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Long time ago the English anime dubbing companies used to dub anime songs. But
now they don't dub them. Is there a reason?


CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-19T17:39:33.060
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2022-03-17T05:47:33.697
2015-11-19T19:19:43.137
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question
anime-production
Why did English dubbing anime companies stop dubbing anime songs?


My guess is to save themselves money. Dubbing a song in English always seemed
to be a rare thing anyway. Anime licensing/dubbing companies here in the US
are always trying to skimp as much as they can, to keep themselves in the
black. (EDIT: Rephrased less cynically, these companies focus on the aspects
of localizing where they get the most potential profit against the expenses
they occur, and not all anime releases are expected to make enough profit to
risk "pulling out all the stops". Source: Answerman column on Anime News
Network, which is a great resource about the dubbing/localizing process.)

It takes them extra time and money to find a singer to sing the song in
English, get access to the instrumental version of the song (unless they
decide to create their own instrumental, which is even more expensive), give
the singer time to learn and practice the song, and then get them in to record
said song. (EDIT: It may also be the case where even if the dubbing company
wanted to dub over the song, the song's distributor/rights holder may not have
allowed it.)

The alternative is just leaving the song as it is, in Japanese, and slapping
on subtitles for the lyrics.

For these companies, it just isn't worth the hassle. When they do it, it's
because they believe the show will sell better this way.


CC BY-SA 4.0
2015-12-16T10:51:53.093
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2022-03-17T05:47:33.697
2022-03-17T05:47:33.697
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answer