So this morning I woke up early, and since there was little else to do I decided to read some anime articles, and I ran across this piece titled "Editorial: Death of Anime Dubs". Which was an interesting examination of the declining anime dub industry, but one that to me means very little (well I feel bad that the voice actors will have to find other work, but I'm speaking of the dubs themselves). I consider myself a fairly "hardcore" anime fan, I've watched (literally) thousands of episodes of TV anime, movies, and OVA's (basically straight-to-video shows), but the amount of those that I've watched in English I could probably count on my fingers.
I guess (if you want to be an asshole) you could call me an "elitist", since I think that if a show is made in a particular language, it should be watched in that language. It's not just with anime, if I watch a Russian horror film, or a Chinese "kung fu" movie, I'll watch them in Russian and Chinese respectively. I don't feel it necessary to be "catered" to, by having someone put all the spoken dialogue in my language. Frankly I find the people who require this kind of crutch in order to enjoy a film far bigger assholes.
Another point is price, it's pretty expensive to have a crew of professional voice actors show up and record for all the different role in a TV series or a movie, and as a consumer you get to "foot the bill" when it reaches the shelf. Which sucks for me, since as I mentioned above I very rarely watch a show dubbed (unless there's either a) no other option, or b) someone else watching with me that won't read subtitles). So basically whenever I buy a show that has a dub track, and I don't watch it, I've wasted money or spent money that could have been saved if the DVD was cheaper without the dub. Then again, I suppose you could say, having spent around $10k on anime DVDs alone (I have over 700 in my collection), I've already wasted a bunch of money.
