Vic Mignogna

[KBABZ]

The best one was the Japanese, and only it.
All the dub versions were equally terrible. Why did they have voice actors sing it like it was a drunken karaoke competition...
Dragon Ball Kai wasn't supposed to be a parody, and this was disservice to the original song

I like the Vic version of Dragon Soul, but I agree that the others are a bit iffy. As well, trying to mix them all together was incredibly mis-guided because each singer is not singing alongside the others, they're doing their own version, at their own pace. So putting them together feels like a jumbled mess where nobody's keeping in sync with one-another.

[MasenkoHA]

As far as English opening songs with actual lyrics and such (so Rock the Dragon don’t count) All versions of Dragon Soul are easily better than Step into the Grand Tour and Bit by Bit I’m falling under your spell at least.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

As far as English opening songs with actual lyrics and such (so Rock the Dragon don’t count) All versions of Dragon Soul are easily better than Step into the Grand Tour and Bit by Bit I’m falling under your spell at least.

I always thought the English translated versions of Mystical Adventure and I'll Give You Romance for the OG Dragon Ball dub were decent even if the instrumentals were different from the originals.

Of course they never even made translated versions of Cha-La-Head-Cha-La/Zenkai Power and We Gotta Power/We Were Angels, though it would be hard to top Kageyama's awesome performance even though he didn't record the first closing which another performer did.

[MasenkoHA]

As far as English opening songs with actual lyrics and such (so Rock the Dragon don’t count) All versions of Dragon Soul are easily better than Step into the Grand Tour and Bit by Bit I’m falling under your spell at least.

I always thought the English translated versions of Mystical Adventure and I'll Give You Romance for the OG Dragon Ball dub were decent even if the instrumentals were different from the originals.

English Mystical Adventure and “I’ll give you Romance” were dope. They both surpass the Japanese equivalents in my opinion and were the truest achievements of the Funimation dub.


And yeah it is disappointing they never made an English Head Cha la especially when DB and eventually GT got English adapted openings.

But no what do get instead for Dragon Ball Z? A cheap as fuck instrumental opening that sounds like it was composed using stock music from iMovie

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

As far as English opening songs with actual lyrics and such (so Rock the Dragon don’t count) All versions of Dragon Soul are easily better than Step into the Grand Tour and Bit by Bit I’m falling under your spell at least.

I always thought the English translated versions of Mystical Adventure and I'll Give You Romance for the OG Dragon Ball dub were decent even if the instrumentals were different from the originals.

English Mystical Adventure and “I’ll give you Romance” were dope. They both surpass the Japanese equivalents in my opinion and were the truest achievements of the Funimation dub.

Yeah, i think they're right up there with a few of their other song translations for instance some of the One Piece openings/closings and others.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

As far as English opening songs with actual lyrics and such (so Rock the Dragon don’t count) All versions of Dragon Soul are easily better than Step into the Grand Tour and Bit by Bit I’m falling under your spell at least.

I always thought the English translated versions of Mystical Adventure and I'll Give You Romance for the OG Dragon Ball dub were decent even if the instrumentals were different from the originals.

English Mystical Adventure and “I’ll give you Romance” were dope. They both surpass the Japanese equivalents in my opinion and were the truest achievements of the Funimation dub.


And yeah it is disappointing they never made an English Head Cha la especially when DB and eventually GT got English adapted openings.

But no what do get instead for Dragon Ball Z? A cheap as fuck instrumental opening that sounds like it was composed using stock music from iMovie

That probably the most ridiculous thing of all, it would have been really awesome had they actually done that especially for the Orange Bricks and Dragon Boxes with translations of both sets of openings and endings. And you know what's even more ludicrous about it, on the OB's for the dub track with Japanese music they have that stupid electric guitar riff instrumental from the broadcast track as the opening for no freaking reason but at the same time left Zenkai Power as is. I believe it's the same case with episode 200 and onward where you have the former then We Were Angels at the end.

Seriously, that doesn't make a lick of sense to me at all, i mean really could it have killed them to just make translated versions and stick them on there???

[KBABZ]

Seriously, that doesn't make a lick of sense to me at all, i mean really could it have killed them to just make translated versions and stick them on there???

I think it comes from FUNimation deciding to not bother spending the money on DB and give it a unique opening. They tried that with the 1995 DB dub after all and that didn't work out so well. DBZ meanwhile they wanted to capitalize on and so they made unique openers and music to make it spark more with their intended audience, and it worked.

