Japanese and English have a very different cadence. Also, in Japan, anime voice actors are a big deal and take it very seriously, whereas in the English speaking world these jobs historically attract a different level of talent.
Any fiction which is written, performed and edited in a given language is just going to be better in that language 90% of the time. Its the more complete artistic vision.
Of course, if you don’t care that much about the artistic vision, and you are just putting on something in the background while you browse your phone, that’s an entirely different issue.
they don’t talk like how real people talk. according to a semi local voice actor, japanese studios want that weird acting for some reason but a lot of voice actors hate doing it and that’s why theres like 3 men and 5 women that do almost all of the english dubs
But many voice actors from other languages don’t speak like “normal people, not even Japanese seiyuu.
Going back to the example of Latin American dubbing, 90% of the time they speak in unnatural Spanish with a neutral accent that doesn’t match any of the Spanish-speaking regions, but it works within the CONTEXT of the scene. The remaining 10% is when they do speak according to a region (mostly Mexico cuz is the one with most prolific dubbing industry), and this is split between when it works and when it’s annoying af.
I think that rather than feeling natural for the “real world,” it should feel natural within the world of the work.
I don’t have a working knowledge of many languages commonly dubbed in but even when the original japanese goes past a certain threshold I can’t stand it. I understand enough japanese to follow along with anime that isn’t too complicated and recognize that it tends to be different from real conversation to varying degrees. Some games and anime I’ve gone to an audio track of a language way beyond my comprehension just to feel less uncomfortable.
Regional accents or dialects gross me out in dubs though. I die inside every time kansai ben or something gets replaced with a very fake us 'murican rednecky bit. I could probably tolerate it if it was using or based on english from outside of the states but most of the time they end up turning it into a trailer trash vibe for a character that is very much not that.
I can kinda get behind the feeling correct for the setting but usually its just too jarring and I can’t picture a world where anyone would speak like english dub anime girl outside of gooner streaming or something. As a different example I didn’t mind the voice acting mod of the outer wilds game. Much of the audio felt off to my ears that have been listening to mostly english all my life but the characters are all aliens (to us) and the ones that feel most off are of a different species to the player character and the audio would presumably come from the translator device. It also was nowhere near as jarring as the typical budget anime dub.
The issue is more that English dub voice actors tend to be … not as good, and wind up sounding stilted. Watch the dubbed version of Princess Mononoke, and compare it to … uh…
You know, it’s been so long since I watched any English dubs that I’ve plum forgotten what some of the worst offenders are. Naruto? Sailor Moon?
One thing that hadn’t been mentioned yet in this thread is that when voice acting is sub-par, it’s not as noticeable when it’s not in my native language. That’s my own experience anyway.
I personally struggle with English VAs often when they seem to ham it up more than seems appropriate, or don’t seem to take things as seriously as the scene’s tone.
I could guess. Most English actors are not used to doing dubs. Lots are just giving it a go when they want to be a screen actor.
There’s a far more reliable pool of work for dubbing TV and film to languages other than English and therefore a greater pool of professionals to pick from. Leading to higher standards.
On top of that there’s an anachronism of American actors accents in older stories set in the past that don’t fit, or trying other English accents they’ve never been exposed to fit in.
Good English speaking actors and voice actors are in really high demand outside of the gaming industry too. There are a huge number of bad or inexperienced actors trying to get a career going.
The quality of actor for dubbing a game you can get for a budget is probably lower or at least much less consistent.
When we love an actor they get star billing and the cost to hire them rockets. They then move towards film and TV.
We love our good actors but that means they’re too expensive.
Eh. There’s tons of dubbing in my language, but I’d say that English voice actors for games are better on average. Except when the original voice acting is in a very specific style, like whatever Japanese voice actors are doing, or games very obviously set in a non-English region (e.g. all the shooters set in eastern europe), or the non-English voice actors just ending up better than usual.
