Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?

[WittyUsername]

I mean, I'm done with Funimation's dub because they insist on sticking with bargain-basement talentless hacks for their main cast while bringing in new guys who are legimately good for the new people. If they gave a damn about the quality of their product, they'd quietly and respectfully shove Schemmel and company out the front door like they did Linda Young, and recast them with somebody worth a damn.

Seriously, we're past the days where Funimation had to hire off the street. The only reason these guys are even still around is due to inertia and Sabat having moved so far up the company ladder.

Look, I'm gonna be even more blunt about this than is usual even for me: these guys (Sabat, Schemmel, Straight even, etc.): they just AREN'T good actors. They never WERE good actors, and its safe to say they never WILL BE good in these roles; with their much ballyhooed "improvement" over the years having been ridiculously incremental and marginal at best, with fans blatantly grading these folks on a curve.

The outraged responses to Kamiccolo's above post I find to be the most telling. I've found time after time after time throughout the years that people give these actors a pass for two main reasons:

1) Stubbornly clung-to nostalgic goodwill, resulting in a personal investment in them as people.

and 2) Ridiculously lowered standards stemming from mainly consuming cartoons made for insanely small, young children and incredibly limited experience with "real" actors in actual works for grown-ass adults.

Children's cartoons in the United States (especially during the 80s and 90s and when DBZ was first being dubbed) often bringing with them MUCH lowered standards for quality control and content than is found for most adult works in general or even in similar children's fare throughout Japan (where voice acting is overall taken MUCH more seriously): and the FUNimation version throughout the years has proven itself to be nothing if not the embodiment of dragging along with it, to wildly varying and inconsistent degrees, holdout elements of its poor mid/late 90s standards and creative direction throughout the ensuing later years/decades.

What dub fans have always failed to realize is that from people like me, THIS HAS NEVER BEEN ANYTHING PERSONAL with these guys. I don't give a flying shit about Chris Sabat or Sean Schemmel or Sonny Straight or Eric Vale or any of the rest of the "old guard" as individuals. They're complete and utter abject strangers to me. I wish them absolutely NO ill will or bad fortune in their personal lives whatsoever, obviously. None of this has a DAMN thing to do with them as people.

All I am is a long-time (much, much longer than most at this point) fan of this particular Japanese anime who has simply been consistently dissatisfied and grossly turned off with their work on it as actors throughout the years.

I have found throughout the years their "acting talents" to have been disastrously lacking (both on a personal subjective AND critically objective level) to the point of being a complete embarrassment and stain upon this series from moment one all the way up through now, across virtually almost ALL its incarnations that they've been a part of. And the idea that they are considered "iconic" in these roles by the Western fanbase at large to be cringingly ludicrous and, on some level, reflecting poorly on the fanbase overall as being filled with people with little to no quality standards whatsoever, concerned more with "tradition" and with being continually fed what they're used to from their early childhoods than they are with seeing actual good work come about from this series' official English language versions.

These guys have ALWAYS flat-out sucked in these roles. Their pinpoint degree of suck has fluctuated across the years and DB-related projects: but its almost NEVER risen above a certain tremendously lowered threshold. Fans unfortunately are INCREDIBLY attached to them as iconography from their childhoods, which they internalize as part of their own personal identity: so any criticism or negativity towards these poor performances, however obviously warranted or justified, is taken as a personal attack on THEM as people. Which of course is beyond ridiculous, asinine, and childishly immature in itself.

I'm tired of soft-shoeing this and tiptoeing around people's personal feelings about this stupid shit: the "classic" FUNimation cast are simply objectively bad actors, who only lucked into these roles because they happened to get plucked off the streets from obscurity to take part in what just happens to be a lightning-in-a-bottle, seemingly "bulletproof" and ever-enduring classic franchise, aimed at an audience of un-critical elementary school children who were largely sheltered and over-parented from viewing much of anything else to impact their standards beyond bargain basement kiddie cartoons anyways, and have since grown up into a present day popular culture that has fetishized the idea of "childhood nostalgia" to thoroughly absurd, over-the-top degrees.

I know its never going to happen obviously, but in an ideal world of pure hypotheticals? Get rid of ALL OF THEM and start 100% completely from scratch altogether: it should've happened DECADES ago, and Kamiccolo is spot on correct that the main reasons it hasn't is simply raw inertia and backstage nepotism. And fans bending themselves over backwards to make excuses for their terrible work (both right now and all consistently throughout these past 20 years) because of their personal sentimental attachment and investment is just sad and frustrating in itself.

Who is making excuses for anything? No one has ever said that you aren’t allowed to dislike the performances from these people. What I took issue with is this assertion that they’re “basement-level talentless hacks”. How exactly is that supposed to be interpreted as anything other than an uncalled for attack on these people? Disliking a performance doesn’t mean you have to claim that the person behind the performance is a hack. It has nothing to with “nostalgia”, especially since most would agree that these guys weren’t good when they first started doing these roles.

Also, you seem to be operating under the assumption that your opinion is the undisputed truth, and that anyone who disagrees is a childishly blind nostalgic fanboy. That’s not only demeaning, but it also doesn’t seem to take into account that people have differing opinions on this. To people like me, Sean Schemmel, Chris Sabat and Sonny Strait have improved immensely compared to how they were when they first started voice acting. Yes, they were just “some guys off the street” when they first began voicing these characters, but that’s no longer an accurate statement. They’ve been voice acting for 20 years. By all accounts, they’re considered professionals at this point, even if you aren’t fond of their performances.

Once again, I will stress that it’s okay to not like them in these roles. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. The only issue that people have taken with Kamiccolo’s comment is this idea that these people are talentless hacks who only still have careers because of how long they’ve been around. That’s an insulting thing to suggest, especially since someone who isn’t fond of Masako Nozawa’s Goku could easily claim the same thing about her. Just an FYI, I’m not in anyway suggesting that Nozawa is bad as Goku. She’s iconic in the role for the reason, and that reason goes beyond the fact that she’s been voicing the characters since 1986. I’m just pointing out that if you’re going to claim that an actor is only still around because of inertia or backstage nepotism, you should be prepared for people to say the same thing about actors who you do like.

