Is Sean Schemmel possibly tired of voicing Goku?

[ABED]

Based on that AMA, it does look like it's the entitled fans.

[8000 Saiyan]

The guy is incredibly talented, but he really should take notes from Sabat when it comes to taking criticism. When Sabat gets criticism, he acts politely about it. Schemmel on the other hand doesn't.

It's amazing how Vegeta's voice actor is more cool-headed than Goku's.

[Kunzait_83]

I think Rial works perfectly as an older Bulma to perfectly counterpoint Tiffany Vollmer; she has some great deliveries in the episodes where she's calmer, such as the first episode of Kai where she reminisces about the old days, or the episode where she, Trunks and Gohan are figuring out what's up with the second Time Machine. It helps put into perspective that Bulma isn't the teenager that she was in the DB portion of the show and is now an older woman, and really emphasizes her intellect when she gets the chance to shine on that aspect of her character. She's definitely playing a continuation of Vollmer's performance though, so her shrillness is part and parcel of it, particularly on Namek where making something for Bulma to complain about seems intentional given what happens to her.

The issue though is that being a constantly angry, shrill nag was NEVER a part of Bulma's character AT ALL. Bulma's always played as a much more normal, level-headed human being generally in the original series. She has character flaws to be sure and she can get nasty with people sometimes: but even her worst, most unflattering moments are never played so absurdly over the top into such broad histrionics.

Tsuru took an already VERY flawed character on the page and lent her an air of class and dignity with her performance. You buy that this is someone who is super educated and comes from money without her needing to act like an over the top caricature of a stuck up snob or some bitchy valley girl bimbo who always cops an attitude 24/7. Like most of the rest of the Japanese cast, she's played as MUCH more down to Earth, and not like some in-your-face, larger than life stereotype that's constantly bashing you upside the head with pure shtick.

The problem is that the original FUNi dub needs to be FORGOTTEN about, not continued. The problem is that 99% of the alterations were creatively wrong and mistakes that should NEVER have been made in the first place and show a tremendous lack of respect for the series itself. The problem is that so many of the worst aspects of the original dub keep getting "grandfathered in" with successive attempts, because "its what the fans know" when in reality, its mainly what they know because FUNi keeps stubbornly clinging to them and refuses to grow past them (other than some key instances in Kai).

Examples like the one you cite from GT are aberrations: examples of a broken clock being right twice a day, and little else. The overwhelming majority of the changes made to characters does NOTHING whatsoever to "improve" the series, but rather damages it, makes it a more shrill and one-dimensional affair. It sows divide in the fanbase, and it overall tarnishes the series' legacy abroad.

FUNimation aren't writers, they aren't artists, they aren't showrunners, and they damn sure aren't creatives: they're middlemen who's responsibility is to translate and take creative license ONLY in cases where the language barrier is such that something is unworkable in English (and even then, should still hew as closely to the original intent as possible while still making it flow well in English). Beyond that though, their job is to transfer an already made work that is the clear and definitive work of OTHER PEOPLE who AREN'T them from one language into another and make it available in a different country. Period. The End.

That they continue to go out of their way to "make it their own" to this day, long after any remote excuses that they once relied on in the past (which were incredibly flimsy to begin with even back then) are no longer remotely viable, is a pretty clear indication that a lot of it at this point is just coming down to pure ego now. "We were responsible for making this big here, this series would be nothing without us, we know better by it than do its original creators, and the fans care more about us than they do this Toriyama person" (the latter of which is sadly true for some segment).

Its senselessly dumb, there's literally no excuse for any of it anymore (if there ever was to begin with, and I'd argue there wasn't), and for every one creative change one can point to as some small improvement, there's about a hundred others that are significant deteriorations that either add nothing, actively degrade the quality of the work, or most often both.

Bulma's characterization is symptomatic of a larger issue with the dub that stretches back to its earliest point: actively taking characters who behaved much more like normal, believable people with an organic way of speaking (which goes a LONG way towards making them MUCH more innately likable and interesting and nuanced) into broad, one-note cartoon stereotypes with an abrasively shrill demeanor.

