ninjausagi wrote:
It's trash like that which turned me away from dub. Some of the subtitled stuff is just as bad. Some companies *coughADVcough* just take the American teenager-ized dub scripts and slap them on the Original Japanese and call it subtitles. Half the time it isn't even remotley close to what they're saying. It makes me glad I learned enough Japanese to understand what they're really saying. I think they forget that when people watch anime, they want to watch what was actually produced not what some idealistic go-getter thinks we would relate to better.
Hmm....I really hadn't noticed that too badly with the ADV shows I've seen, such as Azumanga Daioh and Noir. Not everything is necessarily word for word how I would translate it (I speak a decent amount of Japanese myself), but on the other hand, many of the changes actually make sense. Azumanga was especially well done in my opinion, especially with the translation notes provided with each disk. Sometimes they changed a few words to something more Americanized, but they noted the change and the reason in the notes. Other times they kept the culturally based notation in the show, but did a nice job of explaining it in the notes. I still need to read the notes for the Okinawa episodes. I could figure out most of the other cultural references throughout the show, but I know next to nothing about Okinawa, except that some of my sensei admitted not understanding half of what was said in Okinawan-Japanese. Perhaps there are other ADV anime that weren't done so well? Or maybe early on they did horrible Americanizations and have learned their lesson? I haven't seen very many from ADV. Only Azumanga, Noir, and Evangelion. Azumanga and Noir I felt were very well done. Evangelion I don't remember all that well. It was weird. I hated Shinji. That's pretty much it. :p
On Jasujo's reference to hating dubs...I hate them. I see they serve a purpose for children, but I still hate them and will not watch them. I could care less if anime are hacked to death in dubs because I simply will not watch them. Sure, I started on dubbed Sailor Moon. That's the only dubbed anime I've ever seen though. I've tried a few minutes here or there when I've come across Adult Swim or the anime they show on International Channel (why do they show dubs there?!?) and have yet to find one that was tolerable. But that's just my opinion. I'll always tell people to watch the sub, that the dubs are terrible, but whether they do or not is their perogative. Doesn't matter to me one way or the other, as long as no one forces me to watch a dub as well. ^_^v
EDIT: Ah, I just noticed that ADV did Slayers. Okay, yes, I can see the "American Teenager-ized dub script" in use in
that show very, very clearly. Then again, that's a very old series, so while I don't find it 'justifiable', it is at least a bit understandable that they did it. Wrong and idiotic, but understandable, at least from my perspective. At least it does seem they've learned from those mistakes in the more recent series that I've seen.