Dragonbox VS Orange Brick Sets....a few questions

[jjgp1112]

Krillin: Hey...is it true that you guys will be gone.. for just one day? That's cool! Train hard...we'll find Cell!

"So... these new bad guys are stronger than Freeza... how do you feel? You scared? Or simply... just excited?"

See, not that hard.

In theory, this would work. The only problem is when Krillin's expression changes, as well as how the mouth flap is for when he says "For just one day? That's cool! Train hard, We'll find Cell" It's easy to fit that particular sentence to the flaps, but, "Or simply just excited" wouldn't exactly work with it without having to make "simply" or "excited" sound really weird. His mouth moves three seperate times when he says "We'll find Cell" as if he's trying to form three separate words, so he couldn't say "just excited."

You really need to actually watch the scene before matching the flaps instead of just basing it off of syllables. You have to make it flow naturally instead of sounding robotic.

[DemonRin]

For the OP's question:

You just need to sit down and weigh what you want.

Ask yourself which is more important, Video Quality or having the Faulconer music.

If video quality wins, Get the DBox, if Faulconer music wins, stick with the Bricks.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

It's worth noting there's a new dub out for Dragon Ball Z Kai that follows the original script much, much more closely.

Though sadly, one that still insists on including a ton of dumb shit from their old dub to avoid confusing American dubbies with too good a product.

Hmmmm, let's see...... there's Tien, Spirit Bomb and Tri-Beam. Yeah, that's a ton of dumb shit.



P.S I purposely left out Frieza and King Kai because their accuracy is debatable.

[Blue]

It's worth noting there's a new dub out for Dragon Ball Z Kai that follows the original script much, much more closely.

Though sadly, one that still insists on including a ton of dumb shit from their old dub to avoid confusing American dubbies with too good a product.

Hmmmm, let's see...... there's Tien, Spirit Bomb and Tri-Beam. Yeah, that's a ton of dumb shit.



P.S I purposely left out Frieza and King Kai because their accuracy is debatable.

Not to mention some debatably inaccurate dub voices too. But even that aside I can understand why they wouldn't want to completely alienate their previous audience.

[VegettoEX]

It's worth noting there's a new dub out for Dragon Ball Z Kai that follows the original script much, much more closely.

Though sadly, one that still insists on including a ton of dumb shit from their old dub to avoid confusing American dubbies with too good a product.

Hmmmm, let's see...... there's Tien, Spirit Bomb and Tri-Beam. Yeah, that's a ton of dumb shit.



P.S I purposely left out Frieza and King Kai because their accuracy is debatable.

Not to mention some edited/"reversioned" script hold-overs from what was supposed to be a "fixed" version of this part of the series six years ago.

Perhaps "tons" isn't the right word, but it's enough to be a bother when you care about stuff like that... which you, clearly, do not.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

Not to mention some debatably inaccurate dub voices too.

Voices are entirely subjective, unlike translations.

But even that aside I can understand why they wouldn't want to completely alienate their previous audience.

Exactly. FUNimation wants to keep the dub fans happy, while still staying true to the original. I personally think they did a good job of this.

[Questrider]

For the OP's question:

You just need to sit down and weigh what you want.

Ask yourself which is more important, Video Quality or having the Faulconer music.

If video quality wins, Get the DBox, if Faulconer music wins, stick with the Bricks.

That's pretty decent advise.
I have to ask though...to all of you, but let me set it up first.

One of the first scene's I saw of DBZ was probably about 10 years ago. It was the scene of Goku going SSJ3 for the first time. Falconer's music was playing in the background and I simply got sucked in. I can't really can't describe it any other way. It was just that awesome.

So, the question is: Is some of the Japanese music THAT good? Do I just need to see or rather listen for myself? Please don't be biased.

Also, regarding the picture-
How much is gained in the Dragonboxes? Is it a substantial difference?

In the end, I will CAVE and buy the boxes. Simply to experience the show the way the author intended. I respect the material too much, thus I simply feel curious and obligated.

