English dub

[AchtungAffen]

I've started watching lain from a few avis a friend gave me. The first 2 episodes where subbed, but the 3rd was dubbed. And I had to puke. The voices sounded really fake, like the VA's came to work after a hard drinkin party, or just they didn't want to do it. It may be that I'm not used to watch anime dubbed in english, but I found it awful. What do you all think?

[Neojin]

Actually, Lain...is one of the few animes out there have excellent dubs (IMO). I actualy seen both and ended up watching the rest of the series dubbed.

Tenchi, Cowboy Bebop, and Lain are about the ONLY animes I like dubbed though. (some slayers too *dodges rocks*)

[AchtungAffen]

I always found the english dubs very unexpresive. Of course comparing it with the original Japanese, wich seems to reflect a lot of emotions.

[iwakura]

The dub is OK. It's OK for when you want to pay more attention to the images rather than reading the subtitles.

Normally I don't say such things, but Serial Experiments Lain is very surreal, so it's important to let the images play at your sub conscious.

[heart havok]

i'm getting really sick of seeing ANYONE who doesn't comprehend the Japanese language saying the original Japanese audio tracks are better than the English dubs. for all you know, the Japanese is less expressive. i suppose ignorance is bliss.

[Fuhrur]

When you can't understand the Japanese, the only thing that gets through to you by the words they say is the emotion, not the meaning.

[iwakura]

You can can also start picking up words too via subs.

Wish more DVDs had Japanese subs. That makes it much easier to pick out new words.

[AchtungAffen]

For your information, I know japanese, not enought to comprehend a full anime, but I catch many words and sentences. I mean, the voice tones, are much more fluid than those in english, wich, as I see it, don't fit the picture.

[heart havok]

note: i did say COMPREHEND... and i'm not talking about comprehending the Anime, i'm talking about comprehending the LANGUAGE.

just because you know Japanese words and/or phrases and/or just because you recognise tones and/or syllables doesn't mean you comprehend the language and its form of expression. i certainly know a great deal of Japanese as well, which indeed, i have also picked up some from watching Anime/Japanese film though most from actual studies. all the while however, even though i may have a great understanding of word and meaning i know very well that i couldn't tell the difference from a good actor or a bad one in Japanese film because i'm not around the language enough to correctly decypher whether or not they are realistic expressions or over-exagerated.

..don't let your pretention become ignorance.

[AchtungAffen]

Oh I'm sorry master for being such a grasshoper again:bow:
But the impression the dub gave me was that instead of hearing the original "Are you allright lain" the tone evidenced something like "Are you allright Lain, well I'm not, my cell phone is dead, and the guy who was supposed to take me to school in a bmw missed it and I had to go in a Ford Focus, oh can you believe it, so gross!!"
I saw animes in spanish's dub also and sometimes I got the same thing, like Misatos VA. They don't sound convincing enough, but in japanese it all sounds not only more according to what you see, but more natural. And that's the fact, it sounds natural, like when you translate a book from one language to another, it always has gaps when you can tell the naturality of it, like I read Mark Twain in spanish and English and in Spanish, well, it sucked, like reading Borges or Fontanarrosa in English, they suck. Once the translation is made, many is lost, and cannot be compensated.

[Drizzten]

I think the English dub for Lain is one of the greatest I've ever heard. Out of the entire cast, the only character voices I didn't like that much were Arisu's (too high-pitched/whiney), Taro's (I recognized his voice instantly and I've never liked that VA), and occasionally Lain's (sometimes too forced). I think everyone else was either acceptable or well-done in all respects, in particular the MIB, Lain's family, and Eiri.

[Sheex, The Dark Stalker]

I loved Lain's dub, and would say that its probably the best out there after Cowboy Bebop. Every voice matches the character perfectly, especially Ruby Marlowe as Lain. Its one of the few shows that I own that I usually watch the dub of instead of the sub since its so good . :D

While we're on the subject, would anyone happen to know who did Lain's dad? He's all over the place (Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Gundam 0080, Perfect Blue) but I have no clue what his name is :(

[Shadow War]

I have only watched the whole series subbed. I don't think I could watch it any other way. I might watch it dubbed in the future but I enjoy the subbed version better usually in any anime. The japanese is quite easy to understand; it is not spoken really quick like osaka japanese that I have heard. Each to their own I say...

[AchtungAffen]

But won't you agree that the original language is always better for any anime/movie? I have the theory that you may like the dubs better, because most of the TV/cinema content you see is originally in english, so subs wouldn't be as common to you as it is to me. I'm used to them cuz I can't stand watching an originally english spoken movie translated to spanish, so I prefer the dubs, and now that I can understand english better, I don't give much about the dubs anymore, but it has been 10 years of watching dubs everyday, so now it's very common to me, so what bothers me now is having to watch any tv/cinema show that doesn't sound in its original language.