A LOT of this comes from elitist “old heads”. Until the 2000’s or 2010’s, anime in America came from importing it into specialty shops. These formed a community of sorts, a unique subculture of anime enthusiasts. English dubs were rare, but if they existed they were often done very cheaply. Bad translation, bad direction, bad acting, bad editing, bad mixing even. Because it was not a large or lucrative enough market to justify putting money into.
There was also online piracy, which included the occasional fan dub. Which like… The passion of fans can be great for some things, but most anime fans lacked the skills fkd professional quality audio production.
And so for a loooong time English dubs got the reputation for being garbage. That changed a while ago, but some people just have a hard time adjusting their expectations.
Gatekeeping. It is simply harder to watch things in a language you do not known with subtitles. That keeps out the visually impaired. It requires a lot more cognitive effort to watch, and takes your eyes off the actual animation that you are meant to enjoy. A lot of these old heads learned enough Japanese to be able to understand basic conversation.
In the pirate scene you also have fan subs, which is something that is much more accessible to anime fans than audio production. You need a lot of equipment and talent and expertise in different areas to create a dub. You just needed a computer and the ability to translate to make a sub. I don’t mean to diminish the effort and skill it takes to translate, but dubbing requires all of those same skills PLUS a whole lot more, so it is harder.
This is not unique to anime. People in the US who watch foreign films in different languages have a similar subculture.
Personally, I like to get high and watch anime, but I find it’s harder to read when I’m high. I don’t mind watching sub’s stuff occasionally, but I prefer dubs.
Ignorance. It was not ONLY the English voice acting that was bad. A lot of cheaply made anime in the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s had terrible Japanese voice acting too. However, if you don’t know much Japanese and are just reading the subtitles, you are not really in as good of a position to evaluate it. A lot of old anime fans love their anime, and felt outcast by American mainstream culture. They related more to Japanese culture and want to think its better. So they just assume the voice acting was better even when they aren’t able to evaluate it themselves.
And favouring walking and riding a bicycle over driving a car is gatekeeping of transport because it keeps out the disabled. What a bizarre argument/accusation.
It requires a lot more cognitive effort to watch, and takes your eyes off the actual animation that you are meant to enjoy.
It doesn’t, as long as your reading skills are above that of a 12-year-old.
People in the US who watch foreign films in different languages have a similar subculture.
Bruh, what? Non-English films aren’t dubbed enough in the first place for this to be a metric for a “subculture”.
And favouring walking and riding a bicycle over driving a car
Car-centric infrastructure is far more detrimental to people with mobility impairments than any other mode of transportation. I would recommend you research what gold urbanism is if you’re saying stuff like this.
It doesn’t, as long as your reading skills are above that of a 12-year-old.
Reading literally engages different parts of your brain that are otherwise dormant. And as I mentioned, sometimes I want to watch stuff while high. Sometimes I want to give my eyes a break from using my glasses or reading things in fine detail.
I didn’t mention this before, but it is also very common for myself and a lot of other people to be doing other things and having TV on in the background. While i’m working or cooking or doing dishes or engaging in hobbies like soldering or woodworking. Especially with incredibly long anime like One Piece… That is a whole lot of hours to dedicate to doing absolutely nothing else. Netflix has talked about how they make “second screen” content now. Personally I find the idea of scrolling some social media in your phone while watching something to be a terrible idea, but its also often enjoyable to just listen to an anime.
Bruh, what? Non-English films aren’t dubbed enough in the first place for this to be a metric for a “subculture”.
A lot of cheaply made anime in the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s had terrible Japanese voice acting too. However, if you don’t know much Japanese and are just reading the subtitles, you are not really in as good of a position to evaluate it.
I used to think this until I watched one of those “[sentence] in 50 languages” videos, and then, surprised by what I heard, I listened to longer things dubbed in languages other than English. It turns out not being able to understand the language doesn’t brainwash you into thinking the performance is compelling.
