Another reason dubs are important.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Pop Culture dubs help popularize almost dead languages like Navajo. I wish we could see Dragon Ball saving such languages from Extinction. I'm not saying "Take that subbies!" but I really want to see Dragon Ball do its part to not only ensure those languages endure but also reach people who would love it.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I don't know why this should even be a question. Dubs lower the barrier to entry for a very large portion of this fanbase, I'm willing to bet the vast majority on here regardless of whether or not they eventually got used to the Japanese version got into Dragon Ball through exposure to their local dubs. The more dubs are made, the more we welcome to this wonderful franchise and community.

It's 2019 people, time to celebrate the diversity of the Dragon Ball fanbase and all the different ways to experience it, because there are many and I'm grateful for all of it.

[90sDBZ]

I don't know why this should even be a question. Dubs lower the barrier to entry for a very large portion of this fanbase, I'm willing to bet the vast majority on here regardless of whether or not they eventually got used to the Japanese version got into Dragon Ball through exposure to their local dubs. The more dubs are made, the more we welcome to this wonderful franchise and community.

It's 2019 people, time to celebrate the diversity of the Dragon Ball fanbase and all the different ways to experience it, because there are many and I'm grateful for all of it.

I completely agree with this.

[VDenter]

Dubs are important.

The problem with Dragon Ball is that it has tons of terrible dubs associated with it. Those aren't really important.

In fact they do more damage to the series if anything.

[JohnnyCashKami]

Are dubs important or dubs are important?

Either way, I like collecting dubs of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Kai (+ TFC) so that someday there can be a multi-dub/sub release which can please everyone, or at least the dubs of the West.

The Hindi (Indian) dub is strangely interesting because for the first 53 episodes they used the Saban source (aka Ocean Dub) and then afterwards it was the original, but despite that, they added additional music to every scene so there'd be no silent scenes. Why? Trying to copy Saban/FUNi's music replacement, I guess.

I don't know why this should even be a question.

The way that she presented the thread's title was more like a statement rather than a question. If it were a question then she left out the question mark.

[Ex-Dubbie369]

Is there a Navajo dub? Because if there is I'd love to see some of it. Sounds pretty sweet.

[JohnnyCashKami]

Is there a Navajo dub? Because if there is I'd love to see some of it. Sounds pretty sweet.

If that does exist then it's not on the non-official Dragon Ball: Foreign Language Dubs thread. I've honestly never of a Navajo dub of Dragon Ball but would be interested to check it out.

[8000 Saiyan]

They're not important to people who prefer to watch anything in its original language.

[SSJmole]

I don't know why this should even be a question. Dubs lower the barrier to entry for a very large portion of this fanbase, I'm willing to bet the vast majority on here regardless of whether or not they eventually got used to the Japanese version got into Dragon Ball through exposure to their local dubs.

I did and I admit dubs are better for me. I can relax watching. Also being dyslexic reading subtitles takes me out of it and I have to keep rewinding , pausing ect . When action distracts me from dialogue. Ect...

Also recently I've rewatch loads as I got my little nephew watching it. Dubs are just easier to watch together ect....

I never understood the elitist "subs are better" it's up to the individual. Some like the purity of subs and that is fine others like the accessibility of dubs , that's fine too.

[obiwan23s]

About 15 years ago when I was still in high school, I was a fansubber in my free time. The group I was in subbed lots of popular shows at the time. Inuyasha, Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, Gundam Seed and lots of others. We had people approach us all the time asking if they could translate our English subtitles into another language. German, French, and Spanish mostly but I'm sure there were others. I was always happy to share subtitle scripts if a foreign language fansubber approached me about it. Just trying to say subtitles have a part in reaching people who don't speak English as well!

Dubs are great, I actually prefer to watch anime dubbed if I can. I feel like most dubs are fairly accurate and the only things that really get changed are colloquial things in the dialogue. The English dub of Dragon Ball is just under a huge microscope because the franchise has a gigantic fanbase and we are all very passionate about the story.

[Robo4900]

The English dub of Dragon Ball is just under a huge microscope because the franchise has a gigantic fanbase and we are all very passionate about the story.

Well, that and the fact Dragon Ball's dubbing was crap as far as accuracy was concerned for something like 15 years, during which time almost all Dragon Ball media was dubbed.

Things improved leaps and bounds for Kai, it actually was a solid dub from an accuracy standpoint, and it's been okay since then, but the legacy of the never-fixed DB, Z, GT, and movie dubs still hangs over the fandom, especially since alternate dubs like Pioneer's movies or Blue Water's GT, or to a far lesser extent Blue Water's DB, all were far better than what Funi were putting out as the main dubs in terms of accuracy, and were generally produced with a far more professional, experienced cast of actors, and yet those dubs have been brushed under the rug.

So, the fact a lot of Dragon Ball fans have a chip on their shoulder about dub accuracy is pretty justified and understandable.

