Lavender Saiyan wrote:
Think of it like this...When Funimation switched from Ocean to their Texas cast 10 years ago people were able to adapt rather quickly. The only people who really and truley were pissed off about this and continued to be where people like EX who had already watched the JP version and deeply invested themselves into getting some proper releases for the series. The bulk of the fanbase didn't care too much.
*Raises hand* That's not entirely true. There are those of us who started on the older dub, who waited through that Raditz-Recoome loop of syndication hell (are they gonna keep going? FUCK its that damn space pod!), and who were not pleased with the under-experienced replacement voices. Especially since everyone but Kuririn was just a poor attempt at pretending to be the previous VA's, and Sonny really didn't start bringing anything to his roll until the next season (in my opinion). The music went from "meh" to "what the hell is this shit." Sorry Faulconer fans. Hell, I even have a couple of pieces of his that I enjoy, but S3 for the most part blew on so many levels (so much so that I barely even cared that it was "uncut").
So a number of us wanted the old voices. I'll admit, I like Sabat's Daimao, and in the Ma Junior Saga I didn't mind him. But considering that I went from McNeil to Furukawa (fansubs during the limbo) to Sabat... I just really wasn't feeling his take on the character.
Not to mention, Cartoon Network wasn't on basic cable back then. I know a few people who watched DBZ on the lower numbered networks but couldn't follow onto CN for a couple of years. And when they did, after watching "Saiyan" and "Namek" saga reruns as their sole source, they ha trouble adjusting too. The main fans of the current dub that I know are fans who jumped in on the Toonami block. Coming on daily after school brought in droves of fans who weren't following it once a week at the buttcrack of dawn.
As far as Sabat, I actually think if he combined hi old Drummond-esque voice with his current level of experience, the results might be interesting.
To show my appreciation, I'll only beat them half to death.