Sailor Moon Forum

I was going to ask this in the CardCaptor Sakura thread, but I think this needs to be its own question instead of a tangent.

Do different English-speaking countries have different dubs? I'm relatively sure that the US, Canada, and the English-speaking parts of the Caribbean all use the US dub since they're all Region 1. I know Hong Kong and maybe Singapore have their own English dub, but what about the UK, Australia/NZ, and the English-speaking parts of Africa?

Wouldn't it be easier, and more profitable on a global scale, if there was just one English dub for all the Anglophone nations? Is what's stopping it the issue of not having their own localized dub with their own accents, slang, etc.? Or is it that there's no plausible way to have a diverse cast of VAs and have everyone be okay with it?

In some cases, there are separate English dubs. Arietty had a US and British dub.

But I would think in most cases, it's just too expensive for an anime to have different dubs in the same language.

I remember that there were some studios that tried to outsource English dubbing to the Philippines a couple of years back and apparently, they didn't like the results. Perhaps they didn't like constant usage of 'Come again?'.

I agree.

And besides, you also gotta take to account that there are regional differences in the English language (such as British, American, Canadian, Aussie, etc.) and that could cause confusion if only one particular English dialect is used globally.

The UK and Australia just use the American or Canadian English dubs. It's rare for English dubs to be made in Britain, although MangaUK did make a few British English dubs of anime in the early-mid 90s, some of which were carried over to America (such as Project A-KO). However, even though these dubs were recorded in the UK, they still used American dialects (they sometimes used actors from the US and/or Canada residing in the UK in addition to actual British voice actors attempting American accents). It's extremely rare for English dubs of anime to be made in Australia.

I don't understand why different nations would need different English dubs. They don't redub American cartoons into different dialects. The English language is largely the same internationally. It's not like Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Chinese dubs, in which more than one are created in said language to cover different areas.

However, separate English dubs are sometimes produced in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippines for budget reasons. The dialect is still the same (they usually cast American/Canadian/British/Australian actors residing in said country), but it's just done cheaper, and of poorer quality.

Intresting. I just assumed that when a dub is done for an English speaking market that they just send the one did for the US. I didn't even think that they would make separate English dubs for the UK and all that.

Well, I have seen an anime that was dubbed in British English only. That was "The Laughing Target," part of the Rumic World OVA trilogy. It was actually pretty okay for a dub. I think they might've chosen British English because of the classic horror atmosphere or gothic horror-ness of the main antagonist (Azusa); I dunno for sure though. Just guessing.

They don't make separate dubs. MangaUK used to do it 15-20 years ago, but the only recent title that has a separate British dub is "The Secret World of Arietty".



It was likely because MangaUK licensed it for a UK release first, and when they later licensed it for a US release, they just kept the British dub. That's what they usually did. If they licensed a property in North America first, they create the English dub in the US, and import it to the UK. If they licensed a property for the UK first, they have the English dub created in Britain, and import the same dub to the US. Although they did create separate English dubs for Lupin III, Bubblegum Crisis, Vampire Princess Miyu (the OVA), and Space Adventure Cobra for British markets instead of importing the American dubs from other companies, they generally don't do this anymore, and just import the US dubs, and have even imported the US dubs for two of those mentioned titles for recent UK DVD releases, even though they do have a separate UK dub made (though in Cobra's case, it might have to do with music costs). Manga's dubs (in both the US and UK) were notorious for adding in heavy language in order to score a "15" video rating in the UK, to hide the fact that the title may have been created for a younger demographic.

Surprised that nobody has brought up Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence which had two dubs made first for the UK (with an American cast) then for the US (also with an American cast).



You mean Odex in Singapore right? Yeah, their dubs with the exception of Karin (Chibi Vampire) were awful.

