Dragon Ball Dubs when compared to One Piece & Naruto Dub

Majin Buu · Post by **Majin Buu** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:31 am

I don't agree with everything they did either, but in their defense I think it's necessary to take into account that when they were first dubbing the series, there were no real standards to go by regarding what to do and what not to do. DBZ was the first "real" anime property, and FUNimation was alone in this new wilderness without a single footstep to guide them.

Except they eventually gave the first three movies to Pioneer which they dubbed properly. Funi could have used those three movies as a "footstep to guide them" as you said but they didn't.

Super Sonic · Post by **Super Sonic** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 2:14 am

Personally I felt Fat Buu's voice really fit his character. Changing music isn't always bad either. Look at Voltron, it's music was changed and it was much more popular here than in Japan. Besides, the other Funimation properties' dubs are well liked and didn't change the music. Heck, I heard rumor the creator of FMA prefer's Vic Mignogna's Ed to the Korean lady who voiced him in Japan, whose name escapes me at the moment.

Tsukento · Post by **Tsukento** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 4:35 am

Super Sonic wrote:Personally I felt Fat Buu's voice really fit his character.

While Boo does speak improperly, he's not a complete and total idiot. The dialogue and the voice given to him in the dub was just..blech. But I guess it all boils down to preference.

Super Sonic wrote:Changing music isn't always bad either. Look at Voltron, it's music was changed and it was much more popular here than in Japan.

How many people actually saw Voltron in its original format?

In Dragon Ball's case, the music really helped with the scenes. Especially when it came to songs made for specific scenes, such as Trunks killing Freeza or Gohan turning Super Saiyan 2. Scenes like those tend to lose their effect in the dub due to the change of music.

Super Sonic wrote:Besides, the other Funimation properties' dubs are well liked and didn't change the music. Heck, I heard rumor the creator of FMA prefer's Vic Mignogna's Ed to the Korean lady who voiced him in Japan, whose name escapes me at the moment.

Romi Park, though I haven't heard anything about that. o.o All I know is that several people prefer Vic while others prefer Ms. Park. I believe Vic even said during an interview that he couldn't compare himself to Ed's original VA.

GI_Judd2287 · Post by **GI_Judd2287** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 8:35 am

Well I recently bought the first 5 volumes (One Piece) of the comic because I heard so many good things about it from DB fans, and I really like it (except for all the "darns"). I haven't seen an episode of the cartoon though, dubbed or subbed. But I have seen the openings for both versions. "We are!" is really cool and catchy song like "Mystical Adventure" is for Dragon Ball. I might be alone when I say this, but I REALLY like the dub intro! It's catchy and corny but it's pretty funny. I was particularly amused to hear Brock (from Pokemon) being the nararrator. It's like how "Rock the Dragon" is to DBZ. Cheesy but damn cool.

Majin Buu · Post by **Majin Buu** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 12:15 pm

Tsukento wrote:
Super Sonic wrote:Personally I felt Fat Buu's voice really fit his character.

While Boo does speak improperly, he's not a complete and total idiot. The dialogue and the voice given to him in the dub was just..blech. But I guess it all boils down to preference.

Exactly my point. They exaggerated his child-like nature with that stupid hight pitched baby voice.

People who defend Funimation always say that they've dubbed other anime correcty, that's true, but that doesn't mean they should be excused for ruining Dragonball Z.

Sebastian (SB) · Post by **Sebastian (SB)** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:10 pm

Where as in Son Goku's case, they concentrated less on his child-like nature & rather more on his idiocy (which was impressive). All in All, Most English dubbed Gokus just seem lost in translation. Same goes for the music as well for above mentioned reasons.

To Tsukento: I think it's Romi Paku if I'm not mistaken.

To Super Sonic: Yes I think anything from Japan is the grace of God

because, in the most case, they seem to put more effort in what they do.

Duo · Post by **Duo** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:13 pm

I just tell myself everyday to thank Funimation for providing the uncut Japanese version with excellent subtitles.

