The most famous controversy - Goku's Japanese voice

[Gaffer Tape]

Is anyone in the Son family actually "manly" (other than maybe buffed-up 4X Kaio-Ken Goku in the middle of the Vegeta fight)...? I'd have a fun time debating that~!

Alrighty then! I'll give it a shot. I'd argue that, out of the three main Son males, Gohan is probably the most "manly."

...

And that's not saying a lot considering that he was introduced as a cry-baby mama's boy who lacked the desire to engage in stereotypical manly behavior like fighting. And even as he matures, he's still a soft-spoken nerd who's relatively shy, shuns attention, and would rather study than fight. But he's the manliest in the sense that he actually does mature. He becomes a working class citizen, raises a family, integrates into society, etc. But the Nozawa voice fits him as a post-pubescent because of the aforementioned soft-spoken, non-confrontational person that he is in high school.

As for Goku and Goten, they're much more hyperactive, testosterone-filled lumps of shonen action. They love to fight, love to play, love to run around. So they're "manlier" than Gohan generally is in that sense. However, their lack of maturity leads them to be classified as "man-children." They don't mature. Even when they physically mature, they're still boys in men's bodies, so the higher-pitched childlike voices fit their characters as well, just for a different reason than it does for Gohan.

EDIT: Oh, but if I had to argue which of them would be most justified/least justified in having a certain voice, I'd say that Gohan would have been most-justified in being voiced by a male for the reasons I listed above. And likewise, Goku is certainly the character of the Sons who would be least justified in being voiced by a male.

[VegettoEX]

I really think that as mature individuals we should respect each others' preferences. I really see no point in getting a self righteous attitude and looking down on others because of the dub they prefer based on voice acting (not that anyone here is, I'm just saying).

That's a perfectly logical, and as you've said, mature way of viewing the situation... but the slippery slope is... just when are we no longer even talking about the same character?

I stand by my argument that the Freeza *I* exclusively talk about (the original Japanese version portrayed by Ryusei Nakao) *is not* the same Freeza known to fans who are exclusively that of the FUNimation English dub. That's when the conversation breaks down, and it fails to be simply about respecting one another's opinions -- the conversation can't even take place without endless clarification and confusion.

So where along that slippery slope is it still acceptable and can we still have that conversation? Is it when the gender of the actor/actress changes? Is it when the script changes? Is it when the intention in the delivery of the lines is changed?

That's also where some of that assumed respect can potentially be tossed out the window, too -- are we really fans of the exact same thing when the thing we are talking about is so drastically altered? Where is the respect for the source material? Where are the internal standards when purchasing a product? Where do you draw the line on what is acceptable? If my own definition of "respect" for the source material is so drastically different from someone else's (whether they are just a casual fan who is totally apathetic about the entire thing, as I am with the 1980/1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon adaptation)... where can we actually come to an agreement on mutual respect for each other?

I absolutely agree that there should be unconditional respect for someone else's appreciation and devotion to something as trivial as a voice cast for a 20-year-old Japanese cartoon... but at the same time, when fans can so drastically differ in that devotion, conversations can and will break down...

... and we'll just leave any potential mess to Kaboom .

[Kaboom]

The majority of the issue with displeasure over Goku's voice, as far as I can tell, is that he's only being judged by his appearance. He looks buff and manly, so it's assumed he must also sound buff and manly.

The characters' voices and the personalities that go with them are deeper than that, though. The failure to realize that strikes me as the reasoning behind a lot of the dub's unpleasant voices.

Reacoom looks like a big goofball, so naturally he can't sound at all intelligent. Kaio looks like a squat, fat guy, so no way he can sound like a wise old master. Freeza looks somewhat androgynous, so we simply can't have him sound like a classy emperor-type. And, of course, Goku looks like a ruff n' tuff martial artist, so it's simply impossible for him to sound like a little kid.

[Gaffer Tape]

I just thought of something else. For some reason, we pretty much accept that, while a female Goku works in Japan, it wouldn't work in America. Why is that? Why would it be so difficult for someone to pull it off? It seems that even those of us who love Nozawa's Goku say, "It would never work over here." When people say that, is it their own preference, or are they espousing that the general audience would never accept it?

Also, I like how Mike brought up the example of English male Ranma. I admit I never really liked this voice. It's been a long time since I listened to it, but to me it always sounded like a woman trying too hard to sound like a guy. It reminded me of those sitcom episodes where a female character has to infiltrate an all-male location and ridiculously saunters around and punches people in the arm, all while talking in that really, for lack of a better term, "butch" voice.

