Fans of FUNI Unite!

[Kaboom]

Some like it, and some not, it doesn't matter anyway and I haven't got a problem with it. Let's all be happy and sing a song....

...Mmmm'kay!

"Dragon, dragon, Rock the Dragon, DragonBall Z"-ouch!


Um... I'm probably going to regret contributing to this thread, but...

FUNimation is a good company. They do a very good job with just about every anime license they get a hold of. I'm praying as I've never prayed before that they pick up One Piece now that 4Kids (there's your example of a bad dubbing company. Only thing they never ruined was Pokemon) has dropped it.

In terms of their efforts on the DragonBall series, I do know that they've made goofs in the past, and they haven't had too good a track record with it. But the fact that they're still giving out good things with it (Like the Uncut re-releases and the upcoming Remastered Sets) means that they're trying their best, and, whether they're trying to or not, are redeeming themselves with the series.

In terms of comparison with other dubs, I can't really say. Other than short clips, I haven't had much exposure to anything but the original Japanese and FUNi's dub. I love and appreciate the former extremely, as any good fan should. That much goes without saying. I'm sure other dubs have their ups and downs, their good points ("Let that child alone!") and bad points, etc. Point is, I'm open-minded and a nice enough person that you won't likely ever hear me flat-out hating on any dub in particular.

But I've grown used to the voices and moods of FUNimation's dub, and I like it. I admit, the dialogue is often inaccurate or just plain corny, and most of the music doesn't stack up to the original Japanese, but that's okay. It's still plenty good enough for me. To be honest, when I imagine the characters, it's Sean Schemmel's Goku and Chris Sabat's Vegeta I hear in my head. I'll leave it at that.

EDIT: Heh. I accidentally his "Submit" before I was done typing...

[The Tori-bot]

FUNimation is a good company. They do a very good job with just about every anime license they get a hold of.

Except DB, evidently.

I'm praying as I've never prayed before that they pick up One Piece now that

Now that 4Kids has abandoned it...?

Hooray!

[Rocketman]

Because for some reason American anime companies think these things should be restricted to the original version

Maybe because these honorifics don't exist in English?

Anyways, I prefer the FUNi voices, mainly because the Japanese language aurally repulses me. Even though I'm a manga fan, when I read it, it's FUNi's actors I hear speaking the lines.

The anime, I could take it or leave it, so the script or music changes or whatever don't bother me.

[Kaboom]

I'm praying as I've never prayed before that they pick up One Piece now that

Now that 4Kids has abandoned it...?

Hooray!

Yup. 'Tis true. Hopefully they'll start over. I didn't mind some of 4Kids' voices, though.

[SonGokuGT]

I love the Japanese version! I love the voices, the music, the writing... And I have nothing against FUNimation. I think FUNi has grown into a very wonderful and professional company through the years. They do great dubs now, and also listen to their fans. Just look at what they've done with Fullmetal Alchemist!

Sure, Dragonball got screwed over with the replacement of music and really bad writing at times. But who cares? FUNi went out of their way to provide us, the fans, with the uncut footage and original Japanese track along with extremely accurate subtitles.

As far as Dragonball goes, I find that the problem is in the writing. As far as the voices go, I like them! So I can't wait to see the revised dub with the Japanese score!

[QuantumDestiny]

At risk of being lynched... I love the Funi dub. I can make fun of it when parts make me go 'WTF LOL!', I can quote things to casual DBZ fans more easily, I can enjoy the show without having to read subtitles and with North American style jokes. I'm not Japanese, so I can't appreciate jokes I have to go and find translations to understand.

I don't really mind most of the changes because to be honest sometimes the original script of a show needs a spicing up at points when showing it to a new generation. I love how I can actually meet the voice actors at conventions!

That's all not to say that the dub is superior to the original or anything. I love the dub and the original as two seperate things and I enjoy them both. I like having the choice to watch in English. I don't see why people have to bash on it, they can just IGNORE it or buy from Japan or something yeesh. There are more accurate dubs too, though you can't buy them. I guess that's where the root of the problem is.

[Sun_Wukong]

I was introduced to the show through the dub. It was around 1999/2000, right when Toonami was airing the Freeza saga for the first time. Now days, I avoid most dubs. I'm not going to be an elitist and tell you to avoid dubs, its just my preferance. For the DBZ dub my main problem with it is the god awful BGM. It makes the rest of it painful to sit through.