And even their Karen dub was only decent by Odex standards which is NOT saying much. Their dub of the first 104 episodes of One Piece was actually worse than the 4Kids. The script was too literal, the recording quality sucked, and the voice acting sucked. The whole dub didn't use more than six or seven voice actors at a time, and they kept leaving. Usopp and Sanji both had two voice actors, and Nami had THREE. In addition, Nico Robin and Nefertari Vivi were both played by the same actress, and Usopp's second VA was Luffy's VA. Chopper's VA in that dub, Emlyn Elisabeth Morinelli has gone on to voice act in American dubs, such as playing Officer Jenny and Cassidy in the current cast of Pokemon.

I know the main English used is either American or Canadian, the earlier used more often than the latter.

I kind of wished there was an Australian dub of Deltora Quest (I know the anime sucked, but my younger brother likes it)...that way it sounds appropriate because the novel was written by an Australian, so it makes sense to have Australian/British accents. It kind of irritates me with their English dub because they use Canadians instead of Australians.

It somehow lets people (who don't look it up) know that it is a North American based novel...it's an Australian novel written by an Australian author gosh darnit!

It makes the dub of the show seem...Un-Australian...

No offence to anyone not from Australia...

There have only been a handful(around 3 or 4) of English dubs in the Philippines and you most likely don't want to hear it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvHlbiQFqiY

I did bought a bootleg copy of a DBZ movie which is Malaysian with the voice actors speaking in English. It was terrible and actually makes the Philippine dubs more internationally acceptable. I could barely understand their English. Though this youtube clip is actually better. The 1st Broly movie was the worst.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU_gkxAmImA

Yeah, some anime has been dubbed into English in Malaysia too with some pretty poor results.

Those Filipino English dubs of Dragon Ball / Z do have good theme songs though! They only dubbed all of Dragon Ball, the first arc of DBZ, and a few movies.

I've also heard about Filipino-based English dubs of Sonic X, Mazinger Z, and Digimon.

Well most Filipinos are pretty good in their English, though their English accent is very strong but I'm rather used to it. I happen to be Filipino myself, though my accent is pretty mixed. Besides that I can recognize Filipinos by their accents when they speak in English (even my mom can recognize them by their accents)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2bh8g_Jwfg

Found another one.

Edit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wG84efH ... re=related

It would be interesting to see them to do an English dub of SM.
I just bet it would be much better than the CWi and DiC dub combined.

Well, according to a contact of mine who is very knowledgeable of foreign English dubs, such as Animax-produced dubs in Hong Kong, there IS a rare Animax English dub of Sailor Moon (for at least part of the series). She also said there was one for Dragon Ball. At first I didn't believe her... until I discovered Hong Kong-based voice actors who regularly work on Animax dubs list Dragon Ball roles on their voice resumes (Andrea Kwan was Kid Goku, Dave Bridges was Adult Goku, Shu, and PUAR)... Apparently that Dragon Ball dub is EXTREMELY rare, it's only been aired on a few Animax channels around the world, and very briefly too... but it's real, so it's very possible for there to be a Hong Kong-based English dub of Sailor Moon that we don't know about...

There are also Animax English dubs for Inuyasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, Cardcaptor Sakura, Ranma 1/2, K-ON!, Hayate The Combat Butler, Sgt. Frog, Emma, some Gundam stuff, Eureka Seven, Fairy Tail, etc. The Animax networks around the world do sometimes show American dubs (Fullmetal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, Inuyasha movies, and Sony's "Samurai X" dub of Rurouni Kenshin, since the network is owned by Sony), but for budgetary reasons, they mostly create their own dubs. They actually used to sound really good. They used native English speaking VAs living in Hong Kong (such as Andrea Kwan, Candice Moore, Russel Wait(?), Dave Bridges, Sarah Houser, Claudia Thomas, and even MAGGIE BLUE O'HARA has been doing voice work for them since her move to Hong Kong), but nowadays, most of their dubs are made using another studio with VAs with English as a second language. The results are pretty atrocious. Just watch their Fairy Tail dub.