The fact that they didn't bother giving unique openings and endings to the 2002 DB dub IMO speaks volumes to their approach there. They wanted to give it the least amount of work possible to get it out the door, so they didn't adjust the lyrics to any major degree at all and the score was left untouched (outside of the odd insert song with that evil Japanese language that US fans hate). The irony is that because of this the 2002 dub was, for the time, the most authentic DB product they made because they didn't put as much effort into changing it!

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Seriously, that doesn't make a lick of sense to me at all, i mean really could it have killed them to just make translated versions and stick them on there???

I think it comes from FUNimation deciding to not bother spending the money on DB and give it a unique opening. They tried that with the 1995 DB dub after all and that didn't work out so well. DBZ meanwhile they wanted to capitalize on and so they made unique openers and music to make it spark more with their intended audience, and it worked.

The fact that they didn't bother giving unique openings and endings to the 2002 DB dub IMO speaks volumes to their approach there. They wanted to give it the least amount of work possible to get it out the door, so they didn't adjust the lyrics to any major degree at all and the score was left untouched (outside of the odd insert song with that evil Japanese language that US fans hate). The irony is that because of this the 2002 dub was, for the time, the most authentic DB product they made because they didn't put as much effort into changing it!

That's very true unfortunately, the overall differences in the tone of the dubs for the two shows almost feel like worlds apart even if only a few years removed from each other. They really went out of their way to make DBZ feel like a RAAAAHHHHH HARDCORE EDGY!!!!!!!!!! product when originally it wasn't even remotely close to that at all, (at least not to the extent that FUNi made it appear to be) while in the case of the original series it was the way it was due to the fact basically FUNimation didn't take nearly as extreme as an approach in regards to music and general alterations. (though there were plenty of liberties taken script wise but that's another issue) and as such left the 2001-2003 Dragon Ball dub to be the odd duck out when compared to Z and GT which bore the brunt of their "reversioning" mindset of that era in order to appeal toward the specific demographic of viewers they were seeking.

[MasenkoHA]

The fact that they didn't bother giving unique openings and endings to the 2002 DB dub IMO speaks volumes to their approach there. They wanted to give it the least amount of work possible to get it out the door, so they didn't adjust the lyrics to any major degree at all and the score was left untouched

I don’t necessarily think that was the case. While it’s obviously true Funimation treats Dragon Ball like DBZ’s ugly less talented younger brother Dragon Ball feels a lot closer to Funimation’s other dub works compared to Dragon Ball Z. Or at the least tries to meet somewhere in the middle.

Keeping the Kikuchi score and doing adaptations of opening and ending (which weren’t exactly direct translations so clearly some effort was there) made it feel a lot more at home with Funimations other dub works. Look at Yuyu Hakusho which had its dub done around the same time as Dragon Ball and also kept the music and did translated opening and endings and made a closer effort to not turn the show into something it wasn’t

Funimation’s first attempt at Dragon Ball with BLT productions and then later Dragon Ball Z was Funimation being new to the dubbing game and obviously not trusting of the Japanese material and wanting to appeal to the widest possible audience and appeal to what was cool at the time.

By the time Funimation finally started doing basic things like keep the Japanese music intact Dragon Ball Z had a brand image of being “bad ass” and “not like the other animes” and “cool” to maintain and a certain audience it cultivated so obviously they weren’t going to do things like go back to the Japanese score for Z and this extended to GT which Funimation tried really hard to turn into Dragon Ball Z:The New Adventures as well as the 2005 in-house redub of the first 67 episodes of Z which continued to use replacement music and an opening to appeal to Z’s run up and down kicking the wall and punching your siblings in the throat ADHD crowd the Z dub had attracted.

TL:DR: I don’t think Funimation making baby steps to be closer to the Japanese version with Dragon Ball was a result of apathy

(outside of the odd insert song with that evil Japanese language that US fans hate).

The only insert song I think was taken out was the one that played when Goku fought Jackie Chun.

But then you also had With a Burning Heart: Defeat the Red Ribbon army. Which plays in the dub but they have Brice Armstrong’s narration blaring over it you can barely make out a song is even playing!

[KBABZ]

(outside of the odd insert song with that evil Japanese language that US fans hate).

The only insert song I think was taken out was the one that played when Goku fought Jackie Chun.

But then you also had With a Burning Heart: Defeat the Red Ribbon army. Which plays in the dub but they have Brice Armstrong’s narration blaring over it you can barely make out a song is even playing!

They also removed Wolf Hurricane from Yamcha's fight with Tien. In the RRA Arc they swapped out Mystery Wonderland in the Nam/Giran filler episode, The Dragon Ball Legend from the Fake Dragon Ball episode where Goku gets his clothes stolen by the homeless child, and the Son Goku song from when he leaves Jingle Village (all three are replaced with Brice providing some narration, recap, and navel-gazing). This in addition to your example where they removed "Aim to Be the Greatest on Earth" as you mentioned earlier.

