Should FUNimation have done a completely new cast for Kai?

[Kid Buu]

A lot of people have praised the recasts in the dub of Kai, such as Gohan and Freeza, so I was wondering would you have liked to have seen FUNi break off all ties with the old dub and have started anew?

I think it'd be an interesting experiment, but I'd feel bad for the old voice actors who'd get shafted, though.

[Ajay]

Yes, if it meant we had a voice for Kaio that wasn't utter garbage, that would be nice! If they'd retained the original names and pronunciations (Sigh-an), I would have been ecstatic.

On the other hand, it would mean we'd be losing Chris Sabat as a director and he's done a heck of a lot of good for the franchise as of late.

I don't know what I care about more. That's such a tough one.

I guess I'd probably go with an all new cast and just pray they put someone in charge who actually cares about accuracy.

[Kid Buu]

Well okay, a hypothetical dub where Christopher Sabat still directs it despite giving up Vegeta, Piccolo, and Yamcha.

[TheGmGoken]

It would have been a major backlash
But honestly no. I can't think of any voice actor English wise that can do the characters was well as the Kai cast. Though if we want to be realistic if Funimation did use a new cast somehow Collen C. would be in it as she's in all Funimation dubs.

Should they done this?
No.

Would it be interesting
No. I probably rip my ears out.

To be honest I like certain Funi only pronunciation better than the original and even Korean.

[B]

Realistically, that's kind of impossible because FUNimation has its own set pool of actors; basically everyone there has done something for DB. Ignoring that, I don't think so. I very much enjoy a handful of them. It'd be a shame to lose Sabat as Piccolo or Sonny Strait as Kuririn, even if it meant improving horror stories like Goku, Kame Sennin, Yamcha...

[Kid Buu]

What don't you like about Goku, Roshi, and Yamcha? Just curious.

[TheBlackPaladin]

In my opinion.......only if they somehow managed to find a better English-speaking actor for literally every character on the show. And in my opinion, for the vast majority of the characters, I don't think they could have done that.

Would I still watch a complete recast? Eh, sure. Who knows, maybe they could find better actors...but I doubt it, and I'd be lying if I said I was excited about the prospect of a completely new cast. In fact, I'd be upset at the prospect. For me, the vast majority of returning actors did a spectacular job, and I fully believe they are their respective characters now. This is not nostalgia-blinded sentiment talking, either, because my first exposure to the show was, like many here, via the Ocean dub.

Did I like every returning actor's performance? No. By extension, I absolutely LOVED some of the performances for the roles that were re-cast...I'm only human, after all, so there definitely were some performances that I wish were done better or that they had recast (and my usual policy of remaining silent on what performances I didn't like will continue here). However, in my opinion, the good FAR outweighed the bad. When I hear the phrase, "Kai dub," I don't even think about the shortcomings because the shortcomings didn't make a strong enough impression for me to really remember them. I can recall some of the shortcomings of the dub, but only when asked. When somebody asks me what I think of the Kai dub, my reflexive answer is, "It's awesome."

Then again, it seems that the things that don't bother me bother others, and vice versa. For example, I'm really not that bothered with all the mispronunciations, like "Say-in." "Kay-oh-ken" bothered me because I felt it was important that the attack's name be correctly pronounced so that it would be more clearly associated with Kaiou (it's his move, after all), but that's about it. Furthermore, I really liked the infamous, "I HATE THE MEDIA" line from Nappa, whereas everybody else seemed to hate it. As an example of the opposite, I thought Freeza telling Kuririn "Hope you aren't afraid of heights" right before he killed him was the worst re-write in the whole dub (why would someone who flies be afraid of heights?), but that didn't seem to bother anyone else.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. However, for me, DBZ has reached the point where I can watch it either in English or Japanese and be (more or less) completely satisfied with the performances.

[Codarik]

Yes. Or at the very least had Sabat voice only Vegeta, just like Z, Kai still sounds like I'm watching "The Chris Sabat Show", one of the reasons I quit watching all the anime series is because I'm tired of hearing his voice everywhere.

[TheGmGoken]

How many characters Sabat voice in Kai?

