Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
This discussion is actually pretty interesting even today. I would want more people to talk about it, since it's something that really seems to affects ALL the Dragon Ball dubs around the world.
Last edited by SaintEvolution on Fri Nov 09, 2018 9:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
Verbal idiosyncrasies are extremely hard to translate into different, unrelated languages. So most dubs just ignore this part of Goku's character.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
I realize this is a bit of a necro post, but for me Nadolny's semi-stilted performance of Goku worked as an alright substitute. For me it reflected that Grandpa Gohan may have been able to teach Goku how to speak, but not help him master the flow through the words of a sentence. Personally to me it makes more sense than speaking a country-style dialect because I don't think Gohan would have spoken that to begin with (although I realize that's because the details of Grandpa Gohan as a personality wouldn't really be explored until the end of the Baba arc).
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but this take/approach almost sounds to me more like a Goku that's "on the spectrum" more so than a rough 'n tumble backwoods country hayseed from the mountains.KBABZ wrote:I realize this is a bit of a necro post, but for me Nadolny's semi-stilted performance of Goku worked as an alright substitute. For me it reflected that Grandpa Gohan may have been able to teach Goku how to speak, but not help him master the flow through the words of a sentence.
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Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
You make it sound like he should have an Appalachian accent.Kunzait_83 wrote:Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but this take/approach almost sounds to me more like a Goku that's "on the spectrum" more so than a rough 'n tumble backwoods country hayseed from the mountains.KBABZ wrote:I realize this is a bit of a necro post, but for me Nadolny's semi-stilted performance of Goku worked as an alright substitute. For me it reflected that Grandpa Gohan may have been able to teach Goku how to speak, but not help him master the flow through the words of a sentence.
The Monkey King wrote:It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWokeRandomGuy96 wrote:He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
Better than having him sound like every sentence is a question.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
I mean don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think that some kind of over the top hillbilly redneck southern accent straight out of King of the Hill ought to be the way to go when adapting Goku's speech pattern/dialect into English. I subscribe to the "less is more" principle: some bad grammar, some very low key word slurring/mispronunciation, and maybe the subtlest, faintest hint of a twang in his voice would probably more than get this aspect of the character across just fine without turning him into some kind of Kung Fu Cletus.RandomGuy96 wrote:You make it sound like he should have an Appalachian accent.
But again, unless I'm not understanding KBABZ correctly on this, it sounds almost like he's interpreting/equating Nadonly's Goku as some sort of socially inept autistic boy who doesn't fully grasp interpersonal human interaction in how to speak.
The more blunt reality if course is that Nadonly's performance is stilted and awkward unintentionally due to it simply being a bad acting performance. Nonetheless though, "autistic Goku" is an interesting read on it.
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Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
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Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
My point here is that, if you analyze Goku's japanese voice knowing the japanese language, you will see that Goku really speaks japanese wrong. His vocabulary and semantic are wrong. His grammar is wrong. Masako Nozawa does Goku's voice speaking not only a colloquial, but a wrong japanese.KBABZ wrote:I realize this is a bit of a necro post, but for me Nadolny's semi-stilted performance of Goku worked as an alright substitute. For me it reflected that Grandpa Gohan may have been able to teach Goku how to speak, but not help him master the flow through the words of a sentence. Personally to me it makes more sense than speaking a country-style dialect because I don't think Gohan would have spoken that to begin with (although I realize that's because the details of Grandpa Gohan as a personality wouldn't really be explored until the end of the Baba arc).
But that doesn't apply to the dubs, were he majorly talks correctly. Sean Schemmel dubs Goku with correct vocabulary, correct pronounciation of the words, for example. And it would be accurate for Goku's character if he shouldn't do that. The same applies to all other actors around the world, as Patrick Borg, Wendel Bezerra or Mario Castañeda.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
Kunzait_83 wrote:Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but this take/approach almost sounds to me more like a Goku that's "on the spectrum" more so than a rough 'n tumble backwoods country hayseed from the mountains.KBABZ wrote:I realize this is a bit of a necro post, but for me Nadolny's semi-stilted performance of Goku worked as an alright substitute. For me it reflected that Grandpa Gohan may have been able to teach Goku how to speak, but not help him master the flow through the words of a sentence.
Well I didn't consider it that way, more like Goku just doesn't have the experience in talking with people to speak his sentences naturally. It's more a lack of experience than anything else because all he had to work with was Grandpa Gohan; he didn't need to speak with any other person until Bulma showed up.Kunzait_83 wrote:...unless I'm not understanding KBABZ correctly on this, it sounds almost like he's interpreting/equating Nadonly's Goku as some sort of socially inept autistic boy who doesn't fully grasp interpersonal human interaction in how to speak.
It's funny that you should say that though because I myself am on the spectrum (Asperger's specifically, before it was merged with Autism), and from the moment I saw Kid Goku on Cartoon Network I felt a connection with him because of how odd he can act in social situations (and that's before I got familiar with Z and how Goku spared his enemies for reasons that don't make sense to anyone else, not to mention departing with Uub), as well as how inexperienced with the world in general he is. Goku just seems to operate on a different wavelength from most people, even compared to other Saiyans, and I can relate with that a lot because I get that all the time and need to adjust how I behave a lot of the time (something Goku doesn't even care to attempt, haha).
