What dub ep did you want to see more than any other (if any)

[Coach57]

I was wondering what single episode or moment you guys wanted to see the most from the dub (either Funimation's or Ocean's), in order to see how it would be handled and if it actually lived up to your expectation.

I would have to say the moment Gohan transformed into SSJ 2 was the only one that actually made me want to wait for the release so I could compare. Most of the others were bought just to see the Japanese version.

[desirecampbell]

Actually, I'm a big fan of Goku's dub-speech to Vegeta about the Saiyan race dying off.

No other episode specifically, really. I'd like to see a new dub. Like, a total re-dub, with better voice selection - and a much better script.

[MyVisionity]

I would have to say the moment Gohan transformed into SSJ 2 was the only one that actually made me want to wait for the release so I could compare.

I too waited for the SSJ2 Gohan scene and the rest of the Cell episodes, as those were the first Originals I ever watched from so long ago. Gohan's transformation in FUNi's version was decent, but not on the same level as the original. However the rest of those eps were done much better in my opinion.

I also looked forward to the Majin Vegeta stuff, and FUNimation certainly surpassed my expectations with that. Everyone on board really brought it for those episodes and it was pleasing to see.

[BrollysKin]

One of my favorite scenes is when Goku is fighting Kid Buu and Vegeta has the monolouge about how Goku is better then him in every way. (But then in GT he goes back to his old self, I hate GT).

[Kaboom]

Yeah, I'd say my favorite Dub moments are in the Buu storyline. Maybe because FUNi's crew knew what they were doing by then. Vegeta's "Majin Moments" and his monologue during Kid Buu have already been mentioned, and are two of my favorites (Good animation + good dialogue = the win).

I'd say my single favorite dub moment is when Gohan first returns and lays some Mystic smackdown on Buu. The action was great, the sound and dialogue were great; It's one of the first good DBZ fights I ever saw, even in the dub, and well... yeah. It's Mystic Gohan.

Also, the Bardock and Trunks specials were dubbed very well. I don't think I even have to point out any details for those two.

[theoriginalbilis]

I looked forward to the episodes featuring the final fight with "Kid" Majin Boo. Those were my first few fansubs, and I looked forward to the dub version. The dialogue and voice acting well well-done, since the FUNi guys were in the zone by that time. The only thing I didn't like, of course, was the music changes, since I know the Japanese score to those episodes by heart.

That's my major gripe with dubbed DBZ, the music changes. I actually like the dub actors, but the music was pointlessly changed. That's the main reason why I barely watch dubbed DBZ anymore since I got the DVDs.

[BoxerGloves]

That's my major gripe with dubbed DBZ, the music changes. I actually like the dub actors, but the music was pointlessly changed.

Actually, theorginabilis, the music was changed for a reason. With their own soundtrack, FUNimation can collect royalties everytime the DBZ episode is aired on Cartoon Network. And the longer the music is played, the more royalties FUNi can charge. This at least should explain why this piece of trash "music" is booming nonstop throughout the whole English episode, with no moments of silence whatsoever.

[tarsonis]

Actually, theorginabilis, the music was changed for a reason. With their own soundtrack, FUNimation can collect royalties everytime the DBZ episode is aired on Cartoon Network. And the longer the music is played, the more royalties FUNi can charge. This at least should explain why this piece of trash "music" is booming nonstop throughout the whole English episode, with no moments of silence whatsoever.

This is the first I've heard of this. The theories in the past were that Funimation purposely changed the music so it sounded more "modern" (which would show a lack of integrity on their part), or that they simply couldn't afford the original BGM.

[BoxerGloves]

This is the first I've heard of this. The theories in the past were that Funimation purposely changed the music so it sounded more "modern" (which would show a lack of integrity on their part), or that they simply couldn't afford the original BGM.

