Die-hard dub fans (why are you, if so?)

[Big Momma]

Here's something I just now thought about(I kind of worded it wrong earlier).

I don't really have a problem with the whole idea of someone being a "lesser fan". Because, simply put, some people enjoy/care about the series more than others.


It's just that, if someone (i.e., a DUB fan) says that he/she isn't a lesser fan, who's to tell them they aren't?

[russ869]

Here's an interesting question. Sort of the reverse of this topic's original question. Who here was introduced to Dragonball through Funimation's dub but then eventually started watching Japanese exclusively? What made you change? Also, according to Sn4tcH's post above, he was introduced through the original, and now prefers the Funi dub. Who else is like this? Describe why.

I fall into the category where I saw the dub first and now watch only Japanese. And the truth is that even though I watched the Dragonball dub, I never really liked it. Besides the few times I caught parts of episodes on TV as a kid, when I first started paying attention to Dragonball was when I was first being introduced to anime at large and was still in the phase where I would only watch something if it was dubbed. The Dragonball dub never struck me as particularly good (it was obviously different in comparison to other I first saw around that time: Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Yu yu Hakusho...). But I kept watching what I could because the story was very interesting, and kept me wondering what was coming next (ironically it was the Buu arc I watched first). But while it was interesting to watch the first time, there was something I didn't like about it that made me feel like I wouldn't want to see it again. I'm not sure I can describe it well, but it seemed like every time they tried to do something cool or funny with the show, it sort of failed. And it didn't really seem the same as other anime I'd seen, if that makes any sense (even Shonen Jump anime; remember I was watching Yu Yu Hakusho). It felt more like a dub that belonged in the same category as Yuugiou, even though it was uncut (Although, back then I still watched the Yu-Gi-Oh! dub and somehow thought it made sense.). Just in terms of music, scripting and voicing the Dragonball dub seems on an initial viewing to be more like an American cartoon than most other uncut anime.

I had seen the beginning episodes of the filler tournament Goku participates in in the afterlife in Japanese, but hadn't really thought anything special about them. I first began to check out the Japanese version in earnest when the trailer for the Remastered Season Sets came out (they used the word "Japanese" a lot of times in that trailer). And after checking out what seemed to be the popular scenes to watch in Japanese, I eventually found that surprisingly I was able to enjoy it just as much as other Shonen Jump anime, whereas before I was unable to. I knew the Season Sets were crap quality from the reviews on this site, but I bought 1-6 anyway because I wanted to see the show in Japanese and that was really the only convenient way to do so. I was still watching some in English up through season set 2, but I haven't watched any in English since the Gokuu-Freeza battle. I've still never seen the Buu arc in Japanese.

So that's it for me. The reason I changed from watching dub to Japanese is because I never really liked Dragonball before I saw it in Japanese.

[Ultimate_DB_Fan]

Wow, I'm gone for a couple of days and this thread I created made it to 23 pages...? I'll be...
Anyway, my thoughts are basically this, a dub only fan should, at some point, owe it to themselves to check out the original format of the series at least once in a while.
I like to think that if a dub fan can occasionally refer to the characters in their Japanese names and could at least acknowledge/appreciate the original, then I think it's safe to say that said people are indeed real fans. To me, it's complelety not recommended that a person only expose themselves to Funi's dub or any other dub, without exposing one's self to the real, better version.
Lastly, why can't some people here just like both, like me? I've done this thing where, once in a while with the orange bricks, I've seen about two or three episodes in English, and then later rewatched the same eps again in Japanese. That IS an option, you know.

[Ultimate_DB_Fan]

@russ689

Like many here, I was introduced to the series via Toonami's airing of season 3. For a couple of years, I preferred watching it dubbed because, at the time, I thought the script was the same and I was also naive by the logic that reading subtitles was stupid.
Though I watch the series subbed, I occasionally switch to Funi's dub with the Japanese score.

[laserkid]

I was introduced to the series in 1995 via the first FUNimation dub of the Pilaf arc. I absolutely adored it, and the next year I tuned into DBZ's first dub. I was confused as hell, but I enjoyed it for the most part. Around 1997 or so I ran across Chris Psaros' "Dragon Ball Z: Uncensored" website (which incidentally is how I ran across "Vegetto EX's homepage, which became Daizenshuu EX) which taught me just how much was being changed. I immidiatly wanted to see the original version, however I had very little acess to fansubs (nevermind even then being morally opposed to fansubs of officially licensed shows).

So I watched the dub until I had a choice, when the DVDs hit, at which point I began watching the show in Japanese with English Subtitled exclusively, and I never looked back. I still watch Dragon Ball dubbed, just not Dragon Ball Z.