Its exactly the kind of "baked-in/grandfathered in" issue that I'm thinking of whenever I've made the case on here (as I have in the past) that the only way to "properly" dub this (in some alternate reality where this would even be remotely possible now) is to just start from scratch: junk EVERYTHING that was a part of the original FUNi dub, the entire cast, all the "writers", the entire "lets riff on this at every turn and add our own flair" gag dub-like mentality and approach to things, and just begin fresh as if Dragon Ball had never been dubbed by anyone else beforehand.

Vollmer's interpretation of Bulma isn't in any way at all the character as written and conceived by Toriyama or brought to life by the anime (and Rial should not be praised or encouraged to follow through with it): she's an example of what makes the FUNimation version into something that's NOT the same series as the original, into its own unique animal (one that myself and others would argue is VASTLY inferior), when what we ALL should be fans of is nothing more or less than Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball, as opposed to Christopher Sabat, Gen Fukanaga, and Barry Watson's (who may be long gone, but his fingerprints still clearly remain) DRAGON BAWL ZEE!

But we're not, some of us are more invested in Toriyama's work, others are more invested in FUNimation's radical reinterpretation. Thus the divide, thus the dysfunctional fanbase. The thing is though, only Toriyama and Toei's work has a real justification for existing. The FUNimation reinterpretation is something of a MUCH more questionable nature at its core.

[ABED]

The guy is incredibly talented, but he really should take notes from Sabat when it comes to taking criticism. When Sabat gets criticism, he acts politely about it. Schemmel on the other hand doesn't.

It's amazing how Vegeta's voice actor is more cool-headed than Goku's.

There's criticism and then there's just assholes who feel entitled.

[precita]

At this point I don't even know why a dub still exists. Did Kai or Super have to be dubbed? We're now in the age of online streaming media with subs and everyone knows Dragonball is an anime.

It's not like the 90's or early 2000's when it had to air on TV dubbed. Honestly the dubs should have stopped after the original DBZ/Dragonball/GT dubs back in 2005 when they originally finished. There was no reason for Kai, the two new movies, or Super to be dubbed at all. Even the videogames having dubs is absurd.

[ABED]

At this point I don't even know why a dub still exists. Did Kai or Super have to be dubbed? We're now in the age of online streaming media with subs and everyone knows Dragonball is an anime.

It's not like the 90's or early 2000's when it had to air on TV dubbed. Honestly the dubs should have stopped after the original DBZ/Dragonball/GT dubs back in 2005 when they originally finished. There was no reason for Kai, the two new movies, or Super to be dubbed at all. Even the videogames having dubs is absurd.

If you hope to reach more than a niche audience, you'll have to dub it.

[GamerSkull]

At this point I don't even know why a dub still exists. Did Kai or Super have to be dubbed? We're now in the age of online streaming media with subs and everyone knows Dragonball is an anime.

It's not like the 90's or early 2000's when it had to air on TV dubbed. Honestly the dubs should have stopped after the original DBZ/Dragonball/GT dubs back in 2005 when they originally finished. There was no reason for Kai, the two new movies, or Super to be dubbed at all. Even the videogames having dubs is absurd.

I don’t think there was a problem with dubs, I’m fact it’s good that they exist imo.

They should just be accurate with liberty only taken in certain areas where they are forced to take it.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

At this point I don't even know why a dub still exists. Did Kai or Super have to be dubbed? We're now in the age of online streaming media with subs and everyone knows Dragonball is an anime.

It's not like the 90's or early 2000's when it had to air on TV dubbed. Honestly the dubs should have stopped after the original DBZ/Dragonball/GT dubs back in 2005 when they originally finished. There was no reason for Kai, the two new movies, or Super to be dubbed at all. Even the videogames having dubs is absurd.

Elitest much? Believe it not people actually prefer watching things dubbed. I know shocking right? Not everyone wants to watch something in a language they don't understand. Then you're forgetting TV deals.

