Why is it so hard for westerners to make a good sounding dub...

Why is it so hard for westerners to make a good sounding dub? Is it really that hard to make a fun voice that doesn't sound like an old hag?

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animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2016-02-26/.99020
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19739753.
youtube.com/watch?v=zhr-f5LTJPM
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Compare how much they are paid.

Yes, to put it bluntly.

Also westerners / yanks have no understanding of cute, and generally tend to be very "ironic".

why would you watch dubs?

NEVER
NEVER
NEVER
NEVER fucking listen to french dubs and especially in Monogotari!

ruskies make good dubs

I don't watch dubs but I might if they weren't so shit

Amercian voice acting is shit.
Italians and Brazilians do it right, though. So not all westerners have dull sounding dubs.

got any examples? here in germany we have garbage dubs

>Why is it so hard for westerners to make a good sounding dub?
It wouldn't be hard if the priorities were such.
But why make a good dub when retards will be happy with a bad one, and unable to tell the difference anyway?

Why do weebs tend to be snobbish? Short answer: lack of money to hire decent voice actors, time restraints, and low quality control.

>dubbers don't watch the source material
>dubbers don't care about the source material
>dubbers don't get paid enough to pretend to care about the source material

>weebs

I wish Troy Baker still did anime. He was one of the good ones. But he seems to have disappeared from anime roles. Steve Blum has less and less roles too over the years. Same for Crispin Freeman. I think all of those guys are really good at what they do.

Now they use that Bryce Papenbrook guy to voice all the big teenage MCs like Shirou, Kirito and Eren. And I'm not a fan of his voice. I noticed Christopher Sabat seemed to get more leading roles too but I'm not a huge fan of him outside of side characters. I like his Vegeta voice but for everything new he seems to be using the Piccolo voice. Johnny Yong Bosch also seems to have no problem getting roles since I feel like I hear him in every show too. But he's a lot like this Bryce guy, feels like they're trying too hard.

I sometimes watch Toonami just to support anime being shown in the US and when I listen to these newer shows like OPM and IBO being dubbed it really shows how dire the state of dubs is.

There is quite a few good english dubs, people are just not used to hearing non-moon coming from characters mouths witch makes all dubs seem bad.

Another thing is that you can judge voice acting in a language you understand a lot better than in a language you don't, which makes the extreme exaggeration of Japanese VAs seem like good acting when in reality it's just default pissed off anime guy or default cute girl and so on.

youtube.com/watch?v=FAFcox4tvy4
This video has some decent acting ranges. Japanese is clearly the superior one, badnai and german are fine and chinese and animax dubs are garbage.

>people are just not used to hearing non-moon coming from characters mouths
That's wrong.
I started with dubs. I switched and never looked back because they were always bad.

>Another thing is that you can judge voice acting in a language you understand a lot better than in a language you don't
This so much.
When my english level got better english dub started to sound worse; dub in my native language also sounds bad even though people from other places say we have great dubs.

>Another thing is that you can judge voice acting in a language you understand a lot better than in a language you don't, which makes the extreme exaggeration of Japanese VAs seem like good acting when in reality it's just default pissed off anime guy or default cute girl and so on.
I learned moon and now watch anime raw, and I still love Japanese voice acting.

most anime dialogue is really stupid

Same could be said of Sup Forums.

True, but that's because many anime have shit writers.

most anime is really stupid so nice retarded post dipshit

>Another thing is that you can judge voice acting in a language you understand a lot better than in a language you don't
This is horseshit.

Americans have good voice actors it's just that none of them dub anime.

nice argument

Established without evidence, dismissed without evidence and all that.

Correct. American anime dub VAs make fucking Seth McFarlane seem like a fucking god

youtu.be/Wec6QmAZd5Y
The only good dub

No. American voice acting is solid. It's just the dubs that are atrocious.

Whether or not they study the source material has nothing to do with the quality of dubs. By your logic, Crispin Freeman dubs are awesome.

Dubs are just intrinsically bad. Until they start redoing the animation so actors don't have to "match the flap," dubs will remain bad.

>Dubs are just intrinsically bad.
No, they aren't.
But there is very little reason to make a good dub, since most people don't care.

The way Japanese is structured is different from English, which makes translations awkward because people have to talk in ways they wouldn't normally talk in.

>I started with dubs.
I'm in the same boat and for majority of shows I watch both dubbed and subbed I preferred subbed, but calling calling every dub bad is just ignorant.

There is more to acting then just how the language sounds to you. According to a guy from ann a lot of voice work in anime can't be considered good acting.
animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2016-02-26/.99020

It's established through common sense. Understanding what a line is supposed to convey gives you a lot more to work with when it comes to judging the way it was delivered. It's additional information you can't have without knowing the language.

