What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

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What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by Lunaar » Tue Feb 09, 2010 5:35 am

Before everyone says it, yes. I am a newbie. To post. I've actually been stalking the entire board for years until now, so... *ahem* :roll:

Can we collectively agree on something as a whole? Probably not, as it is a wonderfully diverse message board...but, maybe a good chunk could agree? 80%? 90%?

The topic I bring to the table is, have the American/UK Dubs (FUNimation and the Ocean Group, respectively) done anything correct in your opinion? And not only in your opinion, but could you consider it a universal agreement that it was handled correctly? In regards as to how you think it should've been handled? This could range from voice actor role choices to small details such as the title cards. Just about anything. As long as it has an original japanese comparison.

Some examples from my side being...

>Dub covers of theme songs, ie Romantikku Ageru yo and Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku. While some may agree that they weren't exactly amazing, I pooped everywhere when I popped in the DBGT vomit green brick set disc set and that little number played on my television. And yes, I love it. As well as the DB ending theme dub.
>A small number of corrections done to both the original ocean dub AND the japanese version through FUNI's redub, ie Son Gohan's "Kamehameha" being redubbed into a more fittingly "Masenko" during the battle with Vegeta. Whether this was Toei's fault or Son Gohan just being a five year old :lol: , I thought this was a strange thing to hear come out of Son Gohan's mouth originally. When I heard FUNI's redub of the attack, I just sort of grinned uncontrollably. I felt that FUNi was being unexpectedly smart on this case.

Don't worry if some of your ideas may seem a tad on the controversial side, we may actually agree with you. :lol:
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by linkdude20002001 » Tue Feb 09, 2010 12:57 pm

I thought it was kinda neat to hear Majin-Boo say "Saiya-jin?". It didn't really make any sense, but it was still cool.
And I love getting English versions of the openings and endings. Though, I really wish they'd stop making their own music to go along with it. :x

And although this isn't the FUNimation dub or Westwood Media dub, I think AB Groupe's dub was good in that it was the only English dub to have such a great voice for Kame-Sen'nin (he sounded like a perverted old man! :O )

And Geneon (Pioneer) did amazingly well; I love how Gokuh says "Kaio-ken" instead of "Keio-ken", and they even pronounce Gokuh correctly sometimes (Go-KUH).
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by Kiyza » Tue Feb 09, 2010 1:02 pm

Well, arguably, they did introduce Dragon Ball to a wide audience, despite having been awful dubs. I mean, without Funimation and their dubbing, most people wouldn't know that Dragon Ball exists.

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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by Adamant » Tue Feb 09, 2010 1:22 pm

Yeah, there's only one country in the world.

(also, it's Dragon Ball. It's printed money all over the world. Someone would've picked it up eventually had Funi not done so)
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by Lunaar » Tue Feb 09, 2010 4:35 pm

linkdude20002001 wrote:I thought it was kinda neat to hear Majin-Boo say "Saiya-jin?". It didn't really make any sense, but it was still cool.
And I love getting English versions of the openings and endings. Though, I really wish they'd stop making their own music to go along with it. :x

And although this isn't the FUNimation dub or Westwood Media dub, I think AB Groupe's dub was good in that it was the only English dub to have such a great voice for Kame-Sen'nin (he sounded like a perverted old man! :O )

And Geneon (Pioneer) did amazingly well; I love how Gokuh says "Kaio-ken" instead of "Keio-ken", and they even pronounce Gokuh correctly sometimes (Go-KUH).
I remember that! I thought I was losing my mind when it occured, but I played it back and sure enough... About the themes, I'm pretty sure kareoke versions don't exist (correct me if I'm wrong). Not only that, but translating into english lyrics from japanese never turns out quite as rhythmically correct as you'd like it to be. :roll: I would assume the natural option would be just to compose their own in-house music. Either way, it sounds great.