Heh. When I got introduced to the English version of
Dragonball Z back in '96/'97, I thought exactly the same thing(s) as you, about the music changes. But ya see, back in ye ole days, there was a website run by a guy named Steve Harmon and it was called "The Vault." That site was dedicated to interviewing voice actors from the FUNimation's DBZ dub, DBZ webmasters, various people from the industry and so on. But somewhere in 1999/2000, there was an interview (which in my opinion, was one of the most important DBZ-related interviews ever) conducted with none other than Gen Fukunaga (the Capo of FUNimation) himself. And in there, Fukunaga discussed Funimation's treatment of DBZ, the censorship issues, fansubbers and bootleggers, but most importantly it also explained why the English version of Dragonball Z turned out to be what it is. Unfortunately that website got shut down in 2000, but some dedicated Dragonball fan out there managed to get that thing reprinted on his own site, so here's the link:
http://www.animecauldron.com/dbzuncenso ... rview.html

Screw it, let me give you one of Gen's own elaborations about why DBZ had such horrendous, badly written and inaccurate-as-hell scripts.......

Gen: "I don't know if there's a real strategy, per se, other than that we tell our writers to stick to the original story by Akira Toriyama, I mean, you can't deviate from that. Besides that, though, we just want it to get "hipped up" a little bit, you know, keep it from getting stale. But that's just sort of a subjective creativity thing that we leave up to our writers. We pretty much cut them loose on that sort of thing."

.....and let's not forget about the music.....

Gen: "The replacing of the music, was a FUNimation decision. With our own soundtrack, we could charge royalties for every second it's heard."

So there ya have it. While the webmaster who reprinted that interview posted his own comments about this, you're (or anyone) of course free to write your own comments about this.
And so children, that's it for today's lesson in DBZ History in United States.

[BrollysKin]

[quote="SSj Kaboom"]Yeah, I'd say my favorite Dub moments are in the Buu storyline. Maybe because FUNi's crew knew what they were doing by then. Vegeta's "Majin Moments" and his monologue during Kid Buu have already been mentioned, and are two of my favorites (Good animation + good dialogue = the win). quote]

When was it mentioned?

[BoxerGloves]

I was wondering what single episode or moment you guys wanted to see the most from the dub (either Funimation's or Ocean's), in order to see how it would be handled and if it actually lived up to your expectation.

I would have to say the moment Gohan transformed into SSJ 2 was the only one that actually made me want to wait for the release so I could compare. Most of the others were bought just to see the Japanese version.

Well, I liked watching several Ocean dub episodes of the Saiyan/Namek Sagas. But mainly because of the voice acting quality and out of nostalgia. Beyond that, personally I don't like any of the English dub episodes.

[tarsonis]

Gen: "The replacing of the music, was a FUNimation decision. With our own soundtrack, we could charge royalties for every second it's heard."

So there ya have it. While the webmaster who reprinted that interview posted his own comments about this, you're (or anyone) of course free to write your own comments about this.

Interesting..why then would they have used the original BGM for the original Dragon Ball series, and in the Pioneer releases of DBZ movies 1-3?

[BoxerGloves]

Gen: "The replacing of the music, was a FUNimation decision. With our own soundtrack, we could charge royalties for every second it's heard."

So there ya have it. While the webmaster who reprinted that interview posted his own comments about this, you're (or anyone) of course free to write your own comments about this.

Interesting..why then would they have used the original BGM for the original Dragon Ball series, and in the Pioneer releases of DBZ movies 1-3?

Dragonball wasn't as popular in the States as its successor, Dragonball Z. And when you have a hit show in your hands, you want to exploit it/milk it for what it's worth, right? And that includes caving in to the demands of TV executives, time slots that the advertisers like, and of course making some more money by re-scoring the music completely, so you can charge your own royalties from the TV stations. In fact, take a look at many other English versions of hit anime series (more than 100 episode long) such as Sailor Moon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, One Piece, and so on. They all have their soundtracks changed, because the American companies wanted to squeeze money out of them in every other way possible. And Dragonball Z has happened to be one of those hit shows. So for Dragonball, FUNi decided to keep its original BGM.

