[darktruth]

Well a lot of otaku's don't really see how difficult it is just to translate the script of an anime, especially ones with a lot of cultural references. Those western otaku's who hate dubs don't realise that they rely heavily on english subtitles to help them understand the story, if there weren't any they probably wouldn't even know what is being said half of the time.

Of course there are some horrible dubs (Excel Saga comes to mind) but I think most of them come from full on comedy animes that require high pitched and energetic voices. It's here that I see a lot of the English voice actors, especially females, try too hard making their voice come out sounding like crap. The one reference that I can think of relating to that is the female dub for Midori in Midori Days. They try way too hard to sound exactly like the Japanese females with that high squeaky pitch which 90% of the time is impossible which results in an annoying voice.

The animes with serious storylines are usually the ones that comes out with the best dubs, they're usually more easier for the voice actors to do but are sometimes a bit hard because of the dramatic scenes involving intense voice acting, like all the yelling Chris Patton had to do playing Ayato in RahXephon. However, sometimes even the driest and emotionless voice can make the dub sound great for serious animes. The Samurai X OVA's are a perfect example. J. Shannon Weaver was perfect for the role of Kenshin in the OVA's because his voice was rather dry yet it had a sense of mystery on his character and it it fitted with the overall mood of the OVA. Of course it does help if the voice actors have a dynamic range, they'd probably be given more credit from the anime fans since they usually wouldn't end up being tired hearing the same old voice over and over again.

I was going to say a lot more but I'm gonna save it for later, done enough typing on this lol.