English dubs

Am I alone in thinking they are universally poor? whether it's anime, cartoons, animated... whatever - everything I've ever viewed has always sounded better in either Japanese with English subs (anime of course) or, whenever I can find them on youtube, Swedish dubs whom have never failed to completely outperform the English ones. This is kinda annoying when you can't find your own language's videos on youtube and my computer freezes for unknown reasons at a very higher frequency than otherwise when I download anything...

Compare these two clips and you'll see what I mean, scroll to 6:45 or so in the Swedish one and 8:00 in the English one, then tell me what dub of that chinese guy is the best. And it's not just in these parts either...

English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-KCbJmh-aI
Swedish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgHzv...eature=related

I personally don't think it's a contest at all. It's the same thing with Haddock. Robin Hood sounds better in Swedish too (although the English dubs there are okay) as does the song in it called Love. When I was going to rewatch old pokemon episodes, I just couldn't bring myself to bear hearing those extremely annoyingly sounding English dubs. Same thing with Dragonball when I watched my friend's collection with him, the poor dubs kind of broke the immersion for me except when the situation wasn't very immersive anyway (ie. humorous situations). There are some voices that are really good in English though, like Oolong. Haven't heard Dragonball in Japanese though.

What's your opinion in this? are your own language's dubs consistently better than the English ones too? what is the opinion of you people in the Anglo-American world?

Most of the time, I hate the dubs, for example, on a Belgian youth channel they used to broadcast series like "Hey Arnold" in dutch dubs. I didn't bother untill I heard it in English, and it is so much better: now the verbal jokes actually work...the same goes up for stuff like "iCarly" and other original english series.
Though, I prefer Tintin in Dutch dubs, sounds more suitable


Dubbing of Tintin (Kuifje) is done by Tom Van Landuyt (actor) I think

Originally Posted by Taxandrius

Most of the time, I hate the dubs, for example, on a Belgian youth channel they used to broadcast series like "Hey Arnold" in dutch dubs. I didn't bother untill I heard it in English, and it is so much better: now the verbal jokes actually work...the same goes up for stuff like "iCarly" and other original english series.
Though, I prefer Tintin in Dutch dubs, sounds more suitable


Dubbing of Tintin (Kuifje) is done by Tom Van Landuyt (actor) I think

Heh. I remember that Tintin episode from when I was young.

Hahaha, the Chinese guy looks like he's stoned.

But, yeah, the Swedish one is much better than the English one.

I don't mind if people dislike English dubs. What I do mind is people saying that it's wrong for me to like English dubs. I personally prefer the English localisation and voicing on anime; I maintain that it's not bad simply because "OMG it's not the original language".

Originally Posted by MaximiIian

I don't mind if people dislike English dubs. What I do mind is people saying that it's wrong for me to like English dubs. I personally prefer the English localisation and voicing on anime; I maintain that it's not bad simply because "OMG it's not the original language".

I maintain that dubs are bad because "OMG the quality is crap because they compromise both language and meaning in trying to get mouth movements to line up right."

I understand it's difficult for many people to watch movies with subtitles, but really you're frequently watching a whole 'nother film when you're watching it in a dubbed language.

Originally Posted by Roy Batty

I understand it's difficult for many people to watch movies with subtitles, but really you're frequently watching a whole 'nother film when you're watching it in a dubbed language.

I call shenanigans on this assertion. The amount of collaboration between English localisation companies and the Japanese studios have largely rendered Macekres a thing of the past.

Originally Posted by MaximiIian

I call shenanigans on this assertion. The amount of collaboration between English localisation companies and the Japanese studios have largely rendered Macekres a thing of the past.

I'll pistol whip the next guy that says 'shenanigans'!

But seriously, you may be right. I've flatly refused to watch dubbed films for years. The last one I saw was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon which wasn't bad, but I largely attributed that to it being 'voice acted' by the actual actors themselves. All the same, I'll stick to my sub-titles.

have you heard Spongebob Squarepants and other stuff in German?

I swear it's the same man and woman who do the voices for every program translated into German...

Originally Posted by irelandeb

have you heard Spongebob Squarepants and other stuff in German?

I swear it's the same man and woman who do the voices for every program translated into German...

Yeah, I remembered seeing the German dub of the Spongebob episode "Goo Goo Gas" and, later, saw another video of the Animaniacs with German dubs, and Spongebob and Wakko's voice are quite similar.

To be honest, though, I actually like the guy's voice...

Originally Posted by irelandeb

have you heard Spongebob Squarepants and other stuff in German?

I swear it's the same man and woman who do the voices for every program translated into German...

The quality of German dubs varies quite a bit. For Hollywood movies, they're good - in fact, the "German voices" of Bruce Willis, Robert de Niro, Brad Pitt, and some others are far more badass and distinctive than their actual own voices. Generally, major foreign films get decent dubs. With TV productions and live stuff, it's usually only annoying. Especially when they put a German voice on top of an audible English locution in TV (meaning you hear two voices at once - and English is easy enough to understand anyway).

Then again, there are the "fake dubs" on the internet. Like Star Wars in Swabian*. Those are pure awesomeness and a perfectly valid reason to learn German.



*watch out for hilarious pronunciation of English loan words in this one.

Originally Posted by Roy Batty

But seriously, you may be right. I've flatly refused to watch dubbed films for years. The last one I saw was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon which wasn't bad, but I largely attributed that to it being 'voice acted' by the actual actors themselves.

Might have something to do with the actors not being Guoyo native speakers in the first place...

All the same, I'll stick to my sub-titles.

Me too, but they do look ugly on the screen. And sometimes are plain wrong as well...

I can't understand a word of Swedish, but it still sounds terrible to me.

Originally Posted by Copperknickers II

I can't understand a word of Swedish, but it still sounds terrible to me.

Heretic

Yes, dubbed films are terrible. I was very annoyed on my trip to Sicily when I turned on the TV and there was tonnes of English films and programmes and every single one of them was dubbed. Why can't they use subtitles? I hate it when foreign language programmes are dubbed in Britain.

Dubbing ruins shows for me. The dubs never have the right timing and emotion, and tend to sound like a children's audio book.

Plus with a lot of the Anime dubs, the American companies tend to censor the hell out of them.

Originally Posted by PGeo36

Plus with a lot of the Anime dubs, the American companies tend to censor the hell out of them.

Not really. That's mostly just 4Kids, and they've lost their grip on their main franchise. The majority of dubbing studios, like Ocean Group, ADV, and Funimation, and being run by anime fans themselves; and they don't often censor, and if they do it's only to fit television broadcast guidelines- they always have an uncensored version for home video.

You mean 4kids? There's often alternative dubs without censors.

I understand a little bit of japanese but I still prefer to listen to them in english. The japanese culture doesn't match up with ours and the result is voice actors who sound like they're very overdramatic which makes their voice acting sound worse to me. Further there's a huge amount more meaning wise you can say with a sentence in english than you can with japanese.

I am honestly convinced most of the people who dislike english dubs have no concept of the actual japanese speaking language and thus have no frame of reference to actually assert whether they're good or not.

I always prefer the original language for the audio. Usually original voices are better suited.

Also is very useful to learn better a foreign language. Recently I have learned how to say old brother in japanese.

Here in the Netherlands we dont make a habit out of pissing over the original version of movies, series and cartoons unless its meant for children under the age of ten. Anyone older would know enough english.

Regarding english versions of japanese stuff, I really like the Dragon Ball Z translation. Its a shame some epidodes sometimes use a different voice actor for a while. As long as good voice actors are used and enough of them are used instead of a small group that does the voices of all translations, it can be good.