Death Note

[Shorty]

My main argument against dubs is that in America, anime is not a big enough market to warrant quality voice actors. Cartoons and animated movies in America get much better quality voice acting. In Japan, anime is much bigger and most of the people behind the voices do a great job. They also don't make any cringe-worthy mispronunciations.

 

Also it's not just about the voices, but poor translations which sometimes make total mistakes. Nobody but a Naruto fan will appreciate this but it's the only example that springs to mind: Naruto telling Neji that "the shadow clone technique was his worst technique when training". Doesn't actually make any sense.

[ReZourceman]

I guess its out of context, because that makes sense to me. :p

[Mokong]

Funny I remember when I first watched the anime people complained that they went over the second half so fast compared to the books... now I'm seeing the opposite.

 

Ah well never got round to the books.

 

I see no mention of the films here though, I enjoyed them (though you can ignore the 3rd film, which is a spin off and nothing to do with the books/anime), mostly because the guy from Battle Royal plays Light, and the guy who plays L is awesome in the role (i can never remember names)

[Jonnas]

*sigh* Instead of

 

"Death Note dub is good because Japanese Goku is awful"

 

and

 

"Death Note is better in the original because Naruto is badly translated"

 

, how about I bring you an actually valid argument against the DN dub?

 

Japanese Version

 

 

English Version

 

 

[heroicjanitor]

Ugh... I guess it's because "I'm L" is so much shorter than "Watashi wa eru desue." They had to make it longer.

[Jonnas]

Ugh... I guess it's because "I'm L" is so much shorter than "Watashi wa eru desue." They had to make it longer.

 

Or maybe, "Light Yagami, I am L" spoken slowly.

 

But it's not just the line, I mean, he just quickly whispered the thing out of nowhere. It sounds more like a parody than a shocking twist.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Jonnas

[Daft]

Watched the anime (with subs, obviously). Blew me away.

[Supergrunch]

Japanese Version

 

 

English Version

 

Interesting, it seems that the problem originates more from mistranslation into English rather than voice acting or whatever. Whereas the Spanish subs are just fine. First off, Japanese is:

 

watashi-wa eru desu

I-TOPIC L COPULA

Literally "As for me, I'm L." Perhaps more naturally "It's me that's L," or "I am L." Jonnas' suggestion might work too.

 

Unless they need to be emphasised, Japanese allows you to drop the topics, so the inclusion of watashi-wa is only there for emphasis. The following would also be fine, and closer to the English translation used:

 

eru desu

L COPULA

"I'm L."

 

Of course the lack of emphasis here means it doesn't work nearly as well, but for some reason (lip syncing?) they've gone with this in the dub, albeit with something of a halfway house with "I want to tell you that..." as well. Which isn't in the original at all. If they wanted to emphasise it, I don't see why they didn't accurately translate the actual emphasis.

 

Interestingly, the Spanish (fan?)subs get it right:

 

Yo soy L.

I be.FIRSTPERSON.SINGULAR L

"I am L."

 

This is because while Spanish doesn't allow topic dropping, it does allow subject dropping, so "I'm L" (or "L desu") would translate as "Soy L" rather than "Yo soy L" and so the emphasis is retained from the original. Yet another case of professional translations being worse than fan ones.

 

Edited May 10, 2011 by Supergrunch

[heroicjanitor]

Jonnas' last post would probably qualify as a spoiler for people who haven't seen it :s But as SuperGrunch said, "It's me, L" would have worked great. "It'sa me! L-io!" might have worked too.

[Diageo]

Sure, pick the worst part of the dub version and use it as a comparison piece instead of using a normal section and comparing that.

 

Even in that example, the same basic idea is being put across, it works satisfactorily.

 

And in the English version, you don't get the angsty, sighy intonation to every sentence that Japanese has.

 

He will not miss out on any significant dialogue if he watches it in dub. And while the optimum viewing experience would be in Japanese, without subtitles, because you know the language, ReZ has said he prefers dubbed animation, and so will be more than fine watching it in English.

 

I think the potato chip scene feels more intense in the English one.

Skip to 00:45 if you wish in the second one.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Diageo
Automerged Doublepost

[Jonnas]

Jonnas' last post would probably qualify as a spoiler for people who haven't seen it :s

 

D'oh! Is it too late to change it?