That being said, I would never claim that Toriyama wrote him with the intention that he's Autistic because there's no evidence for it. He's mostly going for comedy and having a unique protagonist.
Yeah haha, ultimately I'm under no illusions there (and IMO her performance declined further after GT; I can't stand her performance in Revenge of King Picolo). But my more personal connection to that performance is part of why I like Dragon Ball so much in the first place, which ultimately led me to watching Kai (sorry), and then here to learn more about the original works.Kunzait_83 wrote:The more blunt reality if course is that Nadonly's performance is stilted and awkward unintentionally due to it simply being a bad acting performance. Nonetheless though, "autistic Goku" is an interesting read on it.
My headcanon for that is that Chi-Chi taught him how to speak correctly in the seven years before Raditz showed up, haha. But I think the reason for that is because when FUNi first dubbed Z, they basically ignored everything about Goku's character from Dragon Ball and started fresh with what they knew about him in the Saiyan arc, and that's sort of been grandfathered into every other dub of Goku, I'd say.SaintEvolution wrote:Sean Schemmel dubs Goku with correct vocabulary, correct pronounciation of the words, for example. And it would be accurate for Goku's character if he shouldn't do that. The same applies to all other actors around the world, as Patrick Borg, Wendel Bezerra or Mario Castañeda.
Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
I recall from an interview that the translator of Latin Spanish dub of the anime said she thanked Goku as one of her teachers in Japanese but also she remarks Goku spoke in a "too vulgar" way. She probably didn't like the way he talked and decided to "smart him up" a bit.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
Unless I'm misinterpreting Herms' words here: that sounds accurate to the manga version of Goku, who speaks normally bar the occasional informal term and overuse of contractions. But the anime version of Goku has a distinct, specific regional accent denoting him as a 'hillbilly' from the backwoods mountains. In that case, wouldn't giving him an Appalachian English accent be a more accurate adaptation than giving him a General American accent? Keeping in mind that the latter is a creative choice in and of itself.Kunzait_83 wrote:I mean don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think that some kind of over the top hillbilly redneck southern accent straight out of King of the Hill ought to be the way to go when adapting Goku's speech pattern/dialect into English. I subscribe to the "less is more" principle: some bad grammar, some very low key word slurring/mispronunciation, and maybe the subtlest, faintest hint of a twang in his voice would probably more than get this aspect of the character across just fine without turning him into some kind of Kung Fu Cletus.RandomGuy96 wrote:You make it sound like he should have an Appalachian accent.
The Monkey King wrote:It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWokeRandomGuy96 wrote:He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
Mister Popo is the same case, I'd say. According to the English subs derived from the Japanese audio, his Japanese isn't correctly spoken but on the dubs every one of them I've heard makes him sound as polite and respectable as God himself.
And Schemmel's Kaio-sama? Sounds as though he suffers from lisping.
So, the dubs are the way they are. If you want how the characters are supposed to be like then watch the Japanese version or read the manga. Even the best dubs (Brazilian_por and Latin_esp) aren't that precise when it comes to how Goku talks.
And Schemmel's Kaio-sama? Sounds as though he suffers from lisping.
So, the dubs are the way they are. If you want how the characters are supposed to be like then watch the Japanese version or read the manga. Even the best dubs (Brazilian_por and Latin_esp) aren't that precise when it comes to how Goku talks.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
I'm fairly sure that it's done to avoid any bad connotations with Mr. Popo being Kami's uneducated black slave. As for Kaio, I've always suspected that it might be because he looks like a catfish.JohnnyCashKami wrote:Mister Popo is the same case, I'd say. According to the English subs derived from the Japanese audio, his Japanese isn't correctly spoken but on the dubs every one of them I've heard makes him sound as polite and respectable as God himself.
And Schemmel's Kaio-sama? Sounds as though he suffers from lisping.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
"Black slave" but he's not even human. Mister Popo was turned to purple at one point by 4Kids but not an issue with the rest.KBABZ wrote:I'm fairly sure that it's done to avoid any bad connotations with Mr. Popo being Kami's uneducated black slave. As for Kaio, I've always suspected that it might be because he looks like a catfish.JohnnyCashKami wrote:Mister Popo is the same case, I'd say. According to the English subs derived from the Japanese audio, his Japanese isn't correctly spoken but on the dubs every one of them I've heard makes him sound as polite and respectable as God himself.
And Schemmel's Kaio-sama? Sounds as though he suffers from lisping.
