Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by 8000 Saiyan » Sat Jun 23, 2018 1:08 pm

One change that really bothered me in the first episode of Super was Goku talking about how he has to keep training to keep his loved ones safe.
"It was deemed to be too awesome." - Scott McNeil on Dragon Ball Kai not being aired yet in Canada.

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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by gokaiblue » Sat Jun 23, 2018 1:09 pm

Singh is King wrote:
Kunzait_83 wrote:
WittyUsername wrote:That didn’t strike me as a “detailed explanation”. Saying that something sounds “unnatural” without citing specific examples is not a good explanation, in my opinion.
Over on Schemmel's end, in Kai (the "tremendously improved" version); he utterly FAILS to convince emotionally because he's, seemingly pathologically at this point, fundamentally incapable of conveying subtlety and nuance of emotions. Instead of subtly choking back tears, trying to stifle or muffle his anger... he's "Ygggggh!! RRRRGGGG!!! CONSTANTLY!!! UUUUGGHGHGHD!!!! MAKING!!! UUUGHSHAGAGGA!!! RIDICULOUS!!! AAAAAAAFFHFFFHFHFHGG!!! NOOOOOISES!!!"

He doesn't sound like someone who is genuinely in immense grief and rage... he sounds like a hammy, over-acting... *ahem*... hack, who's "big emotional moment" in this scene instead comes across as unintentionally laugh-out-loud hilarious. He literally sounds like he's tweaking on meth or something. It is totally unnatural and painfully, painfully forced: as has been the ever-recurring theme of every single last FUNimation Dragon Ball dub throughout the years.

When I listened to this clip the other day (from another link in this very thread) I actually laughed at it. Not purposefully or in deliberate exaggeration to "make a point" of how much I thought it sucked: no one was in the room with me at the time. My laughter was a genuine, uncontrolled reflex reaction to the absurd noises Schemmel was making. That's how this (massively crucially important and iconic within the DB series) scene actually landed with me. That's... NOT good, or in any way the intended reaction this should get.

If THIS is a "convincing display of grief" to someone... then I'm sorry, but I have to genuinely ask if you've EVER been around someone in real life who was in immense genuine grief before; and if you were and they sounded ANYTHING like this, I would then be forced to ask what sort of medication they happened to be on at the time that would make them sound ANYTHING like this.

And if THIS is the "FUNimation cast at their all time absolute best ever in the astronomical improvement that is the Kai dub"... then this ENTIRE FUNimation dubbing endeavor still remains as much of a massive belly-flop of a bomb as it ever has. And that its taken THIS many drawn out, tediously long years just for it to reach THIS mildly less crappy (but still crappy nonetheless) of a plateau... that in itself is beyond pathetic, and this whole dub has been a 20 year long exercise in continually polishing and spit-shining a turd.

And no, none of this is or has been me trying to "bait" anyone here... I don't do "baiting". I NEVER HAVE done "baiting". Ever. Ever-ever. I'm not a fucking Chan troll or something. What I say above I mean as earnestly and sincerely as just my personal take on all this crap (after more than 26+ fucking years of DB fandom... egads).

I just don't fundamentally agree with a lot of the "mainstream" opinions of the current day fanbase: in large part because I've NEVER been at ANY point coming at this material from the same critical vantage point as most of them. That doesn't mean I "look down on" anyone over any of this crap (that would be beyond sad in and of itself): it simply means that my perspective is, and has long been, RADICALLY different from most who are currently active in Dragon Ball (and even general anime) fandom today.

So... does THAT work for you? Was THAT enough to sufficiently help explain and "justify" my opinion on this?
I'd disagree with your assessment since I didn't find Schemmel's anger in that scene to be strained- I felt he was just trying to show Goku's rage in the Kai scene: is it the best possible voice acting for the scene? Maybe not, but it's still perfectly serviceable compared to how stiff/wooden he was in the Z dub scene, and I'd say like many that the current cast has come quite a way from their Z days where ever other VA would confuse "grrr hurr grrr hurr" in fight scenes for acting making a noise every time in the background (most evident back in the 99 days when Season 3 aired with Piccolo & Frieza fighting). There's been quite a substantial improvement from Z to Kai for FUNimation's dub for the most part, IMO. Sure there are voices I'd love to see replaced (King Kai/Kaio and Recoome being the most "Why was this voice kept for this long?" being the two most prominent examples) still, but most of the FUNi dub cast has certainly come a long way from that period.

And if you think Dragonball has it bad in terms of voice acting and dubbing still due to the random line changes, again, I'll reiterate what many did with the TPCi Pokemon dubs of XY & SM. That crew has also had a long time on the Series (12 years now!) and yet...

