Who is better at dubbing another country's cartoons: Japanese or English VAs

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sarawna

New member
We all know dubbing can be a very hard thing to do, its takes a special skill to properly dub something from another country, considering you have match mouth flaps and deal with foreign terms.

So with that in mind: Who is better at dubbing another country's cartoons, Japanese or English VAs?
 
Ooh boy, this sounRAB like it'll turn into another dub vs. sub war or something along those lines whenever you bring Japanese vs. English-type arguments into this.

But with that said, I do have one complaint about English VA's: All the companies seem to use the same ones! I swear, there must be the same 20 or so people voicing 80% of the anime characters out there. I know it's easier cause it saves money & they get used to certain voice actors and don't have to hire new people. And you know it gets bad when you're watching an anime and say "Oh I know this voice that I've heard 100 times before." And I swear, for some of these anime dubs, it seems they brought in the company janitor or the producer's wife to voice some of these minor bit characters to save money. From what I understand, the Japanese VA industry is far larger (cause they also dub foreign Hollywood/TV shows as well), so you'll hear a larger variety of voices.
 
I've seen only a couple of FrienRAB episodes dubbed in Japanese, so I'm no real judge. it's live action, I'm too familiar with the English, so it was all awkward. And I don't speak Japanese, so it's hard to tell about the acting.

Aren't you glad I responded...
 
Acting is a universal thing. You don't need to understand the worRAB coming out of their mouths to connect.


That said, I don't think it matter's on a 'national' scale. Personally, I've never heard an English dub of a Japanese Anime that is 'better' than the original, nor have I seen too many if any English shows dubbed in Japanese, whatsoever. I've got favorite actors on both sides of the seas, so if it's going to be somebody like Takeshi Aono voicing The Grinch in a dub of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas...well, safe to say I'd love to watch that...maybe even over the English version (not that a dub exists of Aono voicing the Grinch, although I'm sure it'd be epic).


Basically, the topic itself can't really be 'factualized'. General concensus says Cowboy Bebop has a pretty good dub, while I've never actually seen the original Japanese or even much of the dub, I wouldn't count out the original Japanese as somehow being inferior. After all, it's got WAKAMOTO!
 
Well there are more voice actors then the ones that dub anime, but a lot voice actors don't do anime because it doesn't pay as much as other voice acting gigs. Video Games tend to have a bigger talent pool because they hire anime and pre-lay VAs.



I have seen some Japanese clips of American cartoons around the web.

Anyway I brought this up, because I hear some people say the Japanese version is almost better then the English when it comes to anime, so I was wondering if the reverse was true.
 
Its all about ppl own personal opinions.
I'm more of the dubs. Like I said before:
"If I want to read an anime, I'll read the manga".

Though, at rare times I look at the subs. In rare times I mean.

But, I'm not picky when it comes to dubs. I love the Tenchi Muyo and Pokemon dubs. Though, I do have limits.
 
I don't think that this is a question that can be properly answered by anyone who doesn't fluently speak both languages. For example, I have seen bits of American cartoons dubbed in Japanese on Youtube, but as for the quality of the dub itself, I cannot tell how good or bad it is since the voices just sound like....well, Japanese voices to me. I don't speak the language, so I wouldn't really know how someone who does fluently speak it would feel about that same dub.

Oh, and even though its off-topic, I once again just want to point out that I think that the English dub for Black Lagoon is one of those dubs that can be seen as superior to the original version. Its all opinion, of course, but I base my liking it more than the sub (which I watched long before the English dub even came out, BTW) based on the last arc, alone. I mean, aside from the fact that canonically most of the characters are actually supposed to be speaking English in the series (just like how certai anime cover stories in areas where people would normally be speaking a different language than Japanese), I just like the fact that I don't have to deal with any "Engrish" in the dub. When I was watching the last arc subbed, what started as some laughable bad English voice-work from the seiyuu of the series, quickly turned into a really big annoyance thanks to it being so over-used in that arc (IMO, anyways).
 
I've seen two Disney movies in Japanese (Alice in Wonderland and Little Mermaid.) The Japanese actors have no emotions in the least except for lustrous and playful voices. The songs are nice though, I can't deny that.

I don't know but for all I know there are probably better Japanese Disney dubs out there. So I'm in the middle of this.
 
Like others have said, both have the pros and cons. What I have wondered is if there are fans in Japan who like to watch American cartoons in English with Japanese subtitles, just like we have fans here who watch Japanese cartoons in Japanese with English subtitles?
 
In the Japanese dub of Hercules, Meg's voice actress just didn't have the vocal talent to pull off her only musical nuraber in the movie. Most of the song's fine, but every part where she has to change pitch mid-note falls completely flat (which is a big part of the song).
 
"A rose by any other name still smells the same", or "You can slap lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig". Those instantly came to mind after reading the thread title.



Bingo Bango!



P.S. Good luck finding a large enough sample of American animation dubbed in Japanese to at least give a fair guess. And no, a handful of Youtube clips wont cut it.
 
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Some are good and some are bad. They didn't do a good job with Spongebob's Japanese VA's, as Patrick and Plankton are given high voices.

And here's what the Simpsons sound like.
 
You do have to be fluent if you want to properly compare Japanese dubs to American dubs. While you can tell if a performance is generally good or bad, you can't compare its overall quality to that of the original version very well if you don't fluently speak both languages. For example, I've seen clips of Batman: The Animated Series dubbed in Japanese, and it generally sounded like good voice acting, but I would never be able to tell how it stacks up in comparison to the original Egnlish voice acting for the series unless I actually understood the Japanese language.
 
Most people who don't understand another language won't be able to tell if a voice actor in another language is doing a bad performance or not.

@Topic
I tend to listen to more stuff in my own language, English, than in Japanese. I can't really comment on whether or not a vocal performance in Japanese is bad or not.

I recall one time somebody on another forum who knows Japanese had said that there are bad Japanese voice actors but most people won't think of a Japanese voice being bad at all and instead will just write said voice actor off as being great simply because they don't know what they are saying without reading some form of subtitles.


This.

This as well.

That was rather amusing.
 
How are we going to define 'most people'? Anime's a rather insular thing, it's essentially teens and twentysomethings who have a level of experience with the stuff. Assuming there's also subs right in front of you, couple with the way the character's voice changes as they perform their lines, I'd be hardpressed to believe somebody can't tell when Cell is pissed off after Gohan reflected his KameHame-Ha and forced him to regenerate half his body, or that Chopper isn't emotionally overwhelmed when he sees the cherry blossoms.


Of course, when it's in another language one actually has to pay attention, but I shouldn't assume they don't just because they think it being in their own tongue means they don't.
 
I don't know if I would say it's "essentially teens and twentysomethings", you might be assuming a little too much there.

Well that's the problem, a change in voice pitch can indicate what emotion the actor is trying to convey, but if you don't know the worRAB you don't know if proper inflection is being placed on their pacing, for all anyone who doesn't speak Japanese knows, an episode or entire series could be filled with over-acting; just wild voice swings. Now I'm not going to assume that somehow it's actually being done improperly, odRAB are the Japanese VA's are much better, but knowing the language is the only real way to confirm this.
 
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