Opinions on Foreign Dubs

[GamingBuddha]

The 4Kids dub of One Piece is essentially the Funimation dub of DBZ. They're generally about the same thing as their Japanese versions, but they miss the point of proper characterizations.

I always find it funny when somebody bashes the 4Kids dub of OP and then in the same breath praises the Funi dub of DBZ. Sure, the former is worse, but not by a lot. If children grew up watching that 4Kids dub of OP on Toonami instead of the DBZ dub, THAT would be the thing everybody argues is better than the Japanese version.

Well the thing that the 4Kids dub is usually criticized for isn't their characterization, it's their heavy editing. While both have slightly inaccurate scripts and changed many character names, the Funimation dub didn't heavily censor as many things as the 4Kids one or take out full episodes from the series (if you don't count the Ocean dub). Also, Funi actually releases uncut dubs of series that are edited on TV, something that 4Kids refuses to do (which is my only major beef with their dub of Yu-Gi-Oh). So while both aren't amazing dubs, they're definitely not on the same level of bad.

[penguintruth]

Both dubs show a complete lack of respect for the material, so in that, they're in the same vein.

Bad is bad. Like I said, the 4Kids dub of OP is clearly worse than the Funi dub of DBZ. But not by a lot.

[GamingBuddha]

The 4Kids dub of One Piece is essentially the Funimation dub of DBZ. They're generally about the same thing as their Japanese versions, but they miss the point of proper characterizations.

I always find it funny when somebody bashes the 4Kids dub of OP and then in the same breath praises the Funi dub of DBZ. Sure, the former is worse, but not by a lot. If children grew up watching that 4Kids dub of OP on Toonami instead of the DBZ dub, THAT would be the thing everybody argues is better than the Japanese version.

Well the thing that the 4Kids dub is usually criticized for isn't their characterization, it's their heavy editing. While both have slightly inaccurate scripts and changed many character names, the Funimation dub didn't heavily censor as many things as the 4Kids one or take out full episodes from the series (if you don't count the Ocean dub). Also, Funi actually releases uncut dubs of series that are edited on TV, something that 4Kids refuses to do (which is my only major beef with their dub of Yu-Gi-Oh). So while both aren't amazing dubs, they're definitely not on the same level of bad.

[MugiMikey]

1. American English.
2. Dragon Ball's dub is fine, DBZ's dub is tolerable due to nostalgia, and GT's dub is unwatchable unless it has the original score in the background. Kai's dub is great. Overall, I prefer watching Dragon Ball and Kai in English and DBZ and GT in Japanese.

Yes even though the Z & GT dubs are criticized for their inaccurate scripts I still enjoyed them as even though that's the case the original story is kept which is what matters.

You must be a huge fan of 4Kids' dub of One Piece, then. It also "keeps the original story". About as well as the DBZ dub does.

Not... really. Skipping essential parts of the show just to get to Chopper faster is not "keeping the original story."

4Kids cut so much canon material from One Piece that it would have caused SO many unavoidable plotholes later on if the dub continued. Sure, DBZ's original dub is bad, but at least the footage was uncut, so they've adapted every part of the story, even if it was poorly done (not counting the original seasons 1 and 2, that is).

[penguintruth]

Ugh. Stop missing my point. YES, the 4Kids OP dub is WORSE, because it cut actual footage, skipped episodes, but the stuff that was there was handled with the same disrespect that DBZ's English version was. If 4Kids kept at it and then later restored the cut footage, but kept the same attitude, they would be exactly the same. My point is that it's in the some fucking vein: shitting all over the characterizations and mood of the show with unnecessary, often extreme dialogue changes, stereotypical casting, and poor voice acting.

4Kids' OP dub is worse, but not by a whole lot.

[MugiMikey]

Well... yeah. I know.

But skipping a good amount of crucial material resulting in major plotholes on top of everything else you listed is a LOT worse in my opinion.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

a) English (Australian)

b) I don't want go in depth because I feel I already have in numerous other threads, but I think DB's dub is good, GT's dub is mediocre and Z's dub sucks cojones.

[SHINOBI-03]

a) What your native (or fluent) language in question is.

Arabic.

b) Whether or not you think your dub of Dragon Ball (DB, DBZ, or GT) is good.

Nope. The voice acting was kinda good, but it was horribly re-written.

