Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

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Re: Was the dub right to alter Goku's character?

Post by johnboy1 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 2:37 pm

Kamiccolo9 wrote:Is "almost gave him character depth!" really that good of a recommendation? That's damning with faint praise if I've ever seen it.
Except it damns Toriyama and Toei along with FUNi. Not a very charitable assessment all around.
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Re: Was the dub right to alter Goku's character?

Post by Lord Beerus » Wed Feb 28, 2018 3:33 pm

Absolutely not.

It's the duty of whoever responsible for dubbing any given anime into any given foreign language to provide a script that is flexible for the actors and actresses of the foreign dub it will be translated into to while retain the original integrity of the characters, such as their personality and abilities, so that we can have a dubbed anime that is fundamentally sound while also respecting the original story. We should have never have had to deal with scenarios like Tien saying his arm will grow back after Nappa tore it off, characters being sent to the next dimension, Goku's father being a brilliant scientist, Freeza making Vegeta evil or Goku being the hope of the universe.
Kunzait_83 wrote:Yeah I was gonna say: I'm certainly not anywhere near as up on Super as tons of folks on here have been, but from what I've seen from it up till this point (in various fits and spurts admittedly) Goku seems in NO way played up as more "generically heroic" in a more Westernized sense. He's still the same goofball hick of a martial arts savant as he ever was. Anyone care to clarify exactly what this is about?
Yeah, Goku is pretty much the same in Super as he for the majority of Z. His love for fighting makes him do questionable acts by our own moral standards but he still retains his charm as a loveable, intriguing, naive manchild with average social and basic intelligence, the occasional flippant expression, and with every new arc gains new allies or acquaintances through battles. Ironically, it's the Battle Of Gods and Resurrection F arc where Goku arguably acts the most overtly "heroic".

In the Battle of Gods arc, Goku wants to rush to Earth to stop Beerus from destroying the planet and only relents after King Kai points out that his involvement could destroy the Earth by making Beerus mad, was happier with the results of becoming a Super Saiyan God (although he calls the power empty since it isn't his own) and fights mostly to protect the planet from Beerus (who is also more of a jerk since he attacks the planet directly to push Goku's power), while still having a good time. Whereas in the movie, Goku willingly stays on King Kai's planet to train and reach Super Saiyan God, was unhappy with Super Saiyan God since it's a level he couldn't reach on his own and he fights Beerus more for himself until the end.

In the Resurrection F arc, Goku hates Frieza a lot more and tells him that he feels nothing but contempt for him despite the fact he normally loves fighting strong opponents. He also berates Frieza for being so careless to come to Earth without mastering his golden form and only spares him because he sees him as too pathetic to kill and when he's forced to kill Frieza to keep him from destroying the Earth, he warns Vegeta to get out of the way and hesitates for a second since he might hit him. Whereas In the movie, Goku is happy that Frieza has become so powerful in such a short amount of time, didn't really take the threat seriously, and spares Frieza so he can train his golden form and come back to fight him again when Goku fires his Kamehameha to kill Freeza he does it while Vegeta is still within range.

Other than that, he's the same old Goku.

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Re: Was the dub right to alter Goku's character?

Post by DragonBallFoodie » Wed Feb 28, 2018 4:27 pm

GTx10 wrote:I think it worked out and made Goku into a likeable character. As many people have pointed out the Uncut Funi Dub had many instances of Goku being "selfish" and "heroic." By the time the Buu arc rolled around Son's reluctance to fight almost gave the character depth. He grew up from a igonrant mountain boy into a long term thinking adult.
Yes the Uncut Funi Dub is plagued with errors due to many, many varying factors but I think it worked out in a strange way. So yes, Funi did have the right to "alter" Son Goku's character.
I agree.

I wouldn't call the dub "right", but the West and original Japanese have different cultural institutions that tend to filter an anime/character portrayal into different versions. Goku was a man-child in Japan, and in the US he became a naive goof. It seemed to work out better in the West, which is more used to comedic dads and bumbling heroes, rather than in Japan which demands that its father figures be responsible mature individuals.
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Re: Was the dub right to alter Goku's character?

