I doubt Yamcha saying, "I sure enjoy living a peaceful life," is something that needs changed into him singing, "Cat loves food! Ye-yeah yeah yeah!!" to get on late afternoon cable television. That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the "crud" and "darn it" translations that come from "kuso" and such. No matter what you change it to from "damn" it'll always sound a little corny. Even on faithful dubs from the same time-of-day like Gundam Wing used words like "blast" instead of "damn" and "destroy" instead of "kill."Brakus wrote:There's numerous examples where the dub is good as well as the Japanese. Bebop is one example. Other personal examples for me would include FLCL and Fullmetal Alchemist. However, Cowboy Bebop, to my knowledge, was never intended to be a kids' show to begin with; it only aired late at night in Japan the first time around. This is why Bandai could be more faithful to the original product for the English version.
I don't insist that they have to sound exactly the same. They just have to be good at what they do and what they have to do is convey the spirit and tone of the original. I want my Goku sounding like Peter Kelamis or MasakoX instead of that guy from the "Big Green" dub, but I'm not going to ask for someone to do an impression of Masako Nozawa speaking English in order to get Goku.I can see how that might be a sticking point for them staying more faithful to the original Japanese version. Still, FUNi was smart to do what they did to Z in order to get it on TV and expose it to millions of children over several years. Also, I don't like how some people have to insist that the English dub sound exactly like the Japanese dub. The English voice actors (or other-language voice actors, for that matter) should not be mimicking the Japanese version right down to the voice inflections. Each language should be allowed to have its own take on the cast.
Localizing certain jokes or sayings that are hard to find an English equivalent of isn't a problem with me. However, FUNimation's writing staff took it way too far with Dragonball Z. It still could've been the juggernaut it was even without so many corny jokes, needless line changes, and an alternate BGM. This has been proven in other countries. I believe that DBZ has a lot of staying power on it's own without the need for over-localizing it. In fact, the over-localization coupled with the discovery of the manga version is what convinced me to abandon the dub altogether except for the Ocean dub of the first three movies (more specifically, the first two). I'm sure I wasn't the only one and that I wasn't completely insignificant. Otherwise we'd have no Dragon Box coming in November.As I said before, FUNi did a smart thing by localizing it to the U.S. audience to a slight degree (in the music changes and dialogue changes for broadcast). However, there's a delicate balancing act between localizing for a particular audience and leaving things so literally translated that no one would get the reference. After all, Dragon Ball / Z / GT is a kids' show. You can see how adults and older children can appreciate and enjoy the show, but when you boil it all down, it's still a kids' show. I may disagree with some of the changes that occurred to DBZ when it was first broadcast, but they had to be done in order to reach more of an audience besides the hardcores and the regular anime watchers.
The Dragon Box will be the first time I'll ever own the entire show on DVD and the first time since the Pioneer DVD releases of the first three DBZ movies that I'll own DBZ DVDs without having to import when I saw discounts or buy second-hand from people who have imports. Part of it comes from the dub, part of it comes from refusing to pay $25 or $30 per 3 episodes of the series when it was coming out in a random order and the first 67 episodes weren't even available, and part of it comes from refusing to cave in and get the Season Sets. So, it's not so much of a win-win for me as it's a, "This is very long overdue."Of course, now that the initial U.S. audience is much older and well into their late teens and early twenties, they have the opportunity with the Dragon Box (and to a lesser degree the Season Box sets) to experience the show "the way it was meant to be seen", which would most likely be in the original Japanese. Win-win all around, don't you think?
So, excuse me if I'm a little harsh toward the dub and the DVD releases of the past. I don't mean to be an ass. I'm just a tough customer when it comes to DBZ on DVD.
