Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" Dub Turns 16; Still Unreleased

[penguintruth]

You're kidding me, Horikawa can't scream? He's having some difficulty in Kai, I'll admit, but he's a fine screamer.

[MR.Mark]

Sorry, but Drummon was no where near Horikawa's performance. I'm sure they have someone who can actually do it.

Except that Ryo Horikawa can't scream.

In contrast, about 70% of what Drummond did was scream. And he did it very well.

That's true. Horikawa, especially in Kai just gurgles. No offence but it is true. They are both great actors, and I love it!

That's a little harsh, Horikawa can definitely scream, but he is also inconsistent in Kai to be sure. Sabat actually is rivaling him in this department in Kai. I don't like the "failing car engine starting up" thing Horikawa's been doing, latest example being his powering up of the Final Flash. Though the FINAL FLASH was way better than his Z delivery.

[Attitudefan]

That's a little harsh, Horikawa can definitely scream, but he is also inconsistent in Kai to be sure. Sabat actually is rivaling him in this department in Kai. I don't like the "failing car engine starting up" thing Horikawa's been doing, latest example being his powering up of the Final Flash. Though the FINAL FLASH was way better than his Z delivery.

I didn't mean to be harsh, but everything thing have their ups and downs. People can be harsh about other actors. That's just what I think and one can easily tell he has that car gurgling sound. In Z not so much but in Kai, yes.

[RazorX]

Sometimes I get the feeling that some people bash the Blue Water dub for the sake of bashing. Given a fair chance, you'll find the voices themselves and acting are not bad, some are really good.

You must be thinking of the Blue Water dub for GT. He was played by Dan Gascon.

The results are typical for Blue Water. Utter fail.

You cannot take GT Krillin as a representative of Blue Water. That was a miscast which stood out compared to most other relatively well casted characters. There's a difference between GT Krillin and Blue Water's really good voices such as Pan, Trunks, Kid Goku, Bebi, Goten etc.

Speaking of that, I recall being very concerned that Blue Water might use their GT Krillin voice for Krillin in their DB dub. Needless to say my concerns were gone as soon as I watched Krillin's debut in Dragon Ball with a different, well fitting voice. Ironically, Blue Water's DB Krillin voice turned out to be one of the best voices in the dub, rivalling even Terry Klassan's superb Krillin voice.

The GT Krillin voice was actually in DB, he played the farmer type character with the large white beard in the bar Launch attacked in her first appearance. The voice worked well for him. So, that voice itself was not bad, it just wasn't right for Krillin.

[penguintruth]

There's no such thing as a good Blue Water dub. That entire branch of Ocean needs to be shut down.

[RazorX]

You cannot objectively say that when we have their Dragon Ball dub. I know you've complained about some of their other dubs, maybe you have a reason to, I don't know since my interest lies in the Dragon Ball series and what they did with that. Their GT dub was overall good, however, it's the original Dragon Ball where Blue Water really shines. I've encountered mostly positive feedback from people who've seen a good portion of Blue Water's Dragon Ball, for good reason. It has accurate scripts, original bgm, original attack and character names (Mafuba, Tao Pai Pai, Hermit Crane, Nyoibo etc) and at times when they didn't use Japanese attack names, they had their own, much better English translations, such as Spirit Cannon for Kikoho, which beats the hell out of Tri-beam. Add to that a decent main cast with good supporting cast characters; the dub is really enjoyable. The Blue Water dub certainly blows the Funimation dub out of the water.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

You cannot objectively say that when we have their Dragon Ball dub. I know you've complained about some of their other dubs, maybe you have a reason to, I don't know since my interest lies in the Dragon Ball series and what they did with that. Their GT dub was overall good, however, it's the original Dragon Ball where Blue Water really shines. I've encountered mostly positive feedback from people who've seen a good portion of Blue Water's Dragon Ball, for good reason. It has accurate scripts, original bgm, original attack and character names (Mafuba, Tao Pai Pai, Hermit Crane, Nyoibo etc) and at times when they didn't use Japanese attack names, they had their own, much better English translations, such as Spirit Cannon for Kikoho, which beats the hell out of Tri-beam. Add to that a decent main cast with good supporting cast characters; the dub is really enjoyable. The Blue Water dub certainly blows the Funimation dub out of the water.