- TPCi is replacing more of the Japanese music than the much maligned 4Kids ever did back in the day now, and the recent season of Sun & Moon's dub as DBFan_1991 stated is full of nothing but "Only 1-2 pieces of Japanese music kept per episode with the rest of the episode full of wall to wall dub music" episodes. Made even worse by the fact over 300+ dub music cues played in a single dub episode "Treasure Hunt-Akala Style," to boot, and the same 4 stock themes beaten into the ground by the dubbers (there's a terrible ripoff of the 60s Batman theme that I've heard from people say has played over 100 times in only 60 episodes thus far).

- TPCi's voice acting has also only gotten worse over the last 12 years, it hasn't even improved marginally at best, unlike FUNi's dub cast for DB. Sarah Natochenny ("new" dub Ash) has her Ash nowadays sounding like an effeminate, raspy teenage girl, Bill Rogers made Brock sound like an elderly man with severe constipation issues (and I'll say had nothing on his predecessor Eric Stuart, even at his worst), and the list goes on & on with everything James Cathcart does (also being the current dub's script writer the past 12 years) being unfitting (James sounding like an elderly man with sinus issues, Meowth having a very deep, gruff voice, Professor Oak with a young mad scientist like voice, etc.)

- They still visually edit the dub, turning wine cups into orange juice glasses, calling apples "berries," turning beer into green acid rather than even water, etc. They also still rewrite the scripts quite a bit, especially turning the Team Rocket Trio into nothing more than a bunch of alliterating, rhyming, slang-spouting caricatures that would even make Dr. Seuss roll over in his grave (examples: "Dig it, jack, "Lugs," "Mugs," "Primo Pokemon pilfered prodigiously," etc.).

- And on top of all of this, TPCi won't even use the Japanese intros, even dubbed into English, TPCi keep making shorter and shorter dub opening themes, the last one is only 28 seconds long on a network where they are allowed to produce 1 min long intros themselves (as is evident with the dubs of Beyblade Burst & Yokai Watch that air on the same station Disney XD in the United States).

Contrast this with the FUNimation dubs of Kai & Super which at least try to keep the script mostly accurate, bothers to at least keep the Japanese intro but have an English dub singer do the vocals + singing for it, keep all the Japanese music, and don't edit things out visually speaking, and at worst, DB has gotten off extremely well when compared to the likes of Pokemon in terms of quality, regardless of thoughts on the voice acting (which I don't doubt your right to criticize, but just reminding you it could be much worse).

(P.S. Before you say Pokemon or Shadow the Hedgehog etc. shouldn't be used as a measure of proper voice acting or dub quality seeing as they're targeted towards kids, Dragonball is also technically targeted towards only a slightly older demographic as well, and it obviously isn't one of the only things I watched: I've watched Baccano, Blue Gender, Death Note, Seinfeld, The Dark Knight, The Godfather, Forrest Gump, Black Lagoon, Gundam Wing, Throne of Blood, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, among a host of others so my taste like gokaiblue's isn't limited to kids' programming either).
Agreed with your assesment, but not sure we need to constantly compare it to the current Pokémon dub.
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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by Robo4900 » Sat Jun 23, 2018 1:45 pm

Baggie_Saiyan wrote:I would agree the likes of Sabat and Horikawa are probably neck and neck now I think about it. But the likes of Goku is a massive improvement over the current Nozawa performance, her screams and grunts were woeful and were one note, every time Goku got knocked back it was the same annoying waaaaah scream that sounds like a poor impression of a crying baby for example and then the ridiculous Gohan vs Goku episode.
While I agree with what you have to say about Trunks, I strongly disagree with this.

Chris Sabat massively stepped up his performance between the end of the original dubbing in about 2006, and the start of Kai in 2009, and basically since then, he's been excellent. His portrayal of Vegeta provides the English-speaking world with a third definitive take on the character, and he more than deserves the praise he's got over the years for it.
However, comparing him to Horikawa is difficult, and perhaps not fair on Sabat. One is a massively well-respected veteran of voice acting who's been voicing this character for nearly 30 years at this point, the other is someone who only just got his start in voice acting when he took on the role 20 years ago. No offense to Sabat, he's an awesome guy who does a great job, but Horikawa has an edge.

