A quick question about Funimation's dub.

[piccolo-san785]

Funimation sure knows how to ruin a show.

[Fionordequester]

Ah c,mon, it wasn't ruined, it was great! Just, it had a few goofy moments, that's all.

[Kendamu]

Ah c,mon, it wasn't ruined, it was great! Just, it had a few goofy moments, that's all.

I would say quite a few goofy moments. A goofy moment here or there like Kaiou imitating a ringtone instead of saying "ring ring ring!!!" in the dub is one thing, but the original DBZ dub was just littered with the stuff!

[Fionordequester]

Well, yeah. Not all of it was bad though.

[Kendamu]

Well, yeah. Not all of it was bad though.

While that's most likely not the popular opinion here, I'm betting that there is plenty of the US DBZ fanbase who would agree with you.

[Akumaito Beam]

I wouldn't call these moments "good" but stuff like this is why I watch the dub. I go into it with the same mentality I have while watching The Power Rangers or the original animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The writing is so "what?" inducing it's fun. I know the Japanese dialouge by heart so it really amuses me when I hear lines like Freeza asking a question in his native language in place of a terribly animated laugh cycle or Trunks finding plans for a gas powered toaster oven in Gero's lab. It's kind of like the Portuguese dub. Is it an accurate? Not at all. Is it a really fun and bizarre experience that's kind of its own thing? I'd say so. Then again I hold the same thoughts towards 4kids One Piece dub so maybe I'm too lienient.

[KiddoCabbusses]

I wouldn't call these moments "good" but stuff like this is why I watch the dub. I go into it with the same mentality I have while watching The Power Rangers or the original animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The writing is so "what?" inducing it's fun. I know the Japanese dialouge by heart so it really amuses me when I hear lines like Freeza asking a question in his native language in place of a terribly animated laugh cycle or Trunks finding plans for a gas powered toaster oven in Gero's lab. It's kind of like the Portuguese dub. Is it an accurate? Not at all. Is it a really fun and bizarre experience that's kind of its own thing? I'd say so. Then again I hold the same thoughts towards 4kids One Piece dub so maybe I'm too lienient.

I think it's important to note that one obvious difference between Z's dub an One Piece's 4Kids dub remain;
Z's dub was, wait, no, - still is - popular.
One Piece's 4Kids dub was so unpopular it tainted the franchise on the American side, and it appears the show is still struggling to get the kind of popularity in the US that Naruto and DBZ do, even though in it's native country it's outranked both in popularity for a while. And Naruto should logically have been suffering from being more "inherently Japanese" and alienating an audience for it. (Or at least, that would be an executive mindset.)

I think it'd be an interesting editorial article to make on what makes an "unfaithful" dub still well-liked, compared to one which is unliked.

[Fionordequester]

Maybe it's because the One Piece dub seemed more childish because of the odd artwork (or at least, I thought it was odd when I first saw it)? Or perhaps it's because the Z dub wasn't as censored as the 4Kids dub was.

[Adamant]

Not a very fair comparison, there. The 4Kids One Piece dub didn't do all that badly, and the people on the internet complaining about what a bad dub it was were people familiar with the original... just like, you know, the people who complained on the internet about how bad the Funi Dragonball dub was when that was new were familiar with ITS original. The vast majority of the people who think the Funi Dragonball dub isn't completely shit are either unfamiliar with the original or grew up being unfamiliar with the original, and though Funi's shit dub was how the show was.
And had those people watched 4Kids One Piece at the same age and with the same lack of information, they'd probably have liked that too.

[Zephyr]

Well, yeah. Not all of it was bad though.

It might not all have been bad, but its certainly not what the characters were actually saying. Not only are there ridiculously goofy moments, but there are also flat-out embarrassingly cheesy lines. Don't get me wrong, I find it entertaining as hell (again, as a sort of official parody), but when its become the norm to think of the goofy, cheesy, out-of-character conversations as their DEFINITIVE canon version of the series (as has by-and-large become the case in the states and on Youtube) it becomes somewhat of a problem.

Not really a problem I guess, but its similar to someone considering Team Four Star's parody as the canon version of the story, and that's just plain silly.

[KiddoCabbusses]

Not a very fair comparison, there. The 4Kids One Piece dub didn't do all that badly, and the people on the internet complaining about what a bad dub it was were people familiar with the original... just like, you know, the people who complained on the internet about how bad the Funi Dragonball dub was when that was new were familiar with ITS original. The vast majority of the people who think the Funi Dragonball dub isn't completely shit are either unfamiliar with the original or grew up being unfamiliar with the original, and though Funi's shit dub was how the show was.
And had those people watched 4Kids One Piece at the same age and with the same lack of information, they'd probably have liked that too.

Except that somehow, for One Piece, it was bad enough that even people who've never seen the original show didn't like 4Kids' dub, that the Japanese audience - the same ones who thought all of 4Kids' rewrites to Mewtwo Strikes Back were so good they offered subtitles for them on their dual-language DVDs - were making a mockery of it, that 4Kids' own employees thought it was a terrible idea (Again, same person doesn't think the rewriting on Pokemon was nearly a big deal), and... heck, how did it -not- "do all that badly"? It got good Toonami ratings (probably from the same people who were complaining about the dub, just looking for something to riff at), but it didn't make it on FoxBox and the merchandise wasn't selling. There was a reason Toei revoked their license, and it's for more than just having a dub that the hardcore see as low-quality.

[Akumaito Beam]

I wasn't really trying to compare the two dubs themselves just the way I think about questionable dubbing in general no matter the varying extremes.

[Adamant]

Except that somehow, for One Piece, it was bad enough that even people who've never seen the original show didn't like 4Kids' dub, that the Japanese audience were making a mockery of it, that 4Kids' own employees thought it was a terrible idea

Are you trying to claim these weren't the case with Funi's Dragonball dub? They most certainly were.

