Does anyone else notice a distinct lack of dubs this season?

So I was reading this article: https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/seasonal-lineup/2025/12/16/winter-anime-2026-crunchyroll
Provided by crunchy roll and I noticed a distinct lack of dubs. Some anime I thought would have been a shoe in for dubs aren’t getting dubs. My guess is that there are so many returning anime that they can’t spare the actors. But if that’s the case it hasn’t stopped them in the past. Things like: Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord or Kunon the Sorcerer Can See are anime I would have thought would have been absolute shoe ins for dubs. I have read both source materials and they feel like they would have been right at home with dubs like the gacha dub, or slime dub, or even overlord dub. While admittedly they might be seen as isekai trash they have unique enough premises I would have thought they would have certainly gotten dubs not to mention their vibes would have been immaculate. Is there currently something going on with the voice actor union or something? Is there news I haven’t heard about? Or is this just crunchy roll being crunchy roll and waiting till last minute to announce dubs.

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Commentaires

dienomighte2026-01-10 04:04

The two new shows I watched this week both had day 1 dubs which surprised me, but that's admittedly a tiny tiny sample size. The list here seems pretty big to me though?

steelersrg82026-01-10 04:12

Maybe I am looking at the wrong article and if that’s the case please let me know and direct me to the right one. But most of the dubs that are listed as TBA are new seasons of existing anime. There aren’t too many actual new dubs I have seen.

dienomighte2026-01-10 04:14

https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/announcements/2025/12/16/winter-anime-dubs-2026-crunchyroll

I'm seeing what, 15 ish dubs of new shows on crunchyroll alone? Plus a lot of returning ones, I've never tracked it so maybe I'm wrong but it seems like a good number to me.

steelersrg82026-01-10 04:17

I was looking at the wrong article it looks like. I was taking the announcements of new seasonal and taking the TBA status at face value. Thank you for the article! Also weird it says winter 2025

brokenaway12026-01-10 04:15

You are look at the wrong article, theres a specific raw article link for sub series a bit further down the page

steelersrg82026-01-10 04:18

Ah ok thank you! I was looking for the TBA dub subtitle and from that it looked quite disappointing thank you for the info!

awesomenessofme12026-01-10 04:06

Not really. If anything, there's an above average number. 24 brand new dubs and 3 continuing from fall is certainly more than we got last season.

abandoned_idol2026-01-10 04:08

Unique enough? They're aggressively identical in execution.

Painting a red ball blue isn't going to change much.

steelersrg82026-01-10 04:14

First one is a take on tower defense games as an isekai. You don’t see that many of those. Apart from that the vibes remind me of plenty of isekai that already have dubs like atelie meister and greatest alchemist among others. Second one is a fantasy starring a blind protagonist. Apart from ranking of kings giving deaf representation we hardly see any blind/deaf representation in our protagonists. And if we do they eventually get their sight/hearing back.

abandoned_idol2026-01-10 04:45

The tower defense one has a really unique and cute Opening song (judging from the PV).

Wait, let me confirm my claim first.

"Rudeus Greyrat?! What are you doing here?! You better not sexually harass any of these fair maidens! **blushes**"

I was truly shocked (I'm kidding, though I wasn't expecting to bump into Rudeus' VA again).

Assuming that the story of Tower Defense is really as different as you claim it is, it doesn't seem to reflect in the adaptation that the PV hints at (little movement, every character only talking about the chosen one, and the one highlight being the playful song). Even if it did have something new going for it, the anime seems to have butchered it. I'm the definition of "skepticism".

As for the blind one, I'm half-convinced that the anime will visualize his pseudo-sight (I'm assuming that he'll be able to effectively "see" on episode 1) as actual sight for the audience. **skims 2 episodes** Well, I'll be, it didn't do that (that's good). I'm not impressed though. The disability only brings in representation (which feels like a wasted opportunity). Blind Magician anime: Any kind Gary Stu power fantasy story.

Wait, wait, wait. Why is the Dad of the kid from "Magic Maker" (endearingly known in the anime community as "incest fish balls") also the Dad of the kid in Blind Magician? Is he hiding a second family?! That bastard!

By the way, I wouldn't recommend "Magic Maker" either, unless... you want to laugh at a story that tries to shoehorn incest and present it as endearing drama. Very generic and incest-y.

