Rank the dubs of each series

[Soppa Saia People]

DB
Funi: Besides the last saga, it's quite good, not on Kai's level mind you. Best of the three series from Funi.
Z
Ocean: Barring censorship, I really like this dub, but it's not good.
Funi: No comment.
Kai
Funi: Great voices, great scripts, just great all around.
GT
Funi: Like the DB dub, but instead of the last saga being bad, this just seems like a dice roll on what episode's are good or not.

[MasenkoHA]

1. The Pioner movies- Accurate scripts, great voice acting, the music is left entitely intact. A+

2 DBKai- Much better than “Z” albeit I wish more actors has been replaced. We were even lucky to be rid of Stephanie Nadolny and Linda Young and Tiffany Vollmer.

3. Dragon Ball (in-house Funi dub): Keeping the Kikuchi score intact and adapting the opening and ending themes (much better than the Japanese versions in my opinion) was a step in the right direction but the voice acting was mixed at best and the scripts tend to be way off. Also Funimation should learn the meaning of Uncensored

4. Dragon Ball (BLT dub)- Had potential to be a decent 90s Saturday Morning cartoon if it wasn’t cut short.

5. DBZ (Saban dub)- Top notch voice acting, a decent if wrong replacement score. Falls apart around the time the Saiyans show up and beyond though

6. DBZ (uncut in-house 2005 redub): Better in the actors have improved since 1999 and Nathan Johnson has a more tolerable score than Faulconer productions. Still not good and disappointing that Funi took a step back from Dragon Ball


7. DBZ (Westwood dub) Honestly from what I seen better than Funi’s equivalent at the time

8. DBZ movies (Funi): They’re terrible

9. DBGT: A travesty

[Tian]

9. DBGT: A travesty

Which one? FUNi? Blue Water?

[Cure Dragon 255]

They meant the main edited Funi one. Blue Water is actually kind of decent.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

For me a great dub has to have the right balance of faithfulness (script and music) and acting quality, so some dubs would rank higher than others based on having great acting but bad scripts (case in point the Saban dub) or bad acting but good scripts (such as the Blue Water Dragon Ball dub for the most part). The BLT Dragon Ball Ocean dub is excluded because I haven't seen it yet. My ranking with grades would go something like this with the top 2 tiers being fantastic.

1. Resurrection F and Pioneer Movie Trilogy (A)
2. Kai and Battle of Gods (B+)
3. Funi original Dragon Ball dub (C)
4. Saban Dragon Ball Z dub and Blue Water Dragon Ball dub (C)
5. Westwood DBZ dub, Funi DBZ Buu saga and Saiyan saga redub (C)
6. Funi DB movies, Z movies 1-13 and TV specials (C-)
7. Blue Water GT dub (C-)
8. Funi DBZ in-house dub Freeza-Cell sagas (D)
9. Funi GT dub (D-)
10. Harmony Gold DB movies 1 and 3 (D-)
11. Big Green Dub (E)

Well, some time has passed since this thread was active I may as well update my ranking. Obviously the most notable additions will be the Super dubs as neither had aired when this thread was last active. On that note I will say the Funi dub is a step down from Kai and the recent movies because of unnecessary script changes, but overall still a solid dub, and Bang Zoom ranks around the same as Funi original DB for having some good acting, some questionable acting and mostly decent scripts.

Some dubs' scores have changed slightly as my feelings on them have changed over time, but otherwise it's pretty similar. I considered distinguishing the original 1999-2003 DBZ dub from the remastered dub as Dale Kelly's narration is better than Kyle Herbert's but Sabat's Drummond impression brings it down, so despite good intentions the remastered dub post season 2 is really not much of an improvement.

1. Resurrection F and Pioneer Movie Trilogy (A)
2. Kai and Battle of Gods (B+)
3. Funi Super dub (B)
4. Funi original Dragon Ball dub, movies 12-13 and Bang Zoom Super dub (B-)
5. Saban Dragon Ball Z dub and Blue Water Dragon Ball dub (C+)
6. Westwood DBZ dub, Funi DBZ Buu saga and Saiyan saga redub (C)
7. Funi DB movies, and Z movies 1-11 (C-)
8. Blue Water GT dub (C-)
9. Funi DBZ dub Freeza-Cell sagas (D)
10. Funi GT dub and TV specials (D-)
11. Harmony Gold DB movies 1 and 3 (D-)
12. Big Green Dub (E)

[ABED]

The GT dub is no more a travesty than the other dubs

5. DBZ (Saban dub)- Top notch voice acting, a decent if wrong replacement score. Falls apart around the time the Saiyans show up and beyond though

How did the quality drop then? With the exception of the change to Kelamis, the quality of the Ocean dub episodes 1-53 is consistent.