 

@Supergrunch: Huh, nice catch regarding the Spanish subs. I tend to forget that properly saying the whole phrase is a good form of emphasis in both Spanish and Portuguese.

[heroicjanitor]

The crisp eating scene is amazing

 

I don't think anyone has quoted it, so just remove Light's name :p

[Guy]

Death Note anime goes to hell after a certain point. The manga remains slightly entertaining after that point as the plot isn't breezed through like in the anime. The manga also has a satisfying ending, whereas the anime one is a massive cop-out.

 

My advice? Read the manga first, then watch the anime if you have nothing else to do.

 

Also, the dub isn't bad. Anime dubs are fairly acceptable nowadays. From what I understand, the voice acting in the original dubs is often regarded as poor quality by native speakers, we probably just appreciate it more because we can't understand the intricacies of the language and interpret what is cheesy or tacky sounding.

 

Then again, why would anyone watch something in a language other than the original one the director intended to be heard with the convenience of subtitles readily available?

Edited May 10, 2011 by Guy

[Sheikah]

Death Note is good, but Fullmetal Alchemist is better, in general terms of enjoyment and story. In particular FMA Brotherhood.

[Happenstance]

I still need to catch up with Brotherhood, only ended up seeing the first few eps.

[Raining_again]

subs over dubs

 

1. the episodes are available pretty much a day after Japanese broadcast. See Naruto: Shippudden which has only started to become available dubbed recently - yet its on its 210th episode....

 

2. American bollox accents which make me cringe and pretty much lose all of the feeling in the story. Made it childlike and cringeworthy. Plus curse words are taken out of a lot of them to make them more attractive to consumers.

 

3. I enjoy listening to anime in the language it was produced. It's more authentic. And despite it being a different language the moment/emotion is conveyed perfectly.

 

4. Sometimes english dubs are of poor quality and horribly voice acted. They try to do these things on the cheap.

 

5. I used to be a sub hater, instant convert after watching a subtitled death note episode.

 

p.s death note is AWESOME.

i got really bored when Light gave up the death note and it went to the corporate guys. Snooze. Actually stopped watching it then came back to it 2 years later and finished watching. Love the end, genius when he gets the book back and hes like WOW I REMEMBER

 

Edited May 10, 2011 by Raining_again

[Guy]

See, I find dubs add more profanity to make it more accessible and familiar to an English speaking audience. Manga are especially guilty of lacing their dubs with the f-bomb, which comes across as a juvenile attempt to cement their scripts as ADULT and EDGY. Fail.

[Diageo]

Why dubs are better:

 

1. You can enjoy the cartoon itself and pay attention to everything that happens on screen without having to look at the bottom of the screen all the time to read what is being said.

2. You can look away from the screen or lose focus for a second without completely loosing what the characters are saying.

3. The mood can be conveyed better because you can feel the tone in the words the characters are speaking which can be difficult to tell when written.

4. I find that Japanese voices sound very similar, so with dubbed voices it is easier to tell people apart, and who is speaking. You don't have that with text unless they specifically show the mouth moving.

5. Some Japanese voices can be terrible. The girls almost always have very high pitched, very squeaky voices.

 

Now some of these are not always true, but you can see that there are positives and negatives in both forms. Now if you can overlook some things and prefer others, it's very reasonable to want to watch dub over sub.

[heroicjanitor]

Why dubs are better:

 

1. You can enjoy the cartoon itself and pay attention to everything that happens on screen without having to look at the bottom of the screen all the time to read what is being said.

2. You can look away from the screen or lose focus for a second without completely loosing what the characters are saying.

3. The mood can be conveyed better because you can feel the tone in the words the characters are speaking which can be difficult to tell when written.

4. I find that Japanese voices sound very similar, so with dubbed voices it is easier to tell people apart, and who is speaking. You don't have that with text unless they specifically show the mouth moving.

5. Some Japanese voices can be terrible. The girls almost always have very high pitched, very squeaky voices.

 

Now some of these are not always true, but you can see that there are positives and negatives in both forms. Now if you can overlook some things and prefer others, it's very reasonable to want to watch dub over sub.

