Things you Dislike about the Japanese version.

[JEFFMAN219]

Gokus voice, Gohans voice, Gotens voice and Krillins voice but other then that the Japanese version of the show is not that bad.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

Gokus voice, Gohans voice, Gotens voice and Krillins voice but other then that the Japanese version of the show is not that bad.

You might as well and just add in Bardock while you're at it, since it's his that bothers people the most.

[JEFFMAN219]

Gokus voice, Gohans voice, Gotens voice and Krillins voice but other then that the Japanese version of the show is not that bad.

You might as well and just add in Bardock while you're at it, since it's his that bothers people the most.

I only watched the bardock special in English so I don't what he sound like in the Japanese version.

[TheGmGoken]

Gokus voice, Gohans voice, Gotens voice and Krillins voice but other then that the Japanese version of the show is not that bad.

You might as well and just add in Bardock while you're at it, since it's his that bothers people the most.

I only watched the bardock special in English so I don't what he sound like in the Japanese version.

The same as Goku.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

Gokus voice, Gohans voice, Gotens voice and Krillins voice but other then that the Japanese version of the show is not that bad.

You might as well and just add in Bardock while you're at it, since it's his that bothers people the most.

I only watched the bardock special in English so I don't what he sound like in the Japanese version.

-While not necessarily against Nozawa's Goku, I wish she didn't also play Gohan, Goten and Bardock. It's jarring, all too noticeable and I think it's rather lazy casting. For some reason or another, I find it especially distracting with Bardock.

[Fionordequester]

Well, speaking as a FUNI dub fan who's watched a good chunk of the Japanese version, here are my list of grievances....

1) There are some legitimately funny, clever, and well written lines in the FUNI version that aren't in the Japanese version (Vegeta: I do a lot of pushups and situps. And I drink plenty of juice! (after Cell asked how he got so strong), so that's always a drag (yes, I realize there were some dumb lines in the FUNI version too).

2) The music isn't technically BAD persay, but I find it incredibly dull and slow paced, and don't think it fits the fight scenes as well as Team Faulconer's music. IMO, it also doesn't do as well at the emotional moments as say, songs like...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmXFtZ-jvzE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyDfR7jdYEI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dsSvx0GzgY (I wish this was pitched up to F like I have on my Youtube channel though)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcqcOOFe894
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHPc6PTT-C8 (when he was just powering up in front of Cell and preparing to fight him. Beautiful piece if I say so myself)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sspMH9M73F4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqtIkhBbiDY (Heck this was TOO emotional considering the scene it originated in, but it's still wonderful for the duration of the show).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2zk8UAG43g (Yes, I consider this a very emotional song. It was written to showcase Goku's pain just as much as it was written to showcase the awesomeness of SSJ. And IMO, I like that a lot more than "Ah! Goku's looking kinda scary right now!").
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flJbl2Ebzkc (Skip to 4:12. Heck, even Chris Psaro admitted that THIS was good, in a "new age hippy ** sort of way").
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd3rW6Ffz4Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaOOXLt4knA (Unfortunately, this one didn't play very often. Team Faulconer TRIED to get this for when Trunk's killed Frieza, but FUNI themselves wanted to be "hardcore" instead, so this was reserved for Goku's Sacrifice against Cell and Kid Buu's death instead).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWUGum12jh8 (Sadly the song here has not been ripped by CoyCoy or released yet, so this one has voices in it. Still, pretty horrifying music to go out to if you ask me)

I guess when it comes down to it, Kikuchi's music is really good on scary music, and isn't too bad on happy scenes either, but during sad scenes, his music just feels too..."composed", for lack of a better word, like he knew how sad music should sound, but he didn't truly have any inspiration when writing them, so he just wrote something stereo-typically sad. Meanwhile, Team Faulconer's composers were so incredibly "raw", for lack of a better word, that certain scenes were just drenched with feeling, like when Goku buried Vegeta, or when Goku was trying to convince Vegeta to put on a Potara Earring, or when Goku was having that nightmare about the androids killing his family. So that's that tangent out of the way.

