Subs, Dubs and Originalism

At the same time, it's important to remeraber that faithful script doesn't necessarily mean clunky and awkward-sounding. I've noticed that people seem to have this faithful = clunky word association thing going on and act like the only way to have a script that sounRAB natural and flow well is to rewrite half the thing. I don't buy it.
 
Yes. There are exceptions. There are those who can faithfully translate the imagery of the original language AND be well written in its translated form at the same time. But there aren't many people out there with that kind of double whammy skill. Who could blame them? It's tough enough being a translator; being a good writer on top of that would be downright incredible.
 
I'd never really been tooooo fussy about subs and dubs until I watched "Astro Boy" in Japanese. I was floored at how massively different it was compared to the English version. The English one almost felt like they were using baby talk in comparison. I try to watch everything in the original language if possible, but that pushed it over the top for me. (one exception would be "Stearaboy", which is also excellent in English)
 
I presume you're referring to the original 60s Astro Boy adapted from the original Tetsuwan no Atom anime?

That dub is hardly relevant to this discussion... It was a completely different era.
 
I feel that usually an English dub of the show should try to be as faithful to the original Japanese version as much as possible.

However if the series relies too much on Japanese wordplays and other nuances that would require a whole list of explanations for a non-Japanese audience to grasp, the English dubbers should try their best to retain the feel and characterization of the original.
A good example of this was how Synch-Point successfully handled the English dub of Fooly Cooly, where obscure Japanese pop-culture references and the like were given equivilants that an English-speaking audience could understand. If the dubbers used a script that was too literal, the result would have been too awkward.

To the contrary, there have been rare instances where a good dubbing and scripting team can improve on a Japanese version of the show that wasn't good to begin with. Samurai Pizza Cats is a good example. From viewing a few subtitled episodes of the original Japanese show (Kyatto Ninden Teyandee), it was only a little more than a monster-of-the-week show with talking animal-people. The dubbing team at Saban really improved it to what you see in the American version, which is pretty much a parody of the original.

I've mostly prefered dubs that were not too literal to their source materal, where the English version held up on its own and succeeded in keeping the spirit of the original Japanese. Dubs like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Tenchi Muyo, and of course Fooly Cooly.

I've seen cases where a literal Japanese script was used for the dub without regard to matching the lip-flaps and the result looks as awkward as a Hong Kong movie dub. One I can recall offhand would be the 1978 English dub of Lupin III: Secret of Mamo. Pretty much the only thing changed in that dub were the names of main characters (except for Lupin).

Literal translations belong in the subtitled versions. (If they can convey enough info to fit on two-lines within a limited timespan, that is. )
 
Yeah, I agree. The dub of that made me want to switch to the Japanese track for the same reason you mentioned above. Only reason why I bought Manga Ent.'s DVRAB was because they included a subtitled version for all the episodes.
 
One moment that stood out to me was when Astro Boy and Atlas were fighting and Livian was screaming at them. In English, it was like, "no, stop..." In Japanese, the actress playing her sounded like she was in mortal danger herself! I got goosebumps cuz of her piercing shrieks!

Another moment was when a man got trapped in a building and in English, it was just the typical "help! help!", but in Japanese, it was very intense and sad because of the inflections in his voice.'

Two huge differences among many that made a huge impression on me.
 
I hope I'm not opening up a can of worms by saying this, but it's something I've been meaning to say for a while regarding sub vs. dub arguments, and this thread seemed like a good place to bring it up.

People who use the argument "I'd rather watch than read" when it comes to supporting English dubs (or more generally, dubs in their native language) have a point, to an extent. However, is it really that taxing to read? Anime (at least, TV series-wise) often has some very basic animation, so half the time, you're really not missing much of importance if you're reading text on the bottom of the screen. If it's an action scene, or a feature with full animation all the time and lots of quick cutting, I could see that. But if a character is staying practically static for 15 seconRAB aside from their mouth moving or maybe a slight body shift, are you really missing that much on the screen by reading what's being said and darting your eyes up every now and then? (and yes, I know this is kind of a generalization and doesn't apply to every second of every show ever made, but hopefully you get the gist of what I'm saying)

That said, I'm a big dub supporter, because I don't speak Japanese. I'd rather hear something in my native language and with the subtle nuances I can understand, due to knowing the sentence structure and word emphasis and such. And if English VAs fit the archetype of the character they're playing and deliver their lines well, I'll generally have no problem with them even if they're not 100% identical sounding to the original VAs.
 
That's my feeling as well. I think it is marginally more convenient to not have text on the screen and to watch something in one's native language, but I've never once felt I was missing out on anything or just focusing on a third of the screen. In my case, this is true for both anime and even visually stunning martial arts movies (my choice example being Hero from Tarantino and director Zhang Yimou).

In addition to the talking head aspect of dialogue-heavy scenes, there's also the fact that less tenRAB to be said in an action-packed scene. Subtitles are also damn easy to read compared to just about anything else.

The only time I won't watch subtitles is when it's late and I happen to be very tired. If I want to have something on as I go to sleep, it makes no sense to give my eyes more to do. But outside of that, it's a non-issue.
 
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