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As long as they don’t mess with it I’m fine. I recently accidentally watched Castle In the Sky with the English dub and I was so angry at the terrible changes t

As long as they don’t mess with it I’m fine. I recently accidentally watched Castle In the Sky with the English dub and I was so angry at the terrible changes they made to the sound design. The opening scene in the Japanese version is completely quiet except for the sound of engines running, and in the English dub they just added crappy music over the whole thing. In the Japanese version they break the silence with this really startling piano/electronic track. In the English dub they fade it in. I don’t know who was responsible for that but there’s nothing I hate more than someone ruining something good for literally no reason.

wand3r 3y ago
Are you fluent in Japanese? I always find it odd when people prefer a sub to a dub. Only in edge cases where the dub is absolutely terrible would I ever consider this for an animated work. In movies, sometimes the mouth moving is distracting but for animation this is not a problem. For the 2 nits you picked above, I don't think I would watch 90 minutes in a foreign language. Is this a preference or something? To be clear, I am genuinely curious about why people prefer subs
- lenocinor 3y ago
  I like Disney’s dubs generally. Having watched Princess Mononoke 5 times with the Disney sub and 5 times with the Disney dub, I like them both for different reasons. Castle In The Sky has had a bunch of dubs: https://dubbing.fandom.com/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky https://dubbing.fandom.com/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky Maybe the commenter would prefer a different dub. EDIT: To answer your question specifically, I like the original voice actors sometimes and find it makes a difference to how I feel about a work sometimes. I also think subs can convey some contexts that are difficult in speech, especially culture-specific words like honorifics and food that in my experience are often left more untranslated in subs.
- otachack 3y ago
  I think it's having a general preference over the "original" material. Subs do force you to read and watch so you need to initially train yourself to deal with it, but now I always prefer subs even with my native language because voice volume can vary between media. Adding dubs lays another layer onto the original artists vision, such as Ghibli with Disney-produced dubs on top. Some will hit right, others won't. Subs are definitely another layer as now you need translators but it's a lighter one than dubs. I personally don't knock people who do dubs vs. subs. I grew up watching Bruce Lee movies with terrible English dubs and loved them, still. Hope that makes sense!
- goosedragons 3y ago
  Why? It's the original intent and the original voice. The sub tends to be closer to the original script because they aren't constrained by mouths moving nor can they add lines, music etc. I don't think voice acting is as well respected in North America too and so lack of talent/desire to keep costs low gets a worse result. I don't think it helps that English VAs will sometimes try to mimic the Japanese VAs but it just doesn't work and easily sounds really grating. I have turned off voices in several JRPGs because of this.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    >I don't think voice acting is as well respected in North America too and so lack of talent/desire to keep costs low gets a worse result. You've got it backwards: Voice acting in Japan is far more respected (idolized, even) than the occupation is in every other part of the world.
    - soperj 3y ago
      You're agreeing here.
      - Dalewyn 3y ago
        Indeed I am. What I disagreed with is the notion that voice acting being considered a low social status is an abnormality. No, voice acting being considered so highly in Japan is the abnormality.
    - goosedragons 3y ago
      No you do...
    - astrange 3y ago
      They're still keeping costs low over there. The respect and the side job as an idol is a tradeoff for not being paid well. Much of the better acting comes from everyone living in Tokyo so they can more easily record as a group.
- autoexec 3y ago
  The voice acting is almost always vastly better in the original language. The creator of the work spent significant time and money finding the right person for each role and then spent even more time working with them to get the performance they want in every scene. This is especially true in Japan since voice actors are more of a big deal there than in the US. For the dub, that kind of care isn't usually put into it, and even when the company producing the dub does put some effort into it that only reflects their desires, not those of the original creator. That's why you so often get a very recognizable (and annoying imho) "anime dub voice". It sounds extremely unnatural. I can often tell if something has been dubbed from its original language just by hearing a few spoken lines of dialog! That shouldn't be possible, but it's obvious. The other main problem I have with dubs is that they are not faithful to the content of the original work. Sometimes they rewrite parts of the script to avoid mouths not matching up with English voices, or to limit the amount of work needed to edit the mouths to match. Sometimes they rewrite the script entirely! They also tend to make all kinds of totally needless changes. They'll often censor content and dumb down the script (typically by over-explaining everything). They almost always make changes to localize it by removing/replacing cultural references. One of the things I enjoy about consuming media made in other countries is that I get to learn things about those cultures. I like to see artistic works that come from a non-US perspective. I don't want that stripped away. If you're looking at art made in another language, the ideal situation would be to have mastery of the language it was written/performed in, and that you'd have all the cultural knowledge to fully appreciate the many careful and deliberate choices the creator made. Most of the time, that's just not possible. Translation itself is a lossy process. It means that for you to enjoy it at all, you have to accept that some things are lost. The goal then, should be to retain as much of the original work as possible. That means subtitles and original voice acting. If you watch a dub you are not getting the work the creators envisioned and labored to bring into the world. You're getting something very different and much farther removed.
  - projectazorian 3y ago
    > They also tend to make all kinds of totally needless changes. They'll often censor content and dumb down the script (typically by over-explaining everything). Excellent example of this is the Ghost in the Shell 4K remaster, which has all new subtitles that are a much more faithful translation of the original work - but you wouldn’t know that if you watched the dub, which wasn’t changed at all.
