Starting the Japanese Version!

[Kamiccolo9]

I'm gonna start after a meeting I have tonight. I'm thinking of keeping this thread updated with my thoughts on the voices, and getting some discussion going. Should be fun

[Gojira Attacks!]

I'm gonna start after a meeting I have tonight. I'm thinking of keeping this thread updated with my thoughts on the voices, and getting some discussion going. Should be fun

My lady and I have been making our way through this version as well. It's our anime "project" as we finished Hokuto no Ken. She only knows the dub of DBZ,
so I'll post her reactions, too.

[Kamiccolo9]

I'm gonna start after a meeting I have tonight. I'm thinking of keeping this thread updated with my thoughts on the voices, and getting some discussion going. Should be fun

My lady and I have been making our way through this version as well. It's our anime "project" as we finished Hokuto no Ken. She only knows the dub of DBZ,
so I'll post her reactions, too.

Awesome. The more the merrier.

[DemonRin]

If there's a suggestion I can make it would be to watch DragonBall, THEN Z or Kai. Don't skip ahead, start where Bulma meets Son and they go searching for the DragonBalls together.

I've noticed something when it comes to fans who start with the dub. Fans who start at DragonBall and watch through the series and see Son Goku's voice start as a young kid and literally grow with the character tend to have a better opinion of his Japanese voice than fans who jump straight to him as an adult in the Raditz fight and get the "Goku's voice sounds like a girl in Japanese" reaction.

[TheBlackPaladin]

If there's a suggestion I can make it would be to watch DragonBall, THEN Z or Kai. Don't skip ahead, start where Bulma meets Son and they go searching for the DragonBalls together.

I've noticed something when it comes to fans who start with the dub. Fans who start at DragonBall and watch through the series and see Son Goku's voice start as a young kid and literally grow with the character tend to have a better opinion of his Japanese voice than fans who jump straight to him as an adult in the Raditz fight and get the "Goku's voice sounds like a girl in Japanese" reaction.

Good observation, and one that I've noticed myself not that you've poitned it out.

As far as the "Z or Kai?"-dilemma, I vote for Z if you're going to watch it in Japanese. The Japanese voice acting in Kai, while not bad by any means, lacks a certain life and enthusiasm that Z had, which I assume is due to the fact that the Japanese voice actors were probably not as enthusiastic about doing literally the exact same thing over again.

[Kamiccolo9]

If there's a suggestion I can make it would be to watch DragonBall, THEN Z or Kai. Don't skip ahead, start where Bulma meets Son and they go searching for the DragonBalls together.

I've noticed something when it comes to fans who start with the dub. Fans who start at DragonBall and watch through the series and see Son Goku's voice start as a young kid and literally grow with the character tend to have a better opinion of his Japanese voice than fans who jump straight to him as an adult in the Raditz fight and get the "Goku's voice sounds like a girl in Japanese" reaction.

Good observation, and one that I've noticed myself not that you've poitned it out.

As far as the "Z or Kai?"-dilemma, I vote for Z if you're going to watch it in Japanese. The Japanese voice acting in Kai, while not bad by any means, lacks a certain life and enthusiasm that Z had, which I assume is due to the fact that the Japanese voice actors were probably not as enthusiastic about doing literally the exact same thing over again.

I'm planning on starting with Dragonball; don't worry
I'm gonna watch Z. I own all of the blue/orange/yellow bricks, so I'm gonna be using them.

[DemonRin]

My post wasn't meant to make a recommendation on Z vs. Kai, I just didn't know which version of that material he was going to watch so covered both bases.

[Insertclevername]

What about GT(*cough* and movies *cough*)? I'd watch it just to cap everything off .

[Vice]

I'm also doing this. Got to the 22nd Budokai thus far.

[Gyt Kaliba]

What about GT(*cough* and movies *cough*)? I'd watch it just to cap everything off .

The way I handled the movies when I did it, was watching a few in-between the episodes/arcs that they more or less, seem to, kinda, sorta, fit with. Er, I did that with the Z movies anyway, I forget what I did with the DB ones.

So for the first three movies say, I watched those after I finished the Saiyan arc material. Movie 4 I think I watched after I was into some Namek stuff. 5 came after the Freeza stuff. 6 came after some Androids stuff. 7 and 8 came after some of the earlier Cell stuff, with 9 coming after the Games were over. 10 came after early Saiyaman material, 11 came just before Boo hit the scene, then I capped it all off with 12 and 13 after finishing the series. It's a good way to pace yourself IMO, just to spread it all out somehow or another.