Currently watching Kai now and while I miss some of the filler, it's not a bad show...

[jjgp1112]

You should watch it for yourself, but personally, I prefer Faulconer. The music sets the mood so much better than anything the Japanese score does.

[VegettoEX]

Please don't be biased.

That's an impossible request to make. We are all inherently biased on anything we say. We all have our own individual experiences that color our viewpoints.

Also, regarding the picture-
How much is gained in the Dragonboxes? Is it a substantial difference?

20%. The orange bricks removed the top and bottom of the screens.

"Substantial" is up to you. 20% is a big number to me. I also like watching shows the way that they're supposed to be seen, rather than some random porn colorist's idea of how I should watch it.

[Kaboom]

So, the question is: Is some of the Japanese music THAT good? Do I just need to see or rather listen for myself? Please don't be biased.

Admittedly, I kinda like that "SS3 Goku" track too. So believe me when I say I'll try to be as unbiased as I can in answering.

The Japanese music is less.... shall we say, "in your face" than the Faulconer dub tracks. It's up to you to decide how "good" either score is insofar as having musical value. But I'd definitely say the Japanese music fits the show far better, as it is, after all, what was originally made for it.

Whereas the purpose of the Faulconer score seems to be, "always have SOMETHING playing to keep the kiddies' attention," Kikuchi's score is often more subdued. It's better at building tension and setting the mood, but in a more subtle way. In fact, quite often it's simply a lack of any BGM that helps set the tone for certain scenes.

But all in all, if you're being honest about this:

In the end, I will CAVE and buy the boxes. Simply to experience the show the way the author intended. I respect the material too much, thus I simply feel curious and obligated.

Then I think you'll grow to like the Japanese score if you give it an honest chance. Even with the dub and its hit-and-miss-and-more-miss script, I can say from experience that the original Japanese BGM helps a lot in setting the appropriate mood.

Also, regarding the picture-
How much is gained in the Dragonboxes? Is it a substantial difference?

I don't happen to have any saved, but there have been tons of comparison shots sprinkled around these comparison threads before. Someone else should be able to easily post one. But long-story short:

Original FUNi singles - They were zoomed in somewhat, so a little bit of picture was lost on all sides compared to the Dragon Boxes.
Dragon Boxes - Both the originals and the FUNi editions of the DBoxes have practically the same framing. It's zoomed out as far and is providing as much picture as you're gonna get without seeing crummy film edges or what-not.
Season Sets - The Z Season Sets from FUNi were zoomed out from the original singles and, on the left and right edges, showed about as much as the DragonBoxes, sometimes even more. BUT of course, the top and the bottom of the frame were cropped, so you lost more than you gained and overall had less picture than even the original singles in some cases.

[Majin Buu]

Voices are entirely subjective, unlike translations.

How? Just like a translation should stay true to what the creators of the show intended the script to be like and won't always be 100% accurate, the dub voices should stay true to what the creators of the show intended those characters to sound like, though they won't be 100% accurate to what they sounded like in Japanese. It's not possible for the English voice to sound exactly like the character did in Japanese, but most of the time it's possible to find a voice that fits the character without doing a complete 180 from how they sounded in Japanese.

As for the music, it depends. If you love Falconer and are used to his stuff then you'll probably find Kikuchi's music jarring at first. I'd recommend listening to a lot of it and comparing scenes with the different scores before you form any definitive opinions on it because it really fits the show much better than Falconer's stuff and doesn't give it that annoying SUPER HARDCORE ADD FUCK YEAH ACTION atmosphere that Falconer's score does.

[Gaffer Tape]

Yeah, asking us to be unbiased is impossible in a subjective, opinion-based question. Actually, I've never seen that particular scene in either version of the anime, so I can't help you there. I can only tell you my own experiences.

