Weird Old Dub Stuff

[TheBigBoy]

Don't ask me why I remember this but I pirated a bunch of random ass DB episodes while I was in college two decades ago and there's a line from a filler episode in OG Dragon Ball where Ten is asking the locations for a Dragon Ball from a man he crippled during his more villanous days and the man says "Dragon Ball? What the hell is that?".

I know swearing pops up from time to time in the uncut Z dub but are there other examples of it in DB?

[MasenkoHA]

Don't ask me why I remember this but I pirated a bunch of random ass DB episodes while I was in college two decades ago and there's a line from a filler episode in OG Dragon Ball where Ten is asking the locations for a Dragon Ball from a man he crippled during his more villanous days and the man says "Dragon Ball? What the hell is that?".

I know swearing pops up from time to time in the uncut Z dub but are there other examples of it in DB?

Colonel Silver says “crap” when searching for the dragon ball in the pawn shop in episode 30 which isn’t considered a swear by most but definitely something that we can assume had a TV Y7 alternate line for the Toonami airing.

Otherwise the “What the Hell is a Dragon Ball?” line is the only swear in the entire original Dragon Ball dub. Which is kind of funny for a series officially rated TV 14 on DVD


Even in Z aside from a random “Give them hell Goku!” from Korin when he gets the senzu beans for the Saiyan fight we don’t get any swearing until about 40 ish episodes in when Vegeta says “Go to hell Cui” or something like that after that we get infrequent damns, pissed, and bastards (I think almost entirely during the Ginyu portion of the UUE dub?) once it reverts to the 1999-2003 dub I think reference to hell as a place is the closest we get to any swearing in the Z tv series dub

[rweasp]

Wouldn't class hell as a swear word. A term to be avoided back in the day solely to avoid arbitrarily pissing off Christian parents, rather than it being offensive in of itself.

[WittyUsername]

Don't ask me why I remember this but I pirated a bunch of random ass DB episodes while I was in college two decades ago and there's a line from a filler episode in OG Dragon Ball where Ten is asking the locations for a Dragon Ball from a man he crippled during his more villanous days and the man says "Dragon Ball? What the hell is that?".

I know swearing pops up from time to time in the uncut Z dub but are there other examples of it in DB?

Colonel Silver says “crap” when searching for the dragon ball in the pawn shop in episode 30 which isn’t considered a swear by most but definitely something that we can assume had a TV Y7 alternate line for the Toonami airing.

Otherwise the “What the Hell is a Dragon Ball?” line is the only swear in the entire original Dragon Ball dub. Which is kind of funny for a series officially rated TV 14 on DVD


Even in Z aside from a random “Give them hell Goku!” from Korin when he gets the senzu beans for the Saiyan fight we don’t get any swearing until about 40 ish episodes in when Vegeta says “Go to hell Cui” or something like that after that we get infrequent damns, pissed, and bastards (I think almost entirely during the Ginyu portion of the UUE dub?) once it reverts to the 1999-2003 dub I think reference to hell as a place is the closest we get to any swearing in the Z tv series dub

Vegeta also says “damn you” when Goku blasts him in the eye.

Edit: I forgot to mention, but the remastered dub actually did add a few swear words. For instance, Vegeta yells out “damn it” when he sees that Gohan and Krillin summoned Porunga.

[Scsigs]

Ok, so I haven't watched all of the original Z dub, just the last bits of the Android Arc at the Cell games & the Buu Arc. I don't remember any swears there. Maybe a few mentions of Hell, since Paikan & Goku go there in the Otherworld Tournament arc & maybe Piccolo or someone mentions it later on? I don't remember because it's been well over a decade.

