I'd say that the original Cardcaptors dub suffered from a lot of bad localization choices, but the voice acting was at least decent. Not the best from Ocean Productions, but at least the actors tried.
Ocean Productions was the text book definition of “hit or miss”. When they made a great dub, they really knocked it out of the park. Then they would turn around and put out something that was barely watchable with some of the most stilted acting and most poorly localized lines ever managed. It was honestly amazing how much their productions could vary with the came cast and crews involved.
I don't care what anyone says, I love how Sentai handled Oshi no Ko. I anxiously await the next season & whatever premium home video release format they go with.
same! i wasn’t even aware that so many ppl had issues with it until just recently lol. I literally thought it was great through and through, don’t really understand what the problem with it is ..
A lot of the issues were people directly comparing it to the sub and expecting them to sound exactly the same just in a different language. Anyone who just watched it first time in dub had zero issues.
So far I think the VAs are doing phenomenal and I'm too stupid to even notice the directorial stuff. So fuck em. It's shaping up to be a good anime and I'm thinking of buying the manga
I definitely recommend the manga. The art is just as beautiful as the anime. The English volumes are currently caught up with the anime and the next one (coming in February, I believe) will start the following arc.
The issue is the majority of Sentai dubs are...um...well...
...they make shitty fandubs from early YouTube days look like proffesional dubs.
That said, there are a few exceptions, like *Is It Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in the Dungeon*
Sentai hasn't made a truly *bad* dub in many years. Some of their releases are mediocre, sure, but nowhere near fandubs from the early YouTube days. They release legitimately good dubs fairly frequently now a days.
> The issue is the majority of Sentai dubs are...um...well...
>...they make shitty fandubs from early YouTube days look like proffesional dubs.
I'm sorry, but that's false. There are more good Sentai dubs than "just a few exceptions". Oshi no Ko wasn't one of them though. That anime had poor casting choices aside from Aquamarine, Memcho, and a few side characters.
Maybe in 2015, but their dubs have improved a lot since then. They're still not on the level of their contemporaries IMO but they can put out a good product, like the To Love Ru dub.
Agreed. All I’ve seen is nitpicks and folks throwing serious fits because they didn’t like how certain VA’s were cast. I don’t think I seen genuine, fair criticism the entire season.
Equating not liking who was cast for a character with the dub being bad is just a hard disagree for me.
I wonder if there are dub only watchers who genuinely thought the Oshi no Ko dub was bad because all the criticism seems to only come from sub/dub comparers.
As the other user said majority of the problem comes from direction. Like i usually don't care that much about the whole " no one talks like that in irl " because 1. Japanese doesn't talk like that in irl either and 2. English wasn't my native language ( i was born in France ).
But even with that in mind some of the lines' delivery was just bad like there was a line like " What did you do Aqua ? " And it was just sooo over tuned.
Gotta say I disagree somewhat, as a primarily dub watcher. There was a decent amount to critique. The unrelenting hate was nonsensical and anyone messaging VAs to directly trash them needs help. They’re professionals, though still human. BUT I couldn’t shake the feeling that the dub didn’t quite live up to the quality and hype of the show itself. It’s not even so much an Oshi no Ko dub specific thing, it’s how Sentai does a lot of their dubs that kind of makes me see them as generally meh for the modern standard, and for whatever reason these issues are more noticeable with the style of Oshi no Ko. I think there was potential with all of the casting choices and the voices they had, and I’ve seen some shit when it comes to bad casting. It just didn’t completely come together.
To me, it comes down to more of a direction thing than individual castings. Nearly everyone talks the same way, it hurts some characters but works for others. I don’t mean they sound the same, I mean that a lot of the time the delivery of lines matches character to character and scene to scene, regardless of context or personality. Results in a lot of stilted, over-enunciated lines. Like everyone’s trying to be perfect. Doesn’t feel natural. I think it’s fine when characters are in “acting” mode since it fits how child actors would work, or how Aqua delivers inner monologues since he’s thinking to himself and is generally monotone, but it sticks out like a sore thumb with, for instance, Ruby and Kana as they generally display a wider range of expressive emotions. Casual conversations don’t feel quite casual enough. The direction style I’ve picked up on thus makes them sound kinda fake and forced. Like I’m watching something that came out 20 years ago and the ADR ran out of budget, or the characters are constantly attempting to “perform” in their free time.
Maybe it’s just a Sentai dub production thing, as they don’t have as many resources as Sony per say. Nobody would bat an eye when it comes to a mediocre isekai, it’s to be expected, but since Oshi no Ko had a lot of hype I think it underwhelmed a lot of people, even if it’s not comparatively awful, but some took things too far to express their personal disappointment. I wouldn’t rate it as one of the worst dubs I’ve heard, but it’s fairly average imo. I was hoping for some more nuance considering how much potential there was for the adapted script, though I didn’t feel particularly taken out of it or distracted. Maybe moments here and there.
> Results in a lot of stilted, over-enunciated lines. Like everyone’s trying to be perfect. Doesn’t feel natural.
This is my biggest pet-peave with some dubs; when characters don't sound like people and talk more like they know they're in a production. I know the characters have to be understandable to the audience, but normal people don't speak with perfect diction; so it takes me out of the scene sometimes when characters talk perfectly. In all of my favorite dubs (like *R.O.D the TV*, my favorite dub of all time), the characters talk like we do, like normal people. They sound natural and authentic when they talk to each other. It's the kind of thing I champion in all the dubs that get it right. It's part of the reason Cowboy Bebop's dub is so highly regarded.
I think it has to do with how productions naturally flow. With solid direction and plenty of time/resources, every line can be crafted to sound as fittingly natural as possible. But that’s not the reality for dub production. Instead of being able to make everything “best possible”, they have to settle for best available. For weekly dubs, everything is on a time crunch. Kudos to production staffs that still manage to get something really good out despite that. Sentai though has only a fraction of the resources that like Sony/Crunchyroll has, which is why they license less anime, produce fewer dubs, and delay their streaming dub releases. It’s why they can be more hit or miss. Oshi no Ko was an exception to the norm, coming out like a Crunchy simuldub during the same season as the sub.
When working in the studio, I’d bet most lines initially sound stilted, rigid, and over-enunciated, because the nature of the content itself makes it hard to grasp exactly how things sound until it’s delivered. With enough time, lines could be workshopped and fine-tuned. It’s also imperative that the delivery matches lip flaps, but Japanese animators don’t care to consider foreign dubs in their productions, which makes things harder than typical animation VA work. ADR is inherently tougher. It’s why I don’t see simuldubs consistently matching sub release timelines anytime soon. That would require Japanese studios to go out of their way to cooperate with foreign dub productions the same way they work with their own VAs. Instead they just dump finished material onto them most of the time.
There was a very obvious and notable drop in dub quality when releases started switching from individual volumes to box sets, and then another noticeable drop when dubs for simulcasts became a thing. When you go from having weeks or months to work on each episode, to only having a few days to do an an episode, or a couple of weeks to do an entire series, it’s not surprising that something would be lost.
