Anime

[relyanCe]

...huh? The dub of Stand-Alone Complex is fantastic.

yeah i'm confused too

SaC is the absolute best dub out there behind Cowboy Bebop and TTGL

[Fishy]

...huh? The dub of Stand-Alone Complex is fantastic.

I have no idea how you don't tear your ears out listening to ANY dubbed anime. I know I'm likelier to be much pickier then the average watcher as I've been involved in film audio-post production, but it really is just terrible in general.

And I don't blame them at all, it's a very very expensive task to localise Japanese to English well, and they probably don't make enough money on English versions to justify spending a significant amount on it. I can pretty much picture them sitting in the studio listening to a terrible take of dialogue, but one that finally fits the length required to sync with the scene, looking at the clock on the wall and going *sigh* 'that will have to do'. I've been there.

You could say the dub is 'fantastic' compared to the majority of animes, but in and of itself I would struggle to say 'barely acceptable' in terms of post-production quality.

EDIT:

yeah i'm confused too

SaC is the absolute best dub out there behind Cowboy Bebop and TTGL

I also tried to watch Cowboy Bebop in English. In my experience you would need to replace the word 'best' with something like 'most acceptable'.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Fishy

[zircon]

Stand Alone Complex is just.. amazing. I hated the dub but man, probably my favorite anime of all time. Inspired a whole album no less!

[relyanCe]

I also tried to watch Cowboy Bebop in English. In my experience you would need to replace the word 'best' with something like 'most acceptable'.

Seeing as you have experience in some form ADR/post-production, what would be a good example of language-to-language ADR done right? Outside of straight-up anime, I also tend to really love Disney's dubs of the Ghibli films. How are those, if you've seen any?

Does anything get beyond "acceptable" in this regard, to someone with formal/professional training?

[EC2151]

The best dub ever is Devilman anyhow.

second place:

Edited May 6, 2013 by EC2151

[Moomba]

loldubs

No seriously. The only semi-decent English dub I can remember seeing was Fullmetal Alchemist.

inb4 YOU ONLY THINK THAT BECAUSE YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND JAPANESE

Guess what. I do.

[Fishy]

Seeing as you have experience in some form ADR/post-production, what would be a good example of language-to-language ADR done right? Outside of straight-up anime, I also tend to really love Disney's dubs of the Ghibli films. How are those, if you've seen any?

Does anything get beyond "acceptable" in this regard, to someone with formal/professional training?

Yeah I've seen the Ghibli films, they tend to be pretty good as Disney have a whole bunch of good voice actors they tend to re-use from their cartoons.

The best overall localisation (Japanese to English) I'm aware of is FFXII. Seriously, it's like it was meant to be written and performed in Shakespearean English. Some of the voice acting is hammy, but even that is appropriate for the style. Even the people who wear helmets have this awesome filtering going on to make it sound a bit more appropriate. This particular scene fills me with happiness, even though there isn't much lip-sync going on. The translation is best thing about it.

[Bleck]

I like watching subs because I don't understand japanese; that way if there's poor acting, it doesn't detract from the rest of the experience for me

[Top Gun]

Well, I'll keep any other thoughts to myself, but I will say that there are a few dozen series where I'll never so much as touch the Japanese, because I feel the English cast did a superb job with the material. There are a few other series that I'd likewise never imagine watching in English, but I think that English anime dubbing as a whole is far better than you're giving it credit for. I can't speak for the technical production side of things, but I'd like to think that I can at least differentiate good acting from bad.

[Flexstyle]

I liked the (second, I think) English dub for Initial D. The vibe is different than the Japanese, but I think it conveys the story in a great way.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Stand Alone Complex is just.. amazing. I hated the dub but man, probably my favorite anime of all time. Inspired a whole album no less!

I've been watching Stand Alone Complex and yeah, it's seven different kinds awesome.

[EC2151]

I like watching subs because I don't understand japanese; that way if there's poor acting, it doesn't detract from the rest of the experience for me

sometimes a hammy english dub adds a charm all to its own though - see: Mad Bull 34, Dominion Tank Police, Cyber City... really anything with Manga UK's stamp on it.

[WiFiSunset]

Does anybody remember the show Kikaider? Its theme was amazing. (Theme of Gemini).

[Fishy]

Well, I'll keep any other thoughts to myself, but I will say that there are a few dozen series where I'll never so much as touch the Japanese, because I feel the English cast did a superb job with the material. There are a few other series that I'd likewise never imagine watching in English, but I think that English anime dubbing as a whole is far better than you're giving it credit for. I can't speak for the technical production side of things, but I'd like to think that I can at least differentiate good acting from bad.

Dude, it's a forum, the whole point is not keeping your thoughts to yourself .

I do actually watch DBZ in English only, so it's not like I'm saying there are never cases where I prefer the dub (Goku sounds like a women in Japanese), or that they shouldn't bother with it. I'm just saying the overall quality is significantly below what it could be if they had bigger budgets/more time.

[Top Gun]

Well I will agree with that, and there are plenty of times that it shows. I think part of my problem is that a lot of the anti-dub arguments out there (I'm not saying yours at all) are founded in this idea that English versions haven't evolved since some of the cringe-inducing jobs of the mid-90s (the wonderfully cheesy dubs like Charlemagne mentions aside), and that's just not true. And as someone who generally prefers listening to stuff in English, those start to grate on you.