[90sDBZ]

5. DBZ (Saban dub)- Top notch voice acting, a decent if wrong replacement score. Falls apart around the time the Saiyans show up and beyond though

How did the quality drop then? With the exception of the change to Kelamis, the quality of the Ocean dub episodes 1-53 is consistent.

I'll second this, it was pretty much 100% consistent for all of them 53 episodes. For me Ocean's return at episode 108 was when the quality went through the floor, and I'd consider most of their DB related work prior to that to be very good.

[sunsetshimmer]

I only know FUNI dub and few scenes of Blue Water dub for GT.

DB: Good dub overall. 8/10
DBZ: Good voices, not bad translation but has some stupid changes, good acting since Cell saga + awesome music better than original imo 7/10
GT: Garbage translation and even worse music. Pan was annoying at times. Most voices were very good tho, especially for Baby, Nuova and Oceanus. 2/10
DB Kai: Okay. Has much more accurate translation than original trilogy but i am not fan of voice acting despite actors being more experienced. I also don't like Chris Ayres as Frieza and absolutely hate Colleen Clinkenbeard as Gohan and #18. 4/10
DBS: Same as Kai except for having original #18's voice so it's 5/10

Can't tell much about Blue Water GT since i only saw few scenes of it. It seemed okay but voice acting wasn't that great. But they kept original music at least.
Omega sounded retarded but Pan's voice was much better than FUNimation, just look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG8WeCQQuQk

[MasenkoHA]

The GT dub is no more a travesty than the other dubs

5. DBZ (Saban dub)- Top notch voice acting, a decent if wrong replacement score. Falls apart around the time the Saiyans show up and beyond though

How did the quality drop then? With the exception of the change to Kelamis, the quality of the Ocean dub episodes 1-53 is consistent.

It’s more the heavy duty censorship that really took hold by the time Nappa and Vegeta arrived on earth. Up until that point the censorship wasn’t that bad.


On its own merits it holds up reasonably well as a Saturday Morning cartoon

[MasenkoHA]

.

DB: Good dub overall. 8/10

How are we defining it as a good dub? It was better than Z and GT for sure purely because they kept the show’s spirit intact and didn’t try to make it something it wasn’t. But I’m not sure if I would call it a good dub. The scripts tend to be pretty off, Funi had censored dialog in the “uncut dub” and there was often some pretty careless mistakes made. I would probably compare it to the Cloverway dub of Sailor Moon S and SuperS or the Saban dub of Digimon.

[ABED]

The acting is still the same even if they say questionable things like "another dimension" (which is technically true) and Tenshinhan's dumb line about regrowing his arm.

[MajinMan]

I’m just gonna do the Funi dubs of each.

1. BoG and Res F - These were their best dubs. Whis and Beerus have great dub actors that fit their characters, and Chris Ayres is great as English Freeza. Translations are pretty good too.

2. DB Kai (I guess also Buu Kai) - Their best TV show adaption. I wish they would’ve done a complete overhaul on the cast and start completely fresh, but that would be too much change for fans.

3. DBS - I am not a fan of the DBS dub. I feel that they took a big step back instead of pushing forward, and that they are trying too hard to pander to old Z dub fans. It’s filled with dumb little jokes everywhere, with a few mistranslations.

4. DB - From the original 3, this is the best hands down, although that’s not saying much. It’s still missing a lot. For one, none of the insert songs are in the dub, making some moments feel awkward and not special like they should be. The acting is subpar, and some of the voices are really annoying. Filled with a couple of mistranslations and censorships.

5. DBGT - I used to think this dub was around the DB dub in quality, but my god was I wrong. They ham it up to 11 with the “ally to good, nightmare to you” shit with Goku. The music is a complete disgrace, and the general translations are bad.

