Funi's Kai dub and accuracy

[MasenkoHA]

I feel like many of the complaints against Kai's dub are nitpicks from people who were never going to give Funimation credit.

I don't really see them as complaints as much as pointing out its not 1:1 as some fans like to treat it as.

Like, obviously 99 percent of the the the Kai dub is way more accurate than the Z dub, but I still think its interesting that at least a few times the Z dub was more accurate than the Kai dub was.

If you want to watch something that's 1:1 with the Japanese version, then watch the Japanese version.

While, I'm inclined to agree don't fans deserve to watch an accurate representation in their own language? Kai's dub is good enough for sure, but it's also Kai.

At any rate, the Funi Z dub isn't going anywhere, nor should it.

[Cure Dragon 255]

I hate to say this but I DID hear that Z Fighters was a thing in the Japanese anime and that in the early Funimation Ocean dub they changed this to "The Defenders of The Earth". I am NOT sure 255% but I think that might be the reason.

[ATA]

I hate to say this but I DID hear that Z Fighters was a thing in the Japanese anime and that in the early Funimation Ocean dub they changed this to "The Defenders of The Earth". I am NOT sure 255% but I think that might be the reason.

In the manga, Toriyama collectively refers to the main cast as the "Dragon Team" ドラゴンチーム in the titles of chapters 023 and 430. More frequently, they're referred to as "Super Warriors" 超戦士 or just plain "warriors". There is no "Dragon Ball Z" in the Japanese manga, so it certainly didn't originate there.

The first instance of "Z-Warrior" in the anime occurs in the Japanese title of the Bardock TV special:

たったひとりの最終決戦 ～フリーザに挑んだＺ戦士孫悟空の父～
A Final, Solitary Battle - ~The Father of Z-Warrior Son Gokū (Kakarrot), Who Challenged Freeza~

The term is repeated again in the titles of episodes 107 and 136. The anime's narrator refers to them as Z-Warriors in episodes 125, 143, 210, 214 and 215. This is the extent of "Z-Warriors" in the original Japanese.

To answer your question, when Funimation got their hands on the series, they went a little overboard with the whole "Z-Fighters/Warriors" thing. It's used significantly more than it was in the original Japanese, and while it didn't originate in the English dub, this is undoubtedly how it spread within the English fanbase.

Found this on Reddit. A good explanation.

[Vegard Aune]

For whatever reason the old Norwegian translation of the manga also claimed that Goku and his friends were "Group Z" in the Cell arc. Which I would assume came from the German release like so much else of the weird nonsense in that release, but don't quote me on that.

When it comes to Kai, I guess the best way to put it would be, sure, it was an immense improvement over the dub of Z... But it still had a decent helping of completely unnecessary rewrites in there. Like, I'm totally just stealing Dogasu's point on the English dub of the 22nd Pokémon movie (a near shot-for-shot remake of the first movie but in 3D, for those who don't know) here, but like... Why make a dub that's kinda accurate but also will just fall back to rewrites from the old dub at other times? Who exactly benefits from that? Are fans of the original dub gonna be happy about it? Probably not, as I feel like I see them just complain that the remake "changed" other lines anyway (Lines that were, in fact, translated more faithfully the second time around.) Fans of the original who want a faithful dub? Well wouldn't they be much happier with an actual faithful dub throughout rather than one that just flip-flops back and forth?

...Newcomers? Newcomers probably won't care either way.

[JustAlex1997]

It certainly seems to imply Goku knew him personally. But I'm willing to give Funimation the benefit of the doubt by assuming he was trying to say, "With the Red Ribbon, huh? So is Gero after world domination too?"

[Adamant]

For whatever reason the old Norwegian translation of the manga also claimed that Goku and his friends were "Group Z" in the Cell arc. Which I would assume came from the German release like so much else of the weird nonsense in that release, but don't quote me on that.

It's a Carlsenism originating from their German translation, yeah:

[kemuri07]

For whatever reason the old Norwegian translation of the manga also claimed that Goku and his friends were "Group Z" in the Cell arc. Which I would assume came from the German release like so much else of the weird nonsense in that release, but don't quote me on that.

When it comes to Kai, I guess the best way to put it would be, sure, it was an immense improvement over the dub of Z... But it still had a decent helping of completely unnecessary rewrites in there. Like, I'm totally just stealing Dogasu's point on the English dub of the 22nd Pokémon movie (a near shot-for-shot remake of the first movie but in 3D, for those who don't know) here, but like... Why make a dub that's kinda accurate but also will just fall back to rewrites from the old dub at other times? Who exactly benefits from that? Are fans of the original dub gonna be happy about it? Probably not, as I feel like I see them just complain that the remake "changed" other lines anyway (Lines that were, in fact, translated more faithfully the second time around.) Fans of the original who want a faithful dub? Well wouldn't they be much happier with an actual faithful dub throughout rather than one that just flip-flops back and forth?

...Newcomers? Newcomers probably won't care either way.

