SAY-IN - SPECIAL BEAM CAN-IN - SUN GOKU - DESTRUCTO DISK | Why does Dragon Ball STILL suffer with these shortcomings?

[WittyUsername]

I never really saw the problem with dubs that “spice up” the dialogue every now and then. If you try to make the dialogue as close of a translation to the Japanese version as possible, a lot of it would inevitably come off as awkward, stiff and repetitive. I agree that a dub shouldn’t make any significant deviations from the original, but changing up the dialogue in order to make it sound more natural for English speakers seems like it should be a prerequisite.

[Aim]

To be honest, though, Funi's dubbing is still tolerable, serviceable, watchable... If you can't/won't watch subbed, you're not going to have a completely bastardised experience like you would if you watched their pre-Kai dubs. But there's absolutely no reason why Funi should still be pulling the shit they've been pulling, and it burns me to see people defending this shit. Yes, Funi aren't as bad as they were, and their dub is serviceable now, but they should be better, and it's ridiculous that after 25 years with the franchise, this is the best they can do.

Agreed. And people trying to make it seem like it's a "few changes" or "it's not a big deal!" should really make go make something themselves, then give a company the licence so they can butcher it and see how they like it.

Because people don't care. what you're doing is nit-picking nonsense that refuses to consider the cultural differences between regions and the fact that a dub is meant to be an "adaptation" to appeal to an audience that doesn't understand Japanese. It's not that big of a deal, dude.


If you want to watch a 100% accurate "dub"-- just watch the japanese dub. That's why it's there.

The cultural differences? Seriously? If the differences were as big as you make it out to be then Dragon Ball wouldn't be able to exist in the west, let alone other countries as well. I think it's time to admit this has nothing to do with culture and more so Funimation doesn't want to let go of the god awful past.

In case you don't know, I want to be able to talk to people about Dragon Ball sometimes, and as MistareFusion said, it's really hard when the English Dub is considerably different.

And people do care, they are just either blind by nostalgia, or they literally haven't got the chance to know Dragon Ball properly and instead end up with a heavily western version.

This, basically.

I can sympathise with some of OP's criticisms but the reason old dub-isms continue to appear is because that's what a large portion of the audience are already familiar with. As much as I prefer the original Japanese terms like Kienzan and Makankosappo, Funimation don't go back to those terms now because they'd probably incur the wrath of their main audiences. A lot of the subtle differences in certain scenes is just a result of the actors trying to distinguish their performances from the originals, which I don't think is a bad thing at all. It's interesting to see how actors take different spins on the same scenes. I mean, really, who actually cares if Schemmel's inflection is a little bit different in one scene compared to Nozawa? Or if they inserted a single word in a sentence? Because that's what a lot of these criticisms seem to boil down to which is beyond nitpicky.

I agree with OP that some of the overall scripting is unnecessarily clunky in places, however.

When it comes to nitpicky stuff like how to pronounce "Saiyan", the maturer thing to do is just turn the other cheek. Other foreign language dubs butcher pronunciations and naming conventions far worse than this which doesn't bother me. The only one I can think of that I really dislike is 'Top' replacing 'Toppo'.

I understand where you're coming from, heck, it is nitpicky for some stuff I mentioned, however it goes to show how small things like that that are intentionally changed can spark such a noticeable difference. Funimation have dug themselves a huge hole, we have a new generation of Dragon Ball fans, this could have been a new start, but instead they've chosen to continue with their old ways.

Because people prefer warm nostalgia blankets and memes over actual quality dubbing, translation and localization. That’s all there is to it. FUNimation gets away with it because the bar is low, and it’s low because of ‘90s DBZ “purists” (which is such a strange thing when you think about it) and English dub fanboys that don’t want to give English dub critics any ammunition.

That's why in my opinion it's best to focus on the new generation of fans, damn I hope there's another company that will take in Dragon Ball and dub it properly, I'm not sure if it's allowed though since there's already a licence that Funimation has, but then again Ocean did a version of Kai so i'm not too sure.

That's basically what it boils down to, and the people who grew up in that era just can't bring themselves to part with it or listen to reason from those who give honest truths about why the old Z dub was a bastardization of what the series was intended to be. Because that's what the localization decisions the powers that be at FUNi like Barry Watson and others back in the day made based on their own interpretation, which was something done upon their misguided idea of what was cool and hot for the demographic being targeted as the product clearly reflected at the time and still does now. They can't reconcile that it's an obsolete relic from a time when those type of practices were par for the course of back in the late '90s/early 2000's, which barring some exceptions here and there most dub production companies don't even do anymore when producing anime dubs these days. FUNi meanwhile has taken a half step away from a lot of the things they did back in 1999 as shown in more recent stuff like Kai and the more recent DB movies, but at the same time still not fully committed to washing their hands of these type of heavy alterations which were in full effect during their early years as a company. This coming from someone who also watched Z on Toonami back in the day as a young kid, though over time i have come to realize just how awful it really was and not blinding myself with childhood nostalgia and looking at it in a critical sense after having been exposed to the original version proper.

Would i like a dub that was nearly 100% accurate to the Japanese version? Obviously yes though FUNi even with as much as they have improved i don't think could do it even though the closest they've ever come is Kai (more so 1.0 than Final Chapters) and even that was still not completely perfect although it satisfied me as far as being much better overall than the old Z dub.

For a series like Dragon Ball, it's not hard to ask these things of the dubbing companies. I really hope we get a faithful version to the Japanese one day, although I think only one English adaption is allowed per licence, don't quote me on that though.

