Bad Dubs

Written on 10/19/11

I remember when I used to be obsessed with Anime in high school and I’d have these discussions about bad dubs with my other Otaku friends. We’d complain about how bad this voice actor or that voice actor was and how it would be so much better if we could just watch shows with subtitles.

Now living in Georgia, I realize that no bad dub I saw back then could ever compare with the terrible dubbing of Georgian TV. Nearly every drama, cartoon and movie on TV comes from abroad. Most are American, but Spanish and French language dramas also seem to be popular as well. Georgian TV dubs all of these, but perhaps for budgetary reasons or other reasons, instead of removing the original voices and getting voice actors to recreate the dialogues, they merely lower the original voice soundtrack and speak over it. The Georgian voices sound as if they are being read from a script without seeing the actual program, as there is no emotion portrayed in any character’s voice. Under the Georgian you can hear people speaking with interesting voices and with emotion, while over the original voices, Georgian is spoken in emotionless voices.