The Best Dragon Ball dub?

[SaintEvolution]

I'm counting dubs for all the productions, TV series, OVA, Movies and the rest. In aspects like acting, mixing, translation, lip sync and all of that.

I think some of the asian dubs are very good, cause they are close to the original in the dialogues, and have good acting, for example, the cantonese or the korean dubs. The German dub for example have a pretty acting, but the translation was took by the french dub, that has horrible and lazy dialogues.

And there are many dubs that are not so commented too, like the indonesian(I only find 2 videos of indonesian DBZ), albanian, mandarin, and a few more.

Anyway, what dubs do you guys think that are the best ones? And you can say the ones you think are the worse too.

[fadeddreams5]

Big Green dub!

But seriously, I personally think the Funimation Kai dub is the best one. I'm a bigger fan of the music in the original Funi dub though.

I'm also fond of the Spanish dubs.

Haven't heard any other (I'm assuming you're not counting the original Japanese version). >.>

[SaintEvolution]

If you guys wanna some material to compare there are those multilanguage videos in Youtube. It's easy to find them.

EDIT.: I had shared some links here but some of the videos were removed so I removed the links too. Anyway there are still much material to compare in Youtube.

[Lord Beerus]

Nothing really tops the original JPN Z dub. It's damn near flawless. But the FUNi Kai dub is also pretty fantastic.

[SaintEvolution]

A few videos of some dubs that are not so famous:

Albanian Z dub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL0M9w2T8n8 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpfCCE0swTs

Arabic dub Z: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHQekj7lBhU
Arabic Z Kai: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dxjRBHNqkU

Indonesian DBGT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZO6KkBL_jo
Indonesian DBZ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrOeJfl1-fE
Indonesian Kai: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9oS5H7b4GM

Mandarin Z: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHEZ6MZXZ2g; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCnM4rzvph8
Mandarin Kai: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqFWr8XVDrA; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOX6_i4rO-8 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9-9GLhYNYo
Mandarin GT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2HLyKwT5M8 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Gbe46eZEM
Mandarin (original Dragon Ball): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzE7aIIBTv8 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2Irh501CB4

Thai Z(Channel 9 dub): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpOW0ozWrcA
Thai Z(DEX dub, that is more famous than the other one): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw3a704DTqs ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V75udU6uHyI
Thai Kai(DEX dub): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR-xCpZYots ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a9ntMO7-i8
Thai Kai(DEX and Cartoon Network Thailand dub comparison): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sreqx_ZPjyE
* The "DEX" thai dub is the most famous, and the used in some of the dub comparisons that I posted here in the other comment. The Kai dubs use respectvely the original casts of the original Z dubs too.

Tagalog original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6WgBNyCQ6s
Tagalog Kai: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVIyO3pAcX0
Tagalog Z: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlgNsD4rL-Y
* The original tagalog dub uses the same cast(or the most part of it)that the filipino english dub(most known for the movies) uses too.
Filipino English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWww3wVGyXo ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs2qkMxu-X0

Polish Movie dubs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN6f-UDZDcg ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpeLPxUFEx8

Hungarian dub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_I7zLbxna4 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re0iTPP7Ih8

Hindi dub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC7FUoQZa6s ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZfNgW-Xi2M
The Hindi was part based in the english(ocean dub), and part based in the japanese, until I know. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Vietnamese Kai dub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp25OjHXtWI ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPwe3975tfg
* I only find videos of the Kai version of the vietnamese dub. I didn't encountered any video of a vietnamese dub of the original series.

- Also, there are specfic dubs for some Spain regions, like Catalonia, Valencia, Basque Country and Galicia. I think that specially the catalan dub is a bit knowed by most of the people. The other three are not so.

Basque original DB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkMSbyX5PtM
Basque Z Kai dub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gu9u8TObrk
Basque Z: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZnDj1dIRyc ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ6b8J3tfCY

Valencian Z dub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecw75aT4Pas ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cynfcmPDXSc
The valencian dub was did until the Cell until I know.

