What's the deal with dubbed anime?

Vashdaman

Vashdaman

Cardcaptor
Now I don't mean to be down on all dubbed anime, and I especially don't mean to be down on the VAs themselves as I don't think the issue is them personally, but I'm currently watching Lazarus dubbed on C4, it's the first dubbed show I've watched in years and it reminds me why I never willfully watch dubs. None of the cast talk naturally like actual humans would, they all either talk in completely ridiculous hammy voices which sound like me doing my joke American accent, or they talk like a weird stilted robot and the timing in the flow of conversation is really odd and fake. I think this must be considered "the way anime is meant to sound" because it sounds just like all the other anime dubs I ever remember watching. I assume that the Japanese dub isn't any more naturalistic or close to how humans talk either, since you get all those ludicrous high pitched performances and whatnot, so I'm not sure why it's still less offensive to my ears than the American dubs are but somehow it certainly is. So what's up with dubs? Why are they so bad and why don't the directors ever want them to talk like real people? Or do you disagree with me entirely, let me know.
 
They want to match the mouth flaps in English dubs so sometimes they pick words that fit better than what the translation from the original would be. This would also mean speaking quicker or slower in some cases.
Haven't watched Lazarus since ep 8, so it's been a while, but I don't recall it being bad, but I don't get caught up in criticising stuff for minor details unless truly awful. I'm concentrating on the story.
I also certainly don't get caught up in dubs = bad full stop. There's plenty of great dubs like Bebop, GitS and the Ghibli films.
 
Remember that the Japanese licensor will usually have the final say on the dub, so often the dub isn’t tuned to the.target audience, but what a Japanese producer thinks an English audience wants to hear. Love Hina’s dub was a notorious case in point.
 
Just Passing Through said:
Remember that the Japanese licensor will usually have the final say on the dub, so often the dub isn’t tuned to the.target audience, but what a Japanese producer thinks an English audience wants to hear. Love Hina’s dub was a notorious case in point.
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Isn't Evangelion another one with "first children", etc.
 
It's weird, most western-made stuff with English voice acting sounds perfectly fine but a lot of anime and games specifically sound unnatural to me, even though I know the actual actors have plenty of talent because I've seen them at cons or in content like Critical Role. At this point I can only assume that it's a deliberate stylistic choice from the voice directors rather than the actors; as Vash wonders, it feels as though anime is expected to have a certain 'sound' and that's what the voice directors aim for, with the casting staff and script writers all working to achieve that end on purpose.

The scripts are something I often find particularly difficult as sometimes it's hard to work out what's being conveyed at all with all of the colloquialisms, word choice compromises to fit mouth movements and the recurring difficulty in converting the cutesy styles used by a lot of younger female characters to something resembling natural English speech. Since I seldom watch American TV shows it also often feels weird to translate Japanese cultural norms to Americanisms and then back to something more familiar, but we haven't really had enough British dubs for me to have a strong opinion on whether that works better (it probably won't help much).

To use some examples, a lot of people have criticised aspects of The Dragon Prince's acting choices but I find that show mostly works for me even though it's anime-influenced and I would have expected it to come across like a dubbed anime. Kpop Demon Hunters sounded great in English even though it had a lot of the squealing and exaggerated expressions common in anime; I never felt lost or alienated by the acting. On the flip side, the English tracks for Genshin Impact/Honkai: Star Rail (very anime-influenced games) make me want to switch language instantly because it's all really hammy, yet Overwatch - despite being intentionally hammy at times - sounds ok. Miraculous Ladybug's English version is technically a redub too but it never takes me out of the show, and that series has loads of French cultural elements and half of the cast voice kids far younger than them. It has to be a style thing, right?

There have also been occasions where I have genuinely not understood what was meant by an ambiguous statement in an English translation and have fallen back on the Japanese for clarity. I would hope that you can tell from my writing that I can understand English perfectly well in text - but dub scripts can often leave me with no 'second opinion' to help me follow when a writer hasn't noticed that something can be interpreted in multiple ways, or localised a concept that I would have actually understood better left as it was. None of that is the fault of the acting at all, but stuff gets lost in translation sometimes and as a nerd I yearn to know what was in the original script.

