By Nyneishia Gupta

All anime watchers know that there are 2 types of anime. Subbed anime, which is anime as released in Japan with Japanese voice actors and English subtitles and dubbed anime, which is the same video but with english voice actors. Ever since dubbed anime was released there has been controversy over whether or not it was as good as sub. Critics say that the voices don’t fit with the word movements or sound right. People who like dub say that this type of anime is easier to understand and that the voices usually fit pretty well.

    I am and forever will be a diehard dub watcher. To me it sounds more natural and the voices usually fit the mouth movements pretty well because the whole english script is made to accommodate the movements. I like to be able to look away for a minute and understand what is happening, instead of looking away and coming back to see Midoriya eating a piece of hair. Understanding the reasoning behind the hair eating makes the anime much more enjoyable. In dubbed anime, the words tend to make more sense than subtitled versions.  I don’t mean because it is in English, I mean that they make more sense than the English translation at the bottom of the screen. Sometimes the voice actors will say a name, but in the translation the name isn’t there which throws me off. The translation can also just plain weird. For example, the subtitles will read “He died because of death”, and the dub actors will say, “He died because he had a fatal injury”. In my opinion that makes much more sense. However I do watch one anime in sub. I watch Food Wars in sub because the dub is 3 seasons behind. This is one of the main downfalls of dub. It is usually behind the release of sub. Sometimes it isn’t bad because you only wait a month or 2 for the dub to be released but sometimes, like in the case of Food Wars, you have to wait years which I am not up for. 

      A lot of people argue that dub is unnatural. They say that the voices don’t match up. This is sometimes true, a voice actor will talk over an opening and closing mouth which doesn’t fit the words at all. Watching anime as it comes out definitely has its perks as well. Unless you happen to be friends with someone who reads the manga, you don’t have to worry about someone spoiling the episode. And of course if you happened to speak Japanese, then sub is definitely a good choice.

    At the end of the day, anime is anime. It doesn’t really matter what language you watch it in because it all depends on your opinions. Although it is always fun to distract a sub watcher while watching anime, remember that they can spoil the whole show for you if they wanted to.