But I don't get that feeling at all when I listen to Nozawa's Goku. It doesn't seem like she's going out of her way to make herself sound "overly-manly." She's just playing the character. She's acting, and through that the mannerisms of the character come through in a much more subtle and more believable way than if she tried to oversell her manliness. She's portraying a character who happens to be male, not basing her entire performance around the rather two-dimensional fact that the character is male, if that makes any sense. She does deepen her voice for adult Goku as opposed to kid Goku, but it's not over the top.

It makes me wonder about Shakesperian-era acting when males played all the roles. Did men playing women always go for that overly-cartoony falsetto voice? Maybe in a comedy, but I have a hard time believing that Juliet would be taken seriously that way. I would assume it would be more likely that they'd speak in their higher natural range while exhibiting somewhat feminine mannerisms without going over the top.

[jjgp1112]

I agree with the OP mostly. I hate the fact that Adult Goku sounds like a 12 year old boy. Plus the fact that I just don't like Nozawa's voice. Her screams sound like she's coughing something up.

You don't meet a full grown man with a high pitched voice like him, do you?

Two names: Michael Jackson and Mike Tyson

I wouldn't exactly count those two as normal. Especially since the punchline of every joke about the latter has to do with his voice.

[Big Momma]

Reacoom looks like a big goofball, so naturally he can't sound at all intelligent. Kaio looks like a squat, fat guy, so no way he can sound like a wise old master. Freeza looks somewhat androgynous, so we simply can't have him sound like a classy emperor-type. And, of course, Goku looks like a ruff n' tuff martial artist, so it's simply impossible for him to sound like a little kid.

That's just the way it is here in America, though, with any animated show (Of course...for the most part, the personalities match the appearances, as well). It just goes to show how incredibly different the two cultures are.


Although, if there's on thing I like about the English Goku then it's this; The manly voice serves as a nice (humorous) contrast to his personality. When you first see/hear him, you expect him to be this super boy-scout, justice-serving, super hero (And this comes through sometimes in the FUNi dub, but with this new, more accurate Kai dub...I'm trying to go by that now)....but, in reality, he's just a little kid with a 6-pack and pecks.

That's not to say I don't like the contrast that the Japanese VA's have, either. Besides FUNi's Freeza (Which I don't have much of a problem with in the first place), I enjoy everyone from both the English and Japanese cast.

[Vegeta Jr]

I love Nozawa and Schemmel equally, I prefer some scenes in English and some in Japanese. However I think Schemmel did an absolutely amazing job during the Super Saiyan scene in Burst Limit.

[jjgp1112]

And to whoever said that every Japanese anime has the same set of voices - YES YES YES YES YES! Seriously, every show has that same, "generic big guy voice," "Generic badass voice," etc. Vegeta and Piccolo sound almost exactly the same, and then Nappa and all of the other big fuckers sound the same as well.

[Vegeta Jr]

I hope you mean the Dub, because Horikawa doesn't have the kind of voice you would expect.

[jjgp1112]

I hope you mean the Dub, because Horikawa doesn't have the kind of voice you would expect.

Horikawa's Vegeta voice sounds like every single "cool guy" that you see in Anime. Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh, Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho, etc.

[Vegeta Jr]

No he doesn't, he has a certain quality to his voice.

[jjgp1112]

No he doesn't, he has a certain quality to his voice.

Well, I guess I'm not hearing it. Because almost every time I watch another anime in Japanese, the one who's supposed to be the cool guy usually ends up sounding like Vegeta.

[JulieYBM]

I hope you mean the Dub, because Horikawa doesn't have the kind of voice you would expect.

Horikawa's Vegeta voice sounds like every single "cool guy" that you see in Anime. Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh, Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho, etc.

You're focusing too much on 'voice' (and even then, you're pretty wrong), and not enough on performance. Horikawa plays Vegeta with much more elegance than Kenjirô's Tsuda Kaiba, which is a much more cold, and serious performance.


A brilliant sir brought it up earlier, Japanese voice actors tend to focus more on the performance side of things. They don't need overly-exaggerated voices for their more 'real' characters because those just get in the way of the performance.

[Gaffer Tape]

Again, I think this is that cartoon voice mentality shining through. People expect cartoon characters to sound over-the-top, while the cast of the original shows sounds, largely, like human beings.

[jjgp1112]

I hope you mean the Dub, because Horikawa doesn't have the kind of voice you would expect.

Horikawa's Vegeta voice sounds like every single "cool guy" that you see in Anime. Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh, Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho, etc.

You're focusing too much on 'voice' (and even then, you're pretty wrong), and not enough on performance. Horikawa plays Vegeta with much more elegance than Kenjirô's Tsuda Kaiba, which is a much more cold, and serious performance.