[Puto]

Ugh. Stop missing my point. YES, the 4Kids OP dub is WORSE, because it cut actual footage, skipped episodes, but the stuff that was there was handled with the same disrespect that DBZ's English version was. If 4Kids kept at it and then later restored the cut footage, but kept the same attitude, they would be exactly the same. My point is that it's in the some fucking vein: shitting all over the characterizations and mood of the show with unnecessary, often extreme dialogue changes, stereotypical casting, and poor voice acting.

4Kids' OP dub is worse, but not by a whole lot.

You'd be surprised at how many people would be perfectly fine with that. I've known several people who flat out said "as long as the footage is uncut, I don't mind if they completely change the dialogue."

I never really understood that mentality...

[Ringworm128]

My native language is English.

Though I prefer watching it in Japanese for the better voice acting scripts etc I still like the dub the voice acting wasn't that bad considering they had pretty much no experience the voices fitted the characters pretty well except for Freeza (though Iv always liked Linda Youngs Freeza voice in its own way). The scripts I can tolerate in fact there are some lines I prefer to the original script. Though for Kai I think the dub is awesome its like a dream come true the English voices with more faithful scripts and better voice acting. The only thing I dont like is the fact that not all of the voice actors could return though the new voice actors are doing amazing jobs so I dont really care.

[rereboy]

a) Portuguese
b) No. If you want to know why... just search YouTube for Opera Singer Ginyū or something.

Ah...so you mean European Portuguese? That's one of my favorite foreign dubs but...not for the right reasons.

That's pretty much what I feel about it too

[Godo]

What I find interesting is that the majority of the people from other countries than the US are clear with not liking their dub, being honest about it.
But we have some people who like Funi's dub (who although it's in the same class dialog and editing-wise as the other countries' dubs) and give it a lot praise.
I have watched the Spanish, Japanese, Ocean, Funimation, Malaysian [English], Arabian (although I didn't understand much) and Big Green dubs. There may be more I have watched that I don't remember. And I can safely say that most of the "lesser" dubs are in the same league as Funi's. They are openly seen as bad dubs by most Dragonball fans.
Yet Funi's dub gets much more praise. To be completely honest and also being a douche in the process, it seems like the reasons for liking Funi's dub is too twisted to be seen as a non-biased opinion (and further invalidating it as serious "proof" of it's worth).
Is it the "it's American and in English, so therefore it must be great no matter what people say" kind of mentality here? Just like some people refuse to watch other movies that are not made by America and are not in English?

[Nils_McCloud]

Yet Funi's dub gets much more praise. To be completely honest and also being a douche in the process, it seems like the reasons for liking Funi's dub is too twisted to be seen as a non-biased opinion (and further invalidating it as serious "proof" of it's worth).

The Mona Lisa is considered the most beautifull painting in the world. I disagree, I find it ugly and not pleasing to watch.

I look at Funi's dub and I'm entertained. I don't know why, nor do I think I should be able to put it into fancy words. I don't need to either to say I don't like the Mona Lisa.

Kind of a weird comparison, but you get the point. As far as bias is concerned, I don't have any biased reason to like the dub. For one, English is not my native language, which takes care of the main motive.

[The GREAT D.]

(a) English.
(b) No. I've got to a point to where the only way I can watch Dragon Ball is in Japanese, because I feel that the dubs for all three series are very horrendous in there own different ways. For the original Dragon Ball I think its dub gets a little more praise than it deserves. I mean sure the script was a little better than Z's and GT's, but it was still very inaccurate! As far as the voice acting goes, I found some of the voices Funi chose to be pretty good, but the overall acting to be very inconsistent. Some episodes the acting would be okay, while other's it would be downright terrible! Now onto Z's dub, which I find, even with the Japanese music, hard to sit through. It's really just THAT bad. I'm gonna have to agree with penguintruth and say that yes, as far as overall scripting, acting, and voice characterizations go, it can be just as bad as 4kid's One Piece dub. As for GT's dub, I found it to be just as bad as the other two, but it had something that I think the other's didn't. Pretty good acting overall. Sure the scripting and the some of the voice choices were sometimes just as bad as Z's, but the acting wasn't anywhere near as awful as the other two. It's still pretty bad dub though, and makes an already terrible show even more unwatchable. Though I do find Andrew Chandler's narration unintentionally hilarious with the Japanese score because of how awkward it sounds. Kai's dub, overall, is probably the best we'll ever get out of a Dragon Ball dub though. It has good acting, good scripting, and Chris Ayres. Which all combined, makes it a pretty good dub.

