Sub Fans: What's Wrong with Your Version?

[xzero]

Mike's made it very clear that Daizex is a website that is primarily dedicated to the Japanese version of Dragonball Z, though not without recognition of the fact that dub fans congregate here for a source of reasonably intelligent conversation and highly accurate information about their favorite version of the show as well. Thread after thread sparks arguments about the merits of the dub, the Faulconer score, the redub, etc.

As a dub fan, I'm the first one to acknowledge the dub's shortcomings. The script sucked until the Buu era, at which time it was hit or miss, and it improved progressively until we got to Kai, which we can pretty much agree outright is very good. Freeza's original voice was a large departure from the original character, though this has since been more than rectified in Kai. The Faulconer music, while by far my favorite score for the show, certainly had its low points, particularly in scenes dealing with Goten and Trunks and some of the other minor characters. And the list goes on.

So now that I've pointed out all of these flaws from my preferred version, I want to hear from sub fans. What, in your opinion, are the worst aspects of the original version of DB/Z/GT? Don't compare the series to each other (e.g., this isn't a *bash DBGT* issue), and don't talk about Kai as a point of criticism, because that's not the series that's so arduously defended and praised by sub fans. From a strictly presentation-based perspective, what is wrong with the Japanese version?

[Innagadadavida]

How can one point out the shortcomings of something that has no equal for comparison? It is the original version. It is Dragon Ball. Everything that came after was an extension of it.

[Hao_Kaiser]

I feel like the only reason any of the problems you listed are issues is because we have the original Japanese version (or the manga, I guess) to compare it to.

Dragon Ball's anime adaptation has some boring filler, and tends to suffer from really crappy animation, and the story itself is silly and sometimes poorly paced, but I can't think of anything exclusive to the Japanese version that is an issue.

[Soul]

In Z itself, it's the "Padding filler" or the "Drag Out" filler.
The long drawn-out power-up's and stare downs, that ultimate stigma people have with Z.

[Kaboom]

- Generous amounts of filler, bad pacing, and not-present-in-the-manga inconsistencies are there regardless of which language.
- The Garlic Junior saga (bad enough to merit its own mention apart from the rest of the filler).
- Bobbidi's voice.
- "Dan Dan" instrumentals being over-used in GT.
- Garlic Junior again.

That's off the top of my head.

[The Time Traveller]

The animation is the only bad thing to me, it shifts style every episode, and although once in a while we'll see something good, it's over run by terrible animation with, for anime, substandard movement and repeated shots. And during the 19 VS Goku fight, man, take about crappy animation. But it's old and low budget, it's not as bad as I'm saying in the right mood or context.

Hell, some of my other favourite shows have worse animation.

As for voices and music, I love it all, as long as it has great voice acting and that killer score, the animation could be just still images or sock puppets for all I care.

[desirecampbell]

Filler that pads out scenes too long (ie: SSj Goku v Freeza), filler that's contradictory or boring (ie: Garlic Jr.), and occasional bad animation.

Other than that, everything's great.

[Chuquita]

The bad animation days. I can deal with filler (to an extent), but bad animation days make me wish I could skip the entire episode and go straight to the next one with the much nicer animation in it.

This is a reason why I like Kai. Whenever I run into an episode that had a bad animation day, I know that by halfway through the episode it'll switch to a good animation day.

[MarcFBR]

I've always felt the Z-era content in and of itself (both manga/anime) generally often goes against what 'Dragon Ball' itself was about, often ruining things about the original.

Doesn't mean the Z-era stuff isn't fantastic on it's own. But kinda meh if you look at what it was and how it morphed.

[TonyTheTiger]

Dragon Ball's anime adaptation has some boring filler, and tends to suffer from really crappy animation, and the story itself is silly and sometimes poorly paced, but I can't think of anything exclusive to the Japanese version that is an issue.

I'll springboard off of this to point out some criticisms I have regarding the Japanese version specifically. There are aspects of Kikuchi's score that don't really appeal to me. And that's when I compare it to scores from other cartoons I watched during the 80s/90s. I won't say that I prefer Faulconer's score because the vast majority of the time I actually don't, but judged purely on it's own merits Kikuchi's score can sometimes sound like Godzilla music which comes across as B-movie chic when it's trying to sound serious. So if you want a criticism targeted exclusively at the Japanese version, that's probably one of mine.

