Are anime dub actors better, worse or equal to pre-lay voice actors

This is a tough question to asnwer. Dub voice actors can sound not as good as pre-lay actors because, honestly, they have a much harder task to deal with. Dub voice actors need to deliver their dialogue in a way that fits the mouth movements as close as possible, so that kinda takes away the liberties of the voice actor's performance. Don't forget, quite a few dub voices actors have done stage shows and radio work, and believe me they can be pretty damn talented actors. Hell, some anime voice actors in New York have been in Broadway shows.
 
I'd say pre-lay. Dubbing something has too many disadvantages (matching flaps, matching the time the mouth moves) while pre-lay has a lot of advantages (taking liberties, animation being custom made for the voice acting gestures, etc)

For actors who do both, I tend to prefer their pre-lay work since it seems to have more personality, but that could also be because of budget reasons (a Japanese cartoon that uses basic talking animation VS another cartoon where the characters move more naturally and make hand gestures while talking)
 
That's funny, because I consider the dubs for series like Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Black Lagoon, and Yu Yu Hakusho (just to name a few), to be much more preferable to listen to than their Japanese counterparts (and I saw the subs for all of those anime, except for YYH, before seeing the dubs for them).

What you said is only a matter of opinion. The sub may be the original, but that doesn't mean that the dub will never sound better to anyone, since there are lots of dubs which some people like better than the subs for certain anime, in their own opinions. It all comes down to one's own opinion, and when it comes to dubs vs. subs, there are rarely any things that you can say are facts in terms of comparing their quality to one another, for most anime that have dubs to compare to the original version.

But, I'm getting off-topic here, so to get back on-topic:

Honestly, I cannot say, and it would be hard for anyone else too, honestly, according to a question like this. The thing is, its asking if the dub actors themselves are better, worse, or equal to pre-lay voice actors, in terms of quality. As far as the quality of the voice-acting goes, pre-lay is almost always better than dubs, but that right there is obvious, since its an unfair comparison. With pre-lay, voice actors don't have to worry about matching any pre-animated lip-flaps, whereas in dubs, voice actors basically do need to do that, and that in itself makes the voice acting process much more tricky when it comes to dubbing an anime, or any foreign cartoon, for that matter.

Just that minor annoyance of having to match lip-flap movement alone can put up a significant limit on what a voice actor can fit into their lines, and what kind of tones they can use, in order to be able to match the lip-flap animations. In this way, the quality of the voice acting can be affected, and even if its still good, it wouldn't be quite as good as if the voice actor could be much more freely expressive, as they could with pre-lay voice acting. And this brings me to my point. If you compare the voices done by a good voice actor who only does dubs to that of a good voice actor who only does pre-lay roles, and see that the pre-lay roles sound significantly better, you still cannot measure that dub voice actor's full worth as a voice actor, until you hear how that voice actor does in pre-lay roles himself, and compare it to the other VA. And the same goes for the other VA, in that you would have to compare his attempt and dub voice acting to that of the dub-only VA, to get just a single accurate comparison between their quality as voice actors.

So, since a lot of dub voice actors usually only stick to dubs, and a lot of pre-lay voice actors usually only stick mostly to pre-lay work (obviously), you can't compare their actual quality as voice actors between dub and pre-lay voice actors in particular.

Having said that, though, I'd say that it depenRAB on which particular voice actor you're comparing to another. For example, if you take someone like Steven J. Blum, who has done both dubs and pre-lay voice acting, and compare him to someone like Kevin Conroy, who basically did mostly pre-lay work, but did try his hand at something dub-like by having to match the lip-flaps of the Bruce/Batman in the Batman: Gotham Knight anime, then you could make an accurate comparison in their overall quality of voice acting in portraying their respective characters, and say that they are of equal quality as voice actors (at least IMO).

Unfortunately, though, you cannot make these comparisons between most dub and pre-lay voice actors.

Well, that's all only just MY OPINION, of course.
 
I have to say dubs are getting better. Even though I see more hate on dubs now in days, I don't care. Even some of the old-school pokemon dubs (first season) gotten some good hits. Same with DBZ.

No, the the durab qoutes that you see in youtube, I mean the DBZ "DID" have some lines and how the brought them were pretty decent.

Hate all you want, I will always stick with the dubs. (about a good 95% of the time.)
 
I never said I "hated" dubbed anime. Just that it's not as good as the Japanese, IMHO.

I'm sorry for unintentionally taking it off topic, k?
 
