Naruto I can't comment on because I haven't watched it in either English or Japanese. Simply not a series I care about. But yes, if 4Kids get their hands on it then it does tend to have dire things done to it in the name of rendering it suitable for childrens TV. One Piece being a prime example of ratings butchering.
Yes, I'm particularly ired by the
old dubs of CCS (which I did fansub TLs of many years ago), which turned it into an action series, censored things rather destructively (e.g. censoring out hands that looked "too androgynous", as if there was nothing else androgynous about the character), reordering things rather destructively (e.g. acquiring something in one episode that you've been using regularly for the past 12, or even consecutive episodes which are actually 2 years apart in story time).
Naruto is just an example. But really, there are hundreds of dubs that fall closer to that mold than there are of dubs that fit, say, the English dubs of Miyazaki's stuff (which are all high budget dubs). Similarly, I don't mind the English dub of VHD:Bloodlust (which was produced with the intention of English and Japanese dubs from the start), though some of the dialogue sounds really corny in English.
Odd because they follow pretty closely the Japanese dub. That and the show's creators have been heavily involved in the casting and production of the dub. Given that they are happy with the dub I'd surmise you probably are more speaking from personal preference than any objective reason for disliking the dub.
That sounds more to me like you've been watching an entirely different English dub. I'm aware of how companies that produce English dubs in the US aren't necessarily the ones who produce dubs in say, the UK or Aus, but there's no way I can say that it's a good English dub. In the Japanese version, all the major characters had tragic facets to their nature, and none of that came out in the voice portrayals in English -- which is what I mean by one-dimensional. Ed in Japanese covered the gamut of the character pretty well. Ed in English was strictly whiny and raspy ALL the time. Al was pretty much either the neutral or the mildly comedic Al in English. While Al in Japanese wasn't quite the roller coaster that Ed was, there was more to him than that. At least the *sound* of Al's voice, I didn't mind so much. Nor did I mind the *sound* of Winry's voice, but she was basically played like a valley girl... again, ALL the time. Even when it's completely unsuitable.
In what way? It is a very accurate translation, it captures the tone and mood of the series accurately and it has solid character performances pretty much throughout.
Accurate translations or even suitably colloquialized translations does not equal good voiceover acting. ROD OVA was something of an example of that. I translated one of the episodes for fansubs, and their TL in the dub was about 75% identical to mine... but the acting was more than a little stilted to me.
Criticising a sterile show for having a sterile dub delivery that suits the material is a bit rich, don't ya think?
That isn't quite what I was trying to say, but to say that you can't really tell from that whether the actors were really skilled in their craft or it was just convenient. Witch Hunter Robin was much the same way.
Of course, being from a country where movies get dubbed or even redone in several languages and actors/actresses are often hired because of their popularity irrespective of whether or not they actually speak the language the film is in, and this happens for a couple thousand movies a year... well, I've gotten accustomed to good voice acting. As a rule, I often find myself preferring the original language for anything. I didn't find the Tamil dubs of Bugs Bunny any more likable than the English dubs of YYH. Though I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by the Hindi dub of Ducktales... I never knew what Hindi with a Scottish accent would have sounded like until then.