I get the idea that people who whine about this stuff don't seem to understand the differences between Japanese and English. There are idioms, phrases, and whole vocabulary that are untranslatable and just would not work with an english dub Because it's a completely different language. So you have to bridge that gap between making a dub that is both accessible to english audiences while also being accurate to the source material. That does not mean copying everything word for word. Again, that is why there is a japanese dub attached to all home releases so you can experience Dragon Ball as is. You already got what you wanted.

What bothers me so much is that elitist nonsense. You guys live in a bubble where you think these matters of high concern, but the reality is is that you are in the minority. You are not the focus for english dubs. And I think the idea that some of you guys think you know better than people who grew up with the funimation dubs is at best laughable, and at worst arrogant. Dragon Ball Z is Dragon Ball Z. And liking whichever version is equally valid. So either learn Japanese, so just knock it off.

Lot's of us here know the difference, and what you're bringing up has mostly nothing to do with what's wrong with the dub. This typical denial that we hear all the time. The English dub audience has been once again, exposed to the inaccuracies, and most of them don't know any better. That's the problem.

You have a choice, it's either people like you take your bastardized dare I say "Dragon Ball", or parody, and change it up all you want and leave sites like this, go discuss Team Four Star 2.0, or you can sit on here where people actually care, and suck it up and listen to us criticize something that is definitely not above criticism. Make your choice, and don't complain or act like you have the high ground because you have the snowflake mentality that "it's all equally valid".

Again. That's regional differences. Yes, it's not that hard to figure out that Godzilla is "Gojira." But that's regional differences. For Westerners, The creature is called Godzila. And it's fine because people understand what it means regardless of whether you say Gojira or Godzilla--that's what's great about languages. But I'm not gonna run up and say "well you don't really understand it cause it's called 'Gojira.' Only assholes do that. Like kids who think they're smart because they call My Hero Acadamia, ぼくのヒーローアカダイミア. You're not clever for taking a look at Wikipedia.

Dude, no one is saying we should start calling Vegeta, Bejita. And no one is going around passive aggressively trying to show they know it all, only assholes do that.

Couldn't have said all that better myself, thank you.

... Why does Dragon Ball have to be handled, to us westerners, by TWO companies who are awful?

I know, right? I wonder if Toei would ever licence the dubbing rights to another company?

My solution is to just watch it subbed as I've done for 15 years with no regrets. As long as "Hercule" is still uttered, Kaio still sounds like... that and Buu still speaks in third person, I won't go near it with a ten-foot pole.

Though, from what I've observed, it seems like FUNimation leaned way too much into the TeamFourStar subculture of Dragon Ball. I've caught a couple of episodes of the Super dub out of morbid curiosity and it seems like they're trying to get as close to that vibe as possible. Forcing jokes in that simply didn't exist in the original release is just weird. Parody is fine, but not when you're an official licensor of the product!

Haha, kind of ironic also considering their star VA doesn't like TFS, yet still agrees to change the script the way he and his supervisor sees fit.

I never really saw the problem with dubs that “spice up” the dialogue every now and then. If you try to make the dialogue as close of a translation to the Japanese version as possible, a lot of it would inevitably come off as awkward, stiff and repetitive. I agree that a dub shouldn’t make any significant deviations from the original, but changing up the dialogue in order to make it sound more natural for English speakers seems like it should be a prerequisite.

I'm sorry, but this cannot be further from the truth, you take all those subs, the accurate ones of course, then put them together, most of it is fine with the addition of a few changes obviously. It's really not that difficult to give these shows the treatments they deserve. The reason this crap keeps staying around is because people don't know any better.

[LoganForkHands73]

I understand where you're coming from, heck, it is nitpicky for some stuff I mentioned, however it goes to show how small things like that that are intentionally changed can spark such a noticeable difference. Funimation have dug themselves a huge hole, we have a new generation of Dragon Ball fans, this could have been a new start, but instead they've chosen to continue with their old ways.

Yeah, I mean, I would absolutely prefer if English dubs used more accurate terminology for special moves for example since that would make those terms more widespread in the West, but personally I disagree that a dub should be an exact 1-1 of the subtitles because the subs already alter the linguistics from the original Japanese. It's just not realistic to expect that. Eventually it becomes like splitting hairs, I mean, Vegeta is always calling people insects in the Latin American dubs which isn't in the original but it's become a fitting trademark of that version of the character. Maybe some additions Funi make are unnecessary like Vegeta's Yamcha comment or Hit's infamous doughnuts but, eh, I find little tidbits like that to be amusing and it helps to give the dub more of a unique voice. Although I understand that that isn't what everyone here especially would want.

People are always going to be more defensive of the versions that they grew up with and Funimation really have no choice but to comply with that mostly silent majority that don't tend to hang around these corners of the fanbase. Nostalgia is hard to break, even if the nostalgic property hasn't stood the test of time. If the thing about it being Toei's initiative to force all dubs and subs to use their country's original dub-isms I saw in this thread is true, they're probably more to blame than we think.

I just wish the damn wikis didn't use the dub names for everything. Not that most of them are accurate to begin with.

[10gigtriforce]

Partially because toei already oked the names, and they'd have to deal with the red tape again to change the names, if its anything like the one piece with 4 kids situation toei even may have suggested some of the names. and well honestly sayin vs siya-jin, special beam cannon vs light of death/makansappo etc are really some of the least problems any db dub has.

[Zillamon51]

Hey OP,

I hope you had fun typing all that. Hopefully it helped you work out some issues. Now, show us on the doll where Funi touched you.

I still prefer the dub. Sorry, not sorry.

[WittyUsername]

I'm sorry, but this cannot be further from the truth, you take all those subs, the accurate ones of course, then put them together, most of it is fine with the addition of a few changes obviously. It's really not that difficult to give these shows the treatments they deserve. The reason this crap keeps staying around is because people don't know any better.

