Superlative Dubbing / German Dubs

• Smokie: The German One Piece dub. It's great. I consider all voices pretty equal to the original. They don't miss to reflect the personalities at all! Luffy still has a hotblooded childish voice, Zoro is still gruff, Sanji still has a gentleman voice.. You get the point. They also held back with the editing/cutting, which does not happen very often on our shonen-anime channel RTL 2. (It's for us Germans what is 4Kids Entertainment for you.)
  • Ziekette: As someone who grew up watching German dubbed anime, I will absolutely vouch for that. In fact, the One Piece German dub is so good, I find it hard to listen in any other language. Possibly because they cut out some of the Narm of Luffy calling his attacks. Also, the intro tune is ridiculously catchy.
  • Smokie: I'll take the German dub of Samurai Champloo. The voices fit perfectly. The only reason I didn't completely watch it in German is because the video quality sucks. I'm very picky about this stuff.
  • German Troper: Contested. The dubbing studio was under orders by RTL 2 to "hold back" the actors when dealing with extreme emotions such as anger, hot-bloodedness, etc.
    • Given the over-the-top performance even "restrained" voice actors delivered, that might have been a good decision.
  • Hans Frollo While I think most Voice Actors fit perfectly, I think the german dialogs are terrible. They consist only of proverbs and aren't as 'explicit' as the original. For example, when Robin warns Nami in Skypiea, she says in the original: "When the rope cuts, you'll die." In German: "When the rope cuts, you have bad luck." Or Hatchans speech in the Human Auctioning House! JAP: "I am worthless dirt!" German: "Sometimes I have been clumsy." That's... not good...
• The German dub of pretty much any Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, especially Red Sonja: making the lead pair actually sound badass instead of Haeffing Vays Of Maeking Hyu Tolk makes the movie so much less campy.
  • German Troper: Seconded. By upping the Ham, Rated M for Manly becomes Testosterone Poisoning, making any action flick much more enjoyable. To put this into context: With this sort of dub, Last Action Hero actually WORKS as a parody.
• The French and German dubs for The Dark Knight are both really, really good.
• Can you believe someone can actually dub Heath Ledger and sound pretty amazing? See German Joker here.
• Ymir: The German dub of The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy is epic to the extent that it rivals the original english dialogue. The Witch King's voice and Theoden's speeches deserve particular credit. The French dub is also great, just not nearly as...awesome.
• Ospero: American Dad!, the German dub. As if it weren't enough that they actually managed to get Patrick Stewart's German voice actor for Avery Bullock, they also got Jonathan Frakes' voice actor for Stan. Gives an entire new level to all those Star Trek references...
• Spongebob Squarepants in German. The voices are very fitting and have comedic tones, much like the original American version. Also, you can see how much effort and dedication that the voice actors put into their characters, so much that it doesn't matter if they don't sound like the original.
  • The dub is nothing short of phenomenal. There are multiple times it regularly surpasses the English dub regarding comic timing, additional music and sound effects as well as performance. Also, hardly any of the jokes get lost in translation and there are additional quirks added to make the localization even better.
• Batman:TB&TB This is not Niel Patrick Harris singing flawless german. Compare!
• While The X-Files in German is generally not the best dub ever, Scully's dub voice is great and makes the character sound more level-headed and rational when compared to Gillian Anderson's voice.
• The German voices of Buffy and Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer are very good. The original voices seem very squeaky in comparison.
• Digimon Adventure is a possible contender for best German anime dub of all time. The original music, the believeable voices - everything works the way it is supposed to.
• The Captain Future anime is so terrible in the original Japanese and English dub that it's almost unknown now in those countries (in fact, its tropes page is currently empty). However, the German dub not only did a good job with the voice acting, but also had an awesome soundtrack, making the series a cult classic there. To see what I'm talking about, compare the bad original Japanese and the horrid English intros with the German version.
• The German dub of Murder by Death retains the accents extremely well and has a near faithful translation (with nearly all jokes that don't work in German rewritten and some added gags). It helps that all the dubbers in the cast were extremely talented.