I don't really consider "Hell" a swear word if it's used in the context of naming the place in the Bible. And even then, using it in the context of "What the hell?" is just a heavier version of "What the heck?" It's pretty much only because of very religious people that Hell would be considered a swear. Hell, in places like the UK, family programming like Doctor who (that, yes, skews a little older in its main demographic, but still) can get away with uses of it every so often & even saying "damn" as in "damn it!" Hell, even kid's shows over here in the US can use the word "damnation" sometimes, as Jack Black did in an episode of iCarly & Spongebob used the word "damning" in the first movie, though movies & TV shows have different ratings & standards for language, as do networks. Regular Show got away with 2 instances of using the word "pissed" early on (that got redubbed for reruns with "ticked," unfortunately) as well as "crap," Big Time Rush & iCarly got away with saying "turd" on 1 occasion each, the Drake & Josh Christmas movie & Regular Show got away with "screwed," Drake & Josh got away with Drake saying "retard" in the context of him saying he's putting on a parachute when he was about to skydive "To retard my fall" meaning to delay it (its other definition) & Drake pronounced it as "reh-tard" so it wouldn't have the immediate connection to the ableist slur, which is usually pronounced "ree." And even that was in like season 3 or 4 of that show after it got popular on the network. A lot of these things are extremely subjective & rely on network standards, but yeah.

The only thing I'm certain of is that they didn't use the word "shit." Through all of Dragon Ball dubbed media, they've never used that word. They use "damn," "hell," "bastard," "bitch," "pissed," & probably a few others I'm forgetting, but not "shit." Only the German dub did that & TFS I'm assuming in reference to it. I only mention that because some dickhead on Twitter yesterday was legit trying to pass off a clearly edited clip of the dub as legitimate where Cell says that in the English dub & said it was from the older single DVDs & VHSes with no proof & say that FUNi replaced it in the remastered dub. I feel like if that was true, there'd be more proof & people would actively know that & talk about it. The Z dub saying "shit" would be a big thing, I'd feel.

[TheBigBoy]

Yeah I remember the UUE swearing. I nearly jumped out of my chair at Oozru Vegeta's "DAAAAAMN YOUUU" line.

Interesting that one of the few random uncut DB episodes I watched is the one with the mild swear. Speaking of DB I remember reading somewhere that later in it's Toonami run, the show became incredibly censored - like Saban levels of writing around of death, violence and demonic stuff. and there was speculation that this was a way to spur DVD sales. Any truth to that?

[GTx10]

Do people actually like watching the camera pan between two people in DBZ and nothing is said? (JPN dub) I would rather have them talk off screen, at least someone will say something off the wall. Take the 1st Broly movie for example. That movie is painfully boring when using the JPN dub.

Like "turn this off boring." It least the Uncut English dub with the JPN score has lines where nobody is talking to help out. (Like Trunks and Kuririn talking when they are checking out the planet. It helps) God the JPN dub of Broly is bad, sosss bad. Also to be fair the added dialogue during such scenes isn't always there. I'm not saying the Uncut dub of DB/DBZ/DBGT is without flaws, it has flaws mind you.

Also I'm old enough now to feel and understand that a 1:1 dub isn't always needed or wanted. We could watch either dub and know that Goku is pure and loves to battle. We know that Vegeta is an @ss hole. We know Roshi is man of gold who is a huge perv.

We know Yamucha wanted to get married and have a girlfriend. If the idea of the character remains the same then its okay guys.

I don't care if Goku says "I am the SS Song Goku or the Hope of the universe." In the end he still eats food and wants to fight people, He was the universe's hope indirectly anyway. It comes off as complaining about a dub instead of enjoying it. Enjoy the diversity and all that stuff as people say.

[WittyUsername]

Do people actually like watching the camera pan between two people in DBZ and nothing is said? (JPN dub) I would rather have them talk off screen, at least someone will say something off the wall. Take the 1st Broly movie for example. That movie is painfully boring when using the JPN dub.

Like "turn this off boring." It least the Uncut English dub with the JPN score has lines where nobody is talking to help out. (Like Trunks and Kuririn talking when they are checking out the planet. It helps) God the JPN dub of Broly is bad, sosss bad. Also to be fair the added dialogue during such scenes isn't always there. I'm not saying the Uncut dub of DB/DBZ/DBGT is without flaws, it has flaws mind you.