The simple answer is....The funimation dub is still incredibly popular with a large portion of the english-speaking population. To my knowledge, it's probably the only anime in which this actually happens, but it says a lot of how ridiculously popular DBZ was despite the not accurate translation.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

The simple answer is....The funimation dub is still incredibly popular with a large portion of the english-speaking population. To my knowledge, it's probably the only anime in which this actually happens, but it says a lot of how ridiculously popular DBZ was despite the not accurate translation.

I think contrary to popular belief a large portion of English-speaking anime fans are dub fans, but they're a silent majority because sub purists are more vocal. The fact there's so many old anime without dubs and pretty much every anime created today gets a dub is very telling, you can clearly see a correlation between the medium's increased popularity over time and the demand for an option to watch it in English. Conversely if less anime were dubbed the barrier to entry would be higher and it would be more niche.

Dragon Ball became a massive success internationally in spite of its dub, not because of it, but having a dub, even an inaccurate one inevitably helped it gain fans it wouldn't have had otherwise.

I think a healthy anime fandom honours the fact that both dubs and subs serve a purpose and its always ideal for both to exist because losing one will always alienate a significant portion of fans.

[OWmyDragonBallz]

After reading all the pages of this thread, yeah I can agree that Kai’s dub was, at worst, a 9/10 in accuracy. You aren’t blatantly being misled by the storytelling though like with the old FUNi dub. Small talk moments that change it up here and there isn’t enough to annoy me.
With Kai, you aren’t really getting a level of inaccuracy that hurts the story such as Vegeta offering Goku to join him in the Saiyan arc when in the manga and now in Kai, he merely goes into more detail about their heritage.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

After reading all the pages of this thread, yeah I can agree that Kai’s dub was, at worst, a 9/10 in accuracy. You aren’t blatantly being misled by the storytelling though like with the old FUNi dub. Small talk moments that change it up here and there isn’t enough to annoy me.
With Kai, you aren’t really getting a level of inaccuracy that hurts the story such as Vegeta offering Goku to join him in the Saiyan arc when in the manga and now in Kai, he merely goes into more detail about their heritage.

While it's never misleading the audience there's still amateur mistakes that Funimation made like including: "dude, my truck" in the uncut dub. Also they still carry over a great deal of dubisms like Spirit Bomb, I think Goku says Solar Flare during the Vegeta fight, and of course Barry Watson's classic "say-en" mispronunciation. Which of all the mispronunciations they could have fixed is probably the most important one. Even Sean Schmmel admitted that the pronunciation makes no sense in some 2+ hour interview he did.

[Cure Dragon 255]

After reading all the pages of this thread, yeah I can agree that Kai’s dub was, at worst, a 9/10 in accuracy. You aren’t blatantly being misled by the storytelling though like with the old FUNi dub. Small talk moments that change it up here and there isn’t enough to annoy me.
With Kai, you aren’t really getting a level of inaccuracy that hurts the story such as Vegeta offering Goku to join him in the Saiyan arc when in the manga and now in Kai, he merely goes into more detail about their heritage.

While it's never misleading the audience there's still amateur mistakes that Funimation made like including: "dude, my truck" in the uncut dub. Also they still carry over a great deal of dubisms like Spirit Bomb, I think Goku says Solar Flare during the Vegeta fight, and of course Barry Watson's classic "say-en" mispronunciation. Which of all the mispronunciations they could have fixed is probably the most important one. Even Sean Schmmel admitted that the pronunciation makes no sense in some 2+ hour interview he did.

Spirit Bomb is the correct translation. What do you want? A Yatsu Kisama Tachi translation?

[GhostEmperorX]

Yea, of all the examples to pick, those two mentioned weren't really that bad.
And even for some of the more amateur attack names, you can't really translate them that smoothly anyway so best thing to do in those cases is to leave them untranslated where possible (though one or two would be a mouthful to say).

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Spirit Bomb is the correct translation. What do you want? A Yatsu Kisama Tachi translation?

Spirit Bomb is Funimation's rendition of Genki-Dama. "Genki" can mean "health", "energy" or "vitality", all of which are spiritual attributes, and "Dama" has been used for things like "ball", "jewel" or "bullet", so it's a solid rendition. It also is basically a bomb because when it lands and the enemy is enveloped it explodes.

Although, there's really no rationale for things like "Makankosappo", which approximates as “Demon Piercing Light Kill Cannon” other than anything about death was taboo in the Saban dub, and the "Special" part is misleading because nothing about the attack validates the term, something like Herms' suggestion of "Evil Beam Cannon" would have worked better.

At any rate these terms are never going to change, best case scenario is the Ocean Kai dub will use the Japanese terms Funimation originally used without backtracking along with more faithful pronunciations of Goku's name, Namek, etc, but were never going to hear the right pronunciation of Saiyan in an English dub again (it was heard in the Filipino English dub and Big Green dub of the GT special, but the former was pre-Funimation and the latter was an actor or director who was probably unfamiliar with the existing dubs guessing the pronunciation).

