Weird Old Dub Stuff

[MasenkoHA]

For the life of me I will never understand so many people on here’s’s hyperfixation with Dragon Ball airing on traditional television.

Dragon Ball being on Adult Swim or Nick does what exactly?

Get more people into Dragon Ball? Sure, it may be a minority in this day and age, but those channels still exist so they are obviously watched by some people who may stumble across an episode of Daima that they may have not otherwise intended to check out. Point is while Dragon Ball on traditional TV is never going to be the juggernaut it was in the 90s and 2000s it doesn't hurt to have it there.

Who is this more people? This imaginary audience that is under 60 and still paying for cable and isn’t steaming just doesn’t exist

[Scsigs]

I was just wondering who would get it, because Toei does believe in traditional tv no matter how outdated, because tv stations ironically pay a lot more money even with streaming.

Given the timing of Daima's dub, and its subtitled Netflix release, I would have thought that broadcast TV is a lower priority for Toei these days. They'd be leaving money on the table by not shopping around to broadcasters, but would anyone other than Toonami have picked it up that quickly or paid what Toei thought it was worth?

Also (going back to the "Nick" idea), Paramount doesn't actually own Warner Bros yet, and we have no idea how much they'll change when they do. Look at Funimation, they essentially shut their own own streaming service down after they acquired Crunchyroll.

only better with the dub being a broadcast dub & hitting them at the same time as the Japanese dub whereas Daima was a few months behind for no reason.

I don't think that anything unusual happened with Daima, so much as Toei just not being interested in simuldubs. For One Piece, they may have even delayed the dub a couple of times so that it coincided with a new run of simulcast episodes.

So, I think you got something confused here. FUNi didn't acquire Crunchyroll. Sony acquired them both in 2017 & 2020 respectively. They then folded all of FUNi's assets into Crunchyroll in 2022, with them still running FUNi's offices in Texas & continuing to produce the ongoing dubs FUNi had as well as more new dubs, then FUNi's streaming service got shut down, initially they wanted to just let the remaining subs to it people had run out, but then decided to give people who still had them gift codes to theirs or store credit for their store. As far as anyone can tell, no one who was still in charge of FUNimation before then is still there.

One Piece, there's no set schedule for when more episodes get dubbed now that they've caught up with the Japanese broadcast. And even then, it would probably make more sense for the episodes to be dubbed in chunks like it was for years as FUNi licensed more of the episodes, specials, & movies for dubbing. Especially since the series is going seasonal now. Before then, they started fast tracking the dub towards the end of FUNi's existence & it continued into Crunchyroll's ownership of it, seemingly with Toei helping fund the dub to do so.
Moreso, I think you misunderstood what I was saying & how the dubs of the franchise have been produced in the last over a decade.
So, minus the dubs of Super (ostensibly because they had to dub & broadcast Kai: The final Chapters beforehand on top of the usual lagtime for anime TV shows being at least a year after the Japanese) and Super Hero (for some reason), ever since Resurrection F, the English dubs of Dragon Ball have actually been pretty close to the Japanese releases. Resurrection F had theatrical showings both in Japanese & English back in 2015 around the same time as the Japanese ones, then the Blu-Rays & DVDs came out in the US before the Japanese ones, which is unheard of for a new anime thing unless it's a Western co-production. Then Super: Broly's theatrical showings were done a month in the US after the Japanese ones & the home media releases came 2 months before Japan. Then, Daima's dub started coming out a few months after the series started even though we knew it'd started being produced a few months beforehand & the first 3 episodes had a theatrical showing with it, so it should've been a simuldub. Which was heavily criticized for not making any sense & had a frustrating release schedule of not uploading the dub audios to Crunchyroll & Netflix up until the latest episode, then simulcasting both the dub & sub as the remaining episodes came out.
Toei's also extremely receptive to criticism when it comes to Dragon Ball as well these days. Resurrection F had more action to try to combat the criticism of Battle of Gods not having enough of it (Thanks, IGN), the Super remaster is partly because they need to relaunch Super as a series & adapt the remaining manga arcs, but they're also taking the opportunity to address the biggest criticisms of the original production (the same with how they're making One Piece a seasonal anime) with the animation quality, the pacing, hopefully Goku's characterization, etc. I'm assuming that this is also the reason that Daima had a simulcast release on Netflix, as that's 1 of the most convenient platforms for a lot of people, plus they had a thing going with them for the live action One Piece series, so it makes even more sense. So, I think it'd just make sense if the Super remaster will be broadcast on Netflix & Crunchyroll like Daima was, but with the dub included instead of us having to wait a few months, especially if it's less than or around 10 episodes an arc, which would be easy to dub in a few weeks each with the cast members & mix it so it'd be ready for release.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

For the life of me I will never understand so many people on here’s’s hyperfixation with Dragon Ball airing on traditional television.