[Kid Buu]

1.) Vegeta
2.) Piccolo
3.) Yamcha
4.) Kami
5.) Shenlong
6.) Porunga
7.) Recoome
8.) Korin

[JEFFMAN219]

No way and if they did do that I would stop watching the dub.

[TheGmGoken]

1.) Vegeta
2.) Piccolo
3.) Yamcha
4.) Kami
5.) Shenlong
6.) Porunga
7.) Recoome
8.) Karin

So 3 main characters. 2 Dragons who rarely shown. The Cat. Hardly Chris Sabat show.

[B]

What don't you like about Goku, Roshi, and Yamcha? Just curious.

Goku is not goofy-sounding enough; the other two are too goofy-sounding.

[Kid Buu]

You want Yamcha to sound goofy? Furuya sounds suave to me, not goofy.

[Mewzard]

You want Yamcha to sound goofy? Furuya sounds suave to me, not goofy.

Given Furuya's voice acting career, he deserved better than Yamcha >_>

As for replacing the cast entirely...no. Oh God no. I wouldn't care to watch Kai if they replaced everyone.

The reason Kai excited me so much was first and foremost a chance to get an accurate, well written dub with the voice cast I like (and the music was nice too). Sure, there were voice changes, but none of them were my favorite voice roles, so no loss there (We got a very wonderful Freeza out of all of this, so I enjoyed that).

All I have to do is watch the scene where Goku gives his speech to Freeza in both Z and Kai to know keeping Schemmel was good. The man made such an amazing improvement, and captured Goku in my opinion. And from such a completely different take. All of his moments of light-hearted, childish joy...his moments of rage pushing him to fight even beyond what he did before...his moments of amusing interaction with those he knows (always finding a new way to surprise them)...Frankly, Schemmel is Goku to me at this point (with Nozawa being my close second).

Really looking forward to seeing the voice cast continue to grow and improve with the movies as well. Sabat's Vegeta and Piccolo made extreme improvements, and you can tell him and the rest of the voice cast just love their job. It's a passion that new actors would need some time to match.

Also, the Bingo song was amazing...though he still needs to sing Saiyan Blood (and I want the Ginyu cast to dub their Kai theme in full, just for fun).

[Kid Buu]

You want Yamcha to sound goofy? Furuya sounds suave to me, not goofy.

Given Furuya's voice acting career, he deserved better than Yamcha >_>

Best voice actor voices best character; it was the perfect match.

[NitroEX]

1.) Vegeta
2.) Piccolo
3.) Yamcha
4.) Kami
5.) Shenlong
6.) Porunga
7.) Recoome
8.) Karin

So 3 main characters. 2 Dragons who rarely shown. The Cat. Hardly Chris Sabat show.

3 main characters is pretty bad though. In my opinion it seems kind of selfish to want to play that many characters as he could of easily given up Vegeta or Piccolo and still had a major role in the series.

Anyway as for the OP, I would have been more open to Kai had it been a completely new cast. The recycling of animation was a deal breaker in itself for me so featuring the same old cast (albeit improved) did nothing for me considering I never grew attached to them in the first place. A new cast would have definitely got me excited because it would have been something new. I can still remember being more intrigued about the new Freeza and Gohan voices than anything else when Kai came out.

[TheGmGoken]

3 main characters is bad? What about Ms. Nozawa who voiced 4 main characters, a villian, and 2 fusions.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Given the bad way that FUNimation did give some of the prior cast the boot (say what you want about Vollmer and Nadolny's work on the series, they had been a part of it for over a decade - they deserved to at least be told they were being replaced, and why, not just to find out down the grapevine), and the fact that I still like a majority of the dub cast that we have now, I'd definitely say no.

[NitroEX]

3 main characters is bad? What about Ms. Nozawa who voiced 4 main characters, a villian, and 2 fusions.

I'm not a fan of that either but in her defence there is at least some logic behind that since she plays Goku family members. Also her performance is very unique so in my mind she is an understandable exception.

Piccolo and Vegeta have no reason at all to sound so similar since they have vastly different body shape and personality. Sure he does do a better job at separating the two nowadays but what's the point when you could easily just get someone else to play one of them?