Why Does The Japanese Version Have A Bad Rep?

[huzaifa_ahmed]

Anime will always be dubbed outside of Japan as that is what most prefer.

Eh, depends on who you're asking. Apparently the cultural perception of dubs varies not only from fanbase to fanbase, but even from country to country. According to one Norway-based Kanzenshuuer, dubs are perceived in Norway as being strictly for children who haven't yet developed the reading skills necessary to enjoy subtitled shows, and the idea that grown adults would actually want to watch a dub strikes them as incredibly odd. Quite a different story from here, where appreciation for dubs is, in general, about equal to the original versions.

I don't think we'll ever get hard numbers on what most people in the world prefer. It really depends on where you ask.

I don't know if it's necessarily just "culture", more like the development of the industries. I think most directors (artistically), & producers (financially), would ultimately prefer it if everyone watched their movies in the language of production, the language that the creators are most accustomed to, etc. Dubs began being created to get over the fact that this was a foreign, alien film. Japan is quite prolific in dubs, unlike us, which is ironic. The audience got used to that, & so of course the producers had to make room for that in Japanese releases. English dubs of Japanese video games, too, became the norm.

Anime has always been subtitled in the majority, as most TV networks dislike acquisitions/paying to air other folks' content & so it goes direct-to-video. With Internet, it is now easy & very cheap for anime companies to put up subtitles on a show produced strictly for Japan, & experiment w/American co-pros without having to pay for Hollywood voice actors (& no I dont mean like celebrities, but like IGPX or Afro Samurai). The truth is, if you go on the anime sub-Reddit, anime YouTube videos, certain Kiss-piracy site comments, CrunchyRoll - THE biggest anime purveyor of recent-, or even the recent popularity of Yuri on Ice...you will find that most fans default to subs.

* Hell, even Dragon Ball Super, an exception where the very mainstream fandom whines & moans about the JP VO...was put up subtitled for streaming, because they know that subs are what anime fans are used to, & they even messed up the subs to conform to the dub names (wtf?). Final Fantasy XV Brotherhood, from a series which dubs everything gloriously, was Japanese-only.

I dont think it's a stretch to say that anime fandom & producers prefer subs in the general majority.

[ABED]

The truth is, if you go on the anime sub-Reddit, anime YouTube videos, certain Kiss-piracy site comments, CrunchyRoll - THE biggest anime purveyor of recent-, or even the recent popularity of Yuri on Ice...you will find that most fans default to subs.

But that doesn't seem like a representative sample of the overall audience.

[8000 Saiyan]

Anime will always be dubbed outside of Japan as that is what most prefer.

Eh, depends on who you're asking. Apparently the cultural perception of dubs varies not only from fanbase to fanbase, but even from country to country. According to one Norway-based Kanzenshuuer, dubs are perceived in Norway as being strictly for children who haven't yet developed the reading skills necessary to enjoy subtitled shows, and the idea that grown adults would actually want to watch a dub strikes them as incredibly odd. Quite a different story from here, where appreciation for dubs is, in general, about equal to the original versions.

I don't think we'll ever get hard numbers on what most people in the world prefer. It really depends on where you ask.

I don't know if it's necessarily just "culture", more like the development of the industries. I think most directors (artistically), & producers (financially), would ultimately prefer it if everyone watched their movies in the language of production, the language that the creators are most accustomed to, etc. Dubs began being created to get over the fact that this was a foreign, alien film. Japan is quite prolific in dubs, unlike us, which is ironic. The audience got used to that, & so of course the producers had to make room for that in Japanese releases. English dubs of Japanese video games, too, became the norm.

Anime has always been subtitled in the majority, as most TV networks dislike acquisitions/paying to air other folks' content & so it goes direct-to-video. With Internet, it is now easy & very cheap for anime companies to put up subtitles on a show produced strictly for Japan, & experiment w/American co-pros without having to pay for Hollywood voice actors (& no I dont mean like celebrities, but like IGPX or Afro Samurai). The truth is, if you go on the anime sub-Reddit, anime YouTube videos, certain Kiss-piracy site comments, CrunchyRoll - THE biggest anime purveyor of recent-, or even the recent popularity of Yuri on Ice...you will find that most fans default to subs.

* Hell, even Dragon Ball Super, an exception where the very mainstream fandom whines & moans about the JP VO...was put up subtitled for streaming, because they know that subs are what anime fans are used to, & they even messed up the subs to conform to the dub names (wtf?). Final Fantasy XV Brotherhood, from a series which dubs everything gloriously, was Japanese-only.

I dont think it's a stretch to say that anime fandom & producers prefer subs in the general majority.

So, just by looking at those sites, you came to the conclusion that the majority of the anime fandom prefers subs? That's a pretty flawed conclusion.

[Saikyo no Senshi]

CrunchyRoll sure has a huge audience. How huge? I don't think we'll never know. But, subtitled media is unmistakably undeniably a huge thing in English speaking fandoms as well now. In fact, for quite a while now.

[SaiyanZ]

In my experience, its Masako Nozawa and the Kikuchi score in comparison to Sean Schemmel and the Faulconer score. Those two always seem to be the prime reasons for why people prefer the dub over the sub.

[TheBlackPaladin]

In my experience, its Masako Nozawa and the Kikuchi score in comparison to Sean Schemmel and the Faulconer score. Those two always seem to be the prime reasons for why people prefer the dub over the sub.

Which is somewhat ironic, considering that Schemmel has said that he hated the Faulconer score from day 1.