And, TBH, I’ve come to consider this attitude, that voice actors can just be swapped out like mechanical components, to be disrespectful to them and the art of voice acting. What we have with American dubs is like taking Star Wars and swapping out James Earl Jones for Dwayne Johnson doing the same voice he does in Moana, with zero direction from any of the creatives that originally made the Darth Vader character. Note that I chose Star Wars as an example and not something like Citizen Kane or Schindler’s List. I’m not trying to argue that Japanese media is some kind of high art that can never be equaled. But something doesn’t need to be high art to be butchered.
I formed that opinion based onnfeedbacj I received from native Japanese speakers. And it makes a lot of sense. I’ve also watched compilations just admiring bad voice acting in muktiple languages- sometimes there aren’t even words, just noises and exclamations and sounds that are terrible. Sometimes its easy to tell a flat delivery even if you don’t speak the language.
And I LIKE bad voice acting sometimes. Depending on the situation it can be more entertaining than good acting.
There is good and bad voice acting in animation written for English-speaking people. Further beyond just the acting itself, there is the writing and and direction and editing and mixing to consider. I’ve seen stuff with voice actors that I know are good that sounds terrible because of these other factors.
And yes, the acting will change depending on the individual performance, but I don’t think that just because someone was the first to do it means they will be the best. For most of human history, plays were performed by hundreds, maybe thousands of different actors across centuries. How many different men have played Romeo or Hamlet? Even with bad actors, you can still usually appreciate the stories.
I would have absolutely no problem with replacing James Earl Jones with another actor in a remake. Heck, there are probably a lot of actors in their prime in Hollywood right now that have spent most of their lives working on their Darth Vader. I don’t think that’s disrespectful at all. Characters get re-cast quite often as their actors age out or die or jisy have scheduling conflicts. And you see this in anime too: sometimes the Japanese voice actor changes over time, sometimes the English ones do, its not really a big deal.
For me that’s a plus. I can listen to Matt Mercer’s duldct tones all day.
I look up my favorite voice actors and see what else they have been in to decide what to watch next. I think a LOT of people do this, with live action actors moreso.
It really depends. Just an example, Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill had mostly fine dubs, but I absolutely hated the English Sui voice acting. It just didn’t fit right, and one individual even told me that was the reason she refused to watch the anime (she prefers dubs.)
I’ve experienced similar with other anime, so I just err on the side of subs these days.
English dubs on Kaguya-sama: Love Is War are fantastic, btw…
But I’ve seen comparisons where dubs completely change the meaning of what they’re saying.
Most of them aren’t too bad. It’s just that a lot of the anime dub voice actors do the same kinds of voices over and over again, and it gets a bit repetitive. Outside of dubs, there’s grown women voicing kids, which can be a little strange, but still better than getting kids to do it. The ones voicing originally English speaking characters don’t get as much respect or attention as live action actors like Tom Holland or Keanu Reeves, but the more well established ones do get a bit of both. https://youtu.be/DzjiBJ7AetE
This is what anime dubs sound like to a lot of us.
Outside of dubs, there’s grown women voicing kids, which can be a little strange, but still better than getting kids to do it.
Though that’s normal for Japanese voice acting, too. Many male characters end up with a female voice actor this way. Looks like no one wants to work with children if they can help it.
It’s a hold over I think. From back in the day when dubs were entirely fan made so the quality of actor was just “whoever wanted to do it for free”. It could also be 4kids hangover from watching these terrible dubs of one piece or pokemon from back in the day.
Not even remotely just fan dubs. ADV was often, but not always quite bad. Funimation can be very hit and miss. I don’t know how familiar people are with Rikudo Koshi and Excel Saga these days. The English dub was a crime. It’s an absurdist series by nature. The absurdity bolstered by the serious delivery in insane situations. The English dub lost most of the serious tone. With a lot more goofy, ahyuk ahyuk delivery. It was baaaaaaaaaaaad.
