Opinions on the original Funi Dragon Ball dub

[ABED]

I can't knock it because I don't know or care how sincere they are. That has no bearing on whether the music fit. I respect anyone who makes a film or TV series, even a sincere but bad one, but their earnestness and passion doesn't make the artwork any better.

[90sDBZ]

They really didn’t. The show lost its “Kung fu” style music and feel with the addition of this sci-fi style instead. The music was good but in no way does it belong in Dragon Ball.

The way I see it the Faulconer team were given the animation, the dialogue, and the story, and to the best of their ability built a score around it. It's clear from listening to interviews that they cared a lot.

If that score were used in an otherwise accurate dub I'd agree it wouldn't fit so well. But the Z dub went in another direction entirely, and the Faulconer score fits that direction perfectly.

Funimation at this point should just restart the entire series and rename it journey to the west and change everything, add mondo cool jokes and other references. They’ve scorched the show so much it’s difficult to have a conversation with anyone who is a hardcore dub fan.

I don't hear stuff like mondo cool brought up very often by dub fans. Most of them I see just talk about the story, the characters, the fights, transformations etc.. Basically the same stuff that gets discussed here.

[Fionordequester]

I can't knock it because I don't know or care how sincere they are. That has no bearing on whether the music fit. I respect anyone who makes a film or TV series, even a sincere but bad one, but their earnestness and passion doesn't make the artwork any better.

I know. The point wasn't to debate the quality of their work—it's to point out that they did, indeed, respect the show.

(I would argue they did a tremendously good job, too—But again, that's besides the point).

[ABED]

I don't hear stuff like mondo cool brought up very often by dub fans. Most of them I see just talk about the story, the characters, the fights, transformations etc.. Basically the same stuff that gets discussed here.

I.E., the stuff that shines through in spite of the alterations made to the show.

[MyVisionity]

If that score were used in an otherwise accurate dub I'd agree it wouldn't fit so well. But the Z dub went in another direction entirely, and the Faulconer score fits that direction perfectly.

Exactly. It's all about going into different directions. If you are committed to traveling in one direction, don't just stop and turn around out of nowhere for the sake of an entirely different vision, letting all that effort go to waste while screwing with the audience in the process.

I still would have liked to see what Faulconer could have done with the first series. Many think that his style only works with Z, but I think that they could have pulled out something interesting for DB.

[MasenkoHA]

I still would have liked to see what Faulconer could have done with the first series. Many think that his style only works with Z

Well that’s not fair. It didn’t work with Z either.

but I think that they could have pulled out something interesting for DB.

We’ve heard Team Faulconer’s “This is comedy!” music in Z. The theoretical Faulconer music in Dragon Ball would have been insufferable for that reason alone

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I still would have liked to see what Faulconer could have done with the first series. Many think that his style only works with Z

Well that’s not fair. It didn’t work with Z either.

but I think that they could have pulled out something interesting for DB.

We’ve heard Team Faulconer’s “This is comedy!” music in Z. The theoretical Faulconer music in Dragon Ball would have been insufferable for that reason alone

Seconded, if they'd done that back in 2001 it would've clashed tonally and in particular the earlier arcs which still had that Dr. Slump-esque comedic vibe. The bits of Team Faulconer's score like these which were inserted into DBZ i don't really think would've fit OG DB.

The fact that they didn't bother replacing Kikuchi's OST for DB is very telling, it was a small step toward producing more faithful dubs.

[Cure Dragon 255]

The worst part of all this is that My Visionity champions for replacing the score, not because he likes it or thinks it fits OG DB but rather out of some insanely misguided boner he has for "Consistency". I joked about it, but if Dragon Ball OG didnt prove that replacement scores are unneeded they may have never branched out of doing replacement scores. We might have truly gotten disastrous dubs for every single anime Funimation has and My Visionity still champions for "Consistency".

This, by the way, is the same guy who said "Sexual assault is a key element of the series and it shouldnt be toned down"... when talking to a person that edited the show in A FAN EDIT so his tots could watch.

[MyVisionity]

The worst part of all this is that My Visionity champions for replacing the score, not because he likes it or thinks it fits OG DB but rather out of some insanely misguided boner he has for "Consistency". I joked about it, but if Dragon Ball OG didnt prove that replacement scores are unneeded they may have never branched out of doing replacement scores. We might have truly gotten disastrous dubs for every single anime Funimation has and My Visionity still champions for "Consistency".