If purple people existed then they'd be offended he was colorized to look like them and appropriate their skin color. lol
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
That's not the point. Unless you were told, people would just assume he's a black guy from the middle-east, based on the fact that he's got a classic blackface look and his clothing is distinctly midde-eastern, like Bulma's attire in the Rabbit village in the Pilaf arc. It's similar to Jinx in Pokémon, the fact that Jinx isn't a human doesn't matter, it's a racist caricature that doesn't fly today, let along Mr. Popo doing that AND having a lower-class dialect.JohnnyCashKami wrote:"Black slave" but he's not even human.KBABZ wrote:I'm fairly sure that it's done to avoid any bad connotations with Mr. Popo being Kami's uneducated black slave. As for Kaio, I've always suspected that it might be because he looks like a catfish.JohnnyCashKami wrote:Mister Popo is the same case, I'd say. According to the English subs derived from the Japanese audio, his Japanese isn't correctly spoken but on the dubs every one of them I've heard makes him sound as polite and respectable as God himself.
And Schemmel's Kaio-sama? Sounds as though he suffers from lisping.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
Somehow I didn't consider that FUNimation had picked up on the "Black slave" connotations, but had simply given Popo that kind of speech because they didn't really care about being consistent with the original Japanese. Although now that you mention it, maybe it was intentional...KBABZ wrote:I'm fairly sure that it's done to avoid any bad connotations with Mr. Popo being Kami's uneducated black slave.JohnnyCashKami wrote:Mister Popo is the same case, I'd say. According to the English subs derived from the Japanese audio, his Japanese isn't correctly spoken but on the dubs every one of them I've heard makes him sound as polite and respectable as God himself.
The very fact that 4Kids went so far as to change his skin color should really speak for itself.JohnnyCashKami wrote: Mister Popo was turned to purple at one point by 4Kids but not an issue with the rest.
I'm really not sure what this is supposed to mean nor how it's relevant to Mister Popo being God's Black slave.JohnnyCashKami wrote:If purple people existed then they'd be offended he was colorized to look like them and appropriate their skin color. lol
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
People back then and even just a couple of years ago weren't so uptight but now many of them call everything racist, sexist, cultural appropriation and so on.KBABZ wrote:That's not the point. Unless you were told, people would just assume he's a black guy from the middle-east, based on the fact that he's got a classic blackface look and his clothing is distinctly midde-eastern, like Bulma's attire in the Rabbit village in the Pilaf arc. It's similar to Jinx in Pokémon, the fact that Jinx isn't a human doesn't matter, it's a racist caricature that doesn't fly today, let along Mr. Popo doing that AND having a lower-class dialect.JohnnyCashKami wrote:"Black slave" but he's not even human.KBABZ wrote: I'm fairly sure that it's done to avoid any bad connotations with Mr. Popo being Kami's uneducated black slave. As for Kaio, I've always suspected that it might be because he looks like a catfish.
It's how it is, I guess. At least FUNimation didn't try to change Popo's color to who knows what.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
I get what Toriyama was going for, the whole "guy who can't speak well is stronger than Goku who just beat Daimao", but the speaking mannerisms combined with his design just... doesn't work in the West.MyVisionity wrote:Somehow I didn't consider that FUNimation had picked up on the "Black slave" connotations, but had simply given Popo that kind of speech because they didn't really care about being consistent with the original Japanese. Although now that you mention it, maybe it was intentional...KBABZ wrote:I'm fairly sure that it's done to avoid any bad connotations with Mr. Popo being Kami's uneducated black slave.JohnnyCashKami wrote:Mister Popo is the same case, I'd say. According to the English subs derived from the Japanese audio, his Japanese isn't correctly spoken but on the dubs every one of them I've heard makes him sound as polite and respectable as God himself.
Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
Nadolny played Gohan pretty straight, but her Goku always spoke in a somewhat "confused" and withdrawn inflection, like he doesn't quite have a grasp on what he's saying. Like the little kid who can't quite spit it out.Kunzait_83 wrote:I mean don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think that some kind of over the top hillbilly redneck southern accent straight out of King of the Hill ought to be the way to go when adapting Goku's speech pattern/dialect into English. I subscribe to the "less is more" principle: some bad grammar, some very low key word slurring/mispronunciation, and maybe the subtlest, faintest hint of a twang in his voice would probably more than get this aspect of the character across just fine without turning him into some kind of Kung Fu Cletus.RandomGuy96 wrote:You make it sound like he should have an Appalachian accent.
But again, unless I'm not understanding KBABZ correctly on this, it sounds almost like he's interpreting/equating Nadonly's Goku as some sort of socially inept autistic boy who doesn't fully grasp interpersonal human interaction in how to speak.
The more blunt reality if course is that Nadonly's performance is stilted and awkward unintentionally due to it simply being a bad acting performance. Nonetheless though, "autistic Goku" is an interesting read on it.
Notably, her GT Kid Goku is more in line with Gohan and sounds super intelligent, although GT in general made Goku way too smart lol.
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Re: Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?
I wouldn't give Toriyama that much credit. I think Popo's character is definitely an intentional portrayal of the racist "Black slave" caricature.KBABZ wrote:I get what Toriyama was going for, the whole "guy who can't speak well is stronger than Goku who just beat Daimao"...
It doesn't work anywhere. In any time period.KBABZ wrote:...but the speaking mannerisms combined with his design just... doesn't work in the West.