Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue Apr 13, 2021 10:49 pm

WittyUsername wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 10:38 pm
Aim wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 9:43 pm
WittyUsername wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 7:34 pm If by a “true faithful dub” you mean a perfect wall to wall representation of the Japanese version, then probably not. There are usually some inevitable liberties that would be made when translating something with a distinctly Eastern feel for a Western audience. Japanese and English are also two pretty different languages, and when you combine that with the issue of lip flaps, it’s inevitable that some things would get lost in translation.

To be clear, this isn’t an endorsement of each and every change FUNimation has made with the series. All I’m saying is that if people are looking for an English dub that stays completely true to the Japanese version, and takes practically no liberties whatsoever, then you’re bound to be disappointed.
Please do not take this the wrong way, but this feels like a straw man, I know liberties have to be taken in certain scenarios, however that is what in my opinion leads to a faithful dub anyway, otherwise it won’t make sense. So no, it’s not to be 1 to 1, but to actually be, feel, like the actual “English Dragon Ball”.
I’m not trying to strawman. I was just trying to understand what you meant by “true faithful dub.”


I assume they mean a dub that doesn’t randomly alter the dialog to change the context of the original meaning.

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Wed Apr 14, 2021 2:22 am

Yuli Ban wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 7:18 pm Not until we have AI that can perfectly replicate voices and translate things while retaining meaning.
That technology is coming.

I wish I was joking, but I'm not. There are several companies who are hard at work at creating "deepfake audio" technology, with one company focusing on creating that technology specifically for use in dubs. The idea is essentially that the technology would clone the voice of an actor in one language (say, for example, Japanese), and then a script adapter could simply type out a translated script in a different language (say, for example, English) and have the AI use the original actor's voice in that new language. It's getting better, but it's not yet at the point where it sounds good, because the synthesized voices still sound...well, like synthesized voices.

That said, it's only a matter of time before it gets to the point where it sounds legitimately human. I for one am not looking forward to it in the slightest. Firstly because it's going to put a lot of great performers across the whole world out of work, and secondly because an AI-generated performance will never have emotional sincerity.
Aim wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:14 am I’d really like to see that one day, where Dragon Ball is dubbed from the very beginning, trying to seek out VA’s that are capable of doing very close if not spot on impressions of the original characters...
To each their own, but if you mean doing spot-on impersonations of the original voices, well, that has never been and will never be a requirement in order for me to consider a dub to be good. The voices do have to sound like they belong to that character, but they don't have to sound like the original voice as long as they meet that requirement. Freeza is a great example. Chris's voice doesn't sound like Ryusei Nakao, but it's still a voice that fits Freeza and his acting is nothing short of amazing. Or, while we're on the subject of the fantastic Latino Spanish dub, Gerardo Reyero doesn't sound like Rysei Nakao either, but the acting is still phenomenal.
A "rather haggard" translation of a line from Future Gohan in DBZ, provided to FUNimation by Toei:
"To think of fighting that is this fun...so, it was pleasant fight, as many as, therefore is a feeling which is good the fight where."

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by precita » Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:27 am

Sentences should be translated word for word.

If in Japanese Goku says, "You guys are really strong, I can't wait to fight you!"

And in english Goku would say, "Wow you guys are really powerful, I can't wait to take you on!"

If you look at both sentences they basically mean the same thing, but the wording is different. English Goku adds in, "Wow" and "I can't wait to take you on" has a slightly different meaning then "I can't wait to fight you."

Word for word should be translated exactly.

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:16 am

precita wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:27 am Sentences should be translated word for word.

If in Japanese Goku says, "You guys are really strong, I can't wait to fight you!"

And in english Goku would say, "Wow you guys are really powerful, I can't wait to take you on!"

If you look at both sentences they basically mean the same thing, but the wording is different. English Goku adds in, "Wow" and "I can't wait to take you on" has a slightly different meaning then "I can't wait to fight you."

