Unpopular Opinion

My rule of thumb is that I'll watch dubs of anime that aren't purely Japanese.

Fullmetal metal alchemist, ranking is kings, attack on titan, jojo, gurren lagann, Gundam, most isekai, I'd be happy to watch in dub.

Demon slayer, jujutsu kaisen, kaiju #8, hajime no Ippo, all blatantly Japanese settings that would throw me off watching the dub so I stuck to the subs.

If we press play and it auto picks English audio the entire room starts searching for the remote.

Maybe it's what we watch, but English dubs are jank. Compared to the original audio they sound flat and amateur.

Skill issue.

FINALLY. SOMEONE LIKE ME!

Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t know how people prefer a perfectly reasonable dub to subs. Like, yeah, if the dub is crap, fine, I get it; but if it’s even halfway decent, why would you want to have to spend half your attention reading text when you could just be focusing on the gorgeous animation you probably selected this anime for watching in the first place? I don’t know, maybe this has to do with people who are slow readers vs fast readers. Maybe my mild dyslexia is the problem here. But I just don’t get it. Subs are work; why would you want to do work while watching an anime for enjoyment?

I don’t watch anime, but I do prefer subs when watching foreign language media (which is a huge percentage as a Dutchman).

For English of course I don’t need translation, and not for German either. But for languages I don’t know, I just like hearing those other languages and the voices of the actual people talking, not some (often janky) Dutch dub. In Dutch you don’t generally have a choice anyway, though. Dubs are really only made for children who can’t read yet.

But I’d like to add that the quality of subtitles, particularly how they are timed, is very important. If the subtitles are just sentence by spoken sentence, they are essentially useless as you will have to keep reading to understand what’s being said. Proper subtitles also go somewhat ‘into the future’, so after quickly reading the subtitles, you know what will be said and can listen to the actual actors.

Hard agree. Most of the hatred of dubs comes from back in the day when they were terrible but nowadays a bad dub is the exception

I agree. For example: URAMESHI!

I think the trope of "Subs are better than dubs" hails from an era where dubbing was generally cheaply done. Or the dialogue is completely changed for broadcast (lots of the stuff from the 4kids era are like this).

I think even without speaking Japanese you can understand some of the choices the actors make with their tone of voice. It's admittedly less that you get out of your native language, but sometimes the English actors make different choices.

For example, I don't like the dub of Cowboy Bebop because the Jet actor made him sound more like a meat head than I think the character actually is.

I like both. Best of both worlds.

Just chiming in so there is someone that prefers subs in the comments....

That said, dubs have on average gotten better over the years, and the sloppy subs they put on streaming services are inferior to fansubs

One punch man is so dependent on comedic timing and tone to get its story across that I couldn’t watch it with subs at all. But dubbed it was just great.

I have been learning to listen to Japanese just to see if the actual Japanese is better than English because I have always preferred dubs to subs not just becsuse I want to focus on the animation and not the subtitles, but becsuse the subtitles always lack depth and character. The actual audio does not, and you get way more depth and nuance if you actually understand the language.

This is not an unpopular opinion. Netflix and Crunchyroll have both confirmed that more viewers watch dubs than subs.

I'm also a middle aged man with kids and responsibilities. Sometimes I want to watch Anime and I have to fold Laundry or cook dinner at the same time.

In an average day if I'm really lucky I can maybe find a whole hour to sit and WATCH something.

I just rewatched Evangelion, and the dubbed dialogue actually made more sense idiomatically than the subtitles. I know there are cases where the translation is not great and the voice actors are doing 5th grade class play level overacting, but that’s not universal.

To me, Japanese is too fast and I can't read subtitles, don't have time to learn Japanese and for me at least is not worth time, maybe sometimes in the future. But English i actually understand.

I am glad to hear this. I hate reading subtitles. I feel I cannot relax if I have to read. I want to sit back and casually enjoy anime. However if I hear about an anime plot and I cannot find a dub version for free, I will settle for subtitles. I find it annoying as well switching my attention from reading to what is happening. It kills the mood of becoming immersed in the story.

100% with you. I think dubs get a bad rap. Just caught up on Demon Slayer and loved the english voice actors—especially for Zenitsu 💛

Honestly the sentiment I tend to see online these days is more case by case basis. Dan Da Dan has a great dub, Solo Leveling has a shitty one, the general consensus is that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is best in English. I think you can tell if acting is good even if you don't speak the language but I can respect preferring dubs to subs