Would you like to hear the Funimation voice cast imitate the original Japanese voices in future English dubs?

[TechExpert2021]

Would you like to have Funimation direct their in-house voice cast to imitate the original Japanese voices? I mean, we might get Sean Schemmel sounding like Masako Nozawa for Goku, Chris Sabat sounding like Ryo Horikawa for Vegeta, and Cynthia Cranz sounding like Naoko Watanabe for Chi-Chi. If the actors themselves couldn't do it, they might just go with a complete recast from the ground up so Funimation could hire actors (or bring in other actors from their in-house talent) that can imitate the Japanese voices.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

No, I wouldn't. As we saw when the inhouse cast were first hired directing performers to imitate another cast is the last thing you want to do if the goal is to get a natural, believable sounding voice. Karl Willems said in a livestream that he always goes for character matches, rather than voice matches.

As that pertains to the characters you mentioned it would mean for Goku directing an actor to give off a childlike, battle-obsessed, country bumpkin voice would be preferable to them sounding like Masako Nozawa, or for Vegeta ideally the actor should sound prideful, charismatic and princely instead of trying their best to mimic Ryo Horikawa.

[Majin Buu]

No, if only because that cast isn't really built for it.

If we're talking about say: Ditching the Funimation cast entirely and recasting everyone with an ear for voice actors that naturally sound like their Japanese counterparts, then yes.

But trying to make the Funimation cast as we know it sound like the Japanese cast would be like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

[jjgp1112]

Absolutely not. The Japanese cast is but one take on the characters, not the end all be all. Trying to imitate people is part of why the Funi dub started off so poorly in the first place. Sean Schemmel even said he didn't start to actually get good at Goku until he stopped trying to immitate Peter Kelamis and started doing what he was capable of, for example.

Toei casted for the character...why should the dub do any differently? Now sure, there are certain vocal archetypes like Whis where it's actually pretty easy to find somebody with a similar take as the Japanese actor, but even that still comes down to the character.

[MasenkoHA]

Not only would I not want a new cast hired to imitate the Japanese cast, I absolutely would not want the Funimation cast trying to imitate the Japanese cast.


Also like all these other threads what would the point of any of this? They already dubbed 5 complete series, 21 movies, and 3 tv specials. This hypothetical course change would impact, what, Daima and any future video games?

Would it be nice if Funimation took its cue from the Japanese version and had the narrator voice King Kai (not in imitation of Joji Yanami though) instead of Schemmel doing his weird Buddy Hackett choking on saliva take? Sure. I guess
Would it change the fact that Z, GT, Kai, and Super all have King Kai sounding like Buddy Hackett choking on his saliva? No, it wouldn't.

[Majin Buu]

Also like all these other threads what would the point of any of this?

With how specific the question is, it comes off like the TC is either fishing for a certain response or looking to start yet another dub vs. sub discussion.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Also like all these other threads what would the point of any of this?

With how specific the question is, it comes off like the TC is either fishing for a certain response or looking to start yet another dub vs. sub discussion.

Not necessarily, a lot of fans are under the assumption for an actor to give a good performance they need to imitate the original cast, which is not true. Peter Kelamis once described beautifully why this is not the approach taken in the industry:

Peter Kelamis wrote:

The level and emotion of the original performance is attempted to be re-created but not the voice. If I tried to re-create the original voice I think I would run the risk of hitting a note so high that I may not be able to have children in future life.

[Jord]

Ryo Horikawa already speaks English. Just cast him as the English Vegeta as well.

[GhostEmperorX]

Would you like to have Funimation direct their in-house voice cast to imitate the original Japanese voices? I mean, we might get

No, and there's really no point in that either. No dub cast anywhere is going to sound like their JP counterparts.
There's only one example of that (in Movie 2 of the Pioneer-produced Ocean dub where Kelamis does a Kaio-ken scream that is close to Nozawa's), but that was only for one specific scene and not something that can be done that way throughout the whole performance.
You can suggest general guidelines (like with the late Chris Ayres) but not outright imitating a performance.