I also have hearing problems so I find awkward cadence and unpredictable turns of phrase very difficult to understand on top of needing subtitles for everything; I honestly cannot tolerate dubs at all as I find them harder to follow than the original language subtitled (and I generally prefer the original language for everything, in every medium). There's no problem with other people enjoying them, of course. In an ideal world everything big enough to support the cost would be available in the original language but also dubbed for maximum accessibility.

R
 
Not to say it isn’t a wider issue, but is Lazarus a notably bad example of the form? I do remember other people complaining about the dub, to the point where I’ve purposely avoided the show so far, in the hope that the Japanese audio might be made available down the line. The last thing I remember consciously watching dubbed was probably Uzumaki, which for all its other myriad problems, seemed perfectly adequate as far as voice acting goes.

NGL, I can’t read a sentence that starts “What’s the deal with…” and not hear it in the voice of Seinfeld.
 
Vashdaman said:
Now I don't mean to be down on all dubbed anime, and I especially don't mean to be down on the VAs themselves as I don't think the issue is them personally, but I'm currently watching Lazarus dubbed on C4, it's the first dubbed show I've watched in years and it reminds me why I never willfully watch dubs. None of the cast talk naturally like actual humans would, they all either talk in completely ridiculous hammy voices which sound like me doing my joke American accent, or they talk like a weird stilted robot and the timing in the flow of conversation is really odd and fake. I think this must be considered "the way anime is meant to sound" because it sounds just like all the other anime dubs I ever remember watching. I assume that the Japanese dub isn't any more naturalistic or close to how humans talk either, since you get all those ludicrous high pitched performances and whatnot, so I'm not sure why it's still less offensive to my ears than the American dubs are but somehow it certainly is. So what's up with dubs? Why are they so bad and why don't the directors ever want them to talk like real people? Or do you disagree with me entirely, let me know.
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I get what you mean some dubs can sound forced, but it really depends on the show and studio. There are actually some great ones out there like Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and Black Lagoon where the English voices really fit the vibe. I think it’s more hit-or-miss than all bad.
 
If it's been dubbed that's how I watch it. Japanese does me no good as I don't speak it-it's not true that the original jap track is always better than the dub. If you don't know what they are saying then you don't have any point of reference to make a comparison with. If I watch a subbed only release I focus on the subtitles rather than the voices.
 
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There are a few factors at play here. First, there's a difference in cultural standards about what constitutes 'good' acting. Those of us in the UK have primarily grown up exposed to US media (whether by choice or osmosis), and the US standard is that realism/naturalism are the only correct ways to do acting outside of comedies, and that any deviation from that style comes across as a mistake. In Japan, acting tends to be more theatrical and expressive. It's noticeable in anime through the voice-acting, but more so in live-action where even serious dramas often have more exaggerated body language than you would see in a comparable US show. The younger the target audience for a show, the more exaggerated the acting gets until you get to the energy level present in the typical high school anime aimed at adolescents or tokusatsu shows aimed at primary school kids.

Hand that material to a US dubbing director and they have to make a choice: do they try to replicate the cadence of the original theatrical acting or rework it into a more naturalistic US style? If they go the former route then the US voice actors have to act contrary to the norms of any non-anime-specific training they may have had, which can lead to awkward delivery. If they go the latter route then it can fundamentally change the personalities of the characters. It's often a lose/lose scenario, and that's before you factor in that anime dubs often have limited budgets compared to US-bankrolled animated movies.

Another element is that it's harder to spot bad acting in a language you don't speak. Cadence carries a lot, but aside from that there's only so much I can pick up from the few dozen Japanese words I recognise.

The other factor is the common thread in the handful of English dubs that even dub haters tend to consider good. Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, and Black Lagoon are all atypical anime in two ways: all the characters are adults, and they affect a more Americanised style. Consequently the dubs for those titles use more naturalistic, US-style voice acting and it fits in better with the animation. It's easier for all involved when adult actors aren't trying to mimic a teenage girl who talks like a pre-schooler.
 
