Tried to rewatch my favorite anime from 2015 and the dub was completely different

I was hyped to show my roommate 'Parasyte' last night on Crunchyroll, but the English voice actors were all swapped out and it ruined the whole vibe. Has anyone else run into a show where they changed the dub cast for a rerelease?

2 comments

2 Comments

coleman.henry1d ago

Bought the blu-ray for that show a few years back and the dub was the original one from 2015. I guess they redid it for streaming. My buddy grabbed the same series on Amazon and his copy had the new voice cast. It's weird how they can just swap out actors like that and call it the same show. The main character's voice actor in the old dub had this specific raspy tone that fit the whole alien parasite thing. New guy sounds like he's reading lines in a recording booth at 9 AM on a Tuesday.

charlie2691d ago

Yeah, "9 AM on a Tuesday" nails it PERFECTLY. That's exactly the vibe. It's like they sanded off all the rough edges to make it more corporate-friendly. You see this EVERYWHERE now, not just in dubs. Walk into any diner that got bought out by a chain, the old cook with the gravelly voice who made your eggs perfect is gone, replaced by some kid who follows a script and calls you "guest." It's the same food on paper but it tastes like nothing. Same with music, radio stations play the same 20 songs but they're all compressed to hell so they sound flat. Everything's getting "optimized" for people who aren't really paying attention. And here's the thing, that raspy voice in the old dub was probably a guy who'd been doing voice work for a decade and knew the character inside out. The new guy's probably good enough for focus groups but he'll never have that lived-in feel. It's not just an actor swap, it's a whole philosophy of treating art like interchangeable parts.