- robswc 3y ago
  I'm the same way. I love subtitles _but_ they degrade some of the experience. I had to turn them off because they will spoil the moment. Good example is King of The Hill. The I'll see the punchline before the delivery and I feel like it spoils the scene/joke. I'll run them on other things (and they're amazing otherwise!) but when I sit down to watch something good, I have to turn them off or I'll get distracted/spoiled. More power to the people that enjoy the subbed version though.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > I'll see the punchline before the delivery and I feel like it spoils the scene/joke. This I'll agree is a major problem with subtitles. It's not even just the jokes. I've seen the names of characters shown in subtitles (because they were speaking off screen) long before that character's name was revealed to the audience by the script. Another major distraction is the trend companies have these days to refuse to provide subtitles and give only closed captioning with all of its extraneous information about sound effects or the highly subjective descriptions of whatever music is playing. It's so obnoxious.
  - dfxm12 3y ago
    I forget what I was watching. It might not have even been anime, but the subtitles had blanks in them, until it was time to reveal the word, when that key word would appear. In this way, they didn't spoil the punchline, or who was being talked to. It was a little bit jarring the first time, but by the second time it happened, I had already adapted and was thankful for it.
- kps 3y ago
  > I don't think I would watch 90 minutes in a foreign language. In the past I watched quite a lot of non-English film (mostly in European languages) and always prefer subtitles. For me, there is a mental synthesis so that it's almost as if I understand the voices directly. This might be a learned skill.
- projectazorian 3y ago
  > Are you fluent in Japanese? I always find it odd when people prefer a sub to a dub. You don’t need to be fluent in Japanese to notice a lot of context that (by necessity) gets left out in a dub. How characters address one another, for example. Also, if you’re trying to learn Japanese then the more Japanese you hear, the better - even if you don’t understand it all. Not to mention the usual arguments about the original voice acting being a better reflection of the authors’ intent, etc. I’ll still watch dubs if I don’t want to give something my undivided attention, though.
- city41 3y ago
  And to add to all the answers (that I agree with), when watching with subs I almost always find it fades away. It almost feels like I somehow know Japanese. Sure I'm reading words, but once lost in the story it becomes much less noticeable.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  >Only in edge cases where the dub is absolutely terrible Most of them. As someone else said, the actual script can change. Attack on Titan had much more juvenile dialogue than the English translation of the Japanese. But it sounds like a personal preference for you to watch in the language you can understand. I am fine watching foreign films upon occasion.
- kouru225 3y ago
  I’d be fine with a dub if they kept the same sound design, but sound design is way more important than dialogue imo. Yea I’ll definitely watch with subs. I got absolutely no fear about that for a foreign movie. For an English movie though I gotta take subs off unless my gf demands them (I dunno why she likes them so much) I used to speak Japanese but I can’t rely on it at all for movies. I’ve forgotten most of it.
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    >For an English movie though I gotta take subs off unless my gf demands them (I dunno why she likes them so much) Maybe for the same reason me and countless other native English speakers do: because everyone mumbles so much in movies these days. It's impossible to understand actors now. This isn't a problem when watching older movies.
autoexec 3y ago
English dubs are usually terrible in general. I'd mind them a bit less if they were just faithful translations using different voice actors, but so often they dumb the scripts down and add a bunch of other changes as if no one in the English speaking world could appreciate it otherwise. It can make a huge difference. One example of this is the animated Canadian/French film "Ballerina" which got good reviews. The Weinstein Company got the rights to distribute it in the US and they butchered the script adding a bunch of bad jokes everywhere and making unnecessary changes and the resulting film "Leap!" got terrible reviews.
- JeremyNT 3y ago
  > English dubs are usually terrible in general. I'd mind them a bit less if they were just faithful translations using different voice actors, but so often they dumb the scripts down and add a bunch of other changes as if no one in the English speaking world could appreciate it otherwise. The later Ghibli films (which received proper localization in English) are mostly quite good. They aren't perfect, but increased awareness of Miyazaki in the west (and from Disney no less) meant that it was worth spending the money to do them well. In general they have good writers and voice actors, and demonstrate a respect for the source material. The earlier Miyazaki stuff, before he was as well known here (like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind or Laputa: Castle in the Sky) ... well... not so much (I do think Nausicaä was eventually redubbed, though I'm not sure how good it was).
  - autoexec 3y ago
    It's hard to complain too much when you've got someone like Neil Gaiman rewriting the script. He fought hard to keep what he could unchanged for Princess Mononoke. That's probably the best case scenario when it comes to dubs. Rewrites with highly skilled writers who care about the material and who work with the creators to protect the integrity of the work.
    - seanc 3y ago
      That story is crazy. The first part of it is here: https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/2020/5/28/21270864/princess-mononoke-neil-gaiman-translation-disney-studio-ghibli-steve-alpert https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/2020/5/28/2127086... In the book Alpert goes on to relate how he had to baby-sit the entire process right down the final mix in order to keep people from messing with it.
goosedragons 3y ago
Disney. Disney did most of the English Ghibli dubs including Castle in the Sky.
tarberiug34 3y ago
Americans cant stand silence in movies. Thats why every second of almost all american movies has music
- midoridensha 3y ago
  That's true of modern Americans and their movies. But go watch some old Kubrick movies and you'll see plenty of silence.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

