Worst Anime Dubs

I grew up on Anime Dubs because I live in America, but I think so far my least favorite dub has to either be Sailor Moon (the voices were horrid) or the first season of One Piece. The voices really didn't match well I don't think. I got used to them but I didn't like them.

sailor moon was fine for me... "tuxedo maaaask!" :O rofl loved that part... anyways

worst anime dub for me is NARUTO ... it is ear splittingly horrible... makes me want to cry in a corner

(apparently i cant laugh my bum off on this forum.... wow can some1 say pg-5...)

worst anime dub for me is NARUTO ... it is ear splittingly horrible... makes me want to cry in a corner
I watch it online so its still in Japanese (but with subtitles) but I saw an American dub on TV once (it used to be on early morning kids' tv but I think they took it off when they realised not all of it was suitable for under 8s :lol:) and it was shocking. The translations are often wrong, the voices have no personality (especially Kakashi and Naruto I found... Gaara was pretty bad too) and its not funny. In the Japanese voice I find Kakashi pretty funny but all of his 'funny' bits in the American dub fall flat and are very lame.

I dont watch dubbed anime generally, its just not the same.

I watch it online so its still in Japanese (but with subtitles) but I saw an American dub on TV once (it used to be on early morning kids' tv but I think they took it off when they realised not all of it was suitable for under 8s :lol:) and it was shocking. The translations are often wrong, the voices have no personality (especially Kakashi and Naruto I found... Gaara was pretty bad too) and its not funny. In the Japanese voice I find Kakashi pretty funny but all of his 'funny' bits in the American dub fall flat and are very lame.

I dont watch dubbed anime generally, its just not the same.

Yeah I first watched Naruto in the english version and then when it started getting good i watched as many episodes as youtube would let me, they were all in Japanese and I liked them a lot better than I do the Dub ones.

worst anime dub for me is NARUTO ... it is ear splittingly horrible... makes me want to cry in a corner


Well, I won't say the whole dubbing is bad (though I don't know Japanese, so I never heard the original), the only part of Naruto I don't like is "Believe it!" Catchphrase

worst anime dub for me is NARUTO ... it is ear splittingly horrible... makes me want to cry in a corner

That's the very worst for me too. God, I can't stand Naruto's English voice.

That's the very worst for me too. God, I can't stand Naruto's English voice.
Well, I won't say the whole dubbing is bad (though I don't know Japanese, so I never heard the original), the only part of Naruto I don't like is "Believe it!" Catchphrase
The voice AND catch phrase of Naruto is so annoying! Why do they have to "American-ize" it with a catch phrase?!? Like others, I watch the subbed version. It is much better!

German!Naruto sounds quite good. ;)

I don't like English Bleach. I started to watch one episode dubbed and I knew after a few minutes why I adore it subbed.

I also like Furuba better in sub than dub. The voices fit better IMO.

For me, "worst dubs" would be...

Naruto: I pretty much only dislike this for the voices, mainly, since I've never seen enough of the dub to see if they changed story plots or characters. I really really can't stand those voices, though. I can't put up with it at all. And Naruto's "believe it!" is annoying! I don't mind the "dattebayo" that Naruto uses in the original...Takeuchi Junko is a good voice actress in general and very energetic too (you should see the Hunter x Hunter musicals where the voice actors play the characters that they voice), but not for the dub.

Digimon Adventure 02: Ironic, another series where Takeuchi Junko does a voice for it, but never mind that. I hated the character changes for this series and unnecessary name changes. I also hated the character bashing that wasn't there for the original version. Daisuke's character was heavily bashed for the dub. The rumor was that the main dub writer didn't like his character much, and had the other characters make snide remarks or take potshots at him. When even the most polite of characters of the series take potshots at a character, you know something's wrong. Some of the voices were horrible too, like Wormmon. He sounded like a constipated old man. He's supposed to sound cute and adorable.