[Thanos]

The current legacy cast members who were selected to imitate the original Ocean cast can only do so much to truly convey a more accurate portrayal. I have a feeling an inspired cast selection, coming from the perspective of producers who know these characters (unlike how it was when they were originally cast) would make them sound a whole lot different from how they currently sound. Schemmel was hired to imitate another guy who was chosen to sound like two other guys who sound like generic masculine heroes. A more inspired choice would likely sound more boyish and even possibly slightly androgynous. Sean Schemmel does his best, but his voice is a bit "heavy" to be able to pull it off convincingly.

Not to mention all the other characters which, even for Kai and its recasts, seem to have unshakable archetypes set in stone, left over from that original Ocean cast. Karin sounds like a chainsmoker from Boston, Jheese is from Space Australia, and Kaio is... um, whatever the hell Schemmel is doing with his mouth when he says the character's lines. Who could have known that the arbitrary decisions by Barry Watson and co. would somehow etch themselves into the canon of dub loyalists 25 years later?

[bkev]

I think it'd be fun as a one-off or a con gag, but absolutely not otherwise. Whether you're fond of their portrayals or not, it's clear that they feel (and to a degree take) ownership of their performances. Even those with less-than-sparking personalities feel indebted to Dragonball and give their all each time they're at the mic, and I wouldn't want to mess with that.

[TheSeductiveTomato]

Yes, just because the "I hate when Goku sounds like a girl" crowd would throw a fit.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Yes, just because the "I hate when Goku sounds like a girl" crowd would throw a fit.

This is by far the best answer.

[gokaiblue]

I would appreciate if the Englidh cast tool more cues from the Japanese cast, and I think some have. However, they don't necessarily need to imitate them exactly.

[Tian]

I would appreciate if the Englidh cast tool more cues from the Japanese cast, and I think some have. However, they don't necessarily need to imitate them exactly.

Yeah, I'd rather them to take more notes of the mannerisms from the Japanese cast portrayals than them sounding like carbon copies of the latter.

Besides, voice standards differ from country to country. There are some kind of voices from one country (or even a continent) that will always sound as either artificial or weird in another.

The recasts of the LatAm Spanish dub of Kai weren't only hated because several actors of Z's dub were replaced but also because the recasts were voice-matched from the FUNi cast.

[TheGreatness25]

I don't think they should imitate the Japanese cast, but at least do a proper adaptation. Serious character performances should sound serious. It's hard to put into words, but to me, a lot of the original in-house Funimation dub cast members seem to make cartoon-y, obviously put-on voices that make the roles a bit insincere.

You know the kid that's trying to be more wacky and silly than he actually is just for laughs, to the point where it's annoying? That's how Schemmel's Goku sounds to me. I like him in serious moments or while he's fighting, but in the downtime, I just hear the "let me make Goku sound like a silly, spaced-out guy" take on him. Likewise, Vegeta's voice sounds pretty sincere when he's casual or mad, but sounds super cartoon-y and insincere when he's trying to do comedy. Characters like "King Kai" and "Yamcha" always sound insincere because of how goofy their voices are, to the point where I can't even take their serious moments seriously.

The cast has really improved (especially Strait's "Krillin" and Sabat's Piccolo, though for character distinction I kind of preferred the original raspy voice that Sabat gave him), but there's still this scent of "let me make a cartoon voice" rather than "let me act as this character."

It's super hard to explain, but that's how I feel about the English dub cast. And I absolutely never felt that with the Ocean dub performances except for "Master Roshi" after Corlett left. This doesn't take into account the later episodes, but for those first two "sagas," it felt like the voice actors were actually acting rather than putting on silly cartoon voices, which made the characters feel like actual people all of the time instead of in some situations.

[GhostEmperorX]

I don't think they should imitate the Japanese cast, but at least do a proper adaptation. Serious character performances should sound serious. It's hard to put into words, but to me, a lot of the original in-house Funimation dub cast members seem to make cartoon-y, obviously put-on voices that make the roles a bit insincere.

