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Best and worst dubs


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Judau



Joined: 09 Sep 2002
Posts: 247
Location: Boston, MA
PostPosted: Mon Dec 16, 2002 3:34 am Reply with quote
hmmmm..... I like Bebop, most of the Evangelion cast (especially Misato Anime smile), 8th MS Team, both Akira dubs (the old one is classic Smile), Tenchi, and some others...

I hate Love Hina's, Armitage, Spirited Away (I cannot stand Sen's voice... the rest is ok...), DBZ (I love the sub too much... although once the android saga got kicked in, it did get much better, only to have some horrible voices in the Buu saga...), and more, I am sure... I really don't watch dubs anymore... at college I don't have cable so i just don't watch TV, just a lot of DVDs, so I always watch subs.... :/
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Tempest
I Run this place.
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Joined: 29 Dec 2001
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 16, 2002 9:40 am Reply with quote
Best dubs? I'd have to say Trigun and Cowboy Bebop. These were the first two shows that I found to be as good as the original Japanese. In fact I prefered Trigun's English dub to the Japanese dub.

Worst? The list is just too long. Dropping all the non-Anime company dubs and limiting myself to recent dubs... I'd want to say MS Gundam, but that's debateable, the original Japanese was no better, so really Bandai just lived up to the low standard set by the original.
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4469
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Mon Dec 16, 2002 12:47 pm Reply with quote
Best dubs: Besides some of the ones already mentioned, I really like the You're Under Arrest, including the old one, for the OVAs, which was an amazing job for a dub done in 1995/96 and especially amazing considering it's from cash-strapped AnimEigo, and the new one for the TV episodes, although the kids don't have the adorable southern accents anymore. I also liked Disney's Laputa dub, which I've seen at FantAsia.

Worst dubs: I'm no fan of Cardcaptors, but, since we got the subtitled DVDs, I adhere to a strict "just ignore it" policy. I don't like the ancient (1993?) dub for Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer, though I don't know how it compares to the dub of the first two TV episodes in terms of sheer awfulness. ("Mendou" rhymes with "toe" not "cow".) Although the Patlabor TV series dub is okay, they hideously mispronounce "Shige" ("She-Gay") as "Sheej", which sounds like the sort of name that Rich, the "copy" guy, would come up with ("Sheej-ster" "Sheej-o-rama").
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Aaron White
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Joined: 23 Aug 2002
Posts: 1365
Location: Birmingham, Alabama
PostPosted: Mon Dec 16, 2002 1:32 pm Reply with quote
I actually kinda like the UY2: Beautiful Dreamer dub; it's hardly one of the great dubs, but most of the acting is on the ball, skillful and about as subtle as one can expect for this kind of thing. Unlike most early anime dubs it doesn't sound like a bunch of college kids recorded it in someone's garage, and that counts for something. But no, it's not a state-of-the-art dub by a long shot.

I know this is hardly an original observation, but the Ocean Group tends to have good actors but make iffy dubs. I suspect time is a factor. They have some of my fave dub actors, but a lot of those Ranma dubs have to coast on charm, which can happen when you have to crank it out on a tight schedule. The Escaflowne dub is particularly embarrassing, but with Jin-Roh they seem to have really made an effort. Jin-Roh is an example of what they are capable of.

Ya wanna know the two worst dubs I've heard? Harmageddon and Legend of the Overfiend, both early Central Park Media efforts. Neither of these might seem like any great loss, but I kinda like the animes themselves. Harmageddon doesn't hold together as a story, but has some lovely visual bits (which is about what you'd expect from Rintaro, right?) And Overfiend, once you get past the gross elements, is a clever parody (in the C. S. Lewis sense) of apocalyptic myth. But oh those dubs. I could do better by myself. In my bathtub. With the flu. And my old 1976 tape deck.
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~squeak.



Joined: 17 Dec 2002
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 2:57 am Reply with quote
It is long time since I have watched any of my DVDs dubbed, but I remember the Neon Genesis Evangelion dub to be quite good.

Even still, the TV has the ability to make me watch occasional dubbed show every now and then. Here the first few episodes of Digimon got the unfortunate luck to be dubbed by a very bad (local) dubbing company.

