8000 Saiyan wrote:I never implied that you think that Kelamis is a bad voice actor.
When it comes to Kirby Morrow, Goku is just not the right role for him, much like Steve Blum. It's a shame that Corlett and Kelamis weren't informed about Kai, because I'm pretty sure that they would have improved, but I get the feeling that some people like to underestimate their abilities when it comes to improving.
While I do have a soft spot for Morrow, I do agree that he wasn't the best-suited actor for the role, and recasting him for Ocean Kai was the right choice. I think with better direction, he could give a much better Goku, and honestly even in the Westwood dub, I think he delivered a decent portrayal of the dub version of Goku's character, but in a more accurate dub, he wouldn't really fit in. And of course, in the Westwood days, he was hugely overshadowed by the likes of McNeil, Drummond, et al.
The rest of my post will be me going through each point of 90sDBZ's post about Blue Water GT. In the words of George Lucas shortly after showing The Phantom Menace to his investors for the first time, "I may have gone too far in a few places."
90sDBZ wrote:-Goku saying "The earth... the place where I was born", during the battle with Baby before he goes Oozaru.
As Nitro mentioned, this was in the Japanese version too, thus not a mistake on Blue Water's part.
In any case, it does still work; he was born on planet Vegeta as a Saiyan, and he arrived on Earth as the destructive baby he left planet Vegeta as, however when he hit his head, and softened up a lot, he became the Goku we know today. So not only is this not a translation error, it's actually a pretty cool line in theory. Perhaps the exact wording isn't perfect, but the sentiment is nice.
For the record, the full Blue Water line is "The Earth... Looks like I won't be able to protect it this time... My home... The-the place where I was born... And grew up... So many memories... Good friends... All the adventures... I'm sorry that I can't protect it..."
This gels pretty nicely with my reading of the line above.
90sDBZ wrote:-Goku saying to Li Shenron before trying to blow himself up "This is the move that defeated Majin Buu."
Sorry to nitpick, but his name has never been Li Shenron. His proper name is Yi Xing Long(Pronounced roughly as Ī Shing Long), which in Japanese was approximated as something like Ī Shinron, which Blue Water rendered as Ii Shenron(
Note that's an uppercase "I", not a lowercase "L"). Not a perfect transliteration due to the business about "Shenron" instead of "Xing Long", but the Ii part is a correct pronunciation, as they use the Ī sound.
This small mistake aside, the criticism itself is somewhat valid, as Steve Simmons' translation of the line in Japanese is "Vegeta, I'm going to use that same skill you used when you tried to blow Boo away!"
The Blue Water line is "It's the same one that finally defeated Majin Boo!"
It's more of an oversight than an outright bad translation. It doesn't look like a good translation choice, but all we have here are two translations of a Japanese line. We'd need someone with an understanding of Japanese to tell us exactly how this difference might have come about. If this was a line in Funimation Kai, I'd assume it was a case of mistranslation, as we already have evidence a huge chunk of the dialogue in Kai is touched-up lines from their Z dub, but with Blue Water, there was no prior dub to base it on, and it's known to have been translated from the Japanese scripts of GT, so it's possible the line was ambiguous, and Steve Simmons rendered the line using more precise terms that fits better with established canon. Meanwhile, Blue Water may have used logic along the lines of: "Well, he's saying this is what Vegeta used to blow up Majin Boo, so we should render that like this."
It's entirely possible(And I'd even say likely) that the translators themselves hadn't watched all of DBZ, and thus missed this simple mistake. And even within the show, it's easy to justify this one line as being Goku misspeaking about the events in question.
90sDBZ wrote:-Vegeta saying to Goten and Trunks that "Gohan isn't the one neglecting his training" on episode 2 when he tries to force them to go to space.
Here's the Blue Water dialogue:
Goten: "I thought Gohan was going with dad."
Vegeta: "I convinced him to stay. He's not the one who's been neglecting his training and getting soft like you two have. Going on this mission will do the two of you a world of good."
And here's the Steve Simmons dialogue:
Goten: "I thought Gohan was going...!"
Vegeta: "This was my suggestion. It would be best if you two went, since you've been slacking off with your training. Going together with Kakarrot will be a good experience for you."
Honestly, I think this is a perfectly justifiable difference of phrasing. Clearly, if Gohan was planning on going anyway, he's been keeping up his training. We see at the end of Z that Gohan's already balancing his family life, and his professional life, so I don't see any reason why he wouldn't also be able to do some training too. He's probably not actively fighting, or training anywhere near as hard as Goku and Vegeta are, and with Oob, Goku, and Vegeta around, he probably doesn't feel much pressure to do so, so this makes total sense.
90sDBZ wrote:-Mr Satan/Hercule saying to the people of earth "I saved you from Cell, Majin Buu, and don't forget Baby!" when the people of earth shouldn't remember the evil Buu and should only know Satan's friend Mr Buu.
