English vs Japanese + Subs Anime

My sister and I are always getting into this argument.
I prefer watching anime in Japanese because the voice acting is better / a different style and some jokes make sense in Japanese and not English (See: Zatch(?) Bell Ep 1).
My sister prefers watching anime in English because she doesn't like reading the subs and likes understanding what they say.

Curious what people think on the topic. So what do you prefer to watch?
If you are partially or entirely fluent in Japanese, you don't count.

Edit:
I should have thrown a "I don't care" option.... Could a mod add it please? xP

Edit2: Thanks mod.

I prefer watching it in Japanese most of the time. Most English voice acting strikes me as having a really unnatural way of speaking, and I don't mean catch phrases (which are already unnatural in any language); but rather, the voices they use for the characters. It happens a lot with female characters or young characters; but it's also a pretty big problem in general. There are, however, a few dubs that I really like. I check them out either out of good word that the dub is better or close to the original Japanese voice acting, or I do it during of my rewatches just for the sake of comparison after knowing how the original played out.

Cowboy Bebop is way better in English for me than it is in Japanese. Black Lagoon was really nice, because they managed to account for the ethnic diversity of the cast and made the voices even more fitting than in Japanese. Baccano also had a pretty good English dub thanks to the New York accents being a nice touch, aside from a few odd choices in the cast here and there- though I saw this one in both languages with Japanese first and English later, so that doesn't really count.

One dub that I know people will disagree with me for liking, though; was the original Fullmetal Alchemist. Aaron Dismuke was an excellent Alphonse. I actually did like Vic Mignogna as Edward Elric. Vic Mignogna did what he does best (and usually does, to the dislike of some): give a bit of a showy and confident flair to his character, and I thought it worked pretty well with Ed. He wasn't as good as Romi Park with some of the more emotional and dramatic scenes, but I thought he did a really nice job for the most part.

Japanese w/ subs has the advantnages of being available first, having more material available, and being easier to find in most cases. When I can make a comparison though, I generally err in favor of Japanese. English can be good, i.e. Cowboy Bebop. It depends on how well I think the English voices "fit" the character compared to what I've heard in the Japanese. version. Even if Cowboy Bebop as a whole is good, I never could bring myself to like Jet's voice in English, and at this point I've seen Bebop more times in English than Japanese. But Code Geass, Bleach, Naruto... oh god. Please no. Or the English version of Laputa: Castle in the Sky. The version of that that I watched a few months back had the English Disney dub but subs translated from the Japanese. My friends and I were so amused by how horribly mismatched they were we left both on. I can't bring myself to like GitS in English much either. It's good by dub standards, but Batou and Aramaki just... ach. I suppose I'm biased to whatever language I heard it first in, which is almost always Japanese. It is nice to not need to read subs though. My first time through Bebop in English let me catch and appreciate a lot of things in the art I'd never noticed.

tl;dr
If you're really into anime, subs gives you what you need. How it originally sounded, easier to obtain, more plentiful, and more shows. I start with Japanese for this reason, learn to attach characters to certain voices, and become biased toward the Japanese if I see the show in English.

Subbed all the way. Jap people tend to have more passion in their voice acting.

Also, I think anyone would never want to hear an English dubbed anime after seeing a dubbed hentai for the hell of it. Oh GOD if I actually paid money to watch it I'd demand a full refund for laughing so hard at the bad sounding dialogue.

I prefer english.
Simply because I'd rather focus on what's going on and still understanding it.
Then just understanding it without seeing all of it.

If you are partially or entirely fluent in Japanese, you don't count.

Aw... So my view of English being better for anything doesn't matter? :< I don't really watch Anime, but when/if I do, I'd rather watch it in English. Reading text while trying to watch something can be such a bother. :X

Im on the fence :c\

I used to be all dubs because I didnt like reading stuff that could take my attention away from the visuals provided by the piece (to give an example, watch the movie Cashern on a TV thats 32"+, you want want to finish).

But I have run into some animes that I see first in subs, such as Welcome to The NHK, but I am tempted to get the dubbed version and compare them.

Personally, I still prefer dubs, but I am not put off by subs at all.

Can partially understand a sizable chunk of what's said so I don't vote, but I can say that even before I picked up Japanese I preferred subtitles. The reading isn't an issue when you get used to it. In fact, your eyes should be able to read them without even really trying. I could read the subs without even focusing my eyes to the bottom of the screen, keeping my attention on the main video. The voice acting is usually higher quality, and no this isn't a "GLORIOUS NIPPON IS ALWAYS SUPERIOR" kind of mindset. The fact is, voice acting is actually taken more seriously over there than it is over here.

Some scenes are completely ruined by voice acting with quality lower than that of the original. You don't need to understand a language to understand the emotion behind the voice, and sometimes a voice actor can pull it off well and isn't imitated as nicely by someone else.

There's also the problem with dubs having to alter lines in order to fit with the lip movements. Sometimes they'd have a nice translation, but have to butcher it a bit in order to fit. It's not too bad, considering there's bound to be stuff lost in translation here and there, but when you're forced to cut corners at times, you sometimes miss a lot more than you would have normally.


