Purists often insist Japanese audio with subtitles provides the most authentic experience. Yet sometimes, through exceptional casting, cultural adaptation, or sheer creative ambition, English dubs transcend mere translation to create something unique, something… better?
These rare dubbed versions don’t just adequately convey the original, they enhance it. Be it through voice performances that capture a character’s essence perfectly, scripting that better contextualizes cultural references for Western audiences, or simply production values that exceed expectations, these dubs offer legitimate artistic merit that stands alongside or even surpasses their source material.
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They show us that adaptation, when done right, becomes reinterpretation with its own voice.
7 Cowboy Bebop
Jazz-Infused Space Western
Cowboy Bebop is about the bounty hunter Spike Spiegel and his misfit crew aboard the spaceship Bebop as they chase criminals across the solar system while battling their own troubled pasts.
The English dub, directed by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, features Steve Blum’s iconic performance as Spike, delivering the character’s world-weary cool with such perfection that many Japanese voice actors have praised his interpretation.
Beau Billingslea brings gravitas to Jet Black, while Wendee Lee captures Faye Valentine’s complex vulnerability beneath her femme fatale exterior. The naturalistic dialogue flows with a rhythm that complements the show’s jazzy soundtrack.
What elevates this dub to legendary status is how it captures the series’ multicultural spirit. Cowboy Bebop’s world is intentionally Western-influenced, featuring characters who would realistically speak English in-universe.
The dub’s colloquial dialogue and noir-inspired delivery feel authentically aligned with the show’s cinematic influences, creating an experience where the language feels like an intrinsic part of the world-building rather than an adaptation.
6 Baccano!
Prohibition-Era Supernatural Chaos
Set primarily in 1930s America, Baccano! weaves together multiple storylines involving immortal alchemists, mafia families, and train robberies. Its non-linear narrative follows an enormous cast of colorful characters whose seemingly separate stories gradually reveal unexpected connections across different time periods.
The English dub’s greatest achievement is its authentic period-appropriate accents. Characters speak in distinctive New York, Chicago, and Southern dialects that establish their backgrounds instantly.
Bryan Massey’s performance as the psychopathic Ladd Russo, J. Michael Tatum’s work as the eccentric Isaac Dian, and Monica Rial’s Claire Stanfield deliver standout characterizations that capture the series’ manic energy and dark humor.
Director Tyler Walker made the inspired decision to embrace the story’s American setting completely. The result feels less like a translated Japanese work and more like a period gangster film that happens to be animated.
The rapid-fire dialogue, 1930s slang, and varied accents create an experience that enhances the show’s historical setting in ways the Japanese audio simply cannot, regardless of subtitle quality.
5 Ghost Stories
The Ultimate Adaptation Reinvention
This supernatural series originally followed school children discovering a book of ghost stories that turn out to be real threats they must defeat. While the Japanese version was a fairly standard children’s horror anime, the English dub took an unprecedented approach that transformed it completely.
Facing poor sales projections for a mediocre show, ADV Films received unusual permission to drastically rewrite the script while maintaining the basic plot structure. The result was a wildly irreverent comedy filled with adult humor, cultural references, and improvisational dialogue that bears little resemblance to the original’s tone. Voice actors like Greg Ayres, Monica Rial, and Hilary Haag delivered performances that balanced genuine character moments with outrageous comedy.
What makes Ghost Stories legendary in dubbing history is how it rescued a forgettable series through creative reinvention. The Japanese original has been largely forgotten, while the English version gained cult status for its audacious approach.
It stands as perhaps the most extreme example of localization becoming transformation, creating something new that arguably exceeds its source material through sheer creative audacity.
4 Yu Yu Hakusho
Spirit Detective Classic
This supernatural battle series follows Yusuke Urameshi, a teenage delinquent who dies saving a child’s life and is resurrected as a “Spirit Detective” tasked with investigating supernatural cases in the human world. As the series progresses, Yusuke and his allies face increasingly powerful demonic threats through tournament arcs and complex power escalation.