[GI_Judd2287]

I like everything they did with DB and DBZ, not so much with GT. The acting and writing is more or less on par with what they've done before but I can't stand Mark Menza's music. Faulconer did a great job, however.

[Super Sonic]

Personally I like the DBZ dub. Could be better in some points, but that's with a lot of non-anime also. As for music, I love "Ginyu Transformation" whenever it comes up. Besides, anyone else find it funny how some guys will rant over an anime changing the music for its dub, but won't say a thing when an American cartoon's music is changed in Japan?

[Conan the SSJ]

Alright, nobody has mentioned it yet, but what the crap is with the American-style names? "Son-kun" gets translated to "Goku", all Japanese titles are removed (e.g. san, sama, chan, kun) which removes a bit of the context in which the characters are speaking, and I've noticed a lot of translation errors even with my limited knowledge of Japanese.

What the hell are you talking about? Outside the first two Ginyu Saga discs, which were probably the most flawed of any DBZ bilingual release, every release has a proper translation. "Son-kun" and all other suffixes are retained by Daimao, whom has a masters in Japanese, and each episode is translated to the best of his abilities and never altered by FUNi's DVD subtitling system. Steven J. "Daimao" Simmons' translation is literally the best you'll ever find anywhere, and I'm not saying that to be a kiss-ass, it's true. Maybe you're just basing your comments off your own bootleg purchase. >_>

Except DB, evidently.

How many times must I say this before you guys get it through your skulls. Give FUNi's original DB dub and DVD releases a friggin' chance before saying "They screwed over DB too", because outside the first 13 episodes not yet being released, FUNi's work was 10 fold better than we ever got on DBZ prior to these season sets. They were all released in "Saga"-type sets, for an affordable price, and with a dub treatment that's practically on par to the Ocean dubs of the first three DBZ movies.

Lastly GT, yes, the dub was anally screwed with a fine-tooth-comb. But we now have affordable 100% Uncut box-set DVD releases (outside of having to buy 4 extra single volumes with the starter-set of the first 16 episodes) and Daimao gave his best in translating each episode. Yeah, it's not Dragonbox quality, blah blah blah ... But give it a rest about that, people. So it's not the exact same color scheme and there's some grain, it still has the best translation work in its subtitles and nothing removed from the Japanese version that the Dragonbox has.

I'm so tired of discussing this like no tomorrow.

[fps_anth]

I'm praying as I've never prayed before that they pick up One Piece now that

I used to have nightmares about the FUNimation dub of DBZ. Then, I saw some of the 4Kids One Piece dub. I then had a nightmare about me and the FUNimation dub teaming up to kill the 4Kids dub.

Well, not really.

But seriously, FUNimation is an amazing dub company if they actually do things properly. An example of this is the Dragon Ball dub. It is a masterpiece. It is the reason why I am so excited about the DBZ Season sets and the Japanese BGM-ness of it. I pray to Kami that FUNimation will pick up One Piece, and do a good job on it. At least we'll getit uncut and DVD's with the Japanese dub on it.

[Tenken]

I personally don't hate FUNimation. They are an excellent company. They-freaking-licensed Spiral for goodness sakes! I never thought I'd see that show over here. It's not perfect but it's one of my favorite anime.

Now, not to get too off topic: My only problem with them is the music replacement of Dragon Ball Z. I have no beef with their voices or dialogue edits, because to be honest, if the dub was directly translated from Japanese it wouldn't make me laugh nearly as much. So what if they get a few attack names wrong or if Goku didn't say "we're warriors, not ballerinas."

Believe it or not, there was a time when we weren't even getting the Japanese language track on the DVDs. We complained and complained, and they finally gave us what we wanted. Did we thank them, yes, and then we found something else to complain about...

I'm going to declare myself flame-bait here and say that hardcore fans will always have something that they aren't happy with, and that's completely fine. We're keeping them on their toes, heh.

FUNi's come a long way with DBZ, but that's not to say that it's perfect, because God know's it isn't. I'm just going to see the cup as half full and not half empty.

They treated DB with much love. I just wish they would show DBZ that same TLC.