I said that a dub shouldn’t make any significant changes to the original. As in, characterization and important plot details shouldn’t be changed, but when it comes to the way the dialogue is presented, changes are inevitable, otherwise the dialogue will just end up sounding awkward and unnatural.

[TheGreatness25]

I think it's a different train of thought. There are those that place value on the series' intended, original presentation and others that don't. For the majority of us, we were interested in Dragon Ball Z and that interest took us outside of the parameters that we were in (the dub) and we looked further to discover the real "essence" of the franchise. Then, there are those that don't care to do that and are perfectly satisfied with the nostalgia of how they experience the series themselves. After all, if you're a fan of the dub and start digging further, you will find that it's certainly not what you "grew up with" or whatever the case may be.

So, it comes down to two different outlooks on the series. And there's nothing wrong with either and doesn't mean that one is the "wrong" way to go about enjoying this work of entertainment. That's the key to all of this: it's an entertainment property. How someone chooses to consume their entertainment is their business. It really comes off as "elitist" to tell someone the "right" way to enjoy the content that was put in their lives to entertain them.

Also, let's not make Funimation (or anyone in their shoes) out to be some evil dirt-bags... well, not for the reasons that I'm about to mention. People want to point fingers at them and complain about what they've done to the franchise. Okay, understandable. But, it's not like they stole the video and just ran amok. They purchased the right to do what they wanted with the series and being the official English version of the franchise, they received direct approval for everything they've done from the owners of the franchise. Toei gave their consent for everything that had been done by taking money to allow Funimation to have their way with the series. So, in the very least, the responsibility isn't solely on Funimation. They did what they thought was right. Didn't mean that they got it right, but they wanted the series to be successful more than anything -- believe that. Every decision was made with the intent of making the series a wild success. And it was (in spite of what they've done, to most of us).

Now. Funimation is notorious for having subpar releases for the series. Yes, it's true; but doesn't Toei bear any of that responsibility? Toei haven't released the series in a great way either, except the difference is that someone could actually afford to find, buy, and watch Funimation's releases. Toei put out one good consistent release in the early 2000s, which has since become very rare and expensive. Then, Toei put out Kai, which is a whole other can of worms. Then, they put out the movies on Blu-ray, which are nice (despite their own problems), but the actual series has been lost to time on their end. Meanwhile, people have a plethora of releases to choose from on Funimation's side of things in English and even Japanese. And yes, no release is perfect, but it is very easily-accessible. And let's be honest -- to the casual fan who doesn't research the franchise and it's various releases, they might not mind the releases one bit.

So, I'm not singing Funimation's praises or anything, but it's always bugged me how hard Funimation gets ridden while Toei is certainly no better and nobody ever talks about their shortcomings.


Now, finally, why "dubisms" have survived to this point. Once again, Toei has to share some blame. From what I understand, Toei has recently put out an edict that all official English translated merchandise, subtitles, anything, would be using the dub's names. I'm pretty sure that this is for marketing purposes. I can't link to a source, but I'm pretty sure this was addressed by someone at Funimation (likely Sabat) that the dubisms were around for so long, that they were actually asked to keep them for Kai and subsequently, because that's what the consumer was used to. And it looks like that might be the case. And after all, as I've stated, Toei sold the right for Funimation's dub to be the official English version of the franchise and that's exactly what the effects are.

But yeah, some of us value the true core of the franchise, while others don't care about that and just want what they had as a kid. It'll never be changed, nor should it. I find myself enjoying both. But in the end, the Japanese version will always be there for your enjoyment. I know that it's frustrating discussing something and coming up against someone seemingly discussing the same thing, but not really as they're talking about a "bastardized" version. But in the very least, this is a place where that's less likely to happen.

[Robo4900]

Hey OP,
I hope you had fun typing all that. Hopefully it helped you work out some issues. Now, show us on the doll where Funi touched you.
I still prefer the dub. Sorry, not sorry.

It's not nice to belittle and dismiss peoples' posts like this. Makes you seem like you don't actually care about discussing the person's opinon, rather you'd like to just discredit the argument to make your view seem the more reasonable or something else like that.

So, basically, it looks like, rather than a civilised person providing their view as a counterpoint to someone else's view, you're a politician trying to convince people to not vote for someone you don't like, or something. It's a very immature way to engage in any kind of discourse, treating it like a game to be won, rather than just... People sharing their views on a subject.

I'm sorry, but this cannot be further from the truth, you take all those subs, the accurate ones of course, then put them together, most of it is fine with the addition of a few changes obviously. It's really not that difficult to give these shows the treatments they deserve. The reason this crap keeps staying around is because people don't know any better.

I said that a dub shouldn’t make any significant changes to the original. As in, characterization and important plot details shouldn’t be changed, but when it comes to the way the dialogue is presented, changes are inevitable, otherwise the dialogue will just end up sounding awkward and unnatural.

Indeed. The dialogue has to, above all else, be natural dialogue. Everything else comes second, even having that dialogue fit the flaps comes second to the dialogue itself being good.

But, of course, stuff like Bulma originally saying "You didn't bring me all the way out here to do something pervy with me, right?... Hey, wait!" being turned into "Hey, just so you know, if you brought me out here to do something improper, you should know I've been taking judo since I was 8 years old, so you do not want to make me angry!... Hey, don't go, it was just a joke!" isn't reasonable rephrasing, it's Funi deciding to make a substantial change to the scene.

So, I'm not singing Funimation's praises or anything, but it's always bugged me how hard Funimation gets ridden while Toei is certainly no better and nobody ever talks about their shortcomings.

They can both be awful and worthy of our criticism, though. And they are. Both Toei and Funi suck.