[Kamiccolo9]

"Professional" is a matter of status, not of quality. Ed Wood was a professional filmmaker, and his stuff is universally considered the epitome of complete shit.

The OG cast, Schemmel in particular, are hacks because they are kept around purely due to inertia and nepotism, what with their friend Sabat now being placed higher up the corporate ladder, and their subpar acting is brought out every time they share a screen with Ayres or Marsters or Douglas or Sinclair. Again, if Funimation gave a single fuck about the quality of the show, they would have been escorted out the door years ago. Shit, I would have fired Schemmel for his unprofessional attitude alone.

[VegettoEX]

While I already acknowledged the "But what about the DBZ anime being a bad adaptation of the manga?!" defense, this right here is another tactic I see: when there's criticism of the dub, you get the whataboutism with the Japanese voice cast.

That's not the topic here. If you want to have that conversation, that's fine and you're more than welcome to have it... but that's not this conversation. To give you the good-faith-benefit-of-the-doubt, though:

I’m just pointing out that if you’re going to claim that an actor is only still around because of inertia or backstage nepotism, you should be prepared for people to say the same thing about actors who you do like.

There is in fact reason to suggest this for some of the FUNimation voice cast, whereas there is no reason to suggest this for the Japanese voice cast.

If you want to take it back to the most basic levels, FUNimation as a company having Dragon Ball in the first place is an open example of nepotism: despite other companies being competitive for the license, Gen Fukunaga's uncle at Toei Animation is the reason the Cyboars company has one of the biggest franchises in the world.

[gohann]

Voices: They're a mixed bag, but Super > Kai 2.0 > Kai 1.0, Kai 1.0 is that low because while it has some of my favorites, it also has some of my least favorites.
Scripts: Kai 1.0 > Kai 2.0 > Super

They're all at least decent-good, and I don't think the recent dubs are anywhere as bad as many in this thread seem to. I noticed that people are using insults as a substitute for criticism, not just in this thread, but in many other dub-related threads as of late.

[WittyUsername]

"Professional" is a matter of status, not of quality. Ed Wood was a professional filmmaker, and his stuff is universally considered the epitome of complete shit.

The OG cast, Schemmel in particular, are hacks because they are kept around purely due to inertia and nepotism, what with their friend Sabat now being placed higher up the corporate ladder, and their subpar acting is brought out every time they share a screen with Ayres or Marsters or Douglas or Sinclair. Again, if Funimation gave a single fuck about the quality of the show, they would have been escorted out the door years ago. Shit, I would have fired Schemmel for his unprofessional attitude alone.

I never said it was a matter of quality. That’s why I specifically pointed out that it’s okay to not be a fan of their performances. I was simply pointing out that this idea that these actors are “some guys off the street” is no longer an accurate statement.

Also, I’m pretty sure Funimation does give plenty of fucks about the quality of their dubs. Why do you think they’ve abandoned their old practices of using replacement scores and constantly adding in dialogue for scenes where there is none? Hell, they replaced Linda Young as Freeza specifically because they realized that she wasn’t able to do a good enough job with the more accurate dialogue that they were giving the character in the dub of Kai, and instead of bringing her back in Superwhen Chris Ayres had to leave due to health issues, they went for an almost perfect soundalike instead.

[gokaiblue]

Look, I'm gonna be even more blunt about this than is usual even for me: these guys (Sabat, Schemmel, Straight even, etc.): they just AREN'T good actors. They never WERE good actors, and its safe to say they never WILL BE good in these roles; with their much ballyhooed "improvement" over the years having been ridiculously incremental and marginal at best, with fans blatantly grading these folks on a curve.

Disagree entirely, especially with them not being good actors in general. If they were truly bad actors, why would they continue gettimg steady work even outside of Funimation and Dragon Ball? Not saying they're Marlon Brando or anything, but they are good actors who do good work in their roles. The Dragon Ball cast has improved by a large margin as a whole. I'm not saying they're perfect, but they've come leaps and bounds from 1999.

The outraged responses to Kamiccolo's above post I find to be the most telling. I've found time after time after time throughout the years that people give these actors a pass for two main reasons:

1) Stubbornly clung-to nostalgic goodwill, resulting in a personal investment in them as people.

This argument has some weight, but it doesn't take into consideration people just getting into the series through the dub or people praising them in other works that have no nostalgia or connection to their dub of Z.

and 2) Ridiculously lowered standards stemming from mainly consuming cartoons made for insanely small, young children and incredibly limited experience with "real" actors in actual works for grown-ass adults.

Children's cartoons in the United States (especially during the 80s and 90s and when DBZ was first being dubbed) often bringing with them MUCH lowered standards for quality control and content than is found for most adult works in general or even in similar children's fare throughout Japan (where voice acting is overall taken MUCH more seriously): and the FUNimation version throughout the years has proven itself to be nothing if not the embodiment of dragging along with it, to wildly varying and inconsistent degrees, holdout elements of its poor mid/late 90s standards and creative direction throughout the ensuing later years/decades.

I see where your coming from and there are some holdouts from this era, but the Dragon Ball cast as it stands right now isn't one of them. They're giving in most cases vastly improved and different performances from when they started. I do agree that Funimation has been inconsistent with how faithful they are in regards to keeping or changing dubisms, but it has to do with the fact that these dubisms have been around for over 20 years. It would be like suddenly changing Ash to Satoshi. Pleasing for the purists but confusing for the general public

All I am is a long-time (much, much longer than most at this point) fan of this particular Japanese anime who has simply been consistently dissatisfied and grossly turned off with their work on it as actors throughout the years.

I have found throughout the years their "acting talents" to have been disastrously lacking (both on a personal subjective AND critically objective level) to the point of being a complete embarrassment and stain upon this series from moment one all the way up through now, across virtually almost ALL its incarnations that they've been a part of.

Again, you can have this opinion, but to say they're objectively bad actors in each incarnation and ignore their vast improvements from Kai onwards is a bit much.

And the idea that they are considered "iconic" in these roles by the Western fanbase at large to be cringingly ludicrous and, on some level, reflecting poorly on the fanbase overall as being filled with people with little to no quality standards whatsoever, concerned more with "tradition" and with being continually fed what they're used to from their early childhoods than they are with seeing actual good work come about from this series' official English language versions.

