Dubbed anime Is superior > Why dubbed anime should be your first choice Carlos Bilan Staff Writer mong anime fans, the matter of whether English dubs (where English voice actors re-record lines) or subs (Japanese audio with English subtitles) are better. In my opinion, there are many reasons why dubs are superior. Authenticity. People who are subtitle purists use authenticity as a reason for why subbed anime is better. However, “god of anime” Hayao Miyazaki, who is one of the directors and founders of Studio Ghibli, said in a 2005 interview to The Guardian: “When you watch the subtitled version, you are probably missing just as many things. There is a layer and a nuance youre not going to get. Film crosses so many borders these days. Of course it is going to be distorted.” This makes a subbed version not so different from its dub, translation-wise. On another note, there are anime that are not set in Japan, but in an English-speaking setting. Jofo’s Bizarre Adventure is an example of a show set in England. In the dub, all the voice actors have English accents, which makes the anime faithful to its setting. Besides this, there are characters in anime who come from different countries or backgrounds. Hetalia is an example where characters are from different countries, so hearing the voice actors speak English with an accent of the country they represent gives the characters more authenticity. Emotions. Transliterations aren't as emotional as interpretations. Using Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure as an example, the English voice actors add more sex appeal, which works for an anime that depicts muscular men. Jojo has a reputation of being overly dramatic, even for its Japanese subs counterpart, and the English dub really succeeds in conveying the anime’s spirit. The dub of Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki- kun is another example English voice actors doing excellent work. Not only do they embody the characters through their delivery, they also give the script more variety. For a comedy anime, this is especially important, since there are more punchlines that make the anime even more hilarious. The subtitles for this anime and many other comedy anime just declare everything at face value, so they aren’t as funny as the dubbed version. Idioms, figures of speech, and Anglophone references. Dubbing can break cultural and language barriers that standards in subbed anime are unable to do. For example, in Danganronpa 3 has a character named Junko Enoshima, the main antagonist, who says lines like “Those cinnamon rolls can’t resist the urge to save their teacher,” “Fellow nihilist,” “KAMUKURA KAMUKURA YAS QUEEN!” and many more. This really fit her character design—a sexy high school girl with pink pigtails and the personality of a perpetrator of despair. The dub script being superior to the original. A notable example is Ghost Stories. The anime was so terrible in its original form that Aniplex gave ADV Films, the English dubbing studio, the liberty to do whatever they wanted with the script. This resulted in the Ghost Stories’ dub being hailed as one of the must-see comedy-horror anime of all time, because the modifications were so hilarious yet still faithful to its central plot. One iconic example is when the main protagonists, Satsuki and Keiichiro, are being chased by a demon, and Satsuki says: “There’s nothing to be afraid of Keiichiro, monsters only get evil people like Republicans and we're not old enough to vote.” While the latter is an extreme dub example, there are other popular examples of superior dubbed anime according to forums and polls, including Cowboy Bebop, Yu Yu Hakusho, Death Note, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Ultimate appreciation for animation. How are you going to be able to appreciate every detail of the setting and animation when you always have to read text at the bottom of your screen? The point of anime is to appreciate a good story and the art. It doesn’t do the animators justice if you don’t get to immerse yourself in the experience due to your attention being divided. This is especially true if you're going to be watching an action anime where the characters speak a lot during a fight scene, and you miss out on the action due to reading subtitles during the fight. I’m not saying that all dubs are superior. There are bad ones, just like there are bad subs. However, people often conclude that dubbed anime is bad. One has to keep in mind, however, that these English voice actors are professionals, so to dismiss the entire English dubbing industry as terrible is closeminded. Thus, when watching anime, dubs should be your first option for all the reasons above. Remember, don’t knock them 'til you try them! Subbed anime 1s better > Anime subs are the superior choice Jessica Berget Staff Writer am an anime purist. In other words, I believe that watching anime subtitled in English and spoken in Japanese (subbed) is the best—nay— the only way to truly enjoy anime. Subbed anime is the purest form of anime. It is the way the creators of the show intended it to be watched. There are better voice actors and dialogue, you get a better understanding of the characters, the tone, and the plot. Even the jokes make more sense. To put it simply, subbed anime is better than dubbed in literally every way. Anime is an art, and it deserves to be appreciated in its original form. In fact, it can only be truly appreciated in its original form. Since Japanese does not translate well into English, dubbing an anime can compromise the original dialogue, so that the plot becomes contrived and the meaning of the show is changed completely. Sailor Moon is a prime example of this. The original series was much more dark and violent than the English dub, but it was deemed too violent for kids in America. As a result, vital plot lines and episodes were cut out entirely. There is one scene in the show that illustrates the vast difference between the English dub and the original series. In the original series, Usagi (Sailor Moon) is crying because she is worried about her friend Ami (Sailor Mercury), but in the dub they changed it to her crying over a cookie. That's right: a cookie. Usagi is changed from worrying about the safety of her friend to worrying about eating a cookie, completely compromising Usagi’s character from someone who is a loyal, caring friend to someone who only cares about food. It’s not just characters and dialogue that are altered, as even characters’ relationships are modified to fit into English-speaking ideologies. Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune were lovers in the original series, but were changed to cousins in the dub. The difference in characterization and context in the dub is so vast it’s hardly the same show, which is almost always the case when comparing an anime sub to the dub. There are certain jokes and cultural references in anime that only make sense when you're watching the sub. When they are translated in English, these references are cut out or modified for an English-speaking audience, which culturally washes the show. For example, in both the dubbed Pokémon anime and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, the characters call Japanese rice balls “jelly donuts.” Dubbing the original Japanese voices into English also whitewashes the characters, and it often comes out sounding goofy and unnatural. When I recommended the anime Monster to my boyfriend, he complained that the show came out forced and corny in some parts, a completely opposite reaction to what Thad when watching the show. When IT realized he was watching the dubbed version, it became clear to me why he did not enjoy the show as much as I did, and it ruined his experience of a great anime. I later showed him an episode of the sub, and he agreed it was significantly better. Anime dubs are just watered down versions of the original anime. The erasure of cultural references, the distortion of characters, and the corny English voices are what make dubbed anime so distasteful. The voice actors might be better in some dubs than others, but this is a rare instance. The only way to really understand an anime is to watch it in its true, subbed form.