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In the anime community today, there's a great rift between those who claim to be purists of a sort, in that they maintain that the Japanese (JP) audio is the only way for an anime to be seen (or heard, if you will-) and those who view their anime in the English (EN) language dub. Of course, there are plenty still who have no issue with either, and it comes down to a measure of taste and specific enjoyment for each show.

The sub vs dub argument has raged for years; starting back in the 80s, when anime was first licensed and imported to the US, it hardly even qualified for "niche" status, as the viewers of anime at the time were so few that it was nearly impossible to turn a profit on licenses, and therefore was very little money to go around for such things as quality voice acting. It's possible that in the very early days firms such as Central Park Media, Geneon, ADV, and Bandai had the same people hammering out licensing agreements doing the voices for their shows- and it was plainly apparent. English dubs between 1980 and the mid 1990s sucked, plain and simple. The production quality was poor at best, with inferior equipment, a microscopic market, and underpaid and uninterested actors doing voices that would earn them enough for a 6 pack to kill on the ride home. Flat, bored, hammy, or just plain ridiculous dubs were the staple of the day, and neither the actors nor the fans liked the product.



This all changed when the films Akira (1990) and Ghost in the Shell (1995) were given widespread releases in US theaters, introducing a whole new market to the mysteries of Japanese animation. This was the turning point of the western audience and the entrance of new firms to the now profitable, and untapped, market. With the unprecedented success of these two films, it was conclusively proven that anime licenses could be both viable AND profitable in English speaking markets.



This triumph then ushered in a new age of dubbing, and much more widespread licensing of both new and then-classic animation from Japanese producers. Two of the three current largest licensors- Funimation (1994) and ADV (1992, now Sentai Filmworks) began operations during this time, along with the adult anime oriented Central Park Media (1990). Manga and occasional anime licensor Viz Media sprang up in 1986, and the third largest licensor, Aniplex (1995 Japan, 2005 Aniplex America) also were active at this time, but did not play a greater role until later on.



Typically, anime had been construed as cartoons for children (still jokingly referred to as Chinese cartoons in 2015), but with the success of the aforementioned films- many more teenaged and adult oriented were licensed and dubbed for release in the US- to mixed success. Central Park Media was one of the early producers of dubs, with such titles as Grave of the Fireflies, Now and Then, Here and There, Record of Lodoss War, Birdy the Mighty, and generally poorly received, but remembered for the ridiculousness and laughably bad dub productions of such things as Garzey's Wing and MD Geist.
Central Park Media may not have created the best dubs, but they did start the trend of selling printed physical media VHS in box sets, a move that, in the future, would be crucial to success in licensing. In fact, many blame them for a slew of otherwise quality titles being ruined because of the poor EN production, but they persevered and kept producing minor hits and misses up until they shut down in 2009.



ADV Films also played a big part in the mid/late 90s with the license, dub, and distribution of the culturally iconic Neon Genesis Evangelion. It was a smash hit at the time, and also a turning point in anime itself in terms of lasting effect in influence and massively increased mainstream popularity . It was released in 13 VHS tapes, from August 20, 1997 to July 7, 1998. ADV also launched the "Anime Network" in 2002 as the first On-Demand anime cable network. While not a great success, It ran until 2008, a year before ADV was dissolved and its assets sold off.



If you were a kid in the late 90s- early 2000s, chances were that you were watching the recently popularized anime Pokemon or Yugioh. Nowadays, 4Kids Entertainment is the butt of many jokes and the easy target for "bad English dubs" and censoring, after their mishandling of One Piece and subsequent loss of licenses for a pair of golden eggs: Yugioh and Pokemon.
However, 4Kids was an important step in shaping the anime licensing and dubbing scene of today. With the smash hit of Pokemon in 1998, then again with Yugioh in 2001, 4Kids proved that not only was there a huge market for children's animation, but that it could be supremely profitable. Back in a time where very few movies series received licensing treatment- let alone TV shows, (which were always niche at best, and only children's shows received any TV play aside from DBZ)- 4Kids was paving the way for the aforementioned companies (Aniplex, et al) to come.
4Kids produced some fine voice talent, and while they were employed in-house, (modeled similarly to Funimation) they were also compensated well for their talents, particularly for the time. It was also unusual that they were not free agents being contracted on a show by show basis. The same actors and voices were used in everything that they produced- and a group of fine actors they had: Veronica Taylor, Rachael Lillis, Dan Green, Megan Hollingshead, Eric Stuart, the late Maddie Blaustein, and others. Many dub watchers would claim that 4Kids was a scourge upon english language anime, but the truth of the matter is that the actors never regretted their time at 4Kids Entertainment- as some of the best paid in the business and making respectable products.