I've seen both dubs completely, yes the scripts are very good but the acting is so so.. not very good to be honest. It's listenable, hell I'd prefer westwood medias Ocean vocals over blue water.

Well, blue water was never good in the casting department.. they're good at writing though(they should stick to that)

[Attitudefan]

Blue Water Dub was meh. The acting sucked and they couldn't even scream very well. Gt sucks anyways so it isn't a big loss.

[linkdude20002001]

You cannot objectively say that when we have their Dragon Ball dub. I know you've complained about some of their other dubs, maybe you have a reason to, I don't know since my interest lies in the Dragon Ball series and what they did with that. Their GT dub was overall good, however, it's the original Dragon Ball where Blue Water really shines. I've encountered mostly positive feedback from people who've seen a good portion of Blue Water's Dragon Ball, for good reason. It has accurate scripts, original bgm, original attack and character names (Mafuba, Tao Pai Pai, Hermit Crane, Nyoibo etc) and at times when they didn't use Japanese attack names, they had their own, much better English translations, such as Spirit Cannon for Kikoho, which beats the hell out of Tri-beam. Add to that a decent main cast with good supporting cast characters; the dub is really enjoyable. The Blue Water dub certainly blows the Funimation dub out of the water.

I wouldn't say the script it good... I just got done watching the first 13 episodes of FUNi's 1995 dub, the first seven episodes of FUNi's 2001 dub, and the first six episodes of Westwood's dub (2003), and it's extremely obvious that Westwood Media just took FUNi's previous two scripts, mixed them together, and tweaked them solely for the purpose of making it different and therefore "CanCon". They clearly weren't even trying to make it more like the Japanese version, because several times they messed up lines that FUNi actually got right, thus making it even less like Dragon Ball than FUNi's dub. Though, through their script changing, they managed to at least make some of the awkward lines go away.

As for the acting, FUNi had a mix of skilled actors, not-so-skilled actors, and Vollmer (who's acting talent is non-existent). Blue Water's is on par with FUNi's inexperienced actors, but you could say the lack of truly horrendous actors made up for the lack of great voice actors. Or maybe not quite... But it's still a million times better than the acting in most Blue Water dubs (which remind me of FUNi's seasons three and four of DBZ), and is at least watchable. Hell, Blue Water's dub of Dragon Ball is close to FUNi's dub of the Cell arc in terms of acting skill (from what I remember of DBZ...).

Now, how about the voices?

FUNi's 1995 Dub (Vancouver voice pool)
Great voices: the Narrator, Gokuh, Yamcha, Pilaf, Mai, the Gyuh-Maoh.
Awful voices that NEED replacing: Bulma and Pu-ehr.
Acceptable voices, but worth replacing: Oolong, Shuh, the Turtle Hermit, and Chichi.

FUNi's 2001 Dub (Texas voice pool)
Great voices: the Narrator.
Awful voices that NEED replacing: Bulma, Seaturtle, Gyuh-Maoh.
Acceptable voices, but worth replacing: Gokuh, Pilaf, Shuh, Mai, the Turtle Hermit, Oolong, Pu-ehr, Yamcha, Chichi.

Westwood's dub (Calgary voice pool)
Great voices: the Narrator, Shuh, Seaturtle, Oolong.
Awful voices that NEED replacing: None!
Acceptable voices, but worth replacing: Gokuh, Bulma, Pilaf, Mai, the Turtle Hermit, Yamcha, Pu-ehr.

Overall, I'd say the Westwood Dub is pretty equal to FUNi's more recent one, but they both beat the 1995 dub (if only because of the music).

[penguintruth]

Bulma seemed to be getting the short end of the stick for a while.

Hey, watch the Harmony Gold dub next!

[linkdude20002001]

Well, Lindjberg's Bulma wasn't bad at first, but pretty soon she started adding this awful squeak to her voice that drove me crazy; it wasn't present during DBZ thankfully. However, FUNi's first Bulma, O'Hara, I actually would say was great. It's a shame they chose to replace her (or she quit?).

And damn it, I want to watch the Harmony Gold Dub...! >_<
Meri needs to rip that VHS recording of the movie!

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

There's no such thing as a good Blue Water dub.

