"Dragon Ball Super" FUNimation Dub Official Discussion Thread

[Scsigs]

It continues to amaze me that they insist on keeping that terrible voice for Kaio. Episode 2 was an overall step up from episode 1 when it comes to dubbing, but something about Sabat's Vegeta felt off. He wasn't nearly as funny during the comedic scenes like Horikawa was. Sabat played Vegeta too growly and deep. Beerus and Whis's voice actors continue to impress me. They are perfect English voices for those characters.

8/10 overall.

You actually don't like King Kai's voice I think it's great, I'm with you on Vegeta though, his voice sounds his too rough and grueling. Like he's struggling to get his words while at the same time trying to professional, his voice work was perfect for Kai and the movies. Beerus is great as always, but I think I might give a slight edge to the Japanese voice due to change in tone in serous moments.

As Geekdom101 has said, Horikawa's good at the more goofy Vegeta, while Sabat's good at the more serious Vegeta. Like I, & others, have been saying, the voice work IS kind of rough/rushed for this series so far. It can only improve as they go.

[Theophrastus]

Part of me wonders if Sabat's Vegeta is a little more on the growly side as a concession to the people who bitch in Youtube comments about his performance in Kai/BoG/RF not resembling the old dub enough...

Could also just be a little rusty, though, I suppose. Kai: The Final Chapters was apparently recorded a couple of years ago, and it's been at least a year since they recorded the dub for Resurrection F.

[Scsigs]

Part of me wonders if Sabat's Vegeta is a little more on the growly side as a concession to the people who bitch in Youtube comments about his performance in Kai/BoG/RF not resembling the old dub enough...

Could also just be a little rusty, though, I suppose. Kai: The Final Chapters was apparently recorded a couple of years ago, and it's been at least a year since they recorded the dub for Resurrection F.

Well, except for DB, he hasn't really done that voice in 1.5 years since they recorded for RF/Kai TFC. He mostly does Zorro, which became his default Piccolo voice as well for Kai, & some other voices that are more or less variations on that one, so it's possible he's more rusty. You'd think he'd maybe record first to get Vegeta, Piccolo, & Yamcha, if they have lines, out of the way for a while so he can direct the others.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I'll keep this brief because it's not completely Dragon Ball-related (and I apologize for not knowing how to shrink the picture), but I thought this pic that Kara Edwards tweeted on the night episode 1 debuted on Toonami was so friggin' cute. The caption was, "I might be the proudest mom on Earth right now...#DragonBallSuper #toonami #goten #voiceactor"

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Part of me wonders if Sabat's Vegeta is a little more on the growly side as a concession to the people who bitch in Youtube comments about his performance in Kai/BoG/RF not resembling the old dub enough...

Could also just be a little rusty, though, I suppose. Kai: The Final Chapters was apparently recorded a couple of years ago, and it's been at least a year since they recorded the dub for Resurrection F.

Definitely not. Someone funnily enough asked him on twitter a few days ago why he doesn't sound like his Z self and Sabat replied he is going more in line with his Kai performance.

[Dbzfan94]

I'll keep this brief because it's not completely Dragon Ball-related (and I apologize for not knowing how to shrink the picture), but I thought this pic that Kara Edwards tweeted on the night episode 1 debuted on Toonami was so friggin' cute. The caption was, "I might be the proudest mom on Earth right now...#DragonBallSuper #toonami #goten #voiceactor"

That is adorable. And the fact that I really like Goten makes that even better.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Part of me wonders if Sabat's Vegeta is a little more on the growly side as a concession to the people who bitch in Youtube comments about his performance in Kai/BoG/RF not resembling the old dub enough...

Could also just be a little rusty, though, I suppose. Kai: The Final Chapters was apparently recorded a couple of years ago, and it's been at least a year since they recorded the dub for Resurrection F.

Definitely not the case. Sabat put far too much strain on his voice with the old performance, especially when he was asked to sound like Brian Drummond.

I'll keep this brief because it's not completely Dragon Ball-related (and I apologize for not knowing how to shrink the picture), but I thought this pic that Kara Edwards tweeted on the night episode 1 debuted on Toonami was so friggin' cute. The caption was, "I might be the proudest mom on Earth right now...#DragonBallSuper #toonami #goten #voiceactor"

That's a good mother for sure

[dragonballgeek]

I dread this dub! Schemells's Goku is all wrong and Sabat's Vegeta and Piccolo are just terrible!

