As non Japanese speakers do we have an advantage watching subbed anime and never or rarely criticising the voice acting but focus on the story,art,music etc. ?

Dec 21, 2019 4:23 PM

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Jan 2019

For example if I watch a dubbed anime or an animated movie the voice actors are a huge part of whether or not I'm emotionally invested. Whereas when I watch a subbed anime I immediately expect great voice acting and can't be too critical of it since I'm not familiar with the nuances of the language. Which in turn makes every anime watchable as long as the story/music/art etc is good.

This is why you barely see reviews pointing out how good the voice actors were, whereas it'd probably be more important to those who speak the language and turn anime we westerners think as great to being okay due mediocre voice acting.

What do you guys think?

Edit: grammar

Espio74Dec 22, 2019 11:52 AM

Dec 21, 2019 4:40 PM

mhkr

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Jun 2017

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Idk most people's favorites are filled with Japanese voice actors

Dec 21, 2019 4:43 PM

midascruzer

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I think it comes down to how much emotion they can convey through their voice.

To me dub almost always sounds soulless and robotic whereas sub is intense and over exaggerated but I like how they play with their voices.

Even if it's intense it sounds so much more natural than dub.
Maybe japanese VAs are more commited to the role, maybe english VAs are just generally incompetent.

Dec 21, 2019 4:57 PM

Super-Class_NEET

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Dec 2019

It's an interesting topic. Makes me wonder if Japanese people criticize Seiyuus as much as we criticize our local voice actors.

Dec 21, 2019 5:01 PM

FireRifle64

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Oct 2019

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midascruzer said:
I think it comes down to how much emotion they can convey through their voice.

To me dub almost always sounds soulless and robotic whereas sub is intense and over exaggerated but I like how they play with their voices.

Yea, I agree with ya, many subs have have VA's that put their all into it though their are some dubs that do better than their sub counterparts. One example is Dragonball where Goku's voice fits him as a grownup in dub vs his sub VA

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Dec 21, 2019 5:03 PM

Luchse

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Reading subtitles stops me not from noticing the low quality voice acting.

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Dec 21, 2019 5:22 PM

Espio74

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Jan 2019

Luchse said:
Reading subtitles stops me not from noticing the low quality voice acting.

That's an advantage for us, every season we pray the studios do a good job adapting a manga or light novel but we don't care who the voice actors are. In contrast people who speak japanese may be more privy to it, limiting the scope of anime they watch.

Dec 21, 2019 5:24 PM

Luchse

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Espio74 said:

Luchse said:
Reading subtitles stops me not from noticing the low quality voice acting.

I care about who the actors are tho. Especially so if it's one of my favorites.

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Dec 21, 2019 5:38 PM

zombie_pegasus

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Original dubs are generally better because they had a bigger budget to begin with. It's true for Japan with their strong industry for voice acting, but with Western shows too you can never expect a dub to be as good as the original. I've heard some bad voice acting in the original Japanese dubs for anime, but it's not all that common. I'd say we have the disadvantage by not understand it without subtitles.

Dec 21, 2019 6:13 PM

#10

Damuzen

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Sep 2017

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Idk, don't think so because they're original subs

I mean, when I lwatch cartoons from my country, the original dub is really great so I guess Japanese people might feel the same thing

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Dec 21, 2019 8:18 PM

#11

Short_Circut

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Jul 2017

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Well no...I think there are times where you can notice the voice acting is not really all that great. I think particularly with comedies and especially with ones that rely a lot on straight man humor/overall exaggeration.

Senryuu Shoujo is an example where the voice acting really lets the show down, and most of the jokes end up falling flat because of it

Super-Class_NEET said:
It's an interesting topic. Makes me wonder if Japanese people criticize Seiyuus as much as we criticize our local voice actors.

I think Haruka Tomatsu faced some criticism from fans because there was a time where she was getting all the roles from a particular sound director and people thought she didn't deserve them. idk about actual voice acting criticisms though

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Dec 22, 2019 2:58 AM

#12

removed-user

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Super-Class_NEET said:
It's an interesting topic. Makes me wonder if Japanese people criticize Seiyuus as much as we criticize our local voice actors.

I'm Japanese. It rarely happens, with normal TV anime. But because anime movies hire famous actors(non VAs) for name value, many criticism happen. Also, not about the acting, but the choice of VAs sometimes get criticized. Like Buccialati not being voiced by Sugiyama.

Dec 22, 2019 3:03 AM

#13

Theo1899

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I've watched a lot of foreign stuff and the only languages that I have this problem are chinese/cantonese, thai and vietnamese. Tonal languages are weird.

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Dec 22, 2019 3:11 AM

#14

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StudyingEnglish said:

Super-Class_NEET said:
It's an interesting topic. Makes me wonder if Japanese people criticize Seiyuus as much as we criticize our local voice actors.

I was wondering just a few days ago about why they didn't get any well-known VAs for the MCs of Promare. So they go for name recognition just like Hollywood huh? That's disappointing considering Japanese VAs are super talented.

Dec 22, 2019 3:15 AM

#15

removed-user

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The VAs in Japan are picked from thousands and are the bast of the best. The range of styles and acting is brilliant.

The Americans ones sound like an amateur dramatics society. No accents, no ability to talk like kids, no range of style. Just bland.

Speaking the language is not the reason why one is criticised and the other is not. I assume local language dubs of English shows are equally bad the the English dubs of Anime where the talent pool is just not there.