Sailor Moon: I've only seen seasons 1 and 2's dub all the way through, and I didn't mind it too much. Even the dub music was nice, and to be honest, I actually liked DiC's voice actresses for the girls. I hated the cuts made to the series though, especially the SMR movie. Unforgivable! They dropped one of the best Sailor Moon songs ever...Moon Revenge!!

Dragon Ball/Z/GT: In general, I felt that voice wise, this series was awful. Funimation's earlier version had too many cuts for it. And for DB's dub, Kuririn's pervertedness was close to nonexistent. lol I liked his perverted persona in the first series. :lol:

Fushigi Yuugi: OMG this is awful!! The voices are horrible, the acting is horrible...give me the original any day...even though the series in general is annoying.. lol With FY, you just want to stab your ears.

Bleach: Most of the voices for this series don't fit the characters, especially Hitsugaya. He's supposed to resemble like a 12-year-old kid. I like him for the original (especially since he's voiced by Paku Romi, who I love), but the dub has got to go. Hitsugaya was my favorite character too. The only character I don't have too much of a problem with dub voice wise is Ichigo.

That's about all I can think of right off.Well, I won't say the whole dubbing is bad (though I don't know Japanese, so I never heard the original), the only part of Naruto I don't like is "Believe it!" CatchphraseIn the original, Naruto's catch phrase is "dattebayo". At times, he adds it on to his sentences. I guess "believe it!" is as close as they can get to it.

The voice AND catch phrase of Naruto is so annoying! Why do they have to "American-ize" it with a catch phrase?!? Like others, I watch the subbed version. It is much better!
Yeah thats very un-Naruto-ish.... well I didnt like that either.

Yeah thats very un-Naruto-ish.... well I didnt like that either.Actually i8t isn't. For the original, Naruto does add "dattebayo" and "bayo" to most of his phrases. That's probably why it's done for the dub.

For me, "worst dubs" would be...


Fushigi Yuugi: OMG this is awful!! The voices are horrible, the acting is horrible...give me the original any day...even though the series in general is annoying.. lol With FY, you just want to stab your ears.

Yeah Fushigi Yuugi dub voices where a bit rough. I've watched the entire series in dub before I watched it in original Jap. And I loved the original jap version better , I can't say why though because it's been a while since I've watched it.

Fushigi Yuugi: OMG this is awful!! The voices are horrible, the acting is horrible...give me the original any day...even though the series in general is annoying.. lol With FY, you just want to stab your ears.


Oh God, I know! I only watched one episode in English but... *shudder*... As if Tamahome and Miaka's fondness for screaming out each other's name whenever they were in any kind of trouble wasn't enough...

As for Hellsing... don't start me. All I'll say is that those English accents were dangerously close to hate crime territory...

I've never seen the dub of Hellsing, but at least the accents probably fit since the series does take place in England. In the original, the voice actors can't really pull that off.

Actually i8t isn't. For the original, Naruto does add "dattebayo" and "bayo" to most of his phrases. That's probably why it's done for the dub.
You're probably right, I dont understand Japanese so I really dont pay attention to him saying 'dattebayo' and 'bayo' (but notice 'bayo' more)as much as he probably does. I just notice it more in English.

The Sailor Moon dubs were horrible, the renaming bugged me (Molly? Melvin? Seriously!). And worse, they butchered the ending of Sailor Moon's first arc to make it completely different from what it was in the original (Japanese with subtitles) anime.

As for Hellsing... don't start me. All I'll say is that those English accents were dangerously close to hate crime territory...


xD I have the Hellsing English dub on DVD and it's hillarious.

The Japanese version was so mysterious and Anderson did sound Scottish but in the English Dub they all seem misplaced and Anderson sounds like he wants to be an Irish Scot or something. xD Seras Victoria is god awful. If I heard any other Brits speaking like that i'd think they were taking the mickey.

I'd say Inuyasha. I don't actually watch the show, but I've caught enough of it to know it makes me want to rip my ears off.

I'd say Inuyasha. I don't actually watch the show, but I've caught enough of it to know it makes me want to rip my ears off.
I actually like the InuYasha dub myself. Everybody's different!

