Funimation Dubbing: My Hero Academia vs Dragon Ball Franchise

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Another FUNimation dub that's often pointed to as "one of their best" and "a huge improvement over their DBZ dub'" is Yu Yu Hakusho. And that's certainly a dub that, while indeed LIGHTYEARS better than virtually anything they've ever done with DB in any capacity (which itself isn't exactly a high bar to clear to begin with), is still plagued with issues of its own. Most of it generally being related to scripting, though it certainly has a few acting issues as well (namely with Sabat's Kuwabara which is outright unlistenable).

My view of the YYH dub is that it's not a particularly accurate dub like DBZ's dub was...but it worked better. I can't go back to DBZ's old dub. Had Kai not come out and gotten dubbed when it did, I would be sub only right now for DBZ.

But YYH? I'm nearly half way through my rewatch of it, and I love it. Because it still fundamentally feels like YYH, the characters feel right. It's not perfect, but that's important. I've watched the full anime and read the full manga of both Dragon Ball and Yu Yu Hakusho. I can recognize characters from YYH in both versions that they're who they're supposed to be. Yusuke is Yusuke, his dub voice/dialogue is just how I'd expect Yusuke to talk in English. But Goku? I love Sean Schemmel as Goku in the modern stuff...but old dub Z Goku is not Goku of the manga. There's such a stark difference in so many points (plus, it helps that Justin Cook did give a better performance at the time as Yusuke, Schemmel was still several years away from finally getting it right).

I watch YYH's dub even to this day, I laugh, I get hyped up, I even cry. I watch DBZ's old dub...and I cringe. Just cringe.

But yeah, FUNi overall does way better dubs now. One Piece and especially My Hero Academia are solid dubs. Decently accurate from what I can recall of the manga, as I've read both.

Of course, when it comes to more jokey things, sometimes FUNi tosses accuracy to have fun, like with the Crayon Shin-Chan dub, but yeah, they do a lot of good dubs now. Dragon Ball just has some holdovers, like fixing a run down clock with some new parts, while others are starting to rust.

Yu Yu Hakusho and One Piece's dubs are some of my favorites of FUNi's later productions. It felt like as with each subsequent dub production they did they got incrementally better not just in terms of the voice cast but their production methods and attempting to remain closer to the source material, so the aforementioned as well as Kai show that there has been a natural progression over time compared to when they first started dubbing Z in house back in 1999. Yeah, they've still made some questionable choices here and there but on the whole i would say they are definitely much better as a company as both a dubber and distributor of anime properties.

[8000 Saiyan]

Another FUNimation dub that's often pointed to as "one of their best" and "a huge improvement over their DBZ dub'" is Yu Yu Hakusho. And that's certainly a dub that, while indeed LIGHTYEARS better than virtually anything they've ever done with DB in any capacity (which itself isn't exactly a high bar to clear to begin with), is still plagued with issues of its own. Most of it generally being related to scripting, though it certainly has a few acting issues as well (namely with Sabat's Kuwabara which is outright unlistenable).

My view of the YYH dub is that it's not a particularly accurate dub like DBZ's dub was...but it worked better. I can't go back to DBZ's old dub. Had Kai not come out and gotten dubbed when it did, I would be sub only right now for DBZ.

But YYH? I'm nearly half way through my rewatch of it, and I love it. Because it still fundamentally feels like YYH, the characters feel right. It's not perfect, but that's important. I've watched the full anime and read the full manga of both Dragon Ball and Yu Yu Hakusho. I can recognize characters from YYH in both versions that they're who they're supposed to be. Yusuke is Yusuke, his dub voice/dialogue is just how I'd expect Yusuke to talk in English. But Goku? I love Sean Schemmel as Goku in the modern stuff...but old dub Z Goku is not Goku of the manga. There's such a stark difference in so many points (plus, it helps that Justin Cook did give a better performance at the time as Yusuke, Schemmel was still several years away from finally getting it right).

I watch YYH's dub even to this day, I laugh, I get hyped up, I even cry. I watch DBZ's old dub...and I cringe. Just cringe.

