Original Japanese or American version?

Kabijin · Post by **Kabijin** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 7:21 am

VegettoEX is right. "Dub vs Sub" arguments are ridiculous. What I am trying to determine is the overall presentation and production that the Japanese and American versions give to us. So we can view as a total package in each of our individual's eyes and we will view it differently forming our impressions as a "whole."

But, yeah .... going back to the music and sound stuff. Mono sound really sucks. I really like the quality of the American audio (A LOT) where everything is stereo and fresh. I have most of the DBZ movies but they're all on VCD with mono and bad-quality visuals compared to the newer ones now (they were made almost 10 years ago!). I believe Toei never released the Chinese versions of the movies on DVD except only the episodes (box sets).

Pedro The Hutt · Post by **Pedro The Hutt** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:16 am

I dunno... mono CAN have it's charms. I can't imagine seeing/listening to Seven Samurai with crystal clear surround sound. ^.^;;

But hey, tastes differ ne?

Commander_Red · Post by **Commander_Red** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 2:33 am

Is the Chinese theme song really that techno thing that's floating around the internet or would that just be a remix?

Kabijin · Post by **Kabijin** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 3:14 am

Huh? Chinese theme song? Whatcha' mean? I probably haven't heard of it. But if you're asking if the theme song is different for the Chinese version, it's not. They just use the same opening and ending song which is in Japanese.

Pedro The Hutt · Post by **Pedro The Hutt** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 8:14 am

I've noticed that. >.>;; My sis once borrowed a DBZ movie of which the title esccapes me right now from her chinese friends. It just plainly had Cha la head cha la.

Ash · Post by **Ash** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 8:28 am

Huh? Chinese theme song? Whatcha' mean? I probably haven't heard of it. But if you're asking if the theme song is different for the Chinese version, it's not. They just use the same opening and ending song which is in Japanese.

No no...when it was broadcast on TV, there WAS a Cantonese version of Cha-La Head-Cha-La, sung by 2 brothers of whom I don't know anything. Still have some borrowed TV-taped episodes of DBZ around here somewhere... The movies, done by another company or something [they used other VA's and names] did have the original opening en endings.

The version used as the opening theme on TV for the series wasn't 'techno-remixed' though, just a normal version. Don't know whether a normal version floats around on the internet....

Dragon Ball however does have a Japanese Makafushigi Adventure. Don't know about GT...the VCD's have the original opening and endingthemes...

Kabijin · Post by **Kabijin** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 9:49 am

Oh I see. Hmm... I have never seen the openings of the Chinese versions of the DBZ episodes. I only have seen openings of the DBGT Chinese ones.

M-Vegeta · Post by **M-Vegeta** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 6:33 pm

SuperFusion wrote:I like the American verson better. The Japanese version had sorry music IMO. I didn't like the voices of some characters. King Kai for one, sounds horrible. I never wanna hear him in Japanese again. American version has better music/voice actors IMO.

This is proof that some people just don't have any taste.

Sorry, it had to be said.

Post by **VegettoEX** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 6:41 pm

M-Vegeta wrote:This is proof that some people just don't have any taste.

Sorry, it had to be said.

Your avatar's too big. 80x80 max, not 80x100.

Personal opinions are personal opinions. I've had people insult me to the ends of the Earth for preferring Ian Corlett. Whatever. This is Daizenshuu EX, not My Opinion is Better Than Your Opinion. If someone amazingly prefers Schemmel's Kaiou-sama, then hey... that's their deal, and I'll do my best not to berate them for it

.

Adamant · Post by **Adamant** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 8:38 pm

Well.. I'm norwegian, and in Norway, foreign shows are always subtitled. (well, almost always. Someone tried to dub The Gregory Hines Show once, but after the TV station recieved a bunch of angry letters, they started airing it subbed instead. Thank God.) Not just live action shows, but cartoons as well. I was 16 before I heard Mickey Mouse's dubbed voice (it's horrible, so I'm glad it took so long). Looney Tunes, The Simpsons, Animaniacs... it was all aired in it's original, unedited form, subtitled, and the kids never saw anything wrong with it. (OK, there were a few exceptions, like Asterix and Tin Tin, but those shows were french, and I guess the TV guys decided that since noone knew french anyway, they'd rather dub it. Or, they aired the english dub subbed.

But yeah, Dragon Ball. About 5 or 6 years ago, when my family finally got internet access, I couldnt help but avoid hearing about this extremely popular american (yeah, right) cartoon show called Dragon Ball Z. (Actually, I believe it was the rom of Super Saiya Densetsu that really sparked my interest in the series. I'm pretty sure I originally thought it was just a game series.)