Dragon Ball being on Adult Swim or Nick does what exactly?

Get more people into Dragon Ball? Sure, it may be a minority in this day and age, but those channels still exist so they are obviously watched by some people who may stumble across an episode of Daima that they may have not otherwise intended to check out. Point is while Dragon Ball on traditional TV is never going to be the juggernaut it was in the 90s and 2000s it doesn't hurt to have it there.

Who is this more people? This imaginary audience that is under 60 and still paying for cable and isn’t steaming just doesn’t exist

I never said anyone was exclusively watching traditional TV, of course the few who still watch it use streaming services too. I'm well aware the former will never be able to compete with the latter.

My point was that it, and channels like Adult Swim and Nickelodeon still exist so it can't hurt to have Dragon Ball air on one of them. Even if it only leads to 5 new fans, new Dragon Ball fans are still new Dragon Ball fans and every one of them counts as far as I'm concerned.

[Yellow Flower King]

Part of this semi resurgence is because Youtube TV is cheap and offers cable channels but make no mistake: Cable is dead. I am not saying this is like super important or end of the world. TV is dying but even elderly people who know they are going to die still make plans and brace themselves for the end. That is basically what is being done here. Its about how the last days are spent.

[LostTimeLord]

FUNi didn't acquire Crunchyroll.

Yes, they did. Variety: AT&T to Sell Crunchyroll to Sony’s Funimation for $1.175 Billion. Funimation Global Group LLC was put in charge of Crunchyroll, renamed itself Crunchyroll LLC, and shut down the Funimation streaming service. Having a lot of staff turnover (as they apparently did) doesn't make it a new company.
And, to be more direct, this is exactly the kind of thing we'll see happen with Warner, assuming the merger goes through - they're going to have some of the most brutal layoffs the industry has ever seen. Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon both serve the same audience, and presumably make less money than ever; if Paramount owns both, and needs to cut billions of dollars in costs, then the obvious solution is to shut one of them down. They won't need two mainline kids channels any more than Funimation Global needed two anime streaming services.
In short: Paramount are more likely to consolidate Nickelodeon into Cartoon Network (or vice versa) than move programming from one channel to the other, IMO.

One Piece, there's no set schedule for when more episodes get dubbed now that they've caught up with the Japanese broadcast.

Each batch was coming out two months after its final episode aired in Japan, with the exception of the two batches that were 'late' and released just prior to Egghead part two and Elbaph being simulcast. That could be a coincidence, but I personally suspect that they were held back intentionally.

So, minus the dubs of Super (ostensibly because they had to dub & broadcast Kai: The final Chapters beforehand on top of the usual lagtime for anime TV shows being at least a year after the Japanese) and Super Hero (for some reason), ever since Resurrection F, the English dubs of Dragon Ball have actually been pretty close to the Japanese releases.

It sounds like Resurrection F and Broly were dubbed exceptionally quickly, rather than the other way around. Maybe the fact that those films were sub-licensed from 20th Century Fox had something to do with that?

Toei's also extremely receptive to criticism when it comes to Dragon Ball as well these days.

Responding to criticism on the production side doesn't really say anything about the international distribution and dubbing. Simuldubbing Daima only 18 months ago would have been just as good an idea, but that didn't happen.

This imaginary audience that is under 60 and still paying for cable and isn’t steaming just doesn’t exist

Maybe it's just me, but I find it a little frustrating that we generally don't have viewing figures for streaming services in the way that we do for traditional TV. Like, we know that 112,000 people watched the first episode of Daima on Toonami, but we don't know how many people even have a Crunchyroll account in the United States specifically.

Although, as a comparison, I notice that slightly more people watched Super premiere on UK TV in 2019 (over a year after the uncut DVD had been released) than watched Daima premiere on Toonami in the US in 2025. Obviously a lot changed in those six years, but I still think that's kinda interesting.

[Yellow Flower King]

FUNi didn't acquire Crunchyroll.

Yes, they did. Variety: AT&T to Sell Crunchyroll to Sony’s Funimation for $1.175 Billion. Funimation Global Group LLC was put in charge of Crunchyroll, renamed itself Crunchyroll LLC, and shut down the Funimation streaming service. Having a lot of staff turnover (as they apparently did) doesn't make it a new company.
And, to be more direct, this is exactly the kind of thing we'll see happen with Warner, assuming the merger goes through - they're going to have some of the most brutal layoffs the industry has ever seen. Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon both serve the same audience, and presumably make less money than ever; if Paramount owns both, and needs to cut billions of dollars in costs, then the obvious solution is to shut one of them down. They won't need two mainline kids channels any more than Funimation Global needed two anime streaming services.
In short: Paramount are more likely to consolidate Nickelodeon into Cartoon Network (or vice versa) than move programming from one channel to the other, IMO.

