Are Subs REALLY better than Dubs? 

An example of an insanely talented VA is Kaguya's VA. It was one of her first role and the first prominent role....and that blew me away

My sister won’t watch subbed anime with me because she has ADHD and dyslexia so she can’t really focus on what’s being said and done. Because of this I watch a lot of anime both subbed and dubbed and I honestly don’t have a preference anymore. For the most part I judge it based on plot and not acting

I think Connor nail it on the head. In Japan they have schools specifically for voice acting while in the west they just have acting school.

It's good to see most of the people having respectful conversation in the comments instead of the usual "ew all dubs are trash" comments

The dub voice actor for Light (Death Note) is insanely talented! He’s changed the show for me:))

I think the sub is better Except the dub at Ghost Stories

The answer is yes unless it isn't.

One more factor is maybe because Japanese voice acting was shaped for anime, that's why Japanese language in anime differs from the actual Japanese language. Just like when Garnt said that learning Japanese from anime wasn't a good thing.

Learning how to speak Japanese from anime is like learning how to speak English from The Godfather

Some of the best dubs I’ve watched (From my point of view): - Cowboy Bebop - Code Geass - Gurren Lagan - FMA Brotherhood

I just watch subs cuz they’re usually the first to come out. I don’t really mind dubs either since some can be pretty great, just finished watching a dub of re:zero after I finished with a sub and imo both are pretty well done

I feel like alot of people hate dub because they first watch a show in sub then expect the dub voices to sound exactly the same as the sub.I mostly watch dub and when compare the voices to the sub it sounds weird.A good example is goku from dragonball z.

Black Lagoon, Hellsing Ultimate, and Fma:Brotherhood have greats dubs imo.

As someone who watches both sub and dub, there’s still a ton of fantastic dubs out there I’ve come across. We’ve come a long way since the 90s when before Cowboy Bebop most dubbing was poorly produced like Sailor Moon or the original Dragon Ball Z for instance. And yes the talents of Johnny Bosch, Crispin Freeman, Steve Blum, and Bryce Papenbrook are some of the best voices in the business too.

Gintama has some of the best voice acting, I always remember them. If they voice act in another anime I can always tell because they have a unique voice.

I actually think that the dub for the fire force anime is decent Shrina’s voice is really fitting

I can only watch Ouran in english for it to be funny

The emotional breakdowns usually sound way more raw in Japanese. Sometimes i start to fear for the sanity of the actors.

Danganronpa 3 Kirigiri: "I dOnT uNderStaNd wHy im StIlL aLivE" Dangonranpa 3 Naegi: "Im coming"

These days the quality of the dub has increased so for me i just watch both sub and dub.

Generally watch subs but there are a few dubs out there which I just love. Baccano I would never touch the sub of, Code Geass is amazing voiced especially Emperor Charles and Death Note is another solid dub. Also Ghost Stories for the meme.

"I dont think there has been any bad voice acting" he says. *laughs in kings game the animation*

Imagine giving someone crap because he doesnt watch something in the same language as you

I love dubs, and appreciate all the hard work that goes into them. Not all are great, but I'll always prefer my native tongue over having to read subtitles. Kudos to Japanese voice actors though.

I dont really care how other people enjoy their show but it does really bug me when weebs just shit on the hard work of the dub VAs.

Oregairu. Takuya Eguchi is just sooooo good! As for dubs, I find Netflix does a good job with theirs. Violet Evergarden and LWA were two anime i watched dubbed and enjoyed. I don't have a preference for either, I guess.

Mm I don't know, in my experience translating my manga into English There are several things that are lost, so leaving the original voice can even keep a little of that initial "idea" At least for me But then there are people - Point to Connor That skip the cinematics in any language So what difference does it make XD

I’m just going to put this out there: I love the Highschool DxD dub. It is hilarious imo.

I mean Bakugo's voice actor is so amazing! He even got throat surgery cuz he strained his voice too much. I hope he's better now :')

Really loved the dub voice for the Pharaoh in Yu-Gi-Oh, very talented.