So, after searching around, I managed to locate some downloadable episodes, episode clips, episode summaries, all based on the dub, which I though was the original version.

Then I stumbled upon sites claiming this was not the fact. The show was japanese. I found some episode clips from crappy fansubs, but they didn't really do much for me, apart from convincing me that the japanese VAs were a lot more talented than the US ones.

The show was getting really interesting, and I wanted to see the real thing, not just some random bad-quality epiosdes from various places in the series that were halfway downloaded from Kazaa. (No one seemed to have the earlier episodes.

I discovered that DBZ was really the sequel to Dragon Ball, but apart from some summaries on the 13 first episodes, DB info was hard to find, and downloadable episodes were simply nonexistant.

Then I stumbled across some DVDs in DVD store that had a few american import DVDs (I happened to se a rather expensive Tenchi Muyo DVD set on sale, and I asked the clerk if he had any Dragon Ball DVDs, which he did. ) Yeah, they were dub-only, which was rather disappointing, but at least it was something. (plus, I got to see the HFIL episode.) And besides, this was before the violence started, (the second and third dub DVDs. They were about 55$ a piece as well. Imported DVDs ARE expensive here.) so they didn't have THAT much editing and dumbing down.

Around this time (2000), the danish Carlsen Comics started releasing the manga, and some norwegian shops started importing them. They weren't very expensive, and even though they were translated from german, and not japanese, they were a lot better than the american dub (this was before Viz started releasing manga). Well, I started buying the danish manga, and even started importing them myself, but there was still this anime I never got around to watch in it's pure, unedited form, with better voices and less editing.

Then, 2 years ago, FUNi released the Tournament Saga DVD. I bought it. Even had it preordered. (Yeah, I know there had been a lot of DBZ DVDs, but I wanted to watch the anime from the beginning. I already had the first 13 episodes, since I bought the dub-only set due to the case claiming it was bilingual. It was, but the second language was spanish, not japanese.) But yeah. Watched the japanese version. Loved it. Then I watched the dub of the very same episode. It was a lot worse. (I had originally planned to do this with every episode, but changed my mind after the first).

Well, ever since then, I've been importing DVDs from the US. (I already have all 42 volumes of the danish manga) Currently, my collection consists of all the FUNi DB DVDs, as well as the Garlic Jr., Androids, and Imperfect Cell sagas, the 6 first movies, and the 2 TV specials. I've watched a few dubbed episodes here and there, but I never liked them.

And, on top of that, I've been cruising the web for information on the original version, name puns, ect.

And since the "bad" manga company started releasing the DB manga in Norway (we have to companies that release manga here. One is horrible, the other is decent. Sadly, DB was picked up by the horrible one. It's based on the german translation, but unlike the danish one, it's a pain to read. Stupid expressions, bad paint jobs when it comes to sound effects, and, for the love of god, CENSORSHIP. Ew. (The censors are probably drunt too.. Okay, it's bad to see Bulmas ass when she flashes Kame Sennin, but it's all right to see her naked in the shower later on?), I've started a monthly writeup of everything that was changed in the translations. Which is a lot.

Hm, this turned out longer that I thought it would be. Oh well.

sangofe · Post by **sangofe** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:24 am

Pedro The Hutt wrote:My first DB experience was the german dub of the original Dragonball, which luckily edited nothing but the voices. =D In any case, I prefer to watch things in their original version. Thus, japanese!

Errrhhmm.
German is pretty much chopped up man.

Pedro The Hutt · Post by **Pedro The Hutt** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:31 am

Well, it at least wasn't edited, nor censored, and it kept the original background music. >.>;; And well, yeah they did mess up the kamehameha early on, but sometime after the first budokai it got the correct naming. In any case, in general german dubbing of anime tends to be far better than american.. in my opinion that is.

Although in the end I STILL prefer subtitles. XD

SonGokuGT · Post by **SonGokuGT** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:04 pm

My first taste was DB in Castillian Spanish in 89. Then I moved on to the manga in 92, the American DBZ dub in 98, and ultimately the original Japanese in DVD, which I absolutely fell in love with. So I like the Japanese version best since it has the original music used the the Castillian dub I grew up with.

