Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by JulieYBM » Wed Nov 21, 2018 11:08 am

One of my favorite things about Dragon Ball during the original run was how often the same actor would be reused in small roles with the same voice. I'd have preferred Yanami to just use his normal voice for Babidi but that weird falsetto he did was still good. I almost always forget it was him because it's literally the only villain role he played throughout the entire franchise. I wonder if he fought for that one? :p
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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by MajinMan » Wed Nov 21, 2018 5:18 pm

I like Babidi’s voice just fine. I actually think it’s pretty funny whenever he talks. If you want to talk about the REAL worst voice in Japanese Dragon Ball, look no further than adult Dende in the Buu arc. His screams are really annoying and his voice is generic.
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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by Majin Buu » Wed Nov 21, 2018 5:22 pm

Totally disagree with the op.

Yanami's Babidi sounds like a whiny, childish old guy- which is exactly what Babidi is.

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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by ABED » Wed Nov 21, 2018 5:56 pm

Honestly, I prefer a younger voice for Babidi. I know he's old compared to humans, but he's a wizard, so he could be young for his species.
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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by Cursed Lemon » Wed Nov 21, 2018 6:23 pm

It's Kaio-sama and it's not even close.
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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by Majin Buu » Wed Nov 21, 2018 6:38 pm

ABED wrote:Honestly, I prefer a younger voice for Babidi. I know he's old compared to humans, but he's a wizard, so he could be young for his species.
We're not given any context for something like that though, so I see no reason to view him as anything other than an old guy with the mind of a spoiled brat.

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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by ABED » Wed Nov 21, 2018 7:50 pm

Majin Buu wrote:
ABED wrote:Honestly, I prefer a younger voice for Babidi. I know he's old compared to humans, but he's a wizard, so he could be young for his species.
We're not given any context for something like that though, so I see no reason to view him as anything other than an old guy with the mind of a spoiled brat.
It's arbitrary though. We don't get much backstory on him beside he's the son of the wizard that created Buu, so it's open for interpretation.
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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by Majin Buu » Thu Nov 22, 2018 8:45 am

ABED wrote:It's arbitrary though. We don't get much backstory on him beside he's the son of the wizard that created Buu, so it's open for interpretation.
His face has a wrinkled look and he's typically seen with a hunched posture, both common signifiers for old people. He may be an alien wizard, but he's coded as an old person.

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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by ABED » Thu Nov 22, 2018 9:13 am

Majin Buu wrote:
ABED wrote:It's arbitrary though. We don't get much backstory on him beside he's the son of the wizard that created Buu, so it's open for interpretation.
His face has a wrinkled look and he's typically seen with a hunched posture, both common signifiers for old people. He may be an alien wizard, but he's coded as an old person.
But he's not a man. It's a cartoon, you don't have to be literal.
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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by SheonGT » Thu Nov 22, 2018 11:44 pm

The Japanese portrayals of Babidi and Buu have both of them being total goofs who are also capable of murder. Fine.

But in english, Babidi’s a little more serious, a little more of an obsessive, crazy wizard midget, combined with his strong, close to silent right hand man Dabra. It makes you think Buu’s gonna be this crazy unstoppable tsunami of murder from hell.

But we get this goofy, childish, Elmo-like pink guy instead. And it’s almost the antithesis of what the English dub built Babidi up to be. And they bring out the best in each other’s personalities, as Babidi constantly screeches ordering Buu along and Buu just kinda goes with it until bye bye Babidi’s Head.

But I guess you can’t really say the original source material is invalid, can you?
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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by Majin Buu » Fri Nov 23, 2018 10:36 am

ABED wrote:But he's not a man. It's a cartoon, you don't have to be literal.
Non-humans being given human characteristics occurs in fiction all the time. Babidi being coded as an old man despite being an alien wizard isn't unusual in that regard.
SheonGT wrote:The Japanese portrayals of Babidi and Buu have both of them being total goofs who are also capable of murder. Fine.

But in english, Babidi’s a little more serious, a little more of an obsessive, crazy wizard midget, combined with his strong, close to silent right hand man Dabra. It makes you think Buu’s gonna be this crazy unstoppable tsunami of murder from hell.

But we get this goofy, childish, Elmo-like pink guy instead. And it’s almost the antithesis of what the English dub built Babidi up to be. And they bring out the best in each other’s personalities, as Babidi constantly screeches ordering Buu along and Buu just kinda goes with it until bye bye Babidi’s Head.
Original Japanese Babidi is a goof, just not in the way Fat Buu is. The English dub got Babidi's character wrong because the fundamental aspect of Babidi's character is that he's incredibly childish, immature, and stupid. Despite being a centuries-old wizard, he's ultimately just a vicious idiot. It actually creates an interesting contrast to Fat Buu since Buu's also centuries-old and childish, but in a pure and innocent way; he genuinely doesn't know that killing is wrong. Babidi is childish in an immature, bratty way; and chooses to be a sadistic bastard, particularly when it's not in his best interest.

