Best and worst recasts

[GhostEmperorX]

I am talking about-

Not exactly sure if it's a good idea to perpetuate the derailing of your own topic...

[Vhanos]

Personally thinking Yuichi Nakamura would have been a better choice than Hikaru Midorikawa to succeed Hirotaka Suzuoki as Tenshinhan.

I do like Hikaru Midorikawa. But I agree that he isn't the best replacement for the person who originally did Tien.

Yuichi Nakamura might get a shot with the franchise in the future when there is more Dragon Ball coming out and future projects.

That being said, I also don't care if a cis man voices the Son family next. Literally anyone can voice them, once Nozawa has retired.

Nozawa isn't retiring. She hasn't retired. In fact, she hasn't shown she wants to quit, she'll keep voicing Goku. She will have to be dead for that to be taken from her.

A lot of times voice actors/actresses in the anime industry can go on for a long time or do roles until the day they die. There are cases where voice actors/actresses retire. That's due to personal reasons and changes in career or pursuit of other jobs and occupation. Most of the time though they can go on, especially when their service is needed.

Many of the Japanese VA for Dragon Ball are still around and active. Many of them are still working and doing other anime. The ones who have been around before the franchise's resurrection.

The last anime role Nozawa did other than Dragon Ball is Go Go Loser Ranger. Albeit the character she does in that show isn't the main character or character who sees a significant amount of time.

[Vhanos]

Best: The new Japanese actress for Bulma. She sounds uncannily like the original. Great job.

Aya Hisakawa or Mai Nakahara? Hisakawa is the adult version, and Nakahara is the mini version.

I like both of them. I've watched and listened to both of them for years.

[JulieYBM]

Nozawa isn't retiring. She hasn't retired. In fact, she hasn't shown she wants to quit, she'll keep voicing Goku. She will have to be dead for that to be taken from her.

A lot of times voice actors/actresses in the anime industry can go on for a long time or do roles until the day they die. There are cases where voice actors/actresses retire. That's due to personal reasons and changes in career or pursuit of other jobs and occupation. Most of the time though they can go on, especially when their service is needed.

Many of the Japanese VA for Dragon Ball are still around and active. Many of them are still working and doing other anime. The ones who have been around before the franchise's resurrection.

The last anime role Nozawa did other than Dragon Ball is Go Go Loser Ranger. Albeit the character she does in that show isn't the main character or character who sees a significant amount of time.

I'm well aware that numerous Dragon Ball actors remain active as voice actors, despite their advanced ages. Most of those actors are not about to turn 89 years old, like Nozawa will be in less than two months. Furthermore, actors have retired from their roles for various reasons that are inevitably tied to age and it is not unreasonable to think that perhaps screaming your lungs out at in your 70s, 80s, and 90s is not something actors can and should be doing.

So, yes, Nozawa is either going to retire eventually or pass away before she can do so. Would you like to guess why I chose to assume the former over the latter will happen?

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

While not a recasting I was never a fan of Takeshi Kusao voicing the child version of Trunks. His child voice always felt forced to me. I don't know if he's ever had trouble producing it, but it just doesn't feel right to me. To be fair there have been cases of male actors voicing their character's child variants before and since. For example in "King of the Hill" Mike Judge, Johnny Hardwick, and Stephen Root voiced Hank, Boomhauer, Dale, and Bill's child variants in flashbacks, but those were always kept short and were used as vehicles to deliver jokes. Other comedies like the Simpsons have done this as well. But, that's the keyword, comedy.
My problem with Kusao's voice for kid Trunks is that I don't think it lends itself well to dramatic moments that we're supposed to take seriously. This is a rare case where I think that the English localization team took the better approach by casting Laura Bailey to voice Trunks instead of having Eric Vale try to do a high pitched kid voice (although thinking about it that might be kind of funny to see). The Ocean dub during the Westwood era actually had Peter Kelamis voice kid Goku in a flashback scene and it just doesn't work at all. Here's a link if anyone wants to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrhyxvjB7UY
I think that the Japanese version should have done the same.

[MasenkoHA]

While not a recasting I was never a fan of Takeshi Kusao voicing the child version of Trunks. His child voice always felt forced to me. I don't know if he's ever had trouble producing it, but it just doesn't feel right to me. To be fair there have been cases of male actors voicing their character's child variants before and since. For example in "King of the Hill" Mike Judge, Johnny Hardwick, and Stephen Root voiced Hank, Boomhauer, Dale, and Bill's child variants in flashbacks, but those were always kept short and were used as vehicles to deliver jokes. Other comedies like the Simpsons have done this as well. But, that's the keyword, comedy.
My problem with Kusao's voice for kid Trunks is that I don't think it lends itself well to dramatic moments that we're supposed to take seriously. This is a rare case where I think that the English localization team took the better approach by casting Laura Bailey to voice Trunks instead of having Eric Vale try to do a high pitched kid voice (although thinking about it that might be kind of funny to see). The Ocean dub during the Westwood era actually had Peter Kelamis voice kid Goku in a flashback scene and it just doesn't work at all. Here's a link if anyone wants to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrhyxvjB7UY
I think that the Japanese version should have done the same.

Agreed, Takeshi Kusao as chibi Trunks honestly sounded ridiculous and they should have recasted with a woman or a child actor.

[JulieYBM]

Kusao's voice wasn’t too bad during the 1990s, but age clearly only made it much worse as time went on. He definitely should have let the role go on to a different actor.

Tsuru Hiromi voiced baby Trunks, so I'm curious how it would have worked if she had voiced Kid Trunks, too.