But as someone who’s been a fan and watched anime for over 35 years. It’s gotten worlds better. And not even all the stuff back then was that bad. The dub of space adventure cobra still holds up well for me. Not perfect. But very serviceable.
Maybe it’s just because I don’t watch enough anime, but while I’ve definitely recognized voice actors in different shows, I don’t personally find it any more annoying than seeing an actor play another character in another IP.
Idk his name but one guy is in a ton of stuff including games, but I love when I recognize it.
Excuse me, but I’d like to ask: Why do English speakers hate their voice actors so much? Are they really that bad?
Here in Latin America, we LOVE ours.
English dubs for media where English was not the main market are usually terrible (yes it’s mostly about anime as far as I know)
Japanese and English have a very different cadence. Also, in Japan, anime voice actors are a big deal and take it very seriously, whereas in the English speaking world these jobs historically attract a different level of talent.
Any fiction which is written, performed and edited in a given language is just going to be better in that language 90% of the time. Its the more complete artistic vision.
Of course, if you don’t care that much about the artistic vision, and you are just putting on something in the background while you browse your phone, that’s an entirely different issue.
they don’t talk like how real people talk. according to a semi local voice actor, japanese studios want that weird acting for some reason but a lot of voice actors hate doing it and that’s why theres like 3 men and 5 women that do almost all of the english dubs
But many voice actors from other languages don’t speak like “normal people, not even Japanese seiyuu.
Going back to the example of Latin American dubbing, 90% of the time they speak in unnatural Spanish with a neutral accent that doesn’t match any of the Spanish-speaking regions, but it works within the CONTEXT of the scene. The remaining 10% is when they do speak according to a region (mostly Mexico cuz is the one with most prolific dubbing industry), and this is split between when it works and when it’s annoying af.
I think that rather than feeling natural for the “real world,” it should feel natural within the world of the work.
I don’t have a working knowledge of many languages commonly dubbed in but even when the original japanese goes past a certain threshold I can’t stand it. I understand enough japanese to follow along with anime that isn’t too complicated and recognize that it tends to be different from real conversation to varying degrees. Some games and anime I’ve gone to an audio track of a language way beyond my comprehension just to feel less uncomfortable.
Regional accents or dialects gross me out in dubs though. I die inside every time kansai ben or something gets replaced with a very fake us 'murican rednecky bit. I could probably tolerate it if it was using or based on english from outside of the states but most of the time they end up turning it into a trailer trash vibe for a character that is very much not that.
I can kinda get behind the feeling correct for the setting but usually its just too jarring and I can’t picture a world where anyone would speak like english dub anime girl outside of gooner streaming or something. As a different example I didn’t mind the voice acting mod of the outer wilds game. Much of the audio felt off to my ears that have been listening to mostly english all my life but the characters are all aliens (to us) and the ones that feel most off are of a different species to the player character and the audio would presumably come from the translator device. It also was nowhere near as jarring as the typical budget anime dub.
The issue is more that English dub voice actors tend to be … not as good, and wind up sounding stilted. Watch the dubbed version of Princess Mononoke, and compare it to … uh…
You know, it’s been so long since I watched any English dubs that I’ve plum forgotten what some of the worst offenders are. Naruto? Sailor Moon?
Princess Mononoke with the Billy Bob Thornton casting. Awful.
One thing that hadn’t been mentioned yet in this thread is that when voice acting is sub-par, it’s not as noticeable when it’s not in my native language. That’s my own experience anyway.
I personally struggle with English VAs often when they seem to ham it up more than seems appropriate, or don’t seem to take things as seriously as the scene’s tone.
I could guess. Most English actors are not used to doing dubs. Lots are just giving it a go when they want to be a screen actor.
There’s a far more reliable pool of work for dubbing TV and film to languages other than English and therefore a greater pool of professionals to pick from. Leading to higher standards.
