Babidi had the worst VA in the entire Japanese Run of DB/Z. Agree?

[MasenkoHA]

If I was going to pick a Japanese voice I found grating it would be Pilaf. I know that’s kind of the point and Chuck Huber’s Pilaf is just as annoying if not more so but still

[Majin Buu]

Agree to disagree that a cartoon with an alien, even an older alien lends itself to numerous takes and not just surface level "he looks old ergo must have an old man voice"? I don't know if you understand that I clearly see that he looks old. I'm simply saying you don't have to go with that one fact when determining who voices him. I like having a younger voice because it plays up the almost naivete of the character. He's essentially a powerful wizard who isn't as smart as he thinks he is. The old man voice fits, I never said otherwise, just that it's not the only valid take on it. Another reason I like the idea of a relatively younger voice plays him is that it emphasizes him being a son.

My mistake then. Thank you for clarifying your position.

I think playing to his appearance with an old man voice works better for his character in this case since it better emphasizes his childishness and immaturity. It subtly communicates that there's something fundamentally wrong about him because he's atypically immature for such an old person. Giving him a younger voice downplays that.

I also disagree with your description of him as naive. Goku is naive, Babidi is actively stupid.

[ABED]

Agree to disagree that a cartoon with an alien, even an older alien lends itself to numerous takes and not just surface level "he looks old ergo must have an old man voice"? I don't know if you understand that I clearly see that he looks old. I'm simply saying you don't have to go with that one fact when determining who voices him. I like having a younger voice because it plays up the almost naivete of the character. He's essentially a powerful wizard who isn't as smart as he thinks he is. The old man voice fits, I never said otherwise, just that it's not the only valid take on it. Another reason I like the idea of a relatively younger voice plays him is that it emphasizes him being a son.

My mistake then. Thank you for clarifying your position.

I think playing to his appearance with an old man voice works better for his character in this case since it better emphasizes his childishness and immaturity. It subtly communicates that there's something fundamentally wrong about him because he's atypically immature for such an old person. Giving him a younger voice downplays that.

I also disagree with your description of him as naive. Goku is naive, Babidi is actively stupid.

Fair enough.

I chose naïve as opposed to stupid because Babidi doesn't lack intelligence, he lacks wisdom.

[Kunzait_83]

He makes such a weird shtick actually work and sound natural and unforced, even giving it shades of nuance and depth, against all odds.

It's a fun performance, but I don't see much depth in the character.

I didn't say that the character himself on paper has depth (Babidi's a pretty straightforward "evil wizard" character straight out of a children's fairy tale): I was saying that Yanami's performance has depth and nuance to it. He skillfully manages to ride a very fine tonal line with the voice that never veers too far into total absurdity, balancing making Babidi come across as both childish and silly as well as genuinely menacing and threatening at the same time and even within the same breath.

Depth of an acting performance isn't the same thing as depth of character writing: a simplistically written, cliched character can be given a multi-layered performed by a skilled enough actor, while a complex and deep character on the page can be lent a one-note and one-dimensional performance by a less competent actor. For a good contrast, Freeza is (rightly) considered one of the more layered characters on paper in the whole series, and look at how Linda Young's performance managed to reduce him into such a laughable nothing of a standard cartoon villain.

[ABED]

He makes such a weird shtick actually work and sound natural and unforced, even giving it shades of nuance and depth, against all odds.

It's a fun performance, but I don't see much depth in the character.

I didn't say that the character himself on paper has depth (Babidi's a pretty straightforward "evil wizard" character straight out of a children's fairy tale): I was saying that Yanami's performance has depth and nuance to it. He skillfully manages to ride a very fine tonal line with the voice that never veers too far into total absurdity, balancing making Babidi come across as both childish and silly as well as genuinely menacing and threatening at the same time and even within the same breath.

Depth of an acting performance isn't the same thing as depth of character writing: a simplistically written, cliched character can be given a multi-layered performed by a skilled enough actor, while a complex and deep character on the page can be lent a one-note and one-dimensional performance by a less competent actor.

Thanks for clarifying.

[RandomGuy96]

If we are counting Super then Kale's voice was by far the worst.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Yanami's voice as Babidi was an interesting experience the first time i watched the Buu arc in Japanese which i think sets it apart from all other voices he had done in the franchise up to that point, be it the narrator, Kaio or the King of Earth and numerous other parts during the course of the series. I particularly like the scene when he disposes of Yamu and Spopovich, and the way he displays his relishing and almost childlike enjoyment of the hapless twosome's deaths really gets the point of the character across. That he is a fearsome (though short) wizard who can bend the evil of powerful, malevolent beings like Dabura to his will and not bat an eye at doing away with the lackeys that no longer have any further use to him.

There's something about his performance that i think really fits him, and i don't really get why some here are so down on it for whatever reason.