“It’s really corrupt.”
Posted: December 1, 2025 3:00 PM CST
As the debate around AI continues to expand, people are becoming more opposed to it. Some companies reject AI, while others lean toward it. Recently, Amazon users discovered that Prime Video is using AI for English-dubbed anime. Currently, more and more people are canceling their subscriptions.
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Using AI to dub shows is wrong for a variety of reasons. First, it takes jobs away from actors. Dubbing Japanese anime shows and movies is a major source of income for voice actors. Second, AI cannot accurately convey the same emotions as an actor.
While many anime fans prefer to watch shows with subtitles, some enjoy seeing what English-speaking voice actors bring to the table. They almost always approach their roles carefully, which is not possible with AI.
Daman Mills, a voice actor known for dubbing anime and games, took to Twitter last week to specifically criticize Amazon’s actions regarding the show. banana fish.
“Shame on you @amazon @PrimeVideo,” he began.
“Fans have been wanting an English dub of ‘Banana Fish’ for years and now you give it to us as AI-generated garbage? That’s outrageously disrespectful. A queer trauma story handed to a machine because it’s too hard to pay real actors? If you don’t fix this, I personally will never work as an actor in your dubbing again. This is not the ‘future.’ This is an erasure. ”
Mills went on to say that he had canceled his Prime membership. “You don’t want to pay me? I don’t want to pay you.”
Fan cancels Prime membership due to AI dubbing
Many anime fans and other voice actors followed Mills’ lead and canceled their subscriptions.
“There are countless reasons to do this, but I’m following Daman’s lead. The sheer greed of @amazon@PrimeVideo to use AI dubbing instead of human acting is outrageous,” voice actor Damian Haas wrote.
“Artists deserve better. Consumers deserve better. Vote with your money. That’s the only way they’ll be heard.”
“What hope is there for aspiring voice actors these days? Amazon has a lot of resources so they should do better. They’re also doing AI dubbing on top of titles that already have existing dubbing,” one person wrote, quoting another post that showed how “laughingly bad” AI dubbing is.
“banana fish It’s one of the most heart-breaking and romantic stories in anime to date. For Amazon to implement AI in English dubbing would defeat the whole purpose. But of course they don’t care about the artistic meaning. Boycott Prime. Nuff said,” voice actor Jacob Hopkins tweeted.
“It’s a really bad story and shows how important real actors are,” the streamer noted.
Another voice actor said it “really” [expletive] It’s corrupt and extremely disrespectful to actual human actors. ”
Some people are using TikTok to encourage people to “fight back.”
@nekodecopop We are facing a crisis in the anime industry, so please fight back @Prime Video #aidub #bananafish #voiceacting #primevideo #animefyp The AI dubbing of Bananafish is a crisis in the voice acting world and we need everyone to understand how serious this is They are using this AI The dubbing was created by feeding voice actors from the original supporting cast, which is a huge copyright infringement, and I hope those companies sue them thoroughly. This could set a precedent for AI dubbing to improve over time as technology advances. If we’re not careful, we can take over the industry. What you need to do now is encourage voice actor unions to add clauses to talent contracts that prohibit the use of client voice actors to train AI dubbing models. Without the technology to train models, we can’t support unions and talent agencies suing for copyright infringement. This could likely range from sharing information about disputes to helping crowdfund for legal costs Tell anime companies you won’t watch anime with AI dubbing This doesn’t just affect dubbing, so we want all the sub-elites to stop saying this doesn’t affect them This could affect the use of AI to create subtitles. And this is already ruining anime subs. Crunchyroll has switched from using freelance translators for subtitles to using open source AI subtitles. It’s having a huge impact on this fall’s anime season, where we’re seeing a huge drop in quality. We’re still at a tipping point from which we can go back, but we have to make our voices heard now. Anime companies only care about the bottom line, so if they protest and refuse to accept Ai, they won’t make any more money and will decide to go a different route. But if that becomes the industry standard, it will be next to impossible to turn back. So let’s speak out and stand up for justice LOUD Let @crunchyroll ♬ Original song – NeoDecoPop
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