Weird Old Dub Stuff

[MasenkoHA]

Yeah... og DB's dub overall is not really a good dub. It's okay and kinda gets the tone mostly so honestly I'm fine to watch it even if I do wish there was something better. Really just wish we had some of the REALLY wrong lines redubbed and I'd accept it I think.

Considering Funimation's standards before Kai, it's a miracle they didn't decide to follow GT's approach and try to make it darker and edgier.

Dragon Ball’s dub predate GT. And without any end of the world stakes and more emphasis on comedy it didn’t give a whole lot of room for Funimation to change the tone.

Pre-Kai the og Dragon Ball dub was probably the most faithful interpretation of Goku’s character but when the animation constantly show him looking confused or characters losing their patience and getting flustered with him…what else are they gonna do. They still toned down his obsession with fighting outside of tournament settings and occasionally gave him standard kidvid pre-teen snarky wise ass who made quips that were out of place coming from this country bumpkin who knew nothing about the world for most of his life.

Dragon Ball’s dub had a lot of same issues Z and GT had “whitewash this very Asian story ” “add excessive dialog and jokes that weren’t there” just without the high stakes that allowed them to give Goku cliche paragon of justice dialog. The dub’s biggest selling point, leaving the Shunsuke Kikuchi alone, was like the easiest win in the world for them. The rights to the music was clearly wrapped into the show’s license not something they had to buy separately. Not having to compose a brand new score saved time and money. At most they were throwing away the opportunity to charge royalties with their own music, but something tells me if that business decision was as lucrative as they had hoped they absolutely would have done a new score for og Dragon Ball and all all their other licenses throughout the Barry Watson era.

[Scsigs]

Dragon Ball’s dub predate GT. And without any end of the world stakes and more emphasis on comedy it didn’t give a whole lot of room for Funimation to change the tone.

Pre-Kai the og Dragon Ball dub was probably the most faithful interpretation of Goku’s character but when the animation constantly show him looking confused or characters losing their patience and getting flustered with him…what else are they gonna do. They still toned down his obsession with fighting outside of tournament settings and occasionally gave him standard kidvid pre-teen snarky wise ass who made quips that were out of place coming from this country bumpkin who knew nothing about the world for most of his life.

Dragon Ball’s dub had a lot of same issues Z and GT had “whitewash this very Asian story ” “add excessive dialog and jokes that weren’t there” just without the high stakes that allowed them to give Goku cliche paragon of justice dialog. The dub’s biggest selling point, leaving the Shunsuke Kikuchi alone, was like the easiest win in the world for them. The rights to the music was clearly wrapped into the show’s license not something they had to buy separately. Not having to compose a brand new score saved time and money. At most they were throwing away the opportunity to charge royalties with their own music, but something tells me if that business decision was as lucrative as they had hoped they absolutely would have done a new score for og Dragon Ball and all all their other licenses throughout the Barry Watson era.

My assumption with the music is that they also just didn't care to pay to have new music made for it. Considering OG DB failed to find an audience twice (Harmony Gold & FUNi's mid-90s dub), they more than likely just wanted to license the rest of the series & dub it, so they took the option that ate up the least amount of time & money, which was just to use the dubbing tracks provided by Toei that had the Japanese music. Plus, the other regions that don't speak English already had dubs of it, so it wouldn't make sense to even make their own music if they wanted to sell their dubbing tracks like 4Kids used to. If that was even in the cards, that is.

[TheBigBoy]

I watched some of the OG DB dub with my kids recently* and I didn't hate it. It's definitely more punched up than the original...but the original is already goofy and silly so it....works? I do agree that Goku isn't always written super well. Having the original music helps a lot with the experience too. I'm also pretty impressed with Mike McFarland as he does a pretty good job switching between a goofy old man and a grim and serious martial arts expert. I generally don't like the "1840s prospector voice" kids cartoons like to use for old people but whatever, he works for me.

I remember reading years ago that the dub starting with the 23rd Budokai arc takes a serious nosedive as far as writing quality and the censorship approaches Saban levels. There was speculation that it was to drive up sagging DVD sales. Can anyone confirm?

*Watched the TV edit too which tones down a lot of the raunchier jokes though I think it captures the spirit as well as it could.

[MasenkoHA]

My assumption with the music is that they also just didn't care to pay to have new music made for it. Considering OG DB failed to find an audience twice (Harmony Gold & FUNi's mid-90s dub), they more than likely just wanted to license the rest of the series & dub it, so they took the option that ate up the least amount of time & money, which was just to use the dubbing tracks provided by Toei that had the Japanese music. Plus, the other regions that don't speak English already had dubs of it, so it wouldn't make sense to even make their own music if they wanted to sell their dubbing tracks like 4Kids used to. If that was even in the cards, that is.

