Watching the Dub VS "Grading" the Dub

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

A very large percentage of the online community that talk about how shitty Dragonball is think Funi's old dub is an accurate representation of the series, and base their views purely on that.

If people absolutely hate DBZ from watching the dub, chances are they're going to hate it from watching the original version too.

[jjgp1112]

A very large percentage of the online community that talk about how shitty Dragonball is think Funi's old dub is an accurate representation of the series, and base their views purely on that.

If people absolutely hate DBZ from watching the dub, chances are they're going to hate it from watching the original version too.

Good point. Most of the blind hate I had for DBZ as a kid had to do with how goofy it looked and all of the silly attacks.

[XanatosVanBadass]

A very large percentage of the online community that talk about how shitty Dragonball is think Funi's old dub is an accurate representation of the series, and base their views purely on that.

If people absolutely hate DBZ from watching the dub, chances are they're going to hate it from watching the original version too.

Good point. Most of the blind hate I had for DBZ as a kid had to do with how goofy it looked and all of the silly attacks.

Not for me personally. I confess I started watching DBZ on Toonami (like most young American fans). Granted, I only started watching it because it was on before Gundam Wing (which I loved at the time) on weekdays. To say that I found DBZ to be torture is an understatement. I was amazed that, before a mature and well crafted (my young thoughts back then) series, there was this juvenal, poorly acted, horrible sounding NOISE fest that dragged on and went nowhere. The dialogue was horrid, the music was embarassing, the pacing was awful and the story seemed like it was for 6 year olds. I only continued to watch it out of habit and morbid curiosity to see where the story would go (or if it would even move forward). It was only when I saw the japanese version online and on DVD that I realized what all the fuss was about and became a fan.

So yeah, I think the english dub had a LOT to do with why DBZ is regarded as a joke in the American anime community. Need more proof? Look at how DB is regarded elsewhere? Is there the same distain? There has to be a reason for that beyond, "HERP DERP! AMURIKANS ARE STOOPIDS!" One nation treated DB worse than the rest; This is an objective fact.

[Mewzard]

Not for me personally. I confess I started watching DBZ on Toonami (like most young American fans). Granted, I only started watching it because it was on before Gundam Wing (which I loved at the time) on weekdays. To say that I found DBZ to be torture is an understatement. I was amazed that, before a mature and well crafted (my young thoughts back then) series, there was this juvenal, poorly acted, horrible sounding NOISE fest that dragged on and went nowhere. The dialogue was horrid, the music was embarassing, the pacing was awful and the story seemed like it was for 6 year olds. I only continued to watch it out of habit and morbid curiosity to see where the story would go (or if it would even move forward). It was only when I saw the japanese version online and on DVD that I realized what all the fuss was about and became a fan.

So yeah, I think the english dub had a LOT to do with why DBZ is regarded as a joke in the American anime community. Need more proof? Look at how DB is regarded elsewhere? Is there the same distain? There has to be a reason for that beyond, "HERP DERP! AMURIKANS ARE STOOPIDS!" One nation treated DB worse than the rest; This is an objective fact.

What can I say? Early anime in America was still finding itself at the time. Nowadays, you only really have to worry about 4Kids (and the occasional non-Miyazaki Disney grab, like Digimon) screwing up a title.

Funi's fixing the damage even as we speak. All that's left after Kai is a full, 100% redub of everything from the original material, and we can forget the previous decade or two, English dub-wise, for DB.

But yeah, I prefer to watch, but will occasionally slip into judge mode here and there.

[TheBlackPaladin]

So yeah, I think the english dub had a LOT to do with why DBZ is regarded as a joke in the American anime community. Need more proof? Look at how DB is regarded elsewhere? Is there the same distain? There has to be a reason for that beyond, "HERP DERP! AMURIKANS ARE STOOPIDS!" One nation treated DB worse than the rest; This is an objective fact.

We definitely didn't have a good dub, but we were FAR from the worst. I'm debating whether or not to name which dubs specifically, because I don't want to insult anybody who likes those dubs...so let me preface what I'm about to say with this: if anybody out here likes the dubs I'm about to mention, I apologize. You're free to like them, and this is in no way intended to insult your personal tastes.

WORST OF ALL: THE EUROPEAN PORTUGUESE DUB (note that I said the European Portuguese dub and not the Brazilian Portuguese dub). Sorry, gotta call it. Some of the worst voice casting decisions I've ever seen in the history of a dub, and the scripts were often TOTALLY re-written. And I know you're thinking, "Well, so were ours." Well, did Dodoria ever attempt to sing opera during a serious scene? Ours were never that bad. And this is just one example of many. As I understand it, many scenes were purposefully re-written to have a comedic tone, to the point where there are YouTube videos featuring these scenes, known as, "Perolas de Dragon Ball," or, "Pearls of Dragon Ball."

That dub probably takes the cake, but I would also name some distant runner-ups.

The French dub. Bad translation, and often they didn't dub any of the "fighting noises," so you'd suddenly hear a deep-voiced male Goku transitioning into the womanly war cries of Masako Nozawa. They also censored A LOT of scenes...which would be bad in and of itself, but they then went the extra mile by providing their edited footage and scripts to most other countries of Europe. So, most European dubs (if not all of them) are based on the censored French dub.

The Polish "dub." It's hardly even a dub. They just took the French dub and had a Polish "reader" narrate with the French voices still in the background. So really, this isn't even a dub. Not only is this distracting, but I found it to be rather lazy. Plus the narrator doesn't sound enthusiastic in the slightest.

