Voice actors have shaped our childhood from Disney movies, cartoons, and anime. As they breathe life into our favorite characters, we become immersed in the realism of the story. However, one of these mediums is not like the others. One of them originates from purely Japanese dialogue. Many of our youths have centered around watching Saturday morning anime ranging from Yugioh to Sailor Moon in our comfy pajamas. It is in no doubt that cartoons and anime are seen from children across the U.S, later becoming a part of their childhood. Furthermore, (other than Japan of course) the U.S actually has the largest number of Japanese animation contracts in the world. Who else remembers watching Naruto Shippuden on Disney Channel XD?
However, unlike American cartoons, Anime are all works that have been translated and dubbed into English. Consequently, voice actors need to adapt from a translated script, in which we all know that translation and accuracy don’t have the greatest relationship. Although there are subtitled versions, anime that are aired on American T.V is always shown in dub. Interestingly enough, dubbed anime has been controversial from the start. Ranging from censorship, varying accents, or just not “sounding right”, dubbed anime just can’t seem to catch a break.
Through an online poll conducted by a website called MyAnimeList, a majority of the participants preferred subtitles. A total of 434 responses were recorded and around 50% preferred subtitles, 25% preferred dubbed, and the other 25% were fine with either one. Although it seems like the majority prefer subs, American T.V continues to only air dubbed versions. This is not only the case for children’s anime but for adult anime as well. Children’s shows being dubbed may not be unreasonable as multitasking could be hard for them. However for adult anime, such as on midnight channels through “Adult Swim”, it is still aired in dub despite the popular opinion of subs over dubs.
In regarding the preference for subs, perhaps this sentiment has something due to familiarity, as subbed anime is released before the dubbed version. Though I believe the perception that English dub alters the likeability of a character and their personality cannot all be cleanly summed up to the factor of familiarity. In fact, the issue may not be the language, but the entirety of dubbing foreign works itself.
According to a study by Pettorino and Vitagliano (2003), they found that English dubbed works had a tendency to sound inauthentic with artificial prosodic rhythmic features. They even claimed that English dub is different from regular English as it contains unique elements of rhythm and articulation rate. Furthermore, the target language tends to conform to the speech tempo found in the source language. Altering English’s own natural tempo in the process. Although the study focuses on Italian rather than Japanese, the sentiment that English dubbed is different from the English language is important to consider. Next, in a study by Caruana and Abdilla (2005), they interestingly found that dubbing a foreign language commercial to the consumer’s native language (Maltese in this case) is not any more effective. Their results provide insight that dubbing may not be as beneficial to consumers.
The general consensus is that people prefer the subtitled version over English dubbed. This sentiment is further backed by Pettorino and Vitagliano (2003) and their findings of the inauthentic qualities of English dub. Next time you watch an anime try something different and watch it in subs or dubs, whichever your not used to. To get you started, here are two animated trailers with Japanese voice actors and English voice actors. Take a look and see if you prefer subs or dubs!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZEOpfelkxQ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFVKmVTAHpk (Links to an external site.)
Works Cited:
Caruana, A., & Abdilla, M. (2005). To dub or not to dub: Language adaptation of global
television advertisements for a bilingual community. Journal of Brand Management,
12(4), 236-249. doi:10.1057/palgrave.bm.2540220
Pettorino, Massimo., & Vitagliano, Ilario. (2003) Prosodic Characteristics of Dubbed Speech.
Barcelona, Spain: ICPhS-15.