The real reason to watch subs instead of dubs is that the subbed version is released at the same time the show airs in Japan, while you often have to wait for the dubbed version

You'd be hard pressed to find many objectively terrible dubs past 2007 or so, imho. The main problem with dubs is the lack of actor variety. Hearing a new voice actor in any English dub is surreal. As far as Japanese voice acting goes, Gintama is a show that I don't think any dub could ever do justice in English. Tomokazu Sugita is phenomenal.

I have a preference for dubs, but I will watch subs if there is no dub available. My reasoning is 1. I can focus more on what is happening than what is being said. Focusing on the bottom third of the screen makes it really easy to miss details. It also gets annoying having to rewind a segment over and over if the subs are too fast or multiple characters are talking at the same time. 2. I can pick up more nuance in my native language. The overall tone/emotion of a line comes across regardless of language, but stressed or emphasized words mean nothing to me in Japanese because I don't speak the language. Dubs used to be really bad, but I think we are at a point where most dubs are at least good with some being great.

Glad they brought up Ladd Russo. One of my favorite dub voices ever.

Louis' voice actor is Yuki Ono, the same voice actor as Higashikata Josuke. No wonder he's amazing.

while many English dubs match the tone of Japanese VA, often the dialogue feels flat and without much emotions. For Dub you may get great acting, but sub it's almost guarantee a great performance. Go check out the New Year Seiyu Special, where you see VA doing live performance on roles like : Ristarte, Edward Elric, Naruto, Kaguya, Gilgamesh Sometimes the material just can't translate into English. Like Dio saying MUDA in Dub. For Gintama, how do you even translate the jokes or even find another actor to play Gintoki as perfect as Sugita Tomokazu Although I prefer Sub, some Dub is fine to watch, Ranma 1/2 in dub and it's quite good I think Black Lagoon probably fit the story more to have Dub, since they curse a lot in the show, but for Japanese there's no such straight "fuck you" word

Hey here's idea, why don't we just let people enjoy whichever they prefer? *cricket noises* Figures

the reason i watch dubb is not because of the voice actors , its not because of how different it is from the actual translation its because 1, the fact that i cant process and understand japanease or any other language natively it creates a major delay in me getting whats happening visually and whats being said at the same time at an instance....and you can miss quick things that are happening cause your mind is still busy translating what is being said...i want to take everything in, dialogue together with visuals at the same time

Some factors that disadvantage dubs come from translation. Translating the script, and doing it in a way that sounds like natural English, and then having the voice actors match lip flaps and emotional beats on top of that, is a pretty crazy challenge. The original voice actors have the advantage of being able to act without those kinds of constraints, so even a passable dub is kind of impressive.

one thing i noticed about myself is that i watched 90% of shoujo dubbed and pretty much all shonen and seinen in sub (including shows with classic dubs i grew up with like dbz and yugioh) besides specifically yu yu hakusho and trigun.

I speak English, with a dub I can take my eyes off the screen for a second and still know whats happening. with a sub I blink and have no idea what's going on.

The whole process is also different between subbing and dubbing. Usually with animation, voices and scripts are done FIRST so that the animation can be built around the expressiveness of the voices. So then the characters act and look natural with that order of business. Meanwhile dubs have to cope with doing it after the process which is hard, as they can hardly do their own thing like the JP actors can do and have to really squeeze into and match the role instead of it coming naturally.

The Dub of Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood is fucking incredible. The voice talent is incredible. The production value of Dubs these days is super high and the voice talent is crazy good for the high production anime.

聞き慣れてる言語の方がすぐ頭に入ってくるから良く感じるよね

I love subbed cause when u get those “we need to talk English” parts they’re GOLDEN! Like In Jojo the “OHHH NOOO” and etc said in English in the subbed

I’d call Bleach a good dub.

another Aot dropped rn, cried like a bitch. season 4 is going to be amazing.

