Do people here think FUNimation's Z Dub is the worst dub?

[Hellspawn28]

No, But a-lot of people sure act like it. I've actually read people say that they hate the Dub so much that they wished that Dragonball was never released in the US.

I see older fans that will say that. The fans who saw Dragon Ball in the late 80's and early 90's through bootleg tapes. The type of fans who go around saying that they like Dragon Ball before it was cool.

[DB_Fan1991]

FUNi's dub is bad, but not as bad as a bunch of other dubs like the Malaysian English, Big Green, Greek & Portuguese dubs.

[Mewzard]

No, But a-lot of people sure act like it. I've actually read people say that they hate the Dub so much that they wished that Dragonball was never released in the US.

I see older fans that will say that. The fans who saw Dragon Ball in the late 80's and early 90's through bootleg tapes. The type of fans who go around saying that they like Dragon Ball before it was cool.

...Dragon Ball Hipster fans? Oh jeez...

And the dub is certainly flawed, there's no denying that...but it got me into the series, and lead me to where I am now, so I appreciate that.

[OutlawTorn]

I get why certain changes needed to be made to many lines in order to meet broadcast standards, but if you look at the difference between broadcast Kai and home video Kai, they did a much better job than when they did the same scene in DBZ. Meeting broadcast standards doesn't lead to "mondo cool" or Freeza's personality change.

I agree, but that was during the Barry Watson years which Kai didn't have to put up with. Then again, the broadcast version of Kai saw the halos replaced with spheres and turned Mr. Popo blue. To be perfectly honest, I have seen very little of Kai so I don't really have a frame of reference for judging the dialogue itself, but I take the word of people who have and have said it is superior.

In the end, though, we're talking about a fifteen year gap between the beginning of production of DBZ and Kai and FUNimation had grown significantly during the interim so it's not really the best comparison. A better comparison would be a contemporary production with DBZ,

[El Diabeetus]

It is pretty terrible quality wise, acting, scripting, etc. wise, but with being more familiar with the Japanese version or Kai for English viewings, I view this dub as more of an official parody at this point. I din't even try to take it seriously, haha. I am very glad Barry Watson is nowhere near Dragon Ball anymore. I grew up watching this version and the old dub with the Ocean cast. But, that's where they're staying, in the past.

[penguintruth]

Every English dub of Dragon Ball Z has been an unqualified disaster, as far as accuracy and actor performances.

Taking liberties with phrasing is one thing, but rewriting entire scenes, reworking scenes to change their meaning, changing characterization, trying to modernize it with already outdated Western slang and terrible 90s action movie/SEGA arcade game music? These things are an embarrassment that can only be weakly defended as marketing decisions, which can never, ever justify the corruption of the source material to such a chilling degree. The pure arrogance that went into the scripting of the dub is just staggering, that they felt like they could just insert whatever the hell they wanted to and it would be fine, even if it hand nothing to do with the source material. They felt comfortable with that. They even wish they could still do that! Then there's the unmitigated morass of the English dub's ADR direction and performances from largely untalented "actors" poorly supervised by incompetents. Funimation butchered that show for more than a decade and got a pass from people because "that's what I grew up watching"/"that's how dubs were done back then", which are both fraudulent cop outs.

Is Funimation's dub the worse of them? No. But the Hidenburg wasn't the worst blimp crash, either. One wonders why they bothered to even license a show that they would have to go through more work to destroy than they would to do it right. It's as though there was a tangible animosity towards the show.

Funimation's actions with DBZ have been almost exclusively vomitous from Day 1. It boils my blood just considering it.

[Mewzard]

Is Funimation's dub the worse of them? No. But the Hidenburg wasn't the worst blimp crash, either. One wonders why they bothered to even license a show that they would have to go through more work to destroy than they would to do it right. It's as though there was a tangible animosity towards the show.

Funimation's actions with DBZ have been almost exclusively vomitous from Day 1. It boils my blood just considering it.

Well, Barry Watson is gone, and they don't do that anymore. Kai's dub really doesn't have any of those issues (well, music's an issue, but this time it isn't Funi's fault >_>). Thankfully, Funi learned from their past mistakes, and is doing quite well as an anime company.