Michi · Post by **Michi** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 8:12 pm

If I mixed around the cast of the Ocean Group and Funimation's new cast of actors I could make a really good dub cast. I'm pretty happy with most of Funimation's current cast that's in the Budokai games, but on New Year's Day we watched DBZ movies 1-3 on YTV and I heard the Ocean Group again for the first time in years. I remembered how much I loooove Saffron Henderson's little Gohan. Stephanie Nadolny is cool and all, I mean, I even met her at a con once... but I think Saffron's performance better matches what I love about Masako Nozawa's Gohan. Anyway. You know. I've seen lots of bad dubs. But Funi's Dragonball dub really isn't bad. The acting is better than most stuff out there, and they don't ruin as many characters as most edited for kids on TV dubs do... if that makes sense.

But the Japanese version... I prefer overall. I've never seen a dub actor do what Ryo Horikawa does with Vegeta. Masako Nozawa's range is amazing. There's this great tradition with voice actors keeping within families, haha, like Yuko Minaguchi doing both Videl and Pan, Hiromi Tsuru as both Bulma and Bra, and of course Masako Nozawa's many characters. The music is classic anime background themes at their best, and works well for the series. I really love it. I just wish they would've tried a bit harder with the fillers. >_>

Sooooo... overall, I prefer the Japanese version.

Mike D · Post by **Mike D** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 8:25 pm

Michi wrote:I've seen lots of bad dubs. But Funi's Dragonball dub really isn't bad. The acting is better than most stuff out there, and they don't ruin as many characters as most edited for kids on TV dubs do... if that makes sense.

I agree with you all the way. With dubs like YuGiOh running around, DragonBallZ looks a hell of a lot better. The voice acting did improve. The Androids and Darbura are great.

And doesn't Funimation's cast sound and a lot like the cast used in
DragonBall GT: Final Bout. Gohan, Pan, and Goku are a few good examples.

Mattias · Post by **Mattias** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 10:46 pm

Man, I'd love to see Dragon Ball Z in German. With all the fighting, it just sounds so appropriate. XD

You know what, I'm not going to complain much about the English version of DB/Z/GT/whatever, since I prefer reading about DB/Z in the manga anyway. Regardless, in both languages, you get the same basic idea about what's going on. Bad guys are defeated, happily ever after.

It's also quite silly to get into these "dub vs. sub" debates, because in the end, it's just a cartoon. Yes, that's right, I said it. Don't you purists start trying to counter my blasphemy with holy water. =P

Super Sonic · Post by **Super Sonic** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 11:44 pm

Mike D wrote:
Michi wrote:I've seen lots of bad dubs. But Funi's Dragonball dub really isn't bad. The acting is better than most stuff out there, and they don't ruin as many characters as most edited for kids on TV dubs do... if that makes sense.
I agree with you all the way. With dubs like YuGiOh running around, DragonBallZ looks a hell of a lot better. The voice acting did improve. The Androids and Darbura are great.

And doesn't Funimation's cast sound and a lot like the cast used in
DragonBall GT: Final Bout. Gohan, Pan, and Goku are a few good examples.

The cast of Final Bout made Funi's guys at the worst sound like Shakespearean actors.

Boomer2k4 · Post by **Boomer2k4** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 4:18 pm

Generally with most anime I prefer to watch it in Japanese first to get the feeling of how it was "meant" to be like. You can pick up tones and background a bit more when watching in the original.

But I have nothing against the dub either and if I have it on in the background while doing something I'll have the dub on becuase no matter how much anime I've watched I still cannot understand anything but the most basic Japanese phrases so English is always a little easier, if inaccurate sometimes.

Kabijin · Post by **Kabijin** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 6:19 pm

I don't mind the dub of either versions. Infact, the only thing I love is the music. I am absolutely in awe of the music in the original Japanese scoring of DBZ and GT. It captures the mood and feeling extremely well. I can listen to all of the soundtracks forever. Even the Butoden games (esp. Butoden 3) had awesome music, too! It's not that I dislike American music. I just love Japanese way better. Hehe.

Aurek · Post by **Aurek** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 7:46 pm

So, am I the only one in the world who thinks Funis newer cast are, on average, a lot better than the Ocean Group? I have watched one or two Majin Vegeta episodes (specifically the part where he destroys the Budokai stadium) I would watch a few seconds of one, then the same few seconds of the other and the Ocean Group Vegeta sounded wooden and put no feeling into his speech, same with Kaioshin. Am I right in thinking that the DBZ episodes aired in the UK (On UK Sky, Toonami specifically) are Ocean Group dubs seeing as how the GT shown is.

When I get the new DVD's Ill watch then in Japanese and see which I prefer. I hope the sound quality is decent, I'm not expecting it to be as good as the dub's but hopefully better than on some other anime DVDs I've seen.

edit: Edited as per VegettoEXs next post

Kanzenshuu

Original Japanese or American version?

Am I the only one?