There has been actual good work from this series' official English language versions. Kai for one was a big turning point in the quality of the dub. Most, if not all of the cast excelled at their roles from beginning to end. The only problems occured script wise in Kai 2.0. Even Super with its not quite 100% script is an example of "actual good work."

These guys have ALWAYS flat-out sucked in these roles. Their pinpoint degree of suck has fluctuated across the years and DB-related projects: but its almost NEVER risen above a certain tremendously lowered threshold. Fans unfortunately are INCREDIBLY attached to them as iconography from their childhoods, which they internalize as part of their own personal identity: so any criticism or negativity towards these poor performances, however obviously warranted or justified, is taken as a personal attack on THEM as people. Which of course is beyond ridiculous, asinine, and childishly immature in itself.

This I can most certainly see and agree with to an extent. To some, these actors are voice over gods, but while they are extremely good in their own right, they aren't always perfect. They still bring in excellent performances for the most part.

I'm tired of soft-shoeing this and tiptoeing around people's personal feelings about this stupid shit: the "classic" FUNimation cast are simply objectively bad actors, who only lucked into these roles because they happened to get plucked off the streets from obscurity to take part in what just happens to be a lightning-in-a-bottle, seemingly "bulletproof" and ever-enduring classic franchise, aimed at an audience of un-critical elementary school children who were largely sheltered and over-parented from viewing much of anything else to impact their standards beyond bargain basement kiddie cartoons anyways, and have since grown up into a present day popular culture that has fetishized the idea of "childhood nostalgia" to thoroughly absurd, over-the-top degrees.

The main cast at least didn't just luck into their roles. They had to audition. It was an open call, sure, but that doesn't mean anything in regards to the quality now. It hampered the dub then because most of the cast was exteemely green, but now that they've been doing this for almost 20 years, they're quite experienced and have improved immensely.

Geez, I'm starting to feel like a broken record.

I know its never going to happen obviously, but in an ideal world of pure hypotheticals? Get rid of ALL OF THEM and start 100% completely from scratch altogether: it should've happened DECADES ago, and Kamiccolo is spot on correct that the main reasons it hasn't is simply raw inertia and backstage nepotism. And fans bending themselves over backwards to make excuses for their terrible work (both right now and all consistently throughout these past 20 years) because of their personal sentimental attachment and investment is just sad and frustrating in itself.

While that would be an interesting experiment, they're doing great in their roles and have come quite far from where they started. No amount of backstage nepotism and raw inertia can account for the vast and continued improvement of this cast over the nearly 20 years they've been voicing the characters. Dust off that old Ginyu Assault tape or VHS and compare it to the latest dub episode of Super to see what I mean. It's night and day. If they stayed at only above that level for 20 years, then you'd have a point, but ever since Kai, they have almost been completely different actors.

[WittyUsername]

While I already acknowledged the "But what about the DBZ anime being a bad adaptation of the manga?!" defense, this right here is another tactic I see: when there's criticism of the dub, you get the whataboutism with the Japanese voice cast.

That's not the topic here. If you want to have that conversation, that's fine and you're more than welcome to have it... but that's not this conversation. To give you the good-faith-benefit-of-the-doubt, though:

I’m just pointing out that if you’re going to claim that an actor is only still around because of inertia or backstage nepotism, you should be prepared for people to say the same thing about actors who you do like.

There is in fact reason to suggest this for some of the FUNimation voice cast, whereas there is no reason to suggest this for the Japanese voice cast.

If you want to take it back to the most basic levels, FUNimation as a company having Dragon Ball in the first place is an open example of nepotism: despite other companies being competitive for the license, Gen Fukunaga's uncle at Toei Animation is the reason the Cyboars company has one of the biggest franchises in the world.

I wasn’t trying to resort to whataboutism. I’ve already acknowledged that I think Masako Nozawa is great as Goku. I was simply pointing out that claiming that the only reason the old Funimation voice actors are still working is due to nepotism is a baseless assertion that certain people could easily try to apply to the Japanese voice cast (who, once again, are generally great in their respective roles). Besides, as I’ve already mentioned, the whole reason we had Chris Ayres as Freeza to begin with was because they realized that Linda Young (who had been voicing the character for an entire decade) wasn’t able to do a good enough job with the dialogue they were giving her, so they decided to replace her with what is almost universally considered to be a significant improvement.

[Kamiccolo9]

"Professional" is a matter of status, not of quality. Ed Wood was a professional filmmaker, and his stuff is universally considered the epitome of complete shit.

The OG cast, Schemmel in particular, are hacks because they are kept around purely due to inertia and nepotism, what with their friend Sabat now being placed higher up the corporate ladder, and their subpar acting is brought out every time they share a screen with Ayres or Marsters or Douglas or Sinclair. Again, if Funimation gave a single fuck about the quality of the show, they would have been escorted out the door years ago. Shit, I would have fired Schemmel for his unprofessional attitude alone.

I never said it was a matter of quality. That’s why I specifically pointed out that it’s okay to not be a fan of their performances. I was simply pointing out that this idea that these actors are “some guys off the street” is no longer an accurate statement.

Also, I’m pretty sure Funimation does give plenty of fucks about the quality of their dubs. Why do you think they’ve abandoned their old practices of using replacement scores and constantly adding in dialogue for scenes where there is none? Hell, they replaced Linda Young as Freeza specifically because they realized that she wasn’t able to do a good enough job with the more accurate dialogue that they were giving the character in the dub of Kai, and instead of bringing her back in Superwhen Chris Ayres had to leave due to health issues, they went for an almost perfect soundalike instead.

Wow. Give them a gold star.

I'm sorry that I expect standards from media, not the bare minimum. As for their scripts, go back to what Mike said about their current stance on that.

Again, Kai was serviceable, at least 1.0. So were the movies, in my opinion. Super has been awful. And before the whole Japanese nostalgia bullshit comes out, I've only just started watching DB in Japanese for the first time. I've been following this franchise since 96. I think I'm as entitled as anyone to judge the quality of the dub. It started out terrible, got even worse when Funimation brought in their in-house people, got passable for Kai, a bit better for the movies, and then plummeted for everything since 2015. Don't ask me to give them any kind of credit; any idiot could incrementally improve at their job if they've been at it for 20 years. The fact that they still suck is all on them, not me.

