Welcome to Gaia! ::

Welcome everyone to FallenDevil's Great anime debate number one. Oh gee wilikers number one, well I guess since this is the first one we should start with a real bang, and one that just about everyone has an opinion on.

Dubs vs Subs

Now first off let me lay some ground rules
1. Don't insult people
- Now I understand people are going to fight but remember this is an anime discussion there is no need to insult people we aren't here to do that.
2. I don't really have a two so tacos.


Wow I know that is hard to understand and remember but please try. Also I know that this has been posted a bunch in the A/M/C but not everyone posts there and things get lost so yeh. . .
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My personal Opinion:
Dubs, dubs all the way. My reasoning is simple, I like to watch anime not read it, I read manga for that. To me reading subs while trying to watch anime is a distraction and many times i've had to rewind to actually see the scene again because I find myself not having actually seen the scene. Also not to mention a handful of subs suck (white on white backgrounds painful yellow or fuzzy dark colors, its alot harder then people think to make a good sub.) Also sometimes it gets hard to differentiate high pitch girl 1 from 2 if they don't color code neutral

I also don't believe there is such a bad thing as bad dubs (or at least its not nearly as common as people b***h about) or at least not compared to the Japanese dubs. I mean you really can't tell how enthusiastic a Japanese person sounds without speaking the language since all languages are different in audible sound (ever try speaking to a Puerto Rican? We're normally loud even when we try not to be).

Those are pretty much my two cents I'd throw more out there but I wanna see some responses first.

OP, it's cool that you prefer dubs and your explanation makes sense. Absolutely! If you want to enjoy a show without being slowed down by having to parse out sentences, especially because action is still going on when your eyes are focused on the bottom of the screen, that makes perfect sense. I have no problem with that. cool You want to consume anime as it's depicted, not pause every minute.

I consume much slower and prefer subs, especially fansubs done by intelligent amateurs, because:

1) Even when the translation is awkward, it's trying to stay faithful to the original, and gives the alert reader clues to the kind of culture being depicted in the anime. I would rather learn something new, than have English or American idioms shoehorned in.

2) I can understand just enough Japanese (not much at all) to be able to follow the shifts in how the characters address each other. Someone saying "Hey You" might be using kimi (nicer) or omai (harsher). Or when someone stops calling their friend -chan and starts addressing them with -san, it's a nice piece of writing that indicates that there's either a rift in the relationship, or they're growing up. Not all fansubbers will put that in the text, but if I can hear it, it's ok.

That being said, if it's a story I really like, I don't mind to watch it again with professional subs or dubs. The re-translation may fail in some areas but shed more light in others, just like translations of books.