Well, some anime are better than others. Sometimes hearing an anime in Japanese before English may give you a preference for the Japanese version. Probably my second biggest disappointment with English dubs, especially ones with characters that need to be "just right", is that America seems to have a lack of talented voice actors. Hearing Azumanga Daioh in English makes my ears bleed. In Bleach, Yachiru's English dub is just a tiny bit away from intolerable. If they haven't already, I am really, really hoping they won't mess up on Nel's voice. But probably my biggest disappointment: some English dubs change the anime itself. Not just the voices, or character names. 4Kids, for instance, took out just about everything from Yu-Gi-Oh! that might disagree with anyone who's never seen anything other than the preschool channel. I mean, some of the Battle City/Shadow Realm plotline (Seasons 2-3) had vital details that 4Kids got rid of. Best example: the pentagram to get rid of the evil Marik? Changed so it's just a circle with some random lines that don't mean anything. I could go on for ages about all this, but I won't.

@Yugishogun:

Not necesarily; this argument could be made about five to ten years ago, but now alot of animes are being released uncut because they aren't being shown on Cartoon Network anymore. 4kids has gone bankrupt, so we don't have to worry about them. And honestly, the only anime recently I've seen them do some damage to was Eyeshield 21 where they took out scenes that weren't even bad (why I have no clue). So I see the point, but at least now they are releasing them unedited (like Naruto, and xxxholic and so on a so forth)

thanks for taking the time to read though! ^^

haseo

I think the reason people hate dubs is because scenes get cut out

Well, to be honest, since I rarely hear spoken Japanese in real life, the subs don't bother me nearly as much as the English dubs do, mostly because I can tell the difference in English and not in Japanese.

The English dubs sound far too overemphasized, and I refuse to ditch an obsession because my OCD won't let me listen to childish English.

But that's more just my opinion than anything else. I have nothing against good dubs, like Cowboy Bebop.

Personally I prefer the Japanese version, because you get what they intended to do with the anime. What kind of emotion or hints they are giving away. There are also things lost in translation like puns and honorifics. Which brings up your point of Bakura being from England. In the Japanese version he was NOT from England. I repeat NOT. The American version simply cast him as an English accent to display the politeness that Bakura has. Bakura tends to use a lot of honorifics and polite levels compared to the other characters. In order to portray this to American fans' dubbing, they decided to go with an Enlgish accent. I didn't mind too much, but one other thing with Americanized-dubbed versions tend to be heavily edited such as Yu-gi-oh and Sailor Moon. They have done a bit better with Naruto and Bleach, but there's still editing that honestly annoys me. However, the sub voices is honestly just the preference of the audience. I watched Sailor Moon in all its dubbing glory. I have known and watched it for years. Only recently have I actually went online to check out their Japanese counterparts. I will say this, I have always found the English version of Usagi (Serena)to be rather poorly picked. The Japanese version wasn't much better, but I realized how much was cut and toned down just by watching a few episodes.

Honestly, my ears are used to Japanese words and I have only heard it a few years compared to my 17 years of English. However, to an older person who just started hearing it, it would be a problem. Phonemes are better learned at young ages. That is why many times the older generations are less able to learn other languages, because they have not registered that phoneme earlier. Such as with older Japanese who have not heard English, no matter how strongly you may pronounce the "L" , the older Japanese will always hear an "R" sound. However, if it one learns it younger (as is the case with many now) the phoneme is better heard. So in response to your argument, it is not just babble. Simply we have not registered the phoneme with any particular meaning, but we could recognize it when spoken.

The issue of people hating dubs, well, I'm one of the haters. I have had dubs most of my life and I do much rather prefer the Japanese version perhaps because it fits in better with the scene. The subbing is usually only good in anime movies such as Spirited Away, Steamboy (the setting especially allows for good subbing, but for some reason, they were given Yorkshire accents, when they were in London-In this case even though the setting was in London, the accent was still completely applicable), Kiki's Delivery Service, and other movies that have more concentration than the constant rush that voice actors have to be in. (Although Scryed had pretty good subbing despite it not being a movie)

You hold valid points, but it seems to only attack those who simply appreciate the original. Truthfully I'll alawys like the original. If you ever put on the subtitles for the Japanese language while listening to the English dubbing, you'll find it hard not to notice how off the translation is merely because the words can't fit the same way. The English may even add random things while eliminating key words.

