Good Anime Dubs

But Chiyo's so cute in English :3

Nice to know Coil's getting some attention it seems, it definitely Needs More Love.

I thought the dub of Escaflowne did a good job. :)

So episode 5 of Mob Psycho 100 has confirmed it to be one of my favorite English Dubs. Damn, I cannot wait for the Alleyway Fight.

edited 10th Jan '17 3:34:17 PM by Lionheart0

What did you guys think about the Evangelion dub? I thought it was fine, but I remember this one guy with some really stilted lines.

The original one? I thought it was okay.

It got better as the characters' mindsets got worse, is how I summe it up. It's got that early dub contrast between overexcited ham and stilted delivery. It was okay for its time, but really hasn't aged all that well, especially the first half. Like I said, they all eventually found their voices by the end though.

Shinesman is the one anime where I actually prefer the English to the Japanese. I think they did some really cool things with it. Sometimes you get that effect when the dub group isn't given access to the original script, or in some way can't work with it or goes outside it (I hear a similar thing happened with Samurai Pizza Cats).

...also you're making me recall a moment in... was it Cyber City Oedo maybe? where there's a short scene that doesn't really lead to later moments in the series. This guy asks a woman out. In the Japanese, she declines. In the English, she accepts. The change has zero impact on the rest of the story. My friend and I spent far too much time wondering what made the translators think the scene needed that change.

Anyway, another dub I find pretty decent is Slayers, with the caveat that I cannot stand the English voice for Xellos (David Moo) in the first three seasons. Xellos is my favorite character and I could write several paragraphs about how much Moo's rendition does not suit him (chief point: he devolves from a nuanced character steeped in polite language and subtext to a one-note comic relief who can't be taken seriously during the drama scenes).

However, just today I found that the fourth season's voice for Xellos, Michael Sinterniklaas, actually does a bang-up job, and now I wish someone made a re-dub that put Sinterniklaas's voice (or a similar voice) in for S2-S3 Xellos but left the rest unchanged. Sinterniklaas hits just the right balance for the character whether he's innocently interacting with the group, doling out exposition, or getting serious in the more dramatic moments. I haven't yet watched in English the scene where he treats Wizer like a drinking buddy, but I imagine Sinterniklaas can nail the comedy part as well (and if he can't, that's hardly a big problem).

(The other caveat is actually that the dub adds a lot more swearing than is in the original. I ran into trouble trying to introduce a person to it, because they were very anti-swearing and I was left going "But you see, the original Japanese is rude and all but it's not like this—")

I don't remember the dub having much swearing in it.

Yeah, there wasn't really much, if any swearing from what I remember either.

I do know that Japanese doesn't really have swear words in the same way we do, there's like two proper swear words and otherwise it's just differences in formality.

That's one of the hardest to translate because the rudeness carries similar conotations, but they aren't seen as taboo or bleeped out in broadcasts like most other languages do.

So you're kind of left with a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, even if that means putting in a few "hells", "craps", or "damns" in otherwise kidfriendly stuff like Viz's dub of Sailor Moon for instance.

That might fit in with Sailor Jupiter, though, since she is a Girly Bruiser.

The Eva english dub is godawful! Don't listen to it. Just...don't.

I already have and disagree, so there.

Also this is "Good Anime Dubs" thread. If you wanna complain about NGE's dubbing, go to the NGE thread and do it there.

edited 26th Jan '17 6:51:08 PM by PhysicalStamina

I didn't remember it having much swearing either, until I was watching it. (Of course, I also once got into an infamous online battle royale over whether Monty Python used tons of blood, because my brain said "of course not, it's a comedy.")

Also, the level of words you count as swearing might be different from mine (and certainly different from the person I was trying to introduce to the series). A lot of people disregard "hell," "damn," "oh my god" and the like as "not actually swearing," when they're definitely swearing to my family (and to this girl). Doesn't have to use "fuck" and "shit" to qualify as swearing; heck, my mom still reacts negatively to the term "crap."

What's funny is that there's precisely one Japanese swear word I know of with a directly English equivalent that is used in basically the same way in both languages, and I think it's one of the few that gets watered down during translation (for shows aimed at the American kids market): "Kuso," which means "Shit." It's been a while since I've heard it, but I recall it being a bit more liberal in anime than is acceptable for cartoons over here.

Baccano's was fantastic.

Baccano is one of those series that's so American in esthetic and flavor that watching it in Japanese feels a little off, at least to me. It helps everyone effects pretty decent New York accents and throws in extra period-appropriate slang.

I recently saw the dub for Keijo. Like the show itself, it's a lot better than you'd think for a fanservice show. The voices are good and the four leads are having a lot of fun making the tit-ular sport as straight-faced as possible while shouting silly attacks. There's only a few vets to round out the side characters, reminded me a bit of Sentai's approach these days casting newer actors as leads or prominent supporting characters.