Too Old to Worry About Dub

SSj_Rambo · Post by **SSj_Rambo** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 8:17 pm

I know that this thread really isn't aimed at people like me (since I've only been a fan of the series for about 18 months and am 15 years old) but I just I'd express my opinion. As my knowledge of how poor the dub really was grew my inclination towards the Japanese version grew. I never found my self developing a hatred towards the dub, I just kept drifting farther and farther away from it. Even now, after not having watched the an entire episode of the dub in over half of a year I have no real dislike towards it, I'm content with watching it in Japanese with subtitles.

Maybe it's just because I have only been exposed to the dub for so little time, but it's mistakes and flaws don't worry me, since getting the series in Japanese is just as easy.

Forgotten Hero · Post by **Forgotten Hero** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:40 am

Herms wrote: I guess it depends on what you mean by "no longer matters". I think the translation mistakes and whatnot still matter in the sense that they're misinformation. Like the fact that the dub of the android arc calls Tao Pai Pai a general in the Red Ribbon Army still matters in that it's not true and it should always be pointed out that this is something the dub did wrong, since otherwise people can get confused when they watch the original series and see Tao Pai Pai shown as being a hired killer.

But when it comes to things like bad voice casting and other mistakes in how the show was handled, I suppose it doesn't matter since the damage has long been done, and there doesn't seem to be any prospect for an improved dub. I stopped watching the dub years and years ago, so it's been a long time since those things concerned me too much.

Yeah, when the script sways away from what is actually fact...That is wrong! We as fans should point out the shit that is wrong and honestly Funimation should at least admits its faults.
Secondly, it is a shame that the voices aren't any good. But if the dub stayed true to the original Japanese script; we probably wouldn't hate the dub that much. Plus there wouldn't be as much of a problem with "them" or stupid dubby kids, and don't get me wrong. There are smart and knowledgeable English dub fans too.

Haseowolf · Post by **Haseowolf** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:23 pm

I have to say, there are times when I don't mind the dub, other times it's utterly unbearable. These usually include FUNi's early in-house stuff like Freeza saga, Trunks and Bardock specials, etc.

Though, the dub certainly have it's good points when it diverges from the original feel and script.

I believe it goes something a little like this in the original Trunks special:

18: Why do you insist on killing them one at a time? Wouldn't it just be faster to blow the whole place up?
17: Where's the fun in that? If we did that, we couldn't make the fun last as long.

And in the dub (made spectacular by Chuck Huber, who, IMHO, is awesome.)

18: Will you please hurry it up? This is really boring.
17: Boring? This isn't boring. Boring is when I stand around while you shop for clothes for 2 hours.

Sorry, I don't have a lot of dubbie moments, but that part is good.

Kunzait_83 · Post by **Kunzait_83** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:11 pm

Super Sonic · Post by **Super Sonic** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:17 pm

With what some of the guys said, reminds me of some anime shows I saw when I was your age when DBZ was on Toonami originally SSj_Rambo. Recently saw some of them and noticed their dubs hadn't aged well, but being part of my childhood, figured it didn't matter, and still enjoyed them. Also made me nostalgic for days when I didn't look at anime as being different from other cartoons and more enjoyable then.

Haseowolf what you mentioned reminded me of YYH's funniest lines came from altered dialogue. In the original Juri mentioned wanting to get married and Koto said they'd cut the post-tournament stuff. In the dub it went as follows:

Juri: (screams) No! I don't wanna die as a virgin!

Koto: Oh people! Juri's just revealed a shocker that I never would've guessed, with her popular stint at the committee cocktail lounge. Well, as dutiful as I am to the awards, I think this cause is a little more noble. Let's find you a man!

Now I don't care if you think I'm a pervert for liking that line, but I found it hilarious.

Raki · Post by **Raki** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:03 pm

I stopped caring about the dub when I watched Season 1 subtitled. Around that time I watched the dub up to Season 3 on DVD. While I think the Buu Saga is the crown of the dub, I doubt I'll rewatch that when I get it on DVD.