I first heard the Japanese score on Toonami in the dub airings of DBZ movies 2 and 3. Now, what I had been listening to up to that point had been the Shuki Levy score as Faulconer had not yet been brought on board at this point. But I do prefer that score to Faulconer's, so I guess my point still stands. But at any rate, when I saw those films, I had no idea the original score had been replaced, that what I had been hearing on the TV show was not the original score, and that what I was listening to in these movies was the original score. All I knew was that it kicked so much ass! It was powerful. It was orchestral. It hit emotional peaks and valleys the dub score could never touch. I'll never forget the first time I saw the Goku vs. Piccolo fight as that's still one of my favorite pieces of music. Piccolo's theme, although done with an electric guitar with an orchestral background. It was epic but still modern-sounding. And then it transitions into that soft violin-laden portion when Gohan is standing by himself, having been whacked around by Piccolo and questioning his mentor. It almost seemed to echo in that dark, cavernous chamber making Gohan feel all the emptier. And it continued as Kochin made fun of him and Gohan's rage unleashed that kiai. It was a perfect counterpoint. I wondered why DBZ couldn't sound like that all the time.

I had no idea that it actually did...

[TonyTheTiger]

I just get the feeling that it's a losing battle on either side. From my admittedly non-scientific observations, the interest in accuracy vs. interest in a dub are indirectly proportional. The more somebody values accuracy, the less they'll care about a dub since the mere fact that the product is dubbed is necessarily less accurate than the original language track. The more somebody values a dub, the less they'll care about accuracy...since the dub is the target of their affection and everything else is ancillary.

If that's the case, then the argument over what Vegeta says while he's dying is largely symbolic. Yes, it changes his character. Yes, the Kai dub will probably retain the original intent. But it doesn't really change many people's preferences in the end. I really don't know of many people who were wholly disinterested in the Z dub but are now invested in Kai's dub outside of the morbid curiosity of seeing the end result. If FUNimation is accurate that merely gives people the chance to say "they got it right." But the "getting it right" part often doesn't have much practical impact on what version they choose to watch.

I think the reverse works the same way. If somebody is in love with Z's dub, then they'll probably stick with Kai's dub regardless of whether it's Kienzan or Destructo Disc.

I'll admit that there's a threshold here. At some point things get a little too crazy, as in Robotech. Fans of the "dub" in that case aren't really fans of a dub. They're fans of what amounts to a brand new show.

And this is not a knock. I'm not implying some deficiency in people's preferences. I'm just stating what I think is a fact that people will pick their poison and while they might get a kick out of talking about other renditions and checking them out for the hell of it, discussing the accuracy is mostly just an academic exercise rather than any real "shopping for an alternative" if you catch my drift.

[jjgp1112]

Exactly. I don't particularly care whether something is accurate or not. If I like it, I like it. And if it comes at the expense of someone who wants it differently then uh...sorry?

[TonyTheTiger]

I should have opened with this but my own personal bias stems from the fact that I'm pretty much equal opportunity with both Japanese and English versions. Maybe that's a weird side effect of me being first exposed to both at virtually the same time so I'm not particularly antagonistic against anything, be it "Special Beam Cannon" or Nozawa's Goku. It's all DragonBall to me. So that's probably why I have this "what's the big deal?" outlook.

What I will say is that in today's climate, with DVDs and Blu-rays abound with both versions on the same disc it's infinitely more convenient. If we were having this conversation in 1993 where subtitled anime was pretty difficult to obtain the "accurate dub" thing would matter to me a lot more since the dub is what everybody would be stuck with. Ironically it's back in those days accurate dubs were damn near non-existent.

But given that I look at both as two sides of the same coin, I tend to see a lot of quality lines from the dub like I see classic "Woolseyisms" from SNES Square RPGs. Woolseyisms are often embellishments but lots of times became classics in their own right. Now maybe they're examples of "so bad it's good" but in a lot of cases I think they're genuinely good. Square Enix went so far as to use "Good morning, Crono." on a black background to advertise Chrono Trigger DS despite that line not being in the more accurate DS retranslation.

