You know there was a time when I thought that it might be a good idea to do sub vs dub review or something like that. You know talk about the differences in what was actually vs what was localized. It seemed like such a good idea on paper. I mean when I think back to a lot of older anime there was an actual difference, names, phrases, insults.... but I am not so sure now.

Recently one of my hobbies has been to watch an anime when I want to kill time, get drunk and cannot find a game to play. I have also been keeping up on anime that are being released here in the US. So I have actually watched several anime again with the dubbing on, and I have to say there is less difference these days. Which kind of bums me out a bit. When I watch 90s anime it is always fun to see how we misunderstand another culture, but these days we are getting better at interpreting the other culture into our own. Which really makes rewatching dubbed anime more of an intellectual experience than anything.

Not that an intellectual experience is a bad thing, not in the slightest. However, it does kind of suck having to fight the good hard fights all the time. When in the past I could pick out easy differences like pop culture references, honorifics, and cultural humor. Those stood out like sore thumbs in past anime. I mean one very good example is how we incorporated "senpai&qout; into anime because that is a big thing in Japan. However, in the west we do not really have such a term. Now I have to see the smaller things.

I guess that is not all bad, such as the boobs song that was fun. I mean really there is not much you can do with the boobs song in English, but they at least tried. Then there is other small things like the voices that are used and which side does the evil girl laugh better. You know the small things that most people do not think of because they have better things to do with their time. Still you can find ways to make it interesting. Plus it is not a bad thing that this is happening.

It may seem like I might be really upset, but I am ok with this really. Mainly because of the fact that this means that less is lost in translation. Which is a good thing, now we get more of the story and everything the anime has to offer to us and we lose less to ignorance. Granted we cannot bring over anime at the rate it is produced in Japan, but still it is really good to see that less is not us just making stuff up.

Sadly this of course means that I will not be wasting my time writing another section of this website. If I had more time to go watch all my 90s anime again I could justify making a section where I talk about the major differences that are a result of ignorance and stuff like that. However, I do not really do that as I do my best to keep up with the modern day stuff. That is what you have to do sometimes though. Oh well, at least there is growth in the industry. Now if companies would just stop selling subs that would be even better. However, that is a rant for another time.