And as for Goku, I couldn't disagree more.
On one hand, I'm willing to say fair enough on the screams from Nozawa being a bit goofy, to each their own on that, but the thing is, this is just about the sound of the voice. The sound of the voice is only about 30% of what makes an actor suited to a role, the rest is entirely down to their acting. And Schemmel's actual performance of the character -- while impressive -- is no-where near the level Nozawa is on. Schemmel does a good job for a dub voice, but Nozawa is the definitive, original voice of Goku. There's a reason that, after being cast in the show a good two years after the manga began, her voice is the voice Toriyama began hearing in his head as he wrote Goku's dialogue. It's not because the sound of the voice is what he had in mind, it's because she embodies the character to a degree that you could reasonably say no other actor in the world has.

And really, even the criticisms of her yells probably wouldn't stand up so well if you'd watched the entire original story with her voicing Goku; it feels like a much more naturally Goku sound if you're not switching to it from Schemmel for some random episodes of Super.
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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by Forte224 » Sat Jun 23, 2018 2:06 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
Baggie_Saiyan wrote:I would agree the likes of Sabat and Horikawa are probably neck and neck now I think about it. But the likes of Goku is a massive improvement over the current Nozawa performance, her screams and grunts were woeful and were one note, every time Goku got knocked back it was the same annoying waaaaah scream that sounds like a poor impression of a crying baby for example and then the ridiculous Gohan vs Goku episode.
While I agree with what you have to say about Trunks, I strongly disagree with this.

Chris Sabat massively stepped up his performance between the end of the original dubbing in about 2006, and the start of Kai in 2009, and basically since then, he's been excellent. His portrayal of Vegeta provides the English-speaking world with a third definitive take on the character, and he more than deserves the praise he's got over the years for it.
However, comparing him to Horikawa is difficult, and perhaps not fair on Sabat. One is a massively well-respected veteran of voice acting who's been voicing this character for nearly 30 years at this point, the other is someone who only just got his start in voice acting when he took on the role 20 years ago. No offense to Sabat, he's an awesome guy who does a great job, but Horikawa has an edge.

And as for Goku, I couldn't disagree more.
On one hand, I'm willing to say fair enough on the screams from Nozawa being a bit goofy, to each their own on that, but the thing is, this is just about the sound of the voice. The sound of the voice is only about 30% of what makes an actor suited to a role, the rest is entirely down to their acting. And Schemmel's actual performance of the character -- while impressive -- is no-where near the level Nozawa is on. Schemmel does a good job for a dub voice, but Nozawa is the definitive, original voice of Goku. There's a reason that, after being cast in the show a good two years after the manga began, her voice is the voice Toriyama began hearing in his head as he wrote Goku's dialogue. It's not because the sound of the voice is what he had in mind, it's because she embodies the character to a degree that you could reasonably say no other actor in the world has.

And really, even the criticisms of her yells probably wouldn't stand up so well if you'd watched the entire original story with her voicing Goku; it feels like a much more naturally Goku sound if you're not switching to it from Schemmel for some random episodes of Super.
Agreed on watching the entire original story with Nozawa. Hearing her transformation from young Goku to adult Goku feels very natural, to the point that any other choice for VA would've just felt wrong. And I never bought the Nadolny to Schemmel transition.

As regards Vegeta, I agree that with Kai he really improved and gave a performance that fit Vegeta well. But as of Super (well, it kind of started in TFC), he's regressed a bit to a mix of his 2005 re-dub voice and his Kai voice to the point that it isn't as enjoyable for me.

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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by Baggie_Saiyan » Sat Jun 23, 2018 2:12 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
Baggie_Saiyan wrote:I would agree the likes of Sabat and Horikawa are probably neck and neck now I think about it. But the likes of Goku is a massive improvement over the current Nozawa performance, her screams and grunts were woeful and were one note, every time Goku got knocked back it was the same annoying waaaaah scream that sounds like a poor impression of a crying baby for example and then the ridiculous Gohan vs Goku episode.
While I agree with what you have to say about Trunks, I strongly disagree with this.

Chris Sabat massively stepped up his performance between the end of the original dubbing in about 2006, and the start of Kai in 2009, and basically since then, he's been excellent. His portrayal of Vegeta provides the English-speaking world with a third definitive take on the character, and he more than deserves the praise he's got over the years for it.
However, comparing him to Horikawa is difficult, and perhaps not fair on Sabat. One is a massively well-respected veteran of voice acting who's been voicing this character for nearly 30 years at this point, the other is someone who only just got his start in voice acting when he took on the role 20 years ago. No offense to Sabat, he's an awesome guy who does a great job, but Horikawa has an edge.