I just watched Chrono Crusade for the first time and the dubbing was terrible! I didn't even get to know the characters and could tell the voices didn't match them plus they were annoying. Using AcidPop's words, it made me "want to rip my ears off." I'm watching the remaining episodes subbed.

I actually like the InuYasha dub myself. Everybody's different!


Same here, I liked a lot of the VAs in Inuyasha ^_^;

Now I usually don't mind dubs, but what really grates my soul is the Gravitation dub. It's such an energetic show with energetic and lovable characters and what do we get? Dull, boring, hardly-can-act sounding VA's! Their delivery is forced and unbelievable and then some of them just don't fit their characters at ALL (I'm looking at you, ASK members!). There were a few gems (Ryuichi at times, Hiro, Sakano, and Tohma) but for the most part... so disappointing.

You kinda get use to it if you watch more than one episode at a time, but the minute you stop and pick it back up you notice it once again.

The Bleach Dub is absolutely awful.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I finally caught an episode of Gravitation...a dub episode. Man....just like with Fushigi Yuugi, I wanted to stab my ears. Shuichi wasn't energetic and overly hyper sounding at all, not like in the original. I didn't watch much...I couldn't subject myself to it. Everyone just came across as extremely dull and boring! Shuichi sounded like someone loaded him up with a couple of pounds worth of Ritalin or something! At least I'd seen the series years ago, so it wasn't necessary for me to actually suffer...er, sit through its dub.

Dragon Ball/Z/GT (newer FUNI dub): I'm not a huge fan of the newer Dub for Dragon Ball Z. I've never been a fan of Sean Schemmel for Goku, his voice is creepy. I know that the older Dub done by Ocean Group has many inaccuracies in the audio, but the voices are much better. Brian Drummond (especially) and Scott McNeil were awesome for their roles (Vegeta and Piccolo) as well as Ian Corlett for Goku. There are only several VAs for the FUNI dub who I like better then the ones chosen for the Ocean Dub, Rager for Mr Satan (Hercule) was a very good choice, the actor who did Android 19, and whoever did Yajirobi are the only people who I seem to have liked.

Naruto: I simply hate this Dub, one of the worst I've seen in a while. However, even without the Dub, There are only several anime scenes that actually live up to or make a bigger impact on the audience than the manga. The Manga is much better then the anime anyway, therefore not much more has to be said.

Sailor Moon: Not too great, but not the worst I've seen.

Cardcaptor Sakura was a fantastic series that got turned into IMO an absolute travesty of itself in English- Cardcaptors. They cut pretty much everything that they could out of the storyline (all the romantic relationships except the one between Sakura's parents), and the renaming makes me want to cringe every time I hear it.

I recently watched Uchuu No Stellvia and ordered the series because I liked it so much.

I cannot listen to the English dubs. I hate them. I first watched the series in Japanese with some fan subs, and it was excellent. In the English dub version almost all of the voices are just too...oh, goodness, I don't even know how to describe it. Characters that are supposed to be sixteen and seventeen sound like they are twelve. The only one it fits on is the actual twelve-year-old. It's overly dramatic and it misses a lot of the emphasis on bits that need it, or the emphasis is misplaced.
It makes me wonder if they just lock an actor in a room with a script and leave, then put it onto the show blind.

It makes me wonder if they just lock an actor in a room with a script and leave, then put it onto the show blind.

That is possibly the most accurate description of (most) English anime dubs I've ever heard! Particularly those of slightly older (pre-2000) series. It's especially sad because so much of the humour and fun of the shows gets lost in the dubbing process. But some shows have decent dubs (eg Noir, Fruits Basket ).

That is possibly the most accurate description of (most) English anime dubs I've ever heard! Particularly those of slightly older (pre-2000) series. It's especially sad because so much of the humour and fun of the shows gets lost in the dubbing process. But some shows have decent dubs (eg Noir, Fruits Basket ).

:lol: Thanks! It really does seem like it sometimes, doesn't it?

