Ask John: How Can Anime Fans Distinguish a Good Dub from a Sub?

Question:
Everyone is always picking on how this person’s voice sounds and how this-or-that wasn’t in the original OVA, so I was wondering, how can we tell good dubbed voice acting and content from its Japanese counterpart?

Answer:
Dub quality is purely subjective. No two people will have exactly the same opinion on an anime dub, just as no two people will enjoy a Japanese language track, movie or hit song in exactly the same way. Generally, good dubbing is determined by how accurate the translation is (remember that dubs often have to edit or re-write dialogue in order to fit English language to the mouth movements), in which case, one must have seen the Japanese version or a good subtitled version for comparison; by the sound of the voices- as in, whether or not the dub voices seem natural coming from the characters and whether or not the voices help create characterization and personality for the characters; and, finally, the actual quality of the acting- whether the dub voices express adequate emotion.

Naturally, everyone, will have his or her own opinion and prefer the sound of one audio/voice track over another. Die-hard anime fans generally prefer to watch anime in its original Japanese language not to be purist or elitist, but because many of these fans believe that Japanese voice actors simply sound more natural as the voices of anime characters and emote more effectively and more naturally than English language voice actors do. To some degree, Asian voice actors simply have a distinct natural tone and higher-pitch to their voices that’s different from Western vocal tones. Many people simply believe that anime characters sound more “real” and more natural with higher-pitched Asian voices.

Ultimately, the only real way to determine what makes a good dub or a bad dub, or compare an English dub to the original Japanese audio track is to watch a lot of anime and develop your own, personal criteria and standards.