Still, dubs are important, and accuracy aside, Dragon Ball's dubbing generally provided a version of the show many people enjoyed; most of us started watching dubbed, and whether we've moved over to the Japanese version or not, chances are the dub was doing at least something right if it made fans out of us.
I personally will never stop hearing Scott McNeil as the voice of Piccolo when I'm reading any Dragon Ball manga; ditto for Brian Drummond's Vegeta. And it's not just Ocean's castings that have crept into my head in this way; I hear Chris Ayres' Freeza, and Monica Rial's Bulma, but still Don Brown's Butta... And Goku tends to fluctuate between Corlett, Kelamis, Kirby, and Schemmel, or Henderson and Slusar. The dubs were how I got started, and I'll always be grateful for the performances given in them, and the work put in, in general, to get a good thing on TV, even if the scripts often fell over from an accuracy standpoint.
Much as the Japanese is my default these days, if there's an option to watch dubbed by Ocean, chances are I'll tend to prefer that for my general viewing; even though the scripts often fell down, to me, Ocean's castings will always be how Dragon Ball sounds.

[Tian]

Yes, they are.

Why?

They give every country the chance to add its local touch to the series.

You have examples like the European Portuguese dub where, I think you already know, they added references to celebrities, folk songs and the station that aired the series, etc. This thing is impossible to be done with subtitles because most people expect subtitles to be an etremely faithful, literal and serious translation and I doubt they would want stuff like "Miss Portugal '97" in subtitles.

Another reason for the importance of the dubs is that they are like a contribution to the story of DB as a worldwide phenomenon. I even dare to say that the respective casts of the local dubs have also helped to the franchise's success in their countries. They are the voices you associate the characters with, the voices you grew up with, etc. Man, there is no way subtitles can give you an emotional bond like that.

[OmegaRockman]

Is there a Navajo dub? Because if there is I'd love to see some of it. Sounds pretty sweet.

I don't think there is. I believe he was using the Navajo language as an example since a few years ago Navajo dubs of Star Wars and Finding Nemo were put out to aid in the language preservation effort. I actually have a copy of the Navajo dubbed Star Wars on DVD. I think it would be pretty cool if DB were also dubbed to help that cause.

[VegettoEX]

Placing the duty of preserving dying languages on anime dubs is... well, that's certainly a new one.

I think everyone's well aware of what role(s) dubs play in various societies, but this is a giant stretch. There are almost certainly far better ways to achieve that goal, and I'm sure linguists/sociologists are aware of them and actively practicing them where appropriate.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I wouldn't say its a dub's duty to preserve a dying language, but it could definitely help.

The Irish language (also known as Gaelic) is considered to be dead amongst some people I know, I've even met some foreigners who were unaware we had our own language as the vast majority of the country speaks in English.

Simply put a lot of people who were raised with the English language and don't need Irish for the vast majority of jobs in this country never feel inclined to learn it because it feels like a chore.

If Dragon Ball ever got an Irish dub I can say I know some people who would be more willing to learn the language simply because they can do it while watching a show they love.

Its all about making learning the language more fun than hard work.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Placing the duty of preserving dying languages on anime dubs is... well, that's certainly a new one.

I think everyone's well aware of what role(s) dubs play in various societies, but this is a giant stretch. There are almost certainly far better ways to achieve that goal, and I'm sure linguists/sociologists are aware of them and actively practicing them where appropriate.

Why is it a stretch? Look I know you are all for the original and that is awesome. But its really sad that you seem to not understand that for a language to be out of the danger zone of being lost forever it NEEDS to be spoken by more than just a handful linguist and socialogists. I even like the shitty Guarani dubs of shitty cartoons a studio here in Paraguay makes because it reaches children that speak that language (Ok this kind of stabs my point in the back but its still pretty important) and helps spread Guarani across the land.

I wish more people dismissive of the importance of dubs. I wish that instead of saying dubs are shitty or that they dont matter, fans did their work to make sure that dubs improved.

[Tian]

I wish we could see Dragon Ball saving such languages from Extinction.

Oh, I almost forgot it. I know something DB was proposed to be dubbed in an endangered language.

That endangered language would be Asturian, a language from the Asturian-Leonese family and spoken in the principality of Asturias, Spain.

Here's the story...

In 2015, Xunta pola Defensa de la Llingua Asturiana (XDLA) proposed to both Dirección Xeneral de Política Llingüística and Televisión del Principado de Asturias (TPA) to colaborate in the Asturian dubbing of an animation movie starred by a character from the comic world which would be aired coinciding with the 35th edition of Selmana de les Lletres, which is dedicated to the Asturian comic.

The animation movie had to be chosen from a list of productions that Forta (where TPA is integrated) had licensed:
- 7 animated movies of Asterix & Obelix
- 12 movies of Shin Chan
- 15 movies of Dragon Ball
- 17 movies of Doraemon
- 8 movies of Detective Conan

This was also proposed because XDLA didn't like the fact that TPA wasn't airing content for kids in Asturian language.

I don't know how this ended but I think DB got rejected since I don't see an Asturian dub of any of the movies around in the internet.

Sources

About main topic:
https://m.europapress.es/asturias/notic ... 04101.html

About Asturian being endangered:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/jml34/Asturias.htm (in Spanish)
https://www.onehourtranslation.com/tran ... n-language (in English)
https://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/web/docu ... i1/i1.html (in English)
https://www.agenciasinc.es/Noticias/La- ... n-el-mundo (in Spanish)

[Danfun64]

In complete fairness, the Z movies wouldn't have made any sense if you haven't read the manga or seen the anime series. Of the Z specials and movies, "Bardock Father of Goku" is by far the most beginner friendly, though not as much as the classic DB trilogy, let alone Path to Power. The Z movies don't explain enough to be watched completely stand alone.