If there was no need for dubs anymore then FUNi's Simuldub initiative wouldn't have token off and now thanks to their marrage with CR they don't even stream anime in Japanese anymore (bar a few shows) and just concentrate on purely dubbing them.

There is a market for them that's the reason.

[kn83]

At this point I don't even know why a dub still exists. Did Kai or Super have to be dubbed? We're now in the age of online streaming media with subs and everyone knows Dragonball is an anime.

It's not like the 90's or early 2000's when it had to air on TV dubbed. Honestly the dubs should have stopped after the original DBZ/Dragonball/GT dubs back in 2005 when they originally finished. There was no reason for Kai, the two new movies, or Super to be dubbed at all. Even the videogames having dubs is absurd.

Most people don't want to watch things in a language they don't speak. That's why movies and tv shows are dubbed into local languages all around the world. Also, you get more into the material when its in your 1st language.

[Super Sonic]

Hopefully he leaves the job for someone who's more capable of portraying the character.

Why do you care about things in English given your location?

But yeah, some guys do get on him like how some elitist nerds nitpick on little things. Recall some guys long time back saying they refused to watch the old Spider-Man movies because of the organic webshooters. This resulted in me telling them to get girlfriends.

[Doctor.]

Hopefully he leaves the job for someone who's more capable of portraying the character.

Why do you care about things in English given your location?

But yeah, some guys do get on him like how some elitist nerds nitpick on little things. Recall some guys long time back saying they refused to watch the old Spider-Man movies because of the organic webshooters. This resulted in me telling them to get girlfriends.

I speak English, I interact with English fans so I want them to have the most faithful dub possible so discussion is possible. This is ignoring the fact that the first version of the series I watched to completion was the Funimatiom dub since it was and continues to be the most easily accessible version of the series (online or otherwise) for any newcomer. That's a silly question; you act like English isn't the lingua franca of the world. A bad English dub has as much of an effect as bad subtitles do.

[Super Sonic]

At this point I don't even know why a dub still exists. Did Kai or Super have to be dubbed? We're now in the age of online streaming media with subs and everyone knows Dragonball is an anime.

It's not like the 90's or early 2000's when it had to air on TV dubbed. Honestly the dubs should have stopped after the original DBZ/Dragonball/GT dubs back in 2005 when they originally finished. There was no reason for Kai, the two new movies, or Super to be dubbed at all. Even the videogames having dubs is absurd.

Elitest much? Believe it not people actually prefer watching things dubbed. I know shocking right? Not everyone wants to watch something in a language they don't understand. Then you're forgetting TV deals.

If there was no need for dubs anymore then FUNi's Simuldub initiative wouldn't have token off and now thanks to their marrage with CR they don't even stream anime in Japanese anymore (bar a few shows) and just concentrate on purely dubbing them.

There is a market for them that's the reason.

There's also things like Kingdom Hearts and the Marvel anime. Even hardcore American otaku who whine about anime not being in the language of the land of the gods say they don't want to hear Disney characters in languages other than English. Same goes for Marvel and DC heroes outside the occasional gratuitous foreign language.

[Bryesque]

At this point I don't even know why a dub still exists. Did Kai or Super have to be dubbed? We're now in the age of online streaming media with subs and everyone knows Dragonball is an anime.

It's not like the 90's or early 2000's when it had to air on TV dubbed. Honestly the dubs should have stopped after the original DBZ/Dragonball/GT dubs back in 2005 when they originally finished. There was no reason for Kai, the two new movies, or Super to be dubbed at all. Even the videogames having dubs is absurd.

If you hope to reach more than a niche audience, you'll have to dub it.

Yeah, there's no chance a major outlet like CN/Adult Swim/Toonami would be airing a subtitled show (except perhaps in the dead of night as a really niche thing when ratings don't matter so much). The subbed version does have a worldwide audience with streaming services, but that in itself wouldn't be enough to carry a significant amount of marketing or merchandising, and that's a big part of Toei's impetus to keep producing shows and movies.