And yes, I'll agree that sometimes there are good dubs. I watched one Episode of Elfen Lied with the English dub and really liked it. There was no high-pitched whining girl (where in the world do they find those, anyway?!? I swear I've never heard someone talk the way they have some of those actors talk for these dubs...) and everyone actually had inflections and intonations that not only went with what was going on but were believable as well.

Shuichi sounded like someone loaded him up with a couple of pounds worth of Ritalin or something! At least I'd seen the series years ago, so it wasn't necessary for me to actually suffer...er, sit through its dub.

That is SO true! It's as if they thought Shuichi's energy would be offensive or something.

I happened to find the OVA on tv not too long ago, and the dub was still as wooden as ever - I would've thought they'd get better, but I was (SO) wrong....Luckily I had the good graces of seeing the series subbed way back when, but I'd only seen screenshots from the OVA (dominatrix Yuki anyone? -_~) and got curious.

And I like dubs! They just murdered this series u_u

Cardcaptor Sakura was a fantastic series that got turned into IMO an absolute travesty of itself in English- Cardcaptors. They cut pretty much everything that they could out of the storyline (all the romantic relationships except the one between Sakura's parents), and the renaming makes me want to cringe every time I hear it.

WORD. God, it absolutely killed me. I mean, cutting out Yuki and Touya was expected (but still horribly depressing), but SAKURA AND SYAORAN? And the renamings? KILL, ANGELUS, KILL! Oh, and also, the voices make my skin itch. Not that Tomoyo's voice in Japanese didn't do the same, but still...

The worst dubs in my life I´ve are the Gakuen Alice Academy and Naruto!!!!!!!I really hated those...that I preferred to watched it by subs

I realized how bad the German DBZ dub is after rewatching the series. They show scenes from last episode in the beginning and translate it in a totally different way than the episode before. The voices are totally fine and all...no wait Vegeta's first voice was awful. They changed his voice actor later in the series. He sounded like a boy with too tight pants.

I just had to turn off Sailor Moon within ten seconds, I found it tedious and badly acted!!

Well to teach it's own because I like the English dub of DBZ and Fruits Basket. I can watch either one.

I have to say Sailormoon and CardCaptor Sakura. I also can't watch The Slayers in dub either.

Well to teach it's own because I like the English dub of DBZ and Fruits Basket. I can watch either one.

I have to say Sailormoon and CardCaptor Sakura. I also can't watch The Slayers in dub either.You should post in this thread (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=119510) too. I'm curious as to what shows you would list for it. ^_^

You should post in this thread (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=119510) too. I'm curious as to what shows you would list for it. ^_^

How do you link threads? Anyway can you take a look at my post on the reccommendation's of anime thread.

I'm all over the place with my anime. I posted there this morining, thanks.:)

Worst for me would be Death Note (they showed it here late at night a while ago. I turned it on to see what language it was in) mostly ecause they got Ryuk so wrong. The others were off too but the Japanese Ryuk was perfect while the American actor just sounded ridiculous.
Other worst one would be Naruto. I think the American actor who does Naruto completely missed the point of the character and over-acts (even for Naruto) way too much. It could also be because I watched everything up to the first 20 or so episodes of Shippuuden in Japanese and so I was used to it, but it just sounded awful to me.
Also Bleach could be better but I think that's just because I see it as being SUCH an Asian series that the characters with American voice just looks and sounds wrong.

How do you link threads? Anyway can you take a look at my post on the reccommendation's of anime thread.Just type Text. Just close up the space between the url and = and don't use **]

For example, since you nentioned Detective Conan, I'm going to post in the Detective Conan Thread.

To link to it, I would put, Detective Conan...minus the spaces.

Detective Conan (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?p=4866554#post4866554)

I really grew up on Pokemon, Sailor Moon, and Yu-Gi-Oh. i like the Yu-Gi-Oh dub, but Pokemon and Sailor Moon have HORRIBLE dubs. but probably the worst dub is either Naruto or Bleach. I'm still mad that they all sound the same in the english Naruto Shippuden. And in Bleach, Rukia sounds like she's 40 and Grimmjow sounds iike he's 10. I like things in Japanese much better.

