Dragon Ball Daima - English Dub: Stephanie Nadolny Returns

[DB_Fan1991]

For Gohan it could be either and I would be happy, but would prefer Colleen.

[Scsigs]

You can easily discern Nozawa's Gohan and Goku at any age even if you aren't fluent in Japanese. There's a very different energy between the two. I love that she voices both.

And if they had to keep Colleen and Stephanie and each voiced one character between Goku and Gohan, I would cast Colleen as Goku and Nadolny as Gohan without hesitation.

Of the English speaking Goku and Gohan voices, Saffron Henderson is my favorite by far.

Not really to someone who doesn't regularly watch the sub, which I don't.

Meh. I'd rather the other way around.

I haven't watched much of the Ocean dub, tbh. Just some of the highlights & clips to compare with the Texas cast from the rest of Z. I'm sure she's good, I just haven't heard much of her stuff.

[DB_Fan1991]

Saffron is especially good in the Pioneer dub of Z movies 1-3.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

So I watched the new trailer with the Crunchyroll English dub voices. I think the English dub voice of Mini Goku sounds like Nadolny's Goku and she sounds okay to me, but I can’t tell if it’s actually Nadolny. The rest of the voices sound fine by me.

I wouldn't be shocked if they just dubbed the trailer and haven't actually gotten started on recording the show yet. Sean Schemmel mentioned when the Super: Broly trailer dropped that they dubbed the trailer before receiving any other materials for the film. (For context he said this in an interview taken a day or 2 after that initial trailer dropped.) I think it was just so they could start the advertising cycle for the international release. I think they also used archived Broly screams or a different actor for the trailer to avoid working with Mignogna, but I could be wrong about that part.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I remember the Super Broly trailer had Sean Schemmel as Goku saying "He's getting stronger", which didn't end up in the movie, so presumably Funimation just scripted the scenes they received for the trailer and came up with a few extra lines to get people excited that didn't make sense in context when they had the full film and could write a complete script for it.

[Vegard Aune]

I remember the Super Broly trailer had Sean Schemmel as Goku saying "He's getting stronger", which didn't end up in the movie, so presumably Funimation just scripted the scenes they received for the trailer and came up with a few extra lines to get people excited that didn't make sense in context when they had the full film and could write a complete script for it.

It bears mention that the equivalent Japanese line also did not exist in the movie iirc. "omee... mada ue ga an no ka?!" or something to that effect.

[HulkTySSJ5]

Even if the OG voice for Bulma can't come back too, they should at least replace/terminate Monica Rial from their dub team. It'd be a start to issues, but the best one to begin with.
Regardless, this series should do great.
Now I'm curious who's gonna voice other characters, since the trailer confirmed voices will change to better match their age.
If Piccolo gets that dumb voice from OG DB, it'll be hilarious to see other's reactions.

[Majin Buu]

You can easily discern Nozawa's Gohan and Goku at any age even if you aren't fluent in Japanese. There's a very different energy between the two. I love that she voices both.

Agreed. It's really not that hard to tell the difference between Nozawa's roles- I was able to do that as a dumb adolescent with zero familiarity with Japanese.

But that's because I actually wanted to engage with original Japanese DBZ. Someone who's firmly in the Funimation dub camp is gonna be primed to not notice or care about the nuances in her performance.

[JulieYBM]

Even if the OG voice for Bulma can't come back too, they should at least replace/terminate Monica Rial from their dub team. It'd be a start to issues, but the best one to begin with.
Regardless, this series should do great.
Now I'm curious who's gonna voice other characters, since the trailer confirmed voices will change to better match their age.
If Piccolo gets that dumb voice from OG DB, it'll be hilarious to see other's reactions.

Monical Rial is Crunchyroll's first voice actress for Blooma, what are you talking about her 'OG' actress? The first actress to voice Blooma in an official English dub is Wendee Lee from when Harmony Gold was producing a dub of Dragon Ball (1986).

Why should Crunchyroll terminate Monica Rial? She's doing no worse than, say, Sean Schemmel as Son Gokuu, or any other member of their voice casts for the English dubs that they produce.

[VegettoEX]

Breaking character a bit again here, but I do have to openly chuckle a bit when people use "OG" to refer to voices that are -- as I already mentioned above -- sometimes second, third, or FOURTH voices in "The FUNimation English Dub" for this series.

Even ignoring Julie's point about Harmony Gold voices (which even as the King of Pedantry I'd argue is being a little too cute here), we had Maggie Blue O'Hara and Lalainia Lindbjerg setting the tone for what Tiffany Vollmer came in to impersonate.

For little Goku, first up was Saffron Henderson (again, setting the tone for what everyone would impersonate)... and even if you want to ignore the Vancouver cast, Ceyli Delgadillo was the first "in-house" Texas voice for little Goku before even Nadolny.

I see this all the time with "OG FRIEZA!!!" too, and it's like... my dudes and dudettes... that's also someone else doing an impersonation of a voice that came before! You probably even watched that first one on Toonami tons of times!

I know people don't always know the minutia of their own fandom history, but that's what I'm here for!

