The most famous controversy - Goku's Japanese voice

[SHINOBI-03]

Yeah... when someone mentions the Japanese version to someone who is obviously a FUNimation dub fan, the first thing he says about disliking it is Goku's "girly" voice.

This matter created a lot of flame wars between the fans for years. A lot of them from the dub side hate watching the original Japanese version because of Goku's Japanese voice and how they say is unfitting to a manly character like him to have a voice of an old woman. While fans of the Japanese on other hand, like it and wish it remains the same as it is because it's what they are familier with and from the old fan-subbed VHS days.

One of the common replies to the dub fans is because they used the same voice of Goku since the beginning of Dragon ball, the producers didn't like the idea of replacing it to a male voice and decided to leave it as it is. And of course, dub fans grew up on FUNimation's Dragon ball Z way before they discover Dragon ball, they didn't have the chance to grow up with the characters like the Japanese audience. They couldn't watch the Japanese version of Dragon Ball till the beginning of Z, and therefor, were not used to it.

But still, there are other shows that pulled the same stunt and casted a woman for a male role. Mostly shounen shows where the protagonist is in his teens and it fit most of the time, but it doesn't work that well for adult characters. And the usual example given is Himura Kenshin. Kenshin is another male characters in his late twenties who is voiced by a woman... I don't know about the rest of the fandom, but I didn't like it. Unlike Goku, we were not introduced to Kenshin since his childhood, and we didn't see him grow up like Dragon ball characters. And therefore, I don't see it fit him.


Now, to my honest opinion... I appreciate Masako Nozawa. I love her talent and I think she is a living legend in the anime fandom. I do enjoy her voice acting, but I do agree it doesn't fit adult Goku. It does fit his personality, but not his age in Z. You don't meet a full grown man with a high pitched voice like him, do you?

[VegettoEX]

I wonder if calling it a "controversy" validates it and gives it more credit than it's worth as a discussion.

What intrigues me is that you, SHINOBI-03, are not from North America! You are not a native English speaker, I believe. You didn't grow up on FUNimation's versions of shows, correct?

This discussion is typically spearheaded by fans who were introduced through "Z" and are usually English-speaking (furthermore, typically American) fans who were introduced via FUNimation. As you've noted in some respects, for fans of the original Japanese version, it's typically a non-issue and not worthy of even delving into -- it's simply a state-of-being.

I'd be more curious than anything else to continue hearing from the non-American fans and their thoughts on certain voice castings in the original version of the show, including (but not limited to) Goku himself.

There's a whole lot to say, and if anyone's going to chime in, I'd recommend really collecting your thoughts before doing so.

[the_abberration]

You don't meet a full grown man with a high pitched voice like him, do you?

Two names: Michael Jackson and Mike Tyson

[SHINOBI-03]

What intrigues me is that you, SHINOBI-03, are not from North America! You are not a native English speaker, I believe. You didn't grow up on FUNimation's versions of shows, correct?

I do agree with you about that, but I was introduced to FUNimation's cast first from the Internet first and Budokai 2 second. So I'm not really that unfamiliar.

But here's the problem... The communities and fandoms here are mostly based on FUNimation's dub ((And don't even ask where do they get the episodes illegally)) and they all about how Goku's Japanese voice is ridiculous and not "manly" like the American dub. The same goes to Burdock and adult Gohan as well. And of course, me and a small group of other fans of the Japanese version get to endless discussions over and over again about our opinions about the voices and how "poorly" the Japanese cast do their work ((The most common two examples they use is how Freeza's mouth move like he is talking instead of laughing before killing Kuririn, and how Broli looks like he is yelling but completely silence)).

So, this sort of discussion goes to everywhere you find fans of FUNimation's dub, and it's not limited to a certain region.

[Amigo Ten]

I quite like Goku's Japanese voice, and I think it's because it feels like an actual character voice. More often that not with Japanese voice acting, it just feels like the actor isn't taking any specific cues from the character, and is simply doing the voice based on the character's role in story, or a few very general characteristics. There's a generic big bad guy voice, a generic loner voice, a generic crazy guy voice, etc etc. Almost all characters of a certain archetype sound the same to me, across all Japanese VA media that I've seen. That's why very few ever really connect with the character and stick in my mind. Piccolo's JP voice, for example, is incredibly forgettable.

Whereas when I think about the western animation that I like, almost every character's voice seems perfectly matched and suited to them. It's like you can tell just from the performance that the actor has really worked on the voice and has a great feel for the character, especially after a show has been running for a while and you can hear the subtle changes they make.

Nozawa's Goku feels like that too. It's pretty much the only voice in the series that does. Freeza's voice is good too though.