 

Yeah the voices of the girls are shocking, I disagree with #4, and #3 is the whole reason people use subbed in the first place, because the tone/emotions fit better. I generally use subbed but with Death Note I heard dubbed first and didn't feel a need to switch. The voices were very good.

[Beast]

I like subs better than dubs because half of the time, dubs suck. Let The Right One In is much better in subtitles because you can hear the emotion portrayed by the actors and their voices, even if it's in a different language. When it's voiced over, sometimes it feels too forced. Death Note is the only one I've seen that I can watch subbed or dubbed.

[Shorty]

I guess its out of context, because that makes sense to me. :p

Yeah I know, but I knew a couple of people would know what I meant

 

It boils down to this, when anime shows come out officially in the US, they're translated by who? Not part of the team, not the creators, not friends of the creators and certainly not fans of the series. Just a group of completely impartial translators.

 

But subs, as in the ones released on the internet, are done by fans. They know what they're talking about, they make it make sense, and keep with the original tone. Sometimes even keep some of the Japanese words so you know what certain things were really meant to be called.

 

In that example I gave from the American dub, they just totally screwed up. To try and explain the error simply: Naruto was saying that he was bad at a certain technique during ninja school, but the technique he mentioned was not taught at school, and was something he excelled at from the day he learnt it.

 

It was annoying because it made me think: how did nobody speak up against this blatant mistake? Even the voice actress for Naruto who has recorded hundreds of episodes as this character, didn't point out that it was a stupid inaccuracy. In Japan a dozen people would've pointed out that was wrong during the editing.

 

 

2. You can look away from the screen or lose focus for a second without completely loosing what the characters are saying.

This is the only point of yours that I can agree with. For any subtitled film, you're going to lose lines of dialogue if you look away. But you're going to lose moments of action either way so... if you look away, you can expect to miss out on something

3. The mood can be conveyed better because you can feel the tone in the words the characters are speaking which can be difficult to tell when written.

If you honestly can't feel the emotional deliverance of a line when spoken in another language you're just not listening hard enough. You don't have to understand the words to hear the way they are being shouted/utter/cried. A perfect example would be Kyon from Suzumiya Haruhi. His dry, witty and sarcastic tone is perfectly clear from his voice, whether you can comprehend the meaning of the words or not. And it was perfectly captured by fansub groups. Much less so by the American voice actor.

[Supergrunch]

I'm not sure I can comment on this debate in much detail, as I know enough Japanese to understand what's being said most of the time. And I prefer subs in other foreign films too, but then that's because I like to hear the original language even if I don't know it. For people that just want to experience the entertainment the show has to offer in the easiest way possible, I think there's more of an argument for dubs, but my main problem with them is the bad voice acting and translation when compared to the subs. This isn't always the case - Miyazaki films and things like Hellsing have good translations and voice acting.

 

(As for the Japanese voice acting being equally bad, as I understand it's more the case that it's cheesy and unrealistic rather than actually bad. So more like the kind of dialogue you'd see in Toy Story or something - it's not the sort of thing real people would necessarily say, but it's performed well nonetheless. But then I haven't heard the opinion of all that many native speakers.)

Sometimes even keep some of the Japanese words so you know what certain things were really meant to be called.

I'm not sure I agree with this, unless it's for name honourifics (which still wouldn't be appropriate for a general audience release) or things like food that don't have an English name (although this isn't always a problem - c.f. Phoenix Wright, with ramen -> hamburgers, which works fine as everything is so well Americanised). And if subbers go to far, you end up with atrocities like this:

 

Edited May 11, 2011 by Supergrunch

[Mr-Paul]

I think bringing foreign movies into the sub/dub argument is very interesting.

 

I wouldn't want to watch a real life foreign film, Amelie for example, dubbed, because I would spend the whole film looking at the bad lip sync (that, and I understand French!)

 

I think dubbing in animation is a different issue, as it can be done infinitely better than non-animated films, and I've had no complaints about the voice acting in any of the dubbed anime that I've seen.

[Supergrunch]

Fun fact with respect to lip-syncing: the Japanese voice acting is traditionally recorded after the animation has been made.

[Mr-Paul]

But the animators would generally have a script to follow to know how long to animate the mouth for, my point was it's a lot easier to put a dubbed voice over an animated mouth than a human mouth.