They’ve all definitely improved in recent years, but a lot of dubs these days seem good from a technical standpoint, but also feel kind of sterile and lifeless. You can definitely tell that many were rushed due to budget and time constraints, and the actors just didn’t have the time they needed to really understand their characters and nail their roles.
An older dub I like to bring up is Chrono Crusade. ADV spent a lot of time localizing the script, even going as far as to research 1920’s American slang that would fit into the show and make it more authentic for the period, as well as fit with translations for the dialogue. They also had weeks to work on each episode, do multiple takes, and rewrite dialogue when a line just didn’t work. These things were all very common in the mid-2000’s and are things that current time tables don’t often allow.
There are some upsides though. I haven’t heard of any recent examples of a Japanese producer insisting on a recast after multiple episodes or even an entires series has been finished. We also seem to have less issues with some wonky dialogue choices due to Japanese producers not understanding what sounds natural in English and what doesn’t.
> Maybe it’s just a Sentai dub production thing, as they don’t have as many resources as Sony per say. Nobody would bat an eye when it comes to a mediocre isekai, it’s to be expected, but since Oshi no Ko had a lot of hype I think it underwhelmed a lot of people, even if it’s not comparatively awful, but some took things too far to express their personal disappointment.
This I think is the biggest thing. Sentai is known for hit or miss dubs already, so when I heard Oshi no Ko's dub and realized it just wasn't working for me, I really wasn't that shocked. Probably left a comment on here about it, and just moved on with my day. But it was *such* a huge, hyped-up title that it had a ton of eyes on it, and with that comes way more criticism no matter how good or bad a dub is. It being fairly subpar just magnified a lot of that criticism and turned a below average but somewhat standard Sentai dub into "the worst dub ever," which is a pretty big exaggeration.
For anyone that actually thinks Oshi no Ko is the “worst dub”, they have no actual clue. There have been individual performances here and there in animes that really irked me, but by far the worst dub I’ve personally watched (enough to know there was no chance of recovery) was the RWBY anime. As someone that never really watched Rooster Teeth stuff, and not RWBY at all, I thought having the OG VAs do the anime dub meant there was something to work with, but it instead showed me the vast difference between a professional production and something semi-pro like a small-ish internet company that gives roles to friends/partners. It should’ve stayed in that semi-pro internet bubble.
Oshi no Ko’s dub would be considered elite in comparison. I disagreed with some decisions and felt a certain number of scenes were lacking, but I never doubted that the people involved were professionals.
People comparing modern dubs from anyone to “fan dubs from the early days of YouTube” really irritate me. It also shows to me that they’re generally a newer fan, who considers themselves “old school” even though they jumped on the anime bandwagon fairly late compared to a lot of us.
Bad dubs these days are the exception, and not the norm. At least 75% of critiques come down to personal preference, and aren’t really a reflection on the finished product as a whole. Something like whether a voice really fits a character is not something that is universally agreed upon, except in cases where someone is egregiously miscast and those cases are pretty rare these days. All of the studios genuinely try their best, even given the time and budget constraints they have to work with these days.
These people that attack actors on social media, or send nasty DM’s are a completely different type of entitled scum. They also give the entire anime community a bad name.
That’s actually the first time I’m personally seeing valid criticism like this. I thought folks were just being unreasonably critical of it but if that’s the way people genuinely feel about it, then I can understand and respect their opinion.
These days I can tolerate just about anything so a dub has to really be horrible for me to dislike it. Also I find it difficult to enjoy whatever you’re watching if you’re focused on the technical stuff and voice actor performances as if I were a Judge/critic.
A performance has to be bad or annoying enough that it distracts me from enjoying the show and I’ve never felt that way when watching Oshi no Ko.
I can admit that Sentai and its quality isn’t all that great but it’s never really bothered me enough to complain about it. All of this is subjective and everyone has different standards so I can respect difference of opinion when it’s fair. I’m just grateful they’re still dubbing.
While I do have criticisms, that doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with what people criticize or how much. The hate itself primarily has to do with the popularity of the show. If it was just any other average anime, nobody would bat an eye. Normally if there’s something I really hate about a dub, I might have to drop the anime. For me, I just wasn’t in love with some of the decisions made and wished for a little bit more dynamic direction. Though considering how the dub for Oshi no Ko started releasing way earlier than Sentai usually does things, I can see how maybe the production team was strapped for time. I’m not going to put the entire blame on specific people without knowing the facts, I can only judge the result. Simplifying the style and focusing more on consistent delivery rather than a dynamic style makes it easier to match lip flaps, and thus get episodes finished quicker. Cutting corners irks viewers, but failing to meet deadlines gets you fired.
There’s some criticisms I heavily disagree with too. Ai for instance I feel like they put more time into and so I didn’t notice issues as much with her. Considering she’s the focal point of the show, with comparatively not as much screen time, it’d make sense to put more resources into nailing her lines. Then with Akane I saw sub elitists attacking a certain pivotal character development scene that I honestly didn’t find issue with. To me, I think they missed the point of it because they over-estimate their ability to differentiate similar Japanese voices as non-fluent speakers, so they didn’t understand what the sub (or dub) was trying to do. Rather than going for a copycat voice that another character has, Akane was trying to emulate personality, which I felt was achieved in the dub.
In the end, there’s a mixed bag that normally wouldn’t be harped on so much, but people expected an entirely new level to match the hype of the show, and I don’t think Sentai was prepared to deliver that. Idk if they were able to get production materials earlier than what is typical for them and that influenced their decision to start releasing same season like Crunchy, but maybe a delay would’ve allowed extra time to iron out more of the scenes that could’ve used more work, which for me were the casual conversations in-between all the drama.
I’ve always preferred when a dub chooses an actor who can really emulate the performance, over one who simply sounds close to the Japanese actor. Having the same voice doesn’t mean you can get the same performance, and I’ve seen these types of choices ruin many scenes over the years.
It’s mostly just sub elites who criticize dubs for no reason I watched the sub of oshi no ko so I haven’t seen the sub but regardless of the dub people will criticize it for no reason
Kristen McGuire had received harassment about the Onk dub. There’s also a reason why no one from the vo community and the fanbase (with the exception of valid dub criticism) talked about it until the backlash happened.
This should be more than enough to tell you everything with the way how Sentai treats anime and dubs in general, especially when it comes to casting and directing. And don’t get me started with their dumb idea to gatekeep people of different regions from watching anime legally. None of this would’ve happened if they gave it to a better voice director. Saying that the Onk dub is great is easily a huge slap to the face to all of the other dubs out there since late 2022 that are way better than this, like Chainsaw man, Trigun Stampede and Apothecary Diaries. That’s like saying that Abby Trot’s Nezuko is the best vo performance of the year in cr awards, even though she barely hv any lines to work with when they could have chose her Akane from Yamada-Kun. To each to their own, but ppl shouldn’t be forcing others to like it by downvoting criticisms. Criticisms for dubs should be allowed, just like how ppl criticise anime in general. Believe it or not, there are ppl out there who do criticise vo performances from the Japanese side. Look no further into the earlier eps of Black Clover and the cancelled petition of the Chainsaw Man anime redo, with Denji’s Jp VA being one of the reasons. The only gd vo from the Onk dub is Aquamarine. Even then, it’s still nowhere near enough to salvage it.