[Gog]

It doesn't or at the very least it doesn't have a bad reputation on here, and honestly I don't see why it has such a bad reputation (at the very least not here)

[TheGreatness25]

The Japanese version has a bad reputation among the YouTube crowd and those on there that filter over into other forum sites. Before Z Kai, I think that most fans who frequented forums were fans of the Japanese version, but since we've gotten a new, younger crowd into the series, they just don't view things the same way as us. There's a generational gap. I don't think you'll find many 20-something year olds who will say things like, "wtffff goku sounds liek a gurl lmaooo" on a forum.

[huzaifa_ahmed]

The Japanese version has a bad reputation among the YouTube crowd and those on there that filter over into other forum sites. Before Z Kai, I think that most fans who frequented forums were fans of the Japanese version, but since we've gotten a new, younger crowd into the series, they just don't view things the same way as us. There's a generational gap. I don't think you'll find many 20-something year olds who will say things like, "wtffff goku sounds liek a gurl lmaooo" on a forum.

Nah, early high school kids & below, now recall the Kai dub, & all dubs IIRC, had Goku with a really manly voice, usually deeper than the ones that *we* got. It is the 20-somethings that remember this. Although, you do have to keep the perspective of that a significant minority of these people do not generally watch anime, & more broadly, it's subtitled when they get around to it. - These people would likely not be watching DB, the same folks who thought Naruto & Bleach were dumb (whereas, in anime terms, they were great successes).

& there's certainly plenty of big-time anime fans my age (& up!) that have issues coming to terms w/what Dragon Ball actually is, & that's really the group that the likes of the moderators/admins here & on reddit/dbz, have the most significant issue with. (& I certainly sympathize with this, though I cant really blame the localizers, as much as a company not really intending for their products to make an impact here) Like, you'll watch other anime subtitled, but not DB?

Although there's something to be said about people who complain about, yet wouldnt support a high-quality version of said product.

[8000 Saiyan]

The Japanese version has a bad reputation among the YouTube crowd and those on there that filter over into other forum sites. Before Z Kai, I think that most fans who frequented forums were fans of the Japanese version, but since we've gotten a new, younger crowd into the series, they just don't view things the same way as us. There's a generational gap. I don't think you'll find many 20-something year olds who will say things like, "wtffff goku sounds liek a gurl lmaooo" on a forum.

Nah, early high school kids & below, now recall the Kai dub, & all dubs IIRC, had Goku with a really manly voice, usually deeper than the ones that *we* got. It is the 20-somethings that remember this. Although, you do have to keep the perspective of that a significant minority of these people do not generally watch anime, & more broadly, it's subtitled when they get around to it. - These people would likely not be watching DB, the same folks who thought Naruto & Bleach were dumb (whereas, in anime terms, they were great successes).

& there's certainly plenty of big-time anime fans my age (& up!) that have issues coming to terms w/what Dragon Ball actually is, & that's really the group that the likes of the moderators/admins here & on reddit/dbz, have the most significant issue with. (& I certainly sympathize with this, though I cant really blame the localizers, as much as a company not really intending for their products to make an impact here) Like, you'll watch other anime subtitled, but not DB?

Although there's something to be said about people who complain about, yet wouldnt support a high-quality version of said product.

But Peter Kelamis and Kirby Morrow don't have deep manly voices, so that defeats your argument that all dubs had Goku with deep manly voices.

[huzaifa_ahmed]

Nah, early high school kids & below, now recall the Kai dub, & all dubs IIRC, had Goku with a really manly voice, usually deeper than the ones that *we* got.

But Peter Kelamis and Kirby Morrow don't have deep manly voices, so that defeats your argument that all dubs had Goku with deep manly voices.

Ah, I was more referring to the non-English dubs. I was comparing them to "the ones that we got" so the implication is that I was talking about everyone else, although I can see the misunderstanding here. I only recall the Mexican dub, but TBP has continually said that Goku always had a baritone sort of voice in the international dubs, even ones like the Mexican dub, which was otherwise super-accurate & shown in order as well. Like, Lex Lang is not out-of-place in that regard, though I do personally find him miscast.

[8000 Saiyan]

Ah, I was more referring to the non-English dubs. I was comparing them to "the ones that we got" so the implication is that I was talking about everyone else, although I can see the misunderstanding here. I only recall the Mexican dub, but TBP has continually said that Goku always had a baritone sort of voice in the international dubs, even ones like the Mexican dub, which was otherwise super-accurate & shown in order as well. Like, Lex Lang is not out-of-place in that regard, though I do personally find him miscast.

You and me. I expected better.

[lunaticthegame]

My goodness this thread got bad after all the smart people left... (Then again, I'm new to the site)

Okay. Back in the late 1980's if you started a conversation about Goku, people would think of him as a child with his Power Pole and Nimbus. Looking at it now, people think of him as just some strong guy... and that's about it.

Toryama pretty much threw away some of Goku's defining tropes to the worry of both his editor at the time and Toei. Now, this is just my speculation and it may not be the most accurate so stick with me. Toei probably didn't want to throw off Dragon Balls fans and opted with keeping Nowzowa as Goku. Of course, this was 1989 and they weren't sure how long Dragon Ball would continue, especially since Dragon Ball was being renamed Z by Toryama because he believed the series was about to end.

Later, Dragon Ball Z would continue until 1996 and by that point, Goku's voice over in Japan would be very iconic and it has been kept to this day.

Now. I've discovered a pattern of fans claiming that Z's sub sucks because of "High Pitch Voices". Now, I've responded with the fact the Gokus voice is the only voice that sounds out of it and even then, it was better in Z compared to Kai and Super (Since his actress is around her 80s. Props to her for keeping at it). All the other voices have changed slightly (Due to old age. King Kai/Kaio-Sama's actor is still on medical leave) but they still sound natural.

Now, this would be where I put down all of my preferences but my quote below has all of them.

[Soppa Saia People]

My goodness this thread got bad after all the smart people left... (Then again, I'm new to the site)

Christ man, tell us how you really feel.