Re: Anime discussion
At risk of sounding cliche, I'll agree with the assessment that Cowboy Bebop sounds better in English. There's more emotion between the characters, the dialogue feels more natural, and many members of the staff themselves have praised and say it's the version they prefer to watch.
Another similar example is the creator of El-Hazard: the Magnificent World saying that the Japanese dub was good, but that when he saw it in English, it was simply the version he wanted and goes so far to say it's the true voice of the story that he envisioned.
CodeGeass has a more engaging dub cast. The characters are more distinct and emotive. It's been said that even Japanese viewers commonly find Johny Yongbosh's performance as Lelouch more sympathetic and expressive.
In the case of Panty and Stocking, it definitely fits your criteria of having a western feel. heck the animation and references have so many homages and jokes about American culture some that
have only seen the English dub claim they didn't know it was an anime at first. It says something that the Japanese script has about a quarter of it's banter between the leads in heavily accented English.
Personally I'm a critic of literal translation and purism. Nothing will quite be the same as the original language script, but unless you're deeply familiar with Japanese culture, history, and the complicated social component to the language, as you yourself seem to be, it's just not going to make much sense. After all, there is a difference between translation and localization, and sometimes both are equally important at conveying the spirit of what was meant, rather than things too tied to the culture of origin to be understood.
It also depends on personal preference. I know many friends that prefer dubs, or at the least like them equally as subs, some of whom have been watching anime since the early 90s. So I don't think it's just ca
sual fans that prefer subs, though there is a significant overlap between those new to the medium.
TLDR, a dub is only as good as it's script and acting, but has no inherent disadvantages compared with subs.
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