Unpopular DB opinions

[jjgp1112]

I will add something that might be controversial here, but:
I have watched the English dub, and 95% of it is the same as Japanese.
The other 5% are cases of obvious censorship, and I feel those who argue otherwise are arguing semantics.

The dialogue never really deterred any of my friends from understanding the story, I know because I was the annoying "I only watch subbed" guy watching it along with them and nagging them about the changes the dub made to the story, and as it turns out, I didn't have to do that a lot.

Even the dub scene where Goku spares Vegeta to show him "What being good is like, so he'll change eventually" (perhaps because the dubbers had the power of watching the whole finalized thing xD) ends up being half the case, as Vegeta explicitly says Goku spared him for sensing some good in him at the end of the Boo arc in Japanese.

Ehh this is not the case and the censorship argument is always pretty dishonest past the Saban episodes. What censorship needs warranted the crappy jokes that sometimes came at the expense of story beats, outright rewrites, Goku superhero speeches and off screen doalogue where there's originally silence.

To this day American fans and only American fans get critical information wrong about the show because all they watch is the dub...like literally go on Reddit; at least half the questions on r/dbz and r/dragonball on a given day can be answered with "Dub bullshit."

And I figure youre joking but I can assure you nobody at Funimation knew anything about later plot developments in 1996

Like yeah the dub even at its worst post-Saban was never as bad as the average 4Kids dub but that bar is in Mordor

I did not mention censorship as an excuse for bad dialogue, but for explicit character motivation rewrites.
Goku saying he's sparing Vegeta for sensing good in him rather than a selfish desire to fight him again.
Vegeta saying three years is not enough to find the Dragon Balls rather than threatening to murder the heroes.
Or the aforementioned superhero speeches.

We all know this was done to censor Goku and Vegeta into being more heroic and less kill/battle-prone.
I mentioned censorship an excuse for only those specifically, not the other 95% of the dub.
That's just bad dialogue and bad taste on part of the dubbers lol

That's not censorship, that's just rewrites.

[JulieYBM]

Unpopular non-Dragon Ball opinion: the Yuu Yuu Hakusho dub is insufferable. The dialogue and acting tries to make the characters snappy Hollywood-style characters and just winds being really cringey and fucks up characters' personalities. It a common thing with FUNimation dubs—Dragon Ball or not—and one that makes me glad that I gave up on dubs in general, because I wound up really enjoying the original version's depiction of Yuusuke a lot more.

Y'all should definitely check out Yuu Yuu Hakusho in the original language.

[PhantomSaiyan]

Unpopular non-Dragon Ball opinion: the Yuu Yuu Hakusho dub is insurable. The dialogue and acting tries to make the characters snappy Hollywood-style characters and just winds being really cringey and fucks up characters' personalities. It a common thing with FUNimation dubs—Dragon Ball or not—and one that makes me glad that I gave up on dubs in general, because I wound up really enjoying the original version's depiction of Yuusuke a lot more.

Y'all should definitely check out Yuu Yuu Hakusho in the original language.

100% Agree with this take, I wish it was more popular to prefer the sub for YYH, I've had enough of people acting like the dub is the "superior version that improves upon the story", I don't think that's true at all

[Yellow Flower King]

Unpopular non-Dragon Ball opinion: the Yuu Yuu Hakusho dub is insufferable. The dialogue and acting tries to make the characters snappy Hollywood-style characters and just winds being really cringey and fucks up characters' personalities. It a common thing with FUNimation dubs—Dragon Ball or not—and one that makes me glad that I gave up on dubs in general, because I wound up really enjoying the original version's depiction of Yuusuke a lot more.

Y'all should definitely check out Yuu Yuu Hakusho in the original language.

ITAMI WA JAMA DA! DOKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! (PAIN YOU ARE IN MY WAY! MOVE IT!!!!)

As much as I love dubs, I have to agree. Many great dub actors had their start on the Yu Yu Hakusho dub (Laura Bailey I think was in her first role) but it was dire.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I may finish the Yu Yu Hakusho dub someday. I got about 40(ish) episodes in and then switched to the Japanese version as I wasn't enjoying the dub. I know a lot of people like it though, to which I say more power to them.

[MasenkoHA]

Unpopular non-Dragon Ball opinion: the Yuu Yuu Hakusho dub is insufferable. The dialogue and acting tries to make the characters snappy Hollywood-style characters and just winds being really cringey and fucks up characters' personalities. It a common thing with FUNimation dubs—Dragon Ball or not—and one that makes me glad that I gave up on dubs in general, because I wound up really enjoying the original version's depiction of Yuusuke a lot more.

Y'all should definitely check out Yuu Yuu Hakusho in the original language.