I also highly recommend taking breaks from watching Dragon Ball period in through out this. Your head might explode if you try to watch all 500+ episodes, not to mention all the movies and features and stuff, along the way without stopping.

[Vice]

I try to get in at least four episodes a day, mostly skipping filler episodes and such.

[Gyt Kaliba]

I try to get in at least four episodes a day, mostly skipping filler episodes and such.

That's a good way to do it (though I watched all of it myself). I think I tended to do 6 or 7, whatever was on a disc, so I'd be on a new disc each time, but I do that with anything I'm watching.

[Super 17]

I try to get in at least four episodes a day, mostly skipping filler episodes and such.

That's a good way to do it (though I watched all of it myself). I think I tended to do 6 or 7, whatever was on a disc, so I'd be on a new disc each time, but I do that with anything I'm watching.

I started re-watching the series in the Mexican dub (which to me is the same as watching it in Japanese, except I have an advantage of hearing it and watching it in Spanish since well I know Spanish, so no having to read subtitles and I can focus more and... a lot of insert songs are missing, but oh well) from DB episode 1 on November 1st. It's now April 16th and I'm on DBGT episode 21. So I've watched 464 episodes, plus the 2 Z specials (Bardock and Trunks) in 5 months in a half. Of course I was taking my time. My average was 4 episodes a day, but sometimes I went 7 to 8 episodes a day and once I went 11 episodes. I also sometimes watched 2 or 3 day. There were a few days where I didn't watch any dragon ball (due to the fact that I got drunk), so I didn't get burned out on Dragon Ball. It's been fun so far (except for that damn bloody Garlic Jr. Arc, I swear I'm never watching it again). By the time I finish GT and it's special (100 years later), It'll be 6 months of watching 508 episodes plus the 3 specials. I'll probably dedicate a month to watch all 3 DB movies, all 13 DBZ movies, Battle of Gods, Vegeta's brother movie, Episode of Bardock, and maybe the Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans. Shit. That's 7 months of watching all of Dragon Ball at my own pace.

[dprez]

Ahh... I'm thankful for having discovered the International Channel in time to watch just about the entire Boo saga in Japanese. So thinking about the Japanese version is actually nostalgic for me. Before owning all the Dragon Boxes I highly anticipated the experience. Having seen the Toonami run and even after reading the manga four or five times, I knew this was gonna be more fun than all of that, .

When I finally got to the Boo saga, the nostalgia really started to hit. That first run through the japanese anime was a memorable one.

I wish you a good time!

[theoriginalbilis]

Trust me, I understand folks when they say the Japanese version "is jarring" when they first watch it. That's how I managed to view DBZ Movies 1 & 2 (Thanks, Pioneer!) I thought it sounded way different than the show I watched on Toonami, but I grew to love it very shortly afterwards. If you're a really open-minded person, you'll give at least a few episodes (if not a whole arc) a chance. I'm sure you'll find something to appreciate and latch onto, if not the voices, than maybe you'll like the untainted script and the iconic music.

The Japanese cast of DBZ is a smorgasbord of famous, master-class voice actors. These folks are considered veterans and are still working in the VA industry today for a reason. Once you get to the "top-tier" villains like Piccolo Daimao, Vegeta, Freeza, and Cell, those performances will be ingrained in your brain!

[Insertclevername]

I remember when I first watched an episode in Japanese. It was when Trunks as Grade 3 Super Saiyan was fighting Cell. Once I went JPN, I never looked back.

[penguintruth]

I think the first episode I ever watched in Japanese is Gotenks' debut, where he goes to fight Buu and gets his ass kicked.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I don't remember the first full-fledged episode I saw in Japanese, but I distinctyly remember that the first clip I saw was a clip on YouTube where Goku was using the Kaio-Ken technique to power up against Vegeta. So literally the first time I heard Goku speak in Japanese, it was a scream....

....A scream that was far, far, far different than what I expected. I was as confused as one could possibly get, and wondering if I was watching some kind of prank/fandub video. This was only because it wasn't what I expected, though. Keep in mind that this was literally my very first exposure to DBZ in Japanese. I remember expecting that Goku would have a youthful male voice like, for example, Toru Furuya.

[soulnova]

My first DBZ episode was either DBZ 258 or 259, Gotenks vs Buu fight on the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. It was a bootleg VHS I found in my first Anime convention. It was amazing because, even if I didn't know Japanese, I didn't have any trouble to understand what they were saying. It was almost innate... sometimes I joke I speak "DBZ".

[Vice]

I can't remember what episode I saw first in Japanese, honestly. In fact, I think I was exposed to the Spanish version first, which aired uncut on Saturday mornings a while back with the original Japanese music.