And that's ignoring the alternate Ocean / Blue Water dubs of the series that either brought back the earlier voices or went on to cast new ones! Not "FUNimation," sure, but still "an English dub of the series that tons of people watched on TV."

[JulieYBM]

Breaking character a bit again here, but I do have to openly chuckle a bit when people use "OG" to refer to voices that are -- as I already mentioned above -- sometimes second, third, or FOURTH voices in "The FUNimation English Dub" for this series.

Even ignoring Julie's point about Harmony Gold voices (which even as the King of Pedantry I'd argue is being a little too cute here), we had Maggie Blue O'Hara and Lalainia Lindbjerg setting the tone for what Tiffany Vollmer came in to impersonate.

For little Goku, first up was Saffron Henderson (again, setting the tone for what everyone would impersonate)... and even if you want to ignore the Vancouver cast, Ceyli Delgadillo was the first "in-house" Texas voice for little Goku before even Nadolny.

I see this all the time with "OG FRIEZA!!!" too, and it's like... my dudes and dudettes... that's also someone else doing an impersonation of a voice that came before! You probably even watched that first one on Toonami tons of times!

I know people don't always know the minutia of their own fandom history, but that's what I'm here for!

And that's ignoring the alternate Ocean / Blue Water dubs of the series that either brought back the earlier voices or went on to cast new ones! Not "FUNimation," sure, but still "an English dub of the series that tons of people watched on TV."

Yeah, I won't lie, I was originally going to go with Lindbjerg as my example, but then I was like, "Something-something, time is a flat circle" or however the heck the phrase goes.

Like, dang, I hate to be that girl, but as someone who started out on the first FUNimation dub of the Namek arc, I just think it's weird that we say things like 'OG' for a franchise that's 1) dubbed across the entire world across multiple decades 2) already had multiple English voice actors.

Again, I don't have a horse in this race—I can't stand English dub voice acting and there's really no reason for me to listen to it when I don't exactly watch muh American cartoons in The Original Japanese—but I—and my nearly thirty (30) years of fandom—just find it really funny that we (general, fandom) have this notion of 'going back'...and it's not even, like, pretending to be about returning to 'the original English dub voice actress'.

I also just think that it's funny that people want to go back to actresses who don't even do acting as Their Main Thing or whatever. Our society makes artists—performing or otherwise—go to inhumane lengths to support themselves before They Make It Big and it's honestly disheartening. The sands of time have taught me the important lesson that even if I think someone's work sucks, they still deserve to be able to live without worrying about their bills.

That all being said, it's clear that dubbing some cartoons is no longer the primary focus for a lot of actors who worked on FUNimation cartoon dubs in the 2000s, so I don't really get the fervor to Go Back when...clearly, people have moved on.

I also just don't see the logic in not hiring back Rial when she continually does no worse than Vollmer and is hardly a bad person. It's not like she's Mic Vignogna.

[MasenkoHA]

Also Vollmer isn't even the first Texas Bulma. That would be Leslie Alexander from Sleeping Princess. She's not "the og" in any generous definition of the word.

[a problem I have with Nozawa voicing almost every single male family member of Goku's family, btw, as the voice tones always remains the same even if she tries to vary it up a bit & the scripts for the characters try to write their dialogue differently, of which only Japanese speakers will really readily notice most of the time).

As always, people way over exaggerate this "issue" and it's always people who never really watched the Japanese version anyways.

Like Abed said the voice she uses for young Gohan is way different than adult Goku. Even if you only saw one episode or movie it's quite easy to distinguish because her Gohan voi ce is much more cutesy and babyish where she uses a more standard young boy voice for Goku

I'd have prefer Shigeru Chiba voiced Burdock but I understand the logic to have Nozawa voice him and he and Goku hardly interact so it's a non-issue.

The only time it even kind of becomes a problem is when she's voicing both adult Goku and teen/adult Gohan in Boo/Super

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

The term "OG voice of kid Goku" is being thrown around as a marketing ploy to get clicks, nothing more. It's obviously an untrue statement for those of us in the know, but the average Joe who missed out on the BLT and Saban eras (I'd throw in Harmony Gold too, although if anyone stuck around in the 9 years between its cancellation and the start of the inhouse Z dub like Meri here would be quite the dedicated fan) assumes Stephanie Nadolny was the original English kid Goku.

Its a fact of the modern world that theres a demand for instant gratification, which means people want information fast. It takes more time to fact check and very few online journalists and YouTubers are going to write "original Texas voice of kid Goku returns", or as MasenkoHA pointed out "original TV series Texas voice of Bulma returns" in the hypothetical scenario that Tiffany Vollmer reprised her role (which I don't think will happen) out of fear of alienating their readers or viewers who might think they are overcomplicated things (which they of course aren't).

[Dbzfan94]

Not a surprise people here are upset about Nadolny returning. I for one always loved her Goku and Gohan (a Goku especially) so I’m very happy she’s returning. It’s just funny now we will probably have Colleen and Stephanie both voicing different versions of Kid Goku in Sparking Zero

[JulieYBM]

Not a surprise people here are upset about Nadolny returning. I for one always loved her Goku and Gohan (a Goku especially) so I’m very happy she’s returning. It’s just funny now we will probably have Colleen and Stephanie both voicing different versions of Kid Goku in Sparking Zero

Why is it no surprise that people 'here' are 'upset about Nadolny retunring'? Who is upset? Why is that note-worthy?