On top of that there’s an anachronism of American actors accents in older stories set in the past that don’t fit, or trying other English accents they’ve never been exposed to fit in.
Good English speaking actors and voice actors are in really high demand outside of the gaming industry too. There are a huge number of bad or inexperienced actors trying to get a career going.
The quality of actor for dubbing a game you can get for a budget is probably lower or at least much less consistent.
When we love an actor they get star billing and the cost to hire them rockets. They then move towards film and TV.
We love our good actors but that means they’re too expensive.
Eh. There’s tons of dubbing in my language, but I’d say that English voice actors for games are better on average. Except when the original voice acting is in a very specific style, like whatever Japanese voice actors are doing, or games very obviously set in a non-English region (e.g. all the shooters set in eastern europe), or the non-English voice actors just ending up better than usual.
There was also online piracy, which included the occasional fan dub. Which like… The passion of fans can be great for some things, but most anime fans lacked the skills fkd professional quality audio production.
And so for a loooong time English dubs got the reputation for being garbage. That changed a while ago, but some people just have a hard time adjusting their expectations.
In the pirate scene you also have fan subs, which is something that is much more accessible to anime fans than audio production. You need a lot of equipment and talent and expertise in different areas to create a dub. You just needed a computer and the ability to translate to make a sub. I don’t mean to diminish the effort and skill it takes to translate, but dubbing requires all of those same skills PLUS a whole lot more, so it is harder.
This is not unique to anime. People in the US who watch foreign films in different languages have a similar subculture.
Personally, I like to get high and watch anime, but I find it’s harder to read when I’m high. I don’t mind watching sub’s stuff occasionally, but I prefer dubs.
And favouring walking and riding a bicycle over driving a car is gatekeeping of transport because it keeps out the disabled. What a bizarre argument/accusation.
It doesn’t, as long as your reading skills are above that of a 12-year-old.
Bruh, what? Non-English films aren’t dubbed enough in the first place for this to be a metric for a “subculture”.
Car-centric infrastructure is far more detrimental to people with mobility impairments than any other mode of transportation. I would recommend you research what gold urbanism is if you’re saying stuff like this.
Reading literally engages different parts of your brain that are otherwise dormant. And as I mentioned, sometimes I want to watch stuff while high. Sometimes I want to give my eyes a break from using my glasses or reading things in fine detail.
I didn’t mention this before, but it is also very common for myself and a lot of other people to be doing other things and having TV on in the background. While i’m working or cooking or doing dishes or engaging in hobbies like soldering or woodworking. Especially with incredibly long anime like One Piece… That is a whole lot of hours to dedicate to doing absolutely nothing else. Netflix has talked about how they make “second screen” content now. Personally I find the idea of scrolling some social media in your phone while watching something to be a terrible idea, but its also often enjoyable to just listen to an anime.
Sure.
I used to think this until I watched one of those “[sentence] in 50 languages” videos, and then, surprised by what I heard, I listened to longer things dubbed in languages other than English. It turns out not being able to understand the language doesn’t brainwash you into thinking the performance is compelling.
And, TBH, I’ve come to consider this attitude, that voice actors can just be swapped out like mechanical components, to be disrespectful to them and the art of voice acting. What we have with American dubs is like taking Star Wars and swapping out James Earl Jones for Dwayne Johnson doing the same voice he does in Moana, with zero direction from any of the creatives that originally made the Darth Vader character. Note that I chose Star Wars as an example and not something like Citizen Kane or Schindler’s List. I’m not trying to argue that Japanese media is some kind of high art that can never be equaled. But something doesn’t need to be high art to be butchered.
I formed that opinion based onnfeedbacj I received from native Japanese speakers. And it makes a lot of sense. I’ve also watched compilations just admiring bad voice acting in muktiple languages- sometimes there aren’t even words, just noises and exclamations and sounds that are terrible. Sometimes its easy to tell a flat delivery even if you don’t speak the language.