The European Spanish dub. Like most European dubs, their translation was based on the (very bad) French translation, and their actors under-emoted. While it is true that many European countries did get "uncut" releases, they were just that--uncut releases, not uncut dubs. For scenes that were censored, the audio simply switched to the Japanese audio and the subtitles turned on momentarily. Great for fans of the Japanese release, but I would hardly consider these releases "good dubs" (although I heard that Italy did, in fact, manage to get a complete uncut dub).

The Arabic dub. Tons of script re-writes, and whenever a Saiyan transforms into Oozaru form, the scenes are edited and re-written to say that the characters are "summoning" their Oozaru rather than transforming into one. Not sure why this is, but I heard this is because they wanted to edit the scenes to avoid association with Darwin's Theory of Evolution, considered EXTREMELY controversial in the Arabic areas.

I'm not saying we have the best dub, because clearly we didn't. That honor most definitely belongs to the Mexican Spanish dub (and, in an ironic twist of fate, it sounds like they're going to get one of the worst dubs of Dragon Ball Kai). Even other dubs such as the Brazilian Portuguese dubs are reasonably good. Furthermore, we dug ourselves further into the trench of badness when we were the only dub of all the dubs to replace the original music (although the European dubs sped up the footage to convert it to PAL format, so the music is higher-pitched than it normally should be).

Our dub could have been incredible if it were given the respect that Pioneer gave it for the three Ocean-dubbed movies. Alas, it wasn't, and our dub suffered some serious problems. I'm really tired of people saying we got the worst dub of DBZ on the planet, though. Because we just didn't. Besides, we have the option of hearing the English dub with the original Japanese music now, and the writing improved TREMENDOUSLY from the Dark Ages of Season 3. Plus, I would argue that in many ways the bad dub of DBZ that we originally got is a moot point with the new dub for Kai.

[dbgtFO]

And I know you're thinking, "Well, so were ours." Well, did Dodoria ever attempt to sing opera during a serious scene?

Bwahahahaha, that was hilariously bad, especially that Freeza, who sounds like he belongs in "DBZ The Real Abridged".

So, most European dubs (if not all of them) are based on the censored French dub.

Yeah I knew something was wrong with the footage of the Danish dub.
Now that I know it was the French version, which edited it to that horrible mess it is, I can't help but feel sad, that we never got to see what an unedited version of DBZ in Denmark might have looked like.
This is why it would be awesome, if they dubbed DB Kai, although it's highly unlikely.

[Adamant]

The Polish "dub." It's hardly even a dub. They just took the French dub and had a Polish "reader" narrate with the French voices still in the background. So really, this isn't even a dub. Not only is this distracting, but I found it to be rather lazy. Plus the narrator doesn't sound enthusiastic in the slightest.

Eh, it's not necessarily a negative. Sure, in this case they used the French dub as a backdrop rather than the original, but using voiceovers is far far preferable to producing a local dub with bad voice actors. At least you get some quality acting in there.

Or to use an actual example, I doubt you'll find anyone in Norway who won't agree that this voiceover production is a far better product than the Norwegian dub of the same short.

[TheBlackPaladin]

The Polish "dub." It's hardly even a dub. They just took the French dub and had a Polish "reader" narrate with the French voices still in the background. So really, this isn't even a dub. Not only is this distracting, but I found it to be rather lazy. Plus the narrator doesn't sound enthusiastic in the slightest.

Eh, it's not necessarily a negative. Sure, in this case they used the French dub as a backdrop rather than the original, but using voiceovers is far far preferable to producing a local dub with bad voice actors. At least you get some quality acting in there.

Or to use an actual example, I doubt you'll find anyone in Norway who won't agree that this voiceover production is a far better product than the Norwegian dub of the same short.

But are Polish dub actors really so bad that an narration overdub is preferable?

[Ultimate_DB_Fan]

I just watch it. I don't see the logic in sitting down and thinking, "Gee, I wonder what they really said in the original." C'mon, that's just straight up having no life.

[Adamant]

But are Polish dub actors really so bad that an narration overdub is preferable?

Dunno. But dubbing produces a worse result than the original, and dubbing a dub thus produces something even worse, so...

Also, consider that this thing had a budget that only allowed for one kinda unenthusiastic overdubber. How much talent do you think they'd be able to afford had they insisted on muting all the voices and hiring actors for each part?

Same with Norwegian dubbers. There ARE good ones (they're primarily actors, not voice actors), but they never get hired for TV dubs, since they cost too much. Likewise, the voice directing is pretty quick and dirty, since it'd cost too much to do it properly. That's the kind of reality you're dealing with here.

[Shnuki]

Well, speaking about Polish "dub"... It was not supposed to be a dub, you know. Hiring a reader is a lot cheaper than the whole team of voice actors, and the TV station that aired the Dragon Ball was not that popular by that time. Why not subtitles then? Small children can't read very well, and that was the show aimed for kids. Oh, by the way, we had a dub for movies 12 i 13. They weren't much better than the "Big Green Dub" for me and the dialogues were sometimes that cheesy, that you just couldn't watch it without laughing.

Back to topic. I think that everyone always is grading the dub just by thinking about the characters voices. You can like them or not, simple as that.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

Hey, TheBlackPaladin. Don't forget the Greek dub. That's also pretty shit. Take a look for yourself. Freeza and Bulma's voices are so bad, I want to strangle whoever did them. And why did they turn Piccolo into a robot?

[Ahiru77]

I just watch for kicks. Untill now the only thing english dubs have ever done for me was either be good or strike my funny bone, thank goodness.

The only case I was ever really deceived by the dub was the Gero-thing. That was a good time to start grading, but the truth never made up for the loss.