Best Dub VA has to be Sean Shemmel. Idc what you think, his “I won’t let you destroy my world” was pure gold

I've been watching anime ever since I was 8 and I never understood this whole "sub is better than dub" argument. I watch both dub and sub equally so it's hard to say which one I watch more. I know there's not a lot of great dubs though but they're some good ones too. At the end of the day, it's just a preference!

for me it just depends on what i watch first bc after that i associate the voices with the characters and anything different messes me up

People have to understand I'm always watching anime English, I'm not from Japan , it works both ways how someone from Japan watches something from America translated, and I watch something from Japan translated, it's just a show.

There's no BETTER between the two choices. It's a matter of PREFERENCE. If you aren't used to reading and watching at the same time? Watch dubbed. If you are, then watch subbed. That simple.

I would say I only go for dubs when there's an unholy amount of dialogue. I cannot imagine having to watch death note in sub, I'd probably have to pause every 10 seconds. The exception to this is space Dandy, which has a fire dub but not a particularly large amount of dialogue. I think I liked this one bc space Dandy really feels like an American show, so hearing the English vas kind of fits

Honestly i usually watch both, when i want to watch something as soon as its out I watch the subs instead of waiting for the dub. But when i sit down and watch something while eating than i usually opt for the dub since i miss what characters say most of the time when i eat and watch subbed anime

Personally, I prefer Dubs. Not necessarily because of whether I think one is better than the other, I just prefer to listen to people speaking in my own language. Though I will admit, I can't stand the Tsundere voices in Japanese.

I prefer subs more often than not but most dubs are still good enough that I'll watch over sub just so I don't miss any dialogue or information. Except comedy. Comedy most cases I'll watch over sub.

It really depends on both the sub and dub while I have my problems with funimation at times they can put out some amazing dubs

I'd say they're both decent, I like watching Date A Live dub more than sub

I enjoy both It’s just a different feeling with sub Everyone knows that pride when you finally unlock your Mangekyō Sharingan and can now both see the subtitles and still follow what’s happening on screen

Dub watches really use the excuse to “I can’t read and watch anime at the same time” When half of y’all are reading the comments and watching this vid at the same time it’s not that hard

I'm a subs first kind of watcher, that being said Yu Yu Hakusho is the only time I watch dubbed with subs. plot and joke changes, and no annoy Baton voice. I always pick original language, there's just a bit of emotion in the words that gets lost in translation, and the timing of reactions don't match up at all sometimes.

Yeah, subs are usually better, but now dub can grant an amazing experience compared to before where only a few dubs where even the same show.

I still Stan the opinion that the only reason dubs are so hated is because nowadays subs come first so we're conditioned to view the Japanese performance as the "true" one. We get used to how characters are "supposed" to sound so when we watch the same show but with different voices we mistake something that doesn't sound like the Japanese as something that sounds worse. Obviously I am not saying there aren't times when a dub can't actually be worse either by doing occasional changes that change the meaning of critical moments or just having inferior performances, but 99% of dubs today range from good to serviceable.

Anybody thought Ishida Akira’s performance in Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu was amazing? All the subtle details and nuances conveyed in his voice was just amazing,

I tend to watch dubs, I just find it harder to appreciate the animation and figure out what they’re saying at the same time.

I really like Justin Briner. He voices Deku in the MHA dub, and it's his first VA role, IIRC. He absolutely kills it.

Dubs are important for the disabled community and so many other people. It also gives more access and helps the community grow. There’s little to no downside to it existing. It’s super important and I wish more people would see that.

Honestly, idiots who think they can criticize and compare a language they don't know aren't even worth debating. "The sub is just better." How tf would you know? Unless you speak Japanese and can properly understand what they're saying, how tf would you know the quality of the acting? Hello, you can't understand the cringe, or the possible mess ups from the voice actors. You can only hear it in English because you can actually speak the language, therefore, you can criticize it. This is coming from someone who speaks both Japanese and English. At first, I thought the voice acting for English in most animes were great. I would regularly watch the dub over my native language any day. Then when I fully learned English and was confident enough to speak, type, and read it. I went online and saw alot of people trashing English, then praising the voice acting for shows that were God awful for those who actually understand the language. That's why I don't take any of these arguments seriously. Even then, by the end of the day, it doesn't matter. If someone likes English better, that's great. I just cringe so much when people talk like they understand any semblance of how good Japanese voice actors are.