wand3r 3y ago

Are you fluent in Japanese? I always find it odd when people prefer a sub to a dub. Only in edge cases where the dub is absolutely terrible would I ever consider this for an animated work. In movies, sometimes the mouth moving is distracting but for animation this is not a problem. For the 2 nits you picked above, I don't think I would watch 90 minutes in a foreign language. Is this a preference or something? To be clear, I am genuinely curious about why people prefer subs

lenocinor 3y ago
I like Disney’s dubs generally. Having watched Princess Mononoke 5 times with the Disney sub and 5 times with the Disney dub, I like them both for different reasons. Castle In The Sky has had a bunch of dubs: https://dubbing.fandom.com/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky https://dubbing.fandom.com/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky Maybe the commenter would prefer a different dub. EDIT: To answer your question specifically, I like the original voice actors sometimes and find it makes a difference to how I feel about a work sometimes. I also think subs can convey some contexts that are difficult in speech, especially culture-specific words like honorifics and food that in my experience are often left more untranslated in subs.
otachack 3y ago
I think it's having a general preference over the "original" material. Subs do force you to read and watch so you need to initially train yourself to deal with it, but now I always prefer subs even with my native language because voice volume can vary between media. Adding dubs lays another layer onto the original artists vision, such as Ghibli with Disney-produced dubs on top. Some will hit right, others won't. Subs are definitely another layer as now you need translators but it's a lighter one than dubs. I personally don't knock people who do dubs vs. subs. I grew up watching Bruce Lee movies with terrible English dubs and loved them, still. Hope that makes sense!
goosedragons 3y ago
Why? It's the original intent and the original voice. The sub tends to be closer to the original script because they aren't constrained by mouths moving nor can they add lines, music etc. I don't think voice acting is as well respected in North America too and so lack of talent/desire to keep costs low gets a worse result. I don't think it helps that English VAs will sometimes try to mimic the Japanese VAs but it just doesn't work and easily sounds really grating. I have turned off voices in several JRPGs because of this.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  >I don't think voice acting is as well respected in North America too and so lack of talent/desire to keep costs low gets a worse result. You've got it backwards: Voice acting in Japan is far more respected (idolized, even) than the occupation is in every other part of the world.
  - soperj 3y ago
    You're agreeing here.
    - Dalewyn 3y ago
      Indeed I am. What I disagreed with is the notion that voice acting being considered a low social status is an abnormality. No, voice acting being considered so highly in Japan is the abnormality.
  - goosedragons 3y ago
    No you do...
  - astrange 3y ago
    They're still keeping costs low over there. The respect and the side job as an idol is a tradeoff for not being paid well. Much of the better acting comes from everyone living in Tokyo so they can more easily record as a group.
autoexec 3y ago
The voice acting is almost always vastly better in the original language. The creator of the work spent significant time and money finding the right person for each role and then spent even more time working with them to get the performance they want in every scene. This is especially true in Japan since voice actors are more of a big deal there than in the US. For the dub, that kind of care isn't usually put into it, and even when the company producing the dub does put some effort into it that only reflects their desires, not those of the original creator. That's why you so often get a very recognizable (and annoying imho) "anime dub voice". It sounds extremely unnatural. I can often tell if something has been dubbed from its original language just by hearing a few spoken lines of dialog! That shouldn't be possible, but it's obvious. The other main problem I have with dubs is that they are not faithful to the content of the original work. Sometimes they rewrite parts of the script to avoid mouths not matching up with English voices, or to limit the amount of work needed to edit the mouths to match. Sometimes they rewrite the script entirely! They also tend to make all kinds of totally needless changes. They'll often censor content and dumb down the script (typically by over-explaining everything). They almost always make changes to localize it by removing/replacing cultural references. One of the things I enjoy about consuming media made in other countries is that I get to learn things about those cultures. I like to see artistic works that come from a non-US perspective. I don't want that stripped away. If you're looking at art made in another language, the ideal situation would be to have mastery of the language it was written/performed in, and that you'd have all the cultural knowledge to fully appreciate the many careful and deliberate choices the creator made. Most of the time, that's just not possible. Translation itself is a lossy process. It means that for you to enjoy it at all, you have to accept that some things are lost. The goal then, should be to retain as much of the original work as possible. That means subtitles and original voice acting. If you watch a dub you are not getting the work the creators envisioned and labored to bring into the world. You're getting something very different and much farther removed.
