Originally fan of the dub now a fan of the japanese version.

[theoriginalbilis]

I don't mind the English dub of DBZ (I even like certain aspects of it.) I just don't know if I'll ever watch it again.

I got into the original via the Pioneer subbed VHS of Movies 1-3. When I got them, I had no idea how different it would be compared to the TV show. I just bought it because it had "DRAGON BALL Z THE MOVIE" on the cover; I wanted something DBZ to watch while waiting for the new "Season 3" episodes to air on Cartoon Network. Yeah, I thought Goku's and Kuririn's Japanese voices were the weirdest things I've heard when I popped those bad boys into the VCR. But by the end of Movie 1, the production values (the music, the greater range of emotion in the voice acting, the less cheesy dialogue) hooked me for good. Not only was I watching every episode I could on CN, I was reading and looking up stuff online, so by the time the Cell arc was airing on TV, I pretty knew about much of what I was missing.

I greatly enjoyed the Ocean/FUNimation dubs of DBZ as I watched them, especially since my friends and I could watch and talk about the series when it was airing. But if FUNimation made those versions the only ones available (like 4Kids' releases) instead of intelligently adding the Japanese audio to their releases, then my interest in the series would have died when the series ended on Toonami. As much as I like certain voices, certain musical pieces, and certain bits of dialogue from the English dubs, they all have a certain "disposable" and "cheap" quality to them, like many American cartoons. Not to say that the Japanese version for DBZ was like Shakespeare or something, they had their fair share of technical and production problems and limitations. But with the exception of the Ocean dubs of Movies 1-3 and the FUNi dub of Kai, the English dubbing always felt rushed and low-budget in the voiceover department (it's obvious when you have 1 person playing roughly 1/2 of the cast) as well as script writing and music production.

Thank goodness for the huge internet community and even Dragon Ball Kai to come along, so FUNimation can actually put 100% into their DB dub work, instead of about 60%-70% and feel confident that they can get away with it.

[El Diabeetus]

I'm both a Dub and Sub fan. Why choose one side when you enjoy both? Although I wish the Kai voice work was one the original Z so I could hear my favorite version of the English cast with the Kikuchi score. I would like it with the Falcouner score too. My only problem with the Falcouner score was it never got silent. If it was done more like Kai's and the Original Z's scores than it could rival it in my opinion.

My favorite non-Kai dub would have to be the Movies 2-3 done by the Ocean/Pioneer effort. Only quarrel I have with those is the unnecessary, completely, obviously, added sound effects.

I'm the type of fan whose not picky at all, loves most of the voices on both sides of the spectrum. Although, I can admit that the acting in the FUNimation dub up until Kai was only terrible/okay at best. The video games were treats for better acting back than. The only voices I had problems with were replaced in Kai; except Recoome. Also, King Kai too; almost forgot about that one. That's honestly the only Seán Schemmel voice he's ever done that I can't stand.

[Garlic]

Oh and I forgot to mention Kurririn,Kame-senin,Kami-sama,and the narrarators voices.THEY`RE VOICES ARE GREAT.

[bleach72]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the daizex boards and I am a long time dbz fan since the Toonami days. I was playing Raging Blast 1 for 2 hours yesterday in Japanese and I love the voices now. i used to be one of those English dub fans who used to bash the original voices. but now from watching the old OVA, Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans and playing RB1 in Japanese I'm used to the voices. I'm currently watching my Dragon Boxes on the English dub but, when I finish collecting them all (I have 3 so far) I'm watching it in all Japanese.

[Kaboom]

Hiya, bleach72, welcome to the forum. Please give us moderators a break by working on your grammar, okay? Proper capitalization and punctuation are your friends.

[linkdude20002001]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the daizex boards and I am a long time dbz fan since the Toonami days. I was playing Raging Blast 1 for 2 hours yesterday in Japanese and I love the voices now. i used to be one of those English dub fans who used to bash the original voices. but now from watching the old OVA, Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans and playing RB1 in Japanese I'm used to the voices. I'm currently watching my Dragon Boxes on the English dub but, when I finish collecting them all (I have 3 so far) I'm watching it in all Japanese.

Huh... Interesting way to get into the Japanese version. I figured most English dub fans wouldn't bother watching The Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans if they could only watch it with "gay Japanese voices". Lol. But I'm glad there are people who aren't so stubborn as my friends.

