Sub is almost always the way, because people in anime say a lot of cringe and stupid shit, and its slightly less cringe and stupid when you read it instead of hearing it.

THIS IS BAIT YOU HAVE TO INCLUDE THE WORD MAIN IN YOUR RESPONSE

I watch with doms if they let me

Case by case is the only reasonable answer.

I don’t think there’s anyone who would say that Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood is bad to watch dubbed, the dub as far as I can tell even has adjustments to preserve wordplay without it being awkward (think of how often “trump card” is used in anime) which is one of the hardest things to do with translation work. There’s some where both have merits, like early seasons of Jojo, part 2 was great dubbed but both part 1 and part 2 have tons of memes that are mostly from random English phrases in the original. Later seasons definitely sub only, literally what is the point of watching part 3 without ZA WARUDO? Why is there no Italian dub of Golden Wind? Also there’s very special cases like Ghost Stories.

I’ve found so many dubs to be overly simplified, poorly directed, filled with weird unnecessary jokes, skip over culturally relevant terms, misunderstand the dialogue, or otherwise use super duper weird “anime” voice like they’re dubbing a drug-induced kids cartoon, that I only trust subs now. Sometimes I’ll have both at once as a test, then inevitably realise how relatively fucked the dub is, then go back to subs.

I would love to enjoy dubs. And some shows, I assume, have good dubs, but I’ve not seen it.

I only watched dubbed anime, if there’s no dubbed version I get a friend to read the subtitles out loud over the character voices.

since there are no official dubs here it depends on the team that is dubbing but i would prefer dub over sub. persian dubs especially children’s animation dubs are perfect. granted it’s not as good as before Glory Entertainment went bust but still.

instead of the transliteration most subs fall into, dubs mostly capture the essence of comedy or drama of the original piece better and try to “nativize” their translations to achieve the intended effect of the original media.

however bad dubs are way worse than bad subs because it just ruins the whole thing as opposed to some weird dialogue.

I watch pretty much all foreign media with subs but one thing I don’t like how it steals your natural gaze, instead of your eye being directed by the visuals you are having to constantly look back at the bottom of the screen. also makes it hard to eat while watching

dubs are fine in theory (for animation, not so much for live-action) as long as they’re done well but they’re not usually done well

I remember watching Terminator dubbed to German on RTL on cable tv back in the day. Real childhood trauma.

It was an absolute abomination, so ever since then I’ve stuck with subs.

My Japanese is good enough that I can understand shows pretty well without subs unless there’s tons of technical jargon, so for me there’s not much point in watching dubs, especially since you inevitably lose some subtext in translation. I have nothing against them in principle, but the only time I watch them is for nostalgia purposes with shows I watched as a small child or when watching with friends and family who prefer dubs. They’re also an accessibility aid for those with visual and learning disabilities (I know someone with dyslexia who struggles mightily with subs).

Even for other languages, though, I always prefer hearing the original language over a dub. There are plenty of talented dub actors out there, but I’d rather hear the original performance that fit the director’s vision unconstrained by artificial lip flap or timing requirements. Also, if I’m watching foreign media I want to be immersed in that cultural context, which language is a huge part of.

I usually watch the dub when I’m watching with my wife because she likes to crochet and craft while doing stuff, but I prefer the sub when watching just me.

The quality of dubbed anime has gotten way better over the last decade since there’s an established market for it now. So if it’s a newer dub (2000s+) I’d go for the dub. Anything older than that, go for a sub.

Both. There’s anime where the sub sucks compared to the dub. Like Jojo. Dubs are translated to fit mouth movement. Sub’s are translated sometimes too literally. With baki there’s scenes that have very different meanings dubbed vs subbed. My solution has been to have both on. It’s helped in live action as well. You end up with two different translations which can get you a lot closer to the intent of the writer

My cousin has been watching Norwegian-dubbed anime to learn the language so I wouldn’t say dubs are good for nothing. If there were more Norwegian dubs of anime I was myself interested in, I’d probably do the same. I do know of a site with Russian VO dubs of anime, and I did spend some time watching things there… But I’ve never been much into VO dubs.

So as it stands, I preferred watching English dubs for a long time, but eventually mostly switched to subs or even raws, simply because if I at best immerse myself in Japanese or at worst pick up words from repeat exposure, then that’s for my own needs better than getting everything in English. For other people it’s going to be the reverse.

In an ideal world, of course, every show and movie ever made would have dubbing and AD in every spoken language, subtitles and closed captions in every written language, and video interpretation in every signed language… This obviously isn’t possible because it would require an enormous amount of effort, but it does make me wish that anime with the voice tracks removed would be freely released to the public so that literally anyone can have a go at making a dub without needing to do all the music and SFX and sound engineering. And also obviously that intellectual property was abolished but that shouldn’t need to be said.

I do dubs so I can wash dishes and do other stuff and have it on in the background. If I were good at paying attention I’d do subs, since it feels like they’re often better translated

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