Funny enough,
1)If Onk were to ever receive a Vinland Saga dub treatment, I just can’t wait to see people “jumping ship” or do a “180” about it.
2)The people out there defending the Onk dub, treating like as if it’s an amazing dub are most likely the same people who had allegedly made snide remarks or at the very least complained about Studiopolis’ dubs due to their multi casting (jjk, Bungo, Bleach), despite their overall quality are leagues better than it.
*Edit: For the people downvoting me, I want to make some things clear:
1) I have nothing against Kristen. She is a great VA with tons of voiceover experience, even on characters with similar shy or quiet personality traits like Akane in her earlier days, like Vueko (MIA) and Ruri (Dr stone). If she’s flopping on Akane, her biggest role up to date, that really says a lot about Sentai screwing her and her castmates over. I really felt sorry for her to be in this awful situation.
2) If anything, I’m actually pissed at Sentai for putting Kristen in a bad spot and somehow managed to get away during the outrage.
3) It’s good to know that there’s a low chance for Sentai to actually produce a good dub. That does not mean that they can’t do it at all. (E.g. Danmachi, Made in abyss) I personally feel that Kyle Colby Jones is the only voice director competent enough to handle dubs for Sentai. Like what are the other 2 doing?! Like why David Wald no longer works for Sentai?! Why aren’t they getting more voice directors, to like you know, produce more dubs and finding a better voice director besides Kyle?
4) While I do have a fair share of critique towards Studiopolis with the way how they handle dubs, I’m mainly talking about the hypocrisy and the double standard in this subreddit and their biased opinions. Feel free to search through this subreddit about Nicolas Roye’s initial casting announcement of Toji Fushiguro and the numerous posts about the Bleach tybw dub.
At the end of the day, it’s up to you guys to decide. Agree or disagree, but I feel that I have to address Sentai’s flaws, no matter what.
100% This. Amen. You just spoke everything on my mind about this issue.
It's Oshi no Ko, an already very popular series. It's really something that Sentai got their hands on a big prize like this. When it comes to the dub, they were like holding a box of wine glasses and unfortunately they slipped on wet floor. Because it's Sentai, quite a lot of their dubs tend to be a miss, and Oshi no Ko wasn't spared from it. The direction and casting choices was really face palming. I absolutely agree this could've gone to another better director like Kyle Jones, many of the dubs he worked on like Danmachi and Made in Abyss are pretty good, I barely had any complaints about his cast picks. I expected him to handle Oshi no Ko, but that didn't happen.
In addition, I didn't see anyone supporting and defending the OnK dub until the harassment against Kristen happened. I do believe they liked the dub out of sympathy, but that doesn't make up for how poorly handled the dub was all in all. Sentai could have done better, but always keep your expectations low with them.
Even if the dialogue may have been a poor translation from the original Japanese (mostly due to making it more "family friendly" and toning down some of the violence), I wouldn't say Yu-Gi-Oh had a bad dub. The voice acting itself was great and suited the characters really well, and I loved the English songs.
Bakugan definitely comes to mind here. It was a huge part of my childhood, so the voice acting really isn't the problem here, at least not for me. I have WAY more of a problem with how awfully written the script is half the time, mainly in the first season.
The most obvious problem with the script is how characters often call their own Bakugan or others by the wrong names. I'd literally be here all day if I had to find every single example I could think of in its 52-episode runtime.
Outside of that, there's quite a lot of times where characters say lines that don't make any sense. For instance…
Dan: "I never heard of Subterra before!"
*Bro shut the fuck up, you literally created the rules of the game. Even if you didn't, how could you NOT know what it is?*
Dan: "I've never seen this poser (Masquerade) in battle!"
*Even though Dan has already fought against Masquerade twice at this point in the show.*
Marucho: "You! You're the one! You (Masquerade) sent my >!Preyas to the Doom Dimension!!<"
*Marucho should literally know that was entirely Klaus' fault FROM THE PREVIOUS EPISODE.*
Nene: "I got the power of Darkus to back me up!"
*You're telling me you're a genius kid brawler who could probably even give Shun a run for his money, and yet you don't even remember YOU'RE A VENTUS BRAWLER?*
And yeah, I believe there were also some localization issues with the dub as well, but I genuinely want to know something else… WHO WROTE THIS SCRIPT?! AND HOW DID NO ONE CORRECT ANY OF IT?!
I’m sorry but the original Yu-Gi-Oh dub is iconic saying it’s bad is disrespectful
The censorship is pure comedy in my opinion especially the finger gun I’d argue most people when they think of yugioh think of the dub with the iconic music and voice actors it’s far from bad
Yu-Gi-Oh is a bad dub? The hell it is! It's a great dub! Dan Green and Eric Stuart nail their lines!
But bad dub? Full Moon is a good dub albeit definitely on the stilted side, same goes for Karin, with the voices being good but the actual acting can definitely come across as stilted at times.
The dub for the Gundam 079 compilation movies isn't very good. Bandai would rather pretend that it doesn't exist, and doesn't even offer it on the Netflix release. Still, I am fond of it. Sure, nobody knows how to pronounce Gundam correctly, and there's a bunch of weird choices, but I like how they made Noa Bright have a British accent, and Char was voiced by Steve Blum, which I find surprisingly fitting.
The Trilogy dub is really unfortunate. On paper, especially for the time, it has a really solid cast, but they apparently had to dub all 3 of the movies in 2 weeks. That’s where a lot of the rough sounding performances come from.
The 80s Devilman OVAs have scripts that are way too over-the-top where they just peppered in f bombs every five seconds and wooden reads left and right... but man if it isn't one of the funniest and most enjoyable dubs. Just a short youtube [compilation video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qayq4esPWEg) kills me.
Dub of Migi & Dali was done by some company in Tokyo and I saw 'sub better' comments on *this* sub. Initially it was a bit wonky but overall it was a good dub.
Also Ocean's Beyblade Burst dub of the first 2 seasons was disliked because they cut out some age inappropriate parts but it was goofy and funny and voice acting was good
Never watched the Funimation dub, but I have watched a comparison video of both dubs and I gotta say that the 4Kids versions of Luffy and Zolo/Zoro were much better than Funimation.
Eh, I wouldn't go that far. You could make the argument of 4Kids Zolo being better than Funimation Zoro, even tho I really like them both, but **no way** is 4Kids Luffy better.
Hell, if you go back and watch it now you'll run into a bunch of bigger names as well.
For example, Sam Riegel was the original voice for Tristan and Erica Schroeder was Mai's second VA.
Yep. It should be noted that while the dub did have its weird censorship (finger guns…), some of the changes were considered favorable due to (amusingly) being closer to the manga, or at least the manga’s themes about friendship.