One Piece, there's no set schedule for when more episodes get dubbed now that they've caught up with the Japanese broadcast.

Each batch was coming out two months after its final episode aired in Japan, with the exception of the two batches that were 'late' and released just prior to Egghead part two and Elbaph being simulcast. That could be a coincidence, but I personally suspect that they were held back intentionally.

So, minus the dubs of Super (ostensibly because they had to dub & broadcast Kai: The final Chapters beforehand on top of the usual lagtime for anime TV shows being at least a year after the Japanese) and Super Hero (for some reason), ever since Resurrection F, the English dubs of Dragon Ball have actually been pretty close to the Japanese releases.

It sounds like Resurrection F and Broly were dubbed exceptionally quickly, rather than the other way around. Maybe the fact that those films were sub-licensed from 20th Century Fox had something to do with that?

Toei's also extremely receptive to criticism when it comes to Dragon Ball as well these days.

Responding to criticism on the production side doesn't really say anything about the international distribution and dubbing. Simuldubbing Daima only 18 months ago would have been just as good an idea, but that didn't happen.

This imaginary audience that is under 60 and still paying for cable and isn’t steaming just doesn’t exist

Maybe it's just me, but I find it a little frustrating that we generally don't have viewing figures for streaming services in the way that we do for traditional TV. Like, we know that 112,000 people watched the first episode of Daima on Toonami, but we don't know how many people even have a Crunchyroll account in the United States specifically.

Although, as a comparison, I notice that slightly more people watched Super premiere on UK TV in 2019 (over a year after the uncut DVD had been released) than watched Daima premiere on Toonami in the US in 2025. Obviously a lot changed in those six years, but I still think that's kinda interesting.

AKSHUALLY... Cough cough... Actually we do have some numbers for Streaming!

https://www.nielsen.com/es/insights/202 ... pril-2026/


And as it turns out streaming is a more than 50 billion dollars a year industry, almost killing home video.

[LostTimeLord]

Actually we do have some numbers for Streaming!

That article doesn't say how many users Crunchyroll has, though. It has the "streaming minutes" but, with no indication of how long any individual streams for, there's not much to glean from that information. We don't actually know, even proportionally, how many people watched Daima on Toonami vs Crunchyroll or Netflix or Hulu.
Besides, I said we "generally don't have viewing figures", not that never get them.

[Yellow Flower King]

Wow I didnt realize that! That's awesome! I wonder if that's why even Disney+ lets competitors air their anime. Netflix absolutely refuses to play nice though.

[rweasp]

I was watching Super again, but this time dubbed. And wow does James Marsters as Zamasu completely clown on the rest of the Funimation cast. He isn't just slightly better than the others, he is MILES better. It was seriously painful going from Marsters talking to Eric Vale and Colleen as Mai who are just so ridiculously one note. While I don't hate the Funimation cast, this was kind of a huge eye opener in the gulf between a true professional and just some people voicing children's cartoons.

[Scsigs]

I was watching Super again, but this time dubbed. And wow does James Marsters as Zamasu completely clown on the rest of the Funimation cast. He isn't just slightly better than the others, he is MILES better. It was seriously painful going from Marsters talking to Eric Vale and Colleen as Mai who are just so ridiculously one note. While I don't hate the Funimation cast, this was kind of a huge eye opener in the gulf between a true professional and just some people voicing children's cartoons.

Bro, come on. Yes, Marsters is great as Zamasu. He's been an actor for years & did the Super dub unpaid & under a pseudonym. However, saying the regular cast doesn't pull their weight is insane. The dub cast is great. It's a different type of acting they have to do compared to what Marsters usually does, but they do it very well.

[rweasp]

I was watching Super again, but this time dubbed. And wow does James Marsters as Zamasu completely clown on the rest of the Funimation cast. He isn't just slightly better than the others, he is MILES better. It was seriously painful going from Marsters talking to Eric Vale and Colleen as Mai who are just so ridiculously one note. While I don't hate the Funimation cast, this was kind of a huge eye opener in the gulf between a true professional and just some people voicing children's cartoons.

Bro, come on. Yes, Marsters is great as Zamasu. He's been an actor for years & did the Super dub unpaid & under a pseudonym. However, saying the regular cast doesn't pull their weight is insane. The dub cast is great. It's a different type of acting they have to do compared to what Marsters usually does, but they do it very well.

The issue is when its compared directly against Marsters and you go back and forth between them. The contrast is massive. In other episodes with no Marsters with everything in a vacuum its completely fine. Like I said, I don't hate the Funimation cast and there's plenty of good performances in there (mainly from the newer additions like Jason Douglas and Whis). But for whatever reason when there is that contrast between some of the older cast members and Marsters, it really doesn't do them any favors.