A clicky for a site discussing about it.

Though the site beyond the link above is in english, the dubs are in finnish and a horror to listen, especially if you understand the language.

For those who don't or do not dare to try them, the dub is totally dull, as if the characters would be void of any emotions.

As for commercial dubs, I don't like either Those who Hunt Elves or Lost Universe, though I must admit that I never watched the dubbed versions of these series completely from start to finish.
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
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Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 4:41 am Reply with quote
Bad Finnish dubs of kiddy anime shows are really just a ploy to get more Finns to watch Aku Ankka, I think.

Nothing compares to Polish dubs, though, where it's not even really a dub per se, just an emotionaless female announcer talking over the Japanese dialogue, heard in the background. Though, I must confess, I have only ever watched Sailor Moon in Polish... this channel had like 23 hours of Friends reruns, dubbed in the same way, and one hour of Sailor Moon in the morning, it seemed.

EDIT: For those of you that don't know, Aku Ankka = Donald Duck in Finnish... Donald Duck being somewhat, from what I have read, of a national obsession in Finland, which, I believe, is the only country that still publishes original Donald Duck comic books on a regular basis.


Last edited by Tenchi on Wed Dec 18, 2002 3:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
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~squeak.



Joined: 17 Dec 2002
Posts: 28
PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 8:46 am Reply with quote
Tenchi wrote:
Bad Finnish dubs of kiddy anime shows are really just a ploy to get more Finns to watch Aku Ankka, I think.


Train them for proper ways while they are still young, huh? As for me... never!


Tenchi wrote:
...emotionaless female announcer talking over the Japanese dialogue, heard in the background.


Somehow, that reminded me of the ending credits of Excel Saga.Very Happy

Still, these crappy dubs are supposed to be "official", whether they are commercial or local dubs, which sometimes makes me feel a bit biased about which audio track I want to hear while I watch my DVDs. Fortunately there seems to be some exceptions (mainly Trigun, Cowboy Bebop and Excel Saga) mentioned in above posts.

*wanders off to watch dubbed Excel Saga to confirm forum rumors*
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genericanimefan



Joined: 09 Dec 2002
Posts: 17
PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 9:17 am Reply with quote
Best dub: Cowboy Bebop hands down. I also like the Inu-Yasha dub (even though some people think it sucks Wink).

The worst: Angel Sanctuary (although, the anime sucked Crying or Very sad )... it sounds like they recruited some actors who previously appeared on late night Skinemax flicks. Sailor Moon (well, Usagi anyway) and most of the Gundam dubs also suck, as does the Nelvana Cardcaptors dub. Well that whole thing sucked anyway. I don't really sit around thinking about dub vs sub, but I do recognize when a dub is horrendous.
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ANN_Bamboo
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Joined: 05 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 12:52 pm Reply with quote
Call me nuts but I just watched one of the best dubs of my life. Getter Robo Armageddon. I'm serious. It's one of the very, very, very rare ADV dubs that I liked, that was well-translated, and well-acted out. The actors had that anger and grit that the Japanese actors had, and even had that screaming angst down but many dubs are afraid to try. Yeah... that was good. I thought it was going to be annoying since ADV added extra sound effects to the background, but it just made everything even more demonic and chaotic, so it was perfect.
Don't get me wrong, I'll still watch the sub over the dub on it, but damn, that is one damned good dub. One of ADV's best releases and it's a shame it's not a more popular title.

On a random tangent, you know what annoys me? People who whine and complain about the audio track for VHD: Bloodlust, and yammer that they'll buy the collector's edition (whenever it's out) just so they can listen to the Japanese dub. Come on now, guys, let's be serious. If it was made in English, listen to it in English. I'm a sub fan all the way, but if the original is English, I'm not going to go and listen to a dub just because it's in Japanese. To me that's just ridiculous.

