What makes a good dub?

[FlamingRuby]

With all the griping about horrible dubs out there, I now pose the question: What makes a dub good?

For me, a good dub:

--should be as faithful to the original version as possible. Granted there are some things in anime that are cut for the so-called "censors" or for time, but it shouldn't be as stupid as the onigiri switcheroo that 4Kids likes to pull. To
4Kids' credit, they do remain pretty faithful to the original version of Pokemon. Pity their other projects at the moment aren't Pokemon caliber.
--should have voices as close to the original as possible. I'm sure you've heard plenty of dub voices that were nails on a chalkboard bad; and some that were GREAT. The GREAT VA's out there can portray them with a voice similar to the original voice (examples: Brock, and Meowth) Now if the ORIGINAL voice was nails on a chalkboard bad...
--should keep everyone in character, and marketed to the right demographic. The quintessintial OOC dub would have to be the English "Card Captor Sakura" Sakura was turned from sweet and loveable to angry and a tomboy, all for the sake of pleasing the male demographic...problem was, CCS was meant for a girl audience.

There you go...my .02.

 

[Soul Dew]

Keep as faithful to the story as possible with some censors if necessary.
Names should not be changed.
BGM should never be changed.
OPs and EPs should be kept or in English.
VAs watched subbed episodes in order to practice on imatating the voice.
4Kids doesn't dub it.

 

[Seiryu]

For me, a good dub includes...

-at the very least, a plot that's faithful to the original version. Dialogue and character personalities would be nice as well, but some stuff is usually cut/changed to better suit the target demographic. (like Jonouchi's personality from YGO, somewhat)
-on that note, dialogue that is actually mostly meaningful. As in, very few to no horrible and horribly out-of-place jokes, especially puns.
-good music. Honestly, I don't care all that much if it's changed; as long as it stays good, I'm fine. Of course, the original stuff would in most cases be better, but...
-voices that, if they don't sound like the original characters, at least fit the characters. Take Luffy from dub One Piece; he's almost a legal adult (as far as America goes, anyways) but his dub VA makes him sound half that age. That is to say, it just doesn't fit well at all.
-cuts that are only made for an extremely good reason. (for instance, material that breaks one of the censor rules set up by the station or whatever for the given time) Once again, I'll bring dub Piece back into the picture; 30+ episodes of footage were cut, and for what purpose? To get to Chopper more quickly, so I've heard. Not to mention the various pointless food and sign edits. (I mean, changing from Japanese to English is good, but erasing everything, including English? Baaaaaad move...)

 

[Satoshi]

- A good and accurate translation.
- Japanese culture should be translated to the dub, not taken out.
- Characters staying true to the personality they originally had.
- No horrid and unneeded edits, only edits that fit the FCC standards.
- Original BGM, not replaced by generic dub music.

 

[Heliotrope]

Where the only thing changed is the voices.

 

[Kanta-chan]

*VOICES. Yes, I'm big on the voices. :< Picky me.

*Good background music since I don't want some weird replacer song. >>

*Lines I guess. Don't want to change too much of that. So pretty much accuracy. ;D

 

[Kez]

I think that i agree with heliotrope. I mean, if the shows are going to have a bit of violance, then they should air them. Well, i guess that there are somethings that have to be cut out, but i think that they should leave it as minimal as possible. I also think that, the VAs should watch the subbed episodes, just to see what there character is like. It might help them to be more like the original.

 

[Gazmof]

I've noticed that no matter how good a dub is, there are always people who slate it over the original, and those people usually have no clue what they're talking about.

Yes, accuracy is important, but I don't think dub VAs should attempt to mimic their original counterparts to a tee, because that more often than not comes out just as bad as if they hadn't even bothered. Though rare, there are instances where a dub VA's performance is actually better than the original's.

 

[Kez]

I do not think that they should mimic, it is just that if they know how the original character was played out, which you can tell from watching subs, you can get a feel for it and translate it across.

 

[Hiroki]

What makes a good dub?

- Not to change the BGM at all. If it's japanese, let it stay japanese unless it has a value to the show. If it has a value, just change the language, not the whole gosh darn song.
- 4KIDS doesn't dub it. -_-" 4KIDS is meant towards kids.
- Get voices that sound the same as the original. Look what happened to Satoshi in the beginning of the Pocket Monsters dub. It was HORRID.
- Leave it uncut. -_-".

Now I can't think of anymore at the moment.

 

[Kazekage]

4kids not dubbing it
not to many cuts
not changing names
good voices
NOT turning it into a 4 year old show

 

[Rufinito18]

The voice change, I dont mind so much as long as its not COMPLETELY different. Like Max/Masato's voice XD

and what PMO is that 4KIDS always uses the same voices

example: May and a girl in shaman king
The green haired guy thats obsessed with computers and a mewmew power character, ITS ANNOYING

 

[Torkoal Stu]

*VOICES. Yes, I'm big on the voices. :< Picky me.

*Good background music since I don't want some weird replacer song. >>

*Lines I guess. Don't want to change too much of that. So pretty much accuracy. ;D

That's all my thoughts summed up by Kanta-chan :O Plus the names have to be good, I still can't get over Chazz and Chumley in Yu-Gi-Oh GX DX!

So the music, voices ect all has to be perfect for me to love the dub more than the original.