[Scsigs]

The issue is when its compared directly against Marsters and you go back and forth between them. The contrast is massive. In other episodes with no Marsters with everything in a vacuum its completely fine. Like I said, I don't hate the Funimation cast and there's plenty of good performances in there (mainly from the newer additions like Jason Douglas and Whis). But for whatever reason when there is that contrast between some of the older cast members and Marsters, it really doesn't do them any favors.

Yeah, it's mainly because of the different styles of acting. James is very good, as he's mainly a screen actor who also has very good voice talents. By contrast, the majority of the regular anime dub actors have very little acting experience outside of voice acting in dubs, which is a very specific style of voice acting separate from prelay work, so they fall into that style of acting easily. It's kinda like watching the Studio Ghibli films dubbed, as those films usually get mostly big Hollywood actors rather than dub actors &, thus, they're different from other anime dubs. Though, I never got the feeling that Marsters was a step above the others in Super. He'd never done an anime dub before & clearly had to adjust to that style of voice acting. He got better over the course of the arc & his yells & screams are just great. I also love his impression of Sean Schemmel's Goku's speaking style in the flashback when Goku's in Zamasu's body. It's much better than Sean's impression of his Zamasu's speaking style since Sean is really bad with trying to do the same accent Marsters gave Zamasu, at least in Super (the funny thing being that Kyle Hebert was better at doing it with Gohan Black in Sparking Zero).

[TheBigBoy]

I was watching Super again, but this time dubbed. And wow does James Marsters as Zamasu completely clown on the rest of the Funimation cast. He isn't just slightly better than the others, he is MILES better. It was seriously painful going from Marsters talking to Eric Vale and Colleen as Mai who are just so ridiculously one note. While I don't hate the Funimation cast, this was kind of a huge eye opener in the gulf between a true professional and just some people voicing children's cartoons.

Bro, come on. Yes, Marsters is great as Zamasu. He's been an actor for years & did the Super dub unpaid & under a pseudonym. However, saying the regular cast doesn't pull their weight is insane. The dub cast is great. It's a different type of acting they have to do compared to what Marsters usually does, but they do it very well.

The issue is when its compared directly against Marsters and you go back and forth between them. The contrast is massive. In other episodes with no Marsters with everything in a vacuum its completely fine. Like I said, I don't hate the Funimation cast and there's plenty of good performances in there (mainly from the newer additions like Jason Douglas and Whis). But for whatever reason when there is that contrast between some of the older cast members and Marsters, it really doesn't do them any favors.

Bingo. I said this earlier in the thread but it's really noticeable towards the end of the arc. Zamasu sounds like he's voiced by a real actor. A professional. And Goku and Vegeta still sound like these dumbass cartoon characters out of 1999. Yeah I know, that's not very charitable but the division is absolutely there.

[Yellow Flower King]

Breaking Bad if it had DBZ dub tier acting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci8dIpNcyEY


Oh wow lol. Oh and Brian Cranston was a dub actor lol.

[Vegetto95]

Breaking Bad if it had DBZ dub tier acting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci8dIpNcyEY


Oh wow lol. Oh and Brian Cranston was a dub actor lol.

Oh my god, YES, I fucking LOVE that video

Easily my favorite comment on it is " It will never not astonish me that there's people who think Funimation has ever done anything good. " Cuz yeah, even all these years removed from their terrible voice direction practices of the late 90s-early 2000s, they STILL have a philosophy for the majority of their dubs that over-relies on ridiculously over-the-top cartoon caricature deliveries.

Though, to be fair, there 1000% is something to be said about their terrible curation choices too, as over the last decade or so they have consistently showed next to ZERO interest in licensing anything that isn't either a) just another generic, overrated, dime-a-dozen uber-popular action shōnen of the moment series like My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Dandadan, Jujutsu Kaisen, etc. or b) just another generic, overrated, dime-a-dozen, uber-popular isekai of the moment "Something-something-something IN ANOTHER WORLD!!!!" series, and those types of series even in their original Japanese versions tend to heavily rely on insanely annoying over-the-top characters, ridiculously overwrought melodrama, and terrible dialogue that endlessly bashes you over the head with themes that should otherwise already be perfectly obvious just by watching. Sooooo... not exactly the kind of environment where their already mildly-talented-at-best in-house cast members can provide nuanced, naturalistic performances.

Say what you will about FUNi's curation in the mid-late 2000s just before ADV, Pioneer, Bandai Entertainment, Manga Entertainment, etc. all shut down within a few years of each other, after which FUNi swooped in and scooped up a bunch of the floating licenses, but at the VERY LEAST least they had PLENTY of variety. Looking at their recent choices, the FUNimation of the 2020s wouldn't go ANYWHERE NEAR the kinds of stuff they license circa 2006-7 like Peach Girl, Kodocha, Mr. Stain on Junk Alley, Solty Rei, Desert Punk, The Galaxy Railways, etc. They're a VERY different company than they were 20 years ago, and not entirely for the better.

