When did liking the dub become acceptable?

[Dotogam]

Well I wasn't around (or alive) during the birth of the internet where the majority were subbed fans but I think with youtube, many people upload dub clips and dub fans go on there. I have also noticed on some subbed music and Kai clips they start Sub bashing for no reason whereas not many sub fans bash the dub videos. It's also possible that due to Kai's so called "butchering of Dragon Ball" that they became vocal about the "negative changes" to them even though sub fans (seem to) like Kai's Dub. Plus Nostalgia I guess with dub fans growing up, going on Youtube and showing their praise for the Dub. The internet was weird for me because it felt like no one watched subbed dragon ball and I was alone.

[precita]

That is what I notice too on youtube. Almost all the youtube clips of DBZ are of the FUNI dub.

And some literally have hundreds of comments and thousands of views...and its always the FUNI dub uploaded to youtube. So all the casual fans watch the dubbed episodes on youtube.

[Lord Beerus]

Probably around 2007, from what I recall. I mean, this was around that time that the original dubbing cast had started to hone their voice and acting to a degree and it started to show with some the dubbing qualities that were present in DBZ video games around that time and beyond. The Kai happened, and I think most fans will agree this was the point where the FUNi dub cast for Z had become all round good, if not great VA's.

[TripleRach]

The only company FUNimation would realistically have "bad blood" with is Saban, due to their butchery of DBZ's first two seasons.

I'm not sure how much influence Saban actually had, but Barry Watson seems to be the main scapegoat nowadays. Watson was in charge of editing the show for TV (possibly even doing the digital paint jobs himself?), and maybe being some sort of brand manager for the series as well. He left FUNimation in the mid 2000s or so, and after that, remaining FUNi employees seemed to point to him as everything that went wrong with DBZ.

It's rather convenient to blame everything on the guy that left the company, but things did happen to improve after he left. Other than the awful cropped remastering, anyway.

[Valerius Dover]

I guess I'm pretty fortunate to have gotten into the series in 2012, at a point when the entire series was available uncut on all those handy bricks in both English and Japanese, with plenty of music options. I can only imagine what it must've been like growing up at a time when none of those things were guaranteed.

[VegettoEX]

Watson was in charge of editing the show for TV (possibly even doing the digital paint jobs himself?)

He was most certainly what I guess we'd call the editorial director, but it was his brother Byron Watson that, at the time, was in charge of the digital painting/censoring.

[NitroEX]

"snip"

Didn't Schemmel call the ocean dub music "crappy recycled mega man music" ? That doesn't seem so civil to me.

Well, some clarification may be in order. I was talking about the actors, not necessarily what they've said about the dubs as a whole. Even in Schemmel's criticism of the Ocean dub, he made it clear that he had no beef with the performances or the actors (he has called them very talented on several occasions), his problem was just with the music. It may also be worth noting that it wasn't really an attack on the Ocean dub per say, it was more so an attack on music that he felt to be out of place (he has also said that he hated the Bruce Faulconer score from day 1). I would also add that I believe he was referring to the music that would be heard in the Ocean dub of Kai...

.....*Sigh*....the Ocean dub of Kai.....

Err, anyway. He has been civil towards the actors, as have all the other cast members (of both casts).

While it's true that Schemmel was only being critical of Ocean Kai's music (which I still think is pretty unprofessional for someone in his position) he hasn't exactly been friendly toward Kirby Morrow or Peter Kelamis on Twitter. Basically Kelamis was blocked by him for reasons unknown and Kirby Morrow apparently got a scolding of some sort from Schemmel for merely including something along the lines of "voice of Goku" in his bio. I couldn't dig up the Morrow altercation so perhaps it's been deleted now but point is, Schemmel does appear to have shown mild hostility toward Ocean Gokus in the past.

[fadeddreams5]

What happened? The people who grew up with the dub... grew up! The fans who accessed the internet back then and complained about it were already teenagers or young adults, whereas fans like myself were like 8-9 and had no access to the internet.

It was a shock to me when I first realized there existed a huge side of the fanbase that detested the dub, especially the music.

[Ashelia]

When exactly did this shift? I'm assuming it was when the fans of the broadcast dub grew up. Year-wise, was there a time period where everyone suddenly started defending the dub, and it was catching everyone by surprise?

Once the internet became more accessible the shift was inevitable but imo the old dub love became unavoidable in 2010 when US Kai started airing.