ITAMI WA JAMA DA! DOKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! (PAIN YOU ARE IN MY WAY! MOVE IT!!!!)

As much as I love dubs, I have to agree. Many great dub actors had their start on the Yu Yu Hakusho dub (Laura Bailey I think was in her first role) but it was dire.

Laura Bailey had already been voicing quite a few characters for Dragon Ball and DBZ before they even got to Yu Yu Hakusho: kid Trunks, kid Chi Chi, Ranfan, and Erasa off the top of my head.

[Vhanos]

Unpopular non-Dragon Ball opinion: the Yuu Yuu Hakusho dub is insufferable. The dialogue and acting tries to make the characters snappy Hollywood-style characters and just winds being really cringey and fucks up characters' personalities. It a common thing with FUNimation dubs—Dragon Ball or not—and one that makes me glad that I gave up on dubs in general, because I wound up really enjoying the original version's depiction of Yuusuke a lot more.

Y'all should definitely check out Yuu Yuu Hakusho in the original language.

I did think the YYH dub presented itself like it was all cool and stuff. But it's not. Yes it was being like Hollywood.

As for the Japanese version of Yu Yu Hakusho. I've seen it. I'm not a fan of Megumi Ogata. A lot of the characters I've seen her do, in the anime shows I've watched with her in it, I don't like them. I find Kurama who she does in YYH boring. I didn't like Shinji Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion who she is probably most famous for. The character and voice of Shinji is annoying. The only character I like that she did is Yugi from Yugioh. The 1998 version of Yugioh. There was an old thread here suggesting that she be the one who takes the role of Goku if Masakao Nozawa is to be replaced. I don't find Megumi Ogata to be suitable for Goku. She doesn't fit Goku's character or personality.

[JulieYBM]

Unpopular non-Dragon Ball opinion: the Yuu Yuu Hakusho dub is insufferable. The dialogue and acting tries to make the characters snappy Hollywood-style characters and just winds being really cringey and fucks up characters' personalities. It a common thing with FUNimation dubs—Dragon Ball or not—and one that makes me glad that I gave up on dubs in general, because I wound up really enjoying the original version's depiction of Yuusuke a lot more.

Y'all should definitely check out Yuu Yuu Hakusho in the original language.

I did think the YYH dub presented itself like it was all cool and stuff. But it's not. Yes it was being like Hollywood.

As for the Japanese version of Yu Yu Hakusho. I've seen it. I'm not a fan of Megumi Ogata. A lot of the characters I've seen her do, in the anime shows I've watched with her in it, I don't like them. I find Kurama who she does in YYH boring. I didn't like Shinji Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion who she is probably most famous for. The character and voice of Shinji is annoying. The only character I like that she did is Yugi from Yugioh. The 1998 version of Yugioh. There was an old thread here suggesting that she be the one who takes the role of Goku if Masakao Nozawa is to be replaced. I don't find Megumi Ogata to be suitable for Goku. She doesn't fit Goku's character or personality.

Shinji is great because he reminds one of all the things one hates about oneself. I love rewatching Shin Seiki Evangelion for that reason, it provides me time to self-reflect and think about a lot of issues that people face.

[jjgp1112]

As someone that also went along with the consensus for a long time, I think Movies 4 and 11 are massively over-hated and I'd die on the hill of blaming the Pojo Magazines for making it a popular opinion that those movies suck...when really they're not worse than any other generic Z movie and Movie 11 actually goes for something completely different. If you wanna talk about Z movie Slop, look at 5, 6 ,7 9 and 10.

[JulieYBM]

Ueda's directing does a lot to make that third Broly film cool as hell looking. I need ro rewatch it soon, I've only done the one viewing.

[The Dark Knight]

As someone that also went along with the consensus for a long time, I think Movies 4 and 11 are massively over-hated.

I actually like Lord Slug, for the simple fact that it gave more screen time to a Namekian; Bio-Broly on the other hand...

[super michael]

I watched Yu Yu Hakusho in English Dub, mostly because at the time I didn't know how different the Japanese Sub and English Dub were before. I guess I will have to rewatch Yu Yu Hakusho in Japanese Sub, which will not be a problem since I enjoy that anime a lot.

[MCDaveG]

I watched Yu Yu Hakusho in English Dub, mostly because at the time I didn't know how different the Japanese Sub and English Dub were before. I guess I will have to rewatch Yu Yu Hakusho in Japanese Sub, which will not be a problem since I enjoy that anime a lot.

I bumped into Yu Yu Hakusho quite late, 20 years ago when it aired on Anime+ that rebranded as Animax later (R.I.P.) in Europe, it aired in Japanese with localized subtitles. I did enjoy it a lot and def more than Naruto or One Piece at the time. Also, cool openings and endings.
90s anime will always have special place in my heart. Great music, great atmosphere, digital anime will never beat the feeling of celshaded animation IMO.

