As for games I enjoy games like the Metal Gear Solid series in English because it's *supposed* to be English... the Japanese voices in place just don't sit well with me no matter how good they are.

Plus David Hayter kicks ass.

Russian's totally speak Russian in the U.S.S.R.

The Metal Gear series has always had excellent voice acting. There are tons of great American voice actors.

Okay before even more people have a dig! I know it is English, I am not retarded!
 But the dubbing is done by American actors! Therefore you can hardly CALL it English just because the basic language is the same!

Us English speak and pronounce things differently to Americans! Hence me not saying it was an English dub! ffs!    -_-

There are more American's who speak English than the English who speak english. Majority wins.

Seriously speaking, just because you English speak and pronounce things differently than Americans doesn't mean that it's not in English. That's like saying speaking Spanish in Mexico should be called Mexican and Spanish in Columbia should be called Columbian because of some minor differences in execution.

When watching Great Teacher Onizuka's first series in Japanese with subtitles.. I thought I'd watch the second in American.

It might just be me, but does anyone else feel that the American versions on anime completely lose the emphasis and feeling that the Japanese put into the characters.

It may just be because I watched the original first, but it just seemed really dull in comparison.

Usually this is the case, but from time to time I've seen exceptional dubs.
(Mostly in games, though... Refer to Tales of the Abyss and FF12)

People who speak Mandarin don't always speak Cantonese.

What does that have to do with anything? Cantonese is a totally different language than Mandarin.

That happens, though. It's not uncommon at all for people to refer to the dialect of whatever language they speak as the language. As an example I speak mostly the Mexican version of Spanish, and would have a lot of trouble speaking or understanding Castillian, and don't even ask me about Extremaduran. I've studied formal Japanese, but I would have a lot of trouble understanding Osakan. People who speak Mandarin don't always speak Cantonese. And heck, if you think knowing english means you can understand anyone who speaks native english, try talking to someone with a thick rural Irish brogue! Ever see Snatch?

Only Castillian is not a territory difference... It's actually a different dialect.
"american" and "english" are not different dialects.

Austrian

Not to bust in on the Great Dub Debate, but I've always felt that Cowboy Bebop had great dubs. Is that statement more or less correct?

At the risk of sounding offensive (well actually not really) - well like, for American cartoons I think it's common practice to hire white actors to play white people, Asians to play Asians and black people to play black people, right? Obviously it's a whole different situation in Japan, so I don't think it's weird for us to find it more natural for series with non-Asian people, or where the general population would speak English, to be dubbed in English. In the same way it's probably pretty convincing over in Japan when Japanese people try to play non-Japanese parts, but it doesn't seem right over here because we know what person of x nationality sounds like, in general.

But on the other hand, all those old kung-fu movies don't seem natural when they're dubbed, even if the actors are Chinese/Japanese/whatever. Because there's no reason they'd just happen to be speaking English/etc.

I was wondering if there are parts of Europe where you it's hard to find some random ethnic type, unlike in the US, so when the dub calls for it (let's say, a Russian dub of Afro Samurai), do they ever have to fake it?

By the way, hiring random celebrities as VAs is not the answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bih4x51zRA

I like to read the Bible in Hebrew with English subtitles.

The reason why people tend to think the Japanese voice track is so much better... is because they aren't Japanese. It's harder for usto tell how good or bad it is when it is in a language we don't understand, so we assume it's better and more authentic. We see something as Japanese so we try and put Japanese voices too it, for association, this causes a problem whamerican characters who have a strange japanese dialect or a very thick japanese voice when speaking english. Most of us are guilty of it, it's nothing to feel bad about, both have their fair share of shitty VA's, some series get great dub VA's (Cowboy Bebop), likewise American cartoons such as the 90's Batman cartoon, or Beast Wars had great voice actors which really went well. But I can't really say is a series has great japanese voice actors as I'm not Japanese. It's an entirely different place, people speak and act differently over there, so how am I to know if it's good or bad when it all sounds like "GOJIRA TLANSFORMERU" to me?

The reason why people tend to think the Japanese voice track is so much better... is because they aren't Japanese. It's harder for usto tell how good or bad it is when it is in a language we don't understand, so we assume it's better and more authentic. We see something as Japanese so we try and put Japanese voices too it, for association, this causes a problem whamerican characters who have a strange japanese dialect or a very thick japanese voice when speaking english. Most of us are guilty of it, it's nothing to feel bad about, both have their fair share of shitty VA's, some series get great dub VA's (Cowboy Bebop), likewise American cartoons such as the 90's Batman cartoon, or Beast Wars had great voice actors which really went well. But I can't really say is a series has great japanese voice actors as I'm not Japanese. It's an entirely different place, people speak and act differently over there, so how am I to know if it's good or bad when it all sounds like "GOJIRA TLANSFORMERU" to me?

This.

Also, I find dubs preferable because characters will actually have the accents that they're supposed to (ie, Irish person visiting Japan will actually sound Irish).  Or at least, the accents are a lot easier to notice.  The other thing is that most male villains sound a lot more convincing when they're voiced in English.  I don't really know why that is but their voice usually sounds deeper and more powerful (if it's supposed to). 

However, that being said, I still will watch, and enjoy, subtitled shows.  City Hunter and Angel Heart being the main two.

IMHO Japanese is better since I can feel the anime better O.O When I watched English Version (My very first was Vandread) I was... what the-?!?! I can't stay watching an anime in English dub, there's even one anime that's a soccer anime (Can't remember name...it's in the tip of my tongue...) that I watched in English and kinda suckered off and I switched to Japanese. But then it depends on the person...but truly, personally I like the Japanese Version (Specially for ff7: advent children O.O)

The reason why people tend to think the Japanese voice track is so much better... is because they aren't Japanese. It's harder for usto tell how good or bad it is when it is in a language we don't understand, so we assume it's better and more authentic. We see something as Japanese so we try and put Japanese voices too it, for association, this causes a problem whamerican characters who have a strange japanese dialect or a very thick japanese voice when speaking english. Most of us are guilty of it, it's nothing to feel bad about, both have their fair share of shitty VA's, some series get great dub VA's (Cowboy Bebop), likewise American cartoons such as the 90's Batman cartoon, or Beast Wars had great voice actors which really went well. But I can't really say is a series has great japanese voice actors as I'm not Japanese. It's an entirely different place, people speak and act differently over there, so how am I to know if it's good or bad when it all sounds like "GOJIRA TLANSFORMERU" to me?

What? No. Usually it's the voice itself. Usually, english dubbers pick some really non-fitting voices and what is worse, alot of times they don't know how to act and the speech sounds very fucking false.

I'm sorry, I forget that having AGENT JOHN SMITH with a heavy japanese accent is such a great fitting voice!