Best and Worst Subs/Dubs

Dec 31, 2009 12:52 AM

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Dec 2009

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A fairly linear topic, but hopefully it will get the ball rolling. Anyone who's interested is welcome to share their opinions or their own lists.

Best Sub: Sonic X
Why: 4Kids. Out of most of the other Japanese dubs I've heard the voices were pretty comparable with the dubbed versions, but it really doesn't get any worse than 4Kids, so this is more of a relative score.

Best Dub: Yu Yu Hakusho
Why: I can't think of any one character who could have had a more fitting voice, more realistic mannerisms/vocal effects, or any out of line lip movements. Fullmetal Alchemist earns a close second.

Worst Sub: Dragon Ball Z
Why: I will never, EVER get used to that voice of Goku's. It's just... creepy.

Worst Dub: Code Geass
Why: I really don't dislike the series and I have no problem with the majority of the actors, but Shirley and Mina bother me every time I hear them speak. In fact the two of them are probably the only dubbed voices off the top of my head I've ever had a severe problem with. They never seem to change from their timid, breathy norm. Naruto came close, but two cheesy and unrealistically-voiced characters beats out one.

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Feb 5, 2010 1:22 AM

XTApocalypse

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Dec 2009

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Actually, I'm going to change my Worst Dub nominee. The Sonic the Hedgehog movie was infinitely worse than anything Code Geass could ever aspire to be... I'm kind of questioning why I didn't give that category to Sonic X as well now, but even that can't compare to the movie.

Feb 5, 2010 12:59 PM

KurosuGemu

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Dec 2009

Best Dub: Fruits Basket. The voice actors did a nice job with this show. The vocal tones were pleasant to listen to and fit perfectly with the personalities of the characters and the situations of the show.

Best Sub: There are many good subs out there. Cross Game (by ANBU) is particularly good because in addition to accurate and flowing translation, the fonts and typesetting are excellent and easy to read. Too bad they stopped translating the show midway.

Worst Dub: Without a doubt, the 4Kids One Piece dub is the worst dub I have ever had the displeasure of watching/listening. Not only were the voices annoying and out of place, the dub version made extreme changes to the dialogue that practically changed the story and made it incoherent. The dub is only good for laughs.

Worst Sub: One Piece episode 248 I believe (can't remember the subbing group). Though not as bad as the dub, the sub featured laugh-worthy translations such as "WTF? LOL!", "OMG!",and no subtitles during some important character dialogues. Spelling errors were a constant problem, and we don't even need to talk about the accuracy of the translations to say how bad it was.

Feb 5, 2010 1:44 PM

AstuteOtaku

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Aug 2009

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Best Dub: Baccano!. They had the accents down pat. Furuba is a close second.

Best Sub: I would have to say Naruto is the best sub voice acting I've personally seen.

Worst Dub: Wow I have to think about this one. I've never seen a bad dub so it's difficult to choose the worst. I dislike Naruto's and some of the Lucky Star cast English voice acting but in both cast was excellent. Oh wait, I know! Sonic X... there's only two character there that I think had good voices.

Worst Sub: Ginga Nagareboshi Gin, worst Japanese voice acting I have heard or ever will hear, hopefully.

Feb 5, 2010 3:19 PM

Skarmory

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Jul 2009

Best Sub: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
From the good folks of [a.f.k.] fansubs. I rather like the work they did for this series.

Best Dub: Castle in the Sky
I loved Disney's English Dub for Castle in the Sky. Yes, they added more dialogue to fill in gaps of silence but I liked it in this movie. Disney also pressured Miyazaki into adding a soundtrack to Castle in the Sky, making the remade movie 10 times better.

Worst Sub: Rurouni Kenshin
This is a minor complaint, probably not reason enough to make this "Worst Sub" material. But Kenshin is voiced by a woman in the Japanese version. I dunno, this just killed the story for me.

Worst Dub: Yu-Gi-Oh
Don't get me wrong, I liked Dan Green as a voice actor. And in this version I like the voice actor for Yami Bakura rather than the Japanese voice actress. However, I dislike a few things that 4-kids did. Namely instead of people dying they are sent to the "Shadow Realm." And the elaborate methods by which 4-kids avoided having people saying the word death. Oh, and photoshopping all the guns to look like pointed fingers. Really 4-kids?

While I commend 4-kids for getting kids into anime as those children probably would not be exposed otherwise, they do it at a high cost to the original source material.

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Feb 5, 2010 6:31 PM

XTApocalypse

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Dec 2009

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KurosuGemu said:
Worst Sub: One Piece episode 248 I believe (can't remember the subbing group). Though not as bad as the dub, the sub featured laugh-worthy translations such as "WTF? LOL!", "OMG!",and no subtitles during some important character dialogues. Spelling errors were a constant problem, and we don't even need to talk about the accuracy of the translations to say how bad it was.

... ouch. That sounds pretty bad. That can't be the official DVD subtitles, can it? It has to be a fansub.

Skarmory said:
Best Dub: Castle in the Sky
I loved Disney's English Dub for Castle in the Sky. Yes, they added more dialogue to fill in gaps of silence but I liked it in this movie. Disney also pressured Miyazaki into adding a soundtrack to Castle in the Sky, making the remade movie 10 times better.

I'd completely forgotten about that one. You know there are actually two dubs of that movie, right? The Disney one and an official one. The Disney dub is the only version of the movie I've seen, and needless to say I love it to death... the musical score is orgasmic. I've always wanted to see the other two versions just to compare them, but I've never gotten around to it.