[ABED]

Critique anything you want, but hurling pejoratives out there don't come across as legitimate criticism. They sound like school yard insults.

any idiot could incrementally improve at their job if they've been at it for 20 years.

And any idiot could get worse over time as well. I think it's fair if you were to say they didn't improve enough, but the way you put it is insulting and unfair. It's very common for actors to get worse over time when playing the same role. A number of the JPN performance were noticably worse in Kai than they were 20 years prior.

I have plenty of complaints about a number of the performances, but there are plenty of good actors in the old FUNi cast that even if you did a hard reboot, wouldn't be out of place with a seasoned cast of good voice actors.

[WittyUsername]

"Professional" is a matter of status, not of quality. Ed Wood was a professional filmmaker, and his stuff is universally considered the epitome of complete shit.

The OG cast, Schemmel in particular, are hacks because they are kept around purely due to inertia and nepotism, what with their friend Sabat now being placed higher up the corporate ladder, and their subpar acting is brought out every time they share a screen with Ayres or Marsters or Douglas or Sinclair. Again, if Funimation gave a single fuck about the quality of the show, they would have been escorted out the door years ago. Shit, I would have fired Schemmel for his unprofessional attitude alone.

I never said it was a matter of quality. That’s why I specifically pointed out that it’s okay to not be a fan of their performances. I was simply pointing out that this idea that these actors are “some guys off the street” is no longer an accurate statement.

Also, I’m pretty sure Funimation does give plenty of fucks about the quality of their dubs. Why do you think they’ve abandoned their old practices of using replacement scores and constantly adding in dialogue for scenes where there is none? Hell, they replaced Linda Young as Freeza specifically because they realized that she wasn’t able to do a good enough job with the more accurate dialogue that they were giving the character in the dub of Kai, and instead of bringing her back in Superwhen Chris Ayres had to leave due to health issues, they went for an almost perfect soundalike instead.

Wow. Give them a gold star.

I'm sorry that I expect standards from media, not the bare minimum. As for their scripts, go back to what Mike said about their current stance on that.

Again, Kai was serviceable, at least 1.0. So were the movies, in my opinion. Super has been awful. And before the whole Japanese nostalgia bullshit comes out, I've only just started watching DB in Japanese for the first time. I've been following this franchise since 96. I think I'm as entitled as anyone to judge the quality of the dub. It started out terrible, got even worse when Funimation brought in their in-house people, got passable for Kai, a bit better for the movies, and then plummeted for everything since 2015. Don't ask me to give them any kind of credit; any idiot could incrementally improve at their job if they've been at it for 20 years. The fact that they still suck is all on them, not me.

You really seem to be misunderstanding the point I’ve been trying to make. I never claimed that people who love the Japanese voices are blinded by nostalgia. Hell, I’m one of the countless people who loves the Japanese voices. In fact, I’d say Nozawa is better as Goku than Schemmel, and I say that as someone who generally isn’t fond of the whole ‘cross dressing voices’ trope. I was simply saying that to claim that these actors are talentless hacks who’ve only stuck around for as long as they have due to nepotism is a baseless assertion, and that some people could just as easily claim the same thing for the Japanese voices. I wasn’t accusing anyone of being nostalgic for the Japanese voices.

Again, Nozawa is fantastic as Goku, and she’s easily the most iconic voice for the character, and I don’t believe it has anything to do with nostalgia. At the same time, though, suggesting that the only possible reason that people could have for liking the Funimation voices as they currently are is due to nostalgia is an unfair accusation to make. Besides, if that statement was accurate, why would Schemmel and Sabat be getting any work outside of Dragon Ball? Sean Schemmel has actually been doing voices for western cartoons lately.

[gokaiblue]

Wow. Give them a gold star.

I'm sorry that I expect standards from media, not the bare minimum. As for their scripts, go back to what Mike said about their current stance on that.

Again, Kai was serviceable, at least 1.0. So were the movies, in my opinion. Super has been awful. And before the whole Japanese nostalgia bullshit comes out, I've only just started watching DB in Japanese for the first time. I've been following this franchise since 96. I think I'm as entitled as anyone to judge the quality of the dub. It started out terrible, got even worse when Funimation brought in their in-house people, got passable for Kai, a bit better for the movies, and then plummeted for everything since 2015. Don't ask me to give them any kind of credit; any idiot could incrementally improve at their job if they've been at it for 20 years. The fact that they still suck is all on them, not me.

You are entitled to judge the quality of the dub, and we're entitled to disagree with you and point out where we specifically disagree. The fact that you still think they suck and are hacks is all on you, though. The cast has improved and mostly fits their roles. I find it funny that you claim 2015 is where it all plummented, because I actually that is where most of the cast hit their stride even more so. Schemmel expanded his range as Son Goku to the point where he sounds almost exactly like Nozawa, Sabat continued to perfect his roles (even his Jeice was good for what it's worth), and the rest of the main cast (especially returning actress Merdith McCoy) did incredibly well.

[Kamiccolo9]

Wow. Give them a gold star.

I'm sorry that I expect standards from media, not the bare minimum. As for their scripts, go back to what Mike said about their current stance on that.

Again, Kai was serviceable, at least 1.0. So were the movies, in my opinion. Super has been awful. And before the whole Japanese nostalgia bullshit comes out, I've only just started watching DB in Japanese for the first time. I've been following this franchise since 96. I think I'm as entitled as anyone to judge the quality of the dub. It started out terrible, got even worse when Funimation brought in their in-house people, got passable for Kai, a bit better for the movies, and then plummeted for everything since 2015. Don't ask me to give them any kind of credit; any idiot could incrementally improve at their job if they've been at it for 20 years. The fact that they still suck is all on them, not me.