I'm getting the feeling that anime production committees are headhunting for web novels to funnel into the "generic Lit-RPG anime adaptation" factory, and these 2 shows were captured.

steelersrg82026-01-10 04:48

Are you in the hyperbolic time chamber? How did you watch 3 episodes in 31 minutes?

abandoned_idol2026-01-10 05:09

Whenever I come across an anime that I predict that I've effectively seen before ("it's probably more or less the same trope combination as X, Y, & Z without adding any engaging characters, plot, nor surprises") I take the choice of skimming it.

Why do I skim? Because I wasn't planning on watching it anyways (no real harm for myself nor others).

How can I skim something as fast as possible? Binary search. I jump to the halfway point. Get a rough idea of what's happening, might uses the arrow keys to jump a few seconds back and forth as necessary (immediately realize I didn't need to because of how fucking dull the dialogue is). Then I jump to the 1/4 and 3/4 points, and keep dividing until I quickly see everything. First episodes in particular are especially sparse in meaningful events, given how much lengthy exposition, small talk, and dead-time they fit into them.

But DO KEEP IN MIND, I never do this for anime I look forward to watching. I really value good characterization and comic relief, so I always sit down and patiently watch an entire episode in sequence for any anime I am unfamiliar with or enthusiastic about.

I am currently skimming "Hell Mode", the "it's so fucking dumb and nothing but numbers, so many numbers, meaninglessly large and arbitrary numbers" anime. I am secretly hoping to see lots of number banter and teasing in the discussions.

Ouch, someone downvoted your post while I was drafting this (and made it seem like I'm the one who did it! Damnit! Upvoting back to neutral).

**And** I also happen to live inside a hyperbolic time chamber, but I don't see how that is relevant to our conversation.

steelersrg82026-01-10 05:13

Thanks for the upvote, also, interesting idea with the skimming. Might I ask if you do anything similar with manga/light novels/web novels. I know they are different mediums but I’m just curious. As for the ending; lol thanks for playing along that got a chuckle out of me.

abandoned_idol2026-01-10 05:30

I hadn't thought about applying binary search to manga...

Funnily enough, I rarely read manga, let alone manga I don't have interest in.

The voice acting that anime provides probably makes bad shows much more accessible, so I end up voluntarily watching lots of mediocre anime stories (I like listening to people's voices, especially the sexier voices).

And I am also very lousy at finding fun manga, half of the manga I come across in apps are actually Manhwa (ew) or Manhua (ugh).

Since you brought up manga, I am compelled to recommend my favorite manga of all time (which I only discovered a month ago and thought it was trash **before** that) "Noa Senpai Wa Tomodachi". I love the recurring joke in that manga.

steelersrg82026-01-10 21:53

Will check it out thanks for the recommendation

brokenaway12026-01-10 04:08

That seems like a decent amount of dubs imo

el_morris2026-01-10 04:41

Every season someone shows up asking this and I usually respond with something like this: it's not that there's less dubs compared to previous seasons, is that Japan is pulling out more anime season after season, but Crunchyroll keeps dubbing between 20-25 shows, there's a way they could increase that amount of titles but it would upset a lot of people so they probably prefer to not to.

steelersrg82026-01-10 04:42

That’s fair

Envelope_Torture2026-01-10 04:55

> there's a way they could increase that amount of titles but it would upset a lot of people so they probably prefer to not to.

I don't thing hiring more VAs would ups.... oh.

steelersrg82026-01-10 05:17

Yeah it took me a second too. Not a fan of the AI dubs assuming that’s what they mean. Kind of wish they did take a Funimation approach though where Funimation had 2 departments for dubs the first handled week to week dubs these were usually released weekly then they had a second department that would dub old stuff in one go those would release monthly. They would take a Va and have them voice all the lines in a finished anime in one go. They would pay less but they would hire up in coming or newer voice actors, that’s how most Funimation dub hires got their start.

CrimsonGear802026-01-10 04:54

Ummm…there have been more same-day dub announcements this season than I’ve seen in a while. So no, there is NOT a lack of dubs this season.

steelersrg82026-01-10 05:14

I mentioned this elsewhere, but I was looking at the wrong article. But that gives me hope for other anime. Thank you!

Ulysse-Void-God2026-01-14 22:14

English dubs usually lag behind the subtitled ones. Either by 1 or 2 weeks. It's stupid and annoying but it is what it is.