>calling calling every dub bad is just ignorant.
I don't call every dub bad. Only every anime dub I've ever heard and most other dubs.

>It's established through common sense.
No, common sense is not valid evidence for anything.

What would you even consider evidence in this case? A director/actor/critic saying it is/isn't so? I doubt a conclusive scientific study would even be feasible for something like this.

>I doubt a conclusive scientific study would even be feasible for something like this.
But it would be really simple.
Have 50 guys who don't speak the language watch a subtitled video and decide whether the voice acting matches the emotion depicted (and the emotions that would make sense to go along with the text). You can also have them vote for the voice acting quality if you really need to.

Then have 50 guys who DO speak the language complete the same test.
There you go. Evidence. It's just a small sample, but it's more than just your opinion.

Because good western VAs don't voice anime, it's that simple. It's the same as good writers don't write LNs

>What would you even consider evidence in this case?
Just as an example, if you could point me to a single youtube video saying that Japanese vocal cues (like raising your voice or whatever) don't match English cues and often confuse foreigners who think they are being threatened or flirted with or whatever, then you'll have some evidence.

They are inherently inferior, this has always been the case this will always be the case.
This not at all limited to anime, anime is merely a fringe issue.

>They are inherently inferior,
Probably true. I certainly won't argue against it.
I'm only arguing against the "automatically bad". It is possible to make good dubs. It just requires more work than most companies would care to invest, and I am not talking about reanimating things, because matching the mouthflapping to the speech is something that is not even always consistent with original releases.

But, is the japanese dub really as good as people say?
Don't misunderstand me, I love it as much as the next weeb, but it's pretty easy to shit on foreign dubs when comparing it to the japanese dub made specifically for a japanese animation.

Have anyone ever watched a non-japanese animation/movie with japanese voices? Can you say it was a good dub? Or on the contrary, can you say english dubs made for american cartoons are bad?

My country usually does a good job with animations and comedy dubs, although it usually can't beat the original.

Black Lagoon was better dubbed desu.

I like and prefer english dubs and I think bitching and whining about them makes you look like a sissyfaggot.

>But, is the japanese dub really as good as people say?
It's usually not great. I particularly hate any crying scenes because usually that's what they botch up the worst.

And then there are a number of anime I dropped for their general voice acting.

[I don't speak Japanese at all.]

It's not about whether they are good or bad, this would legitimize their existence.
There is no reason for them to exist in the first place and they are quite frankly disrespecting the people who made the original material, as they seek to replace it when an adequate method of making people understand already exists.

It doesn't matter whether they're good or bad, they should not exist.

>I particularly hate any crying scenes because usually that's what they botch up the worst.
Man I just hate most female seiyuu in general, they sound grating on my ears. I much prefer dubs even if the female voices sound more adult than they should.

>It doesn't matter whether they're good or bad, they should not exist.
Yeah fuck niggers whites are already superior there's no point to them.
In summary, you're an ass.

The French dub somehow increases the moe factor of this scene

>they are quite frankly disrespecting the people who made the original material,
No, it isn't. Just because you like American-style pizza doesn't mean you are disrespecting Italian pizza.
Just because you like Italian pizza, doesn't mean you are disrespecting the inventor of bread.

It's not the original, but that means it's something new. If an adequate amount of effort and skill went into it, it may even be worth watching. I agree that on the topic of dubs, it's usually not even worth trying, but the potential is there.

false equivalency

>even if the female voices sound more adult than they should.
That is not my primary problem with dubs.

That's a very retarded reasoning.
>blind people can only 'watch' things with the languanges they know same for kids and illiterates
>nobody can enjoy listening to their own language over another's

Would something like this work then?
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19739753.
Different vocal range when expressing sarcasm.

Literally what? What about people who don't understand moon? You can't justify learning a language just to watch some cartoons.

false equivalency
Please don't make food analogies, they don't work. To use one of those awful food analogies, dubbing a film or any other media is like drowning a steak in ketchup.
It has nothing to do with creating something new based on the old, but simply making the old palatable to a new audience in a needlessly tasteless fashion.
The important thing here is that alternatives exist. You don't have to overdub something, removing something from the original and adding your own to it. This is the center of my argument, alternatives do exist.

Blinds and illiterates are irrelevant minority groups.
Your personal enjoyment is irrelevant.

If you can't figure out the obvious alternative, you are clearly retarded.

Of course.
We can argue about how far the similarities between Cantonese and Japanese go (though it's unlikely that Japanese is closer to English than to Chinese), or about how easy it is for English people to pick up and learn the difference, but it is evidence.

I thought the English dub of Spice and Wolf was pretty good.

>dubbing a film or any other media is like drowning a steak in ketchup.
No, it isn't. That would be the equivalent of just replacing the background music with extra-loud dubstep.
Changing the entire audio with actual forethought means to change the entire recipe.

