Why do English-speaking fans belittle the non-FUNimation dubs?

[Gligarman]

We have on record from Ian Corlett that Ocean paid its actors shit. (Which is why Kelamis replaced him) I don’t know if better pay=better voice actors. Ocean just knew how to get experience voice actors. Funimation, at least Funimation in 1999, did not and just grabbed whatever actors they could that they felt sounded close enough to the Ocean cast.

And to echo what Abed already said Funimation still isn’t union. I believe the vast majority of anime dubbing companies are non-union.

Yes. As I said, that's what happens when you don't offer union wages. You get who you can. And Sabat himself said he was directed to imitate the previous voice when he was hired for Vegeta. But regardless, I still prefer the Japanese version.

[Robo4900]

Not seeing the link between union pay and performance. I don't know for sure, but I think FUNi still doesn't use union actors.

So, I'm not an expert, but this is my current understanding of the situation...

I don't think it's a case of union pay, but rather the fact that in theory, any actors worth their salt will probably go union, so dub actors would be either actors who've failed to really make a break, or are using anime as a stepping stone for an early part of the actor's career until they're able to join a union and get into more well-paying(Read: Not anime) work in general. Remember; once you're in a union, you can't really do non-union work anymore. It can sometimes happen(Dameon Clarke reprising Cell, James Marsters being brought in to do Zamas, Brian Drummond's guest spot as Jelly Vegeta), but it's pretty rare. So, since Funimation is non-union, actors who do well enough to join a union and move up to doing a lot of work in LA(Such as Dameon Clarke) won't really be dubbing anime anymore.

Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Ocean has cream of the crop union actors like Scott McNeil still going in to do dubbing. It's not well-paying work, but these actors are generally doing well enough with prelay work that taking an anime role here or there won't do them harm, and if you see some interviews with these guys, there is a real love of the work itself, so since they can still do anime, they will still do anime. Of course, if Ocean was non-union, then these actors really just couldn't do it anymore. But it is union, so they can do it, unlike if they were working out of Texas or LA.

So, the end result of this basically is that while Funimation will generally do a passable job, it's Ocean who put out the really outstanding work like Death Note, Black Lagoon, or InuYasha.
Funimation don't cast bad actors anymore, and Texas has now become a hub of cheaper work for productions that can't afford LA(You'll see a lot of crossover between Funimation dub actors and video game voice actors), so you have a lot of good actors at the disposal of Funi, and Funi does call on non-union LA performers, with occasional union workers jumping in, but it's hard to beat Ocean's capability of having the absolute top of the range actors in Vancouver still doing dubbing work.

This applies much more strongly to Dragon Ball than it would otherwise because the Texas casting of Funimation was done in 1999, when Texas really wasn't anything in terms of voicework, especially at the pay level Funi were offering. And from the beginning, they sabotaged themselves by having the very limited pool of actors they pulled from in that time attempting to be soundalikes to the Ocean guys, and by having the cheaper actors do many more roles than the more expensive actors, so you got a lot of samevoice, and the actors having to do unnatural, clunky accents and such to try to make the casting pool feel larger, which ultimately stunted the acting ability of many of these performances, since they were working with such an unnatural, clunky accent or other aspect of the voice.
Nowadays, things are much better, but there still remains oddities such as Schemmel's Kaio still being just an impersonation of Don Brown's Kaio; not necessarily an issue if you've been a Funi fan all your life, but if you've ever been exposed to the Ocean cast, it feels a bit sort of uncanny valley, in that same way basically all post-1989 Looney Tunes productions will sound off because no matter how close anyone gets, no one in the world is quite Mel Blanc. Except here, no one died to make Schemmel Kaio, it was a business decision on Funi's part to make the work slightly cheaper, and a bit more convenient for Barry Watson. And unlike the Looney Tunes, there's not a wide-reaching effort to find the actor who can do the best job at it, it was just a case of Schemmel doing a good enough job of it in 1999 to get in. And that's not a knock on Schemmel, but it does go through your head when you're hearing this sort of bootleg Kaio voice.

So, with all this, we have a kind of perfect storm of factors that leaves any Ocean fans unsatisfied by the Funi cast of Dragon Ball.

[ABED]

I get the theory, but I think it's such a reductive view of the issue. You can find good actors anywhere. Not every actor desires to go to LA or NY. The problem wasn't not going union, it was their choice of directors, hiring people with little to no experience in either directing or acting, and their philosophy of hiring actors for their supposed ability to sound like a previous cast, an issue that has nothing to do with being union or not.

