In the last six months or so, I’ve been watching dubbed anime more than subbed. It was a comment by Oddball on one of the Assorted Calibers Podcast blooper reels. Essentially, why would you miss any of the great art reading the subtitles if the dub was of decent quality. I realized that since anime skyrocketed in popularity, the quality of the dubs similarly improved. It was no longer the dark days of the 1980s and 1990s with badly translated scripts read by actors who couldn’t emote themselves out of a wet paper bag.

Unfortunately, some of the dubs are bad enough to switch over to the subtitled versions. I recently started watching “Blue Box” with The Wife. I’d seen it when it first aired and the dub wasn’t available. Let’s just say the dub is not my favorite. There are a couple of voices that are annoying for characters that are of key importance.

Still, it’s the rare exception.

I’m still working on learning Japanese, partly to get to watch anime in Japanese without needing the subtitles. I still think the original actors provide the best performances. At least I don’t have to suffer needlessly anymore.

And here’s hoping we’ll get new dubs of some old anime.