Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by ZeroIsOurHero » Fri Oct 15, 2021 7:57 am

ABED wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:20 am The job of a dub isn't to sound like the original.

The so much of the way people are judging the dub actors is by how closely they resemble the OG actors and that';s not fair. That's not their job. Their job is to play the character because that's what acting is. Mimicry is hollow. Ayres isn't great as Freeza because his performance sounds somewhat like Nakao. It's great because it fits the character.
Agree with you 100%. Way too many people hate certain dub performances purely because “they don’t sound like the original performances,” when they’re not really supposed to. Giving an original take on the character is fine, as long as it makes sense. In fact, I’d say that original takes are recommended: the Funi VAs for Z got a lot better when they stopped trying to imitate the Ocean VAs.

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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by 8000 Saiyan » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:30 am

I don't want the dub voice actors to sound like the Japanese voice actors either, I just want them to give good performances.

As much as I like Dameon Clarke, he sounds like he's trying too hard to sound menacing as Toguro at times whereas Tessho Genda is naturally menacing in the part.

I also can't stand Sabat's Kuwabara or Burgmeier's Kurama. The former is so unlistenable and the latter is so dull.
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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by NitroEX » Fri Oct 15, 2021 9:32 am

ZeroIsOurHero wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 7:57 am
ABED wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:20 am The job of a dub isn't to sound like the original.

The so much of the way people are judging the dub actors is by how closely they resemble the OG actors and that';s not fair. That's not their job. Their job is to play the character because that's what acting is. Mimicry is hollow. Ayres isn't great as Freeza because his performance sounds somewhat like Nakao. It's great because it fits the character.
Agree with you 100%. Way too many people hate certain dub performances purely because “they don’t sound like the original performances,” when they’re not really supposed to. Giving an original take on the character is fine, as long as it makes sense. In fact, I’d say that original takes are recommended: the Funi VAs for Z got a lot better when they stopped trying to imitate the Ocean VAs.
I feel it's more complicated than that. As far as matching the original voices... I try to judge it on a case by case basis rather than a hard rule.

I agree that it's not always the actor's job to necessarily voice match, since they can only work within the confines of their natural range, but it is the casting director's job to ensure the voice actors are a good fit for their character before they even start to record. It's why miscasting becomes a problem for everybody, including the actors, when they've failed to cast an appropriate actor in the role. The actor is going to struggle to make the performance work with their toolkit and they're inevitably going to receive the brunt of the criticism for things that are out of their control.

Ayres is a good example of an actor who was well cast, the role of Freeza allowed him to shine because it played to his natural strengths while coincidentally being analogous to the Japanese performance. Ayre's own background in performance art also helped tremendously but it wouldn't have mattered much if he was cast in an ill-fitting part for his range and skillset.

The producers of the dub play a part too. Some of them don't care about matching the voices or the original performances because their goal is turning the show into something completely different (Saban, 4Kids and early Funimation dubs come to mind). In those cases, the voices are criticised by purists for being miscast when being faithful wasn't the goal of the producers making it, it was essentially being catered to a different (usually western children) audience with the previous rulebook thrown out.

Funi's casting for DBZ was a mixed bag because you had some actors who coincidentally ended up being good or decent fits for the characters despite using cartoon western archetypes that weren't a match of the original (a lot of which the Ocean crew set the tone for), and other times you had the producers/directors taking creative liberties that were just flat out bad casting decisions and poor fits for the actors they had available. In those cases, the actor felt miscast from both a western cartoon standpoint as well as from a Japanese purist perspective. It would turn into a complete failure of casting which spilt over into the performance also being ill-fitting. The actor can improve in that role, but at the end of the day, it's still a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. It's never going to be a perfect fit.

The other factor is the talent pool available to them, while 4Kids and Saban dubs also had little regard for the original performances, they would at least cast actors from places where talent was in abundance, so you often got actors in the roles who gave a decent interpretation despite being way off the mark to the original, this wasn't really the case for the in-house Z cast because they were a smaller pool of actors who weren't regularly working in cartoons. These days Funi isn't casting cartoon style voices as much, instead going in a more anime/purist style approach with casting and acting, but they still carry over their Barry Watson era castings which creates this weird dichotomy and split between fans who want everything one way or the other (nostalgic or purist).