As for One Piece...anyone interested should just get the Manga. Viz is doing an admirable job on it, so there ya go.

Sebastian (SB) · Post by **Sebastian (SB)** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:22 pm

Duo wrote:I just tell myself everyday to thank Funimation for providing the uncut Japanese version with excellent subtitles.

As for One Piece...anyone interested should just get the Manga. Viz is doing an admirable job on it, so there ya go.

......Amen. That's the only other creds I give to FUNi aside from voice acting improvement.

GI_Judd2287 · Post by **GI_Judd2287** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:35 pm

I'm not trying to sound rude, but what makes Steve "Daimao" Simmons subtitles better than everyone elses? I've even noticed a few mistakes here and there in Simmons subs. In movie 9 Goku says something like "Oh, so Cell is the one who defeated Cell?". Does Goku really say "ain't" in every other sentence? Also, the subs aren't consistent with names. I saw "Broly" and "Broli" in his subs. How can you tell if he's better than the rest when "translating" Japanese is more like an interpretation?

I'm not dissing him, I just want to know why you think he does it best of all.

Li'l Lemmy · Post by **Li'l Lemmy** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 2:02 pm

GI_Judd2287 wrote:I'm not trying to sound rude, but what makes Steve "Daimao" Simmons subtitles better than everyone elses? I've even noticed a few mistakes here and there in Simmons subs. In movie 9 Goku says something like "Oh, so Cell is the one who defeated Cell?". Does Goku really say "ain't" in every other sentence? Also, the subs aren't consistent with names. I saw "Broly" and "Broli" in his subs. How can you tell if he's better than the rest when "translating" Japanese is more like an interpretation?

I'm not dissing him, I just want to know why you think he does it best of all.

I'm not sure bloopers like that are the direct vault of Daimao himself, though he's certainly free to correct me if I'm wrong. Things like "Cell is the one who defeated Cell" could be the fault of Vision Wise, the authoring company who is responsible for actually encoding the text onto the DVD. They might miss something here and there in doing so.

What we value Daimao's subtitles for most is their accuracy. Regarding subtitles, other translations (like fansubs) typically ranged from not too bad to ekeing out a spot on the list of humanity's greatest crimes, but with the FUNimation dfiscs we're getting the best possible "interpretation" from a professional who has devoted his life to both the language and the series.

And we can't really ask for more than that. Truly, it is a godsend.

Post by **desirecampbell** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 2:13 pm

Goku talks like a hick - but not in a way that's easily translated into English. To approximate this Daimao uses terms like "ain't". I've always been against 'interpretive' translations, but this is a really good way of showing his different speech style.

Li'l Lemmy · Post by **Li'l Lemmy** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 2:20 pm

desirecampbell wrote:Goku talks like a hick - but not in a way that's easily translated into English. To approximate this Daimao uses terms like "ain't". I've always been against 'interpretive' translations, but this is a really good way of showing his different speech style.

Heh. And let's not forget the way ChiChi talks. I've never seen so many apostrophes. I wish I could think up some of her dialogue right now as an example, but suddenly I'm drawing a blank . . .

Daimao · Post by **Daimao** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 11:56 pm

To be fair to Vision Wise, most (if not all) of the typos that get through are all on me, that embarrassing one about Cell defeating Cell included--must have been distracted that day.

Translating dialects is one of those balancing acts where you want to be faithful to the original without clubbing the viewer over the head with it. Especially so when Nozawa and Tanaka play up Goku and Yajirobe's little mannerisms from what's in the manga version. I've tried to limit it to having Goku use "ain't," Chichi drop her g's in "-ing" words, and having Yajriobe use some nonstandard contractions and so forth ("What're ya gonna do with the rest of your Senzu beans there, Karin? I betcha wanna give them to me").
I'll try to work in a "honey" or a "sugar" or a "darling" at the end of the sentence in effeminate speech once in a while, such as what Blue Taisa speaks (though I only got the chance to do a few lines of his in whichever movie it was--Mystical Adventure, I think), as well.
Zenjiro in Kodocha (who has an Osakan accent) gets the Brooklyn/northern "New Joisey" treatment, and often drops his final r's. I've had to back off on him a little from when I started the series, to keep it readable.
Also in Kodocha, there are often different ethnic versions of Babbit, the bat. American Babbit wears a cowboy hat and speaks Japanese with an North American accent (in the dub, he speaks with a full-on Texan accent, and it really works!), as well as Chinese Babbit and Kusatsu Babbit, and probably others. I usually just give them a pass, though. That show is a handful as it is.

