Dragonball Kai (FUNimation English) Dub: General Discussion

[Tsukento]

EAT THAT stupid live action Disney shows with identical twins whose careers will be destroyed and they'll be left to do yogurt commercials!!

Well said. The humour in those live action Disney shows is so..... bland. Not even the most immature of children would find them funny. Kids today also need to grow up with great shows like DBZ Kai. Or at least shows that have a damn plot.

And they're all the same thing, really.

-Children living lives that are virtually impossible for anyone to actually live but always dream of
-If applicable, add in teen or barely adult pop-stars as the main character(s)
-"Wacky" antics that revolve around said lifestyles
-Cue laugh track

Nickelodeon is just as bad about this these days.

I miss when shows were actually recorded in front of audiences and they didn't try pandering to the dimwitted tween crowds.

[Innagadadavida]

I miss when shows were actually recorded in front of audiences and they didn't try pandering to the dimwitted tween crowds.

Well, kids will watch anything that entertains them, as I've noticed. They don't value entertainment the same way we do. Time is infinite to them and they don't have any money to spend. So their standards are very very low. These low-budget soulless sitcoms are cheap and marketable, and that's why they are made. It's sad, but there are a few holdouts. Cartoon Network, despite biting the bullet and making cheap live action shows, has a few really great cartoons on air right now (Adventure Time, Regular Show, and Clone Wars to name a few), and they still play reruns of the goodins' everyday.

And then there's Nicktoons. Nicktoons is where it's at, man. Nicktoons is the station that in my house as a kid would have been on 24/7. When I'm at my mom's place, its usually the first channel I go to, followed by CN, Comedy Central, and USA (for Law and Order reruns). But I digress. Nicktoons began as a commercial-free, reruns only channel. It has since come under new management, and started making acquisitions and funding for new and original programming. With the exception of those awful 3D "comedies" Fanboy and Barnyard, it's a mostly action oriented, male 7-12 demographic targeting, blasty blast of a station. Dragon Ball Z Kai fits in perfectly with their new image and has been bringing in the right crowd, as well as introducing a whole new generation to Goku, Vegeta, and Dragon Balls.

So, it's not entirely hopeless. There's some really great kids programming out there still. And programming for adults just keeps getting better and better.

[omegacwa]

With how well Kai is doing, I am surprised that none of the toys for Kai have come over to the US yet.

[Mewzard]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlNXhGizk3w

Part Four of Funi's Interview with Christopher Sabat and Sean Schemmel. Schemmel talks about being more enthused about Kai after finding out it was with an improved script and direction, not the same stuff he had to do for years, and Sabat talks about the English cast needing Kai more than the Japanese cast.

[gotensottile]

Ho, DBZ beats Naruto again.
Kinda surprised.

[Soul]

Ho, DBZ beats Naruto again.
Kinda surprised.

Wait, what?

But ha, guys from Daizex been talking to Sabat? He says "Purists"
I do think both Sabat and Schemmel are being completely sincere about it.

[Gozar]

It really is nice to hear them admit that their Dub of Z was very sub par. I mean what Sabat said was true. Kai in English is actually kind of like something new. Kai in Japanese, though still new, is not near as ground breaking to Japan as the English Version is to the US.

[Innagadadavida]

Ho, DBZ beats Naruto again.
Kinda surprised.

Wait, what?

Naruto is broadcasted on Disney XD, whereas Dragon Ball Z Kai is on Nicktoons. Though they weren't on at the same time.

If they were, I'm sure DBZ would beat it. It always has. It always will.

[GS7X7]

It's great to see Funi admit to what all the "purists" have known for years.

They may done their best to ignore all the bitching and go on with the crappy techno music, and sub-par rewrites for years but I guess on some level they really did know how lousy their first dub of DBZ was. Too bad they couldn't have admitted it years ago but, better late than never I suppose.