Since the dub plays Babidi as more serious and less immature, that fundamental aspect of his character is lost. Another instance of the dub needlessly altering characterization.

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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by Gyt Kaliba » Fri Nov 23, 2018 10:53 am

Majin Buu wrote:Original Japanese Babidi is a goof, just not in the way Fat Buu is. The English dub got Babidi's character wrong because the fundamental aspect of Babidi's character is that he's incredibly childish, immature, and stupid. Despite being a centuries-old wizard, he's ultimately just a vicious idiot. It actually creates an interesting contrast to Fat Buu since Buu's also centuries-old and childish, but in a pure and innocent way; he genuinely doesn't know that killing is wrong. Babidi is childish in an immature, bratty way; and chooses to be a sadistic bastard, particularly when it's not in his best interest.

Since the dub plays Babidi as more serious and less immature, that fundamental aspect of his character is lost. Another instance of the dub needlessly altering characterization.
The dub voice may be played more seriously, but I wouldn't at all say that they 'altered the character' of Babidi in the dub. He still comes across whiny and immature when things aren't going his way, especially in the scenes where it looks like Boo's revival has been botched. There are many instances where the old dub did alter characterization, but Babidi is far from one of those in the long run.
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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by Majin Buu » Fri Nov 23, 2018 10:59 am

Gyt Kaliba wrote:The dub voice may be played more seriously, but I wouldn't at all say that they 'altered the character' of Babidi in the dub. He still comes across whiny and immature when things aren't going his way, especially in the scenes where it looks like Boo's revival has been botched. There are many instances where the old dub did alter characterization, but Babidi is far from one of those in the long run.
Dub Babidi comes off as more of a general egomaniac to me, rather than a specifically childish and immature idiot.

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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by Cipher » Fri Nov 23, 2018 11:10 am

I could not disagree with this more. Bobbidi has one of the more memorable, and appropriately unnerving (in terms of delivery more than the voice itself) voices in the entire anime run. I'm disappointed we couldn't get the same performance back for Kai.

Bin Shimada's take is fine, but it's a little hum-drum in comparison. I miss Yanami's deep, strangely sing-song approach. (Shimada's Bobbodi voice also gets reused pretty much without alteration for Dyspo down the line.)

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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by ABED » Fri Nov 23, 2018 11:51 am

Majin Buu wrote:
ABED wrote:But he's not a man. It's a cartoon, you don't have to be literal.
Non-humans being given human characteristics occurs in fiction all the time. Babidi being coded as an old man despite being an alien wizard isn't unusual in that regard.
I'm well aware, but fiction isn't bound by those rules.
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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by Majin Buu » Fri Nov 23, 2018 12:56 pm

ABED wrote:I'm well aware, but fiction isn't bound by those rules.
And I never said otherwise. It just doesn't seem open to interpretation with Babidi since he gives off clear indicators of being coded as old.

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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by ABED » Fri Nov 23, 2018 1:43 pm

It is open to interpretation. He's an alien, older but still alien.
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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Fri Nov 23, 2018 2:25 pm

Count me in as never having had much of an issue with Babidi's Japanese voice. Also, regardless of Yanami being the same voice behind the narrator and Kaio, whoever it was that said earlier in this thread that his Babidi voice sounds the same as those voices.... are we hearing the same performance here? Yanami's Babidi performance sounds absolutely NOTHING like his Kaio or Narrator voice in the absolute SLIGHTEST.

Now Yanami's Kaio and Narrator voices ARE basically the exact same voice - which has lead to the very long-standing and fun fan theory (which I also subscribe to incidentally) that the Dragon Ball Narrator is in fact supposed to be Kaio - but his Babidi voice by contrast is TOTALLY a different beast entirely from those, using a totally different vocal register.

Yanami's a wonderful actor, one of the absolute best among the entire Japanese cast in fact... and while Babidi is one of the weirder, sillier characters in Dragon Ball (which is saying something), Yanami's performance manages an admirable tightrope walk of being at once cartoonishly "off" while at the same time still subtly menacing when needed to be.

The sing-song thing he does with his cadence is a huge, huge risk that could've easily been ridiculously cringe-inducing and godawful in lesser hands (I can't even imagine how unlistenable that would've been had any of the charisma-free no-talents among the dub's cast tried to replicate that)... but by sheer, raw force of talent and acting skill, Yanami makes it work and plays it in just the right sweet spot in between subtle and over the top, making it almost fall into this uncanny valley of sounding both cartoonish AND organic at the same time.

