As a relatively serious anime fan, I have never understood the motivation behind dubbing every anime series ever shown on american tv. Cartoon Network is currently showing dozens of series simultaneously, and they’re all dubbed with the same hideous voice actors.
In fact, I’ve never seen any anime where the dubbed version even came close to the original in terms of underlying communication delivered by vocal inflection (i.e. it sounds more right). Not to mention poor synchronization between the english dubbing and the cartoon lips. Action shows like dragonball z and gundam are okay to dub, but introspective shows like evangelion and hack sign rely so much on tone and inflection that watching the dubbed version is pointless.
I’m just wondering if anyone knows why everything is dubbed as opposed to using subtitles. It would seem to me that some compromise would be better than eveything dubbed. Maybe then I’d actually watch my favorite series on tv, intead of turning it off in disgust when I realize how much dubbed version of the show sucks.
In all honesty, most anime series are not well dubbed to begin with, and the newer ones (those done in the last 3-5 years) are about as good in either one.
Dubbed anime has more appeal to the mass audience. Most people don’t like to read lines of text while their watching a show. This is the same reason the Anime Network decided to dub all their shows.
By the way, InquisitiveIdiot, I’m in complete agreement with you. I couldn’t stand the dubbed voices in Evangelion and DragonBall Z. There are some well done dubs though. Cowboy Bebop comes to mind and I’m sure there are others.
I would have to disgree. For example, take Hack Sign. A large portion of the show focuses on this one character’s development. As such, emotion plays a big part in it. The dubbed version fails miserably as this. When the character gets mad, the voice actor only raises his voice slightly-there’s no emotional inflection at all. Now dragonball z, sure, doesn’t really matter because you’re watching it for the explosions and fighting, not for anything that gets said.
Why do you like the dubbed ones better? I’m not trying to be insulting, I honestly want to know. The only reason I can think of is to avoid having to look at the subtitles constantly to figure out what’s going on.
As an addendum to the OP, would anyone here know of any legal objections to using fansubbed versions of the anime? Assuming, of course, that the anime is licensed as usual and the fansub community gives the ok.
Why does Cartoon Network dub everything? They dub nothing. It’s the distributers of the shows that do the dubbing.
The real answer is the fact that subtitles are a ratings black hole on television. And, yes, the Cartoon Network is trying to get the five to twelve age bracket for everything outside of Adult Swim. If there’s crossover audience they’re happy but they have to go after their core group and subtitles would be a second strike there.
As opposed to the Japanese dialog where they don’t even make the attempt to match?
What I’d like to know is why don’t the distributors for imported anime series employ voice actors of the quality heard on domestically produced television cartoons? Why don’t they pull from the same pool? Is it too expensive to get, say, Cam Clarke? If the talent were a little better, I wouldn’t mind dubs so much.
Another thing I hate about dubs: hearing mangled, overenunciated versions of Japanese names, e.g. “RAWN-muh!” “Ree-YOH-gah!” It grates on my ears. (I guess you could say the reverse is just as bad – “Baggusu Banii,” “Pinku Pansaa,” “Arajin,” etc.)
Before we get into this, I think we should all take a moment and thank Zomel Gustav for the DVD format. Seriously. I used to have to find a way to sidestep this argument at LEAST twice a week.
If you’re a serious anime fan, why are you watching cartoon network in the first place? Hie thee to a Suncoast, man!
Seriously, though, using subs wouldn’t make any sense from CNs point of view, and using them wouldn’t be a ‘compromise’ in any meaningful way.
They insist their audience is mostly kids, for whom subtitles are probably inappropriate. In reality, its probably about a third kids, a third teens, and a third evenly divided between slackers and geeks. Only a subset of the last group, probably less than 5% of their viewing audience, would appreciate subtitles. The rest would almost certainly turn them off, and even most of that five percent can stomach dubs. You could probably make a reasonable argument that, say, HBO or even the SF channel (if we ignore the fact that they’re a bunch of MST3K-canceling dickheads) should use subs.
Americans don’t like subtitles. Actually, NOBODY, nationally speaking, likes subtitles. Almost every country dubs almost everything, but that’s not really germane. Even when the only market for anime was anime geeks, dub tapes still sold a LOT better than subs, even when they were priced the same.
What, you mean, on TV? I’m fairly certain that CN wouldn’t WANT to ask. It would alienate both the American and (especially) the Japanese anime companies, for a start. They’d also probably think the whole idea was grossly unprofessional. And the fansubbers would probably have to sign something, which they probably wouldn’t want to do, for fear of Bandai calling down a Super Bestial Machine Lawsuit on them.
Is there anything that CN (or any other network) shows that doesn’t have a sub commercially available in the US, or at least coming soon? I mean besides Tekkaman Blade? Hamtaro, maybe?