If you watch subbed or dubbed anime, you are valid. Don’t let others call you not a web for watching dub because that’s just pure gatekeeping. I personally watch dub anime. Why? I can multitask. I wanna do a craft or something a friend got me to do because I’m bored? I can listen to the anime, knowing what they are saying. I’m okay with watching sub if the dub isn’t out, but I do tend to fall asleep while watching sub. Just ask me what the plot of Toradora is and I’ll tell you that I don’t know. I fell asleep while watching it and didn’t bother rewatching it. Now switching to dub to sub or sub to dub is hard, but just try to get used to both. Sometimes I’ll watch a sub, even if there’s a dub, just for a certain voice actor(Bakugou’s VA). So watching season 1 and 2 of Haikyu(which was funny as hell) in dub then switching to sub for 3 and 4 was hard, I was able to get used to the voices. Now if you like sub more than dub. Don’t go on any social media site and hate on the voice actor. They can still see it, even if that’s tiktok. Especially for new voice actors who plays an important character but their voice is pretty good for them. If you start to hate on these new voice actors, it’ll just discourage them. You would be technically bullying them

This discussion becomes even more interesting once you consider other languages: For example, I personally generally prefer to watch dubs rather than subs, but I should point out that I am German, so in most cases, I'll be watching *the German dub, not the English dub.* The German film industry can look back onto a decades long history of high-quality dubs, to the point where when I was a little kid, I honestly thought Hollywood movies were, for some reason, made in German, because in the vast majority of German dubs it is made sure that the voice matches the actor/character, that voice actors are consistent to their respective actors even over multiple franchises, and that lip movements sync perfectly. _Of course, nowadays I watch Hollywood productions in English because I don't need subs for that (but I'm not gonna learn Japanese to watch Anime)._ It should still be said that Anime dubs are typically not created by the same companies that make Hollywood dubs, and the quality can be worse _(there have been cases where I actually preferred the English dub over the German one, for example),_ but in many cases, because the talent is ultimately there, German dubs end up pretty good _(for me, personally, there have even been cases where I preferred the German voice to the original one, although the same can be said for some dubs of English cartoons)._ _What plays into the subjectivity of this is that the casting can actually make a creative difference. For animated works, voice actors are typically chosen to best represent the character to the German or overall the Western market, not necessarily to sound similar to the original VA._ What further complicates this is that with how small the German market is compared to the international one, German dubs only exist for really popular anime for the most part _(although any Netflix original anime usually gets a German dub, too)._ There are companies making and releasing dubs for animes that aren't SAO or Attack on Titan _(hyperbolically speaking),_ but these dubs can come years, even decades after the anime was originally aired, and often are only made for one season, with further seasons being added if the first one is sufficiently profitable _(which isn't always the case, meaning in some cases, a dub is just abandoned at that point)._ *Ultimately, my point is: There are a bunch of factors playing into this, and there is really no objective way of saying subs, English dubs are dubs of any other language are, in general, better.* Objectively, you can't even make this point for any individual anime, but subjectively, if you have a free choice, one option can be clearly superior or inferior to the others.

I love how there’s a c2 figure in the bag in the beginning

I personally like both depending on what I'm doing. Dub if I'm drawing or working on comics, and subbed if I'm working out or just wanna chill. In my opinion my favorite dubs with just as good as subs are: Sgt frog, Nanbaka, and Baka and Test.

Now, you gotta admit, the Beastars dub is pretty good. A couple of really well-known guys in Keith Silverstein (HxH, JoJo) as Gouhin and Ben Diskin (Hey Arnold, Codename: Kids Next Door, Digimon, JoJo, SDS) as Jack, and Lara Jill Miller (Haru) and Griffin Puatu (Louis) were great, but Jonah Scott absolutely rose to the occasion voicing Legoshi.

I've always been a "I'll take what I can get, unless I REALLY hate the voice" kind of person. But now as I'm an adult with my own home and a new parent, there aren't enough hours in the day and I put on shows as background noise, or to play in-between tasks, so I'm not always able to sit down and read the subs. I'd love to cause there's a lot of great anime out there that doesn't have a dub and I doubt will ever get a dub, which means I can only watch them in specific situations where I can actually chill or I can't multitask even if I wanted to.

come on guys... cant we all just be friends?