Son Goku's "Kaio-ken" outcry in Pioneer's dub of Movie 2 satisfied me immensely. Just putting that out there.
Kiyza wrote:Well, arguably, they did introduce Dragon Ball to a wide audience, despite having been awful dubs. I mean, without Funimation and their dubbing, most people wouldn't know that Dragon Ball exists.
*nods* I can see what you mean. :/ While there is a very LARGE number of issues I have with the dubs, I cannot ignore that they've in one way or another escalated DB's stature in pop culture. Win juice.
Gogegito wrote:Gotenks said "I cant let him fight just like that, please trunks help me, he's my brother" And trunks also had undesrstanding eyes.
Ajay wrote:It's probably savagely lit. I dunno.
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Tue Feb 09, 2010 6:53 pm

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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by fig404 » Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:10 pm

Getting back on topic...

I remember an episode in the Overworld Tournament Filler-Arc, where Toei screwed-up and forgot which fighter was trained by which Kai. I don't know the fighter's name, but he was one of West Kai's, which is why it was odd for South Kai to be cheering for him in his fight against Goku. Funimation tried to correct this; South Kai's dialogue at the beginning of the fight was replaced with something like, "I know you're not from my quadrant , but beat that rookie!"
Later, when the fight was over, North Kai was bragging about Goku to West Kai. (In the dub, he was also mocking him.) West Kai's dialogue was also changed to something like, "I told him to throw the fight, because I didn't think it was fair to have two of my fighters in the final round."
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by LeprikanGT » Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:16 pm

They have sold like a zillion dollars in DB/Z/GT VHS, DVD, and Bluray in the US and other English speaking countries.

Thats something.

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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by penguintruth » Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:29 pm

I love how people think it was the English dub that sold Dragon Ball Z so much, and not the show itself. They could have done a better dub and would have gotten just as many sales, and probably more.

Fact was, when it aired on American television, DBZ was one of the edgier action cartoons on television, period.
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by B » Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:43 pm

They pronunced a decent handful of characters' names right. Yamcha, Oolong, Red, Blue, Cell, Buu, Pilaf...
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by Super Sonic » Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:54 pm

Adamant wrote:Yeah, there's only one country in the world.

(also, it's Dragon Ball. It's printed money all over the world. Someone would've picked it up eventually had Funi not done so)
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by Dr. Casey » Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:00 pm

Hmm... things the dub did right...

- Far as I know, the dubs didn't attempt to hide Dragon Ball's Japanese origins. Names were usually retained, for example; Goku was Goku and Bulma was Bulma, they weren't Kyle and Jessica (Yes, I know some names were mispronounced like Kaioken, but that's not what I mean and I don't care about that stuff to begin with; innocent mispronunciations are completely different from shamefully hiding away traces of another culture). Japanese foods weren't changed to an American equivalent, and kanji and hiragana weren't covered up or erased. I could always be mistaken, of course, but terrible as the dub might have been, I think it lacked the blatant xenophobia that commonly infects 4Kids dubs (Hollywood Mew Mew, anyone? Good thing Dragon Ball Z's a name that was already marketable to American audiences, I can't be sure that 1996 Funi wouldn't have changed the name if it weren't already hip and cool enough). The only possible exception I can think of would be the insert songs being drowned out by dialogue and ridiculously corny speeches in the first Dragon Ball series, and since this practice only applies to some of the songs (At the very least, I know the insert song focusing on Goku and Upa before Bora's revival is preserved), I'll just shake my head in confusion and give them the benefit of the doubt that they weren't trying to cover up that unsightly Japanese singing.

- Episode 10 of the original Dragon Ball is supposed to be translated perfectly sans for one dirty joke. Props to Funi for getting one home run, even if they struck out the other 507 times.

