(Image is a licensed Fairy Tail metal posted licensed by Kodansha purchased at Kumoricon and signed by some English voice actors)

A big debate going on now is how to consume anime content in the form of shows and movies. Sub or subtitled is watching an anime show mostly as original content but with added text translations in your own native language. In my case, American English. Watching the dub or a dubbed show is a show mostly as original content but removing the Japanese voice actor and adding in a native speaking voice actor or actors.

In both cases the show visuals can potentially be altered to fit your country viewing guideline regulations, to fit your target audience or to make the show more understandable due to country differences. Some of the more common American edits that I’ve seen are removing blood or changing it to sweat, changing or removing things like cigarettes and alcohol to other edibles or drinks and cutting scenes that you might only understand if you grew up in Japan. Usually more changes happen in the dub then the sub.

There are many reasons why people like either the sub or the dub better and I’m going to list a few here.

One positive for the sub is that the show usually comes out a lot quicker then the dub. A lot of the time now, it could come out the same day it airs in Japan. All the editors have to do is add in some text on the screen. This is usually why the sub has less changes in the visuals. The downside to this is that if you do not understand Japanese, then you will be reading a lot. This is me. This makes you have to pay close attention. If there is a lot of talking the subs don’t slow down and you might miss something. Also since you are reading everything that they say, you might not be paying attention as much to the visuals. Finally, one of the biggest things that people say is that the sub is the closest work to what the director had planned so watching the sub would be in it’s purest form.

The dub also has a lot of benefits. Since the characters are speaking in your native language, English then you don’t have to worry about reading. You can observe the visuals at your leisure. You might also be a busy person and are doing other things while listening is mainly how you are consuming content while watching every once in a while. Or, you might not want to just sit on the couch because that makes you feel lazy. This is not me but some might feel this way. One of the main drawbacks of the dub is that it could take months to years for them to come out. I can also see that if English is not your native language, the dub could take even longer. The dub also creates jobs as voice actors need to be hired to fulfill those roles. A lot of times, the dub is created for a specific audience like kids so content needs to be edited. A bad strike against the dub is that Japanese doesn’t translate exactly to English. There might be a hidden meaning when said in Japanese that might not get recognized or picked up in the translation efforts. It could also be tone of a sentence or wording that gets lost and or not translated. Finally, people might think that one is erasing an original voice actors work and effort that he or she might have put in.

For me, I usually like watching the sub. I watch a lot of new things and the sub allows me to consume content earlier for shows I want to see. One show that I like the dub better is Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. I grew up watching those shows as a dub and I am use to their voices. I think they fit the characters better. I tried watching as a sub and I don’t like their voices. Goku specifically. I would like to try out more dubbed shows though. I feel like I would like the Black Clover story but I don’t like the Japanese voice of Asta. So, if there is a dub, I would like to see if I like that voice better. When going to conventions, pre-COVID, I also go into meeting the voice actors. It seems, most of the celebrity guests that go to those conventions are English voice actors. I had a really fun time at Kumoricon specifically getting to meet some voice actors. I was able to get some autographs but I haven’t even heard some of their work that they do. I think one thing that might be a little frustrating for me is when I might be use to one voice and the other sound different.

Do you like to watch the sub or the dub? Or perhaps you like both? Let me know in the comments below.