>It has nothing to do with creating something new based on the old,
But it does. The new voice track didn't exist previously. The music has also been remuxed. It's a new composition.

>making the old palatable to a new audience in a needlessly tasteless fashion.
I have heard American pizza described that way. Funny, isn't it?

>The important thing here is that alternatives exist.
Exactly. Italian pizza.

Subs aren't much better as an alternative since you care so much about respecting the original source material. The translation is still altered in subs just like dubs.

Dubs are already great. The problem is dependent on which you watch first and how you think something should sound based on which was first.

The same exact thing happens in Japan where people complain that voice actors from an anime are nothing like the voice actors from drama CDs. And don't tell me they don't.

The perfect way to win any and all such arguments about 'but western dubs suck' is to show you what characters you're accustomed to in English face when the show goes the other way.

youtube.com/watch?v=zhr-f5LTJPM

I win

>The problem is dependent on which you watch first
No, it isn't. I can confirm from personal experience.

It is not the way the director intended it to be.
I used that particular analogy to focus on the aspect of changing something after it has already been finished.

That's because it is, but that's another issue.

translations are necessary

>The perfect way to win any and all such arguments about 'but western dubs suck' is to show you what characters you're accustomed to in English face when the show goes the other way.

Nobody is arguing against the English language you retard. We are arguing against redubbing an anime with shitty dubs. You didn't win shit. You're just being stupid.

>It is not the way the director intended it to be.
American pizza is not the way the Italians intended it to be.

The analogy works.

I thought OPM's Saitama did a pretty good job of sounding like a normal dude bored off his ass

>The problem is dependent on which you watch first
This doesn't really hold true for me. I completed NGE and K-on english dubbed first but after rewatching them in japanese I can't go back. Something similar but with the language order switched happened with LWA.

yes, but unlike food, there is an OBJECTIVELY correct form.

The French dub of Soul Eater was pretty good

So you say.

What I'm saying is those translations aren't going to be perfect replica of the original script, just like dubs are. You're overestimating how faithful and consistent subbing can be.

that's fine, but it's needed.

Why even make dubs in the first place, there's no need unless it's childrens movie.

>why make dubs
>makes quads
beautiful

>Japanese
Standard

>English 1
Well, zero effort

>English 2
Tryhard "cute" voice

>Chinese
CHANGZHONGDINGDONG (the voices kinda fit though)

>German
Is there a German dub that isn't shit? Ever?

>French
Pretty good, but IMO French voice actors always sound too old. I hear two adult women, two convincing adult women but two adult women nonetheless. Same with the French Garden of Words dub: the MC sounded too old to be in high school.

>Is there a German dub that isn't shit? Ever?
Watch old stuff like Once Upon A Time In The West/Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod.

>chinese
it's like nails on a blackboard

>According to a guy from ann
Really nigger?

If ann is negative about something concerning anime there really has to be a lot of truth to it.

animenewsnetwork.com/review/fate-stay-night-unlimited-blade-works/episode-20/.88524

Holy shit I just can't handle anything that isnt japanese

>all of that
>Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university.
im fucking dead

>t. anime pro

It just sounds silly and cringe
>t.

There's more money in western cartoons and video games.

Imagine Grey Delisle or Tara Strong voicing in anime.

My country's, portugal portuguese dubs are the most fucking cringeworthy

Overall portuguese jp fans are all weeaboo cringeworthy but

Everybody sounds either:
>extremely monotone
>talking/pronunciation extremely unnatural
>moaning like a pornstar
>forced as hell
>sounds they have 3 sticks shoved up their asses
>sounds recorded on a 5€ recorder in some basement
>literal reciting, no emotions (that aren't forced)

True shit. There's no money in anime dubs. There's good English voice acting out there but it's certainly not being done in anime.

Japanese voice acting is actually on average, not so great. If you compare it to the average level of English dubs it's significantly better, but I think that's partially because the Japanese will work harder for less pay, and because there's actually a real market for voice acting over there that breeds real talent. There's also something to be said for things getting "lost in translation" and not sounding nearly as good just because the author's intent can't be communicated as effectively in other languages. This, actually, is the biggest reason I probably would never prefer an English dub in something like anime (bar something like crazy good dub + complete shit original writing).

Japanese anime VAs fucking suck though. Every time I see discussions about voice acting, I don't know whether Sup Forums is actually listening to the show or not. Even crazily-funded stuff like SAO2 had completely shit voice acting. Typically the only stuff with decent voice acting are "arthouse" works and stuff aimed at an older audience.

>talking/pronunciation extremely unnatural
>forced as hell
>sounds they have 3 sticks shoved up their asses
Cell's portuguese dub in a nutshell.