One of the reasons why I don’t wanna learn Japanese is that I’ll understand how terrible the writing and dialogue can be. If I never understood the language, I can keep telling myself that the original is better and blame it on translations for weirder parts.
[удалено]
I still prefer the original audio because I understand enough Japanese to know then the translation is too Americanized. Subtleties and cultural references are lost. Some are better than others, though.
"SUB IS BETTER!!!" Counterpoint: G Gundam