Sub v. Dub

I am not sure if this debate has been had yet but it is one I like reading if done civilly. What do you prefer?

My position is that I prefer subs very much. A simple explanation of the way dubs are made is that a team "reads the lips" of the characters and writes dialogue to fit the time in which they speak. This is an amazing process and requires a large vocabulary and when done right is very interesting. However, there is another part of this process, localization, which is were I prefer subs. During localization the production team makes the anime more suitable for the audience that they are presenting it to. In this things may be cut, signs changed, dialogue changed completely, and various other forms of censorship. While the dubs are approved by the original creators watching a side by side comparison shows these inaccuracies. While subs can not capture every nuisance between the two languages, and(evident most in Bakemonagatari) jokes about certain parts of the Japanese language must be explained, I feel that I am watching something much closer to the original vision of the creator.

Don't get me wrong however, I love dubs and am aware of the pitfalls of subs. Often times I have to ignore dialogue during action heavy scenes to fully appreciate the animation and then bactrack. Some groups may also sneak in meme's in order to dankify an anime... But all in all I will always choose the sub when I want to full experience an anime.

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Mavis wrote

Depends, I like Dragon Ball, SAO, Fairy Tail in dub just because that is how I first watched them, ill watch sub with most other animes though

Same, that's another point that I will stick with whatever I see first. A reason I only just saw Evangellion 3.33. 

Many pre-Funimation dubs had an amateur porn charm to them which make them entertaining in their own right.

Tenshi wrote

I like dubs on certain series eg, Eureka 7, Black Lagoon (Feels a bit more authentic) and a couple of others, however I'm leaning more towards subs due to disappointment after disappointment I've faced with half-assed dubs.

Anime like Black Lagoon and Beck are perfect examples of English making more sense. Both I really like.

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Silica wrote

I'll go against the crowd here: I prefer dubs.

My reason for this is that I haven't really started turning learning Japanese yet. And glancing away from the screen because "hey look, a toothpick" is a common occurrence. And I don't like missing a single line of a show. If I hear it in my native language, I don't need to go back over it.

Plus, here's something very few people really touch on in this argument, but I think it's quite important: While it doesn't matter to anyone who knows Japanese, those of us who don't will not really get the inflections and such in the lines and kind of have to guess it or just blatantly not understand it. Tone can affect a line a lot. Sure, the overall tone's obvious, but it's just good to have a full understanding of what you're hearing when you hear it.

Plus sometimes, like 2 Japanese words ends up requiring like 10 words in English, so I need to see it again because they gave me half a second to read that...

Yea it sucks trying to do laundry or multitask anything while watching subs. I usually watch whatever dub I have when I am cleaning my room or something.

But in respect to understanding and inflections, if you watch alot of anime or just Japanese movies you start to put contexts to tone. Plus all that is lost when the dub is put together. There are examples of characters completely changing in personality due to the dub.

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Also just in general I don't hate dubs or think subs are inherently better. The deciding factor of choosing for me is, what did I watch first and why am I watching this? If I am just trying to waste time I don't care, but if my goal is appreciating the art that the creator has produced I will usually choose the sub.

Silica wrote

MoMo wrote

But in respect to understanding and inflections, if you watch alot of anime or just Japanese movies you start to put contexts to tone. Plus all that is lost when the dub is put together. There are examples of characters completely changing in personality due to the dub.

But if you don't speak Japanese, you don't know which words mean what, and thus have no idea which words in the subs use such inflections. And dubs can certainly change things, but the story will at least (maybe aside from a couple of specific cases) be fully coherent in English. Just a little different to the original material.

True. But if its a inflection of a word is in the context of a sentence. There wouldn't be a sentence like, "I am going TO the store" If you can read the sentence you'll know the context. Or at least that what I believe. And my thing is I want to be as close as I can be to the source material.