A brilliant sir brought it up earlier, Japanese voice actors tend to focus more on the performance side of things. They don't need overly-exaggerated voices for their more 'real' characters because those just get in the way of the performance.

Ergh, when I say voice, I mean the whole thing - performances, etc. (and I usually always do this, just so you know from here on out) I don't know if I'm just being lazy or tone-deaf, but I really can't tell the differences between foreign performances and emotions unless it's really obvious.

Really, I just have absolutely no care at all for the Japanese version outside of the fact that the script is the original. Everything else is expendable.

[JulieYBM]

Really, I just have absolutely no care at all for the Japanese version outside of the fact that the script is the original. Everything else is expendable.

You sure seem to care enough to complain as much as you have.

[Gaffer Tape]

I don't know if I'm just being lazy or tone-deaf, but I really can't tell the differences between foreign performances and emotions unless it's really obvious.

Well, there you go. You just admitted that you personally have a difficult time picking up on performance nuances in a foreign language. There's certainly no shame in that, but if you know that this is a problem you have, you can't blame it on the voice actors.

[caejones]

I actually do tend to hear a lot of similar voices in anime that get hard to distinguish, often leaving me wondering if I've heard the voice elsewhere... but it's not as though I actually watch a lot of anime in Japanese. And there may be an element of the "All Chinese look the same" syndrome going on (A lot of college-aged people I encounter sound extremely generic and I don't recognize most of the people that recognize me.)

But Nozawa's Goku?
My first exposure, as I recall, was Super Butoden3, I think toward the end of the Cell Saga's initial airing on Cartoon Network (so Christmas 2000 or 2001, I forget which). My reaction to the intro was really just "Oh, right. It's the Japanese version. Oh, hey, Kamehameha!"

I ... really wouldn't say that Goku sounds "girly", or that as an adult he sounds like a child. I... really can't think of how to describe his voice other than as a "Goku" voice.
Then again, I tend to find myself doing a doubletake when people say that Goku looks manly. Eh..
And really, it's not as though Ian Corlet and Sean Schimmel give the character particularly "manly" voices, either.
Schimmel's Goku voice does have a relatively distinct sound to it, as does Nozawa's. Eh... XD

Ur, and I just like high-pitched voices that aren't obviously crappy attempts from post-pubescent males.

[jjgp1112]

Really, I just have absolutely no care at all for the Japanese version outside of the fact that the script is the original. Everything else is expendable.

You sure seem to care enough to complain as much as you have.

I don't care about it because of the fact that I don't like it. That still means I can't voice my opinion about it, though. I don't care enough to watch it because, well, why would I watch something that I don't like? Because it's "the ORIGINAL"?

[penguintruth]

I love the people who insist Goku should have a manlier voice, because "Goku is a badass, and badasses should have manly voices" or some variation of that. If you think Goku is manly, you've missed the point of his character entirely. Is he tough? Yes. Can he do some badass things? Sure. But is he a "badass"? No. Goku is a gentle manchild who just happens to like a good fight, sees it like a game. It's not about brutality or even justice for him, it's like a child playing with a toy. He is a child in an adult's body when he's an adult.

Sure, they could have gone with a deeper voice, but Nozawa was already perfect, with Goku's airy, breezy, impish naivete and lack of proper adult social skills. The voice is only part of the element, but Nozawa nails the type of behavior Goku exhibits perfectly, every little eccentricity played out so charmingly as to put a smile on your face nearly every time she speaks as him.

Did I think Nozawa was a great Goku when I first heard it? Fuck no, I didn't. I was used to the English voices of the dub, and a screechy voice like that bothered the hell out of me. I didn't take to it until after a few fansubbed episodes of the Buu arc. After a little while, I realized that the voice was actually the perfect one for Goku, and that it was the English dub casting people and script writers who had misinterpreted the character.

As for Kenshin, a female voice suits his gentle soul, and with his thin frame, actually suits his physical nature, too.

It's probably possible to find an English voice for Goku that is both male and captures his personality, his spirit, well. The problem is, they haven't done so yet.


I find it hilarious that jjgp1112 can't tell the difference between Horikawa's Vegeta and Furukawa's Piccolo. Most of the time I can't tell the difference between Sabat's English version portrayal of them.

Furukawa has a definite sound to his voice that's different from pretty much every other Japanese voice actor I've heard. It's very distinctive.


EDIT: I just wanted to add that, yes, it makes more sense to have a voice that suits the body type of the character. It's actually more "cartoonish" when you don't. But since Goku himself is largely about personality trumping physicality, it makes a kind of sense to have his child voice as him as an adult.