One hates English dubs, the other few hate Japanese with subtitles... <_>

[Kiyza]

So today I was bored and decided to watch the Japanese version on my 1st season set. It took me 2 episodes to get used to the voices but they are fantastic so far. I love Toshio furukawa`s calm yet evil Piccolo, Chiba makes Raditz sound fucking badass and bored with his deep voice.Nowzowa is great as Goku and I love her screams. Ryo makes Vegeta seem so princely and badass.Nappa sound really messy in the way he speaks but it works quite well. I don`t think I`ll ever go back to the dub now. And I'm 13 Ps; The swearing is awsome.

Oh and I forgot to mention Kurririn,Kame-senin,Kami-sama,and the narrarators voices.THEY`RE VOICES ARE GREAT.

After having several conversations over the past few weeks with acquaintances who are heavily into the dub, and how Kai sucks because the voices are different and blah de blah, this makes me want to cry tears of joy, then come through my computer screen and hug you. Sorry if that was a little creepy.

I sort of got into Dragon Ball through the dub, but I only really watched it casually, and played the Budokai video games on occasion. After I started reading the manga, I got pretty alienated from the FUNimation dub. Afterwards, I started watching a few clips on YouTube and the like of different versions of the series and I just kind of formed the opinion, "Hey, I like this series better in Japanese." Now adays, it feels really weird when I try to watch the original FUNimation dub because I'm so used to hearing everyone in Japanese. (Though Kai's good and fine with me)

[CatouttaHell]

I've been a fan of the Dub since I first got into DBZ in, 2002 or so (an estimate) and only recently saw the Subbed version and became a convert. It helps to see some episodes in the Japanese to see just how stupid and horrible the voice acting and dialogues in the Dub are.

[Garlic]

So today I was bored and decided to watch the Japanese version on my 1st season set. It took me 2 episodes to get used to the voices but they are fantastic so far. I love Toshio furukawa`s calm yet evil Piccolo, Chiba makes Raditz sound fucking badass and bored with his deep voice.Nowzowa is great as Goku and I love her screams. Ryo makes Vegeta seem so princely and badass.Nappa sound really messy in the way he speaks but it works quite well. I don`t think I`ll ever go back to the dub now. And I'm 13 Ps; The swearing is awsome.

Oh and I forgot to mention Kurririn,Kame-senin,Kami-sama,and the narrarators voices.THEY`RE VOICES ARE GREAT.

After having several conversations over the past few weeks with acquaintances who are heavily into the dub, and how Kai sucks because the voices are different and blah de blah, this makes me want to cry tears of joy, then come through my computer screen and hug you. Sorry if that was a little creepy.

I sort of got into Dragon Ball through the dub, but I only really watched it casually, and played the Budokai video games on occasion. After I started reading the manga, I got pretty alienated from the FUNimation dub. Afterwards, I started watching a few clips on YouTube and the like of different versions of the series and I just kind of formed the opinion, "Hey, I like this series better in Japanese." Now adays, it feels really weird when I try to watch the original FUNimation dub because I'm so used to hearing everyone in Japanese. (Though Kai's good and fine with me)

AW THANKS.^gives cyber hug^.

[Bardo117]

Thread made me smh. jk but was the transition really that quick?

[Shiyonasan]

I started watching Dragon Ball Z about 1997 on Toonami, though didn't start watching it regularly until 1999. Back then, I mainly watched the FUNi dub of the show. It wasn't until the summer of 2007, when I began coming to this site and lurking on the forums, that I started becoming interested in watching the Japanese version. After I joined the forums, I slowly converted to the Japanese version. As of 2009, I mainly watch the Japanese version.

The only time I watch the FUNi dub of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT now is when someone posts short clips of that dub on the internet. I tried watching the 2000 FUNi dub of the Trunks TV special a few months ago, but had to stop halfway through. I just couldn't listen to FUNi's dub.

As for Kai, I hardly watch either the Japanese or English version, so I couldn't really give a concrete opinion on what I think about it. From what I've seen though, I think both versions are pretty good. I still prefer Z though. (I don't mind the filler to be honest...)

[Thunderstorm]

When I was much younger, I used to watch the English Dub on 'Cheez TV'. At the time, I didn't even really consider the Japanese version. Back in 2008 or so, I got the first Orange Brick and decided to watch it in Japanese. I never looked back. Out of curiosity, I switched it over to the dub for a scene when Nappa and Vegeta arrived on Earth and was horrified. I can't listen to the DBZ dub, although I am looking forward to listening to the Kai dub (Blu-rays are on the way).

