Good Anime Dubs

I'm well aware of how Anime Fans tend to have a universally negative response to English dubs. So what are some Dubs that you actually happen to like? I could name some obvious ones myself {DBZ and the original Dragon Ball, Cowboy Bebop, Black Lagoon, etc}, but instead I'll talk about the one anime where I fully saw it subbed before watching the dub, and that would be Kill La Kill.

I think the KLK dub actors did a fantastic job with the series. The acting is great and the voices fit all of the characters. Erica Mendez as Ryuko, Carrie Keranen as Satsuki, Sarah Williams as Nonon, Stephanie Sheh as Nui and Laura Post as Ragyo in particular are my favorite dub actors for the series. I think I actually like the last two even more then the original JP actors, honestly. In general the dub still does a great job of showing off the series insanity, comedy and the occasional feels. It's without a doubt one of my favorite dubs ever.

edited 25th Feb '16 10:58:04 AM by marston

I always prefer even a bad dub over watching in Japanese, but there are a few other stand-out english dubs you haven't already listed.

Gurren Lagann and Fullmetal Alchemist are both great examples of recent-ish dubs, and Space Dandy is probably one of the best dubs of the last couple years. Dandy's zany humor works so much better when you can understand the language, and the casting is perfect all around.

edited 25th Feb '16 10:34:34 AM by Cuber

You're just in time. Bayble Cuber's going to watch an inkle dribble adventure from days of old on my holo-pyramid viewer.

The best dubs I've seen have been Panty and Stocking and Yu Yu Hakusho. PSG actually rather surprised me if I'm honest, I wouldn't have expected it of all things to get such a good localization but the only thing the original japanese has over it is the hilarious engrish, otherwise they're about on par.

The main problem with most anime dubs is the dialogue and VA are just way too stilted. The more natural a dub can be while being faithful to the original, the better. Woolseyism is your friend. I don't see watching anime subbed as that different from watching a foreign film in a language I don't fully understand, so I've never had a problem. I'm not a native english speaker to begin with.

edited 25th Feb '16 11:30:33 AM by wehrmacht

El-Hazard: The Magnificent World first OAV and You're Under Arrest! (at leas the OA Vs for that one)

edited 25th Feb '16 12:04:00 PM by KnightofLsama

I thought Gundam SEED had a pretty decent dub, particularly for Athrun, Mu and Rau. One of the weak points was Lacus's singing voice obviously being a different actor... which ironically enough was fixed by the dub of Gundam SEED Destiny.

While I'm not a fan of the Log Horizon dub (Naotsugu sounds like a Totally Radical American football player, and Akatsuki sounds distractingly like Saber on helium), its Nyanta is amazing.

There are good performances in Gurren Lagann, but it also makes Kamina less of a Large Ham when a large part of his character was inspiring people to greatness by convincing them he was Crazy Awesome enough to do anything. Also the random dialogue changes bug me, like "Breaker" to "Break" and "pierce the heavens" to "create the heavens".

edited 25th Feb '16 2:22:43 PM by Prime32

Your issues with the Gurren Lagann dub mostly sound like nitpicking to me. I guess your problem with Hebert as Kamina is a legit complaint, even though I disagree.

You're just in time. Bayble Cuber's going to watch an inkle dribble adventure from days of old on my holo-pyramid viewer.

"Create the Heavens" was in the original for the final battle, too.

Watch Symphogear

Spice and Wolf, and it's successor of sorts Snow White with the Red Hair are very good. They manage older sounding English with archaic phrasing and uncontracted words to get across the dialect without going ye old butchered English. They have some of the best chemistry in dubbing, and for anyone that is in the know that ain't an easy task with the separate recordings. The leads in both have some wonderful banter.

Baccano is another classic. Another instance like PSG where the setting naturally subscribes to English dialogue, being set in 1930s New York. They give most characters over the top but fitting accents and use a lot of period slang and rewrite some lines to make the setting more accurate, with some delicious, delicious ham.

