{"id":1560,"date":"2008-12-18T17:57:48","date_gmt":"2008-12-18T22:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=1560"},"modified":"2009-01-25T13:23:55","modified_gmt":"2009-01-25T18:23:55","slug":"sub-vs-dub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/12\/18\/sub-vs-dub\/","title":{"rendered":"Sub vs. Dub"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A quick <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=sub+vs+dub\">Google search of Sub vs Dub<\/a> (as in &#8220;Original Japanese Audio with English Subtitles&#8221; vs. &#8220;Re-dubbed audio with English voice actors&#8221;) will turn up a lot of debate, with people passionately arguing one way or the other.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sort of in-between in terms of my preference. A lot of the shows that first got me hooked on anime were (of the necessity that they were aired on English TV) of course dubbed in English, so I am sort of partial to that. But on the other hand, most of that stuff was dubbed fairly well &#8211; with really good voice actors and an overall quality job.<\/p>\n<p>In other cases, I prefer subtitles with the original Japanese audio &#8211; and this is especially true when there are songs involved. Trying to translate Japanese to English and match mouth-movements and other timing factors is hard enough; when you throw singing (and, usually, rhyming) into the mix, it&#8217;s just a recipe for disaster.<\/p>\n<p>To cite some examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Pixar\/Disney releases of Hayao Miyazaki&#8217;s films (<em>Princess Mononoke<\/em>, <em>Laputa <\/em>[<em>Castle in the Sky<\/em>], <em>Spirited Away<\/em>, <em>Howl&#8217;s Moving Castle<\/em>, <em>Kiki&#8217;s Delivery Service<\/em>, and <em>My Neighbor Totoro <\/em>to name a few) have all had <em>excellent<\/em> voice acting and a quality translation (for various reasons, none the least of which was that the folks at Pixar really love Miyazaki&#8217;s films and wanted to do them justice).<\/li>\n<li><em>The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya <\/em>is also really well done in English, although I wish they&#8217;d not dubbed the song from Episode 11 (at least, I <em>think <\/em>it&#8217;s Episode 11). It was painful to hear in English &#8211; the Japanese-language version was much more pleasant. (Thank goodness they keep the title &amp; ending credits songs in the original Japanese by default!)<\/li>\n<li><em>Azumanga Daioh <\/em>is one that is so well done in English that I prefer the English dub to the original (the lip-synch is done so well that I rarely, if ever, notice any discrepancies &#8211; which is quite an achievement!)<\/li>\n<li>The series <em>Cowboy Bebop<\/em> is another excellent English dub. I&#8217;ve watched it with English audio and the original Japanese &#8211; the voices in the English version are (in my mind) such a good match to their characters that I prefer the English version more.<\/li>\n<li>The series <em>Samurai Champloo <\/em>is one where I&#8217;m &#8220;undecided&#8221; &#8211; I enjoy it both with the English language version AND the original Japanese audio. Still, the English dub is another example of an excellent job.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This list, of course, could go on and on &#8211; I&#8217;m sure most readers have their own personal examples, as well. Worth noting, of course, is that many of these examples I&#8217;ve cited are relatively &#8220;recent&#8221; &#8211; which, in a way, explains why their English-language dubs are often so well done. A lot of older anime (from the 1980&#8217;s, for example) is not done nearly as well &#8211; and for those, subtitles with the original Japanese audio would be preferrable.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, I do also like to keep subtitles on, even when watching in English &#8211; because the subtitles have no time limitations (and don&#8217;t have to match mouth movements), they often are a more &#8220;direct&#8221; translation. This can sometimes reveal discrepancies between &#8220;the translation&#8221; and what is actually said by the English voice actors &#8211; and can sometimes reveal interesting in-jokes that were removed because English viewers might not &#8220;get&#8221; them. So I enjoy these sorts of subtitles &#8211; I have no problem reading them and listening to English at the same time (even if the English isn&#8217;t saying what the subtitles read as). But maybe I&#8217;m just weird in that respect.<\/p>\n<p>So, there are times when I prefer one or the other. Fortunately, the advent of DVD has made <em>all my dreams come true<\/em>, with the ability to quickly and easily change between audio and subtitles&#8230; most of the time &#8211; some DVDs don&#8217;t have these options, which really annoys me. (My DVD of <em>Kiki&#8217;s Delivery Service<\/em>, for example, doesn&#8217;t have the original Japanese audio &#8211; or subtitles!)<\/p>\n<p>Still, in this day and age, there&#8217;s really no excuse for a DVD release of an anime movie or series (or any foreign-language film, for that matter) not to have both language audio tracks, as well as subtitles (both &#8220;English for the hearing impaired&#8221; and &#8220;direct English translation&#8221;). Really, there&#8217;s no excuse not to give the consumer the choice. And that&#8217;s my 2 cents on the Sub vs Dub debate!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A quick Google search of Sub vs Dub (as in &#8220;Original Japanese Audio with English Subtitles&#8221; vs. &#8220;Re-dubbed audio with English voice actors&#8221;) will turn up a lot of debate, with people passionately arguing one way or the other. I&#8217;m sort of in-between in terms of my preference. A lot of the shows that first&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/12\/18\/sub-vs-dub\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sub vs. Dub<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[199],"tags":[78,100],"class_list":["post-1560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-opinion","tag-anime","tag-opinion","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-pa","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5368,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/11\/22\/the-difficulties-with-digitizing-your-media-library\/","url_meta":{"origin":1560,"position":0},"title":"The Difficulties with Digitizing your Media Library","author":"Keith Survell","date":"November 22, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't need to enumerate the benefits of digital media - I think by now we all are familiar with all the perks of digital media - but the actual process of moving from physical to digital media have some unexpected difficulties. I've been slowly digitizing my media library for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Movies&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Movies","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/pictures\/movies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2970,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2010\/03\/20\/keiths-anime-reviews-lucky-star\/","url_meta":{"origin":1560,"position":1},"title":"Keith&#8217;s Anime Reviews: Lucky Star","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Keith's review of \"Lucky Star.\"","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2010\/03\/lucky-star-smiles-of-stars-1680x1050-300x187.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3234,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2010\/12\/31\/sound-effects-in-manga\/","url_meta":{"origin":1560,"position":2},"title":"Sound Effects (Onomatopoeia) in Manga","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Sound effects in manga - translate or transcribe?","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2010\/12\/appleseed-sound-effect-panel-300x209.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2964,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2010\/03\/13\/keiths-anime-reviews-the-melancholy-of-haruhi-suzumiya\/","url_meta":{"origin":1560,"position":3},"title":"Keith&#8217;s Anime Reviews: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Keith's Review of \"The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.\"","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2010\/03\/the-sos-brigade-150x150.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3991,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2012\/08\/06\/keiths-anime-reviews-waiting-in-the-summer\/","url_meta":{"origin":1560,"position":4},"title":"Keith&#8217;s Anime Reviews: Waiting in the Summer","author":"Keith Survell","date":"August 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A bit of a surprise this time: a review of a relatively new anime. I don't normally catch new anime, I usually only hear about it much, much later, when it's had a chance to become well known. Waiting in the Summer (or Ano Natsu de Matteru) is a very\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2012\/08\/waiting-in-the-summer.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1816,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/02\/04\/learning-japanese\/","url_meta":{"origin":1560,"position":5},"title":"Learning Japanese","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm determined to learn Japanese. I've traditionally been quite bad at learning new languages - I just barely passed Spanish class back in high school - but I'm very determined this time. As a fan of things like anime and manga (and Japanese culture in general), I'd love to understand\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Life","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}