The Funimation dub, recorded in the late 1990s and early 2000s, features Justin Cook’s definitive performance as Yusuke, capturing both his street-tough attitude and hidden depths. Christopher Sabat’s gravelly Kazuma Kuwabara and John Burgmeier’s calculated Kurama became the gold standard for these characters. The adaptation strikes a perfect balance between faithful translation and natural dialogue that never feels stilted.
What distinguishes this dub is how it preserves the series’ delinquent edge while making character relationships feel authentic to Western audiences. The trash-talking during battles, emotional outbursts, and comedic timing all land with perfect precision.
3 Black Lagoon
Mercenaries in Southeast Asia
Behold the crew of the Black Lagoon, mercenaries operating in a fictional crime-riddled Southeast Asian city. When Japanese salaryman Rokuro Okajima is kidnapped by the crew during a job, he ultimately chooses to abandon his corporate life and join them. Why? Hot blood, maybe?
The English dub excels through its multilingual setting justification. In-universe, characters come from diverse backgrounds (American, Japanese, Russian, Chinese) and would realistically communicate in English as their common language.
Brad Swaile captures Rock’s evolution from corporate drone to morally ambiguous fixer, while Maryke Hendrikse’s profanity-laden performance as Revy “Two Hands” creates one of anime’s most memorable antiheroes.
What makes Black Lagoon’s dub exceptional is its unflinching commitment to the series’ adult tone. The natural delivery of extensive profanity, slang, and criminal terminology creates an authentic underworld atmosphere.
While the Japanese audio requires subtitles to convey the international nature of conversations, the English dub inherently solves this problem, making it arguably the more immersive way to experience the story as creator Rei Hiroe intended.
2 Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
Vulgar Angel Comedy
This outrageous comedy is about angel sisters Panty and Stocking, who were expelled from heaven for bad behavior. They must destroy ghosts in Daten City to collect Heaven Coins to buy their way back into paradise. The series deliberately emulates American adult animation styles like Powerpuff Girls and South Park while cranking the vulgarity to extreme levels.
The English dub embraces the show’s intentionally Western aesthetic through exaggerated performances and uninhibited dialogue. Jamie Marchi’s promiscuous Panty and Monica Rial’s sugar-obsessed Stocking deliver rapid-fire obscenities with perfect comic timing. Christopher Sabat’s over-the-top performance as the afro-sporting priest Garterbelt completes the main trio with bombastic energy.
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What makes this dub superior is how it fully commits to the show’s parody nature. Panty & Stocking deliberately satirizes American animation and culture, making the English language a better fit for its style and humor. The adaptation doesn’t just translate the extensive sexual jokes and profanity, but enhances them with English wordplay and slang that better serves the comedic rhythm.
The result feels less like watching a Japanese show and more like experiencing the Western adult cartoons it’s gleefully parodying.
1 Space Dandy
Retro-Futuristic Comedy
Created by Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe, Space Dandy follows the episodic adventures of Dandy, a self-styled “alien hunter” who travels the galaxy with his robot QT and cat-like alien Meow searching for undiscovered species. The series functions as a playground for experimental animation styles and science fiction concepts with a comedic twist.
The English dub, which actually premiered before the Japanese broadcast in a unique simultaneous release strategy, features Ian Sinclair’s pitch-perfect performance as the pompadoured protagonist.
His delivery of Dandy’s self-absorbed monologues and ridiculous philosophizing captures the character’s endearing combination of bravado and cluelessness. Joel McDonald as the practical QT and Alison Viktorin as the lazy Meow complete the crew with excellent chemistry.
The adaptation preserves the show’s slapstick visual comedy while enhancing the verbal humor through colloquialisms and timing that better serve the series’ episodic, often absurdist storytelling approach.
Space Dandy
- Release Date
- 2014 – 2014
- Directors
- Shinichirô Watanabe, Shingo Natsume
- Writers
- Shinichirô Watanabe, Dai Sato, Kimiko Ueno, Ichirō Ōkōchi, Keiko Nobumoto, Toh EnJoe, Masaaki Yuasa, Hayashi Mori, Kiyotaka Oshiyama
