A Fellow Member Converts

[Kendamu]

I actually have started to like the dub a little bit... but in that "Street Fighter II V" or "Voltron" sort of way.

Or, to put it more accurately, that "Big Green Dub" sort of way.

I've moved completely beyond absolutely hating it or not caring about it or whatever into this weird sort of enjoyment that's like watching an old Godzilla movie in English.

[Metalwario64]

I actually have started to like the dub a little bit... but in that "Street Fighter II V" or "Voltron" sort of way.

Or, to put it more accurately, that "Big Green Dub" sort of way.

I've moved completely beyond absolutely hating it or not caring about it or whatever into this weird sort of enjoyment that's like watching an old Godzilla movie in English..

This post appears to have been subject to the disappearing post glitch, so I've saved it.

[kemuri07]

During my current run watching DBZ, things have felt a little off lately. I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but I came to the realization that it was simply the Funimation dub with its problems. I don't need a "punched-up" script with corny dialogue to enjoy Z, and I used to wonder why I had a problem watching filler... It was the dub.

I've said a lot of crap in the past about the whole dub vs. sub thing, but I truly understand why the original's so loved. No longer is it about what I grew up with, or prefering the dub 'cause that happens to be the primary language I speak, it's about watching what feels right -- the real way it was meant to be seen, I guess. I'm sittin' there recently watching Goku against Jeice and Burter, and there's a huge, vast difference between Funi's interpretation of Jeice and the original's. The sub's dialogue is simply more mature and better than the dub's.

To those of you who I've given a wrong impression to in the past, I'm sorry. If anything, coming here has sort of been like therapy in that, "You're truly not seeing why the sub's better" kind of way. However, I do stand by my opinion that Faulconer's score is still better, and I'm just glad I can get his music on CD via Amazon.

Is there anyone here who had a hard time converting, or did you just know off the bat that it was a no-brainer?

Not to be a dick, but.....DUUUUH!!!!!

It's been discussed in another thread, but I'll say it again: Funimation's Z dub was meant for an younger crowd; more specifically, American children. Looking back at it now, it's an absolutely cringe-worthy experience that's both horrifying and strangely entertaining. When I watched the vol. 3 orange box a couple years back, I had to wonder: "How the hell did I even enjoy this?" It was because I was a kid that didn't really know any better, and all I really wanted to see were two superhuman gods punch each other repeatedly in the face.

With that said, I sort of agree with DanielGClapp: I just cannot get into the show with the original Japanese VA. I understand completely that DBZ is a product of a completely different culture, but I'm an American looking into a foreign culture, and that's how I generally watch Anime. I can certainly watch it in Japanese, but I find myself bothered with how stilted the dialogue is (though that's probably the fault of the translator rather than the actual show), and the voice acting does absolutely nothing for me. Is it ignorance? Not necessarily; I routinely watch, and enjoy, foreign films. It's just in regards to anime, I prefer to have my dialogue in English.

SO THANK FUCKING GOD FOR KAI!!!!!

Now having said that, I have to disagree with one statement Daniel made:

why in the world do you think that his American voice actor sounds like Superman?

Because he kind of does. Part of the reason why I have enjoyed--and for the most part, defended--Kai is that I absolutely love Schemmel's portrayal of Goku: he's a complete dick. Sure, Goku is generally good-natured and is willing to do his part to save the Earth, but man, can the guy be an over-confident bastard. And I love it. Perhaps one of my favorite moments in Kai is during the fight with Nappa
(I couldn't find the video for the Kai version )
*Nappa throws energy beam at Goku*

Goku: *smirks* "Seriously?"

*Goku poses and blocks Nappa's attack by screaming at it*

Now Z's portrayal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKwUI5HN ... page#t=86s

It's interesting how just a few words perfectly describe each version of Goku: where as Kai-Goku is brimming with Confidence, Z-Goku feels like a do-gooder; which is fine for children of a young age, but for a cynical adult like myself, it's just completely annoying.

