DBZ English Dub Fans on Kanzenshuu

[Aoi]

Music
This is big for me. The only reason I bought the "Rock the Dragon" set is because I can't stand Mark Menza's "remastered score". The same goes with the Japanese Kikuchi tracks with the English cast. I find Levy's score to be excellent and Faulconer to be a natural successor for the later arcs.

In short. Yeah. I still really enjoy the Funi English dub. I'm also an avid fan of the Japanese original.

[Gonstead]

Music
This is big for me. The only reason I bought the "Rock the Dragon" set is because I can't stand Mark Menza's "remastered score". The same goes with the Japanese Kikuchi tracks with the English cast. I find Levy's score to be excellent and Faulconer to be a natural successor for the later arcs.

In short. Yeah. I still really enjoy the Funi English dub. I'm also an avid fan of the Japanese original.

Just so you know, it was Nathan Johnson, not Mark Menza who composed for Episodes 1 - 67.

[Attitudefan]

Hi, only an Ocean Dub fan here. Otherwise, it's Japanese DBZ all the way.

[some_weirdGuy]

Pretty sure the slightly homo-erotic/gender-ambiguity/counter-gender-stereotype vibe was very much intentional.

Zarbon was very specifically an effeminate male, Dodoria was very butch but had the exaggerated lips and eye-lining (tying in with the spikes to give him a rather dominator-type look). Toriyama mentioned Frieza being a combination of many of his fears(appearance modelled after his childhood concept of 'monsters') when young, and general things which he thought of as bad(like real estate speculators, which apparently frieza's planet sharking is inspired by XD), I wouldn't be surprised if like many kids, 'cooties'(very young) or homophobia(bit older) or mistaking a persons gender(pretty much a universally awkward situation XD) was a theme/inspiration behind the designs of those three.


Another important, and decidedly more dark element to take into consideration: Vegeta, his role/position in all this, as indeed frieza is basically just an extension of vegeta's story/character:
'master' frieza's little 'pet'/slave, kidnapped as a child; even if there is no sexual context in the story itself, the general vibe surrounding a male((especially a sexually ambiguous one)) dominating another younger male, making them do 'bad' things, I mean there's this definite undertone there of child exploitation which is another chilling element of frieza's persona/role, playing off societal taboo.

Ignoring gender and speaking more directly of frieza as an exploitative figure: The child(vegeta) has no escape from the bad person, no safe place ('home'...planet) to escape to, no parent or guardian to protect them from the bad person(worse, the 'bad person' has become perhaps the closest thing to a parent they have any more), and they have to live and grow-up under this sort of relationship. Like... that's legitimately disturbing. Frieza takes the evil step parent routine and runs with it to the extreme :X
I could see why, given vegeta's role/relationship, toriyama would base frieza's appearance off childhood interpretations of monsters, as story wise frieza really is a childhood nightmare.
Even when vegeta finally thinks he's 'grown' enough to finally stand up to frieza (believing he'd become his own childhood hero, 'the super saiyan of legend'), frieza transforms, revealing himself to be even more monstrous/intimidating, and render vegeta again as the 'helpless child', shatters him not just with physical beatings, but mentally breaking him down as well.


Edit: though this gender talk has kinda strayed off-topic, maybe someone should make a seperate thread for it and we all move/delete the comments here.

[Ringworm128]

I don't think he put THAT much thought in.


I wish I could find that picture where it has two photos of Toriyama, one where he has a thought bubble with a really complex math formula with a caption along the lines of "how fans think it happened." Followed by a picture where he has a thought bubble with a picture of spongebob and the word "fun" with the caption "how it actually happened".

[VenomSymbiote]

Certainly I'm a dub fan, although I wouldn't say I'm only a fan of the English dub, at least not anymore. Being on Kanzenshuu has definitely given me a much larger appreciation for the Japanese version. However, the dub was what I saw first, and the FUNimation voice cast will forever be the voices I associate with the characters.

When it comes to music though, I'm not quite as accomodating. I can't stand Kikuchi's score (on a Dragon Ball Z level- it's perfectly listenable). I am a diehard Faulconer fan.

[CaBrPi]

Megatron does not shriek like a girl when surprised/interrupted or insist to be called "Mega-chan".

Please tell me the Japanese didn't actually do that...

Oh, they did. They also made Airazor a guy, so that whole subtext with Tigatron ends up being completely changed.

[some_weirdGuy]

I don't think he put THAT much thought in.

I wish I could find that picture where it has two photos of Toriyama, one where he has a thought bubble with a really complex math formula with a caption along the lines of "how fans think it happened." Followed by a picture where he has a thought bubble with a picture of spongebob and the word "fun" with the caption "how it actually happened".

Oh i don't doubt he wouldn't have taken the time to analyse it like I did just there, but it's not like it's complex or much of a mental leap when you're going for villainous one-up'manship.
It writes itself once you have the direction down and start fleshing the story out, since the genocide badge was already claimed by saiyans, you gotta think of another way to make a villian that's 'even worse'... what better way than to be the 'evil step-parent'-figure who moulded the previous villain to be as bad as they were.

As for making an element of gender-ambiguouity part of the theme for frieza and his two closest subordinates, that's simply something new he hadn't done with his primary villain before, and was a good way to make them more 'unsettling' compared to prior more macho villains you might have otherwise expected.
---

To be more on topic, I thought Young as frieza was actually kinda clever. It played up the concept of alien gender not necessarily conforming to our earthly standards - You had asexual namekians introduced as a species and then frieza who similarly had traits which were more stereotypically feminine. Asexuality is a very alien thing for us, i generally got the impression that frieza's race could well have been asexual(like namekians, who were also referred to more as with male descriptors despite being asexual), though that could also be just down to toriyama's apparent disinterest in mothers XD

In general I prefer dubs for tv shows and such, as I like being able to listen to what's being said and watch the action, rather than read it, but that's an overarching prefer not really related to dragonball.

[ABED]

This tangent started when I replied to Outlawtorn's comment that Freeza was "obviously" a woman that became male because female toys don't sell as well. This isn't about whether you thought Freeza was female, it's the assertion that Freeza was meant to be female, and was "obviously" changed.