Secondly, the English versions of the first three DBZ movies (to me, the only real English dub of any animated DBZ property), were produced entirely by Pioneer (Geneon). They paid for the dubbing, post-production, DVD pressing, and everything else. You see, when Pioneer agreed to distribute the home video releases for the first two seasons, in exchange for their services they demanded they'd be given the rights for the first three movies. Not only that, but the presence of the FUNimation logo itself on those three movies (DeadZone, The World's Stromgest, and the Tree of Might) is a mere formality, because they have the exclusive rights for the "Dragon Ball" trademark. So basically with Funimation out of the picture, the production of those movies turned out to be great.
Excellent voice acting (I espescially liked Peter Kelamis' Goku, Scott McNeil's Piccolo and Dave Ward's Garlic Jr), accurate and well written scripts, fabtastic sounding remastered sound effects, and last but not least the retaining of the original Japanese songs and the BGM. This was quite possibly everything that I (or most of the any other DBZ fans here) could've asked for. Unfortunately, the rights for the movies 4 and up went to Funimation. Not only that, but the rights for the first three movies went back to Funimation as well.

[Grandmaster J]

To be honest, and I don't mean to be a little off topic here, I was most interested in seeing how FUNimation were going to handle the movies.

Of course, I loved Dead Zone, World's Strongest & Tree Of Might in English. The best thing about them is that all three still had the original BGM from the original Japanese versions.

Lord Slug was a HUGE dissapointment for me. That rock music in the background was god awful, and didn't help the movie at all.

Both Cooler movies were done pretty good, in my opinion. I throughly enjoyed them both.

I stopped watching the FUNimation dubbed versions after seeing Super Android 13!. I couldn't bare it anymore. All the movies since then aren't even watchable for me. They seem too "kiddy" in the English dialogue. But that's just me.

[Tatsunoboshi Horoko]

Wait, Tree of Might's dub had the original background music? Wasn't it the only one to have the dub background music?

[SonGokuGT]

As much as I hate the FUNi Dragonball GT dub, I was really curious to see as to how they'd handle the ending credits scene on episode 64 of the series. And it was beyond disappointing, as I had expected...

[BoxerGloves]

Lord Slug was a HUGE dissapointment for me. That rock music in the background was god awful, and didn't help the movie at all.

Yeah man, I get you. When I heard about FUNimation releasing movie # 4, I was hoping that they'd take their lesson from Pioneer. But I guess thst they didn't. I agree with you J, this rock music didn't help the movie at all. In fact, it made it even worse. The sound effects were drowned out most of the times completely, the characters' voices were muted out at some points as well (for example, when Goku and Krillin attempted to deflect the Kord Slug's planet cruiser at the begining of the movie, they scream as they fire their blasts, but you can barely hear them because of the rock music playing the whole time).
Also, let's not forget the shitty, glaringly inaccurate and completely-childish-dialogue-filled scripts that the "writers" used for that movie.

[tarsonis]

Wait, Tree of Might's dub had the original background music? Wasn't it the only one to have the dub background music?

On home video, no. It had the original background music.

But on Cartoon Network, yes. They reused the same BGM that was in seasons 1 and 2 of the Ocean Studios DBZ dub.

[Super Sonic]

Dave Ward's Garlic Jr)

I thought Don Brown did Garlic Jr.

As for looking forward to, the Goku Frieza fight when it happened. At the time I was content to tape off tv, but that I want ed uncut so I bought the uncut tapes at the time. (Like anyone of middle class had dvds at the time).

And with changed music, it depends. I know a lot of guys who were fans of the original Sailor Moon but thought the dub voices felt better with the dub music than with the original Japanese music.

[Tatsunoboshi Horoko]

Wait, Tree of Might's dub had the original background music? Wasn't it the only one to have the dub background music?

On home video, no. It had the original background music.

But on Cartoon Network, yes. They reused the same BGM that was in seasons 1 and 2 of the Ocean Studios DBZ dub.

That explains a lot. I never did buy the VHS because of what I saw on television.