The general American fanbase really annoys me.

[ABED]

As OP, I think I should add that I was introduced to the show in English. I liked it, it was good. As I got older (and I wiser), I decided to watch it in Japanese the first chance I got and was blown away from how unfaithful the American version was. I've never been a fan of dubbing anything foreign. Let's face it, there are somethings you can't get across by simply translating (King Kais jokes). And at the end of the day Anime is art, and art should never be altered for the sake of making it more accessible to people.

By what standard did you reach the conclusion that art should never be altered? By the way, King Kai is an alteration of his name.

I love the original, but I still like to listen to shows in English, hopefully they're good like Kai.

[MarCas92]

By what standard did you reach the conclusion that art should never be altered? By the way, King Kai is an alteration of his name.

I love the original, but I still like to listen to shows in English, hopefully they're good like Kai.

In a way, dubbing anime is the same as censorship. Censoring is done to make something more appropriate for an age group, or in order to avoid offending someone. It's essentially an altercation in order to make things stick to the status quo. Dubbing in anime is the same in the fact that the sole reason it is dubbed is because this is America(or w/e country it was dubbed in) and it is the only language/culture we recognize and people don't want anything different. It all comes down to being close minded really.

Unfortunately, growing up with the English version and living with people who have only seen the English version has corrupted me to the point where I say the translated names for most things (King Kai, Krillin, Solar Flare, Spirit Bomb etc.)

[ABED]

By what standard did you reach the conclusion that art should never be altered? By the way, King Kai is an alteration of his name.

I love the original, but I still like to listen to shows in English, hopefully they're good like Kai.

In a way, dubbing anime is the same as censorship. Censoring is done to make something more appropriate for an age group, or in order to avoid offending someone. It's essentially an altercation in order to make things stick to the status quo. Dubbing in anime is the same in the fact that the sole reason it is dubbed is because this is America(or w/e country it was dubbed in) and it is the only language/culture we recognize and people don't want anything different. It all comes down to being close minded really.

Unfortunately, growing up with the English version and living with people who have only seen the English version has corrupted me to the point where I say the translated names for most things (King Kai, Krillin, Solar Flare, Spirit Bomb etc.)

Censorship only relates to government action, or companies to pre-emptively stop the government from fining them. Plus, we have uncut dubs, just not always on broadcast tv. Dubbing doesn't get rid of the original, it just is an additional dub. Everyone has easy access these days to the original. It's quite a stretch to say wanting a dub is essentially xenophobia.

[MarCas92]

Censorship only relates to government action, or companies to pre-emptively stop the government from fining them. Plus, we have uncut dubs, just not always on broadcast tv. Dubbing doesn't get rid of the original, it just is an additional dub. Everyone has easy access these days to the original. It's quite a stretch to say wanting a dub is essentially xenophobia.

Actually censorship can be done by any controlling body for any reason they see fit. Yes, we have uncut dubs, buy why? We already have the original. Just sub it. But like I said, people want to see things the way they are most familiar with. It's not xenophobia, it's just having the preference. But, the fact that dubs even exist is a testament to how narrow minded most people are and their nonacceptance of other cultures.

[ABED]

No, because government action and private action are fundamentally different. Pushing an old lady in front of a car and pushing an old lady out of the way of an oncoming car are two completely different situations regardless of the fact that in both scenarios I'm pushing an old lady.

Sometimes I don't want to read a subtitle. God forbid. It's not me being non-accepting of other cultures. I accept and love Japanese culture, but every once and a while I like to watch DBZ in English.

[matt0044]

And at the end of the day Anime is art, and art should never be altered for the sake of making it more accessible to people.

I disagree. I'm actually more for Woolseyisms. Yeah, the thought of altering certain things in an Anime however little is a touchy as hell subject but it works when the change never go too far (unless that works). DBZ's dub is a bad example of such.