Word for word should be translated exactly.
No, no they shouldn’t. You need to account for lip flaps and the fact that the dialog needs to sound as natural as possible. As long as the same point is made it’s fine.

And some things just can’t be translated 1 to 1

A good example of this, I think, is the would be wedding episode in the Red Ribbon arc. In the Japanese version Pilaf berates Shu pretending to be Goku for using the watashi pronoun when Goku would use the boku pronoun. There is absolutely no possible way a word for word translation would work in English. So instead Funimation had Pilaf yell “You sound nothing like Goku!!” it gets the same general idea across and that’s what’s important.

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by Grimlock » Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:30 am

precita wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:27 am Word for word should be translated exactly.
Oh boy, as a translator myself, I can't tell how wrong you are. There are so many, many factors you aren't taking into consideration. You probably isn't a translator (good thing you aren't, to be honest with you) so you wouldn't know, but please try to at least do some basic research on the matter.
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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:51 am

precita wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:27 am Sentences should be translated word for word.

If in Japanese Goku says, "You guys are really strong, I can't wait to fight you!"

And in english Goku would say, "Wow you guys are really powerful, I can't wait to take you on!"

If you look at both sentences they basically mean the same thing, but the wording is different. English Goku adds in, "Wow" and "I can't wait to take you on" has a slightly different meaning then "I can't wait to fight you."

Word for word should be translated exactly.
Um no, that's not how translation for dubs work. The idea is to get as reasonably close to the original lines as possible but in a way which still keeps the general meaning while also working in English, seeing as sometimes there are certain lines or others in anime series which may have obscure references to distinctly Japanese things like rewordings of old proverbs or poetry which wouldn't make much if at all sense in our language. A good example of this is how 4Kids' script writers early on did their adapting of the Pokemon anime (particularly the Kanto episodes) given the original version at times made lots of references such as the above and they rewrote these because most kids watching the show on TV here wouldn't have been able to get these said references to celebrities, cultural events/holidays and such which are largely only familiar to viewers in Japan.

Overall, dubs (or at least those that don't completely butcher the source material like FUNi's old Z dub did) are never going to be completely 1:1 with the Japanese version from a dialogue standpoint. The inherent language difference requires some change in order to make the lines work translated so we can understand them.
Last edited by SuperSaiyaManZ94 on Wed Apr 14, 2021 12:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Wed Apr 14, 2021 12:00 pm

Adding to the list of un-translatable things would be Kaio-Sama's puns. He loves pun-based humor, but if one literally translated his jokes from Japanese to English, none of his pun jokes would be puns anymore. It would just be him saying random things that make no sense. That's one instance where, as long as the dub script gets across that he's into bad pun-based jokes, FUNimation can write pretty much whatever they want as far as I'm concerned.
A "rather haggard" translation of a line from Future Gohan in DBZ, provided to FUNimation by Toei:
"To think of fighting that is this fun...so, it was pleasant fight, as many as, therefore is a feeling which is good the fight where."

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Apr 14, 2021 12:40 pm

Toei could have given it to Viz in the early-mid '90s and they would've done it properly (would be like their Ranma 1/2 dub), but they didn't. Instead, nepotism won, and the unproven startup with a producer who has no respect for the source material (Barry Watson) got the license. Toei had a lot of potential choices of licensors to get Dragon Ball, and they chose probably the worst one in the lineup (yes, even 4Kids. People rightfully like Funimation as they are now, but in 1994-2005, 4Kids would have done a way better version that actually begun with the original series, and the default version of DBZ wouldn't be a shitty, cropped, DNR'd version).

Funimation could have done it properly with Pioneer in the mid-late '90s alongside their TV dub, and they didn't. (Despite saying they would)

They could have done this as their one and only dub from 1999 onwards, and they didn't. (In fact, their dubbing got significantly worse in 1999, as we all know)

They could have done this for their redubs in 2005-2008, and they didn't. (In fact, once again, the 2005-2008 redubs were another downgrade...)

