Dub fans on about the 'manly' voice for Goku..

[dbboxkaifan]

But since when does a manly man scream so much?

It's an honest question, I don't remember a manly man or a even just a regular man screaming. I don't like when people scream neither.

[VegettoEX]

I'm not sure what your "honest question" actually is.

Are you asking fans of an English dub why they do (or do not?) want a traditional "manly" voice for the character? What does screaming have to do with that? If you could clarify that a little bit, I'm sure you can get some appropriate answers.

[Gaffer Tape]

Are you saying you think it's okay for female voices (coming out of men's bodies) to scream, but, for some reason, it's not okay for manly voices to scream...?

[Gyt Kaliba]

I'm not sure I'd really call Schemmel, or any other English adult Goku voice I've heard, 'manly' either though. They're all performed by men, but it's not like the voice has ever been deep in bass or anything. I'd put it more as a 'light' male voice.

[Rocketman]

It's not about being "manly", it's about not being BWAAAAAAKKKKKKKKHHHHHHH

[sonikku956]

I rather liked Goku's voice in Kai.

[Thanos]

The only official English voice for Goku I really appreciated was Peter Kelamis. Maybe it isn't necessary to use a female, but there was a sense of almost ambiguity in his voice at times, which is fitting because of Goku's child-like nature:

Classic example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2aQr0lRXVA

Honestly, though? I said "official" English voice for a reason. I think MasakoX from Dragon Ball Z Abridged is the best English Goku. What impresses me most is that he's able to do both Gohan as a child convincingly and Goku as an adult convincingly. Not only that, but he captures the spirit of the characters rather well.

Sean Schemmel isn't necessarily bassy in his voice, but it's too... eh, beefy. Mature. That could easily be the voice of a super hero. When he acts silly, it just seems forced.

[DoomieDoomie911]

I think Schemmel and Nozawa both played the voice well, though I like Nozawa's performance better of course. I just don't see why the dub fans always say the same old things about Nozawa's voice.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Honestly, though? I said "official" English voice for a reason. I think MasakoX from Dragon Ball Z Abridged is the best English Goku. What impresses me most is that he's able to do both Gohan as a child convincingly and Goku as an adult convincingly. Not only that, but he captures the spirit of the characters rather well.

I can kind of see the argument for MasakoX's Goku maybe, but his Gohan...it works perfectly well for an Abridged, but I don't think I could take it legitimately as a kid in an actual dub. I realize I'm very, very, VERY in the majority here, but I'd take Nadolny's Gohan over his, in an actual show format. Or Colleen's too for that matter.

Sean Schemmel isn't necessarily bassy in his voice, but it's too... eh, beefy. Mature. That could easily be the voice of a super hero. When he acts silly, it just seems forced.

It is deeper than Nozawa's take, and it's not high pitched like say Sonny Strait or Mike McFarland's voice, but...hmm. I dunno. I don't really see it as being that beefy, but it does lend itself a little too well to the 'superhero' thing sometimes. I think he's improved a lot over the years though, especially on sounding properly silly.

[DoomieDoomie911]

Classic example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2aQr0lRXVA

WOW! I've never heard that voice, and by far that's the best English Goku voice I've ever heard!

[Thanos]

Oh Christ, Clinkenbeard. That Gohan is just atrocious. Nothing screams "Girl trying to sound like little boy" quite like Clinkenbeard Gohan.

I actually... kind of liked Nadolny's Goku/Gohan. They actually sounded boyish to some extent, if a bit robotic at times.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Watching that clip, I actually do like Kelamis a lot more than I used to, especially on the 'The World's Strongest' material. Then again, for some reason I LOVE that movie's original dub, even preferring it over the FUNi re-dub with the English cast I'm more used to. There's just...there's something about that movie's old dub that works really well with it.

And my main problem with Colleen's Gohan is it still reminds me too much of her Luffy, though that's more on me than it is on the performance itself - it's on me for being into both shows, not necessarily everyone would be, for it to be a problem. And yeah, I'm kind of at a place now where I like Nadolny's actual 'sound' for Gohan more, but in most cases, Colleen's 'performance' is better.

[DBZAOTA482]

I liked Sean Schemmel's Goku from the Mid-Cell Games and onward. Before then, it sucked the big sweaty Oozaru testicles.

Ian James Corlette still makes a much better Goku, though.

[Chuquita]

Classic example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2aQr0lRXVA

WOW! I've never heard that voice, and by far that's the best English Goku voice I've ever heard!

Oh wow, I forgot how much I liked Kelamis' Goku. O_O That is really nice; it's even got shades of the original Japanese voice in there. I also like MasakoX's Goku, but Kelamis' is also really cool.


