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Comment by AlbertCory | Hacker News Reader

Now here's some argument-bait:

I prefer Miyazaki movies dubbed in English, rather than as subtitled Japanese.

This is not true for ANY other non-English movie, where I always prefer the original language with subtitles.

Why? Well, it's anime and the characters aren't "really" speaking Japanese anyway, so there's less lip-mismatch. And apparently the Man himself doesn't mind them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ghibli/comments/7jef8m/miyazakis_vi...

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I don't have thoughts about anime, but generally dislike movie dubs as they distance me further from the original intent. I don't want another team's reinterpretation of the movie to completely replace the original expression.

So, I'd only really like a dub if it was a multilingual sound track produced by an original, multilingual team. That should include the original director, writers, and (preferably) actors and producers. To me, the original creative team needs enough fluency to review the alternate language work and keep it from diverging. Otherwise, it's about as satisfying as reading a Cliff's Notes summary of a novel instead of the actual novel.

I'd also often prefer subtitle translations if they try to hew closer to the original language including temporality. I'd rather read slightly tortured English subtitles to deliver translated parts of speech in roughly the same order they are being spoken in the original language, exposing a bit of the original language's grammar and remaining correlated with the actor's tone and timing.

The English dubs are also just really good. Even when the voice actors aren't known for, well, voice acting. Daisy Ridley is not known for her voice acting and yet her performance in Only Yesterday was exceptional.

> Only Yesterday

Only Yesterday is a very good movie. A true anime for adults, not one that mistakes "adultness" for "naked people and/or gore".

Re: dubs. I haven't watched the English dub of too many Ghibli movies, mostly because if I watch a dub, I watch it in Spanish. Judging by the only one I've seen in English too -- Princess Mononoke -- I'd rate the English dub the worst, with flatter and less inspired voice acting. The Spanish version of Mononoke is actually tied in quality with the Japanese version in my mind.

I used to believe I could only detect bad acting in my native Spanish. Mononoke taught me that no, I can spot bad acting in English too! I don't know what the hell Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver and all those well known actors were doing...

Fun fact, on Princess Mononoke, Steve Alpert and the director of the English dub had to fight Miramax executives who kept trying to screw up Neil Gaiman's English script.

Miyazaki is pretty well known for having “world-class” dubs; I don’t think liking them is considered controversial. Liking the Akira dub or the dub on a Satoshi Kon film, on the other hand :-)

The English dub of Castle In The Sky was famously very poor[1]. Most notably, much of the movie's quiet parts got crammed with music and extra dialog because Disney felt Americans' attention span could not handle long stretches of silence and simple ambient environment sounds.

Granted this was one of the earlier Ghibli films and Miyazaki reportedly clamped down on these shenanigans on future dubs.

1: https://screenrant.com/studio-ghibli-castle-in-the-sky-engli...

Much was said about Mononoke's English dub, but I find it terrible and flat. In contrast, the Spanish dub was top notch!

This listicle is hard to follow: it seems to be confounding the 1988 dub (hilariously bad) with the 1998 dub (which was done by Disney and is, IMO, pretty good). In particular, the items about Sheeta's recharacterization and removed silences don't apply to the 1998 dub.

Miyazaki has had his fair share of bad dubs (including one of the Castle of Cagliostro ones), but I think it's fair to say that he's fared the best of any major Japanese anime director.

Nausicaa was REAL bad too, originally, iirc

Relevant video analysis

https://youtu.be/jM6PPxN1xas

Bingo. I knew I wasn't hallucinating. Specific CitS comparison at around 4:00.

"Ponyo" had Liam Neeson, Cate Blanchett, Tiny Fey, and Matt Daemon as voice actors, as an example of not skimping on the english dubs.

I don't think that's particularily controversial, maybe except among the most hardcore fans. Watch films(and other media) in the way you enjoy them, and don't let others tell you what's the "right" way.

Miyazaki movies are the ONLY anime where the English dub is anywhere close to good enough. Most anime dubs are done by either A) people who can't act their way out of a paper bag, or B) competent actors who don't bother to pronounce Japanese names properly. Miyazaki movies don't fall into A but do have some major B clinkers. At least with the subtitles I get to work on my Japanese a bit.

It mostly depends on the quality of the dubbing. The trend for anime was to have excellent Japanese voice acting and terrible dubs, until western editors realized that good dubs sell and invested in better voice acting.

Miyazaki films, being popular, big budget theater releases didn't suffer as much from cheap dubbing as TV series.

Miyazaki's anime are unique about VA. He doesn't like existing Japanese "anime" VA acting, so they adopt non-voice actors or other people (even Anno!) as VA for his work.

I would never watch Princess Mononoke without the English dub.

I asked a frAInd what famous actors dubbed miyzazki movies:

"Spirited Away" (2001) - Daveigh Chase, Jason Marsden, and Susan Egan.

"Princess Mononoke" (1997) - Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver, and Billy Bob Thornton.

"My Neighbor Totoro" (1988) - Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning.

"Howl's Moving Castle" (2004) - Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, and Billy Crystal.

"Ponyo" (2008) - Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, and Liam Neeson.

"The Wind Rises" (2013) - Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci.

"Porco Rosso" (1992) - Michael Keaton and Cary Elwes.

"Kiki's Delivery Service" (1989) - Kirsten Dunst, Phil Hartman, and Janeane Garofalo.

What about Nausicaa?

https://youtu.be/ZO5cIjXpnY4

Can be screened on Max/HBO, for now anyways.

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