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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by ABED » Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:25 pm

MyVisionity wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 6:52 am I understand about mimicry, which is why I can overlook Burgmeier's Kurama even though I don't like it. I still think that Teague sounds too mature for Koenma.

I was agreeing with Soppa that Ogata's performance transcends the role in the sense that it's difficult to imagine someone else as Kurama, because of how talented she is and how much that comes across in the work. Not only the performance, but having read about some of her personal life experiences, and then hearing her singing image songs for Kurama, etc. It's hard to separate the two. Kind of like Kotono Mitsuishi and Tsukino Usagi maybe.

Not "transcendent".
That was what I was getting at. She's great but I don't think she transcends the role.

I find it odd that of all the actors FUNi has had from the early days, so many seem to really dislike Burgmeier.

Tanaka doesn't sound any more childish. She just has a higher voice. She's a better actor but I don't think this is an issue of sounding too mature. He has the look of a baby, but he's thousands of years old.

With few exceptions, the Ocean dub of DBZ was well cast. It's the script and the direction that were the issue.
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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by MasenkoHA » Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:32 pm

With the FUNimation produced Ocean dub most of the issues with the voices were the decisions of how certain characters should sound rather than the performances themselves. Pauline Newstone’s performance is fine but it’s a bad take on Freeza and she never should have been cast. Brian Drummond’s performance as Vegeta is good….as a Saturday Morning Cartoon mustache twirling “curses failed again” villain but not really fitting for the character


The only performances that made me go “No this is bad” is Matt Smith’s Tien, Don Brown’s Roshi and occasionally Kelamis’s Goku “DRAGON? Balls? Who? Took? Gohan?”

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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by Soppa Saia People » Fri Oct 15, 2021 6:34 pm

drummond's performance is pretty great but i don't know if there's ever been a Good english take on vegeta. sabat's a bad actor so it doesn't really matter but i feel like his take isn't especially bad for like freeza arc vegeta who's more of a thug, but like in the saiyan arc and boo arc and stuff....i don't really get it.


edit : also i love mitsuishi as usagi but tbh i don't even know if it's her best role in a ikuhara directed anime. her juri is perfect, she has insane range, plus i'm probably one of the few who prefer her in crystal to the original 90s anime lol.
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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by ABED » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:34 pm

Sabat's not terrible and has really grown into the roles of Piccolo and Vegeta over the years.
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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by eledoremassis02 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 9:04 pm

Drummond is more of the arrogant high-ranking warrior (never got the Saturday morning cartoon villain vibe). Sabat's Vegeta is a growth of that but with a bigger swelled head, almost like an amateurish shakespearean actor if you will. He did make big strides even in the orange brick re-dub but his Piccolo made even bigger strides (kai).

I feel Drummond is still the better vegeta though (inducing the later ocean dub) as I think Drummond is just a better voice actor. However, they're both are not Ryō Horikawa.

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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by Demon Prince Piccolo » Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:17 pm

I've always loved Drummond's Vegeta. The dialogue may have been Saturday morning cartoon (it was for Ocean dub Z in general), but I never felt his performance was. The "You won't escape my wrath!" scene is legitimately terrifying still.
The story of DRAGON BALL starts from the moment Goku met Bulma. I don't really mind the Z, so long as it's understood that it's not the true beginning of the story.

I actually prefer the Goku vs Tenshinhan and Goku vs Piccolo Jr. rivalries to the Goku vs Vegeta rivalry.

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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by ABED » Sat Oct 16, 2021 7:31 am

It's saturday morning cartoon, but it's the best version of that, and it fits Vegeta at that part of the story.
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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by PurestEvil » Sat Oct 16, 2021 7:37 am

The Ocean/Saban dub is so bad it's good. Funimation trying to imitate them was just plain bad
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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by ABED » Sat Oct 16, 2021 7:48 am

My mind has changed a lot over the years concerning the Ocean dub. While the scripts aren't good, the actors are so good they are usually able to make chicken salad out of chicken feathers.
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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by MasenkoHA » Sat Oct 16, 2021 7:56 am

ABED wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 7:48 am My mind has changed a lot over the years concerning the Ocean dub. While the scripts aren't good, the actors are so good they are usually able to make chicken salad out of chicken feathers.

This is pretty much it. The scripts in season 1 and 2 are just as bad as season 3. Which isn’t surprising as the people show running the dub and the writing staff stayed exactly the same aside from the loss of Ian Corlett and Gregg Hurwitz.