As for Nozawa's Goku sounding masculine or not; the way he speaks is definitely a guy's (by that I mean the masculine wording in stuff like "Ora wa Son Goku da." and not something like a feminine wording, which I think would probably be like "Atashi wa Son Goku desu.". Its distinctively different from Ms. Nozawa's natural speaking voice. Goku's sound might be a bit ambiguous--he's just slightly higher-pitched than say, Luffy or Naruto are, but Goku doesn't sound lady-like. His voice squeaks sometimes, but it's nowhere near as cutesy-sounding as a moe female character's, or anywhere near as elegant as some of the deeper-voiced female characters in anime are.

[TheBlackPaladin]

There are plenty of odd/silly voices to be found in both the English dub and the original Japanese version. It really comes down to a matter of personal preference and what you can or cannot accept. For me, having a woman voice adult Goku was a bit too much. Nozawa is a great actress (probably, I can't tell for sure since I don't speak Japanese), her acting seemed to be great no matter what the age of her characters, and I have no problem whatsoever with her voicing Goku and the male members of his family as kids. For when they become adults...even though I have watched a vast amount of DB, DBZ, and DBGT in Japanese, it's a little too weird for me to get past the fact that an adult male character has what is most clearly a woman's voice. For me, the problem is not that a woman is playing a man, but that it is too obvious that a woman is playing a man.

To be fair, it might be worth noting that Japan is the only country that had the same female actress who played Goku as a kid play him as an adult. Literally every other dub recast Goku with an adult male voice actor once he became an adult. Not saying that automatically makes it right, of course...just an observation.

As for being "manly"...I don't care if Goku sounds manly or not. He is, after all, an incredibly childish character. I just care that he sounds like a male, since the character is a male. For that reason, Peter Kelamis, even with his high-pitched voice, still fits the bill for me.

[Thanos]

Well, as for English adult Goku always being voiced by a man... I think it has to do with the fact that, in Japan, these characters have much better-established personalities. There was most likely, due to translation, a degree of separation (a "dilution" perhaps) with how these characters think and act with respect to their dialogue and personalities. Take Schemmel's early rendition of Goku; essentially a bland action hero with a sense of humor. THAT is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Even with translation and a general sense of how these characters are acting, a lot can be lost there if it isn't done properly.

There's so many quirks and subtleties to Nozawa's child Goku that, from what I understand, it was decided for her to stay the course because it would've just been too dramatic to have changed his voice at that point. He would've lost a significant part of what had been established with the character.

[TheBlackPaladin]

There's so many quirks and subtleties to Nozawa's child Goku that, from what I understand, it was decided for her to stay the course because it would've just been too dramatic to have changed his voice at that point. He would've lost a significant part of what had been established with the character.

Certainly a possibility...but I heard an explanation a while ago that seems (to me, anyway) to make much more sense: it was not a artistic decision so much as it was a business one. Toei didn't want viewers--mostly children--to have to get used to a "new" Goku. Or, for that matter, a "new"...anybody. Whoever played the character first played them for all their incarnations. That's why you have Takeshi Kusao playing both Mirai Trunks and Chibi Trunks, despite the fact that they have wildly different personalities. Having the same voice actors play the characters regardless of their ages was a way of maintaining a sort of continuity. Not entirely without logic, but I would have preferred they followed the "real world" logic, which is to say that it is a commonly accepted fact that a person's voice changes very noticeably from childhood to adulthood, enough to justify two different actors depending on the age of the character.

EDIT: Actually, interesting follow-up question I just thought of...anybody should feel free to answer. If you had to pick a male Japanese voice actor to replace Masako Nozawa for Goku as an adult...who would it be?

[Thanos]

Hmm, I'm wondering... is this common? Female voices being used for adult counterparts in Japanese cartoons?

[Gyt Kaliba]

Hmm, I'm wondering... is this common? Female voices being used for adult counterparts in Japanese cartoons?

I don't know how common it is in the long run, but just off the top of my head, it also happened for Kenshin Himura in Rurouni Kenshin. That's a slightly different case though, since the character was always an adult male from the start, and is only shown as a child in flashbacks.

On the flip side though, the voice of Takeru in Digimon Adventure was played by an actress, and then played by an actor for Digimon Adventure 02 - and then again by a different, older sounding adult male for the ending timeskip where we see Takeru as an adult. And this was also a Toei production, like Dragon Ball.

So...it just varies, I guess.

Edit: Actually, come to think of it, on the Digimon example again - the same actress played Taichi in Digimon Adventure and then still played him in Digimon Adventure 02, despite the character having aged up to an even older age than Takeru had...hmm.

[VegettoEX]

Side note: learned from Yuuji Mitsuya (Kaioshin in DBZ, and the voice director for Kenshin) at the Otakon panel a couple years back (where we grilled him on Kai and first learned of its possible impending-failure) that he specifically requested Mayo Suzukaze to do Kenshin's voice, having known her from their live-action performance troupe.

Many of these are very deliberate and intentional castings.