There being no dub so far, has resulted in a lot of people watching the original Japanese version and that's the way things are meant to be watched, in my opinion. In their original language and form.

I dread reading comments like these

Why? What I said is true, IMO. They really need to do their dub right because Goku is just not Goku in the dubs. If they can't get their main character right, then then the whole vibe of the show is different. Sabat sounds like a guy screaming in a booth or putting on a fake voice half of the time.

It irks me to no end, that the majority of people that swear by the dubs, know nothing more than "Goku loves to eat, tons of explosions and Krillin dies" etc. Look at the number of silly YouTubers out there saying the English version of Goku is better than Nozawa's and that her portrayal of Goku is all wrong according to how he's written in the manga.

The Kai dub has been alright for the most part and I really hope they improve with the Super dub. I haven't watched it yet, so I can't really comment on it.

You may prefer to watch things in their original form and that's fine but that doesn't mean it has to be that way for everyone. I personally despite getting comfortable with the Japanese cast still prefer dubbed DB because in my natural tongues I enjoy it more. Watching subbed without understanding Japanese is a severe hinderance to me I have to read what their saying then imagine that's what their saying like jokes take a while to register in my mind like for example in BoG watched it subbed first it was fine enjoyable but when the dub came out I enjoyed even more and picked up on things I'd missed before like Beerus and his anime line. To me watching DB subbed will never change unless I learn Japanese. The Japanese cast is phenomenal but I can't enjoy them to the fullest.

As for the actual English dub, Sean is pretty much 1:1 with Nozawa aslong as he keeps having strict direction. Sabat's been great as both for a while now too. Beerus, Whis, Jaco, Freeza etc are all pretty much 1:1 to their Japanese counterparts anyway. You don't have to like the dub that's fine but what I don't understand why are you dreading something you obviously not going to watch anyway?

It's great that you can enjoy them. I, personally can't because they changed the characters and their personalities way too much in the dubs. The Kai dub was much better because they didn't use any dub lines and used all of the original dialogue (well, most of it anyway), so it didn't hurt the way the characters were being portrayed. I don't think I'll ever be 100% satisfied with a dub until Goku says stuff like, "ain't" a little more or sounds more like Peter Kelamis' performance from way back.

Most fans my age only remember the dubs from back in the early-mid 2000s and remember Goku as a superhero-type guy, the techno music constantly playing in the background and Vegeta screaming all the time. After watching the entire Dragon Box in original Japanese, I saw the huge difference and I guess that left a bitter taste in my mouth as far as dubs go.

Talking as a person that's not a fan of FUNi's dub I have to say that from the clip they released this is probably the best perfomance Schemell ever gave as Goku.

I'll be giving the Super dub a chance, so I'll hope for the best.

Yeah man. You're definitely in the minority

Look if you're going to complain about the English Dub do it elsewhere.

[Bansho64]

Look if you're going to complain about the English Dub do it elsewhere.

I don't think he shouldn't have to leave. He's said his opinion, he's said that he hopes for the best, and that he likes some of what FUNi's doing now with the franchise. He wants it to get better and that's clear in what he's been saying. It's not all clear cut complaining without even a dose of positivity.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I don't think I'll ever be 100% satisfied with a dub until Goku says stuff like, "ain't" a little more or sounds more like Peter Kelamis' performance from way back.

Well, some food for thought...it seems to be a commonly accepted notion among the fans of the Japanese version that Goku is a hick, but the truth of the matter is that whether or not Goku qualifies as a hick--in the original Japanese version, I mean--is somewhat debatable.

You can go to this very interesting thread if you want the elongated version of this story, but basically, a kid who actually is Japanese and speaks it like a native felt it wasn't accurate at all to think of Goku like that, saying that Goku speaks "more like a Yakuza gangster." This led to a very interesting talk on Japanese dialects, and it appears that Goku sounding like a country bumpkin may have been more of a creative choice on the part of Masako Nozawa than Akira Toriyama. To bring up a quote from Herms that was brought up in this thread...

In the manga Goku's speech is comparatively close to standard Japanese. The main characteristics of his speech are his use of improper/impolite first and second person pronouns, lots of contractions, and how he slurs ai or oi sounds into ee. None of these points are exclusively "hick" things (Kuririn, for instance, does the "ai/oi into ee" thing when flustered). Altogether it seems super-casual and uneducated, which I guess fits the "hick" stereotype, but it's not a style of speech specific to any region. In the anime though, Nozawa plays Goku up more as having a vague Tohoku accent. The Tohoku accent has a "country bumpkin" stigma around it, so the closest thing in US English would probably be a Southern accent.