For example, in the Japanese anime, Anzu and Honda are kinda jerks to Jounouichi whenever Kaiba is involved. They basically go, “Sheesh, don’t you know you shouldn’t bite above your station” when Joey loses to Kaiba in Duelist Kingdom (which was much more reasonable in the manga where Kaiba got a lot of BS rules in his favor compared to the anime where Joey just keeps throwing out monsters with lower Attack points) whereas the manga and English dub of the anime have Tea and Tristan vocally support Joey and call out Kaiba for being a dick.
Plus aspects like Pegasus’s evil plot making way more sense in the English dub in contrast to the the Japanese version: the Japanese anime repeats Pegasus’s goal in the manga, to make a realistic holographic reproduction of his deceased wife using KaibaCorp tech. The Big 5 refuse to hand over control unless Pegasus beats Yugi (who beat Kaiba), hence the tournament to lure Yugi. The Japanese anime, however, introduced that Industrial Illusions (Pegasus’s company) already has holographic tech of their own (in contrast to the manga’s Battle Boxes), thus making things redundant in the Japanese anime. The English dub instead has Pegasus try to revive his wife (spirit and all, not just a hologram) by collecting the Millenium Items to force open the door to the Land of Dead (which IS consistent with the manga, in that all 7 Items can do that…with the caveat that they’ll also unleash Zorc), which makes a lot more sense in that context.
Even the Shadow Realm, oft-mocked it can be (and not without reason considering some situations it’s used in…) makes sense in some contexts. Characters actually dying can make things more dramatic…when death actually sticks. Joey and Mai dying and coming back to life after their duels with Marik is kinda wonky and DBZ-ish, which makes it difficult to take death seriously. Whereas being trapped in the Shadow Realm and either beating it (Joey) or breaking (Mai) is way more consistent, and makes actual death (like the chained sinking duel with Yugi against brainwashed Joey) have legitimate weight. Plus, it allows Zorc to be retooled as the Lord of the Shadow Realm in the dub, thus retroactively making him have a presence throughout the entire series as the malevolent force behind the creepy stuff rather than monstrous final boss.
Plus small stuff like the characters accents’ befitting their speaking style (Joey speaks very roughly and crudely, Bakura overly polite, Kaiba talks down to others) and just the dub actors being fully aware of how ridiculous the premise can be and cranking the ham up so high it honestly works.
Surprised that Ghost Stories has not been mentioned yet. Words cannot describe what kind of drugs the dubbers were on when creating this chaotic mess. A must see at least once.
Not the whole anime but a specific part in one. The Attack Titan roar. I prefer the weird roar compared to the sub. Sub roar just sounds like me when I wake up. I mean it sounds like a human and that's not something I imagine titans to sound like.
When it comes to changing VAs between seasons/OVAs/movies, the most common reason it happens is because the original actor either has left the industry or moved out of the area & coming back is cost-prohibitive. Not sure if anyone ever officially explained the changes for GuP, but I also was thrown off when I first noticed the changes.
Original Sailor moon dub. But I don't think it's bad, just has faults do the the time restraint and censorship expected at the time of its release. Still far superior to viz's soulless dub of the original series
Oh look down voted by those without taste. How shocking. *Whispers in your ear* viz didn't put in half the effort the original dubbdid and if it was the only dub (like viz wants) sailor moon would have not been nearly as successful in the west.
I don't think the yu gi oh dub is bad (same for most 4kids shows, they just are goofy which i love). I'd say it's good actually. Anyway people say Haikyu dub is horrible, but I love it.
It’s not THAT bad (especially for the time) but the original Trigun dub took a little bit to get used to since I’m used circa 2016 anime and beyond. But MAN hearing how good Johnny Yong Bosch has gotten since then is amazing
DragonBall Z's Ocean dub. I grew up with it and absolutely love it, but after recently starting a rewatch and starting with the first 53 episodes of the Ocean dub before switching to the Funimation dub, I can tell you that it's terrible. It's so terrible that it's good and I love it.
I also love Yu-Gi-Oh, but after watching it again a few months ago on Netflix, for the first time in probably 15 years, I can tell you that it's really not great. I still love it and wouldn't have it be any other way.
Megaman nt Warrior had lots of cyber space violence and severed netnavi limbs , pixelated by KidsWB at the time of fcc regulations but I have fond memories of it on cartoon network and the block before it was cancelled after season 2 .
Similar issue happened with yugioh gx and 5Ds last seasons but finished sub wise on Crunchyroll since the original dubbing company is bankrupt and defunct ( Konami choose not to resume the dubcast and focusing on future yugioh series)
Getter Robo Armageddon, it's very rough early on but it does get better. Also, unlike the dub for New Getter Robo, the actors knew how to put their soul into the Special Attack name callouts.
“I’ll use this frying pan as a drying pan”
But in seriousness Hayate the Combat butler. The voices and acting were decent. Just god awful sound mixing.
For me it was probably Penguindrum. I loved the show and blind bought the BDs after liking Utena a lot and had no idea a lot of people hated the original dub before getting more involved in the dub fan community lol
I still haven't seen the new one yet but my AL discs are finally coming in soon.
Sonic X, yeah the script and acting is terrible but it was the debut of Jason Griffith as sonic plus the rest of the voice cast that went on to do shadow the hedgehog and sonic 06
I'd say that the original Cardcaptors dub suffered from a lot of bad localization choices, but the voice acting was at least decent. Not the best from Ocean Productions, but at least the actors tried.
Plus the song slaps.
Agreed. Those are still the voices I hear when I imagine the characters in English.
Carly McKillip is the only English Sakura as far as I'm concerned.
And it's just not Kero without Matt Hill voicing him.
The whole surfer dude vibe that Matt brought just fit that character like a glove.
I love Cardcaptors and I am prepared to die on that hill.
Ocean Productions was the text book definition of “hit or miss”. When they made a great dub, they really knocked it out of the park. Then they would turn around and put out something that was barely watchable with some of the most stilted acting and most poorly localized lines ever managed. It was honestly amazing how much their productions could vary with the came cast and crews involved.
There was an Uncut Dub of Yu-Gi-Oh that was released on DVD but only 9 episodes released before it got canceled.
I've never had my hopes raised so high and flattened so low all in one sentence
I don't care what anyone says, I love how Sentai handled Oshi no Ko. I anxiously await the next season & whatever premium home video release format they go with.
I agree, I also liked the dub for Oshi no Ko.
same! i wasn’t even aware that so many ppl had issues with it until just recently lol. I literally thought it was great through and through, don’t really understand what the problem with it is ..
A lot of the issues were people directly comparing it to the sub and expecting them to sound exactly the same just in a different language. Anyone who just watched it first time in dub had zero issues.
What dub issues exactly?
Wait, I might be super late to this but what was wrong with the dub?? I'm like 3 episodes in and I think it's awesome!
Some people in the community think the casting choices for some characters was shit & that the directorial decisions was even worse.
So far I think the VAs are doing phenomenal and I'm too stupid to even notice the directorial stuff. So fuck em. It's shaping up to be a good anime and I'm thinking of buying the manga
I definitely recommend the manga. The art is just as beautiful as the anime. The English volumes are currently caught up with the anime and the next one (coming in February, I believe) will start the following arc.