6. DBZ - It shouldn’t be a surprise that this is at the bottom. Worst acting, worst translations overall, dumb replacement music (hell, it has TWO replacement scores), and bad voices for characters. I think the biggest travesty with this dub is that it has a reputation on the internet of being “one of the few animes I watch dubbed because the sub sucks.” Every time I see that comment, I get a little annoyed. Just a little.

BONUS - Bardock special. Fuck that shit.

(I didn’t rank the movies outside of BoG and RoF because it would take too long, and I’m lazy.)

[JohnnyCashKami]

Oh, the English dubs. Okay.

Classic Dragon Ball Series

Dragon Ball
Blue Water > FUNimation

Dragon Ball Z
Ocean Dub > FUnimation

I'd rather have given someone else the 2nd place than FUNimation but as far as official English DBZ dubs, that's kinda it.

Dragon Ball GT
Blue Water > FUNimation

Classic Dragon Ball Movies

Dragon Ball Movies 1-4
FUNimation

Dragon Ball Z Movies 1-3
Ocean Dub > FUNimation

Modern Dragon Ball Series

Dragon Ball Kai
Unaired Ocean Dub > FUNimation

Yes, the Ocean Dub of Kai hasn't aired yet but I'd still rank it higher than FUNi's dub. FUNi's Kai dub was really good but Gohan's VA for me made it somewhat unwatchable with her girly teenage voice for a male character.

Dragon Ball Kai: The Final Chapters
FUNimation

Well, there isn't anything else but if Ocean Dub does it, then Ocean gets my vote.

Dragon Ball Super
Bang Zoom! > FUNimation

I'm probably in the minority in that I actually liked their dub but they had it canceled before they even reached the third season of Super, which wasn't a rehash of a Dragon Ball Z movie.

Modern Dragon Ball Movies

Battle of Gods
FUNimation

Resurrection F
FUNimation

No one else dubbed it in English sadly enough but FUNi did a good job, thankfully.

P.S. I wonder if the GT TV Special dub by Big Green (AB Groupe) was actually good or not since it has never been released in its entirety.

[MasenkoHA]

Gohan's VA for me made it somewhat unwatchable with her girly teenage voice for a male character.

I will never understand this criticism. Admittedly its a bit of a put upon voice (compare Saffron Henderson who does a natural sounding little boy voice) but it doesn't sound the least bit like a girly teenage voice. Also I'm pretty sure people that make this complaint at Colleen Clinkenbeard have never heard a little boy speak in their life. Little boys DO have high pitched girly voices. Like they just do. And my God if you can put up with Stephanie "smoke 12 packs of cigarettes a day" Nadolny Gohan you sure as hell should be able to put up with Colleen "aren't a pwrecious widdle boy" Clinkenbeard's Gohan.

Granted neither are good and both aren't fit to lick the dirt off Masako Nozawa or Saffron Henderson's shoes but complaining about Clinkenbeard's Gohan after dealing with Nadolny's Gohan for years is like bitching someone got you the wrong flavor of ice cream after the last person tried to feed you horse manure.

[sangofe]

Here's the dub lists for reference.

Dragon Ball dubs:

Harmony Gold, BLT, Funi, Blue Water, Creative Product Corp

Dragon Ball movie dubs:

Harmony Gold, BLT, Funi, Speedy, AB Groupe (AKA Big Green)

DBZ dubs:

Creative Product Corp, Ocean, Funi, Westwood

DBZ movie dubs:

Creative Product Corp, Unknown Filipino dub (dubbed 10 & 11), Speedy, Ocean, Pioneer, Funi, AB Groupe

DBGT dubs:

Funi, Blue Water

DBGT special dubs:

Funi, AB Groupe


Rank the dubs of each series, in your opinion, from best to worst.

You should change the topic title to "rank the english dubs". Why have you not included DB Super?

[DHM211]

I've only ever seen Funimation's dub in full, so thats all I'll use.

DB:
7/10 - Not entirely accurate to the Japanese but the acting is pretty good.

DBZ:
Really has to be split into 2 categories tbh:
a) Episodes 1 - 67: 7.5/10 - Not entirely accurate to the Japanese but the acting is very good.
b) Episodes 68 - 291: 2.5/10 - Starts off bad enough that it gives the speedy dub a run for its money, and only finishes with something that still sub par. On it's own episode 68 would be a 0.5/10, and episode 291 would be a 4/10.

