English dubs versus Original Japanese or Fanboys Need to Grow up and Gtfo

Where I'm from, dubs are basically for one thing, and for one thing alone: kids. They can't read fast enough so subtitles are not option, and they might not have fully developed the brain functions necessary to process both picture, sound and text at the same time. So I fully understand that 4Kids needs to dub their stuff and I have no problem with that.

But from the age group of 12-13 years and up, which a lot of anime in the US and elsewhere is being marketed to, this shouldn't really be a problem. And that's my reason for disliking dubs: because it's simply unnecessary. It's not that I don't want to have it in my native language, but that I want to have it in the original language, the original version. All these changes are just stupid and pointless in my eyes. And it's not some Japanophile mentality; I don't want to watch Crouching Tiger in English, I don't want to watch STALKER in Swedish or play the Legacy of Kain games in Japanese. I don't want to watch a fullscreen version of a widescreen film, a widescreen version of a fullscreen film or a colourised version of a B&W film. I don't want to watch something that's been censored or edited, where the entire premise has been changed or the music replaced etc. etc.

You don't understand why people don't want to watch anime with dubs, I don't understand why people necessarily have to have dubs for everything when it's perfectly fine in Japanese. Something probably close to 80% of the international movie market is already English-language Hollywood films, isn't that enough?

Then there's another side to it: that it's responsible for some annoying problems with the anime industry. You yourself complained about the price of anime DVDs in the 'buying' thread. Why are they so expensive? Partly because of the cost of dubbing. And for example why won't classic anime get licensed? Because they're often long and it would not be economically feasible to dub it all. So why can't they license and release them only with subs? Because then people bitch and moan that there's no dub, they won't buy it, and hence no one will license it. Same goes for a lot of niche titles.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Seris

MEANWHILE, those of you arguing that dubbing is for kids are retarded. Shut up and stop posting, please.

Why? It's true. More of the 'different cultures' thing, but if you go browse the DVDs in a store here, you will not find a single movie with Swedish dubbing that is not for kids. I don't see why that couldn't be a legitimate argument for disliking dubbing, in the same way as someone who is used to everything and their grandma being dubbed, advocating them.

There's nowhere I can't reach.