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I'll start with fair disclosure: I have done voice-overs. My voice has appeared on national TV and radio. In the interest of continuing to enjoy the anonymity of my on-line identity, I will not discuss the projects to which I contributed. I do read and speak some Japanese. I have family in Japan and have spent time around the Tokyo area, though I am not of Japanese descent. Due to my experience, I believe my opinion is biased.
Speaking of my opinion:
I usually prefer English dubs, except for very few properties like "The Irresponsible Captain Taylor" where I strongly prefer the original Japanese.
Why? [i]More money and time are usually available to dub titles than was available for the original production[/i]. As such, higher quality sound effect kits are used, 2-channel audio gets remastered into 5.1 (and sometimes 6.1) surround, and higher-paid voice actors can be afforded, almost always with more humane production schedules. Whether you like the voice actors' performances or not, the rest of the audio production is often of a higher caliber. Some evidence of this is visible to you, in print, on the backs of many of the VHS and DVD imports of the time when this became the norm (circa 1998).
[quote]
[b]Audio[/b]:
* Japanese Language, 2-channel stereo
* English Language, 5.1 Dolby surround
[/quote]
Now, this is obviously not true for every property and maybe I'm an audiophile. I do enjoy my home theater, usually pretty loud because I love being immersed in great sound. I have watched many properties in both English and Japanese, sometimes one language before the other and sometimes the reverse. With few exceptions, I do prefer the dubbed editions, in English.
This is only my opinion to an open question. Please don't troll me for expressing it.
English
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heres a pretty cool three languages clip of the same scene
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Edited by WileEWolf: 1/16/2015 11:02:02 PMThanks for your opinion! I never really expected I would get some input from an insider in the industry, its nice to hear. I 100% agree with you on the actual sound processing and am a bit of an audiophile myself. I made specific reference to Full Metal Alchemist, which is one of the most popular of anime- therefore it must have had one of the bigger budgets upon remaster to BluRay- and the Japanese audio is still 2.0, whereas the english is in 5.1. It makes a difference. From a end-user perspective thats no professional, I find that the English sound processing is very ell done, crisp and clean. As I say, I think there are good voice actors english, but they seem to have a bit of a different directive in how they act... almost like they have a different target audience in mind... The guy in this video clip is one of my favourites... so much passion comes through in his work
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This guy also does a good job. This clip is probably over the top for some, but I love it. I like the fact that its not "perfect" it shows the sort of erratic tone and rasping and deep breaths that you would expect from a moment of craziness.