American TV in Japan

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Now we all know we got people in America who either perfer dubs or subs (or just don't care) and there are conflict between those two parties (the Sub Vs Dub matches)

What about American Entertainment in Japan? Do you think there are people there who like Lost or Friends and perfer it dubbed or subtitled? Could there be "elitist" there who are all "MUST RETAIN ENGLISH LANGUAGE!" or like "MUST DOWNLOAD FANSUBS OF LOST! DUBS ARE EVIL" or something?

[Ingemar]

I'm hoping massive Westernophilia is mostly a fringe phenomenon in Japan.

[Merovingian]

That is a great question, and I have sometimes wondered what they think of our media. Hmmm!

[Da Rabid Duckie]

I'm hoping massive Westernophilia is mostly a fringe phenomenon in Japan.

If nothing else, at least it's a great source of Engrish...

And from what I understand, I'm under the assumption that a lot of our movies that end up over there are subtitled. I'd bet a lot of Japanese use English media to learn the language as we do inversely.

[Puguni]

Actually, I like to maybe think the Japanese do a pretty good job of dubbing. But I haven't been exposed to a whole lot, so, keyword, maybe.

[Sophia]

With the "California girl" craze, or whatever it is they're calling it, I'd imagine yes.

[Merovingian]

I wonder if their interest in our culture began back during the occupation? The nation of Japan was encouraged to modernize very quickly.

[ashfire]

When my father was over in Japan during the Koren war. I think he said "I Love Lucy" was on TV there in Japanese.
I have my email friend in Tokyo who is a fire dept paramedic and he told me another of his email friends sent him the old TV show "Emergency" on video tape. He told me it was hard to understand how the services here differ from how they do things there. He works on the ambulance where as on the TV Johnny and Roy fight fires, rescue, and did medical work.

[Yojimbo]

Well the Japanese have a huge facination with the English language. I've heard stories of people paying huge amounts of money for "English lessons" that are basically just English speaking people entertaining them. There was a name for them but I can't remember it right now...

[Puritan]

Ehh, I bet they have both. When I was an exchange student in Germany they tended to have dubbed movies and TV, but subbed movies weren't uncommon, and Japan may be similar.

I know the main reason I like subbed Anime is because I tend to dislike the quality of dubs, I just don't like the sound of many of them. That and the fact that I have learned some Japanese and will hopefully learn more, so I like trying to pick out what I know and to pick up random vocabulary. I would bet the attitudes in Japan are similar, people trying to learn English or who just like the sound of the English actors listen to subbed stuff, and people who don't want to deal with subtitles or like the Japanese dub listen to the dubbed version. Although, with the number of Asian (Japanese, Chinese, and Korean) things I have seen with random English phrases on them, I would suspect that subbed versions are more common than dubbed versions.

[Aka-chan]

I thought Titanic dubbed was hilarious. And the Prince of Egypt dub was decent, too.

My biggest objection, though, is with the little-known series now known as Muumin or Moomin. I grew up with the Finnish originals, and to see them go and change all the names and personalities just flipped me out. So what if it's Japanese? They're doing the same thing the American dubbers do that make me mad. What kind of name is Snuffkin for my beloved Nuuskamuikkunen?

[bigsleepj]

Also, hello I'm new.

Welcome, 801!

[bigsleepj]

My biggest objection, though, is with the little-known series now known as Muumin or Moomin. I grew up with the Finnish originals, and to see them go and change all the names and personalities just flipped me out. So what if it's Japanese? They're doing the same thing the American dubbers do that make me mad. What kind of name is Snuffkin for my beloved Nuuskamuikkunen?

I saw that series too. It was a Finland-Japan co-production if I'm not mistaken. I realy liked it, but it was dubbed here into Afrikaans. I really liked the show, but was sort of too old for it when it began showing here.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I'd say that Japan imports more of that sort of material from Korea than from the US.

Yeah, I mean you have all that Korean Drama shows that my parents constantly watch x__x Those are quite popular

[EricTheFred]

So, in other words, there is about as much American television in Japan as Japanese television in America. Which gets us back to the OP's OQ. What do the afficionados think is the "right" way to watch it.
If there even are such things (somehow, I have difficulty believing it. American TV really doesn't have a lot of originality in it. Most of the time, when we have a show we think is really original, it seems like we turn out to have lifted it from UK TV.)

[mitsuki lover]

I have a friend from Slovenia who watches Star Trek dubbed in German.
Ok that's beside the point I know but in any case I think live action series should always be subbed and not dubbed and animated can be either way
depends on the voice acting.
I think Star Trek is probably the surest bet for any American series airing on Japanese tv,I mean they air it EVERYWHERE.In fact at this minute there is probably a group of Klingons sitting around whatever Klingon version of a tv is nitpicking Season 5 of Deep Space Nine.

[Lynx]

so.... no lost in japan?!?! that's just... sad.

[mitsuki lover]

Isn't there a website where you can look up what American shows are playing overseas?