[Hellspawn28]

When it comes to voice actors, I do agree that picking people's gender or race is important for the role. I prefer to have a woman voice a woman, or a man voice a man, or someone who is non-binary/agender voice someone who is genderless. Masako Nozawa as adult Goku is fine because her voice fits the goofy man child nature of Goku, and not all men need to have deep voices. That's a rare exception that I'm willing to make.

[MasenkoHA]

When it comes to voice actors, I do agree that picking people's gender or race is important for the role. I prefer to have a woman voice a woman, or a man voice a man, or someone who is non-binary/agender voice someone who is genderless. Masako Nozawa as adult Goku is fine because her voice fits the goofy man child nature of Goku, and not all men need to have deep voices. That's a rare exception that I'm willing to make.

Mayumi Tanaka as adult Kuririn also works great tbh. Masako Nozawa as teen/adult Gohan is the only role where I’m like hmm should have recast with a man

and the aforementioned Takeshi Kusao as kid Trunks needing a woman to voice him (seconding Julie that Hiromi Tsuru could have been great) or a young boy

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

When it comes to voice actors, I do agree that picking people's gender or race is important for the role. I prefer to have a woman voice a woman, or a man voice a man, or someone who is non-binary/agender voice someone who is genderless. Masako Nozawa as adult Goku is fine because her voice fits the goofy man child nature of Goku, and not all men need to have deep voices. That's a rare exception that I'm willing to make.

It's strange, despite not starting out with the Japanese version I just don't feel it anymore when I hear adult Goku with a man's voice. I don't know if it's because it's too "masculine", or if I've just become too attached to Nozawa's voice to accept anyone else in the role for the time being.

[JulieYBM]

It won't bother me if a man takes over voicing Gokuu after Nozawa is no longer voicing him. It'll be interesting to see if the production committee partners go down that route or not, especially given where the industry is these days with a lot of shounen leads being voiced by men now.

[coola]

Worst: 99% replacements for Kai, it's hard to explain, but almost all of them sounded either phony or tried too hard.
Best: For Polish dub, current cast is so much improvement over DBZ Movie 12/13, where, if you watched cartoons in late 1990's/early 2000's, all you could hear are other characters they voiced

[Jord]

Worst: 99% replacements for Kai, it's hard to explain, but almost all of them sounded either phony or tried too hard.
Best: For Polish dub, current cast is so much improvement over DBZ Movie 12/13, where, if you watched cartoons in late 1990's/early 2000's, all you could hear are other characters they voiced

Do you mean the Japanese or English dub?

[Yellow Flower King]

I am a bit weirded out by no one mentioning casting trans people or even cross race casting that has worked out splendidly, and I dont even just mean it for Goku who is unusually voiced for foreign audiences taste.

[JulieYBM]

I am a bit weirded out by no one mentioning casting trans people or even cross race casting that has worked out splendidly, and I dont even just mean it for Goku who is unusually voiced for foreign audiences taste.

Everyone ever should be voiced by a trans woman

[Yellow Flower King]

I am a bit weirded out by no one mentioning casting trans people or even cross race casting that has worked out splendidly, and I dont even just mean it for Goku who is unusually voiced for foreign audiences taste.

Everyone ever should be voiced by a trans woman

Maddie Blaustein walked so trans people could go into lightspeed!

[coola]

Worst: 99% replacements for Kai, it's hard to explain, but almost all of them sounded either phony or tried too hard.
Best: For Polish dub, current cast is so much improvement over DBZ Movie 12/13, where, if you watched cartoons in late 1990's/early 2000's, all you could hear are other characters they voiced

Do you mean the Japanese or English dub?

Ah, sorry, Japanese of course.

[jjgp1112]

Chris Ayres as Frieza is damn near a 100% approval rating, so I'll say that

While not a recasting I was never a fan of Takeshi Kusao voicing the child version of Trunks. His child voice always felt forced to me. I don't know if he's ever had trouble producing it, but it just doesn't feel right to me. To be fair there have been cases of male actors voicing their character's child variants before and since. For example in "King of the Hill" Mike Judge, Johnny Hardwick, and Stephen Root voiced Hank, Boomhauer, Dale, and Bill's child variants in flashbacks, but those were always kept short and were used as vehicles to deliver jokes. Other comedies like the Simpsons have done this as well. But, that's the keyword, comedy.
My problem with Kusao's voice for kid Trunks is that I don't think it lends itself well to dramatic moments that we're supposed to take seriously. This is a rare case where I think that the English localization team took the better approach by casting Laura Bailey to voice Trunks instead of having Eric Vale try to do a high pitched kid voice (although thinking about it that might be kind of funny to see). The Ocean dub during the Westwood era actually had Peter Kelamis voice kid Goku in a flashback scene and it just doesn't work at all. Here's a link if anyone wants to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrhyxvjB7UY
I think that the Japanese version should have done the same.

Also helped that Laura Bailey believably sounded like a younger version of Vale's Trunks voice. Also why I'm a huge fan of Laurie Steele as Kid Krillin and don't get why Funi didn't cast a soundalike assuming she wasn't available. For years I actually thought it was Sonny Strait lmao


No more Jord bait in 2025, guys

[funrush]

Ayres was my first thought when I saw the thread title too. Linda Young is a legend but Chris Ayres is the Freeza voice in my head.

Not sure who I would say is the worst in the U.S. dubs. I always thought Colleen Clinkenbeard wasn't as good a fit for Kid Goku as Stephanie Nadolny, but she wasn't bad or anything. And she was great as Kid Gohan. But for 12 year old Tarzan boy Kid Goku Stephanie's rasp made more sense for me.

[Tian]

Besides the legendary and wonderful Chris Ayres, one of the best FUNi Kai recasts was Doc Morgan as the narrator.

I'm glad that Sabat finally realized that Dragon Ball wasn't a goddamn TLC reality series and replaced Hebert.