Original vs. American

Darknat · Post by **Darknat** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 5:09 am

I have watched lots of DB dubs, and so far I have only liked the japanese one.

The voice actors are all great, the music is superb. Everything about the original is great.

The first time I watched an american DBZ dub was once I donwloaded the TV special about Trunks future... my first reaction was that I thought it was some fan made dub... (mostly because of the music and translation it had)

Years later I found out it was not.

I have watched some minor portions of the american dub here and there, and I hate how they change things, or add dialogue when it's suppose to be silent.

Also, I prefer the original music better.

I have also watched 3 different spanish subs (well not actually all of them spanish, 1 was Catalan and another was Valenciano). and even though I grew up watching those, I now think they suck beyond imagination.... the translation is stupid and has a lot of errors everywhere...

Adey · Post by **Adey** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 6:45 am

I can just as easily watch either English or Japanese

mysteriousdbzgt · Post by **mysteriousdbzgt** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 7:00 am

I prefer watching the japanese, but i don't mind watching the dub because, that is what i began watching when it was first airing on TV and it was new to me back then.

Godo · Post by **Godo** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 7:48 am

I prefer the Japanese music before the English. I really dislike the English because it sounds so mass-produced. I feel no soul in it.
I would like it to be like Naruto music (I actually have a montage with DBZ and Naruto music in my Youtube profile, and I am working on my second now).

If I look at the dub and the original, I don't like either one of them. I stick to the manga.

Bomber Greek · Post by **Bomber Greek** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:28 am

I just want to state one thing: Does FUNimation really think their music is better than the original? I honestly don't understand how anyone could prefer "Rock the Dragon" a million times over any other Dragon Ball Theme. They should've just kept all of the original music. It would take up a lot less time and make a better show.

balrog · Post by **balrog** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 12:45 pm

The American dub. I don’t care how fucking amazing the voice acting in the original is, I don’t speak the language. I would much rather listen to what people are saying than read it. The bad acting.. well I have been watching DBZ long enough to kind of ignore it. I do like the voices though, except for Freeza and Bulma.. ugh.

Humpski · Post by **Humpski** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 12:49 pm

Bomber Greek wrote:I just want to state one thing: Does FUNimation really think their music is better than the original? I honestly don't understand how anyone could prefer "Rock the Dragon" a million times over any other Dragon Ball Theme. They should've just kept all of the original music. It would take up a lot less time and make a better show.

"Rock the Dragon" is a million times better than the other English theme though.

"Dragon Dragon Ball..... Dragon Ball ZEEEEEEEEEEE,
Dragon Dragon ball, ZEEEEEEEEEE!"

jjgp1112 · Post by **jjgp1112** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 7:13 pm

I like the English version slightly better than the JPN version because of the music, but after watching Season 1 & 2, I'm really falling in love with the Japanese music.

Mr. Announcer · Post by **Mr. Announcer** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 9:08 pm

I prefer the Japanese version for the same reasons as everyone else has already stated. I feel that the Japanese actors gave a much more natural delivery with a wide range of emotions whereas in the FUNi dub, they wanted to make the voices more cartoony as is the American tradition, but as a result they had to stress their voices so much that they lost range and some emotion. I also find the original script more powerful and obviously more faithful to the manga since many lines were taken directly (not that it needs to be completely faithful, but that's my personal preference). And lastly of course the orchestrated music feels more natural and emotionally striking to me. It's not phenomenal as far as anime bgm in general goes but it's more appropriate than Faulconer's in my opinion.

But yes, I can totally understand some people's feelings for the FUNi dub. I grew up watching the dubbed Pokemon and frankly I have no desire to watch the original. Not because I think it's a good dub, but rather because it's a huge part of my childhood and it never stops making me laugh.

Also, there is the language barrier and I accept that an English speaker might not be able to pick up on the emotions or meaning in the Japanese voices because obviously, the way they are expressed is not the same. I feel that my appreciation for the Japanese actors is greatly enhanced by my general knowledge of Japanese words and speech patterns. At the same time, I am sure that fans who have no understanding of the language can have a great appreciation for the original actors as well. It all depends on the fan.

