Funimation's Early "Accurate dubs" vs their later work (Both DB and others)

[Cure Dragon 255]

Robo made me realize something, despite the overall overhaul of their dubs, and the fact that Yu Yu Hakusho (Their earliest attempt at not DBZ'ing a dub) was very rough, for some reason their earlier dubs feel like they are a lot better.

DBZ didnt really get the "Yeah no, this Barry Watson era shit is not acceptable" until Kai, but then Robo commented on how overstuffed the scripts are and how the acting is good but not really outstanding but seeming that way because it really was the best DB dub at the time.

I saw this video and while there is a lot to criticize (Awful Japanese Name pronounciation, the acting feels more fresh and lively)

Fruits Basket 2001

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D39zbXRSTZo

Fruits Basket 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FtA7oiHhNI

[TechExpert2021]

So, you're saying that Funimation's earlier dubs "feel like they are a lot better"? For their dub of Yu Yu Hakusho, yes, since it is one of FUNimation's early attempts at not "DBZ'ing a dub" (in other words, they didn't do the arbitrary re-versioning practices of their in-house dub of Yu Yu Hakusho).

For their dubs of DBZ and DBGT, no. Both dubs got massive amounts of hate on the Internet during the 1990s and 2000s, especially on Dragon Ball fansites like DBZ Uncensored, Daizenshuu EX, and Planet Namek. The hate those dubs get is primarily why I want complete and uncut English redubs of both DBZ and DBGT with faithful scripts, translations, and no arbitrary changes (like replacing the soundtrack, changing certain lines of dialogue, and censoring or removing scenes). But that'll never happen at all, unfortunately.

Their 2001 in-house dub of OG DB is their least hated dub, but their arbitrary re-versioning practices (like censoring their dub to make it suitable for American children, making lines less faithful to the original Japanese dialogue, spoiling the fact that Son Goku was raised by Grandpa Son Gohan in the first episode, censoring General Blue's gayness and pedophilia, pandering to DBZ fans by including mentions of "power levels", and so on; at least it retains the original Japanese soundtrack) ruined it.

Also, the only thing that makes FUNimation's early "accurate dubs" better than their modern dubs is that their early accurate dubs have no arbitrary modern SJW propaganda references or lines shoved into them.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Indeed Kai's scripts are overstuffed and Super takes a lot of liberties, but both dubs are still leagues better than Funimation's early dubs.

Even the dubs people point to as being "better" than Dragon Ball Z like original Dragon Ball are merely a step in the right direction but still far from being great. There is still a lot of nonsense in that dub, like the already said mentions of "power levels", as well as making shit up like Black's sister, changing of some character motivations, spoiling Piccolo and Kami not being from Earth, etc.

Blue Water's dub of Dragon Ball is the way to go for watching in English, and I'm hoping since we'll have good quality recordings soon enough more people will start to give that dub a chance.

From what I recall Funimation's most accurate "early" Dragon Ball dub is not the original series or the Buu saga (which people also defend a lot) but Dragon Ball Z movie 8.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

Also, the only thing that makes FUNimation's early "accurate dubs" better than their modern dubs is that their early accurate dubs have no arbitrary modern SJW propaganda references or lines shoved into them.

Aside from that one instance in the Dragon Maid dub that did genuinely break the character's established personality quirks, the practice of "shoving SJW Propaganda" into anime dubs is grossly over exaggerated. More often than not most dubs from Funimation or otherwise have a general base level quality which usually attempts to portray the material as authentically as possible. That doesn't mean that they have brilliant acting or scripting, that's subjective, but we've long left behind any remnants of the 4Kids days.

[MasenkoHA]

, spoiling the fact that Son Goku was raised by Grandpa Son
Gohan in the first episode

Lolwut

It's probably best to know what you're talking about, instead of repeating things you heard from others

Also, the only thing that makes FUNimation's early "accurate dubs" better than their modern dubs is that their early accurate dubs have no arbitrary modern SJW propaganda references or lines shoved into them.

Sjw propaganda such as? Or see my above point

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

"SJW Propoganda" is a relatively recent critical buzz term, and an element people try to find in any piece of media, but in most cases its not there. Its merely an acknowledgement that there are strong women and people of colour and different nationalities and sexualities exist.

I don't see it being shoved down people's throats as much as others claim it is. Certainly not in Dragon Ball's dubs or even recent Disney movies people point to as examples.

[VegettoEX]

Irony and hypocrisy truly are dead.