Very true. I saw a bit of Deltora Quest on Cartoon Network a while ago, since I had read some of the novels in primary school. Not only was it a mediocre Anime, but the acting was crap. If the damn protagonist has a boring and hollow voice, it just brings the whole show down. I later visited its entry on ANN and saw that it was dubbed by Blue Water, which made sense.

[linkdude20002001]

The acting in Dragon Ball is nowhere near as bad as Deltora's Quest. Maybe it's 'cause the actors suck at serious scenes... 'Cause that would explain why they do so much better in Dragon Ball.

[RazorX]

I wouldn't say the script it good... I just got done watching the first 13 episodes of FUNi's 1995 dub, the first seven episodes of FUNi's 2001 dub, and the first six episodes of Westwood's dub (2003), and it's extremely obvious that Westwood Media just took FUNi's previous two scripts, mixed them together, and tweaked them solely for the purpose of making it different and therefore "CanCon". They clearly weren't even trying to make it more like the Japanese version, because several times they messed up lines that FUNi actually got right, thus making it even less like Dragon Ball than FUNi's dub. Though, through their script changing, they managed to at least make some of the awkward lines go away.

The similarity to Funi's script is quite small, perhaps it was coincidental. There's much more to the Blue Water dub's script than what is seen in the first 6 episodes. There are some lines in the Blue Water dub which are exactly the same as the Japanese version.

However the more important aspects of the script, such as the character names and attack names, are much closer to the Japanese version in Blue Water's dub than Funi's. Therefore not only were Blue Water trying to make it like the Japanese version, they succeeded. (I'm assuming you didn't know that the Blue Water version kept original names where the Funi version didn't, such as Mafuba, Tao Pai Pai and Crane Hermit.) Actually Funi shot themselves in the foot when they changed the Crane Hermit's name (WHY did they even change it?!) They called him "Shen" but when a character actually called Shen later appears, they had to change his name because they stupidly used it for Master Crane, so they called him "Hero." The Blue Water version didn't go through this name change stupidity because they kept the original names.

As for the acting, FUNi had a mix of skilled actors, not-so-skilled actors, and Vollmer (who's acting talent is non-existent). Blue Water's is on par with FUNi's inexperienced actors, but you could say the lack of truly horrendous actors made up for the lack of great voice actors. Or maybe not quite... But it's still a million times better than the acting in most Blue Water dubs (which remind me of FUNi's seasons three and four of DBZ), and is at least watchable. Hell, Blue Water's dub of Dragon Ball is close to FUNi's dub of the Cell arc in terms of acting skill (from what I remember of DBZ...).

Funi's Cell saga episodes have stale acting, the actors even at that point were straining in their roles and you could tell. Blue Water sounded much more natural in comparison.

Now, how about the voices?

FUNi's 1995 Dub (Vancouver voice pool)
Great voices: the Narrator, Gokuh, Yamcha, Pilaf, Mai, the Gyuh-Maoh.
Awful voices that NEED replacing: Bulma and Pu-ehr.
Acceptable voices, but worth replacing: Oolong, Shuh, the Turtle Hermit, and Chichi.

I thought that Bulma's voice in the Vancouver dub was really good. My preference would be Maggie Blue O Hara but Lalainia Lindjberg makes a fine Bulma. Monica Rial's voice and acting are closest to Lalainia Lindjberg out of the previous voices.

I like Puar's voice in the BLT dub as well.

FUNi's 2001 Dub (Texas voice pool)
Great voices: the Narrator.
Awful voices that NEED replacing: Bulma, Seaturtle, Gyuh-Maoh.
Acceptable voices, but worth replacing: Gokuh, Pilaf, Shuh, Mai, the Turtle Hermit, Oolong, Pu-ehr, Yamcha, Chichi.

Armstrong is definitely a better narrator than Hebert, so at least I was glad Funi had an acceptable narrator in their DB dub.

Westwood's dub (Calgary voice pool)
Great voices: the Narrator, Shuh, Seaturtle, Oolong.
Awful voices that NEED replacing: None!
Acceptable voices, but worth replacing: Gokuh, Bulma, Pilaf, Mai, the Turtle Hermit, Yamcha, Pu-ehr.