But yeah, some of us value the true core of the franchise, while others don't care about that and just want what they had as a kid. It'll never be changed, nor should it. I find myself enjoying both. But in the end, the Japanese version will always be there for your enjoyment. I know that it's frustrating discussing something and coming up against someone seemingly discussing the same thing, but not really as they're talking about a "bastardized" version. But in the very least, this is a place where that's less likely to happen.

I refer you to what I said the last time someone said "You can just watch the subbed version", just a few posts of mine prior, in this thread:

If "But you can just watch the Japanese subbed version" is an acceptable answer, then the dub is 100% immune to all criticism. So, by your logic, the 4Kids dub of One Piece is totally fine, as is their dub of Sonic X, as is their dub of Yu-Gi-Oh GX (I mean, yeah, they skipped the entire last season or so, but you can just watch the Japanese version, right? ), as is the entire pre-Kai run of Funimation dubs of Dragon Ball stuff, including stuff like "Your father was a brilliant scientist", "You'll regret that when my arm grows back!", "They destroyed the cargo robot!", and various changes made to characterisations, and the general removal of all mysticism. Because you can just watch the Japanese version, right? So it's completely fine if the dub is practically an entirely different show, because the Japanese vesrion does exist... Never mind that for the first ten years of the franchise being here in the west, you couldn't actually watch in Japanese...

In case you can't tell, in my opinion, the "but you can just watch the sub" argument is utter nonsense. In fact, I wouldn't even call it an argument, it's just a dismissive handwave.

I will add to this, though, I find it very weird that Funi still makes such heavy changes to their modern dubs, much in the style of their old dubs, which would seem to pander to fans of the old dubs, yet they still play at being an honest presentation of the original Japanese version... Ultimately, they fail to create a version of the show that's exactly what people who watched on Toonami in 1999 would remember, and they fail to create an accurate English version of the Japanese show for fans who expect something more faithful, so... Really its only audience is people who don't care, and just default to the dubbed version of everything, and/or just watch whatever's on Toonami, I guess.

[kemuri07]

busting out the "snowflake" tells me exactly what I'm dealing with. And yes assuming that you know what's good for people because you think watching the japanese version means you're superior absolutely makes you a passive aggressive asshole. You don't give a shit about Dragon Ball, you're just gatekeeping because you think it makes you special. Because "wah wah wah" how dare Funimation not cater to my whims at all times. Because the easy answer to all of this is and will continue to be, "just watch the fucking subs." That's what it is there for. Which makes this whole argument that Funimation is ruining the reputation of DBZ because Sean Schemmel didn't say "SAIYA-JIN" some absolutely elitist nonsense. Most people do not care. Not because they're brainwashed, not because evil Funimation is hiding hem the truth, but because they sincerely enjoy the dub. They know very well that they can simply watch the Japanese version whenever, they choose not to because they don't care.

Talking about "preserving" the franchise for a younger generation? Jesus christ, you're full of yourself. That's some toxic fan bullshit, and it really shouldn't have any place in this forum.

[TheGreatness25]

I refer you to what I said the last time someone said "You can just watch the subbed version", just a few posts of mine prior, in this thread:

I get it, but it'll never change. At this point, wanting a more truthful adaptation is basically hopeless.

I will add to this, though, I find it very weird that Funi still makes such heavy changes to their modern dubs, much in the style of their old dubs, which would seem to pander to fans of the old dubs, yet they still play at being an honest presentation of the original Japanese version... Ultimately, they fail to create a version of the show that's exactly what people who watched on Toonami in 1999 would remember, and they fail to create an accurate English version of the Japanese show for fans who expect something more faithful, so... Really its only audience is people who don't care, and just default to the dubbed version of everything, and/or just watch whatever's on Toonami, I guess.

Is Super that inaccurate? I thought they were beyond that, which is why I only watched Super dubbed. Dragon Ball, Z, and GT really are the only animes that I've watched subbed because 1) I expect others to be translated well, 2) I am always doing something else while it's on.

[MetaMoss]

I think the problem comes down to there really being two separate shows here: the original DBZ that aired in Japan and Funimation's English adaption, which to be cheeky I'll call DuBZ. These two shows may share basically identical visual elements and overall plot, but boy, they sure do sound different. Since there exists these two distinct shows, I think it's fair to say there are two distinct fandoms, as well. To be sure, there are people who are fans of both DBZ and DuBZ, but I figure the majority of these two fandoms are composed of folks who focus their attention on only one of the shows.

While there is a lively English-speaking DBZ fandom, it pales in comparison to the amount of people who are content with just DuBZ. It really wasn't DBZ that became a cultural phenomenon in the English-language world, it was DuBZ. And while Funimation later realized that making something like DuBZ wasn't necessary to make an anime series successful in the US, they had built their Dragon Ball cash cow and fanbase on a foundation of DuBZ. To their credit, they certainly recognized that there was a hunger for DBZ that DuBZ did not satiate, and that's why their home media releases of DuBZ for the last 20 years or so have also included DBZ. The releases starting with the Orange Bricks even gave folks the option to watch DuBZ with DBZ's soundtrack, which is quite the historic crossover, don't you think?

This whole thing put Funimation in the unenviable position of having to deal with two distinct shows/fandoms that just so happen to use the same label, and I can't really fault them for how they've handled it. Their home releases may make DBZ and DuBZ look terrible, but both are at least readily available. When Super came around, I'm not shocked that Funimation decided to basically make DuBS, because the folks who would wait for Super to be in English and air on Toonami are by far DuBZ fans who would want a sequel that compliments DuBZ. With streaming, DBS was already very accessible to any DBZ fan who wanted to see it.