Literally blasted out of my seat into the stratosphere upon reading someone pearl-clutching over the integrity and accuracy of English dubs in a historical context, citing the "whoops turns out we only have one SJW talking point from a decade ago" example from FUNimation, in the same breath as and on a forum dedicated to Dragon Ball.

[MasenkoHA]

In response to Cure's original post I feel a lot of modern anime dubs suffer from voice actors trying to emulate the Japanese style of acting or something and it just doesn't translate well into English.

Funi enough, I don't think Kai or Super's dubs really have that problem. Clinkenbeard does that "standard anime boy voice" thing that modern dubs seem to do but other than that it's not something those dubs have a problem wirh

But compare the style of dub acting from YuYu Hakusho or InuYasha or Tenchi Muyo (pre-GXP at least) to the style of acting of Studiopolis's Sailor Moon dub or Netflix's Neon Genesis Evagaelion or Demon Slayer and there's definitely been a shift in the style of line delivery that I'm not a fan of.

[Soppa Saia People]

Honestly as far as Funimation dubs, I think Fruits Basket 2001 is pretty much the best I've heard from them, even the more masculine characters (which is generally my biggest issues with dubs, I think most female characters tend to sound more natural) sound solid, and I think Laura Bailey is like, considerably better then Yui Horie.

I do think the change in directing in dubs, is pretty undeniable, and frankly for the most part I find it pretty worse across the board. I actually think Kai doesn't have it too bad, but what little episodes of Super's dub, I really didn't like as far as that stuff goes.

[Cure Dragon 255]

So, you're saying that Funimation's earlier dubs "feel like they are a lot better"? For their dub of Yu Yu Hakusho, yes, since it is one of FUNimation's early attempts at not "DBZ'ing a dub" (in other words, they didn't do the arbitrary re-versioning practices of their in-house dub of Yu Yu Hakusho).

For their dubs of DBZ and DBGT, no. Both dubs got massive amounts of hate on the Internet during the 1990s and 2000s, especially on Dragon Ball fansites like DBZ Uncensored, Daizenshuu EX, and Planet Namek. The hate those dubs get is primarily why I want complete and uncut English redubs of both DBZ and DBGT with faithful scripts, translations, and no arbitrary changes (like replacing the soundtrack, changing certain lines of dialogue, and censoring or removing scenes). But that'll never happen at all, unfortunately.

Their 2001 in-house dub of OG DB is their least hated dub, but their arbitrary re-versioning practices (like censoring their dub to make it suitable for American children, making lines less faithful to the original Japanese dialogue, spoiling the fact that Son Goku was raised by Grandpa Son Gohan in the first episode, censoring General Blue's gayness and pedophilia, pandering to DBZ fans by including mentions of "power levels", and so on; at least it retains the original Japanese soundtrack) ruined it.

Also, the only thing that makes FUNimation's early "accurate dubs" better than their modern dubs is that their early accurate dubs have no arbitrary modern SJW propaganda references or lines shoved into them.

I had already mentioned I meant that DBZ was their worst dub and dubbing for the franchise didnt get good until Kai.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I think Funimation's dub of GT is their worst dub, yes the scripts aren't as bad as early Z but it's the one Dragon Ball show I don't think Funimation could have misunderstood any more.

The inhouse Z dub hasn't aged well, but for better or for worse I can understand why it appeals to children ignorant about Dragon Ball's themes. There's a corny charm to it that Funimation's GT lacks, I don't know what it is, but the former has a "good because it's so bad" vibe whereas the latter is "bad because its bad".

The upped edginess, dull, dreary generic metal score (which it's clearly intended to be watched with), exaggeated serious tone all make for a dub that is trying it's best to completely miss the point of GT, and it succeeds astonishingly.

I'm happy to defend elements of most dubs, but Funimation's GT can burn, no one needs it

[ThunderPX]

The word "accurate" gets thrown around a lot when it comes to anime dubs (and localizing Japanese stuff in general), but I think a lot of disagreements arise because people don't even have a common understanding of an "accurate" localization.

Yu Yu Hakusho gets brought up a lot as an example of a good dub from FUNi's heyday, but if you went over the dialogue with a fine-toothed comb it wouldn't necessarily be that accurate... instead, what makes that dub enjoyable is that they understood the spirit of the show really well, and so they know when to punch up a line to make Yusuke seem like more of a little shit, or make Kuwabara extra goofy or what have you, without compromising the actual essence of the characters or the story.

Compare that to DBZ, where for a significant part of that dub nobody seemed to have any clue how the characters should act, or what the story and themes were, or... even how the setting worked? I noticed this even as a dumb little kid, and I kept watching anyway just because I could tell that there was a really good show hiding underneath that incompetence, trying to get through.