[SuperSaiyan3Goku]

Just like many American fans of Dragon Ball, I started with FUNImation's English dub. Either from watching on Toonami, watching a tape (Yes, tape. That shows how old I am. ) or reading the old Beckett Magazines, I was getting my DBZ fix. That is, until we got our first family Computer in 2001. Then I took my search online, eventually found out that Dragon Ball came from Japan, making me more interested.

My first experience of the Japanese Dragon Ball was through random music I downloaded through sites like Dragon Ball Arena and yes, Daizenshuu EX. ..... Oh come ON we all did it! Other than that, I took a listen to clips of random scenes from the series. Anything to get my fix, seeing that I had no access to full episodes of the Japanese episodes at the time. Yep, I had no "International Channel" that you speak of. I've never even heard of it, this site was the first time I've seen mention of it.

The first time I saw a full-length movie was (even though I said it before) a fansub of "World's Strongest" bought from Acme. Weird enough, this was my formal introduction to the Japanese Dragon Ball. I thought of Nozawa as a "Cool-sounding Goku" and I still think that to this day! Although all I heard in that movie was Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, and Kuririn. Chi-Chi was probably in the beginning, but no bigger characters, like Vegeta or Freeza would reach my ears until I either bought the DVD singles or played the games with the Japanese voices. I still watched the FUNImation dub, I just had more of that available.

Before the Season Sets were announced, I had plans to finish my Singles collection. Yeah, that never happened. I bought up the first three Season Sets. This was the first time watching any of these episodes in their original form. Too bad it had to be in that crappy Widescreen aspect ratio. Oh well, I packed them away, and made room for the Dragon Boxes! They are proudly sitting on my display table, and the four I have look FANTASTIC.

Aside from loyally following the Dragon Ball Z Kai dub, I've stopped watching the old dub altogether.

[powerupguy]

So, i am on the fourth episode of Dbox 1 and I decided to start over and give the sub a chance... I am hooked! I have the Dragon Boxes to thank for bringing me over for good! I now realize the greatness of the orginial series and am so glad i made this choice!

PS. This thread also had a part in pushing me to watch it subbed so i should thank Garlic as well..

[Garlic]

So, i am on the fourth episode of Dbox 1 and I decided to start over and give the sub a chance... I am hooked! I have the Dragon Boxes to thank for bringing me over for good! I now realize the greatness of the orginial series and am so glad i made this choice!

PS. This thread also had a part in pushing me to watch it subbed so i should thank Garlic as well..

Yo`re welcome I encourage this to all dubbies. You`ll see how Toriyama envisoned it to be.Right now I`m watching the episode `The sayians,Mightighest Warriors in the Universe,Awaken! and I must say ryo is phenomenal as Vegeta in this episode.Same goes for Nappa. I skippped some boring filler episodes though.

[Rocketman]

You`ll see how Toriyama envisoned it to be.

I skippped some boring filler episodes though.

I don't want to emptyquote, but there's not much I can add to this.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

Nowzowa is great as Goku and I love her screams.

I agree with you on everything, except for this. I don't suppose you find someone with long nails scratching on a blackboard aurally pleasant aswell? I'm sorry, but I just don't understand how you can like them. I can tolerate them, but liking them is lightyears out of the question.

[Puto]

Unlike most people here, not being an American citizen, I never "started" with the English dub. Rather, I first watched DB, DBZ and most of GT through the Portuguese dub (yes, that dub, with Opera Singer Ginyû and Dodoria, flaming homosexual Freeza, and joke pop-lines everywhere). It wasn't a hard leap to switch to the Japanese version considering that the lines and acting in said Portuguese dub are downright embarrassing to listen to.

I currently watch Dragon Ball mostly through the spanish sets by Selecta Visión, in Japanese with the subtitle track, of course.

[AgitoZ]

I never "started" with the English dub unlike many around here. I first watched the series through the Mexican dub. Although I eventually had to switch over to English after I moved to America. Since that was what was on and the video games didn't allow to switch tracks yet I had to adjust. It was a while till I went to the Japanese audio track till I got some DVDs.

Since then I haven't gone back... up until Kai.

[Garlic]

Well I'm watching an episode with The first apperance of Tenshinhan and I must say Hirokata suzokai really brings the character to life.You can practically feel how determined he is to surpassing Son goku.That and he sounds very determined an confident.As for Chazou he sounds adorable, and as for Lunch pretty good too.I have nothing but positve things to say about the japanese version.BTW I skip some of the gohan trainning episodes. Still can`t belive the dub made him say this`Alright looks like I'm back in the saddle,THIS THREE EYED COWBOY IS GOING FOR ONE LAST RIDE.Matt smith should`nt be an actor after an atrocius line like that.