In short, there really isn't an English dub of DBZ, only the separate English show DuBZ (and then whatever Kai was). It sucks, to be sure, but any attempt to replace DuBZ with something more faithful to DBZ would honestly just burn and confuse DuBZ fans more than it would do any good for DBZ fans. More importantly, it wouldn't do much to "convert" DuBZ fans to DBZ fans, meaning that DuBZ terminology would still be widespread in online discussions.

Should DuBZ have been created in the first place? No, but it was, and there's now tons of people who unironically love it, and nothing can take that love away from them. Being frustrated that DuBZ fans are talking about DuBZ (or even DBZ) using DuBZ's terminology is something that the DBZ fandom should have moved past a long time ago, but I imagine this will continue to be a point of contention between the two fandoms for years to come. Toei shifting DBZ to use DuBZ terms certainly isn't helping things.

[Robo4900]

[snip]

Excellent post.

My one criticism, though -- the original show is Dragon Ball. But Funimation's version is indeed DuBZ.
Because the original show is a 508-episode run with 17 movies and 3 specials.
Funimation's show is about 300 episodes plus about 13 movies and 2 specials.

I would also contest that, with how Kai was done, people would've still been on board if Kai had indeed gone all the way into being a proper dub of Dragon Ball Z Kai, and if Funi had continued to do it properly and faithfully from there on out. But for some reason, they didn't quite stick the landing perfectly (still a handful of weird dub-isms made it in, and about 30 episodes in, they switched from romanised attack names to the '90s dub attack names), and they slowly slipped back into something more resembling their old ways.

[Super Sonic]

. So, by your logic, the 4Kids dub of One Piece is totally fine, as is their dub of Sonic X,

While the One Piece one is best to not talk about anymore, the Sonic X dub is an odd one due to talk about it. Know a lot of folks who say that they couldn't tell whether or not it simply suffered from a bad dub or was it just a bad show in general that a good dub couldn't save. From what I heard it's not that good in Japanese and Chris Thorndyke is just as annoying there. On the other hand, that show was much more popular here in the States than it was in Japan. Whether us who were adults when it was on are out of touch with what kids like, kids not caring about things, who knows?

As for the Saiyan pronunciation, it's like words from other languages that became part of English and pronounced differently. For example, ask a Latin person how they pronounce "llama", "burrito" and "chinchilla". Will sound different. Heck, many biblical names sound differently said by an English speaker than they will by a Hebrew speaker.

[Thanos]

*snip*

If FUNimation had any interest in ever doing a faithful adaptation, they would've recast everyone in Kai. The flip-flop on dub-isms ("Makankosappo" -> "Special Beam Cannon") further cemented their lack of interest in doing such a thing. There was no reason to continue having Schemmel's godawful Kaio voice among many other problems, but they were probably afraid of backlash from dub purists. None of their pre-existing voices are particularly essential to the characters--Schemmel's Goku and Sabat's Vegeta became... passable by pure brute force of doing the characters for over 20 years in all of the series, redubs and countless video games. Hell, take any rando off the street and stick them in a studio, come back in 20 years and you'll see a similar result. Do anything enough and you will show competence. They should've taken the Freeza approach for all the characters. FUNimation is clearly capable of producing good acting and faithful scripts at this point, the only barriers being that built-in fan base who still goes to conventions and asks Chris Sabat to bring Faulconer back for Dragon Ball Super. Nostalgia is a persistent bastard.

I get the idea that people who whine about this stuff don't seem to understand the differences between Japanese and English. There are idioms, phrases, and whole vocabulary that are untranslatable and just would not work with an english dub Because it's a completely different language. So you have to bridge that gap between making a dub that is both accessible to english audiences while also being accurate to the source material. That does not mean copying everything word for word. Again, that is why there is a japanese dub attached to all home releases so you can experience Dragon Ball as is. You already got what you wanted.

Why is Dragon Ball the exception to this? There are plenty of foreign adaptations, hell, even within FUNimations own walls, that faithfully and reasonably preserve the source material. That reasoning does not account for the freewheeling liberties taken with the series that is done to this day. I'm not much of an anime guy in general, but why is the English dub of Ranma 1/2 from the early 90's a lot more faithful than a dub made in 2015-2018? It doesn't make any sense.

[Ringworm128]

IIRC Funimation wanted to use a lot more faithful terms/names for their Kai dub, but figured it would alienate too many lomg term dub fans.

As for "Arcosian" I don't think I've ever even heard another fan bring that up except for stories about old fan theories. I think it's something that's long gone and only really relevant to discussions about the old fandom.

[Aim]

Yeah, I mean, I would absolutely prefer if English dubs used more accurate terminology for special moves for example since that would make those terms more widespread in the West, but personally I disagree that a dub should be an exact 1-1 of the subtitles because the subs already alter the linguistics from the original Japanese. It's just not realistic to expect that. Eventually it becomes like splitting hairs, I mean, Vegeta is always calling people insects in the Latin American dubs which isn't in the original but it's become a fitting trademark of that version of the character. Maybe some additions Funi make are unnecessary like Vegeta's Yamcha comment or Hit's infamous doughnuts but, eh, I find little tidbits like that to be amusing and it helps to give the dub more of a unique voice. Although I understand that that isn't what everyone here especially would want.

People are always going to be more defensive of the versions that they grew up with and Funimation really have no choice but to comply with that mostly silent majority that don't tend to hang around these corners of the fanbase. Nostalgia is hard to break, even if the nostalgic property hasn't stood the test of time. If the thing about it being Toei's initiative to force all dubs and subs to use their country's original dub-isms I saw in this thread is true, they're probably more to blame than we think.

