How Did You Start Watching the Japanese Audio?

Amigo Ten · Post by **Amigo Ten** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 12:40 am

It's been Kai, actually. I never really watched the anime anyway, but when I did it was the dub. Saw nearly all of DB dubbed, and about 2/3 of Z dubbed. I'd watched some episodes in Japanese just to check it out, but it didn't strike me as brilliant or anything. Never had a big preference for either dub, although I do think Funi, on a couple of occasions, got the voice right for a character where the original didn't. Fat Boo being one of them.

But I've been watching Kai and I'm just used to the Japanese now. When I downloaded the Burst Limit demo the other say to try it out, Sean Schemmel's voice just seemed weird to me.

Tweaker · Post by **Tweaker** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 12:41 am

I'd always known about the Japanese audio for the longest time, but I never really got into listening to it regularly until I watched one of the double feature releases of the Dragon Ball Z movies. What bugged me is that the BGM volume on the dub track with Japanese BGM was very low, lacked several of the insert songs, and in some cases even omitted the opening and ending music entirely. Since I'm really OCD about that sort of thing, I started watching the movies in Japanese with subs to get the full experience. It was a bit of a transition at first, but when switching between the two audio tracks periodically, I learned that I preferred the Japanese voice acting and louder BGM by a very significant margin.

After that, I just started watching everything in Japanese, and now I can't even stand listening to the dub anymore! I think this was actually about the time where I started changing my view on watching anime in general, and now I watch pretty much all anime in Japanese. In direct comparison, the original audio track is far more aesthetically enjoyable in most cases than the dub tracks are, with very few exceptions. In my experience, anyway.

But... well, yeah! I just wish the audio tracks were available in higher quality, because sometimes the scratchy Japanese audio can be grating at my ears.

theoriginalbilis · Post by **theoriginalbilis** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:31 am

The Pioneer release of Movies 1 & 2 on VHS. Good times... Goku's Japanese voice was offputting at first, but I grew to love it and marveled at how awesome the villain voices were (Freeza, Cell, Buu). After that was fansub tapes I bought during the Toonami run, then the FUNi DVDs as they were released. Then the Season Sets, and now the DragonBoxes as they come out... And I'll probably buy Kai once it gets an R1 release.

Sunlight & City Night · Post by **Sunlight & City Night** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 4:27 am

In about 2000 my friend and I obtained a copy of the Japanese version of episode 184. From that moment on I was hooked on the original audio. I suppose I couldn't have picked a better episode to start the original version with.

Bussani · Post by **Bussani** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 4:46 am

Long story short, I only got to watch it in Japanese all the way through recently, when I bought the season sets.

I was an anime fan for a long time before Dragon Ball Z hit the west and stuck. I'd heard of the show before then, but I hadn't seen anything of it. Since the dub was the only way to go at the time, that's how I first watched it. I soon got the Viz editions of the manga gradually, and personally I prefer them over either the Japanese or dub versions of the anime.

Watching anime subbed has always been my preference, where it's available. I don't see the point in watching most things dubbed, because it just makes me wonder how accurate it really is, then I end up going back and watching it in Japanese anyway to find out. Unless it's a show I really couldn't care less about.

KaiserNeko · Post by **KaiserNeko** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 4:47 am

It was back when the show had just ended airing on TV in syndication and I was dying to watch some more. After the Turles movie, I was absolutely dedicated to acquiring more footage. This started out with the internet, which was relatively new to my family at the time, but it got the job done. I was finding crappy .mov and .rm videos in no time, and that's when I heard a little bit of their voices in Japanese. I was probably... 9 or 10 when this happened, about, and I wasn't at all offended by what I heard. It was different, yeah, but I grew to love it pretty quickly when I bought the first three movies at our local Best Buy.

Bussani · Post by **Bussani** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 5:08 am

KaiserNeko wrote:It was back when the show had just ended airing on TV in syndication and I was dying to watch some more. After the Tullece movie, I was absolutely dedicated to acquiring more footage. This started out with the internet, which was relatively new to my family at the time, but it got the job done. I was finding crappy .mov and .rm videos in no time, and that's when I heard a little bit of their voices in Japanese. I was probably... 9 or 10 when this happened, about, and I wasn't at all offended by what I heard. It was different, yeah, but I grew to love it pretty quickly when I bought the first three movies at our local Best Buy.