[Robo4900]

I get the theory, but I think it's such a reductive view of the issue. You can find good actors anywhere. Not every actor desires to go to LA or NY. The problem wasn't not going union, it was their choice of directors, hiring people with little to no experience in either directing or acting, and their philosophy of hiring actors for their supposed ability to sound like a previous cast.

I think those are major parts in why the Funi Dragon Ball dubbing feels lacklustre to Ocean fans, but I think my theory does at least factor in, not necessarily as much in Dragon Ball since there are those factors that play into it more strongly, but into Funi vs Ocean dubbing in general.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I don't think it's a case of union pay, but rather the fact that in theory, any actors worth their salt will probably go union, so dub actors would be either actors who've failed to really make a break, or are using anime as a stepping stone for an early part of the actor's career until they're able to join a union and get into more well-paying(Read: Not anime) work in general. Remember; once you're in a union, you can't really do non-union work anymore. It can sometimes happen(Dameon Clarke reprising Cell, James Marsters being brought in to do Zamas, Brian Drummond's guest spot as Jelly Vegeta), but it's pretty rare.

From what I've seen a lot of voice actors tend to love working on Dragon Ball because the franchise is so well loved and iconic. It's quite evident from the cast members who have stuck around for so long despite the low pay and the interest shown by union actors (which we can now add Veronica Taylor to). I also think its reasonable we should expect Funi's actors to want to branch out because of better pay conditions in prelay and outside of Texas. I know Chris Rager has said he is looking into doing non-anime work possibly in LA, and obviously Schemmel has done lots in New York for 4Kids but they will always still do Dragon Ball as it shows signs of being a passion project for them.

[8000 Saiyan]

I don't care if a dub is union or non-union. What matters is the acting quality.

[Robo4900]

I don't care if a dub is union or non-union. What matters is the acting quality.

The problem is, when dubbing is non-union -- which pretty much is always the case in the US -- union actors really can't do it, and any actor who's become moderately successful will probably join a union, so if it's a non-union dub, options for really great actors are limited. So, in theory, if it was union, the acting quality could be much better.

[8000 Saiyan]

I don't care if a dub is union or non-union. What matters is the acting quality.

The problem is, when dubbing is non-union -- which pretty much is always the case in the US -- union actors really can't do it, and any actor who's become moderately successful will probably join a union, so if it's a non-union dub, options for really great actors are limited. So, in theory, if it was union, the acting quality could be much better.

I'm pretty sure there's about a hundred voice actors in Texas or so, so their talent pool isn't exactly limited.

[Robo4900]

I don't care if a dub is union or non-union. What matters is the acting quality.

The problem is, when dubbing is non-union -- which pretty much is always the case in the US -- union actors really can't do it, and any actor who's become moderately successful will probably join a union, so if it's a non-union dub, options for really great actors are limited. So, in theory, if it was union, the acting quality could be much better.

I'm pretty sure there's about a hundred voice actors in Texas or so, so their talent pool isn't exactly limited.

Sure. And in fact, they've increasingly pulled from non-union performers from LA over the past several years.

But... How many union actors are based in LA?
And how many of them would be valuable additions to Funi's pool, if they could do anime dubbing?

[8000 Saiyan]

The problem is, when dubbing is non-union -- which pretty much is always the case in the US -- union actors really can't do it, and any actor who's become moderately successful will probably join a union, so if it's a non-union dub, options for really great actors are limited. So, in theory, if it was union, the acting quality could be much better.

I'm pretty sure there's about a hundred voice actors in Texas or so, so their talent pool isn't exactly limited.

Sure. And in fact, they've increasingly pulled from non-union performers from LA over the past several years.

But... How many union actors are based in LA?
And how many of them would be valuable additions to Funi's pool, if they could do anime dubbing?

You forget one thing: the pay for anime dubbing is pretty low, so they would be likely put off because of that.

[Oniman]

There's a FAR too large generation of an audience active online throughout the past decade and a half now who have largely thrown around labels like "dark", "edgy", "mature", "intelligent", "deep", "sophisticated", etc. for things that are absurdly, laughably trite, childish, and frivolous so often and for so long now, that they've in many ways honestly broken the critical gauge for these things, and we're at a point now where shit like Rick and Morty gets regularly highlighted as "dense" and "intellectual", Toy Story 3 is cited as "one of the most visceral dramas of all time", and non-animated movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier are unironically labeled "political thrillers" with a straight face. And yes, where people will genuinely call this goddamn thing "sophisticated".

Don't compare Rick and Morty to kids shit like Sonic, Toy Story and Captain America. Rick and Morty is TVMA on a late night channel that has deep themes, dry humor on the scale of a Wes Anderson movie and has stuff like blood, gore, F bombs, and sexual references. It would be the American version of Seinen anime along with Spawn, The Maxx, Aeon Flux, The Boondocks, Family Guy, Heavy Metal and Garry the Rat.