I just wish the damn wikis didn't use the dub names for everything. Not that most of them are accurate to begin with.

I guess, although I do think it's possible to be as faithful as possible, calling people insects and what not is belittling, which is a Vegeta trait anyway, from what I've heard the Latin American dubs are quite accurate. In the Funi version, Goku is such a cocky asshole, you can hear it in his tone of voice, just all over, basically he borrows traits from Vegeta a lot more especially in Super.

I understand getting defensive about things people grew up with, but I've literally known Dragon Ball for as long as I can remember, I watched it with two older brothers, heck, now I'm watching it with my Grandmother, but I feel that there's a time when the old fans need to be forgotten if they aren't ready to move on. There's so many people who I know who have just gotten into Dragon Ball, and there will be plenty more, if there's any company out there that does the dubbing properly, there will be a new generation who will grow up and get to know the series the way it's meant to be known. Old fans have the choice to stick with their parody as it's going to be around forever at this point, while the new generation can grow up with a fresh start.

Partially because toei already oked the names, and they'd have to deal with the red tape again to change the names, if its anything like the one piece with 4 kids situation toei even may have suggested some of the names. and well honestly sayin vs siya-jin, special beam cannon vs light of death/makansappo etc are really some of the least problems any db dub has.

Not really, back then, the communication was pretty bad, but that's changed drastically, if anything, it would be a great idea to have a new start, old fans can always go back to their Z era stuff, they don't need to dictate the future of the series for everyone, as it is, they are basically wanting a TFS esque Dragon Ball to be main stream, which isn't right and goes to show the entitlement the west has, I feel embarrassed honestly.

The Special Beam Cannon name is definitely a problem in my opinion, this was a name that came around an era where the word "death" wasn't allowed in the series, let alone "hell", Demon Light of Death or whatever, fits a lot more than Funimation's 'parody' of Dragon Ball. As for Saiyan, I'm never suggested call Saiyan "Siya-jin", that's like saying "Bejita", I'm saying it should be said properly, it's literally a translation on a pun on a Japanese word, you lose the pun with "Sayan" instead of "Saiyan".

Hey OP,

I hope you had fun typing all that. Hopefully it helped you work out some issues. Now, show us on the doll where Funi touched you.

I still prefer the dub. Sorry, not sorry.

I actually do enjoy writing all this out, in case you didn't notice this is a pretty hardcore fan site. It's okay if you prefer the dub, I'm just saying that you can go enjoy that parody in the corner while a respectful dub is shown to the world and becomes the mainstream in the west instead of the 'official' Abridged version. O:-)

Not sorry.

I said that a dub shouldn’t make any significant changes to the original. As in, characterization and important plot details shouldn’t be changed, but when it comes to the way the dialogue is presented, changes are inevitable, otherwise the dialogue will just end up sounding awkward and unnatural.

I beg to differ, but it's okay. What I was trying to point out was that Funimation deliberately went out of their way to change the presentation instead of doing it as a result of the way English is, which is inevitable, but it doesn't necessarily make it less accurate.

I think it's a different train of thought. There are those that place value on the series' intended, original presentation and others that don't. For the majority of us, we were interested in Dragon Ball Z and that interest took us outside of the parameters that we were in (the dub) and we looked further to discover the real "essence" of the franchise. Then, there are those that don't care to do that and are perfectly satisfied with the nostalgia of how they experience the series themselves. After all, if you're a fan of the dub and start digging further, you will find that it's certainly not what you "grew up with" or whatever the case may be.

So, it comes down to two different outlooks on the series. And there's nothing wrong with either and doesn't mean that one is the "wrong" way to go about enjoying this work of entertainment. That's the key to all of this: it's an entertainment property. How someone chooses to consume their entertainment is their business. It really comes off as "elitist" to tell someone the "right" way to enjoy the content that was put in their lives to entertain them.

That's fine, but there's nothing wrong with doing the series some justice and introducing it to a new generation as it should be. People can go on about elitists as much as they like, however, wanting a faithful adaptation is perfectly valid, and there's nothing wrong with liking the old dub, in fact it's great, but there's a problem when those fans want it to dictate the future of the series forever and that's where the line should be drawn, allow a proper dub instead of a parody for the new generation, and they can keep their nostalgia, but not push it on everyone else.

Also, let's not make Funimation (or anyone in their shoes) out to be some evil dirt-bags... well, not for the reasons that I'm about to mention. People want to point fingers at them and complain about what they've done to the franchise. Okay, understandable. But, it's not like they stole the video and just ran amok. They purchased the right to do what they wanted with the series and being the official English version of the franchise, they received direct approval for everything they've done from the owners of the franchise. Toei gave their consent for everything that had been done by taking money to allow Funimation to have their way with the series. So, in the very least, the responsibility isn't solely on Funimation. They did what they thought was right. Didn't mean that they got it right, but they wanted the series to be successful more than anything -- believe that. Every decision was made with the intent of making the series a wild success. And it was (in spite of what they've done, to most of us).

You can take anything that appealed to an audience already, change it up and it will still be popular, even more so. That's not the point. Funimation shouldn't be selling their products as a faithful adaption then, because it's simply not. In the very worst case scenario they'd be better off adding a disclaimer.

Now. Funimation is notorious for having subpar releases for the series. Yes, it's true; but doesn't Toei bear any of that responsibility? Toei haven't released the series in a great way either, except the difference is that someone could actually afford to find, buy, and watch Funimation's releases. Toei put out one good consistent release in the early 2000s, which has since become very rare and expensive. Then, Toei put out Kai, which is a whole other can of worms. Then, they put out the movies on Blu-ray, which are nice (despite their own problems), but the actual series has been lost to time on their end. Meanwhile, people have a plethora of releases to choose from on Funimation's side of things in English and even Japanese. And yes, no release is perfect, but it is very easily-accessible. And let's be honest -- to the casual fan who doesn't research the franchise and it's various releases, they might not mind the releases one bit.