Skarmory said:
Worst Dub: Yu-Gi-Oh
Don't get me wrong, I liked Dan Green as a voice actor. And in this version I like the voice actor for Yami Bakura rather than the Japanese voice actress. However, I dislike a few things that 4-kids did. Namely instead of people dying they are sent to the "Shadow Realm." And the elaborate methods by which 4-kids avoided having people saying the word death. Oh, and photoshopping all the guns to look like pointed fingers. Really 4-kids?

... oh wow. Really? I knew they destroyed One Piece beyond all rhyme and reason (though I still intend to watch the uncut Funimation dub), but I had no idea they edited Yu-Gi-Oh that much. I used to watch it as a child and I did admittedly enjoy the first season, before everything was put out in the open... actually thought about watching it again sooner or later, but... is the 4Kids one really the only dub there is? -_-

Feb 9, 2010 8:16 PM

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Best Dub: there are a few that are especially noteworthy (which I’m surprised haven’t been mentioned already):
--Cowboy Bebop: the Japanese audio track is great, but Bebop is one of the few that not only reaches the same heights as the original audio, it surpasses it. Steven Blum is utterly perfect in the role of Spike, being subtle enough to be casual, but certainly emotive enough to really play the character’s eccentricities and mannerisms fantastically. Same pretty much goes for the rest of the cast, for that matter.
--Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Perfect performances by the English crew all-around. What helps is that some of the best English VAs in the industry (Crispin Freeman, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, and Richard Epcar) are not only comfortable with their own roles, but seemingly with each other as well. A script that would otherwise feel impassible without a solid cast flows naturally—if perhaps somewhat unrealistically due to Kamiyama’s penchant for Oshii-like (or is that Godard-like?) sequences of talking heads and audio-walls of verbose expositions.
--Outlaw Star, Streamline’s original dub of Akira, and Manga Ent.’s release of Patlabor 2 all had great dubs as well.

Best Sub: hard call. Probably Live-Evil’s fansub of Space Pirate Captain Harlock, due to its consistency, clarity of translation, font/color choice, etc. Hard call to make regarding the best sub anyway, considering my complete and utter lack of comprehension regarding the Japanese language.

Worst Dub: there are a few:
--Pioneer’s dub of Akira. Awful. The dialogue between Tetsuo & Kaneda felt forced and unnatural, as if the actors were somewhat uncomfortable or unfamiliar with their roles. Although it did away with some of the Colonel‘s unnecessary growling present in Streamline’s dub, I think that came at the expense of the protagonist’s rather annoying voices. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for my previous exposure to Streamline’s better-cast dub.
--ADV’s release of Nadia: Secret of the Blue Water: I admire their casting actual children in the children’s roles, but I don’t think it worked out in the end. Dialogue came out stilted and felt forced, and though it was perhaps more “authentic” with its accents*, I found Jean’s to be particularly grating on the ears and difficult to understand.
*logic fail being primarily “if they’re speaking their native language (French I guess? Never specified), why would there even BE accents? …gah it makes no sense. Perhaps typical of ADV, the Japanese audio was vastly superior to its English counterpart.
--Haibane Renmei, ADV’s dub of SDF Macross, and Manga Ent.’s first release of Ghost in the Shell (1995) were also rather bad as far as dubs go. Macross was especially disappointing due to a lackluster performance by Monica Rial (who’s usually pretty good, or at least decent most of the time) and the buffoonery exhibited by John Swasey’s performance as Captain Global.

Worst Sub: worst official subtitle job I’ve ever seen was ADV’s release of SDF Macross, due to extreme levels of inconsistency that I would have expected out of a bad fansub, not an official release. Wording and syntax would fluctuate from perfectly fine to what could have only been intentionally confusing and awkward. Combined with the pretty much inexcusable & inconsistent use of honorifics, I consider this particular release to particularly embarrassing.

Feb 10, 2010 1:20 AM

XTApocalypse

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I did like the Cowboy Bebop dub, and I absolutely love Steven Blum... didn't know there were two dubs of Akira and the first Ghost in the Shell, though. I'm not sure which dubs I have.

Feb 10, 2010 8:22 AM

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I have no idea if the first Ghost in the Shell received a whole new dub or not (I doubt it), but I know that when Manga Ent. released Ghost in the Shell 2.0 (which is basically the original GitS film given the Lucas-treatment) they dubbed it with the same cast they used for the series (which was the really good one).

If you own Akira on DVD, you have the Pioneer dub. Streamline's dub was only released on VHS & shown on a few TV channels back in the 90's (I have my Streamline copy from a Sci-Fi Channel broadcasting done in '94 or so). Streamline went under before DVDs really hit the market, so it's pretty rare to find any of their original dub jobs on DVD. There seem to be a few floating around that have been licensed & distributed by folks like Manga Ent (I think Angel Cop's dub is a Streamline job, even tho' it was Manga Ent who released it on DVD a few years back). TBH I’m not all that certain on how the licensing process works, but at some point Geneon/Pioneer obtained the rights to Akira, redubbed it, and have been the only folks who've released it on DVD--Manga Ent.'s release of it is merely a distribution of Pioneer's dub, even though Manga Ent originally released Streamline’s dub back in the 90’s…

It’s really weird. I think what happened was Streamline went under, Akira was a huge title that was bought up by Geneon/Pioneer, they decided to redub it and release it, but Manga Ent still held the distribution rights to it, so they released it through Manga Ent. It’s just a shame that Streamline’s dub was lost, because it was a great dub.

Feb 10, 2010 5:29 PM

#10

XTApocalypse

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Dec 2009

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The first Ghost in the Shell movie (the one I have, anyway) has the same cast as the series and the second movie, so mine must be a re-dub. I don't technically own Akira, so I have no idea which version I have, but I have no personal problem with the voice acting.

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