The whole time I was watching dubbed anime, I thought I was saving time

I realized last month that I was actually missing out on a ton of emotional impact by not watching subbed. It hit me during a quiet scene in a show called 'March Comes in Like a Lion' where the main character's voice just cracked in a way the English dub totally flattened out. I always figured reading subtitles would slow me down, you know, like multitasking while folding laundry or something. But I timed it out on three episodes once and the runtime difference was maybe 30 seconds total, not enough to matter. Now I'm wondering if I've been cheating myself out of better performances for like 5 years of anime watching. Has anyone else had that moment where they switched and never looked back, or do you still swear by dubs for certain genres?

2 comments

2 Comments

ninas7022d ago

the main character's voice just cracked in a way the English dub totally flattened out" - yeah that's the thing, dubs have to match lip flaps so they lose a lot of the tiny emotional stuff like breaths and voice cracks. I still watch dubs for action shows though, like One Punch Man, cause the fight scenes are easier to follow without reading and the jokes hit faster in English. But for any drama or slice of life, subs are the only way to go, you miss too much nuance otherwise.

the_seth22d ago

Does that mean you flip to subs for anything with real conversation?

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