Back to the voices, on a similar note, it struck me as rather hilarious when I happened upon a few voice clips from Sparking! Zero, and in particular Bergmeier's Tenshinhan, Vale's Trunks, and Cook's Raditz stuck out to me because they were all doing the exact same super-irritating put-on vocal affectation that basically consists of "do a bunch of super forced grunting and straining to make my voice SUUUPER GRAAAVEEELLYYYY" bullshit so that the character sounds SUPER BADASS" (the same kind that Sabat LOOOOVES to abuse and has for 25+ years).

It was interesting to me because looking back on their original dub performances from the early-mid 2000s, while those three always had a habit of over-enunciating their lines to sound SUPER DRAMATIC (which obviously always came off as laughably overdone and cringeworthy), they never coupled that with the over-the-top cartoony tough guy gravel. And I thought "Well, they've been at this shit for DECADES and they're all like 50+, so MAYBE it's just age, like with Horikawa?" (though to be fair, Horikawa was also a heavy smoker for years, so that was 100% a factor).

But no... looking at some contemporary interviews with them, their normal speaking voices all still sound perfectly, well... normal. And I just went... holy shit... for all the FUNi dub fanbase's nigh CONSTANT rantin' n' ravin' over the last ~15 years about how much the FUNi cast has DRASTICALLY improved since their original Z dub... yeah, sorry, but the truth is, the overwhelming majority of them sound more or less exactly the same as they did 20+ years ago, and several of them straight up sound significantly WORSE. Because FUNimation's general ideology as to how they direct the voice acting for Dragon Ball fundamentally has barely changed an inch since 1995. It's still, even in the year of our Dende 2026, just plain BAD.

[jjgp1112]

Breaking Bad if it had DBZ dub tier acting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci8dIpNcyEY


Oh wow lol. Oh and Brian Cranston was a dub actor lol.

Oh my god, YES, I fucking LOVE that video

Easily my favorite comment on it is " It will never not astonish me that there's people who think Funimation has ever done anything good. " Cuz yeah, even all these years removed from their terrible voice direction practices of the late 90s-early 2000s, they STILL have a philosophy for the majority of their dubs that over-relies on ridiculously over-the-top cartoon caricature deliveries.

Though, to be fair, there 1000% is something to be said about their terrible curation choices too, as over the last decade or so they have consistently showed next to ZERO interest in licensing anything that isn't either a) just another generic, overrated, dime-a-dozen uber-popular action shōnen of the moment series like My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Dandadan, Jujutsu Kaisen, etc. or b) just another generic, overrated, dime-a-dozen, uber-popular isekai of the moment "Something-something-something IN ANOTHER WORLD!!!!" series, and those types of series even in their original Japanese versions tend to heavily rely on insanely annoying over-the-top characters, ridiculously overwrought melodrama, and terrible dialogue that endlessly bashes you over the head with themes that should otherwise already be perfectly obvious just by watching. Sooooo... not exactly the kind of environment where their already mildly-talented-at-best in-house cast members can provide nuanced, naturalistic performances.

Say what you will about FUNi's curation in the mid-late 2000s just before ADV, Pioneer, Bandai Entertainment, Manga Entertainment, etc. all shut down within a few years of each other, after which FUNi swooped in and scooped up a bunch of the floating licenses, but at the VERY LEAST least they had PLENTY of variety. Looking at their recent choices, the FUNimation of the 2020s wouldn't go ANYWHERE NEAR the kinds of stuff they license circa 2006-7 like Peach Girl, Kodocha, Mr. Stain on Junk Alley, Solty Rei, Desert Punk, The Galaxy Railways, etc. They're a VERY different company than they were 20 years ago, and not entirely for the better.

Back to the voices, on a similar note, it struck me as rather hilarious when I happened upon a few voice clips from Sparking! Zero, and in particular Bergmeier's Tenshinhan, Vale's Trunks, and Cook's Raditz stuck out to me because they were all doing the exact same super-irritating put-on vocal affectation that basically consists of "do a bunch of super forced grunting and straining to make my voice SUUUPER GRAAAVEEELLYYYY" bullshit so that the character sounds SUPER BADASS" (the same kind that Sabat LOOOOVES to abuse and has for 25+ years).

It was interesting to me because looking back on their original dub performances from the early-mid 2000s, while those three always had a habit of over-enunciating their lines to sound SUPER DRAMATIC (which obviously always came off as laughably overdone and cringeworthy), they never coupled that with the over-the-top cartoony tough guy gravel. And I thought "Well, they've been at this shit for DECADES and they're all like 50+, so MAYBE it's just age, like with Horikawa?" (though to be fair, Horikawa was also a heavy smoker for years, so that was 100% a factor).

