Here are some heated xchanges (of verbal blows, perhaps we can categorize them this way) among some folks at MAL, including me (I don’t know if any copyright issues are involved. So sue me) (it’s about a dub voice over, specifically Wendy Lee, who’s going to sing in English for “God knows” and “Lost my music”):
ani: Yeah and did you know that they are going to sing the songs “God Knows” and “Lost My Music” is english in the dub. At least that’s what ANN states.
rayyhum777: Man that sucks. Can these dub people sing?
Asrialys: Why would they dub it if they can’t? And just because you don’t like dubs doesn’t mean they can’t sing or do anything correct.
rayyhum777: And just because you like dubs a lot doesn’t mean they do a decent or even wonderful job consistently. Or do you have facts and evidence to back you up that they can sing and voice act as well as their Japanese counter parts? I can go online and find endless pages and comments from people from many different places that’ll prove a lot of the people they find for dubbing are not very good, and there are tons of evidence and facts that their Japanese counterparts do – just look at the popularity of Japanese voice actors at any convention – NOT JUST the US conventions. Also, it’s a fact the Japanese voice acting industry takes its job very seriously. Every year, there are over 10,000 of people try to get in, but less than a couple hundred ever get in. And no, don’t tell me about their counter parts in US have to audition for hundreds of hundreds of ACTING JOBS and perhaps a couple of US animation jobs – just the fact that their focus isn’t on the voice acting shows how little they prepare for it. Anyway, also a lot of times they don’t even get to watch the whole thing and dub. They get a few sheets and have to try to act it out.
On a not so emotional side (I only respond emotional outbursts in kind), I really liked the American dub actor who did Duo Maxwell (Gundam Wing& Endless Waltz) – he was way better than the Japanese counterpart to portray Duo.
Anyway , I’m not the only one who has some complains. If you’re so sure that they can sing, give me a link where I can hear their songs or suggest an album or anything. Because, I can find albums for Japanese voice overs, but I can’t find the dubbers albums anywhere.
Otakuhatsu: right on brother
Pvt_Donut : The dubs are fine just leave it at that there is no problem with them doing it and frankly I don’t see any wrong in it either. This was mainly about the Haruhi dubs not dubs over all so don’t even mention something off topic, if they guy sticks up for the dubs then you don’t need to go out on some emotional outburst yourself, I’m undecided on whether I would prefer dubs over subs or vise-versa but to me its no question subs just give it a feeling that dubs just cant. But if i had to choose one I’d rather watch the dubs since I can look away for a second and not miss any thing
rayyhum777: Whatever. Tell that other guy that he’s off topic first. Like I said, somebody does a good job on dubbing and these dubbers don’t get enough resources to do their job, so technically it’s not their fault. But just because you happen to love dub doesn’t mean you have to pick on me first without telling the other guy first that he’s off topic. It’s not like you’re so fair – you’re obviously closer to be on his side. It isn’t like I just went out and said something without being challenged. He doesn’t know me and didn’t read me correctly and neither did you. Go ahead, have the last word. I’m sure you’re both good folks, and I appreciate your comments, and I have heard what he said. But I’m done with this topic.
Otakuhatsu: Personally I’m all about dubs for all foreign film
I watch crouching tiger hidden dragon on Chinese
I watch my anime in Japanese
the original language is always better because the story and the words that make up that story are based on that culture
another language can’t compare
Now, I’m not going to say that I was completely fair, and I’ve realized that maybe that Asrialys’s had enough of people talking trash about English dubbers. But since he challenged me and lashed out on me, and not on anyone else, I wasn’t going to let him off easy. I’ve stated my view (I’m rayyhum777) very clearly, and people who seem to like dubs a lot tried to express theirs (I didn’t leave out anything except comments made by others before the heated exchange took place. To see how the whole thing started go here: http://myanimelist.net/clubs.php?cid=79 , go back maybe just a little bit if necessary – don’t worry, no other posts are as long as what I’ve typed. =P
I hear the same problem with dubbing in Taiwan as well as what I heard back in States – there simply isn’t an established industry for dubbing in both countries like in Japan, and the voice overs in either countries don’t know how to voice act as hard as the Japanese voice overs do. The Japanese voice actors are so devoted to their jobs that they become the characters they play sometimes even long after the shows are over. As for the English dub actors, not only they often don’t get enough prep time (which is unfair), but voice-acting isn’t even their main focus anyway.
What do you think? And if you like dubbing but also find it not satisfactory sometimes, is there anything that can be done about it? Or if you have a counter argument against us hard-core sub watchers, please enlighten me. I want the American dub industry to be as good and perhaps one day, better than the Japanese industry. Will that ever be possible?
If you find the issue tiring you’re welcome to just look away.