One last thing I'd add is that the subtitles for the original Japanese version on the Ocean/Pioneer DVDs don't have Goku speaking like a hick at all. His dialogue was translated as just being in standard English. Don't get me wrong, I think Steve Simmons is a great subtitle writer for Dragon Ball, but the point I'm trying to make is that a separate, completely competent translator didn't detect a "hick" aspect at all (or, if nothing else, didn't detect it strongly enough to feel like putting words like "ain't" in the subtitles was warranted).

So, all that to say...people who speak fluent Japanese and even expert translators of Japanese don't seem to have a consistent consensus on whether or not labeling Goku a "hick" is correct. It seems to be up for debate. So, I know everybody's stance is different, but my stance is that, since it's up for debate, it's not especially important to me that Goku sounds like a hick in the dub or the subtitled version. As long as he's shown to be a general dumbass (with the exception of fighting, where he's pretty much a savant), the dub will have done him justice in my book.

[Footlong Shoe]

One last thing I'd add is that the subtitles for the original Japanese version on the Ocean/Pioneer DVDs don't have Goku speaking like a hick at all. His dialogue was translated as just being in standard English. Don't get me wrong, I think Steve Simmons is a great subtitle writer for Dragon Ball, but the point I'm trying to make is that a separate, completely competent translator didn't detect a "hick" aspect at all (or, if nothing else, didn't detect it strongly enough to feel like putting words like "ain't" in the subtitles was warranted).

I haven't seen these subtitles, but isn't it possible the translator just didn't want to convey the dialect? I know the official Dragon Ball subtitles weren't done by Simmons, and most if not all of the speech patterns shown in Simmons' subs for Z weren't translated.

[TheBlackPaladin]

One last thing I'd add is that the subtitles for the original Japanese version on the Ocean/Pioneer DVDs don't have Goku speaking like a hick at all. His dialogue was translated as just being in standard English. Don't get me wrong, I think Steve Simmons is a great subtitle writer for Dragon Ball, but the point I'm trying to make is that a separate, completely competent translator didn't detect a "hick" aspect at all (or, if nothing else, didn't detect it strongly enough to feel like putting words like "ain't" in the subtitles was warranted).

I haven't seen these subtitles, but isn't it possible the translator just didn't want to convey the dialect? I know the official Dragon Ball subtitles weren't done by Simmons, and most if not all of the speech patterns shown in Simmons' subs for Z weren't translated.

Certainly, that's what I meant when I wrote that they may not have detected it strongly enough to feel like putting hick words like "ain't" was warranted.

[Kogu 87]

Loving the dub so far, and surprisingly there are quite a few laugh-out loud moments for me.

[SylentEcho]

How is Goku not Goku in the dub? Sean, especially nowadays, is pretty good. Dubs need to be taken on their own merits & Sean fits Goku really well, especially when not compared to Nozawa. He's really getting the goofy Goku down with the newer translation & voice direction of the scripts. He was chosen to portray the more heroic aspects of Goku's character, because that's how the original Z dub saw him & that's a holdover from the Saban-funded Ocean dub because that's how Peter Kelamis & Ian James Corlett were cast as him. Saban produced Power Rangers at the time & the only anime that they really worked on was Digimon. They worked on a few others, it's just that Digimon's the only one we remember them for in the anime world. But their main bread & butter was super hero shows. Sean was hired to replace Kelamis as the heroic character of Goku, which I think is why people hate dub changes that make Goku more heroic, even if it's just a throwaway line like "I wanna train to be able to protect you guys" to Goten to more even out his character due to problems people have with Goku's portrayal in Super. Sean takes his work seriously & he loves voicing Goku. Better get used to his voice because, like it or not, we're stuck with him as Goku. He's been getting to portray the more comedic Goku in recent dubs, so we're seeing more of Goku's personality in the dubs nowadays. through his voice acting.

I agree his Goku has become a lot better after they decided to stick to the original script. To me, at least, the voice has a lot to do with the 'feel' of a character. Imagine the classic He-Man voice being different, Richard Burton's voice bring different in his reading of Under Milk Wood or Darth Vader not being voiced by James Earl Jones. It just wouldn't be the same. In my opinion, Goku ought to be a little more high-pitched in the way he says certain things. I grew up with the dub, but when I watch it now, I truly miss Goku screaming "waaa/ouuwaa", when he's hit and the kiddish way in which he talks. These might be minor things and Schemmel may sound weird attempting to sound more like Kelamis. To me, that was the closest Nozawa impression for the dubs. However, I also can't disagree with you, when you said, dubs should be taken on their own merits.

