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I was dead set against watching anime dubs for like 15 years
Ever since I got into anime back in high school, I swore subs were the only way to go. My buddy kept telling me I was missing out on good performances, but I just brushed him off. Then last month I got sick and didn't feel like reading subtitles, so I threw on Cowboy Bebop in English on a whim. I swear, by episode 5 I was completely hooked on the voice acting, and it honestly made me rethink all those shows I skipped over. Has anyone else had that moment where they finally gave a dub a shot and ended up liking it way more than they expected?
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wood.eric28d ago
The flip side nobody talks about is how much a dub can change your whole impression of a character's personality. I watched a show subbed first and thought the main guy was this brooding serious type, then caught a clip of the dub later and he sounded like a total goofball. Turns out the Japanese director wanted him stoic but the English team got a different take and ran with it. Made me realize subs aren't always the "truer" version, sometimes you're just getting one translator's opinion on what the character should sound like.
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joel_clark3727d agoOG Member
That part about "one translator's opinion" really stuck with me @wood.eric. I had a similar thing happen with a show where the sub made the female lead sound really cold and distant, then the dub had her cracking jokes and being all sarcastic. It was like two completely different characters. What's wild is I went back and checked a few scenes side by side and the words weren't even that different, it was all about the delivery and tone the voice actors chose. Makes you wonder how many characters we've got wrong in our heads just because of how the first version we saw was translated...
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