I think the German dub of Naruto it awful. They wanted to make it suitable for childen :rolleyes: (why do they even try to make an anime like Naruto that is focussed on fighting or eventually killing suitable for children?)
They cut out everything related to violence. They used the word "beaten" instead of "killed", "murdered", or "dead". They turned blood into water, and cut out corpses.
There was so much cut out that it was impossible to understand what was going on, and the dialogues were just stupid and laughable sometimes.

The Cardcaptor Sakura dub was the worst for me.. I can kind of understand the renaming of some of the characters, but it still annoyed me so much. It had a really great story line in the original and they completely butchered it until it was barely recognisable anymore.

And I have to agree, the english voices were terrible! I was very happy when they didn't (to my recolection) dub the second movie, that would have been completely pointless since they cut out all the romantic relationships. That was a great movie.

Personally, I think that all dubs in general are horrid. The sound and overacted voices annoy me. I much prefer the subbed videos.

^ Some are done quite well though. Like Hellsing IMO.

Personally, I adore the dub for Cowboy Bebop. I thought it was perfect.

Still, for many, I agree that the dubs detract from the anime.

Kind of surprised no ones said the 4Kids edition of One Piece.

I think death note was the worst dub that I had ever seen.

As for Hellsing... don't start me. All I'll say is that those English accents were dangerously close to hate crime territory...

THANK YOU! I am so glad there is someone else out there who doesn't like the english dub of Hellsing! The voice acting was completely flat and unemotional! :no: I agree with you about those so-called [/I]English accents[/I] :grumble:

Apart from Hellsing, Bleach and Naruto Shipuuden are the worst dubs for me. Again they are flat and unemotional. The original Naruto was ok for me, I think most of the voices fit the characters more than the Japanese voices do but they're just so bad at giving a decent performance. :(

But the absolute worst English dub in my opinion is Inuyasha! I just can't see how many people prefer it over the superb original Japanese version! It was butchered and gutted with a knife and then forced to eat it's own insides. No emotion portrayed tn the dub at all! Kagome and Kikyo are aged fifteen and eighteen and they both sound like fifty year old who smoke! Similar thing with Shippo! And Inuyasha himself has the most annoying and terrible voice of all anime dubs in my opinion! And I did watch the dub first.

*pant* *pant* ok rant over! :D

I'd say the most worst anime dub is One Piece.....

I won't even get started on Naruto because everyone here seems to be fully aware of how depressing that dub was.

Besides that, the one dub that grinded my gears is actually ind of silly. When I was a little kid, I loved a cute little girly series called Tokyo Mew Mew. It was my first manga, so I still hold it close to my heart. I'd always watch the original anime, but when they dubbed it they called it Mew Mew Power & pretty much destroyed the whole thing. Not only were the voices terrible, but they changed a lot of the key points/character names in the show. The whole thing was just awful, it upset 8 years ago & it upsets me now. I'm actually glad it got cancelled. It made my inner child cry.

Anything that Funimation does is terrible! It seems to me like Chris Sabat does just about every voice, and most of the voices sound like the character is constipated. DBZ had a great dub with the Ocean Group, then it was an ok dub when funi first began, but when the redubbed it they ruined it.

For the most part I dont like any dub, I prefer to watch with sub titles.

I don't subsribe to the Japanese Are Our Superiors generalization a lot of my fellow anime and manga fans do.

I watch dubs and enjoy them just fine because Americans are just as talented as the Japanese.

That being said...the Angel Sanctuary OVA was godawful. I don't even know what happened there. They had Crispin Freeman and hey even ruined him somehow.

I've seen the hate for the Sailor Moon dub (which, for me, was tolerable in an "I can't believe it's as bad as you say it is" way) and the Naruto dub (don't watch Naruto anyway, so...) and I sympathize with disliking the One Piece dub. Someone already mentioned Cardcaptors (*vomit*), but what about Tokyo Mew Mew? Yeah, the original series wasn't that great to begin with, but the Americanization of the dub...

