Weird Old Dub Stuff

[WittyUsername]

As I believe I said a while back, it’s pretty obvious that the reason FUNimation never bothered doing a redub of the second Dragon Ball movie was because they didn’t think it was worth it. They probably figured that hardly anyone cares about OG Dragon Ball and even fewer people cared about the movies, so it would’ve been a waste of time and resources.

They redubbed Curse of the Blood Rubies because that movie never had an uncut or in-house dub and even then, much of the script was recycled from the 1995 dub.

[MasenkoHA]

As I believe I said a while back, it’s pretty obvious that the reason FUNimation never bothered doing a redub of the second Dragon Ball movie was because they didn’t think it was worth it. They probably figured that hardly anyone cares about OG Dragon Ball and even fewer people cared about the movies, so it would’ve been a waste of time and resources.

They redubbed Curse of the Blood Rubies because that movie never had an uncut or in-house dub and even then, much of the script was recycled from the 1995 dub.

The problem I have with that is they cared enough to release a 4 movie boxset that was readily available for years. Like I think I got mine at Wal-Mart in 2019 when it was released in 2011? It wasn’t like they had one DVD release of it in the early 2000s and doomed it to be only accessible through bargain bins and public library donations. “ We don’t think people will care about or buy the movies of the og but we’re going to sell them anyways” Like? If they’re going to make the movie easily available in the era of Kai and One Piece and whatever other dubs they were being praised for in the 2010s maybe don’t continue to use a dub that wasn’t acceptable by late 90s standards and has the audio quality of a homemade fandub?

And there’s something to say about Funimation’s apathy to original Dragon Ball they used the Makafushigi Adventure/Great Demon King Piccolo medley from Z movie 1 on the DVD menu instead of just using one of the 100 different remixes of Makafushigi Adventure from the actual Dragon Ball soundtrack or its movies but I don’t really count them sticking so close to the 1995 script as “who cares? It’s just original Dragon Ball” reusing old scripts for redubs has been their MO forever. They did it with Z as well for the first 3 Z movies redubs and as much as they could for the Saiyan and Namek sagas that had a corresponding scene in the syndication dub. Even Kai’s dub couldn’t resist outright copying their Z dub dialog at times even when it wasn’t necessarily a faithful translation.

[WittyUsername]

As I believe I said a while back, it’s pretty obvious that the reason FUNimation never bothered doing a redub of the second Dragon Ball movie was because they didn’t think it was worth it. They probably figured that hardly anyone cares about OG Dragon Ball and even fewer people cared about the movies, so it would’ve been a waste of time and resources.

They redubbed Curse of the Blood Rubies because that movie never had an uncut or in-house dub and even then, much of the script was recycled from the 1995 dub.

The problem I have with that is they cared enough to release a 4 movie boxset that was readily available for years. Like I think I got mine at Wal-Mart in 2019 when it was released in 2011? It wasn’t like they had one DVD release of it in the early 2000s and doomed it to be only accessible through bargain bins and public library donations. “ We don’t think people will care about or buy the movies of the og but we’re going to sell them anyways” Like? If they’re going to make the movie easily available in the era of Kai and One Piece and whatever other dubs they were being praised for in the 2010s maybe don’t continue to use a dub that wasn’t acceptable by late 90s standards and has the audio quality of a homemade fandub?

And there’s something to say about Funimation’s apathy to original Dragon Ball they used the Makafushigi Adventure/Great Demon King Piccolo medley from Z movie 1 on the DVD menu instead of just using one of the 100 different remixes of Makafushigi Adventure from the actual Dragon Ball soundtrack or its movies but I don’t really count them sticking so close to the 1995 script as “who cares? It’s just original Dragon Ball” reusing old scripts for redubs has been their MO forever. They did it with Z as well for the first 3 Z movies redubs and as much as they could for the Saiyan and Namek sagas that had a corresponding scene in the syndication dub. Even Kai’s dub couldn’t resist outright copying their Z dub dialog at times even when it wasn’t necessarily a faithful translation.

I don’t think releasing a boxset of the movies is quite the same thing as recording a brand new dub. The latter requires more work than the former and as I said, I imagine FUNimation didn’t think it was worth the effort.

[Scsigs]

Tiffanny Vollmer, I don't think she was a bad pick for Bulma, tbh. Her problems were that: She didn't have much of a range for acting where she couldn't sound much like a real human (I don't know if this was because of a lack of acting ability or the voice direction, but either way) & always sounded like she was yelling (at least from my memory). I know some people have problems with Monica Rial, but you have to admit she actually sounds like a person & has more nuance to her performance than Vollmer ever did.