They could have at least done it for the Z era with Kai in 2009-2014 and Super following that, but they haven't; they follow the gist of the original and are a huge improvement over the 1996-2008 era, but they still embellish it in all the same ways they used to before, just to a lesser extent, they're still using actors who were miscast in 1999 but stick around out of tradition (granted, the actors clearly care a lot, so even someone as badly miscast as Linda Young when she was playing Freeza in early Kai and the video games around then was putting in a good effort, but we all know how well it turned out when the role was recast to Chris Ayres), using naming conventions and dialogue that sound like they're straight out of 4Kids' playbook.
At this point, they're not going to change their minds; Barry Watson's influence is too ingrained to ever go away.

Basically, there has been ample opportunity for this to happen in the past 25+ years, but neither Toei nor Funimation have ever cared about doing this right, and the efforts that did do it right (Pioneer's movies, Westwood/Ocean/Blue Water's GT, allegedly Ocean's Kai to an extent at least a little greater than Funi's work on Kai) have been brushed under the rug by Funimation in their effort to be the only dub cast anyone knows about, and unfortunately, despite their eagerness to be the only Dragon Ball dub, they have no willingness to do a truly faithful dub. Their work right now has been in a pretty steady groove since about 2007, and it's successful, so no one on either the business or talent side wants to shake things up now in 2021. We're way, way, WAY past the point of no return.

So, even though it's entirely possible to do, there's no interest from the people who would need to be interested, and there simply never was any interest. The people who work at Funimation now most likely would have chosen to do it faithfully if it was a new acquisition (just look at their work on My Hero Academia and One Piece), but it's too late to make that choice now; it's generally considered more important to keep it similar to how it's always been. Same goes for the home video situation; the people at Funimation like the shitty DNR'd look, and it's sold well (since we've never been given an alternative), so we're never going to escape it. But at least as far as dubbing goes, there's always the subtitled version.
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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Wed Apr 14, 2021 2:01 pm

SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:51 amOverall, dubs (or at least those that don't completely butcher the source material like FUNi's old Z dub did) are never going to be completely 1:1 with the Japanese version from a dialogue standpoint. The inherent language difference requires some change in order to make the lines work translated so we can understand them.
On top of that, sometimes a dub's quality can actually be lowered by being too literally adapted. I think there's a lot to love about Netflix's re-dub of Neon Genesis Evangelion, for example, but it was totally needless for Studio Khara to insist that the English dub have their actors use terms like "The Third Children," (since it's actually only referring to one person) just because that's what was used in the original Japanese version. Modifying that term to "The Third Child" like the original ADV dub did was an infinitely better choice.

And actually, 'ya know what? Here's another problem: sometimes the translations provided to dubbing companies aren't that good. My sig used to link to a video where Chris Sabat showcased this at a con, but the video has since been removed. I still have the link up on the off-chance that it's re-uploaded one day. In any event, before Steve Simmons was brought on as FUNimation's translator, he said that FUNimation technically already had translations available to them provided by Toei, but that they were "rather haggard." An example of one such haggard translation is in my sig. You can't do a 1:1 dub script adaptation of a translation like that, it doesn't even make sense as something to use in the subtitles. So just as the translator (Steve Simmons, in this case) had some creative leeway in his translations, so too should dub script writers as long as the reason for that leeway is to create dialogue that is both faithful to the character and natural-sounding in the new language.
A "rather haggard" translation of a line from Future Gohan in DBZ, provided to FUNimation by Toei:
"To think of fighting that is this fun...so, it was pleasant fight, as many as, therefore is a feeling which is good the fight where."

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by Aim » Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:32 pm

precita wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:27 am Sentences should be translated word for word.

If in Japanese Goku says, "You guys are really strong, I can't wait to fight you!"

And in english Goku would say, "Wow you guys are really powerful, I can't wait to take you on!"

If you look at both sentences they basically mean the same thing, but the wording is different. English Goku adds in, "Wow" and "I can't wait to take you on" has a slightly different meaning then "I can't wait to fight you."