And as for Goku, I couldn't disagree more.
On one hand, I'm willing to say fair enough on the screams from Nozawa being a bit goofy, to each their own on that, but the thing is, this is just about the sound of the voice. The sound of the voice is only about 30% of what makes an actor suited to a role, the rest is entirely down to their acting. And Schemmel's actual performance of the character -- while impressive -- is no-where near the level Nozawa is on. Schemmel does a good job for a dub voice, but Nozawa is the definitive, original voice of Goku. There's a reason that, after being cast in the show a good two years after the manga began, her voice is the voice Toriyama began hearing in his head as he wrote Goku's dialogue. It's not because the sound of the voice is what he had in mind, it's because she embodies the character to a degree that you could reasonably say no other actor in the world has.

And really, even the criticisms of her yells probably wouldn't stand up so well if you'd watched the entire original story with her voicing Goku; it feels like a much more naturally Goku sound if you're not switching to it from Schemmel for some random episodes of Super.
Prime Nozawa I'd agree with like I said in this thread earlier the dub cast even now aren't near the JPN cast from their prime but here I was strictly talking modern times. Modern Nozawa vs Modern Schemmel and I think Schemmel as her beat. Going from hearing Nozawa in Z from Ajays Z rewatch to DBS was pretty jarring. Episode #130 she was struggling to even keep up with the itense action as soon as Shida's cut started.

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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by Singh is King » Sat Jun 23, 2018 2:49 pm

gokaiblue wrote:
Singh is King wrote:
Kunzait_83 wrote:
Over on Schemmel's end, in Kai (the "tremendously improved" version); he utterly FAILS to convince emotionally because he's, seemingly pathologically at this point, fundamentally incapable of conveying subtlety and nuance of emotions. Instead of subtly choking back tears, trying to stifle or muffle his anger... he's "Ygggggh!! RRRRGGGG!!! CONSTANTLY!!! UUUUGGHGHGHD!!!! MAKING!!! UUUGHSHAGAGGA!!! RIDICULOUS!!! AAAAAAAFFHFFFHFHFHGG!!! NOOOOOISES!!!"

He doesn't sound like someone who is genuinely in immense grief and rage... he sounds like a hammy, over-acting... *ahem*... hack, who's "big emotional moment" in this scene instead comes across as unintentionally laugh-out-loud hilarious. He literally sounds like he's tweaking on meth or something. It is totally unnatural and painfully, painfully forced: as has been the ever-recurring theme of every single last FUNimation Dragon Ball dub throughout the years.

When I listened to this clip the other day (from another link in this very thread) I actually laughed at it. Not purposefully or in deliberate exaggeration to "make a point" of how much I thought it sucked: no one was in the room with me at the time. My laughter was a genuine, uncontrolled reflex reaction to the absurd noises Schemmel was making. That's how this (massively crucially important and iconic within the DB series) scene actually landed with me. That's... NOT good, or in any way the intended reaction this should get.

If THIS is a "convincing display of grief" to someone... then I'm sorry, but I have to genuinely ask if you've EVER been around someone in real life who was in immense genuine grief before; and if you were and they sounded ANYTHING like this, I would then be forced to ask what sort of medication they happened to be on at the time that would make them sound ANYTHING like this.

And if THIS is the "FUNimation cast at their all time absolute best ever in the astronomical improvement that is the Kai dub"... then this ENTIRE FUNimation dubbing endeavor still remains as much of a massive belly-flop of a bomb as it ever has. And that its taken THIS many drawn out, tediously long years just for it to reach THIS mildly less crappy (but still crappy nonetheless) of a plateau... that in itself is beyond pathetic, and this whole dub has been a 20 year long exercise in continually polishing and spit-shining a turd.

And no, none of this is or has been me trying to "bait" anyone here... I don't do "baiting". I NEVER HAVE done "baiting". Ever. Ever-ever. I'm not a fucking Chan troll or something. What I say above I mean as earnestly and sincerely as just my personal take on all this crap (after more than 26+ fucking years of DB fandom... egads).

I just don't fundamentally agree with a lot of the "mainstream" opinions of the current day fanbase: in large part because I've NEVER been at ANY point coming at this material from the same critical vantage point as most of them. That doesn't mean I "look down on" anyone over any of this crap (that would be beyond sad in and of itself): it simply means that my perspective is, and has long been, RADICALLY different from most who are currently active in Dragon Ball (and even general anime) fandom today.