[DB_Fan1991]

I didn't want to bring this up as I was afraid I'd get flamed for this, and I'm going to flat out say it, but I absolutely can't stand Adult Goku's Japanese voice at all. Nozawa was fine voicing Kid Goku, but I think the Japanese producers made a huge mistake by keeping her as Adult Goku. No adult man anywhere sounds like Nozawa's Adult Goku. Now I'm not saying Nozawa is a bad Seiyuu far from it actually she is very talented, but I think that she doesn't fit Adult Goku's age. Now as far as Mayumi Tanaka's Adult Krillin goes it doesn't bother me as much, and I think it's because Krillin is short thus he can get away with having a woman's voice still. I understand that many people on this forum like Nozawa's Goku, and hey that's fine, but it's not what I like. My favorite Adult Goku is Sean Schemmel *ducks from Schemmel & FUNi dub haters*. To me Schemmel sounds more appropriate for Adult Goku's age. Schemmel was the first Adult Goku I heard, so obviously that's who I consider to be the voice of Adult Goku. My favorite voice in the Japanese version is Ryusei Nakao as Freeza as he can pull Freeza off a lot better than Linda Young can. Young is OK as Freeza, but not the best I've heard and certainly not the worst I've heard (that "honor" goes to the Portuguese Freeza).

[Godo]

During my early days of fandom, I started with the Funi dub. Even though I am not from the US, I understand how both sides interpret Masako Nozawa's voice.

To be really honest, my source of Funi's episodes were downloaded from the Internet. I had (by that time) no idea about DVDs being released. I was just at the beginning of my journey.

I grew to like Funi's voice cast a lot, and I got, let's say, used to it. I thought at that time that the voices fit very well with the characters.
Although I felt that the anime was goofy because of that (I expected many characters to have more...adult voices). Yamcha's voice didn't fit that much, but hey, I got used to it. I especially grew to like Goku's voice as "the real one".

Later, when Youtube got big and people started to post videos there, I have had the chance to witness the voice performances of the Japanese cast (and this was a couple of years after I had gotten hooked on Funimation's dub). (But I had already heard Masako Nozawa's "Kamehameha!" from low quality waw files).

Of course I had issues with Masako Nozawa's voice as Goku. I had never heard a man being portrayed with such a shrill voice before. BUT, I gave it a chance, and eventually, I got hooked up on the spirit that Masako Nozawa delivers in her portrayal of Goku, and thought: "Now, it wasn't that bad after all!".

I personally think that one issue here is a "We vs. Them" mentality. If you are not open to both the dub and Japanese original version, you will never, ever, give the Japanese version a chance. That's why terms like "weaboo" and "wapanese" are thrown out, because if you truly like America, you should like it's products too! If you don't, you are a freaking weaboo and an elitist. I am not saying that all dub fans are like that. I am talking about those who always start to flame other people. And of course we have some real weaboos on the other side, that for no reason would acknowledge other dubs, and thus endlessly say "Sean Schemmel's voice sucks!".

I think that for myself, not being American may have helped me in that instance. Although I "grew up" (well, not exactly, but you know what I mean) with Funimation's dub, I never felt any pride for the product nor for it's American voice actors. I always saw it as an American alteration of the Japanese version.
That's also why I think that people from other countries tend to lean more towards the Japanese version rather than the dub.

Rest assured that I am in no means disregarding Funi's dub, but I am just saying that I like them both when it goes to voice casting, especially Goku's voice actors.

And to add, even though we people from other countries didn't grow up with Funimation's dub being aired on TV at breakfast, we too have an opinion that should be taken into count, as we had our ways to enjoy the series aswell.

[kenisu3000]

I was introduced to the show through the FUNimation dub, and it actually took me a couple of years to start in on the Japanese version.
And when I finally did - I'll freely admit it - I was completely taken aback by the voices of the Son family. I had had the slightest hint, from a clip of Goku's first Super Saiyan transformation, that something was kind of weird there, and then when I watched the Trunks special for the first time... oh man, seeing Gohan staring out that window and hearing that bizarre voice come out of him... well, that's something that'd sober one up!
But over the years, it's grown on me so much that I now can't even stand to hear Goku's voice done by anybody but Masako Nozawa. As a matter of fact, it didn't take long at all. Nozawa just lends this amazing performance and sense of innonence to the guy. I love the nonchalant, high-pitched, idiotic remarks, I love the Kamehameha screams, I love the strained "clicking" noise when Goku (or Gohan) is struggling with something...
There's just something to be said about the impression an actor (well, actress in this case) makes on a fan's mind.