As to the Star Wars comment, I was more commenting on my prequel love, which is rather uncommon in the fanbase, and because of this, I get labeled as a non fan, regardless of the fact that I grew up extremely obsessed with Star Wars, and still am. I've debated how the Force works for christs sake, but people label fandom over what is and isn't liked, and that's just wrong.

What I'm trying to say there, is fans are fans no matter which aspects they like or don't like. There's no point in dividing fans around what parts are liked. This applies to DBZ also, if you're into it, you're into it.

You may be less interested in it then others, but that has nothing to do with WHICH aspects you like

[VegettoEX]

Around 1997 or so I ran across Chris Psaros' "Dragon Ball Z: Uncensored" website (which incidentally is how I ran across "Vegetto EX's homepage, which became Daizenshuu EX)

I tossed up "VegettoEX's Ultimate DBZ Links Page" in January 1998. Became "VegettoEX's Home Page" within a couple months (February or March, I think). Looks like "Uncensored" began sometime mid-1998.

And now you know!

[verto]

I know. That's what I just can't figure out. The fact that someone is a regular poster on this board already puts them above the average interest level in this kind of Dragonball trivia. So why do they still watch the dub exclusively, which frequently leaves out or changes those little tidbits? What's stopping them from liking both versions? I'm guessing it has to do mostly with the music and the character's voices. (In other words, it's about nostalgia. Which is fine.) If there is another explanation, I want to hear it.

I've stayed out of this for as long as i could, but... this question has been asked too many times. No one here has said the Japanese version is bad as far as I can remember. I for one, enjoy both the English and Japanese versions, while preferring the FUNi dub. Yes there are problems/changes. No, I don't know as much about the original as I'd like to. I still prefer the dub over the original. No matter what anyone here says, I don't think the voice cast and music for the Japanese version fit better than FUNi's.

Whats all this about preferring the dub automatically being nostalgia? I grew up with the Ocean dub, I HATE it, the voices are terrible in my opinion. I genuinely enjoy what FUNi has done with the show.

I apologize, I know that this was pretty much over, but after reading the last few pages I had to put my thoughts in.

[laserkid]

Around 1997 or so I ran across Chris Psaros' "Dragon Ball Z: Uncensored" website (which incidentally is how I ran across "Vegetto EX's homepage, which became Daizenshuu EX)

I tossed up "VegettoEX's Ultimate DBZ Links Page" in January 1998. Became "VegettoEX's Home Page" within a couple months (February or March, I think). Looks like "Uncensored" began sometime mid-1998.

And now you know!

Bahhh I'm getting old to get that wrong like that. I wasn't sure if it was 97' or 98', but in retrospect I didn't get my own computer until 1998, so yeah, that sounds right. xD

[Sebastian (SB)]

I saw a couple of episodes of the Ocean dub Saiyan arc at my cousin's house. I didn't have (or thought I didn't, but that's another story) Cartoon Network, but from what I saw, I was initially perplexed by the designs and style of the series. I saw Sailor Moon and had some familiarity with anime, but Dragon Ball didn't look very anime-like to me. I didn't know why the short kid with weird looking haircut was mad that the Green Alien was sent to "another dimension". I never saw the series again after a while. I just thought it was weird and confusing. I admit that I liked the designs and style, but the story just made no sense to me. It didn't have the villain-of-the-week structures or clever/corny one-liners of modern American cartoons like Batman:TAS, X-Men, and the like at the time.

Skip forward to mid-last year in my elementary school, I remember one of my friends being hyped about Goku turning Super Saiyan after defeating Freeza and the new 72 episode Cell arc season coming up. Curious about it, I watched it and was hooked. To this day the Cell arc, remains a source of nostalgia for me as well as the dub for the time. During this period, I remembered buying the fansubs for Bio-Broli and Fusion Reborn just "to be cool" or be ahead of the series. I was taken aback by the music, the general mood, and voices. Particularly, with Son Goku, I just thought it some weird Japanese tradition to have females voice male leads (Oddly enough, I was somewhat correct. Specifically, in the Shonen genre, you'd see a lot of female seiyuu taking on young male leads. Luffy, Naruto, Kenshin, and probably some others come to mind). The music reminded me of a lot of old Hanna-Barbera cartoons like Scooby Doo and The Flintstones. It had a 70s style to it. It was only much later on that I learned that was generally the intention considering Dragon Ball was inspired by old martial arts films of the 70s, specifically, Drunken Master.

