Old Dub VS. New Dub -- Does it really matter over which is better?
This post is about a rather odd kind of "dub" debate that I sometimes run into. It tends to be dub vs. dub, or rather old dub vs. new dub.

Older titles such as [i]Akira[/i], [i]The Castle of Cagliostro[/i], [i]Totoro[/i], [i]Laputa[/i], [i]Nadia[/i], all were released by Streamline with dubs, until other licensors produced newer dubs for them. Compared to the quality of most of these previous dubs (although I exclude [i]Totoro[/i] from this argument, because that one was the best of them), the newer versions feature better writing and arguably better voice acting overall. Any awkwardnesses in the originals are polished to bring these titles to a new audience ([i]Akira[/i] definitely needed it; the old dub's translation made the movie so confusing that it alienated me until I saw the newer version).

And yet, in spite of all the improvements or equally good quality of the new dubs, there seems to be naysayers who say nay to the new dubs and declare how "superior" the previous dubs are. Having seen the first dub of [i]Akira[/i] in its entirety and the new one, I cannot find any validity in this argument. The newer version is lightyears ABOVE the older version in terms of voicing and scripting. I haven't heard enough of the pre-Disney dub of [i]Laputa[/i], but what little I saw of it disappointed me immensely--despite not having the sometimes extraneous additional dialogue, the voices are nowhere nearly as good as in the new version, and the acting sounded flat and lifeless. Where's the "better" in that? Even if the leads don't sound as mature as they do in Disney's, there's hardly any enthusiasm from the previous VAs, or at least that sample I heard. That brings us to [i]Totoro[/i], which I loved immensely in its first dub, but does that mean I think the new dub is inferior? Not at all. It may be significantly different, but it still has a charm of its own, and in many ways I think it adds to the movie, particularly in some details that the first dub skimped out on. With [i]Nadia[/i], it definitely NEEDED a new dub--the voices of the leads in the first dub were awfully miscast and badly acted, and while there may have been some good voices, the quality of the overall acting in the ADV dub outclasses them by far.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, I find it unfortunate that there are some fans who don't want to give a brand new version of their favorite Anime a chance, and deride it with whatever reason they can think of. Attachment to nostalgia is one thing, but does that mean that the newer versions should be scorned and flamed? I think not. I've attended performances of some of my favorite classical pieces of music, and no two were superior or inferior. They were just, well, different interpretations. Personally, I think it's valuable to have more than one English dub of an Anime.

What do you think? Should polished up versions of previous dubs be maligned? Or should they be evaluated objectively?