3) Too much silence during filler scenes. I realize that may sound weird, but I'm talking about when we're in the middle of an exciting fight with Piccolo and 17...and then all of a sudden, we, say, cut back to Roshi Island where the side characters do basically nothing for 2-3 minutes. At least in the Team Faulconer, you were generally listening to some pretty cool music as you were waiting for the action to start again, but in the Japanese version, the lack of any music whatsoever only goes to emphasize just how pointless these scenes are, and as a result, make them even MORE boring than they already were.

4) Nozawa playing Goku...and Goten...and Gohan...and even Bardock. To be clear, I think she's a good actress who does a bang-up job on Goku when he's just speaking normally, but when he's actually FIGHTING, I find that she, and basically every other actor for Goku just can't match Sean Schemell when it comes to screaming and roaring and shouting "** IIIIITT!!", or any of those other things. But that's just my thing.

But for her to be playing everyone else as well? That just seems kinda...dumb, if you ask me.

5) The lip syncing, ironically, actually being WORSE in the Japanese version than the FUNI verision, EVEN IN SCENES LIKE GOKU GOING SSJ! Yes, when the big climax to the scene is Nozawa giving a short "AH" after Goku's mouth has been hanging open for a solid second, with no sound whatsoever coming out...yeah, that's um...that kinda takes me out of the moment ...

6) Some occasional dumb writing found only in the Japanese version ("Goku: Let's be clear here, I don't want ANYONE surpassing me, but Gohan...I want you to be even stronger than me!", "Cell: Uuugggh! You young punk, with your ** still blue!", "Goku: Pop it off Gohan! Pop it off with a bang!", Mr. Popo SPEAKING LIKE A CAVEMAN ...)

7) The sometimes really lacking narration that sometimes tells you absolutely NOTHING, to the point where you're just standing at the screen for a solid minute watching all these things happen (Just look at the Japanese recap for Episode 75 covering how Goku defeated Ginyu for example...what newcomer in the world is going to look at THAT, and say, "yeah, this makes perfect sense! I totally didn't need much commentary to understand that one!"?)

[Flame Dragon]

1) I hate Bardock original voice. I like Nozawa for Goku a lot, but for Bardock...
I mean, it just sounds weird to look at this guy, all scarred and merciless, with such a high pitched voice.
Imo best Bardock is TFS Bardock

2) I like Nozawa a lot, but i feel she sounds a bit weird when trying to make Goku sound serious.
Her screams and battle grunts are awesome, but when Goku is just talking seriously, i would have liked it better if she toned down the pitch a bit. Otherwise i'm cool with her.

[TheGmGoken]

1) I hate Bardock original voice. I like Nozawa for Goku a lot, but for Bardock...
I mean, it just sounds weird to look at this guy, all scarred and merciless, with such a high pitched voice.

I'm not against anyone opinions. In fact I agree that Bardock's JPN voice is bad. But I find it funny that a lot of dangerous, scary, and merciless people have high pitch voices in real life ahah. Though not to the extent of most JPN voices.

Mike Tyson
Brock Lesnar
Ken Shamrock
Anderson Silva
Mauricio "Shogun" Rua
Rashad
Fedor
BJ Penn
Mark Kerr

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

I will agree with Finord on the lack of narration in recaps and the general silence during filler.

The narration usually isn't too sparse, and sometimes you just can' t do much with filler-bloated episodes in which little of value actually happened, Funimation's attempt at broader recaps are brought down because they don't shut up, not because they have more than two sentences of exposition; while Toei is clearly assuming you've read Jump already. By the time you get to Buu- where the entire scenario can actually change in a single episode more than once- it looked like Toei had just given up. I wouldn't blame them, other than that failing to keep the story straight undermines that they're trying to adapt it at all, if Funimation hadn't actually given a damn and did it! We can argue day and night on the little things liscensees are and are not allowed to do, but in that case then-amateur Funimation is putting in more effort to better effect that decades-established Toei. If you want to pay Joji Yanami as little as possible then fine, but the upstarts are legitimately showing you up there, even if they add excess narration in doing it. I will acknowledge, though, that a lot of it does come down to target audience; a 7-13 year old Dragon Ball fan is probably a lot more interested in what's happening now than the last couple episodes he might have missed. Toei's narrations do make sense from that perspective, particularly when coupled with that assumed Jump reader overlap.