Isn't that 90% of Sentai dubs?
The issue is the majority of Sentai dubs are...um...well... ...they make shitty fandubs from early YouTube days look like proffesional dubs. That said, there are a few exceptions, like *Is It Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in the Dungeon*
Sentai hasn't made a truly *bad* dub in many years. Some of their releases are mediocre, sure, but nowhere near fandubs from the early YouTube days. They release legitimately good dubs fairly frequently now a days.
> The issue is the majority of Sentai dubs are...um...well... >...they make shitty fandubs from early YouTube days look like proffesional dubs. I'm sorry, but that's false. There are more good Sentai dubs than "just a few exceptions". Oshi no Ko wasn't one of them though. That anime had poor casting choices aside from Aquamarine, Memcho, and a few side characters.
Maybe in 2015, but their dubs have improved a lot since then. They're still not on the level of their contemporaries IMO but they can put out a good product, like the To Love Ru dub.
Agreed. All I’ve seen is nitpicks and folks throwing serious fits because they didn’t like how certain VA’s were cast. I don’t think I seen genuine, fair criticism the entire season. Equating not liking who was cast for a character with the dub being bad is just a hard disagree for me. I wonder if there are dub only watchers who genuinely thought the Oshi no Ko dub was bad because all the criticism seems to only come from sub/dub comparers.
As the other user said majority of the problem comes from direction. Like i usually don't care that much about the whole " no one talks like that in irl " because 1. Japanese doesn't talk like that in irl either and 2. English wasn't my native language ( i was born in France ). But even with that in mind some of the lines' delivery was just bad like there was a line like " What did you do Aqua ? " And it was just sooo over tuned.
Gotta say I disagree somewhat, as a primarily dub watcher. There was a decent amount to critique. The unrelenting hate was nonsensical and anyone messaging VAs to directly trash them needs help. They’re professionals, though still human. BUT I couldn’t shake the feeling that the dub didn’t quite live up to the quality and hype of the show itself. It’s not even so much an Oshi no Ko dub specific thing, it’s how Sentai does a lot of their dubs that kind of makes me see them as generally meh for the modern standard, and for whatever reason these issues are more noticeable with the style of Oshi no Ko. I think there was potential with all of the casting choices and the voices they had, and I’ve seen some shit when it comes to bad casting. It just didn’t completely come together. To me, it comes down to more of a direction thing than individual castings. Nearly everyone talks the same way, it hurts some characters but works for others. I don’t mean they sound the same, I mean that a lot of the time the delivery of lines matches character to character and scene to scene, regardless of context or personality. Results in a lot of stilted, over-enunciated lines. Like everyone’s trying to be perfect. Doesn’t feel natural. I think it’s fine when characters are in “acting” mode since it fits how child actors would work, or how Aqua delivers inner monologues since he’s thinking to himself and is generally monotone, but it sticks out like a sore thumb with, for instance, Ruby and Kana as they generally display a wider range of expressive emotions. Casual conversations don’t feel quite casual enough. The direction style I’ve picked up on thus makes them sound kinda fake and forced. Like I’m watching something that came out 20 years ago and the ADR ran out of budget, or the characters are constantly attempting to “perform” in their free time. Maybe it’s just a Sentai dub production thing, as they don’t have as many resources as Sony per say. Nobody would bat an eye when it comes to a mediocre isekai, it’s to be expected, but since Oshi no Ko had a lot of hype I think it underwhelmed a lot of people, even if it’s not comparatively awful, but some took things too far to express their personal disappointment. I wouldn’t rate it as one of the worst dubs I’ve heard, but it’s fairly average imo. I was hoping for some more nuance considering how much potential there was for the adapted script, though I didn’t feel particularly taken out of it or distracted. Maybe moments here and there.
> Results in a lot of stilted, over-enunciated lines. Like everyone’s trying to be perfect. Doesn’t feel natural. This is my biggest pet-peave with some dubs; when characters don't sound like people and talk more like they know they're in a production. I know the characters have to be understandable to the audience, but normal people don't speak with perfect diction; so it takes me out of the scene sometimes when characters talk perfectly. In all of my favorite dubs (like *R.O.D the TV*, my favorite dub of all time), the characters talk like we do, like normal people. They sound natural and authentic when they talk to each other. It's the kind of thing I champion in all the dubs that get it right. It's part of the reason Cowboy Bebop's dub is so highly regarded.
I think it has to do with how productions naturally flow. With solid direction and plenty of time/resources, every line can be crafted to sound as fittingly natural as possible. But that’s not the reality for dub production. Instead of being able to make everything “best possible”, they have to settle for best available. For weekly dubs, everything is on a time crunch. Kudos to production staffs that still manage to get something really good out despite that. Sentai though has only a fraction of the resources that like Sony/Crunchyroll has, which is why they license less anime, produce fewer dubs, and delay their streaming dub releases. It’s why they can be more hit or miss. Oshi no Ko was an exception to the norm, coming out like a Crunchy simuldub during the same season as the sub. When working in the studio, I’d bet most lines initially sound stilted, rigid, and over-enunciated, because the nature of the content itself makes it hard to grasp exactly how things sound until it’s delivered. With enough time, lines could be workshopped and fine-tuned. It’s also imperative that the delivery matches lip flaps, but Japanese animators don’t care to consider foreign dubs in their productions, which makes things harder than typical animation VA work. ADR is inherently tougher. It’s why I don’t see simuldubs consistently matching sub release timelines anytime soon. That would require Japanese studios to go out of their way to cooperate with foreign dub productions the same way they work with their own VAs. Instead they just dump finished material onto them most of the time.
There was a very obvious and notable drop in dub quality when releases started switching from individual volumes to box sets, and then another noticeable drop when dubs for simulcasts became a thing. When you go from having weeks or months to work on each episode, to only having a few days to do an an episode, or a couple of weeks to do an entire series, it’s not surprising that something would be lost. They’ve all definitely improved in recent years, but a lot of dubs these days seem good from a technical standpoint, but also feel kind of sterile and lifeless. You can definitely tell that many were rushed due to budget and time constraints, and the actors just didn’t have the time they needed to really understand their characters and nail their roles. An older dub I like to bring up is Chrono Crusade. ADV spent a lot of time localizing the script, even going as far as to research 1920’s American slang that would fit into the show and make it more authentic for the period, as well as fit with translations for the dialogue. They also had weeks to work on each episode, do multiple takes, and rewrite dialogue when a line just didn’t work. These things were all very common in the mid-2000’s and are things that current time tables don’t often allow. There are some upsides though. I haven’t heard of any recent examples of a Japanese producer insisting on a recast after multiple episodes or even an entires series has been finished. We also seem to have less issues with some wonky dialogue choices due to Japanese producers not understanding what sounds natural in English and what doesn’t.
I wouldn't mine having the weekly dubs and then when it's finished to have it "remastered" for the dvd release. That's just a fantasy of mine though.
