Dubbed Audio or Subtitles
 

After watching numerous foreign movies and Jap cartoons, I have come to the conclusion that I prefer the media to be in their original voice acting, even if I don't understand the language.

Dubbing just feels wrong, somewhat. Unless it's unintentionally hilarious or departs from the original dailogue, like that Woody Allen dub - Tiger Lily what what what

So what say you, MB?

I agree with you. It's very hard for me to take a dubbed movie seriously, which maybe isn't so big a deal for some action movies, but for anything else it can really kill the experience.

Godzilla movies are the only movies i feel are better dubbed :)

Very very rarely do I ever watch something with dubbed voices, in fact I can't really think of an example of when I would, except like bob said, when it's done for humor. I don't mind reading subtitles, I don't find it distracts me too much from the movie, in fact I think I actually follow the movie better when I'm forced to read along as well. If an anime has hired professional English voice actors like in Cowboy Bebop I'll watch them, but I don't really know if that's dubbing or a minor re imagining.

I would say dubbed if they were properly done, but 99% of the time it is awful.

Sometimes I have subtitles and the dub on at the same time to compare. Yes, I am a lunatic.

Interestingly, Cowboy Bebop is the only thing that comes to mind where I prefer the Dubbed to the Subbed. I think you're right with the professional actor lark - a lot of effort obviously went into the dubbing of that, and it's also a more Western concept and feel than a Japanese one, so the Japanese voices sound weird...

I think generally a film or an animation is made for the culture that made it, so the voices that suit best are the voices of that culture... Subbed all the way!

I think this poll needs the option "Subtitles, unless I plan on falling asleep to the movie".

:laughing:

Or ""Subtitles, unless I plan on folding laundry, paying bills, etc. while watching the movie"

I couldn't ever imagine somebody properly dubbing a park chan-wook film. With anime I'll be lenient in the rare case the dub is good(which is rare, and I watch very very little anime so eh...)

Albeit, I adore American films that purposely redub themselves horribly in order to masquerade as foreign films. IE. The classic 'Enter the Ninja':

You raise an interesting point that I never thought of, that being that Cowboy Bebop is a more western styled show. I don't know why I never thought about that, I guess because it didn't really feel foreign my mind never made the association. I felt the same with the steam punk anime Steamboy, but I think that's more because it was kind of weird to see a movie set in 19th century England with people speaking Japanese.

If I watch a more Japanese based anime like Slayers or Full Metal Alchemist I'll use the subtitled option because the dubbing just feels off.

There's that and the fact that the overdubs were done by seasoned, professional voice-actors who know their chops. Talking of anime, off the top of my head the dubbed versions of Akira and Paprika were pretty good too.

All in all dubbing doesn't bother me some of the time, but bad dubbing really takes me out of a movie. As most dubs I've ever heard are pretty awful, I'm a sub kinda guy, especially when it comes to live action movies. I remember seeing the dubbed version of Time Crimes and marveling at how cheesy the voiceovers were when those brain cells should have been figuring out what the hell was going on in the movie.

By the way, if anyone wants to see dubbing at its absolute worst, check out Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio and Garzey's Wing.

That's weird, I always thought the dubbing for FMA was really good. In general, i actually think that dubbing in anime is much more watchable than in live action films cause it doesn't look as bad when animated mouths are out of sync.

In anime, I think it's much more important for the voice actors to have charisma and fit with the general vibe of the character than be dubbed correctly. Having both is nice too though.Hayao Miyazaki - IMDb

i actually really liked the dub on Slayers....i love the voice for Lena

Did you see the subbed version before the dubbed, as a matter of interest? Have you seen the subbed since?

i compared the subs to the dubs on films like Let the Right One In and Salon Kitty

the subs are actually more intricate than the dubbed dialogue

I prefer my foreign content subtitled as well. You lose so much of the character, the actor's expression, when it's dubbed over by someone in a studio. There's such a great disconnect between what you're seeing and hearing, you can't immerse yourself in the plot. Dubbing is a distraction, and often really tarnishes the original intent of the plot, characters, and film as a whole.

There's also the added amusement when you have a basic understanding of the language, and those inevitable moments occur where the wording of the original statement is totally lost in the subtitles :P

Subtitles obviously, dubbing is so hilariously awful, even in cartoons. I'm so glad we don't dub anything in Sweden, otherwise our English would be on the level of the Germans or the French.