Starting the Japanese Version!

[Kamiccolo9]

So, I'm getting ready to watch through all of Dragonball with the Japanese soundtrack and voices for the first time. Starting tomorrow! Yay! So, in order to help hype me up for this, could you all let me know who some of your favorite Japanese voice actors are? I hear Freeza's is amazing, which is awesome, seeing how he is my favorite villian and Linda Young didn't really do him justice.

[Gaffer Tape]

Wow. Having that question put to me is surprising in that I'm finding it a lot harder to answer than I expected. I mean, I could probably compliment nearly every major actor in the series, so having to pick out my favorites seems almost impossible. I will try, though, to do a couple.

Tanaka Mayumi as Kuririn is and always has been one of my absolute favorites. The mirth, the doubt, the wackiness. She captures everything and makes Kuririn even more likeable than he already is. And she turns out some very hilarious performances. She's also very easy on the ears. Her Yajirobe is equally amazing. Her Uranai Baba is a bit of a letdown, but that's not because it's bad in itself but only because Takiguchi Junpei had already given her such a unique and distinctive voice.

Horikawa Ryo as Vegeta is just so awesome. Even in parts of the series where I can't stand the character, I still love listening to him. He has such a deep, cocky... smoooooooth voice, especially at the beginning. When he's looking down on the earthlings and telling them to hatch their little plan against Nappa, just... damn. And, of course, no one can do manic, homicidal screaming like Horikawa.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Well, bear in mind that all of these assessments come with the caveat that I don't speak Japanese, and therefore, don't know for a fact that they're good. All I can go on are general vibes. Having said that, going off of general vibes...

If you're anything like me, I think you will love Ryusei Nakao's performance as Freeza, Ryo Horikawa's performance as Vegeta (especially his scenes with Freeza), and Masako Nozawa as Goku. The only misgiving I personally have with the Japanese version is that whoever voiced the character first voiced them for all of their incarnations afterwords, regardless of age. I think many of the characters would have been better-suited with different voice actors depending on their age, but even then, I would never consider the acting in the Japanese version bad. You're in for a treat!

[ABED]

The original voice of Muten Roshi makes me laugh, Nozawa is super cute as young Goku, and I really dig whoever voices Buu.

[Insertclevername]

Nozawa is super cute as young Goku,

Agreed! Even more so as (chibi) Goten!

Furukawa is awesome as Piccolo, especially when screaming an attack name!

"Mankankosappo!!!"

[GotenDaisuki]

I have always loved Tōru Furuya in general. He was Yamucha, Seiya (Saint Seiya), even Tuxedo Mask (Sailor Moon), and most likely many others I haven't discovered, haha. But I love his voice and I think it suits Yamucha pretty darn well.

[Shiyonasan]

Norio Wakamoto is one of the best voices in the Japanese version. Wakamoto does an excellent job of making Cell's voice seem real with each form he takes, from the lizard-like first form to the almost smooth, collected final form (well, until he eventually loses his cool against certain characters).

Ryusei Nakao is also great for the same reasons. The emotion that Nakao puts into Freeza is top notch.

I love so much of the Japanese cast that I'm afraid I can't choose a favorite. There's too many great voice actors/actresses to mention in one post!

[Makaioshin]

Nozawa is perfect as Son Goku. I can't look at Goku and not hear her voice after watching the show. She really is Goku just like Toriyama says.

[Gojira Attacks!]

Man, I remember the first time I saw the Japanese version. It was a fansub. Anyway, the "battle music" is super good. In fact, the whole soundtrack
is a classic. I still get chills from the "Motiviational Son Goku Speech" music sometimes.

Anyway, Freeza. By far. It's just the best voice for a villain, ever. His laugh is just wonderful. Ho! Ho! Ho!, indeed.

[AnimeMaakuo]

There are quite a few instances where he talks about choosing the voice of Goku.

Toriyama’s Daizenshuu 3 interview:

– Were there any jobs you did directly for the “DB” anime?