Isn't that, technically, what Sabat does, voice acting with different voices than his own? I can't really see how that's a bad thing. For real, though, he's a really good voice actor & director. He also does more than Vegeta. He does Yamcha, Piccolo, Shenron, etc. He's really knowledgeable & smart when it comes to DB, just listen to his interview with Geekdom101 for proof.

I don't deny he's a good voice actor, but his performances on DBZ left a lot to be desired. His only voice that was good was his natural voice - Yamcha. The rest of them overlapped so much, at least back then. His Piccolo and Vegeta would overlap a lot. His Piccolo voice was okay, but if you compared it to the original performance by Furukawa, it doesn't hold a candle. That being said, I think Sabat improved quite a bit in Kai.

As for those fans, you must be talking the ones who watched Z, & love Z & Z's original dub, but ONLY Z & that horrible dub.

Yeah, those fans lol.

Again, you're talking the original Z dub. I would say DB's dub, even though it wasn't 100% with the original Japanese, it was far better than Z's, as was GT's They were far more consistent, far better acted, & decently translated & scripted for the time they were. In fact, you could go from DB to Kai & not really have many problems, I'd say. Would I like it to be far more accurate? Hell yeah. I'd love that for any anime, but it's just not going to come unless they reversion the original Dragon Ball like they did Z for Kai. I wouldn't be opposed to Goku saying "ain't," but then again, I don't care if he does or not. Peter was a fine Goku, but you can't expect people to keep doing soundalike voices forever.
Most older fans D only remember the original Z dub, which is a big shame. They're who I call the nostalgia brats. I always keep in mind that even actors in shitty dubs can be great & they shouldn't be why you'd hate a shitty dub, the scripting should.

I had no problem with the Dragon Ball dub voice acting, except for Nadolny's Goku. She was an okay Cell arc Gohan, but I prefer the Kai voice actor.

---
@TheBlackPaladin, thanks. I didn't know that. I'll check that link out.
@NintendoBlaze53, I agree with what you said in that second paragraph. Changing names like Beam Cannon and King Kai would alienate a lot of the older dub fans. I'm okay with them being there. Say-yin can be pronounced Sai-yin, but that's a minor thing in my opinion, as well. I do appreciate that fact that they made their Kai dub better and I'm hoping this dub does better. I've seen episode two dubbed and I liked it.

Yeah man. You're definitely in the minority

Look if you're going to complain about the English Dub do it elsewhere.

Why? This is a Dragon Ball Super forum and I'm sharing my opinions. Feel free to disagree with it. If you visit message boards, get used to the fact, that some people won't share your personal opinion.

[VejituhTheWarriorGuy]

The dub for this episode was great and the credits were right this time

[mecha3000]

I found it interesting how in this latest dubbed episode, for the flashback from when King Kai was killed - They used the Kai audio/version. I'm not sure if it was that way for the Japanese version, but it's almost like Funimation telling you "Kai is the TRUE definitive dubbed version of Z". Also, I like how Krillin said: "Putting a car in my pocket never gets old". Pretty amusing line that I'm not sure was in the original (I think in the original, Krillin LITERALLY explained to the audience the process of putting a car into a capsule, which is something I didn't care for because it felt like a kids show dialogue).

Still can't wait to own the series for myself though, because although it's nostalgic - I'm getting tired of having to wait every Saturday night (when I have work the very next morning) to catch Super AND Kai. I really hope Super releases sometime close to OR after Kai comes out on Blu-Ray/DVD. I mean, at least Nicktoons had two episodes a week for Kai and OLD SCHOOL Cartoon Network had like four episodes a week. Besides, my best childhood memories of DB come from picking up the home releases.

[Scsigs]

I found it interesting how in this latest dubbed episode, for the flashback from when King Kai was killed - They used the Kai audio/version. I'm not sure if it was that way for the Japanese version, but it's almost like Funimation telling you "Kai is the TRUE definitive dubbed version of Z". Also, I like how Krillin said: "Putting a car in my pocket never gets old". Pretty amusing line that I'm not sure was in the original (I think in the original, Krillin LITERALLY explained to the audience the process of putting a car into a capsule, which is something I didn't care for because it felt like a kids show dialogue).

