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.

[Amake]

I like to liken dubbed movies to watching the backside of a painting. But still, It can be done well. They took six months to dub The Jungle Book back in the day and that really shows. Most of the time the quality of voice acting seems directly proportional to the distance between the actor and the country where the movie is made, but I think if you give it enough time you can make a film enjoyable in any language.

Even if you always lose some of the author's intentions and some of the original language's quirks.

Somewhere in here I was going to lead into a comment about this here post:

Well, that's true of live action, but dubbing animation doesn't have trouble with that other half of the actor's performance.

To point out that some of the higher quality animation tend to include the voice actors' physique and mannerisms, leading to the same problem.

Which I think isn't losing half of the actor's performance but getting a bizarre synthesis of two different performances. I'd hate to think how disorienting it must be to people who pay attention to body language and such. :x

[Marelo]

I am having an extremely frustrating problem! I recently got into watching Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and found that all of the ones from the torrent I picked, beyond episode one, didn't work! So, after a painful three day download of another torrent, I was golden!

Until episode 15, at which point all the episodes stopped working. So, I remembered that the original torrent I had used a different format for episodes 15+, and I had to redownload that because I had foolishly deleted them all. This took another painful day of no further TTGL.

It just finished today. So, I sit down to watch me some TTGL. But no. The subtitles don't work in WMP, Media Player Classic, or VLC.

Does anyone know where I can get access to the latter half (episodes 15-27) of this show in glorious (or even just functional) English subtitles?

[Osterbaum]

It just finished today. So, I sit down to watch me some TTGL. But no. The subtitles don't work in WMP, Media Player Classic, or VLC.

Does anyone know where I can get access to the latter half (episodes 15-27) of this show in glorious (or even just functional) English subtitles?

I have the exact same problem! I figured I'd just download another torrent, I don't know.

[Marelo]

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

I have the exact same problem! I figured I'd just download another torrent, I don't know.

From what I could tell, the two torrents I'm using are the only two that exist... It seems that several people here have seen the show in its entirety, though, so I'm just wondering if there's a secret password or something!

Found a solution! Just converted the .mkv files which weren't showing the subtitles into .avi with this, which I found in the freeware sticky in Computer Help.

[Kim]

I just started watching FLCL subbed instead of dubbed for the first time. I think this is the only show where the Japanese voices sound less over-the-top than the American ones.

[Pip Boy]

Originally Posted by Runswithnopants

I am having an extremely frustrating problem! I recently got into watching Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and found that all of the ones from the torrent I picked, beyond episode one, didn't work! So, after a painful three day download of another torrent, I was golden!

Until episode 15, at which point all the episodes stopped working. So, I remembered that the original torrent I had used a different format for episodes 15+, and I had to redownload that because I had foolishly deleted them all. This took another painful day of no further TTGL.

It just finished today. So, I sit down to watch me some TTGL. But no. The subtitles don't work in WMP, Media Player Classic, or VLC.

Does anyone know where I can get access to the latter half (episodes 15-27) of this show in glorious (or even just functional) English subtitles?

I bet you can't find them on any of the slightly lesser-known, less enforced video streaming sites. Like veoh.

Shhh.

[Eldezar]

I like how it's kind of like a book but it creates the imagery for you.

[brown_tiger]

Subs are great if you want to find out what the original dialogue was, and usually the original dialogue is pretty damn interesting.
Unfortunately I can't find many subs for the anime I am currently watching, and man it sucks!