Also I'm old enough now to feel and understand that a 1:1 dub isn't always needed or wanted. We could watch either dub and know that Goku is pure and loves to battle. We know that Vegeta is an @ss hole. We know Roshi is man of gold who is a huge perv.

We know Yamucha wanted to get married and have a girlfriend. If the idea of the character remains the same then its okay guys.

I don't care if Goku says "I am the SS Song Goku or the Hope of the universe." In the end he still eats food and wants to fight people, He was the universe's hope indirectly anyway. It comes off as complaining about a dub instead of enjoying it. Enjoy the diversity and all that stuff as people say.

Funny you mention the first Broly movie, because the dub actually removes a couple inner monologues that were present in the original.

Anyway, I don’t think that occasionally adding dialogue to break up some awkward periods of silence is inherently bad. The problem is when the added dialogue disrupts the mood and atmosphere of a scene, which the dub of the Trunks special is perhaps most guilty of.

Another example of added dialogue hurting a scene is in the Bardock dub, when Freeza is ordering Zarbon to open the hatch during the climax. In the Japanese version, when Zarbon questions the decision, Freeza silently unfolds his arms, which immediately signals to Zarbon that the boss is mad and he better do what he says. The dub ruins that moment by having Freeza angrily reprimand Zarbon for questioning his orders.

[Metalwario64]

I just personally find it hard to see the value in the dub's additions when they undermine the drama like that. Goku letting Freeza reach 100% is such a heavy moment, and having Freeza crack 'alright big guy, whatever turns you on' jokes just kills the tension for me

I watched the dub as a kid because it was all I had access to and for a time knew, and I watch it now for nostalgia for those times but I never will act like it's better than the Japanese one. I mean if you hate the staredowns why not watch Kai?

[Scsigs]

Do people actually like watching the camera pan between two people in DBZ and nothing is said? (JPN dub) I would rather have them talk off screen, at least someone will say something off the wall. Take the 1st Broly movie for example. That movie is painfully boring when using the JPN dub.

Like "turn this off boring." It least the Uncut English dub with the JPN score has lines where nobody is talking to help out. (Like Trunks and Kuririn talking when they are checking out the planet. It helps) God the JPN dub of Broly is bad, sosss bad. Also to be fair the added dialogue during such scenes isn't always there. I'm not saying the Uncut dub of DB/DBZ/DBGT is without flaws, it has flaws mind you.

Also I'm old enough now to feel and understand that a 1:1 dub isn't always needed or wanted. We could watch either dub and know that Goku is pure and loves to battle. We know that Vegeta is an @ss hole. We know Roshi is man of gold who is a huge perv.

We know Yamucha wanted to get married and have a girlfriend. If the idea of the character remains the same then its okay guys.

I don't care if Goku says "I am the SS Song Goku or the Hope of the universe." In the end he still eats food and wants to fight people, He was the universe's hope indirectly anyway. It comes off as complaining about a dub instead of enjoying it. Enjoy the diversity and all that stuff as people say.

The problem with the added dialogue in dubs like the old Z dub is that pretty much nothing that anyone ever says in it is actually stuff that's entertaining or important. In all of these online dub debates on places like Twitter, every time I see a clip of any time FUNi filled the silence with the characters talking, nothing said in them ever feels like it SHOULD be there. It gets incredibly annoying & grating, especially when they took every opportunity to do so. Very few times in either the Bardock or Trunks specials did they just leave people quiet to let the music & sound effects properly build the mood of a moment. I said this previously, but it completely RUINED the fight between 17 & 18 VS Trunks because it completely dissolved the tension. None of it was needed at all. It was literally nothing but 17 & 18 commenting on shit that was happening in the fight as it happened. Generally in a fight scene like that, you leave the characters barely saying anything other than battle foley when they're throwing hands unless they take a second to stop & actually comment on something, which you keep to a relative minimum unless absolutely needed. That's what the Japanese dub did & it worked fine. A line here or there inserted isn't gonna ruin my enjoyment of a dub, but when it's constantly the characters babbling on either about what's going on as it's happening or making stupid jokes that both fills the silence, then replaces the actual dialogue that was there in the Japanese script, I take issue with it.