Agree on the no awful voices But I'd put Goku, Bulma, Mai and Roshi's voices under the great heading, as well as Krillin, Tien and King Piccolo (King Piccolo's voice is awesome in Blue Water's Dragon Ball dub)

Overall, I'd say the Westwood Dub is pretty equal to FUNi's more recent one, but they both beat the 1995 dub (if only because of the music).

I put the Blue Water dub waaaay ahead of the Funimation dub. Aside from Funi's script problems, I have an issue with a number of their voices, such as Sabat's Yamcha, who can't seem to keep his season 3 Vegeta out of his Yamcha voice.

Goku plays a massive role in DB, and Nadolny's voice is barely tolerable. Even though it's better than her Gohan voice, it's still too scratchy, the yelling is mostly terrible and it lacks the naive yet at times determined personality which is in the original and Blue Water versions.

The acting in Dragon Ball is nowhere near as bad as Deltora's Quest. Maybe it's 'cause the actors suck at serious scenes... 'Cause that would explain why they do so much better in Dragon Ball.

Considering how well the King Piccolo saga was dubbed by Blue Water, I'd say they're very good in the serious aspect as well as comedy.

[linkdude20002001]

The script (in the Son Gokuh arc at least) was most definitely not just a coincidence. There were far too many lines that were 100% identical to be a mere coincidence. Especially since these lines were nothing like what was said in the original. Some of these lines even added names to nameless characters (Alexis, Pokawatha, et cetera). The FUNi script was actually slightly closer to the original than Westwood's. I think that's more important than keeping the original names. Not that FUNi's script is at all good, but likewise, Westwood's dub does change names (Master Roshi, Flying Nimbus, Janken Punch is changed to "One... Two... Three...", Wolf Fang Fist).

Lindjberg started out good, but then started adding an extremely irritating squeak to her voice. Luckily it was gone for DBZ. And you're right that Rial sounds similar to Lindjberg when Lindjberg doesn't add the squeak. Pu-erh's voice made him sound like a girl. Hell, they even referred to him as "her" in the dub. :/

Here's what I think: Gokuh (acting is just as bad as Nadolny's, and with a similar, but more frequent [and therefore more annoying] scratchiness/graveliness), Bulma (I guess I just didn't like it because of the flat acting. Though not as flat as Vollmer's), Mai (far too soft sounding), and the Turtle Hermit (just a boring, generic old-man voice).

I though Sabat's Yamcha sounded like Yusuke from YuYu Hakusho, and the Westwood Yamcha (inconsistently) sounded like a lighter version of Hiei.

I just found some random episodes further ahead (maybe the Piccolo-Daimaoh arc), so I'll check it out.

[RazorX]

The script in the Goku saga bears a similarity to the BLT version, the extent of which is reduced from the Tournament saga plus. Even for the Goku saga, the similarity is nowhere near the level as seen in the Westwood Ocean and Funi dubs of DBZ.

The Blue Water script is more accurate than Funi. (You can't just rely on the Goku saga episodes, a very small portion of the Anime.)

As I said before, some lines in the Blue Water dub are exactly the same as the Japanese version, Chaotzu's defiance of Master Crane comes to mind because I saw that episode in the Blue Water dub first, then in Japanese and I remember thinking the Japanese lines are exactly the same as the Blue Water lines.

Blue Water kept some names such as Master Roshi, but the point is, they used original names where Funi didn't. Plus, Blue Water aren't scared to correct mistakes in order to keep close to the Japanese version, unlike Funi. For example, the Kikoho, Blue Water could've used the established dub term "Tri-beam" but rather than take that route, they put the effort in to use a respectable and accurate translation; the Spirit Cannon.

To this day Funimation are too scared to scrap Tri-beam, even on their uncut Kai dub, yet Blue Water did it in 2004. Things like this add to the respect I have for Blue Water, what stopped them taking the lazy route? Their desire to keep it closer to the Japanese version for the fans motivated them to take decisions as mentioned above. And what about what is perhaps the most said "attack" in Dragon Ball? The Nyoibo. I find saying "Nyoibo extend" to be much better (as well as being the original term) than saying "Powerpole extend"

Blue Water even kept Choi sui water in their DBGT & DB dubs rather than calling it sacred water. They must've thought some fans might not know what Choi sui water is at first, whereas they'd recognise the term sacred water, yet Blue Water went for the Japanese term because they had confidence in the Anime and their dub to explain what choi sui water is, and it worked. Blue Water's script is much closer to the original Japanese version than Funimation's script is, and you won't know that unless you've seen a good amount of Blue Water dubbed Tournament, RR, Baba & Piccolo episodes.

