Dragonball Kai (FUNimation English) Dub: General Discussion

[coola]

In my opinion,that "Vegeta,what`s wrong with you?" change was very out of character,i mean,even in edited version you see how Nappa is afraid of Vegeta {When decided he don`t want to wait three hours,he want to play right now}

[omegacwa]

I don't know if this was discussed yet, and I really don't feel like going through 150 pages to find out, and I don't want to make a new topic if it was already discussed. But has anyone noticed this odd thing:

I am starting to feel like Chris Sabat, even though I like the guy, should have given up all his roles except for Piccolo and Vegeta.

And it's not because they sound bad or anything, on the contrary, they all sound better than ever. The problem is, that over time, as his performances have gotten more natural, the line between the voices have blurred.

Here is the original sliding scale of Chris Sabat:
Kami<<<<<<<<<<Vegeta<<<<<<<<<<<Yamcha<<<<<<<<<<<<<<Piccolo<<<<<<<Shenlong

Now, as his talent has improved and the voices sound more natural it more like:
Kami<<Vegeta<<Yamcha<<Piccolo<<<<<<<Shenlong

I swear, there was a scene during the Earthlings Vs. Saiyans fight where Vegeta said something and I thought it was Kami! And there were several instances where Vegeta had a few Piccolo moments, Same with Yamcha.
The only voice that doesn't have others slip into it is Piccolo.

As I said, the performances are WAY better, and much more natural. But as a side effect of this they have become more similar.

[B]

Sabat should have given up every role that isn't Piccolo or Karin.

And they should call Karin "Karin."

[JulieYBM]

I'd say keep Shen Long and Polunga, but use his natural voice to play Vegeta and give up everything else.

[MR.Mark]

I've come to really enjoy his Piccolo in Kai, and I could live with every other voice he's doing in this dub, except for Vegeta.
I mean, out of all the returning cast, Sabat has arguably improved as an actor the most, other than perhaps Sonny.

I'm still so on the fence about his Vegeta, on the one hand, it is at least tolerable now due to better delivery and lines. On the other it's still uneven due to it being more of a "character voice". I really wish Chris set aside some pride and recast the part of Vegeta to someone else. Guess he only makes the right decisions when it's a character HE doesn't voice.

I guess I'll see how he pulls off cold and calculating Vegeta on namek to decide once and for all if Chris Sabat can do Vegeta justice in English.

[jjgp1112]

Sabat has the most awesome voice for Piccolo. I would light buildings on fire if they changed his voice.

And Sabat IS vegeta to me. Whenever I watch Z, I don't even imagine Chris Sabat in the booth saying his lines, I actually imagine a short, spiky haired guy wearing armor reading them.

[Amigo Ten]

There's been a couple of times where someone has laughed or said something off screen and I couldn't tell if it was Piccolo or Vegeta.

[MR.Mark]

There's been a couple of times where someone has laughed or said something off screen and I couldn't tell if it was Piccolo or Vegeta.

Indeed, and omegacwa is right, there's some instances where Vegeta talks quietly or calmly and sounds like Kami.

[penguintruth]

Sabat's Piccolo has improved, it's much more natural now, but it's still lacking in character compared to Scott McNeil's. His Vegeta is much more servicable, though it still lapses now and then.

It's Sabat's Yamucha that has come the longest way, really.

[Mewzard]

There's been a couple of times where someone has laughed or said something off screen and I couldn't tell if it was Piccolo or Vegeta.

Indeed, and omegacwa is right, there's some instances where Vegeta talks quietly or calmly and sounds like Kami.

You heard Kami? Not once, in any Vegeta line did I hear even close to Kami. Unless my ears are getting better at hearing subtle differences, I don't "see" it.

[omegacwa]

I wish I could remember the exact instance when it sounded like Kami. Vegeta was off screen at the time. I don't even know if I could find it again unless I watched those episodes all over again.

Honestly, I have no problem with Sabat as Vegeta, but in a way I wish he never dropped the Drummond impression, cause at least that set it apart as a voice. But I think it really is just the high volume of MAIN characters that he does that makes it hard to keep them separate voices. I really feel if he dropped Yamucha and Kami, and made his Vegeta sound more like Yamucha, (Yamucha now, not old Surfer Yamucha) Vegeta could have sounded really great and separate from Piccolo.

His Piccolo is definitely his most well developed voice. Kudos. He finally stepped out of the shadow of Scott McNeil.

I feel even though it's not his best voice, he has definitely become the English voice of Vegeta, although I do look back on Brian Drummond with nostalgia, his voice really started to not fit the character at all by the cell arc and so on (you can find clips of the ocean dub on youtube). By the buu arc stuff his voiced sounded terrible in my opinion.

[penguintruth]

His Piccolo is definitely his most well developed voice. Kudos. He finally stepped out of the shadow of Scott McNeil.

Eh, not really.

[jjgp1112]

His Piccolo is definitely his most well developed voice. Kudos. He finally stepped out of the shadow of Scott McNeil.

Eh, not really.

Are we hearing different characters or something? Sabat's Piccolo sounds vastly different from McNeil's Piccolo. They aren't even recognizable compared to each other. McNeil sounds like a Clint Eastwood impersonation while Sabat sounds like an intimidating black guy.

[penguintruth]

His Piccolo is definitely his most well developed voice. Kudos. He finally stepped out of the shadow of Scott McNeil.

Eh, not really.

Are we hearing different characters or something? Sabat's Piccolo sounds vastly different from McNeil's Piccolo. They aren't even recognizable compared to each other. McNeil sounds like a Clint Eastwood impersonation while Sabat sounds like an intimidating black guy.