Galician Z dub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeJN64bz6Z4
Galician original DB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEDakF9kHhc
Actually, the galician dub is very rare. But they dubbed GT and Kai too(and Battle of Gods too). But it's a rare dub to find.

[Cure Dragon 255]

I think dub is more for actual dubbing, as in dubbing over the original.

But I dont think any dub is the Very Best that ever was. Even my beloved Latin American dub has plenty of mistakes and flaws, I wouldnt nominate it.

Korean sounded so amazing. I'm more and more curious about it, I want to hear more.

[SaintEvolution]

Besides some of the asian dubs that are great, the south americans(brazilian and latin american) are very good too.
The negative points of the original latin american dub are the lip sync in some times and the voice recording sounded a bit poor for me. Some voices aren't that great, like Cell, Vegeta and a few more. The translation is accurate but I only don't like some names they changed like "Milk"(Chichi) for example. But in most of aspects is a very good dub.

About the original brazilian Z dub(not considering the 1st Dragon Ball, that had...4 or 5 dubs in Brazil. Yeah, I'm not joking; I'm only talking about Z now), it's a good dub too. I think it's almost tied with the latin american spanish dub(I can't decide what dub is exactly the best between them). It is a great dub.

For Kai Brazil and Latin American didn't have the same lucky, for reasons that are known for most of you guys I think. But thanking god, the original casts of these 2 versions returned in the newer movies.

[TheAldella]

The Uncut Ocean movies...I love them. The voice direction was top notch, in my opinion.

[SaintEvolution]

The Uncut Ocean movies...I love them. The voice direction was top notch, in my opinion.

The uncut ocean dub of the movies was really good too. Better than the TV version of the series.

Actually, I can't understand how the ocean dub was very good in Saiyan/Frieza arcs(besides the music changing) and could became so bad in Cell/Majin Boo arcs.

[TheKingOfKamehamehas]

Nothing really tops the original JPN Z dub. It's damn near flawless. But the FUNi Kai dub is also pretty fantastic.

The Japanese Z isn't a dub, it is the original. I would say the French Kai is pretty accurate with its translation and the voice actors sound better than ever. Ocean movies have to take the pick for me though because it was fully uncut and had proper translation. They were giving it their all on the movies. Not to mention staying with the Kikuchi music. If only Dragon Ball was like this from the start.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuViG2-w_To

[supercat]

My personal favorite is the Funimation Kai dub.

The remarkable voice acting and the astoundingly well written script really makes it absolutely brilliant from all standpoints.

I feel the stunning choice of words in conjunction with the talent behind each of the voices has the potential to attract a demographic consisting of all age groups.

Of course, I'm always going to be a fan of the original Japanese dub as well.

[TheBlackPaladin]

The translation is basically equal in the 2 south american dubs, but the brazilian one sounds a bit closer to the original japanese, cause they didn't used terms like "Milk" or "Freezer", but "Chichi" and "Freeza". I'm exciting too what they did with Revival of F. The brazilian version of Battle of Gods is very good, too.

In all fairness, the use of the name "Milk" over "Chichi" was not bcause of a bad translation or because the dub producers just felt like changing the name, in that particular case it was a censorship concern. In Spanish, "Chichi" is a (somewhat vulgar) term for breasts...without meaning to get too graphic, it would be like if the original character's name was "Booby," and they didn't change that for the English dub. I know I certainly wouldn't be able to take that seriously, I'd probably just laugh every time the character's name was mentioned (OK, so I'm a bit immature, sorry). So it's unfortunate that they had to change it to "Milk," but I understand the dilemma they had and don't count it against them.

Not sure why they went with "Freezer," though. My guess is that the translator might have made a mistake. It's a common tendency for Japanese people to pronounce the "er" sound as "ah" because the "er" sound doesn't occur naturally in the Japanese language. Because of that and the fact that the word "Freezer" is an actual word, perhaps the translator just thought, "Oh, they must mean 'Freezer.'"

And just for been clear, I'm not talking about the Kai dubs in Mexico and Brazil, cause the latin american and brazilian versions of Kai were pretty bad...I mean, mexican Kai has all the cast changed and it sounds like a poor imitation of the english Funimation Kai at least...