Part of me is kind of glad that HCR never got officially brought stateside, it might have ended up being a worse travesty than Cardcaptors was.

I'm not sure if this fits as the worst dub but certaintly the weirdest... Willem Dafoe voicing a woman in Earth Sea.

Anything that Funimation does is terrible! It seems to me like Chris Sabat does just about every voice, and most of the voices sound like the character is constipated. DBZ had a great dub with the Ocean Group, then it was an ok dub when funi first began, but when the redubbed it they ruined it.


I know that this is an older post by now, but I completely disagree. I also like the Ocean Group dub, but I have no problem at all with the Funimation dub. Yes, Chris Sabat does a lot of the characters, but he makes each one sound unique and different from the others. Vegeta in no way sounds like Piccolo, who in no way sounds like Yamcha, who in no way sounds like Kami.

I also liked the Funimation dub's soundtrack as well. Bruce Faulconer is a genius. I was very disappointed that they couldn't continue using his themes for Kai. Many of the big moments (Frieza's death, Vegeta/Goku going SSJ for the first time, etc.) didn't feel nearly as epic as they used to.

And I'm not sure I understand all the hate for the Naruto dub in here either. I never really paid much attention to that particular show, but I did get to see some of the earlier episodes. Yes, Naruto's english voice IS downright terrible, but the voices for the other characters (Sasuke, Neji, Kakashi, etc.) were done quite well I thought.

For the most part, I actually prefer dubbed anime. Most of it actually is done rather well, and in my opinion, having to constantly read the subtitles takes away from the viewing experience. I don't enjoy having to fixate my eyes on the words characters are saying, rather than what they are actually doing on screen. And anyway, isn't reading supposed to be what manga's for? lol

Kind of surprised no ones said the 4Kids edition of One Piece.

Pretty much everything 4kids dubs ends up awful.

Some Funimation dubs are okay, the Strike Witches one was pretty good (Although Trudi's voice actor was a bit of a let-down for me, as was Shirley's).

But some of the Disney-made dubs are shockingly bad.

I'll just leave this here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWNx4p6FVRA

*plooka plooka*

I think the worst dub I've ever seen has been Nelvana's dub of Cardcaptors. They completely butchered that series beyond recongition. Although they aired all the episodes in other English speaking countries, the Kid's WB in the U.S. skipped and combined almost half of the episodes and reduced the series from 70 episodes down to 39. They completely changed everyone's personalities and made everyone really rude and they turned Tomoyo into a valleygirl. I also hated that they cut out everything that was cute and funny and removed all the romance into the show to turn it into a Pokemon rip off. It was also incredibly sexist that they rewrote the plot to have it focus on Syaoran instead of Sakura because they didn't think enough of a market for girls' animation.

Sandy Frank's production of Gatchaman, AKA "Battle of the Planets", with the inane little robot (7-Zark-7) patched in to provide... uh... I'm not sure what he was supposed to provide... narrative continuity perhaps...

I've only seen a few anime in English (and also just a few episodes), but if there's one series that is absolutely horrible in English, than it's Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02. I've loved the German(!) version as a child and, to be honest, still love it. But when I saw the English version, it just felt like watching a cheap knock-off. No digivolution theme songs (we had translated versions of the Japanese ones), different opening songs (German version had translated ones for that, too) and weird BGM. I really missed "Bokura no Digital World" and "Sun Goes Down" in 02 and "Seven" in Adventure. Not to mention how they changed the characters.

I watched Naruto in German today for the first time and that was horrible. I'm used to Japanese voices and those seem to fit the characters really well. But the German ones are so OOC sometimes. I'm glad that they at least kept the Japanese openings.

But then it's all about what you are used to. I watched DB and DBZ in German first and got used to the voices. When I watch it in Japanese, then it sounds so odd, especially Son Goku.