Another one has to do with Masako Nozawa. Not her portrayal of anybody in particular but rather that she plays so many characters with very little variation in her voice. When Mel Blanc was a one man show on Looney Tunes you couldn't tell it was him.

[AnimeMaakuo]

Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT are the best in Japanese. I seriously don't see a "Bad animation." I see a show that I grew up with in Japan. Not just a show, It's the greatest adventure told (Imo). Nothing is wrong with the Garlic Jr. Saga. "GT" is "Canon" in my book, Toriyama did more than you know about DB. Go to "10 things you didn't know about DB." He even said he wished he could have made Goku a kid again. Kai is okay, but personally after seeing it in JP, I think the actors aren't "epic" as they used to be. They seem worn out when they say the moves. You youngsters may think that Kai is for you since you probably grew up with it, which is fine. I just prefer the "Original" content. Some people think the "fillers" are retarded, and a lot others think it's boring. Well nothing about the series is boring (Imo). The "Movies" are also "Canon" in the series because Toriyama made the bad villians. I'm sure he did more, everything counts in my book from my research.

[Kaboom]

Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT are the best in Japanese. I seriously don't see a "Bad animation." I see a show that I grew up with in Japan. Not just a show, It's the greatest adventure told (Imo). Nothing is wrong with the Garlic Jr. Saga. "GT" is "Canon" in my book, Toriyama did more than you know about DB. Go to "10 things you didn't know about DB." He even said he wished he could have made Goku a kid again. Kai is okay, but personally after seeing it in JP, I think the actors aren't "epic" as they used to be. They seem worn out when they say the moves. You youngsters may think that Kai is for you since you probably grew up with it, which is fine. I just prefer the "Original" content. Some people think the "fillers" are retarded, and a lot others think it's boring. Well nothing about the series is boring (Imo). The "Movies" are also "Canon" in the series because Toriyama made the bad villians. I'm sure he did more, everything counts in my book from my research.

This is all fine and good, but it has next to nothing to do with this topic...

[TonyTheTiger]

I'm hesitant to bring up filler because it's not exclusive to the Japanese version of the show, which I think is what this topic is really asking about.

But if we're going to go there then I'll say that I think as a fanbase we've probably become a bit more forgiving of it due to the advent of the DVD box set. The fake Namek filler might seem pretty entertaining today when you can watch it at your leisure. Hell, even I can find some things about it I like. But when we were only getting one episode a week back in the day? You just got trolled for an entire month.

[penguintruth]

Not enough original Kikuchi pieces in later arcs is all I can think of. It's still tremendously better than the dub music in every way, but it can be tiresome to hear the same piece of music for the third or forth episode in a row.

[B]

The opening and ending themes for the first half of Z are mediocre and the poor Japanese children had to sit through them week after week for years until the next superior set.

There's also filler or bad animation, but TonyTheTiger makes a fair point they still exist in the dub.

[penguintruth]

The opening and ending themes for the first half of Z are mediocre and the poor Japanese children had to sit through them week after week for years until the next superior set.

I disagree. "Cha-La Head Cha-La" and "Zenkai Power" are a lot better than anything Ocean or Funimation came up with, and even better than Kai's OP and EDs.

[Kaboom]

The opening and ending themes for the first half of Z are mediocre and the poor Japanese children had to sit through them week after week for years until the next superior set.

DragonBall, Z included, is aimed at 12-year-old boys. I'll bet they had no problem with an upbeat, lighthearted, adventure-themed song.

[Perfect]

I don't see anything wrong with those themes. Personal preference is key.

[Gaffer Tape]

Okay, I have one I immediately thought of, although I assume the problem still exists in the dub. And that is the sound engineers' seeming inability to match up sound effects with the animation! I just got done watching the episode where Goku's heart virus is affecting him (yay, DBox 4!), and when he eats the senzu, the eating sound is put in before he even puts the bean in his mouth. Likewise with running sound effects. Never match up. And one of my personal favorites is when Goku is rapidly pushing that button on Freeza's ship trying to get it to move. I honestly don't agree with anyone saying Kikuchi's score feels like a B movie. His score feels extremely epic to me when it needs to be. It's poorly aligned sound effects that make it feel like a B movie!

[B]

Okay, ignoring preferences and focusing on cold faults... There are a handful of little mistakes when it came to sounds and the animation. Such as a moment in the Goku VS Freeza fight where Freeza is speaking(his mouthflaps are moving) but the sound(Nakao's voice) is him laughing and it looks really awkward.