Subs VS Dubs

 

            I was poking around for any hint of a Bocchi the Rock! US bluray set and thought “maybe if I look up if they have an English dub cast then that would be a start at least” and I stumbled upon the old subs vs dubs debate. In the post I found they were saying it might not get dubbed because it would ruin the songs, someone else said they could just not dub the songs like they did for K-On (don’t know if that’s true myself), then someone else said dubbed songs are fine and then it cascaded from there. Btw the song the person suggested as a good English version (and @NEETproxy too) was God Bless from Haruhi. I just listened to it and I think it’s fine, probably still prefer the Japanese but they both give me goose bumps so. As far as Bocchi I think I’d rather they kept the songs Japanese unless they do a damn good job with an English version. I just looked it up and it seems the cast for Bocchi actually do the singing too, which I think is normal for voice actors in Japan, but I don’t know how well it would work in English. I feel like it’s not so much a thing here, probably would have a VA and a singer for each character. Well no, maybe not for the anime? Does anyone besides Kita sing? I’m not sure. I have the Bocchi CD and I think multiple characters sing on that, I’m not sure anyways.

            But as far as subs vs dubs goes, for me, it depends. To me, overall, English voice actors don’t have nearly as much heart put into their performances as Japanese VAs do, as far as anime goes. Obviously I can’t say I’ve watched every single anime on my 10 ½ page list of animes I’ve seen in both English and Japanese but the ones I have tried to listen to were disappointing. I also think some of it comes from which ever version I watch first. But examples, Gurren Lagann Kamina, I find him great in Japanese, I find him lacking in English. Holland from Eureka seven, great in Japanese, sounds like an old man in English. Vice versa, I would watch Trigun on TV many years ago before I’d go to work in the wee hours of the morning and within the last three or so years I’d say I tried to watch it again in Japanese but the insurance girls, or whoever they are, don’t sound right at all. They sound way young but again, if I watched that one first I probably would be saying the opposite.

            In videogames it seems to follow the same pattern. If it’s a Japanese game the Japanese is probably always better then the English cast. Sometimes the English is tolerable like Nier Automata and FF7R, I can handle the English in them but still prefer Japanese for FF7R. Western games like God of War, Horizon, Halo, Assassin’s Creed, they have good voice acting. I remember watching the Breath of the Wild trailer when it first came out. The first one was Japanese so you know, whatever, it was the first full trailer! And the trailer goes and there’s a scene where Zelda cries and it’s bone chilling, it sent shivers down my spine. My wife (gf at the time) came over and I was like “you have to see this.” She’s not into games but it was apart of this art that I care about that I wanted her to experience and I start playing it. Oh, this one is in English… Oh well! I’m sure it’ll be fine. We get to that scene and Zelda like, hiccups, and I was like “what the fuck was that?” First impressions are important as I’ve stated and that was not what I wanted my wife’s first impression of BotW to be. Something so powerful was reduced to a few gasps.

            For most fighting games I really like the Japanese more only because the English can be so annoying. I remember back in Soul Cal 4 every time Talim would get hit she would say “please stop! Please stop! Please stop!” Yes, please stop talking! Once I switched it to Japanese it was much more pleasant. I don’t like Juri in English, I find her voice more goofy then the menacing feel I get from Japanese. I remember having a conversation with someone on the ol’ Red vs Blue sight about Blazblue. I had said something about Ragna being the same voice as Kyon from Haruhi and one of my mutuals said something like “I was gonna call you out on that but you must mean for the Japanese.” And I was kind of thinking to myself, “yeah of course, what else would I be talking about?” He claimed that some of the characters voices were better in English, I took a listen but had to disagree.

            To an extent, I feel like Japanese voice actors ARE actors where as over here we have voice actors and then we have actors and sometimes the actors actually do voice acting. I’ve seen arguments about actors doing voice acting are taking jobs away from voice actors but frankly they’re better at it. Like have you seen Tom Hanks doing Woody? He is in the moment, I don’t know what else to say beside he is acting. Some people are just blessed with a certain voice that they don’t even have to do anything with, they just read lines and everybody loves their voice and that’s just good enough but I find a lot of English voice acting for Japanese products to not be very good.

            Something slightly different I’ve noticed is fan subs vs like, company subs I guess? A couple examples come to mind, K-On (brought it back around) and Jormungand. When K-On first was out on the web Yui comes across as very ditzy, which she is, you can tell from her expressions, her movements, her fidgetiness, she’s an air head and the fan subs reflected this. The subs that are on the blurays (I think?) I have from Funimation don’t do Yui justice. Like, the thing about Japanese is they don’t have as many adjectives as we do and I feel like the fan subs used that to great effect where as the Funimation translators were very literal which takes away from the humor of the show. Another scene that I couldn’t believe slipped by Funimation was during towards the end of season 2 the girls are on the roof with a banner or something and Ritsu says something like “rice is the best” and it makes Mio all giggly. I can’t remember what the Funimation subs were but they were nothing close to that. Gohan is rice, even I know that! I don’t know much else but come on! Funimation did a crap job with Jormungand also. I was trying to watch it from their sight, for whatever reason, and the dialog was sooooo BAD. Jonah says “Lehm, they’re shell shocked, they’re starting to stand up.” Then Lehm goes “Oh their shell shocked? You mean when they start standing up because of the noise?” He just said that! Try harder please! The blurays they released aren’t as terrible but they’re not great. There’s literal translation then there’s like, being an actual fucking human with emotions. Emotion and personality translates through dialog just as well as facial expressions.

            I would say I’m not nearly as passionate about this debate as most are. It can be a hot button topic but that’s my take. What do you think? Subs or dubs? What about other languages besides English? I remember some time ago seeing something about the French dubs in Remember Me were really good. The upcoming Assassin’s Creed game is going to have an Arabic option for “authenticity” which I’ll probably check out. I really liked the Comanche dub for Prey also. Anyway I think I’m getting off topic, maybe I’ve been off topic for a while now, I don’t know! But let me know your thoughts and I’ll be back sometime! Bye-bye!

            @AztecSauce

           I didn't have an idea for an ending picture, I've been reading a lot of Nisekoi lately and they have some fun facial expressions so I just made this real quick.