-~- -~-

Post 4Kids, we come into the modern day of dubbing, with the rise of Funimation and Aniplex.

Many are unaware of this, but before Funimation really took off (DBZ was their biggest license prior to acquiring One Piece from 4Kids, and they rescued DBZ from Saban), before Aniplex America showed up on the scene, there were basically two companies that were licensing the majority of Japanese animation for western audiences: Pioneer/Geneon, and 4Kids. Funimation had originally licensed Dragonball Z in 1995, but the original dub was cancelled by 1996 and would not resurface until late 1998, as part of Cartoon Network's Toonami anime block. (Fun fact: it was this re-dub and license that led Funimation to create their inhouse dubbing, due to not having the funds to pay Saban to continue purchasing the dub and paying licensing costs.)

Funimation grew exponentially after the success of Dragonball Z and their pairing with Cartoon Network and after Pioneer LDC/Geneon folded into NBC Universal Japan and ADV had gone the way of the Dodo in the mid 00s, Funimation was first in line to scoop up their orphaned licenses, very likely doubling their existing library, and putting titles that had long since been out of print back on the market- further increasing their market share.

In today's world, Funimation continues to lead the market, pushing digital boundaries, and generally licensing what seems like any and everything they can. They've instituted a new program called "Simuldubbing", in which they build on the Simulcast model created by Crunchyroll (where they aggressively acquire licenses and begin airing anime just hours after the original airdate in Japan, which is groundbreaking.) For the previous 30 years of anime licensing and distribution, even in Japan, the process was thus: a show finished its run, the licensing and production companies hashed out an agreement with royalties and up front costs, and then the licensor had free reign to distribute and produce merchandise. A dub could take anywhere from six months to several years to complete - in the modern day, six months to a year is the average turnaround.

Anime fans are, on the whole, of an impatient sort- and waiting six months for five episodes of one's favorite show is hard to do. Thus, the simulcast and dub were born. In the new (as of January 2015) Simuldub program by Funimation, the turnaround on a dub is about 4 to 6 weeks. They're acquiring licenses and producing dubs on a weekly basis, much as anime episodes are produced and aired in Japan.






So, why did this guy write 1500 words on the history of the anime dub?

It's important to know where we came from to understand where we are now.


Now, detractors of the anime dub generally cite a few issues that they have of why a dub can't be the way anime is to be viewed. The simple fact of the matter is that viewers can watch their TV programs and enjoy them however they see fit, and favoring one audio codec over another is purely up to individual subjective taste. This section is not aimed at those who are able to enjoy anime as an entertainment medium, but rather those who see fit to lord their preference for language over others in an attempt to feel superior. If you're a sub elitist, this is for you.


The #1 complaint of those critical of dubs most certainly has to be "it's not the original, and it's poorly translated, which is an insult to the author and the studio that produced it"

To this, I propose that everyone watch this:


To paraphrase, "It's like comparing productions of Shakespeare- it's been done in many different languages and versions, and yet each is perfectly acceptable". No one rags on how horribly translated and terrible Shakespeare sounds in German, because it's not a point of contention. So long as the point of it gets across in the way it was meant to be, then the art is preserved. Even when things like a gag dub are produced- though it may change the way the information is presented into something entirely new, this is also acceptable- it's called Artistic license.




Like anything else, there are bad translations and good translations in any language- but that's hardly an excuse to write off an entire language. I'm certain that in school, many have read works by American/British authors (like Shakespeare) translated into their own native tongue. Obviously it's a hack fraud version of the real thing, which can only be understood and appreciated in its original language, right?

Wrong.

The purpose of dubbing is to reach the widest possible audience with a singular product. English is the most widely spoken language in the world. So, what language could possibly be better to produce an adaptation of an entertainment product in? I know only a few people who speak fluent Japanese (all of them are native Japanese), so they're the only ones who can actually enjoy anime, by this logic. The vast, far and away majority of anime viewers outside of Japan do NOT understand the language, and so how is it that they can claim it to be better?


This is the point I take the strongest stance against.

Judging voice talent against each other is a subjective thing, but one must consider things like race and ethnicity in anime. Japanese VA have NO ability to do any other accents or affectations of other cultures, particularly western ones. Has anyone ever seen black people portrayed in anime that aren't horribly racist or just plain wrong? (Dutch from Black Lagoon is a great example of how a good black character can be portrayed, but this is very rare.) They either can't or don't do accents, which makes their performances seem a lot more forced. Let's look at Attack on Titan- almost every character in that show is ethnically German, except Mikasa, who's probably Chinese. Yet, they all speak perfect Japanese? Really now...