Oh yeah! and I was in love with the Ocean voice cast of course because they were excellent actors and even though the script was pretty strange at times, I still hold a special fondness for it whereas with the FUNi dub...

Virgil · Post by **Virgil** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 9:33 pm

Much like everyone else, I prefer the Japanese version.

However, it's unfair to me to say that it's much better than the English version, because I never watched the English version. I saw a couple of episodes, but the horrible voice acting, the terrible soundtrack and the painful dialogue put me off in instants.

I grew with the Portuguese version, so even when I watch it, no matter how awful it is, I still enjoy it. Of course, it doesn't compare to the Japanese version (and it's quite possibly even worse than the English version, minus the adequate voices), but it's still the voices I imagine whenever I'm reading the manga, unfortunately. The Japanese version is truly, the only fitting dub of the Dragon Ball Z.

By the way, Shenron, where did you get that awesome avatar with Mirai Gohan ?

Shenron · Post by **Shenron** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 5:28 am

By the way, Shenron, where did you get that awesome avatar with Mirai Gohan ?

Well, I did it myself :

http://vanesshenron.deviantart.com/art/ ... n-51514942

Thank you very much

TheMajinRedComet · Post by **TheMajinRedComet** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 8:45 pm

I go both ways....
I love the Japanese version and the English version equally.
I love Japanese culture, but really the only things I will 100% of the time watch in Japanese are Japanese Films. I do like the Japanese music more then the American music. Either way its Dragonball to me.

Captain Awesome · Post by **Captain Awesome** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 9:02 pm

I'm a fan of the Japanese version, I did start with the dub like everyone else, but it didn't take long for me to jump ship (The voices, the music, the delivery just left the dub in the dust, not to mention the extra depth)

Recently I have gotten my hands on Madman's Dragonball boxsets (the first has arrived the second isn't here yet

) and after switching over to the dub track, I think Funi's Dragonball dub is much much worse than anything else they've ever done before.

My sister likes the Dbz dub (she likes Sabat's Vegeta and Faulconer's music) but even she admits the Dragonball dub is pretty horrible.

Death-T · Post by **Death-T** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 9:10 pm

I think FUNimations Dragon Ball dub is awesome, just not so much the Dragon Ball Z and GT dub.

bkev · Post by **bkev** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:14 am

Death-T wrote:I think FUNimations Dragon Ball dub is awesome, just not so much the Dragon Ball Z and GT dub.

This is based off the Tenshinhan saga, but EVERYONE (even Goku) has terrible one-liners. Yamcha and Ten especially.

Post by **TripleRach** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:34 am

bkev wrote:
Death-T wrote:I think FUNimations Dragon Ball dub is awesome, just not so much the Dragon Ball Z and GT dub.
This is based off the Tenshinhan saga, but EVERYONE (even Goku) has terrible one-liners. Yamcha and Ten especially.

I never really got why people claim DB's dub is so much better than Z or GT. Episodes 1-13 pretty much just reused the scripts from the 1995 dub, which, even with the editing aside, was crappy, and full of plot holes. 14-28 were the first original scripts they worked on with the restart, and rather close to the Japanese scripts. But after that, when they got to the Red Ribbon episodes, they stopped trying to be faithful and leaned towards the Z style of writing all the way to the final episode.

I'm not going to tell people their opinions are wrong if they just plain prefer DB's dub to Z's or GT's, but I do think there's this huge misconception about the entire dub having faithfully adapted scripts.

Captain Awesome · Post by **Captain Awesome** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:14 am

TripleRach wrote: I'm not going to tell people their opinions are wrong if they just plain prefer DB's dub to Z's or GT's, but I do think there's this huge misconception about the entire dub having faithfully adapted scripts.

I agree completely, thus far I've only watched the "Saga of Goku" or the first 13 episodes and after doing so, I flipped over to the dub, only to find that it was a far cry from the original Japanese script.

I was expecting something better because at least the original soundtrack was being used, however for me the acting (especially Goku) and the script get two big thumbs down.

(I'm getting pretty far off-topic here, but has anyone noticed how after the first 13 episodes of DB the colour saturation goes WAY up?)