| Hard-core fans of the kind that attended Otakon tend to prefer their
anime in the original Japanese, with subtitles. The general public disagrees.
At an Otakon panel of voice actors, the point was raised that most anime
sales in the U.S. are of dubbed tapes and discs. Depending on the title,
anywhere from 60 percent to 90 percent of sales are dubs. That goes against
the American "otaku" attitude which wants to hear the cadences and inflections
of Japanese seyuu. American voice actor Amanda Winn Lee, Rei in Eva, wonders
if sub fans know what they're hearing. "Unless you're fluent in Japanese,
it's impossible to tell if there's bad acting," she said. |
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| Voice actor Michael Brady joined in the discussion about the typical
sub-loving, English-speaking fan: "It's like he's filling in all the blanks
himself, but he won't give the dub the benefit of the doubt." Brady, the
Crusher Joe voice actor, has said that sub fans forgive the technial flaws
of anime acting - like voices not matching lip flaps on the screen - but
are hypercritical of dub acting. "Anyone who takes anything too seriously,
I absolutely must make fun of," said Brady. |
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| Juliet Cesario, Belldandy in Oh My Goddess, sees a swing toward dub-watching
among the next generation of convention-goers and anime watchers, those
aged 7 to 12. "Young kids watch only dubs and don't know about the subs.
For the young kids who are getting into anime, it's all animation. They
don't understand the cultural meaning of it all." |
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| The panel members said that only among American anime fans is there
the phenomenon of people demanding to hear acting in a foreign language
they don't understand. Move away from the American mainland, and TV and
movie watchers expect to hear voices in their native language. Lisa Ortiz,
Lina Inverse in Slayers, told of trips to Puerto Rico where she saw nothing
but dubbed films. In that U.S. commonwealth, voice actors are matched with
Hollywood roles and become celebrities in their own right. "It's exactly
how we would treat our stars," Ortiz said. |
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| Scott Simpson, Keichi in Oh My Goddess, noted that the U.S. anime industry
grosses around $100 million annually. The number sounds big, but it pales
in comparison to the billions made by the entertainment industry. Simpson
thinks dubs will be crucial to the expansion of anime into the American
entertainment mainstream. |
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