Word for word should be translated exactly.
I did a post about this, I think the example you used isn’t really comparable. For example, Goku says when fighting Hit “Kaio-ken!”, while in the dub he says “Now Ill show you the Kaio-ken!”. That’s an example of how there are plenty time where things can be translated word for word, especially when it easily matches the mouth flaps. But overall there will need to be some line variants to accommodate mouth flap syncing but overall the aim should be not to go away from the original line like funimation does.
MasenkoHA wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:16 am
precita wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:27 am Sentences should be translated word for word.

If in Japanese Goku says, "You guys are really strong, I can't wait to fight you!"

And in english Goku would say, "Wow you guys are really powerful, I can't wait to take you on!"

If you look at both sentences they basically mean the same thing, but the wording is different. English Goku adds in, "Wow" and "I can't wait to take you on" has a slightly different meaning then "I can't wait to fight you."

Word for word should be translated exactly.
No, no they shouldn’t. You need to account for lip flaps and the fact that the dialog needs to sound as natural as possible. As long as the same point is made it’s fine.

And some things just can’t be translated 1 to 1

A good example of this, I think, is the would be wedding episode in the Red Ribbon arc. In the Japanese version Pilaf berates Shu pretending to be Goku for using the watashi pronoun when Goku would use the boku pronoun. There is absolutely no possible way a word for word translation would work in English. So instead Funimation had Pilaf yell “You sound nothing like Goku!!” it gets the same general idea across and that’s what’s important.
I think this could have been altered to be closer really, even in Japanese Pilaf could scold Shu for not “sounding” like Son. Son should have an improper way of greeting people, having Shu then be super polite would actually portray the message across way better than what funimation decided to do.
SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:51 am
precita wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:27 am Sentences should be translated word for word.

If in Japanese Goku says, "You guys are really strong, I can't wait to fight you!"

And in english Goku would say, "Wow you guys are really powerful, I can't wait to take you on!"

If you look at both sentences they basically mean the same thing, but the wording is different. English Goku adds in, "Wow" and "I can't wait to take you on" has a slightly different meaning then "I can't wait to fight you."

Word for word should be translated exactly.
Um no, that's not how translation for dubs work. The idea is to get as reasonably close to the original lines as possible but in a way which still keeps the general meaning while also working in English, seeing as sometimes there are certain lines or others in anime series which may have obscure references to distinctly Japanese things like rewordings of old proverbs or poetry which wouldn't make much if at all sense in our language. A good example of this is how 4Kids' script writers early on did their adapting of the Pokemon anime (particularly the Kanto episodes) given the original version at times made lots of references such as the above and they rewrote these because most kids watching the show on TV here wouldn't have been able to get these said references to celebrities, cultural events/holidays and such which are largely only familiar to viewers in Japan.

Overall, dubs (or at least those that don't completely butcher the source material like FUNi's old Z dub did) are never going to be completely 1:1 with the Japanese version from a dialogue standpoint. The inherent language difference requires some change in order to make the lines work translated so we can understand them.
From my view point, if a dub can get as close as possible to the original spirit, meaning and nuance behind the scene in English, that counts as a 1:1 interpretation in my books.
TheBlackPaladin wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 12:00 pm Adding to the list of un-translatable things would be Kaio-Sama's puns. He loves pun-based humor, but if one literally translated his jokes from Japanese to English, none of his pun jokes would be puns anymore. It would just be him saying random things that make no sense. That's one instance where, as long as the dub script gets across that he's into bad pun-based jokes, FUNimation can write pretty much whatever they want as far as I'm concerned.
Again, no one except for one person who is extremely mislead is wanting that.
Emma Winters wrote:
When Goku meets Kaiō, Kaiō introduces himself by scratching his back and declaring it's itchy (痒い/Kayui). He keeps repeating kayui, kayui, slowly changing it into Kaiō.
Kaiō's next joke has him pretending to make a phone call.
When he doesn't get a reply, he states:
"dare mo denwa ni denwa"
"Nobody's answering (den wa) the phone (denwa)"
Goku's joke is "futon ga futtonda", which is basically "my futon flew away".
The anime added three others:
* My cat (neko) lay down (nekoronda)!
* Pencils (enpitsu) can't see (mien pitsu)!
* The flounder (hirame) had an epiphany (hirameita)!
Now off the top of my head I can try come up with some stuff as well, “the futon flew, and so can you!” Is a good one but:

“I’m itching, it’s like I have Kaio-nicles (barnacles)”

The phone one is hard.

