Discussion regarding the entirety of the franchise in a general (meta) sense, including such aspects as: production, trends, merchandise, fan culture, and more.
My opinions on the other voices:
Ocean - Probably the best of the feminine voices
FUNimation DBZ - Poor chain smoking Ocean imitation
Blue Water - Poor imitation of FUNi's Freeza, which itself was a Ocean imitation
Speedy dub - Terrible amateur sounding effort. Seriously sometimes i get the impression that dub had only like 2 actors or something since all the characters have the exact same thick Asian accent
FUNi Kai - Not a fan of the voice but does deserve credit for being Freeza's first male TV dub voice
"I will literally dress as Goku and walk around jumping up and down, pretending to fly, in public if this ever gets an official release"
FUNi Kai - Not a fan of the voice but does deserve credit for being Freeza's first male TV dub voice
What don't you like about Ayres' performance?
The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi. Its job isn't to blow our minds. It's to be within reach.
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretzky" - Michael Scott
Happiness is climate, not weather.
I really have to be honest and say that I was never opposed to Linda Young. Of all my complaints, her actual voice was the absolute least of my problems. With proper dub scripts and good direction, I'd have been perfectly fine with her.
But I'm afraid I have to be predictable and give Chris Ayers my vote. It's fun to look back on when Kai episode 19 first aired in America and he was unanimously hated after one single line of dialogue. How things have changed!
FUNi Kai - Not a fan of the voice but does deserve credit for being Freeza's first male TV dub voice
What don't you like about Ayres' performance?
Makes Freeza sound too much like a generic pretty-boy or something. My ideal Freeza voice would be something similar sounding to Ocean dub Tullece.
Ayres sounds erudite, older, and fits Freeza like a glove, Ocean dub Tullece is the guy that sounds somewhat like a pretty boy.
The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi. Its job isn't to blow our minds. It's to be within reach.
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretzky" - Michael Scott
Happiness is climate, not weather.
While we're on the subject, I have to say that I freaking love Chris Ayers as Freeza. In fact, I love his performance so much that it was one of the biggest reasons I was excited to learn that Freeza will be coming back in Revival of F. When Freeza died in the Kai dub, I was actually bummed--I wanted to keep hearing more of that performance!
All that to say, it has gotten to the point where I can listen to Freeza in either Japanese or English and be totally OK with either performance. They're both absolutely brilliant.
dbzfan7 wrote:It's insulting to compare any other Freeza dub voice to Chris Ayres. That's how good his take is, and how bad everyone else is. Only Martian Billany counts as a good Freeza voice that's not Chris Ayres, but he's only doing it for Parody, and that one live action fan made production. So he kinda doesn't count since he isn't an official voice of Freeza.
Speaking of parody, and I'm sure I'll get some flack for this, but I don't really care, Little Kuriboh could easily be a more than adequate Freeza in a legitimate dub.
I'm with you. I think he'd do fantastic. The few scenes Billany gets to be menacing, he really is. I think his standard speech is already great. Sometimes I mix Ayres and Billany's performances cause they both sit well with me.
Why Dragon Ball Consistency in something such as power levels matter!
Spoiler:
Doctor. wrote:I've explained before, I'll just paraphrase myself.
Power levels establish tension and drama. People who care about them (well, people who care about them in a narrative) don't care about the big numbers or the fancy explosions. If you have character A who's so much above character B, who's the main character, you're gonna be left wondering how in the hell character B, the character we're supposed to care and root for, is going to escape the situation or overcome the odds. It makes us emotionally invested.
If character B doesn't escape the situation in a believable way that's consistent with previous events, then that emotional investment is gone. It was pointless tension, pointless drama made just to suck in the viewer. It has no critical value whatsoever. The audience is left believing that the author can just create whatever scenarios he wants and what happens to the characters is decided by whatever the author wants to happen, regardless of the events that happened in the story. Which, in fairness, is what happens, but the audience wants to be fooled. The audience wants to know that the world they're following has rules. That the world they're invested in isn't going to bend to external factors that are irrelevant to them.
An author can do whatever he wants with the characters, that's not false. But the author should also have the responsibility to make sure it fits in cohesively with the other events in the narrative he has created.
Chris Ayers is just... The best. His portrayal of Freeza can go from calm but menacing to a sadistic and terrifying villain. Best portrayal of Freeza IMO.
The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi. Its job isn't to blow our minds. It's to be within reach.
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretzky" - Michael Scott
Happiness is climate, not weather.
While I say Ayres is my favorite, will say I still have a fondness for Pauline Newstone's serpentine Frieza voice. Add British accent to it, it would've been more menacing and awesome. Let's face it, most of us pictured Frieza with an evil British accent as awesome as evil British accents are awesome.
