Does English Dragon Ball need higher profile actors?

[ABED]

Thanks but I wasn't looking for an explanation of those shows. It really doesn't affect the issue of me having not heard her performance in either.

I don't watch much anime so it really shouldn't surprise you I have never heard of either show.

[goku the krump dancer]

I thought Linda Young was great as Genkai in YuYu Hakusho.

[ABED]

It's a slightly better performance but I still don't think she was good enough to sell Genkai's age and wisdom and she utterly failed in Genkai's death scene.

[goku the krump dancer]

Tomato Tomahto I guess.. I was pretty sold on everything, I dont know how much more "Old" an old lady can sound like without literally stumbling over there words in regards to her performance but I've never been the hardest to please when it comes to voice acting honestly.

I mean when I hear old DBZ Funi dub stuff, the voice acting doesn't sound as good as the modern stuff but I do feel like part of that is conditioning from being on this forum for so long lol.

[Soppa Saia People]

i honestly don't even think she was that much worse then most other funi actors in the original s3 dub, with the voice filter. it's not a good performance, and it definitely is unfitting for freeza, but that's most s3 funi performances, and i don't think she the worst of the bunch. now by the video games and "re-dub", where there's no word filter and some people had kinda improved, yeah there's no argument she's terrible there, but for 99 dub ? i don't mind her that much.

[ABED]

I get where you're coming from but it's the combination of being miscast and her being an awful actress, whereas I think there are plenty of actors on the show who weren't necessarily miscast but lacked a lot of experience and better directing. No amount of time or direction was gonna make her a good fit for Freeza.

[8000 Saiyan]

They'd be WAY too expensive to be in a show like this. And no, all Dragon Ball needs is good actors, they don't need to get Tom Holland to voice Gohan or Vin Diesel for Piccolo.

And yeah, agreed 100% with ABED on Young's Genkai. Slightly better than her Frieza, but then it's really hard to believe her when she's playing Genkai when she was younger. Still better than Sabat's Kuwabara though.

[MyVisionity]

The Yuu Yuu Hakusho dub is trash.

Linda Young being slightly better as Genkai than as Freeza makes sense because Funimation's Yuu Yuu Hakusho is only slightly better than their Season Three DBZ.

[MasenkoHA]

Genkai, like Fortune Teller Baba, is also more in her wheelhouse. For Freeza she was already a poor woman’s version of a role that was miscast by the Ocean Group.

Also isn’t Yuyu Hakusho’s dub in the boat of the original Dragon Ball dub? “We didn’t rebrand the show into something it’s not but we weren’t necessarily concerned with faithful dialog and avoided certain elements”

[Matches Malone]

Isn’t Yuyu Hakusho’s dub in the boat of the original Dragon Ball dub? “We didn’t rebrand the show into something it’s not but we weren’t necessarily concerned with faithful dialog and avoided certain elements”

It was originally, but some parts were re-dubbed when it was released on Blu-ray. I don't know if it's on the level of Funi's dubbed anime today, but I think it's far better than something like Z's 3rd "season".

[WittyUsername]

The YYH dub takes a number of liberties with the dialogue, but it seems to generally be held in good regard. I have seen some people who have said that they actually prefer the dub, on the count of how much more colorful the dialogue is.

[Super Sonic]

The YYH dub takes a number of liberties with the dialogue, but it seems to generally be held in good regard. I have seen some people who have said that they actually prefer the dub, on the count of how much more colorful the dialogue is.

Oh yeah. The announcer girl not wanting to die a virgin was the funniest line in the series. Once referenced to a YYH group who had her with them without saying the line, said they agreed and they'd take care of that for her while laughing. And to a native English speaker, "Rei Gun" sounds kinda lame with it sounding like "Ray Gun" so prefer "Spirit Gun".

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

In general, Young's voice actually fit with Uranai/Fortunteller Baba in DB and old (not young) Genkai in YYH but her Freeza on the other hand was all kinds of miscast. Again though, it all goes back to FUNi's mindset circa 1999 of hiring people to do poor impressions of the Ocean VA's before they eventually albeit slowly moved past that. The roles of hers in other dubs including the above were overall ok, but she just plain didn't work as Freeza.

[MyVisionity]

The Hakusho dub is indeed actually far better than Season Three DBZ, I was exaggerating a bit. The performances are much better. However, like with DBZ, Funimation decided that the plot and characterization in the original version needed to be changed into something else. Not entirely, and maybe not to the extent of DBZ, but it's still been altered. The added humor and dialogue may make it more "entertaining" for audiences, but it's still turning it into something it's not. This is just the kind of thing that Funimation did in the early 2000s. I doubt Hakusho would have looked like that ten years later, or at least I hope not.

I don't know what changes were made in the redub for Blu Ray, so I can't speak to that.

And to a native English speaker, "Rei Gun" sounds kinda lame with it sounding like "Ray Gun" so prefer "Spirit Gun".