*My cat lay on the fat mat
*Are pencils...utensils?/ Pencils...using utensils?
*The flounder...had an eye opener/shocker

I may be wrong but it seems like they are meant to rhyme more than anything. Kaio has terrible humor anyway. Just need to make them line up with flaps.
Robo4900 wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 12:40 pm Toei could have given it to Viz in the early-mid '90s and they would've done it properly (would be like their Ranma 1/2 dub), but they didn't. Instead, nepotism won, and the unproven startup with a producer who has no respect for the source material (Barry Watson) got the license. Toei had a lot of potential choices of licensors to get Dragon Ball, and they chose probably the worst one in the lineup (yes, even 4Kids. People rightfully like Funimation as they are now, but in 1994-2005, 4Kids would have done a way better version that actually begun with the original series, and the default version of DBZ wouldn't be a shitty, cropped, DNR'd version).

Funimation could have done it properly with Pioneer in the mid-late '90s alongside their TV dub, and they didn't. (Despite saying they would)

They could have done this as their one and only dub from 1999 onwards, and they didn't. (In fact, their dubbing got significantly worse in 1999, as we all know)

They could have done this for their redubs in 2005-2008, and they didn't. (In fact, once again, the 2005-2008 redubs were another downgrade...)

They could have at least done it for the Z era with Kai in 2009-2014 and Super following that, but they haven't; they follow the gist of the original and are a huge improvement over the 1996-2008 era, but they still embellish it in all the same ways they used to before, just to a lesser extent, they're still using actors who were miscast in 1999 but stick around out of tradition (granted, the actors clearly care a lot, so even someone as badly miscast as Linda Young when she was playing Freeza in early Kai and the video games around then was putting in a good effort, but we all know how well it turned out when the role was recast to Chris Ayres), using naming conventions and dialogue that sound like they're straight out of 4Kids' playbook.
At this point, they're not going to change their minds; Barry Watson's influence is too ingrained to ever go away.

Basically, there has been ample opportunity for this to happen in the past 25+ years, but neither Toei nor Funimation have ever cared about doing this right, and the efforts that did do it right (Pioneer's movies, Westwood/Ocean/Blue Water's GT, allegedly Ocean's Kai to an extent at least a little greater than Funi's work on Kai) have been brushed under the rug by Funimation in their effort to be the only dub cast anyone knows about, and unfortunately, despite their eagerness to be the only Dragon Ball dub, they have no willingness to do a truly faithful dub. Their work right now has been in a pretty steady groove since about 2007, and it's successful, so no one on either the business or talent side wants to shake things up now in 2021. We're way, way, WAY past the point of no return.

So, even though it's entirely possible to do, there's no interest from the people who would need to be interested, and there simply never was any interest. The people who work at Funimation now most likely would have chosen to do it faithfully if it was a new acquisition (just look at their work on My Hero Academia and One Piece), but it's too late to make that choice now; it's generally considered more important to keep it similar to how it's always been. Same goes for the home video situation; the people at Funimation like the shitty DNR'd look, and it's sold well (since we've never been given an alternative), so we're never going to escape it. But at least as far as dubbing goes, there's always the subtitled version.
Long time no see! I agree, however, I do think Toei could be persuaded to allow another dub, times are changing, and there’s always ample opportunity for a new generation of DB fans, who will have the opportunity to actually grow up with DB. Heck even if it’s a teenager getting into the series, it’s better than exposing them to Funi first. I have a friend who would talk to me about DB, he was very new to the series, I said to him if he wanted to watch the best possible experience, go to sub, but they prefer dub so I recommended Kai, they went to the old Z dub. And every time he’d talk to me, he’d make statements that felt out of nowhere to me, in which it got a bit awkward because it’s like we know two different franchises but are trying to talk about it as if it’s one thing.

