For dub fans, how much of a deal breaker is Nozawa's Goku?

[MagicBox]

Nozawa as Burdock makes sense. I think it was Gaffer Tape who made a great point in another thread by saying that Nozawa brings some much-needed familiarity to a story that barely resembles Dragon Ball as we know it. None of the characters we know and love are in the Burdock special. Hearing Nozawa's voice helps ease you into this new, unfamiliar story, as if to say "don't worry, this is still the universe you love."

And Nozawa being Tullece was kinda the whole point. You lose a major aspect of the "this is what Goku would have been like if he hadn't bumped his head" idea if the character is played by a different actor.

Hell, FUNimation casting someone other than Schemmel for the role was a huge oversight.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

I believe my short, short road to accepting Nozawa as the Sons was similar to BlackPaladin's, as I remember him telling it; watching DBZ in Japanese and saying "This voice is weird! But... this series is weird! Don't fight the Toriyama, man, you won't win!" As one who loved the insanity of the Buu arc all the way back from the Toonami broadcast in 2002, I kind of already understood all the lines Dragon Ball walked as the "(mostly) straight-faced action series written by a lazy gag artist", so accepting Nozawa's Goku was only a step away from accepting, say, Kikuchi's score- which I loved from the first.

[Kakacarrottop]

And Nozawa being Tullece was kinda the whole point. You lose a major aspect of the "this is what Goku would have been like if he hadn't bumped his head" idea if the character is played by a different actor.

Personally i really don't like the whole "Turles is evil Goku" concept, Raditz basically already covered that. Him just being a random Saiyan who happens to look like Goku adds a lot of mysteriousness to his overall character, sort of like Ledgic from GT, a cool/badass character who just came and went and revealed nothing about himself, leaving his background open to interpretation.

[Lord Beerus]

Nozawa as Burdock makes sense.

No, it doesn't. Bardock is essentially meant to be Anti-Goku. Much like Tules, he's blood thirsty, planet conquering, genocidal space pirate and is part of race that mostly consist of blood thirsty, planet conquering, genocidal space pirates. If they wanted to get out the message of how Goku was so special and different from his race, Bardock would have, and should have, been voiced by somebody other than Nozawa.

I think it was Gaffer Tape who made a great point in another thread by saying that Nozawa brings some much-needed familiarity to a story that barely resembles Dragon Ball as we know it.

When the TV special aired originally, the tone of the show at that time was already very dramatic and dark at that point and any story set prior to the main Dragon Ball stroy stating was bound to be dark given Freeza ruled most of the universe with no one to challenge him

None of the characters we know and love are in the Burdock special. Hearing Nozawa's voice helps ease you into this new, unfamiliar story, as if to say "don't worry, this is still the universe you love.

That is a lousy excuse. People will automatically know that the special is based in the Dragon Ball universe because the main character of the TV special is Goku's father. What other universe or reality could the father of the main character of the entire franchise live in?

As far as whether Nozawa's Goku is a deal breaker for dub fans... hell yeah it is. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone tell they can't stand Goku's Japanese voice, I'd be a fucking millionaire. Personally, Nozawa for me is biggest detraction in regard to the original Japanese version of the show. It doesn't help that in Kai she got worse and Sean has gotten so much better.

[B]

Nozawa''s voice has only gotten deeper over time and she's never sounded more "male" than right now.

[ulisa]

I wouldn't call it a deal-breaker as I can still enjoy the series in Japanese but it isn't my preference. Honestly, it isn't the fact that the voice is high pitched, and while I don't think it sounds masculine, I don't think it sounds feminine either, but for me the big issue I take with her voice is that I think it's limiting. I prefer Schemmel as Goku because I can hear man-child, serious warrior, father, friend, etc. in his voice. Maybe it's because that's the first voice I heard for Goku but for Nozawa, I can certainly hear the 'man-child' part of the personality but that is literally all I hear. While I agree that's a big part of Goku's personality, it isn't the only part and that's what I miss when I watch it in Japanese.

The multiple members of Goku's family being voiced by her I don't mind _too_ much though I wish it was just restricted to one of the kids and not both, and I would have liked to hear a different take on the children. It doesn't bother me too much though.

I can certainly understand why some people are so attached to her voice but I'm not one of them

[MagicBox]

That is a lousy excuse. People will automatically know that the special is based in the Dragon Ball universe because the main character of the TV special is Goku's father. What other universe or reality could the father of the main character of the entire franchise live in?

... I wasn't saying that people literally wouldn't know what universe the story took place in. I was talking about the TV special's drastic change in tone.

When it comes to Dragon Ball, Nozawa is the only human being who's been in everything. Jōji Yanami comes very, very close, but no cigar. Her voice is Dragon Ball. She brings that familiarity that links the Burdock special to everything else in the franchise. That is very likely the reason she was cast as that character. It makes sense. I know you don't like that reason. Nobody on the show has ever come out and said that was the reason. But I very much doubt they considered anyone else for that role (even for a second).

[Chuquita]

Nozawa''s voice has only gotten deeper over time and she's never sounded more "male" than right now.