With further internet research and attendance of VegettoEX's "The DBZ You've Never Seen" panel in one of the AnimeNext cons, I was hooked. I never bothered looking back after just generally appreciating the style the Japanese version had. Kikuchi's love letter to the film classics, Nozawa's nuances as Son Goku, Horikawa's finesse as Vegeta, Wakamoto's "CHIIKUSHOU!!!!!" and, most importantly, a script that's accurate to the manga as close as possible. FUNimation didn't have that, and to me, that's the most important thing to have in a dub.

[Metalwario64]

And HOLY SHIT Kunzait, do you change your icon every five seconds or something? I was looking through the thread and you had a different avatar on every page I saw you post in And every time I go back to this page you have a different icon every single time? Is this a joke?!

It would seem he has a rotating avatar...

...I want one! I even tried to make one at one point, but it ended in fail...

Whats all this about preferring the dub automatically being nostalgia? I grew up with the Ocean dub, I HATE it, the voices are terrible in my opinion. I genuinely enjoy what FUNi has done with the show.

I agree completely!

[DemonRin]

Wakamoto's "CHIIKUSHOU!!!!!"

Norio Wakamoto is a godly actor, I swear. Not just in Dragon Ball either. He plays Alexander Anderson in Hellsing, and my god the man is amazing

[penguintruth]

Whats all this about preferring the dub automatically being nostalgia? I grew up with the Ocean dub, I HATE it, the voices are terrible in my opinion. I genuinely enjoy what FUNi has done with the show.

The Funimation voices are nearly all bad impressions of the Ocean voices, though. Chris Sabat is doing an impression of Brian Drummond and Scott McNeil. Sean Schemmel is doing an impression of Ian Corlett. Linda Young is doing an impression of Pauline Newstone. They never grew into their own interpretations, they were just doing impressions the whole time.

The only Funimation voices that seem separate from the Ocean voices are the characters that came later on. Even I think some of those, like Chuck Huber and Meredeth McCoy as 17 and 18, are actually pretty good performances, despite the bad scripts. Why? Because they actually had the chance to not be impressions of other actors.

[Metalwario64]

They never grew into their own interpretations.

Are you serious?

If you can honestly say that today's super-deep Sabat Vegeta is still an impression of Drummond's high-pitched performance... then I just don't know what to say...

[Piccolo Daimao]

My personal preference is FUNimation Dub or Japanese Dub. I prefer not to watch Ocean Dub because of the music and the voice actors, which I don't like. Plus, I've kind of been brought up around FUNimation voices because of the anime and the video games. So whenever I'm reading the manga, I instinctively read the characters' speech bubbles with FUNimation voices. Don't know why, I just do. I generally watch FUNimation, though.

[Undercooked Sausage]

I've been watching the Dragonball dub for the first time and I'm shocked at how good it is. I'm watching it dub w/ subtitles on and there is little difference in what is being spoken and what is actually being said.

Wakamoto's "CHIIKUSHOU!!!!!"

Norio Wakamoto is a godly actor, I swear. Not just in Dragon Ball either. He plays Alexander Anderson in Hellsing, and my god the man is amazing

Wakamoto-san is God, probably the best villain-seiyuu of all time. His Bison/Vega/Dictator is outstanding.

[laserkid]

You're watching it with the Japanese subtitles, not the closed captioning for the dub subtitles, right? Because if not, I've done the same thing, and had absolutely the opposite outcome.

[russ869]

...Wakamoto's "CHIIKUSHOU!!!!!"

Ha ha... Personally I prefer Shigeru Chiba's "CHIIKUSHOU!!!!!" Maybe it holds more wait when you're actually dying, instead of just whining about how you're about to be killed. I'm not too big of a Wakamoto fan. A lot of his roles became sort of self-parody. But it's undeniable that he's in just about everything.

You're watching it with the Japanese subtitles, not the closed captioning for the dub subtitles, right? Because if not, I've done the same thing, and had absolutely the opposite outcome.

That's right, most older Funimation DVDs have a dub captions track along with the subtitles. I used to get confused on my Yu Yu Hakusho DVDs as to why there were 2 different English subtitles.

[Onikage725]

Whats all this about preferring the dub automatically being nostalgia? I grew up with the Ocean dub, I HATE it, the voices are terrible in my opinion. I genuinely enjoy what FUNi has done with the show.

I agree completely!