And you KNOW it wasn't animosity, that's just stupid. You may have called it a cop out, but NEARLY EVERY dub of an anime at the time aimed at a younger audience did that. You can argue to what extent, but almost all of the hit anime dubs on kids networks/Toonami were like that for the first few years (it was mostly too late when that started changing, so you could see Z's dub start to get dated even during it's run in Toonami). They didn't do it for distaste, they did it because that's what looked like the recipe to success for an anime dub at the time to Execs and Marketing guys. They know little of kids want, but they follow other lemmings right to the edge of a cliff with a hope to be one of the ones to stop before running off the edge.

I don't think that practice was either a good idea or needed, but it happened, and it happened bad during the late 90s/early 00s. As sad as those mistakes are, they're thankfully in the past. Funimation learned from their mistakes, and now does very respectable dubs. Not "So bad it's good" dubs, or "Guilty Pleasure" dubs (well, unless it's an ecchi anime, but that's a whole other issue), but legitimately good dubs. They've been making amends for their mistakes with Kai, and it's a good feeling. Maybe one day, they'll feel it has been too long since they last got a good chunk of money from DB/Z/GT and go redub it for a new generation from scratch. But, until then, we've got Kai's Buu Saga to look forward to...and maybe Battle of Gods if we're lucky.

[matt0044]

Then again, the broadcast version of Kai saw the halos replaced with spheres and turned Mr. Popo blue.

On the CW. Those weren't done on Nicktoons.

[penguintruth]

There were plenty of more accurate dubs from the time DBZ's was started. Certainly by the time Funimation was doing things in house. Absolutely by the time the re-dub of the first two "seasons" came along, and they still screwed up parts of that.

Hell, Ronin Warriors was more accurate when DBZ's dub first aired, and they changed nearly all the names in that show!

Even Manga Entertainment's "fifteening" dubs were more faithful.

[TheBlackPaladin]

These things are an embarrassment that can only be weakly defended as marketing decisions, which can never, ever justify the corruption of the source material to such a chilling degree.

Can't they? On an artistic level, it's borderline-impossible to defend those changes, but on a financial/marketing level, it's quite easy to defend: Toei approved those changes. It's all about the money, even for them. Toei doesn't really care about the artistic integrity of the show either, at least not nearly as much. We're talking about a show that was made to sell merchandise, after all.

Furthermore, say what you will about how unfaithful they were to the source material, but the fact remains, the ratings for that show were through the roof, even with all the changes that were being made. I've certainly heard the argument, "It would have become a hit even without those changes," and don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to believe that.....but people have no way of proving that. It's possible, but people have no way of proving that. The English re-versioning of that show is what got popular.

[ABED]

It's also not possible to prove it wouldn't have caught on unless those changes were made.

[TheBlackPaladin]

It's also not possible to prove it wouldn't have caught on unless those changes were made.

Oh yeah, certainly true. I'm just saying, the version that did catch on is the version with the changes. I saw early assessments of Season 3 from people who said that they "wouldn't be surprised if Cartoon Network refused to air it," and that it meant "the end of DBZ in America," because of its less-than-stellar quality. And instead......the exact opposite happened, with some of the show's most notable changes being the most remembered by fans (case-in-point, that cringe-inducing "Hope of the universe" speech).

[Majin Buu]

And you KNOW it wasn't animosity, that's just stupid. You may have called it a cop out, but NEARLY EVERY dub of an anime at the time aimed at a younger audience did that. You can argue to what extent, but almost all of the hit anime dubs on kids networks/Toonami were like that for the first few years (it was mostly too late when that started changing, so you could see Z's dub start to get dated even during it's run in Toonami). They didn't do it for distaste, they did it because that's what looked like the recipe to success for an anime dub at the time to Execs and Marketing guys. They know little of kids want, but they follow other lemmings right to the edge of a cliff with a hope to be one of the ones to stop before running off the edge.

I agree with Penguintruth to an extent. "Everyone else was doing it at the time" is not a good excuse.

Furthermore, say what you will about how unfaithful they were to the source material, but the fact remains, the ratings for that show were through the roof, even with all the changes that were being made. I've certainly heard the argument, "It would have become a hit even without those changes," and don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to believe that.....but people have no way of proving that. It's possible, but people have no way of proving that. The English re-versioning of that show is what got popular.

You're right, we can't prove it, but we can infer that based on the evidence from other countries. From what I understand, while other countries do have bad dubs of the show, most don't reversion the show to the extent that we did, and it becomes popular anyway. Reversioning the show worked here, but that doesn't really imply that it was necessary. Yes, we can't prove that, but you can't dismiss that either.