Granted there are people who go "That voice sucks!", but that is not to be taken seriously. If they want to hear terrible voices, point them out to spanish dubs. My mother is hispanic, I have lived with the language English and Spanish, but the Spanish dubbing just sounds absolutely awkward even though the translation into Spanish words tends to be better. In the case of English, it's simply losing the feel of the original context and meaning of the words in the Japanese version, some are rather annoying (probably meant to be that way). In my case I listen to the Japanese version to get away from English editing and Spanish awkwardness.

And who wouldn't want to listen to the original? Names do have a lot of purpose. A distinct change of name can falter someone. Pronunciation differences are simply issues by an over-worked fan of the original. Such as Japanese pronouncing the Bart like Baato. It's not a name change, but rather a pronunciation difference. But changing Usagi (Bunny) into Serena? That is a rather big change. How often do you get called a completely random name? If one's name were perhaps to be Christy, I don't think being called Joe or Robert would make them go "Oh, okay, it's JUST a name."

I have had this happen to me. Some stupid idiot friends of my sister's decided to call me random names (like Hannah or something like that). Excuse my language, but it was bloody fucking annoying.

Do you know how annoying it is to refer to a character to more than one name? To those anime fans who have only watched the dubbed version and never knew of the Japanese versions, they tend to get rather confused when someone refers a Yu-gi-oh character to the Japanese name (and I have had to explain one too many times).

Names are rather important.
The Japanese Language is not Babble.
And Sometimes the voices can be rather annoying.

I have my reasons and many anti-dubbers have theirs. I'm just pointing out a few things.

I found this quite an enlightening essay. I admit that I did skim a bit, but it really brought a bunch of things to light.

Yes, I was one of those people who would cringe at the sound of English dubs. I hated them. It just wasn't the same would be my constant complaint.

With you're mention of Pokemon in the beginning, that's when I realized that it shouldn't bug me anymore than it should. I never complained when I heard Ash. I never complained about how they cut out James wearing a bikini (Wait... I didn't know about that till later...)

And I agree with you most on the last part. There are both really good English dubs and particularly bad ones. One of the best English dubs I saw recently was Howl's Moving Castle (most likely because it was a Miyazaki movie...), and it was very enjoyable to watch in English, now that I think about it. And then there's Laputa: Castle in the Sky...

And also, you've got me to think about how many people diss 4Kids. When you really think about it, if it wasn't for the Pokemon craze that swept so many kids, we might not have anime with us now. Yes, anime did exist beforehand, but the franchise was so small at the time, that no one noticed it.

Also, another common complaint that I have seen among fans about dubbed anime is that they cut out important scenes. Now I realize that they're just going to have to SUCK IT UP. I've decided that the culture is almost WAY to different. Japan is very frank with violence, homosexuality, cross-dressing, etc. It would seriously freak people out in the United States if they were flipping through channels to suddenly see a guy with a nice set of racks.

Anyways, enough of my rantings.

Thank you for the essay,
~S.I.

I completely agree with you there! Wonderful essay.
I don't understand why so many people b*tch and moan when they see new dubs. I mean, imagine watching an anime without the subs at all. How are you expected to understand? In my opinion, dubs are a lot better than subs, in some cases.
I think the main reason why people don't like dubbings is because they prefer the japanese voice for that character.
I couldn't imagine Light Yagami from Death Note have a better voice than he already has in the Japanese version. I think that his japanese voice is suited more to him than his english one. But still, nothing changes. Light is still Light.

