Old Vs New voices for Goku and Vegeta in the various dubs

[TheRed259]

This is basically for dubs that have more than one voice actor for Goku and Vegeta. And here is my preference on the various voices of Goku and Vegeta that I have heard from some of these dubs:

• From the English dub, I would choose Sean Schemmel for Goku and Chris Sabat for Vegeta. Definitely more fitting than the Ocean or any other English dubbing group for me.

• From the Latin American dub, I would choose Mario Castañeda for Goku and René García for Vegeta. They are the most fitting voices even though Andrés Gutiérrez Coto was awesome as Vegeta and he was living his role. I think that Mario Castañeda was at his best as Goku in Dragon Ball Z while René García vocally is better now but his forced performances is an issue. I would say that he was at his best as Vegeta in the Battle of Gods (2013) and Resurrection 'F' (2015) films.

• From the French dub, I would choose Patrick Borg for Goku and Eric Legrand for Vegeta. It does take time to get used to their voices but they were more fitting than the others. Thankfully, Eric Legrand has improved a lot since Dragon Ball Z.

• From the Castilian dub, I would choose José Antonio Gavira for Goku and Alberto Hidalgo for Vegeta. They were more fitting than the other voices in my opinion even though none of these two were putting too much emotion in their performances. Gavira was also an age appropricate voice for Goku along with Miguel Ángel Montero of course.

• From the German dub, I would choose Tommy Morgenstern for Goku and Oliver Siebeck for Vegeta. Oliver Siebeck was also an age appropricate voice for Vegeta.

• From the Italian dub, I would choose Claudio Moneta for Goku. I wouldn't choose Paolo Torrisi because some of his voice expressions sounded silly to me.

• From the Greek dub, I would choose Themis Psihogios for Goku and Yiannis Papaioannou for Vegeta. They were more fitting voices than the others and they were putting more emotion in their performances (despite the filter on Vegeta's voice). Themis Psihogios improved a lot after the Frieza Saga.

• From the Portugal dub, I would choose Henrique Feist for Goku and Ricardo Spínola for Vegeta. These two seem to me the most decent voices for these characters.

I would like to see your opinion in case someone else here watches DB in different languages. I wouldn't even mind an opinion only on the various English dubs because I know that only a few people watch DB in other languages anyway.

[simtek34]

For the English Dub side of things, despite growing up with Seán Schemmel and Christopher Sabat's performances as Son Goku and Vegeta in Dragonball Kai, when they were at their best, and not their performances in the English Dub of Dragonball Z, which were god-awful, I have a more split view on the superior English voices.

With Goku, I'd gotta give my vote to Peter Kelamis. While I don't have much exposure to much of his dubbing on Dragonball Z, from the clips I've seen on the internet of his performances, he really fits Goku well. I've been meaning to finally give a look at the original English dubs of the first three Dragonball Z movies for awhile now, just to experience the Canadian voice cast. Dragonball Z movies 1-3 along with Dragonball movies 2 and 3 are the only Dragonball films I haven't seen outside of Dragonball Z: Abridged.

On Vegeta, I really like Brian Drummond's work and acting, but the voice used for Vegeta, I don't know, there's just something about it that seems unfitting to me. Maybe growing up with Christopher Sabat and Horikawa Ryo's performances has shaped my mind that way, due to those two having a much more lower pitch for the character of Vegeta, where Drummond's higher pitched voice just doesn't seem right to me coming out of his mouth. I heard somewhere that his performance for the unreleased Ocean Studios English Dub of Dragonball Kai, that his performance isn't as high pitched. I would be interested in hearing that if it ever gets released. His performance as Copy Vegeta in Dragonball Super was better than it was in Z, not being as high pitched. But yeah, it's gotta go to Chris Sabat for me, in terms of an English Vegeta. And I'm referring to modern Chris Sabat. His performance in Dragonball GT was pretty bad, but his performance in the English Dub of Dragonball Z was absolutely horrendous, especially while trying to do a bad Brian Drummond impression.

[MasenkoHA]

For the international dubs I'm only really familiar with the English dubs.

Brian Drummond is a great performer and his voice fits the Saturday Morning Cartoons villain vibes that Funimation and Ocean were going for but it doesn't really work past the Saiyan arc. He still has some great line reads after but it's super obvious that nobody at Funimation or Ocean was thinking ahead when they directed Drummond to sound like that. Sabat started doing a shitty Drummond impression and eventually polished it into his own. It works much better for the character, but I wouldn't lose sleep if Sabat got replaced by another actor.

As far as Goku goes I have always liked Ian Corlett best and wish he got more to do than a season and a half. Kelamis Goku always sounded a bit ridiculous, like he's going to rescue a reporter in a yellow jumpsuit and ask for pizza any minute. Schemmel is fine. I've accepted him as "the" english voice for Goku but like Sabat it wouldn't be a travesty in my heart if someone else took over.

[90sDBZ]

Overall I like Sean Schemmel and Chris Sabat more in the roles, as they've had much longer to grow into them and grasp the characters, but I still love the earlier stuff the Ocean cast did.

Ian Corlett was great from day 1. His delivery was incredibly natural, and he fit the heroic take on Goku perfectly. He could do innocent and naive, while also nailing Goku's serious side.

I still prefer Drummond for early Vegeta, even if the performance is a bit cartoony. While Sabat's younger Vegeta is fine, Drummond really made him feel unhinged and was incredible with the screams. Drummond's later work in the Westwood dub was more grounded, which fit the character at that point but was less fun to listen to.

Peter Kelamis has grown on me over the years. I've come to like his goofy delivery for the most part. Considering he never dubbed any of the really iconic moments he still managed to leave an impression.

Kirby Morrow was decent enough, and he stuck with the character for quite a long time (longer than any other Canadian VA). The Westwood dub suffered from poor direction, but Kirby was pretty consistent in his performance.

[UpFromTheSkies]

For the English dub, I prefer Peter Kelamis as Goku. In my opinion Kelamis' portrayal is much more faithful to what Masako Nozawa did, while Sean Schemmel seems to reinvent the character with a completely different feel or tone.

[nineko]

From the Italian dub, I would choose Claudio Moneta for Goku. I wouldn't choose Paolo Torrisi because some of his voice expressions sounded silly to me.

I disagree so much with this. Paolo Torrisi was iconic, and he only got replaced because he died, but Claudio Moneta just doesn't fit as Goku, that's why I watched the Super anime in Japanese.