Iconic Voices in DB

[Wrigglything]

Of course, when we think of what kind of voice we think of when it comes to Dragon Ball, many might first think about Goku's voice, whether it be Nozawa or Schemmel, depending on the person's preference of dubs. Which voices do you think would be hard to seperate from the franchise or would make the experience vastly different than it is currently?

Obviously, as stated, Nozawa's portrayal of the Son family (+Tullece) is practically linked towards the franchise, but I think Nakao's Freeza (alongside his non-canonical family) gives off a great balance of elegance and fierceness that someone as charismatic and ruthless like Freeza.

A bonus is that Don Brown and by extension Sean Schemmel 's performance of King Kai is so weird and out of left field especially compared to the late Yanami's performance, I can't help but be somewhat endeared to it somewhat.

[VegettoEX]

Perhaps more so than any other franchise, I think Dragon Ball is inextricably linked to its specific cast members, and I hold them fairly sacred in those roles.

There were only a handful of replacements that occurred during the original run, and I think we can separate those out from ones that came later:

• The switch from Junpei Takeuchi to Mayumi Tanaka for the Fortuneteller Crone is a fairly egregious one if you ask me, but I'm also not going to pretend that she's an important enough character to really waste much worry on.
• I wonder how many people even noticed the change for Chi-Chi from Mayumi Shō to Naoko Watanabe. I think Shō takes the cake here, but even then I say that without any real lasting care one way or the other on the role; they're both great.
• Garlic Jr.'s change from Akira Kamiya to Shigeru Chiba is also a downgrade... which is wild to say, because Chiba's a phenomenal actor and honestly probably the best replacement you could use. I just think Kamiya brought something new to the table there, and it's lacking in Chiba's fairly standard performance. But again, we're talking about a movie/filler character here, not a main cast member.
• Kohei Miyauchi passed RIGHT at the very end of the television broadcast, so it's hard to really classify this one here, but we had a long list of ill-fitting replacements until Sato came along later.
• Not sure if you want to consider Kaioshin here, where during this time and into the current era they actually have a second-tier, ready-to-go actor for whenever Yuji Mitsuya isn't available: Shin'ichiro Ota.

So that really brings us to the post-original-serialization/broadcast era and into the Kai era. During that time we sadly lost a few cast members due to their passing, and that continued DURING Kai, which was even more sad. We also had a wealth of straight-up replacements for no particularly valid reasons (other than perhaps pay behind the scenes?).

And there are definitely some oddities here, like Sho Hayami being swapped out on Zarbon for Hiroaki Miura... despite Hayami still doing franchise video games (notably Thouser in Raging Blast 2 around this exact same time).

However, all the Kai-era stuff... well, they're not "MAIN" cast members. They're side-villains for the most part.

(I don't have a really great place to note him, but I want to acknowledge Daisuke Gori here in this part. Huge loss for the franchise and the entire artform.)

Of the corest of core cast members, we've sadly had to replace Hiromi Tsuru and Joji Yanami, two voices heard since literal DAY ONE of the animated adaptation, and they're notable losses. The replacements are fantastic, but they're not Tsuru and Yanami, through no fault of their own.

I think when it comes down to it, of the remaining original cast members, you don't have Dragon Ball if you don't have Nozawa, Nakao, Wakamoto, Tanaka, Horikawa, Furukawa. Maybe throw Furuya into the mix, but we're not really getting much with him (latest Heroes content not withstanding).

Really getting into a Ship of Theseus kind of situation here with the Japanese cast, more so through the natural process of aging and passing than through pre-emptive replacements. We've even lost some of the MAIN REPLACEMENT cast members, most notably Unsho Ishizuka (replacement for Daisuke Gori's Mr. Satan).

It's wild to me that Dragon Ball is holding on more so than any other franchise, perhaps because it's never truly gone away. We saw Sailor Moon get replaced wholesale minus Mitsuishi herself. The new Urusei Yatsura went all-new with effectively stunt-casting of old cast members into family/parent roles. The new Trigun is an all new cast.

Maybe one of the only other situations with an exact cast is Evangelion, perhaps due to its also similar situation of never truly going away, and its own unique status of its story being... well, if you don't know what the story with the new movies are, let me not be the one to ruin it for you!

(This probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway since the original post here addresses multiple languages: as someone who's seen several English voice actors come and go over the course of its production, I don't find any of them particularly iconic, with maybe the closest being Brian Drummond...?)

[MuscleRobo]

Daisuke Gori as the original Mr. Satan is such a huge loss to me. Gori was an all time great voice actor and so iconic in every role of his. When I was younger I watched a lot of dubbed anime on TV but one of the first anime that got me really digging for information on the Japanese side to learn everything I could about it was Kinnikuman Nisei, released here as Ultimate Muscle. I became enamored with the whole franchise, importing all sorts of stuff and reading manga volumes in Japanese as I studied the language. Daisuke Gori's booming voice as Robin Mask and Mr. Satan was always so easy to pick out. That's why I recognized him as Destro in the Japanese dub of GI Joe and as a dinosaur in a one shot episode of Transformers Victory!