I mean this was just the direction they were going in. All their other titles not named Dragon Ball Z and GT kept the original music and covered the Japanese opening and ending (which would have taken some effort they could have easily just slapped their pre-existing 95 theme for Dragon Ball)

I definitely think “well nobody is really purchasing our Faulconer score anyways” played a part but I don’t think “Dragon Ball didn’t work out in 95 so we just won’t bother making original music” because they did the same with all their non-Z/GT titles.

I watched some of the OG DB dub with my kids recently* and I didn't hate it. It's definitely more punched up than the original...but the original is already goofy and silly so it....works? I do agree that Goku isn't always written super well. Having the original music helps a lot with the experience too. I'm also pretty impressed with Mike McFarland as he does a pretty good job switching between a goofy old man and a grim and serious martial arts expert. I generally don't like the "1840s prospector voice" kids cartoons like to use for old people but whatever, he works for me.

I think the cartoony voice approach really betrayed the dub in the King Piccolo saga. McFarland works out..okay I guess but I still think its obvious Funimation cast him as a kooky old man without considering the character had more dimension. But Meredith Mccoy’s Bad Girl Launch voice sounds ridiculous doing a cartoony “tough chick from the Bronx who smokes 6 packs a day” voice and trying to be sad and serious. And Nadolny Goku just can’t handle anything more dramatic than battle cries. Righteous fury and distraught Goku are not in her wheelhouse

The grieving over Krillin scene in episode 102 is just all kinds of bad.

I remember reading years ago that the dub starting with the 23rd Budokai arc takes a serious nosedive as far as writing quality and the censorship approaches Saban levels. There was speculation that it was to drive up sagging DVD sales. Can anyone confirm?

It take a nosedive after the Tournament saga” Ignoring the whole “The first 13 episodes were 90-98 percent the same as the 95 dub” the Tournament saga definitely had its issues but the overall scripts strayed around a B or A minus in terms of accuracy.

Red Ribbon saga dropped more to Buu saga levels. By the Tien saga they’re just upping all the extra jokes, I was convinced Barry saw the Digimon Zero Two dub on Fox Kids and decided they needed to do that.

King Piccolo saga is a mess all around. Funimation just refused to call Piccolo and his children demons or even Mazoku like Mandelin used for the subs (I think Yuyu Hakusho’s dub used Mazoku?) they were mostly referred to as monsters but they seemed aware they were evil space aliens. Piccolo said he fought warriors all over the universe (which makes no sense for a couple reasons) and Tamborine refers to him from the Warrior Tribe except none of them should know their Namekian origins. And then when they get to explain who Kami is it’s a whole clusterfuck. Korin explains that Kami created the Dragon Balls. Yadjriobe treats it the same way an atheist would God. “I know the concept of Kami, I don’t believe in him” then a couple episodes later the characters on earth said Goku was seeing the Guardian of the Earth (no such thing was said) and the characters seem unsure what that is. Then in episode 126 they go back to Kami but Shenron explains Kami is “the Guardian of the Earth” and everyone is suddenly aware of what that is. Apparently the script supervisor was on vacation that week.

The Piccolo Jr arc is also pretty bad with the biggest sin being Kami already knows he’s an alien contradicting the Z dub that stuck with the Japanese script of it being a shock to Kami and Piccolo. There’s the infamous “Goku’s proposal being sincere instead of being okay whatever I promised” but that bothered me way less because Toei was already making Goku and Chi Chi’s romance more genuine than Toriyama intended.

As far as censorship on Toonami apparently Funi censored Goku penetrating Piccolo even thought the exact same scene was shown unedited in flashbacks on Z. There was definitely a double standard. Majin Buu can say “Do you think Buu is sexy?” to a teen girl on Toonami but Oolong as Bulma’s “Master Roshi you are so incredibly sexy” is changed to “Master Roshi you are so handsome” and I’m pretty sure all blood is removed not Funi’s Z policy of “its okay if its not oozing, squirting, or excessive”

I guess Funimation thought Dragon Ball would appeal to a younger audience?

[WittyUsername]

Most of the FUNimation voice actors were still fairly green when OG Dragon Ball was dubbed back in 2001. Mike McFarland at the time wasn’t really used to playing Roshi as anything other than a goofy old man. His performance in general did evolve over the years, just like the rest of the veteran cast. It’s still weird to think he’s no longer with us.

[Scsigs]

In terms of the FUNi VAs, they were all pretty bad when recording Z, particularly anything before Buu where most of them got at least ok/meh. I'm honestly glad they waited to redub the Z movies after Z the series was done because the performances are starkly better, owed to them having played the characters in the games, as well as gotten other voice acting work to build up their experience as actors. Now, depending on the movie, the acting could be a mixed bag depending on who (I think Schemmel definitely took the longest of the main VAs to actually get GOOD at voice acting, tbh), but I can actually watch them without feeling secondhand embarrassed.