[ABED]

It might not be an excuse but it is an explanation. Many companies follow trends and what other successful companies do.

DBZ is not a hard show to follow or understand. The plots are very basic, and that's not a knock. What attracts people to the show is the humor which isn't high brow (again, not a knock) and the action. The animation was so different than anything that was on American TV, especially then.

Remember these lines:
"It must be my diet. I eat really wholesome foods!"
"You think? Your diet huh? WELL YOU'LL BE EATING MY FIST NEXT!"

Jees: "Sometimes you've gotta know when to GO, GO, GO!!"

How many do you think prefer that to the original dialog?

[IIMaxII]

To be fair, Dragon ball Z probably wouldn't have done as well in North America if it's script wasn't edited and music wasn't replaced to appeal to that audience.

[VegettoEX]

To be fair, Dragon ball Z probably wouldn't have done as well in North America if it's script wasn't edited and music wasn't replaced to appeal to that audience.

But that's exactly the point. Who says? Why did it work in pretty much every other country without doing all that?

Like "Majin Buu" just said: "Yes, we can't prove that, but you can't dismiss that either."

[Gaffer Tape]

This is not a perfect example because DBZ was already popular when this happened, but anytime anyone says it wouldn't have been popular without the changes, I have to point out when Toonami showed movies 1 and 2 back in 1999. The dialogue was mostly faithfully translated, and the original music was there, including Nozawa SINGING!!! And I never heard a single person complain that the music was dated or that this wasn't as good as the DBZ they were used to. As for me, I didn't even know the difference at the time, and I was completely blown away by it. And it's for that reason I just have a hard time believing that the changes had to have happened, because there was a time early on when it didn't and yet no one batted an eye.

[ABED]

Piccolo in DBZ: season 3 - "Yes, YES, YES, YES! I can do this! I can win! I feel great! I'm alive, I'm awake, I'm wide awake!"
Piccolo in Kai - "Incredible, this strength. If I had known that merging with another being could result in this kind of power, I would have sought it out years ago! I am invincible! No one can stop me now! I'm gonna show Freeza what it means to face the ultimate Namekian warrior!"

Other than a very minor pocket of fandom, I find it hard to believe that season 3's version didn't make even the most ardent dub fans wince.

[90sDBZ]

That said, in the United Kingdom at least, the decision to use the Ocean Dub was down to a series of disputes between Cartoon Network (CNX/Toonami) and Funimation.

What kind of disputes? I never heard of this.

Back when the 'Fusion Saga' began on CNX suddenly the UK started to receive Funimation's dub of Dragonball Z again, having had the Ocean Dub since the Android Saga. However, after its first airing and several repeats CNX then reverted to the Ocean cast again, which CNX/Toonami stuck with until the end of Dragonball Z and on all subsequent repeats. At the time this completely mystified me, so I emailed CNX about it. They responded by telling me that the Ocean Dub was used due to an issue between Funimation and Cartoon Network UK, but that they had purchased a limited-run license of the 'Fusion Saga' from Funimation as the Ocean Dub for the the latter part of Z was not complete at the time - meaning that there would have been an unusually long wait for new episodes to be broadcast.

We're going back around 10 years here, but I still have access to the email account I used back then. I'll have a dig around a little later on and see if I have the exchange archived.

I think I do remember reading something about these disputes before. So that really is the story behind why the UK got the Funi Fusion saga on CNX? If you could find that email it would be much appreciated as this is something that has bugged me for a long time.

Anyway Funimation's dub is far from the worst imo. After being subjected to the various Westwood/Blue Water dubs and then the terrible 'Big Green' Dub I'd say even Funi at their very worst are great by comparison. In fact Funi's dub of Z is my absolute favourite despite the fact that I can acknowledge its flaws and also hold a respect for the Japanese version.

[Hellspawn28]

To be fair, Dragon ball Z probably wouldn't have done as well in North America if it's script wasn't edited and music wasn't replaced to appeal to that audience.

The show would have done just fine. DBZ became popular because it was a fast action show that most Americans never seen before. If they did keep the scripts similar to the Japanese scripts then it would have done just fine. The dub could have been much better without nonsense like "I am the hope of the universe", Bardock was a “Brilliant Scientist” and changing to Hell to HFIL (Home For Infinite Losers). I was always thought HFIL sounded so stupid even as a kid I thought it sound lame. They could have called Hell into something else like "Hades" or the "Underworld".