Toei doesn't care or most likely barely knows the affect the dub changes have. But that doesn't change the fact the series deserves better, and just because most fans don't research this stuff or what not, doesn't mean it's worthless to put out a real Dragon Ball dub.

So, I'm not singing Funimation's praises or anything, but it's always bugged me how hard Funimation gets ridden while Toei is certainly no better and nobody ever talks about their shortcomings.

The most frustrating part is Funimation can be good when they want to be, I've watched some of their other stuff a few years back, and it was VERY faithful, Dragon Ball suffers the most from what I've seen. It makes sense for Toei to really only be paying attention to their region, I'd be very surprised if they could really see what was going on if they'd still stand for it, but as I said, it really seems they care mostly about Japan, fair enough I guess.

Now, finally, why "dubisms" have survived to this point. Once again, Toei has to share some blame. From what I understand, Toei has recently put out an edict that all official English translated merchandise, subtitles, anything, would be using the dub's names. I'm pretty sure that this is for marketing purposes. I can't link to a source, but I'm pretty sure this was addressed by someone at Funimation (likely Sabat) that the dubisms were around for so long, that they were actually asked to keep them for Kai and subsequently, because that's what the consumer was used to. And it looks like that might be the case. And after all, as I've stated, Toei sold the right for Funimation's dub to be the official English version of the franchise and that's exactly what the effects are.

I've heard the same thing, except only recently, so we will need to have a source for that, not sure if it was for Kai or just for subs. How is it that Ocean had rights as well? I'm a little confused on how there can only be one official dub yet two companies had dubbed Kai, heck BangZoom dubbed a bit of Super, god awful though.

But yeah, some of us value the true core of the franchise, while others don't care about that and just want what they had as a kid. It'll never be changed, nor should it. I find myself enjoying both. But in the end, the Japanese version will always be there for your enjoyment. I know that it's frustrating discussing something and coming up against someone seemingly discussing the same thing, but not really as they're talking about a "bastardized" version. But in the very least, this is a place where that's less likely to happen.

I feel differently, the older fans myself included have had a couple decades to enjoy the series being parodied at best, I think it's about time things are done properly. Not to say that people can't enjoy what they like, go ahead, but to say it should stay that way forever is not only entitled, but disrespectful to the franchise, and eventually the Dragon Ball the west knows will be very different from the real Dragon Ball, in which it's charm will be lost.

Indeed. The dialogue has to, above all else, be natural dialogue. Everything else comes second, even having that dialogue fit the flaps comes second to the dialogue itself being good.

Of course, and it's totally possible, yet it's not being done because they don't want to do it.

At this point, wanting a more truthful adaptation is basically hopeless.

I wouldn't be so sure, I mean, if Kai originally was going to have an Ocean dub and Funimation dub then surely there's a chance for another company to do a dub for their region?

Is Super that inaccurate? I thought they were beyond that, which is why I only watched Super dubbed. Dragon Ball, Z, and GT really are the only animes that I've watched subbed because 1) I expect others to be translated well, 2) I am always doing something else while it's on.

I thought it would be very well translated, and while they aren't as bad as the old Z era, they aren't as good as Kai, which is disappointing considering it looked like they were learning, apparently not.

[post]

Good points, I unironically am in love with DuBZ, out of nostalgia, it'll always have a place in my heart, but since this franchise means a lot to me, I put anything for it's own good above all else, I look back and compare it to what I now know what Dragon Ball is, and I think that even though there were good times, it would have been better to grow up on a proper adaptation, heck, even the Japanese, but I wasn't fortunate. With Super came a whole new generation of fans that could have been exposed to the true Dragon Ball, which has the most charm of all (despite some of the controversial themes early on, but those were the times and it's almost never seen anymore so I'm pretty okay with that).

I would also contest that, with how Kai was done, people would've still been on board if Kai had indeed gone all the way into being a proper dub of Dragon Ball Z Kai, and if Funi had continued to do it properly and faithfully from there on out. But for some reason, they didn't quite stick the landing perfectly (still a handful of weird dub-isms made it in, and about 30 episodes in, they switched from romanised attack names to the '90s dub attack names), and they slowly slipped back into something more resembling their old ways.

Still baffles me how they suddenly switched over, it really is a shame. I've heard rumors that there were angry fans that wanted the old names back, but I don't know whether that's true, but if it is, it goes to show how much they "care" about Dragon Ball...."Purest experience possible, and if you don't like that you're not a Dragon Ball fan."

As for the Saiyan pronunciation, it's like words from other languages that became part of English and pronounced differently. For example, ask a Latin person how they pronounce "llama", "burrito" and "chinchilla". Will sound different. Heck, many biblical names sound differently said by an English speaker than they will by a Hebrew speaker.

It's got nothing to do with English adaptation, the way it's said is plain wrong, even in the English adaptation sense.

IIRC Funimation wanted to use a lot more faithful terms/names for their Kai dub, but figured it would alienate too many lomg term dub fans.

As for "Arcosian" I don't think I've ever even heard another fan bring that up except for stories about old fan theories. I think it's something that's long gone and only really relevant to discussions about the old fandom.

Not going to lie, I really was nitpicky with that one, I know someone that constantly refers to Freeza's race as "arcosian" and corrects me when I call Freeza's race, well, Freeza's race or Freeza's clan. So I decided to throw that one in there out of mild irritation that day.