[Puto]

What I find interesting is that the majority of the people from other countries than the US are clear with not liking their dub, being honest about it.

That's not the norm at all. Most fans in Portugal would swear by the (European) Portuguese dub as being the best in the world, better than the original Japanese version, as dumb as that sounds.

[Godo]

The Mona Lisa is considered the most beautifull painting in the world. I disagree, I find it ugly and not pleasing to watch.

Yeah, by people who don't know art. For people who know art, it's so famous because of it's play on androgynity, and as a small joke DaVinci played with that piece.
It's in no way DaVinci's most beautiful piece, for sure.

What I am saying is not that I question how people can enjoy Funimation's dub (taste is different amongst people), but rather how they can lift it up to the skies as a "great" dub and bash similar dubs (dubs with the same kind of editing ect) and call them horrible (especially when the talents of the VAs and the editing is at the same level). I am merely speaking about the perception of quality here.
So basically, Funi fans who like their dub but bashes other similar dubs are most certainly biased.


EDIT:

What I find interesting is that the majority of the people from other countries than the US are clear with not liking their dub, being honest about it.

That's not the norm at all. Most fans in Portugal would swear by the (European) Portuguese dub as being the best in the world, better than the original Japanese version, as dumb as that sounds.

Okay. I guess I can stand corrected then.
But I still stand by my point that people tend to over-praise their dub. It has to be some "it's from my country, so it's good" thing. Because if you take a good look at many dubs, they are in many ways the same piece of sh*t anyways.

[Wobbuffet]

I'm from Brazil and I think the dub is pretty good.
The only flaws I found was that Olibu had his name changed to Ulisses (nobody knows why) and Trunks special.
Trunks special dub was really bad, almost nobody kept their voices. Plus Bulma's and Chichi's voice actress traded their roles.

Of course there were some minor flaws, but I don't even remember them.

[Turtle Marked Stone]

A. English
B. Accurate? No. Good? In a sense. I think all the Dragon Ball series (DB/Z/GT) from the word "go" pretty much told you they weren't going to be translations. It was essentially like the Portuguese dub, they were doing their own thing and it ended up a pseudo Saturday morning American cartoon adaption. I have no issues with adaptions so I don't really mind the dub. I'll only rag on them if someone tells me they're "accurate" to the source material the same way I'll rag on the 80's TMNT cartoon if someone tells me it's accurate to the Mirage comics. I don't even mind the One Piece, Yu-Gi-Oh or Sailor Moon dubs for the same reason, they never once gave the impression that they were trying to be translations. They were obviously being switched around and messed with from episode 1.

Kai I think is low quality. That WAS trying to be a translation and it's a terrible one. The script is good but the dub terminology and voice casting is inappropriate and overall pretty bad. Hell apparently even the script is starting to falter. Of course I know Kai has a sizable fanbase here so for the record I'll repeat this is all my opinion.

In short if you're telling me you're giving me a lunch from Hawthorne Elementary and it ends up just that or better, super. If you're telling me you're going to give me prime cut steak and end up giving me lunch from Hawthorne Elementary I'm going to be more peeved.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

What I find interesting is that the majority of the people from other countries than the US are clear with not liking their dub, being honest about it.

That's not the norm at all. Most fans in Portugal would swear by the (European) Portuguese dub as being the best in the world, better than the original Japanese version, as dumb as that sounds.

Yet here we are at Daizex, run and inhabited by many Americans (Myself among them), and it doesn't take long to learn the general opinion on Funi's dub.

But I still stand by my point that people tend to over-praise their dub. It has to be some "it's from my country, so it's good" thing. Because if you take a good look at many dubs, they are in many ways the same piece of sh*t anyways.

I'm afraid I'm with McCloud, only as a native English speaker. I've probably just gotten so used to it that I can watch. Not to the point of making Kai a dream come true or turning a blind eye to the horror of Granny Freeza, but not to the point where every change makes my blood boil; there was a moment when I found this site where I thought that would actually happen.

[coola]

a) Polish
b) We had French dub with Polish voice over{For DB,DBZ,DBZ Movie 1,2,3,and part of GT,at middle of Baby Saga they change it to Japanese} and Polish dub for DBZ Movie 12 and 13,and no,it wasnt good ,not only they cut almost all jokes,but they created plotholes as well {Like,Goku couldnt use Kaioken more than 2 times,rather then multiply his strength} At least we got accurate Manga release