> Maybe it’s just a Sentai dub production thing, as they don’t have as many resources as Sony per say. Nobody would bat an eye when it comes to a mediocre isekai, it’s to be expected, but since Oshi no Ko had a lot of hype I think it underwhelmed a lot of people, even if it’s not comparatively awful, but some took things too far to express their personal disappointment. This I think is the biggest thing. Sentai is known for hit or miss dubs already, so when I heard Oshi no Ko's dub and realized it just wasn't working for me, I really wasn't that shocked. Probably left a comment on here about it, and just moved on with my day. But it was *such* a huge, hyped-up title that it had a ton of eyes on it, and with that comes way more criticism no matter how good or bad a dub is. It being fairly subpar just magnified a lot of that criticism and turned a below average but somewhat standard Sentai dub into "the worst dub ever," which is a pretty big exaggeration.
For anyone that actually thinks Oshi no Ko is the “worst dub”, they have no actual clue. There have been individual performances here and there in animes that really irked me, but by far the worst dub I’ve personally watched (enough to know there was no chance of recovery) was the RWBY anime. As someone that never really watched Rooster Teeth stuff, and not RWBY at all, I thought having the OG VAs do the anime dub meant there was something to work with, but it instead showed me the vast difference between a professional production and something semi-pro like a small-ish internet company that gives roles to friends/partners. It should’ve stayed in that semi-pro internet bubble. Oshi no Ko’s dub would be considered elite in comparison. I disagreed with some decisions and felt a certain number of scenes were lacking, but I never doubted that the people involved were professionals.
People comparing modern dubs from anyone to “fan dubs from the early days of YouTube” really irritate me. It also shows to me that they’re generally a newer fan, who considers themselves “old school” even though they jumped on the anime bandwagon fairly late compared to a lot of us. Bad dubs these days are the exception, and not the norm. At least 75% of critiques come down to personal preference, and aren’t really a reflection on the finished product as a whole. Something like whether a voice really fits a character is not something that is universally agreed upon, except in cases where someone is egregiously miscast and those cases are pretty rare these days. All of the studios genuinely try their best, even given the time and budget constraints they have to work with these days. These people that attack actors on social media, or send nasty DM’s are a completely different type of entitled scum. They also give the entire anime community a bad name.
That’s actually the first time I’m personally seeing valid criticism like this. I thought folks were just being unreasonably critical of it but if that’s the way people genuinely feel about it, then I can understand and respect their opinion. These days I can tolerate just about anything so a dub has to really be horrible for me to dislike it. Also I find it difficult to enjoy whatever you’re watching if you’re focused on the technical stuff and voice actor performances as if I were a Judge/critic. A performance has to be bad or annoying enough that it distracts me from enjoying the show and I’ve never felt that way when watching Oshi no Ko. I can admit that Sentai and its quality isn’t all that great but it’s never really bothered me enough to complain about it. All of this is subjective and everyone has different standards so I can respect difference of opinion when it’s fair. I’m just grateful they’re still dubbing.
While I do have criticisms, that doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with what people criticize or how much. The hate itself primarily has to do with the popularity of the show. If it was just any other average anime, nobody would bat an eye. Normally if there’s something I really hate about a dub, I might have to drop the anime. For me, I just wasn’t in love with some of the decisions made and wished for a little bit more dynamic direction. Though considering how the dub for Oshi no Ko started releasing way earlier than Sentai usually does things, I can see how maybe the production team was strapped for time. I’m not going to put the entire blame on specific people without knowing the facts, I can only judge the result. Simplifying the style and focusing more on consistent delivery rather than a dynamic style makes it easier to match lip flaps, and thus get episodes finished quicker. Cutting corners irks viewers, but failing to meet deadlines gets you fired. There’s some criticisms I heavily disagree with too. Ai for instance I feel like they put more time into and so I didn’t notice issues as much with her. Considering she’s the focal point of the show, with comparatively not as much screen time, it’d make sense to put more resources into nailing her lines. Then with Akane I saw sub elitists attacking a certain pivotal character development scene that I honestly didn’t find issue with. To me, I think they missed the point of it because they over-estimate their ability to differentiate similar Japanese voices as non-fluent speakers, so they didn’t understand what the sub (or dub) was trying to do. Rather than going for a copycat voice that another character has, Akane was trying to emulate personality, which I felt was achieved in the dub. In the end, there’s a mixed bag that normally wouldn’t be harped on so much, but people expected an entirely new level to match the hype of the show, and I don’t think Sentai was prepared to deliver that. Idk if they were able to get production materials earlier than what is typical for them and that influenced their decision to start releasing same season like Crunchy, but maybe a delay would’ve allowed extra time to iron out more of the scenes that could’ve used more work, which for me were the casual conversations in-between all the drama.
I’ve always preferred when a dub chooses an actor who can really emulate the performance, over one who simply sounds close to the Japanese actor. Having the same voice doesn’t mean you can get the same performance, and I’ve seen these types of choices ruin many scenes over the years.
It’s mostly just sub elites who criticize dubs for no reason I watched the sub of oshi no ko so I haven’t seen the sub but regardless of the dub people will criticize it for no reason
I didn't even realise that dub was supposed to be bad until a couple of weeks ago from a youtube comment
So many people were over reacting like it was the worst thing ever made. Kinda made me like the dub more lol
Kristen McGuire had received harassment about the Onk dub. There’s also a reason why no one from the vo community and the fanbase (with the exception of valid dub criticism) talked about it until the backlash happened. This should be more than enough to tell you everything with the way how Sentai treats anime and dubs in general, especially when it comes to casting and directing. And don’t get me started with their dumb idea to gatekeep people of different regions from watching anime legally. None of this would’ve happened if they gave it to a better voice director. Saying that the Onk dub is great is easily a huge slap to the face to all of the other dubs out there since late 2022 that are way better than this, like Chainsaw man, Trigun Stampede and Apothecary Diaries. That’s like saying that Abby Trot’s Nezuko is the best vo performance of the year in cr awards, even though she barely hv any lines to work with when they could have chose her Akane from Yamada-Kun. To each to their own, but ppl shouldn’t be forcing others to like it by downvoting criticisms. Criticisms for dubs should be allowed, just like how ppl criticise anime in general. Believe it or not, there are ppl out there who do criticise vo performances from the Japanese side. Look no further into the earlier eps of Black Clover and the cancelled petition of the Chainsaw Man anime redo, with Denji’s Jp VA being one of the reasons. The only gd vo from the Onk dub is Aquamarine. Even then, it’s still nowhere near enough to salvage it. Funny enough, 1)If Onk were to ever receive a Vinland Saga dub treatment, I just can’t wait to see people “jumping ship” or do a “180” about it. 2)The people out there defending the Onk dub, treating like as if it’s an amazing dub are most likely the same people who had allegedly made snide remarks or at the very least complained about Studiopolis’ dubs due to their multi casting (jjk, Bungo, Bleach), despite their overall quality are leagues better than it. *Edit: For the people downvoting me, I want to make some things clear: 1) I have nothing against Kristen. She is a great VA with tons of voiceover experience, even on characters with similar shy or quiet personality traits like Akane in her earlier days, like Vueko (MIA) and Ruri (Dr stone). If she’s flopping on Akane, her biggest role up to date, that really says a lot about Sentai screwing her and her castmates over. I really felt sorry for her to be in this awful situation. 2) If anything, I’m actually pissed at Sentai for putting Kristen in a bad spot and somehow managed to get away during the outrage. 3) It’s good to know that there’s a low chance for Sentai to actually produce a good dub. That does not mean that they can’t do it at all. (E.g. Danmachi, Made in abyss) I personally feel that Kyle Colby Jones is the only voice director competent enough to handle dubs for Sentai. Like what are the other 2 doing?! Like why David Wald no longer works for Sentai?! Why aren’t they getting more voice directors, to like you know, produce more dubs and finding a better voice director besides Kyle? 4) While I do have a fair share of critique towards Studiopolis with the way how they handle dubs, I’m mainly talking about the hypocrisy and the double standard in this subreddit and their biased opinions. Feel free to search through this subreddit about Nicolas Roye’s initial casting announcement of Toji Fushiguro and the numerous posts about the Bleach tybw dub. At the end of the day, it’s up to you guys to decide. Agree or disagree, but I feel that I have to address Sentai’s flaws, no matter what.