[lancerman]

At this point I don't even know why a dub still exists. Did Kai or Super have to be dubbed? We're now in the age of online streaming media with subs and everyone knows Dragonball is an anime.

It's not like the 90's or early 2000's when it had to air on TV dubbed. Honestly the dubs should have stopped after the original DBZ/Dragonball/GT dubs back in 2005 when they originally finished. There was no reason for Kai, the two new movies, or Super to be dubbed at all. Even the videogames having dubs is absurd.

This is honestly one of the worst takes I ever heard.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

That they continue to go out of their way to "make it their own" to this day, long after any remote excuses that they once relied on in the past (which were incredibly flimsy to begin with even back then) are no longer remotely viable, is a pretty clear indication that a lot of it at this point is just coming down to pure ego now. "We were responsible for making this big here, this series would be nothing without us, we know better by it than do its original creators, and the fans care more about us than they do this Toriyama person" (the latter of which is sadly true for some segment).

But we're also an order of magnitude removed from the days of Japanese audio on FUNi DVDs being something to demand. We're getting most of the frills as in-betweens to the original ideas, not in place of them; enough to actually alienate some of the people most insistent on the FUNi dub's giving the series "character". The day came in which some of the Kanzenshuu webmasters could walk into a Dragon Ball movie headlining Freeza and proceed talk about it for a good twenty minutes at least before realizing it was dubbed production and having nothing to say to it beyond Chris Ayres' being delightful. Not to hold them or any of my anecdotes as the gold standard, Ajay is absolutely right in that all this only makes their modern missteps that much more baffling, but I don't see how you can say the staunch, zero-sum proponents of Barry Watson-era FUNi won this trade. They're getting bones.

As to Rial specifically, though she is only point on the topic either way, I don't disagree, in fact having seen some viewers only watching the show dubbed because Nozawa question why all of Dragon Ball's women are so annoyting! (Though she's a step up from Vollmer broadly). Just that something also tells me the people who want to find Bulma insufferable are going to do so no matter how much soft Tsuru's voice was- her time on Namek had the unfortunate opportunity of being a part of many people's earliest exposure to the series, after all.

[Avenant]

Sean Schemmel is just a guy doing his best at his work, and to me he's the quintessential voice of Goku that I grew up on. When I met him at a convention he was incredibly kind and conversational and even did a Kame-hame-ha with me for a photo. He was hilarious in his Q&A with Christopher Sabat and they really worked well off of each other. And though he's no A-list celebrity, if they even exist anymore, he's for sure bombarded by too many ignorant or immature fans who forget that he's a real person with a real personal life. In my opinion, he kicks ass at what he does and he deserves the respect of privacy and reasonable expectations of someone who does a job that's a lot harder than most realize. And though I am a huge life-long DragonBall fan I feel that the fandom has some of the absolute worst members filled with ignorance & vitriol that doesn't reflect well on the rest of us as a whole.

At the end of the day, it's just a show and he's just a guy doing hard work to please millions of people he's never met. He deserves his privacy and the general decency of respect. I hope he's not tired of voicing Goku as I really do wish it to be a rewarding and fruitful experience for him and the rest of the cast. Most of their voices have given life to the characters that got me through grade school and even my early adult life. Based off of the work he's done and my wonderful experience meeting him in person, he'll always have my respect.

[Bruma rabu]

FUNimation aren't writers, they aren't artists, they aren't showrunners, and they damn sure aren't creatives: they're middlemen who's responsibility is to translate and take creative license ONLY in cases where the language barrier is such that something is unworkable in English (and even then, should still hew as closely to the original intent as possible while still making it flow well in English). Beyond that though, their job is to transfer an already made work that is the clear and definitive work of OTHER PEOPLE who AREN'T them from one language into another and make it available in a different country. Period. The End.

Wow, damn. So the people translating the show and making the script for the English voice actors aren't writers? The voice actors acting out and bringing the characters to life aren't artist? I get what you're trying to say and agree to some extent but to dismiss them like this is fucked up. You know just maybe if people weren't such cunts and asked politely they might actually reconsider some of their questionable decisions.