Here's the problem. Dragon Ball Z took talking is a free action to another level because the writers & animators intentionally made each episode to be slow-paced & with extra scenes not in the manga when adapting it to make sure they didn't overtake it. So, I can understand getting bored with it. However, that's not a problem of there being no dialogue. That's a problem of the shit being paced so incredibly poorly that you get bored with it because it's so slow. When you actually pace fights correctly, you don't notice the lack of dialogue because your mind is busy paying attention to the actions paired with battle foley, sound effects, & music. This is why, despite what some Z fans think, Kai or a series reboot like it was very much needed. Cut down from the way Z was originally produced, you don't get as long of moments, or even whole filler episodes, with no talking. Thus, making the pacing much better & something that more easily keeps your attention for longer so you're not bored.

I mean, the first Z Broly film is bad in general, ngl. It has a good idea for its plot (evidenced by how the Super version did it much better) & good animation for the big fight, but beyond that, it's not that good. Broly himself is a bad villain because he barely has any personality outside of being a fucking psychopath motivated by Goku crying next to him in the nursery & some adult Saiyans making fun of him. Crying. As a baby. Because another baby cried right next to him, a common reason babies cry when multiples of them are next to each other. The dub doesn't fundamentally alter the plot of the film or how you perceive the characters, but it also doesn't really add anything either outside of maybe a few decent one-liners. The movies themselves were also done with more care than the shows when being dubbed. Because they were mainly dubbed uncut & for the home releases first, they often have better scripting than Z did & they really show how the cast improved over time if you know when they were dubbed (as most were dubbed out of order for 1 reason or another & after Z finished). So, they don't have a lot of instances of filling the silence.

A 1:1 dub wouldn't be ideal, no, mainly because localization is needed to make sure a dub is good in its target language when translated, then properly converted into a workable script. I often prefer playful dubs that take the translations used for the Japanese dialogue, then reworks the sentences to say the same things, but in a way that fits the language better. Kai's dub works like that, the Super dub does, Daima's dub does, & so do the dubs of the last 4 DB movies. Hell, even dubs clearly influenced by Kai's, or just done in the same way are some of the best in the industry. One Piece's dub is extremely accurate to the Japanese, but the dub isn't 1:1 with it & that's what makes it work. Sailor Moon's redub by Viz is also a great example of such a dub, same with Naruto's & Bleach's. Cowboy Bebop's too. However, there's a major difference in the philosophies between these dubs & how Z's dub was produced. Z's dub was produced not to make the dialogue palatable to an English-speaking audience & keep all of the original information inherent in the dialogue intact, but to change enough of the dialogue to directly appeal to American children of the late 90s & early 2000s, but even more than that, they thought they could tell the story better than Akira Toriyama, which is immensely disrespectful to Toriyama's intent. Toriyama already took immense problems with how Toei changed Goku in their adaptation (too much, imo, considering they were just going off of what he'd already written in the manga), so he made Goku undergo a character arc to show what he wanted for the character. He would, thus, probably have had a stroke if he knew what the English dub did with him.

