The Great Debate

and I don't mean

or

I'm talking about something more serious...
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Something so serious, in fact, that the mere mention of "dub or sub?" will drive entire forums into probably the most epic flame war you'll ever see (the exception, in my case, being the creation of the "Joebas Manifesto", but that's of no concern here).

The D/S war is probably on a scale comparable to pro-life/choice among the interwebs and real-life, and is restricted almost exclusively to the Japanophile underside of the information superhighway. Despite being such a hotly debatable subject, the root is actually more simple than the moral complexas that adhere to real world: preference, although both sides present reasonable arguments.

Code Geass

 Starting off with subtitles, the majority of the anime community prefer subs over dubs mainly because the seiyuus do a better job than the ENG VA's (personally, I can't tell if they do a good job or not as I don't speak JPN; therefore, my question is how can someone tell whether or not the JPN VA is actually doing a good job?). Although, I have to nod in consent to their logic: the ENG VA's are not able to portray the character as well because anime's native language speakers can probably get the points, emotions and character portrait across to the viewers better. After all, one knows one's language the best.
Another point they make in their defense is that some things, especially cultural references, don't translate over well into ENG. Take what you say when you photograph someone:

Say Cheese!
Cheese!

For the JPN, it's something like this:

<translation mode>

What's one plus one?
Two!

</translation mode>

For "Two!" they say "Nii!" which gives the same effect as "Cheese!" but they aren't literally the same(this is a problem TL's tend to have). The purists, as I call them, would denote this as changing the script or give some other related argument.

Another thing about bringing over media from Japan to a westernized country is censorship. Just off the top of my head, I can think of NaruTaru and Dance in the Vampire Bund, though if I think on it some more I'll undoubtedly come up with others. The thing about this is that ENG licensors censor material from the anime/manga in order to suit American audiences, which the subbers declare as out right vandalism. About DitVB, FUNi re-released the series uncensored, to the relief of some.

Going right along with what I mentioned about VA's, the subbers argue that English voices sound funny. I, unfortunately, have to partially agree with them on this - but only partially. I've seen several series with subs first, then watched them again in dubs and I'll admit it takes a second to switch the gears in my head and recondition myself to watching the anime in ENG (there are 2 exceptions to this). This takes all of 5 minutes at most. The problem with the voices sounding wierd lies in the fact that the subbers are watching the anime in JPN first, then in ENG. They get accustomed to the voice and when they watch the same thing over again with a different voice, they get this off feeling about the anime and just turn it off before letting themselves get accustomed to it like me. However, the reverse is also true. For instance, I watched Sekirei

in ENG first, but then re-watching the series later I forgot to switch on the ENG audio and started it in JPN. My ears where thrown into shockville for a moment before I realized I was hearing the original seiyuus. Just as an example, Kazehana's (the sekirei pictured above) seiyuu had a slightly deeper voice than the VA, which I thought was little strange. But that's just me, being the dubber that I am.

The last major reason I can see subbers hating dubs is the overuse of VA's, which I unfortunately have seen becoming a real issue with licensing these days. They say, which is in fact true, that the ENG VA's keep getting used for similar roles over and over and the first several people that come to mind are Todd Haberkorn, J. Micheal Tatum and Monica Rial, though I'm sure if I thought on it some more, others would come to mind. But these are just examples, so I won't spend too much energy on it. Anyways, lately I've seen these guys (and 1 girl) in EVERYTHING. And I'm not joking, every time I turn around, FUNi's got a new anime with atleast one of them as a main char, if not 2 or 3 or more. Don't get me wrong, they can do the part, and do them well at that, but it's getting to the point that I literally expect FUNi to hand off those roles to them before the dub is already out. In other words, they're actors easy to cast and can deliver beyond what is expected. They're veterans, 'nuff said. Unfortunately, because they're so good, other VA's don't get the chance to let their light shine. Some small time, and probably unknown ones, are Jad Saxton, Shannon Emerick, Cassandra Lee Morris, Anna Morrow, I could probably go on forever. In short, I wish the ENG licensors would use some other people.

However, the subbers say this - that they want more than just the run-of-the-mill acting - that the ENG franchises should expand their horizons, or something like that. So they did:

Kanokon

and made the worst dub ever (realize I did not watch the sub for this one; if there's a dub available by the time I know of a series, I will watch it and not bother with reading something that's meant to be watched). The cast was split in half: Veteran Group A knew what they were doing, and N00b Group B didn't. In what I think was an effort to give some people a chance at VA-ing, Media Blasters killed it. Of course, it doesn't help if the series itself was a flop having only near-hentai scenes in almost every episode. Nonetheless, the fact that there was some variety in the cast was a breath of fresh air. Give 'em some more jobs and those n00bs'll be pro's soon enough ^_~

There's something my parents told me once when I gave some sort of excuse about another kid doing something to instigate my wrath (don't ask what it was because it was so long ago I don't remember and it was most likely something dumb anyways...), and it went something like this:

When you point the finger at someone, you have three pointing right back at you.

And so my point is

Mysterious Girlfriend X

this girl. Urabe Mikoto's seiyuu is the "idol" Ayako Yoshitani (吉谷   彩子  - Yoshitani Ayako) who had no previous voice acting experience at all.