US anime fans have a common enemy in 4kids and local broadcast networks so Kai airing on TheCW just destroyed any credibility the new dub had. Didn't matter what Funi said or what Nicktoons aired as it was still edited as all this went against the "hardcore badass DEE BEE ZEE" perception fans had of series. Changing so much and "kidifying" DBZ was ironically like an attack so I feel many fans uphold the old dub to protect their childhood series. Funi's dubbing now has improved greatly so its going to get more fans as time goes on as enough hate reading subs lol but the old dub has a strong hold that won't go away.

Toonami/old Funi (plus the lack of internet) simply did an amazing job at tricking children into feeling mature and thinking Eng DB was perfect. Don't know if many were surprised but maybe disappointed that Funi now can't undo what it did. We're stuck with Sayin and over 9000 forever.

[Hellspawn28]

I remember there was a time when Toonami was dislike by a lot of anime fans on the web. You had anime fans that hated Toonami for watering down anime for little kids. I remember there was many fans that DBZ to be on a different channel so that it can be uncut.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Well I wasn't around (or alive) during the birth of the internet where the majority were subbed fans but I think with youtube, many people upload dub clips and dub fans go on there. I have also noticed on some subbed music and Kai clips they start Sub bashing for no reason whereas not many sub fans bash the dub videos. It's also possible that due to Kai's so called "butchering of Dragon Ball" that they became vocal about the "negative changes" to them even though sub fans (seem to) like Kai's Dub. Plus Nostalgia I guess with dub fans growing up, going on Youtube and showing their praise for the Dub. The internet was weird for me because it felt like no one watched subbed dragon ball and I was alone.

I'm sorry for the rude question, but how old are you?

[Ashelia]

I remember there was a time when Toonami was dislike by a lot of anime fans on the web. You had anime fans that hated Toonami for watering down anime for little kids. I remember there was many fans that DBZ to be on a different channel so that it can be uncut.

True but the average kid then wasn't a savvy informed anime fan so those fans had to go elsewhere. I don't know where though as I didn't have internet in the 90s lol so outside of buying bootlegs where did you guys get your access to uncut anime? I relied on Chinatown's overpriced subs and countless wasted hours on Kazaa at my friend's house. Good times lmao.

[precita]

A lot of people still liked the dub in the early 2000's too online. I used to visit forums where people discussed DBZ as the new episodes aired on Toonami (during the Cell and Buu arcs), and the reviews were always positive.

Then again those people probably didn't know anything about the Japanese version, so they had no idea what lines were changed and such.

[Soppa Saia People]

What happened? The people who grew up with the dub... grew up! The fans who accessed the internet back then and complained about it were already teenagers or young adults, whereas fans like myself were like 8-9 and had no access to the internet.

It was a shock to me when I first realized there existed a huge side of the fanbase that detested the dub, especially the music.

That's pretty funny (for me), considering the guy who helped me get into DB was like " You should watch the dub with JPN music, Faulconer kinda sucks". Maybe that's why I've always disliked the dub score .

[Dotogam]

Well I wasn't around (or alive) during the birth of the internet where the majority were subbed fans but I think with youtube, many people upload dub clips and dub fans go on there. I have also noticed on some subbed music and Kai clips they start Sub bashing for no reason whereas not many sub fans bash the dub videos. It's also possible that due to Kai's so called "butchering of Dragon Ball" that they became vocal about the "negative changes" to them even though sub fans (seem to) like Kai's Dub. Plus Nostalgia I guess with dub fans growing up, going on Youtube and showing their praise for the Dub. The internet was weird for me because it felt like no one watched subbed dragon ball and I was alone.

I'm sorry for the rude question, but how old are you?

That would get very off topic.

Also I realized that there were many fansubbed VHS tapes. Maybe the younger toonami Dragon Ball Z fans didn't want to buy those tapes so never understood the differences. Those kids grew up and now spread their opinions on the internet and may possibly have never watched the original JPN Dragon Ball. With the DVDs they may have wanted to see DBZ the way they watched it on TV so never decided to watch the included Japanese Track. (two questions, when did the singles come out and did they include the JPN Track and Music)?

[Fionordequester]

I have also noticed on some subbed music and Kai clips they start Sub bashing for no reason whereas not many sub fans bash the dub videos.

Ergh...I don't know about you, but I've seen PLENTY of dub videos being trashed by sub fans. Heck, just go to any Sub vs. Dub video, and you'll see lots of unjustified animosity on BOTH sides. Also...

Re: "When did liking the dub become acceptable?"

Um...always. There never was a time where it was unacceptable, period. Sure, there were some pro-subbed websites where the members would bash you for it, but they didn't make up the entire population of DBZ fans. They only made up a number specific subgroups within a bigger whole. And even today, VegettoEX does not represent the "true fan" of DBZ, because there's more than one way to be a "true fan". And Kanzenshuu is only one out of many, many websites about DBZ.

