Dragonball Kai (FUNimation English) Dub: General Discussion

[Suupaa Gohan 2]

Sick for 4 weeks, feeling terrible enough this morning to skip class (can't complain, 8 AMs aren't fun) and stay in bed...got Nicktoons on for background noise, Kai is on at seemingly all hours of the day...

Wait, did I just hear...

Kaioh: "That's right, the voice that launched a thousand ships!! *ear-bleeding laughter and a tirade of inappropriate and facepalmingly bad half-jokes*

Oh yeah, Dub Kaioh, your voice launched a thousand ships alright, but not the way you're thinking...

Seriously what? Does Dub Kaioh think he's Hellen of Troy? Does he have a mirror on his planet? Does the DBverse even have that history? Goddammit FUNi you're supposed to be past this shit.

Moments later: I AM THE KING KAI!! (twice)

I'm sorry, I know a lot of people are willing to ignore him as a 'minor character' (I completely disagree on 'minor'), but Dub Kaioh is fucking awful and needed a recast as badly as Freeza. Gah.

*rolls over and tries to go back to sleep*

[Gaffer Tape]

Any time this point of view comes up, I just have to add with the utmost sincerity and meaning: "YES! YES! YES! I couldn't agree more! Easily the worst voice in the entire dub. Trash him. Purge it with fire! Try to erase from our minds that such a horrible casting choice was done for Kaio in the first place."

Phew. I needed that.

Voice that launched a thousand ships alright... they were desperately trying to be the first one to fall off the edge of the world after experiencing the aural equivalent of a cheese grater massaging their ears.

[dan2026]

a tirade of inappropriate and facepalmingly bad half-jokes*

To be fair Japanese Kaio was full of terrible jokes too, its part of his character.
Granted his voice is pretty good, so the deadpan humour kinda works.

[RazorX]

To add to the criticism of Funi's Kaio voice, it doesn't help that Sean's Kaio is not much of an improvement over his season 3 voice in Funi's season 3 episodes redub in Kai. In Z his Kaio sounded like his tongue was stuck in his throat, in Kai it sounds like his throat is full of stones, I don't know why Sean thinks he has to make his Kaio sound that "rough"

However the worst voice in Funimation's Kai dub Ox King's voice. Sean's Kaio is good compared to Kyle Hebert's terrible voice for Ox King. Kyle's voice is even worse than any voice in Funimation's season 3 DBZ dub, it's that bad. Take the worst criticism that Sean's Kaio gets, multiply that by 100x and direct it at Hebert's Ox King, even that is being generous considering how horrid Kyle's voice for Ox King is.

But we don't to put up with Funimation's awful voice for Ox King or their annoying voice for Kaio. The Ocean dub is bound to have much better casting and voices, so we should be able to enjoy Kaio's and Ox King's voices in Ocean's dub of Kai. I hope Don Brown and Dave Ward reprise their roles of Kaio and Ox King respectively. If they do, we have nothing to worry about

[GS7X7]

Ocean dub GT was almost perfect....

original music, EXTREMELY accurate scripts....

but the voices were horrible since they replaced everyone cause of some contract thing! (Blue Water?) Here's hoping they get it 100% right this time.

[RazorX]

Ocean dub GT was almost perfect....

original music, EXTREMELY accurate scripts....

but the voices were horrible since they replaced everyone cause of some contract thing! (Blue Water?) Here's hoping they get it 100% right this time.

If they had used the Vancouver DBZ cast, Ocean's GT dub would've been perfect.

But the Blue Water version is enjoyable.

[Mountain]

To add to the criticism of Funi's Kaio voice, it doesn't help that Sean's Kaio is not much of an improvement over his season 3 voice in Funi's season 3 episodes redub in Kai. In Z his Kaio sounded like his tongue was stuck in his throat, in Kai it sounds like his throat is full of stones, I don't know why Sean thinks he has to make his Kaio sound that "rough"

However the worst voice in Funimation's Kai dub Ox King's voice. Sean's Kaio is good compared to Kyle Hebert's terrible voice for Ox King. Kyle's voice is even worse than any voice in Funimation's season 3 DBZ dub, it's that bad. Take the worst criticism that Sean's Kaio gets, multiply that by 100x and direct it at Hebert's Ox King, even that is being generous considering how horrid Kyle's voice for Ox King is.

But we don't to put up with Funimation's awful voice for Ox King or their annoying voice for Kaio. The Ocean dub is bound to have much better casting and voices, so we should be able to enjoy Kaio's and Ox King's voices in Ocean's dub of Kai. I hope Don Brown and Dave Ward reprise their roles of Kaio and Ox King respectively. If they do, we have nothing to worry about

I couldn't agree more. As terrible as Schemmel's Kaio is, Hebert's Ox King is painful. These two voices really take me out of the story. I just feel embarrassed to even be watching when they come on screen.

