Quote:
Originally Posted by MorbidToaster 
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They're bad because most people have a hard time translating emotions through languages...and it's even harder to do when you're so disconnected from the character (aka, an animated one).
EDIT: True that fluent speakers have a similar 'disconnection', but they also have the original material to build on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ocswing Part of it is the timing as well. They'll translate/dub stuff to try and match the mouth movements of the animation and with Japanese having a different sentence structure the timing can be pretty weird. And not to over generalize, but I don't think there is a ton of voice acting talent working on anime dubs.
I think the two points about disconnection from physical state and timing differences are two major contributing factors. It's not very easy to connect to the lines of a script when you are not doing the physical actions that the animated character is doing, not in the same environment, and often not looking at the person you're supposed to be conversing with. Sure, there are ways around this, but I doubt all voice over actors have even the same amount of training as I do. Adding to all this is that sometimes even the subtitles trip over cultural idioms, traditions, and subtleties of address in Japanese (or lots of other languages). I mean, how would you dub Kansai-ben? Most of the time they just use a bad American Southern accent, but that doesn't really capture the cultural connotations of the dialect.
As if I weren't over-generalizing enough already, one other thing to consider is that I think the general level of professional voice actors in Japan can be slightly different. Several of them, especially the female seiyuu, actually have musical training and can hold their own selling vocal CDs. Not saying that it's the best way to judge "talent" and "skill", but directionally it seems the level to which one can be successful as a voice actor/actress in Japan is a slightly different level than in the west.
