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Met a guy at a con who changed how I watch dubs vs subs
So I was at Anime Expo 2023 waiting in line for the Makoto Shinkai panel, and this guy next to me starts chatting about Weathering With You. He told me he actually prefers the English dub because the voice actor for Hodaka added a stutter in emotional scenes that wasn't in the original Japanese. I never noticed that before, and now I rewatch scenes in both versions to compare those little choices. Has anyone else caught a voice acting decision in a dub that totally changed how you saw a character?
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burns.ruby28d ago
Nah for real though, stutters and pauses are like secret cheat codes for voice actors. I tried to do a dramatic dramatic pause myself once in a conversation and just ended up looking like I forgot what I was saying. The guy at the con sounds like he actually knows what's up, most people just pick a side and die on that hill without ever listening close enough to catch details like that. My dumb ass never even noticed the mouth flap thing until someone pointed it out, now that's all I can see when a dub line feels off. Mad respect to anyone who can pick up on those tiny choices in a normal conversation, I'm over here still trying to remember if I actually like a show or if I just got attached to a specific voice.
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the_fiona2mo ago
Pay attention to the pacing too, not just the emotion. Dubs sometimes stretch or compress a line to match mouth flaps, and that changes the whole rhythm of a scene. I rewrote a whole character in my head after hearing a dub actor pause a full second longer than the sub, never heard them the same way again.
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