Post
by TheBlackPaladin » Wed Sep 08, 2010 3:37 am
I will say this about the Z dub: I don't think it's awful. It certainly could be awful at points, but I wouldn't describe the dub as completely awful so much as I would describe it as very "hit-or-miss"...while admitting that it missed more often than it hit.
At the same time, I feel like some of the hardcore subbies tend to parade around the horrors of Season 3 like that's how the whole dub was, and it wasn't. It just wasn't. I don't care how bad an impression it left, that's not a reason to just ignore the improvements the dub made as time went on. Generally speaking, the rule of thumb with the original DBZ dub is that the later it was dubbed, the better it will be. Some parts of it were scripted very loyally and received an equally good dub (made all the more bearable nowadays thanks to the Japanese-music-with-English-voices audio track, which is always how I watch DBZ). One of the first things that comes to mind is the first Broly movie (Movie 8 ). The other thing that sticks out in my mind is the episode where Gohan kills Cell, which is good because that was a very important episode to get right. The Buu Saga and a lot of the later movies were also pretty well done (again sticking to the "the later it was dubbed, the better it will be" rule). I also can't bash the dub cast too much because with a few exceptions, I still love these voices. I would not be so interested in Kai's dub if I didn't love this voice cast. They are the voices that brought the characters to life for me.
.....Having said all that, there isn't really a comparison. The Kai dub is much, much, much better overall. Especially in the writing and the acting departments. Not that it's without its disappointments. I'm a little disappointed with how much filler was removed for Kai, and I think Yamamoto's score is a little too repetitive in comparison to Kikuchi's score...then again, that's a complaint with the show overall more so than the dub. What would have been best would have been a loyal re-dub of Z, or better yet, if it had been dubbed loyally from the start.
I'm kind of a weird fan, though. I love the voice cast, just not FUNimation's "reversioning" efforts. I don't regard the voice cast as synonomous with FUNimation's reversioning. I guess the best way to put it is that I'm a fan of the voices, but not the way in which they were utilized. My biggest complaint was that I couldn't hear these voices with the original music (which is no longer a problem as of 2007) and with faithfully-translated dialogue (which is no longer a problem as of 2010, thank you Kai). In addition, the few voices I didn't like--most notably Freeza as played by Linda Young--have been recast. So I'm loving Kai's dub. When I have kids, I will introduce them to the show through Kai's dub.
I hope this hasn't already been done.
