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[Nolor]

I had a mind-blowing experience with dubs recently.

While watching Angelic Layer (not a great series) I switched over to the English audio track for an episode. The voice acting was predictably terrible, but for some reason, they were using Japanese honorifics. -kun and -chan, etc. I don't think I've seen any other English dub keep them untranslated.

[Leafsnail]

Did Haruhi leave them untranslated?  I can't remember now.  There isn't really an English equivalent to them anyway, so...

[Acanthus117]

I like Baccano. It has decent english dubs.

[ToonyMan]

I watch sub or dub, I don't care.

[Neruz]

I personally prefer moonspeak with subs, if only because watching anime with English voices always sounds wierd to me.

Also, it lets you hear the characters with their 'original' voices, and while some English dubs are beautiful and get the characterisation spot on, others... don't...

[ToonyMan]

I personally prefer moonspeak with subs, if only because watching anime with English voices always sounds wierd to me.

Also, it lets you hear the characters with their 'original' voices, and while some English dubs are beautiful and get the characterisation spot on, others... don't...

Speaking of which, I've watched all the Yu-gi-oh Abridged episodes now.  Yah.

[Fault]

I've heard that, supposedly, the original voicework sounds better to sub fans because they aren't native japanese speakers, and it's harder to tell when the voice acting is on or off, so to speak.

The sub voices could be just as bad (or good) as the dub, but that's apparently harder to tell for someone who didn't grow up with the language.

[quinnr]

I've heard that, supposedly, the original voicework sounds better to sub fans because they aren't native japanese speakers, and it's harder to tell when the voice acting is on or off, so to speak.

The sub voices could be just as bad (or good) as the dub, but that's apparently harder to tell for someone who didn't grow up with the language.

I was just thinking about this the other day...

[Mister Thou]

I've heard that, supposedly, the original voicework sounds better to sub fans because they aren't native japanese speakers, and it's harder to tell when the voice acting is on or off, so to speak.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's true.

Personally, I prefer watching subtitled shows because it lets me disengage the part of my brain that parses semantic content from audible sound. In other words, the dialogue becomes mostly ambience.
Of course, the oft-mentioned horrible quality of many dubbing efforts doesn't do anything for me either.
Also of course, listening to foreign languages is fun anyway.

[Micro102]

The only decent dub I've heard is Shuffle!.

Their voices actually fit. Maybe even better then the original voices.

[MrWiggles]

It varies. Just like it does with the japanese VA. They aren't all well done. Dub face various challenges that does make it difficult to do a par job. Without understanding the language its quite impossible really to say which is doing better. Some aspect do go beyond fluency, such as emotional content can be read over  the language barrier. Cadence and pacing, are example of some aspect that can't really be deciphered.

I listen to dub as it allows me to multitask. If I want to fully concentrate on the anime, I'll probably put on subtitles.

For the most part I can and have switch back and forth between dub and sub. Even during the same episode.

[Neruz]

I've heard that, supposedly, the original voicework sounds better to sub fans because they aren't native japanese speakers, and it's harder to tell when the voice acting is on or off, so to speak.

The sub voices could be just as bad (or good) as the dub, but that's apparently harder to tell for someone who didn't grow up with the language.

This is definitely possible and highly likely, although i've watched so much Anime that i'm actually picking up some moonspeak, i have no doubt that the fact that it's not my native language means that i can't tell when the bad voice acting is bad.

The other thing is of course that in Wapan, being a Seiyu is considered a pretty serious profession and is often used by wannabe singers to jump-start their career, wheras in the western world outside of CGI movies (and often even in them) voice acting has a far less professional and glamorous position.
As Pixar have shown; it is possible to get good VA's in western media, but as Dreamworks have shown; it's really hard and basically requires hiring actual actors and movie stars, which is ridiculously expensive.

Basically, voice acting has a higher level of professionalism in Japan than it does in the west, which i suspect is one of the key reasons why Japanese voice acting tends to be leagues ahead of most western voice acting (at least the english stuff, can't really say for French or anything like that.) more often than not.

[MrWiggles]

There probably about 100 working voice actors here in the States. Its very hard to get a foot in the door to do VA work, and you'll need to be in one of the three city where the work is. I can only remember two of them: LA and New York. And not all actors are good at VA. In 13, David Duchovny did a piss poor job. And Adam West has no range in performance.

Dreamwork sub par VA seems more due to bad directing then bad acting for myself.

[Neruz]

I think it's more because Dreamworks is lagging a bit behind Pixar; if you look at Pixar's early stuff they used to focus entirely on the tech and neglect the voice acting. Around about the time when they did Toy Story though someone worked out that you need good voice actors to make good characters, and that the best voice actors were in fact people who knew how to act.

Dreamworks is still discovering that if you want good voice actors you actually have to pay actors who know how to act.

[MrWiggles]

I think it's more because Dreamworks is lagging a bit behind Pixar; if you look at Pixar's early stuff they used to focus entirely on the tech and neglect the voice acting. Around about the time when they did Toy Story though someone worked out that you need good voice actors to make good characters, and that the best voice actors were in fact people who knew how to act.

Dreamworks is still discovering that if you want good voice actors you actually have to pay actors who know how to act.

Wasnt Toy Story Pixar first major film?

I know they had some shorts, but dont recall any of them with voices in it. They were mostly technical demos like their famous lamp short. What films are you referring to?

Video Games, I think are the main culprit of bad voice acting. That due to probably having no money for it, and bad materiel.

There some exceptions that come to mind. Blizzard is top notch and I found the VA in Psi Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy to be lovely. (And a sequel is coming out! They won the law suit!).