According to AJays videos apparently Funi went with shitty editing because they sold well, when in actuality they were cheap.

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:02 pm

Aim wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:32 pm When he doesn't get a reply, he states:
"dare mo denwa ni denwa"
"Nobody's answering (den wa) the phone (denwa)"
Goku's joke is "futon ga futtonda", which is basically "my futon flew away".
The anime added three others:
* My cat (neko) lay down (nekoronda)!
* Pencils (enpitsu) can't see (mien pitsu)!
* The flounder (hirame) had an epiphany (hirameita)!
Now off the top of my head I can try come up with some stuff as well, “the futon flew, and so can you!” Is a good one but:

“I’m itching, it’s like I have Kaio-nicles (barnacles)”

The phone one is hard.

*My cat lay on the fat mat
*Are pencils...utensils?/ Pencils...using utensils?
*The flounder...had an eye opener/shocker

I may be wrong but it seems like they are meant to rhyme more than anything.

They’re puns not rhymes. So a good translation for an English dub would be going from Japanese play on words to English play on words. Your example “the futon flew and so can you” doesn’t even make sense.
That’s not a joke or a pun that’s just a nonsensical rhyme when said in English.
Long time no see! I agree, however, I do think Toei could be persuaded to allow another dub,
Doesn’t matter. Funimation has no reason to spend all that money redubbing their series when their dub of Dragon Ball Z still sells well. And in the event they lost the license the potential new company has no reason to not just use the Funi dub.

times are changing, and there’s always ample opportunity for a new generation of DB fans, who will have the opportunity to actually grow up with DB. Heck even if it’s a teenager getting into the series, it’s better than exposing them to Funi first.
And they all seem just fine with the Z dub or at least Kai

According to AJays videos apparently Funi went with shitty editing because they sold well, when in actuality they were cheap.
We know for a fact that a faithful version would have done well. Toonami aired the Pioneer versions of Dead Zone and World’s Strongest with only the edits required to get it to a Y7 FV rating complete with the Japanese background music including Gohan’s insert songs.

All that nonsense about needing to change the music, and add a bunch of punch up humor, and what not was always nonsense.

But that’s the thing the time to go the faithful route was 1999. It’s too late now.

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by Thanos » Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:38 am

MasenkoHA wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:02 pmAll that nonsense about needing to change the music, and add a bunch of punch up humor, and what not was always nonsense.

But that’s the thing the time to go the faithful route was 1999. It’s too late now.
See, that's another annoying thing. You'd think with the decades of experience and "lessons learned" that FUNimation would finally be more strict on this, but the "punched-up humor" seems to be relatively unchanged. It's like they have such a deeply-rooted idea that they "understand" the characters now (because apparently Sean Schemmel is "actually Goku" or some such cringe nonsense), that they add jokes and puns unnecessarily where they otherwise don't exist to this day. It's like they're throwing in forced jokes as a wink to the Abridged fans, or, and this is just a theory, older fans who might feel silly about watching Dragon Ball. The winking at the audience feels like an attempt at levity for said viewers. Toriyama/Toei have given no indication that they have instituted a tonal shift into self-parody, but the dub writers have taken it upon themselves to slap that onto everything since Battle of Gods. There is a time and a place, but it's kind of weird to be watching an anime movie in the theatre and sometimes forget you're not watching the latest Marvel capeshit outing with its snarky one-liners. From what I can tell they seem to stay faithful with new properties that they dub. I don't think wishing them to hold the same standard to all of their licensed franchises is such a tall order, but what do I know? :roll:
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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips » Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:10 am

Thanos wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:38 am I think the problem might stem from the fact that the anime dubbing industry seems to exist as its own compartmentalized world and culture, as if there's some kind of unwritten standard about how dub performance needs to be overly dramatic and forced. I would like to see professional Western voice actors have a crack at it.
Don't know the field very well but I can't imagine that not already happening. The English VAs in the Japanese games I like are all over Western animation (and television).

