To each his own. Some prefer the original audio simply because it is foreign, making it easier to mentally dive into a fantasy world. Others get taken out of the immersion by having to read subs and not focusing on the screen all the time.

Isn’t it great that nowadays we have a real choice, so everyone can enjoy media how they want?

Problem with dubs is japanese names pronunciation in english, no matter how good the VAs are.

It’s done well (usually), but it’s still not the original. Something will inevitably be lost in the adaptation anyway, and if you know even a slight bit of Japanese (or whatever the original language is), subs are the better choice for a first view, imo.

Then, if the series/movie was good and I feel like watching it again, I’ll go with the dub when available. Rarely, if ever, I found a Dub that was better than an original version, but a lot have been at the same level so it’s definitely worth it.

That argument never held much weight for me years ago, because a lot of subs were trash back then, too. You just picked whatever trash you wanted and let the weabs on the internet be damned.

I tend to agree. Although as a counterexample for not singing in dub, I present to you Angel Beats. I watched the English dub of that and one particular song that the main singer of a band sings made me cry from how beautiful it was. I’m sure it still would have had an impact, but there’s no way it would have been as strong if they hadn’t dubbed that song. Granted, a large reason for the crying was the episode in general and learning the story of the singer, but it’s so fantastic in English that it seems like that was the only possible way it could be.

I think replacing songs in the dub can go pretty hard, like, that’s how we got most of the iconic 90’s american anime theme songs. pokemon, digimon, yugioh, etc. I do like a lot of the naruto OPs too, for the record, and soul eater, and fullmetal alchemist, but it’s really hard to beat how iconic the opening to pokemon is, and how that’s laser engraved to like a fifth of all millennial’s brains.

Actually, I wanna hijack this top post a little bit. Other people have brought up japanese name pronunciation, and replacing the names with more western stuff, and I would like to bring up the decision specifically in yugioh to make joey have a boston accent to mimic the accentedness of the japanese he would otherwise speak with. I dunno, there’s something to the 4kids dubs that has a little bit more texture than your normal modern anime dubs. I like the lack of censorship more, the VAs tend to be better, there’s not like, big confusing rewrites or repacings of certain sections, all that is good, about your more modern stuff. At the same time, I feel like a lot of the sub vs dub argument is gonna come about more when people don’t let the dub be it’s own thing. You already have to translate turns of phrase, culturally dependent expressions, yadda yadda, at what point do you really decide to stop? Maybe a bad example, because it doesn’t really conform to the spirit of the original at all, but people still occasionally talk about the ghost stories dub. I dunno. I guess it doesn’t need to be official, there’s always abridged series to fill the void in my heart when it comes to anime that’s written for a western audience more, but I do kinda wish that more dubs were just like. Willing to take risks. That more dubs were very obviously stand out.

I’ve listened to some of the so-called “good” dubs. They’re still trash.

I’m pretty sure the only good song dubs I’ve heard were from Belle. Sucks that the movie is so impressively mid

Ah, well. I’m just a poor old man. My legs are grey, my ears are gnarled. I need subtitles.

I think that’s pretty natural? If you weren’t getting any of the movie there’d be no points and we’d just read the subs on a kindle or something.

Idk if anyone else has this but i get a weird flow state where i read the subtitles and its like the characters are talking in english but i if think about it, it stops.

As long as you can read fast enough, you don’t miss anything. I hate it when video games have subtitles but you can’t skip to the next line because I’ve finished reading what they said way before they’re done saying it.

I’m actualy losing my hearing so I’m starting to “hear” my shows better than I can my wife

Yeah, we’re used to it, it’s the only way I’ve watched movies since I was a kid.

I don’t use subs now, maybe English ones cuz sometimes the actors speak way too fast and you have a hard time understanding what they’re saying.

My ADHD means that when there’s subs I actually look at the screen instead of being distracted by my phone. Funny how that works out.

Or “ub…les”

So you don’t watch TV, you just like the audio distraction.

Try using japanese subtitles in animes you have already seen, it helps a lot honestly.

This is like when I put on dubs and subs, because I’m lazy and hard of hearing! It’s fun because they never use the same translation for both so you get to watch the two fight it out over what’s being said!

I used to be hardcore anti-subs but then I started to realize that a large amount of English movies are mixed in a way where you can’t understand anything that’s going on anyway (thanks Christopher Nolan) so I have subs on for everything now because I can more consistently experience the entirety of the movie/show instead of my understanding of lines being up to if the director was upset that day.

What is your language? A 1 to 1 translation can be varying degrees of awkward depending on the two languages involved.

And I cant stand subs because I dont like the japanese language. We are the opposite

During my early teenage weeb days, I used to be a sub purist, disavowing anyone who preferred dub. I’d refuse to watch an anime with someone if they chose dub. However, I’ve changed a lot since then and now go with whatever sounds better to me. While some dubs are admittedly bad, others put a lot of time and effort into replicating the original Japanese feel, and they do a great job.

I’ve also noticed that certain anime set in specific countries feel odd in Japanese. For instance, when I watched Steamboy, it was bizarre hearing Japanese voices in the cities of Manchester and London. The Japanese voice actors struggling to pronounce English names and words fluently added to the peculiarity.

I don’t buy into sub purists claiming all English dubs sound the same. Truth be told, a lot of Japanese voices also sound similar. There are cliché voices that almost allow you to predict how a character will sound in Japanese just by looking at their design.

These days I’m firmly of the opinion; whatever sounds right to you. I don’t see the point of giving someone shit for choosing to watch a series in whatever language they prefer, as long as they’re enjoying it.

I generally prefer watching in whatever the original language was (usually subs for me). But if I happen to see a show dubbed first, that becomes my new personal canon haha.

if you don’t watch it for the plot then why don’t you watch it in Japanese without subtitles?

— “Stop enjoy things the wrong way!!!”

— “Don’t be ass, man” puts pineapple in pasta

If it lets you

Because not everything worth watching was created in my country? Why would I need to disrespect the intention/effort of everyone involved, when I can just read?

If you are used to reading subtitles you can read them almost subconsciously. And you don’t need to understand the language to get things like emotion out of it. I would even go as far as saying that getting used to reading the emotions of someone that doesn’t speak the same language as you is essential to fully develop a sense of empathy.

what are you doing listening to Japanese speaking voices?

I think some anime legitimately sounds better with the Japanese voice acting, but some people take it too far and extrapolate that to mean all anime is better with Japanese voices and any dub is immediately shit. It becomes these weird gate-keeping elitism among losers where you literally can’t enjoy ‘anime’ a certain way or else these people won’t think you’re ‘cool.’

One Punch Man sounds better with the Japanese voices imo. Saitama sounds downright iconic in Japanese, but like a generic wimpy boy in English.

The vast majority of other shows I prefer watching in English. Either the dub is identical in quality to the sub, or the difference is small enough that I don’t care since I prefer watching things in my language.

My dude is not a man of culture… yet. No worries, at some point you’ll understand, I’m sure.