And straight to unpopular opinion... or the road into it.
I really don't like US dub, never have – not much of an unpopular opinion outside of US. I grew up on German and French dubs with the original music and German Chala Head Chala rocks hard.
When I saw the Saban version, man, that was tedious... uninspiring depressive moody music, demented dialogues, not to mention the censorship. The later Funimation version with Faulconer score wasn't really better, non-stop mix of pounding synthrock (I did like it only in LOG and those VG remixes are superior to the TV versions) and that late 90s cringy edginess, granny Freeza (sry, Frieza)... BUT!

The opinion finally: I saw the first movies with Peter Kelamis some years ago out of curiosity and I honestly liked them a lot! In my honest unpopular opinion, Kelamis is the best Goku in english and I think the Ocean dubs of the first three movies are the best US (canadian) dub version of DBZ, even keeping the original soundtrack! If the whole series was done like that, I wouldn't have a problem to watch it in it's entirety without going back to Japanese dub, even tho I am purist and I will always prefer the original.

[MasenkoHA]

I think my Pioneer trilogy dub unpopular opinion is…I think the dub is maybe just a touch overrated. Kelamis was as miscast as ever with his Ninja Turtle sounding Goku and awkward line reads. Where. They. Goooooo? and I can’t fucking stand Don Brown’s Roshi to the point I almost prefer the Funimation dub of World’s Strongest (with the Kikuchi score of course)


I more like what the Pioneer dub of the first 3 Z movies represent; the potential we could of had if Funimation just followed their example and went into season 3 giving us accurate scripts and the original music and completely uncut and just edited it down as necessary to meet kids cable tv standards for the Toonami broadcast. Instead their only takeaway was there was a market for an uncut dub. It was probaly too late to recast Frieza and Vegeta with appropriate voices or use ki or call Kami “God” but we still could have gotten something better.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I don't think the Pioneer trilogy is overrated, but rewatching the Westwood dub in full more than once over the last few years has reinforced my view that dub is underrated. Yes it is a product of its time with inaccurate scripts but most of the performances are solid, I'd argue better than their Texas counterparts, the replacement score works better than the Faulconer Productions soundtrack because it is more goofy as Dragon Ball should be, and the only reason the score is there is because Funimation probably only provided Ocean with the Faulconer score. You could say its my nostalgia talking, but I love that dub and can still enjoy it for what it is.

[MCDaveG]

I think my Pioneer trilogy dub unpopular opinion is…I think the dub is maybe just a touch overrated. Kelamis was as miscast as ever with his Ninja Turtle sounding Goku and awkward line reads. Where. They. Goooooo? and I can’t fucking stand Don Brown’s Roshi to the point I almost prefer the Funimation dub of World’s Strongest (with the Kikuchi score of course)

You know, one of the factors that's definitely in play in my case is that in my ears, Kelamis sounds the closest to Nozawa's portrayal
and I am no native speaker. My accent is closer to british english with some expat friends telling me, that I sound rather welsh with US pronounciation, than having the hard mid-european spin on it and I tend to hear things differently, naturally. My preferred version of english to listen to is british as well.
I do love Scots! So Kelamis' canadian delivery wasn't as outlandish to me probably for that reason and english that's really hard for my ears to listen to is from New Zealand and their mispronounciations/accents on "E" being heavy Eeee rather than Eh (pen = pin, friend = freeand etc.).
But interesting point nonetheless

[Kid Buu]

As someone that also went along with the consensus for a long time, I think Movies 4 and 11 are massively over-hated and I'd die on the hill of blaming the Pojo Magazines for making it a popular opinion that those movies suck...when really they're not worse than any other generic Z movie and Movie 11 actually goes for something completely different. If you wanna talk about Z movie Slop, look at 5, 6 ,7 9 and 10.

Lord Slug is one of my favourites. Love the city setting, the teamwork aspect and the fake SS form.

[Hellspawn28]

I still think we would be in a better fandom timeline had Pioneer got the rights and dub it long before Funimation exist. We would have gotten a better dub and it would be uncut. Chances are that it would still air on CN like Tenchi Muyo did. So both sides win.

[coola]

I personally view Funimation Dragon Ball dub as Americanized version of actual show, similar to Samurai Pizza Cats or 4Kids dub, as long as same people still hold license, USA will never get "true" dub of neither manga nor anime.

[DanielSSJ]

My unpopular opinion is that Vegeta shouldn't have been made into a Super Saiyan until the end of the Cell arc, not at the the start.