JulieYBM · Post by **JulieYBM** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 11:05 pm

I figure one day we'll get something close to a accurate dub, minus honorfics. 'One day' being the day dubbing an episodes doesn't cost $10,000-30,000.

Kunzait_83 · Post by **Kunzait_83** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 11:09 pm

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:51 am

I think that I am too old to care about dub mistakes. I mean when I was a kid, I was exposed to the dub version and loved it. Then, I started thinking about the Japanese one and everyone was telling me how it's so different, like everything they say is different, blah blah. So that's how I started to think. Got the DVDs solely because of the Japanese track (before then, I video taped every episode of Dragon Ball Z, so I only got the DVDs to see the original version). Before the DVDs, I had Dragon Ball Z Budokai, and for some reason, all those weird screetching voices from the show seemed...pretty well done. Then got the DVDs and bitched about the dub, blah, blah, but I quickly got over that when I noticed that they virtually ay the same thing in different words (I'm talking about the dialog...most of the time anyway). And now, I just view it as two separate shows. One is very mystical and has that Japanese feel to it, and the other is just a damn good action cartoon.

Chrono Trigger · Post by **Chrono Trigger** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:03 am

JulieYBM said : I figure one day we'll get something close to a accurate dub, minus honorfics. 'One day' being the day dubbing an episodes doesn't cost $10,000-30,000.

Man I'd hate to the company that had to re-do all 500 something episodes. If they ever do something like that I'm sure we'll all be to old to care. Hell it might cause some kind of controversy though.

Hao_Kaiser · Post by **Hao_Kaiser** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:03 pm

I feel very much the same. I'm really into the Japanese version now, but I've come to terms with the fact that the FUNi version will always be there to haunt me.

It's there, but I'm not being forced to watch it, so, it's fine.

My only issue is when you try to talk to someone about the show in real life, since most people have only seen the dub.

Kunzait_83 · Post by **Kunzait_83** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:50 pm

Anonymous Friend · Post by **Anonymous Friend** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:07 pm

I get what a lot of you guys are saying, but how much of this mis-information if pertinent to the overall story of the series? Besides the Bardock and Mastermind of the Red Ribbon Army lines, what major confusion is there to be had. For these two, it only seems to cause a stop (1) when you discuss the Bardock special with maybe a little bit during the Freeza/Goku fight, and (2) when watching the original Dragon Ball and going through the Red Ribbon Army arcs.

To me it doesn't go any further than deciding if I want to correct something so small and minor. And the only thing that may compell me to go that extra little bit is if I think the person may truly be interested in the series and would actually care about something so small.

It just seems like the kind of people who constantly bring this up just doing it for the intention on being an ass and sounding like a know it all. I corrected a friend once who had borrowed my Sparking! Neo and I said that it was really Assassin and not General. I felt like a total ass because it was really unimportant.

Adamant · Post by **Adamant** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:19 pm

Not being American, I don't really have any reason to care too much about the American dub, and mostly just treat it as crap I have no interest in getting anywhere near, so here are just some short thoughts based on my exposure to it.

Some time ago, I was going to check out Bardock's American dub voice for some reason I can't recall, and dug up a clip at Youtube. After it had loaded, I promptly hit the back button in order to locate a real clip from the actual dub, since I thought what I found was just some fan parody. Well... uh, it wasn't, as I soon discovered. The acting, the script, the direction, the way it completely differs from the original... it really sounds like an unprofessionally made parody. Now, I like some pretty stupid shit as a kid too, so I can certainly understand why people would want to watch this kind of stuff out of nostalgia, but I seriously can't for the life of me understand how anyone would actually consider it good, nevertheless a good dub of DragonBall Z. It's so far removed from what DBZ is supposed to be, it feels like a completely mockery of the series. Still, people out there not only refers to it as "Dragonball Z", but both think it's good on it's own premises rather than crap that makes you feel nostalgic, and actually prefer it to the original. The real Dragonball, the actual series that took the world by storm. People somehow think the real series is subpar, and this ridiculous parody of it makes it worth watching.

Yeah, this probably sounded a bit negative, dub fans, but it IS my honest opinion, and it's hardly an uncommon one.

