Always Watch Anime with Subs

The sub vs dub debate is the longest standing debate in otaku culture, and while I will not definitively state which one is better, I will be explaining why I choose to only watch subs. For the most part, the reason is to get a better understanding of the intentions of the writers. Knowing a bit of Japanese allows me to fill in gaps of detail left by whoever made the subs by both reading them, and adding in anything that I hear. It also makes understanding untranslatable phrases easier. The only exception I make is for Ghost Stories, which has a dub that acts more like an abridged series than an actual dub.

The first example that comes to mind is the following scene from the No Game No Life: Zero movie. In Japanese, Riku says 「この世界希望なんかない」(Kono sekai kibou nanka nai). In the dub, this is translated as "We can no longer rely on hope to save us." In the sub, it becomes "We can no longer rely on Horou to save us." Both of these are absolutely terrible translations, but when you're watching the dub, you will have no clue why. The phrase is most accurately translated as "there is no hope for this world." Watching the sub allowed me to pick up on this discrepancy. I didn't know who Horou was, and after researching her on the wiki, I realized that at the time Riku said this, she had no name. Plus he didn't even say "Horou" anywhere, so I knew there was a problem. Luckily, the vocabulary in this sentence is very simple, so a few years of casual study into Japanese is enough to deduce the true meaning.

Strangely enough, the second reason I watch with subtitles is one of the most popular subjects of ridicule: translator's notes. Translator notes allow the explanation of jokes or phrases that would make perfect sense if the viewer spoke Japanese, but otherwise sound like nonsense. This applies to the first anime I ever watched: Azumanga Daiou. I watched the dub on Youtube and was completely oblivious to all the Japanese puns, wondering if "chan" was supposed to be a last name. Once I found a sub version, there were translator notes explaining the puns, and now everyone has honorifics. Another example I particularly like is from the Teekyuu series. In one episode, Marimo is hired to work at a pork restaurant and yells "This is what you call abuse of meal tickets" when given a free meal. This makes little sense on its own, but the joke is that 食券乱用(abuse of food ticket) is pronounced the same as 職権乱用(abuse of authority), both being pronounced "shokken ranyou." I've since lost the version that had that note, which leads me on to my next point.

Crunchyroll is ruining subbed anime. Not only are their subs fast and dirty with some nonsensical phrases included, but they completely exclude translator notes. If you look for a clip of subbed anime from the past 5 years, very few if any will include translator notes. Many anime sources simply copy clips from Crunchyroll to skip the effort of fansubbing, making the episode available on release day, and no one ever bothers correcting it. Now more than ever, I have to rely on my knowledge of Japanese to piece together conversations neither dubs nor subs can completely convey, often forcing me to pause in the middle of an episode to google something that was just said. Anyway, I hope I've properly conveyed the appeal of subbed anime. Feel free to start World War 3 in the comments, but I won't be joining any argument unless it's based on the content of my analysis.