An Insight on the Battle of Subs versus Dubs

Sean Wong August 3, 2007

Depending on how long you’ve been in the anime community, you may have participated in or at least spectated discussions regarding subtitles versus dubbing. Such discussion can progress in an intelligent debate or it may become an all-out flame war, complete with name-calling and personal attacks (the latter seems to occur more often). Naturally, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when having such a discussion, things get out of hand very quickly because of ignorance exhibited by one or both parties. I’m not going to say one is definitely better than the other; it’s simply a matter of opinion.

In the hardcore anime community, most fans tend to lean toward subs, so I will focus on this group of people. While this is acceptable as it is just a matter of personal preference, what is most irritating is how some (I am by no means referring to all sub-lovers) people in this category speak badly and look down on dubs; it doesn’t help that their reasoning is completely absurd either.

A common argument they exhibit is as follows: “Japanese voice actors always do better than English voice actors!” Now, I’m willing to bet that most of the people who make this claim do not speak Japanese. I think you can see where I’m going with this: How can you make a valid argument saying that voice actors in one language sounds better than another if you don’t even speak that language? Granted, in my experience with English voice acting, it isn’t always executed flawlessly, but such a generalization is absurd. One who does not have a grasp on the language they claim is better would naturally not understand whether the tone, diction, or word emphasis is best for the situation. Such a generalization isn’t reasonable; there are always exceptions. For example, Cowboy Bebop is one series where I actually prefer the dub over the original Japanese track. There are many more series with very good dubs - Full Metal Alchemist, Samurai Champloo, FLCL, and Cromartie High School to name a few.

At the same time, it is usually these sub purists who bash any form of animation that come from any country other than Japan. The whole ordeal of Japanese anime vs other animation is completely absurd. Standards for animation often vary by country; Japanese anime can be targeted towards kids to adults, whereas American animation is usually targeted towards children. It’s also especially unreasonable to judge that one country’s animation, as a whole, is greater than another country’s. There are incredible anime series out there, but think of how many awful series there are as well. It’s about as reasonable as saying that American music is better than Japanese music. You should not make such a generalization. There are good artists and bad artists in both countries, and even then, it’s all in a matter of perspective; art and music are extremely subjective.

Don’t think that I hate subs for these reasons. I like to stay in between the conflict, as there are a number of dubs that I do enjoy, but I tend to lean towards dubs. My reasoning is that anime companies write the script for the series with the Japanese language in mind. I doubt they take into account how translators would translate it into English. This is especially true for anime with a lot of Japanese cultural references involved. The fact of the matter is that in this case, many things get lost in translation. So when people view these the English adaptations of these series, they will either be very confused, or they will not grasp the original meaning that the writers intended. Of course, this isn’t always the case. Cowboy Bebop is a series that is about as western as one can get. You have characters with western names, a western soundtrack and atmosphere, and even western cultural references. As a result, the transition from Japanese to English was probably an easier one than, say, Azumanga Daioh, which is full of Japanese cultural references.

I think a discussion on whether subs are better than dubs or not is ultimately futile since the nature of the subject doesn’t allow for a clear-cut resolution. It’s a very subjective matter. One shouldn’t feel obligated to choose a side. If you prefer some anime subbed, then watch it subbed. If you prefer some dubbed, then watch it dubbed. It all depends on what you want. Anime is meant to be enjoyed, so enjoy it however you feel you should enjoy it.

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Category: Rants & Raves

8 Responses to “An Insight on the Battle of Subs versus Dubs”

ojisan
August 3rd, 2007 at 6:35 am

You’re switching arguments & muddying things a bit by bringing in the ‘Japanese animation purists’ issue - in general, it sounds as though you don’t like purists that you don’t agree with. Really, no one does.

Let’s just compare english dubs to each other for a start. I can think of a few I love - You’re Under Arrest OVAs and Tsukikage Ran come to mind - but they are sooo few. Why? I think it has to do with respect for the product. The studios who generate the product respect it, but only some of the licensers or sub-sub-contracted dub studios respect it as much.
Matrim
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:27 am

I am sorry but I think the argument “If you don’t know the language shut up about the quality of the voice acting” is nonsense. Acting is acting, no matter whether one does it in Japanese or Esperanto. Even if one doesn’t know the language he can usually recognize the type of emotion behind the words and expressing these emotions in a believable manner is what voiceacting is all about.