Acting experience? Sure, but not VA-ing (or would it be seiyuu-ing? O.o). I can't tell you how much I saw/heard die-hard subbers complain about her "lack of depth" voice.

Aria the Scarlet Ammo

And yet no one complains about Rie Kugimiya (釘宮  理恵  - Kugimiya Rie) =_=

Irony, anyone? Granted you can see my point...but if you don't, fear not:

Subbers complain about ENG VA's being recycled, but the same can be said about Kugimiya- sanchan, who's cast. As. Every. Fucking. Loli. Tsundere.

They say ENG licenses should have variety, but when a seiyuu virgin is cast, I see no end to the hate.

So, the bottom line is that subbers are hypocrites: they point the finger at dubbers but contradict their own excuses for hating.

At this point, if I really wanted to throw mud at subporters, I could dive into non-localized vs. localized subtitles (i.e., those who keep the "-chan" suffix vs. those who don't), but that's only relevant to subbers and not the D/S debate (and obviously, as a dubber, not to me).

So, moving on to arguments in support of dubs, first is the fact that you don't have to read anime. I don't know about you, but I personally read manga and watch anime. I don't sit on the TV and watch the couch.

( ↑ some of you might get that)

Because I watch anime in ENG, I can spend more time focusing on character development and the action scenes where there's a lot of talking rather than have to pause and skip back every 10 seconds because I couldn't catch all the words the setters put up for a char's dialogue. Some of you might attribute this to having a slow reading speed, but I challenge all of you

Koyomi Ararararagi

to watch the Monogatari's in their entirety without pausing to read the subtitles once and still be able to read and comprehend what the fuck

Karen Araragi

just happened.

Another reason why I watch dubs (and probably some other dubbers do too) is because of something called localization. I mentioned this earlier about the subtitles, but I'm talking about audio-localization, which is pretty much the adaptation of the media into ENG. When anime becomes localized, it becomes understandable and more connected to me. In other words, using a language I can understand I'm able to get more out of the anime than I otherwise would.

I think now would be an appropriate time to bring up the 2 exceptions I had mentioned earlier: Gunslinger Girl (GsG) and Puelli Magi Madoka Magika (Madoka).

Both of these I had watched first in subs (GsG because it was my self-introduction into anime and Madoka because it was such a big deal) and I really got into the story and liked them. And then the dubs came out (GsG dubs had already come out by the time I found out about anime, but didn't know anime was in ENG until later), and re-watched them. Going through the series's a second time in my own language, I was immersed into both the stories and, even though I couldn't empathize with the characters, I sympathized with them.
However, what makes these two the exception to my dub-watching is that I think either cast are fine to listen to, and every now and again I'll watch them with subs.

The last point I'll make, as I'm sure this post is getting too long for some of you, is from a more economical stand point than anything else. You see, in Japan

the anime industry is a big deal, but in the US it's not at quite the same level. In Japan, anime support is widespread because it's been there for decades longer than the ± 20 years it's been in America. Couple that with the fact it costs 9000¥ for 2-3 eps on a single BD vs. $80 for a 1-cour (13 eps) BD release, and you get something like this:

Anime? It's Japanese cartoons, right? And I'm gonna pay 80 bucks for just 13 twenty-two minute episodes in Japanese? Fuck that!

from those who don't know much about anime. It'll pretty much turn away any prospective fans if there isn't anything they could understand. I mean think about it, why would a non-fan bother wasting their time reading a TV show when they could be catching up on their facebook or CoD.

I hear read this a lot on forums: that it would be better if the ENG companies fucked the dubs and released just straight subtitled shows. Well, there's a couple of problems with this, which I'll explore:

•  Money
• Licensing companies know more people will buy the anime if it has ENG audio too, rather than just subtitles
• More people will watch it broadcast on TV if it has an ENG dub (in other words, it will garner TV stations a larger audience and, thus, up the channel's views/ratings
• If the anime is simulcast on TV, then dubbed, it can be rebroadcast in ENG, thus milking the fandom twice
• More anime virgins are inclined to watch it in ENG first to see if they like it
• Jobs
• Having only subtitles will just create jobs for translators, setters, etc., whereas having an ENG cast will make jobs for the people playing the char's, give the recording studio staff jobs, give editors more jobs, etc.

If there were only subtitles, the above would not exist, in essence making anime more of a niche than it already is, thusly having less of an audience and making the anime companies lose interest in foreign markets. This would dampen the flow of anime into the US market. Think about it: all it would take for JPN animation companies to stop licensing to foreign countries is to hire a couple translators. Then you'd have to pay that 9000¥ (which, by the way, is about ~$109 for just 3 episodes, actually probably more because of the increased cost for the translators. then there's shipping overseas...)

I suppose, in the end, every point I've made here is equally debatable by both dubbers and subbers alike. Nonetheless, watching anime in English or Japanese boils down to a matter of preference.

On a personal note, I do enjoy watching English anime. But I've also watched some damn good subbed anime too,

like Papa Ikuto or

Hitagi Senjougahara

Shinoubu

the Monogatari's.

As always,

"Thank You. Fuck You."