[Turtle Marked Stone]

I was tossing around the idea of making a new topic but settled on it being redundant so I thought I'd ask here. How is the dub of Dragonball Kai being received overall by dub fans? I know a lot (possibly even the majority) of fans here like it over the original but I don't lurk outside of this forum in terms of Dragon Ball discussion so I don't know what the other general impressions are. What's the overall impression you get from dub fans on this new project?

[PuppetDoctor]

Well this is the opinions I have seen from the Toonami fans:

"Gohan sounds like a girl now."

"What happened to Bulma's voice."

[Big Momma]

I was at a friends house the other night, and we watched an episode of Kai. He watched it when we were younger and he knew enough to know that it was "after Gohan's training with Piccolo". When Freeza came on, he said he didn't like the new voice.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I was tossing around the idea of making a new topic but settled on it being redundant so I thought I'd ask here. How is the dub of Dragonball Kai being received overall by dub fans? I know a lot (possibly even the majority) of fans here like it over the original but I don't lurk outside of this forum in terms of Dragon Ball discussion so I don't know what the other general impressions are. What's the overall impression you get from dub fans on this new project?

Most unfortunately, it is not being received very well, but I attribute this to a terrible marketing job on FUNimation's part. I'm considering making a video (well, not video, more of an audio presentation converted to video format) to put up on my YouTube account to explain why dub fans should be interested in Kai. FUNimation, in my opinion, has done a TERRIBLE job at explaining the following things:

-That they sell an uncut version on DVD and Blu-Ray. I can't believe how many people think the edited Nicktoons version is how Kai actually is.
-That the reason they should be so interested is because the dub is being translated faithfully this time, rather than the lackluster job they did on Z. I'll cut some FUNimation some slack for this point, though, because bringing up that the dialogue is good now would entail that they come out and say their previous job was bad...which, even though I'm sure they believe that (Schemmel and Sabat have basically come out and said they can't stand listening to their earlier performances), they'll never come out and say it for understandable business and marketing reasons. So someone--possibly me--will have to say it for them.

Normally I wouldn't care so much, it's just that I've always wanted a loyal English dub of Z with the original voice cast (minus Freeza who has been recast anyway). To see so many people who won't even check it out due to inaccurate conclusions and misinformation is a big bummer for me.

[penguintruth]

Some people are just suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

[jjgp1112]

I guess so, if you want to equate liking a dub to being held against your will.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Some people are just suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

Where kidnapped people befriend their kidnappers? How is that an appropriate metaphor?

[Adamant]

Sabat talks about the English cast needing Kai more than the Japanese cast.

...but if Funi wanted to do a proper dub of the series, why did they have to wait until Toei had some chopped-up footage and new music for them? They could've easily done something like this on their own.
All Kai really is is the new music, the chopped-up footage and the new Japanese voice recordings. Anything Funi did to it, they could've done with the DBZ they already had. So why wait?

[JulieYBM]

Sabat talks about the English cast needing Kai more than the Japanese cast.

...but if Funi wanted to do a proper dub of the series, why did they have to wait until Toei had some chopped-up footage and new music for them? They could've easily done something like this on their own.
All Kai really is is the new music, the chopped-up footage and the new Japanese voice recordings. Anything Funi did to it, they could've done with the DBZ they already had. So why wait?

Money.

Pretty much the same reason they moved everything down to Texas back in 1999. Only now they can't afford to redo 508 episodes, seventeen films and three television specials.

[penguintruth]

Some people are just suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

Where kidnapped people befriend their kidnappers? How is that an appropriate metaphor?

Because they're so used to the shitty DBZ dub, they can't wrap their minds around a good one.

It was hyperbole, but there you go.

[Adamant]

Had they axed all the filler and carefully cut out footage so it didn't screw with the music, they could've worked something out. The DVD releases would've been dub-only, of course, but it'd probably sell about as well as Kai does now anyway. With Kikuchi music, it'd be better than the Kai dub, too. Probably.