Furthermore, even if we ignore the widely held opinion that the original anime voiceactors are in a whole different league than their American counterparts, the point is that it’s always best to enjoy something in its original form if possible. Whoever is in charge of the sound recording for a certain anime would supervise his cast and the end result will be as close as possible to what he wants to hear. While any subsequent dub would simply ape the results of the previous one and even if it’s better, it might not be what was originally intended.

I can’t say I get your point about translation either. Even assuming certain series has to be “westernised” for some reason, why exactly shouldn’t this be done by using subs?
_Rand_
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:57 am

I count myself among dub haters, though its not because I think dubbing is somehow in and of itself, horrible.

I hate dubs because more often than not the voice actors are quite terrible. Sometimes I think they are reading straight off a script 5 minutes after getting it. This isn’t to say there aren’t good dubs, there are. Cowboy Bebop as you mentioned was quite good as was FLCL, as are the Disney dubbed Ghibli movies for the most part.

I just find that they are terrible so often (Maison Ikkoku I’m looking at you!) that I just use subtitles by default. Its just less painful that way.
hayase http://cuteproxy.wordpress.com
August 3rd, 2007 at 9:57 am

One thing that I don’t like about dubs, is that I get the impression there’s no feeling behind it. Almost everybody sounds the same.

Not to brag but, I feel the Tagalog dubbers (from my country) sound better.
tenken
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:47 am

ojisan: Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll have to watch myself for that in future articles.

Matrim: I can see how we disagree on the idea of understanding voice acting, but let me follow up on my opinion.

First of all, perhaps I worded it incorrectly. I don’t mean to imply that you have to be a native speaker of Japanese, but you should at least have a basic understanding of it.

Now, instead of Japanese, let’s use Mandarin. When an English speaker hears Mandarin (a language with sounds much different than English) being spoken, assuming he doesn’t speak Mandarin, he wouldn’t always comprehend the emotions behind the words. With varying tones in the language that can change what word is being said - a concept that English speakers are not very familiar with - he may misinterpret emotions behind words. Even if one can approximate the emotion (e.g. someone screaming may indicate that they’re angry), they have no basis on understanding whether or not the emotion is conveyed realistically or not. With English, anyone can try and act angry, but English speakers can usually identify whether it’s delivered well or not simply because they have experience with the language, as they speak it very often and know how angry people would sound. In contrast, an English speaker may not be able to tell whether or not a screaming Mandarin speaker is doing a successful job at being angry. He would subconsciously run it through his mind and compare it to English, trying to figure out it should sound by the way they’re emphasizing the words that the English-speaker doesn’t understand anyway. For example, if you scream “I hate you!” in English, you can choose to emphasize certain words according to the context. If you emphasize the wrong word, it may end up sounding awkward. An English-speaker doesn’t know what would be the awkward way of saying things in Mandarin.

An African language that consists mainly (or sometimes purely) of clicks would be a lot harder to interpret. To an English speaker, reading emotions that are conveyed with sounds that sound extremely similar to each other (to the untrained ear) would be difficult. And even then, there’s tone and word emphasis. If we were to take out the Japanese (or English, if you prefer) audio from an anime episode and replace it with a dubbed version using an African clicking language, would one be able to read the emotions that are being displayed on screen accurately? How about if you just closed your eyes and listened to the dialogue? Do you think it would be easy to interpret the emotions without a visual aid on the screen? Reading emotions here with no experience with the language would result from comparing the language to English, where you can attempt to decipher how it should sound and how it should be conveyed, but this has a great margin for error because an English-speaker simply does not know how it should sound in that language. He can only draw comparisons, which is not very reliable because the language being spoken is not English.

Of course, the latter example is too extreme, but what I’m trying to convey is that Japanese is not English, so while you may be more successful reading emotions in Japanese dialogue than in an African clicking language, you don’t have a full grasp on how things should sound because you don’t have anything to base it on, just the English language. You don’t know how things such as syntax, diction, tone would have an effect on emotions conveyed in the language. In English dubs, we may say, “That sounds really strange.. He should’ve said it like this.” But with Japanese, we don’t do this as much (if at all) not because Japanese voice acting is inherently better but because we don’t understand the intricacies of it.