[Cure Dragon 255]

Spirit Bomb is the correct translation. What do you want? A Yatsu Kisama Tachi translation?

Spirit Bomb is Funimation's rendition of Genki-Dama. "Genki" can mean "health", "energy" or "vitality", all of which are spiritual attributes, and "Dama" has been used for things like "ball", "jewel" or "bullet", so it's a solid rendition. It also is basically a bomb because when it lands and the enemy is enveloped it explodes.

Although, there's really no rationale for things like "Makankosappo", which approximates as “Demon Piercing Light Kill Cannon” other than anything about death was taboo in the Saban dub, and the "Special" part is misleading because nothing about the attack validates the term, something like Herms' suggestion of "Evil Beam Cannon" would have worked better.

At any rate these terms are never going to change, best case scenario is the Ocean Kai dub will use the Japanese terms Funimation originally used without backtracking along with more faithful pronunciations of Goku's name, Namek, etc, but were never going to hear the right pronunciation of Saiyan in an English dub again (it was heard in the Filipino English dub and Big Green dub of the GT special, but the former was pre-Funimation and the latter was an actor or director who was probably unfamiliar with the existing dubs guessing the pronunciation).

That's great because I DID NOT defend Special Beam Cannon. I meant that if an attack has a satisfactory translation they should stick with it. If its bullshit like Destructo Disk or Special Beam Cannon, it should DEFINITELY be dropped for the Original.

Also I know Genki Dama is Spirit Ball, but that was taken for Yamcha's Soukidan. And I dont mind Taiyou Ken being Solar Flare, that was not an accurate tranlation but it is a clever and acceptable one. Again, only keep the attack in Japanese if the Funimation ism is MIND FUCKINGLY STUPID.

[Tian]

Although, there's really no rationale for things like "Makankosappo", which approximates as “Demon Piercing Light Kill Cannon” other than anything about death was taboo in the Saban dub, and the "Special" part is misleading because nothing about the attack validates the term, something like Herms' suggestion of "Evil Beam Cannon" would have worked better.

Yeah, besides being a horrible name, Special Beam Cannon sounds like some kind of promotion from a fast food restaurant. Beam Cannon? No, Special Beam Cannon with large fries and soda.

How about Maleficent Beam? Evil Beam Cannon sounds a bit generic.

[Civic]

They could've at least called it Spiral Beam Cannon, at least that first word has some meaning.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

I'm mainly referencing the site's old review of Z Kai vol. 1 where Mike posed the question: (paraphrasing) 'why are some attack names proper Japanese nouns while's other's are changed to English translated equivalents?' I'm just wondering where we should draw the line as to what should be translated and what should be left in Japanese. (Kamehameha, Taiyo Ken, Makankosappo as examples used in the Kai dub.)

[WittyUsername]

I'm mainly referencing the site's old review of Z Kai vol. 1 where Mike posed the question: (paraphrasing) 'why are some attack names proper Japanese nouns while's other's are changed to English translated equivalents?' I'm just wondering where we should draw the line as to what should be translated and what should be left in Japanese. (Kamehameha, Taiyo Ken, Makankosappo as examples used in the Kai dub.)

I assume the FUNimation scriptwriters wanted to throw sub fans a bone, but they were unwilling to go all the way for certain attack names (Spirit Bomb) because they felt they were too iconic. Same reason they finally pronounced Kaioken correctly, but continue to pronounce Saiyan and Namek incorrectly.

[MasenkoHA]

. Which of all the mispronunciations they could have fixed is probably the most important one. Even Sean Schmmel admitted that the pronunciation makes no sense in some 2+ hour interview he did.

It's also the one mispronounciation they never could have gotten away with fixing because it's unfortunately too iconic and engrained in the pop culture lexicon

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

If people want an English dub that uses the correct pronunciation the only options available or that they will almost certainly ever have are the Filipino Creative Corp Product dub and the Big Green dub of the GT special. The former was pre-Funimation and the latter ironically was probably Pan's actor or the ADR director correctly guessing the pronunciation of a word they're not familiar with French citizens.

No other dubs will use anything other than "Say An" because its too iconic. The Bang Zoom dub of Super uses Tenshinhan, Ki and Shenlong but to no one's surprise the Barry Watsonized Saiyan was kept. Blue Water GT also used Ki and had more accurate names and pronunciations, but yet Saiyan remained intact. We know Ocean's dub of Kai uses Naw-Mek, Tenkaichi Budokai if the Nicktoons edits are anything to go by, Drummond has said Goku with emphasis on the latter half of his name in recent years, but Karl Willems has all but confirmed they aren't changing Saiyan because it's too ingrained in the fandom.

Saiyan is not going away, it was too late when Funimation were dubbing Kai and its certainly too late now. For better or for worse we just need to accept it because it will always be there in English dubs other than those very rare exceptions, neither of which could happen anymore.