"Glass Half Full" corner - What do you like about the dub?

Ryu Taylor

Ryu Taylor

Eternally loyal to the dub and TPCi
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As my newly updated signature says (until I update it again), I am a lonely advocate for the English dub. I used to enjoy watching the original version, as long as I have easy access to a mute button when Meowth (or Nyarth) speaks (Nyarth as R2D2? No. Just no.) Yeah, I know that's a petty reason, so I won't defend it so passionately. Also, I have to admit, the original version is as pun-deluged as the dub, if not more so. Is it only okay for Japan to make bad puns? And when the acting gets way too awkward and over-the-top, strike three. And at this point, it's out; the dub is the superior version as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, onto the subject at hand. For the reasons I listed earlier, I prefer the dub over the original version, a preference that I feel like I'm alone in having. I'm not going to force any minds to change; I'm not like that. I always try my best to speak only for myself, except in some special cases. But this is an "only me" case when I say the following:

- I don't care about music changing.
- I don't care about name changing.
- I don't care about paint edits. Sure, I'll be seen mocking some of the most ridiculous ones, though. One won't need to be a weeaboo to laugh at that.
- I don't care about minor dialogue edits.

On the other hand:

- I do care about plot changing. Although I think the dub of the first Pokemon movie is a guilty pleasure, I agree that it's an unfaithful dub.
- I do care about when character changing goes very dramatically far. Existential crisis Mewtwo > Vengeful Mewtwo.
- I do care about major dialogue edits (technically, this could be a subsidiary of either criterion listed above).

So, by my own criteria, I'd say the English dub of Pokemon is a good show. Characters are kept mostly intact and the plotlines aren't dramatically changed (except in the case of some of the movies, but that's the movies). And even some of the dialogue changes that ended up making another canon really don't matter to me much, either.

And that's my piece about why I like the dub. So how about yours? Do you have any positive points you can give about the dub?
 
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IMHO, Sarah Natochenny made excellent improvements with her Ash voicework during DP, and Bill Rogers' Brock was awesome. Easily one of the best on cast.

Jason Griffith as Cilan was great too.
 
I just remembered something else. Sometimes, the writing has some legit funny moments. Example from "Hassle in the Castle" (I'm sure this is a well-known line by now):

Jessie: "To protect from all that chafing and itching!"
James: "It might finally stop all of Jessie's complaining!"
 
I can know what's going on, since they're talking in a language that I can understand. Never got used to the sound of Japanese...
 
I can not have to learn Japanese names for moves, characters, Pokemon.

*spends 5 minutes not knowing who _____ is*

But yeah I have no problems with dubs, I tend to prefer them. I can also know who's saying what since a lot of Japanese voices in Anime blend together to me and dub names are easier to understand, takes ages when they have eastern names but if they have something simple then woo.
 
For TPCi, once they started casting roles based off "talent" instead of soundalikeness the voice work for the main cast got much better. Dawn, Iris, Cilan, Serena, Clemont, and Bonnie all have decent enough performances that I think are mainly hindered by the script and director instead of lack of talent (the same goes for pretty much every other voice actor in this dub)

Both dubs have, from what I've heard, had fairly accurate scripts, and while they do just make up stuff/change stuff for the hell of it, they have done a better job than a lot of other dubs.

They also have had their fair share of actually good actors-- Rachael Lillis in particular always stood out to me as being actually talented and I loved her voice work on Jessie and Misty.
 
I always loved how TPCi does their homework on the games unlike 4Kids, thus keeping names always consistent (with the exception of Café Cabin -> Mountain Hut Maid Café in that one DP episode), which 4Kids had trouble doing. And they correct moves that shouldn't be learned by a specific Pokémon when possible.

And you're not alone. I always loved the dub, from 4Kids to TPCi. I understand the first movie, for example, is a radically different experience from the original, but I enjoy it nonetheless. Also, I couldn't believe that the songs in that movie and the next one were replacements, because music like "Tears of Life", "Lugia's Song", or "Dragonite Takes Flight" is amazing.

