10 Best Anime Series With Great English Voice Acting, Ranked
Many anime fans favor the original Japanese dub when they watch a series or movie, and it’s easy to see why. The Japanese language offers the most authentic viewing experience for anime, and it helps how the voices always match the characters’ mouth movements exactly. Fans also love hearing the voices of actors like Junichi Suwabe, Kana Hanazawa, and Kenjiro Tsuda. Despite all that, though, watching anime in English dub can be great fun, too.
Making an anime feel just as wonderful in English dub calls for some expert work, such as matching mouth movements whenever possible and translating the dialogue without it sounding tacky or unclear. Dubbing in English also calls for skilled voice acting work that captures the spirit of the original character, and that’s no mean feat. Some dubs fall short and don’t sound right in the ears, but these anime cleared all the dubbing hurdles to make a strong case for English dubs in anime of all genres.
Demon Slayer’s Characters Have All Their Intensity in Any Language
Demon Slayer ranks last among the best anime with a strong English dub since it lacks the historical significance of some other dubbed anime, and it never rises above being a fairly good action story. Still, fans love everything Demon Slayer has to offer, formulaic or not, and that includes the voice work. Originally, it was Natsuki Hanae who voiced Tanjiro Kamado, and in English, Zach Aguilar voiced the character.
Tanjiro has moments where he earnestly speaks from the heart to support people or criticize evil, and in other moments, Tanjiro shouts with serious energy, such as when he shouted in defiance against Muzan. His English voice replicated all of these emotions and their intensity just right, and the rest of the cast isn’t far behind. Zenitsu, for example, sounds exactly like what fans imagined from his timid character.
Yu Yu Hakusho Is an Early Example of Solid English Dubbing
Anime fans are tempted to say that older anime from the 1990s and earlier have bad English dubs, and to an extent, that trend seems true. Japanese anime didn’t often get serious voice acting at the time, but Yu Yu Hakusho is something of an exception. Yusuke Urameshi and Kazuma Kuwabara, in particular, benefitted from highly convincing voice work.
Most of the characters in Yu Yu Hakusho‘s English dub sound at least decent by today’s higher standards for English dubbing in anime, and Yusuke himself sounds great. He sounds like an intense punk when fighting, and he sounds like a lovable, goofy teen when he’s relaxed or taking part in the anime’s many moments of comic relief.
Black Lagoon Feels Even More Like an R-Rated Hollywood Movie in English Dub
Black Lagoon is the kind of anime that looks and feels like a Quentin Tarantino movie in most regards, aside from how the characters are speaking in Japanese most of the time. Black Lagoon is a dark crime thriller starring rough antiheroes, so the pressure is on for the dub voice actors to make the characters sound menacing, cool, and even sympathetic without sounding cartoony or fake.
Revy’s voice actor, Maryke Hendrikse, perfectly brought Revi to life in the English dub with her playful yet aggressive speaking style, complete with PG-13 dialogue to match. Keeping pace with Revi in the dub is Rock, who actually shares a voice actor with Death Note‘s Light Yagami in English. Rock absolutely sounds like a strong-willed yet vulnerable businessman who is trying to keep his head above water in his new life of crime.
My Hero Academia’s Dub Captures the Emotional Range of Superheroes
In any language, a lot of voice work goes into an ensemble cast anime like My Hero Academia. The voice actors must depict the many emotional high and lows of superhero life, from villains making grandiose speeches to goofy comic relief moments and plenty of drama. The Japanese version features well-regarded voice actors like Daiki Yamashita, Ayane Sakura, and Kenta Miyake to make it happen.
In English, the characters feel even more like anime Avengers or the Justice League as costumed heroes speaking in English. The voice actors all do a stellar job with their powerful performances that nicely match the original characters’ sounds, such as Christopher Sabat voicing All Might. His warm, booming voice is exactly what an English-speaking symbol of peace ought to sound like, up to and including shouting the names of his Smash attacks.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Is the Kind of Anime Where Characters Can Drop F-Bombs
For the most part, English dub voice actors have PG dialogue to keep things clean and family friendly, but that’s not the case for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. This is an R-rated anime where the characters are immersed in a world of violence, heartbreaking loss, and plenty of strong, crude language to put the “punk” in “Cyberpunk.”
