Dubs vs Subs

[Riverl]

Quote:You do realize that you're implying the average show that's too new to be licensed is of a consistently higher quality than the dub of a licensed show?

wrong, I'm implying that in my search for good anime, I'd rather watch sub version so I only have to worry about if other aspects were good. This include dual audio ones, and I'll take the sub+Japanese format for those cases.
In anyway I said I dont watch animes that have been dubbed or new anime > licensed one? I just dont watch the dub version except to amuse myself during free times.
watching dub mean I have to also worry if the dub were good or not


Also, if you ask me, not all licensed mean good anime, nor it has anything to do with quality. Maburaho, while I like its since its one of my first harem/comedy anime experience, isnt exactly the best in the book, so is Love Hina. In contrast, many good anime took a long while to be licensed or werent and will not be licensed at all, because of their contents. Also, talk about censorship, that's another reason not to watch dub.

As for new animes
New animes have nothing to do with good or not. Licensed shows were once new animes, period. The only problem is you have to filter them out yourself, but that's understandable if you dont want to wait or dont want to see how the companies butchered them with censorship
The now airing Tears to Tiara is good, no quality dip so far. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which is now dubbed, was still good when its a new anime that was just aired for the first time.




For foreign setting show...
They talk in Japanese, they use Japanese pun, they use Engrish...
They weren't made by "Westerners".

Face it, translating from one language to another almost always mean you will lose something, regardless of setting, an American can write a book about Vietnam War, but when translated into Vietnamese, has at least a 90% chance to lack something compare to the English version, simply because it was originally written in English, by an American, not Vietnamese .This is true not just for animes, but any kind of cultural products, novels, movies, comic books, visual novels (I always regret unable to read Japanese Kanji for the written stuffs), etc etc. Both dub and sub have this problem, the point is, for sub, I can listen to the original sentences, and point out the errors (some time they dont even bother to translate difficult parts and just keep a small note about what it is and means, which, in my opinion, is a smart move dubs cant afford), for dub, I have nothing to double check (I worked with translating sub from English to another, and hatta say I never dared to finished one sentence without turning on the anime and listen to it).

As for Engrish, there's a world of different between hearing Engrish and proper English.
Proper English is just not as amusing and cool/hot blood (at least for the move names or "show off" cases, Giga Drill BREAKAAAAA~ just simply sound better than Giga Drill BREAK!!!, which sound like it was cut short.) or it make the distinct talking style and special feeling from some characters or sentences no longer... that special.

long speech short, since I'll just rant more if I was to talk about it in detail.
The setting could be Japan, Europe, America, Greek, heck, it could be interstellar, but truth is, animes were made for and by Japaneses first and foremost, the setting were just that, setting.
see the medieval/europe setting RPGs? See the different in style between those made by Japanese game developers and those by Western companies? Same apply to anime, the cultural differences werent just in the generic setting, but in a lot of subtle details.

[Force-Attuned Krogoth]

The point you make about Engrish is an interesting one. But I have to consider the purpose behind each use of it. The idea that something sounds cooler when yelled in Engrish than Japanese I flatly reject. It doesn't matter how you say the name of your special attack as long as it's loud. Mecha pilots just happen to choose English more often than swordsmen or ninjas. Using foreign words as emphasis or style, that's not unique to Japan. It's a concept that translates easily, in fact. In most cases, a dubber would use French as a splash language, though depending on the temperament of the character they might choose Spanish or German or Japanese. The third case where you'd hear Engrish is if it's simply a borrowed word. This is, admittedly, harder to deal with because there are so many different ways it can be used. But English has a great stock of borrowed words to choose from, it's rare that a thesaurus wouldn't come up with a suitable analog, if it's necessary at all.

Quote:New animes have nothing to do with good or not.

Neither does a dub track, that's my point. A random new series is as likely to suck as a random English voice track.

But overall, I think we're both starting to repeat ourselves. Maybe we're approaching the time when we have to agree to disagree. There are some core tenets that we clearly disagree upon, and some choices we make differently. You have raised some very good points, that caused me to question how I look at certain things. I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I have.