Post by ABED » Wed Feb 28, 2018 4:30 pm

DragonBallFoodie wrote:
GTx10 wrote:I think it worked out and made Goku into a likeable character. As many people have pointed out the Uncut Funi Dub had many instances of Goku being "selfish" and "heroic." By the time the Buu arc rolled around Son's reluctance to fight almost gave the character depth. He grew up from a igonrant mountain boy into a long term thinking adult.
Yes the Uncut Funi Dub is plagued with errors due to many, many varying factors but I think it worked out in a strange way. So yes, Funi did have the right to "alter" Son Goku's character.
I agree.

I wouldn't call the dub "right", but the West and original Japanese have different cultural institutions that tend to filter an anime/character portrayal into different versions. Goku was a man-child in Japan, and in the US he became a naive goof. It seemed to work out better in the West, which is more used to comedic dads and bumbling heroes, rather than in Japan which demands that its father figures be responsible mature individuals.
How did it work out better in the west?
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Re: Was the dub right to alter Goku's character?

Post by Zephyr » Wed Feb 28, 2018 4:37 pm

GTx10 wrote:I think it worked out and made Goku into a likeable character.
But Goku was already a likable character.

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Re: Was the dub right to alter Goku's character?

Post by DragonBallFoodie » Wed Feb 28, 2018 4:40 pm

ABED wrote:How did it work out better in the west?
Okay, that was me giving my opinion with no real support.

But speaking for myself, I believe Goku would get on well with Western animation fathers like Fred Flintstone, Homer Simpson and Goofy, all flawed but somewhat likeable characters; I do not think he felt out of place.
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Re: Was the dub right to alter Goku's character?

Post by ABED » Wed Feb 28, 2018 4:43 pm

DragonBallFoodie wrote:
ABED wrote:How did it work out better in the west?
Okay, that was me giving my opinion with no real support.

But speaking for myself, I believe Goku would get on well with Western animation fathers like Fred Flintstone, Homer Simpson and Goofy, all flawed but somewhat likeable characters; I do not think he felt out of place.
Homer for all his faults loves his family. He's a good family man who is in love with his wife and cares about his children and would never leave them. Goku's a horrible husband and an okay father. Plus, it seems like such an odd comparison to make.
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Re: Was the dub right to alter Goku's character?

Post by DragonBallFoodie » Wed Feb 28, 2018 4:58 pm

ABED wrote:Homer for all his faults loves his family. He's a good family man who is in love with his wife and cares about his children and would never leave them. Goku's a horrible husband and an okay father. Plus, it seems like such an odd comparison to make.
Not really, not when you consider that DB is about imperfect, fallible but determined and endearing heroes.

Goku has never had a decent/normal childhood, so he is a bit of an awkward family person, to differing degrees in the Japanese and Western versions. I guess the dub "altered" things to make Goku look more on the goofy but well-meaning side, which works out IMO all right.
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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by johnboy1 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 4:59 pm

Really, when you get down to it, Goku is an awful person who just happened to do some good things. I mean, he and Vegeta are indirectly but deliberately responsible for the entirety of the Android/Cell arc by stonewalling the idea of hunting Gero down immediately after Trunks leaves. I know people have said "They're not superheroes. They want to fight strong people. Saving the Earth isn't their goal.", to which I respond "Then why the fuck am I supposed to root for them?". Their position is entirely untenable and doesn't deserve the slightest bit of empathy, but we're just supposed to go along with it because they're the protagonists?
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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by ABED » Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:02 pm

But Goku isn't a hero in the western sense. And it's not that kind of show nor is it an animated family sitcom. The Simpsons IS about a family who despite the over the top nature of the show which includes a father strangling his child, does love each other.

You dont' have to like what Goku does or agree with it, you just have to be interested in it. That's every story, even one's that look at the characters through a western lens. Breaking Bad being a prime example. Whatever sympathy one has for Walt pretty quickly goes out the door, but it doesn't matter because the show is so well done that you want to see what happens next.
Last edited by ABED on Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by PerhapsTheOtherOne » Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:04 pm

If the original Dragon Ball had come out first with an accurate dub and it was well-received, it might've led to a more accurate dub of Dragon Ball Z.

Actually, that's something else to talk about The original series was dubbed a few years after its sequel series was dubbed, but I heard they had to change the dialogue of a lot of scenes because the humour wouldn't have been acceptable by America's broadcast standards if the original jokes were kept accurate.