- projectazorian 3y ago
  > They also tend to make all kinds of totally needless changes. They'll often censor content and dumb down the script (typically by over-explaining everything). Excellent example of this is the Ghost in the Shell 4K remaster, which has all new subtitles that are a much more faithful translation of the original work - but you wouldn’t know that if you watched the dub, which wasn’t changed at all.
robswc 3y ago
I'm the same way. I love subtitles _but_ they degrade some of the experience. I had to turn them off because they will spoil the moment. Good example is King of The Hill. The I'll see the punchline before the delivery and I feel like it spoils the scene/joke. I'll run them on other things (and they're amazing otherwise!) but when I sit down to watch something good, I have to turn them off or I'll get distracted/spoiled. More power to the people that enjoy the subbed version though.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > I'll see the punchline before the delivery and I feel like it spoils the scene/joke. This I'll agree is a major problem with subtitles. It's not even just the jokes. I've seen the names of characters shown in subtitles (because they were speaking off screen) long before that character's name was revealed to the audience by the script. Another major distraction is the trend companies have these days to refuse to provide subtitles and give only closed captioning with all of its extraneous information about sound effects or the highly subjective descriptions of whatever music is playing. It's so obnoxious.
- dfxm12 3y ago
  I forget what I was watching. It might not have even been anime, but the subtitles had blanks in them, until it was time to reveal the word, when that key word would appear. In this way, they didn't spoil the punchline, or who was being talked to. It was a little bit jarring the first time, but by the second time it happened, I had already adapted and was thankful for it.
kps 3y ago
> I don't think I would watch 90 minutes in a foreign language. In the past I watched quite a lot of non-English film (mostly in European languages) and always prefer subtitles. For me, there is a mental synthesis so that it's almost as if I understand the voices directly. This might be a learned skill.
projectazorian 3y ago
> Are you fluent in Japanese? I always find it odd when people prefer a sub to a dub. You don’t need to be fluent in Japanese to notice a lot of context that (by necessity) gets left out in a dub. How characters address one another, for example. Also, if you’re trying to learn Japanese then the more Japanese you hear, the better - even if you don’t understand it all. Not to mention the usual arguments about the original voice acting being a better reflection of the authors’ intent, etc. I’ll still watch dubs if I don’t want to give something my undivided attention, though.
city41 3y ago
And to add to all the answers (that I agree with), when watching with subs I almost always find it fades away. It almost feels like I somehow know Japanese. Sure I'm reading words, but once lost in the story it becomes much less noticeable.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
unethical_ban 3y ago
>Only in edge cases where the dub is absolutely terrible Most of them. As someone else said, the actual script can change. Attack on Titan had much more juvenile dialogue than the English translation of the Japanese. But it sounds like a personal preference for you to watch in the language you can understand. I am fine watching foreign films upon occasion.
kouru225 3y ago
I’d be fine with a dub if they kept the same sound design, but sound design is way more important than dialogue imo. Yea I’ll definitely watch with subs. I got absolutely no fear about that for a foreign movie. For an English movie though I gotta take subs off unless my gf demands them (I dunno why she likes them so much) I used to speak Japanese but I can’t rely on it at all for movies. I’ve forgotten most of it.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  >For an English movie though I gotta take subs off unless my gf demands them (I dunno why she likes them so much) Maybe for the same reason me and countless other native English speakers do: because everyone mumbles so much in movies these days. It's impossible to understand actors now. This isn't a problem when watching older movies.