Which is sad because the RRA arc is pretty unique in how it includes insert songs like that and they really help add to the exotic and adventurous character of the show and that arc.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

The fact that they didn't bother giving unique openings and endings to the 2002 DB dub IMO speaks volumes to their approach there. They wanted to give it the least amount of work possible to get it out the door, so they didn't adjust the lyrics to any major degree at all and the score was left untouched

I don’t necessarily think that was the case. While it’s obviously true Funimation treats Dragon Ball like DBZ’s ugly less talented younger brother Dragon Ball feels a lot closer to Funimation’s other dub works compared to Dragon Ball Z. Or at the least tries to meet somewhere in the middle.

Keeping the Kikuchi score and doing adaptations of opening and ending (which weren’t exactly direct translations so clearly some effort was there) made it feel a lot more at home with Funimations other dub works. Look at Yuyu Hakusho which had its dub done around the same time as Dragon Ball and also kept the music and did translated opening and endings and made a closer effort to not turn the show into something it wasn’t

Funimation’s first attempt at Dragon Ball with BLT productions and then later Dragon Ball Z was Funimation being new to the dubbing game and obviously not trusting of the Japanese material and wanting to appeal to the widest possible audience and appeal to what was cool at the time.

By the time Funimation finally started doing basic things like keep the Japanese music intact Dragon Ball Z had a brand image of being “bad ass” and “not like the other animes” and “cool” to maintain and a certain audience it cultivated so obviously they weren’t going to do things like go back to the Japanese score for Z and this extended to GT which Funimation tried really hard to turn into Dragon Ball Z:The New Adventures as well as the 2005 in-house redub of the first 67 episodes of Z which continued to use replacement music and an opening to appeal to Z’s run up and down kicking the wall and punching your siblings in the throat ADHD crowd the Z dub had attracted.

TL:DR: I don’t think Funimation making baby steps to be closer to the Japanese version with Dragon Ball was a result of apathy

(outside of the odd insert song with that evil Japanese language that US fans hate).

The only insert song I think was taken out was the one that played when Goku fought Jackie Chun.

But then you also had With a Burning Heart: Defeat the Red Ribbon army. Which plays in the dub but they have Brice Armstrong’s narration blaring over it you can barely make out a song is even playing!

But it can be said that FUNI has undoubtedly improved over time with regards to their treatment of the franchise and overall dubbing practices in general, if more recent productions such as Kai and video games are anything to go by. Sure, they may not be 100% faithful in terms of certain aspects but compared to back in the late '90s they definitely have more of a clue and are not treating the show with the mindset of some forced attempt at edginess as they did with the old Z dub.

I think it also has a great deal to do with the changes that have occurred at the company in regards to leadership and the mindset towards dubbed productions, it seems as formerly key figures like Barry Watson and others who were the main driving force behinds such extreme alterations gradually departed over time. Then perhaps eventually new people came in who were perhaps better aware of the essence of the series and saw what these quite frankly ridiculous "reversioning" methods had morphed the series into from it's original intended version. I think their newer productions including the aforementioned really show that they are taking more care, and are pretty much long past their old days of making everything seem cool and palatable in order to appeal towards the one specific audience.

[Fionordequester]

Everyone has done an amazing job doing research and getting the message across to these major companies.

And thank you for your contributions as well. I truly appreciate it .

[Shaddy]

Should some of this stuff maybe get moved to another thread? It's kind of off the topic of Mignogna's misdeeds by this point.

[TheUltimateNinja]

It's done. Mignogna is finished. There's hardly anything more to discuss.

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

That's no excuse to derail the thread's topic.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Yeah. Mignogna is done for. We really ought to lock this thread.

[Zinnia]

Yeah. Mignogna is done for. We really ought to lock this thread.

Nah, all these Youtube videos will bring him back to Funi and he will get appointed as the director

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Should some of this stuff maybe get moved to another thread? It's kind of off the topic of Mignogna's misdeeds by this point.

Vic stuff is off topic itself since it isn't DB related at all, so the fact we actually have some DB discussion is good. We have the ANN threads for general talk of this. I don't really know why this thread is even active anymore as others have said the stuff involving DB more or less over now he's canned from FUNi no sense in beating the horse now, this thread being active will only attract more people to spout BS controversy.

[KBABZ]

I can see the thread being useful for if Vic makes some sort of statement about it.

[TheUltimateNinja]

I can see the thread being useful for if Vic makes some sort of statement about it.

He already made his statement and there was no effect. I doubt him commenting on his firing would do anything, as far as we're concerned he no longer has anything to do with DB.