I don’t quite understand your question regarding westernized anime, but I’ll try my best to answer. I’m saying that if a series is more relatable to western audiences (i.e. Cowboy Bebop), then the dubbing process would be easier and perhaps more likely to be successful. To explain this, let’s use the counter-example, shows with many Japanese cultural references. Taking shows with many Japanese cultural references and translating them into an English dub can create some very awkward sounding script. Regarding this issue, I’m not saying subs are not acceptable at all. I’m merely making a point on dubbing series that may be more geared to western audiences (or at least easier to relate to).
kuromitsu
August 3rd, 2007 at 4:20 pm

I believe that the whole sub/dub debate all boils down to people trying to justify their personal preferences. Me, I prefer subs, not only with anime but with everything else - movies, TV series, etc., simply because I prefer to hear everything in the original. I want the least distance between me and the show, I want to hear the voices of the actors I see on the screen (there are some people out there whose voices simply can’t be “replaced” even in the best dubs), and in general, even if I don’t understand the language, I want to hear them talk, emote, etc. on it, instead of listening to “interpreters.”

I speak Japanese and still say that Japanese anime dubs are better than any other anime dubs I’ve seen. Why? Because in general, the voice actors do better. That’s all. They don’t only have years of experience on their own (well, except for newcomers), there’s also a very long tradition of voice acting (that I suppose goes back to bunraku), there are actual schools for aspiring voice actors, etc. And most importantly, voice actors, sound directors, etc. actually care about doing the best job they can, if not because they care about the show then because they know that doing a constantly great job is important for their carriers, for getting recognized by people in the industry which results in more jobs. It’s “get out there and do a good job” rather than “get out there and get the job done.” Of course these are generalizations, and Japanese anime voice acting has its negative side such as clichés (for the role of Haruka in Noein, Kazuki Akane specially wanted a voice actress who was a newcomer and still fresh and “unspoiled”), there’s hammy acting (like everywhere else in the world) and there are some very uninspired or downright bad dubs (Tenjou Tenge comes to mind). Still, on the whole, anime in Japanese sounds better and more “natural.” In my experience.

I’m not saying there are no good western dubs. (By the way, people around me say that German and Italian dubs are generally the best western anime dubs - I’m inclined to agree based on my memories of what I’ve seen in my childhood, but then, I don’t speak German or Italian.) It’s just that most of what I saw sounded either flat and lifeless, or hammed up. Seems to me that western voice actors are somehow reluctant to express real emotions in a cartoon - emotional scenes, tortured cries and whispers, etc. always, always fall flat. It seems to me that most English voice actors don’t put too much effort into their roles (there are always exceptions, of course), and voice directors are too often satisfied with an acceptable or mediocre work. Here I have to admit that since I’m not American (or even a native English speaker) I probably can’t appreciate English dubs as much as a native English speaker may, so I’ll say this about the anime dubs on my first language (Hungarian): the voice directors and actors have no idea how to approach anime, and they don’t have the inclination to find out and learn. They just don’t care (except for a very, very few people) because there’s not enough money and appreciation (on the professional side) in anime dubs and cartoon dubs in general, unless it’s some big-profile show. The voice directors generally have either only a vague, no idea at all what the show is about, they only want to get the job done as fast as possible, while the actors do the cartoon routine, with overplaying scenes, turning even antiheroes into typical cartoon villains, etc. And it’s not because they don’t KNOW how to do it or there is no extensive voice acting and dub tradition (as is the case in the USA, afaik) - there are some fantastic dubs here for live action series, and back when studios had more time and resources to work on dubs, they used to make some absolutely stellar dubs for movies. No, they simply don’t care to do quality dubs for TV cartoons. They also don’t care about the translations - all anime dubs here used to be translated from English by people who didn’t care about doing a quality work, and as such, the translations are full of stylistic errors and horrible mistranslations.