EDIT: One more thing I noticed is that they do a good job at matching the lip-flap. When the characters talk in the dub it looks so natural, with only a few errors every now and then.
 
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I also really enjoy the music in the dub, especially the vocal songs. And you know what? I have a soft spot for lame jokes and puns.
 
Umbreon Freak said:
I also really enjoy the music in the dub, especially the vocal songs. And you know what? I have a soft spot for lame jokes and puns.
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Me too. And on the subject of lame puns, I almost wonder if those were put in as part of the Americanization process, being as lots of Saturday morning cartoons had lots of terrible puns ("Refuse Rangers"? Likely the worst joke ever heard in Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers). Actually, that's most likely the reason, and I think it worked.

As for dub music, normally, I think it's on par with the original music. That is except for two cases in the dub's favor: the second and third movies.
 
Ryu Taylor said:
Me too. And on the subject of lame puns, I almost wonder if those were put in as part of the Americanization process, being as lots of Saturday morning cartoons had lots of terrible puns ("Refuse Rangers"? Likely the worst joke ever heard in Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers). Actually, that's most likely the reason, and I think it worked.

As for dub music, normally, I think it's on par with the original music. That is except for two cases in the dub's favor: the second and third movies.
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That's most likely it, but from what I understand, the original Japanese version has its fair share of puns as well. I also prefer the first movie's dub score. The Japanese score is nice too, but Tears of Life gets me every time.
 
As far as the Mega Evolution Specials are concerned, I really appreciate that the script is close to the Japanese version, minus the Legendary Giant Rock thing. And I really have to give them props for the music they use in those episodes (my personal favorites are the orchestrated tracks). For the voice actors, I really like Jonathan Silver as Alain, and Zoe Martin's Mairin is pretty good. I'm still conflicted on H.D. Quinn being Lysandre, but I am impressed with how much Andrew Paull's voice for Steven Stone has improved since his first appearance in AG22.

Now, when it comes to the main anime, I can admit that Sarah Natochenny's Ash has improved a lot since she first started. And so far all of the voices sans, James are fine. The way the script is written for the main anime, however, is something I'm still ambivalent of since I rarely watch these episodes.

All in all, with the new voice director, we can probably expect continued improvements on the dub.
 
In relation to the latest Japanese episode, at least Gallade doesn't sound like a 6 year old.
 
I'm going a bit on a meta-level here, but I admire the fact that 4kids gave Maddie Blaustein a job. I imagine that the 90s weren't kind to transgender people (nor homosexual people), so for her to get a job like the one she got sure is remarkable.
 
Generally, kids are smarter than 4kids thinks they are. Whenever they realized that, it made me happy. And I think their greatest realization of that was when they dubbed Pikachu's Rescue Adventure. Honestly, having a narrator in that short's original version distracted from everything that went on in that short (not to mention that its insultingly straightforward nature was the biggest insult to human intelligence I've ever seen), and for the dub to finally follow the ever-important "show, don't tell" rule is one of the best things I've seen the English dub do.

This sentiment of mine is summed up perfectly in Suede's Animenia video about that short (from 23:09 to 24:11 of the video this links to, and please don't mind the French fansubbing as this is one of the only existing mirrors of that video)

So when it comes to the second Pikachu short, dub all the way.
 
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Dubs are just better 90% of the time because you can pick up things you can't in subs.

Like sarcasm. And I've always found english voices are far better at snarking
 
The "Stephan's name" jokes in BW

I'm not a fan of TPCI's dub by any means, but I like how they handled this. Confusing "Stephan" with "Stephen" IS an easy mistake, which I can get where they're coming from (how anyone could get "Biff" from "Butch" I'll NEVER understand). Likewise, they had him react to it in different ways while the Japanese version had him saying the same phrase (akusento chigau) over and over.

So unlike other times they make annoying running gags even more annoying, this is one time they made it bearable.
 
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