[Deus ex Machina]

I think it's stupid to bash on Funimation for their dub of Dragonball Z; as its been said many many times before, the show was aimed at young children in North America, and tailored to that demographic. A young kid doesn't care about things like aspect ratios, original background music, etc.

But please, can we stop defending Funimation on the grounds that they've managed to not royally screw up a handful of properties? It's not exactly in their credit that they can be handed a brand new show, stamp their logo on it, and re-release to the masses when all the work's been done for them. If the Dragonball property has taught us anything, it's that when Funimation has to do anything for themselves they fuck it up, and badly.

[Lavender Saiyan]

I am a huge fan of Funimation. I prefer most of their Music & Voices to the Original. I couldn't agree more with you man, people gotta stop living in the Late 90's & focus on the here and now. Ya, they screwed stuff up badly early on, but now that's being fixed. All of their recent DragonBall Dubs have been solid. Plus like you said, your status in how good of a fan you are should not be effected by what voices sound best to you or which music is your favorite. Regardless of what the characters sound like or the BGM that is there.....the same thing is still happening. It doesn't effect the storyline by replacing Cha-la-head or the fact that Sabat's Vegeta & Piccolo are so raspy. I love the take on the characters that the FUNi VA's have done & I love Faulconers score. But what I love most is the true foolishness of the die hard ourist fans....just think. Toriyama's contradicted himself in his own series numerous times & he's still a god. Yet FUNi makes errors & then Mr. Gen deserves to be hung in an audience of purist fans while chucking Japanese DVD's at him. It's just silly and some people take their haterid too far.

[nathantheguitarist]

Well... their most recent release, "First Strike" was terrible for movies 2 and 3, especially 3...

The music wasn't Faulconer's and was terrible... and then the acting wasn't upto their regular par, and the script... something was wrong with the script.... Goku and Tullece were not struck from molds...

[GI_Judd2287]

That's why you should stick with the older dubs of movies 2 and 3. I like those versions better than the original Japanese ones.

[Anonymous Friend]

Alright, nobody has mentioned it yet, but what the crap is with the American-style names? "Son-kun" gets translated to "Goku", all Japanese titles are removed (e.g. san, sama, chan, kun) which removes a bit of the context in which the characters are speaking, and I've noticed a lot of translation errors even with my limited knowledge of Japanese.

Because for some reason American anime companies think these things should be restricted to the original version, which is why we only see them in subtitles. Yes, it would be nice to actually have a dub someday which kept the original names, including honorifics.

Actually FUNi did dub a anime and kept the honorifics and the dialog. I was watch something called Basilisk on IFC and the few episodes I saw kept a few of them in. Also I beleive Samurai 7 also kept some in.

I, too, enjoy the the dub over the sub. If only for the fact that I don't have to pay to much attention to the words at the bottom of the screen to follow the dialog. And it's not because I'm too lazy. Iwatch all of my television with the closed caption on. It's a little habit I've gotten myself into.

Plus, I like the voices. It's what's I was first exposed to. I did promise myself that while I had a few of the movies that I was gonna watch it in Japanese, but unfortunately I had to sell them before I could get a chance.

People need to just take it easy. There's no use getting riled up over something that happened seven years. Folks really need to move on. If it wasn't FUNi it would have been some other company you would be complaining about.

And, also, those who really complain about the dub are probably those who wouldn't watch no matter how good or bad it may have turned out.

[nathantheguitarist]

That's why you should stick with the older dubs of movies 2 and 3. I like those versions better than the original Japanese ones.

Same here. I think the movie 2 original dub is like 6 bucks on amazon, but the cheapest they have 3 is 30 bucks

But I can't completely hate First Strike, because it has Daimao's subs on it

[Mr.Piccolo]

I thought First Strike was alright seeing how it was pretty cheap and I actually needed to buy those movies when I did. The only things I didn't like was the commentary and the music besides that, it was pretty good.
-Rick

[Kaboom]

I thought First Strike was alright seeing how it was pretty cheap and I actually needed to buy those movies when I did. The only things I didn't like was the commentary and the music besides that, it was pretty good.
-Rick

Same. I bought the set because I needed #3 for obvious reasons. I haven't watched the English versions yet, though.