Japanese VS English (judging quality, video game choices)

[Super Sonic]

Once in anime club, I wondered on how judging quality would be in reverse, ie. Japanese dub of American cartoon, so showed guys clip of the Simpsons in Japanese. Their response was it sounded ok, but it was weird for them to hear anyone other than Castellaneta as Homer.

[Undercooked Sausage]

I've watched a lot of subtitled films from various countries and majored in film in college. I can safely say that the Japanese acting in Dragonball Z is not the greatest in the world, but given the script and the manner of which the show is written. (It's a kid show, with a lot of over-the-top moments and not exactly requires the subtle nuances of a dramatic film) the actors are great in their roles.

I'm not knocking that Dragonball Z is a bad show, it's just not a show that you can really express a wide range of acting talent. Sure characters like Vegeta are relatively deep and nuanced but compared to some character from a Takaashi Miike, Kurosawa, Kitano, or even a Miyazaki film, the actor's don't really need to exhibit that much subtlety or range in their characters.

Masako Nozawa, for instance, does a fantastic job as a shonen lead, just because of how over-the-top and badass she can sound. Ryo Horikawa's long angst-ridden inner monologues work great in Dragonball Z but would sound cheesy and unneccessary in anything else. Imagine if in The Godfather if Michael Corleone kept having over-acted voice over monologues about how his brother has betrayed him. or if Orson Welles inserted angry voice overs about how his marriage is falling apart towards the end of Citizen Kane. The qualities in shonen acting are very different than what one would look for in a dramatic film, and a lot of times english dubs can't really grasp or capture that and end up sounds stilted, constipated, and awkward.

Japanese acting, for the most part, is a lot more dramatic and takes more cues from old fashioned theatre. If you watch a film like Rashomon. You'll see that Toshiro Mifune overacts like CRAZY in it but it works just the same. Modern day japanese filmmakers are more subtle, but in general, it's a completely different style of acting, which is why it takes a really special kind of dub to do a shonen. Whereas something like Cowboy Bebop, the acting is a bit more "western" and easier to dub to sound good.

EDIT: Mike linked to a clip from right before Goku went Super Saiyan, i'm at work so I can't listen to it, but my Ryusei Nakao line is from that part of the show, where, right after Kuririn is killed, he says (sic)"Shall I exterminate the little runt next?" delivering what almost sounds like he's holding back a laugh in the delivery. It captures the pure evil of Freeza in such a subtle and perfect way and punctuates the whole scene perfectly. Incidentally, that is COMPLETELY absent from the Kai version(instead it just sounds like he's reading from a script in a recording booth...). It's beautiful and perfect and a rare example of just honest-to-God AMAZING acting and I don't give a damn what language you speak.

[GotenDaisuki]

Well, see, I find the Japanese voice cast for the original Dragon Ball Z anime much better than the in-house Texas voice cast, and for many reasons. The English voice actors were not experienced with acting at the time and could not portray their character's epicness seen in the original Japanese dub. When Kai came around, however, the English voice actors have become much better and experienced, and now they can portray the original characters' personalities. So, long story short, I think that Kai's English cast may be a bit better than the returning Japanese cast, but Dragon Ball Z's Japanese cast definitely wins over FUNimation's voice cast.

[Ultimate_DB_Fan]

I primarily stick with the dub cast for the games because they & the sub actors are saying the same lines, so the whole inacuracy thing becomes irrelavent. Add on the fact that games like Burst Limit don't have subtitles between rounds, it becomes awkward when I can't understand anything.

[GotenDaisuki]

I primarily stick with the dub cast for the games because they & the sub actors are saying the same lines, so the whole inacuracy thing becomes irrelavent. Add on the fact that games like Burst Limit don't have subtitles between rounds, it becomes awkward when I can't understand anything.

I think it's better when there are no subtitles. When you change the language setting to Japanese, "it changes nothing except the voices", as VegettoEX said. The subtitles stay English, and it becomes somewhat annoying when the character says a character's Japanese name, but on the subtitles, the dub name is shown instead of the Japanese name.