Can anyone substantiate this?

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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by ABED » Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:05 pm

The only thing the dub can do is change the dialog, not Goku's actions. Even if his words say he's a superhero, his actions prove otherwise.
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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by johnboy1 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:07 pm

ABED wrote:But Goku isn't a hero in the western sense.
You don't have to be a hero to decide that letting an extinction-level threat go willfully unchecked is the wrong thing to do. You just have to be a non-sociopath.
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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by ABED » Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:08 pm

johnboy1 wrote:
ABED wrote:But Goku isn't a hero in the western sense.
You don't have to be a hero to decide that letting an extinction-level threat go willfully unchecked is the wrong thing to do. You just have to be a non-sociopath.
Not what I was getting at. It doesn't ultimately matter because the story isn't about white hats vs black hats. It's a story about a martial artist continually trying to surpass his limits.
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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by Zephyr » Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:24 pm

DragonBallFoodie wrote:I guess the dub "altered" things to make Goku look more on the goofy but well-meaning side, which works out IMO all right.
I don't think it's a positive creative alteration to homogenize Goku with Western dads, rather than allowing him to exist as a more distinct kind of character. Were kids in the West really starved for more lovable dopey good dads? I don't remember ever chomping at the bit for more.

Plus, it's a foreign work. If "more of the same" is what one wants to consume, what one wants to market to kids, and so on, why not rely on domestic creative works for this? Why go outside of the comfort zone for something if you're unwilling to experience the "discomfort"? Why take that extra step if you're not going to take in all that said extra step brings with it? Why go to Japan if all you really want is America?
johnboy1 wrote:Really, when you get down to it, Goku is an awful person who just happened to do some good things. I mean, he and Vegeta are indirectly but deliberately responsible for the entirety of the Android/Cell arc by stonewalling the idea of hunting Gero down immediately after Trunks leaves. I know people have said "They're not superheroes. They want to fight strong people. Saving the Earth isn't their goal.", to which I respond "Then why the fuck am I supposed to root for them?". Their position is entirely untenable and doesn't deserve the slightest bit of empathy, but we're just supposed to go along with it because they're the protagonists?
No, we go along with it because they're still charming and endearing despite their moral faults (well, Goku is, at least). And, again, they're martial artists. As you said, saving the Earth isn't their goal. Your subsequent questioning of "why root for them?" implies that you can only root for moral do-gooders. Which is fine, but if that's the case, I don't think a martial arts series where a martial artist is set on improving himself above all else is quite up your alley. Rather, it sounds more like you want superhero stories, or stories where a character is always set to do the right thing above all else.

And that's fine, I just think it's odd to look at Dragon Ball for that. That's not what Dragon Ball is. That's not the story Toriyama was telling. That's not the kind of story Toriyama tells. He is not your champ. And, in the end, the biggest mistake the dub made by altering Goku's character was to trick countless children into being interested in Dragon Ball for things that Dragon Ball itself was never really doing.

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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by KBABZ » Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:46 pm

PerhapsTheOtherOne wrote:If the original Dragon Ball had come out first with an accurate dub and it was well-received, it might've led to a more accurate dub of Dragon Ball Z.

Actually, that's something else to talk about The original series was dubbed a few years after its sequel series was dubbed, but I heard they had to change the dialogue of a lot of scenes because the humour wouldn't have been acceptable by America's broadcast standards if the original jokes were kept accurate.

Can anyone substantiate this?
Well the series had two attempted dubs for the US, one in 1989 by Harmony Gold that got as far as at least Korin, and a second by FUNimation in 1995 (when that flunked they moved to DBZ).

As far as I can recall I don't THINK the humor was changed majorly, at least on the DVD versions I have, the Blue Bricks.

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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by Kunzait_83 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:10 pm

KBABZ wrote:As far as I can recall I don't THINK the humor was changed majorly, at least on the DVD versions I have, the Blue Bricks.
The humor was indeed HEAVILY censored and sanitized in first FUNimation attempt at dubbing the Pilaf arc of original Dragon Ball. That dub was wholly, wholly different from the later in-house redub that you've seen on the blue bricks and that much later on aired on Cartoon Network (the first FUNi dub was aired totally in syndication, with MUCH stricter content standards).
Zephyr wrote:
DragonBallFoodie wrote:I guess the dub "altered" things to make Goku look more on the goofy but well-meaning side, which works out IMO all right.
I don't think it's a positive creative alteration to homogenize Goku with Western dads, rather than allowing him to exist as a more distinct kind of character. Were kids in the West really starved for more lovable dopey good dads? I don't remember ever chomping at the bit for more.

