All the cool effects, honorifics, translator notes that explain references that you might miss as non-japanese viewer… Whoever put this much effort for free more than 10 years ago, thank you! It was so refreshing seeing this in the era of corporate sloppy subtitles!
I watched the first 100 or so episodes of naruto with funsubs. I was so disappointed when I went back and watched the official sub. (The dub is absolutely terrible and if you like it i do not trust your opinion on any piece of media at all)
To be fair dub is usually terrible, regardless of the show. Even the best dubs are not as good as the original. I have a huge amount of respect for jp voice actors that can portray so many emotions with just their voice.
I’m not saying that dub shouldn’t exist, people with visual impairment don’t really have much choice, many kids can’t read fast enough etc
I will never force anyone to watch with subs but I always tell them what they are missing.
In 2002 when Naruto first aired? Yeah, a lot of dubs were pretty bad back then, they cut a lot of corners and didn’t always hire the best talent. But today, voice acting is taken so much more seriously now, and there is a lot of equally fantastic talent in the west. Hell, there are some shows I’ve watched just because a VA I like is in them.
I feel like this kind of elitism towards dubs comes from people who grew up in that era when dubs sucked, but haven’t noticed that times have changed since then.
I stopped watching dubs many years ago. At first it was only because there weren’t any dubs for new releases but then it just sounded a little bit better. Now whenever I see someone post some clip in dub I’m amazed how bad it sounds compared to the original. I’m not saying it’s bad overall. I saw a YouTube video where two youtubers were recording a few lines for some game, it was so terrible compared to professional voice actors, so yeah I know how good pro VAs are but I also compared this to Japanese VAs it was still way better.
No matter how bad or insignificant the show is I have yet to hear bad japanese voice acting. Animation and the plot can be worse than PowerPoint presentation for school project, it can be a shitty mobile game ad, voice acting is always top notch.
Voice acting in Japan is way bigger industry than it is anywhere else in the world. The amount of effort they put into it is just unreal.
Another thing is that dubs are changing what the character says and it’s by design! Aside from some outrageous examples like Kobayashi Dragon Maid where they changed the whole meaning of the dialog for no real reason all dubs need to add or cut some stuff from each sentence to match lip movements. Depending on translator abilities it can be barely noticeable to completely change character personality.
I explained this with more details when I was complaining about dub-subs (audio description from dub put as subtitles). If you want you can read it here.
I don’t think it’s elitism. I don’t shame anyone for watching dubs. You can do whatever the hell you want! I don’t judge. I’m just saying that the original is always better than dub.
To say that as if it’s universal is exactly what I’m trying to say is wrong. Especially if your justification is “it’s not 1:1 so it’s bad” - SungWon Cho, who IMO is one of the most talented English VAs out there, has a response to that that’s way better than I can ever put it.