No, No, No. I'm not saying that to you, If you think the Japanese dubs are better, cool. Enjoy your anime. But I been seeing a lot in the internet many anime fans really hate dubs. Even the good ones like Death note or Cowboy Bebop. Those type of fans just can't stand any dubs but the japanese. They think the Japanese dubs "CARES" for the characters they are acting, unlike the U.S only cares about money and power! Not all the Japanese dub are 100% great. YES PEOPLE, there are some "BAD" Japanese dubs. I know it's hard to believe.

Maybe I'm thinking to hard, but I personally think the dubs now in days are getting better. Maybe even better then the Japanese dubs.

But that's just me though.
 
Seeing how I don't know Japanese I cannot judge the quality of Japanese voice acting. So I cannot tell you if the Japanese voice actin g is better or worse then the english voice acting.

However I have seen enough acting to know that there is good and bad acting. This is universial. So while some Japanese dubs are very good some has to be bad too. It all can't be perfect. That's impossible.
 
But that's basically my point. In my post, I did acknowledge that some pre-lay voice actors also do dubs, but only some. Most pre-lay dub voice actors, on the other hand, only stick to pre-lay work, while most dub voice actors only stick to dub work, at least as far as American and Canadian voice actors go. So, my basic point was that, while you can compare some of them (which I even did between two voice actors, as an example, in my post) not nearly enough of the voice actors do both types of works in order for you to fairly be able to compare their true voice acting quality to one another, unless you are just comparing voice actors and individuals, rather than which type of VA is better on a whole, or even just in general.

Also, even in the case of the voice actors who do dubs for the Studio Ghibli movies, you would also need just about as many voices actors who mainly do dubs to also have done some pre-lay voice acting, in order to make a fair and accurate comparison of their quality as voice actors from one to the other.

That said, its still just my personal opinion on the matter.
 
I'd say dub actors have a tougher job. Pre-lay isn't easy, but it removes the hassle of having to match worRAB to mouth movements. Also, pre-lay dialogue almost ALWAYS has more time, which means multiple takes, and freedom to ad-lib. Dub's are usually recorded as quickly as possible, and - because the animation's already done - there's no room for ad-lib. It's tough on any cast when you're limited like that - which really highlights who's the better voice actor, IMO. A GOOD voice actor can work withthin the restrictions. A bad one just... well, sucks.
 
Well to be fair pre-lay actors don't refuse to do anime because its too hard, they refuse because the pay is so low. Clearly dub actors have more experience dealing with these restrictions, but that doesn't mean they are better actors per say it means they have experience dealing with these particular restrictions, give the pre-lay actors enough time to adapt to the learning curve and they could deal with those restrictions just as well.

Plus many pre-lay actors have dubbed video games, so I think that is evidence that they can work within those restrictions just fine.
 
What a can of worms...


Honestly, the best voice work I've ever heard comes from FUNimation's dubs. The acting always has intense real, raw, and subtleties to it that I've never heard in any pre-lay. Of course it helps when you have a dozen or two of the actors doing ADR directing as well as writing so they're familiar with the process but there's also how much time they clock in the booth as compared to celebrity actors doing an off shoot Pixar or Dream Works film.


My feelings have always been that doing ADR helps the performance, rather then completely hinder it like some suggest. On Darker than Black, for example, ADR direct Zach Bolton leaves in the music and effects, and coupled with the picture the actor can really allow the design and feel of the show to influence and highten their performance.

Sure, FUNimation's been doing ADR for nearly 11 years, so that might be their advantage, but when I saw Wolverine and the X-Men, I gotta tell ya, I thought the direction was just terrible. Blum's Wolverine just didn't seem to be hitting the notes I felt he could have.
 
I thought you didn't like the funi dub of DBZ.

Also Bob bergen says the dubbing process hurts performances, I gotta take his word for it, he is an expert. http://news.rabroad.net/articles/24050/toon-zone-news-interview-series-a-life-in-voice-acting-with-bob-bergen-part-1

Anyway Wolverine is hardly the best example of pre-lay out there, its not the worst but its hardly the best, its just ok. You might as well compare one of the better 4kiRAB dubs to a good pre-lay toon, if you are going to pick and choose like that. The best would be BTAS, Superman TAS, Gargoyles, the good years of the Simpsons, Beast Wars, Invader Zim and others of that calibre. That's more of a fair comparsion, I think the voice acting on those shows would beat out most dubs.
 
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