Me, I like both. Actually, I usually watch the dub WITH the subtitles on. A well done dub is a wonderful thing, and they’re not even that rare anymore. And if it wasn’t well done, I can always switch the audio track. (Devil Lady, I’m looking in your direction. And why does every iteration of Saber Marionette have a worse dub than the previous one?)
What’s good about dubs? (Well, good ones, anway) Well, as you said, tone and inflection. Which can do a lot more than happy-sad-angry-resentful if you actually understand which word is being stressed when. It’s also easier to get other people to watch, but that’s less an issue now than it once was.
Often, I think, the English voice actors take the blame when it’s the translator’s fault, for not coming up with a way to make the dialog sound somewhat natural, or the original writer, who may have made it overly melodramatic or vague in the first place.
Also it seems that people in general are more willing to accept over-the-top dialog and big information-dumping soliloquies (both common in anime) in written form than spoken.
Even if you don’t listen to them, it’s hard to deny that the mainstream appeal that dubs have has been a huge boost for the industry. Unless you liked $39 for a half hour tape, three companies putting out two or three tapes a month each, and waiting five years for stuff to come across. Now almost everything comes across eventually, we pay less for them than they do in Japan, and it’s showing up on TV with minimal cuts, and occasionally even in movie theaters. Life is pretty good, really.
Out of curiosity, are there any series with Japanese audio tracks you don’t like? Not in comparison to the dub, but that you think just weren’t done well to begin with?
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Speaking of bad dubs . . . “Those . … . BITCHES . . . who confront me at every turn . . . the knIGHT SABers!”
Subtitles can only transport the gist (at least to my experience, having seen subtitled movies, where I actually understood the spoken language), so a good dub is preferrable over a sub in my opinion.
However, if the dubs are really as horrible as you say they are, perhaps subs are the way to go… Then again, as cletus said, dubbed anime has more appeal to the mass audience.
Why everything in Cartoon Network is dubbed? Probably the same reason everything on Telemundo and Univision that was not originally made in Spanish is dubbed into this language, rather than subtitled. (BTW, If you think anime-to-English dubbing is bad, lemme tall ya nothing’s like 1980s-90s American “Hispanic”-TV English-to-Spanish – to begin with, it sounds like it was only 3 guys in one studio who did EVERYTHING)
Anyway, the anime is first and foremost a commercial entertainment product so the producer/distributor/broadcaster does the right thing in aiming for the largest possible potential market share. That A PARTICULAR dub may be appallingly horrible, that’s another story. But that’s a case-by-case judgment to be made.
Ura-Maru said more of what I think, and better.
Oh, and it’s true: in many countries outside the USA and its immediate sphere of influence, imported theatrical films are dubbed – yes, I mean things like Titanic or Spiderman.
Which is 10:00 PM on the West coast, and earlier than that in Alaska and Hawaii. Plus there are PVRs and VCRs that make the time a program airs a non-issue.
okay, xizor, that’s creepy, you commented to the same thing as me, and live in nashville (l’m in murfresboro), and your screen name starts with the same letter…coincidence? i think not!
I prefer dubs because reading the text detracts from the visual spectacle. And I’m not usually watching anime for the plot, which is usually pretty cheesy. In that vein, a sub-standard dub can add to the experience.
Why doesn’t Cartoon Network run the English soundtrack on the regular airwaves, and put the Japanese soundtrack on the “SAP” portion (home of descriptions for the blind on PBS and Simpsons in Spanish in certain markets)? They could put the subtitiles in the “Closed Captions”! Really, the best of both worlds–people who care would go through the trouble of setting up their TVs to hear the original, and other people who prefer English would not be affected at all. We have the technology, people!!!
The only animephile I know who prefers dubs does so because English is not his native language (and he doesn’t speak Japanese at all)…it’s apparently easier for him to understand spoken English than to concentrate on reading subtitiles.
I learned, in the commentary track of the “Pokemon 4Ever” DVD, of all places, that American voice dubbing is done much differently than Japanese voice dubbing. In America, each voice actor comes into the booth and records their lines separately, and it’s all mixed together later. In Japan, the actors all come together, and it’s recorded like a radio show. I think that the Japanese way gives the actors more of a chance to play off each other. The Pokemon people made it sound like there was a lot of guesswork involved–they have to read the other actors’ lines and imagine how they would be said, and then react to them. That sounds like a harder way to do it to me. Also, American voice dubbing has a fixation on matching the “lip flaps”–the English dub matches much better than the original Japanese!
My theory is that if you heard the English dub first, it’s not so bad. I think the Ranma dub is OK, since that’s what I’m very used to–but I know others who can’t stand it. (I have never liked “male” Ranma’s voice, though.) However, if I heard the Japanese first, the dub is often very grating. So, the more subtitled series you watch, the more dubs suck!
Probably because that would need extra bandwidth, which would cost money that they don’t have (and they don’t sell very many ads, frequently having to resort to those obnoxious three-minute music video things). Plus, not all TVs have SAP options. I doubt it would make economic sense at all.