And I LIKE bad voice acting sometimes. Depending on the situation it can be more entertaining than good acting.
There is good and bad voice acting in animation written for English-speaking people. Further beyond just the acting itself, there is the writing and and direction and editing and mixing to consider. I’ve seen stuff with voice actors that I know are good that sounds terrible because of these other factors.
And yes, the acting will change depending on the individual performance, but I don’t think that just because someone was the first to do it means they will be the best. For most of human history, plays were performed by hundreds, maybe thousands of different actors across centuries. How many different men have played Romeo or Hamlet? Even with bad actors, you can still usually appreciate the stories.
I would have absolutely no problem with replacing James Earl Jones with another actor in a remake. Heck, there are probably a lot of actors in their prime in Hollywood right now that have spent most of their lives working on their Darth Vader. I don’t think that’s disrespectful at all. Characters get re-cast quite often as their actors age out or die or jisy have scheduling conflicts. And you see this in anime too: sometimes the Japanese voice actor changes over time, sometimes the English ones do, its not really a big deal.
For me that’s a plus. I can listen to Matt Mercer’s duldct tones all day.
I look up my favorite voice actors and see what else they have been in to decide what to watch next. I think a LOT of people do this, with live action actors moreso.
I’ll have to respectfully disagree on this. More power to Matt and his prolific career, but man, can we please have some other voices.
Edit: My goal is to be immersed in the story, and having a small group of VAs work on everything becomes distracting, in my experience.
It really depends. Just an example, Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill had mostly fine dubs, but I absolutely hated the English Sui voice acting. It just didn’t fit right, and one individual even told me that was the reason she refused to watch the anime (she prefers dubs.)
I’ve experienced similar with other anime, so I just err on the side of subs these days.
English dubs on Kaguya-sama: Love Is War are fantastic, btw…
But I’ve seen comparisons where dubs completely change the meaning of what they’re saying.
Most of them aren’t too bad. It’s just that a lot of the anime dub voice actors do the same kinds of voices over and over again, and it gets a bit repetitive. Outside of dubs, there’s grown women voicing kids, which can be a little strange, but still better than getting kids to do it. The ones voicing originally English speaking characters don’t get as much respect or attention as live action actors like Tom Holland or Keanu Reeves, but the more well established ones do get a bit of both. https://youtu.be/DzjiBJ7AetE This is what anime dubs sound like to a lot of us.
Though that’s normal for Japanese voice acting, too. Many male characters end up with a female voice actor this way. Looks like no one wants to work with children if they can help it.
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I love figuring out what One Piece character any given voice actor played. There were so many it’s like the Kevin Bacon of animes. It’s usually Zoro.
English voice acting tends to change the tone way too much
It’s a hold over I think. From back in the day when dubs were entirely fan made so the quality of actor was just “whoever wanted to do it for free”. It could also be 4kids hangover from watching these terrible dubs of one piece or pokemon from back in the day.
Not even remotely just fan dubs. ADV was often, but not always quite bad. Funimation can be very hit and miss. I don’t know how familiar people are with Rikudo Koshi and Excel Saga these days. The English dub was a crime. It’s an absurdist series by nature. The absurdity bolstered by the serious delivery in insane situations. The English dub lost most of the serious tone. With a lot more goofy, ahyuk ahyuk delivery. It was baaaaaaaaaaaad.
But as someone who’s been a fan and watched anime for over 35 years. It’s gotten worlds better. And not even all the stuff back then was that bad. The dub of space adventure cobra still holds up well for me. Not perfect. But very serviceable.
Maybe it’s just because I don’t watch enough anime, but while I’ve definitely recognized voice actors in different shows, I don’t personally find it any more annoying than seeing an actor play another character in another IP.
Idk his name but one guy is in a ton of stuff including games, but I love when I recognize it.
I actually love it. When I find a voice actor I like, I look up their filmography to find new shows to watch.