Having re-watched Movie 12 the other day, I definitely agree. Age aside, her Gokû is deeper now than it used to be, at least in BOG (though unrelatedly, he also sounded more intensely himself in BOG than in 12, though I attribute that to Toriyama writing his dialogue. There's a beautiful piece in 12 right when Vegeta first arrives to save Gokû from being sliced to pieces and Gokû is explaining the situation to him while Vegeta faces down Janemba--the way Gokû is talking to Vegeta pulls so hard on my heart-strings and I can see why I really loved this movie when I first saw it, but it's just really difficult to imagine Toriyama's Gokû using those tones of voice. I imagine his version wouldn't be nearly as heavy on the feels.)

[Valerius Dover]

Responding to a comment on Linda Young's Frieza here, I did in fact have some slight confusion at first, but he is in fact referred to as LORD Frieza before he even speaks at the end of Episode 44. And it didn't take long before he was referred to by proper pronouns. My brothers had some major confusion, though. Don't have an issue with Young's voice really, nor do I have one with Nozawa's.

One thing I find pretty funny though. I've of course seen the clip in Kai with Goku going SSJ3. Goku, voiced by a woman, and then there's Trunks, voiced by a man. That's actually the complete opposite in the English dub. It seems they REALLY didn't want to let go of their initial casting choices, that's all.

[dbzfan7]

Heck, it was too obvious to me too, even as a kid, before I had heard the original Japanese version. I lost count of the number of times that me and my friends used to accidentally refer to Freeza as "she." I even vividly recall one instance where one of my friends--in sixth grade--said, in recalling the events of a recent episode...

"And then Freeza showed up and she--"
*We all started chuckling*
"OK, I know, but it's so obviously a woman's voice!"

This...this is something I still remember as a child. I could not stop calling Freeza a she because of Funi's take on him, and I also did not like Freeza at all til I heard Nako and Ayres. Littlekuriboh was without a doubt the best Freeza voice in english before Ayres showed up.

[Darkblade1995]

At first I didn't like it. That you try to match the character's child-like nature, I totally get that, but by no means should a male sound so high-pitched like that, even though the acting was very good. That was how I initially thought about it. After a while I started to think about it, and I realized that a human male would never sound like this. But that's just it. Goku isn't a human. Then I came with the theory that Saiyans keep their voice as a child and that it only slighty deepens when they become a adult. I remember in Kai that kid Vegeta sounds almost exactly the same as a adult. So maybe the voices of Saiyans just work that way.

[baneofdemon22]

I felt very similar Darkblade.

It's a massive deal-breaker for dub fans. I've tried to convince people to watch the show in its original language, but her voice is a joke to them. I see a bunch of "she sounds like a screeching cat" or an "old lady."

Because of Masako Nozawa, Goku is now my favorite fictional character. It takes a lot to say that being a life long Batman fan! She's the reason why I can't stop watching the anime! That's the only thing I hold against her. I'm just kidding!

[DBZAOTA482]

When I was all about the dub I found it weird. The others voices were passable but Goku's... I couldn't get past him being voiced by a woman.

[ABED]

Personally i really don't like the whole "Tullece is evil Goku" concept, Raditz basically already covered that.

Not really, Raditz is just played as Goku's evil older brother, not his evil doppelganger.

[Gyt Kaliba]

As for why Raditz wasn't voiced by Nozawa as well (something I saw get raised earlier), I'd imagine a big part of that is the fact that we're not supposed to know that at first. If Raditz sounded exactly like Goku did, then that would have spoiled the 'mystery' surrounding this mysterious new character, for fans that were following the anime but not the manga.

[Akumaito Beam]

While I enjoy the Japanese version of the show I understand completely why Nozawa can be seen as off putting. I think her performance as Goku was shaped a lot by how she voiced him in the original Dragon Ball anime series. A lot of the time her line reads are very exaggerated and cute. When I think of Nozawa the first thing that pops into my head is how she elongates vowels, raises her pitch dramatically on certain words or those little “aaaahs” she does before starting a sentence. Even in Goku’s adult years I think it’s still a very “cute” performance which becomes more and more anachronistic as the show progresses. If you pair that with the general unpopularity/apathy for the original Dragon Ball series in the west where that kind of performance made a lot more sense it becomes pretty apparent why people aren’t on bored with her. I think that’s why we don’t hear too many complaints about Tanaka’s Kuririn. It’s still a young female voice that’s coming out of a male but it’s a subdued and natural delivery (as far as Dragon Ball goes anyway.)

[Attitudefan]

When I was all about the dub I found it weird. The others voices were passable but Goku's... I couldn't get past him being voiced by a woman.

But Krillin is voiced by a woman... and nobody seems to complain about Luffy from One Piece!


But what I hate about the original is Bardock. Should've had Goku's looks with Raditz-esque voice. That would make way more sense.


I have a problem with the FUNi dub: Schemmel's voice is too deep for Goku (And over the years has gotten really gravelly that it actually has started to bother me a ton)!

[ZazamPow]

Nozawa is actually one of the only voices that I actually like in the Japanese audio, in fact deep down inside I know that it's way superior to the dub, but I'll never admit that. Wait...

[Cure Dragon 255]

While I never go out of my way to watch the Japanese version, Nozawa IS Goku. She understands him better than anyone else, even Toriyama.

[ABED]

I don't know why anyone here thinks Nozawa's voice doesn't make sense for Bardock. It fits the design, and her performance is clearly different from her Goku. I don't know how anyone would confuse the two even if all you had to go by is the sound of the voice. She plays him much more cold hearted than Goku.

Schemmel's voice is too deep for Goku

It's certainly masculine, but he can play the goofy and affable side.