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Comment by swsieber | Hacker News Reader

One of my favorite gifts from my wife was a Studio Ghibli 6 disc collection (it looked like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Miyazaki-Studio-Collection-English-La...)

She's not a big anime fan, which I think is part of the reason I liked it so much. We worked our way through them and she liked them enough to go out on a limb and we bought "The Wind Rises" and "When Marnie was There".

I recall seeing Spirited Away and Kiki's delivery service in the 90's and so it was fun to find out there was more from that creator.

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spirited away (amazing on the big screen!) is playing in select theaters at the end of this month: https://www.ghiblifest.com/

the subtitled version is more emotionally genuine, imho.

If you don’t understand the language, the subtitled version gives you more of a “blank canvas” to project emotions onto. You don’t understand the words, just the tone of voice. If you understand the language, you realize that the timing and choice of emphasis is not always appropriate to the emotion, so it spoils the effect. As I got more proficient at various languages I often realized that the original version with subtitles is not as good as I thought.

So the subtitles version often seems more genuine unless you speak the language. The Disney dub is quite good, Disney are world experts at voice casting, direction, and localization.

I do love the English-language dubs of Ghibli films. Very high quality work.

My Dad first saw "Howl's Moving Castle" subbed, then dubbed. he said he could connect to the dubbed a lot better. He also found it surprising that Billy Crystal was Calcifer.

Wholeheartedly disagree. I've been watching only english-subtitled entertainment for a good while for two reasons:

1) english dubs generally suck, imho

2) there's always some emotion lost in translation/dubbing

And I'm not a native english speaker either; the more I know the native language, the less dubs make sense.

> So the subtitles version often seems more genuine unless you speak the language

I honestly can't fathom how could something like this even be possible. Understanding the language helped me understand when certain tones are used. Unless you're speaking strictly of Ghibli's shows, I can't really get what you mean.

> 1) english dubs generally suck, imho

Long gone are the days of 4Kids unnecessary censorship of Yu-gi-oh and One Piece.

There was a time when good English dubs were few-and-far between. Maybe Cowboy Bebop and "The Slayers" were probably the only good 90s dubs.

But modern anime is much better about dubbing quality. Madoka Magika was a pleasure in both English and Japanese for me, and many find the My Hero Academia dub / sub to be fine quality as well.

Even some "difficult dubs", like Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumia, ended up being quite good because Kyon's voice actor was superb. (Crispin Freeman). One or two "star" voice actors can really carry a dub and elevate the experience to a new level.

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I don't understand much Japanese personally. But it seems like Japanese voice-actors over-rely upon "vocal tics", like a character drawing out a particular sound or having a catch-phrase.

Ex: "Dattebayo" from Naruto, "Arimasu" from Shana, "Nyan" from many, many cat characters (Hellsing Ultimate, Stein's; Gate, Log Horizon), "Desu", etc. etc.

English dubs typically remove the vocal tics, and rely upon more fundamental voice acting to differentiate the characters. I think it helps me get drawn into the characters more.

Ex: English Dub audience didn't like Naruto's "Believe it" as a translation to Dattebayo. The dubbing community just outright rejects vocal tics. So yeah, its a different experience, but its more "realistic" IMO.

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My experience with Disney's Studio Ghibli dubs has been extremely good. Disney is a top-notch studio and hires big-names like Billy Crystal (Calcifer) or Mark Hamill (Mayor from Nausicaa)

>I don't understand much Japanese personally. But it seems like Japanese voice-actors over-rely upon "vocal tics", like a character drawing out a particular sound or having a catch-phrase. >Ex: "Dattebayo" from Naruto, "Arimasu" from Shana, "Nyan" from many, many cat characters (Hellsing Ultimate, Stein's; Gate, Log Horizon), "Desu", etc. etc.

Arimasu and Desu aren't vocal-tics... It's just differing levels of politeness or formality. A character always using them can signify a lot of things like haughtiness, noblesse oblige (misplaced or not), deference, a failure to integrate with/judge the nature of their relationship with one's peers. It really depends on the situation.

stuff like "dattebayo" and "nyan" is sort of a humorous spin on the whole concept of explicitly encoding these things into grammar. They don't generally add these into the dubs because it wouldn't make any sense as English doesn't really have this sort of thing to the extent Japanese does. Honestly I have no idea how you would translate "dattebayo" because it is a corruption of Japanese to begin with to show Naruto as having trouble fitting in, being mischievous, childlike, while also having a level of ambition wildly out of place with his position of practically village leper.

> Arimasu and Desu aren't vocal-tics... It's just differing levels of politeness or formality. A character always using them can signify a lot of things like haughtiness, noblesse oblige (misplaced or not), deference, a failure to integrate with/judge the nature of their relationship with one's peers. It really depends on the situation.

But even then, Arimasu and Desu are abused to "catchphrase" levels by Wilhelmina (Shakugan no Shana) and Suiseiseki (Rozen Maiden). For example: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlk6RcSLrpw)

If you wanted me to point out a particular "Vocal Tic", then I'll choose Deidara's "Hmph" that is added to a huge number of his lines (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU1LF-NnlvY)

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What I'm saying is: the original Japanese seems to lean extremely heavily on the use of catch-phrases and/or vocal tics. A lot of anime-watching (even in full Subs) almost feels like Donald-Duck or Loony Tunes level of vocal tics and/or catch-phrases.

I mean sure, we all love "I'm a Doctor not a X" (McCoy from Star Trek). Or Homer's "Doh". But its an issue of how often they say it IMO that kind of draws me out of Japanese Subtitles sometimes. There's a level of "campiness" whenever a character leans on a catch-phrase.

In the American Dub, the use of catch-phrases is almost always toned down. So there's less "campiness" and I take the result somewhat more seriously.

PSA: These are bootleg movie collections, not authorized or licensed from the Studio itself. The only official collection in the Western market, IIRC, is the Disney-released Hayao Miyazaki collection.

Ha ha, yeah. It's painfully obvious in retrospect. We had it for a couple of years before I even thought of the legitimacy of it... and even then I didnt realize it until after linking it here.

It's not Ghibli but was made by a lot of the same people, I'd recommend Mary and the Witch's Flower for the same style of story telling and animation.

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