[CinnamonJihad]

I pretty much prefer the sub in 99.9% of situations, because it feels forced a lot of the time with the English voice acting. It absolutely isn't their fault though, it's just that the discrepancies of English and Japanese don't allow them to make it sound a little bit smoother. That said, I don't necessarily think that this is always the case. There have been many English dubs that I think are extremely well done. I can't think of them right this second, but one that does come straight to mind is Cowboy Bebop - I thought that was a great dubbing job.

[EC2151]

^In defense of English dubbing

[Moomba]

The problem with English dubs is not necessarily that the actors are bad but that for some absurd reason there seems to be this tendency to try and mimic the same sort of pacing and inflections as the Japanese actors use which doesn't even remotely work in English so we end with something that sounds atrocious.

If they just tried to sound like they were speaking English it might work better.

[Top Gun]

I understand what you mean, but part of the problem there is that English dubs generally try to match the lip-flaps of the original animation, which are at least nominally set up to match the Japanese voices. (In reality, the original Japanese dubs don't tend to be extremely strict about matching the animation, at least not when compared to what we're used to with Western animation.) As a result, there can be certain situations where you wind up with a big gap in lip movements that winds up not working too well with the English translation. The best dubs can mostly work around this, but even then you'll get the occasional slightly-awkward moment that there's no real way to avoid. For more average dubs, they come up much more frequently.

[Native Jovian]

I'll watch dubs 99% of the time. I cannot name an anime where I'd rather watch it subbed than dubbed. (Actually, I take that back -- I need to rewatch Gundam Wing subbed instead of dubbed, because I hear Heero doesn't use emotionless monotone in Japanese. But that was a deliberate choice, which means it was a bad directorial decision, not bad acting.)

I generally don't give a shit whether you like dubs or subs as long as you aren't all "zomg dubs are teh suck, watch animu like it was MEANT to be seen!", but seriously? Calling Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, or Gurren Lagaan poorly dubbed?

Madness.

[Gollgagh]

the largest reason that I don't normally watch dubs is because I tend to watch things that haven't been dubbed yet

For example, I was watching TTGL practically as fast as the fansubbers could pump them out, and having experienced it already, had very little desire to watch it again in English. (Actually, that's a partial lie, I didn't know that it had been dubbed until this thread) Still, TTGL is one of those series whose best punch is the very first viewing, every time after that isn't quite as good.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Gollgagh

[Thin Crust]

Tell you the truth, I'm waiting to watch Fate Zero till it's finished dubbing. I saw

and decided to give this series a go. Never approached it before but he speaks very highly of it.

That being said I just finished watching Avatar: the last airbender a few moments ago (Hey, it's done in anime style) and I've got to say that they followed the perfect format. In my opinion, the best way to do a series is the way Avatar and FMA-B did which is: You go around the world and see everything it has to offer making friends along the way. Then have an epic showdown with the villainous entity where all of your friends you made along the way come to aid in the climactic conclusion.

What about you? What template is the best way to tell a story in your opinion?

EDIT: Oh, and the guy also wrote Evabridged. The only possible way to watch and enjoy Evangelion.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Thin Crust

[GravitySuitCollector]

I thought FLCL had a fairly good dub, at least on the same level as the original audio. There are a few cases where I prefer dubbing, but generally, though, I go with subs.

Edited May 7, 2013 by GravitySuitCollector

[relyanCe]

I thought FLCL had a fairly good dub, at least on the same level as the original audio. There are a few cases where I prefer dubbing, but generally, though, I go with subs.

Shit, how could I forget that? FLCL had a god-tier dub

EDIT:

I've been watching Requiem From the Darkness on Netflix over the past few weeks. It's downright fucking beautiful, trippy as hell, and overall a depressing ride. I'm only on episode 11, though, so I can't speak for the whole experience yet. Good stuff though, if you're into artsy shit. Crappy dub though.

Edited May 9, 2013 by relyanCe

[CinnamonJihad]

So, Shinsekai Yori (From the New World) is probably my new favorite anime. I was completely unfamiliar with the novel or the manga going into this, so maybe those might have been better, but I loved this show going into it completely blind.

I thought it was very well animated,the world that is imagined is really cool, and the plot was very well paced imo.

I thought two aspects stood out above the rest though. The first one was the music. It was absolutely fantastic and conveyed the feelings in a stellar fashion. The other thing that was absolutely phenomenal was the pull of the mystery in this show. From the very beginning all the way until the end, there is always at least one very compelling mystery going on, and it always left me dying to watch the rest.

The show definitely has some flaws - The most prevalent that stands out in my head is how confusing the beginning of the show is. For the first few episodes, it's difficult to understand just what is happening, and the show has a tendency to just carry on and sort of leave you in the dust. Luckily, you do sort of catch up with understanding everything. While it only took me one episode to get absolutely hooked, some people might need to get up to about 6 or 7 before they really start getting into it.

You should really consider watching this one through. As I said before, it's right up there with my other favorite anime (though I'm relatively inexperienced in anime as a whole with like 20 or so series under my belt), and I think it's a great proof that newer anime isn't bad either.

I really don't want to get into the plot for anyone who hasn't started watching it, because even explaining a little seems like something that would spoil a few things, so I apologize for that. But please, do yourself a favor and check this one out!