[KBABZ]

kids shit like... Toy Story

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

...seriously, Toy Story has very adult themes in it if you pay attention.

[Zephyr]

Define "adult themes".

[MasenkoHA]

[

Don't compare Rick and Morty to kids shit like Sonic, Toy Story and Captain America. Rick and Morty is TVMA on a late night channel that has deep themes, dry humor on the scale of a Wes Anderson movie and has stuff like blood, gore, F bombs, and sexual references. It would be the American version of Seinen anime along with Spawn, The Maxx, Aeon Flux, The Boondocks, Family Guy, Heavy Metal and Garry the Rat.

I always forget how overprotective Rick and Morty fans get of their mediocre show

kids shit like... Toy Story

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

...seriously, Toy Story has very adult themes in it if you pay attention.

Eh? Not really. While the third one was definitely written with the knowledge that a big part of its audience were kids when the first two came out none of them had adult themes. They were all pretty much written as kids movies that adults could watch with their kids without wanting to turn the screen off

[KBABZ]

Define "adult themes".

Toy Story 1: Being replaced by someone who is 100% undeniably better than you are.
Toy Story 2: Being abandoned by the one person you love the most and getting depressed.
Toy Story 3: Staring hellish certain death in the face and accepting it. Also the kindergarten is actually Auschwitz.

[Zephyr]

I meant more broadly. Like, what sets "adult themes" apart from "non adult themes"?

[MasenkoHA]

Toy Story 1: Being replaced by someone who is 100% undeniably better than you are.

Feeling like you’re being replaced is 100% somethings kids can relate to and probably more so than adults

You can find the x character feels like they’re being replaced by y character only to find out z character(s) likes them just the way they are in kid shows and movies all the time. It’s one of the most standard morality plays told to kids in fiction

Toy Story 2: Being abandoned by the one person you love the most and getting depressed.

Through the lens of a doll and her kid owner. Feelings of abandonment can be understood by both kids and adults but the way it was written was to make sure it was at a level really really little kids can understand. It’s not a deep or complex look at abandonment.

Toy Story 3: Staring hellish certain death in the face and accepting it.

That was like one arguably emotionally manipulative moment in the movie. No one dies.

MAlso the kindergarten is actually Auschwitz.

What.



Don’t confuse “not treating kids like complete dumbasses” with “adult”

[Robo4900]

I meant more broadly. Like, what sets "adult themes" apart from "non adult themes"?

This is a fair point.

I think more accurately, it's that the films don't look down to kids and give pandery, asinine stories where everything has to be okay, there can be no peril, etc., as is stereotypically associated with some crappy kids' shows, whether or not that ends up being the case in reality -- which, I'd argue isn't really the case anymore; a solid example is a show like Steven Universe, which is a show explicitly about sexuality, relationships, consent, etc., and never shies away from going all-in on the metaphors that underpin this; these days, shows like that are not only allowed to be on TV, but stuff like that, Adventure Time, etc. are generally expected, with only really those and some strong comedies being what hit big.

Point is, Toy Story isn't just fun lighthearted shenanigans with toys coming to life and having a gay old time. Younger kids who aren't interested in the more serious side will mostly walk out of the cinema remembering the jokes, the fun characters, etc. and not necessarily totally understanding the dark side of the film until they're a little older.
Finding Nemo is, to the young kids, fun shenanigans with fish. To older kids, teens, adults, etc., it's the story of the single father going to the literal ends of the earth to save his kid, and nearly completely failing...

Some people, I think, do underestimate childrens' abilities to notice this stuff, of course; the youngest kids won't really see it, but by the time a kid's like 10 or 12, they'll get all this, and that'll be a lot of the real value of these movies from this time on. It's the "The movie gets better as you get older" effect. You see the same kind of thing in Ben 10, Batman: The Animated Series, etc.

So... "Adult themes" is a bit of a misnomer, in my view. It's more a case of "It's actually intelligent stuff with themes; it's actually about something."

[ABED]

That was like one arguably emotionally manipulative moment in the movie. No one dies.

Death scenes can also be emotionally manipulative.

Pixar are family films. They can be appreciated by both children and their parents.

The DB dubs speak to the lowest common denominator.

[Hellspawn28]

Pixar movies outside of Wall E for me do nothing to me as a film buff (Even the last act of Wall E ruins the movie for me). Other animated family films outside of Japan like Watership Down, Kubo and the Two Strings, Coraline, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, The Secret of NIHM, and a few other movies do a better job on capturing on storytelling and have more of an artistic vision to them than anything from Pixar if you ask me.