The problem is that changing Goku from 1 to the other completely fundamentally changes the character & what Toriyama intended. Yes, Goku loves his friends & family, but he's not an ultimate protector for good. Even as a kid (hell, especially as a kid), Goku always fought for himself to improve himself. He's used his skills to help out & protect those he cares about & the innocent, but that's not his M.O. for fighting in the first place. He's always been more selfish with his want to train & fight. Thus, it's fundamentally misunderstanding the character to make him say something like, "I am the hope of the universe! Ally to good, nightmare to you!" It also waters down the conflict between Goku & Vegeta VS Freeza & strips their own reasons for doing what they do. Yes, Freeza's not very emotionally complex, but Goku & Vegeta have more complex & even selfish motivations for doing what they do.
And, while I'm on this subject, having Vegeta say that Freeza's the reason why he is how he is because he forced him to work for him or he'd kill his father is incredibly fucking stupid. This is part of the rewriting of the dialogue that I genuinely hate the most. When a change makes absolutely no sense & is there only for emotional manipulation because the writers didn't think people would feel bad enough for Vegeta that he's dying before he could get revenge for the Saiyans. And if you don't like that, it also just doesn't make ANY sense with how Vegeta was presented up until that point in the series, as he was portrayed as a shitty person who was only working for Freeza because he has for over 2 decades & showed no signs of this before then. THIS is why you don't rewrite the dialogue to change character motivations when dubbing a show into another language. Shit starts to make less sense.

Funny you mention the first Broly movie, because the dub actually removes a couple inner monologues that were present in the original.

Anyway, I don’t think that occasionally adding dialogue to break up some awkward periods of silence is inherently bad. The problem is when the added dialogue disrupts the mood and atmosphere of a scene, which the dub of the Trunks special is perhaps most guilty of.

Another example of added dialogue hurting a scene is in the Bardock dub, when Freeza is ordering Zarbon to open the hatch during the climax. In the Japanese version, when Zarbon questions the decision, Freeza silently unfolds his arms, which immediately signals to Zarbon that the boss is mad and he better do what he says. The dub ruins that moment by having Freeza angrily reprimand Zarbon for questioning his orders.

This. When I rewatched these specials, the Bardock special's dub was annoying with how much changed dialogue there was, but it didn't annoy me as much because it seemed to at least have a consistent logic to it. The Trunks special's dub, however, was extremely annoying because there were moments that the dub just would not have anyone shut the fuck up to the point of annoyance. Forget the majority of the dialogue being changed, forget all subtlety of Bulma knowing about Gohan & Trunks' training only for her to reveal that she knew, forget the early hint that she was building the time machine, etc. The fact that the writers couldn't let a moment just play out with no added dialogue that didn't need it & shouldn't have had it is just fucking annoying. It's a step too far. I don't know if it was a thing done for Cartoon Network to lessen the impact of the fight, or something else, but I couldn't stand it for the life of me. There comes a time in a story where very little dialogue is needed & you just let the characters act. It also partly ruined Trunks looking for & finding Gohan dead too, as he will not shut the fuck up when doing so. All he said during that sequence was Gohan's name over & over in shock, then he let it all out in his scream as he went Super Saiyan. That's all that was needed.

And I don't buy that American kids needed the extra dialogue to keep their attention either. American-made cartoons done at the same time DBZ was dubbed & even a bit after had moments of silence or minimal talking that let the scenes build moods that I as a kid enjoyed just fine, so a dub of an anime could afford to do it too. Kai also did well on Nicktoons without having all of the stupid changed &/or additional unneeded dialogue, so that's even more proof kids can pay attention without characters talking all the time.

I just personally find it hard to see the value in the dub's additions when they undermine the drama like that. Goku letting Freeza reach 100% is such a heavy moment, and having Freeza crack 'alright big guy, whatever turns you on' jokes just kills the tension for me

I watched the dub as a kid because it was all I had access to and for a time knew, and I watch it now for nostalgia for those times but I never will act like it's better than the Japanese one. I mean if you hate the staredowns why not watch Kai?

Yep, that's also the thing. The added jokes completely kill any sense of tension or mood, especially if they don't fit the scene at all.
"I want to speak to you in my native language (Random Freeza noises)."
What the fuck was the point of that? What did that add to the thing? Not a damn thing.