VegettoEX wrote:I guess it's really less about the voice ("GROBBLE GROBBLE HIGH PITCHED DESPITE SCHEMMEL ALSO GOING HIGH PITCHED AT THE SAME MOMENTS"), and more about the subtitles.
I mean... humans have a natural curiosity to dive into the unknown. It gets us killed a lot
. Once you figure out that there's an "original" version and especially these days when it's presented to you right there at the press of a button... who
wouldn't switch over to that almost exclusively? I totally get the whole "watching the cartoon as a kid" viewpoint, where the dub "is" the show for you... but... once you discover the original, I still take it back to that natural curiosity. What's with that stubbornness in not watching the original? What's with that mental block that's so hard to overcome for some people that it cannot and will never be anything else than the so-called "reversioned" edition for them?
Little late on this, but I want to respond anyway because nobody else did. I'm sure you have no interest in discussing it, but I'd just like to throw my thoughts out there.
I'm going through the process of getting used to subtitles right now. As in, my goal is to be able to watch a show with subs and not even have to think about it. So this topic is fresh in my mind because it's something that I'm experiencing every day. It probably sounds silly to you; from what I've gathered you're all about subs, as if it's the only way to go, and have been from the beginning. But there are things to get used to and perceptions to adjust. It's true that the only thing keeping most people from watching the subtitled version of a show exclusively are very small trivial complaints. But those small and trivial issues become a non issue if they just press a button and watch the dubbed version of a show or movie.
For example, I am watching Gantz, for the second time, but in the original Japanese version
this time. I honestly feel like it's much better than ADV's English Dub. I feel like the casting is much more appropriate and the acting is much better. I already prefer the original Japanese version of that show over the English version. But it's not all fine and dandy; there are still problems. I'm not fast enough reading the subtitles and sometimes I miss some of the dialog. You claimed in your earlier post like it's some universal human truth that you process the subtitles quick enough that your eyes aren't glued to the words the whole time. Well, that's not true. Not in my case anyway. Not only that, but I am only able to focus on the picture when there are no words being spoken. I am reading the whole time and everything that's going on, on screen, is just peripheral to me.
There are quite a few things that I can not do while watching this show that I can if I'm watching a dub. For example, I found myself sitting back, and I took my eyes off screen for a second and focused on my bookshelf. Maybe my eyes were sore from staring at the screen, maybe I just started to go off on a thought and drift away. Whatever the reason, I missed a big chunk of what happened and had to rewind. I can not take my attention away from the screen and still get the full effect. I won't hear words and think about what's being said, I'm just hearing some noise. At this point, everything important is visual and what I hear is just for music and in some cases the tone. It's taking me out of the cartoon, at least one level.
There's also a matter of watching a show while falling asleep. Sometimes I like to close my eyes and just listen to what's being said. Well obviously I can't do that. Again, I'd just be hearing noise. It wouldn't mean anything to me. I can't follow the story without my eyesight.
That's just a personal experience, though. And all the complaints I listed are circumstantial and preferential. But it's those small little differences that I have to adjust to are primarily what keep me watching dubs rather than the original version. Why would I force myself to get over those *very* small issues, if I can just press a button and instantly relieve myself of them and just enjoy the damn show.
There's also the issue of who the fuck cares? Who cares if it's the original version? Who cares as long as you're enjoying yourself? Take One Piece's FUNimation dub for example. That dub is as close to a word-for-word translation as you can get with dubbed dialog. Not only that but the casting is appropriate, the music is the same, and the acting is top-notch. Even Oda himself has said that he likes the voices.
In that case, what does it matter? It's not like Dragon Ball Z, where concepts, undertones, and themes are cut out of the English dub. Almost everything is the same. Why does it matter if you're watching the original or if you're watching the English adaptation? In that case, how is it any different than an American manga distributer replacing the Japanese characters in the talk bubble with American English, as opposed to writing the dialog below the bubbles?
Referring to something you said in your post, "Once you figure out that there's an "original" version and especially these days when it's presented to you right there at the press of a button... who wouldn't switch over to that almost exclusively?" It's true that humans have a natural curiosity, I often find myself checking out all kinds of audio tracks on my DVDs. My Ed, Edd, and Eddy DVDs have English, Spanish, and French dubs on them. While watching it, I've switched over to see what the voices sound like just for fun. But it was only temporary. I switched back to the English voices quickly, not because it was the "original" version, not because it's what I understood. It's because that's what I consider to be for me. That's the version that I identify with. So I can understand that to be a deciding factor when it comes to anime. Which version "is for me?" Which am I most comfortable with? And again, who the fuck cares?
And one can go on and on about how the Japanese audio track with subtitles is the "original" version, and it's the only way that you can respectfully enjoy a cartoon (I'm totally imagining an old man with a curly mustache and a monocle saying that), but it's really not. You may be hearing it the same way Japanese children in the 80s heard it, but you're not experiencing it in the same way. The "original" version doesn't have subtitles pasted along the bottom. It is most definitely not something that
all people can watch and enjoy. A non-Japanese speaker can never appreciate the material the same way a native Japanese speaker can. Therefore, if you're watching the Japanese track with English subs, you're not watching the original version. You are reading it instead of hearing it, which is already a shift from the original context. If you're watching an English dub, you're processing the spoken dialog and comprehending it without needing to follow the footnotes, which, it could be argued, is closer to the experience of a Japanese speaker watching the Japanese version. If an English speaker has to conform to a different reading style, they're experiencing something much different than the original, and if that's the case, what does it matter if you're reading dialog or hearing it?
You could argue that it's how the original creators intended the show to be seen. But that still goes back to the fact that you can not enjoy it the way they want you to because there are cultural and language barriers. What's so wrong with a third party coming in and adapting it for you? Then what's so wrong with enjoying that adaptation?
There were a couple of other things that I wanted to say but I forgot what they were.
She/Her 