There was once a set of posts about this point in particular, let's see if they can be pulled up again since they explain it in quite a bit of detail.

I'll go on record also as saying that there's never, EVER been an English voice for Muten Roshi or Kaio in ANY incarnation of the dub that was anything other than agonizingly unlistenable and irritating in the extreme. I don't know what it is about those two particular characters that pulls so much unmitigated hacky shittiness from all English incarnations of DB/Z, but good lord. Both characters are total jokes who are played COMPLETELY straight and serious in the original, the stark contrast of which is what makes them so damned effective, likable, and memorable: and yet in all versions of an English dub, they're just broad, surface-level caricatures in the most overly-literal, on-the-nose fashion which robs virtually all the personality and distinctiveness that they naturally had to begin with and just renders them into punchable, nails-on-a-chalkboard monstrosities of stereotypical "cartoon" over-acting.

The characters themselves as written and conceived are goofy, silly stereotypes (Roshi in particular), but their Japanese actors totally do not treat them that way in their approach to their performances in the slightest. With Roshi I'm speaking specifically about his original Japanese VA Kohei Miyauchi (Roshi's other various seiyuu following him were varying levels of meh to awful). Miyauchi is easily one of the most layered and versatile performances in the entire damn series, going from silly and wacky to fatherly and warm to grizzly stone cold badass on a dime and TOTALLY selling each and every one of these sides to the character with equal amounts of authority and conviction. Guy was damned talented.

Kaio's in a similar fashion: he's dippy in both his physical appearance and personality, but Joji Yanami gives the character amazing degrees of depth in how he plays him, being able to sell the character as both a goofball with a corny sense of humor as well as a genuine deity with a commanding, divine presence. Totally clashing personality traits to be sure, and yet it all coalesces and takes a simple, silly character and gives him nuance and gravitas.

They both deliver an actual (and successful) stab at genuine acting in other words.

What the U.S. VAs do with the characters is play them as not only tonally broad, but totally one dimensional and thuddingly literal: what you see is what you get. Kaio looks like a catfish person and makes stupid jokes, so he should sound like a moron with a speech impediment. Muten Roshi is a very old man, so lets get a guy who's clearly in his 20s or 30s to do his best over the top doofy "old geezer" voice that can in NO way be taken the least bit seriously when it comes time for the character to have actual dramatic scenes and legit action sequences (which he has plenty of pre-Z).

Dragon Ball is a silly cartoon, but what makes the Japanese version great is that the production doesn't TREAT it like its a silly cartoon. Its a silly cartoon treated as if its grandiose, epic myth (albeit often with tongue in cheek still), and the conviction behind that is what helps push the anime from being just another dumb shonen show into being something genuinely special and memorable.

Both the Ocean and original FUNi dub do not in any way follow in this approach: they treat the series as just another disposable, schlocky 80s or 90s American Saturday morning cartoon: one of the most awful, and worthless genres of anything in existence (IMO: I'm well aware that this view is very much an odd one out here).

And I think I may have seen the point made in different places as well, to a similar extent, but these are all I've got for now.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

For anyone that wants a Roshi that doesn't put on a goofy old nan voice there's Dean Galloway in the Blue Water dub.I can't find any clips but Galloway did play Kaio-Sama too and his portrayal was okay.

I'm so glad good quality recordings of this dub, including episode 71 of Dragon Ball have finally been found. Soon we will be able to watch it synced up to Dragon Box video and it will be the best way to experience what I think is the better dub of original Dragon Ball.

[Peach]

No. Even though Funimation has made some questionable decisions (looking at you Magetta), they've also made some good decisions like giving Goku/Goten/Gohan and Frieza/Cooler/Frost separate voice actors, giving Frieza a new distinct voice, and casting James Marsters and Charles Martinet in recent roles. I would encourage the English dub to continue being diverse and encouraging actors to give their own take on the characters.

If Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, or any of the main characters had to be replaced in the future, I would want that actor to give their take -- not an impression of a Japanese actor or former English actor.