You are entitled to judge the quality of the dub, and we're entitled to disagree with you and point out where we specifically disagree. The fact that you still think they suck and are hacks is all on you, though. The cast has improved and mostly fits their roles. I find it funny that you claim 2015 is where it all plummented, because I actually that is where most of the cast hit their stride even more so. Schemmel expanded his range as Son Goku to the point where he sounds almost exactly like Nozawa, Sabat continued to perfect his roles (even his Jeice was good for what it's worth), and the rest of the main cast (especially returning actress Merdith McCoy) did incredibly well.

Yup. How dare I have the audacity to disparage the talents of the Dragon Ball dub voice actors. I think I'm done here; my point has been made.

As for the nepotism, as Mike stated above, only to be ignored by everybody, this franchise being licensed to Funimation is entirely due to nepotism in the first place. The guy in charge of the show nowadays is one of the old voice actors. Funny how, despite the clearly obvious disparity in acting talent between newer cast members such as Ayers and Marsters and the older ones, Schemmel and company are still around.

[PremiumSalt]

I mean, I'm done with Funimation's dub because they insist on sticking with bargain-basement talentless hacks for their main cast while bringing in new guys who are legimately good for the new people. If they gave a damn about the quality of their product, they'd quietly and respectfully shove Schemmel and company out the front door like they did Linda Young, and recast them with somebody worth a damn.

Seriously, we're past the days where Funimation had to hire off the street. The only reason these guys are even still around is due to inertia and Sabat having moved so far up the company ladder.

Look, I'm gonna be even more blunt about this than is usual even for me: these guys (Sabat, Schemmel, Straight even, etc.): they just AREN'T good actors. They never WERE good actors, and its safe to say they never WILL BE good in these roles; with their much ballyhooed "improvement" over the years having been ridiculously incremental and marginal at best, with fans blatantly grading these folks on a curve.

The outraged responses to Kamiccolo's above post I find to be the most telling. I've found time after time after time throughout the years that people give these actors a pass for two main reasons:

1) Stubbornly clung-to nostalgic goodwill, resulting in a personal investment in them as people.

and 2) Ridiculously lowered standards stemming from mainly consuming cartoons made for insanely small, young children and incredibly limited experience with "real" actors in actual works for grown-ass adults.

Children's cartoons in the United States (especially during the 80s and 90s and when DBZ was first being dubbed) often bringing with them MUCH lowered standards for quality control and content than is found for most adult works in general or even in similar children's fare throughout Japan (where voice acting is overall taken MUCH more seriously): and the FUNimation version throughout the years has proven itself to be nothing if not the embodiment of dragging along with it, to wildly varying and inconsistent degrees, holdout elements of its poor mid/late 90s standards and creative direction throughout the ensuing later years/decades.

What dub fans have always failed to realize is that from people like me, THIS HAS NEVER BEEN ANYTHING PERSONAL with these guys. I don't give a flying shit about Chris Sabat or Sean Schemmel or Sonny Straight or Eric Vale or any of the rest of the "old guard" as individuals. They're complete and utter abject strangers to me. I wish them absolutely NO ill will or bad fortune in their personal lives whatsoever, obviously. None of this has a DAMN thing to do with them as people.

All I am is a long-time (much, much longer than most at this point) fan of this particular Japanese anime who has simply been consistently dissatisfied and grossly turned off with their work on it as actors throughout the years.

I have found throughout the years their "acting talents" to have been disastrously lacking (both on a personal subjective AND critically objective level) to the point of being a complete embarrassment and stain upon this series from moment one all the way up through now, across virtually almost ALL its incarnations that they've been a part of. And the idea that they are considered "iconic" in these roles by the Western fanbase at large to be cringingly ludicrous and, on some level, reflecting poorly on the fanbase overall as being filled with people with little to no quality standards whatsoever, concerned more with "tradition" and with being continually fed what they're used to from their early childhoods than they are with seeing actual good work come about from this series' official English language versions.

These guys have ALWAYS flat-out sucked in these roles. Their pinpoint degree of suck has fluctuated across the years and DB-related projects: but its almost NEVER risen above a certain tremendously lowered threshold. Fans unfortunately are INCREDIBLY attached to them as iconography from their childhoods, which they internalize as part of their own personal identity: so any criticism or negativity towards these poor performances, however obviously warranted or justified, is taken as a personal attack on THEM as people. Which of course is beyond ridiculous, asinine, and childishly immature in itself.

I'm tired of soft-shoeing this and tiptoeing around people's personal feelings about this stupid shit: the "classic" FUNimation cast are simply objectively bad actors, who only lucked into these roles because they happened to get plucked off the streets from obscurity to take part in what just happens to be a lightning-in-a-bottle, seemingly "bulletproof" and ever-enduring classic franchise, aimed at an audience of un-critical elementary school children who were largely sheltered and over-parented from viewing much of anything else to impact their standards beyond bargain basement kiddie cartoons anyways, and have since grown up into a present day popular culture that has fetishized the idea of "childhood nostalgia" to thoroughly absurd, over-the-top degrees.

I know its never going to happen obviously, but in an ideal world of pure hypotheticals? Get rid of ALL OF THEM and start 100% completely from scratch altogether: it should've happened DECADES ago, and Kamiccolo is spot on correct that the main reasons it hasn't is simply raw inertia and backstage nepotism. And fans bending themselves over backwards to make excuses for their terrible work (both right now and all consistently throughout these past 20 years) because of their personal sentimental attachment and investment is just sad and frustrating in itself.

Allow me to respond to your unnecessarily blunt post with one of my own.

I'm a dub fan. I'm 19 years old. Do you know when I got into Dragon Ball? 2 years ago. Now that we've established that your nostalgia arguement will not be valid towards me, let's continue.

In spite of my lack of sentimental or nostalgic attachment to the dub cast, I do not now, nor have I ever seen any glaring issues with the Kai onwards dubs, acting wise. The cast, with maybe one or two minor exceptions, are all perfectly competent in their roles, and a significant number of them are exceptional, in my opinion. Ones enjoyment of entertainment and the various aspects of it, including the acting, is subjective. Its opinion based. Unless someone is literally reading their dialogue in monotone, there is nothing "objective" about acting. Just because you feel strongly about your opinion doesn't make it correct.

