Hot take: dubs deserve more respect in 2025

I grew up strictly sub-only back in 2012 because my friend group swore dubs were trash. Last month I gave the latest big shonen a shot in English just to multitask while cooking, and I actually followed the story better. It took me 3 episodes to stop feeling guilty about it, but now I switch depending on the show. The voice acting quality has gotten legit good, especially for comedy series where timing matters more than lip flaps. Why are we still acting like subs are the only pure way to watch when half of us read the manga anyway? Anyone else flip on this after years of gatekeeping?

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willowc601mo ago

Three episodes to stop feeling guilty seems like a lot for watching a cartoon in your own language. I've been watching both ways since like 2008 and it was never that deep. You put on Dragon Ball in English after school, you put on subtitles at night when everyone's asleep, done. The dubs now are fine, yeah, some comedy lands better because the joke gets rewritten to actually work in English instead of a translator note explaining why it's funny. But the whole subs vs dubs war was always just people wanting to feel like they were doing anime the correct way. Watch it however you want and stop making it a moral thing.

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