Question regarding anime and game voiceovers in japan

Do people act just as stupid about dubs and subs like people in the west?

the kind of people arguing about "Authenticity" of the original voices and yatta yatta yatta?

The reason I ask is because I Can't talk to most people about a Jrpg (or anime, although I don't watch much of it nowdays), and liking both english and japanese without people shouting in my face how stupid I am for liking dubs of Japanese content. And getting lectured infinitely about how subs are so much superior.(When I don't have a preference for either)


I mean honestly, when something is dubbed into english and it sounds silly, to someone who is native Japanese or a Japanese speaker it sounds silly to them in Japanese as well because that is the nature of the content right? Or am I wrong?

 

No. Japanese people usually speak Japanese good enough to not have it subtitled or dubbed into English.

 

Content always changes with translation, even more so when the translation is from Japanese to English (or E to J), i.e. not languages of the same family, because there often are no equivalents to expressions. A phrase like "yoroshiku onegai shimasu" can never be translated literally but only in context and translations range from "thank you" to "please, take care of it/him/her etc" and even so in most cases don't seem to fit 100%.

A good argument why dubs are bad would be that the quality of the voice acting itself is bad. For example it's showing emotions through laughs, sobs or screams where you can just simply tell a bad voice actor. And where with animes and games it's just (Japanese) voice acting vs. (enter language) voice acting, with movies it's original voice vs. voice acting. It has to be as lip-synchronized as possible, sound natural in the target language and fit the expression of the actor. A lot of things to get right and in the best case it's all OK but why wouldn't I rather watch the original (subtitled)?

Good subtitling is also not easy but you get rid of the acting part and can concentrate on text that fits the context while coming close to what's originally said.

I would argue though, that most japanophiles you meet in online forums prefer subbed movies not for authenticity's sake but just because it's "more Japanese".

 

I prefer Subs because most of the time the English dub just sounds bloody awful. There are a few and I mean very few that get it right, voices suit the character, lip sync, voice matches the mood etc. For example I'd rather watch Dominion in English than the Japanese because the voices apart from Al, suit the characters. In fact Brittan has almost the same style voice as his Japanese original. However in that anime they also changed 90% of the music so I end up flicking backwards and forwards between the 2 when the music starts. But yes, for the most part dubbing is God Dam awful.

Yakumo

 

Oh, I see your point.

One thing I've noticed over the years is that when something in Japanese is something that would only make sense to a Japanese person, They make necessary changes in the translation to adapt it for the different cultures.
(One thing that I remember companies like Working Designs were greatly known for taking liberty with)

There are some where the music changes in the western version that I like better than the original.
For example The Dragonball Series, I could never stand the original Japanese score. It just seem so out of place and outdated for a cartoon about action, suspense and sometimes comedy.

But in regards to the actual voice acting, in most of the show's/game's i've played/watched the quality of the voice acting was really good (although the bad acting is usually more of an issue with lower budget games from companies like Aksys or Atlus, which is also why they usually have dual-audio) and un-commonly do I find that something is really...well outright terrible.

At this point, most people would say something like Naruto (the character) Is downright annoying and awful. But the nature of the character I think is really actually annoying. To tell the truth I wouldn't know, I hate the show can't stand watching more than 2 seconds of the crap.

I grew up watching subs of Mobile suit Gundam(various) but i've always really prefered dubbing of it.

 

Another thing to consider is that most anime is American dubbed so to most non Americans it sounds far worse than if you are an American. Saying that, Nuku Nuku Cat Girl is British dubbed with the lead character having a scouse accent which I have / had. Now to me, being from Liverpool that was so F*cking annoying that I couldn't even watch the show.

Yakumo

 

Ah, ok That certainly makes sense.

Off topic: that reminds me that Dragon Quest VIII was dubbed In the UK for it's western release If I remember right,and the voice acting was really awesome.


In Europe when they release dubs, do they generally do their own(I can see they do some from your comment about Nuku nuku)? Or is it imported from the states? (hence it sounding silly/not so great to non-american ears)

 

Let me just take the moment to remind everyone of the Eng voice acting on Blue Dragon.

That is all.

 

Mona marshall much?

I didn't find the voice acting bad more than the fact that they fit the characters ;o

 

I apparently have a game I need to go play...

 

I disagree with the "more Japanese" comment, I have been a fan of dubs for years until I actually put the effort in to trying subs. The quality of the Japanese actors compared to the US/EU actors are worlds apart. That and my personal pet hate of ad-lib'ing for "comedy value" just cements my opinion that 90% of English dubs are shite.

If you want another example, have a look at Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi. In the Japanese dub the characters have a sense of intelligence and in the English they just sound like a bunch of fudging morons with comedy accents. I don't care how "fun" it is to be paid to do an English dub, as actors they should acknowledge the story and the characters before deciding "hey this kid would sound great as a redneck"