The English dub’s cast are all up to the task, freely using strong language to really sell the idea that these characters are rough-edged antiheroes who will say absolutely anything to each other. But it’s not just the novelty of cursing in anime, since Cyberpunk: Edgerunners‘ English dub also benefits from good acting with laughter, menacing lines, and even ordinary, candid conversations between the likes of David and Rebecca.
Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War’s English Dub Has a New Angle for the Hilarious Narrator
The original Japanese dub of the romantic comedy anime Kaguya-Sama: Love is War featured some truly excellent voice work for all the characters, including the disembodied narrator voice that describes the scorecard for the romantic battles of wits. The Japanese narrator has a polite and charmingly deep voice, while the English version tries something altogether new.
The English narrator in Kaguya-Sama wisely declined to try and beat the original narrator at his own game. Instead, Kaguya-Sama‘s dub treats viewers to a much goofier, more energetic voice that nearly doubles the humor of the anime in just the right ways. The humor of that new narrator works even better when fans switch from Japanese to English dubs, allowing the sheer contrast to make the English narrator sound like a riot.
Death Note’s Dub Captures All of Light’s Sinister & Crafty Voice Work
The Death Note anime has more than a little melodramatic dialogue in it, making it a real challenge for voice actors in any language to make the characters sound impressive rather than ridiculous. Fortunately, the Japanese and English dubs alike sound just right, and the English dub is a strong case for why English dubs are not to be underestimated.
Light Yagami sounds just right when Brad Swaile is voicing him. With Swaile’s skillful work, Death Note viewers are treated to a genius protagonist who sounds charming and smooth when he must, and scarily intense when things aren’t going his way in the fight against L. Most critically, Light’s English voice sounds chilling and impressive when he’s laughing like a manic or smugly gloating about his latest victory.
Cowboy Bebop Wouldn’t Be the Same Without Steve Blum’s Voice Acting for Spike
Cowboy Bebop is another 1990s anime that served as an early argument in favor of English dubs. In that era, anime was usually dubbed on the likes of Toonami to make the medium more accessible to Western viewers, but that made the voice work in all these anime hit or miss. Cowboy Bebop was absolutely a hit in that regard and could make up for any number of misses.
In particular, it’s the voice of Spike Spiegel who sells Cowboy Bebop in any language. He sounds great in the original Japanese, and fans might actually like him even more in the English version. Famed voice actor Steve Blum, who has voiced an astonishing variety of roles in his career, made Spike truly come to life with his smoothly deep and compelling voice as Spike. He 100% sounds like a slick outlaw with a charming side and a dark side in one package with his words alone.
Attack on Titan’s English Dub Is No Less Intense Than the Original Japanese
Given the emotional intensity of each of its scenes, it’s essential for any version of Attack on Titan to have robust voice acting and sell the idea of soldiers fighting Titans. The original Japanese features some of the most harrowing and emotionally powerful voice acting anyone has ever heard, and impressively enough, the English dub is almost as good.
The characters in Attack on Titan may sound a tad cheesy or cartoony in some scenes, but when the intensity reaches its peak, the dialogue shouted in English does the job just fine. Fans no doubt loved hearing Commander Erwin Smith’s rousing pre-battle speech as the Scouts took on the Beast Titan, and no one will forget Reiner’s emotionally charged dialogue as he and Bertholt Hoover transformed into their Titan Shifter forms atop the wall.
No matter the language, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is the best anime anyone could watch. This anime has it all: a gripping plot with maze-like twists and turns, profound themes about power and humanity, excellent action sequences, and strong comedy and drama to fuel all the character moments. In the original Japanese, the voice actors did a peerless job bringing these characters to life, such as Romi Park and her role as Edward Elric’s voice.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood has high standards overall as a shonen anime, and to fans’ relief, the English dub satisfies those standards. Voice actor Vic Mignogna was ready for the role, delivering a powerful and convincing performance as Edward from start to finish. Then there’s the matter of side characters like Roy Mustang and Envy, whose dubbed roles involved a chilling exchange of words on the Promised Day as Envy outed himself as Maes Hughes’ killer.
