[jbm]

Was this ever REALLY a problem?

I've seen Japanese subtitles before (I mean Japanese language subtitles) and almost all subtext is lost regardless. Far worse than the english subtitles on anime.

You might as well make the movie you want, the end result abroad will be bland regardless. The translation issues are just an excuse.

[aikinai]

Agree Japanese subtitles are absolute garbage—I once made the stupid mistake of using Japanese subtitles watching a comedy on a date with someone that didn’t speak English.

However, the dubs are the complete opposite. They pack in a ton of the original subtext and nuance, character quirks, etc, even making new jokes when necessary to convey something similar when the original is impossible. And of course the voice actors are great.

Japanese subtitles being terrible isn’t necessarily a natural state. It seems to just be where things landed in that industry.

[fomine3]

Yeah Japanese sub is too much omitted. It's designed to just understand meaning quickly. People understand emotions from original actors' voice (though I doubt is it precise). Movie on theater can't be paused, so very long annotation like anime fansub isn't possible. Drama translation is done by same culture.

Over the half of people (including many non movie enthusiasts) prefer dub, but sub is very popular in the internet because such people is verbose. I like sub for English (that I can understand a bit and good for learning), dub for the rest.

[red-iron-pine]

125 million Japanese, or 1.4 billion Chinese? No one cares if it translates well in Japan, producers are trying to get that Chinese market.

Ditto for India.