Ohhh... Now that you mention it, I did pick up the first 3 movies by Pioneer, probably not long after the series had started airing in the UK. That was probably the first time I got to hear the Japanese voices myself.

Bura · Post by **Bura** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 5:14 am

When I wandered around various sites back in the day, I came across clips of this "Japanese version" which claimed to have better dialogues, scenes I've never seen before and uncut material. So I got curious and I watched them. I gotta admit, the voices seemed weird to me in the beginning because I was used to the English dub. I started wanting to watch the Japanese version because it was more true to the original so I did that. After that I started to despise the dub, and love the original Japanese version. All the voices also grew on me to the point that I disliked the English voices.

So yeah. It still kind of is that way although I don't hate the dub (as much) anymore.

SHINOBI-03 · Post by **SHINOBI-03** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 5:35 am

I learned about them from Budoukai 3. I loved them because they were so funny compared to the English voices.

Hellspawn28 · Post by **Hellspawn28** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:19 am

Like back in 2003 or 2004, this was before Youtube was around and I had to download them on the web.

Sunlight & City Night · Post by **Sunlight & City Night** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:32 am

Bura wrote:When I wandered around various sites back in the day, I came across clips of this "Japanese version" which claimed to have better dialogues, scenes I've never seen before and uncut material. So I got curious and I watched them. I gotta admit, the voices seemed weird to me in the beginning because I was used to the English dub. I started wanting to watch the Japanese version because it was more true to the original so I did that. After that I started to despise the dub, and love the original Japanese version. All the voices also grew on me to the point that I disliked the English voices.

So yeah. It still kind of is that way although I don't hate the dub (as much) anymore.

One of those websites wouldn't happen to be "Gojiita's Domain" would it?

The Time Traveller · Post by **The Time Traveller** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:41 am

I had been into anime for a while after watching Dragon Ball Z, I had lost all interest by then, but I got into watching shows in Japanese only. I didn't by my first American DVD until the Season Sets were announced, and I figured I should give it a go. I tried watching the dub on Season One and was completely dissapointed by the voices, especially Goku, Raditz, Gohan and Bulma, they sounded horrible.

So I started watching it in Japan since it would have been the most perfect way to watch Dragon Ball Z anyway, since it was in Japanese and the voices were so bad, and instantly loved it, the atmosphere the voices create, the music, even the quality of it all, it felt right and I gave up all hope of watching it in English properly.

I had seen it before as VHS Fansubs but only for Movies 2, 3, 7, 12 and 13, they were awesome, but at the time I was so young I disliked Goku's high pitch voice and the way they spelt Kuririn and Tenshinhan (Should have been Krillin and Tien!), and I was still watching it on Cartoon Network so it was all very confusing.

For some things I refuse to watch it in English, and the other way around, I can't watch most Gundam series in Japanese because it's somehow MORE boring, and I can't watch any comedy series in English because I know how bad the translated jokes can be and the voices arn't as hilarious.

caejones · Post by **caejones** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 9:01 am

Super Butoden 3.
As soon as you turn it on, Vegeta's yelling in Japanese. Then Goku. Then "Dramatic Face Dissolve! KAMEHAMEHA!"

Hm.

Eventually UB22. That's pretty much how I got used to the voices (I was a bit baffled by a few; the FUNi dub left me pondering swapping Chibi Trunks / Kuririn, and the best word I can think of for my impression of Japanese Buu's voice is "crackhead"... Kuririn and Trunks I'm totally used to now.

).
Most of my access to the series has been through VHS and Toonami, though. So I saw the beginning of Movie7 in Japanese, and... ur... I think that might be it, other than clips on the Daizex Podcast, until... I don't know if it was movie13 or the GT special first. Eh.
There's also the FUNi dub of Dragonball and its keeping of the original music.
... Yeh, I've not done much internet-watching (mostly the last couple weeks, really.

).

Which brings up something else... while I was looking for specific scenes and such over the past month or so, I came across a few clips from ... not Japanese and Not English (I think Spanish / Portuguese, I don't quite remember...

).
This was more than once, I think, because I recall trying to listen all the way through one, but backing out on the other because I couldn't tell what was going on (I was looking for specific information and such. So the English version was most useful. I was a bit uneasy about using the Japanese version simply because my proficiency in the language isn't quite enough to catch everything... but other than that, I don't generally care...).

Oh, hey, I'm incoherent again! Yay~! ... Wait, no, not Yay... Boo, maybe?

