MovieChat Forums > Tonari no Totoro (1990) Discussion > Dubs VS Subs

Dubs VS Subs

posted 12 years ago by spencermckee007
8 replies | jump to latest

I'll be the first one to endorse watching foreign films with subtitles instead of dubs due to the fact you're getting the actors pure performance, not some voice actor trying to copy the emotions of another actor on screen. It's unnatural.

But with ANIMATION.....I don't see why there are so many arguments. Especially with Japanese animation, their mouths are generally flapping up and down anyway. I truly don't understand "purists" who insist on watching it in Japanese when the language isn't thiers and they have to use subtitles. I think this "purist" notion is misguided and has been carried over from live action film which in that case I completely support. It's nonsense to argue, as most characters mouths are just going "MMMAAAMMMAAAMMMAAAMMMAAA" regardless of what audio language you put over it.

[–] Suzume-san 12 years ago

Well, but it's not the sight of someone speaking that we generally attend to, is it? It's the sound of what they say.

I like the characters to sound as if they belong in the world we see them in. If we see them in rural Japan in the 1950s but they sound as if they belong in present-day California, it's peculiar and distracting.

But each to his own. I know some people just don't like reading subs. I find I do it without even noticing.

[–] spencermckee007 12 years ago

Wow....this entire time, that thought never crossed my mind! I completely agree when you look at it from that perspective. Perhaps credit is due to Miyazaki for consistantly creating unique worlds in which his characters live, that the real world locations in which they take place never even enter into my mind.

But again, I completely agree with your point of view regarding that perspective.

[–] celavie77 12 years ago

But Kiki's Delivery Service and Howl's Moving Castle took place in European-inspired worlds. Countless Japanese animated works take place in other countries/worlds where they believably would speak English or should be speaking languages other than Japanese. I don't see how those animated works originally being performed in Japanese should be any less jarring then Totoro being performed in English.

[–] Leonatio 11 years ago

This...plus the subs can be amusing in their own way, especially when you get a Japanese voice actor attempting to say things in English (my favorite being Jodie from Detective Conan).

I don't mind either, as I stated in another thread...but I prefer subs just a tad more since you're getting the original material, whereas you're never entirely sure if they changed dialogue in the dubbed version or not.

[–] welkin-au 12 years ago

Part of the issue with Japanese animation and dubbing hasn't just been how it looks or sounds, it's also been the change in content. Some have been kept very true to the original script, some have had big changes made. I don't really know how Totoro fares as I've only watched the dub with my children, aged 4 and 7, but Kikki's delivery service had changes that really affected the characters and more importantly one of the key idea's of the film.

In the original the cat never starts speaking again, in the dub he gets a line right at the end showing that Kikki can understand him again (this was changed in a re-released dub) but I'm pretty sure the idea of the original was that understanding animals was something children could do and that losing this ability was a deliberate inclusion by the creators as a sign that Kikki was maturing.

I'm not a die hard purist, I even like Phil Hartman and he's sarcastic Jiji, but traditionally the story was often changed a lot in translation maybe in part because they could move the frames around so easily with animation or maybe it was just the belief that animation was for children and so they'd need a more westernised story. This has improved a lot compared to 20 or 30 years ago.

Either way I tend to watch a bit of both but if you want the story as the original creators wanted to tell it, there has certainly been times when you needed to stick with the subtitles.

[–] celavie77 12 years ago

While that does change the original intent/story, I have to admit, regardless of how much of a philistine this makes me lol!, that I prefer Kiki still being able to understand Jiji in the end. I actually feel like that's much more in keeping with Miyazaki's themes in other works, and his beliefs in general, that childhood and magic and imagination isn't necessarily confined to adulthood and that there's more of a flow and spectrum of it, rather than a binary world of adults vs children. Ultimately everything is an interpretation and the creator doesn't hold tyranny over what their works mean, and you could probably equally fanwank that Kiki not being able to understand Jiji anymore could be linked to something else entirely from childhood, and so the thematic significance can still hold in dub or sub, that change being there or not. If there was more of a change than that, I would definitely agree with you though that it would be hard to watch. Ultimately I think it has to do with the intent behind the change/translation and how it works.

It helps that all changes in the Disney dubs are approved by Miyazaki, so perhaps there was actually a specific intent behind his approving that last Jiji change. Like, that he wanted to imply there was a world where you could have your cake and eat it too as a kid, grow up and keep some of that immaturity and cat-talking. Just some fanwanking though lol!

Either way I tend to watch a bit of both but if you want the story as the original creators wanted to tell it, there has certainly been times when you needed to stick with the subtitles.

I do agree with this.

[–] tasneem_uddin 11 years ago

Absolutely agree, the subs tend to be literal whereas the dubs are adapted. With both a lot is lost in translation so these days I just have English VA and literal English subs.

In films its a no-brainer simply because of how odd it looks and sounds. Its not perfect but the next best thing is learning Japanese.

[–] agentdc7 11 years ago

Live action, dub sounds ridiculous and unintentionally funny pure and simple.

I'm mixed when it comes to animation. Like others said, there isn't much mouth movement in anime, so you're not missing a whole lot. I usually prefer the subtitled. But I do think Disney did a good job for most of the dubs for Miyazakis, especially Spirited Away.

But for Totoro, I prefer the original. For dubbing, I think the older VHS dub is far superior to the Disney dub. What really bugs me is the Disney dub has Mei sounding like she's going through puberty. In the VHS version, Mei genuinely sounds cute, especially when she meets Totoro the first time.

I do hate added dialogue though. I saw a Chinese dubbed version of Totoro and the white and blue totoro talk when Mei is chasing them. They also make this retarded chant "Ching ching chaa" "Boom boom baa" when they walk.