Mr. Bushido Posts

Subs without a doubt. Reasons why?

1. The Japanese seiyu (voice actor) industry is very solid and full of ranging voice talents. These guys are the pros and been there since the start of the anime industry, and these guys take pride in their jobs, which makes their voice-acting so much superior than other dubs. On top of that, the seiyu industry is highly competitive, and is very tiring - I don't think foreign dubbing companies face the same difficulty levels that the seiyu industry does.

2. Anime was created in Japan, and therefore all the Japanese influences on the anime is more beneficial for Japanese seiyus to pronounce rather than foreign dubs, i.e. Japanese expressions that are either a) hard to translate or b) impossible to translate. In other words, this is an argument for listening to the source (original) language because it was meant to be listened in Japanese.

3. While I won't entirely lambast the English dubbing companies, I've heard my fair share of dubs, and like most other users here, they tend to suck. Why do they suck? Because it sounds very superficial at times, or not enough feeling was put into the voice-acting. However, there are always exceptions, however few: DBZ, Hellsing, Golden Boy, Princess Mononoke - just some of those where the dubs are equal or superior to the subs. Princess Mononoke was an exception where dubbing companies actually reverse-engineered some of the cels and animations to fit the movements spoken by Americans. Least to say, the end result was superb.

4. Changing the dialogue or abridging the material - sometimes, dubbing companies have the bad tendency to change what the characters are supposed to be talking about and create their own script and/or cut scenes for purposes unfathomable. While this rarely happens, I view this as a sacrilige to the source material, which is why, for example, Miyazaki Hayao made sure in the contracts to dubbing companies that nothing would be altered or cut. Miramax heavily butchered "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" into an abomination called "Warriors of the Wind." When Miramax wanted to cut some scenes in Princess Mononoke, one of the producers from Studio Ghibli mailed a katana with a note, "No cuts." I totally agree.