It's not solely about consistency, but identity and vision as well. I explained all of that previously. And there's really no telling what Funimation would have ended up doing with their other dubs in the future, but even if that were the case, it doesn't mean that Dragon Ball's dub should be sacrificed for the future of the company.

This, by the way, is the same guy who said "Sexual assault is a key element of the series and it shouldnt be toned down"... when talking to a person that edited the show in A FAN EDIT so his tots could watch.

No, I did not say that. I believe that I said that the sexual perversion, in general, was an inseparable part of the series, and then questioned whether or not it could be edited out of the series and still remain the same series. I don't think I ever suggested that it was appropriate for children to watch, or that a fan couldn't make their own personal edit it they liked.

[Android 50]

Lord help us all if Funimation had decided to have Team Faulconer replace Dragon Ball’s bgm. The “goofy” music in Z was painful and would have made up a majority kf the music for early Dragon Ball

The fact that they kept the original score is a big factor for why it is better than the Z dub

Seriously, i'm really glad they didn't have Faulconer and co make another unfitting replacement score and just left the music for OG DB as is because given how most of the tracks they did for DBZ weren't really anything special or great. I shudder to think how bad that would've been, and say what you will about the Peter Berring score from the 1995 dub but at least it sort of fit that version, and wasn't some faux try hard "ZOMG HARDCORE EDGINESS!!!!!!!" thing like Team Faulconer and Mark Menza's GT scores.

The music was very fitting for the namek and android arcs since by that point 70s kung-fu movie music was more unfitting for a arc involving space aliens and cybrogs than synths and techno.

[Android 50]

Might as well have gone with Faulconer for consistency's sake. That way you pull in the DBZ audience that would just ignore the show otherwise. If not Faulconer, then someone else. If the scripts and acting had been better than they were, that would be one thing, but they were not. Also going from Kikuchi to Faulconer or whoever else is silly to me.

Brice Armstrong had a great voice and could be a good narrator, just not for DB.

Consistency is not inherently good. The replacement score sucked. No reason to double down on a bad idea just to be consistent.

The DBZ audience aren't drawn to the music. That's not why they are going to tune in.

How the hell is Armstrong not a good narrator for DB? He has the perfect avuncular voice you need for a story like DB. It's very much a Joji Yanami-esque vibe.

you say it was a bad idea and sucked yet you still have fans that watched it back then continue to praise it to this day and always ask if its in the box sets funi releases.

[Hulk10]

I feel that the original dub gets too much of a bad rap.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It gets a bad rap because Funimation were inexperienced in all departments from acting to directing. They had very bad translations for the show, and they brought in actors with no experience because it was too expensive to keep outsourcing the voices to Canada. Everything improved over time though, and the OG Dragon Ball dub was a sign of things to come before Funimation's dubs became consistently good (i.e Kai onwards).

[MasenkoHA]

They had very bad translations for the show, and they brought in actors with no experience because it was too expensive to keep outsourcing the voices to Canada.

I feel like this claim needs to die it was not too expensive. The whole reason Funimation sought out outsourcing in Canada was because it was cheap. By Ian Corlett’s own admission Ocean got hired and in fact gets hired a lot because they can do it cheaper than most studios. Funimation could always afford to use Ocean they just wanted to relocate everything to Texas to save time and money. But corporate greed we want to save some extra dollars =/= it’s too expensive if we don’t.

As far as bad translations go. I’m sure the English in the translations wasn’t the best but I’m not sure we can go that far in blaming it on the dub’s overall writing quality. Even after getting Simmons on hand to do the translations around 2000 didn’t improve the over all faithfulness to the scripts. It was probably about the same ratio of “sometimes the dialog will be dead on, sometimes it will be in the ball park but still altered and sometimes *shrug*And if the pre-2000 scripts were completely off that would lead believability to the idea the translations were unusable but no there was plenty of times even back then when the english dialog is close enough to the Japanese dialog.

I feel that the original dub gets too much of a bad rap.

Does it though? Does it though?

https://youtu.be/t7wyidD6mUk

https://youtu.be/EdGa-2BSFiI

https://youtu.be/6rxeCPBUx7g

https://youtu.be/zmhbMDFSveQ


It it any surprise the 2001 dub for the original Dragon Ball dub is seen as such an improvement? It’s bad but its run of the mill early 2000s kids tv dubbed anime bad like Pokemon or Digimon or Yu-gi-oh .

[Majin Buu]

FUNimation may not've respected the show, but the musicians they hired sure did.

This is just me speaking so take it for what you will but:

If I was a musician who liked this series and had a deep respect for it and got picked to come up with an original score to replace the original Kikuchi score, I think the most respectful thing to do would be to turn down the job to begin with and tell them to find someone else because I just couldn't do that to a work I love and respect.

