Serial Experiments Lain's imagery made me realize the potential of writing literature whose standard of verisimilitude isn't any of the usual worlds--such as Earth, outer space, a surreal version of Earth, or a fantasy world such as middle Earth, etc.--but some animated world.
The cool thing is even if the reader doesn't know that our imagery and laws of physics correspond to that of a cartoon world, they can perceive it as metaphor or exaggeration for comic effect, kind of like in this passage in Pynchon's
V.:
He would stand on the fantail and harangue whoever would listen, flannelmouthed through aching gums. When his mouth had healed he was presented with a gleaming, regulation set of upper and lower plates. "Oh God," he bawled, and tried to jump over the side. But was restrained by a gargantuan Negro named Dahoud. "Hey there, little fellow," said Dahoud, picking Ploy up by the head and scrutinizing this convulsion of dungarees and despair whose feet thrashed a yard above the deck. "What do you want to go and do that for?"
"Man, I want to die, is all," cried Ploy.
"Don't you know," said Dahoud, "that life is the most precious possession you have?"
"Ho, ho," said Ploy through his tears. "Why?"
"Because," said Dahoud, "without it, you'd be dead."
"Oh," said Ploy.
Its sole purpose can be to influence how the story is created--the imagery, the mood/tone, etc.--from the writer's perspective.
This territory has been well staked out, I'm pretty sure, but it's cool that this show made me think about it.
There are exceptions, of course. Some have superlative subs like Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, and FLCL, and I always watch the dub.
About to start
FLCL after I finish with
Serial Experiments Lain, which I wish would go on and on. I disliked the cliched villain tone of Masami Eiri's voice and kind of expected him to bloom a mustache and twiddle it. I'll attribute that to the dub, and that little bit is about all I've disliked so far (ten episodes in).
I've read a few earlier comments in this thread about
FLCL being bizarre, so popcorn.jpg.
Then again, there's also a lot of truly horrific French dubs. I once came across an episode of Supernatural dubbed in French and I wanted to weep.
*bad French accent* je pas beacoup le croissant double entendre vous a la monde Pierre Mustache french fries.