autoexec 3y ago

English dubs are usually terrible in general. I'd mind them a bit less if they were just faithful translations using different voice actors, but so often they dumb the scripts down and add a bunch of other changes as if no one in the English speaking world could appreciate it otherwise. It can make a huge difference. One example of this is the animated Canadian/French film "Ballerina" which got good reviews. The Weinstein Company got the rights to distribute it in the US and they butchered the script adding a bunch of bad jokes everywhere and making unnecessary changes and the resulting film "Leap!" got terrible reviews.

JeremyNT 3y ago
> English dubs are usually terrible in general. I'd mind them a bit less if they were just faithful translations using different voice actors, but so often they dumb the scripts down and add a bunch of other changes as if no one in the English speaking world could appreciate it otherwise. The later Ghibli films (which received proper localization in English) are mostly quite good. They aren't perfect, but increased awareness of Miyazaki in the west (and from Disney no less) meant that it was worth spending the money to do them well. In general they have good writers and voice actors, and demonstrate a respect for the source material. The earlier Miyazaki stuff, before he was as well known here (like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind or Laputa: Castle in the Sky) ... well... not so much (I do think Nausicaä was eventually redubbed, though I'm not sure how good it was).
- autoexec 3y ago
  It's hard to complain too much when you've got someone like Neil Gaiman rewriting the script. He fought hard to keep what he could unchanged for Princess Mononoke. That's probably the best case scenario when it comes to dubs. Rewrites with highly skilled writers who care about the material and who work with the creators to protect the integrity of the work.
  - seanc 3y ago
    That story is crazy. The first part of it is here: https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/2020/5/28/21270864/princess-mononoke-neil-gaiman-translation-disney-studio-ghibli-steve-alpert https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/2020/5/28/2127086... In the book Alpert goes on to relate how he had to baby-sit the entire process right down the final mix in order to keep people from messing with it.

goosedragons 3y ago

Disney. Disney did most of the English Ghibli dubs including Castle in the Sky.

tarberiug34 3y ago

Americans cant stand silence in movies. Thats why every second of almost all american movies has music

midoridensha 3y ago
That's true of modern Americans and their movies. But go watch some old Kubrick movies and you'll see plenty of silence.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]