The voice acting is almost always vastly better in the original language. The creator of the work spent significant time and money finding the right person for each role and then spent even more time working with them to get the performance they want in every scene. This is especially true in Japan since voice actors are more of a big deal there than in the US. For the dub, that kind of care isn't usually put into it, and even when the company producing the dub does put some effort into it that only reflects their desires, not those of the original creator.

That's why you so often get a very recognizable (and annoying imho) "anime dub voice". It sounds extremely unnatural. I can often tell if something has been dubbed from its original language just by hearing a few spoken lines of dialog! That shouldn't be possible, but it's obvious.

The other main problem I have with dubs is that they are not faithful to the content of the original work. Sometimes they rewrite parts of the script to avoid mouths not matching up with English voices, or to limit the amount of work needed to edit the mouths to match. Sometimes they rewrite the script entirely!

They also tend to make all kinds of totally needless changes. They'll often censor content and dumb down the script (typically by over-explaining everything). They almost always make changes to localize it by removing/replacing cultural references. One of the things I enjoy about consuming media made in other countries is that I get to learn things about those cultures. I like to see artistic works that come from a non-US perspective. I don't want that stripped away.

If you're looking at art made in another language, the ideal situation would be to have mastery of the language it was written/performed in, and that you'd have all the cultural knowledge to fully appreciate the many careful and deliberate choices the creator made. Most of the time, that's just not possible. Translation itself is a lossy process. It means that for you to enjoy it at all, you have to accept that some things are lost. The goal then, should be to retain as much of the original work as possible. That means subtitles and original voice acting. If you watch a dub you are not getting the work the creators envisioned and labored to bring into the world. You're getting something very different and much farther removed.

> They also tend to make all kinds of totally needless changes. They'll often censor content and dumb down the script (typically by over-explaining everything).

Excellent example of this is the Ghost in the Shell 4K remaster, which has all new subtitles that are a much more faithful translation of the original work - but you wouldn’t know that if you watched the dub, which wasn’t changed at all.

I'm the same way. I love subtitles _but_ they degrade some of the experience. I had to turn them off because they will spoil the moment. Good example is King of The Hill. The I'll see the punchline before the delivery and I feel like it spoils the scene/joke.

I'll run them on other things (and they're amazing otherwise!) but when I sit down to watch something good, I have to turn them off or I'll get distracted/spoiled.

More power to the people that enjoy the subbed version though.

I forget what I was watching. It might not have even been anime, but the subtitles had blanks in them, until it was time to reveal the word, when that key word would appear.

In this way, they didn't spoil the punchline, or who was being talked to. It was a little bit jarring the first time, but by the second time it happened, I had already adapted and was thankful for it.

> I'll see the punchline before the delivery and I feel like it spoils the scene/joke.

This I'll agree is a major problem with subtitles. It's not even just the jokes. I've seen the names of characters shown in subtitles (because they were speaking off screen) long before that character's name was revealed to the audience by the script.

Another major distraction is the trend companies have these days to refuse to provide subtitles and give only closed captioning with all of its extraneous information about sound effects or the highly subjective descriptions of whatever music is playing. It's so obnoxious.

> Are you fluent in Japanese? I always find it odd when people prefer a sub to a dub.

You don’t need to be fluent in Japanese to notice a lot of context that (by necessity) gets left out in a dub. How characters address one another, for example. Also, if you’re trying to learn Japanese then the more Japanese you hear, the better - even if you don’t understand it all.

Not to mention the usual arguments about the original voice acting being a better reflection of the authors’ intent, etc.

I’ll still watch dubs if I don’t want to give something my undivided attention, though.

I think it's having a general preference over the "original" material. Subs do force you to read and watch so you need to initially train yourself to deal with it, but now I always prefer subs even with my native language because voice volume can vary between media.

Adding dubs lays another layer onto the original artists vision, such as Ghibli with Disney-produced dubs on top. Some will hit right, others won't. Subs are definitely another layer as now you need translators but it's a lighter one than dubs.

I personally don't knock people who do dubs vs. subs. I grew up watching Bruce Lee movies with terrible English dubs and loved them, still.

Hope that makes sense!

Why? It's the original intent and the original voice. The sub tends to be closer to the original script because they aren't constrained by mouths moving nor can they add lines, music etc. I don't think voice acting is as well respected in North America too and so lack of talent/desire to keep costs low gets a worse result. I don't think it helps that English VAs will sometimes try to mimic the Japanese VAs but it just doesn't work and easily sounds really grating. I have turned off voices in several JRPGs because of this.

>I don't think voice acting is as well respected in North America too and so lack of talent/desire to keep costs low gets a worse result.

You've got it backwards: Voice acting in Japan is far more respected (idolized, even) than the occupation is in every other part of the world.

They're still keeping costs low over there. The respect and the side job as an idol is a tradeoff for not being paid well.

Much of the better acting comes from everyone living in Tokyo so they can more easily record as a group.

Rather, massive competition for VA job is a reason for high quality, need to do various work like be an idol, and lower salary for young

I'm not sure if that applies to Ghibli so much though, seeing as Miyazaki sometimes just does things like get Hideaki Anno to voice a main character.

Yes that confuses Ja-vs-En VA discussion. Ghibli is the most famous anime studio but it's outlier for not hiring Ja VA.

You're agreeing here.

Indeed I am.

What I disagreed with is the notion that voice acting being considered a low social status is an abnormality. No, voice acting being considered so highly in Japan is the abnormality.

No you do...

> I don't think I would watch 90 minutes in a foreign language.

In the past I watched quite a lot of non-English film (mostly in European languages) and always prefer subtitles. For me, there is a mental synthesis so that it's almost as if I understand the voices directly. This might be a learned skill.

I like Disney’s dubs generally. Having watched Princess Mononoke 5 times with the Disney sub and 5 times with the Disney dub, I like them both for different reasons. Castle In The Sky has had a bunch of dubs: https://dubbing.fandom.com/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky Maybe the commenter would prefer a different dub.

EDIT: To answer your question specifically, I like the original voice actors sometimes and find it makes a difference to how I feel about a work sometimes. I also think subs can convey some contexts that are difficult in speech, especially culture-specific words like honorifics and food that in my experience are often left more untranslated in subs.

And to add to all the answers (that I agree with), when watching with subs I almost always find it fades away. It almost feels like I somehow know Japanese. Sure I'm reading words, but once lost in the story it becomes much less noticeable.

I’d be fine with a dub if they kept the same sound design, but sound design is way more important than dialogue imo. Yea I’ll definitely watch with subs. I got absolutely no fear about that for a foreign movie. For an English movie though I gotta take subs off unless my gf demands them (I dunno why she likes them so much)

I used to speak Japanese but I can’t rely on it at all for movies. I’ve forgotten most of it.

>For an English movie though I gotta take subs off unless my gf demands them (I dunno why she likes them so much)

Maybe for the same reason me and countless other native English speakers do: because everyone mumbles so much in movies these days. It's impossible to understand actors now. This isn't a problem when watching older movies.

>Only in edge cases where the dub is absolutely terrible

Most of them. As someone else said, the actual script can change. Attack on Titan had much more juvenile dialogue than the English translation of the Japanese.

But it sounds like a personal preference for you to watch in the language you can understand. I am fine watching foreign films upon occasion.