Dub mistakes

[Hitokiri Shadow]

After discussing some of the errors of certain dubs in another forum, I have decided to start a thread about mistakes and mistranslations in Dubs and just plain awful voice acting. This is NOT intended to be a dub vs. sub thread, but about specific mistakes.

I have heard a lot of people complain about the Inu-Yasha dub. I've heard from one person on another thread about some of the problems. But I'm curious to hear what other people have to say, either on Inu-Yasha or other anime.

Also, what is the best translation and/or dub job you have seen and what is the worst. Feel free to list more than one.

I think the translation and dub of Ceres, Celestial Legend was pretty good. (And in this case, I did actually see the original subtitled version before it was licensed in the U.S.)

As for worst, I'm not sure but I didn't like the voice of Yahiko in the Samurai X movie (he sounded like a middle-aged man).

 

[Perceivence]

Ceres...are you talking about Ayashi no Ceres by...by...by...by...who's that by again? The intro's name is Scarlet.

 

[Qyöt27]

Well, generally I don't focus on the inconsistencies between dubs and subs, since most companies nowadays don't alter the storyline or edit out scenes based on the FCC (like DiC did for Sailor Moon or Nelvana did with Cardcaptors). I'm not one to harp on spelling, although the occasional censorship of some of the harsher profanities in some series takes away some of the force behind the original meaning of the dialogue. I can really only think of one at the moment, in Please Teacher! where Hyosuke drops an F-bomb during an argument with Kei. The dubbed version of the episode replaces that word with something else but the forcefulness of the original dialogue was dampened.

Despite that, I do feel that Please Teacher! was well dubbed, but there were some parts of the script that I felt were somewhat annoying, such as Kei repeatedly calling Mizuho 'Ms. Kazami' or 'Teacher' when in the Japanese he did say her first name. Aside from that, all the times 'priority one' is repeated was a little grating. I think those were the major problems.

I think the best dubbed series are:

Please Teacher!
X TV (the English voice for Kamui sounds so eerily similar to the Japanese actor, it's scary; the same goes for the movie as well, although overall the movie's dubbing wasn't all that great)
Read Or Die OVA - Simply on the point that the characters that are British actually sound British (whether that's because the actors are or just because they're good at mimicking the accent, I don't know). The rest of the actors are well fit to their characters as well.
Chobits
Oh My Goddess! OVA and movie (although I don't really like the fact that Pioneer didn't get the voice actors from the OVA to reprise their old roles)
Gundam Wing
Ranma ½ - I think that as the show went along, the dubbing got progressively better. I started out by watching Season 6, so I was a little more accustommed to Richard Ian Cox (the English voice of Inuyasha) voicing Ranma, and switching to the early seasons when his voice was done by a woman was a little weird, but both actors have their good and bad points in doing Ranma's voice. The second movie has much better dubbing than the first couple of seasons. The other voice actors didn't have to improve all that much between seasons, because most of them already had a lot of experience.

Worst dubbed:

Weiß Kreuz (Knight Hunters) - I get shivers thinking about the dubbing in this; absolutely terrible. The outtakes on the first DVD are hilarious, though.

[actually, this is the only one I can think of off-hand; my sisters keep talking about how the later seasons of Sailor Moon were horribly dubbed, but I never watched those episodes; I stopped right around the point that DiC stopped dubbing it and Pioneer picked it up. DiC did do a good job of fitting the characters to the voices (from what I remember, it's been years since I saw those episodes), but they were horrible editing jobs]

 

[Hitokiri Shadow]

For worst dubs, now that I think about it, DiC's Sailor Moon and Cardcaptors.

 

[falchion04]

It seems that nearly everyone complains about the Yugioh dub because of the way they cut out nearly everything that has to do with dying.

 

[Lucent]

It seems that nearly everyone complains about the Yugioh dub because of the way they cut out nearly everything that has to do with dying.

Everyone complains about the Cardacptors dub because they cut out nearly everything, period.

 

[Hitokiri Shadow]

I didn't realize anyone died in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime to begin with. (The first series was separate).

Ceres...are you talking about Ayashi no Ceres by...by...by...by...who's that by again? The intro's name is Scarlet.

By Yu Watase (same person who did Fushigi Yugi and Alice 19th). She's my favorite manga artist/author.

 

[PaladinValer]

No one actually dies; the Shadow Realm is just equated with death. No big deal really.

 

[ninetails390]

Erm, actually, I think Bandit Keith does die in a fire, but anyways, as for dubbing:
I think that the best dubs are, lets see:
-Everyone's gonna' kill me for this, but Yu Yu Hakusho does have a pretty good dubbing job (not on the movie though! he voie actors were horrid! I almost died listening to Kuwabara's voice!) In the series, they got the characters' voices pretty good (though not as good as th Japanese version, of course).
-I also think Trigun has a pretty good dub. They probably could have edited out a bit of the language, but I love the characters' voices, and it isn't, like, super-edited or anything, either.

Now for the worst dubs:
-Cardcaptor Sakura is horible! The characters don't even sound like themselves! It's edited so much that I can sit and laugh at the scenes they tried to edit that don't make sense without the original context! It's ridiculous! I can't even watch the dubbed version it's so horible! The only dud that could possibly be worse is:
-YuGiOh! It's awfull! Not only do the characters not sound like their original selves, half of them don't even act like their original selves! It's horrendous! The only part I really like about the YuGiOh dub is Ryou and Joey's accents (I like their voices). And I won't even start on Malik... (*gag* Evil voice...) The "edited" (Yami) Bakura and Malik so much that they actually come of as more evil than they are in the original!