Plus, it's a foreign work. If "more of the same" is what one wants to consume, what one wants to market to kids, and so on, why not rely on domestic creative works for this? Why go outside of the comfort zone for something if you're unwilling to experience the "discomfort"? Why take that extra step if you're not going to take in all that said extra step brings with it? Why go to Japan if all you really want is America?
johnboy1 wrote:Really, when you get down to it, Goku is an awful person who just happened to do some good things. I mean, he and Vegeta are indirectly but deliberately responsible for the entirety of the Android/Cell arc by stonewalling the idea of hunting Gero down immediately after Trunks leaves. I know people have said "They're not superheroes. They want to fight strong people. Saving the Earth isn't their goal.", to which I respond "Then why the fuck am I supposed to root for them?". Their position is entirely untenable and doesn't deserve the slightest bit of empathy, but we're just supposed to go along with it because they're the protagonists?
No, we go along with it because they're still charming and endearing despite their moral faults (well, Goku is, at least). And, again, they're martial artists. As you said, saving the Earth isn't their goal. Your subsequent questioning of "why root for them?" implies that you can only root for moral do-gooders. Which is fine, but if that's the case, I don't think a martial arts series where a martial artist is set on improving himself above all else is quite up your alley. Rather, it sounds more like you want superhero stories, or stories where a character is always set to do the right thing above all else.

And that's fine, I just think it's odd to look at Dragon Ball for that. That's not what Dragon Ball is. That's not the story Toriyama was telling. That's not the kind of story Toriyama tells. He is not your champ. And, in the end, the biggest mistake the dub made by altering Goku's character was to trick countless children into being interested in Dragon Ball for things that Dragon Ball itself was never really doing.
Everything about every inch of this response is so 1000% on the money I almost want to stand up and applaud it. :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Look, not to in any way continually pat myself on the back over this (god knows its one of the more embarrassingly sad and less than boast-worthy aspects of my life now), but I've been in this fandom now across WAY too long a stretch of time. Not just following DB itself, but moreover following the fanbase as its RADICALLY changed and shifted its views, its focal points of emphasis, and even the very core nature of what it loves about and wants out of Dragon Ball (and hell, Japanese anime and manga themselves as a general whole) over the course of now SEVERAL decades across one generation to another.

Once you boil it all down to its fundamentals, ever since the dub first landed on the scene and ushered in this whole new swath of fans through it, we've basically been having more or less a lot of the same conversations and debates over and over and over and over and over again endlessly ad nauseam over far too many years now. And there's a key root laying at the heart of these constantly repeating disagreements and arguments that I think this entire back and forth in here is perfectly illustrative of, AND its what lays at the heart of most of my warblings about shit like genre and martial arts fiction and wuxia, etc.

And that root is simple: while the dub, on a surface-most level, might seem functionally the same as the original story (same visuals, same very basic plot beats, etc.), once you delve just a BIT further under the hood, you realize that the entire core motivation and principal underlying spirit, has not only been altered, its been shifted towards something that has almost NOTHING to do with the original story.

And when ANY given work, all the more ESPECIALLY a work as immediately distinctive and attention-grabbing on the surface as Dragon Ball is, has an adaptation that alters something as fundamentally important as the core themes and underlying genre motifs of the story being told, its going to inevitably rope in a VASTLY different makeup of fans than it might otherwise have had it just stuck straightforwardly to its source.

The elephant in the room that's laying at the heart of all this perpetually recycling debates is this: Dragon Ball is a VERY unavoidably Eastern martial arts fantasy tale. That's just what it IS at its fundamental core identity: all of its core themes, its character motivations, the very thing that powers it and gives it any of its meaning at all, ALL of that is 1000% deeply, DEEPLY rooted in classical Chinese kung fu fantasy fairy tales.