Wheras there's nothing more to say on silence in filler; background music can empower good pan shots and distract you in the truly awful ones.

[penguintruth]

Lack of narration is a plus, not a minus. The Japanese version shows instead of tells.

[Gaffer Tape]

Yeah, this is the first time I've ever heard anyone complain about not enough narration on the recaps. I'm honestly very, very surprised. Dragon Ball is one of the few shows I've ever watched that actually HAS narration in recaps. Most other shows I watch that feel compelled to have a recap have no more narration than, "Last time on _____" and "And now the conclusion" with nothing but clips in between, and I've never found there's any more need than that. I mean, let's be honest. The plot of your typical episode of DBZ is often no more complex than, "So and so is beating up so and so. Will he continue to do so?" It's not as if we really need a flow chart and a tour guide to follow what's going on.

[TheBlackPaladin]

1) I hate Bardock original voice. I like Nozawa for Goku a lot, but for Bardock...
I mean, it just sounds weird to look at this guy, all scarred and merciless, with such a high pitched voice.

I'm not against anyone opinions. In fact I agree that Bardock's JPN voice is bad. But I find it funny that a lot of dangerous, scary, and merciless people have high pitch voices in real life ahah. Though not to the extent of most JPN voices.

Mike Tyson
Brock Lesnar
Ken Shamrock
Anderson Silva
Mauricio "Shogun" Rua
Rashad
Fedor
BJ Penn
Mark Kerr

True, but I think in animation there seems to be an "unwritten rule" that a character's voice has to correspond with whatever traits would reinforce that character's purpose in the story. If audition notes specify that the character is tough and physically imposing, there's a reason they're giving that info out--because they want the voice to sound the same.

No such rule exists in real life, and that rule seems to be more relaxed in every other form of acting.

[Fionordequester]

Yeah, this is the first time I've ever heard anyone complain about not enough narration on the recaps. I'm honestly very, very surprised. Dragon Ball is one of the few shows I've ever watched that actually HAS narration in recaps. Most other shows I watch that feel compelled to have a recap have no more narration than, "Last time on _____" and "And now the conclusion" with nothing but clips in between, and I've never found there's any more need than that. I mean, let's be honest. The plot of your typical episode of DBZ is often no more complex than, "So and so is beating up so and so. Will he continue to do so?" It's not as if we really need a flow chart and a tour guide to follow what's going on.

The problem here though is how long the recaps on Dragon Ball Z are compared to most other kinds of recaps that you're describing. Some of them reach upwards of around 2 minutes long or so, so if you're not actually going to SAY anything for one and a half to two minutes...then what's the point?

[Gaffer Tape]

I'm not arguing against the idea that the recaps become pointlessly long and exist just to take up time. I'm totally with you on that. I just don't see how narration makes it any better. I mean, it COULD, if it was truly entertaining, I guess. But I thought the point was that the lack of copious narration supposedly makes the show impossible to follow.

[Fionordequester]

It does in certain situation where a bunch of really odd stuff was happening in the last episode. Again, watch Japanese Episode 75 again, and TELL me that any first time viewer would be able to make hide or hair out of just what the heck happened. Also, the copious narration does at least do a good job of bringing new viewers up to speed on what's happening, while the Japanese version...well, not so much at certain points.

[90sDBZ]

It's filler so they did it right to not give two shits about it. It doesn't exist on the manga and nor in Kai./quote]

So what if it's filler. It's still a part of the show they were releasing for people to watch. If you're going to add something in that wasn't in the original story then you should at least attempt to make it consistent in quality with the rest of the series. Putting minimum effort into a story arc just because it's filler isn't doing the show and its popularity any favours. And I don't know why you're bringing Kai up, that wasn't even made until waaaay later. And it's not like Kai is even that faithful to the manga. The Pilaf-Piccolo Jr arcs weren't in Kai either so does that make them unimportant too?

