Why does 90% of anime lovers hate english dubs?

^You can't really say that unless you've done it yourself man. Experience and knowledge speaks, all else falls on deaf ears.

 

Well, think about it. When you're watching a subtitled anime, all the Japanese words you hear will be overwritten by how it is translated into English. No matter how much you get use to it, you still can't attain a full appreciation of the Japanese words because of how it is processed through your mind when you think of these words in English. That why, even if the original voices are actually better than the dub, I still prefer hearing English voices, I have a greater appreciation for the words that are being spoken since I can understand them. As for what's being spoken in Japanese, yeah I can make out the general tone of the voice actor, but I still can't get a proper grasp on the Japanese words and therefore unable to appreciate it to the highest degree. Not only that, but there can be quite a bit of a quality drop if the translation is bad too.

 

People who like subbed anime only usually don't like the English voice actors. (which some of them can be pretty bad) I myself would rather watch a subbed show if the voice actors are to annoying, but if there isn't any problems with the voice actors i would rather watch a dubbed show just because it's less work.

 

@Kenshin: That's only true if your perfectly fluent, a luxury only really afforded to those who start learning young enough. It's possible that you could learn Japanese only to a degree where you understand it by concentrating rather hardly. Under such circumstances you could miss a lot of the sentiment and even miss out on the subtleties of what's going on as you're trying your hardest to grasp what's being said and translate it in your own head, and therefore you would probably be better off watching a dub or reading the sub.

Also translation is never perfect. As a sub fan i encounter time and time again differences between fan subs because the different translators chose to go a different way when translating the original, i've even watched subs where they explained why they chose one translation over an other because they weren't sure whether or not they translated it the way it was intended. Imaging having to do that all in your head and tell me that you'd be able to appreciate it to a higher degree than those who choose to watch a sub or a dub. It seems to me if anything it could fill you up with a lot of uncertainties.

What i've mentioned are just two of the problems an English native who knows Japanese would encounter when watching the raw original, i'm sure there are probably a lot more that i'm not aware of because i'm not such a person, these were just based upon me logically putting 2 and 2 together from observations i have made from watching a lot of fan subbed anime as well as the knowledge of how hard it is to pick up another language later on in life (well past your mid 20's anyway). Again i say don't make assumptions about something you've not experienced yourself. For an English speaking person i believe that subs and dubs are probably the best way we can experience anime no question and that the only ones whom could enjoy raw anime to it's fullest extent would be those whom were lucky enough to have learnt Japanese from a young enough age to be able to speak it fluently, and how i envy such lucky lucky bastards! I certainly would have appreciated that opportunity a lot more than being forced to learn French which is bloody useless! >.

 

Being fluent in another language doesn't necessarily equate with understanding the actual language, it just means you can speak it really well. As long as you can understand the speech, you can get the full value of the voice acting. And this is precisely why I say learn the language so that you do have a full grasp of what's being said. There shouldn't be any need to "translate it in your own head" because it requires more work to convert the meaning behind those words into English. Translation is something you do for other people who don't understand the language. Yes, fansubs are nice if you want to hear Japanese words in English, but you shouldn't want to hear Japanese words in English if you know Japanese yourself.

I agree, translation is never perfect, and that's precisely why you want to learn Japanese. And of course, fansubbers will normally translate within their preferred methods. But a direct translation is pretty much impossible to pull off unless you want some really broken English, and so the script will have to go through some changes. Whether the value of the script is maintained to a high standard or not, it is highly unlikely that it will be as good as the original (but in many cases, it can still be really good). Now, when it comes to fansubbers, the thing you have to keep in mind is that they aren't professional and the differences you see with each translation are likely a result of amateurs at work. And even official subs can perform below par if they don't give a proper investment to the translation.

Now, also consider the role of the original script writer for the anime. Obviously, he's not going to create a bad script, because it will be a lot more noticeable if he/she did a bad job since the Japanese audience would be able to grasp the awkwardness from the spoken lines. I'm sure you've come across a handful of dubs that have suffered from really poor script writing; it's a lot more noticeable if you were to comprehend the dub rather than reading subtitles, because your mind can very easily auto-adjust to how subtitles are read. as opposed to how they are heard. But since the Japanese market has a greater demand for anime than the English market does, there will be more invested in the staff for the Japanese speakers than there will be the English speakers (in most cases) and result in an overall better script quality. I've recently started watching Persona 4, and it really is hard for me to keep watching it in English because of how awkward the phrasing is. I'll still watch it has a solid VA cast for the dub, but the script makes it a little bit of a chore to listen to.

I don't want to say that age has that much to do with your ability to learn things. I can understand the difficulty in doing things such as that tongue thing you have to do with double r's in Spanish, but learning the actual language can be done in any age group as long as you aren't going senile. Granted, it is easier to learn at a younger age due to the subconscious learning mechanisms present in infants, but it is still possible to gain a full understanding of the language at any age as long as you put forth the effort to do so ("if you’re a REALLY hardcore fan of anime").

 

Dude i ask again, have you done this? Cause it's still sounding to me like you're making a ton of assumptions here and that's really my only problem with what you're saying.