[Suupaa Gohan 2]

To be fair Japanese Kaio was full of terrible jokes too, its part of his character.

But he doesn't insert them into ever sentence. You can tell when there are jokes in the original by the animation, because there's almost always a visual gag of Kaioh stopping to laugh (and whoever is present staring). His jokes may be stupid, but he's not some terrible comedian who peppers every bit of dialogue he gets with terrible 'humor'. FUNi takes the 'he's a jokester' premise WAY too far, and they chose not to drop that for Kai, which contributes to the criticism of it not being a truly faithful dub (though it's closer than ever).

However the worst voice in Funimation's Kai dub Ox King's voice. Sean's Kaio is good compared to Kyle Hebert's terrible voice for Ox King. Kyle's voice is even worse than any voice in Funimation's season 3 DBZ dub, it's that bad. Take the worst criticism that Sean's Kaio gets, multiply that by 100x and direct it at Hebert's Ox King, even that is being generous considering how horrid Kyle's voice for Ox King is.

Yeah, but compare the prevalence of both characters. No one gives two shits about Gyuumaoh. He's less than a background character. He's got less screentime in Z than Mr. Popo. Kai is removing most unnecessary filler content. How the Hell often is the character even going to be on screen for his voice to do any real harm? Kaioh, however, is actually an important character. He's there to often heavenly wisdom and the occasional lame puns to our heroes. Sure, he's not on the battlefield slugging it out with the bad guys, so we're obviously not getting as much of him as our main cast on Earth (or Namek as it were). But he's an important character, he's got important dialogue, and enough of it for his horrible voice to actually be significant. I don't really care if Gyuumaoh or Oolong or Puar or Bulma's Mom or etc doesn't have the most perfect voice. I'm never going to have to pay any real attention to them in this portion of the series for it to matter. Kaioh matters. And he's butchered beyond belief.

Maybe we finally have a chance in this country to erase 10 years of ignorant fans assuming Freeza is a gay tranny granny, because Chris Ayers is doing a fantastic job. Even if Kai doesn't catch on as well as Z did, even if most fans still prefer Z, I think this voice is going to gain some notoriety, especially when it comes to dubbing future video games. Finally, a character with a terrible reputation in this country has a chance to change. But what about poor Kaioh? No one will ever be able to take him seriously, because even with the aims and efforts made in Kai, FUNi just didn't care enough to recast everyone who needed it - and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was because some people *cough* didn't want to give up certain roles, completely disregarding the goal for 'a more faithful dub'. Hypocrisy pisses me off.

But we don't to put up with Funimation's awful voice for Ox King or their annoying voice for Kaio. The Ocean dub is bound to have much better casting and voices, so we should be able to enjoy Kaio's and Ox King's voices in Ocean's dub of Kai. I hope Don Brown and Dave Ward reprise their roles of Kaio and Ox King respectively. If they do, we have nothing to worry about

Or, we could just keep watching the tried-and-true Japanese version, where there are no (or very few) complaints and we can just enjoy the content of the show.

[MetalMadness]

Kaioh, however, is actually an important character.

Not really..

In fact, I can list all of the important things Kaio has contributed:

-Taught Goku Kaio-Ken and Spirit bomb
-Helped Goku locate New Namek
-Helped Goku communicate with Earthlings when he was trying to gather energy


...That's it.
Oh wait, you see him again when Goku warps Cell to explode on his planet.

Everything else he did was just cheer on Goku.
You can cut out every other bit of his screentime and you would miss out on nothing.

[penguintruth]

The only good voice Schemmel does in this series is Nail.

[DB_Fan1991]

Can we talk about something else other than how Sean Schemmel supposedly sucks at voice acting. It's pissing me off because it seems like that's the one dub actor that always gets smack. Not trying to be a mod by the way just giving a suggestion. Here's a new topic speculation for the Freeza fight/transformations. I think that Ayres will lower his voice without the use of a computer for 2nd form Freeza.

[Mewzard]

^ (at Penguin)
Don't forget about Goku, silly, it's his best voice. : p

But, yeah, the Kaio voice is a bit rough and silly...but, I'm watching Japanese Z and Dub Kai back to back, and they're both silly, and a touch annoying. Terrible jokes and occasional wise advice is what Kaio does. I think they're both annoying in different ways (though, one could say every voice has some annoying qualities).

And who knows, perhaps the line was an edit of some sort. I don't know what the original line was.

And yeah, I hope they keep the voice changes in Freeza's forms. Such physical changes would likely have some effect on the way the voice leaves the body. If he can do it naturally, awesome. If not, maybe a boost would work (though I would prefer natural).

[penguintruth]

Can we talk about something else other than how Sean Schemmel supposedly sucks at voice acting. It's pissing me off because it seems like that's the one dub actor that always gets smack.

Well, Stephanie Naldony and Tiffany Vollmer aren't in Kai, so they're not relevant enough to criticize.

