I’m not hearing the japanese voices while reading the subtitles, I’m hearing my own voice. Also too busy reading to understand it. Cannot look away either. Voice acting in most dubs is alright.
I think live actions are different, as squid game’s dub was rubbish
Disagree.
I agree that subs take more attention. In practice, all that really means for my viewing habits is that I multitask less when watching something with subs. Not strictly speaking a downside in my book. (Just a difference.)
But dubs tend to lose so much “in translation”. The characters all end up sounding so different. So much of the emotion and inflection in the original voice is lost in the process. And replaced with more western ways of emoting that don’t fit well with the work.
And god can it be annoying when a character had a “catchphrase”. Much more so than with the sub.
I’m honestly not sure to what extent these issues could be addressed with “better” dubs. Dubs just so universally come across as “silly-sounding” it may not be possible to make dubs not sound ridiculous. Or maybe if the dubs industry worked differently, we could get some actually good dubs.
P.S. Why is OP getting downvoted?
I started using subs because I had no choice (other than wait for dubs to exist, and then find the place that has it). And after getting a bit used to subs I was surprised to come across some dubbed content but when I tried to hear it I was kinda horrified with the change in the voices from the original characters to the dubbed ones that I just couldn’t enjoy it. After this happening on more occasions I started distancing more and more from dubs. Also it becomes clear that there are jokes based on word plays that can’t be translated.
Yes! I loved some of Kaio-Sama’s jokes in DBZ. Probably the first word play I ever understood in Japanese was his joke about eating asparagus for breakfast.
The Japanese term for “breakfast” is pronounced “asagohan.” (“Asa” on its own means “morning”.) And the Japanese pronunciation of “asparagus” is roughly “asuparagasu.” So the joke was “What’s the best vegetable to eat for breakfast? ‘Asaparagusu!’” (I think Kaio-Sama’s joke adjusted that “u” sound to an “a” sound on purpose to drive the joke home a little better.)
I definitely prefer subs because it helps me learn the language (or at least the gist of it). I learned more Spanish watching narco-novelas with subs than I learned in two semesters of Spanish class. lol
Yeah I feel like the quality of dubs is really lacking for some shows. For example, I can’t watch any Netflix dubs anymore. They do an ok job but it seems like they use the same 5 voice actors for every show, and I end up recognizing them. It’s weird hearing a voice and matching it to a big Russian dude in one show and then a Korean guy in another. For that matter, they don’t do accents or hardly any emotion in the lines. It’s like having my dad read the dialog for me; it’ll never be as good as the original vice actors. There’s also the additional issue with live action dubs where the audio doesn’t match the lips. It just ruins the immersion and is really distracting.
Subtitles become less of an issue if you read faster. Don’t try to read it in time with the voices, read faster then spend the extra time watching the visuals.