Well, I want to ask you guys (or anyone else) ,what is it you see in "what FUNi has done with the show?" First off, FUNi was doing the show in the Ocean cast days, so are we just talking actor's? I personally think half of the problem is the scripts, and those are consistently bad. This is evidenced by the fact that when they redubbed the first two seasons, they left at least 75% of the original script, and probably 20% of the remaining 25% was only new because it hadn't been aired before. penguintruth may be too general when he says that all of the voices were just knock-offs, but they certainly were at first. Schemmel's two major voices always were. I personally think he got better, but there's no denying his cue was Ian Corlett. His Kaio has always been the original (Ward?) with a cold, basically. Sabat started out Drummond-light and added the raspiness, which I guess works for people. Not even remotely for me because I was used to Drummond and Horikawa, but I'm not trying to start a fight over that. And Freeza, anyone? And just about all of his crew, except Cpt. Ginyu. And I don't think anyone actually cares about Ginyu's S3 voice.

What I'm getting at is that FUNimation didn't alter their script-writing practices until around the last saga. When they went back to redub the first two sagas, they didn't rewrite the majority of the scripts. They were consistently hokey. Even after having dubbed Dragon Ball, and while doing spot-treatment on the script for the season sets, they did NOTHING to fix the plot holes they had created when handling DB references before they thought they were going to do DB.

What I'm getting at is that besides un-censoring the footage, they didn't do much different with the show than what they had been. So, I'm not trying to be confrontational, I really want to know what it is that struck a chord with you.

I've been watching the Dragonball dub for the first time and I'm shocked at how good it is. I'm watching it dub w/ subtitles on and there is little difference in what is being spoken and what is actually being said.

I'm showing the series to my girlfriend, and she's making us view the dub. I don't mind it nearly as much as I do Z, but little things do annoy me. I know, I'm picky. One thing that was minor, but irksome, was when Yamcha figured out who Goku's grandfather was. In the original, it was kind of a name dropping moment where people realized that Goku was sort of a big deal if he'd been trained by the mighty Son Gohan and all. In the dub, Yamcha seemed to have passing respect for Gohan, but still came off as confident and somewhat dismissive to Goku.

Roughly- "Oh shit, you're Gohan's grandson? I cant take this kid lightly" vs "I know of Gohan, but I'm still gonna kick your ass." It isn't the sort of thing that would annoy someone just watching the dub, and it doesn't derail the story, but as a fan of the original it bothers me. Bulma gets bad at times too, since they just have to add extra bitchiness to her here and there. When I watch DB/Z, I like Bulma, though sometimes she annoys the hell out of me. When I watch it dubbed, I start at annoyed with her, and devolve to pure hate.

[Metalwario64]

Well, I want to ask you guys (or anyone else) ,what is it you see in "what FUNi has done with the show?" First off, FUNi was doing the show in the Ocean cast days, so are we just talking actor's? I personally think half of the problem is the scripts, and those are consistently bad. This is evidenced by the fact that when they redubbed the first two seasons, they left at least 75% of the original script, and probably 20% of the remaining 25% was only new because it hadn't been aired before. penguintruth may be too general when he says that all of the voices were just knock-offs, but they certainly were at first. Schemmel's two major voices always were. I personally think he got better, but there's no denying his cue was Ian Corlett. His Kaio has always been the original (Ward?) with a cold, basically. Sabat started out Drummond-light and added the raspiness, which I guess works for people. Not even remotely for me because I was used to Drummond and Horikawa, but I'm not trying to start a fight over that. And Freeza, anyone? And just about all of his crew, except Cpt. Ginyu. And I don't think anyone actually cares about Ginyu's S3 voice.

Woaaah!! Wall-o-text!!

Anyway, I just prefer FUNimation's in-house dub because I prefer the voices (who did move into their own roles mostly) and because it has an uncut version. I also enjoy it more now because they have re-inserted the Japanese music, which I prefer to any other score for the series including Kai's.

The scripts also got better around... let's say, somewhere around Season Five or maybe early Season Six. There are still dumb jokes here and there, but it's not too far off compared to the cringe-worthy Season Three (of which seems to be a lot of sub-fans interpretation of the FUNimation in-house dub around here).

Another thing is, outside of the start of Season Three, there is no mention of the "Other Dimension" and characters can openly state if someone is dead, and villains can openly state "I'll kill you!"

[JulieYBM]

They never grew into their own interpretations.

Are you serious?

If you can honestly say that today's super-deep Sabat Vegeta is still an impression of Drummond's high-pitched performance... then I just don't know what to say...

Deep? Please, that's nothing. This is Sabat's deep (not to be confused with Helm's).



Anyway, a bit more on topic, I became a fan through what I think was the first Season Two run on Toonami and collected the dub tapes as they came out (and still have 'em), so I'm pretty much the poster child for dub fan gone to the subbed side. I love both casts, but the dub performances in the series just aren't very good. At all. It's completely out of synch with their other dubs, in terms of acting and casting, and that shows.