34343


What is the reason behind most anime being dubbed in American English and not
British English? Does the control of a country over the world market have
something to do with this?


CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-07-18T16:48:21.810
34331
2016-10-07T05:15:28.680
2016-10-07T04:40:16.230
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question
anime-production
Why are most anime dubbed in American English, rather than British English?


I'm going to distill [this
comment](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/34331/american-english-vs-
british-english#comment47278_34331) to an answer.

It largely depends on what region the dub is intended for, and also who is
paying for it. There are a lot of differences [between the two English
styles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j74jcxSunY), and it's important to
ensure that the market which the dub is intended for receives the correct-
sounding audio.

I've personally noticed a trend with dubs in that America is its principal
market. This doesn't exclude any other English-speaking countries, but given
that America is one of the larger markets for dubs, it makes sense to go that
route.

If a dub is not localized to British English, then either there is no budget
to do so, or the differences in localizing the audio wouldn't be quite
significant enough to justify the effort, and the American English version is
"good enough".


CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-07-18T17:03:17.517
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2016-10-07T05:15:28.680
2017-04-13T12:54:49.117
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answer


Because most of the companies that first get the licenses to distribute a
series outside Japan in English are based in America.

If we look at three of the biggest ones that I can think of off the top of my
head, we have:

  * [Funimation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funimation) \- Headquarters: Flower Mound, Texas, **United States**
  * [Aniplex of America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniplex_of_America) \- Headquarters: Santa Monica, California, **United States**
  * [Crunchyroll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crunchyroll) \- Headquarters: San Francisco, California, **United States**

When companies in Anglophone areas outside the U.S., like [Manga
Entertainment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_Entertainment) (UK),
[Madman Entertainment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_Entertainment)
(Australia) and [Siren Visual](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siren_Visual)
(Australia), get licenses to broadcast outside of America, it would be a waste
of money to re-sub/dub the series. This is why when you get DVDs/Bluray from
somewhere like Madman, you see company logo animations for all the companies
involved, including U.S. companies like Funimation or Aniplex, before the
title menu.

Re-subbing might be significantly cheaper since you are replacing words based
on how they are spelled (color/colour, meter/metre) but re-dubbing wouldn't be
because you have to hire the voice actors/actresses to come in and redo lines.
If the original VA's were re-hired then it would be possible to get them to
redo certain lines, but if you wanted a UK VA Cast then you would need to redo
every scene and this wouldn't be cheap.

Also one thing to consider is that Japan does have different accents such as
the case with [Toji](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/31093/1587) who has an
Osaka accent which was interpreted to be a New York/Brooklyn accent. If an
English-speaking company outside the US was to re-dub they run the risk of
ruining this and we know how bitchy we can be when it comes to subs/dubs not
being accurate.


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2016-07-19T05:30:27.560
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2016-10-07T04:47:48.030
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answer