Kienzan88gt · Post by **Kienzan88gt** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:31 pm

The first time I ever watched the Japanese audio was back in 1999, just short clips on the Internet. I wasn't really fond of it at the time, I never watched many of the clips with subtitles or great audio quality. So I was pretty much stuck with the English dub at that time. Then around the year 2003, I bought my first uncut DBZ video, it was Movie 8. That was my first time watching a whole movie/episode in Japanese. It took me a while to get use to Goku's voice, but even then I still wasn't favoring the Japanese over the Dub. I noticed how different the script for the dub was compared to the original, and that "woke" me up. After that I started comparing all my uncut videos I had and found a new sense of happiness with the original over the dub

.

Through the years I kept watching the DBZ movies that I've bought for the Japanese audio only, so it was around the year 2006 when I officially only watched the Japanese version. Just recently I obtained all 9 Orange Bricks, for the sole purpose of watching all 291 episodes in Japanese for the first time in my life. I'm proud to say that was simply amazing even with the "remastered" quality of the Orange Bricks. Of course after FUNI announced the English release of the Dragon Box, I immediately sold the Orange Bricks.

Now I'm eagerly awaiting for a review on here of the Dragon Box once it's released. I'm very very very happy and content with the Japanese audio and still appreciate the dub, only because it helped me get into DBZ.

Jurik · Post by **Jurik** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:42 pm

I can't watch the audio

SuperSaiyan3Goku · Post by **SuperSaiyan3Goku** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:16 pm

Before I ever even heard the Japanese Audio, I got accustomed to what the Japanese names were from those old Beckett DBZ Magazines way back in the day. I had some form of Computer in my house at the time, so I (of course) was curious to see what the Japanese voices sounded like.

The first time I had ever heard the Japanese voices were little sound clips from the 10th movie, the scene being Goten and Trunks were deciding what they were going to ask Shenlong for. The site was a Goten Shrine. I have no clue if it's still around, though. Then a while later, while on a trip to Acme (Yes, the Acme Supermarket) I found a tape of Dragonball Z: The World's Strongest. When inspecting the case, I happened to notice "English Subtitles" on the back. That obviously meant that this tape wasn't in English. It was the Japanese version!

This was the only copy I ever saw, so it was probably a fan-sub. Wow, my first fan-sub!

It was very cool to see my very first DBZ movie in Japanese. When first hearing Nozawa's voice coming out of Goku, it sounded cool! Sure, Schemmel is a good Goku, but he doesn't add that innocence that Nozawa's voice adds to the Character.

A few years later, after watching the end of Z on TV (2004) I bought the first Broly movie on DVD from Wal-Mart. This was my first ever Dragonball Z DVD I had ever owned, but not the first Japanese movie I had ever seen. Hearing the voices in the Broly movie wasn't that different than watching movie 2, except for Roshi, Trunks, Paragas, Vegeta, and Broly appearing. Vegeta's voice was bad-ass, Trunks sounded very cool, and Roshi was hilarious when drunk.

So now, in 2009, I am still watching the Japanese version of the show, just like watching the English version in '98. I watch the new episodes of Kai, listen to the Japanese voices in the games, and I'm standing by to see what's around the corner for my favorite Anime.

It just so happens that a little after I get the Dragonbox (At the beginning of 2010) I plan on watching every single episode of Dragonball Z in Japanese. I still have to buy a few of the saga box sets, but that's only the Buu-arc. I hope to only watch the Namek stuff on the Orange Bricks, and everything else Fullscreen.

B · Post by B » Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:03 pm

My interest in anime as a whole started growing when I learned of dub massacres, so I wanted to make a habit of watching shows I actually gave a damn about in their original format that had problems with their dubs.

It's been a little harder for others more than it was for Dragon Ball, though.

Kunzait_83 · Post by **Kunzait_83** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:18 pm

Bura · Post by **Bura** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 4:22 pm

Sunlight & City Night wrote:One of those websites wouldn't happen to be "Gojiita's Domain" would it?

No. ^^
I believe the site was called Oujou, a shrine dedicated to Bulma and Vegeta. (Oh, how I loved that site) XD

jjgp1112 · Post by **jjgp1112** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 4:52 pm

Just clips on the Internet watching the Buu saga. I still don't care for the Japanese audio now, though, it was just what I would watch when waiting for Funi to release the dub of those particular episodes on DVD/air them on Toonami.