So... does THAT work for you? Was THAT enough to sufficiently help explain and "justify" my opinion on this?
I'd disagree with your assessment since I didn't find Schemmel's anger in that scene to be strained- I felt he was just trying to show Goku's rage in the Kai scene: is it the best possible voice acting for the scene? Maybe not, but it's still perfectly serviceable compared to how stiff/wooden he was in the Z dub scene, and I'd say like many that the current cast has come quite a way from their Z days where ever other VA would confuse "grrr hurr grrr hurr" in fight scenes for acting making a noise every time in the background (most evident back in the 99 days when Season 3 aired with Piccolo & Frieza fighting). There's been quite a substantial improvement from Z to Kai for FUNimation's dub for the most part, IMO. Sure there are voices I'd love to see replaced (King Kai/Kaio and Recoome being the most "Why was this voice kept for this long?" being the two most prominent examples) still, but most of the FUNi dub cast has certainly come a long way from that period.

And if you think Dragonball has it bad in terms of voice acting and dubbing still due to the random line changes, again, I'll reiterate what many did with the TPCi Pokemon dubs of XY & SM. That crew has also had a long time on the Series (12 years now!) and yet...

- TPCi is replacing more of the Japanese music than the much maligned 4Kids ever did back in the day now, and the recent season of Sun & Moon's dub as DBFan_1991 stated is full of nothing but "Only 1-2 pieces of Japanese music kept per episode with the rest of the episode full of wall to wall dub music" episodes. Made even worse by the fact over 300+ dub music cues played in a single dub episode "Treasure Hunt-Akala Style," to boot, and the same 4 stock themes beaten into the ground by the dubbers (there's a terrible ripoff of the 60s Batman theme that I've heard from people say has played over 100 times in only 60 episodes thus far).

- TPCi's voice acting has also only gotten worse over the last 12 years, it hasn't even improved marginally at best, unlike FUNi's dub cast for DB. Sarah Natochenny ("new" dub Ash) has her Ash nowadays sounding like an effeminate, raspy teenage girl, Bill Rogers made Brock sound like an elderly man with severe constipation issues (and I'll say had nothing on his predecessor Eric Stuart, even at his worst), and the list goes on & on with everything James Cathcart does (also being the current dub's script writer the past 12 years) being unfitting (James sounding like an elderly man with sinus issues, Meowth having a very deep, gruff voice, Professor Oak with a young mad scientist like voice, etc.)

- They still visually edit the dub, turning wine cups into orange juice glasses, calling apples "berries," turning beer into green acid rather than even water, etc. They also still rewrite the scripts quite a bit, especially turning the Team Rocket Trio into nothing more than a bunch of alliterating, rhyming, slang-spouting caricatures that would even make Dr. Seuss roll over in his grave (examples: "Dig it, jack, "Lugs," "Mugs," "Primo Pokemon pilfered prodigiously," etc.).

- And on top of all of this, TPCi won't even use the Japanese intros, even dubbed into English, TPCi keep making shorter and shorter dub opening themes, the last one is only 28 seconds long on a network where they are allowed to produce 1 min long intros themselves (as is evident with the dubs of Beyblade Burst & Yokai Watch that air on the same station Disney XD in the United States).

Contrast this with the FUNimation dubs of Kai & Super which at least try to keep the script mostly accurate, bothers to at least keep the Japanese intro but have an English dub singer do the vocals + singing for it, keep all the Japanese music, and don't edit things out visually speaking, and at worst, DB has gotten off extremely well when compared to the likes of Pokemon in terms of quality, regardless of thoughts on the voice acting (which I don't doubt your right to criticize, but just reminding you it could be much worse).

(P.S. Before you say Pokemon or Shadow the Hedgehog etc. shouldn't be used as a measure of proper voice acting or dub quality seeing as they're targeted towards kids, Dragonball is also technically targeted towards only a slightly older demographic as well, and it obviously isn't one of the only things I watched: I've watched Baccano, Blue Gender, Death Note, Seinfeld, The Dark Knight, The Godfather, Forrest Gump, Black Lagoon, Gundam Wing, Throne of Blood, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, among a host of others so my taste like gokaiblue's isn't limited to kids' programming either).
Agreed with your assesment, but not sure we need to constantly compare it to the current Pokémon dub.
True, fair enough, just pointing out that at least the Dragonball dubs have at least been improving for the most part. :thumbup:

Even some of the script changes are understandable in the Super dub (some are cringe-worthy, admittedly, have already been brought up), the one I most disliked was "Later gators" recently, but when FUNimation had to translate that from "Bye-cha" supposedly in Japanese, I can understand why that may have had to be phrased that way.

As for the topic of this thread, I agree the Kai dub was superior to the Super dub mainly due to sticking to the script closer, but I can acknowledge the Future Trunks return arc for Super's dub has been a step up on that front from previous Super-dubbed Arcs. I do wish they'd cut out the "creative liberties" but so long as they don't actively undermine the characters' personalities it doesn't bother me *too* much.