Well, that's because it was.

The company in charge of the Latin Spanish dub of Kai didn't have a particularly big budget, and they saved money primarily by doing two things:

1) Not hiring the more expensive voice actors from the original cast of the Latin Spanish DBZ dub...hence all the cast changes. The original cast members were asked to come back, but the dubbing company wouldn't pay what the voice actors were asking for. Interestingly enough, this is the case for the Brazillian Portuguese dub of Kai as well, as well as the original Japanese version of Kai. And there's a rumor going around that the soon-to-be-released German dub of Kai will have a lot of recasts as well, quite possibly for the same reason.

2) The biggest cost-cutting measure...the company in charge of the Latin Spanish dub of Kai decided not to get their dubbing materials directly from Japan, but instead, to use the Nicktoons-censored FUNimation dub. Really, they did. Linda Young's laugh as Freeza can still clearly be heard in episode 1, and the English-dubbed insert songs are left as-is. So they were working with censored video footage, used the censored English dub scripts as the basis for their translation, and it definitely sounds like whenever they had to recast a voice, they tried to find Spanish sound-alikes of the English actors. That's not to say they're all bad.....Edson Matus, the new Goku, has some of the most epic screams I've heard in a while*....but others are not so fortunate.

*Please note, the footage may appear uncut in this video, but that's just because a fan took the liberty of sinking the dub's audio to uncut footage.

[SaintEvolution]

The translation is basically equal in the 2 south american dubs, but the brazilian one sounds a bit closer to the original japanese, cause they didn't used terms like "Milk" or "Freezer", but "Chichi" and "Freeza". I'm exciting too what they did with Revival of F. The brazilian version of Battle of Gods is very good, too.

In all fairness, the use of the name "Milk" over "Chichi" was not bcause of a bad translation or because the dub producers just felt like changing the name, in that particular case it was a censorship concern. In Spanish, "Chichi" is a (somewhat vulgar) term for breasts...without meaning to get too graphic, it would be like if the original character's name was "Booby," and they didn't change that for the English dub. I know I certainly wouldn't be able to take that seriously, I'd probably just laugh every time the character's name was mentioned (OK, so I'm a bit immature, sorry). So it's unfortunate that they had to change it to "Milk," but I understand the dilemma they had and don't count it against them.

Not sure why they went with "Freezer," though. My guess is that the translator might have made a mistake. It's a common tendency for Japanese people to pronounce the "er" sound as "ah" because the "er" sound doesn't occur naturally in the Japanese language. Because of that and the fact that the word "Freezer" is an actual word, perhaps the translator just thought, "Oh, they must mean 'Freezer.'"

And just for been clear, I'm not talking about the Kai dubs in Mexico and Brazil, cause the latin american and brazilian versions of Kai were pretty bad...I mean, mexican Kai has all the cast changed and it sounds like a poor imitation of the english Funimation Kai at least...

Well, that's because it was.

The company in charge of the Latin Spanish dub of Kai didn't have a particularly big budget, and they saved money primarily by doing two things:

1) Not hiring the more expensive voice actors from the original cast of the Latin Spanish DBZ dub...hence all the cast changes. The original cast members were asked to come back, but the dubbing company wouldn't pay what the voice actors were asking for. Interestingly enough, this is the case for the Brazillian Portuguese dub of Kai as well, as well as the original Japanese version of Kai. And there's a rumor going around that the soon-to-be-released German dub of Kai will have a lot of recasts as well, quite possibly for the same reason.

2) The biggest cost-cutting measure...the company in charge of the Latin Spanish dub of Kai decided not to get their dubbing materials directly from Japan, but instead, to use the Nicktoons-censored FUNimation dub. Really, they did. Linda Young's laugh as Freeza can still clearly be heard in episode 1, and the English-dubbed insert songs are left as-is. So they were working with censored video footage, used the censored English dub scripts as the basis for their translation, and it definitely sounds like whenever they had to recast a voice, they tried to find Spanish sound-alikes of the English actors. That's not to say they're all bad.....Edson Matus, the new Goku, has some of the most epic screams I've heard in a while*....but others are not so fortunate.

