Original Dragonball Funimation script

[samuraix123]

Hello Everyone!
I was just curious did Funimation completely re-write the script of the original Dragonball series like they did with Z? I guess what I'm trying to ask is how different is it from the original Japanese version? Thanks guys!

[ABED]

Generally, it's pretty good. However, some scripts vary. There are a few episodes that are VERY close to the original, and then there are scripts that aren't but nothing on the level of season 3 that I can remember. All in all, it's a pretty good dub.

[Gonstead]

It's no Kai but certainly no Season 3/Ocean Dub DBZ either.

[samuraix123]

I was just curious. I don't really have a problem with any of the dubs but I was just wondering how Funimation handled the original series. I do have plans now to go ahead and buy the blue season sets and if the Dragon-boxes come out I'm going to be mad! but I'd still get them.

[Herms]

In terms of being a faithful and accurate translation of the original dialogue, then if Simmons' subtitles are a 9/10, and Viz's manga translation is a 7/10, then the Funi dub of the original DB anime series is about a 5/10, maybe 6/10 tops. The general story's the same of course, but there's far too many times when what's said has virtually no connection to the original dialogue. The voice acting is overall much better than the Funi dub of Z though.

[ABED]

How come Simmons' subtitles aren't 10/10?

Some of the worst errors are things like Goku saying something like, "Sometimes my brain doesn't know what my mouth is saying. Good thing my heart does" or when Goku tells the tournament announcer he has a nice suit. Neither of those things are remotely what he would ever say, or General Blue being flamboyant as opposed to a flamer, (Kuririn's word, not mine) Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Still none of that is as bad as "Krillin's in da' house!" from DBZ season 3.

[linkdude20002001]

Here's a random scene I watched and compared the other day. From episode 73.

Original
Akkuman: I had him pegged as a stupid little boy, but he's actually pretty strong.
Masked Man: *Laughs*
Akkuman: What?! What's so funny?
Masked Man: Oh, nothing...
Akkuman: He's the first one to make it this far, but there's no way he can beat me!
Masked Man: Don't think too lightly of him. Do so and you will come crashing down much like Mummy-kun did.
Akkuman: Heh! I ain't no foolish weakling like he is!

Funimation
Spike: So I have to follow that hack mummy. No wonder I never get any fan mail.
Masked Man: *Fake old-man laugh*
Spike: What? Do you find something funny?
Masked Man: Are you kidding? Look at me. This costume is ridiculous.
Spike: Well, what did you expect? The good ones were all taken long ago. That's what you get for ordering last minute.
Masked Man: I don't know... It's not what I had envisioned. I was hoping for something a little more impressive. I think this mask might make me look fat.
Spike: Heh. Your body makes you look fat. The mask just makes you look stupid.

[B]

Holy shit, linkdude, you've got to be kidding. =/

A while back when I got the first blue brick, just for kicks, I watched the episode Turtle Sage takes care of Mt. Frypan with the Kamehameha dubbed, but with the subtitles on. What really annoyed me was not the actual changing of original lines, but the adding of new lines, typically jokes, where there was silence. Herms' 5/10 sounds about right. I could even go down to 4.

And the subtitles-- they're Mato's and not Simmons's, correct?

[DragonBoxZTheMovies]

How come Simmons' subtitles aren't 10/10?

Because Steve didn't do them. I think the guy who did the subs for Dragon Ball was called Clyde or something.

[kei17]

Here's a random scene I watched and compared the other day. From episode 73.

And here's the Blue Water dub: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnARuU__sl4

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

Because Steve didn't do them. I think the guy who did the subs for Dragon Ball was called Clyde or something.

Clyde Mandelin, to be precise.

Actually, Steve did provide the subs for the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai arc, and at least one of the movies. Everything else was Clyde, though.

[kei17]

Even if they had been entirely done by Simmons, I'd have said they're 9/10. He occasionally does make mistakes.

[ABED]

I don't think the occassional mistake bumps him down to a 9. As for Clyde, I don't know japanese but is he worse than Simmons are is he pretty close. The impression I got is that he's an excellent translator.

Even if they had been entirely done by Simmons, I'd have said they're 9/10. He occasionally does make mistakes.

Mistakes like that don't disqualify him from a perfect 10, or at least don't mean he gets only a 9. What about 9.9/10?

[linkdude20002001]

And here's the Blue Water dub: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnARuU__sl4

Wow... Not much better than Funimation's. -_-

[VegettoEX]

I'm pretty sure the idea behind Jake's totally-arbitrary scoring system is that it's impossible to have a "perfect" translation since different people want different things out of the translation (stuff like keeping or discarding honorifics, translating attack names or keeping them as-is, etc.). Steve gets such high marks for being incredibly accurate, a fan of the series that understands its idiosyncrasies and can get them across, actually cares about getting all of that across, etc. We really couldn't have asked for a better result back in 2000...!

I'd put Clyde just one mark below Steve for things like variations on the style guide Steve established (a few character names), not getting across certain speech quirks, etc. It's totally accurate and great, but it's not precisely what I was both looking for and had come to expect.

[samuraix123]

How is the Japanese audio on the season sets? because I will most likely watch it after. does it sound muffled?

[B]

Slightly. While I've been known to have ear infections in my youth and general hearing problems, I still have to turn the sound up fairly high when watching the Blue Bricks.

[samuraix123]

Slightly. While I've been known to have ear infections in my youth and general hearing problems, I still have to turn the sound up fairly high when watching the Blue Bricks.

You wouldn't mind recording a scene in Japanese on the Blue bricks for me would you buddy? I'm curious because I've got the Dragonball movies and on one of them the audio sounds pretty...well not good I remember VegettoEX talked about it on one of the podcast episodes

[Gyt Kaliba]

You wouldn't mind recording a scene in Japanese on the Blue bricks for me would you buddy? I'm curious because I've got the Dragonball movies and on one of them the audio sounds pretty...well not good I remember VegettoEX talked about it on one of the podcast episodes

If it's movie 2, 'Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle', and the set you have is the old 3-movie set (with that movie, 'Mystical Adventure', and 'Path to Power'), then that's an anomaly all it's own from what I've been told. It's...pretty god-awful there, yeah. I've been meaning to eventually upgrade to that newer 4-movie set that FUNi put out, since I'm of the understanding that the problem is fixed there.

[samuraix123]

You wouldn't mind recording a scene in Japanese on the Blue bricks for me would you buddy? I'm curious because I've got the Dragonball movies and on one of them the audio sounds pretty...well not good I remember VegettoEX talked about it on one of the podcast episodes

If it's movie 2, 'Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle', and the set you have is the old 3-movie set (with that movie, 'Mystical Adventure', and 'Path to Power'), then that's an anomaly all it's own from what I've been told. It's...pretty god-awful there, yeah. I've been meaning to eventually upgrade to that newer 4-movie set that FUNi put out, since I'm of the understanding that the problem is fixed there.

This is the one I have and I didn't think the audio was that great http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Ball-Compl ... all+movies i might have to compare them again because it's been a while since I watched both releases