Its one of the relatively few "put-on" voices among the Japanese cast (a majority of whom largely just speak in their natural voice), but Yanami makes it sound effortless and unforced, almost like its his natural way of speaking despite being such a weird and silly voice. Once again, we come back to that key X-factor that the Japanese cast has which the FUNimation cast doesn't: effortless and unforced. Aka, acting talent and natural speaking charisma.

I'll give this thread some credit though: it managed to make me think more about Yanami's Babidi performance than I have probably since the first time I'd heard it all the way back in '94, which has me appreciating it a lot more now and making me realize how much I've taken a few of these voices for granted throughout the years: which in many ways is a highly positive and complimentary sign of how natural and totally at home most of these actors sound in these roles, that often times you don't even think about them that much after awhile. They just ARE, they just perfectly inhabit these characters like they've come to life straight off the manga page.

Among my friends and I, back in those early/-mid 90s years before the U.S. dub, Babidi was one of those voices we'd used to do our own imitations of with a fair bit of frequency: particularly his sing-songy chant of "Paparapaaaaa!" and "Nice shot!" and whatnot ("Nice shot!" said in Yanami's Babidi voice even became something of a longstanding catchphrase of ours for a little while there, especially when playing shooter video games at the arcade and such). It was memorable and certainly silly but without sounding cringy and stupid either.

Thinking about it more, I think the voice has something of a classical fairy tale-feel to it: both Babidi and Boo are not only named after fairy tale characters, they both generally come across as characters straight out of an old school Brother's Grimm fairy tale (being silly and whimsical magical beings who are also capable of horrifically grave, murderous deeds), with the wizard who summons the creature to life speaking his lines in a song-song cadence and whatnot, almost like everything he's saying is part of some sort of demented nursery rhyme: which when coupled with his bloodthirsty maliciousness, gives him in turns both a genuinely menacing feel as well as a darkly humorous one during the appropriate scenes.

Again, this is the type of thing that could have VERY easily in lesser hands just come across as flagrantly stupid and unlistenably corny: but giving that role to Yanami was such a smart move, since as I said, Yanami is easily among the biggest talents among a cast already rife with Japanese VA industry legends. He makes such a weird shtick actually work and sound natural and unforced, even giving it shades of nuance and depth, against all odds. And despite all the praise I've been giving it here, I'd still say that Yanami's Babidi voice isn't among my favorite performances throughout the series, because Dragon Ball as an anime is just so overflowingly rife with such great voice actors doing great work with such memorable characters. But Yanami's Babidi is still a damn good one all the same.

For a good contrast though of a Japanese cast member who does a silly and over the top put-on voice and having it sound utterly TERRIBLE and unnaturally forced (similarly to much of FUNimation's entire stable) look no further than Hiroshi Masuoka, Muten Roshi's replacement voice in the wake of Kohei Miyauchi's passing during the tail-most end of Z and throughout GT. Easily one of the worst ever performances out of the Japanese cast and a MASSIVE downgrade from Miyauchi's, which may well be my own personal singular favorite acting performance in the entire franchise.

And finally, yeah, Babidi as a character TOTALLY reads visually as a withered old man: he literally looks like a shriveled up testicle in a wizard's robe (something my friends and I back in the early days found no end of humor in): having an old man voice him makes perfect sense and feels totally at home for the character.
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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by Majin Buu » Fri Nov 23, 2018 5:06 pm

ABED wrote:It is open to interpretation. He's an alien, older but still alien.
Agree to disagree then.
Kunzait_83 wrote:And finally, yeah, Babidi as a character TOTALLY reads visually as a withered old man: he literally looks like a shriveled up testicle in a wizard's robe (something my friends and I back in the early days found no end of humor in): having an old man voice him makes perfect sense and feels totally at home for the character.
Agreed. Though Yanami's Babidi is among my favorite performances of the Japanese cast.

And to be fair to the dub for once, with the caliber of voice acting the dub had, they likely didn't have anyone capable of convincingly emulating Yanami's performance in English (like Kunzait said, even in Japanese that performance would have been awful in less capable hands). Dub Babidi doesn't work for me, but that's probably the best we're going to get for an English version of him.

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Re: Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

Post by ABED » Fri Nov 23, 2018 6:49 pm

Agree to disagree that a cartoon with an alien, even an older alien lends itself to numerous takes and not just surface level "he looks old ergo must have an old man voice"? I don't know if you understand that I clearly see that he looks old. I'm simply saying you don't have to go with that one fact when determining who voices him. I like having a younger voice because it plays up the almost naivete of the character. He's essentially a powerful wizard who isn't as smart as he thinks he is. The old man voice fits, I never said otherwise, just that it's not the only valid take on it. Another reason I like the idea of a relatively younger voice plays him is that it emphasizes him being a son.
He makes such a weird shtick actually work and sound natural and unforced, even giving it shades of nuance and depth, against all odds.
It's a fun performance, but I don't see much depth in the character.
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