*Please note, the footage may appear uncut in this video, but that's just because a fan took the liberty of sinking the dub's audio to uncut footage.

I know that about Milk. I understand the position of them about the term "Chichi", but Milk is still a bad adaptation. They could use another name, like "Kiki" or something like that(the european portuguese dub changed to "Kika", but without any strong reason I think).

About Kai in Brazil/Latin America, it was all Toei's fault. Toei Animation Latin America simply decided to use the Funimation censored nicktoons version instead of the japanese cause it was more cheap.

About the translation...latin american Kai has a bit lazy translation. They didn't adapted so good the dialogues from the FUNimation dub. In brazilian Kai they used the manga to adapt, so this was a good point(but the dub was bad in most of the other aspects).

Anyway, I think Edson Matus was a good Goku too. At least, in Android and Cell arcs.

[ShinGaijin]

-THE ORIGINAL JAPANESE-

Then, about the dubs...

DBZ The movies Ocean Dub Uncut
Z Mexican dub
DB and DBZ HK Cantonese dub
DB and DBZ Korean dub
FUNi Kai dub

Also, I don't understand why so much people hate the mexican dub of Dragon Ball Kai.Different voice actors, and so ? It was fine to me.

[Lord Beerus]

Nothing really tops the original JPN Z dub. It's damn near flawless. But the FUNi Kai dub is also pretty fantastic.

The Japanese Z isn't a dub, it is the original.

It still counts as a dub because of its interpretation of the characters from the manga.

[Cure Dragon 255]

No it isnt. I'm not saying this to diss the Japanese version, but you are using a cheat to avoid giving your judgement on any dub, and I have to say thats kind of rude. DBZKai's Japanese version is a dub though.

Again, this isnt THE ONE AND TRUE VERSION. Its which version is best NEXT to the Japanese version.

[Lord Beerus]

No it isnt. I'm not saying this to diss the Japanese version, but you are using a cheat to avoid giving your judgement on any dub, and I have to say thats kind of rude. DBZKai's Japanese version is a dub though.

Again, this isnt THE ONE AND TRUE VERSION. Its which version is best NEXT to the Japanese version.

There is no one and true version of the anime. The only true version of Dragon Ball is the manga, with simply many different dubs trying their best emphasise their own interpretation of how the characters are in the manga, with the specific choice of VA's and script. The original JPN dub counts as much as a dub of the FUNi dub or Ocean dub or Korean dub or the Mexican dub or any dub in the world because of how they interpret the characters from the manga.

[Cure Dragon 255]

It is not. A dub is a dub because it dubs over the original voices. By that mean, ANY sort of acting is a dub already even liveaction. But here the intent is clear. Any version that dubs the original Japanese show. This isnt BEST INTERPRETATION. Its best dub. And again, its not saying this hypothetical best dub is better or more enjoyable, it could be utter shit but since its the best the show has it is the best.

I'm not sayin the show's many dubs are all shitty but I want Beerus to understand my point and lighten up.

[Lord Beerus]

It is not. A dub is a dub because it dubs over the original voices. By that mean, ANY sort of acting is a dub already even liveaction. But here the intent is clear. Any version that dubs the original Japanese show. This isnt BEST INTERPRETATION. Its best dub. And again, its not saying this hypothetical best dub is better or more enjoyable, it could be utter shit but since its the best the show has it is the best.

I'm not sayin the show's many dubs are all shitty but I want Beerus to understand my point and lighten up.

Well, it's looks like we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this; and we'll save this debate for another time. But for sake of this thread, I'll say that the best "dub" for Dragon Ball is the FUNi Kai dub. It's simply great.

[Kakacarrottop]

Nothing really tops the original JPN Z dub. It's damn near flawless. But the FUNi Kai dub is also pretty fantastic.

The show IS Japanese, by definition there is no "Japanese dub" for it, just like there is no "English dub" for the Simpsons or South Park.

Anyway, it might not objectively be the best (in fact some might consider it one of the worst) but my favorite has always been the Ocean voiced dub for the first 2 DBZ seasons.