This ENTIRE genre, and the whole culture and cultural context that it comes from, was seen as TOTALLY foreign and unsalable to an audience of American/Western children by its foreign handlers: so they took it upon themselves to RADICALLY alter it, in both blatantly overt and subtly covert ways, into being a more typical (for Westerners) superheroic "save the world against evildoers" narrative.

This is COMPLETELY and diametrically at odds against what the story originally was. Whereas before the nature of the story was competitive rivalry, self-improvement, and in some cases even straight up revenge, now its protecting the innocent, crusading against evil, and fighting against greater threats that are beyond that of the heroes' personal interests. Its a HUGE, colossal fucking shift to go from a tone of constantly exploring and testing one's own limits purely for the thrill and for the sake of it to almost a duty and honor-bound responsibility to protect things.

Now I know that this is a VERY broad generalization and it doesn't apply to EVERYONE on an individual basis, but its a generalization I feel more than comfortable making due to how much raw experience I've now had with this whole fanbase, across such a vast spectrum, over the course of roughly 25 years now (good lord, god help me when we get to 30 :sick: ): dub fans who go out of their way to defend even the most blatantly overt changes made to Dragon Ball aren't always doing so ENTIRELY out of purely nostalgia 100%. That definitely plays a very big FACTOR in things, but its not the only element at play here.

Ardent dub fans tend to be people who love Dragon Ball in its "reversioned" FUNimation form not IN SPITE of its changes but BECAUSE of them. They generally don't know about, have no experience with, and no real curiosity about, Eastern martial arts fantasy stories. Instead they're huge fans of traditional Western superheroics, and want have the surface level style and visual iconography of Dragon Ball be married to and representative of THAT type of story that they're more familiar with, no matter HOW utterly divorced the original story itself was from all that to begin with. They are, in essence, EXACTLY the audience who FUNimation was aiming for in the first place.

The core of the disagreement that people like myself, Zephy above, and many other fans of the Japanese version is simply this: we don't think that EVERYTHING should be made to conform to what people of a certain culture are already overly familiar with. I'm retreading ground that Zephyr already covered very, very exceedingly well here, but it bears repeating: its not like there aren't already INFINITE TONS of Western-style superheroic action/adventure shows already out there to choose from. If you want that type of narrative and characters... you've ALREADY GOT THEM. In SPADES.

Go to Superman, go to Batman, go to Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Justice League, the Avengers, the many cartoon versions of the Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Transformers, and on and on and on and on ENDLESSLY down the line. You want an intrepid, brave team of selfless heroes (or just a focus on one aspirational heroic figure who symbolizes everything that is right and just and good) putting themselves on the line to protect the innocent from maniacal supervillains, you are MORE than already taken care of by MANY leaps and bounds.

Dragon Ball IS NOT THAT, and NEVER WAS that in ANY FORM, except for that of this one specific foreign dub of it. Dragon Ball is from a WHOLE other culture and a WHOLE other set of genre mores that is VERY much disconnected from those kinds of characters and stories. By extension of this, Goku as a character is NOT rooted in that sort of Western action hero moral compass. Goku isn't Japanese Superman in a dogi out to protect the people from injustice: his forebears are characters like Linghu Chong and Sun Wukong, other such Chinese martial arts fantasy heroes whose driving goals and concepts of morality are all TOTALLY divorced from that which we, as modern Americans, are accustomed to from our own fictional heroes.

By that same token, our culture is not the center of the entire universe: it shouldn't hold SO much sway that it should be taken as a complete given that it be imposed upon any and all other foreign voices to better match and conform to our familiar comfort zones. Most modern U.S. anime fans tend to be very much on board with this attitude... for everything EXCEPT Dragon Ball it seems. Likely because DB in its altered form was the "gateway drug" for so many, so its clung to desperately as being somehow ridiculously sacrosanct (despite this particular dub being ESPECIALLY low rent enough to make the dedication and willful degree of flagrant hypocrisy it takes to champion its hyper-Westernization while freaking out and decrying any OTHER dub getting so much as a vowel of a character's name wrong just especially maddening).

You have to ask yourselves: what is the purpose of taking something, in this case a piece of art/work of creative media, that from our cultural perspective is "different", "foreign", "exotic", that isn't fundamentally native to our cultural point of view and comes from something that is wholly detached from our cultural backgrounds... and simply making it into something that is EXACTLY like what we're already familiar with and used to and know a great deal about within our own cultural hemisphere?