By the way, Goku did say Janken in the Blue Water dub. The "One, two, three" was only used in the Goku saga, as far as I remember. And he also used the term Drunken boxing technique (which IIRC, Funi called it the mad "something" technique, at least in the broadcast version) and the lines Blue Water gave the tournament announcer made it clear he thought Roshi may be drunk.

A problem I have with Sabat's Yamcha is that the voice itself sounds like a goofy character voice, as if he's putting it on for comic relief. His acting doesn't help either, it just isn't what Yamcha is supposed to sound like. Blue Water's dub made him sound like what he is, a young man. It doesn't sound like a character voice. (A character in the sense that the voice being an over exaggerated persona)

I don't find Zoe Slusar's voice gravelly at all. By gravelly, I mean in the sense that the voice comes as "rough and scratchy" as if the person needs to clear his/her throat. Such as Nadolny's (not all the time though) Or Schemmel's Kai dub of Goku's 20x Kaioken, or if you want an exaggerated example, Schemmel's Kaio. The yells don't come out "smooth" when the actor/actress is putting on some sort of "gravel."

I was never irritated by Lindjberg's Bulma. By squeak I assume you mean in yells? I enjoyed her voice and the personality she gave Bulma.

Maggie Blue O Hara voiced Bulma in DB Movie 1. I heard that movie 1 was dubbed before the first 13 episodes. If true, it means that Maggie originally had the role but it somehow got transferred to Lalainia. Or vice versa.

I'm going to assume Ocean's casting director for the AB Groupe commisioned episodes knew Maggie had voiced Bulma in the past. I love Maggie's voice So needless to say I was very happy with her return.

[linkdude20002001]

Westwood's script (for the Son Gokuh arc) was based off both FUNi scripts (1995 dub and 2001 dub). But if for the later arcs, they base their script off a translation of the Japanese script, then that's awesome. Though, the translation would unfortunately be that horrendous one that Toei gave to FUNi... Or maybe it's based off the French script. I wouldn't know, though, since I haven't seen the French dub and don't speak French. Lol.

But like Westwood's dub, FUNi's dub overall isn't as bad the Son Gokuh arc.

Choi Sui? Do you mean the Chouseisui (Super Holy Water) or the Choushinsui (Super God Water)?

It was just the regular speaking that Lindjberg was adding the squeak to. It was, I guess, to make Bulma sound like a spoiled, rich, conceited girl. Not only was it as annoying as Hell, it completely removed any hint of intelligence in her voice originally.

Sabat's Yamcha was far from goofy. Perhaps it gets goofy later on...?

In Slusar's Gokuh, I heard the same rough and scratchy sound that I dislike in Nadolny's Gokuh. Slusar's actually annoyed me more. Neither are horrible Gokuh's, but I felt that Henderson had the best voice for the role. It wasn't rough and scratchy, and it sounded like an actual boy.

Movie One was dubbed at the tail end of 1994 or the beginning of 1995, and the TV series was dubbed around the middle of 1995. I'm interested in hearing O'Hara's adult Bulma. Her voice seemed like it wouldn't work for an adult, but perhaps she managed to make the Bulma voice sound older.

I'm excited about the possibility of a good script, so I'll check out more episodes in the next couple days.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

Blue Water even kept Choi sui water in their DBGT & DB dubs rather than calling it sacred water. They must've thought some fans might not know what Choi sui water is at first, whereas they'd recognise the term sacred water, yet Blue Water went for the Japanese term because they had confidence in the Anime and their dub to explain what choi sui water is, and it worked.

If the Blue Water dub used "Choi Sui Water", then that's a name change. "Choi" is not a Japanese word (to my knowledge) and "Sui" means water. The original term is "Chō Sei Sui", which means "Super Sacred Water". So FUNimation's dub is more accurate there.

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

Is it really that hard for someone to do ryo?

I do a pretty sweet Japanese Horikawa impression.

[dbgtFO]

Is it really that hard for someone to do ryo?

I do a pretty sweet Japanese Horikawa impression.

If you would be so kind to upload some samples then, it'll be interesting to hear