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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by gokaiblue » Sat Jun 23, 2018 6:11 pm

Singh is King wrote:
gokaiblue wrote:
Singh is King wrote:
I'd disagree with your assessment since I didn't find Schemmel's anger in that scene to be strained- I felt he was just trying to show Goku's rage in the Kai scene: is it the best possible voice acting for the scene? Maybe not, but it's still perfectly serviceable compared to how stiff/wooden he was in the Z dub scene, and I'd say like many that the current cast has come quite a way from their Z days where ever other VA would confuse "grrr hurr grrr hurr" in fight scenes for acting making a noise every time in the background (most evident back in the 99 days when Season 3 aired with Piccolo & Frieza fighting). There's been quite a substantial improvement from Z to Kai for FUNimation's dub for the most part, IMO. Sure there are voices I'd love to see replaced (King Kai/Kaio and Recoome being the most "Why was this voice kept for this long?" being the two most prominent examples) still, but most of the FUNi dub cast has certainly come a long way from that period.

And if you think Dragonball has it bad in terms of voice acting and dubbing still due to the random line changes, again, I'll reiterate what many did with the TPCi Pokemon dubs of XY & SM. That crew has also had a long time on the Series (12 years now!) and yet...

- TPCi is replacing more of the Japanese music than the much maligned 4Kids ever did back in the day now, and the recent season of Sun & Moon's dub as DBFan_1991 stated is full of nothing but "Only 1-2 pieces of Japanese music kept per episode with the rest of the episode full of wall to wall dub music" episodes. Made even worse by the fact over 300+ dub music cues played in a single dub episode "Treasure Hunt-Akala Style," to boot, and the same 4 stock themes beaten into the ground by the dubbers (there's a terrible ripoff of the 60s Batman theme that I've heard from people say has played over 100 times in only 60 episodes thus far).

- TPCi's voice acting has also only gotten worse over the last 12 years, it hasn't even improved marginally at best, unlike FUNi's dub cast for DB. Sarah Natochenny ("new" dub Ash) has her Ash nowadays sounding like an effeminate, raspy teenage girl, Bill Rogers made Brock sound like an elderly man with severe constipation issues (and I'll say had nothing on his predecessor Eric Stuart, even at his worst), and the list goes on & on with everything James Cathcart does (also being the current dub's script writer the past 12 years) being unfitting (James sounding like an elderly man with sinus issues, Meowth having a very deep, gruff voice, Professor Oak with a young mad scientist like voice, etc.)

- They still visually edit the dub, turning wine cups into orange juice glasses, calling apples "berries," turning beer into green acid rather than even water, etc. They also still rewrite the scripts quite a bit, especially turning the Team Rocket Trio into nothing more than a bunch of alliterating, rhyming, slang-spouting caricatures that would even make Dr. Seuss roll over in his grave (examples: "Dig it, jack, "Lugs," "Mugs," "Primo Pokemon pilfered prodigiously," etc.).

- And on top of all of this, TPCi won't even use the Japanese intros, even dubbed into English, TPCi keep making shorter and shorter dub opening themes, the last one is only 28 seconds long on a network where they are allowed to produce 1 min long intros themselves (as is evident with the dubs of Beyblade Burst & Yokai Watch that air on the same station Disney XD in the United States).

Contrast this with the FUNimation dubs of Kai & Super which at least try to keep the script mostly accurate, bothers to at least keep the Japanese intro but have an English dub singer do the vocals + singing for it, keep all the Japanese music, and don't edit things out visually speaking, and at worst, DB has gotten off extremely well when compared to the likes of Pokemon in terms of quality, regardless of thoughts on the voice acting (which I don't doubt your right to criticize, but just reminding you it could be much worse).

(P.S. Before you say Pokemon or Shadow the Hedgehog etc. shouldn't be used as a measure of proper voice acting or dub quality seeing as they're targeted towards kids, Dragonball is also technically targeted towards only a slightly older demographic as well, and it obviously isn't one of the only things I watched: I've watched Baccano, Blue Gender, Death Note, Seinfeld, The Dark Knight, The Godfather, Forrest Gump, Black Lagoon, Gundam Wing, Throne of Blood, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, among a host of others so my taste like gokaiblue's isn't limited to kids' programming either).
Agreed with your assesment, but not sure we need to constantly compare it to the current Pokémon dub.
True, fair enough, just pointing out that at least the Dragonball dubs have at least been improving for the most part. :thumbup:

Even some of the script changes are understandable in the Super dub (some are cringe-worthy, admittedly, have already been brought up), the one I most disliked was "Later gators" recently, but when FUNimation had to translate that from "Bye-cha" supposedly in Japanese, I can understand why that may have had to be phrased that way.

