Personal Thoughts on the Ocean Dub

[ABED]

I'm aware that it's just one point. I more or less agree with the rest of your assessment, but you could've picked a better example since next to no one in my experience (and I've been a part of the DBZ internet fandom since its pretty much its inception) next to no one has anything bad to say about Scott McNeil. If they do, they are the minority and likely a FUNi dub fan.

[MasenkoHA]

So that’s a yes on Funimation being cheap and lazy

Actually there was an interview were Sabat said they did get tapes of the Japanese version, but they were of terrible sound quality which made them use the Spanish tapes instead. I'm pretty sure he said that in his interview with Geekdom anyway.

No, that's what he said about the original Japanese music, as a reason for why they replaced the score. He also said the quality of their translations from the Japanese scripts were pretty bad too.

They also had Fukunaga admit way back in 96 the decision to replace the music was for royalties and to Americanize the show. And pretty much no other dub that wasn’t based on the Funimation dub apparently had this issue. And Z had this problem but the even older Dragon Ball didn’t have this issue? And they were still replacing music in 2005 but were able to put it back in 2 years. I’m not calling bullshit on Sabat’s claim but its definite hmmmmm.


Same with these alleged “we had crappy incoherent English translations thar’s why the scripts were so off lol” they were able to hire someone to do accurate subtitles for the Japanese release, the Spanish tapes they were working off supposedly the Spanish dub was very accurate and it couldn’t be that hard to find someone in Texas to translate Spanish to English.

Hell there are portions of the English script even in those early days that weren’t that far off. I remember comparing Ginyu Assault to the Japanese episode and there were portions that were technically correct.


I just have a hard time buying Funimation’s excuses for poor quality as anything other than damage control. “it’s not our fault the dub sucked so bad”

[8000 Saiyan]

I can't really think of any Funi dub fan saying anything bad about McNeil either. All I've heard is people saying that he only fit Piccolo when he was evil. A Funi dub fan in particular said that he fits Wolverine better than Piccolo, which doesn't make any sense to me since Wolverine is also a good guy.

[MasenkoHA]

A Funi dub fan in particular said that he fits Wolverine better than Piccolo, which doesn't make any sense to me since Wolverine is also a good guy.

He was the voice of Wolverine in that X-Men Evolution cartoon that was on Kidswb around the same time Dragon Ball Z was on Toonami so that’s probably why. Goes back to that whole
“This is how I heard the characters as a kid this is how they should sound” thing.

Anyone who think sMcneil doesn’t fit Piccolo but will gladly listen to Sabat do a piss poor impersonation of Mcneil up until (Boo saga? Dragon Ball’s Piccolo Jr saga?) is of course showing an immense amount of unawareness.

Same with the “Drummond fit Vegeta up until midway through Namek saga then Sabat was the perfect fit even though Sabat was originally doing the dime store version in 1999 and still kinda was in the Android saga”

[Soppa Saia People]

sabat's early cell vegeta voice is probably his worst. the season 3 voice is just funny, but his vegeta voice during the #18 fight in particular is really really rough, he constantly sounds like he has a cold.

[ABED]

sabat's early cell vegeta voice is probably his worst. the season 3 voice is just funny, but his vegeta voice during the #18 fight in particular is really really rough, he constantly sounds like he has a cold.

His delivery of "Curse you, boy!" to Trunks is sublime.

[Metalwario64]

A Funi dub fan in particular said that he fits Wolverine better than Piccolo, which doesn't make any sense to me since Wolverine is also a good guy.

He was the voice of Wolverine in that X-Men Evolution cartoon that was on Kidswb around the same time Dragon Ball Z was on Toonami so that’s probably why. Goes back to that whole
“This is how I heard the characters as a kid this is how they should sound” thing.

Anyone who think sMcneil doesn’t fit Piccolo but will gladly listen to Sabat do a piss poor impersonation of Mcneil up until (Boo saga? Dragon Ball’s Piccolo Jr saga?) is of course showing an immense amount of unawareness.

Same with the “Drummond fit Vegeta up until midway through Namek saga then Sabat was the perfect fit even though Sabat was originally doing the dime store version in 1999 and still kinda was in the Android saga”

Sabat's early Piccolo voice always made me more think of a shitty Duike Nukem impression to be honest.

He drops it when he fuses with Kami. It seems almost intentional I think, since his voice from then on is mostly just his own voice, just a tad deeper.

The crazy thing is, from my current dub re-watch, I feel like at that point his Piccolo line delivery is decent, too, so I don't get why his Vegeta is constantly in wacky cartoon land with the outlandish inflections and deliveries for the rest of the series (though it gets a tad better in the late Buu stuff).

[8000 Saiyan]

I have to agree that Sabat's a lot better as Piccolo than Vegeta. For the most part, when he's not doing an exaggerated voice (like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-voX5yvcwk or his work as Kuwabara), he's a lot better. Something about his delivery of "PREPARE TO ATAAAACK!!!" in that scene sounds so forced to me.

[JustAlex1997]

I'm slightly biased as a Canadian due to the actors being from here (and me having grown up with those actors) as well as having been acknowledged by Brian Drummond a couple of times, but I honestly think that the work they did (in regards to the quality of the acting and some of the voices themselves) was better than the TV broadcast in-house stuff by Funimation. I prefer Brian Drummond and Scott McNeil as Vegeta and Piccolo respectively, and would love to see at least those two return for flashbacks and such in modern Dragon Ball material.

I do hate all of the dub changes, though, so it does leave something of a sour taste at times.