When I first watched it I watched the German Dub and I agree. One of the rare anime where it doesnt really matter which version you watch (unless you go deeply into theory crafting).
Probably too late to give this warning to some but fir the love of everything holy, unholy, and in between DO NOT watch the english dub of Serial Experiments Lain while high.
i really like how the voices aren't stereotypical or unnecessarily high-pitched, and I think the lack of constant music combined with the unsettling story makes the dub sound more real, honestly. like a distorted version of real people.
Ive personally never understood the discorse over dubs in anime. Idk how these are unique in any way this is literally just talking and it sounds good...?
Dub acting is dreadful as a rule. Think of the difference between high school English lessons when studying Shakespeare and the teacher picks people to read parts - most people don't like Shakespeare and it sounds just like it is, robotic and forced, someone reading words they don't care about from a page, and the potential talent pool to cast from is small - and a movie version of that same play starring skilled professional actors. Dubbing _is_ done by pro actors, but dub studios, like the English class, have small pools of talent and are hiring on a pretty low budget and working to tight deadlines, so they often aren't _good_ actors, you get the same voices over and over and there is little time to do more takes so bad performances are left in. Some dubs are good. Most are very poor. On top of that, in Japan, anime studios work closely with a much bigger talent pool of generally more skilled actors who have trained their voices for range (many are also singers) and may even have specific actors in mind when creating characters, but are not usually involved at all with dubs. Where the Japanese cast will have access to the writers and production crew for support in creating their character, other language dub casts have a totally different director and sometimes no information about characters to work with beyond raw copies of the show itself, so you may well end up getting dramatically different or wildly inconsistent interpretations of characters. The Japanese audio is what the creators intended the show to sound like. The dub...is not that. Then there's practical issues, like cultural peculiarities specific to Japan that don't translate smoothly and have to be adapted, e.g. a school setting may have students going to English class, which makes sense for Japanese characters but if they are already speaking English all the time, that would be weird, so what do you do? Or synching issues: the character opens his mouth wide (like at 0:20 above) so the English has to match the mouth movement, but in context it doesn't fit, or they require more time in the script than is available so the actors have to talk too fast, or too slow. Solutions often suck unavoidably, basically, making dialogue unnatural. So it adds up to a mix of weird, forced, unnatural, inconsistent or just plain bad performances. This vid is just laughing at bad performances, this dub in particular being known for lifelessness and sounding emotionless. The alternative is Japanese audio with subtitles, but for some reason many people think this is unacceptable. Personally, I watch subs or I don't watch. To me dubbing is pointless and represents added expense and delay on overseas releases. But you should probably talk to a dub lover for balance, I freely acknowledge that mine is a fairly extreme viewpoint.
Late reply but it depends on the show. My first watch with lain was sub and the experience was good since subtitle wise nothing much happens and everything is straightforward. On the other hand I recently started watching azudaioh and i frequently have to pause in between sentences because of how fast everything is @Josh_Quillan
@@abanoub7002 Azumanga Daioh is a fantastic show, one of the all-time greats IMO. It's a really good show to watch if you study Japanese language too, being full of everyday interactions and interesting idiom. It's also a great illustration of my point, as the dub takes huge liberties with the humour and basic reality of the show. Azumanga Daioh is a comedy, and like most Japanese comedy, it has really complicated humour that's very culturally specific, in this case it's reliant on the audience's understanding of the Japanese high school experience, and requires footnotes for foreigners. My preferred version of the show is fansub as they make sure to actually explain the jokes fully, where ADV's DVD version does not. You're going to have to pause from time to time to get everything, that's inevitable, but it doesn't really detract from the experience, it's still hilarious and charming. However, the dub really changes things. Because Yukari is an English teacher, but when dubbed all the characters speak English, in the dub (and the Manga) she teaches Spanish, and Osaka, being an English speaker, no longer has a Kansai accent but is Texan! They did a lot of work to make the dub make logical sense but in the process absolutely killed the Japanese culturally-specific jokes and references and/or replaced them with American ones where they could. This seems to me like a massive rewrite, almost a remake, just to kill much of the humour and move it away from what it is - a Japanese show about Japanese high school life - and since I am not American either, it just makes it weirder. They still look like Japanese school kids, and the place where they are, is visibly Japan, but they are talking like they are American...?
It's like watching AI's talk to each other......................................................................................................
i think the unsettling vibe of dub rlly suits the series
yeah i think so too
The dub’s flatness actually works here.
i was wondering what the dub sounded like. glad i watched it sub.
lol
The sub was actually better but whatever we all know you're just an elitist hardcore anime watcher 😂
HARDCORE TECHNO
odd how the dub makes everyone into a porce lain doll… not just lain…
EMAIL?!
dub really adds to the uncanny and emotionlessness of the show
It really does
welcome home big sister
When I first watched it I watched the German Dub and I agree. One of the rare anime where it doesnt really matter which version you watch (unless you go deeply into theory crafting).
Do you want your Pepsi, Mike?
this navi is SO COOL
The slow dramatic zoom in on, "Or something like that..." made me laugh a lot for some reason.
YEAH HA HAH!
-Dad, maybe
my dad says that too
Old dubs are just amazing
DAMN YOUUU DAMN YOUUUU
Alice: Lain? Are you ok?