Piccolo, right? He's green, has antenna. Son of Kami's evil half? Scott McNeil's sounds like a devilish rogue, very demonic, but with a lot of arrogant snarkiness. Quite a bit like Toshio Furukawa's, actually. Sabat's sounds like a flatter, toned down version of McNeil's, though much less now than before. At least he doesn't try to overcompensate for the difference anymore.

[MR.Mark]

His Piccolo is definitely his most well developed voice. Kudos. He finally stepped out of the shadow of Scott McNeil.

Eh, not really.

Eh, yeah really, fact of the matter is due to all the Yamucha filler cut out of Kai. The character has much less lines and screen time now so It's no surprise many are hearing more of an improvement in Piccolo. I'll get back to you when Sabat has to cry out for Goku not to die come the namek ark.

You heard Kami? Not once, in any Vegeta line did I hear even close to Kami. Unless my ears are getting better at hearing subtle differences, I don't "see" it.

As for Vegeta sounding like Kami, off the top of my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMD0S6ea ... re=related

go to 5:06 "get them ready would you", I know there are better examples, but I can't think of them right now.

[jjgp1112]

Eh, not really.

Are we hearing different characters or something? Sabat's Piccolo sounds vastly different from McNeil's Piccolo. They aren't even recognizable compared to each other. McNeil sounds like a Clint Eastwood impersonation while Sabat sounds like an intimidating black guy.

Piccolo, right? He's green, has antenna. Son of Kami's evil half? Scott McNeil's sounds like a devilish rogue with a lot of snarkiness. Quite a bit like Toshio Furukawa's, actually. Sabat's sounds like a flatter, toned down version of McNeil's, though much less now than before. At least he doesn't try to overcompensate for the difference anymore.

I'm sorry, but I don't hear a bit of similarity. McNeil's Piccolo voice was insanely raspy while Sabat's Piccolo doesn't have a hint of rasp.

Are you seriously gonna sit here and tell me that they sounded even the least bit similar in these two clips?

EDIT: Dammit, both clips got taken down.

[MR.Mark]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a93-DRJvESg

Go to 7:49, Sabat's delivery here is GREAT, "I'd say that's worth investigating". WHY can't his Vegeta voice CONSISTENTLY sound like that?! This is why I'm on the fence about Sabat's Vegeta, the dude can clearly act well enough now, but his Vegeta is so uneven to me.

I feel even though it's not his best voice, he has definitely become the English voice of Vegeta, although I do look back on Brian Drummond with nostalgia, his voice really started to not fit the character at all by the cell arc and so on (you can find clips of the ocean dub on youtube). By the buu arc stuff his voiced sounded terrible in my opinion.

Funny you mentioned Drummond, I think that's part of why I like the "I'd say that's worth investigating" Vegeta line. It reminds me of a "calm Drummond", I always felt that had Brian used something more close to his Zech's voice from Gundam Wing, he'd be an incredible Vegeta. More of a rugged voice rather than an over the top raspy one. Even though I can be picky, I'm not one of those anal fans that expect the English voices to be replicas of the Japanese. I think Drummond is proof of that, he just had that intensity and anger that fits Vegeta like a glove. It's just to bad he was directed to sound like a raspy Mr. Burns on steroids.

[Suupaa Gohan 2]

I wanted to post this somewhere but the Linda/Freeza thread is closed, so somewhat off-topic...

I was watching FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood last night, and noticed that as Ed happened upon an Ishbalan village, dub Freeza was among the crowd...you know how much he likes destroying small villages, I guess. >.>; Anyways, the old woman Ed spoke to was voiced by Linda Young. Okay, nothing strange about that, she's voiced plenty of old ladies in plenty of FUNi shows. The reason it stuck out to me is that she used her exact Freeza voice for the woman. It felt incredibly out of place and unnatural, especially in an incredible dub cast like FMA. She usually just speaks naturally in any other role I've heard, except perhaps Genkai who had a deeper tone (but she was also a smoker and a rather harsh old bat so it worked well), so this struck me as pretty intentional for her to use the exact voice she uses for Freeza.

I'm wondering if anyone more knowledgeable about dubbing schedules might know if this episode was dubbed after the announcement was made that she'd stop being the voice of Freeza...in which case, it kinda makes sense that she'd want to work that voice in somewhere since she'd be leaving such a memorable role behind. I'm one of the people 100% very very very much for the sex cha...er, cast change of Freeza, but at the same time it kinda feels like a dick move for them to have told her she was coming back and then changed their minds (yes I know this was discussed over and over on the now-locked thread)...and hearing that voice in FMA just kinda made me feel even worse, like an indication of just how attached to voicing the character she was, to the point of bringing that voice into another role.

Please don't turn this into another back-and-forth that got the other thread locked. I just felt like mentioning this somewhere, and was wondering if anyone else watching FMA may have picked up on it.

[Amigo Ten]

I'm pretty sure she's was using that voice for other roles long before Kai was announced.

[omegacwa]

His Piccolo is definitely his most well developed voice. Kudos. He finally stepped out of the shadow of Scott McNeil.

Eh, not really.

I feel his performance and voice as a whole has at least made it to even with McNeil, so now it's not about "McNeil is a better actor" Now its really down to just personal preference, when before it was obvious Sabat was the weaker actor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a93-DRJvESg

Go to 7:49, Sabat's delivery here is GREAT, "I'd say that's worth investigating". WHY can't his Vegeta voice CONSISTENTLY sound like that?! This is why I'm on the fence about Sabat's Vegeta, the dude can clearly act well enough now, but his Vegeta is so uneven to me.

I agree, that line really sounded great.