#it'd be fixed with more editing or a longer runtime

[toughtink]

the miraculous subs vs dubs debate

this time last year i picked up french on duolingo as a pandemic hobby and went for around three month before falling off the wagon. i picked it up again recently, and with the miraculous ladybug fan resurgence decided to start rewatching it from the beginning in french (with french subtitles which btw DON’T MATCH?? what they’re saying in french??? wtf netflix? idk whatever it’s fine). i’ve listened to bits and pieces of ML in various languages over the years, though mostly the english dub, but having been privy to the whole “subs vs dubs” convo for so many years i gotta say... anyone claiming that the english is awful and the french is just amazing, perfect, absolutely magnifique is just being pretentious.

the truth is that the localization teams have done a great job!! the timbre of each character’s voice matches really well between languages. the fact that i can tell who's talking without even looking at the screen is a testament to how well they’ve cast both the english and french voices. there’s some little changes, like i feel like marinette & adrien’s voices are slightly more differentiated from their superhero personas in english, though that might just be because i’m more familiar with it. chat noir sounds a bit more flirty in french, though maybe that’s just a side effect of ~everything is more romantic en français~!, while cat noir in english is a bit more adventurous sounding. the only characters that don’t really sound the same at all are some of the adult side characters, which french has cast to sound waaaay goofier (i get it, it’s a kid’s show, and they certainly act pretty goofy sometimes), and the kwamis. specifically, i very much prefer the english dub’s version of plagg with a raspier, chaos gremlin style voice. french plagg sounds sort of like an old butler? that’s fine, but i prefer the chaos gremlin to capture the element of destruction. maybe that’s the american in me.

of course, some things just don’t always translate as well so it’s nice to see the story in the language it was conceptualized in, especially because it’s what makes sense for the setting. so if that’s what you’re after definitely go for the french dub! that said, the animation is actually synced with the english voice and it shows. french is a beautiful language that also uses a lot of long phrases which, at least in the first season, occasionally run over the allotted time for mouth flaps. if you’re used to that from other shows, that won’t be much of a problem, but i’d be lying if i said it didn’t irk me a little.

translation & localization are tough jobs! you have to determine when it’s appropriate to translate literally and when it’s better to get the idea of the phrase across. it’s especially difficult in a show filled with so much humor as puns rarely translate well. voice acting is also a tough job, especially voice over for dubs which means you have to fit your acting to something already animated instead of the other way around. different countries’ teams have to make decisions based on what will work best for their own market & culture, so please keep that in mind when talking about the whole subs vs dubs debate. it really comes down to preference, but that’s no reason to be disrespectful.