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Lack of narration is a plus, not a minus. The Japanese version shows instead of tells.

And this is where I see a divergence in what we're perceiving a recap is supposed to do. A person watching new episodes of a cartoon series day-to-day or week to week doesn't need a recap, at all, they're invested enough in the show to have some basic memory of whatever event the newest episode follows after. Short recaps are fine, particularly for a show as simple as DBZ, thus we run again into the problem that a fair number of episodes recap for too long. The recap for long-running series, in my mind, is meant as a catch up, for those who are missing episodes and actually need it. Explaining the long-term setting, referencing episodes prior to one being recapped when it's appropriate, all of these things can be done in less than sentence. It's nothing to to with the presentation (or the need for one at all, given we're talking about how long some of them are), and everything to do with utility. Because outside of an extended home release viewing that puts pure "original-experience-recreation", for lack of a more concise phrase, above anything else recaps aren't meant to be admired. Which is why the Funi Dragon Boxes can't skip them. In Dragon Ball's case, that's where the next episode previews come in!

That's where Funimation's greater narration has some merit to it. We don't need play-by-plays of every blow landed in the recap footage, but reestablishing the setting in four or five words for someone who is actually lost is nice. I'm trying to remember, how were Kai's recaps handled? I know they weren't as long on the whole so it was not as much of a problem.

A difference of opinion, sure, but a rare and very specific case where I don't think "show not tell" should be instantly taken as the correct option.

So what if it's filler.

Speaking of, remember how nearly every episode of the Afterlife Touranment arc opens with Gohan's killing Cell? That's exactly what I'm talking about; it's annoying when viewed back to back on a home release (but then all recaps are, they're redundant in that setting) but it certainly explains a filler arc.

I mean, it COULD, if it was truly entertaining, I guess.

Well Funimation did redub their recaps, rather than pasting over the prior episode's audio to the lip-flaps. I always found that funny for some reason.

The problem here though is how long the recaps on Dragon Ball Z are compared to most other kinds of recaps that you're describing. Some of them reach upwards of around 2 minutes long or so, so if you're not actually going to SAY anything for one and a half to two minutes...then what's the point?

There is DBZ episode 87 (I think), where the recap animation is so long that the music actually loops. That is actually a mite funny for novelty alone.

[JulieYBM]

I can't really think of anything. Yeah, the Last House episodes become mostly terrible near the middle of Dragon Ball Z, but the audio direction always made up for it. It is very easy to become engrossed in an episode because of the directing. One of the unique things I like about Dragon Ball Z is the lack of too much noise, especially during the recaps. There is a greater focus on "show, don't tell." Even though each studio and director had their own style the consistency of the audio direction really gave a consistently strong element between each episode, no matter which of the first 508 episodes you are watching.

Yeah, I even like Blooma and the Crab. It has Buleberry, for God's sake!

[Bullza]

1. The terrible music.

2. Goku sounding like an old lady.

[theoriginalbilis]

Lack of narration is a plus, not a minus. The Japanese version shows instead of tells.

One of the unique things I like about Dragon Ball Z is the lack of too much noise, especially during the recaps. There is a greater focus on "show, don't tell."

The first rule of screenwriting, ladies and gentlemen. If you need constant narration/explanation of on-screen events, just go read a book.

As for my dislikes regarding the Japanese version, there aren't really many qualms...

I suppose not having high-quality audio for the home releases is a bummer. And the filler episodes are somewhat lame, but those can be easily skipped via remote. There's only one outright voice-acting aspect I dislike: whomever voiced the announcer for the Anoyoichi Budokai/Otherworld Tournament (the mushroom-headed guy.) His voice is trying to be cute and cartoony, but just sounds shrill and agonizing to my ears.