You brought up a good point about Sailor moon! Imagine if they literally translated everything from the Subs into the dubs. That means that Sailor Moon woudl be calling her rabbit "rabbit". That sounds pretty dumb. Who names a rabbit "rabbit"? Serena is a refresing name for it.
There are some dubs which choose to keep it that way, like the ninja turtles. They call their master "Master Usagi" Which is the same as saying "Master rabbit." That too sounds pretty dumb.

And I think the dubbers do the best they can! They have to match up their speech with the characters' mouth movements, and that can take a loong time to perfect, ne?

I think 4kids did a really good job on all dubbings. I loved watching all the shows such as DBZ, pokemon, Yugioh and digimon when growing up

XD Welll I think this is a lot of text ^^;;
All I am going to say now is great job, and I am with ya !

Well, you've got some good concerns here. And, as someone who now watches anime almost exclusively with subtitles, I'm obligated to respond. (in a sense the old sub/dub debate lost its sting years ago when we gained the option of just swapping the language in the DVD menu, but it sticks around in a slighter form)

First, for a lot of this I think you're attacking a straw man. There are still a few humorless jerks around who absolutely denounce dubs, but most have grown out of it. That doesn't mean we don't complain about the quality of dubs, but I don't think it's often for ideological reasons. If I were to say that "the dub voice of x is terrible," I need not be implying that dubs as a whole are bad; I need not even be implying: "...therefore everyone should watch the Japanese version." I might feel, for example, that the Japanese voice is equally awful. And in such cases I would simply be complaining that the show as presented isn't as good as it ought to be.

And that, I think, is what most of us are concerned with: that the shows or movies we watch are worth our watching them. As for why so many of us prefer subs - well, not to place the cut too sharply, I think it's because the Japanese audio usually works better with the rest if you've already put in enough time to be used to the style. Not that the acting is better, which is increasingly untrue (and I wholly reject the idea that people prefer the versions they see first - I much prefer the Japanese Eva cast despite being raised on the dub, and I also prefer Spirited Away in English despite never bothering to watch that version until months after I'd bought the DVD). It's just that for a lot of us anime often seems to gel more with Japanese audio. I'm not fully sure why this is, but it is. (and I recognize that for others - for whom, perhaps, "subbed versions aren’t natural to a person’s ears" - this may not be so, or will be so to a lesser degree)

Moving on, then. Now, some things just don't translate. This is true, of course, for both dubs and subs. Nevertheless, there's a real difference. You write of subs: "Unless you’re Japanese or are completely fluent in Japanese, you really don’t have a clue on what the characters are babbling about on your computer screen. You just read the subtitles and listen to babble." But this misses the point, which is that subs are there to make the babble less babbly. As an analogy for subs and dubs, think of the difference between crutches and a motorized wheelchair: one is meant to help weak or injured legs walk normally (so far as possible), and the other is meant to provide a different kind of transportation altogether. Subtitles are meant to augment the Japanese language track for the English speaker, rather than replace it. Even if you don't know the language, subs can indicate what the Japanese would mean if you really understood it. You can still hear the difference between, for example, phrases that are overly polite and ones that aren't; you've got a chance at noticing puns and wordplay that would likely disappear in a dub; you don't get the strange disconnect of characters speaking English yet walking through a city block covered in kana and kanji or calling each other funny foreign names. It's not just that dubs can't do this - they were, and are, never intended to. I emphasize this: subs and dubs have completely different purposes. One is meant to help a viewer to do something otherwise impossible, the other is meant to provide a replacement which is (ideally) just as good or better.

There are some other things I'd say, but this comment is way too long already. To wrap up, I have a theory I'd like to propose. It goes like this: the average anime fan is born a dub-watcher, perhaps goes through a violent anti-dub period (of the sort that you attack), and finally grows up to be someone who prefers whichever track just fits better with the visuals. I think this theory probably breaks down in the details, but overall it seems right. Over time people will get a sense for the style (maybe even the language), drop off their prejudices, and learn how to enjoy a show or a movie for what it is - by whatever is the best presentation available.