Even if I needed the money, I'm sure I could find another gig that didn't involve altering something I love and respect because the big wigs that made this decision thought they could produce something better, didn't want to pay royalties, wanted their own royalties, etc. It would feel fundamentally wrong of me to go through with it.

The most respectful thing would be to just not do it in the first place. Replacing the score was a misguided (at best) decision to begin with.

[jjgp1112]

FUNimation may not've respected the show, but the musicians they hired sure did.

This is just me speaking so take it for what you will but:

If I was a musician who liked this series and had a deep respect for it and got picked to come up with an original score to replace the original Kikuchi score, I think the most respectful thing to do would be to turn down the job to begin with and tell them to find someone else because I just couldn't do that to a work I love and respect.

Even if I needed the money, I'm sure I could find another gig that didn't involve altering something I love and respect because the big wigs that made this decision thought they could produce something better, didn't want to pay royalties, wanted their own royalties, etc. It would feel fundamentally wrong of me to go through with it.

The most respectful thing would be to just not do it in the first place. Replacing the score was a misguided (at best) decision to begin with.

Meh, that's an overly romanticized take, and none of those guys had any familiarity with the show prior to Dragon Ball anyway. They were musicians trying to make a living from something they liked doing, took the job that came to them, and did it to the best of their ability while trying to best capture what was given to them. It's as simple as that.

[MasenkoHA]

FUNimation may not've respected the show, but the musicians they hired sure did.

This is just me speaking so take it for what you will but:

If I was a musician who liked this series and had a deep respect for it and got picked to come up with an original score to replace the original Kikuchi score, I think the most respectful thing to do would be to turn down the job to begin with and tell them to find someone else because I just couldn't do that to a work I love and respect.

Even if I needed the money, I'm sure I could find another gig that didn't involve altering something I love and respect because the big wigs that made this decision thought they could produce something better, didn't want to pay royalties, wanted their own royalties, etc. It would feel fundamentally wrong of me to go through with it.

The most respectful thing would be to just not do it in the first place. Replacing the score was a misguided (at best) decision to begin with.

Meh, that's an overly romanticized take, and none of those guys had any familiarity with the show prior to Dragon Ball anyway. They were musicians trying to make a living from something they liked doing, took the job that came to them, and did it to the best of their ability while trying to best capture what was given to them. It's as simple as that.

I’ll second this.

I don’t buy for a moment that they respected the show, but the thing is they’re under no obligation to respect it. They were musicians hired by some upstart producer to create a brand new score for some Japanese kids cartoon most of them probably never heard of to that producers specification. Can’t really fault any of them for doing the job they were hired to do.

[Majin Buu]

Meh, that's an overly romanticized take, and none of those guys had any familiarity with the show prior to Dragon Ball anyway.

Exactly. Saying that they "respected" the series feels hollow when you take factors like that into account.

I think someone who was actually familiar enough with the material to genuinely respect it wouldn't be so eager to take part in "reversioning" it out in favor of something completely different, at least not without facing some level of cognitive dissonance.

Due to having no familiarity with the series, none of the Falconer people were in that position; so I don't buy the claim that they "respected" the series.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Meh, that's an overly romanticized take, and none of those guys had any familiarity with the show prior to Dragon Ball anyway.

Exactly. Saying that they "respected" the series feels hollow when you take factors like that into account.

I think someone who was actually familiar enough with the material to genuinely respect it wouldn't be so eager to take part in "reversioning" it out in favor of something completely different, at least not without facing some level of cognitive dissonance.

Due to having no familiarity with the series, none of the Falconer people were in that position; so I don't buy the claim that they "respected" the series.

Respected isn't really how i would refer to it either, given they were scoring a bastardized version of the show based on the producer and others interpretation/vision of the dub which ran totally counter to the original.

[jjgp1112]

Meh, that's an overly romanticized take, and none of those guys had any familiarity with the show prior to Dragon Ball anyway.

Exactly. Saying that they "respected" the series feels hollow when you take factors like that into account.

I think someone who was actually familiar enough with the material to genuinely respect it wouldn't be so eager to take part in "reversioning" it out in favor of something completely different, at least not without facing some level of cognitive dissonance.

Due to having no familiarity with the series, none of the Falconer people were in that position; so I don't buy the claim that they "respected" the series.

They respected what they were given, which was an altered version of a Japanese cartoon. I don't know why it needs to be any deeper than that. You do the job that's in front of you.