[Codarik]

I only watch the Japanese version of Kai, other than that I'm a hardcore dub fan. I like all the changes FUNimation did. I rather have a superhero for a main character then a manchild and I even prefer the pronunciation of Kaio-ken as Kay-o-ken.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

To be fair, in Kai, Schemmel can pull of Goku's childish side perfectly. However, in Z, he sounds like an exaggerated stereotype of a superhero. Goku is a naive, childish, hick. In my opinion, Nozawa pulls those off perfectly. In Kai, if Schemmel could just say ain't or drop a few Gs off of words (I'm fightin'! etc.) But honestly, watch the dub speech as a prime example, and tell me he doesn't sound like a superhero.

I recall they finally let him drop an "ain't" around episode 77 or so. I laughed.

Then again, his Kai speech is channeling that same vibe. The difference is that Schemmel actually knows how to pull off a badass Goku this time.

[thedarkuniter]

I like both the Funimation and the Japanese voice actors for Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Z Kai. However, the voice cast depends on the show: if I wanted to watch the original Japanese cast, I watch Dragon Ball Z and if I wanted to watch the Funimation cast, I watch Dragon Ball Z Kai. Pretty much I feel that while the Japanese cast performance for Z was amazing, their performances in Z Kai wasn't so hot; same case with the Funimation cast.

[Ultimate_DB_Fan]

I've tried watching the original Z dub with Kikuchi's score and it still doesn't work... Mostly 'cause of two reasons: the dialogue's still there, and the music itself is too low on the season sets.

Overall, the original handeling of Z by Funi was just all over the place. I guess I didn't mind the seasons one and two redub when I watched them, but then you got to season three and it was Schemmel from '99 talkin' to '06 Sabat. All the seasons should've been redubbed, and the dub score should've been consistent, as well. It should've never been created, sure, but if it was gonna be there, it should've always been the same.

Anyone know if Ginyu's VA is the same guy who does Jiraiya from Naruto? They sound a-like.

[B]

I don't even know if I can call it a transition. I watched some clips of the Japanese version on a whim and was enthralled. Everything complemented everything else. The scene that did it for me was Vegeta versus Buu. The score underlined the visuals and played exactly when something began happening. I watched the dub scene of it right after and was just shocked at the difference. Faulconer's tunes just play; they don't add or even subtract; it's just there.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

I've tried watching the original Z dub with Kikuchi's score and it still doesn't work... Mostly 'cause of two reasons: the dialogue's still there, and the music itself is too low on the season sets.

Is it. It just depends on how much talking is going on at the time- basic conversation and silence seems to work for me. Certain fight scenes tend to be the problem.

[Vashkey]

I joined back in 2009. I pretty sure I had learned to appreciate and enjoy the original Japanese version by then. Still, my story is similar. I enjoyed the dub a lot and I had only previously seen some clips of the japanese version and decided to stick with English from there after hearing the voices of many of the male characters and music I felt seemed more fitting in an episode of classic Scooby-Doo.

After meeting the awesome Dragon Ball fan artist, announcer guy, on deviant art, and listening to some podcasts on daizex I finally decided to take a plunge into the Japanese version. What I found was a script that could be taken a bit more seriously. Less cheesy(An opinion I imagine only fellow Dragon Ball fans can understand... I mean it's Dragon Ball). After watching through the Japanese version theres just this sense of... Fakeness.. to the dub. It just doesn't have the same heart.

It's like trying to go back and play the Sonic Adventure games after having had experience with so many other better games and having matured myself.

Still, I'll always have some love for the Dub version though. I had so much fun with it as a kid. The original might be better but as enjoyable as it is to me today it's just no where near as fun as watching Dragon Ball Z dub when I was a kid. That alone makes it worth just looking back at those episodes and remember my childhood every now and then. In short burst. You can only take so much of the poor transitioning the dub music tracks

[The Tori-bot]

ONE OF US. ONE OF US. ONE OF US.