DBGT:
6.5/10 - Not accurate to the Japanese but the acting is good.

DBZ Kai
9.5/10 - Near perfect dub (and it's awesome to see how a lot of the DBZ actors were able to improve).

DBS:
8/10 - Mostly accurate with good performances, however, it takes too many unnecessary liberties and some of the voice acting (especially in the earlier parts of the series), sound very rushed.

Movies:
DB:
Movie 1: 7.5/10 - Not entirely accurate to the Japanese but the acting is very good.
Movie 2: 1/10 - Really bad, I give Funi leeway since this was their first DB dub, or else this would be a 0.5/10.
Movies 3 - 4: 7/10 - Not entirely accurate to the Japanese but the acting is good.

DBZ:
Movies 1 - 3: 8/10 - Fairly accurate script and really good acting.
Movies 4 - 6: 6/10 - Isn't that accurate to the Japanese but the acting is decent.
Movie 7: 4.5/10 - Acting is decent but the script is horrible.
Movie 8: 9/10 - Accurate script and really good acting.
Movies 9 - 13: 8/10 - Fairly accurate script and really good acting.

Battle of Gods: 9.5/10 - Near perfect dub.

Resurrection 'F': 10/10 - A perfect dub.

[MasenkoHA]

I know this is two years old but I really like this post

, I think DBZ Abridged and xXInfinite026Xx's dub of the Bardock special should be included as well for their high quality. The former isn't really aiming for faithfulness obviously, but on occasion is more faithful than the original Funi dub and is of excellent quality (While it is kind of amateurish during the Saiyan saga, it's almost of professional quality in the newest stuff, and in some bits I think the voice acting is better than Funi's dub of Kai.)

Haven’t seen xX Infinite026Xx fandub but the Teamfourstar abridged fandub parody is definitely better than the Funi dub.

.

That being said, the Blue Water dub of DB and some of the Big Green dubbed material both on occasion have nasty censorship in the form of the AB Groupe removing whole portions or sometimes scenes from the program, either for censorship or to hide Japanese text. These edits often have the consequence of making things harder to understand...

I’d like to get into the Blue Water dub but I can’t with the poor acting.

. Acting is better than the earliest in house Funi material most of the time (DB Movies 2 and 3 and Season 3 of DBZ) but not as good as when Funi started dubbing the DBZ movies.

Haven’t seen Funimation’s dub of movie 3 but I’d say Season 3 had better acting than The Big Green dub but Big Green had better acting than Funimation’s dub of Sleeping Princess in Devil’s Castle

Harmony Gold's dub of Movies 1 & 3 handled censorship fairly well, and the voice acting is fairly decent, but to me it's unwatchable due to all the name changes.

The name changes are bizarre (I do like Lena as a name but they shouldnt have changed it in the first place) but the voice acting is really good. Obviously when you get talent like Barbara Goodson, Wendee Lee, Robert Axelrod, Dave Mallow etc I haven’t watched their dub of Curse of the Blood Rubies but Mystic Adventure was a fun watch albeit I have to pretend its some low grade direct to video kidsvid you pick up at your local video renting store because your parents are in a rush for you to pick out your movie

The BLT dub of DB episodes 1-13 had voice acting on par with the Saban dub (it might be the best English dub of the first 13 episodes voice acting wise.)

I’m not convinced Saffron Henderson was the right pick for Goku but she can act circles around Stephanie Nadolny so there’s that. Lalaina is waaay better than Tiffany Vollmer for sure. Don Brown’s Pilaf is somewhat more tolerable than Chuck Huber (aside note I was really disappointed Don Brown didn’t voice Shenron in the Dragon Ball dub like he did for that one eposode of Z in the syndicated dub and the Pioneer movies his Shenron voice was so freakin cool none of the other voices have come close to topping it!

The music, while not as good as Kikuchi's or even Faulconer, was better than the Levi/Wasserman, Menza, and Johnson scores that Funi would be later be involved in.

The Peter Berring score was servicable Saturday Morning Cartoon music. I think it paired well with the Wasserman score in Z. Obviously vastly inferior to Kikuchi’s score though.

There is one nasty dub error in the form of a monologue Grandpa Gohan has during the first episode, a monologue he doesn't give in the original Japanese or the in-house Funi and Blue Water dubs. It's not just that he has a speech where there is silence in the other versions, the contents of the speech throw continuity right out the windows with the whole "I will always be with you" thing.