[KiddoCabbusses]

Except that somehow, for One Piece, it was bad enough that even people who've never seen the original show didn't like 4Kids' dub, that the Japanese audience were making a mockery of it, that 4Kids' own employees thought it was a terrible idea

Are you trying to claim these weren't the case with Funi's Dragonball dub? They most certainly were.

I wouldn't be able to tell that from how many Z Dub fans are on Youtube, and I don't recall seeing actual Japanese art of, for example, Tenshinhan seeing parachutes in a manner which explicitly references and mocks the English dub the way art of Sanji sucking lollipops would.
Z Dub hate simply doesn't seem to have as widespread or unanimous an amount of hatred as 4Kids One Piece hate.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Except that somehow, for One Piece, it was bad enough that even people who've never seen the original show didn't like 4Kids' dub, that the Japanese audience - the same ones who thought all of 4Kids' rewrites to Mewtwo Strikes Back were so good they offered subtitles for them on their dual-language DVDs - were making a mockery of it,

[/quote]

To be fair, the changes made to Mewtwo Strikes Back weren't the same level of bad as either of the things we're talking about here. But to get actual Japanese backlash, holy cow.

I really don't see a huge amount of hate for either dub (DBZ and One Piece) outside of the hardcore fans who know the difference. Maybe I haven't looked for it.

[Luke Groundwalker]

Pretty positive One Piece's dub is in a much worse situation than DBZ's dub. Aside from extensive edits, pretty much every line in the One Piece dub has been changed drastically. Entire arcs are removed too. DBZ's dub largely has a semblance of what the show is about, while One Piece completely skews itself from the original intent to the point it's comical.

DBZ dub's problems more about translation accuracy than anything, while One Piece's dub has problems everywhere.

[jjgp1112]

You mean, One Piece was in a horrible spot. Now that FUNimation's dubbed all of those episodes faithfully, it might as well have never happened

[Super Sonic]

Except that somehow, for One Piece, it was bad enough that even people who've never seen the original show didn't like 4Kids' dub, that the Japanese audience - the same ones who thought all of 4Kids' rewrites to Mewtwo Strikes Back were so good they offered subtitles for them on their dual-language DVDs - were making a mockery of it,

To be fair, the changes made to Mewtwo Strikes Back weren't the same level of bad as either of the things we're talking about here. But to get actual Japanese backlash, holy cow.

Also with the first Pokemon movie there were two reasons why there wasn't as much of a backlash, or thought of as bad:

1) The majority of the fanbase was in elementary and middle school. They've grown up since then, but the kids who watched the Pokemon dub outnumbered the teens and adults who liked it in Japanese and complained about it 200:1. If any of you guys saw that movie in theater, and were older than 14/15 at the time, how many other people did you see in that theater older than 15 who was not accompanied by young kids? I was 17 then, and I was the only one older who wasn't with little kids there.

2) 80 million dollars. That's how much it made in the States. In case any of you foreigners are wondering, $80 million US is quit your job and never work another day in your life type of money. Now be honest if you were a WB exec which would you be more concerned over, A couple of guys older than your main demographic complaining about changes, or $80 million? Now be honest and not give any excuses about how you're not greedy and you'd do something for the art and the fans and whatnot.

Those two reasons are why complaints about the first Pokemon movie fell on deaf ears.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

The dub in Dragon Ball/Z/GT is VERY inacurate. They have placed silly dialogs ether to make it more funny or more apropriate for kids or even to make it more "cool". They have changed names of characters, techniques and places. They have even changed background information, partially (for example Dr. Gero and Taopaipai were Generals of the Red Ribbon Army) or even the whole story (see Slug). That's why I hate it when fans love this dub and detest the Japanese because Goku has a funny voice.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Except that somehow, for One Piece, it was bad enough that even people who've never seen the original show didn't like 4Kids' dub, that the Japanese audience - the same ones who thought all of 4Kids' rewrites to Mewtwo Strikes Back were so good they offered subtitles for them on their dual-language DVDs - were making a mockery of it,

To be fair, the changes made to Mewtwo Strikes Back weren't the same level of bad as either of the things we're talking about here. But to get actual Japanese backlash, holy cow.

Also with the first Pokemon movie there were two reasons why there wasn't as much of a backlash, or thought of as bad:

1) The majority of the fanbase was in elementary and middle school. They've grown up since then, but the kids who watched the Pokemon dub outnumbered the teens and adults who liked it in Japanese and complained about it 200:1. If any of you guys saw that movie in theater, and were older than 14/15 at the time, how many other people did you see in that theater older than 15 who was not accompanied by young kids? I was 17 then, and I was the only one older who wasn't with little kids there.

2) 80 million dollars. That's how much it made in the States. In case any of you foreigners are wondering, $80 million US is quit your job and never work another day in your life type of money. Now be honest if you were a WB exec which would you be more concerned over, A couple of guys older than your main demographic complaining about changes, or $80 million? Now be honest and not give any excuses about how you're not greedy and you'd do something for the art and the fans and whatnot.

Those two reasons are why complaints about the first Pokemon movie fell on deaf ears.

1) Obviously the target audience didn't care, some of them didn't even keep up with the story, they just wanted to see the Pokemon (A sentiment I don't really understand, I saw the first three in theaters back in the day- in the target audience- and had at least a basic grasp of what was going on).

2) You came to the wrong conclusion; the movie would have made $80 million regardless of whether or not it was censored. As both VegettoEX and Sean Schemmeul have been saying for Dragon Ball, leave it the heck alone it will sell just as well on its own merits. Kai hasn't exactly been a slow seller in the States, and Mewtwo's referencing God and cloning Pokemon to justify his own existence wouldn't have changed things much either.