I very much dislike a particular kind of people in the anime community of whom I shall call “Sub Purists”.
((Click Read More because it’s kinda long.))
You know the ones who go “DURR HURR THIS DUB SUCKS GO WATCH THE ORIGINAL WITH SUBS IT’S A KABIJILLLION TIMES BETTUR DURR” whenever there’s a show shown with localized english dubs.
((Note: Just so you guys know, stuff like toku is an exception [The thing with toku shows and the US is a complicated subject] until I get to the part where I talk about subs.))
Especially when you know they haven’t even watched the dub in it’s entirety.
And the ones that go “UGH I HATE THE DUB VOICE IT’S SO ANNOYING” even though they’ve only heard it for like 5 seconds.
I know a good chunk of anime with dubs have pretty low quality, but calling EVERY FUCKING DUB horrible is stupid and you should feel bad.
Sure, it’s nice hearing the original voices, but dubs are nice to have for people who A) Can’t read the subtitles fast enough or can’t focus on both the show and the subtitles and B) People who want to see it in english (Yes, those kind of people exist.
Another reason why they hate it is because the dialogue is sometimes localized to fit American…uhh..something, so that people won’t have a joke go over their head 9/10 of the time.
Sure you’ll say “BUT THEY’RE RUINING THE ORIGINAL JAPANESE CULTURE STUFF WITH THEIR AMERICAN/ENGLISH BULLSHIT”, but you do realize that the less things you can understand when watching something, the less you become interested in it?Sure some people can look up things in Japanese culture in order to understand it more, but sometimes you have to realize that the company licensing the anime is trying to sell to the general public. If they only cater to a small group, then they’ll lose money, and if they lose money they can’t license more anime to sell to everyone, then less people are gonna learn about certain animes, etc, etc.
The only exception to this is if they start to localize too much of the anime, like names and even tiny details such as food. And most of all, the worst thing that would happen is that they would start splicing the anime itself and messing with the original story by making a completely different plot, mis-matching the scenes and stuff. That’s when you know what this is going to be bad.
4Kids and some older companies being the prime example.
I can see you people start to think: “Do you HATE subs!? I MEAN SINCE YOU’RE DEFENDING DUBS, I ASSUME YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE WHO HATES THE ORIGINAL ANIME.”
To be honest with you, I think subtitled shows are nice (Just so you know, this includes both fansubs and official subs found in DVD with the dubs.) Especially if it’s for an anime/show that you highly doubt would be localized. However, I have some things that I dislike about subtitled shows.
My problem is that sometimes subbers simply translate the dialogue and just slap it on the anime. Things like this are what I call ‘plain subs’; which might be accurate translation-wise but kinda feel bland and uninteresting. It’s kinda like when someone reads a book aloud in a bland, monotone voice; except it’s in a reverse situation.
Plain dubs kinda give me a sense of “The people talking are full of emotion, but..the subtitles don’t seem to fit the scene…”
I love it when subbers actually look at the anime and translation hand in hand, and try to make the translated dialogue fit the characters. That’s what I think is a good subbed show.
Another problem with subs, though this subject is more around fansubs, is the vast number of subbing groups. It’s hard to pick out which ones have the better quality subtitles, and sometimes groups subbing a show might have problems which lead to them scrapping the project which means more problems for the people finding subbed shows. (Especially when it’s a show that’s obscure.)
My rant here is getting a bit too long here, so I’m gonna stop.
Hope you guys aren’t infuriated or anything!
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