And I'm sorry but calling dubbing xenophobic is something I take heavily offense too. I may be a dub guy but I'm not ignorant to the original version. Am I an idiot? I'm afraid you're in no position to call others "closed minded."

[Duo]

First, they will believe ANYTHING that's on YouTube! I can't tell you guys how many times I've seen videos of video game animation and they call it "AF" or "Battle of the Gods". It's especially bad with "Dragon Ball Heroes". It frustrates me to no end. And it's even worse in Mexico. I always try to redirect people to this site, but lets face it, there will always be idiots and trolls who post these fake announcements.

Also, their entire knowledge of the franchise revolves around the Funi dub. To them that's all that matters. They aren't even open minded enough to read the manga or even watch the Japanese dub. They just dismiss it with "The voices sound gay" or "the music sucks". It's sad because they like a version of the show that isn't at all what Dragon Ball Z is supposed to be and they won't give the real show a chance.

Ok rant over

Don't pay attention to it. It is really easy to filter a lot of this out if you stick mostly to reading updates on Kanzenshuu, listening to the podcast, and keep most discussions about Dragon Ball on a private basis with good people you know share a similar kind of fandom to oneself. I don't represent myself as a fan of Dragon Ball to those whom only know the English dub and it works out great for me. I consider the experience to be basically two different shows, so it's no loss to me at all.

[TheMightyOzaru]

Well the problem does stem from having a different version in the first place. I watched Dragon Ball in English, and I have to say, I can still do so and enjoy it very much. The constant music and dialogue is kind of tiring though and more-so than the first time watching some of the dialogue is very awful. I thought the "hope of the universe" speech was awesome, until I found out who Goku really was. The divide in the fandom is because of two things. In America they usually dub anime and various other things. That in turn leads to the majority of people in America not wanting to read subtitles. Probably the same can be said for Germany, because almost everything is dubbed there too. So in countries where there are dubs, people are less likely to turn to subs in the first place, so eventually when they do they don't like it, because they have to read and watch at the same time on top of it just being different. Try watching a series you know in another language. For example I watched some Doctor Who in Japanse, I couldn't stand it!

The second thing is that because of different cultures and a different interpretation on what are cartoons and who watches them, the end result of a dub will differ from country to country. Anime is so widespread and ingrained in Japanese culture that people accept that anime can be watched at any age. That's why there's so much adult anime and hentai and almost no animated pornography in America. Cartoons are for kids (and anime is just the japanese word for cartoon, so the same counts). At least they were considered for kids. Before that cartoons like The Flintstones and Top Cat and the Looney Tunes were actually made for adults, but because the kids liked them so much, that view changed. Now the view on cartoons is changing again because of anime (and shows like Batman the Animated Series helped). At the time of Dragon Ball Z being on American TV there were two things that didn't work. The show was too violent and too weird to air next to the average American cartoon. Another, a little more minor, thing was that American cartoons were fast. Just look at the Amazing Spiderman cartoon. It tells a whole comic books worth story in 20 minutes. Anime and especially Dragon Ball takes its time, and most American viewers weren't used to that.

With all those things in mind Funimation skipped Dragon Ball and the entire backstory of the main cast entirely (because the first part of Dragon Ball is just way too weird and ecchi to be shown on tv at that time) and went straight to Dragon Ball Z, where all the awesome action was. Then they dumbed it down a bit (especially with the continuing dialogue because they were afraid people would tune out when there was silence, and granted I think most people probably would!), edited out most of the extreme violence and episodes that would've worked in Japanese, but culturally probably wouldn't have worked in America. They also thought the music probably wouldn't work that well, and besides! They were cutting things here and there, editing things, two episodes became one, so how would that have worked technically? So they created a new score. It couldn't be that expensive, but it had to keep the public interested so there had to be something to listen to when there were just short panning shots. And of course they had to change Goku's character to be a little more like Superman, a little more like an American hero than what he was in the Japanese version. All these things weren't done with ill intent, they were done because Funimation was afraid that people would just tune out and ignore it. I bet there are some people in Funimation who understood what Dragon Ball was about, but still, they had people saying "We have to make it good, we have to make it constantly entertaining! People can't tune out, this show was expensive!".