Granted, with video games it's a different situation since there isn't a "subbed" version at the click of a button but some things do tend to work for the better. A lot of people have argued, and quite convincingly, that Kefka wouldn't be nearly as popular a villain among American FF fans had it not been for Woolsey's embellishments. Of course the door swings the other way, too, and I can name a shit load of old RPGs that had horrific localizations. But my point is that I don't think a change is bad just by virtue of it being a change.

[Kaboom]

Exactly. I don't particularly care whether something is accurate or not. If I like it, I like it. And if it comes at the expense of someone who wants it differently then uh...sorry?

Then you should probably not be trying to give advice in this thread, as Questrider has made clear that he/she actually is concerned about such things.

[jjgp1112]

Exactly. I don't particularly care whether something is accurate or not. If I like it, I like it. And if it comes at the expense of someone who wants it differently then uh...sorry?

Then you should probably not be trying to give advice in this thread, as Questrider has made clear that he/she actually is concerned about such things.

Hey, all I was doing was saying my own personal viewpoint. But just because it won't affect my enjoyment doesn't mean that I haven't observed certain things and formulated a viewpoint on them. But my observations won't affect my enjoyment at all.

[Majin Buu]

Hey, all I was doing was saying my own personal viewpoint. But just because it won't affect my enjoyment doesn't mean that I haven't observed certain things and formulated a viewpoint on them. But my observations won't affect my enjoyment at all.

It may be your personal viewpoint, but the thing is, that doesn't change the fact that it's irrelevant to what the OP stated that he's looking for. Like Kaboom said, he's looking for accuracy, you're not, so your viewpoint really has no purpose in this discussion (outside of defending the dub like I tend to see you do).

[jjgp1112]

Hey, all I was doing was saying my own personal viewpoint. But just because it won't affect my enjoyment doesn't mean that I haven't observed certain things and formulated a viewpoint on them. But my observations won't affect my enjoyment at all.

It may be your personal viewpoint, but the thing is, that doesn't change the fact that it's irrelevant to what the OP stated that he's looking for. Like Kaboom said, he's looking for accuracy, you're not, so you're viewpoint really has no purpose in this discussion (outside going against the grain for the sake of it and defending the dub like I tend to see you do).

Do you understand what I'm saying?! I said that even though I've observed how accurate each and every single episode is, the results of those don't affect my actual enjoyment. But that doesn't mean that I can't draw conclusions about and judge how accurate the damn thing is. And you know what I say! As far as accuracy, it's not even wildly different! The only time I was ever startled by the inaccuracy was a couple of moments in Season 3 and the Lord Slug dub. But otherwise, 4Kids dubs that I grew up with alongside Dragon Ball (like Yu-Gi-Oh) were wholly inaccurate and changed by a substantially larger degree than Dragon Ball Z's dub.

It's almost as if you don't want to hear the viewpoint because it's actually different from yours. "Oh, he's heavily observed how accurate the dub is, but because he doesn't actually dislike the inaccuracies, what he has to say doesn't matter."

[VegettoEX]

You mention Kaboom's post (a moderator, no less), and yet you don't actually acknowledge the fact that your specific viewpoint -- which you partially acknowledge is irrelevant -- is not particularly helpful to what's being asked by the original poster.

... so why bother continuing to post it again in this thread?

We understand you like the dub. No, really. We do. However, your personal enjoyment (or anyone's personal enjoyment) of an adaptation isn't what's in question here. Like Questrider said (and Kaboom reiterated to you), he does care about accuracy.

If you don't, then your viewpoint and suggestion does not matter all that much. It's too bad that you can't accept it, but that's how the cookie crumbles. Learn to bow out gracefully when what you have to say isn't even a part of the conversation, or find something relevant to toss in. Instead of just accepting it, you respond with a tirade and play the victim.

Remind me again why I haven't banned you for this the last two times you've done so...?