It starts out a little rough and isn't quite the best dub ever, but Sailor Moon's redub has been pretty great, especially in its more serious moments when the actors get more feelsie material to work with. It's full of cheese, but that's more because of the time and place the series was made and I appreciate they don't tone down either the camp value or more adult themes and jokes. It's a faithful dub, and I still find myself amazed that you can now hear a faithful translation in English. Crystal being more serious and faster paced is just a bit better and gives the characters some great moments to shine.

"No will to break."

The German dubs of The Devil Is A Part Timer is the best German dub of the decade.

Also good are No Game No Life, Girls Und Panzer, Steins Gate and Jormungand.

Overall German dubs made a turn for the better over the last three years, after the Dork Age that gave us the abortion that was the German Naruto dub.

edited 26th Feb '16 12:31:25 PM by Kiefen

There's quite a few dubs I really love:

• Attack on Titan
• Bacanno!
• Blue Lagoon
• Code Geass
• Cowboy Bebop
• Death Note
• Dragonball Z Kai
• Durarara
• Eureka 7
• Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood
• Hellsing Ultimate
• Kill La Kill
• Rebuild Evangelion
• Samurai Champloo
• Space Dandy
• Yu Yu Hakusho

And majority of the Studi Ghibli movies.

edited 26th Feb '16 12:08:19 PM by Lionheart0

Yuki Yuna is a hero had a pretty impressive dub, I thought.

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

Ping Pong: the Animation had a fantastic dub, if i do say so myself.

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

Forgot about Toradora, that was a good one.

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

The Italian dub of Evangelion is incredibly good, especially Shinji's VA, who is, dare I say, better than Ogata.

i freaking LOVE the FU Nimation dub of Hyperdimension Neptunia: The Animation, they got the same V As as in the games. the dialogue flows naturally and i feel like it matches their characters. standout credit should be given to Anonydeath, who becomes the Roman Torchwick of the show.

Bumbleby is best ship. busy spending time on r/RWBY and r/anime. Unapologetic Socialist

Best dubs IMO:

1. Please Teacher

2. Please Twins

3. Mahoromatic anime

4. Kannazuki No Miko

5. Kurokami anime

6. Mobile Suit Gundam 0080 War In The Pocket

7. Mobile Suit Gundam The08th MS Team

8. Mobile Suit Gundam F 91

9. Girls Bravo anime

10. Monster anime

11. Rurouni Kenshin anime

12. Tsukihime anime

13. Love Hina anime

edited 4th May '16 1:32:51 PM by HallowHawk

Yu Yu Hakusho and Black Lagoon, the latter especially since the characters have accents.

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

Lionheart 0 pretty much named all the ones I've liked in dub. If I were to add anymore though, Gundam is usually decent, someone already mentioned Gurren Lagann, Bleach, Shakugan No Shana was pretty good. Yeah that's about all I can remember.

"That's a to-go order. See! It's already gone!!"

Hmm, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. I expect that a dub of this series wouldn't capture the hammyness the Japanese Dub provided. But upon watching it, it turned out great.

What helps is in that dub it gives the characters noticeable accents which fits for a series as over the top as this. While I am annoy a little from certain line changes, other line change actually improved the narrative. And I have to say I really prefer Joseph's voice in the dub over the original (seriously, having him sound like a teenage Numbuh One adds to the Crazy Awesome to the character.

In short, I find it to be a really good dub. Its a shame Stroheim isn't as bombastic as I expected

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So no mention of Cowboy Bebop?

I've heard the dub is considered better than the original.

edited 4th May '16 6:13:42 PM by HandsomeRob

One Strip! One Strip!

My first Seinen anime and yeah definitely the best example of Dubs over Subs. How else did Steve Blum find work after doing this show?

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It was mentioned earlier in this thread.

"That's a to-go order. See! It's already gone!!"

FLCL gets on the dub from me, especially given how much they had to work around with some of the jokes that didn't translate well.

PSG is a great one to me too; in all honesty I think it's actually funnier than the JP voice track, just because of the writing being cleverer.

KLK is a B+ dub to me, a lot of the performances are great, but I don't know if Satsuki's VA ever really clicked for me.

Rurouni Kenshin stuck out as a good dub, but anything with Steve Blum is going to be awesome. Seriously, Shishio is so good.

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