Anyways, I think you get my point...

 

[PaladinValer]

Bandit Keith survives; he ran out screaming...

And curiously, how are you getting access to the non-dubbed versions? Or should I not ask?

 

[Hitokiri Shadow]

For anime that hasn't been released in the U.S. yet, bit torrent is the way to go. As sson as the rights are acquire by a distributor, then the seeds (sources for the downloads) are removed.

If it's already licensed, then I don't know... probably Kazaa or some similar program.

 

[himura kenshin]

also i would like to put in kenshin the episode where kenshin gets the mans final sword and it happens to be a sakaba sword they gave that one member of the juppongatana a country sounding voice and in japanese he just sounds regular...

 

[Qyöt27]

also i would like to put in kenshin the episode where kenshin gets the mans final sword and it happens to be a sakaba sword they gave that one member of the juppongatana a country sounding voice and in japanese he just sounds regular...

That's like in Love Hina, where Kitsune got a Texan accent in the dub. I'd like to see where in Texas the Japanese came from .

For anime that hasn't been released in the U.S. yet, bit torrent is the way to go. As sson as the rights are acquire by a distributor, then the seeds (sources for the downloads) are removed.

If it's already licensed, then I don't know... probably Kazaa or some similar program.

Actually, there are some BitTorrent sites that don't do this. It's not the most ethical thing, but it still happens. Those same sites also tend to host torrents for DVD-ripped American releases in OGM format so the subtitles and dual audio and can preserved. Some of them (actually, probably most of them) aren't English sites, so I don't think the legality of it is disputed as much because the country where the site is hosted doesn't have access to the material yet.

Basically, yeah, Kazaa or one of the other file-sharing networks is the only way if the torrents have been removed. That's how I was even able to watch Onegai Teacher the first time around (and yes, I did go and buy the DVDs when they came out).

The only other option is www.cdjapan.co.jp (this is the English mirror of the site, due to the popularity of overseas orders), since they actually ship to America. That's the best way to get high-quality unlicensed anime, since they are an official Japanese retailer that just happens to ship overseas. Perfectly legal and condoned by at least the AMV community. The only problem is that authentic Japanese DVDs tend not to have any subtitles whatsoever, so unless you can actually speak the language, you're outta luck. You also have to pay full Japanese retail and the shipping and handling and whatever other tariffs are placed on imports.

 

[Hitokiri Shadow]

Well, the Bit Torrent sites I go to tend to remove the torrents as soon as the rights are acquired. I do know a site that has torrents for movies and stuff like you said, but I've never used that site.

http://animesuki.com/ is a good place to go for anime that hasn't been liscensed.

 

[ninetails390]

Bandit Keith survives; he ran out screaming...

And curiously, how are you getting access to the non-dubbed versions? Or should I not ask?

Well, as for access to the nondubbed versions, I get the uncut, subtitled versions of DVDs on Yu Yu Hakusho and Cardcaptor Sakura. Trigun automatically comes with the dubbed and subbed versions on the DVDs (or at least all the ones I've seen), and YuGiOh I've never actually been able to get ahold of the original version, but one of my friends tells me a lot about it, and I look info on it up on the internet.
Oh, and speaking of my friend, she's the one who told me that Bandit Keith dies in the fire, so don't blame me .

 

[PaladinValer]

He dies in the manga, but not in the anime.

 

[Lucent]

That's like in Love Hina, where Kitsune got a Texan accent in the dub. I'd like to see where in Texas the Japanese came from .

That is almost an insult (I know it's not, and you didn't intend it as such, but still...). Kitsune does not have a Texan accent. I have lived in Texas all my life (almost 25 years) and I have never heard anyone talk like that. What Kitsune has in the dub is more of a 'Southern Belle' accent, like Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. It's sort a a plantaition owner type accent.

If you want a Texan accent in an anime, the main characters in Abenobashi are good examples (and a pretty good dub). As is Osaka in Azumanga Daioh (another decent dub, Osaka is the best dub voice).

 

[himura kenshin]

i am not against texans-- my uncle lives there but unfortunatally they did a bad job with the voice overs and as a result they sounded like a texan....

 

[Hitokiri Shadow]

I live in Texas too... but I don't take any offense at the comment. By the way, if you like parodies, I highly recomend checking out Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi. Although its perverted at times, its pretty funny stuff.

I just finished watching the first 2 eps of ROD the TV. One of the characters mentions Harry Potter as one of her favorite book series. I don't recall what she said in the Japanese version (I deleted my fansubs of the series) but I don't think she said anything about Harry Potter.

The voices themselves are pretty good. The Japanese voices are better of course, but they're good for a dub.

 

[Qyöt27]

That is almost an insult (I know it's not, and you didn't intend it as such, but still...). Kitsune does not have a Texan accent. I have lived in Texas all my life (almost 25 years) and I have never heard anyone talk like that. What Kitsune has in the dub is more of a 'Southern Belle' accent, like Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. It's sort a a plantaition owner type accent.

Well, maybe she's a transplant, j/k. Seriously, I don't know where my head was when I said that. Got my accents mixed up. I don't have much exposure to really thick southern/southwestern accents since I live in Central Florida, and most people here have a bland accent.