Dec 22, 2019 3:17 AM

#16

Ajvisor

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FireRifle64 said:
One example is Dragonball where Goku's voice fits him as a grownup in dub vs his sub VA

The thing is, Masako Nozawa IS Goku.

Dec 22, 2019 3:21 AM

#17

Summeryn

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Jul 2016

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I can´t relate,because i never cared about voice acting in the first place,i don´t take it into account when i reflect on my enjoyment of an anime.I never understood why people took it so seriously and it always seemed sort of nitpicky when people made a fuss over it.Basically,as long it sounds fine,i don´t care.And also,i never even really consider checking out a dub,i always just watch subs,it´s a matter of preference.

SummerynDec 22, 2019 3:26 AM

Dec 22, 2019 3:22 AM

#18

toiyo

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Apr 2017

370

I mainly notice whether the same voice actor is voicing certain characters.

sub just sounds much more better imo, with the shouting, emotions portrayed, laughs, etc.
there are good dubs, but i never really watch dub so can't list any.

Dec 22, 2019 3:33 AM

#19

Dante012

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May 2018

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I always mention voice acting when I write a review, but most of the time it's the same comment: "great as usual", lol.
Seiyuus are just so good at portraying characters and their emotions! I do try to talk more about it sometimes, but most of the time I don't because there's really nothing to say.

That said, I do notice it when there are voice acting mistakes.
In Stein's;Gate 0, at some point a character uses the wrong voice. I did notice it, despite not being japanese.
I also do feel it when a voice is wrong. For example, I never considered Dragon Ball seiyuus good, because the voices just don't fit.
Whenever a voice doesn't fit, whenever a reaction is weird, whenever the voice doesn't convey the same emotion as the character's face, I do feel it.

You don't need to understand the language to feel these mistakes. They just happen rarely, lol.

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Dec 22, 2019 4:01 AM

#20

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83Ma5flXmWU
I found a video pointing out bad acting. Can you guys tell which girl has bad acting?

removed-userDec 22, 2019 4:08 AM

Dec 26, 2019 5:57 PM

#21

DeadWeeaboo

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Dec 2019

I considered something like this the first time I watched a dub of something I'd seen in sub, which was pretty terrible. I wondered if this was what anime normally sounds like to Japanese people. For some reason the bizarre, camp, overdramatic delivery you often hear in anime hadn't really registered to me properly, it was just part and parcel of what I was watching so it seemed appropriate, yet the same in English was painful. I've watched enough anime to pick up a fair bit of the language by now and my opinion on dubs have softened, but still.

Dec 26, 2019 6:01 PM

#22

Manaban

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StudyingEnglish said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83Ma5flXmWU
I found a video pointing out bad acting. Can you guys tell which girl has bad acting?

https://prnt.sc/qg7l4w

That one easily sounds the worst to me at least, all throughout

The other two sound kind of average/unremarkable but the smallest one with the hammer sounds off to me, I noticed it in her first line in the video and then in that part I screened

Dec 27, 2019 12:44 PM

#23

EfiChan

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I admit I don't watch dubs as I'm too used to subs in everyday life (here, everything is subbed, rather than dubbed, unless it's for children).

Lately, I watched Fake, an OVA about American guys, and I didn't care much. Though after watching a show in the Japanese dub, it is really weird to move the English dub, and vice versa. I was shocked to hear the voice of Aoyama (Tokyo Mew Mew) in Japanese. I didn't hear it English, but where I grew up, it was voiced by a man. It was really weird to see him dubbed by a woman in Japanese. On the same note, moving for the Japanese female dubber for Mikeru (Mermaid Melody) to the male dubber in my local language. And I still prefer the local dubber of Sakura (Card Captor Sakura), R.I.P.

Dec 27, 2019 2:58 PM

#24

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QPR said:
The VAs in Japan are picked from thousands and are the bast of the best. The range of styles and acting is brilliant.

The Americans ones sound like an amateur dramatics society. No accents, no ability to talk like kids, no range of style. Just bland.

Speaking the language is not the reason why one is criticised and the other is not. I assume local language dubs of English shows are equally bad the the English dubs of Anime where the talent pool is just not there.

I read an interview of a voice actor (non-English) active since the 80s. He had voiced in Captain Planet, Count Duckula, Thundercats etc The method they used were insane. After 2 rehearsals, they would record an episode in real time and they had to do all those different voices during that time without break.Any mistake and they'd have to re-record the whole session. All the participating actors were recording together. One reason a 20 minute episode would take up to three hours. This is actually much closer to the Japanese method, you have to be a true actor and create and adapt very quickly.
That method was lost as dubbing became more industrialised.

Dec 27, 2019 3:04 PM

#25

Daniel_Naumov

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Everything relevant was already said. You lose out if you do not watch in the original form, with subtitles to understand. Some knowledge of Japanese is, of course, essential to understand many allusions and details. But what can you do.

Super-Class_NEET said:
It's an interesting topic. Makes me wonder if Japanese people criticize Seiyuus as much as we criticize our local voice actors.

Hardly, the creators, studios and voice actors themselves do a thorough work almost every time. Which is why you have a lot of veterans circulating throughout majority of titles. They know their trade and cannot be superseded by some voice-over by a person who hardly understands the language and no direction from the producers. By watching voice-overs people almost exclusively rip their understanding off the original intention and way the series was supposed to look to everyone, be it a Japanese or no Japanese.

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As non Japanese speakers do we have an advantage watching subbed anime and never or rarely criticising the voice acting but focus on the story,art,music etc. ?

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