Ask John: Why Do Many Fans Hate Dubbed Anime?

Question:
I am an avid anime fan, and I watch the anime I own in both Japanese and dubbed in English. Many other anime fans I know hate dubbed anime and only watch anime in Japanese with English subtitles. Why do many fans hate dubbed anime?

Answer:
This question comes up frequently, so I guess it’s necessary for me to compose a straightforward answer.

There are a number of reasons why some fans dislike English dubbed anime. These reasons include dubbing being a form of corruption or censorship of the animators’ original art; the “Americanization” of English dubbed translations; and the simple sound of dubbed anime.

There should be no doubt that anime is a commercial product, but anime is also a valid form of contemporary Japanese art. The vast diversity of subjects and styles that anime covers, and the degree of personal creative style evident in so many different anime productions should more than adequately prove that Japanese animation has legitimate artistic credibility existing apart from mere advertising for toys or corporate sponsors. Anime may not be classical art on par with Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, but supporters of art appreciation will argue that all true art, commercial or not, should be appreciated the way its creators intended it to be seen. Anime is made to be seen with the language and voice actors it was originally created with. Japanese animation producers are famous for carefully selecting voice actors that can best personify the characters on screen through speech. For example, director Hirotsugu Kawasaki blindfolded himself while selecting the voice actor for MacDougal in Spriggan to find the “perfect” voice without being influenced by the age, race or sex of the voice actors auditioning for the part. It’s fair to say that anime usually employs Japanese dialogue by necessity, but Japanese directors also create anime with a specific language by intention. Note that the Armitage: Polymatrix, 2000 Vampire Hunter D, and 1,001 Nights movies were made with English language dialogue because their directors wanted these films to be seen with English, rather than Japanese, dialogue. The fact that an animation staff is most familiar with Japanese language, and the target audience for anime speaks Japanese, may be a default, but these circumstances are still no less a fundamental creative element of anime. In effect, altering original language is no different than rendering the Mona Lisa in digital color instead of oil. The art may remain the same, but it’s not the way it was created nor meant to be seen.

Not only is dubbed anime not the same film that its original creators wanted viewers to see, dubbed anime is often times not the same story that its original creators wanted to tell. Western viewers are highly critical of spoken dialogue that does not match character mouth movements, so Japanese dialogue is often altered, edited or re-written to match the onscreen mouth movements. Furthermore, Japanese cultural references and language jokes are usually coloquialized into English language equivalents to make the anime more accessible for Western viewers. In effect, the original spoken dialogue is made more Western and less Japanese for the benefit of American viewers. In some cases, such as Love Hina and St. Tail, the dubbed versions edit out sexual innuendo and religious references found in the original Japanese language versions to make the anime less offensive to American sensibilities. In Steel Angel Kurumi, Kurumi’s distinctive Japanese speech pattern is edited out in the dubbed version because it’s impossible to re-create in English. Titles like Burn-Up W replace Japanese jokes with references to American pop culture that seem incongruous with the Japanese setting. And in extreme cases such as Sorcerous Stabber Orphen and Robotech, the English dubbed dialogue is not a translation of the original Japanese script at all, but rather a completely original American story that virtually ignores the original Japanese story and the intentions of the original Japanese animators. As a rule of thumb, subtitled versions are normally a translation of the original Japanese script, but dubs are usually an adaptation of the original script.

And finally, everyone will have a different opinion, but many American viewers find that dubbed voices simply don’t “sound right.” In some cases English dubbed dialogue will sound stilted and unnatural because it’s been digitally modified, sped up and slowed down, to exactly match the mouth movements of the animation. In many cases, “die-hard” fans think that American voice actors simply don’t achieve the same emotional range and expression that Japanese voice actors do. And in some cases, English dubbed voices simply don’t sound natural. A burly, middle aged man with a deep, rumbling voice in the Japanese version may have a totally inappropriate young and high-pitched voice in the dub; a teen age boy who may have his Japanese voice performed by a woman because a female actor best portrays the character may have the voice of a 30 year old man in the dubbed version. In especially dubbed anime it’s just sometimes difficult to imagine that the voice coming from the mouth of a character on screen is actually the voice of the character and not the voice of an actor behind the character. Of course, there are also cases in which certain fans will argue that the English language performance is actually more believable that the original Japanese performance. There are those who argue that a desire to hear Japanese language in anime is nothing more than a selfish desire to appear multi-cultural, but this argument fails to account for the simple pleasure of hearing something foreign and unusual.

With the increasing priority placed on “director’s cuts” of movies in America, there are naturally American fans that want to see anime treated with the same respect for cultural and artistic integrity. Diehard fans simply often prefer to watch Japanese anime, not “Americanized” anime. In some cases the dislike of dubbed anime is rooted in simple aesthetic appeal. Much more often, the dislike of dubbed anime lies in principle. However, anime exists primarily to entertain a viewer, so as long as you enjoy the anime you watch, regardless of whether it’s dubbed or subtitled or even untranslated, what’s most important is that you enjoy what you watch- not how you choose to watch it.