But no... looking at some contemporary interviews with them, their normal speaking voices all still sound perfectly, well... normal. And I just went... holy shit... for all the FUNi dub fanbase's nigh CONSTANT rantin' n' ravin' over the last ~15 years about how much the FUNi cast has DRASTICALLY improved since their original Z dub... yeah, sorry, but the truth is, the overwhelming majority of them sound more or less exactly the same as they did 20+ years ago, and several of them straight up sound significantly WORSE. Because FUNimation's general ideology as to how they direct the voice acting for Dragon Ball fundamentally has barely changed an inch since 1995. It's still, even in the year of our Dende 2026, just plain BAD.

The video game performances aren't really a good base for assessment, they've been mailing those in for the last 15 years and Sabat mentioned that the direction process for the games is incredibly confusing, overseen by the Japanese studios, and they have little context for what's going on other than "Sound aggressive!" The dubs of actual series material are pretty grounded most of the time.

[Yellow Flower King]

Breaking Bad if it had DBZ dub tier acting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci8dIpNcyEY


Oh wow lol. Oh and Brian Cranston was a dub actor lol.

Oh my god, YES, I fucking LOVE that video

Easily my favorite comment on it is " It will never not astonish me that there's people who think Funimation has ever done anything good. " Cuz yeah, even all these years removed from their terrible voice direction practices of the late 90s-early 2000s, they STILL have a philosophy for the majority of their dubs that over-relies on ridiculously over-the-top cartoon caricature deliveries.

Though, to be fair, there 1000% is something to be said about their terrible curation choices too, as over the last decade or so they have consistently showed next to ZERO interest in licensing anything that isn't either a) just another generic, overrated, dime-a-dozen uber-popular action shōnen of the moment series like My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Dandadan, Jujutsu Kaisen, etc. or b) just another generic, overrated, dime-a-dozen, uber-popular isekai of the moment "Something-something-something IN ANOTHER WORLD!!!!" series, and those types of series even in their original Japanese versions tend to heavily rely on insanely annoying over-the-top characters, ridiculously overwrought melodrama, and terrible dialogue that endlessly bashes you over the head with themes that should otherwise already be perfectly obvious just by watching. Sooooo... not exactly the kind of environment where their already mildly-talented-at-best in-house cast members can provide nuanced, naturalistic performances.

Say what you will about FUNi's curation in the mid-late 2000s just before ADV, Pioneer, Bandai Entertainment, Manga Entertainment, etc. all shut down within a few years of each other, after which FUNi swooped in and scooped up a bunch of the floating licenses, but at the VERY LEAST least they had PLENTY of variety. Looking at their recent choices, the FUNimation of the 2020s wouldn't go ANYWHERE NEAR the kinds of stuff they license circa 2006-7 like Peach Girl, Kodocha, Mr. Stain on Junk Alley, Solty Rei, Desert Punk, The Galaxy Railways, etc. They're a VERY different company than they were 20 years ago, and not entirely for the better.

Back to the voices, on a similar note, it struck me as rather hilarious when I happened upon a few voice clips from Sparking! Zero, and in particular Bergmeier's Tenshinhan, Vale's Trunks, and Cook's Raditz stuck out to me because they were all doing the exact same super-irritating put-on vocal affectation that basically consists of "do a bunch of super forced grunting and straining to make my voice SUUUPER GRAAAVEEELLYYYY" bullshit so that the character sounds SUPER BADASS" (the same kind that Sabat LOOOOVES to abuse and has for 25+ years).

It was interesting to me because looking back on their original dub performances from the early-mid 2000s, while those three always had a habit of over-enunciating their lines to sound SUPER DRAMATIC (which obviously always came off as laughably overdone and cringeworthy), they never coupled that with the over-the-top cartoony tough guy gravel. And I thought "Well, they've been at this shit for DECADES and they're all like 50+, so MAYBE it's just age, like with Horikawa?" (though to be fair, Horikawa was also a heavy smoker for years, so that was 100% a factor).

But no... looking at some contemporary interviews with them, their normal speaking voices all still sound perfectly, well... normal. And I just went... holy shit... for all the FUNi dub fanbase's nigh CONSTANT rantin' n' ravin' over the last ~15 years about how much the FUNi cast has DRASTICALLY improved since their original Z dub... yeah, sorry, but the truth is, the overwhelming majority of them sound more or less exactly the same as they did 20+ years ago, and several of them straight up sound significantly WORSE. Because FUNimation's general ideology as to how they direct the voice acting for Dragon Ball fundamentally has barely changed an inch since 1995. It's still, even in the year of our Dende 2026, just plain BAD.

I think the door for Magical Girls closed for Funimation when Viz Media got Sailor Moon. Other than that and Fruits Basket they arent interested in Shojo. They used to be though, they licensed Escaflowne and Kamisama Hajimemashita .