Those various factors created a different Dragon Ball than that people who knew the original show knew. And different is usually not good. I honestly think that if Funimation would've released the show as is, same music, great scripts and translations, openings translated, but still keeping the same melodies, it wouldn't have worked for the average American public. People would've tuned out, probably saying it was "gay". If they had started from episode one and aired it uncut... well it just wouldn't have happened AT ALL. And if it wasn't for Funimation making Dragon Ball as popular as it is, I don't think a lot of things would've gone the same way. We might not even have a new movie if it hadn't been so popular in America.

So of course there are fans of the dub! The dub was MADE to appeal to American audiences and it did! A lot of people, most of them are on this forum, found out about the original either before or after the dub and fell in love with that version, the original version. The fanbase of the dub are people that are more typically American than anything else. It's not their fault, the media and everything around them shapes them, but I think fans of the original series are the people that don't just let things shape them. They search out and find out about things and shape themselves in that way. I'm gonna be very rude and mean by saying... the fans of the American version of Dragon Ball Z are just less open minded about stuff. They might even be considered less intelligent. Even though Dragon Ball is simple, it might be hard for some people to just understand how the original Dragon Ball works, because of Japanese culture and those people just not wanting to understand a different culture. They might not read a lot and therefor refuse to read subtitles (which.. honestly is a little ignorant if you don't even TRY, or at least appreciate that it MIGHT be better). And because of this, objectively speaking, I think on average people that like the Funi dub might just be less intelligent and less ready to find out answers on their own. So the very first thing they hear, they want to latch onto. It might be AF, it might be Hoshi, people will find something first and then believe it. With a series as VAST as Dragon Ball, can you really blame them?

I have to make a disclaimer for this though, because it might feel to some people like I'm insulting them personally. I've tried to write this as delicately and as objectively as I can, and to me the conclusion is that on average, fans of the Funi dub are just less intelligent. If you're fan of the Funi dub, that's fine, at its core its still Dragon Ball, but please try to imagine that the American version has been changed to better suit the American audience. That's not always a good thing, because the original creators didn't intend for his manga and the show to be shown in such a way. If you change the intent and story with the visuals you've got, there is a huge chance that the original intent is lost or watered down and in that way making the product inferior to the original. So please, try to understand that when people who like the Japanese version of Dragon Ball are defending their show, they are defending the original intent of the author and the producers of the show's intent. You are protecting something that is BASED of the original with a different intent. After reading all this, you must be able to see that you now have a divide between something that is pure and original and something that's derived and watered down for your enjoyment. Doesn't mean that you shouldn't like the Funi dub more than the original version, but you should understand that the original version is more pure Dragon Ball.

Also another disclaimer, in no way have I taken Dragon Ball Kai into account, so if you like the better scripts and are a fan of that version, good on you! And props to Funi for redoing the script so well.

Very well put. I have to admit when I got into the show I was one of those guys that thought the Japanese music sucked and the voices "sounded gay" however once I got older and wiser, I decided to actually try the show in it's original Japanese format, yeah Goku's voice sounded funny for a while but you get used to it and Hell I think I even prefer Masako these days. When I finished it, I was very pleased with it, the music was well orchestrated and the dialogue was FAAAAAR superior. I guess what I'm trying to say is the american fan base should get off their asses and try the show. I did and I was pleasantly surprised.

[penguintruth]

I get annoyed at people who think because I want to watch something in my native language or I like the English dub that I am not a true fan.

It's sort of hard to believe that somebody who enjoys a version of the show that heavily rewrites dialogue and characters is a fan of the show. If the dub doesn't accurately reflect the intention of the original production, then it's a pretty crappy dub. If that's the thing you're a fan of, it's basically like being a fan of a different show.