I don't watch a lot of dubs nowadays because they all seem to try and conform to a currently popular style of script writing that I can't stand, filled with this pervasive... glibness or smugness. It's difficult to describe, but it makes me feel like I'm not watching characters do things, but watching a writer trying to convince me how clever they are. This is something that happens in a lot of American stuff nowadays, regardless of the medium.

A little while ago I was trying out some anime from my backlog, and I'd watch them dubbed if available because it meant I could do other things while watching. This one show, Haganai, had characters who are supposed to be social outcasts who can't figure out how to be popular in high school, but the script had them all be incredible smooth talkers. Flip the language and hey, what do you know, they don't talk like that in Japanese at all and the show makes more sense as a result.

I think the YYH-type script of understanding the spirit and adapting that to the target language has given way to this uniform style where everything is "calculatedly cool" and it's kind of boring to watch.

(Incidentally, the infamous "Are you one of those GamerGate people" quip from Prison School is actually perfectly in spirit with the Japanese line, because the underlying sentiment in both languages is "oh, you're a fucking loser aren't you")

[Cure Dragon 255]

The word "accurate" gets thrown around a lot when it comes to anime dubs (and localizing Japanese stuff in general), but I think a lot of disagreements arise because people don't even have a common understanding of an "accurate" localization.

Yu Yu Hakusho gets brought up a lot as an example of a good dub from FUNi's heyday, but if you went over the dialogue with a fine-toothed comb it wouldn't necessarily be that accurate... instead, what makes that dub enjoyable is that they understood the spirit of the show really well, and so they know when to punch up a line to make Yusuke seem like more of a little shit, or make Kuwabara extra goofy or what have you, without compromising the actual essence of the characters or the story.

Compare that to DBZ, where for a significant part of that dub nobody seemed to have any clue how the characters should act, or what the story and themes were, or... even how the setting worked? I noticed this even as a dumb little kid, and I kept watching anyway just because I could tell that there was a really good show hiding underneath that incompetence, trying to get through.

I don't watch a lot of dubs nowadays because they all seem to try and conform to a currently popular style of script writing that I can't stand, filled with this pervasive... glibness or smugness. It's difficult to describe, but it makes me feel like I'm not watching characters do things, but watching a writer trying to convince me how clever they are. This is something that happens in a lot of American stuff nowadays, regardless of the medium.

A little while ago I was trying out some anime from my backlog, and I'd watch them dubbed if available because it meant I could do other things while watching. This one show, Haganai, had characters who are supposed to be social outcasts who can't figure out how to be popular in high school, but the script had them all be incredible smooth talkers. Flip the language and hey, what do you know, they don't talk like that in Japanese at all and the show makes more sense as a result.

I think the YYH-type script of understanding the spirit and adapting that to the target language has given way to this uniform style where everything is "calculatedly cool" and it's kind of boring to watch.

(Incidentally, the infamous "Are you one of those GamerGate people" quip from Prison School is actually perfectly in spirit with the Japanese line, because the underlying sentiment in both languages is "oh, you're a fucking loser aren't you")

Wow this is such a great post. To be honest, I dont watch shows English dubbed so I am glad I dodged that bullet, sure, in Latin America a separate issue is going on, I can put my finger on what it is but I can still watch shows like One Piece dubbed. And I am so glad because I really wanted a redub to happen for that one show. And we got it!

[JulieYBM]

I've never been able to stand the Yuu Yuu Hakusho dub. The way that it tries so hard to be funny is really annoying, and I think Rosie hit the nail on the head with her description. When I switched over to watching anime subbed only I was really taken aback by how much more I like the characters, especially Yuusuke and Hiei. Yuusuke's more of a sweet kid, even if he's rough around the edges, and Hiei isn't an insufferable asshole.

Like, damn, I hate to be that bitch, but at least the old Gundam dubs of the 2000s were both accurate and didn't have this weird psuedo-Joss Whedon/Hollywood bullshit going on with their scripts.

[jjgp1112]

Indeed Kai's scripts are overstuffed and Super takes a lot of liberties, but both dubs are still leagues better than Funimation's early dubs.

Even the dubs people point to as being "better" than Dragon Ball Z like original Dragon Ball are merely a step in the right direction but still far from being great. There is still a lot of nonsense in that dub, like the already said mentions of "power levels", as well as making shit up like Black's sister, changing of some character motivations, spoiling Piccolo and Kami not being from Earth, etc.

Blue Water's dub of Dragon Ball is the way to go for watching in English, and I'm hoping since we'll have good quality recordings soon enough more people will start to give that dub a chance.