I’m pretty sure it was a “I will always be with you” in spirit kind of thing. It wasn’t needed but it didn’t throw continuity out the window.

Now Bulma somehow knowing Pilaf exist? That’s a different story.

I really wish the BLT dub had gotten a chance on Fox Kids with all 153 episodes even if the music would have been replaced and the content edited to meet broadcast standards it would have been a fun kitschy 90s kid action-adventure cartoon and maybe Dragon Ball would have gotten more respect in the West.

.

The Funi/Ocean/Saban dub had fairly decent acting, but cringeworthy lines, serious dub errors (Bardock the brilliant scientist and Vegeta killed Grandpa Gohan),

Bardock the Brilliant Scientist wasn’t so bad but Vegeta killed Grandpa Gohan is unforgivable. Like holy shit you guys Funimation had already dubbed the episodes of Dragon Ball that revealed Goku killed his grandpa by accident. How did they screw that up? The same person(Barry Watson) was showrunning both.

and heavy censorship (the next dimension stuff wouldn't be so bad if they only used those exact words, never saying stuff like "a brand new dimension", "another dimension", etc).

Next dimension doesn’t bother me. Pretending thousands of civilian survived the equivalent of an H-bomb at point blank was another story. It would have been better if Funimation just went with Otherworld and vague lines like destroy and perish as far as I am aware Saban’s issue was with words like kill or die.

The original Funi dub tried to make up for the heavy censorship of the Saban era by being needlessly edgy (friggin genius, bite me, whatever turns you on), and had far worse voice acting which never catches up to the standard of the Funi/Ocean/Saban dub.)

I’m pretty sure Funimation was too high off their new lax standards they didn’t care about good scripts and the voice acting not being ass. Weirdly enough as far as I know the only change in writers between season 2 and 3 was Terry Klassen joining them. And I doubt he alone was responsible for the dialog getting even worse.


ave still gotten something a whole lot better than what

The inhouse dub of Dragon Ball kept the original music and was uncut, but the voice acting still isn't that good. The scripts of the BLT dub was reused for the most part, with minor tweaks (some making things more accurate, like the removal of the aformentioned Gohan speech, while others made things less accurate. "Get ready for that walk!" in the in house dub compared to "Hey! Aren't I sexy?" in the BLT dub and "Sexy, aren't I?" in the accurate subs used in the Blue Bricks). As the dub continued, it gave some... interesting errors (King Piccolo saying he fought all over the universe, the name "Shen" given to the Crane Hermit instead of the identity of a Kami-possessed human, who in turn is given the name "Hero". Because when you really think of the name "Hero", the Eternal Dragon comes to mind.....). Also, King Piccolo isn't called a demon in this version.

The biggest sin (other than the lazy rehashing of the BLT scripts of course) is how damn censored the “uncut” dub was. Watching the dub I noticed Funimation seem to be of the mind “If there isn’t a visual that can’t be ignored” (and sometimes even when there is) you bet your ass we’ll censor it.


]

[Danfun64]

That post of mine was made a long time ago, and a lot of my opinions have changed since then. Considering that the DB trilogy is self-contained, I'm not as upset with the HG DB movies on the naming front as I was then. My problem with it nowadays is that it skipped DB Movie 2 and the resulting transition from Movie 1 to Movie 3 was a hack job (seriously, it went from Goku flying away from Gurumes's kingdom on the Nimbus to the Pilaf gang finishing their radar for Master Crane and executed by Tao Pai Pai to the scene where Master Crane shows the radar to Emperor Chaozu and Blue gets killed by Tao Pai Pai to (IIRC) the plane scene. In other words, we missed Goku arriving back at Roshi's island, proper introductions for Krillin and Launch, the entirety of Goku and Krillin's training before the tournament, and the scene that introduces Blue and his psychic abilities). Unfortunately, despite how hacked up HG DB Movie 3 is, it's still vastly more accurate than Funi DB Movie 3, and of course, Funi DB Movie 2's accuracy is fairly poor. And don't get me started on how the Speedy dub is unwatchable for serious viewing purposes (mainly due to the acting, it's own inconsistent set of name changes and poor audio mixing that makes some phrases impossible to hear properly). Alas, the Big Green dubs for DB Movies 1-3 as well as the GT special are still missing. So if you HAVE to watch the DB trilogy in English, your best option appears to be BLT DB Movie 1 -> Edited Funi DB Movie 2 -> Edited Funi DB Movie 3 (unless of course one edits the HG double feature to shoehorn footage introducing Krillin and Launch as well as the scene where we first see Blue, the best way to do that IMO would be to mix footage from db movie 2 and db ep 15 along with the missing Blue scene from db movie 3 with HG Makafushigi Adventure in the background basically where the DB Movie 3 OP would be, but even then you'd lose out on the training montage).