As for the DB movie dubs, they're all inconsistent. I think there's only...a few VAs who're consistent between them. I'm honestly surprised they never redubbed the second & third movies at the same time as they did movie 1 (movie 4 was fine since it was done after OG DB & at least features that cast, most of which were still part of the English dub cast afterwards) to just at least have a consistent presentation & dub cast for them. Even if they reused the original dub scripts, I'd accept them better than just leaving the movie 2 & 3 dubs as-is.

[KingVegetto]

Tiffanny Vollmer, I don't think she was a bad pick for Bulma, tbh. Her problems were that: She didn't have much of a range for acting where she couldn't sound much like a real human (I don't know if this was because of a lack of acting ability or the voice direction, but either way) & always sounded like she was yelling (at least from my memory). I know some people have problems with Monica Rial, but you have to admit she actually sounds like a person & has more nuance to her performance than Vollmer ever did.

As for the DB movie dubs, they're all inconsistent. I think there's only...a few VAs who're consistent between them. I'm honestly surprised they never redubbed the second & third movies at the same time as they did movie 1 (movie 4 was fine since it was done after OG DB & at least features that cast, most of which were still part of the English dub cast afterwards) to just at least have a consistent presentation & dub cast for them. Even if they reused the original dub scripts, I'd accept them better than just leaving the movie 2 & 3 dubs as-is.

I thought Vollmer sounded fine, but I never thought Yajirobe's voice sounded quite right.

[MasenkoHA]

Tiffanny Vollmer, I don't think she was a bad pick for Bulma, tbh. Her problems were that: She didn't have much of a range for acting where she couldn't sound much like a real human (I don't know if this was because of a lack of acting ability or the voice direction, but either way) & always sounded like she was yelling (at least from my memory). I know some people have problems with Monica Rial, but you have to admit she actually sounds like a person & has more nuance to her performance than Vollmer ever did.

As for the DB movie dubs, they're all inconsistent. I think there's only...a few VAs who're consistent between them. I'm honestly surprised they never redubbed the second & third movies at the same time as they did movie 1 (movie 4 was fine since it was done after OG DB & at least features that cast, most of which were still part of the English dub cast afterwards) to just at least have a consistent presentation & dub cast for them. Even if they reused the original dub scripts, I'd accept them better than just leaving the movie 2 & 3 dubs as-is.

I thought Vollmer sounded fine, but I never thought Yajirobe's voice sounded quite right.

Vollmer’s early performance was weird because for all of the Texas cast imitating the Vancouver cast early on Vollmer goes for a ditzy valley girl performance completely unlike Lalaina Lindbjerg and it translate to Bulma losing IQ points in the middle of Namek “this is turning into more than just a bad hair day”

She drops it by the Trunks special and her performance in the original Dragon Ball dub is much better but she also just seems bitchy 24/7 even when the scene requires the character to be softer.


Mike McFarland at least seems to be trying to emulate Brian Drummond’s performance for Yajirobe so at least there’s the consistency mentality at play. They really should have had Laurie Steele play him in the King Piccolo saga though. Goku saying Yajirobe sounds like Krillin doesn’t make sense in the Funi dub like it does in the Japanese version with Mayumi Tanaka voicing both

[WittyUsername]

I don’t know if I ever got much of a valley girl vibe from Tiffany Vollmer’s Bulma, but her performance did place a lot of emphasis on Bulma being shrill and angry.

I never had a problem with Mike McFarland’s Yaijrobe, but obviously, it misses the fact that the character was written with the intention of being voiced by the same actor as Kuririn. In fairness though, it seems like the only reason Toriyama wrote that “you sound like Kuririn” line was because he wanted to throw a bone to Mayumi Tanaka.

[Metalwario64]

I don’t know if I ever got much of a valley girl vibe from Tiffany Vollmer’s Bulma, but her performance did place a lot of emphasis on Bulma being shrill and angry.

I never had a problem with Mike McFarland’s Yaijrobe, but obviously, it misses the fact that the character was written with the intention of being voiced by the same actor as Kuririn. In fairness though, it seems like the only reason Toriyama wrote that “you sound like Kuririn” line was because he wanted to throw a bone to Mayumi Tanaka.

It was hugely there in the Season 3 era at least.