From what I recall Funimation's most accurate "early" Dragon Ball dub is not the original series or the Buu saga (which people also defend a lot) but Dragon Ball Z movie 8.

Movie 6, too. Movie 6 had John Burgmeier in charge of the script while Movie 8 was Sabat.

Yu Yu Hakusho gets brought up a lot as an example of a good dub from FUNi's heyday, but if you went over the dialogue with a fine-toothed comb it wouldn't necessarily be that accurate... instead, what makes that dub enjoyable is that they understood the spirit of the show really well, and so they know when to punch up a line to make Yusuke seem like more of a little shit, or make Kuwabara extra goofy or what have you, without compromising the actual essence of the characters or the story.

My favorite example of Funi's punch ups in that dub was the scene where the Dark Tournament Nurse Lady whose name escapes me first shows up. When they're explaining that a doctor's coming out to do a check up on the competitors, Yusuke says, "As long as they don't grab my balls and make me cough." Then when hot nurse lady comes out, he adds, "Scratch that..."

Is it what he said in the Japanese version? Hell no. Does it get across the same "Hello, nurse!" reaction? Yes. Is it a funny and perfectly in character for a teenage delinquent? Also yes!

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

"Yeah no, this Barry Watson era shit is not acceptable"

A few years ago there was a forum asking how much impact Watson had on the dub, and I felt at the time (and still do) that Watson's impact can still be felt to this day to some extent. From the "Say-In" pronunciation that never got corrected to the need to "punch up" the scripts. I remember reading the Z Kai vol. 1 Blu-ray review mentioning Funimation still feeling the need to punch up the scripts. And, from what I can tell they still did it with Super.
Sean Schemmel in a podcast recalled his first recording session, and an interaction he had with someone who he exclusively referred to as "the producer". It went something like this: Schemmel: "How do you pronounce this word?" Watson: "Oh, we just call them 'Say-in's." Schemmel: "Then why is there an "I" before the "Y"?"
I'm pretty sure that he was referring to Watson because in that recollection he did an impression of "the producer", and he did this same impression at a panel advertising the English dubbed release of Kai. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6DYAb0VglY

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Yeah, Barry Watson's influence on Dragon Ball dubs will never completely go away.

Funimation tried to take a more faithful approach with their dub of Kai but then when Super came around they started throwing more nonsensical jokes into their dub, likely because of a misplaced belief that Z sells better than Kai because it punches up the scripts, and even Kai had the occasional one like Nappa's "I hate the media".

I think if we ever see Ocean Kai it will be really telling, as we've seen with the Pioneer movie dubs or even the Blue Water dubs of original Dragon Ball and GT how different Diana Gage's approach is. It will likely be even more faithful than Funimation's dub of Kai with more cases of accurate pronunciations, although we certainly shouldn't expect to hear the correct pronunciation of Saiyan, that is far too ingrained in the English fandom consciousness.

[MasenkoHA]

oo. Movie 6 had John Burgmeier in charge of the script while Movie 8 was Sabat.

If I remember correctly, Burgmeier also took over story editor duties from Chris Neel starting around production season 4 which is right when the scripts started getting less bad in general. There was still mistranslations, rewrites, and dumb jokes but a lot less "what the fuck are they smoking?" like Frieza comparing Ginyu to a cat and dog or Piccolo proclaiming "No my plan is full baked" when Krillin asked if his plan is half baked or Vegeta calling Krillin and Gohan "bad boys"

My favorite example of Funi's punch ups in that dub was the scene where the Dark Tournament Nurse Lady whose name escapes me first shows up. When they're explaining that a doctor's coming out to do a check up on the competitors, Yusuke says, "As long as they don't grab my balls and make me cough." Then when hot nurse lady comes out, he adds, "Scratch that..."

Is it what he said in the Japanese version? Hell no. Does it get across the same "Hello, nurse!" reaction? Yes. Is it a funny and perfectly in character for a teenage delinquent? Also yes!

See, I'm generally fine with punch up humor/liberally adapting a script if it gets the same point across and is in character. There's a difference between something like that and Goku knowing who Sir Isaac Newton is.

[CashMane]

I mean I thought Blue Gender had a pretty good dub and that was like 2001-2002.

[MasenkoHA]

I mean I thought Blue Gender had a pretty good dub and that was like 2001-2002.

Chris Sabat mentioned in an interview that Blue Gender was the first time they made a conscious effort to stay true to the Japanese version. A lot of that was because the producers (read Barry Watson and Gen Fukanaga) didn't care about that show and weren't paying attention like they were for the Dragon Ball series and Yuyu Hakusho