Why dubbed anime is Important

Alright, I’m going to do my take on the sub vs. dub debate, but with a twist. Instead of arguing why subs or dubs are better, I am going to point out when it is more appropriate for an anime to be subbed or dubbed.

1.)    American Television Broadcasts: A channel’s lineup just looks better if everything is in the same language. It’s kinda weird for the average viewer to go from just hearing what the show is saying, to reading it. Furthermore, an uninitiated viewer may be turned off by hearing things in another language. This, obviously, is why all anime on TV is dubbed.

2.)    Bringing in the n00bs: Hey, remember your first anime? I remember mine. I was a little kid watching Pokemon, dubbed. Other people will say their first was Dragon Ball Z or Sailor Moon, which they saw dubbed. Some old school fans watched Speed Racer, also dubbed. When you try to introduce your friend to an anime, what do you show them? You show them Cowboy Bebop, dubbed. We show new people dubbed anime because new people are more comfortable experiencing a new medium in their native language. Subs tend to alienate new people, while watching a show in their own language bridges that little gap between the new experience and the person experiencing it.

3.)    Slapstick Comedy: Do note that I am not referring to slice of life comedies like Azumanga Diaoh that rely entirely on being in Japan, and make jokes that revolve around living in Japan. Dubbing those things is unnatural. Yet some comedies, like Fruits Basket, are just funnier in English. I attribute it to your brain taking less time to process data from a dub, (unlike a sub, where you need to read, process, and associate with the voice) causing the joke to sink in faster. This lack of delay allows you to get the joke as it’s being made, with the accompanying visual effects. For this reason, a dub gives the optimal gag audio –visual response time.

4.)    EXPLOSIONS: Some series are just to fast paced for me to want to read. See, reading requires that I look down, and looking down brings my attention away from what is going on in the middle of the screen, and not the important parts. This is when a good quality dub is incredibly important. If I have to look down to read, I could be missing an important segment of the fight scene! Although I make an exception for samurai anime (since samurai are deeply rooted in Japanese culture, hence, never spoke English) but high octane explosives require me complete attention

5.)    CULTURE SHOCK Some things in Japan just don’t have an English equivalent. This is when a dub is great, because this allows the English voice actors and writers to put in an English equivalent in order to maintain the flow of dialogue. This is really nice, since the joke isn’t very funny if it needs to be explained. Hence, I would prefer an English equivalent to having to have a joke explained to me afterwards. Furthermore, a proper dub should go beyond just translating words, and translate the meanings behind what the original artist was saying. Unfortunately, due to cultural differences, maintaining the same meaning would be nearly impossible, since Japanese people live quite differently than Americans. This means sometimes, a dub can be more loyal to the source material than a sub.

As we can tell, there are lots of situations when a dub is more suitable than a sub. It’s times like these when I want to smack the nearest guy who says subs are always better. Anyways, tune in next week, where I take the opposite side of the coin and explain when subs are better than dubs

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