I like subs!

[Hatake Kakashi]

The problem with most Dubs in the American sense is that, on the whole, the companies which license them don't give one crap about the anime, storyline, characters, plot points, or anything else that is behind making a great show actually great. They only check to see if a show is popular without bothering to check the reasons why.

Let's take Naruto, our current best example for the case-in-point. Naruto was a show popular with primarily a teenaged/young adult crowd in Japan, mainly because that was the demographic being targeted by the author. In Japan, Anime is regarded as an art form, and is treated as such. The author or his production team work hard to find appropriate, talented voice actors who can truly deliver the emotion and personality of the characters that the author intended for his/her creation. The result? Characters who come across as they should, making sense in the story for which they were created. Then, new fans overseas (subbing groups) begin to pick it up, understanding what is being written, and think to themselves: "This is an awesome story... maybe we should share this with a wider audience." And so they spend hours and days and months carefully translating the story as it was spoken for the rest of us to hear and see.

*sigh* Then, along come the majority of American Licensing companies, who really don't give a damn about anything that makes an anime truly great... what they're looking for is something they can dumb down and mass-market to kids in order to make a fortune selling cheaply-made plastic toys. They put out a quick search, doing a very basic audition in order to find voice "talent" to fill their character slots quickly.

One, possibly two well-known talents may be selected, usually for bit-parts, in order to generate interest in the more discriminating circles, but no more than this as it would cut into their profit margins. The rest are chosen regardless of any presence of actual talent (I'm looking at you, Maile Flanagan) to fill the character slots and "strike while the iron is hot," as they say.

The script and scenes are then massively edited for kid-friendly content (Rock Lee does not drink "Elixir," he drinks Sake), and hurriedly released toward an audience that generally doesn't know any better. They then begin scouting for their next anime trainwreck-in-waiting in order to, you guessed it, sell more toys.

Repeat ad nauseum.