[Scsigs]

Spoiler:

Oh my god, YES, I fucking LOVE that video

Easily my favorite comment on it is " It will never not astonish me that there's people who think Funimation has ever done anything good. " Cuz yeah, even all these years removed from their terrible voice direction practices of the late 90s-early 2000s, they STILL have a philosophy for the majority of their dubs that over-relies on ridiculously over-the-top cartoon caricature deliveries.

Though, to be fair, there 1000% is something to be said about their terrible curation choices too, as over the last decade or so they have consistently showed next to ZERO interest in licensing anything that isn't either a) just another generic, overrated, dime-a-dozen uber-popular action shōnen of the moment series like My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Dandadan, Jujutsu Kaisen, etc. or b) just another generic, overrated, dime-a-dozen, uber-popular isekai of the moment "Something-something-something IN ANOTHER WORLD!!!!" series, and those types of series even in their original Japanese versions tend to heavily rely on insanely annoying over-the-top characters, ridiculously overwrought melodrama, and terrible dialogue that endlessly bashes you over the head with themes that should otherwise already be perfectly obvious just by watching. Sooooo... not exactly the kind of environment where their already mildly-talented-at-best in-house cast members can provide nuanced, naturalistic performances.

Say what you will about FUNi's curation in the mid-late 2000s just before ADV, Pioneer, Bandai Entertainment, Manga Entertainment, etc. all shut down within a few years of each other, after which FUNi swooped in and scooped up a bunch of the floating licenses, but at the VERY LEAST least they had PLENTY of variety. Looking at their recent choices, the FUNimation of the 2020s wouldn't go ANYWHERE NEAR the kinds of stuff they license circa 2006-7 like Peach Girl, Kodocha, Mr. Stain on Junk Alley, Solty Rei, Desert Punk, The Galaxy Railways, etc. They're a VERY different company than they were 20 years ago, and not entirely for the better.

Back to the voices, on a similar note, it struck me as rather hilarious when I happened upon a few voice clips from Sparking! Zero, and in particular Bergmeier's Tenshinhan, Vale's Trunks, and Cook's Raditz stuck out to me because they were all doing the exact same super-irritating put-on vocal affectation that basically consists of "do a bunch of super forced grunting and straining to make my voice SUUUPER GRAAAVEEELLYYYY" bullshit so that the character sounds SUPER BADASS" (the same kind that Sabat LOOOOVES to abuse and has for 25+ years).

It was interesting to me because looking back on their original dub performances from the early-mid 2000s, while those three always had a habit of over-enunciating their lines to sound SUPER DRAMATIC (which obviously always came off as laughably overdone and cringeworthy), they never coupled that with the over-the-top cartoony tough guy gravel. And I thought "Well, they've been at this shit for DECADES and they're all like 50+, so MAYBE it's just age, like with Horikawa?" (though to be fair, Horikawa was also a heavy smoker for years, so that was 100% a factor).

But no... looking at some contemporary interviews with them, their normal speaking voices all still sound perfectly, well... normal. And I just went... holy shit... for all the FUNi dub fanbase's nigh CONSTANT rantin' n' ravin' over the last ~15 years about how much the FUNi cast has DRASTICALLY improved since their original Z dub... yeah, sorry, but the truth is, the overwhelming majority of them sound more or less exactly the same as they did 20+ years ago, and several of them straight up sound significantly WORSE. Because FUNimation's general ideology as to how they direct the voice acting for Dragon Ball fundamentally has barely changed an inch since 1995. It's still, even in the year of our Dende 2026, just plain BAD.

I very much disagree. The actors have significantly improved since Z. If you don't like the voices they use for their characters, that's fine, but their acting quality has improved significantly. I also don't think you're taking into account the actors that don't do those types of voices. Sabat's voices for Piccolo & Vegeta are also SIGNIFICANTLY less gruff than they used to be. Since Kai (although, the redub of Dead Zone even earlier for Piccolo), his Vegeta's way less gruff & he gave him an uppercrust accent to go with him being a prince while his Piccolo's been smoothed out to sounding more like his Zoro voice, which is very closer to his natural speaking voice. I also can't tell you how often I was annoyed at Sean Schemmel's performance as Goku in the Z dub. I genuinely have NO idea how anyone could think that performance was good outside of nostalgia. The voice tone hasn't changed much, but he now sounds much more confident in the role & I don't think he's missed a beat as the character since Kai. Say what you will about Schemmel himself, but his Goku is solid nowadays.

I can't really speak to the other 2 (though I don't think Bergmeier's that gravelly with his Tien voice, but more soft-spoken), but Eric Vale's definitely fluctuated for his Trunks voice in the last decade & I think it's mainly from playing Sanji where he floats between his natural speaking voice & his Trunks voice, but more gruff & I think that unfortunately carried over to his Trunks in some of the games before the Super dub. In Xenoverse 1 & 2, his Trunks is SUPER gruff, I remember people years ago complaining about it in the Super dub thread leading up to the dub of the Future Trunks Arc. Luckily, he pulled back on the gruffness to sound more like he did in Kai.

