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I'm one of those "purists". I prefer my anime in subbed and not dubbed. Although they have done okay on some of them. It's difficult to ruin Rorouni Kenshin and Inuyasha is okay but much better in the original.

And yes... I am one of those who despised Funimation's ruination of Dragonball Z.

And yes... I am one of those who despised Funimation's ruination of Dragonball Z.

Man, who didn't? The original dubbed voices were actually excellent matches to their Japanese counterparts, but it's obvious lots of dialogue was changed so it wouldn't reflect just how violent that show could get!

Then Funimation takes over, gets those lame new voice actors, and it's like nails on a chalkboard...not to mention the changes made to the music made me want to wretch!

It's difficult to ruin Rorouni Kenshin

Well... they did. I hate that dub so much. Kenshin is too masculine, Kaoru's a whiny little you-know-what, Sano sounds like a muscle-brained moron, and Yahiko can't even pronounce his own name.

Also there's the fact that Cartoon Network managed to edit out half the blood... I watch in Japanese. I make my friends/victims learn to read subtitles.

It's awesome being in graduate school, everyone likes anime. I've borrowed Neon Genesis Evangelion off one friend, "Trigun" and "Full Moon wo Sagashete" off another, and loaned my precious "Fullmetal Alchemist" fansubs to two more people thus far... oh, yeah, and I just loaned my stack of "Lost Universe" dvds to a friend to watch over Christmas.

I'm frustrated when it comes to dubbed animation.

The actors who dubbed Speed Racer still get work and I liked their work back then. The voices are so closely tied to those characters.

Now days, these anime companies seem to employee too many of their friends than actual voice talent.

I've heard 3 dubbed versions of Lupin the Third's Mystery Of Mamo and only the one did back in the 1970s holds up for me. The very first translation is better (Macek's version actually changed jokes, replacing President Carter's with Reagan's voice even though it was released to America FAR outside of his administration; there was also a "eat more bran" joke that was completely out of character for the story).

If anyone here has played Cliff Hanger (the laserdisc based arcade game that cobbled bits from several Lupin films to make a "Dragon's Lair" type game), then they have heard excerpts of the original dubbed film. I'm still WAITING to find this one on home video (outside of my off-air tape), if not soon I will need to transfer just the audio to a backup source so I can dub from my own LD image source.

In Japan, voice dubbing has elevated somewhat. Actors who dub are commonly associated with the foreign actors that they overdub. I think that some of the Japanese cast for Lupin III include the voice dub actor for Clint Eastwood.

It has been so long since I have heard a good dub that I will generally stick to subtitles (although I am not a snob in that regard; in Japan the lips of cartoon characters NEVER match the actors anyway - they draw it and THEN record sound). Sad thing is that I've seen some lousy translated subtitles as well.