Does anybody else here watch Bleach?

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I watched the first 20 eps or so a couple of years ago. The problem with Bleach for me is that it just goes on forever. I like short 26 ep anime series better like Cowboy Bebop and Trigun.

Yes it is different. And, given that animation is a primarily visual medium, diverting your attention towards constantly reading the subtitles is at least as large a blow to the work's integrity as a competant dub would be.

Personally, I think a lot of the sub only folks are intentionally hard on dubs even when they're fairly competant. In Bleach's case, there's nothing wrong with the English voice-actor for Ichigo. Really the only one I think of as "off" from what the voice in my head from when I read the manga is Rukia (disappointing since Michelle Ruff is a decent workhorse VA). In the past 6-7 years the quality of the dubbing has improved dramatically over the early years of the industry.

Animation has a long history of dubbing. Going back to the early Disney years it was common practice to dub the characters. Even more important, it wasn't considered as critical to match the voice of the characters so much as it was to find the right person for the job in the new language.

Given that understanding, dubbing has never been an automatically objectionable

I thought the reason they dubbed disney movies were because they were for kids. If I were to go and watch a Disney movie I would chose to watch the subbed version. Although I guess that's not exactly the same, since I don't need the subs to understand English.

But I'm afraid I can't see the problem with reading while watching. I understand that some people have difficulties with reading, so dubs are a good thing for them. But I've never felt that I lost anything by watching a subbed show compared to something made here.

But perhaps it has to do with living in a country where most movies and shows are foreign, and only children cartoons are dubbed. Perhaps reading subtitles without being diverted is actually a difficult skill that doesn’t come naturally unless you constantly do it since your earliest years? I don’t know, but since I can’t relate at all to those problems people are expressing about subs at all this may be the case.

sub and dub
manga too

Blood pressure rising...

Walt Disney's films were NOT for children. Snow White's greatest breakthrough was in making animation so emotionally relevant that it made adult men cry at its premier. He literally spent years studying the storyboards trying to figure out how to give each scene the correct emotional resonance.

Go out and watch Fantasia sometime and tell me how much of a child's movie that was. Disney made that movie expecting people to dress up in their finest before going out to see it.

Do you think that Disney was a cruel enough man that he made Bambi for children just to shoot the mother? Ever watch the 2nd half of that film where Bambi grows into an adult. I can feel generations of children squirming in their seats from here.

Disney firmly rejected the idea that animation was the domain of a child. He wanted and expected the artform he was giving birth to to appeal to all ages. For a time he even succeeded and his tone poems like The Old Mill were as eagerly lapped up as a Goofy short.

This maturity stretched itself out to other companies and we got the classic Looney Tunes and Tex Avery's work at MGM. Comedy to be sure, but smartly written and designed for everyone.

You think Japan invented animation for adults? No. We just forgot how to do it when Hanna-Barbara turned television into a cess-pool of cheap child's animation.

If Walt Disney said that dubbing his masterworks was okay, then by damn it's good enough for any Japanese animation project.

Well I'm sorry. But you misunderstood me. I didn't say they were for children. Or well maybe I did say that, but it’s not what I meant. Just clumsy language usage. but what I intended to say was that the reason I thought they were dubbed was so that children can watch them. And most kids like disney movies, so that would be a good reason. But I didn't mean to say they were for kids only. Perhaps they weren't intended for children at all, and someone just decided they were because they were cartoons. I don't know, I don't know much about Disney movies. So I don't have an opinion on what people they are intended for. But a lot of people think they are for kids, and I thought that was the reason they were dubbed. People don’t think the Simpson movie is for kids, which is why it was not dubbed.

Once again I am not expressing any personal opinion on what age group is intended to watch any movies. But if you think I still am, could you please try to disagree without being angry about it?

Sorry, you just hit an exposed nerve.

I too, live in a country where everything is subbed, and I'm only bothered by it when it's moving at ultra-speed like in some comedy-anime with characters that talk at somewhere close to 120 words/minute. But in those cases, I wouldn't understand a dub either.

It likely is a matter of experience.

As for Disney: great man. The company took a turn for the worse when losing him.
Now-a-days, I wouldn't mind if they changed the name to "Pixar", and scrapped the rest.