... *hem*. Moving on, in my early years of fandom it was the Ocean cast I grew up with. Then the Funimation cast for "Season 3". Then the Ocean cast for the rest of the series. Somewhere around that time, the first Budokai game came out, which was my first exposure to the Japanese voices. But goddamn it, I didn't care that they were speaking another language because I'm playing DBZ on my PS2 this is so awesome hnnnnng. So yeah, that was kind of an anomaly. By the time Budokai 2 came out, the Ocean dub had finished on TV (I think?), so those voices were MY voices for those characters. Of course, B2 and the first version of B3 had Funi's cast exclusively, so to me, the voices were... wrong. I had vague memories of Schemmel voicing Goku from the Freeza arc, but he wasn't Goku to me, Kirby Morrow was. And Peter Kelamis, I guess.

Basically, the main thing that helped my weaning off of the dub voices and onto the Japanese was that the only English voices available by then weren't the voices I knew, they were strange

and foreign. The voices I knew and loved were long-gone, lost to the ether. But I knew the voices from the first Budokai game so well, since I spent pretty much every waking moment playing it for months upon months (years, even), that I could basically repeat every line from it phonetically. I knew those voices. When it came to the Japanese voices and the Funi voices, the former were the ones that held the most sentimetal value to me, the ones I was more attached to. Would I rather listen to those weird people when playing the next game, or the ones I had spent a good chunk of my childhood hearing? It was simply a case of my having absolutely no attachment to the Funi dub, whilst the one that I did hold dear had long since disappeared from TV, so the Japanese voices were the next best thing. I had grown to love those voices playing that first game, so it was pretty much a no-brainer as to which one I'd end up gravitating towards.

I guess I'm pretty lucky in that, unlike most "converters", I did have prior familiarity and a childhood fondness of the Japanese version, so it was easy to just jump in and experience it that way, as opposed to adjusting to English voices that were inherently wrong to my ears. That's pretty much why I made the leap. I don't know if I'd be such a hardcore subbie today if I had experienced the entirety of the Funi dub when I was a kid.

To this day, Kai notwithstanding, I have not seen a single episode of Dragon Ball as dubbed by Funimation since the Freeza arc aired on CN over ten years ago, and have never had any remote interest in doing so. While Dragon Box-ing I've occasionally switched over to English randomly to see how Funi compared, and every time it makes me feel genuinely embarrassed that the majority of USA-jins prefer them to the Japanese/think the voices are awesome if they haven't watched the Japanese. The acting, and especially the dialogue (which sounds even more horrid when reading the translated subs at the same time) is cringe-inducingly painful to listen to. Just recently, during the Cell arc, I flipped over a couple of times, and I finally understood what Adamant was talking about when he said that he mistook the Funi dub for a fan parody. I just can't comprehend how anyone could sit through twenty-plus minutes of that. I'm sure nostalgia factors into that a lot: I simply didn't hear the Funimation version as a child, so whenever I listen to it, it's from a critical, adult(ish) perspective. I don't have that "Oh, I remember this!" warm-and-fuzzy feeling of familarity/nostalgia that I have with other things from my childhood which makes those things bearable to experience in the present. Is the acting/dialogue in the Ocean version bad, looking back? Yes, but it holds a special place in my heart, so obviously the same must go for those who enjoy the Funimation version.

Unfortunately, that doesn't make it sound like any less of a fucking trainwreck.

[SRB2Unleashed]

The English dub of Kai is the only one I can take seriously. Sure the Japanese version and all of the dubs have their moments, but I can't take any of them seriously. Japanese version has Goku voiced by a woman (which honestly she should've just voiced Gohan and Goten for Z since I take her seriously like that) plus its a foreign language....but I still watch Japanese Kai for the sake of watching Kai. The Ocean dub sounded really weird to me at first, and still does at times. The Z Dub is just really...silly and they only put 50% effort most of the time. However I really love the Funi dub for Bojack Unbound, mostly the "I'm My Father's SON!" Line, it just sounds...epic.