But yeah, FUNi overall does way better dubs now. One Piece and especially My Hero Academia are solid dubs. Decently accurate from what I can recall of the manga, as I've read both.

Of course, when it comes to more jokey things, sometimes FUNi tosses accuracy to have fun, like with the Crayon Shin-Chan dub, but yeah, they do a lot of good dubs now. Dragon Ball just has some holdovers, like fixing a run down clock with some new parts, while others are starting to rust.

"It's not a particularly accurate dub like DBZ's"? It's been a while since I've seen that dub, but I'm sure it was more accurate than DBZ's dub, even if it unnecessarily punched up the scripts, but not to the same extent as DBZ's.

[Mewzard]

"It's not a particularly accurate dub like DBZ's"? It's been a while since I've seen that dub, but I'm sure it was more accurate than DBZ's dub, even if it unnecessarily punched up the scripts, but not to the same extent as DBZ's.

I didn't mean to imply that it was AS inaccurate, just that, like DBZ, it wasn't all that accurate. I was more trying to emphasize it wasn't as accurate as their more modern dubs have been. Sorry for the confusion.

The focal point of the Z/YYH comparison was more that it overcame its inaccuracies to still be enjoyable by still having an appropriate feel and tone that fit its source material, and didn't change some of its more important characters too far, like Goku's Hope of the Universe take.

[MasenkoHA]

"It's not a particularly accurate dub like DBZ's"? It's been a while since I've seen that dub, but I'm sure it was more accurate than DBZ's dub, even if it unnecessarily punched up the scripts, but not to the same extent as DBZ's.

I didn't mean to imply that it was AS inaccurate, just that, like DBZ, it wasn't all that accurate. I was more trying to emphasize it wasn't as accurate as their more modern dubs have been. Sorry for the confusion.

The focal point of the Z/YYH comparison was more that it overcame its inaccuracies to still be enjoyable by still having an appropriate feel and tone that fit its source material, and didn't change some of its more important characters too far, like Goku's Hope of the Universe take.

Yuyu Hakusho was their first non-Dragon Ball related dub right?

[ABED]

I thought it was Blue Gender.

[MyVisionity]

"It's not a particularly accurate dub like DBZ's"? It's been a while since I've seen that dub, but I'm sure it was more accurate than DBZ's dub, even if it unnecessarily punched up the scripts, but not to the same extent as DBZ's.

To me they are about the same in terms of overall faithfulness to the originals, it's just that Hakusho was much more competently produced and accurate. It's still plagued by plot rewrites, overdone/dumbed down dialogue, and characterization issues.

I think Funimation's Yuu Yuu Hakusho is really only acceptable if you've already seen the original Japanese and have some kind of interest in watching a new take on the series. It's troubling to me to imagine someone's primary experience with the series coming from the English dub.

[MasenkoHA]

I thought it was Blue Gender.

From what I can tell Yuyu Hakusho’s dub was 2002. Blue Gender’s was 2003

[ABED]

I thought it was Blue Gender.

From what I can tell Yuyu Hakusho’s dub was 2002. Blue Gender’s was 2003

I was going off what I can remember from 17 years ago (FUCK! That is literally just over half my life ago) Now that you say it, you're probably right.

[8000 Saiyan]

"It's not a particularly accurate dub like DBZ's"? It's been a while since I've seen that dub, but I'm sure it was more accurate than DBZ's dub, even if it unnecessarily punched up the scripts, but not to the same extent as DBZ's.

To me they are about the same in terms of overall faithfulness to the originals, it's just that Hakusho was much more competently produced and accurate. It's still plagued by plot rewrites, overdone/dumbed down dialogue, and characterization issues.

I think Funimation's Yuu Yuu Hakusho is really only acceptable if you've already seen the original Japanese and have some kind of interest in watching a new take on the series. It's troubling to me to imagine someone's primary experience with the series coming from the English dub.

Those people tend to say that Funimation made the show more enjoyable than it was in the original version, and that it was a generic shonen anime. It's not a terrible dub, but not the best example of what Funimation has to offer.