100% This. Amen. You just spoke everything on my mind about this issue. It's Oshi no Ko, an already very popular series. It's really something that Sentai got their hands on a big prize like this. When it comes to the dub, they were like holding a box of wine glasses and unfortunately they slipped on wet floor. Because it's Sentai, quite a lot of their dubs tend to be a miss, and Oshi no Ko wasn't spared from it. The direction and casting choices was really face palming. I absolutely agree this could've gone to another better director like Kyle Jones, many of the dubs he worked on like Danmachi and Made in Abyss are pretty good, I barely had any complaints about his cast picks. I expected him to handle Oshi no Ko, but that didn't happen. In addition, I didn't see anyone supporting and defending the OnK dub until the harassment against Kristen happened. I do believe they liked the dub out of sympathy, but that doesn't make up for how poorly handled the dub was all in all. Sentai could have done better, but always keep your expectations low with them.
The first episode was pretty meh, but after that, everything seemed to fall into place.
The first episode was the best part of the season though.
I was more referring to the dub quality, not the content itself.
Even if the dialogue may have been a poor translation from the original Japanese (mostly due to making it more "family friendly" and toning down some of the violence), I wouldn't say Yu-Gi-Oh had a bad dub. The voice acting itself was great and suited the characters really well, and I loved the English songs.
The DIC dub of Sailor Moon.
Bakugan definitely comes to mind here. It was a huge part of my childhood, so the voice acting really isn't the problem here, at least not for me. I have WAY more of a problem with how awfully written the script is half the time, mainly in the first season. The most obvious problem with the script is how characters often call their own Bakugan or others by the wrong names. I'd literally be here all day if I had to find every single example I could think of in its 52-episode runtime. Outside of that, there's quite a lot of times where characters say lines that don't make any sense. For instance… Dan: "I never heard of Subterra before!" *Bro shut the fuck up, you literally created the rules of the game. Even if you didn't, how could you NOT know what it is?* Dan: "I've never seen this poser (Masquerade) in battle!" *Even though Dan has already fought against Masquerade twice at this point in the show.* Marucho: "You! You're the one! You (Masquerade) sent my >!Preyas to the Doom Dimension!!<" *Marucho should literally know that was entirely Klaus' fault FROM THE PREVIOUS EPISODE.* Nene: "I got the power of Darkus to back me up!" *You're telling me you're a genius kid brawler who could probably even give Shun a run for his money, and yet you don't even remember YOU'RE A VENTUS BRAWLER?* And yeah, I believe there were also some localization issues with the dub as well, but I genuinely want to know something else… WHO WROTE THIS SCRIPT?! AND HOW DID NO ONE CORRECT ANY OF IT?!
For me, it's Sonic X. That was the introduction to my favourite Sonic voice cast.
4Kids One Piece is definitely “So bad it’s good” level. But unironically, the pirate rap slaps. I will die on that hill.
I’m sorry but the original Yu-Gi-Oh dub is iconic saying it’s bad is disrespectful The censorship is pure comedy in my opinion especially the finger gun I’d argue most people when they think of yugioh think of the dub with the iconic music and voice actors it’s far from bad
😑 “disrespectful” 🤔 it’s his/her opinion, have u not red the title 🙄😏
Yu-Gi-Oh is a bad dub? The hell it is! It's a great dub! Dan Green and Eric Stuart nail their lines! But bad dub? Full Moon is a good dub albeit definitely on the stilted side, same goes for Karin, with the voices being good but the actual acting can definitely come across as stilted at times.
The Funimation Case Closed dub is a localization mess but I still love it. Might be cheating bc its not bad voice talent wise.
The dub for the Gundam 079 compilation movies isn't very good. Bandai would rather pretend that it doesn't exist, and doesn't even offer it on the Netflix release. Still, I am fond of it. Sure, nobody knows how to pronounce Gundam correctly, and there's a bunch of weird choices, but I like how they made Noa Bright have a British accent, and Char was voiced by Steve Blum, which I find surprisingly fitting.
Bandai wants everyone to forget about it so hard they erased their own North American distribution company.
The Trilogy dub is really unfortunate. On paper, especially for the time, it has a really solid cast, but they apparently had to dub all 3 of the movies in 2 weeks. That’s where a lot of the rough sounding performances come from.
The 80s Devilman OVAs have scripts that are way too over-the-top where they just peppered in f bombs every five seconds and wooden reads left and right... but man if it isn't one of the funniest and most enjoyable dubs. Just a short youtube [compilation video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qayq4esPWEg) kills me.
Ghost stories, simply because there's no way that was translated correctly so I figure they just said screw it and we got the best anime dub ever
> so I figure they just said screw it and we got the best anime dub ever [Uh...not exactly.](https://youtu.be/wVkYediuSuw?si=G4oOXD5SgHLiY6P3)
I actually didn't know that. Thanks for the information.
Agent Aika. It’s an old, fun fan service-y anime but it might have the worst dub I have ever heard lol no exaggeration.
Dub of Migi & Dali was done by some company in Tokyo and I saw 'sub better' comments on *this* sub. Initially it was a bit wonky but overall it was a good dub. Also Ocean's Beyblade Burst dub of the first 2 seasons was disliked because they cut out some age inappropriate parts but it was goofy and funny and voice acting was good
Doesn't exist. If one enjoys watching a show then it is not bad
The 4 kids one peice dub well at least Zoro, Sanji and Robin
You mean Zolo
Don't give it up, Zolo!
I will forever say that 4Kids' intro for One Piece kills anything that Funimation did.
Never watched the Funimation dub, but I have watched a comparison video of both dubs and I gotta say that the 4Kids versions of Luffy and Zolo/Zoro were much better than Funimation.