• Almost any German Godzilla dub has better performances and tighter scripting than the often crude (if charming) export English dubs from which they were based. King Kong vs. Godzilla, based on the U.S. version, polishes a lot of the oddities from the English script and generally sounds smarter. A number of dubs also translate directly from Japanese, so a lot of dialogue simplified for some English versions is often kept (e.g. the "coffee" line from Destroy All Monsters).
• While the script writing is rather sub-par, and the translation isn't perfect, in terms of the voice acting, the German dub of The Vision of Escaflowne is ungodly awesome. Not only do all the voices match the characters perfectly (except for Merle, Celena, Jajuka (they pronounce his name wrong!!!), Gatti, Naria, and Zongi, but it's more a matter of their general voices. Their actors are still very talented at conveying what they need to convey, and everyone does it great!), there's SO MUCH emotion thrown into them and they convey them SO WELL that they actually feel so natural, so convincing, and so gosh darn realistic, like you've heard these voices in real life before! Whoever cast these actors really knew what they were doing. Julia Meynen does such an adorable Hitomi, and I could be kidding myself here, but I swear to God, Bjorn Schalla (Van) sounds completely like a German version of Tomokazu Seki! Listen to how he screams in this scene. He's able to seamlessly go from sweet and gentle to wild and fierce in seconds, and I love it! As much as I love Brian Drummond, Peter Fletchner made Allen sound more manly and chivalrous. Folken's voice is higher than normal, but he knows how to make him sound like a great Well-Intentioned Extremist Knight Templar Big Brother. Horst Lampe's Dornkirk is awesome. Heck, even minor characters like Miguel (Tommy Morgenstern! He plays Goku!) and Chesta (His actor plays L!) have awesome voices along with awesome voice acting! I forget who Prince Chid's voice actor is, but he does an ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE Chid! His cute voice alone makes me wanna hug him! However, I seriously need to give MAJOR kudos to the lady who does Dilandau's German dub voice, Claudia Urbschat-Mingues. OH MY FREAKING GOD, she seriously NAILED EVERY SINGLE FIBER of Dilandau's being, and not only that, upped his creepiness and craziness by 9000 (Don't believe me? Watch this clip from Episode seven and see if that evil cackle doesn't scare the living crap out of you.!) She puts so much more emotion in him (especially in his sad scenes, like this one from episode 16! OH MY GOD. I want to cry!!) than anyone else I know, even upstaging Takayama (don't kill me!)! Thank you, Claudia! You have forever shaped my headcanon of everything related to Dilandau! Thou hast earned my eternal devotion! Also, the sinsiter, Shining-esque, sing-songy way she says this line in episode 23 scares the crap out of me every time, along with that laugh that comes right after.
• The Ren & Stimpy Show is relatively obscure in Germany, but has an excellent, highly acclaimed dub. The voices are completely different from the originals, and yet they maintain the spirit of the characters; the dialogue inflections are great (most of the time), and both Santiago, Ziesmer and Oliver Feld inject energy and an abundance of emotion into the dub. Ziesmer is great at conveying emotion and even manages to sound scarier than John K. at times, and Feld, who is even better, displays more range in one role than he does in his entire repertoire. You have got to hear him to believe it; he very nearly bests Billy West at times. His voice is expressive and yet completely natural. Just watch any episode and you'll find out. The director of the dub is Nadine Geist, who while not always allowing everything dubbed, seems to really know how to push her actors to the limit. The best dubbed episodes are: Weltraumkoller ("Space Madness"), Robin Hoek and Schwester Stimpy (Robin Hoek and Nurse Stimpy), Der Kleinste Riese (The Littlest Giant) Stimpys Sohn (Son of Stimpy), Stimpys Fanclub and Koeniglich-Kanadische Yakreiter im Kilt (Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen).
  • Yet another Feld example is Cats Don't Dance. While he isn't a great singer, he absolutely bursts with charm as Danny; in fact, I like him much more than the original.