I see no reason to be so indirectly condescending and belittling to dub fans and their opinions. It is completely uncalled for and immature. I also fail to understand why you feel the need to find reasons why people like the dub outside of them just, you know, liking it. And quite frankly, I don't understand why a thread titled "Between the Funimation dub of Kai and their dub of Super, which would you say is better?" would be a thread that someone like you, who clearly despises Funimations dubs of the franchise as a whole, would be reading. If the dub is so bad, why would you feel the need to read a thread clearly targeted at people who at least like one or the other? Furthermore, why would you then use said thread to go on a massive tirade against the dub as a whole? There are plenty of places where that would be appropriate, but this certainly is not one of them.

[Kamiccolo9]

Wow. Give them a gold star.

I'm sorry that I expect standards from media, not the bare minimum. As for their scripts, go back to what Mike said about their current stance on that.

Again, Kai was serviceable, at least 1.0. So were the movies, in my opinion. Super has been awful. And before the whole Japanese nostalgia bullshit comes out, I've only just started watching DB in Japanese for the first time. I've been following this franchise since 96. I think I'm as entitled as anyone to judge the quality of the dub. It started out terrible, got even worse when Funimation brought in their in-house people, got passable for Kai, a bit better for the movies, and then plummeted for everything since 2015. Don't ask me to give them any kind of credit; any idiot could incrementally improve at their job if they've been at it for 20 years. The fact that they still suck is all on them, not me.

You are entitled to judge the quality of the dub, and we're entitled to disagree with you and point out where we specifically disagree. The fact that you still think they suck and are hacks is all on you, though. The cast has improved and mostly fits their roles. I find it funny that you claim 2015 is where it all plummented, because I actually that is where most of the cast hit their stride even more so. Schemmel expanded his range as Son Goku to the point where he sounds almost exactly like Nozawa, Sabat continued to perfect his roles (even his Jeice was good for what it's worth), and the rest of the main cast (especially returning actress Merdith McCoy) did incredibly well.

Yup. How dare I have the audacity to disparage the talents of the Dragon Ball dub voice actors. I think I'm done here; my point has been made.

As for the nepotism, as Mike stated above, only to be ignored by everybody, this franchise being licensed to Funimation is entirely due to nepotism in the first place. The guy in charge of the show nowadays is one of the old voice actors. Funny how, despite the clearly obvious disparity in acting talent between newer cast members such as Ayers and Marsters and the older ones, Schemmel and company are still around.

As for Schemmel and Sabat getting cast in other stuff, I'm not knowledgeable enough about the industry to discuss the preference for non-union voice actors, but I would imagine that some of those with recognizable names would be cheaper to get than better talent that is involved in unions.

[WittyUsername]

Wow. Give them a gold star.

I'm sorry that I expect standards from media, not the bare minimum. As for their scripts, go back to what Mike said about their current stance on that.

Again, Kai was serviceable, at least 1.0. So were the movies, in my opinion. Super has been awful. And before the whole Japanese nostalgia bullshit comes out, I've only just started watching DB in Japanese for the first time. I've been following this franchise since 96. I think I'm as entitled as anyone to judge the quality of the dub. It started out terrible, got even worse when Funimation brought in their in-house people, got passable for Kai, a bit better for the movies, and then plummeted for everything since 2015. Don't ask me to give them any kind of credit; any idiot could incrementally improve at their job if they've been at it for 20 years. The fact that they still suck is all on them, not me.

You are entitled to judge the quality of the dub, and we're entitled to disagree with you and point out where we specifically disagree. The fact that you still think they suck and are hacks is all on you, though. The cast has improved and mostly fits their roles. I find it funny that you claim 2015 is where it all plummented, because I actually that is where most of the cast hit their stride even more so. Schemmel expanded his range as Son Goku to the point where he sounds almost exactly like Nozawa, Sabat continued to perfect his roles (even his Jeice was good for what it's worth), and the rest of the main cast (especially returning actress Merdith McCoy) did incredibly well.

Yup. How dare I have the audacity to disparage the talents of the Dragon Ball dub voice actors. I think I'm done here; my point has been made.

As for the nepotism, as Mike stated above, only to be ignored by everybody, this franchise being licensed to Funimation is entirely due to nepotism in the first place. The guy in charge of the show nowadays is one of the old voice actors. Funny how, despite the clearly obvious disparity in acting talent between newer cast members such as Ayers and Marsters and the older ones, Schemmel and company are still around.

It’s your personal opinion about there being a disparity between the older voices and the newer ones. This debate didn’t start simply because you have stated that you dislike the dub voices for characters like Goku and Vegeta. That’s all well and good. The issue that people like me took is this idea that these guys are talentless hacks who haven’t made any real progress as voice actors since they first started. You can dislike their performances without implying that the only reason they still have jobs is because they’ve been around for a while.

Anyway, I’m starting to regret ever starting this thread.

[Kamiccolo9]

I'm not saying that the only reason they still have their jobs is because they've been around for a while.

I'm saying that one of the main reasons they still have their jobs is that one of them is a producer now.

[Kunzait_83]

Who is making excuses for anything? No one has ever said that you aren’t allowed to dislike the performances from these people.

Both this forum, and the broader fanbase overall, is FILLED to the brim with people who interpret ANY criticism of these actors as a personal affront. No, I don't think that ALL dub fans are that bad about it, obviously, as I've met and known plenty who aren't. But its been enough of a relatively consistent thing over the years to constitute a trend and to comment on.

What I took issue with is this assertion that they’re “basement-level talentless hacks”. How exactly is that supposed to be interpreted as anything other than an uncalled for attack on these people?

It an attack on their work as professionals, not on their personal characters. If someone isn't good at their job, if someone demonstrates a consistent lack of skill at what they do, then its totally within reason to call them out on it.

This is EXACTLY what I was talking about earlier when fans conflate these two things, when they're in NO WAY the same thing.

An uncalled for personal attack would be if I called Schmmel or Sabat "garbage human beings who are physically ugly and have bad hygiene" (note that's just an example, I DON"T think ANY of that even remotely; again I don't know these people from a hole in the wall, only their work).

Calling them hacks who aren't talented? That's harsh, yes, but its TOTALLY within the realm of their professional work. And I happen to agree with it: they AREN'T very gifted or talented actors, and I have decades worth of work that I've listened to from them throughout the years to come to that conclusion.