As for the topic of this thread, I agree the Kai dub was superior to the Super dub mainly due to sticking to the script closer, but I can acknowledge the Future Trunks return arc for Super's dub has been a step up on that front from previous Super-dubbed Arcs. I do wish they'd cut out the "creative liberties" but so long as they don't actively undermine the characters' personalities it doesn't bother me *too* much.
Agreed. The "Bye-cha" was a reference only hardcore nerds like us would get, so they had to change it. Of course, they could've left it in as a treat for us. :wink: It might've even given them the incentive to dub Dr. Slump.
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Robo4900 wrote:
Baggie_Saiyan wrote:I would agree the likes of Sabat and Horikawa are probably neck and neck now I think about it. But the likes of Goku is a massive improvement over the current Nozawa performance, her screams and grunts were woeful and were one note, every time Goku got knocked back it was the same annoying waaaaah scream that sounds like a poor impression of a crying baby for example and then the ridiculous Gohan vs Goku episode.
While I agree with what you have to say about Trunks, I strongly disagree with this.

Chris Sabat massively stepped up his performance between the end of the original dubbing in about 2006, and the start of Kai in 2009, and basically since then, he's been excellent. His portrayal of Vegeta provides the English-speaking world with a third definitive take on the character, and he more than deserves the praise he's got over the years for it.
However, comparing him to Horikawa is difficult, and perhaps not fair on Sabat. One is a massively well-respected veteran of voice acting who's been voicing this character for nearly 30 years at this point, the other is someone who only just got his start in voice acting when he took on the role 20 years ago. No offense to Sabat, he's an awesome guy who does a great job, but Horikawa has an edge.

And as for Goku, I couldn't disagree more.
On one hand, I'm willing to say fair enough on the screams from Nozawa being a bit goofy, to each their own on that, but the thing is, this is just about the sound of the voice. The sound of the voice is only about 30% of what makes an actor suited to a role, the rest is entirely down to their acting. And Schemmel's actual performance of the character -- while impressive -- is no-where near the level Nozawa is on. Schemmel does a good job for a dub voice, but Nozawa is the definitive, original voice of Goku. There's a reason that, after being cast in the show a good two years after the manga began, her voice is the voice Toriyama began hearing in his head as he wrote Goku's dialogue. It's not because the sound of the voice is what he had in mind, it's because she embodies the character to a degree that you could reasonably say no other actor in the world has.

And really, even the criticisms of her yells probably wouldn't stand up so well if you'd watched the entire original story with her voicing Goku; it feels like a much more naturally Goku sound if you're not switching to it from Schemmel for some random episodes of Super.
Prime Nozawa I'd agree with like I said in this thread earlier the dub cast even now aren't near the JPN cast from their prime but here I was strictly talking modern times. Modern Nozawa vs Modern Schemmel and I think Schemmel as her beat. Going from hearing Nozawa in Z from Ajays Z rewatch to DBS was pretty jarring. Episode #130 she was struggling to even keep up with the itense action as soon as Shida's cut started.
Definitely going to have to rewatch #130 then. Did not notice that at all!
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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by WittyUsername » Sat Jun 23, 2018 8:13 pm

I guess I’ll go ahead and say that I’m of the opinion that some minor liberties that are done in order to “spice up” the dialogue are okay. A dub script should obviously be faithful to the Japanese version, but as long as the character’s personalities aren’t being altered, and the plot is kept as is, lines like “I forgot my tractor” and “Later, gators” shouldn’t be a problem.

Besides, it can be easy to forget, but English and Japanese are two distinctly different languages, so trying to directly translate lines of dialogue as closely as possible can lead to some awkward sounding exchanges, especially since anime like Dragon Ball often have a problem regarding repetitive lines of dialogue. On top of that, there’s also the issue of making sure the lip movements line up.

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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by Fionordequester » Sat Jun 23, 2018 8:19 pm

WittyUsername wrote:Besides, it can be easy to forget, but English and Japanese are two distinctly different languages, so trying to directly translate lines of dialogue as closely as possible can lead to some awkward sounding exchanges, especially since anime like Dragon Ball often have a problem regarding repetitive lines of dialogue.
To be perfectly honest...even Kai 1.0 had that problem, in a select few times. Normally it was pretty good...but every so often, there was that one scene where the dialogue felt just a tad too literal; just a tad too formal (referring to everything Goku says from 1:30-2:00).
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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by 8000 Saiyan » Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:43 pm

I honestly wouldn't say Schemmel is better than current Nozawa. Sure, he has improved, but Nozawa is still Nozawa. Same goes for Horikawa.