  • And now someone different to gush over: Ilja Richter. While the German dub of the Monsters, Inc. franchise is okay, Richter just steals the show as Mike Wazowski. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDDg1ZdDDaM Even in Mikes Neues Auto he's great! He gives Mike completely his own character and practically upstages Billy Crystal as a result. (Some of his screams needed work, though, like when Mike is bitten on the hand and has his fingers slammed in Incorporated)
• The German dub of The Muppet Show is considered to be very unique.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars has a very great dubbing, mainly because (in contrary to the original version) pretty much all the actors who were hired for the voice-over of the Live Action Film's returned. Even the VA's for characters like Darth Maul or Ki-Adi-Mundi, who had no more than 3 lines, reprised their roles! The acting is great and passionate, and the translation and pronounciation correct. Plus, there is a way higher number of different actors, thus much less cases of Acting for Two. The American Blu-Rays contain the German dub, mainly because of this trope.
• Most Disney movies are well-dubbed in any language, but the German dub of The Lion King (1994) deserves special credit. Not only do the voice actors and singers (particularly Thomas Fritsch as Scar) capture the characters marvelously — all the while giving them their own spin and nuances — but the songs are impeccably adapted into the language, and the movie takes on a character of its own — while losing nothing from the original English version. Seriously, listen to this stuff!
  • When you have gems like Ilja Richter and Eberhard Prüter, then that's the sign of a good dub!
  • I consider every character voiced by Joachim Kemmer to have a better voice than their English counterparts. - Hans Frollo
  • Speaking of Disney movies, Peer Augustinski as the german voice of Genie in Aladdin deserves a mention. Robin Williams' voice acting as Genie is phenomenal and he famously improvised a lot of Genie's gags and impressions, but somehow Augustinski is still able to make the German version equally entertaining and funny.
• The German dub of Bear in the Big Blue House is one of the show's best foreign dubs ever. The character voices and personalities perfectly match the original, and the show itself has become very well-known and fondly remembered in Germany.
• Stanley Kubrick himself noted that Alex DeLarge's voice actor Jörg Pleva fits better than Malcolm McDowell's own voice.
• The German dub of The Colour of Magic has some voices in it much nicer than the original. Patrick Bach as Twoflower and Thomas Fritsch as Vetinari in particular.
• The German dub of ALF is iny my opinion far superior to the original. ALF and Willie Tanner come across as really bland and forgettable in the original, while in the german version they had a lot more character added. Willie doesn't sound as, I guess you could say grumpy and mean, but more wellmeaning and exasperated, while Tommy Pieper as ALF is just perfect. Which is why ALF is still fondly remembered in Germany.
• The third and fourth installments of Super Smash Bros. have the German announcer, played by Achim Berrenstein, and his voice is simply beautiful, comparable to Xander Mobus, being better than Pat Cashman, and outdoing all of the other European announcers. The main reason for this is probably that his delivery, especially in for 3DS/Wii U, makes him seem incredibly happy just to be there, and makes German-speaking players happy to play the game. So happy!
• The dub of Avengers Assemble keeps all of the same voice actors who're already dubbing the MCU movies for the Avengers (save those who didn't yet have roles when Avengers Assemble came out, like Falcon), and also keeps the same tone of writing from the movies, making the German version just the slightest bit more hammy and flippant than the English version.
• The Angry Beavers is an older but brilliant example of amazing German dubbing. The dub conveys perfectly the emotions as well as cultural quirks and references and it's clear how much heart was put into making the characters as (if not more) authentic as their English counterparts. The voices sound a little different in comparison at times, but capture the essence of the characters really well. It's easy to forget the show isn't originally German.
• The German dub of the Ice Age movies is pretty great and probably one of the reasons why it's such a popular franchise in Germany. Otto Waalkes, one of Germany's most popular comedians, voices Sid and gives the character some of his significant schtick while voicing him, but the voices of Manny (voiced by Arne Elsholtz until his death, who also was the standard voice actor for Tom Hanks and Bill Murray) and Diego (Thomas Fritzsch) are very on point for the characters as well.

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