We got a comment the other day from Paul "Willoughby Jackson" asking which we here at ESH preferred, Subbing or Dubbing. I went back through our podcasts and posts and realized that none of us had ever really talked about it.
Back when I first watched anime, I was just a lil tyke with ADD and when I was watching TV I had to also be doing a million other things or I'd be bored outta my skull. If you look at the arms of my favorite chair from back then you can still see the marker stains, bits of glue and glitter and a few exacto-knife gouges. Because of this art-in-front-of-the-TV habit o' mine I would usually just listen to the TV while concentrating on other things so subbing was out of the question. I watched everything dubbed, so that I didn't have to ever actually look at the screen. At that time I also wasn't a huge anime fan so I'd only watch whatever aired on TV.. DB, DBZ, Sailor Moon, Tenchi, Outlaw Star etc.
After quite few years of doing things like that I got used to dubbing and would be totally distracted if I tried to watch anything in sub. I can still remember the first time I watched Hellsing. I was over a friends house and she only watched things subbed. We bickered for a bit about it, but she eventually won since it was her house, her TV and her anime. It was one of the first times I'd watched something subbed and I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be looking at on the screen. I'd watch the animation and forget to read the sub or I'd read the sub and ignore the animation. Yeah, I know Hellsing came out in 2001, that's how long I'd been watching things dubbed. This was also about the same time everything was coming out on DVD, so we had a choice which way to watch it. Previously you had to either buy the subbed or dubbed VHS.
In high school I was Prez of an anime club and in order to keep the majority of people happy we usually watched things subbed, so I got used to watching it that way. I even went back and watched some of my oldest favorites subbed instead of the dub I remembered. That was a terrible experience. Although I now preferred subtitles in the series I hadn't watched yet, the only way I could watch those older series was with the English voice cast.
These days whichever way I first watch a series is locked as the only way I can enjoy it. If I try to watch something subbed that I'd already seen dubbed (or vice versa) it messes with my head. The voices sound wrong and my perception of the characters change dramatically. Any new series I get today I try to get it subbed so that the original character that the creators designed comes through. The dubbing process throws the anime into the grinder and it usually comes out a half assed parody of itself. Due to the lip syncing required, dub is almost never a direct translation of the Japanese. Although the English cast and producers may try their damnedest to be loyal to the original there's no way that it's ever going to be an exact replica. Luckily the market is improving for anime and it's becoming more and more important that minimal changes be made to the product. For instance, if Sailor Moon was brought over today they probably wouldn't westernize the names. "Serena who? Oh, you mean Usagi." Or at very least they'd call her Bunny, like in the manga.
So all in all my vote is for Subbing. What does everyone else think?
Back when I first watched anime, I was just a lil tyke with ADD and when I was watching TV I had to also be doing a million other things or I'd be bored outta my skull. If you look at the arms of my favorite chair from back then you can still see the marker stains, bits of glue and glitter and a few exacto-knife gouges. Because of this art-in-front-of-the-TV habit o' mine I would usually just listen to the TV while concentrating on other things so subbing was out of the question. I watched everything dubbed, so that I didn't have to ever actually look at the screen. At that time I also wasn't a huge anime fan so I'd only watch whatever aired on TV.. DB, DBZ, Sailor Moon, Tenchi, Outlaw Star etc.After quite few years of doing things like that I got used to dubbing and would be totally distracted if I tried to watch anything in sub. I can still remember the first time I watched Hellsing. I was over a friends house and she only watched things subbed. We bickered for a bit about it, but she eventually won since it was her house, her TV and her anime. It was one of the first times I'd watched something subbed and I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be looking at on the screen. I'd watch the animation and forget to read the sub or I'd read the sub and ignore the animation. Yeah, I know Hellsing came out in 2001, that's how long I'd been watching things dubbed. This was also about the same time everything was coming out on DVD, so we had a choice which way to watch it. Previously you had to either buy the subbed or dubbed VHS.
In high school I was Prez of an anime club and in order to keep the majority of people happy we usually watched things subbed, so I got used to watching it that way. I even went back and watched some of my oldest favorites subbed instead of the dub I remembered. That was a terrible experience. Although I now preferred subtitles in the series I hadn't watched yet, the only way I could watch those older series was with the English voice cast.These days whichever way I first watch a series is locked as the only way I can enjoy it. If I try to watch something subbed that I'd already seen dubbed (or vice versa) it messes with my head. The voices sound wrong and my perception of the characters change dramatically. Any new series I get today I try to get it subbed so that the original character that the creators designed comes through. The dubbing process throws the anime into the grinder and it usually comes out a half assed parody of itself. Due to the lip syncing required, dub is almost never a direct translation of the Japanese. Although the English cast and producers may try their damnedest to be loyal to the original there's no way that it's ever going to be an exact replica. Luckily the market is improving for anime and it's becoming more and more important that minimal changes be made to the product. For instance, if Sailor Moon was brought over today they probably wouldn't westernize the names. "Serena who? Oh, you mean Usagi." Or at very least they'd call her Bunny, like in the manga.
So all in all my vote is for Subbing. What does everyone else think?
Labels: Anime, Comment-Response, Dubbing, Hellsing, MagicMysticGrl, Subbing