[VegettoEX]

Just wanted to add a few quick thoughts that come both from a personal as well as an administrative perspective:

Yes, the vast majority of the stuff in the OP's post is preaching the choir here, especially in a community such as this one. We all know, we all get it, we've all heard it before, and for many, it can be exhausting for many ("on all sides") to see it resurface on a constant basis, decades later.

That being said, please consider this: there's this exact "ah-HAH!" moment for a new dedicated fan every day. Everyone is coming to this series from a different place at a different point in time. Something you may have come to realize last year, two years ago, a decade ago, two decades ago... someone else is only just now realizing.

And they're excited about realizing something new for themselves.

We're here to curate and foster that excitement, while helping to provide the historical context for it.

This is a totally new person wanting to share their knowledge, their frustrations, their concerns, and their perspective; this isn't VegettoEX saying "GOD DAMMIT BAD DUB!!!" for the billionth time out of nowhere just because he has some never-ending, never-dying source of personal frustration that he must make sure everyone knows every moment of every day because it consumes him and he defines himself and his entire identity around disliking the dub.

So hear them out and engage with them, while also letting them know, yes, sure, we've been down this road before.

Some other final points from me:

The "but they HAD to change _____ because _____!" response just doesn't hold up. No reasonable person is looking for grammatically-incorrect stilted garbage literal translations; we have perfectly fine adaptations like Steve Simmons' and Caleb Cook's translations that prove otherwise and are perfectly faithful and readable. "B-but the flaps...!" doesn't work here, either; as noted, see all the other dubs out there, English (Blue Water / Bang Zoom) or otherwise (Mexican), that do it to varying degrees of success above and beyond what FUNimation has done. There's nothing special about FUNimation or its audience preventing them from reaching that same level of acting and production and faithfulness; in ebbs and flows over time, they simply choose not to.

Yes, the fallout of all of FUNimation's (even sometimes ancient) changes do still affect us on a daily basis, and "just go watch it in Japanese, then!" does not suffice as a conversation-ender. As a community built around documentation and history, we are constantly pushing up against all of their changes and initiatives with questions, misconceptions, bad external wikis, clickbait news sites, meme-filled corporate accounts, etc. That stuff imprinted itself on many people at a young age, and it won't go away. WE are watching it in Japanese; that's literally the problem for other people!

I'm sure I have more I could add, but I wanted to keep it relatively concise while also putting a foot down on certain things.

[Thanos]

Cheers. Thinking about it a little more though, I find that certain kind of dub fan is, for whatever reason, rampant on YouTube and not much else. I find in real life, a lot of people are just normies who have no knowledge or strong bias either way toward the series in a meta sense. They consumed the product as it was presented to them on Cartoon Network 20 years ago, and they haven't gone any deeper than that, nor should they be expected to, in all fairness. Deep diving isn't for everyone. I may have been in that very position to this day if I wasn't introduced to the series as a ten year old with too much free time who had friends at school telling me they cursed and had "extreme" violence in the original Japanese version. That fascinated me and I went down that rabbit hole that the series wasn't what I had been presented on sites like Planet Namek, Greg Werner's DBZInfo, DaizEX, etc.

Everyone can have their toys and play them with in their own private spaces, but when you try to come to my house and destroy and ruin my toys, that's where the problem lies. "U WEEB GOKU SOUNDS LIKE AN OLD LADY" Now you listen here, punk...

[WittyUsername]

Since this apparently needs to be elaborated on, I never claimed that the dialogue in an English dub should be changed with no rhyme or reason, nor was I ever attempting to justify some of the more egregious changes that FUNimation has made. I’m simply saying that when I read the subtitles for the series, the dialogue always strikes me as sounding very unnatural.

I’m not trying to badmouth people like Steve Simmons when I say that. The guy does a very good job with translating the dialogue faithfully, but if a bunch of English speaking voice actors were to read out that dialogue, it wouldn’t sound natural, in my opinion. I don’t watch much anime, but in my experience, that’s a problem I have when I’m reading subs in general. Maybe that’s just me.

To be clear, that’s by no means me saying that subs are “stupid” or anything. I didn’t even bother watching that much of Super in English, because the subs were enough for me. For what it’s worth, I’ll also say that I agree that lines like “time to make the donuts” are pretty dumb, and I don’t care for names like “Top”.

[LoganForkHands73]

Since this apparently needs to be elaborated on, I never claimed that the dialogue in an English dub should be changed with no rhyme or reason, nor was I ever attempting to justify some of the more egregious changes that FUNimation has made. I’m simply saying that when I read the subtitles for the series, the dialogue always strikes me as sounding very unnatural.

I’m not trying to badmouth people like Steve Simmons when I say that. The guy does a very good job with translating the dialogue faithfully, but if a bunch of English speaking voice actors were to read out that dialogue, it wouldn’t sound natural, in my opinion. I don’t watch much anime, but in my experience, that’s a problem I have when I’m reading subs in general. Maybe that’s just me.

To be clear, that’s by no means me saying that subs are “stupid” or anything. I didn’t even bother watching that much of Super in English, because the subs were enough for me. For what it’s worth, I’ll also say that I agree that lines like “time to make the donuts” are pretty dumb, and I don’t care for names like “Top”.

I agree. It's like with Goku's YURU SANAI (or however you spell it) catchphrase. Neither the subs nor dubs keep the same translation, even though Goku says the same thing every time. It's been translated to everything from "I won't let you get away with this" to "I won't forgive you", "This is unforgivable", etc. The latter is the most accurate, but anyone saying that in English would sound awkward and cringeworthy as hell, which is why it's used mainly in the subtitles and almost never in dubs, and rightfully so IMO. It's a Japanese idiom that doesn't translate very well to English, so what's the "correct" answer when translating it?