SUB!
not only intonations but bad translations!
i like to watch them with japanese speakers and about every five minutes they'll say 'that's not what she said!!!" hahaha
of course, I do the same with german so I guess bad translations abound all over.

YAY for beating a dead horse over and over and over and over again.

If I had a penny for how many times this subject comes up, I'd be living the good life.

>>not only intonations but bad translations!

Is this not possible with subbing as well - especially subbing by groups? Many times I've watched a SUBBED episode and thought to myself - "what the hell" -

The shows I've seen with really bad dubs have been, in and of themselves, not high on "literal translation" need - pretty weak shows for example (NARUTO for instance. . .as "fun" as the show is - its really about as formuliac as an episode of POKEMON) that rely not on character so much as what cool action is going on at the moment.

I'm 50/50 on this one. The problems with dubbed in most of the anime I've seen is that it's the same voices used over and over. The gruff old man voice, the squeeky high girls voice, the throaty sexy one, and a few others. The problem with subbed is that sometimes the dialogue goes by so fast that I have to focus on the words and often miss the images. Fan subs drive me nuts, at least the ones I've seen. A full minute of dialogue followed by one line of subs.

Not enough time nor patience to learn Japanese either.
Oh well.

Subbed. I know enough Japanese to tell how formally one character addresses another, which I can't quite get with English dub.

Both.

Often sub-titles are transliterated and not really a translation. Same can happen with dubbed and occasionally even worse when they try to embellish sparse dialog and change not only meaning but intent as well. There are some good dubbed ones, but I find it helps with both. What I really appreciate in subbed is when there is also descriptive text that helps you understand what is going on like when a character is making a reference to a particular work of poetry or a reference to a particular philosopher etc. No way can you get that with dubbed, but most subs don't have it either.

Subbed. I am an anime snob. Don't bring me one that is dubbed. I can count, on one hand, the number of anime that I have seen that were dubbed up to par.

Just browsed the topic but didn't see anyone mention my reason for prefering Dubbs. Though i had a post High School reading comprehension level in 7th grade, I am a rediculously slow reader. If i try to watch a Subbed anime (or more often, old samurai movie) I miss half of whats going on while im desperately trying to keep up with the dialouge. And if i want to read, i'll by the manga or just get some fanboy to send me the script. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but i prefer to WATCH my anime not read it.

If its a decent dub with good voice actors I am all over it. I can get into the story more because I spend more time watching and less time reading. If its a poor dub though then the whole movie isn't worth watching at all and I would much rather have it subbed.

Both have their advantages. When it's dubbed, I don't have to pay attention to subtitles all the time and I find it easier to follow the story. Subbed, however, usually just sounds better. The emotions seem much more intense.

I own both. I like to buy my cutesy anime in dubbed because I usually watch them in bed, and I am not in the mood for concentrating. The more serious anime, you know were the plot actually matters, I like to buy subbed. After you have watched anime for many years, If you are fully awake and able to give the anime you full attention, you don't even notice that your reading. I have a couple animes I accidently bought in both, if you watch them one after the other, you can tell that they have cut corners in the dubbing. I think they try really hard to match the dubbing up to the mouth movement, Accuracy be damned.

Both. Subbed because sometimes the dubbed voices are really annoying and dubbed so that I can spend more time concentrating on the picture (mainly for the really detailed animes).

always subbed!
japanese sounds so beautiful, and not only that. japanese voices are rockstars, for a reason: they know how to speak. dubs are most of the time very cheap productions, and you hear that.
i tried some dubbed, and they were horrible (the latest ghibli-movies were not so bad, but they had more money behind the dubbing, i guess, than the average series)

Sub
but not with cowboy bebop, I do'nt like Japanese Spike's voice.

I tend to lean towards subbed as well, although it really depends on the movie. I'm in the process of learning Japanese so that I can forgo the debate altogether (although that's not my reason for learning Japanese, just a side benefit).

I choose Subtitles :) If it's Japanese animation, it's nice to hear the actual Japanese voices.

Subbed all the way. Indeed, the Japanese language has a really good ring to it, I take great pleasure in just listening to people speaking it. Concerning Anime, most of the time the fansub groups do a decent job of conveying the jist properly. Now, if it's not totally perfect that's not too shabby: people do that for fun and for free, I can't demand perfect translations. But seriously, to this day and after about 15 series that I have watched back to back, I've still to see a really horrible fansub. I guess they're out there somewhere, but these guys deserve some kuddos. Also, seiyuu are much better than any western voice actor I've heard.

I prefer subbed.

I don't speak Japanese at all other than words here and there. I can identify the use of honorifics and appreciate their subtleties where they are totally lacking in most dubs. Not that this is my only reason for prefering subs.

Some people make the argument that there are people who prefer subs because the English voice acting is horrid - when those people don't speak Japanese and thus cannot tell if the Japanese voices are any good. I think that my inability to understand Japanese is yet another reason for me to prefer subs -- because the pacing of the words and delivery, adjusted to fit the movement of the characters mouths, just does NOT allow the English language to flow well to my ears. Maybe it's not flowing well in Japanese, either, but to my untrained ears it fits just fine.

Also, by having to read subtitles all the time, I find myself not noticing the limited animation as much. Some series are worse than others in this regard but either way, I feel that having to read what the characters are saying just helps smooth it all over for me.

Then there's the personal prefrence of feeling that the English actors tend to have strange intonations and lack in expression. Not always, but usually enough to bother me.