Back to English dubs and scripts - what I really bothers me (aside from the acting) are two things: one, that there’s generally way more talking than in the original. I’m not talking about longer sentences or whatever, I’m talking about a tendency to insert random sounds and lines where there’s none in the original. Sometimes these are “harmless,” throwaway sentences, but there are shows like Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust where the English version has about twice as much lines than the Japanese, and they’re twice as cheesy and corny (and I don’t care which came earlier, a corny script is a corny script). Why? Does the audience fall asleep if there’s silence for more than one minute? It’s so damn annoying. And two, there are all the changes dub scripts often make. Again, I’m not talking about necessary changes, I’m talking about changing bits of information or even whole situations or characters. In ROD TV, the dub neglected to mention that a character’s parents were dead, it said they were “away.” It downplayed the love (rather innocent love, mind you) between two characters as much as it was possible. In Cowboy Bebop, they changed Gren’s backstory trying to give him an excuse for his drug addiction (by blaming it on experiments). Why? Then there are shows like VHD:Bloodlust (again) where the English and Japanese versions are practically two different shows (and mind you, I always thought that the movie was incomprehensible and disjointed until I saw it in Japanese… that was a real “Ah-ha!” moment). I hate this. I don’t want a dub to make up its own version of the show. I want a faithful translation, down to the smallest bit of throwaway information.

And, well. Dubs are easier to screw up. With subtitles, there’s only the translator who can screw it up. With dubs, there’s the translator, the person who adapts the script, the sound director and the actors, and there needs to be only one screw-up to ruin the whole thing. In my experience, mediocre subtitles are way better than mediocre dubs… but that may be just me.

So yeah, these are my thoughts on ~~yaoi~~ anime dubs.
Matrim
August 4th, 2007 at 2:50 am

These examples about Mandarin and certain African language are enlightening and I probably made a more sweeping generalization than I intended but they still don’t change the fact that it’s quite easy to understand the emotions in spoken Japanese because it’s not a tonal language or something else very different to English or other languages in the countries where anime gets exported to. I for one have been learning Japanese and although my knowledge is still very basic, I don’t see any difference in appreciating the voiceactors work - I still think certain actors are great, while other are not, I haven’t suddenly started to notice things acting-wise I hadn’t noticed before just because of knowing the basicas of the language . And what has syntax to do with anything? It’s a matter of script, not voiceacting, after all. Of course, one can appreciate the dialogue a lot more if he happens to know even a bit of Japanese but that has nothing to do with voiceacting either.

Also, after watching a few series, one usually gets used to the Japanese dub and starts noticing the differences in acting and general modus operandi of expressing emotions. So even if we assume, it’s not easy to discern good acting in other language at first, I think it becomes very easy, after one listens to it a bit more…as does pretty anyone who has a say in the debate subs vs dubs. I certainly would prefer that (as it is intended) than the lifeless flat voices that I have had the misfortune to hear from certain English dubs (though, admittedly my experience with such dubs is very limited since I am not American and I would rather watch subs whenever possible, anime or no anime, in a language that I know or don’t know). But even if they were all great, I would still prefer the original voices, that does not mean I am saying they are necessarily better, I jsut prefere it that way.

Anyway, I am not in a mood to write more right now, Kuromitsu put it quite well and I pretty much agree with that opinion.
tenken
August 4th, 2007 at 4:28 am

kuromitsu: Thanks a lot for the input. You’ve helped me understand the situation better.

Matrim: Regarding syntax, you’re absolutely right in that it is a matter of script. I now realize that when I included that, I was straying away from the main subject of voice acting and more on the idea of understanding of languages. Apologies for the digression. But I meant with syntax was that, if we had an English dub where a line is said with awkward syntax (certainly a matter of script), then English-speakers would be able to spot this strange-sounding sentence in that context. In contrast, one with no Japanese knowledge wouldn’t be able to spot strange syntax errors because he has no experience with the language. And after reading kuromitsu’s post, it seems such errors would be a lot less frequent too. But this is does not relate to voice acting, I am simply following up on what I was thinking at the time.

I think we may have reached some understanding, though. To follow-up on your second paragraph, anime companies write scripts, naturally, for Japanese, so there could be some awkwardness in the transition from Japanese to English or Hungarian. Certainly, it is a matter of preference too. What I was referring to in my original article was how there are many people out there who claim that all dubs are terrible, even without listening to them. I have heard people say, “No! I can’t believe they’re bringing it to the U.S.! The dubbing’s going to be terrible!” which is quite irritating. It doesn’t make much sense either as one can simply just switch the audio track to Japanese and go on with their lives.