Wouldn't it make MUCH more sense to have this work stand up as what it is not only out of simple honesty and integrity to the original creator's intentions, but also because it STANDS OUT because of how different and unlike what we're already used to it is?

The excuse always offered is that "American children don't know what Wuxia is, have never heard of it, and will thus be put off by it". How the fuck do you know that unless you actually TRY THEM first? People aren't born knowing EVERYTHING about what it is they like or what they are or will ever be attracted to. You find that out through EXPERIENCE and from EXPLORATION of the unknown. EVERYTHING is "new" to us at some point or other. Retreading endlessly over and over again across that which is already familiar and known to us is STIFLING of personal growth, and it prevents us from discovering things that we might LOVE and NEVER EVEN KNEW we wanted or were craving for.

Look at anime itself: on the children's broadcast TV end of things, companies went out of their way to hide the "Japanese-ness" of anime and try desperately to conform it with other American cartoons, out of fear that kids will somehow inherently reject that which is unfamiliar. Kids of course are precisely the exact OPPOSITE of this though generally speaking, and instead tend to be more OPEN to new discoveries because to them, due to how young they are, EVERYTHING is still "new" and a discovery to them.

Finally, after many years of hiding it, broadcasters began to embrace the "foreign/Japanese" aspect of anime, and guess what? Kids were NOT put off by it, but instead EMBRACED this thing (arguably a bit TOO much in some circles, but that's a whole other can of worms) and now anime is a known and viable quantity in the U.S. We didn't LOSE anything by educating kids about anime: we instead gained a whole new avenue for media to expand our collective palette.

Its not much different with a genre like Wuxia either: Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra PROUDLY wear their Chinese fantasy kung fu roots on their sleeves (despite being Western developed no less), and this in NO WAY puts people off to those shows AT ALL. They're an IMMENSE success for it. Dragon Ball would EASILY have been NO different whatsoever had it JUST been simply presented, as-is, to a fresh young American audience back in the 90s. Does anyone here SERIOUSLY believe that there is THAT much of a vast, fundamental difference in the degrees of acceptance for something new or unfamilliar between children in 1996/1997/1998/1999 vs children in 2003, 2007, 2010, 2015, or right now?

I've seen dub fans over the years say shit time and time again like "Oh, no WAY would any kid in 1999 have gone for this, its not at all like with kids in 2008", and this whole idea is utterly fucking asinine in the extreme and indicative of absurd and ludicrous mental gymnastics, apologetics, and mindless brand loyalty towards the insipid narrative of some dumbass company out in Texas that brought to you a thing that you loved dearly as a child (who themselves had NOTHING to do with the making of that thing that you love: they were just a middle man, nothing more).

Would there be SOME people out there who otherwise would NOT have gotten into Dragon Ball and who absolutely NEEDED the Western superhero reskin in order to like it and become interested in it? Sure there are. Clearly. But I would argue that they would in NO way represent anywhere NEAR enough of a majority of people to put all THAT much of a dent into Dragon Ball's rise in the U.S.

By contrast, think of all the many fans it probably LOST out on due to the changes: people who WOULD'VE been receptive to the series had it presented itself as an Eastern kung fu fantasy/batshit wonky wuxia narrative as opposed to just another generic "stalwart hero saves the world" type of deal. I know that had I not been already a fan of the series prior to the FUNimation dub, I certainly would've been in that camp: I'd have thought this series was utter vapid garbage had my initial exposure to it been through something like the Toonami airings or whatever.

And I know I'm not alone on that: for all the dub fans I've come across who cite the dub's changes as key reasons that they got into it, I've known at LEAST just as many people who utterly HATE Dragon Ball itself due to factors brought on by the dub (its tone, the voices/music, etc) that I damn well know would've utterly LOVED it had it been presented to them in its original format to begin with.

Its a give and take, and the takeaway is this: not EVERYTHING is intended for absolutely EVERYONE. There's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all work (the closest thing to that I can possibly think of maybe is Star Wars). Generally speaking, everything has its niche and you're NEVER going to please and appeal to absolutely EVERYONE ever. So if you're never going to net everyone ANYWAYS, you might as well just present a given work just for what it is and allow it to organically rope in whoever it will.