Still can't wait to own the series for myself though, because although it's nostalgic - I'm getting tired of having to wait every Saturday night (when I have work the very next morning) to catch Super AND Kai. I really hope Super releases sometime close to OR after Kai comes out on Blu-Ray/DVD.

Why wouldn't they use audio from Kai? Super's more of a sequel to Kai anyways rather than the original Z, plus it's a better dub. The only reason, I'm sure, they used DB & Z audio for BOG was because of the nostalgic Z fans who haven't watched, or don't care for, Kai. It was a reunion movie anyways with the flashback being in the extended TV version, so it makes sense.

[mecha3000]

I found it interesting how in this latest dubbed episode, for the flashback from when King Kai was killed - They used the Kai audio/version. I'm not sure if it was that way for the Japanese version, but it's almost like Funimation telling you "Kai is the TRUE definitive dubbed version of Z". Also, I like how Krillin said: "Putting a car in my pocket never gets old". Pretty amusing line that I'm not sure was in the original (I think in the original, Krillin LITERALLY explained to the audience the process of putting a car into a capsule, which is something I didn't care for because it felt like a kids show dialogue).

Still can't wait to own the series for myself though, because although it's nostalgic - I'm getting tired of having to wait every Saturday night (when I have work the very next morning) to catch Super AND Kai. I really hope Super releases sometime close to OR after Kai comes out on Blu-Ray/DVD.

Why wouldn't they use audio from Kai? Super's more of a sequel to Kai anyways rather than the original Z, plus it's a better dub. The only reason, I'm sure, they used DB & Z audio for BOG was because of the nostalgic Z fans who haven't watched, or don't care for, Kai. It was a reunion movie anyways with the flashback being in the extended TV version, so it makes sense.

I mean, I figured they would probably use the Kai audio, but I still find it interesting to think a redub is now the definitive dub. Still, in the first episode of Super - The narrator (Doc Morgan) says LAST TIME ON DRAGON BALL Z, not Kai. So, Funimation is basically selling this as a sequel to Dragon Ball Z more so than Kai. But I still realize that this was a creative choice for nostalgia reasons.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Another very fun episode, I really dug it. Mike McFarland as Roshi was particularly awesome this episode, ("Shake what mama gave 'ya!" ), and it's fun for me to note the differences between BoG and Super's BoG arc.

It got me wondering about how they'll handle Roshi's perverted nature in the Bang-Zoom dub, though. I don't know what kind of censorship constraints they're under, but based on the fact that they changed his line in episode 1 about X-rated DVDs to "helping me pay off old gambling debts," it sounds like this was a hint that the Bang-Zoom dub won't be uncut.

[Scsigs]

I found it interesting how in this latest dubbed episode, for the flashback from when King Kai was killed - They used the Kai audio/version. I'm not sure if it was that way for the Japanese version, but it's almost like Funimation telling you "Kai is the TRUE definitive dubbed version of Z". Also, I like how Krillin said: "Putting a car in my pocket never gets old". Pretty amusing line that I'm not sure was in the original (I think in the original, Krillin LITERALLY explained to the audience the process of putting a car into a capsule, which is something I didn't care for because it felt like a kids show dialogue).

Still can't wait to own the series for myself though, because although it's nostalgic - I'm getting tired of having to wait every Saturday night (when I have work the very next morning) to catch Super AND Kai. I really hope Super releases sometime close to OR after Kai comes out on Blu-Ray/DVD.

Why wouldn't they use audio from Kai? Super's more of a sequel to Kai anyways rather than the original Z, plus it's a better dub. The only reason, I'm sure, they used DB & Z audio for BOG was because of the nostalgic Z fans who haven't watched, or don't care for, Kai. It was a reunion movie anyways with the flashback being in the extended TV version, so it makes sense.

I mean, I figured they would probably use the Kai audio, but I still find it interesting to think a redub is now the definitive dub. Still, in the first episode of Super - The narrator (Doc Morgan) says LAST TIME ON DRAGON BALL Z, not Kai. So, Funimation is basically selling this as a sequel to Dragon Ball Z more so than Kai. But I still realize that this was a creative choice for nostalgia reasons.

Well, I mean, the actors, & a good chunk of the fandom, do consider Kai to BE the official dub of Z, plus Kai has Z as a part of its moniker outside of Japan, so it's not like it doesn't make sense.