If fans want to show that they don't have an overly-personal and sentimentalized stake in this, they can A) stop going on and on and on in countless dub vs sub threads about nostalgia and "this voice cast/music/dub meant everything to my childhood" and using that as if its some kind of valid argument for critical merit, and B) stop getting outraged and personally offended when people speak negatively about their performances, even if the criticism is harsh like this one is.

Disliking a performance doesn’t mean you have to claim that the person behind the performance is a hack. It has nothing to with “nostalgia”, especially since most would agree that these guys weren’t good when they first started doing these roles.

They weren't good when they first started, and I would argue that they HAVEN'T been good since. They've improved, yes... but the level of improvement has been RIDICULOUSLY incremental, and FAR from the vast gulf of difference that fans often paint it as: like I said, most fans grade this particular cast on a curve.

And yes, disliking an actor's work to the point where you don't think they have talent ABSOLUTELY means you have claim to call them a "hack". Here's the literal, Merriam-Webster definition of the term "hack" within this context:



Calling these actors out as working within a context of lowered, mediocre professional standards is, given the general history of this particular production especially, something I find to be TOTALLY fair and valid to call them out on.

A hack isn't purely an ad-hominem insult within this context: it is a totally valid criticism of the merits (or lack thereof) of their professional work.

Also, you seem to be operating under the assumption that your opinion is the undisputed truth, and that anyone who disagrees is a childishly blind nostalgic fanboy.

You're more than free to disagree with me on just about anything: I only call someone a nostalgic fanboy when they take criticisms of these actors' work as PERSONAL INSULTS, which is something that the dub's fanbase has a VERY long, long, long, looooooong history of doing now.

And for that matter, that's the ONLY thing I've called "childish" about any of this: internalizing these performances into one's own identity, to the point that someone WOULD feel insulted and personally attacked when these performances are criticized.

THAT is UNQUESTIONABLY childish thinking, and its something that this particular fanbase, again, has a LOOOOOONG history with doing.

Liking the FUNimation performances in and of themselves? No, that's NOT childish, and people are more than free to have that opinion and disagree with my take, and I'd never call them childish (or whatever else) for it.

The fact that you yourself are conflating words I'm using to describe SPECIFIC behaviors and reactions within DBZ dub fandom with me using them on ANYONE who disagrees with me in a general sense... you're only proving my point further here.

That’s not only demeaning, but it also doesn’t seem to take into account that people have differing opinions on this.

For what its worth, I've met plenty of reasonable dub fans who are nuanced and thoughtful in their approach to this. They aren't who my comments were aimed at. I've met plenty of people here who I disagree with, that I wouldn't consider "blinded by nostalgia" or over-personalizing these performances, or whatever.

But for every one or two of those folks, I've also come across ten or fifteen more who's knee-jerk response to "Sabat's Vegeta is really shitty" is "Why you gotta be so MEEEEEAN?!!??!" as if the criticism is aimed at THEM personally rather than just some random actor they've never met before and don't know from Adam.

To people like me, Sean Schemmel, Chris Sabat and Sonny Strait have improved immensely compared to how they were when they first started voice acting. Yes, they were just “some guys off the street” when they first began voicing these characters, but that’s no longer an accurate statement. They’ve been voice acting for 20 years. By all accounts, they’re considered professionals at this point, even if you aren’t fond of their performances.

That's fine that you think that. And I simply don't agree with your assessment at all. To me while yes, they HAVE improved somewhat, they STILL sound painfully awkward, forced, and ill-fitting in these roles. Part of that is because of the innate approach taken to the vocal direction: EVERY FUNimation DB dub has most often shown an aversion to naturalistic, conversational performances, insisting instead that each actor does an over the top caricature for their voice. It sounds forced, inorganic, and downright painful to the ears of someone who isn't going into this with the mindset of "I'm about to watch a dumpy Satuday morning kiddie POW POW BANG BANG cartoon show".

They aren't good performances, and they're wholly lacking in anything resembling charisma, charm, or simple, basic, grounded human emotion. And that's due to the nature of the vocal and overall creative direction itself, and to the fact that the "arc" of improvement in these performances has NEVER come across to me as NEARLY as stark as people like yourself have often painted it as. If the FUNimation cast were "completely and wholly unlistenable" when they first started, then they've since then graduated on to "just generally cringingly awful".

Once again, you're welcome to disagree with me: but without accusing either YOU personally of this, or anyone else here in particular: GENERALLY SPEAKING here I've found that its most often case that MOST fans (not ALL, but MOST) are overly lax on these guys (and inflate/exaggerate their degree of improvement over the years) both because they're personally invested in their performances for personal nostalgic reasons, and/or because they simply don't have a lot of experience with viewing TV shows or movies that aren't children's cartoons and are aimed at more mature audiences (and thus tend to have MUCH higher standards for acting: usually at least).

Once again, I will stress that it’s okay to not like them in these roles. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. The only issue that people have taken with Kamiccolo’s comment is this idea that these people are talentless hacks who only still have careers because of how long they’ve been around. That’s an insulting thing to suggest, especially since someone who isn’t fond of Masako Nozawa’s Goku could easily claim the same thing about her.

1) Once again, it ISN'T a personal insult: its a PROFESSIONAL insult, and there IS a huge difference between the two. No one here is saying that Schemmel and Sabat are bad people: SOME of us (very, very few in fact) are simply suggesting that their abject lack of voice acting talent, as well as the general arc of their careers, would seem to suggest that the main reason they've remained in these roles for so long, despite a woefully incremental degree of improvement in them, is due to company politics, as well as the enthusiasm of the fanbase (who's views I vehemently disagree with for numerous reasons I've already elaborated on in great detail).

FUNimation also of course, being no strangers to nepotistic company practices anyways: nepotism is literally the SOLE and ONLY reason they EVER first obtained the U.S. licensing rights to Dragon Ball in the first place.

2) It wouldn't be a "personal insult" to suggest this about Nozawa, no: again, arguing that someone is a "hack" is something that MAINLY applies to their professional work. Its a VERY FUCKING HARSH critical appraisal of their work, yes... but its still ultimately just a critical appraisal of their work, not of their personal character.