[JulieYBM]

Dragon Ball is definitely in this weird little pocket where its cast hasn't quite seen a full-on replacement over the decades, unlike Hokuto no Ken or Saint Seiya (putting aside how Furuya Tooru was allowed to return to voice Seiya in Saint Seiya Omega). Similarly, Kidou Senshi Gundam is also in a similar position where—for the most part—there was never an official recasting for the entire original series. Cast members have certainly changed through the iteractions¹ but overall it remains like Dragon Ball, slowly changing cast for various reasons.

I suspect we'll be having similar conversations about how the next voice of Son Gokuu is 'iconic' in fifty years when they inevitably last longer in the role, so in that respect I try never to not think about 'iconic actors' for a role. I think it does a disservice to all creators in that respect and needlessly places various projects into competition with one another. This is a big part of why I don't like when recasts try to mimick previous performances, becuase it invites unfavorable comparison when it would simply be better to make the character change to flourish with a new actor. Nobody is going to match Wakamoto Norio's Cell, so why bother with a half-hearted mimick when you could just bring in an actor to bring their own special-something to the role?

¹Gene, the Zaku II pilot that tries to destroy the Gundam for glory, is voiced by three separate actors in animation: Sogabe Kazuyuki for the television series, Wakamoto Norio for the original 1981 Kidou Senshi Gundam I compilation film and Morita Junpei in the Special Edition release of Kidou Senshi Gundam I.

[TrunksTrevelyan0064]

Having started out with the dub, it took me a while to come around to the Japanese cast, but I got there in the end and now I adore them. I once tried to make a top 10 list of my favorite DB actors -- and ended up with a list of about 25 all vying for the number 1 spot. That's just how good they all are.

I have to give a special mention to Mayumi Tanaka. Before I finally went through the series in Japanese, I thought of "Krillin" as a 6/10 character. Then Tanaka single-handedly bumped Kuririn up to an 8 or 9 out of 10 for me. I realized that, wait, the character is NOT just comic relief - he has a sort of shy sensitivity to him! He's not constantly cracking jokes, he has sensible thoughtful things to say!

It also took me really listening to Masako Nozawa's performances before I understood there was any difference at all between Goku and Gohan's personalities. I kinda thought of them as carbon copies of each other. But hooo boy you go through the whole series in Japanese and you notice little Gohan making scared crying noises that Goku would NEVER make. And of course there's the whole polite speech vs. hick speech.

Because Dragon Ball has such a revolving door of characters throughout its run, iconic voices that come in early on end up as background characters later, making room for MORE iconic voices, which gives you an absolutely STACKED cast for the later arcs. When Freeza and King Cold come to Earth - just look at the cast list for those episodes. There's Nozawa and Yanami as always, and you've got Tsuru, Tanaka, Furukawa, Horikawa, Nakao. But then even on the side you've got legends like Gôri, Furuya, Suzuoki. I mean holy hell everybody's here! Oh and now Takeshi Kusao shows up! Come on in dude, more great voices up in this party!

(Not sure if I actually answered the OP's question, I'm just using this as an excuse to gush. )

[nineko]

Paolo Torrisi's dub of adult Goku became very iconic here in Italy, but he sadly died in 2005, so he couldn't come back for Dragon Ball Super, and I have to say, his replacement is not on par with him.

Which is why I watched all of DBS in Japanese, I only caught glimpses of the Italian version while I was randomly changing channels on TV, I never even saw a whole episode of it.

[Xeogran]

I suspect we'll be having similar conversations about how the next voice of Son Gokuu is 'iconic' in fifty years when they inevitably last longer in the role

I don't think the next Goku VA will last longer than Nozawa. She's really, really amazing and never gives up. Content is also much slower these days, we'll never be having a series with 291 whole episodes like Z. I fully believe Nozawa will never be surpassed with the amount of effort as Goku she's done. Not in length or the amount.

[JulieYBM]

I suspect we'll be having similar conversations about how the next voice of Son Gokuu is 'iconic' in fifty years when they inevitably last longer in the role

I don't think the next Goku VA will last longer than Nozawa. She's really, really amazing and never gives up. Content is also much slower these days, we'll never be having a series with 291 whole episodes like Z. I fully believe Nozawa will never be surpassed with the amount of effort as Goku she's done. Not in length or the amount.

I wouldn't put it out of the question. The machine that is Dragon Ball will continue passed our own lives and I fully expect someone to inevitably surpass Nozawa's 806+ television episodes and various specials, films, video games, commercials and webseries eventually, especially if they cast a young actor for the role.

I hadn't really intended to go down the path of talking about an old person as if they were about to croak, though, so I'd prefer to end that line here. lol

[Xeogran]

I wouldn't put it out of the question. The machine that is Dragon Ball will continue passed our own lives and I fully expect someone to inevitably surpass Nozawa's 806+ television episodes and various specials, films, video games, commercials and webseries eventually, especially if they cast a young actor for the role.

Due to how slowly things release these days (instead of new games we get seasons of DLCs for years, seasonal anime with breaks and so on), I'm on the side that doubts it. She's in really, really a lot of things, many obscure ones we don't even remember anymore.