[AgitoZ]

The English dub of Kai is the only one I can take seriously. Sure the Japanese version and all of the dubs have their moments, but I can't take any of them seriously. Japanese version has Goku voiced by a woman (which honestly she should've just voiced Gohan and Goten for Z since I take her seriously like that)

Cause Goku's voiced by a woman you can't take him seriously? Is it because you think he sounds like a woman? What woman talks like this? If anything it sounds more like a youthful boy-ish voice. And who usually voices young boys? Oh that's right, women.

And to all who want a superhero for their main character, go watch another show. One of the reasons I like DB is because the protagonist isn't driven by all that cliched crap of "universe's last hope, fighting for what's right, etc". Goku fights for his friends and just for the heck of it, and that makes him a much more enjoyable and original character.

[SRB2Unleashed]

I mean, I loved her performance as Kid Goku, and I know that most of the time women voice young male characters, but Goku, a character around his 20s-30s being voiced by a woman just...amuses me.

[Drayenko]

Cause Goku's voiced by a woman you can't take him seriously? Is it because you think he sounds like a woman? What woman talks like this? If anything it sounds more like a youthful boy-ish voice. And who usually voices young boys? Oh that's right, women.

And to all who want a superhero for their main character, go watch another show. One of the reasons I like DB is because the protagonist isn't driven by all that cliched crap of "universe's last hope, fighting for what's right, etc". Goku fights for his friends and just for the heck of it, and that makes him a much more enjoyable and original character.

That post, I love.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

Initially, Goku's Japanese voice annoyed me. To be honest, it still does. Whether such a voice befits a 40-year-old man is another story (one which I frankly don't want to get into right now), but at times it can be aurally painful. However, this is a relatively small thing to have to put up with for overall better acting and better dialogue.


My conversion was simply: "DBZ is an Anime, so there must be a Japanese version. Oh, it's on the home releases now. I'll check it out". The rest, as they say, is history. Until Kai, that is.

[DanielGClapp]

Is it because you think he sounds like a woman? What woman talks like this? If anything it sounds more like a youthful boy-ish voice. And who usually voices young boys? Oh that's right, women.

Are you forgetting that Goku is not a young boy anymore? I mean I'm cool with the whole idea of Goku keeping his youthful qualities, but seriously, who usually voices grown men? Oh that's right, grown men.

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

in another thread, but I'll say it again: Funimation's Z dub was meant for an younger crowd; more specifically, American children.

...since when are American children considered younger than Japanese children due solely to nationality?

[Perfect]

in another thread, but I'll say it again: Funimation's Z dub was meant for an younger crowd; more specifically, American children.

...since when are American children considered younger than Japanese children due solely to nationality?

I think he's trying to say it was toned down for a younger audience, but that audience just happened to be American?

The dub was initially meant to appeal to seven year old children and a few steps above with its "hardcore" music and attitude; "The next cool thing" if you will. This is also due to the fact that the Japanese version had different tones in itself to the point of almost being an entirely different cartoon. I suppose this is acceptable because of significant cultural differences between America and Japan (One thing might be suitable for a younger audience in Japan whereas in America it'd receive a different rating and target audience and visa versa).

So to paraphrase, as one thing may be directed at an audience from a family rating to seventeen years of age in Japan, it can be greatly filtered when it comes to America or other countries. In this case yes, very much so. Nicktoons for example has censored a lot of the blood and all the swearing from Kai, given they believe it should be filtered for public broadcasting (But children seeing their parents swear, drink and smoke is acceptable?). In retrospect to the aforementioned, the DVD releases attain their original intent so to speak (Less filtering and whatnot). This differentiates the DVD version from the public broadcast version quite a bit, given the age targets are different (I recall the blue season sets being TV 14 for sexual references [I also recall gambling and alcohol as well as guns, etc], though the dub filtered them out with ridiculous dialogue). With that said it's not necessarily that Japanese children are younger than American children due to nationality, the target audiences are just different because of cultural differences (Or to be blunt, the target audience is different because of our nationality).

[Pokewhiz7]

I only watch the Japanese version of Kai, other than that I'm a hardcore dub fan.

If I might ask, why? Isn't the dub of Kai generally considered good?