Toriyama: In cases where characters appeared in the anime before they were shown in color in the manga, I sent a response to the animators at Toei through my editor. After that, I listened to the voice actor audition tapes, and decided on the casting. When I decided on Goku’s voice, I listened to the voices of five or six candidates, and out of those I decided on Masako Nozawa-san.

– What were your impressions on hearing Goku’s voice during the actual broadcast?

Toriyama: I went “Goku has this sort of voice, doesn’t he”. From then on, when I was drawing the manga, the characters’ voices would somehow drift up into my mind. Whenever that happened, Goku’s voice would be just like Nozawa-san‘s, and I’d think “Geez, she’s good”. Now it’s impossible to separate Goku from Nozawa-san.

The World’s Best Round-Table Discussion:

- You also listened to the audition tapes, didn’t you, Sensei?

Toriyama: Yes, I did. I had the honor of selecting Nozawa-san and the other principal voice actors. Although, I’m very sorry, but I had almost no connection to anime. So, even listening to Nozawa-san’s voice on the tape, it didn’t occur to me that she was a veteran; it was purely that Nozawa-san matched my own internal image of Goku’s voice.

Sources:
- http://www.kanzenshuu.com/production/toriyama/
- http://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations/ ... ma-nozawa/

[Cipher]

The main cast are all great, but Freeza and Cell will really stick with you.

Baby is also a creepy fuck.

[Bussani]

Norio Wakamoto is one of the best voices in the Japanese version.

Norio Wakamoto is one of the best voices in anything.

[Fizzer]

I only know a small amount of Japanese, but I've always got the feeling that the Japanese voice acting in it's entirity is of extremely high quality. The voices don't sound "goofy" and usually suit the characters more, and the acting seems deeper. There is the problem, for non-Japanese speakers, that the dialects and formal/non-formal forms etc don't really come across in the subtitles properly, so you don't get to fully appreciate how eloquent Freeza is or how much of a hick Goku is, for example, but even with the loss of these subtleties it's all really good.

I suppose if I had to choose, Vegeta's voice would be my favourite. As has already been said, it's deep with a really cool smoothness, and it fits his character much better than his English voice.

[DBZ Mick]

The whole cast is darn amazing but...


Ryusei Nakao's Freeza is just....incredible. He puts so much depth to his voice- especially in the more meaty parts when Freeza starts breaking down. He's also delightful as the polite Freeza. Freeza became one of my favourite characters after hearing his voice.

Masako Nozawa IS Son Goku. That's just how good she is.

Kōhei Miyauchi- Perfection in Roshi's lecherous and serious side. The song he sings in a filler segment during the 21st Budokai is utterly hilarious!

Shigeru Chiba- he has such rich range. Voicing the squeaky Pilaf to the really deep sounding Raditz.

Norio Wakamoto- His screams are incredible. I also like the smug sound to his Perfect Cell and all these bizarre animal like sounds and snarls in Cell's first form.

Kenji Utsumi- His ReaCoom has this really creepy playful sadist sound to it.

Hideyuki Hori- Really captures the posing ala sentai side to Ginyu in a exuberant fashion and also Ginyu's serious side well.

Toshio Furukawa- As Piccolo- I love the emphasis he puts on certain words, he puts this really wicked edge to his voice when Piccolo was evil but also has this great sage like voice when Piccolo merges with God and during Piccolo's serious moments. He also has an amazing laugh- also when PIccolo is evil. He also voices General Blue but I can't remember his voice well, lol...

Ryo Horikawa- He gives Vegeta these amazing bouts of rage and delivers some really impressive screams during his prime in DBZ. He also during the Namek arc gives Vegeta at times these playful sadist sound to him.

[Majin Buu]

Several, but in particular for voice actor and character:

Masako Nozawa (Goku), Toshio Furukawa (Piccolo), Ryo Horikawa (Vegeta), Ryusei Nakao (Freeza), Norio Wakamoto (Cell), Jouji Yanami (Babidi), Kozo Shioya (Majin Buu), and Daiske Gori (Mr.Satan).