On the other hand, English gives you a ton of flexibility in the portrayal of characters, and just as much work, if not more, goes into doing ADR and translation for these shows. If you don't believe me, there are plenty of articles and videos of people who work for (Funimation particularly I've seen and read several bits from, including this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yYArXWnhCs ) licensing and dubbing companies have done. Even if you don't like the product, you have to respect the work that they put in. This is not to say that there no bad dubs, there certainly are. But neither is every Japanese voiced product absolutely flawless.

I put Black Lagoon up as an example of how ethnically diverse and NOT set in Japan an anime can be. It has white Americans, black Americans, Chinese Americans, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Russians, Venezuelans, Taiwanese, Irish, Germans, Italians and Colombians. In the anime, they all speak their own various non-english languages from time to time, which is subtitled, for effect. It's a perfect example of how this can and should be done.




I've discussed with another friend before in that because we don't speak nor understand Japanese, we are unable to pick up on the more nuanced parts of a vocal performance. It's easy to tell when a character is happy or mad, excited, etc- strong emotions. But more gray ones like apathy, depression, apprehension, cautiousness, etc are nearly impossible to pick out, whether subliminally or otherwise. You don't understand it, so you just imagine in your head what it is they're saying and how (in your own language).




Yep, most anime does indeed involve Japanese characters in Japan- and I'm perfectly cool with them speaking Japanese in that. But if they really wanted to make an immersive and complete product- whenever it involves speaking other languages - they should have that actual language being spoken by those characters, and subtitle it in Japanese for the JP audience. That's called attention to detail. Again, using the Attack On Titan example- the majority of the characters would be speaking German. What if... what if, the production company actually had the lines recorded in German, and subtitled it in Japanese?Now THAT'S progressive! A fantastic and sophisticated example of this in practice can be found in Blood: The Last Vampire, making it a rare and unusual example of the medium.

This movie was never originally fully in Japanese, nor an English dubbed original. It was something of an experiment to feature both Japanese and American characters who spoke their respective languages (and for a handful, both)- and an experiment that works to great success. The voice acting is handled very well, and it's not just Japanese VA phoning in some bad engrish, nor is it American VA taking a stab at Japanese phonology.
It's a true dual effort- with Japanese people voicing their language, and Americans doing theirs.

Yes, I get that you have to consider the audience a program is for, and budget is always a concern, but movies/shows that do this right are always better for it. You increase the credibility of the show, believability, and it feels more natural. You see an obviously non Japanese person speaking perfectly inflected Japanese and immediately think: "oh they must be Japanese", right? It's not an unreasonable assumption that they would not be perfect speakers. (the Japanese do get this right when they portray children, because children speak differently- enunciate different vowels/complete words, extra omitted words that older speakers would not, etc)

BUT - on the whole, it's wholly unrealistic and unfeasible that everyone should speak amazingly clearly and inflected, in any language. I do make a positive point of the VA for Nicolas Brown in Gangsta for doing a portrayal of a deaf person well. Both in English and JP- but I'd never heard a Japanese person speaking with an impediment of any kind.



Secondly, the play on words that Japanese love. This applies mostly to comedies, but unless one has a deep understanding of Japanese language, Japanese linguistics, culture, or have someone explain it to you, about 95% of those jokes will fly right over your head. This brings up accents and dialects. I've seen in several anime (and this is also in everyday life/live action film/tv everywhere) where people make fun of others because of their accents as a humorous point.

I'm not even going to pretend like I can tell the difference in a Hokkaido and a Kyushu or Okinawan accent. I don't know those vocal nuances like I do American english. I can tell you if someone's south, southwest, California, generic northern, Boston, Chicago, Wisconsin, NYC, whatever. When one grows up with a language, one can easily discern such things. I've studied German long enough to know the difference in some of them, but mostly to the extent of "I can understand this dialect/accent, but not this other one."
Any person who says they get humor based on this kind of thing (manner of speech) is lying out of their rear, unless they've spent years studying Japanese and linguistics.


Also, If one is in North America - these companies who produce the dubs you claim to hate are the same ones responsible for you being able to even legally purchase or watch the shows you see, so keep that in mind.
If there are other comments I've not addressed, feel free to drop a line below. As always, come rage at me.