The BLT dub of DB episodes 1-13 is definitely the best acted of the three main dubs (BLT, Funi, Blue Water) but the fact that, unlike with how the Ultimate Uncut redub of ep 1-67 was necessitated, both Funi and BW broadcast the episodes from beginning to end...meaning BLT ep 1-13 is a dead end. Granted, similar things can be said for Bang Zoom Super 1-27 (shame that dub appeared to be canceled) and *sigh* Speedy Z 1-12.

As for BW's acting compared to Funi DB, sometimes the acting is worse... but even when that's the case the voices sound "smoother" than the Funi DB voices of the era. In addition, though there's no way to be sure until a fresh upload comes around, the BW DB dub appeared to have the best audio mix of the three (Funi's mix had issues, including one instance where the audio didn't cut off correctly...but the BLT mix was even more problematic, with some sound effects playing earlier or later than they should have and some vocals not being as audible as they could have been.

I'd say Funi DB's biggest advantages are a more consistent script and being uncut in visuals and length (if not script). BW DB has issues with script consistency (sometimes strange terminology is used a few times and then never used again like "Golden Nimbus"; on the other side of things you'd have an episode based off the Funi DB script, then switching to a different script (often more accurate)...only to go back to Funi's scripts within a few episodes later. That being said, despite that as well as the problems with using the AB Groupe footage as a base (resulting in some scenes with Japanese text being cut, some scenes cut for no reason except maybe time, and the Namekian text being cut from the episode where Kami and Piccolo talk to each other completely changing the meaning of the scene) it still felt like a more professional production than Funi DB.

[MasenkoHA]

, I'm not as upset with the HG DB movies on the naming front as I was then. My problem with it nowadays is that it skipped DB Movie 2 and the resulting transition from Movie 1 to Movie 3 was a hack job (seriously, it went from Goku flying away from Gurumes's kingdom on the Nimbus to the Pilaf gang finishing their radar for Master Crane and executed by Tao Pai Pai to the scene where Master Crane shows the radar to Emperor Chaozu and Blue gets killed by Tao Pai Pai to (IIRC) the plane scene. In other words, we missed Goku arriving back at Roshi's island, proper introductions for Krillin and Launch, the entirety of Goku and Krillin's training before the tournament, and the scene that introduces Blue and his psychic abilities). Unfortunately, despite how hacked up HG DB Movie 3 is, it's still vastly more accurate than Funi DB Movie 3, and of course, Funi DB Movie 2's accuracy is fairly poor. And don't get me started on how the Speedy dub is unwatchable for serious viewing purposes (mainly due to the acting, it's own inconsistent set of name changes and poor audio mixing that makes some phrases impossible to hear properly). Alas, the Big Green dubs for DB Movies 1-3 as well as the GT special are still missing. So if you HAVE to watch the DB trilogy in English, your best option appears to be BLT DB Movie 1 -> Edited Funi DB Movie 2 -> Edited Funi DB Movie 3 (unless of course one edits the HG double feature to shoehorn footage introducing Krillin and Launch as well as the scene where we first see Blue, the best way to do that IMO would be to mix footage from db movie 2 and db ep 15 along with the missing Blue scene from db movie 3 with HG Makafushigi Adventure in the background basically where the DB Movie 3 OP would be, but even then you'd lose out on the training montage).

I think my biggest problem with Harmony Gold skipping Sleeping Princess in Devil’s Castle is there’s no good English dub for it. The Funimation dub is pretty embarrassing like at least with their original broadcast dub of season 3 you can tell it was professionally made just with actors who can’t act and hackneyed writers. DB movie 2’s dub (and Funi’s dub of 3) sound so awful and fandubby like they were recorded in a friend’s basement with cheap late 90s recording equipment. I have no clue why Funimation didnt redub it with their Kai era cast like they did Curse of the Blood Rubies. Now if I want to watch the Dragon Ball movies dub I have BLT fir CotBR and HG for Mystical Adventure but SPiDC is pretty much unwatchable in English.