Super Sonic · Post by **Super Sonic** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:46 am

Majin Buu wrote:, I could tolerate if the dialogue and music were left intact

You're aware that some of the dialogue changes are due to the anime and manga not being in total sync, right?

Tsukento · Post by **Tsukento** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 3:54 am

Sebastian (SB) wrote:To Tsukento: I think it's Romi Paku if I'm not mistaken.

That'd be how you'd translate it, yes. But according to several sources and even FUNimation's credits and subtitles of the behind the scenes for the movie, her name is literally written out as Romi Park.

Majin Buu · Post by **Majin Buu** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 10:19 am

Super Sonic wrote:
Majin Buu wrote:, I could tolerate if the dialogue and music were left intact
You're aware that some of the dialogue changes are due to the anime and manga not being in total sync, right?

I talking about keeping the dialogue as intact as possible. Yes, not everything will come across 100% but that's still no excuse for filling the show with lame and corny jokes and changing plot elements.

And everyone pretty much answered this but I think Daimao's translations are so renowned because he's really the most qualified person to do the job. He has a masters degree in Japanese so I'm assuming he knows the language like the back of his hand and he's a Dragonball fan so he actually cares about what he's translating and puts a lot of effort into the translations.

Plus like everyone else said, his translations are very accurate.

GI_Judd2287 · Post by **GI_Judd2287** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 10:46 am

IMO there's no excuse for changing the script for the sake of matching mouth movement. The original Japanese version doesn't even do that. There are countless times where characters voices stop, yet their mouths are still moving. They just don't care about that kind of thing, so why should we?

Super Sonic · Post by **Super Sonic** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:13 pm

GI_Judd2287 wrote:IMO there's no excuse for changing the script for the sake of matching mouth movement. The original Japanese version doesn't even do that. There are countless times where characters voices stop, yet their mouths are still moving. They just don't care about that kind of thing, so why should we?

You know that will look weird and though it works for Speed Racer and Godzilla, it doesn't for anything else right?When that happens it looks sloppy and unprofessional. Do you think in Japan they keep American cartoons' dialogue as straight translations with the lips not matching?

theoriginalbilis · Post by **theoriginalbilis** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:29 pm

Er... It's very possible for an anime dub to have an accurate script while matching the mouth flaps. Look at other anime dubs like Gundam Wing, Trigun, and Hellsing for example. Of course, these dubs are done by Bandai and Geneon/Pioneer, who have been in the anime game WAY longer than FUNimation has.

It's well within FUNimation's power to match the original dialogue, look at their non-DB dubs. It's just that they had the chance to really improve the DBZ dub (ie, original music, accurate scripts, etc) when they split from Saban, but they didn't.

Super Sonic · Post by **Super Sonic** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:49 pm

theoriginalbilis wrote:Er... It's very possible for an anime dub to have an accurate script while matching the mouth flaps. Look at other anime dubs like Gundam Wing, Trigun, and Hellsing for example. Of course, these dubs are done by Bandai and Geneon/Pioneer, who have been in the anime game WAY longer than FUNimation has.

It's well within FUNimation's power to match the original dialogue, look at their non-DB dubs. It's just that they had the chance to really improve the DBZ dub (ie, original music, accurate scripts, etc) when they split from Saban, but they didn't.

What I was referring to was how he sounded like saying even if the dialogue doesn't match the mouth flaps it should be kept. I was referring more to times in anime where the subtitles for the Japanese version will say, "What are you doing?" and the dub will have, "What the hell are you doing?" to match the mouth flaps.