But, honestly I'm perfectly happy not "getting" something or having to do a bunch of sidealong reading to understand any nuances the author/s were going for. It's why I stick to subs for anything not in English or Spanish. Art isn't really meant to be universal. It's only ever meant for a very small sliver of the population and the rest of us are just peering in. Like voyeurs except boring and not illegal.
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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by Robo4900 » Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:32 am

Aim wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:32 pm Long time no see! I agree, however, I do think Toei could be persuaded to allow another dub, times are changing
I mean, Toei has always allowed alternate dubs. It's Funimation who doesn't like the idea of alternate dubs to compete with their own.

The Westwood Media dubs were always allowed to happen, same with the Bang Zoom dub of Super and Ocean's dub of Kai, but Funimation made some deals to ensure their dub aired on Kix in the UK instead of Ocean's, and thus far, no other outlets that would normally have picked Ocean's Kai dub up have shown interest in airing Kai in general. That's why alternate dubs aren't really happening at the moment.
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by Aim » Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:21 am

MasenkoHA wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:02 pm They’re puns not rhymes. So a good translation for an English dub would be going from Japanese play on words to English play on words. Your example “the futon flew and so can you” doesn’t even make sense.
That’s not a joke or a pun that’s just a nonsensical rhyme when said in English.
I see, I remember seeing that translation in a video game so that’s where I got it from, plays on words I guess... that makes it a lot harder, but I’m sure it’s possible, “The cat said, I’m fur real?
Doesn’t matter. Funimation has no reason to spend all that money redubbing their series when their dub of Dragon Ball Z still sells well. And in the event they lost the license the potential new company has no reason to not just use the Funi dub.
Dream on if you think funimation would ever do that. I’m talking about a company that cares.
We know for a fact that a faithful version would have done well. Toonami aired the Pioneer versions of Dead Zone and World’s Strongest with only the edits required to get it to a Y7 FV rating complete with the Japanese background music including Gohan’s insert songs.

All that nonsense about needing to change the music, and add a bunch of punch up humor, and what not was always nonsense.

But that’s the thing the time to go the faithful route was 1999. It’s too late now.
To say it’s too late when there’s been multiple opportunities is vacuous, Dragon Ball is going to drop popularity again one day, that will be the day there’s a chance for resurrection of the series. The “too late” argument is more of a cop out if anything, you have nothing to compare the current dub to, to suggest a faithful one targeting a new generation of fans will fail doesn’t hold up because one hasn’t existed to compare with.

Sorry, just heard this so many times it gets old.
Robo4900 wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:32 am I mean, Toei has always allowed alternate dubs. It's Funimation who doesn't like the idea of alternate dubs to compete with their own.

The Westwood Media dubs were always allowed to happen, same with the Bang Zoom dub of Super and Ocean's dub of Kai, but Funimation made some deals to ensure their dub aired on Kix in the UK instead of Ocean's, and thus far, no other outlets that would normally have picked Ocean's Kai dub up have shown interest in airing Kai in general. That's why alternate dubs aren't really happening at the moment.
Right, so if there’s ever a rich DB fan who’s really passionate like us, there’s a possibility of something great. It makes sense Robo, if I’m correct Funimation also went for VA’s who weren’t covered by unions, so overall the company seems like a lard of shit.

If you could send some links through where you got that info it would be great, I actually never knew Funi was that low. Then again, this entire world is becoming a dystopia, one or two company’s eat up everything in the industry, soon Amazon will take notice of corporate Funi and eat them up as well. Shit attracts flies I guess.