[Kid Buu]

ABED, I've been reading your posts and you are casually great on these forums! Love reading your posts!

That being said, yeah DB has some crazy fans on the Internets. I've seen people on other forums claim they watched AF...I generally tried to avoid DBZ dicussions on the internet unless its a forum that caters to hardcore fans (like us!).

[ABED]

ABED, I've been reading your posts and you are casually great on these forums! Love reading your posts!

That being said, yeah DB has some crazy fans on the Internets. I've seen people on other forums claim they watched AF...I generally tried to avoid DBZ dicussions on the internet unless its a forum that caters to hardcore fans (like us!).

Thanks

The internet is a great positive, but unfortunately has a lot of negativity. One of the worst things to ever be invented was the unmoderated comment section. Now everyone has a forum to post their opinions and I respect people's right to disagree, unfortunately there's often no filter. Back before the digital age, there wasn't instant mass communication. You could write a letter to the editor, but not only did you have to go through a lot of effort to write and send it in, the letter had to be approved by the publication. It's okay to disagree, but unless there's someone there to act as a ref, unfortunately, comment sections and forums often devolve into personal attacks with bad spelling and grammar. That's why I love this forum.

[Kendamu]

Going back to the original topic, I'd like to add my two cents.

Kanzenshuu is really the only Dragonball community I'm a part of and most people I talk to on Twitter regarding Dragonball are members here or friends of members here. There's a special breed of awesome fan that exists here that really sets the bar super high for all other Dragonball communities (or even other types of communities online). Because of that, I'm really spoiled.

[DBZAOTA482]

As OP, I think I should add that I was introduced to the show in English. I liked it, it was good. As I got older (and I wiser), I decided to watch it in Japanese the first chance I got and was blown away from how unfaithful the American version was. I've never been a fan of dubbing anything foreign. Let's face it, there are somethings you can't get across by simply translating (King Kais jokes). And at the end of the day Anime is art, and art should never be altered for the sake of making it more accessible to people.

By what standard did you reach the conclusion that art should never be altered? By the way, King Kai is an alteration of his name.

I love the original, but I still like to listen to shows in English, hopefully they're good like Kai.

Well, the point of dubbing is to bring a visual medium to foreign regions and the demand for dubbing anime has changed a lot since DBZ first aired North America so changing stuff up would be viewed as a sign of bad dubbing (not localization but outright changing dialogue and story/character details). That's one of the many reasons everyone hates 4kids. They try so hard to Americanize the anime they dub until it bares as little resemblance to the source material as possible.

[ABED]

I dislike when the term "weeaboo" gets thrown around. Mainly because I think it's a dumb word.

[Gaffer Tape]

Agreed. There are few words I find more aesthetically unpleasant. And like I said in my most recent Dragon Box video, it's really just a loud noise to make to silence someone rather than actually contributing to a conversation or having a legitimate argument.

[MCDaveG]

Agreed. There are few words I find more aesthetically unpleasant. And like I said in my most recent Dragon Box video, it's really just a loud noise to make to silence someone rather than actually contributing to a conversation or having a legitimate argument.

Yeah, game forums are full of that. I was asking for Japanese option in Samurai Warriors 2, because the English dub was such a hell and was called weeaboo for even thinking about that....
I'm also anglophile then and dumb, that I do not demand czech option in video games..... I wish those bastards if they are from America, all games dubbed in British english with Scotish dialect.
(and some brutal Southern accent english from Louisiana to Brits)

[The Monkey King]

Some of you people crack me up!
Dubbing a japanese cartoon for an English audience is now 'butchering art' and 'censorship'?

The uncut funimation dub of DBKai is perfectly fine imo.
If Dragon Ball was dubbed by a company like 4Kids then I'd understand where the grievience is coming from and would agree that it's 'butchering art' and 'censorship'.