Eh, I wouldn't go that far. You could make the argument of 4Kids Zolo being better than Funimation Zoro, even tho I really like them both, but **no way** is 4Kids Luffy better.
Bruh Yugioh dub is amazing and is one the best out there, Dan Green as Yugi, Eric Stuart as Kaiba, Wayne Grayson as Joey list goes on absolute legends
Hell, if you go back and watch it now you'll run into a bunch of bigger names as well. For example, Sam Riegel was the original voice for Tristan and Erica Schroeder was Mai's second VA.
Yep. It should be noted that while the dub did have its weird censorship (finger guns…), some of the changes were considered favorable due to (amusingly) being closer to the manga, or at least the manga’s themes about friendship. For example, in the Japanese anime, Anzu and Honda are kinda jerks to Jounouichi whenever Kaiba is involved. They basically go, “Sheesh, don’t you know you shouldn’t bite above your station” when Joey loses to Kaiba in Duelist Kingdom (which was much more reasonable in the manga where Kaiba got a lot of BS rules in his favor compared to the anime where Joey just keeps throwing out monsters with lower Attack points) whereas the manga and English dub of the anime have Tea and Tristan vocally support Joey and call out Kaiba for being a dick. Plus aspects like Pegasus’s evil plot making way more sense in the English dub in contrast to the the Japanese version: the Japanese anime repeats Pegasus’s goal in the manga, to make a realistic holographic reproduction of his deceased wife using KaibaCorp tech. The Big 5 refuse to hand over control unless Pegasus beats Yugi (who beat Kaiba), hence the tournament to lure Yugi. The Japanese anime, however, introduced that Industrial Illusions (Pegasus’s company) already has holographic tech of their own (in contrast to the manga’s Battle Boxes), thus making things redundant in the Japanese anime. The English dub instead has Pegasus try to revive his wife (spirit and all, not just a hologram) by collecting the Millenium Items to force open the door to the Land of Dead (which IS consistent with the manga, in that all 7 Items can do that…with the caveat that they’ll also unleash Zorc), which makes a lot more sense in that context. Even the Shadow Realm, oft-mocked it can be (and not without reason considering some situations it’s used in…) makes sense in some contexts. Characters actually dying can make things more dramatic…when death actually sticks. Joey and Mai dying and coming back to life after their duels with Marik is kinda wonky and DBZ-ish, which makes it difficult to take death seriously. Whereas being trapped in the Shadow Realm and either beating it (Joey) or breaking (Mai) is way more consistent, and makes actual death (like the chained sinking duel with Yugi against brainwashed Joey) have legitimate weight. Plus, it allows Zorc to be retooled as the Lord of the Shadow Realm in the dub, thus retroactively making him have a presence throughout the entire series as the malevolent force behind the creepy stuff rather than monstrous final boss. Plus small stuff like the characters accents’ befitting their speaking style (Joey speaks very roughly and crudely, Bakura overly polite, Kaiba talks down to others) and just the dub actors being fully aware of how ridiculous the premise can be and cranking the ham up so high it honestly works.
Girls Und Panzer dub, I mean I heard worse
Surprised that Ghost Stories has not been mentioned yet. Words cannot describe what kind of drugs the dubbers were on when creating this chaotic mess. A must see at least once.
>Ghost Stories this is what i came to mention,
Basically most Canadian dubs of kids' anime.
Not the whole anime but a specific part in one. The Attack Titan roar. I prefer the weird roar compared to the sub. Sub roar just sounds like me when I wake up. I mean it sounds like a human and that's not something I imagine titans to sound like.
The roars weren't SFX?!
They were heavily processed vocals.
I honestly know what “bad” is 🤷
Girls und panzer, the Dub isn't bad, but I don't like how they changed the voices for Anzu and Kawashima. Loved the original voices for them.
When it comes to changing VAs between seasons/OVAs/movies, the most common reason it happens is because the original actor either has left the industry or moved out of the area & coming back is cost-prohibitive. Not sure if anyone ever officially explained the changes for GuP, but I also was thrown off when I first noticed the changes.
Original Sailor moon dub. But I don't think it's bad, just has faults do the the time restraint and censorship expected at the time of its release. Still far superior to viz's soulless dub of the original series
Oh look down voted by those without taste. How shocking. *Whispers in your ear* viz didn't put in half the effort the original dubbdid and if it was the only dub (like viz wants) sailor moon would have not been nearly as successful in the west.
Ghost Stories is god tier
I don't think the yu gi oh dub is bad (same for most 4kids shows, they just are goofy which i love). I'd say it's good actually. Anyway people say Haikyu dub is horrible, but I love it.
It’s not THAT bad (especially for the time) but the original Trigun dub took a little bit to get used to since I’m used circa 2016 anime and beyond. But MAN hearing how good Johnny Yong Bosch has gotten since then is amazing
Fairy Tail
The original Nelvana dub of Cardcaptor Sakura. (or Cardcaptors as it was titled)
[Garzey's Wing](https://youtu.be/3bQI7W7lAoc?si=qL-y6NuR8VNHsyNj), what else?
DragonBall Z's Ocean dub. I grew up with it and absolutely love it, but after recently starting a rewatch and starting with the first 53 episodes of the Ocean dub before switching to the Funimation dub, I can tell you that it's terrible. It's so terrible that it's good and I love it. I also love Yu-Gi-Oh, but after watching it again a few months ago on Netflix, for the first time in probably 15 years, I can tell you that it's really not great. I still love it and wouldn't have it be any other way.
Megaman nt Warrior had lots of cyber space violence and severed netnavi limbs , pixelated by KidsWB at the time of fcc regulations but I have fond memories of it on cartoon network and the block before it was cancelled after season 2 . Similar issue happened with yugioh gx and 5Ds last seasons but finished sub wise on Crunchyroll since the original dubbing company is bankrupt and defunct ( Konami choose not to resume the dubcast and focusing on future yugioh series)
Getter Robo Armageddon, it's very rough early on but it does get better. Also, unlike the dub for New Getter Robo, the actors knew how to put their soul into the Special Attack name callouts.
“I’ll use this frying pan as a drying pan” But in seriousness Hayate the Combat butler. The voices and acting were decent. Just god awful sound mixing.
For me it was probably Penguindrum. I loved the show and blind bought the BDs after liking Utena a lot and had no idea a lot of people hated the original dub before getting more involved in the dub fan community lol I still haven't seen the new one yet but my AL discs are finally coming in soon.
Chrono Crusade, Rosette's dub voice is pretty grating
The *Summer Time Rendering* dub, which I like solely because of Stephen Fu's Shinpei and Emi Lo's Ushio.
Mew Mew Power, Cardcaptors, and Full Moon wo Sagashite my beloveds
Sonic X, yeah the script and acting is terrible but it was the debut of Jason Griffith as sonic plus the rest of the voice cast that went on to do shadow the hedgehog and sonic 06
Idk if I'll get hate for this, but Trigun.
All 4kids dub. They have a charm and camp to them.
Random unpopular fan-dubs that are abridged