this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2026
213 points (97.8% liked)
Anime
4275 readers
57 users here now
This community is the place to discuss and ask questions about anime, anime news, and related topics.
Currently airing show discussion threads are created by our resident bot, rikka@ani.social. If it doesn't make a thread for an episode that you want to discuss, see the user guide on the wiki for instructions on how to ask rikka to make a thread for you to use.
Check out our wiki to find:
Rules
More complete rules on the wiki.
- Posts must relate to anime or similar (donghua, etc.)
- Discussion threads for currently airing media must be made by the bot. If there isn't a discussion thread made for a piece of media you want to discuss, then request it via pm.
- Ensure that all series spoilers are tagged. See here for details.
- Memes should be directed toward !animemes@ani.social (or similar) instead of this community
- Do not post explicitly NSFW material. Please use your best judgement when marking lewd material as NSFW, unmarked material risks being removed.
- Please redirect discussion of piracy towards a more appropriate community
- Any clips from currently airing shows cannot include content from episodes released within the past 7 days.
- All posts and comments must adhere to the ani.social Terms of Use
- In general, keep things civil and avoid attacking other individuals.
Post Tags
Post tags are completely optional, but some recommended tags would include:
- [DISC] or [Discussion] for general discussion/question posts
- [Rec] Recommendation posts with a recommendation/review
- [Clip] a video clip post
- [News] for news and updates
- [Spoiler] for discussions with spoilery content - indicate the series that is being spoiled
Related General Communities
Discord
Thanks to @NineSwords@ani.social for running the discord!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
In 2002 when Naruto first aired? Yeah, a lot of dubs were pretty bad back then, they cut a lot of corners and didn't always hire the best talent. But today, voice acting is taken so much more seriously now, and there is a lot of equally fantastic talent in the west. Hell, there are some shows I've watched just because a VA I like is in them.
I feel like this kind of elitism towards dubs comes from people who grew up in that era when dubs sucked, but haven't noticed that times have changed since then.
I stopped watching dubs many years ago. At first it was only because there weren't any dubs for new releases but then it just sounded a little bit better. Now whenever I see someone post some clip in dub I'm amazed how bad it sounds compared to the original. I'm not saying it's bad overall. I saw a YouTube video where two youtubers were recording a few lines for some game, it was so terrible compared to professional voice actors, so yeah I know how good pro VAs are but I also compared this to Japanese VAs it was still way better.
No matter how bad or insignificant the show is I have yet to hear bad japanese voice acting. Animation and the plot can be worse than PowerPoint presentation for school project, it can be a shitty mobile game ad, voice acting is always top notch.
Voice acting in Japan is way bigger industry than it is anywhere else in the world. The amount of effort they put into it is just unreal.
Another thing is that dubs are changing what the character says and it's by design! Aside from some outrageous examples like Kobayashi Dragon Maid where they changed the whole meaning of the dialog for no real reason all dubs need to add or cut some stuff from each sentence to match lip movements. Depending on translator abilities it can be barely noticeable to completely change character personality.
I explained this with more details when I was complaining about dub-subs (audio description from dub put as subtitles). If you want you can read it here.
I don't think it's elitism. I don't shame anyone for watching dubs. You can do whatever the hell you want! I don't judge. I'm just saying that the original is always better than dub.
To say that as if it's universal is exactly what I'm trying to say is wrong. Especially if your justification is "it's not 1:1 so it's bad" - SungWon Cho, who IMO is one of the most talented English VAs out there, has a response to that that's way better than I can ever put it.
I mean this dude from the video is right. Just because the character sounds different doesn't make the dub bad. But I never claimed it does. My argument boils down to two points:
What makes dub bad is the combination of those factors.
He also mentioned dub being transformative. He's not exactly wrong but it's not a good thing. Be too transformative and it stops being original work and it becomes a thing of its own. It doesn't make dub automatically bad but it's also a thing that should be kept in mind.
Also I really recommend watching some comparison videos between dubs in different languages. Some suck some are pretty good. Very entertaining.