Which episode?
I have a strong feeling that would've been in the original Japanese too.
90sDBZ wrote:-The final episode with the flashback sequence that shows the time Goku returned to earth for the 28th Tournament and appears before his friends and says "Haha see ya!", which makes zero sense because he's reuniting with them and not leaving them.
The narrator was also talking in this segment, and it was clear this was a farewell section. In Japanese, Goku says "Haha, yoo-hoo!"
So, "See ya" was a dub change. Though I would argue not a particularly bothersome one, particularly given how weird the line is in Japanese.
90sDBZ wrote:-Changing between "Solar Flare" and "Light of the sun!" within the same dub.
Solar Flare would be a holdover from Z. Light of the sun is a little more accurate, and although it's odd to switch it, I don't think it's that big of an issue. Besides, on the uncut Kai dub, they originally used Japanese attack names for the Makankosappo, Kienzan, etc., then suddenly switched back to dub names. So... This hardly compares.
90sDBZ wrote:-Changing from the accurate "Final Shine" at first to some other name I can't remember in a later episode.
Unless you can remember which episode, or someone can remember the other name, you can't really hold this against it, and no one can really talk about it. On one hand, again, switching terms is weird, but as I said earlier, it's not a big issue, and Funimation have done a lot worse, specifically in Kai.
90sDBZ wrote:-General Rildo being changed to General Lock
As Nitro said, unless you can get someone who knows Japanese to analyse this, you can't comment on this.
90sDBZ wrote:-Hell being Hadies even though the previous Ocean dubs used HFIL.
As said before, Hades is a
much better term for it than HFIL. Hades is an actually-known term for hell, but is acceptable on TV, so it's a pretty much perfect choice. The only reason they went with HFIL originally was because the digital painters working on the Saban dub realised it would be really easy to change the "HELL" written on the trolls' shirts to "HFIL". Changing it to Hades is acceptable, and I fully support it. It should have been that way in all the TV dubs from the beginning, and I actually think Hades has a cool ring to it that really suits Dragon Ball.
90sDBZ wrote:I get that the dub is pretty accurate a lot of the time, but to praise it while criticising Funimation's Kai dub for minor changes isn't exactly fair.
It's completely fair. While Blue Water's GT is considered a lesser-known TV dub of GT produced on a low budget for the UK and Canada(Not saying that isn't true, just that that's all people generally see it as), it's actually a really accurate dub, the only cuts are about 10 or 15 seconds missing from episode 7 or 8(Whichever one Goku skinny dips in), and the ending Dan Dan montage is missing a huge chunk,
but the latter only applies to the UK airings, and the former I've only ever seen UK TV rips of, but even if the former is a universal cut, I have a hard time caring about it; nothing important happens in the scene, and the episode itself is the worst... On top of this, in a time when Funimation was still using replacement scores, adding a layer of edge on top of the show(Ever heard the Funimation GT narrator?), and using very questionable translations, Blue Water had highly-accurate translations, kept the original score, and very much embraced the original sentimental, often rather lighthearted tone(Ever heard the Blue Water narrator?). And plus, aside from that 10-15-second cut in one episode, it was originally produced as an uncut dub.
And while Funimation's Kai is considered a highly-accurate, true representation of Z as it was in Japanese, and Funimation's chance to right the wrongs of their old dub, large chunks of the dialogue are from the original Z dub(Usually with some retouching), there's still a ton of unnecessary liberties taken with the scripts(Mostly added lines), only a few of the more widely-criticised roles were recast(Freeza... I think a couple of Sabat's Ginyu Force roles were recast... The rest I'm not sure they really had any choice in recasting), and while it certainly is a massive improvement on their Z dub, it's nothing close to what people claim it is, particularly given weirdness like the sudden switch of Japanese to dub attack names, and Linda Young's Freeza still being in episode 1.
Two misunderstood dubs, both a lot more accurate to the original Japanese version than their most closely-related dubs, and in comparing their translations, often Blue Water GT comes out on top, with Kai only winning in terms of a few censorship-related changes(Mr. Satan vs Mr. Hercule is the only one that comes to mind, but I imagine there's a couple more), although that's not to say Kai isn't entirely censorship-free(I've heard they stuck with Bulla...), of course.
And again, all I'm comparing are the translations, and what they were in their time. When GT aired in 2003, it was a pretty rare case of an uncut dub on TV(Again, sans episode 7 and UK airings of episode 64), while Kai came to home video in the era of uncut, accurately-translated dubs becoming the norm. Regardless of which did a better job from the vantage point we have here in 2017, it's interesting that these two dubs from those two very different eras of dubbing are so comparable.
Besides, the only other comparison to be made is Blue Water GT vs Funimation GT, which is no contest; Blue Water outstrips Funimation's in nearly every respect.
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.
