Dubbed Anime That Make You Cringe

The strange thing is, is that most people I know who have a problem with dubbed anime don't even understand Japanese, and yet they have a problem with dubs. I don't really understand.
 
It isn't really that hard to understand, it is clearly easier to spot dry voice acting in a language you speak.

That being said people that say they hate all dubs are usually weaboos, taking those people seriously is not something I tend to do.
 
Seems some people already mentioned this: 4Kids One Piece.
As far as I'm concerned, it's quite argueably the worst dub ever made. (I'd love to see some other dub be worse.) 4Kids had its fair share of good and bad dubs back in the day, but when I stop and look back, I think the negatives outweigh the positives... :/
 
Thergox said:
Well, BlackStar's voice in Soul Eater was pretty terrible -- it's even worse when you first read the manga before watching the show, and then he bursts in with this terrible, squeaking 5-year-old voice. . . It was nothing like I had expected, or wanted to expect. I did like everyone else's voices (especially Death), but BlackStar's made me cringe, for sure.
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His dubbed voice was pretty much exactly the same as the Japanese voice, though! Unless you don't really like either of them haha. In which case I'd understand.

Hm.. I don't really dislike any dubs but I suppose YGO wasn't the best since every other dialogue line was changed and some text was completely rewritten. Was really strange at times and many of the rewrites felt totally unnecessary.
 
Pokemon. I was fine with it all the way to Sinnoh arc :I

Clannad dubbed, didn't have the same effect for me as the subbed o.o

Fairy tail dubbed. Just sounds weird to me o.o

But to be fair I like a few dubbed anime versions:

Hellsing Ultimate-I loved Alucard's VA, and Walter's aswell :O

DBZ-Goku sounds more manlier.

Hotd-I still prefer subbed version but I think they did a pretty good job on dubbed to, I'm in love with Saeko's voice haha o.o
 
-Lapras- said:
It isn't really that hard to understand, it is clearly easier to spot dry voice acting in a language you speak.
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I've wondered about the inverse of this for years now because I've heard people say that there's no such thing as bad Japanese voice acting. If a person doesn't speak Japanese, then how are they supposed to know whether Japanese voice acting is good or bad? The only answer I've ever gotten for that is "You just know," except it's not that simple at all. Even if Japanese is your first language and you understand the fundamentals of bad line delivery, it eventually comes down to opinion as well.
 
-Lapras- said:
It isn't really that hard to understand, it is clearly easier to spot dry voice acting in a language you speak.

That being said people that say they hate all dubs are usually weaboos, taking those people seriously is not something I tend to do.
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Except when people say that a dub of an anime is bad, more than likely, they compare it to the sub. And more than likely, they don't understand what's being said without subtitles to begin with, so how do they know that the sub isn't bad either? Is it because Japanese just sounds so cool to Western ears? Or is it legitimately better? Really, they have no idea. In most cases, when a dub isn't good, I see people saying things like "This sucks. I'm just going to watch the sub."

I've always found dubs to be a lot more convenient, seeing as how I don't understand Japanese. So I don't understand the logic in throwing away the convenience of it all - the ability to look away and not have to have your entire focus on the dialogue and reading subs - just because someone doesn't like the voice acting. I don't really even understand how people can judge the voice acting past "is the voice conveying emotion?"
 
FLCL had some pretty interesting dubs -- one of the more comedic parts was when the characters would say something on screen, but the subtitles would say something completely different. It was something you would completely miss if you only watched it subbed. That said, the English voice acting was pretty good in that one, though I've only bothered to watch two of its episodes in full-Japanese mode.

That said, I don't know Japanese. I'd much prefer to listen to a language I understand and know rather than listen to something that might even be considered terrible in Japan (The Big O lost a lot of points over there, but won more over here, for example). If I could spend a day in Japan and listen to how people speak, then maybe I would have a better time listening to the Japanese version and be able to compare it to the English one. However, unless we HAVE done that, we have no way of telling whether the dubs are better. . . Unless we'd really prefer to blank out the voices we consider annoying (BlackStar).

Ah, and Kino's Journey had excellent English voice acting. I love that anime to death -- shame there's only one season of it.
 
Mostly anything made from VIZ Media or 4Kids tend to be on my blacklist. Most of the time I will admit it's just preference. I just like the subbed voices over the dubbed. I like almost all of the Funimation Dubs though, except maybe Kaze No Stigma, Ayano's voice just gets a tad grating at times. To be fair though that's supposed to be part of her character.
 
I know Japanese (well, enough of it) and I can't do dubs anymore. It's often an issue with delivery of lines - inflection, tone - just general acting level. Not everything in Japanese is perfect, mind you, but in Japan when they record the voices for a scene they have all the actors recording together, playing off one another, and I don't think that's too common in English dubbing.

I haven't really listened to dubs in a while so I can't really say what things are like now, but I remember dubs feeling like they had only a dozen different people playing all the voices and most of them sounded middle-aged even if they characters were supposed to be 10 years old.
 
Ash493 said:
Dubbed anime? I already puke just from hearing those words together.
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Smh... Baccano is an anime that sounds better with it's dub and if you haven't seen baccano shame on you XD

Anyways... bad anime dubs? Higurashi, 4kids dubs, most popular shonen, Clannad was pretty bad, and most tries at sounding moe
 
Dominic said:
Except when people say that a dub of an anime is bad, more than likely, they compare it to the sub. And more than likely, they don't understand what's being said without subtitles to begin with, so how do they know that the sub isn't bad either? Is it because Japanese just sounds so cool to Western ears? Or is it legitimately better? Really, they have no idea. In most cases, when a dub isn't good, I see people saying things like "This sucks. I'm just going to watch the sub."
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To add to this, it mostly depends what you start watching it in. I watch when anime comes out in japanese - therefore I've probably watched the entire series before it is dubbed. That means my 'normal' voice for the characters is Japanese and it's hard to derail that, even if I don't understand.

Imagine a character in a non-animated, american show suddenly changing voice and it's alot like that.
 
I'm more inclined to watch dubs; they're easier to watch and my eyes tend to wander watching subs and I miss important pieces of dialog. However I couldn't stand the Fruits Basket dub; a few minutes through the first episode and I couldn't take any more of the protagonist's voice.

The Lucky Star dub is pretty bad as well, but at least it's kind of bearable. Minami (especially Minami), Miyuki, and Hiyori were well-cast, Yutaka was kinda good too (although nothing can beat her Japanese VA), and the rest sucked. The Hiiragis in particular.
 
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