- I haven't heard the English version of Dan Dan, but Funi does a great job with GT's closing songs. I probably like the English versions better (Sans Closing 4 which is dull either way).
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by B » Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:06 pm

Oh, of course, "You Are Not Alone" "Dont you see!" and "Blue Velvet". How could I forget?
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:19 pm

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Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by A-dono » Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:32 pm

Two lines of dialogue:

Goku: "Hey Vegeta, look! People-popcorn!"
Vegeta: *sigh* "What is he on?"

Absolutely priceless. Gotta give the dub props for that classic exchange.

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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by Super Sonic » Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:34 pm

What I mean is like in that storyline, just because someone could've done something in the past, doesn't necessarily mean that they would have. For anyone not knowing what I'm talking about, in that storyline, Xavier's illegitimate son went to the past to assassinate Magneto, but accidentally took out his father when he tried to shield Magnus. He poofed out of existance since it was due to his conception and the X-Men weren't founded. And without any X-Men around to stop him, Apocalypse takes over most of the Western world. Now it's been awhile since I've read the storyline, so don't know/remember if they explained why the FF or Avengers who are able to go toe to toe with the X-Men, didn't stop him, but still the fact was they didn't. DC's got a few stories similar where Bruce and Kal-El don't become Batman or Superman and it resulting in Earth getting conquered by Ra'as or Darkseid, despite other heroes' prescence who could've done something to keep them in line.

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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by DemonRin » Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:28 pm

Mr. Satan's voice.

That's... Pretty much it...

If you wana count video games, the script writing in most of them is pretty good. Son actually called himself "Son Goku" in Burst Limit.
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by Chuquita » Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:38 pm

Dr. Casey wrote:Hmm... things the dub did right...

- Far as I know, the dubs didn't attempt to hide Dragon Ball's Japanese origins. Names were usually retained, for example; Goku was Goku and Bulma was Bulma, they weren't Kyle and Jessica (Yes, I know some names were mispronounced like Kaioken, but that's not what I mean and I don't care about that stuff to begin with; innocent mispronunciations are completely different from shamefully hiding away traces of another culture). Japanese foods weren't changed to an American equivalent, and kanji and hiragana weren't covered up or erased. I could always be mistaken, of course, but terrible as the dub might have been, I think it lacked the blatant xenophobia that commonly infects 4Kids dubs (Hollywood Mew Mew, anyone? Good thing Dragon Ball Z's a name that was already marketable to American audiences, I can't be sure that 1996 Funi wouldn't have changed the name if it weren't already hip and cool enough).

That's true, I know Harmony Gold's short-lived dub changed their names and we had stuff like Zero, Bongo, and Whiskers the Wonder Cat, so I am glad that Funi didn't follow that trend. (And I understand why Funi changed Mark's name on him in the edited versions.)


Freeza and Fri-eza is one thing, imagine how conversations on daizex would go if Funi had a full, cast-wide renaming of everyone in the show! :shock: Half the board would be refering to Goku as Zero and Bulma as Lena. I can only imagine what it's like for fans of shows where the dub was rename crazy like Sailor Moon.
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by Velasa » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:21 pm

The original dubs of the first three Z movies are magnificent. The translation, the original music being kept, the strength of the VAs, all wonderful. I like to think about what things would have been like if the whole series had been done like this.

Like Dr. Casey said earlier, FUNi was always fairly accurate with names. Few were changed and most of those had understandable reasons behind them ("I guess you're the world's true savior Satan!"). Compare that treatment to a lot of other shows back in the day... and it was one of their more progressive moves back then.

Though in response to the first post- I really never got the point of dubbing songs. Either you do the tempo right or the lyrics right, it's just not possible to do both.
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Re: What have the American/UK Dubs... DONE RIGHT?

Post by bkev » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:34 pm

Dr. Casey wrote: I can't be sure that 1996 Funi wouldn't have changed the name if it weren't already hip and cool enough).
But... they didn't... '95 with the KidMark dub had most if not all the original names (well, except "Pokawantha" or whatever ridiculous thing it was for the village girl). And then the Z dub started in what, '96 '97?
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