Older weeb here; I have ADHD and the attention span of a goldfish, so I prefer anime in a language that I can speak.

"Older" weeb here: I don't care about subs vs dubs anymore. I used to be a sub or die guy. But now I like dubs more since I can watch anime while in the gym or doing chores or after a long day of work, I can just chill watching a show without bothering with reading. If I want to read, I read a book and not watching a show. Also once I've gotten used to the dubs I started to enjoying them way more than the japanese ones and I often cringe listening to japanese voice when watching.

This made me realize it never was about the quality of subs or dubs, but just about watching enjoyment and mood and neither is right or wrong.

Dubs have always sucked, still do too. Fansubs specifically are where the true experience is, they are of much higher quality (or at least used to be).

older weeb here, quality dubs are rare but when found are a tasty choice.

now that most anime sources have become corporate wage slavers and are pressuring teams to use AI, those tasty dubs will become even rarer.

I still enjoy subs, but as I get older and start falling asleep earlier, dubs is the only thing that I can watch for more than 30 minutes.

I've been watching anime my whole life (I'm 30) and almost always do dub unless it's not an option. Never had a problem with it.

This has to be sampling bias or something; most classic dubs sucked.

I've been told that English dubs are way better now than 10 years ago for the last 20 years, but every time I hear something from a new dub, it still ends up having the same old problems. Like, my throat ends up aching because they insist on doing everything in falsetto for some reason.

I usually prefer subs for serious works and dubs for comedy -- assuming the dub doesn't completely suck.

To be fair, dubs used to be really, really bad back when us old weebs were growing up.

Nowadays, studios think about localization from the start when creating the original dialogue, leading to much better quality dubs. Thus, the newer weebs never developed the cringe reflex we have.

Good dubs have always been a rare gem.

IMO the key to a good dub is two things:

1. Actors and direction that prioritizes caricature without becoming "campy". This is something JP VO is ridiculously good at. They identify a character's personality, crank it up to 11, but still make the emotional delivery feel genuine, even if extreme

2. Direction that understands the characters as intended by the author. This is where a lot of dubs fall horribly short. They do not consult with the original content creator, and wind up with voices and characterizations that may seem to work on the surface but are lacking the depth of understanding for a character needed for the performance to make sense over time as we learn more about them.

Just my 2c, but IMO this is where most of the problems with dubs come from, and why they wind up sounding either generic or campy.

Me, a sub Connoisseur looking at all these dub peasants(also me looking at the subs themselves);

Two things with subtitles I do not like:

1. I watch anime primarily for the animation and having to read tbe text on the bottom or top of the screen takes my eyes away from the action.

2. They usually condense the thought into a shorter sentence and you lose a lot of flavor in the dialogue.

The most egregious thing I have seen regarding item 2 was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's so bland and boring with the subtitles vs the english dubbing. And it annoys me that every streaming service that has the film, has the subbed version.

And another thing regarding the argument itself is that how would you know the Japanese acting is good unless you understand Japanese? Ironically, the Japanese ends up more hammy than the English, because that's what Japanese theatre is all about: wild exaggeration.

I don't watch dubs so can't know for certain, but I can't imagine newer ones are worse than the horrific cringe that made me decide to not watch dubs in the first place.

I'm an older weeb, dubs are the only way I'll watch, reading subtitles is exhausting and takes all the joy out of watching the show, dubs are the only reason I actually like anime

I feel like it’s the opposite, I don’t like dubs but I have to admit a lot of recent ones are not bad.

Previously the ONLY dubs I tolerated was Ghibli movies and Stand Alone Complex.

Pretty much the opposite for me. The older the dub, the cringier it tends to be.

On the one hand, all anime and cartoons are dubs. Duh.

On the other, I think the last decade of English dubs have mostly been brilliant. But then I thought the same for Astro Boy in the 80s or Akira in the 90s. 🤷‍♂️

Some dubs are poorly done or made bad by external factors (politics, budget, half arsed production, retconning, etc), but that's not a problem with the practice of dubbing.

theres just so much bad american english dubbing you can take before its unbearable

Good dubs are good, bad dubs are great mediocre dubs suck donkey balls.

To me, dubs make the characters feel out of place.

If I'm watching an English show, I assume the characters speak English. Same reasoning can be applied with Anime.

It's just distracting to me when there's a language mismatch. I would rather read subtitles on a screen, but have the 'correct' audio, than having characters speak a language they shouldn't.

I'm definitely an older weeb (since the early 90s) and I hate dubs, so this tracks.

Subs or dubs? Doesn't matter, I finish the series and then go read the original manga because I'm impatient