Understandng the subs vs. dubs debate

[Manga4life]

[petpeeve] It's not theft. It's infringement. Goddammit. [/petpeeve]

Regardless of if you want to call it "theft" or "infringement", those who view anime illegally are stealing it and thus not supporting the industry with their own money. And if someone is consuming anime illegally they have no right to call themselves "fans" and are doing nothing but hurting the industry, period.

[Hazard]

Regardless of if you want to call it "theft" or "infringement", those who view anime illegally are stealing it and thus not supporting the industry with their own money. And if someone is consuming anime illegally they have no right to call themselves "fans" and are doing nothing but hurting the industry, period.

Actually, you can debate the semantics of it, but when it comes to law Ghost is right. The crime is not theft. It is copyright infringement. There is actually a difference which is noted by law.

[Manga4life]

Actually, you can debate the semantics of it, but when it comes to law Ghost is right. The crime is not theft. It is copyright infringement. There is actually a difference which is noted by law.

Be that as it may, if you're not supporting the industry and are watching your anime illegally you are not a true "fan", you're a leech. Nobody likes a leech. Any which way, this is deviating away from the original purpose of the thread, so I'll just leave it be, but fans should support the anime industry. Period.

[Kevin M.]

There is a thread for the whole "Stealing Manga/Anime" argument, and it ain't this one. So please, don't let this get thread get bogged down in this argument.


I really don't have any which way about the "Dub vs Sub" argument seeing I enjoy both. I usually gravitate for the dub first seeing I enjoy hearing things in my own language, and don't have to read while watching at the same time. But if it is only available in sub format, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. Now, the only time I'll ever prefer a sub over dub is when the dub is just horrible. Namely how I watched the first batch of One Piece episodes when 4Kids was still doing the dub.

[Zhaxra]

I usually prefer English subs over English dubs in most cases. However, since I also have family that I watch some animation with, the dubs take priority. Growing up in Hawaii, seeing subtitled films in the theaters was pretty common for me, so reading subs is usually not a problem. Another thing I like to do is use dubs when the setting is not in Japan (or Asia). Adding '-san' to a European name is a little jarring when it takes place in Europe and the person speaking is not from Japan (for example) and is one of my pet peeves with Japanese dubs.

One blu-ray I just picked up recently was First Squad: The Moment of Truth. It had Dubs in English, Japanese, and Russian. Since the setting takes place in Russia, I watched it with the Russian dubs and English subs. It was a weird but fitting experience.

[Alex]

I dont understand why is that some ppl get so riled up about anime dubs and prefer watching the original.I am well aware that localization is a big concern when making dubbed anime which censors some stuff and alters some cultural references, but I mean if the Japanese dialogue of anime were to be translated "word for word" it would sound fairly stilted and probably have a fair amount of references people couldn't understand.I've noticed though that at least with a Latin American dub a lot of the original dialogue is kept with small changes for swearing and adding in Hispanic slang(and the occasional Hispanic cultural references).It works fine and I guess that's what anglophone anime fans are hoping for?.Also has anyone ever tried watching a dubbed anime with subs of the Japanese dialogue?.Makes for good cross-analysis IMO and from what I've seen so far it seems that the english dub is slightly more expositional (which I think when done badly makes a character's talking look contrived) and the phrasing might be a bit different but it'll drive the plot to the same places anyway.In the original Japanese things are said in a more natural fluid way which I guess is vernacular linguistic only benefit.Voice acting quality is another hot topic in this I guess.Even if the dialogue is closer to the original a VA's work can make or break it things but things might improve though when the voice of a character in the original sounds like to juvenile,though.Ultimately though if fans expect an ideal dub the only way to do it would be if like each series had a special team of linguists and VAs who are expert at oral translations and voice imitations wouldn't it?.

I thought the problem wasn't the work of the translations, most people know that translating directly and having american's read it would sound completly stupid, but it was more a lot of dubs are just badly acted.

[Nick Soapdish]

I especially prefer dubs because I often multitask while watching and have the show on my tv while I'm doing something on my computer looking up every once in a while (or watching show and looking down at comp every once in a while). Subs I would have to watch the whole time. I don't mind subs for movies but since I watch large chunks of anime at a time it gets tiring to read it the whole time. Since I mainly read manga if the dub is bad I usually just don't watch it and go back to reading only the manga so no loss there.

I tend to prefer the subs for the exact same reason. In the last few years, I've started to try multi-tasking a lot more and I suck at it. But most of what I watch is subs since that's the bulk of Netflix's streaming content and that's easier for me to watch on the tv than Funimation's content (which conveniently enough, is usually the sub for the free content).

I've also noticed that subs sometimes do a bit worse in the translation. They may have an expert Japanese speaker translating, but it doesn't get verified on the English side so it might be literally correct, but very odd. Or you'll get weird typos. That's less likely with a voice actor, presumably because they'll speak up when their line is nonsense.