Anime Subs or Dubs?

[Ebail]

So it varies for me, and a lot of that stems from when I was younger.

Like I'd watched (and when I rewatch I prefer to still) Dragon Ball/Z dubbed, as well as Yu-Gi-Oh! DM dubbed. The voices there don't bother me in the least bit, and despite DM having a fair amount of changes from the original version, the main picture is still there. (Also dubbed Kaiba being a bigger a-hole than in the original easily keeps me going back there) When it would come to ever rewatching either of these I always go back, and see them dubbed. Yu Yu Hakusho was another anime I was 100% fine with dubbed

I watched Dragon Ball Super subbed as I was too impatient to wait for the dub.

But then when it came to any spinoffs of Yu-Gi-Oh (GX/5D's/Zexal/Arc-V/Vrains) I always watched them subbed, as I'd tried to watch them dubbed, but it just wasn't working for me (although watching the dub of GX as it was airing on TV was comedy gold for sure)

 

[ToxicWhiskers]

It varies. Normally, I tend to steer towards dubs, since that's what I grew up with and I often have fun guessing who the voice actors are.

But I don't mind watching anything subbed if there's no dub available, though it can feel a bit awkward watching one and then the other if it does eventually get dubbed. As mad as it sounds, sometimes I wish they included HOH subtitles for the dub as well, like with our country's DVD and Blu-ray releases of the Studio Ghibli films. I'm not deaf, but I watch lot of stuff with subs on anyway due to my audio processing disorder.

 

[Neo Blaze]

I'm generally a subs only person. I have nothing in particular against dubbed anime or people who watch dubs, it's just not (with a few exceptions) my thing. I prefer to watch things in the language they were intended for. I think it also has something to do with living in a country where literally every content from across the borders is subtitled and nothing is dubbed (aside from most kids-oriented media, but even then usually both options are available), so subtitles come very naturally to me.

One anime I recently watched dubbed was Cowboy Bebop and I did enjoy that dub a lot. Other than that my Ghibli rewatch a few months ago was dub-only, but moreso because I had already seen them all in Japanese and I figured I might as well do the dubs on rewatch. It was kind of interesting to notice some subtle differences here and there.

 

[Strawberry Cupcake]

I am a fan of dubs because I have a hard time following along with subs. I wish I could enjoy subs more but I look away a lot so I would miss out on things.

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

This is simultaneously a simple question and a complicated question for me, or rather it has been as of late.

Back when I first had the ability to choose between sub and dub with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, I didn’t really have any strong feelings on things one way or another. Although there’s always been a part of me, even then, that kind of leaned towards sub, as I figured that it was the closest equivalent to original authorial intent, as opposed to the dubs that I knew at the time mainly for their often radical changes à la what you’d see in 4Kids-era Pokémon and other such productions of its era. Studio Ghibli dubs, of course, generally don’t change things that drastically, but they’re certainly some changes in presentation if not necessarily story and script, sometimes by necessity (localization) and sometimes less so (style). That said, what I ultimately went for Nausicaä with pretty much came down to the mental equivalent of a coin toss; pure instinct, basically. I chose sub, and for any anime I watched since then, I continued to do so pretty much by default.

There’s no real reason why I continued with subs over dubs, I think, other than forward momentum from that initial choice with Nausicaä. Perhaps there was also a subconscious desire to immerse myself more in the Japanese language (that was certainly the case when I began exploring the Pokémon anime in its original format). But I can’t say for sure, really.

That said, I’m now at the point where, with certain series, I’ve began to actually watch my anime both subbed and dubbed, at the same time. So far, and perhaps somewhat ironically given what I’ve written above, I’ve found myself more willing to do this with dubs that are known for taking different approaches to the material versus subbed, to the point of becoming famous in their own right, or that just have a reputation for being good in their own right, or arguably even better than subbed.

Examples? Ergo Proxy is the first anime series I tried doing this with. The setup was simple: watch one or two subbed episodes first, then go back and watch them dubbed (a useful thing to do anyway with a series like Ergo Proxy, I think). I don’t know much about the reputation of this series’ dub versus subbed, although my own observations on it were interesting. Looking at only the script, much of it was line-to-line identical with the “literal” translated subtitles that I had display on screen at the same time, except for little moments where the wording of things was changed slightly. Occasionally, these changes would be a little less than slight, to the point of characters saying things that were completely different yet not completely out of the ballpark, if you know I mean, although this didn’t happen particularly often (and certainly not to the degree of 4Kids-era dubs, anyway). Vocal differences are simultaneously a matter of authenticity and a matter a taste, I think, and in the case of Ergo Proxy, I found most of the major voices to be surprisingly close in tone and spirit to the original; your own mileage may vary on that.

Meanwhile, there are also more… wild examples that I’ve been doing this with, such as the original ADV dub of Evangelion versus subbed. Like with Ergo Proxy, I watched one or two episodes subbed first before switching to the dub, while having the “literal” translated subtitles on for the latter so that I could compare scripts in real-time. I’m not even going to get too much into the voices because there have probably been fandom wars started over that subject, haha, and much of it is, again, a matter of taste. But as far as changes to the original go, I am in agreement that, when it comes to localization from one language to another, you do always have to make some changes, both with vocals and script, in order for it to come across naturally in the English language vs. the original Japanese, which plays by all sorts of rules that the former simply doesn’t (many of which don’t translate well to English anyway). The best dubs walk a careful balance between necessary — and occasionally radical — changes in the details of it all and keeping as much of the original intent as possible, and in doing so they create the best of both worlds that its intended English audience can enjoy. Perhaps that knowledge, along with a sense of basic competence with the ADV crew, ensures that no matter how you may feel about those little things, it never comes across as a bad-quality dub, at least. I’ve also found that the mere fact that a more “literal” translated script is there keeps me from raising my eyebrows too much when something weird comes up, because at least when that happens I can compare it to the original and say, “ah, they were probably going for that, weren’t they?” That also kind of appeals to my curiosity about what kind of changes the dubbed version makes, whether said changes be for good or ill (watching the dub second, rather than first, also helps a lot with that, I think).

So, to summarize: I think that I lean towards subs overall, but with an increasing willingness to watch both sub and dub when I can, especially if the dub has a reputation. And if I do the latter, it will almost always be simultaneously, with the “literal” translated script close at hand. Because of that last point, however, I think that it’s more likely that I’ll watch something dubbed if it’s on a home video release — such was the case with me for Ergo Proxy and Evangelion — because it’s easier for me to manipulate the audio and subtitles into that “dubbed audio/literal subtitles” setup that I prefer. Online streaming is a little more complicated on that front, so in those cases, I’m more likely to just stick with sub, I think.

 

[Emmy]

Often I try to experience a franchise in its native language wherever possible, which usually means subs unless it is a language like Japanese that I understand. That said, I'm certainly not opposed to dubs whether it be nostalgia (like Pokémon or Yugioh) or because the dub is that good and I sometimes just prefer hearing things in a native tongue.

There's even the rare occasion where I think the dub is the superior viewing experience, my main examples being Nerima Daikon Brothers where the "musical comedy" aspect works a lot better with the American localized humor and Baccano where part of the charm is hearing the actors really go for all the subtle accents especially when it comes to the Chicago mafia versus the New York ones.

 

[PinkThunder]

I am a fan of dubs because I have a hard time following along with subs. I wish I could enjoy subs more but I look away a lot so I would miss out on things.

Same

 

[Poke Trey]

Dubs. Only dubs.