I do agree that Vale isn't better than Kusao, but then again Kusao was always better. Nowadays, I wish they could have replaced him with Aaron Dismuke. That raspy voice doesn't really fit Future Trunks.
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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by ABED » Sun Jun 24, 2018 8:25 am

Vale should just use his regular voice.
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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by Dbzfan94 » Sun Jun 24, 2018 10:52 am

The sad part is, Vales voice for Future Trunks in Z was a lot better. Say what you want about the acting, it the voice itself was much less raspy and sounded more natural.

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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by XanatosVanBadass » Sun Jun 24, 2018 12:51 pm

Really, I’m probably more militant than Kunzait or whatever in that I think dubbing as a thing is outdated and we should just watch subs.

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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by 8000 Saiyan » Sun Jun 24, 2018 1:52 pm

Yeah, he would have been so much better if he had used his Z voice.
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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by Robo4900 » Sun Jun 24, 2018 2:42 pm

XanatosVanBadass wrote:Really, I’m probably more militant than Kunzait or whatever in that I think dubbing as a thing is outdated and we should just watch subs.
The problem is, some people just can't watch subs(Dyslexics, etc.), and many people have great difficulty in concentrating on watching a show and reading subtitles, so dubs do have a strong argument for accessibility. Plus, with dubs as good as Death Note, it can provide a slightly alternate way to rewatch the show later on where you don't really gain or lose anything of any note, but it provides different performances in all the roles, rather like seeing a new production of your favourite stage play, and can be an entertaining way to switch up a repeat viewing.
And, sometimes you get something like Cowboy Bebop, where they took certain liberties with the performances and style that end up meaning while it's still a highly faithful dub, it works better for general English audiences than the sub track does.

And honestly, if a dub is good(Like Bebop, Death Note, Black Lagoon, etc.), then sub vs dub doesn't enter into it -- you're fine watching either.
The problem is, the Dragon Ball dubs are not good enough. At best, you have dubs like Blue Water's GT or Pioneer's movie dubs, where if you can't watch subs for one reason or another, you'll be fine watching it, but it's such a limited part of the franchise, it's barely worth mentioning.
Dbzfan94 wrote:The sad part is, Vales voice for Future Trunks in Z was a lot better. Say what you want about the acting, it the voice itself was much less raspy and sounded more natural.
I think he could have still broken through the problem of the voice being a little unnatural nowadays if the way he'd played it sounded more natural, which is a recurring problem with cast members held over from the older Funi Dragon Ball dubs.
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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by WittyUsername » Sun Jun 24, 2018 3:10 pm

I still don’t really see how something like the Blue Water dub of GT can be considered to be one of the top quality dubs of Dragon Ball. I definitely think Funimation’s current dubs for Dragon Ball are better than that. A scene like this (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dhdK2zKzi4E) wasn’t exactly handled better than this (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UiqbAw_Amoo).

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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by jjgp1112 » Sun Jun 24, 2018 5:59 pm

ABED wrote:Vale should just use his regular voice.
Yeah, I don't know what the fuck has been going on with his approach to Trunks since Kai. He was just fine with a regular voice but for whatever reason he uses this overly gruff delivery now that just doesn't work at all. The acting's better but the voice is worse.
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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by WittyUsername » Sun Jun 24, 2018 7:32 pm

I get the feeling that the reason Vale’s voice sounds the way it does nowadays is because he’s not a twenty-something anyway. Either that or he’s a smoker.

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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by 8000 Saiyan » Sun Jun 24, 2018 9:26 pm

WittyUsername wrote:I get the feeling that the reason Vale’s voice sounds the way it does nowadays is because he’s not a twenty-something anyway. Either that or he’s a smoker.
Apparently he did smoke for a while or so I've heard. Might work for a character like Sanji from One Piece but not for Trunks.
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Re: Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

Post by Kamiccolo9 » Sun Jun 24, 2018 10:01 pm

jjgp1112 wrote:
ABED wrote:Vale should just use his regular voice.
Yeah, I don't know what the fuck has been going on with his approach to Trunks since Kai. He was just fine with a regular voice but for whatever reason he uses this overly gruff delivery now that just doesn't work at all. The acting's better but the voice is worse.
The only other thing I can place him in off the top of my head is Kimblee in FMA, and he's awful in that otherwise pretty good dub. That rasp just makes my ears burn, especially when he's philosophizing in that voice.
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