[Chrono Trigger]

They aren't writers in the sense that they don't have any authority to superimpose their own thoughts/feelings/jokes into the script and alter an already written story to be how they think it should be. Or in the sense that, when they do that kinda thing, they aren't even good at it...and they aren't artist in the sense that they don't have authority to change aspects of characters based on how they feel the characters should be.

[mecha3000]

Sean Schemmel is just a guy doing his best at his work, and to me he's the quintessential voice of Goku that I grew up on. When I met him at a convention he was incredibly kind and conversational and even did a Kame-hame-ha with me for a photo. He was hilarious in his Q&A with Christopher Sabat and they really worked well off of each other. And though he's no A-list celebrity, if they even exist anymore, he's for sure bombarded by too many ignorant or immature fans who forget that he's a real person with a real personal life. In my opinion, he kicks ass at what he does and he deserves the respect of privacy and reasonable expectations of someone who does a job that's a lot harder than most realize. And though I am a huge life-long DragonBall fan I feel that the fandom has some of the absolute worst members filled with ignorance & vitriol that doesn't reflect well on the rest of us as a whole.

At the end of the day, it's just a show and he's just a guy doing hard work to please millions of people he's never met. He deserves his privacy and the general decency of respect. I hope he's not tired of voicing Goku as I really do wish it to be a rewarding and fruitful experience for him and the rest of the cast. Most of their voices have given life to the characters that got me through grade school and even my early adult life. Based off of the work he's done and my wonderful experience meeting him in person, he'll always have my respect.

Well said. I think the problem with this fanbase is that there are a lot of toxic fans who can't differentiate the sub from the dub. Yes, the dub changed some things back in the day. Anime was a different animal back then, though. The localized Sailor Moon turned a lesbian relationship into a cousin relationship. It's not like now, where anime is more accepted as being faithful and most people are now aware of the original Japanese version of their favorite shows - due to the digital age. In fact, as Geekdom101 pointed out - Most people are now aware of the sub and now hold the dub to that standard as opposed to the old days where the purists were a minority, and this is a good thing.

I admit many of the dub changes are TERRIBLE (Ride 'em cowboy, Hope of the Universe, etc.) and are responsible in creating the divide that now exists among the purist DB fans and the average DB fans. However, Funimation has rectified this with Kai onwards and stay true to the original script for the most part despite the less faithful Super changes. Still, if you don't like the dub - DON'T WATCH IT. Stick to your cherished sub and leave the dub alone. Don't rant at Schemmel or the Funi cast if you have the original because Funimation hasn't made any changes to DB as bad as what they did with the SJW changes they added to some of their newer anime. Besides, let them having some creative freedom if it stays true to the story for the most part. I don't want a dub that sounds exactly like the sub because that's boring.

At the end of the day, Dragon Ball is a Japanese comic series adapted into a Japanese cartoon intended (as stated by Toriyama himself) for Japanese boys, created by a creator who forgets characters and plot points and wrote everything as he went along, with no concrete planned story structure. Many of you guys treat it like it's Game of Thrones when discussing it and I cringe at how it's discussed in that manor, like it's the deepest story ever told. Makes me appreciate the casual fans who see the series for what it is. Yes, I've read Derek Padula's books and have read Kanzenshuu for the history of the series and recognize the significance of the series and why it ABSOLUTED should be respected. Still, many of you debate pointless things such as dub vs sub ideologies when Akira Toriyama is just sitting somewhere, not even giving these things a single thought - probably working on a model airplane or something.

[Bullza]

It's why I don't get conventions; who wants to queue up for hours just to get a picture with some gurning actor or artist, or pack an ampitheatre with a bunch of nerds in funny costumes asking dumb questions?

I don't get it either, there's some sad weird bunch of people in this world. I couldn't think of anything worse than going to one of these geeky conventions full of neck beards playing dress up.

Anytime I've seen any of these Q and A's I can't help but cringe over it.