^ (at Penguin)
Don't forget about Goku, silly, it's his best voice. : p

[DB_Fan1991]

Can we talk about something else other than how Sean Schemmel supposedly sucks at voice acting. It's pissing me off because it seems like that's the one dub actor that always gets smack.

Well, Stephanie Naldony and Tiffany Vollmer aren't in Kai, so they're not relevant enough to criticize.

^ (at Penguin)
Don't forget about Goku, silly, it's his best voice. : p

I meant for Kai Sean's the only one getting harsh criticism. I saw your point for Stephanie & Tiffany at least, so no argument there with the exception of Stephanie as Kid Goku that I do like, but that a story for another time.

[penguintruth]

Well, my point is, Schemmel is the only one still not performing to my standards. Everyone else is. When I run into somebody else doing a shitty job, I'll mention it. I'm not singling Schemmel out of spite. That's his thing, not mine.

[MetalMadness]

On the topic of Freeza's voice, Chris Ayres confirmed that his voice would be pitched down for his second form, and even moreso for his third form, and then back to his first form voice for final form.

It was in the first part of the Geek con panel, I don't have the link right now but it should be on youtube.

[AgitoZ]

To anyone who is interested and to anyone who has Brighthouse cable, Kai is now available to watch On Demand for free. It can be found on Kid's on Demand, in the Nickelodeon section, in the Nick Action section. I don't know if it is on any other On Demand services.

The episodes that are up now are 34, 35, and 36. They have no commercials in between(they are all before the episodes) and only the Nicktoons logo is obscuring the screen. I do believe the episodes are edited, complete with short opening and ending. They even include the preview.

So if you want to watch these episodes anytime they are up. You don't even have to sit through commercials.

[Mewzard]

Kai's on my on-demand too, with the in-scene vids, including a new, short one with various actors (male and female this time), describing, in one word, what the series is to them (one of them screams for about a minute, so they cut back and forth to it).

But, he's not doing a shitty job. Not to your liking? That's fine, but saying it's a shitty job is far from true. The voice is far more natural in the past, and is, in fact, very natural. It's his own speaking voice, but lighter, at this point (during his normal moments). It goes well with his emotions. When happy and silly, you can hear it clearly (and it's delightful), and when he's mad, you can hear it in his tone, a frustration building up, as his voice becomes rougher. Surprise, excitement, anger, calmness, and even the occasional smugness, you can hear them in the tone.

A voice actor's job isn't just to blandly read lines in a monotone character voice. They've got to emote, give life to the voice, give some variety to the role. Sean does that, and in spades. I do wonder if he'll attempt to vary his way of speaking with the SSJ forms, like he did originally (by SSJ3, you could distinctly hear a difference, that I originally thought was his SSJ3 yell roughing up his vocal chords, making him need to talk calmer, lol).

[jjgp1112]

He never really varied his voice for SSJ1 in all of the various different versions of the Frieza battle (video games, etc.), although I think he should. The SSJ3/4 voice would really work well for it. Although he should drop it after the Hyperbolic Time Chamber

[Suupaa Gohan 2]

Well, my point is, Schemmel is the only one still not performing to my standards. Everyone else is. When I run into somebody else doing a shitty job, I'll mention it.

I personally think he's doing a better job so far than Sabat (as Vegeta; I've grown to like his Piccolo now that he sounds much more natural), though he's still far from my favorite Gokou...and anyone who knows me well enough should know I'm not a great fan of Schemmel on the whole. But Kaioh aside, I think Sabat could stand a bit more Kai criticism than he's getting. Vegeta doesn't and shouldn't sound like that...whereas so far, aside from the big Vegeta fight, most of Gokou's Kai performance has been the less serious side, which he isn't so bad at. It's RARGH SUPERHERO AMERICAN MACHO GOOD GUY FIGHTING GOKU that bugs me from Schemmel. I haven't heard as much of that in the Kai dub so far as I have had to put up with Vegeta's various antics around Namek, so I guess it's not affecting me as much. His Gokou is tolerable. It's not great, never will be, but compared to his old stuff, he's not grating either (as Gokou, I stand by the fact that I CAN'T FUCKING STAND KAIOH). Vegeta's just...ugghhhhh. Probably doesn't help that I feel like I know too many fans who completely misinterpret his character (likely due to the whole 'waaah Freeza made me bad' thing) and treat Sabat as the de-facto voice (can't count how often I get 'but they all sound like girls in Japanese'...um, you clearly never even tried watching in Japanese if you think Vegeta falls into that category). But maybe that's just me.

On the Kaioh thing, I stand by my statement - he's important, because he's a wisdom giver, a God (Kami-Sama's importance fades pretty quickly in the Z portion of the series), and a mentor. His role is along the lines of Muten Roshi or Kami-Sama in DB. I don't care how many events he had direct influence over. He's still an important, albeit minor, character. He deserves a respectable voice, and he did not get one.