But since the Ocean cast could well act it made their portion of dub easier to swallow.


It’s especially obvious when the Funimation studios cast went back to redub the Ocean’s cast work for the Saiyan and Namek sagas. So many lines that were always kind of ridiculous sounded so much worse coming from the weaker Texas cast. Mcneil’s “Goku you sly dog” vs Sabat’s “Goku you sly dog”. It’s just so dumb but my God does Mcneil sell it and make it sound badass.

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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by NitroEX » Sat Oct 16, 2021 9:25 am

Sabat was standing on the shoulders of giants when you consider his lack of acting background before doing Vegeta and Piccolo. Brian Drummond and Scott McNeil were both properly trained and knew what they were doing in order to make the scripts work. The difference in screaming ability was also a glaring issue for me personally with Sabat but most people overlook that.

Regardless of what people say about Drummond's Vegeta, both he and McNeil were well cast and provided a blueprint for others to follow. Sabat on the other hand did himself no favours trying to voice both Vegeta and Piccolo, it diluted his performance for both characters and forced him to not use his full range at the risk of slipping into either voice. He improved by Kai but it's never been an ideal casting decision and wouldn't be done today by any sane casting director.

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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by Demon Prince Piccolo » Sat Oct 16, 2021 2:07 pm

Scott McNeil is definitely another heavyweight; while Sabat has massively improved his Piccolo performance over the years, McNeil brought that unpredictable, sort of scary edge to Piccolo. I wish he had gotten do work his magic during the King Piccolo and Piccolo Jr. arcs. I also understand people latching onto Superman-Goku when it comes to Ian James Corlett's performance. There's something about his delivery that makes him so earnest and believable. I also love his delivery when he's trying to make King Kai laugh.
The story of DRAGON BALL starts from the moment Goku met Bulma. I don't really mind the Z, so long as it's understood that it's not the true beginning of the story.

I actually prefer the Goku vs Tenshinhan and Goku vs Piccolo Jr. rivalries to the Goku vs Vegeta rivalry.

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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by 8000 Saiyan » Sat Oct 16, 2021 2:29 pm

Yeah, the Ocean voice actors did their best with what they got. Particularly Drummond and McNeil. I always liked his deliveries of "next dimension".
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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by Robo4900 » Sat Oct 16, 2021 3:50 pm

Possibly, but possibly not. Funimation's GT is certainly another contender, as is their dub of DB movie 2.

But, something doesn't have to be the worst to be unacceptably awful. All these dubs are bad.

As for the Ocean dubs, I agree completely that despite the scripts being Funimation's usual pre-Kai shit, the voice actors (and directors, of course!) made a good product out of it. Something Funimation's inexperienced (and very poorly directed) cast failed to do in the days of the original DB/Z/GT dubs.
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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by ABED » Sat Oct 16, 2021 3:58 pm

Movie 2 is their worst. It's a crappy fandub essentially. I don't know why they thought that was good enough to release for public consumption.
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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by Robo4900 » Sat Oct 16, 2021 4:03 pm

ABED wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 3:58 pm Movie 2 is their worst. It's a crappy fandub essentially. I don't know why they thought that was good enough to release for public consumption.
Agreed.

The worst thing is they thought it was good enough to go ahead and make Z season 3 in the same way.
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Re: Is Dragon Ball Z Funimation's Worst English Dub?

Post by MasenkoHA » Sat Oct 16, 2021 4:25 pm

Robo4900 wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 4:03 pm
ABED wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 3:58 pm Movie 2 is their worst. It's a crappy fandub essentially. I don't know why they thought that was good enough to release for public consumption.
Agreed.

The worst thing is they thought it was good enough to go ahead and make Z season 3 in the same way.

Honestly it’s the fact that


1. That was the dub that made FUNimation go “Yeah we don’t need the Vancouver cast this is good.”

2. Despite their totally unnecessary redub of the already uncut Pioneer movies that dub was being sold as late as 2011 in its shitty fan dub quality with voices for Goku and Bulma that no fan is going to held any nostalgic value for.


That makes it so much worse.


So yeah Dragon Ball Movie 2 is by far the worst Funi dub. But their dub of Dragon Ball Z , GT, and large portions of the original Dragon Ball are far from being any sort of prize.

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