[Gaffer Tape]

About this "controversy," I've always wondered if there were any Japanese fans who tuned in on November 9, 1988 to see Goku in an adult body for the first time and reacted in shock that Nozawa was still playing him. As far as I can tell that never happened. In all the interviews and cameos she makes on other shows, she seems universally loved for portraying Son Goku, who's most famously remembered as an adult, brawny man.

I was introduced to the show through FUNi, and I remember seeing a brief clip of much later in the series of Goku and Vegeta fighting, and there was a very brief shot of Goku talking, and I thought it sounded a bit weird, but that's really the only negative reaction I had to it. I don't recall taking long to get on board with the idea, and she's been my ideal Goku ever since. I can't deny that the annoying as hell "manly men characters should have manly men voices grr rough testosterone arrrgghh" argument from the other side has continued to further entrench me on this side. I admit that Nozawa can get a bit screechy and "clicky" (you know what I'm talking about) at times, but nobody's perfect, and I generally love her take on the characters she plays.

As for what Amigo Ten said earlier about Japanese voice casts sounding "generic," I think that's a bit off base. I think it's just that Japanese voice casts go for actual acting rather than "cartoony caricature voice." We're all so used to the latter that when a more subdued performance comes in, it sounds "generic."

[rereboy]

Goku`s voice is not girly. Goku`s voice is cartoony. And its fits him very well. Like Bart Simpson`s voice fits the character very well.

[Chuquita]

I started watching this series through the dub on Toonami a little bit before Season 3 premiered, so I got to hear all three dub Gokus and I did take a liking to them. However, this was before YouTube and high-speed internet existed; plus I was young and didn't have the cash to go out and buy dvds of the show and thus had nothing to compare them to.

When I finally did get to hear Goku in Japanese (and it was Adult Goku, these were Buu arc eps I saw) my first thought was "wow that sounds adorable". O_O
The second was how smooth-talking and rich Vegeta's voice sounded, but this thread isn't about Vegeta. ^^;


So yes, if I have to boil it down to a simple answer; I like Goku's Japanese voice best both because it fits his personality and it sounds cute.


I am happy that Ms. Nozawa's voicing him in Kai, even if you can definitely hear the age starting to creep into his voice that isn't there at all in the Z performance.


EDIT: Also, about the "girly" thing, I've heard Ms. Nozawa voice female characters before and it definitely sounds different (inflections, tone, pronunciation) than the way she voices Goku.

[LeprikanGT]

Not wanting to argue with anyone, just getting my opinion out there as well, but that's the reason I can't sit though the JP version. All the high pitched shrilly voices coming out of manly characters don't agree with me.

[UristtheGreat]

All the high pitched shrilly voices coming out of manly characters don't agree with me.

So apparently Piccolo, Tenshinhan and Yamcha are all falsettos?

[Kaboom]

Just a warning that I'm watching this controversial and characteristically potentially volatile thread like a hawk. All I'm seeing here is a time bomb, and I won't hesitate to "cut the wire," so to speak, the instant I "hear it tick," if you catch my drift. So post away, but just remember the forum policy and "keep it Shonen," a'ight?

[VegettoEX]

Not wanting to argue with anyone, just getting my opinion out there as well, but that's the reason I can't sit though the JP version. All the high pitched shrilly voices coming out of manly characters don't agree with me.

That's a common... let's say "complaint"... that I see tossed out, but I'd question who exactly these "manly" characters are that have the "high pitched" voices. Is anyone in the Son family actually "manly" (other than maybe buffed-up 4X Kaio-Ken Goku in the middle of the Vegeta fight)...? I'd have a fun time debating that~!

In fact, this "complaint" usually gets turned into a fun series of proof by example, whereby someone decides that Goku is too "high pitched" for their liking, and then suddenly the entire cast of the entire show is "high pitched" or otherwise mis-cast. This invariably leads to defensive (if not accurate) responses like:

So apparently Piccolo, Tenshinhan and Yamcha are all falsettos?

In a similar vein, one fallacy that I see tossed out often from dub loyalists is that it is absolutely ridiculous for fans of the original Japanese version to honestly expect (be it just one character such as Goku, or maybe even the entire cast) to sound exactly the same as their Japanese counterparts... when... uhh... more often than not, no-one's actually said anything like that. It is generally understood that when transitioning into another culture and accepted norms, something like the raw attributes of the sounds coming out of that actor's mouth probably won't be the same as how they were in the original version.