The BLT dub of DB episodes 1-13 is definitely the best acted of the three main dubs (BLT, Funi, Blue Water) but the fact that, unlike with how the Ultimate Uncut redub of ep 1-67 was necessitated, both Funi and BW broadcast the episodes from beginning to end...meaning BLT ep 1-13 is a dead end.

.

It is shame that they didn’t have the Ocean cast just pick up where they left off and finish Dragon Ball.

As for BW's acting compared to Funi DB, sometimes the acting is worse... but even when that's the case the voices sound "smoother" than the Funi DB voices of the era.

Well I definitely prefer Krillin’s Blue Water dub voice over his Funi voice. The girl who voices Goku does a great little boy voice I just wish her acting was better. Truthfully I think I’m more forgiving of Nadolny’s Goku because
A. I’m used to it having watched the show on Toonami back jn the day and B. It’s a lot better than her Gohan voice or at least fits better. Truthfully having watched the in-house Funi dub her performance is pretty mixed. Sometimes she comes out alright but other times her delivery and timing is awkward as hell. (Vollmer has a similar issue)

Also want to add from what little I heard I prefer BW King Piccolo over Chris Sabat

[Robo4900]

sometimes strange terminology is used a few times and then never used again like "Golden Nimbus"

If by sometimes, you mean once or twice across the entire run, which you have continued to bang on about endlessly since noticing them, then sure.

(For context to others: Danfun and I are friends and have been comparing the scripts of the BW, Funi, BLT, and Japanese versions of DB for a while)

on the other side of things you'd have an episode based off the Funi DB script, then switching to a different script (often more accurate)...only to go back to Funi's scripts within a few episodes later.

Which is only a consistency problem if you're comparing scripts... In terms of actually watching it, it works utterly fine. However, it does give Blue Water a significant edge in accuracy, even if this edge is lesser or greater depending on the episode.

That being said, despite that as well as the problems with using the AB Groupe footage as a base (resulting in some scenes with Japanese text being cut, some scenes cut for no reason except maybe time, and the Namekian text being cut from the episode where Kami and Piccolo talk to each other completely changing the meaning of the scene) it still felt like a more professional production than Funi DB.

I do feel like these problems are easy to overstate. Yes, these are problems. Are they more intrusive than the less accurate scripts, worse acting from a smaller pool of actors, less professional production, and even -- as you yourself once put it -- the fact BW DB has a more enjoyable feel to it than Funi DB...? I believe you and I even at one point discussed the general feeling of Funi DB being a sort of "BEFORE ZEE, BEFORE GEETEE, THERE WAS DRAGON BALL!!", while BW DB is more of an honest presentation of Dragon Ball, delivered under certain limitations.

I think BW DB is still the least-worst option as far as DB dubbing. Yes, it's flawed. All of them are. All of them are censored to various degrees, but BW handles it better. Despite the fact the Pilaf and 21st Tenkaichi scripts would deviate in odd ways from time to time, the overall picture the two of us have observed in our time comparing the scripts is that BW tends to correct Funi's scripts. Usually that means rewriting most scenes to just be better-written dialogue, quite often it means either gutting or changing Funi's infamous cases of liberal adaptation, every now and then it means chucking the script out and writing based off a proper Japanese translation... But in general, it does give BW a notable edge in both accuracy and dialogue quality.