In Nozawa's case, such an appraisal would mainly just look somewhat ridiculous, given both her overall acting career as well as the critically lauded nature of many of her performances: she isn't SOLELY known as Goku over in Japan, she's also been the voice behind Tetsuro Hoshino from Galaxy Express 999, a role and series that can be argued to be of MUCH greater artistic, cultural, and critical importance among anime over in Japan than Goku and Dragon Ball are, among countless other roles that she and the rest of the Japanese cast have done over the years (many of which genuinely ARE iconic and of actual substantive critical merit).

NO ONE among FUNimation's Dragon Ball cast has anything that's within the same UNIVERSE of professional credentials as most of the Japanese cast: the FUNimation cast have been working steadily throughout the years, but the nature of their work hasn't exactly been often the most stellar in quality or critical merit (Schemmel in particular being a clear example of this). It'd be sort of like saying that someone like Jodie Foster (just to pull a completely random respected actress out of a hat) is a "hack": you can say it and think it, it'll just make you look kinda ridiculous in most conversations.

Just an FYI, I’m not in anyway suggesting that Nozawa is bad as Goku. She’s iconic in the role for the reason, and that reason goes beyond the fact that she’s been voicing the characters since 1986. I’m just pointing out that if you’re going to claim that an actor is only still around because of inertia or backstage nepotism, you should be prepared for people to say the same thing about actors who you do like.

I couldn't care less what people say about actors whose work I like. I don't know any of them, they aren't my friends or family. I don't get personally offended or insulted by any of this nonsense, because I'm a functional adult with a real life who doesn't internalize cartoons I watched as a child to be tantamount to my own personal identity and character.

THAT ultimately is what I was mainly coming down on with regards to dub fans who over-defend these actors' work: not general, level-headed folks who simply enjoy the performances for their own personal reasons, and don't get overly hostile and defensive or stake a personal investment into each and every negative utterance made against them.

[gokaiblue]

Wow. Give them a gold star.

I'm sorry that I expect standards from media, not the bare minimum. As for their scripts, go back to what Mike said about their current stance on that.

Again, Kai was serviceable, at least 1.0. So were the movies, in my opinion. Super has been awful. And before the whole Japanese nostalgia bullshit comes out, I've only just started watching DB in Japanese for the first time. I've been following this franchise since 96. I think I'm as entitled as anyone to judge the quality of the dub. It started out terrible, got even worse when Funimation brought in their in-house people, got passable for Kai, a bit better for the movies, and then plummeted for everything since 2015. Don't ask me to give them any kind of credit; any idiot could incrementally improve at their job if they've been at it for 20 years. The fact that they still suck is all on them, not me.

You are entitled to judge the quality of the dub, and we're entitled to disagree with you and point out where we specifically disagree. The fact that you still think they suck and are hacks is all on you, though. The cast has improved and mostly fits their roles. I find it funny that you claim 2015 is where it all plummented, because I actually that is where most of the cast hit their stride even more so. Schemmel expanded his range as Son Goku to the point where he sounds almost exactly like Nozawa, Sabat continued to perfect his roles (even his Jeice was good for what it's worth), and the rest of the main cast (especially returning actress Merdith McCoy) did incredibly well.

Yup. How dare I have the audacity to disparage the talents of the Dragon Ball dub voice actors. I think I'm done here; my point has been made.

As for the nepotism, as Mike stated above, only to be ignored by everybody, this franchise being licensed to Funimation is entirely due to nepotism in the first place. The guy in charge of the show nowadays is one of the old voice actors. Funny how, despite the clearly obvious disparity in acting talent between newer cast members such as Ayers and Marsters and the older ones, Schemmel and company are still around.

As for Schemmel and Sabat getting cast in other stuff, I'm not knowledgeable enough about the industry to discuss the preference for non-union voice actors, but I would imagine that some of those with recognizable names would be cheaper to get than better talent that is involved in unions.

I see your point about the nepotism, but I don't see the huge disparity some see. Marsters and Ayers are fantastic, but I think Schemmel and the others are at least as good.

I'm not saying you can't criticize the dub or have to like it. If you can't see the improvements that have been made or still think they're not enough, then that's simy how you hear it. Doesn't necessarily make you wrong, but it doesn't make you right either. Most of your criticisms do, however, come off more as insults than actual crituques.

Sabat producing the dub is most likely a factor in why these so-called "hacks" are still dubbing it, but even if he wasn't, the improvements made by each voice actor are too many for them to simply be let go. In fact, the only ones who might have lost their roles were it not for Sabat are probably Schemmel and Hebert as they're no longer based in Texas.

[WittyUsername]

I'm not saying that the only reason they still have their jobs is because they've been around for a while.

I'm saying that one of the main reasons they still have their jobs is that one of them is a producer now.

I’d have to assume that part of the reason that one of them is a producer now is because he managed to work his way up the ladder, in addition to being a big fan of the franchise in question.

[VegettoEX]

While I'm certainly disappointed in Kamiccolo9's tone, don't let that distract you from the (sure, blunt... but) well-reasoned explanation from Kunzait_83. He's going out of his way to needlessly kowtow and not make it even remotely appear personal against anyone, while still delivering his rightful (scathing) analysis. As I've cited several times over, for those of us that have been around for this long, even when we're not watching the English dub, it still affects our fandom on a daily basis. Try as we might, we can't fully escape it.

Anyway, following up on my pointing out the standard whataboutism, what I'm seeing is a careful guide toward a "gotcha": we gotcha to admit that the FUNimation cast improved.

OK. Sure. They improved.

I still find the Dragon Ball Super dub unlistenable.

Speaking of regret, I do kinda regret letting myself get pulled into a dub analysis conversation in The Year of Our Dende 2018. But if you want real talk, yeah, I find it unlistenable. I'm not willing to share further specifics in an attempt to even remotely maintain a shred of appropriate decorum.

The Dragon Ball Super English dub is a clear downgrade from previous work in terms of accuracy, it has been publicly explained as such, I do not understand why any fans are OK with this, and I have continuous frustration with this lack of artistic integrity affecting the work we as a website try to do; independent of all this, I have major issues with much of the legacy voice cast performances.