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"Another element is that it's harder to spot bad acting in a language you don't speak. Cadence carries a lot, but aside from that there's only so much I can pick up from the few dozen Japanese words I recognize." Exactly my point, in an english dub it's easy to spot hammy acting because you're familiar with the speech patterns and word usage, etc. In japanese it's more difficult because the same factors are expressed differently so it can be really hard to spot ham or bad acting.
 
I can definitely identify hammy acting in Japanese, though a lot of norms differ wildly across the languages, and I can also identify great acting which moves me to tears. The problem for me is that hammy acting is the norm in the majority of dubs; Dai's insights into the stylistic process are probably where it's coming from in a lot of cases. And I guess people's tolerance for dubs lies in how well they have adapted to that unique dub style (or simply how much they rely on the dub to get the most of the show - I can definitely tolerate less-than-perfect subtitles because I need everything subtitled so I'm strongly motivated to sit back and enjoy their presence, no matter how flawed they can be.)

R
 
I will watch dubs happily unless the acting really really doesn't match the tone. My general practise is the more light-hearted the anime the more likely I will be to choose a dub. At this point I reckon I watch dubbed anime about 25-30% of the time. More often my incentive to watch the sub is purely out of the dub delay meaning you cannot be involved in current discussions.

I chose to watch CITY in sub, then watched each episode again in dub anyway! Some series absolutely are not diminished by the dub, Pokémon Concierge and My Dress Up Darling are recent examples. Then there is the rare example of dub better than sub. I think you'd be bonkers to choose the sub for Carole & Tuesday. People can absolutely prefer the sub but don't kid yourself that you've had a 'better' experience than dub enjoyers for Frieren, all the VA's absolutely nail the tone. Never do you think the voicing doesn't match the animation.
 
If you're one of those people who like both versions then getting to watch each show twice with different takes on the characters is a great bonus! I watched Sailor Moon in German originally and thought that it was dubbed pretty well, then watched it again in Japanese. Both versions have appeal. And I guess with comedies, depending on your cultural familiarity you get two chances to get the most out of a joke since extra translation (or puns which don't quite survive across languages) can sometimes break up the rhythm.

R
 
Having started watching anime in France, I recall that back in the day there was a small cast of VAs who dubbed everything and the voices became very familiar, like a kind of radio repertory company. Then when US (and Canadian) dubbed anime became available over here (especially Ocean Group!) it was quite a different experience - although those early US DBZ dubs were not good (imho) compared with Ocean as the actors were learning their craft as they went along.

The Ghibli and the few other anime films dubbed for cinema release sometimes used UK actors - and that made me think, as I still do (and I tend to prefer the original Japanese cast versions although I acknowledge there have been some great US dubs over the years) that I'd love to watch/hear some UK dubs. (Imagine hearing a popular high school series dubbed by the cast of, maybe, Heartstopper?) I think our whole viewing experience might be very different...
 
Sarah said:
Having started watching anime in France, I recall that back in the day there was a small cast of VAs who dubbed everything and the voices became very familiar, like a kind of radio repertory company. Then when US (and Canadian) dubbed anime became available over here (especially Ocean Group!) it was quite a different experience - although those early US DBZ dubs were not good (imho) compared with Ocean as the actors were learning their craft as they went along.

The Ghibli and the few other anime films dubbed for cinema release sometimes used UK actors - and that made me think, as I still do (and I tend to prefer the original Japanese cast versions although I acknowledge there have been some great US dubs over the years) that I'd love to watch/hear some UK dubs. (Imagine hearing a popular high school series dubbed by the cast of, maybe, Heartstopper?) I think our whole viewing experience might be very different...
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Xenoblade Chronicles X felt “wrong” earlier this year just because its dub VAs are American. Even though the game has a city literally called New Los Angeles, the Xeno series now feels like it can only work with British voices.

This has nothing to do with how a Welsh accent melts me like butter. Nothing at all. Stop asking.
 
I don't think the majority of us dubs are hammy, most are dubbed reasonably straight up. There are some cases such as Emma-A Victorian Love Story and Princess Principal where a proper english accent is an absolute necessity. I can't imagine watching either series in japanese.
 
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