That's not to say there aren't some dubs I actually like. The number of dubs I like better than the original are small enough to count on my fingers. You're missing out on more if you don't like subs simply because you hate reading. Maybe it's because I started early, but you get to the point where you're so used to reading subtitles that it's as if they're not even there. I'm not even a fast reader, but I've no problem just having a glance at subtitles and knowing what they say. When I first started subtitled anime,. I had to pause my VCR every few lines to read the whole thing, and it was a bit annoying at first, but I was too interested in the series I was watching to let that get in the way.

People who don't like the Japanese because they have to read should learn to read faster.

I do hate bad subs though and I wouldn't blame you if you were intolerant to them, especially when there's so many. From the small amount of Japanese I've learned so far it's pretty easy to tell when a sub is awful or when the subbers put their own little flavor in the text. I like it best when they're candid and explain the jokes and puns.

People who don't like the Japanese because they have to read should learn to read faster.

I do hate bad subs though and I wouldn't blame you if you were intolerant to them, especially when there's so many. From the small amount of Japanese I've learned so far it's pretty easy to tell when a sub is awful or when the subbers put their own little flavor in the text. I like it best when they're candid and explain the jokes and puns.

http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/346/1...041967.jpg


There was also a Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei skit based on this kind of thing.


Edit: Ugh, that script that puts large images into a mini scroll box is horrible. Posting the image with just the link so you can see it in your browser.

http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/346/1...041967.jpg


There was also a Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei skit based on this kind of thing.


Edit: Ugh, that script that puts large images into a mini scroll box is horrible. Posting the image with just the link so you can see it in your browser.

403 Forbidden. Seems like you hosted something that the Shack didn't like.

Where's the option for "depends on the anime"?

Cowboy Bebop - Dub
Kino's Journey - Dub
Planetes - Sub
Fullmetal Alchemist - Sub
Shinesman - Dub
Azumanga Daioh - Dub
Ghost in the Shell: Dub

ADV (Kino's Journey, Azumanga Daioh) generally made good dubs.

403 Forbidden. Seems like you hosted something that the Shack didn't like.

"No profanity allowed!"

http://imgur.com/OZuL0.jpg

you forgot the both option manq. =s

granted i dont watch anime a lot, so i lean more towards english due to ease.

I like it best when they're candid and explain the jokes and puns.

http://i28.tinypic.com/149whdy.jpg

Digimon was probably the only anime I liked dubbed over subbed. The Japanese voices sounded like a bunch of whiny high pitched children. Granted, they were whiny children but with dubbed, the conversation felt less forced than other dubs. Air dubbed wasn't so bad either. Yukito sounded around Misuzu's age and thus, less like a pedophile.

For the most part, I prefer subbed because I've yet to find pleasure in tsundere in English.

"No profanity allowed!"

http://imgur.com/OZuL0.jpg

http://i28.tinypic.com/149whdy.jpg

Digimon was probably the only anime I liked dubbed over subbed. The Japanese voices sounded like a bunch of whiny high pitched children. Granted, they were whiny children but with dubbed, the conversation felt less forced than other dubs. Air dubbed wasn't so bad either. Yukito sounded around Misuzu's age and thus, less like a pedophile.

For the most part, I prefer subbed because I've yet to find pleasure in tsundere in English.

Those are the types of things I'm talking about. I don't like people like gg putting their own little spin on whatever they're translating. But at it's still loads better than the translators who make tons of grammatical errors typos because they don't even really know english.

 Example of good subs

I remember the second season of Girls BRAVO having good subs, so I fast-forwarded until one of those notes came up. It's a pretty simple and boring scene, but you can easily see why I like the group.

I also hate it (and I'm sure you non-kanji-readers can agree) when there's plenty of text on the screen that is clearly relevant but totally untranslated. Good groups are so few and far between anymore...

The thing I hate about fan-subs like that is that you can easily translate "Obaasan" into English, without having to say, "grandmother." You can easily translate that to "ma'am," which makes 100% sense contextually and literally translated, it's the same. Just like with, "san," you can use it as "sir" or "miss," or even dismiss it entirely, depending on the context. I think fan-subbers just try to get away with using weaboo-friendly phrases way too much.

The thing I hate about fan-subs like that is that you can easily translate "Obaasan" into English, without having to say, "grandmother." You can easily translate that to "ma'am," which makes 100% sense contextually and literally translated, it's the same. Just like with, "san," you can use it as "sir" or "miss," or even dismiss it entirely, depending on the context. I think fan-subbers just try to get away with using weaboo-friendly phrases way too much.

Granted, that particular instance was unnecessary, but there are many other instances where they're explaining jokes or origins of jokes in other parts of the anime in those nice little drop-bars.

I usually prefer japanese with english subs. The only animes I can think of where the ebglish dub was better were DBZ, yu yu hakusho, and read or die.

People who don't like the Japanese because they have to read should learn to read faster.

That's a really ignorant thing to say. Especially considering how not everyone has good eyesight/depth perception.