Post by **Herms** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:57 pm

Anonymous Friend wrote:I get what a lot of you guys are saying, but how much of this mis-information if pertinent to the overall story of the series? Besides the Bardock and Mastermind of the Red Ribbon Army lines, what major confusion is there to be had. For these two, it only seems to cause a stop (1) when you discuss the Bardock special with maybe a little bit during the Freeza/Goku fight, and (2) when watching the original Dragon Ball and going through the Red Ribbon Army arcs.

To me it doesn't go any further than deciding if I want to correct something so small and minor. And the only thing that may compell me to go that extra little bit is if I think the person may truly be interested in the series and would actually care about something so small.

It just seems like the kind of people who constantly bring this up just doing it for the intention on being an ass and sounding like a know it all. I corrected a friend once who had borrowed my Sparking! Neo and I said that it was really Assassin and not General. I felt like a total ass because it was really unimportant.

Tao Pai Pai isn't the most important character in the series, but he is a fairly major character in the Red Ribbon Army arc and the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai, not to mention his fight with Goku greatly influences the events of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai. So I think the fact that he's an assassin hired by the Red Ribbon Army and not a member of the RR itself is more than some small detail.

And it's not like that's the limit of details the dub changes. Kunzait has gone over this lots of times and can do it better than I can, but here's a summary:

- the entire concept of ki gets completely screwed up in the dub. Most of the time it's left out completely, and the few attempts at explaining it that are given are garbled and confused. Ki is a major concept in the show, being what underlines the power of the main characters and allows them to do their superhuman feets. Leaving it out makes their powers inexplicable and changes the feeling of the show from a martial arts show to some kind of superhero show lacking on origin story.

- The entire god hierarchy is mangled in the dub, and the feeling of mysticism and mythology found in the original is missing. Kami is no longer the Earth's god who leaves in a temple in the heavens, but rather the Earth's guardian who lives in a lookout up in the stratosphere or something, and "Kami" becomes his name rather than his job. The Kaio and Kaioshin get bizzare half-translated names, and the idea that they are supposed to be gods is lost. Piccolo Daimao is no longer a demon king, Shenlong is the "eternal dragon" rather than the dragon of the gods, etc, etc. All of these mystical elements are a constant influence in the show from the very beginning to the end, even during more sci-fi bent story arcs, so altering them so much severaly changes the show's whole background.

- The Saiyans become a bunch of battle-loving people who were corrupted by Freeza, rather than a murderous race who teamed up with Freeza. Similiarly, the dub paints Vegeta as becoming the way he is largely due to Freeza's influence. The Saiyans and Vegeta are of course pretty important to the show's story, so altering their background like this is a major change.

-There's a crapload of misellanous stuff. The idea that Goku's instant movement goes at the speed of light, the idea that Ma Junior is merely Piccolo Daimao's son (we were just talking about this in the questions forum), various altered battle power numbers, the idea that Buu killed a bunch of Dai-Kaio rather than Kaioshin (which contributes to the fan misconception that there were originally multiple Dai-Kaio and more than 4 galaxies), the idea that No.17 and No.18 were purely mechanical...this stuff adds up pretty quickly. I don't see what's wrong with pointing it all out and saying it's wrong.

Super Sonic · Post by **Super Sonic** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:10 pm

Adamant, what you said, reminds me of a few days ago I looked on youtube for the final showdown of the Japanese version of Street Fighter II: the Animated Movie. Now the dub of that scene was one of the best final showdowns in any anime movie or series. Didn't like the Japanese scene because of the music. Music was some happy pop song in Japanese while Ryu and Ken are getting their butts kicked. Also like most North American SF fans, not too keen on hearing "Vega" instead of "Bison".

Also when I saw the Japanese theme for TF: Galaxy Force. Thought dub theme was better. Then again, remember how I said I was old? I was old enough to have watched G1 20 years ago on tv. And as the dub theme had a reminder to the old G1 theme, I admit I was a little bias.

Kanzenshuu

Too Old to Worry About Dub

Re: Too Old to Worry About Dub