In reality, the argument is less about the raw sound of the voice, but more about the range of emotions and deliveries that can be accurately portrayed. In the case of Goku, I've spoken at length at how Ian Corlett was able to capture the calm and concerned sides of Goku, where-as Sean Schemmel is able to capture the natural and happy side of the character... yet neither of them are able to capture all of the qualities that make up who this character named "Goku" happens to be, so you're left with just half (if not just one-third) of the character being portrayed accurate to the original version.

Taking it over to your Kenshin example, Richard Hayworth may have been an appropriate casting choice for an English dub of the TV series, but the direction may have been what killed the performance. No, Hayworth sounds absolutely nothing like Mayo Suzukaze, but you can see where the train of thought was in transitioning the voice to English -- the feminine qualities of the voice were carried over as "calm", while the "male" characteristics were carried over simply by having a man voice him. I'd argue that one of the best cases of female-voicing-a-male transitions in English anime was the first voice of Boy-Type Ranma, Sarah Strange... a woman... despite being voiced by Kappei Yamaguchi... a man... in Japanese! Those "rough" qualities of the original Japanese performance (Suzukaze in Kenshin's case, and Yamaguchi in Ranma's case) were adapted in wildly different ways (female to male, and male to female)... and yet somehow still worked.

Don't misunderstand, by the way -- the Kenshin dub is pretty awful. And yes, I'm aware of (and have seen much of) the "Samurai X" version.

This is the kind of discussion that I wonder isn't best served by an in-depth feature/article with video examples and comparisons, which is something I've always wanted to do...

Just a warning that I'm watching this controversial and characteristically potentially volatile thread like a hawk. All I'm seeing here is a time bomb, and I won't hesitate to "cut the wire," so to speak, the instant I "hear it tick," if you catch my drift. So post away, but just remember the forum policy and "keep it Shonen," a'ight?

You and me both, yo ^_~.

[obiwan23s]

Honestly, I started out with the dub too and in typical Internet-age style was told by legions of people that Goku sounded like a wussy girl in Japanese... but when I finally got around to checking it out, classifying it as "girly" was a gross exaggeration.

Really, this is only an issue because Z has so many fans that started on the dub. Whether or not one still likes the dub or has switched over to the original version isn't the issue. But I get the sense that a lot of people who started on the dub feel that those voices are the real voices for the characters, or at least the ones they are more familiar with. I've seen Z in Japanese three times and am experiencing it for a fourth time while I buy the Dragon Boxes. Those are the voices I'm familiar with and even switching over to the dub to check out how a cool scene sounds dubbed nearly makes me sick. I imagine that's the same feeling people who started on the dub get when they hear Goku in Japanese.

It's never been a really big deal to me. Creative differences that exist between two different languages and how they handle voice over.

[Big Momma]

I started off and grew up with the dub, and didn't get into the original until a year later.


As far as Goku goes. I had heard about his voice being high-pitched in the Japanese. And my first exposure to Japanese Dragon Ball was GT,when he was a kid again. However, even when he was an adult, I didn't mind it at all.

I think the respective English and Japanese VA's for Goku work well for the language they are in. Nozawa is absolutely great for Japanese Goku, but I can't imagine an English Goku having a high pitched voice...I just don't think it work work. The same goes for the Japanese version. When imagining a Japanese Goku, I can't imagine anything other than Nozawa. A deeper pitch just doesnt' sound right.

[LeprikanGT]

I wasn't trying to single out just Goku, but the example that comes to mind is when the Kamehameha is screamed out in such a high voice, it justdoesn't match up with wat the character looks like.

I know other characters have lower voices but if I'm not looking AT the tv, I can not really tell the differences in voices as much as I can the US voice actors.

[JulieYBM]

Honestly, I really don't see where the "Son family is manly" necessarily comes from. There's nothing really all that manly about Gokû, Gohan, and Goten. If anything, I'd say the performances as given in the Japanese version define when (and when not) the characters are being 'manly' or 'tough' (those instances quite evident).

Again, I come from the same background as many of the fans here. Dub viewer and fan for much of my initial fandom, then I switched to the original. I consider myself an art enthusiast, no matter the language of the product. If it's an English language art, it is English. Spanish art is Spanish and Japanese art is Japanese. That's just how the stuff is, and if the product is good based on how it is presented, it's good.

[Zephyr]

I grew up with Funi's dub, and that is the cast I am familiar with. I strongly dislike the Japanese voices, due to both he feminine nature of some, and the lack of familiarity I have with them. If you like the Japanese voices, good for you. If you like Funi's voices, good for you. I really think that as mature individuals we should respect each others' preferences. I really see no point in getting a self righteous attitude and looking down on others because of the dub they prefer based on voice acting (not that anyone here is, I'm just saying).