It's actually called the reigan (霊丸) in the original Japanese, rei meaning "soul/spirit" and gan meaning "ball/orb". It's presumably supposed to be wordplay with the English word "gun"/gan since Urameshi shoots it like a firearm, which is why the translations use "Rei Gun/Spirit Gun".

[8000 Saiyan]

Compare the YYH dub to the recent Funimation dubs and you can tell that it's pretty dated. I still believe that it's only really liked to this day because they grew up with it and to them, it sounded slightly better than the DBZ dub.

Sabat's Kuwabara makes it hard to take Kuwabara seriously whenever there's a dramatic moment. Rewatching the show in the original Japanese version made me appreciate the show a lot more. Looking back on Dameon Clarke's Toguro, it really pales in comparison to Tessho Genda's performance. Clarke sounds like he's trying too hard to sound menacing while Genda just naturally is, probably because Genda has a naturally deeper voice than Clarke, so he doesn't have to try as hard.

[ABED]

Of all the voices you could've chosen, you had to choose Clarke as the example? Why not Cook? In case it's not clear, I disagree with your assessment of Clarke's performance.

[WittyUsername]

Compare the YYH dub to the recent Funimation dubs and you can tell that it's pretty dated. I still believe that it's only really liked to this day because they grew up with it and to them, it sounded slightly better than the DBZ dub.

Sabat's Kuwabara makes it hard to take Kuwabara seriously whenever there's a dramatic moment. Rewatching the show in the original Japanese version made me appreciate the show a lot more. Looking back on Dameon Clarke's Toguro, it really pales in comparison to Tessho Genda's performance. Clarke sounds like he's trying too hard to sound menacing while Genda just naturally is, probably because Genda has a naturally deeper voice than Clarke, so he doesn't have to try as hard.

YYH is seen by many as something of a generic fighting anime, so some of the praise for the English dub is that many people believe it gives the show more of a distinct personality. Compare that to the DBZ dub, which tried to make the show more like other children’s action shows that were on at the time, thereby removing much of what gives Dragon Ball its own identity.

Anyway, I’m guessing the general consensus here is that the English branch of the franchise doesn’t need big name actors?

[Super Sonic]

Compare the YYH dub to the recent Funimation dubs and you can tell that it's pretty dated. I still believe that it's only really liked to this day because they grew up with it and to them, it sounded slightly better than the DBZ dub.

A lot of older dubs haven't aged as well. When I picked up vol. 1 of Voltron back in 2006 I noticed that, and instantly turned my anime senses off and was fine. Some may consider the cast there "higher profile" as are voice actors who are thought of a greats. In fact a lot of them you have to turn your anime senses off and when you do so, you enjoy more. It was the same with eps of "Grimms Fairy Tail Classics" I found on youtube and with Superbook and Flying House. Though with those two, I think most folks here would rather watch the old Z dub than watch those subbed as they don't have much of an audience to see them subbed.

[Planetnamek]

Compare the YYH dub to the recent Funimation dubs and you can tell that it's pretty dated. I still believe that it's only really liked to this day because they grew up with it and to them, it sounded slightly better than the DBZ dub.

A lot of older dubs haven't aged as well. When I picked up vol. 1 of Voltron back in 2006 I noticed that, and instantly turned my anime senses off and was fine. Some may consider the cast there "higher profile" as are voice actors who are thought of a greats. In fact a lot of them you have to turn your anime senses off and when you do so, you enjoy more. It was the same with eps of "Grimms Fairy Tail Classics" I found on youtube and with Superbook and Flying House. Though with those two, I think most folks here would rather watch the old Z dub than watch those subbed as they don't have much of an audience to see them subbed.

I've heard some say the same thing about the Tenchi Muyo dub, and yeah I can see the flaws in it, but ultimately I still like it and honestly I can't help but feel like the imperfections are what make these 90s and 2000s dubs memorable to begin with. Whereas the more faithful ones just don't stick with me nearly as much. For example I just wasn't feeling Viz's take on Sailor Moon, don't get me wrong i'm glad to finally have Sailor Stars in English but for the rest of the reasons I tend to prefer DiC and Cloverway's versions, likewise the new dub of Saint Seiya really didn't do it for me, even if it was more faithful I still keep coming back to the DiC version as it had the best voice-acting of all of the dubs.

[MasenkoHA]

I've heard some say the same thing about the Tenchi Muyo dub, and yeah I can see the flaws in it, but ultimately I still like it and honestly I can't help but feel like the imperfections are what make these 90s and 2000s dubs memorable to begin with.

Honestly, other than Tenchi himself sounding like Kermit the Frog I always thought the acting in the dub was really good.

. For example I just wasn't feeling Viz's take on Sailor Moon, don't get me wrong i'm glad to finally have Sailor Stars in English but for the rest of the reasons I tend to prefer DiC and Cloverway's versions,

The Viz dub just feels soo artificial like the actors are practically reading stage directions instead of acting. And considering how much talent the Viz dub has (pretty much the whose who of California based dubbing talent) I can’t help but feel it’s an issue with the voice director.