Dubs vs. Subs

[Yukimura]

You're quite similar to me then, I keep everything I watch to completion with the exception of Black Cat. And I tend to replace subs with dual audio as well. Since I prefer english, but can switch if I'm feeling nostalgic.

[XanBcoo]

trigun dub

People keep saying the Trigun dub is great, but I really don't like it. Despite my love for dubs, this is one of the shows I can't watch in English. Johnny Young Bosch is a great voice actor, but he was totally miscast as Vash. I also don't think Wolfwood's voice suits him. The dub isn't bad I guess, I just was impressed by those two characters' Japanese voices. Legato's dubbed voice is great though.

Indeed, they should just get people that can pretty much imitate anyones voice like Frank Caliendo.

I think that would be a great idea, except that well known voice actors cost so much. It's already been mentioned that anime studios stick to roughly the same pool of voice actors, and this is usually the reason. ADV or Funimation have some really talented people, but probably can't afford to hire big-name VAs. There are definitely some English-speaking actors that anime could use. My picks would be Phil LaMarr (Samurai Jack, Green Latern from JLU, Vamp from MGS2), Billy West (about 5 characters on Futurama, including Fry), Maurice LaMarche (Brain from Pinky and the Brain, Morbo from Futurama), and Tara Strong (Bubbles from PPG, Raven from Teen Titans, Rikku from FFX, and damn near every young male in American cartoons). These guys have great range and could fit into any anime role easily. Pretty much the only time we get famous actors in anime is when they dub Miyazaki's movies. Also Steamboy.

[Nai]

I tend to find dubs amazingly stupid if the setting is typically Japanese as they just sound so damn corny and misplaced. But I don't really mind dubs as long as they fit the setting. Hell, in some cases they even succeed the original as was the case with Isaac in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. I absolutely adore his English voice actor.

So, I don't really think the problem is that we lack good English voice actors ( David Warner is my God ). I just think they get handed extremely poorly translated scripts most of the time. Directly translating a script from Japanese to English never works well. You need to rework and reword it and make it feel more fluid.

With that said, some things should never be dubbed. I'm looking at you, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. Oh well, at least they kept Roberto speaking Spanish.