So... It's not clear-cut. If "Uncut" is a term that blindly makes you immediately default to the dub it applies to, excepting all other factors, then sure, you'll probably do okay with Funi's dub. But that probably means you'll also watch Funi's "Remastered" Z dub, even though this comparison is imperfect as there isn't a more accurate alternate dub... Ultimately, watching dubbed will be a censored, messy experience whatever route you choose. I personally would say the generally more professional production of BW gives it a significant edge, as does its better dialogue, and slightly higher accuracy. And much as Zoe Slusar and Leda Davies are not perfect castings, I'd say they're sure as hell better than Nadolny and Vollmer, neither of whom could act their way out of a paper bag in Dragon Ball. Perhaps not their fault -- I personally still blame a lot of Dragon Ball's dubbing problems under Funimation on poor direction and scripting, but nevertheless, I do think they were poor choices for those roles, and gave very poor performances... And while BW's voices tended to be less distinctive than Funi's, it's clear they were working with a large pool of actors with experience, who didn't need to put any real effort in to distinguish themselves from each-other, as their natural voices are quite different, which of course does stretch to any odd/character voices... This is opposed to Funi's approach of stretching their handful of actors far by making them put on countless bad accents and unnatural voices that stunted their ability to perform under the already rather poor direction they had, and the most awful scripts you'll see...
Plus, filling in the insert songs they couldn't license was a good decision on BW's part. Those scenes are really damn weird in Funi's dub, where they either have to add tons of extra dialogue that arguably actually takes away from the scene, or they just go along with a very empty-sounding section of episode.

Still, to each their own. This is only my take, but I'm fairly confident in it; the more professional production of Blue Water's dub, combined with its generally more-accurate scripting, just makes it an obvious winner compared to the amateurish mess of Funi's dub, in my eyes.

I really wish the BLT dub had gotten a chance on Fox Kids with all 153 episodes even if the music would have been replaced and the content edited to meet broadcast standards it would have been a fun kitschy 90s kid action-adventure cartoon and maybe Dragon Ball would have gotten more respect in the West.

What the BLT dub got already was given a decent chance, and in fact I recall hearing reports that the ratings were rather good, though I can't find that info myself at this time. There's no real way of knowing why Funimation cut their initial 26-episode order of Dragon Ball down to 13, and then switched to Saban and did Z, but I don't think it was a case of Dragon Ball failing. I think Funi just didn't like working with BLT and/or Trimark and/or the producers they were working with at Dick And Rogers(I'm unsure on the details here, but as I understand it, a different studio and group of Canadian producers were working on Dragon Ball from the guys Funimation got from Ocean for Z. Michael Donovan and Doug Parker did script and direction work for DB, but not only did neither do those duties in Z, their characters in the show were recast too; Parker gave up Shen Long to Don Brown, Donovan gave up Roshi to Ian Corlett)... Whatever happened, I don't think Z's initial ratings were that much better than DB's for its 26-episode order, and yet not only did it finish that order, but when combined with the traction it built up over its run, and in the reruns that followed, it was considered quite a success, leading to season 2 being extended to 29 episodes(Including the 3-part Tree Of Might special), which were also a rather big hit.

The idea that Dragon Ball only became a success when Toonami ran Z in 1999 is one of many, many, many cases of revisionist history in the Dragon Ball fandom that has no evidence behind it. Meanwhile, on Kanzenshuu, there's clear evidence to the contrary... "Currently syndicated in the US by Saban Domestic Distribution in its Saban’s Kids Block, DRAGON BALL Z is being broadcast in over 85% of the country with top ratings for a weekly syndicated series (especially in they [sic] key boys 6-11 demographic). [...]"

Anyway, point is, I don't think any chance that involved the companies it did would have saved the BLT dub. If they'd somehow come to some arrangement with Saban to do OG DB, it still would have most certainly been cut short, though it would have run closer to 80 episodes instead of Dragon Ball's 13, or Z's 56. We'd end up with starting with DB, but there's no reason to believe anything else would have been different about the situation.

It is shame that they didn’t have the Ocean cast just pick up where they left off and finish Dragon Ball.

Wouldn't have happened. If the Westwood dubbing of the Dragon Ball franchise hadn't moved to Blue Water, there's nothing to suggest they would have handled anything else differently. Remember, the decision to move the voices was from Ken Morrison, head of Ocean, who I've heard wanted to give GT and DB to Blue Water to give the then-young studio a bit project. So, things probably would have been the same in terms of the scripts they worked off, the episodes they dubbed, the video masters they used, etc.

Still, yes, it would've been great if they'd kept the DB and GT Westwood dubs in Vancouver, but if wishes were horses...

Also want to add from what little I heard I prefer BW King Piccolo over Chris Sabat

Well, Chris Sabat sucked as Piccolo Daimao.

I love Chris Sabat, I think he's great as Vegeta now, but his Piccolo Daimao in DB sucked. Meanwhile, the guy they got from BW was actually kind of great.