[Dbzfan94]

Not a surprise people here are upset about Nadolny returning. I for one always loved her Goku and Gohan (a Goku especially) so I’m very happy she’s returning. It’s just funny now we will probably have Colleen and Stephanie both voicing different versions of Kid Goku in Sparking Zero

Why is it no surprise that people 'here' are 'upset about Nadolny retunring'? Who is upset? Why is that note-worthy?

Because some people on this website have been critical of her in the past, I’ve seen more criticism than praise more often than not around here, which is fine, but it’s not a surprise to me to see that continued with this announcement. I don’t see what’s difficult to understand about that. Upset was probably the wrong word to use though, unhappy would be better.

[MasenkoHA]

Not a surprise people here are upset about Nadolny returning. I for one always loved her Goku and Gohan (a Goku especially) so I’m very happy she’s returning. It’s just funny now we will probably have Colleen and Stephanie both voicing different versions of Kid Goku in Sparking Zero

Why is it no surprise that people 'here' are 'upset about Nadolny retunring'? Who is upset? Why is that note-worthy?

Because some people on this website have been critical of her in the past, I’ve seen more criticism than praise more often than not around here, which is fine, but it’s not a surprise to me to see that continued with this announcement. I don’t see what’s difficult to understand about that. Upset was probably the wrong word to use though, unhappy would be better.

Idk seems like a pretty big mix of negative, positive, neutral, and indifferent to me. The news isn't getting as much overwhelming excitement here as it is literally everywhere else but I don't think the people happy that Nadolny is back are a minority here.

For my part, I'll stay neutral until I see a full episode. I have reservations since A. Her acting was always sub par at best and B. She hasn't done any voice acting since 2013 but I was always fine with her Goku voice, so a competent voice director might be able to get a good performance out her?

[JulieYBM]

Not a surprise people here are upset about Nadolny returning. I for one always loved her Goku and Gohan (a Goku especially) so I’m very happy she’s returning. It’s just funny now we will probably have Colleen and Stephanie both voicing different versions of Kid Goku in Sparking Zero

Why is it no surprise that people 'here' are 'upset about Nadolny retunring'? Who is upset? Why is that note-worthy?

Because some people on this website have been critical of her in the past, I’ve seen more criticism than praise more often than not around here, which is fine, but it’s not a surprise to me to see that continued with this announcement. I don’t see what’s difficult to understand about that. Upset was probably the wrong word to use though, unhappy would be better.

What I don't understand is why you felt it necessary to mention and single out this community. Like, plenty of people all over have their unique views. This community is no different—no more special—than any other.

I'm not even sure I would use the word 'unhappy', either. I feel like the general sentiment has been confusion, more so than anything else.

[jjgp1112]

The discussion about Monical Rial and Bulma feels like a complete and utterly nonsequitir. Rial has played Bulma in every Dragon Ball property she's appeared in for 15 years now. Kid Goku has only existed as a video game character in modern Dragon Ball content and, as we've seen with Sabat still doing side roles that he's given up to other actors in the actual series since Kai, the video games just go with whatever actor is most easily available at the time. It stands to reason that when given the opportunity and alignment of the stars, they'd bring back the actress that played Kid Goku for the vast majority of material he's in.

Kid Gokus voice was never set in stone because he was hardly even a thing since Stephanie Nadolny got recasted. Bulmas voice has been pretty firmly been what it is, her original Funi voice probably doesn't have much nostalgic sentiment anyway since Bulma isn't nearly significant (she's arguably been more prominent in the series in all the material that Monica Rial has done) and the only hate Rial's performance really gets is from Vic cultists that Funi has no interest in placating.

What exactly would prompt a recasting for Bulma in this specific instance anyway? Shes getting poofed into a kid and otherwise appears to be a satellite character. On the other hand, this is the first appearance of Kid Goku in a mainline Dragon Ball property since GT. The Perfect occasion for a nostalgic casting.

We don't need to entertain every thought that comes to our head.

[90sDBZ]

Nadolny may not be the actual first English Kid Goku, but she was the first to actually voice him for a significant length of time.

The Harmony Gold and BLT dubs both existed for such a brief time, and covered such a miniscule portion of the story, that it's understandable why 99% of people don't acknowledge them. The same can be said of the DB Movie 2 dub, which is ultimately just a 45 minute movie that many fans never saw.

Nadolny went the distance with Goku for the entirety of DB and GT, and also voiced Gohan in Z and several of its movies and video games.

While calling her "the OG Kid Goku" may not be technically correct, I can understand why people say it.

Gohan is a slightly different story though, as Saffron Henderson did voice the character for 53 episodes and 3 movies prior to Nadolny taking over. Unlike Harmony Gold and BLT, the Saban dub actually did have a huge impact and was seen by countless fans.