"Ok, so where are you going with this?" you might ask. Well, I, not addressing this specifically to Mozilla, since he seems to come from a pretty neutral perspective. This is more addressed to anyone who buys into the claim that liking the dub is bad.

Basically what I'm saying is that liking the sub was ALWAYS acceptable within at least SOME subgroups on the Internet. Just because the TC never saw them personally doesn't mean that they didn't exist. That would be like Russian people saying that Africans don't exist just because they never see nor hear anyone but other Russian people in their daily lives.

[VegettoEX]

I'm not sure why you're invoking my name. I'm not a part of this discussion.

Furthermore, I disagree entirely with your premise, Fionordequester. The question wasn't about "were there people that existed that liked the dub", because that was obvious: it's been clearly outlined by several people that of course there were kids out there that watched the show 'cuz it was a cool show and they liked the cool show they were watching.

The actual question at hand is more about when did this opinion start rearing its head online... because no, it didn't exist at all in the English-speaking fandom online for quite a period of time. There WAS NO positive reaction to FUNimation's English dub online in any tiny corner pocket of the Internet, and for two reasons: (1) there was no tiny corner pocket that COULD be missed anywhere because it was such a small group of people and everyone knew each other and talked to each other, and (2) there was no positive response.

Yes, I just answered the question with its own statement. There was no positive response because there was no positive response. It was either actively disliked or the response was apathetic at best.

I'd wager that up into 1999, there was no single overall positive opinion about the show. Anyone who was voicing an opinion online about FUNimation's English dub of Dragon Ball Z had negative things to say. It was just the accepted, understood truth.

As other folks have mentioned, that slowly began to change as the people too young to do so before slowly started to make their way online. There was no major turning/tipping point for the opinion shift/balancing; it was gradual over the course of the Toonami broadcast.

[Hellspawn28]

I do find it funny how people on Youtube will post comments on how Saban's version of Digimon sucks for being really cheesy and having terrible music. Yet Funimation's DBZ was not much different and people are cool with it?

[Dbzfan94]

Is it bad that I knew that you would post something like this.

Is it bad that I knew that you would respond like that?

What else can I say. My first impression from the title of thread was a look at the dub like "people actually like this?" in like a typical snobbish way. As I said, that was not the case. So idk it even warranted a real response

[Fionordequester]

I'm not sure why you're invoking my name. I'm not a part of this discussion.

Worry not, I have absolutely no ill will towards you. I was only using you as an example. You run THE best DBZ website I've ever seen (not, just "one of the best", no, THE best), and you've got an awesome podcast show, and you're more or less the representative of the website (as far as I can tell, I know I could be wrong). So. I invoked your name because I knew people on this forum would know who I'm talking about.

Furthermore, I disagree entirely with your premise, Fionordequester. The question wasn't about "were there people that existed that liked the dub", because that was obvious: it's been clearly outlined by several people that of course there were kids out there that watched the show 'cuz it was a cool show and they liked the cool show they were watching.

And there you go. Children matter when deciding whether or not a show is liked by people. I'm willing to bet that, say, "The Care Bears" was not a show that got a tlot of hype by anyone above the age of, I dunno, 6. But that doesn't mean it matters any less than, say, Citizen Kane. The only reason it seems that way is because, well, it's aimed at an entirely different audience. The people who wrote for that show were just as worthy as the people writing for GoT. Or if they weren't, it wasn't because they were writing for a show for infants.

The actual question at hand is more about when did this opinion start rearing its head online... because no, it didn't exist at all in the English-speaking fandom online for quite a period of time. There WAS NO positive reaction to FUNimation's English dub online in any tiny corner pocket of the Internet, and for two reasons: (1) there was no tiny corner pocket that COULD be missed anywhere because it was such a small group of people and everyone knew each other and talked to each other, and (2) there was no positive response.

Yes, I just answered the question with its own statement. There was no positive response because there was no positive response. It was either actively disliked or the response was apathetic at best...

...

As other folks have mentioned, that slowly began to change as the people too young to do so before slowly started to make their way online. There was no major turning/tipping point for the opinion shift/balancing; it was gradual over the course of the Toonami broadcast.

So you're saying the Internet wasn't as big back then as it was now? So there wasn't millions upon millions of sites to choose from due to technological limitations? Huh...fascinating. I kind of took it for granted that there were, to tell you the truth. Alright, I shall rescind my previous claims then. Sorry for the misunderstanding .