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I've painfully reminded myself why I prefer subtitles over dubbing in anime. Last night I finished watching the sixth season of Ranma ½, and afterwards, I decided to go back and watch one of the episodes with the dubbed English voices instead of the original Japanese, while leaving the subtitles on. So I picked my favorite episode out of the ones I had just watched (episode 15), telling myself I was going to sit through the entire thing, even if it was bad, just to see what it was like. And I did it ... but now I wish I hadn't.
As I sat there, cringing at the cheesy dialogue spoken by horrible voice actors that did not fit the characters at all compared to the Japanese voices, I watched in horror as all enjoyment of the episode was sucked away by the horrible dubbing. What had been probably my favorite episode of the season had suddenly become utterly unenjoyable. I mean, not only was the voice acting bad, but they also changed a lot of lines from the subtitle translation for seemingly no reason, and the changes were never for the better with the exception of maybe one or two. It was just plain bad.
With that said, I'll be sticking with the Japanese voices and subtitles for the rest of the series. Anymore, reading the subtitles in anime has become just as natural as listening to speech, so I don't even really notice it anymore. I hear the Japanese, I read the English, and it's pretty much just like I'm understanding the Japanese speech and translating it in my mind to comprehend what's being said, without even thinking about it. And I'm a pretty fast reader, so I barely ever have issues with keeping up with the speech. (Heck, I watched most of Excel Saga with subtitles and I was rarely unable to keep up, so I doubt much else is going to give me trouble.)
And that's why I prefer subtitles. So, I shall now await the piles of flaming comments from all the people who prefer dubbing. Have fun.
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