I used to spend way too much time debating this sort of thing on YouTube back in the day. Overall I think FUNi's in-house dub is pretty cringeworthy, more so than Ocean's. In general I don't really have an issue with the original (that is, subs), because it sounds like a cohesive effort, despite it being in mono. The biggest excuse I've heard over the years is: "They all sound like girls!" Now, that isn't true at all, but even if they did, so what? It's just ethnocentric nonsense.
I typically get a lot of shit for this, but I really don't think Sabat has improved that much. Adding an echo filter to his voice doesn't make his screams anymore powerful. Drummond can scream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CH4k_URq4o
Sabat's always reminded me of a chain smoker, or raspy old man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqe_5q1mUtY I watched a few scenes from Battle of the Gods, given that I could hardly tolerate it subbed. The 'bingo' scene with Vegeta really made me feel like Sabat wasn't even trying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hKlJcp_f0o I recall a number of times when he confused grunts and noises with Piccolo's voice throughout Kai (which I suppose is a bit better than his earlier work, confusing voices with that godawful Kuwabara inflection). Ryo Horikawa is phenomenal in Z (not so much in Kai), and easily beats both Sabat and Drummond:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0EBL-bn9A0 I also fervently disagree that Drummond is better suited for younger and Sabat for older Vegeta. The only argument I've heard is, "well the art style changes." That isn't an excuse. The point they change voices at is completely arbitrary, and I'd wager there was nothing significant until after Vegeta was 'revived' to help beat Boo. Even then, why would that warrant the voice change? It seems like nostalgia bias more than anything.
Now Sabat's Piccolo isn't bad per se, but it just feels dry and boring. Scott McNeil does it better; his elocution has more oomph, probably from being a more seasoned voice actor than Sabat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL9cgtB3E40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5eM7v5AvJY Furukawa is the definitive voice of Piccolo, but McNeil takes the cake for sheer badassery.
Despite the arbitrary nature of Jeice's Australian accent, I thoroughly enjoy it. Why does Mcneil do it better? Probably because he's Australian (and I'm pretty sure the voice he's doing is more of a Brummie accent as well). I think it's clear Sabat's was nothing short of mediocre imitation, but what separates it from being bad is probably the fact Sabat spent a couple years in Australia. Liebrecht's voice is three-dimensional and full of vigor, but I don't care for it. Kazumi's is overall pretty good, but I'm biased towards McNeil.
Now Recoom, well... Sabat's rendition makes the guy sound like he has an extra chromosome or something. David Kaye's reminds me of a bad Schwarzenegger impression (so, also with an extra chromosome). Utsumi sounds better, but still nothing special. There's no winner here.
Zarbon. Paul Dobson takes the cake here. Wicked and nasty, yet eloquent and refined. Sabat sounds annoyingly flamboyant. They just had to take the stereotypical route here and make him sound how Zoisite looks. I wouldn't mind it if they chose to give him a feminine voice, but the whiny tone he gave him is predictable. Hayami's the definitive voice here, but I vastly prefer Dobson.
Burta. Don Brown's voice is solid, but odd. It certainly sounds like a lizard monster's voice, but whatever. I feel like Mark Britten refined it and did it better. Sabat? It sounds like his Vegeta voice with a Britten filter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMTVWbkbizM Kishino easily does the best voice for the character.
Salza. Everything about his FUNi voice is bad. Nothing else needs to be said.
Sean Schemmel. This is another one people hate me for. I can't stand him as Kaio or Goku. His voice for Goku isn't too different from his normal voice, but somehow, when he first started, it really sounded like a Corlett impression. That "duhahahahaha!" laugh is what grates on my nerves the most. Then there's the fact it takes Schemmel a lot of breaths to do yells that don't even sound that great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC0TDHxWRt0 To me Nozawa doesn't really sound feminine so much as androgynous. I've heard some people say it sounds elderly, but I don't hear it (especially since many people are astonished when they hear how old she is). Maybe I'm also in the minority when I say that her screams don't make my ears bleed; they sound pleasant to me. She is Goku as far as I'm concerned, but I'd take Kelamis for English any day of the week, then Corlett. I remember the internet was in a huge uproar when Schemmel took over. I can only imagine how much bigger it would be now if someone replaced him, despite how much delight I would take in it.
Android 17. I love Chuck Huber in almost everything he's been in. His attitude is always solid. Even in the early Z dub, he was one of the few that stuck out as being good. Maybe it's his mentality of 'always needing to have a screw loose to get somewhere', but I think he's one of FUNi's best. Shigeru Nakahara is one of my favorite voices in the subs, so it's hard to really say who's better. They're both great. Ted Cole though? Gimme a break. The guy is painfully monotone.
Android 18. Miki Ito all the way. Okuma does an okay voice, better than Cole's 17 anyhow. Meredith McCoy though, yuck. I'm not sure why she has fans. I always found her rendition to be like nails on a chalkboard on the Jersey boardwalk. Clinkenbeard's voice sounds softer, less punk and throaty--I like it. Ito > Clinkenbeard > Okuma > McCoy.
Brian Dobson could learn something from his brother. His Dr. Gero is the most one-dimensional portrayal I've ever heard out of anyone at Ocean. It sounds like someone reading lines off a teleprompter they can't see that well. Someone sent me a clip from twilight years ago, where the main girl was in a car with the sparkle vampire, her lines were so forced it sounded robotic (like Brian's performance). Anyway, Yada does an okay voice, nothing spectacular. Kent Williams is the definitive voice to me, he nails it.
Cell. Cell's a tough one. Clarke has improved tremendously, but is he on par with Wakamoto? I don't know, I don't think so. I know Wakamoto can be pretty static in a lot of his roles, but purely as Cell, the voice couldn't be anymore
perfect. Both are great, but Clarke in Xenoverse was one of the most atrocious things I've ever heard. Bad dialogue, bad voice, bad everything (the game's pretty shit in general). What went wrong? I've always had a theory that he doesn't really like working with DBZ, but I'm not sure. Oh and Dale Wilson? He's a joke. His voice is almost as bad as Brian's.
Freeza. Would you believe there's a petition for Linda Young to be in the new DBZ movie?
https://www.change.org/p/funimation-toe ... eated=true How can anyone like her voice? It doesn't fit Freeza at all; it's hoarse and ineloquent. She sounds fine for someone like Genkai, but she's no Nozawa; she doesn't pull off voicing the opposite gender at all. Chris Ayres sounds absolutely malevolent, devious, yet refined. Ayres is Nakao's English equivalent, both are fantastic. And Pauline Newstone? I'd place her slightly above Young, but she's still terrible for the role.
Gohan. I'm a bit biased towards Nozawa here, but I'd probably have to say I prefer Clinkenbeard. Nadolny's portrayal is awful. What little boy sounds like he's been smoking cigarette's for 60 years? She sounds all right as Kid Goku, so I'm not sure why she decided to go the throat cancer route with Gohan. Saffron Henderson doesn't sound spectacular or anything, but I'd still take her over Nadolny.
Duncan Brannan's Babidi is one of the only (if not the only) where I can say there's no contest that the English voice is better. Yanami's rendition sounds dull and boring.
I didn't really acknowledge a lot of Kai, Blue Water, Final Bout, etc. and a number of characters, so forgive me, but these are the ones I pulled off the top of my head.
Most Dragon Ball fans are incapable of making a logically sound argument.
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