Nobody ultimately wins anything from conformity or homogenization: variety and diversity of art across cultural lines should be seen as a WONDERFUL thing to be embraced and championed rather than something to be shunned.

I've said many times before lately that of course people have every right to like an altered work like the DBZ dub because it better suits their personal taste: your personal taste is yours, and no one has the right to take that away from you. Where I get frustrated, as do plenty of others, is when you get SO attached to this heavily and fundamentally altered work that you go out of your way to make excuses for the corporate rationalizations behind its alteration, and cite it as being exemplary of the virtues homogenization, of shunning something for being too different or unfamiliar and thus HIDING and blatantly LYING about how different and unique it is, and to make the case that "of course people shouldn't be challenged to expand their horizons into new things they didn't know about previously: LEAST OF ALL children, EXACTLY the sort of people who are the most prone to and get the most out of such exploration of the unknown"... all primarily due to sentimental attachment to this particular compromised work.

Stuff like this is the tipping point where nostalgia and sentimental attachment turns into an almost zealous sort of clinginess and thus rationalizing even its most indefensible aspects.
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Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by johnboy1 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:27 pm

Zephyr wrote:No, we go along with it because they're still charming and endearing despite their moral faults (well, Goku is, at least). And, again, they're martial artists. As you said, saving the Earth isn't their goal. Your subsequent questioning of "why root for them?" implies that you can only root for moral do-gooders. Which is fine, but if that's the case, I don't think a martial arts series where a martial artist is set on improving himself above all else is quite up your alley. Rather, it sounds more like you want superhero stories, or stories where a character is always set to do the right thing above all else.
You're making a lot of assumptions. Stop. It isn't that I need all my protagonists to be squeaky clean: It's the sheer magnitude of "dirtiness" involved in this one instance. I shrugged when he let Piccolo go. And Vegeta. And Freeza. What makes the Androids different is that he knew for an absolute fact that they can and will slaughter millions of people, because from Trunks's perspective they already have. And unlike the previous instances, there is a (comparatively) easy solution that, as far as he knows, will prevent that bloodshed with minimal risk. For him to not take that option, solely because he wants the thrill of fighting a super-strong opponent, and, more importantly, for the audience to be expected to just go along with it... You honestly don't see the problem with that? You don't see how it might take someone out of the story? You don't see how someone might lose their investment in the plot?

"That's his character!"

You keep saying that like it makes it okay, and like this is a totally viable plot development for a story that takes itself even semi-seriously. You keep saying that, and you keep being wrong.
To a strong man, the end justifies the means. To a stronger man, the means justify the end.

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KBABZ
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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by KBABZ » Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:23 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote:
KBABZ wrote:As far as I can recall I don't THINK the humor was changed majorly, at least on the DVD versions I have, the Blue Bricks.
The humor was indeed HEAVILY censored and sanitized in first FUNimation attempt at dubbing the Pilaf arc of original Dragon Ball. That dub was wholly, wholly different from the later in-house redub that you've seen on the blue bricks and that much later on aired on Cartoon Network (the first FUNi dub was aired totally in syndication, with MUCH stricter content standards).
Interesting, any examples? For self-explanatory reasons it's a bit hard to watch that dub and get a feel for it.

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Re: Regarding Goku's character in the dub...

Post by ABED » Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:37 pm

What makes the Androids different is that he knew for an absolute fact that they can and will slaughter millions of people, because from Trunks's perspective they already have.
And Goku didn't know Vegeta would? He knew Vegeta and Nappa made a living out of destroying planets and their people for money. But somehow you can overlook that whereas the Cyborgs is where you draw the line? Goku explicitly lets Vegeta go because he wants to fight him again.
What makes the Androids different is that he knew for an absolute fact that they can and will slaughter millions of people, because from Trunks's perspective they already have.
Morally speaking, it's bad. But it's not real. It's a story and so it's okay to enjoy a story with morally questionable characters or even outright evil characters. Elmore Leonard made a whole career out of writing bad guys who you love in spite of their moral failings because they are so damn entertaining. Why would it take you out of the story? It only would if you see it as a superhero story or at least a story of good vs. evil.
You keep saying that, and you keep being wrong.
Do you have a problem watching movies like The Godfather or TV shows like Breaking Bad?
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