My Anime Dub Opinion(s) That Could Irk Certain Folks

From time to time, I will get asked certain anime/manga questions. It might be on Twitter or when I’m streaming a game on Twitch. In this instance, I don’t remember where I was asked this. And in fact, while I thought it would make an interesting blog topic, I’ve sat on this for ages. 😅 And that question was, “What are your anime dub opinion(s) that could irk certain folks?”

My answer? I can’t stand English dubs and I think THEY SUCK! 😜😂

I haven’t always held this opinion. And before folks come after me with pitchforks and such, I am NOT writing a piece stating that folks should watch anime in Japanese with subtitles (save for the canon Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki series). This is just my opinion and one that could irk certain folks.

My Dub History

When I was first introduced to anime in Japan, it was raw on Japanese TV. Back then, I knew nothing of Japanese, save for a few phrases and terms during my orientation class. But my best friend loved anime and so we watched this stuff like crazy. At the time, my main thought was, “I wish this were in English, so I could understand it. Or even some subtitles would be nice.” This was especially true when it came to watching Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro.

When I returned to America, I did make two anime purchases. One was scoring Castle of Cagliostro on VHS with an English dub. And the other was to buy the butchered English dub version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, called Warriors of the Wind. On TV, I did catch some episodes of Monster Rancher, the English dub version of Monster Farm. When the DVD of Castle of Castro came out, I scored that. And it had a new dub.

In 2002 (man, I’m getting old), I was in a position to check into anime in America. And boy was it out in a surprisingly large force on Amazon. I wanted to rent anime titles, but the local Blockbuster didn’t carry anything. Netflix (then, only a DVD rental service via mail) had only a tiny anime selection. But a company named GreenCine had TONS of anime, and would add stuff to their collection on request. Plus, it had user ratings for each title, making it a great resource. So I started renting titles.

I also started watching Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. They had a lot of anime that I watched in English dub, including Inuyasha, Lupin III Part 3, Yu Yu Hakusho, .hack//SIGN, and so much more.

Changing My Dub Opinion

There were two things that started changing my opinions of English dubs. The first one was watching the dubbed version of Love Hina. That dub was cringe beyond belief. In fact, I had to stop watching the dub and switch to Japanese to get some relief.

My introduction to the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki franchise was via the Japanese version with subtitles, as that was how folks recommended I watch it. When I went to the English dub for the rewatch, not only did I not like the English dub characters as much, but the alterations to the story bothered me. So the Japanese version was much preferred, and this was with the initial Pioneer subtitles being kinda bad too.

When I wrote for Community Anime Review’s site, I did try to watch anime in English and in Japanese for a while. But due to time concerns, and the need to return DVD’s to GreenCine as fast as possible to maximize my membership, I stopped. However, whenever I’d get sent review copies of an anime, I would watch it in English and Japanese. But it has been years since I scored a review copy, due to turning them down all the time.

Personally, I find the Japanese voices to be much more interesting and nuanced (at least for the titles I watch) than English voices. And I think some of this is due to the fact that anime was made for a Japanese voice. So English dubs have to adapt to mouth movements made for Japanese.

In the End…

So there you have it. I can’t stand watching anime in English. I don’t even want to play a Japanese game in English. 😅 And that is my dub opinion that could irk some folks. Your mileage may vary.