I hadn't really intended to go down the path of talking about an old person as if they were about to croak, though, so I'd prefer to end that line here. lol

That's alright. I'll end the discussion here. Here's for 100 years and beyond to Mrs. Nozawa!

[Gyt Kaliba]

I'd have to echo basically everything VegettoEX had in his post - the original Japanese cast, especially for the mainstay cast, has been a part of the franchise for so long that any time we end up losing one of them in their role(s), however that ends up happening, it's always a net loss for the brand as a whole. The sad truth of the matter though for any of these evergreen franchises, especially ones that generally stick to one 'style' rather than constantly re-inventing themselves the way Marvel, DC, or for a brand I'm much more familiar with, TMNT, do, is that there are going to be replacements in the cast over time. It's just the way of the world, sadly.

Losing Daisuke Gouri and Hiromi Tsuru were both gut-wrenching moments for me as a fan. I still can't think of a Gouri role without instantly hearing his 'DEDEDEDEDE' stutter reaction in my head instantly, and as was previously said, Tsuru is part of a select few performers who have been with the franchise since DAY ONE. Honestly, if we discount the Pilaf gang's actors (I forget who played Shu or Mai but I don't think either of them were nearly as ubiquitous within the franchise as Shigeru Chiba was and is), the only day one actor left is Nozawa herself. If we extend that to the core cast introduced in the first arc, Toru Furuya and Naoki Tatsuta are still here too (and I'm glad that with Joji Yanami's retirement, Tatsuta was chosen as his replacement, to keep it in that tight-knit, 'been-here-since-the-start' family as much as possible). Back in the olden days, before Kai, I used to imagine that someday, Toei would probably get a wild hair and do a remake of the series and would probably take advantage of that fact to do a full-on re-cast, or that they'd do such a thing once Nozawa was no longer playing Goku and his familiy for whatever reason. Nowadays though, I'm glad such a thing has never occurred. I'm not saying I won't be able to continue on with this series or these characters once she or any of the other remaining original cast are gone - but take it from a devout fan of the Lupin III franchise, it definitely won't ever be the same.

Now, as far as the English dub casts go...it really is hard to make the same comparison. And I mean that in no way as an insult to any performers past or present. The fact is though that the cast has been in nigh-constant flux on the English side basically since the start. Heck, even before DBZ's run there had already been two different casts used for parts of the original series, and even the Ocean run of Z's dub swapped cast members in and out. After them, the in-house cast of FUNimation was largely kept the same for well over a decade, but that cast too saw a few changes here and there, especially into the Kai era. There are definitely performances from the English dubs that I would consider iconic (Chris Ayres' Freeza comes to mind immediately), but by and large the two situations are just too dissimilar to really be compared in the same way.

[TrunksTrevelyan0064]

What's amazing to realize about Nozawa is that she didn't become Goku until the age of FIFTY. Her super-impressive tenure as Goku still counts for less than half her life! She had a whole entire life BEFORE her most iconic role.

Just goes to show anything can happen at any age. Don't count yerselves out in yer thirties, kids.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Masako Nozawa is an obvious choice. I could hear her Goku voice without any visuals and know that's the character, and feel the adventurous spirit of Dragon Ball.

Ryūsei Nakao's voice for Freeza is both chilling and foreboding, and really makes you feel the tension whenever the character is about to snap. The Super Saiyan whispers are memorable too and something I can think of even when I'm not watching Dragon Ball and can feel his paranoia about the legend.

Jôji Yanami has a unique presence as both Kaio and the narrator, not least because you get the impression the former is that old man with a grandfatherly calmness to himself telling the story but it's a really powerful, particularly in scenes like Vegeta's sacrifice where it comes out of nowhere, breaking the silence spectacularly. That to me is "epic" and a magnificent way of closing out such a powerful scene.

On the English dub side you've got Brian Drummond's Vegeta, particularly the maniacal Saban era voice. I've heard Drummond in Death Note, Gundam Wing and more recently the new Dragon Quest : Adventure of Dai and even though his roles in these shows are unique in their own way his Vegeta voice still lingers.

Scott McNeil as Piccolo of course, in the early Z arcs even though he helps out when needed there's just something in the voice that tells you this Namekian is not someone you'd want to be messing with. Even though Barry Watson wasn't well educated about the series and it's lore you still get the impression McNeil's Piccolo voice was crafted with a demon in mind.

Sean Schemmel's screams are legendary at this point and the peak of Funimation's dubs. I would argue the Super Hero dub was lacking without it because of Goku's limited presence in that movie.

What's amazing to realize about Nozawa is that she didn't become Goku until the age of FIFTY. Her super-impressive tenure as Goku still counts for less than half her life! She had a whole entire life BEFORE her most iconic role.

Just goes to show anything can happen at any age. Don't count yerselves out in yer thirties, kids.

Absolutely, acting isn't like athletics. As long as your in good health it's never too late to get started or find your footing. James Earl Jones was also pushing fifty when he was cast as Darth Vader, and in his seventies for his other most iconic role, which was Mufasa. As someone who has a speech impediment (as Jones did) I see him as an inspiration.