This leads me to something else. Oftentimes, I think the people who are massively hard-core sub fans (AKA if the dub track is even used on their DVD player they'll scream contamination, or will insist on listening to the Japanese dubs for G Saviour or something like that) are the ones who don't know a lick of Japanese or anything about the language. They're the ones that don't know anything about the voice inflections and emotions and stuff, and assume that if it's Japanese, it's good. I've heard some bad Japanese dubs of anime movies in my life time, but hey, I guess whatever floats these fanatics boats.
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drakh



Joined: 18 Aug 2002
Posts: 145
PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 4:32 pm Reply with quote
SakechanBD wrote:
On a random tangent, you know what annoys me? People who whine and complain about the audio track for VHD: Bloodlust, and yammer that they'll buy the collector's edition (whenever it's out) just so they can listen to the Japanese dub. Come on now, guys, let's be serious. If it was made in English, listen to it in English. I'm a sub fan all the way, but if the original is English, I'm not going to go and listen to a dub just because it's in Japanese. To me that's just ridiculous.
The English track for Bloodlust was recorded the same way as any English anime dub, using mostly anime dub voice actors. So even though it came first, I don't think people who geniuinely dislike English tracks will enjoy this any more than they would any other dub.

Personally, I think people should listen to whatever audio track they enjoy the most, regardless of which came first.
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Hotaru



Joined: 02 Aug 2002
Posts: 481
Location: NY
PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 6:04 pm Reply with quote
Since everyone has mentioned CB, I'll skip it. And Eva was pretty good. Um...Inu Yasha annoys me. Some of the voices are alright, but some of them....ugh. Lesse...G Gundam was alright, although the series was pretty damn wacky. We haven't watched dubs in the longest so I'm basically using t.v. anime.

And right on Sakechan! The VHD: Bloodlust dub was pretty sweet. And besides, I got it signed by um....the character designer, I think at Otakon. If i didn't buy it, i wouldn't have got the signature! Oh, the producer too. Ho ho!

Speaking of blood, I gave blood today! My arm hurts, it took forever to get a pint, but I did it. And I have the stickers and bandage to proove it!
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PuertoRicanMan



Joined: 06 Nov 2002
Posts: 30
PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2002 1:16 pm Reply with quote
The worst subs I have arent actually that bad.. I just dont like them much. The first is X the movie, and then the original Vampire Hunter D movie. Both of those have some characters that make me want to run out and buy some ear plugs.
As for VHD:Bloodlust, Im surprised that got flak for the track, I thought they did a great job on that.
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Aaron White
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Joined: 23 Aug 2002
Posts: 1365
Location: Birmingham, Alabama
PostPosted: Fri Dec 20, 2002 3:59 pm Reply with quote
Speaking of misplaced VAs, a lot of people didn't like Ellen Kennedy as Kyoko in Maison Ikkoku. I thought she played it beautifully if you could get around the fact that she sounds a bit mature for the part; certainly not old, but not quite young. Still, she's one of my favorite VAs, I love picking out all her little roles in stuff like Please Save My Earth, and I even forced myself to watch more of Brain Powerd than anyone deserves to have to watch just because she had a role in it.
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cyrax777



Joined: 05 Mar 2003
Posts: 1825
Location: the desert
PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 2:21 pm Reply with quote
MasterFuu wrote:
Best dubs: Golden Boy(best dub in History),
Yes Golden Boy is one of the best dubs it just makes the show that much crazyer "IF a base is kissing and B base is petting then c base must be can it be" YEs i love programming I want to get to c base" *starts chasing after the office lady proggramers* that was so funny. IN the same vein another good dub for sheer zanyness is Giant Robo its so bad its good.
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MasterFuu



Joined: 27 May 2003
Posts: 434
Location: Phoenix, AZ
PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 3:37 pm Reply with quote
cyrax777 wrote:
MasterFuu wrote:
Best dubs: Golden Boy(best dub in History),
Yes Golden Boy is one of the best dubs it just makes the show that much crazyer "IF a base is kissing and B base is petting then c base must be can it be" YEs i love programming I want to get to c base" *starts chasing after the office lady proggramers* that was so funny. IN the same vein another good dub for sheer zanyness is Giant Robo its so bad its good.


Hehe , u know it bro Laughing . No other anime or live action movie cracked me up as much as Kentaro Oe did in Golden Boy. It was just over the top dub. One of coolest scenes must be in ep 1 and ep 4 (swimming in sea of love) when he demonstrates his swimming skillz and almost drowns and then " so , how do you like my swimming" with serious face. ROTFL.
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