Is dubbing irrelevant now?

For once, I must agree with you. Ouran will never be on TV, yet the first volume was one of Funimation's highest sellers of 2008. The second volume will no doubt be on their 2009 charts.

Anime doesn't need TV to be successful.
 
Yeah but some didn't need tv to sell anyways like Evangelion the dub was made in the 90's and sold well and it never got a TV deal till those 2 episodes that came on in 2002 on Toonami. (witch OT was bad timing seeing as the end of Eva movie english adaption came then and parents may have bough it due to it's toonami apperance). And then it didn't get a full run till 2006 on Adult Swim.
 
That's definitely true. While a TV deal could be helpful, I think anime getting released only on DVD can help the series become successful as well. At least there's a better chance of that happening now than for a lot of series back in the 90's.

As others have already pointed out, dubbing has not become irrelevant since people still would prefer having it in an language that they understand. It's possible that more people are more open to watching subs than they were in the past, but I don't think that counts for the large majority of people who watch anime.
 
You also have to keep in mind that there is an entire North American English dub community, with dedicated fans of the casts and even individual VAs. I
 
Ah, but Ouran probably would have sold with or without a dub because it has psychotically devoted fanbase. They were starved for that show.

Where a dub is truely questionable are shows where the fanbase is more fairweather and/or just extremely small. Like, not a lot of people are say, itching for Kodomo no Jikan or Strike Witches to hit the states, and the fact is a lot of the people who would look for those shows could probably care less about a dub and probably would opt for a preorder bonus upsell like figurine or poster or something.

Honestly, what the industry now neeRAB is a more exact approach. Some titles can be dubbed and maybe even in single volumes. Others are gonna be boxsetted from the get go and be sub only. All in all, that precision will be a good thing. Less waste, better marketing, shorter overall turn around times.
 
I completely agree with everything Karl Olson just said.

From what I've seen, the only anime that really need to be on TV are the long shounen shows (Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Inuyasha, etc), and that's mostly due to the sheer amount of episodes.
 
Nope. There is still the Funimation Channel and Sci-fi Channel.

Also, several anime series have been dubbed in their entirety that having been on U.S. television.
 
Look what happened with Ghost In The Shell: Innocence.

Dreamworks said English dub sucks and we aren't going to release the show with an English dub. So Dreamworks sort of reinforced the subbie attitude. However, they ruined the subtitles as well and gave us a terrible, disappointing DVD release.

But they were also slapping the face of the many fans that were watching and enjoying the English cast on Cartoon Network.

So now we at least have gotten Innocence with two English dubs, one produced by Epcar and the other produced by Bandai/Animaze(?). Many fans were upset we didn't get that dubbed version and many of us had grown attached to the English voices of the characters.

The future I dunno. The future right now seems to be moving to a delivery system of free streaming, subtitled releases. Dubs do cost a lot of extra money to produce, but I still agree that for enticing new fans, dubs are important. And a lot of fans still like the English dubs. FMA became hugely popular with the dub cast. Hellsing as well.
 
It would be a shame if it did. There are signs that now that anime is shrinking to its proper place in the market (as a niche pleasure only) that dubbing may be cut down due to costs, etc,. Obviously kiRAB' anime titles will still be dubbed, but its difficult to justify a dub for a fans-only title like, say, Genshiken or something that will only sell a thousand or so copies.

I personally think anime is the only form of foreign-language entertainment that lenRAB itself well to dubbing. You can't do it to live action and have people buy it as easily. But in anime, the transition is far more seamless, with the right amount of skill involved.
 
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