As for FUNi only licensing certain types of anime more often than not, you can't really blame them for that. They're a business & they needed to make money. Most anime people outside of Japan & in the US watch or check out tends to be Shonen stuff or adjacent genres. While there's certainly a market for other genres, they're nowhere near as big as the one for Shonen.

I think what you CAN blame FUNi for is not expanding their roster of actors much passed the ones who live near them in Texas. While they WOULD get some actors from Cali, NYC, or even Canada, they're more out of the norm. Although, due to voice recording over the phone becoming more commonplace, they've definitely expanded that so they can just rent out time at a studio in LA or Ocean or wherever & just mail the actors a check. Which is what they do for actors like Sean Schemmel, who lives in LA. However, they tend to mainly stick to the actors in Texas. Which isn't good for the many series they dubbed. I remember seeing a YouTube video on this years ago.

The video game performances aren't really a good base for assessment, they've been mailing those in for the last 15 years and Sabat mentioned that the direction process for the games is incredibly confusing, overseen by the Japanese studios, and they have little context for what's going on other than "Sound aggressive!" The dubs of actual series material are pretty grounded most of the time.

If we're going with just the audio clips for attacks & battle foley, sure. I think the rest of the dialogue in the games for the story modes tends to be pretty good. There's something to be said that they can still deliver the dialogue well despite not having the best of directorial notes or the cutscenes for context. A lot of people who're fans of the Japanese actors even say that the English actors give their all while the Japanese actors tend to halfass it because they're retreading older material they've already done. However, yeah, the video game performances aren't where you should really judge the actors first. I think Sparking Zero also did a good thing of setting the mouth movements to the actors' performances rather than being set. It allowed for more naturalistic performances for the dialogue when the actors didn't have to follow a certain timing or cadence trying to match the Japanese actors like the other games.

I agree with the last sentence, though. When the actors have the footage in front of them to dub over, good scripts, & good direction, they soar. Like, I would say they English dub cast matches the Japanese cast in terms of quality performances nowadays once they were free of the shit scripts & bad voice direction that dumbed down Z.

I think the door for Magical Girls closed for Funimation when Viz Media got Sailor Moon. Other than that and Fruits Basket they aren't interested in Shojo. They used to be though, they licensed Escaflowne and Kamisama Hajimemashita .

Maybe it's just me, but tbh, I'm fine with FUNi not getting the license to Sailor Moon. I really can't imagine how a FUNi dub of SM would turn out, but I liked Viz's dub of it. A pretty expanded cast of voice actors & a good dub that took cues from how FUNi did the DBZ Kai dub, but in its own way. Like, I don't want another case of them miscasting the main character like they did Luffy in One Piece (which, I love Collen Clinkenbeard, but her performance as Luffy has always been off like she wasn't given the best instruction on how to play him & just plays him as an idiot, which he is, but not like she plays him if you listen to Mayumi Tanaka's performance).

[Vegetto95]

The video game performances aren't really a good base for assessment, they've been mailing those in for the last 15 years and Sabat mentioned that the direction process for the games is incredibly confusing, overseen by the Japanese studios, and they have little context for what's going on other than "Sound aggressive!" The dubs of actual series material are pretty grounded most of the time.

While I can definitely understand the differences between doing voice acting for a serialized TV show vs. for cutscenes/intro lines, etc. for fighting games... at the same time, that's coming from Sabat himself, and in my experience, he sounds EXACTLY the same in Sparking! ZERO, Kakarot, Raging Blast, Xenoverse, etc. as he does in Kai, Super, etc., which is to say the aforementioned gravely, grunty, strainy, over-the-top fake cartoony "tough guy" voice that he hasn't changed more than roughly 0.006% since 2001-02 when he first started deepening what had been up to that point a shitty impression of Drummond's Vegeta (which itself was also not exactly a shining example of fitting the character, since it was basically just kind of an 80s Starscream from Transformers-esque "weaselly, sniveling, conniving high-pitched Disney henchman" voice. And a voice in the vein of 80s Starscream is about the LAST thing that allows me to take a character seriously, which is... KIIIINDA a very bad thing for a character like Vegeta lmao)

Don't get me wrong, I do believe you... it's just I've been more or less Pavlov'd for over two decades now into taking ANYTHING that comes out of the mouth of Christopher R. Sabat with several grains of salt

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

As for FUNi only licensing certain types of anime more often than not, you can't really blame them for that. They're a business & they needed to make money. Most anime people outside of Japan & in the US watch or check out tends to be Shonen stuff or adjacent genres. While there's certainly a market for other genres, they're nowhere near as big as the one for Shonen.

Shonen is not a genre, its a demographic.