[Riverl]

Quote:The idea that something sounds cooler when yelled in Engrish than Japanese I flatly reject

Its cooler than yelling it in proper English, no one said Japanese XD
Tenjoutenge Ichigeki Hissatsu Nendou Bakusai Ken (Above the sky, below the sky, one hit sure kill Psycho Drive Exploding/Burst Sword) is still my most favorite super robot yell, and its pure Japanese.
However for name yelling, most of the time Engrish >> proper English
Well, may be except "double unlucky star sword, dark sword kill, chop" (grammar was Engrish-like, but that's because the pilot was translating word to word the move from Japanese when she use another pilot's super robot, she used perfect English pronunciation though)
nerd rant

Quote:It doesn't matter how you say the name of your special attack as long as it's loud.

No, just no, this is from someone playing SRW for years.
There's a difference between loud and hotblood/cool.
And there're a gap of voice quality for Engrish yelling I have yet to see a single dubbed anime managed to bridge. I'm looking forward to see one though.

Quote:Using foreign words as emphasis or style, that's not unique to Japan. It's a concept that translates easily, in fact. In most cases, a dubber would use French as a splash language, though depending on the temperament of the character they might choose Spanish or German or Japanese. The third case where you'd hear Engrish is if it's simply a borrowed word. This is, admittedly, harder to deal with because there are so many different ways it can be used. But English has a great stock of borrowed words to choose from, it's rare that a thesaurus wouldn't come up with a suitable analog, if it's necessary at all.

Sadly, the dubs, most of the time, tried to replace Engrish with English instead.
Not a smart move.
If they tried to do as you said, probably they would have been better.

Quote:Neither does a dub track, that's my point. A random new series is as likely to suck as a random English voice track.

You seem to keep mistaking what I mean to say in this part
I said when I look for anime to watch, not necessary NEW, but those I have yet to watched, if I'm presented with a choice of sub and dub for that anime, I'll chose sub, simply because then I only have to take the chance of if the anime story, image quality and BGM, etc is good or not instead of having to worry about the voice aspect. I know it might have good dub, however until I have time to amuse myself with dub, sub version will be top priority.
New anime mean 100% sub, simply because no dub exist, whether they are good or not is another story

Quote:Maybe we're approaching the time when we have to agree to disagree.

Yah, in the end, even if we argue for months, there's no absolutely right opinion, since how you appreciate a cultural product is different between each person

[Lefire]

?? I usually don't bother risking dubs. Some of them are so hammed up I can barely listen to them without cringing, and besides, I can usually understand most of the Japanese anyway.
??Recently, though, I tried watching some Kanon with the English dub/no subs setup, and for the most part, I was pleasantly surprised. The voice acting doesn't burn my ears, and most of the voices fit the characters fairly well. Even Ayu's uguu~ is... well, okay, it's fairly awkward, but at least she tried. The major exception is Nayuki. Arguably her most prominent character trait is that she's lethargic, and that's reflected even in the way she talks in the original Japanese. Essentially everything she says is very slow, drawn out, and sleepy. That's completely lost in the dub, though, and to make it worse, they pulled extra lines out of nowhere to artificially fill up the dead time created by having her talk at normal human speeds (or faster).
??They even did a good job overall on the dreaded Things That Don't Translate, the prime example being in episode 20 when Yuuichi teases Ayu about her characteristic "boku" (a boyish "me/I"). The subs handle it by adding notes about the various pronouns used, and that works well for the subs, but wouldn't work so well for voiceovers. So, they adapted the scene into Yuuichi making fun of Ayu for being like a "spazzy little lost boy", which works quite well actually. It's in character, it keeps the same basic concept, and it makes perfect sense in English.
??Somehow, they still managed to foul up the alarm clock Nayuki gives Yuuichi to use, though. It's supposed to be a (typically sleepy) recording of her voice. Not only is it not groggy at all in the dub, killing the joke about it putting him back to sleep, it sounds nothing like Nayuki, even having a different voice actor. This wouldn't be so bad by itself, except that even in the dub, he looks around saying "Nayuki?" in confusion, now with no explanation. Worse, many episodes later, when the alarm clock makes another appearance, Nayuki talks about how much trouble she had recording the message. The message that still sounds nothing like her in the dub. You'd think they'd notice something like that.
??Oh well, at least it's not as bad as a certain video game sequel in which the English version has cameos of characters from the first game with completely different voices, not to mention mangling "Leila" (from the first game and unchanged in the Japanese) into "Moira" (!?) and other incredibly glaring inconsistencies between games and even within the same game.