Ok first before I start let me just say that I'm a huge Anime fan and I love several animes both in English and in Japanese. I'm only posting this to state my opinion on the people that say ALL English dubs are horrible or can't compare to the origanal Japanese version.

The primary focus of my rant is directed at Naruto, I will also point at several other animes as examples. Most people all say that the English Naruto dub is bad but when you really look at it from an unbiased opinion, it's no where near as bad as people say. I can understand most of the complaints like the "Believe it" at the start of the series or how they don't say all the titles like -kun, -chan, or other of that sort, but the thing you need to remember is that they need to make the phrases they say in English match as best as they can and still contain the same relative feeling.

Also as far as the titles go (-kun, -chan) those are Japanese titles not English titles, they are in no why part of their actual name and as such should not be included, you're lucky the even included the sensai part when ever they address a teacher.

Now before you go and say I don't understand or you have no idea how bad it is, I do. I've seen the English dub all the way through to where it's at now, as well as 3/4 of the series in Japanese, including the shippuden episodes up to the Ebisu battle with Chiyo-Sama, (no idea if thats spelled right) and personally I do prefer the Japanese version since I've seen so much, the English voices don't sound right to me, but it's not that it's bad, it's that I'm used to it this way which is why I believe most people hate the English dub.

Now GOOD examples of English dubs would be the masterpieces by Watanabe, Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. Both of these shows are some of the best animes that I've ever seen. They have a solid story, and unbeatable soundtrack, and an unbelieveable voice cast. Steven Jay Blum is the best in both shows and really makes the characters seem believeable. Also Dragonball and DBZ both have English dubs that have voice actors that seem to match the personality of the characters better, in my opinion anyway.

However I'm not saying all anime's that get bashed on their English counterparts are good, far from it. For example, One Piece, when I first saw this show in English I that it was the dumbest anime I ever saw, I watched several episodes and noticed how completely stupid and how horrible it was with the stupid, corny jokes, idiotic conversations and other things. However, I then went and watched one in Japanese, and instantly in one the first five or ten minutes, I knew the English truly was crap in comparison.

So what I guess I'm saying is this, English dubs of shows aren't always as bad as everyone says, some are and some aren't, but as far as Naruto it may not be entirely true to the Japanese version, but its as close as an American version will get. Besides it could be worse, Naruto could have been like One Piece, and thank God Funimation got it now. Since thay have proven with DBZ they have no problem going back and completely redoing a show with new actors and lines.