I like both the english and japanses versions of Dragon Ball and like Masako and Sean Schemmel equally

[Smochi]

Ugh. I hate the word weeaboo. Besides the reasons that I already talked about in this thread, it is just SO dehumanizing. Why call someone something that invalidates them just for preferring subs? It's just as bad as people being rude to other for preferring dubs!


Also, there is only one thing I have to say for the anime needing to be unaltered as art; my twin cousins are six, American, completely blind, and love anime. If some dubs weren't made, they wouldn't be able to listen to them and thus appreciate the art of the concept. By dubbing anime, it makes it more accessible, and allows further art appreciation. For most people, it can even lead to the discovery of subs. The Funi dub of DBZ was my gateway anime, and in the meantime, I have seen a TON of subs that I loved!

Also, and this may sound bias on my part so I apologize, but making those dubs are people's jobs. It's good for the economy! If we didn't have dubs, that would be a whole industry no longer needed, and jobs no longer available.

[fogdark]

I lived a while in the USA, so I met a few Dragon Ball fans, who were just asking to be punched, really. But seriously, I like to think those are in the minority, and that annoying fans like that exist all over the world. But there's one thing that I REALLY don't like about some of the American fandom in particular, that for them, it's mostly about Dragon Ball Z.

I now live in Spain, and like I said before, I lived on the USA for a few years, but until I was 16 years old, I lived on my native country, Venezuela. There I started watching Dragon Ball since the very start. Sure as time passed, the series turned more sci-fi and more and more action oriented, but Dragon Ball at it's heart is also a gag manga. I was never surprised when something funny happened during DBZ because, I grew accustomed to it during Dragon Ball. Toriyama never took things too seriously, and wasn't afraid to make fun of himself and others. For me, the Majin Buu saga, even though it's not perfect, is one of my favorites, because it's a perfect mix of the action with the gags.

Now try to explain that to people who keep asking about battle powers, about who is stronger than whom, or who'll win in a fight between "character A" against "character B". I hate that. Don't get me wrong, even I like to get into those topics from time to time, but to reduce Dragon Ball just to the fights, saddens me. And sadly, I've encountered a lot of American fans that are just like that. And in a way, it's not their fault. Not entirely.
When I moved to the USA, I had already seen all of Dragon Ball, (original, Z, and GT). So imagine my surprise when I first encountered the American Dragon Ball. Yes, that's how I call it, the American Dragon Ball, because they made the show way more serious than it was supposed to. And the music was so glum, and it sounded ALL THE DAMN TIME!. Where there was originally a silent scene with no music, I was suddenly listening to some music I did not care about. Some pieces of music fitted quite well with the action scenes, but when a gag, or a funny scene happened, the music clashed horrendously. This is not a rant about how bad DBZ was aired in the USA, although it some how turned into one. I just wanted to point out, how by Americanizing Dragon Ball, by selling it only as an action show, they created fans who are more interested in the fights, and power levels than laughing at how funny it is that with Oolong's wish for panties we were first introduced to Shenlong.

Nowadays though, there are, all over the world, fans who think like that. DBZ is the most popular part of the series so it gets shown on TV over and over again, and new fans are created, without knowing first the more fantastical, and gag filled start of the series as a whole. So, it's not rare to find fans who're not American saying how the 2008 special sucked, how it wasn't DBZ because there wasn't any exciting fights, etc. This kind of fans irk me. A lot. A whole LOT. And sadly, too many Dragon Ball fans from the USA are like that...

Congratulations if you read all of the above. Have a cookie...

[TheMightyOzaru]

Some of you people crack me up!
Dubbing a japanese cartoon for an English audience is now 'butchering art' and 'censorship'?

The uncut funimation dub of DBKai is perfectly fine imo.
If Dragon Ball was dubbed by a company like 4Kids then I'd understand where the grievience is coming from and would agree that it's 'butchering art' and 'censorship'.

I like both the english and japanses versions of Dragon Ball and like Masako and Sean Schemmel equally

I have to agree. Dubbing isn't a bad thing, Funimation just did a poor job the first time. Kai is their redemption.