Lain: æ
Probably too late to give this warning to some but fir the love of everything holy, unholy, and in between DO NOT watch the english dub of Serial Experiments Lain while high.
too late......
oh lord. what happened when you did?
@@pixeliien i started believing i'm an alien
gotta get a grip
In SEL everything is literally out of context
no, the dad's laugh is completely understandable if you just pay enough attention, you f&%$&$# normie
@@perksofbeinganalien7830wit d heilll
i really like how the voices aren't stereotypical or unnecessarily high-pitched, and I think the lack of constant music combined with the unsettling story makes the dub sound more real, honestly. like a distorted version of real people.
1:33 Hey, that's me!
how does it feel to be a legend
The dad is my fave character
I love how the "funny moments" compilation for Lain is still incredibly unsettling and horrific.
I’ve never seen the dub but I love these clips.
"I'm only kidding GIRLFRIEND"
I first watched this in like, 2004 on TechTV/G4, and it is what became etched in my memory as far as Lain goes.
that's a cool memory!
some of the lines were fucking hilarious
i don't need parents.
"look at me! i'm committing suicide!"
Still better than detective conan... 😅
oof....
1:01
3:56 lmao
I see Lain is everywhere.
Ive personally never understood the discorse over dubs in anime. Idk how these are unique in any way this is literally just talking and it sounds good...?
Dub acting is dreadful as a rule. Think of the difference between high school English lessons when studying Shakespeare and the teacher picks people to read parts - most people don't like Shakespeare and it sounds just like it is, robotic and forced, someone reading words they don't care about from a page, and the potential talent pool to cast from is small - and a movie version of that same play starring skilled professional actors. Dubbing _is_ done by pro actors, but dub studios, like the English class, have small pools of talent and are hiring on a pretty low budget and working to tight deadlines, so they often aren't _good_ actors, you get the same voices over and over and there is little time to do more takes so bad performances are left in. Some dubs are good. Most are very poor.
On top of that, in Japan, anime studios work closely with a much bigger talent pool of generally more skilled actors who have trained their voices for range (many are also singers) and may even have specific actors in mind when creating characters, but are not usually involved at all with dubs. Where the Japanese cast will have access to the writers and production crew for support in creating their character, other language dub casts have a totally different director and sometimes no information about characters to work with beyond raw copies of the show itself, so you may well end up getting dramatically different or wildly inconsistent interpretations of characters. The Japanese audio is what the creators intended the show to sound like. The dub...is not that.
Then there's practical issues, like cultural peculiarities specific to Japan that don't translate smoothly and have to be adapted, e.g. a school setting may have students going to English class, which makes sense for Japanese characters but if they are already speaking English all the time, that would be weird, so what do you do? Or synching issues: the character opens his mouth wide (like at 0:20 above) so the English has to match the mouth movement, but in context it doesn't fit, or they require more time in the script than is available so the actors have to talk too fast, or too slow. Solutions often suck unavoidably, basically, making dialogue unnatural.
So it adds up to a mix of weird, forced, unnatural, inconsistent or just plain bad performances. This vid is just laughing at bad performances, this dub in particular being known for lifelessness and sounding emotionless. The alternative is Japanese audio with subtitles, but for some reason many people think this is unacceptable. Personally, I watch subs or I don't watch. To me dubbing is pointless and represents added expense and delay on overseas releases. But you should probably talk to a dub lover for balance, I freely acknowledge that mine is a fairly extreme viewpoint.
Late reply but it depends on the show. My first watch with lain was sub and the experience was good since subtitle wise nothing much happens and everything is straightforward. On the other hand I recently started watching azudaioh and i frequently have to pause in between sentences because of how fast everything is @Josh_Quillan
@@Josh_Quillan see my previous reply since yt glitched
@@abanoub7002 Azumanga Daioh is a fantastic show, one of the all-time greats IMO. It's a really good show to watch if you study Japanese language too, being full of everyday interactions and interesting idiom. It's also a great illustration of my point, as the dub takes huge liberties with the humour and basic reality of the show.
Azumanga Daioh is a comedy, and like most Japanese comedy, it has really complicated humour that's very culturally specific, in this case it's reliant on the audience's understanding of the Japanese high school experience, and requires footnotes for foreigners. My preferred version of the show is fansub as they make sure to actually explain the jokes fully, where ADV's DVD version does not. You're going to have to pause from time to time to get everything, that's inevitable, but it doesn't really detract from the experience, it's still hilarious and charming.
However, the dub really changes things. Because Yukari is an English teacher, but when dubbed all the characters speak English, in the dub (and the Manga) she teaches Spanish, and Osaka, being an English speaker, no longer has a Kansai accent but is Texan! They did a lot of work to make the dub make logical sense but in the process absolutely killed the Japanese culturally-specific jokes and references and/or replaced them with American ones where they could. This seems to me like a massive rewrite, almost a remake, just to kill much of the humour and move it away from what it is - a Japanese show about Japanese high school life - and since I am not American either, it just makes it weirder. They still look like Japanese school kids, and the place where they are, is visibly Japan, but they are talking like they are American...?
@@Josh_Quillan eh well i dont hyper analyze dubs in anime so i can just casually enjoy the show without caring about all that