[Jord]

I really like Kozo Shioya's Buu. He can bring a child like character to life with the ability to switch to an angry/mean version of it in a flash without sounding forced. I also liked how he voiced all versiuons of Buu which maintained continuity.

[Shiyonasan]

Norio Wakamoto is one of the best voices in the Japanese version.

Norio Wakamoto is one of the best voices in anything.

I won't argue with that!

Another voice I'll add here is Hiromi Tsuru as Bulma. The Cast Guide on Kanzenshuu describes her well:

She’s an excellent actress who always seems to know the right notes for a difficult character like Bulma.

Whether she's angry or calm, Tsuru defintiely voices the "right notes" for Bulma. I couldn't think of a better voice actress for Bulma than Tsuru.

[Gyt Kaliba]

I can remember when I finally started watching the Japanese version a few years back too. Really good and fun times, I sometimes wish I'd discussed my journey through it here more than I did FUNi, but thankfully there were still some people popping in to give me some good discussion on the subject. I hope you enjoy checking out the original version as much as I did.

As for my favorite members of the Japanese cast...it goes without saying that Masako Nozawa, if you can get past the oddness of her playing adult Goku, will take your breath away in the lead role. I recommend (if you weren't already going to) starting with the original Dragon Ball, that way you get a lot of time with her as the character, so that it's not so incredibly jarring when you get to her playing the character as an adult. I think that's where a lot of the problems some people have with her as Goku comes from is they don't get that chance to get used to her as the kid form of the character first, so it's all the more jarring in DBZ.

Kohei Miyauchi's Roshi is absolutely hilarious in the right scenes too, and endearing when it needs to be as well. I'm also rather fond of Naoki Tatsuta's Oolong for some reason. Shigeru Chiba's Pilaf absolutely STEALS the show when he's around (one of the other reasons I'm excited for Battle of Gods). Believe it or not, I'm more fond of Toshio Furukawa as General Blue and Takeshi Aono as Murasaki and Piccolo Daimao, then I am of them as Piccolo and Kami respectively. Ryo Horikawa's great as Vegeta too, especially in his 'prideful' moments. Ryusei Nakao's Freeza and Norio Wakamoto's Cell get enough praise without me adding to it - but yeah, they're awesome.

The late, great, Daisuke Gouri is absolutely amazing as Mr. Satan too, he does a lot of voices throughout the series but it's there that he finally hits his peak I think. I also find Yuko Minaguchi's Videl to be adorably cute and spunky. Also, Jouji Yanami's narrator grows on you a lot throughout the series as well, and you end up loving it before you realize it.

My absolute, #1 favorite though? Mayumi Tanaka's Kuririn. She just...gah. She made me love the character all over again, when I already knew I loved the guy just from the dub alone. She owns the role just as much as Nozawa owns Goku, which may be why it's so hard for me to hear her Luffy for some reason - I can't help but hear Kuririn.

Baby is also a creepy fuck.

This too. I forget his name, but whoever plays Baby does this really creepy thing with his tone when the character first appears, it's amazing. Sadly he kind of drops that later into the arc though.

[SSJJezter]

Great insight into the voice actors, really gets me excited as I'm planning to watch the whole series all the way through with the Japanese voice actors for the first time in the summer. (Yep, I'm gonna spend summer inside, watching TV ) Only seen the movies and specials and the odd episode in Japanese, so am really excited. Hopefully the Dragonball Dragon Boxes will be out by then, but if not I will get the Blue bricks.

[DBZ Mick]

Aw,man, I forgot so many- Mr. Satan's seiyuu, Kuririn's seiyuu, Kaio/Narrator seiyuu, Tenshinhan's original seiyuu, Videl's seiyuu, Bulma seiyuu...


They're all so great.