Korean drama Parasite's underdog win at this years Oscars has triggered anew the debate about subtitles versus dubbing. As this article in Vox explains, the subs vs dubs argument has now spilled over into the film scene, to the amusement or chagrin of anime fans, who thrashed this through decades ago, without reaching a conclusion.
I'm not going to rehash the arguments about anime. Between fansubbing and later simultaneous streaming, subtitled anime has basically won. Most Japanese anime is released in the US with only subtitles. Dubbing is expensive - script development, additional actors. The margins in the licensing business won't support the extra costs, except for massive mainstream hits, which are few and far between, or studios with money to burn, like Disney.
Fifteen years ago, when the sub versus dub argument in anime was still raging, I was decidedly anti-dub. I had watched too many dubs that were marred by bad acting and/or inaccurate scripts. (Besides, I'm an editor, so I wanted there to be words for me to work on.) Now, I'm more open. A good dub makes an anime accessible to a wider audience. I don't feel there's any sacrilege in replacing the Japanese voice actors, if the underlying meaning of the lines is preserved. As Miyazaki Hayao remarked, anime in dubbed in Japanese too.
For me, an example of a good dub is the Disney/Ghibli Howl's Moving Castle. The English voice cast is superb, and the script follows the Japanese pretty well. Of course, the Japanese voice cast is superb too. I've watched Howl's Moving Castle both ways, and I like them equally. On the other hand, the dub for The Tale of the Princess Kaguya bothers me considerably - not because of the voice cast, but because of the script. (I documented my misgivings here.)
I consider foreign-language films to be a completely different case than anime. An anime character has no "real" voice. It may have a familiar voice, through repeated viewing, but everything is dubbed. The mouth movements are somewhat abstract, and they can fit reasonably well with different languages. If Japanese anime is dubbed into English, or US animation is dubbed into Japanese, the key question to me is the quality of the script and the performances.
On the other hand, a film actor does have a real voice, and that's the voice I want to hear. I don't want any dissonance between the mouth movements or the facial expressions and what I'm hearing. The "one inch barrier," as Parasite's director Bong Joon-ho called it, is no barrier to me. I read fast, and I don't find the subs distracting. For me, the dub is the barrier and the distraction. If I'm expecting to see and hear Jean-Paul Belmondo or Toshiro Mifune, and instead I see that face speaking English, the movie's spell is broken.
Fortunately for me, English dubs of foreign-language films are rather rare. The US market for such films is small, and the incremental expenses for dubbing are not supportable. The reverse is not true. US films, particularly blockbusters, are frequently dubbed for overseas markets. (Disney's Frozen was dubbed in at least 30 languages, for example.) Japanese seiyuu often have dubbing credits on their resumes; it's no different than anime work, really.
Will the paucity of English dubs change over time, perhaps triggered by Parasite's success? I'm skeptical. Unless or until a foreign-film turns into a US-based blockbuster and spawns a franchise, economics will dictate subtitling. I hope it stays that way.
I'm not going to rehash the arguments about anime. Between fansubbing and later simultaneous streaming, subtitled anime has basically won. Most Japanese anime is released in the US with only subtitles. Dubbing is expensive - script development, additional actors. The margins in the licensing business won't support the extra costs, except for massive mainstream hits, which are few and far between, or studios with money to burn, like Disney.
Fifteen years ago, when the sub versus dub argument in anime was still raging, I was decidedly anti-dub. I had watched too many dubs that were marred by bad acting and/or inaccurate scripts. (Besides, I'm an editor, so I wanted there to be words for me to work on.) Now, I'm more open. A good dub makes an anime accessible to a wider audience. I don't feel there's any sacrilege in replacing the Japanese voice actors, if the underlying meaning of the lines is preserved. As Miyazaki Hayao remarked, anime in dubbed in Japanese too.
For me, an example of a good dub is the Disney/Ghibli Howl's Moving Castle. The English voice cast is superb, and the script follows the Japanese pretty well. Of course, the Japanese voice cast is superb too. I've watched Howl's Moving Castle both ways, and I like them equally. On the other hand, the dub for The Tale of the Princess Kaguya bothers me considerably - not because of the voice cast, but because of the script. (I documented my misgivings here.)
I consider foreign-language films to be a completely different case than anime. An anime character has no "real" voice. It may have a familiar voice, through repeated viewing, but everything is dubbed. The mouth movements are somewhat abstract, and they can fit reasonably well with different languages. If Japanese anime is dubbed into English, or US animation is dubbed into Japanese, the key question to me is the quality of the script and the performances.
On the other hand, a film actor does have a real voice, and that's the voice I want to hear. I don't want any dissonance between the mouth movements or the facial expressions and what I'm hearing. The "one inch barrier," as Parasite's director Bong Joon-ho called it, is no barrier to me. I read fast, and I don't find the subs distracting. For me, the dub is the barrier and the distraction. If I'm expecting to see and hear Jean-Paul Belmondo or Toshiro Mifune, and instead I see that face speaking English, the movie's spell is broken.
Fortunately for me, English dubs of foreign-language films are rather rare. The US market for such films is small, and the incremental expenses for dubbing are not supportable. The reverse is not true. US films, particularly blockbusters, are frequently dubbed for overseas markets. (Disney's Frozen was dubbed in at least 30 languages, for example.) Japanese seiyuu often have dubbing credits on their resumes; it's no different than anime work, really.
Will the paucity of English dubs change over time, perhaps triggered by Parasite's success? I'm skeptical. Unless or until a foreign-film turns into a US-based blockbuster and spawns a franchise, economics will dictate subtitling. I hope it stays that way.
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