Short Answer: Yes Long Answer: Absolutely Yes

Sub boys be like: “The Japanese voices just fit better.” 15 year old boy in sub: *sounds like 50 year old chain smoker* Me: Nani??

Honestly I don't care but if I start an anime with subs (or dubs) and i'm like 3 episodes in, I absolutely CANNOT switch.

sgt. frog's dubbing was absolutely brilliant

Off the top of my head, I know the Japanese voice actor for Kambe Daisuke from Fugou Keiji: Balance Unlimited is acting in a main role for his first ever performance. But he’s also working with Mamoru Miyano who is a legend in the industry so he’s in good hands. That whole series is actually full of rookies (if I’m not mistaken the artists for the opening and closing themes are also doing an anime opening and closing for the first time too).

I actually dont like when people put sub over dub. Especially when they dont speak a lick of japanese

Usually I think subs are better but dubs can definitely be better then subs

Personally, I prefer Japanese voices for battle scenes and Dubs for the general interactions. I have never understood the dub hate. I have watched some of my favorite and most hated anime in sub and dub, the voices have never been an issue for me.

Hello, Asta's voice in Black Clover?

The VA for Freya in Redo of healer was insane. It was her first role character. Which was insane for me

I studied Japanese for nearly 7 years, can understand and read subs but Black Lagoon, Cowboy Bebop, Baccano!, FMA:B, Death Note, Ghost in the Shell, Samurai Champloo, Wolf's Rain, some Studio Ghibli movies and a few more I can't quite remember. All dubs I PREFER over the subs. The English voice actors fit perfectly with the settings and have better tones and accents than the original...

Dub v Sub isn’t a war. It’s a one sided fight where Dub watchers aren’t doing anything except defending what they like and Sub watchers are praising what they love and bashing what they hate This isn’t about hating sub. It’s about hating people who just hate things

Speaking of JoJo, the English dub is phenomenal. They kill it in every part. The stand-out performance is D.C. Douglas as Yoshikage Kira.

I love watching anime in English and Japanese versions. Both of them are amazing and iconic so many ways that never imagined.

I mean the Black Lagoon Dub... is a Masterpiece

I think theyre equal, since subs can be saying something completely different from the actual voice but it feels genuine and dubs are good if youre used to listening instead of reading, also for english speakers its reassuring

Can't watch Anime if it isn't dubbed. i can't focus on text and video my concentration waivers plus i think the emotional scenes are better understood and realised in English primarily because its my mother language and it's what i feel most at home and comfortable with. Just my personal preference both are great choices depending on the person and neither should be stigmatised by the other.

The animes that keeps me watching bot Dub and Sub are Aot, Deathnote, Naruto, Fmab, MHA

As a non-Japanese speaker, I don't want to spend my time looking down to read subtitles? I also feel more immersed if the characters on screen speak a language that I understand.

"joey which is it sub or dub?" joey's first video on youtube: "dubbed anime sucks!" joey's follow up video from last year: "the real reason why i don't like dubbed anime..." lmao

Dub will always be for me. Love it

For me dub is better

The only time I’ll watch a sub is when the dub is just plain bad. I watch dubs when I either prefer it more, or if I can just tolerate it.

In the late 90s/early 00s, a lot of dubs did have issues, which was less because of the VAs and more because of the dubbing studios. Then there's the issue with having to wait a good year later for the dubs, etc. Since 2010 though, that hasn't been the case as the quality and voice acting has vastly improved, the dubbing companies have remain faithful to the original art and series, and most importantly, dubs now tend to come out around the same day to week the sub was released, which means waiting is no longer an issue. So in the end, watch what you enjoy, because who cares.

I really enjoyed the casting for the sub of demon slayer; i feel like the voices fit the characters super well and reflected their personalities and their exclamations and emotions just sounded so genuine? but some of my fave seiyuu are kaji yuki my KING and mamoru miyano! they always do their roles really well