This just irritates me now when I see people try and suggest there can only be one and it’s too late for any other, when this is a perfect example of the “mighty makers behind the great nostalgic dub” blocking the way for any kind of proper improvement. And this goes for everywhere else as well, Ajay retweeted a video that someone made about subs, a company was doing a really good format with subs, funimation acquired them and all of a sudden the quality has dropped, comes to no surprise. I never want to see any of the VA’s like Schemmel talk about them giving “the best possible DB experience” and then saying if we don’t like it, we aren’t Dragon Ball fans ever again. Hearing this has actually left me shocked.

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by MasenkoHA » Thu Apr 15, 2021 9:14 am

Aim wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:21 am “The cat said, I’m fur real?
Yep that’s more of a Kaio joke
Dream on if you think funimation would ever do that. I’m talking about a company that cares.
This has nothing to do with what I said. I said Funimation won’t and a hypothetical new licensee has no reason too.

To say it’s too late when there’s been multiple opportunities is vacuous,
Where are the multiple opportunities? Kai?

Dragon Ball is going to drop popularity again one day, that will be the day there’s a chance for resurrection of the series.
Here’s the thing Dragon Ball hasn’t been allowed to die or be forgotten in the West. After GT, Funimation immediately goes back to redub the first 67 episodes and first 3 Z movies with their homegrown cast in 2005. Then the season sets come out in 2007. Which sold extremely well like in the top 10. They still sell well. Mike’s podcast interview with a former Funimation brand manager had him mentioning Z outsold Kai 2 to 1 even when they were pushing Kai as the definitive version.

And then of course Kai came out almost immediately following the season sets and then Super and then all the video games in between.

This isn’t like Sailor Moon where for a good decade the franchise ceased to exist in the West allowing for a complete redub in 2014. (Also the censorship in the old Sailor Moon dub has always been a joke with its erasing of queerness, Dragon Ball’s censorship of whitewashing eastern religion and culture and downplaying sexual antics has always been more socially acceptable to a Western audience) Dragon Ball hasn’t gone anywhere and it isn’t going anywhere to be forgotten.

And no some anime company in 2040 isn’t going to redub some anime from the 80s and 90s

The “too late” argument is more of a cop out if anything, you have nothing to compare the current dub to, to suggest a faithful one targeting a new generation of fans will fail doesn’t hold up because one hasn’t existed to compare with.

Sorry, just heard this so many times it gets old.
It’s not a cop out, it’s just a matter of fact that you don’t want to hear.


It’s not even a matter of “a new generation could like a redub” it’s a matter of why. Dubbing is not cheap. Even if we ignore the specials and movies and only redub the original Dragon Ball and Z that’s 444 episodes. Why would any company pay for that when the existing dub no matter how bad it is still sells well?

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by UltraInstinctRorikon » Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:43 pm

To be quite honest, we'd have to have subtitles being accurate first to get to that point.
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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by MasenkoHA » Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:05 pm

UltraInstinctRorikon wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:43 pm To be quite honest, we'd have to have subtitles being accurate first to get to that point.
Far as I am aware the subtitles we do get are pretty much accurate and it’s more of a matter of translation preference on any sort of disagreement m.

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by Skar » Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:47 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 9:14 amIt’s not even a matter of “a new generation could like a redub” it’s a matter of why. Dubbing is not cheap. Even if we ignore the specials and movies and only redub the original Dragon Ball and Z that’s 444 episodes. Why would any company pay for that when the existing dub no matter how bad it is still sells well?
I think another factor is the huge decline in home video sales. DVD sales have declined over 85% since their peak in 2008. I don't think it would be worth it for a studio to redub over 400 episodes for a streaming service. Netflix redubbed NGE but that's only a 26 episode anime.

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Re: Would a “true” faithful dub ever be possible?

Post by Cure Dragon 255 » Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:52 pm

AKSHUALLY, its better to redub for a video streaming service than DVD's. Toei just redubbed the entirety of the Saint Seiya anime for Netflix.

But that has the novelty of a redub and also has what Masenko Ha said: A long absense.
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