Overrated and Underrated voice actors

[YoungDefender]

This post is great and it shows you do have a lot of taste and knowledge. Sorry if I was cold or rude.

Not at all, all good! I just like to call them how I see them.

I don't buy into that notion some fans have that if I like a dub I am committed to defend any and all performances in that dub on the basis of merit and quality. I love the Westwood dub overall but I'll be the first to admit Scott McNeil's Android 16 was absolutely terrible and that while Peter Kelamis isn't horrendous (most of the time) he is clearly the weakest of the main Goku voices.

[GhostEmperorX]

Only reason he doesn't have the throne for me is that I just can't stop seeing Linda as Frieza and that probably won't ever change.

Dunno, wasn't that hard for me since, well, Nakao has this thing where he sounds convincingly androgynous most of the time (otherwise just not so obviously male), it's like he was born to play that role. Haven't heard any other male actors who sound like him (in sort of the same manner as, say, Nobuyuki Hiyama but different).
So it was an easy win.

[YoungDefender]

Dunno, wasn't that hard for me since, well, Nakao has this thing where he sounds convincingly androgynous most of the time (otherwise just not so obviously male), it's like he was born to play that role. Haven't heard any other male actors who sound like him (in sort of the same manner as, say, Nobuyuki Hiyama but different).
So it was an easy win.

It's a unique voice but so is Linda's, same goes for his laugh, very regal and memorable but also love Linda's. I feel Young does the moments of blind rage better but they both have the range needed for the character.

I put Ayres and Newstone a bit lower on the rankings as I feel they sort of overdid it with the tone and emphasis but these are also castings that make sense given a certain interpretation on the character.

[GhostEmperorX]

It's a unique voice but so is Linda's, same goes for his laugh, very regal and memorable but also love Linda's. I feel Young does the moments of blind rage better but they both have the range needed for the character.

It legitimately sounds more like Rita Repulsa to me (and not just because others have said it either), and then there's, well, the thing about Young being an impressionist of Newstone at the beginning like most of the in-house cast.
It also had the effect of shifting Freeza's perceived gender a lot more to the opposite side than somewhere in between as the original (apparently based on Dongfang Bubai) was.

[YoungDefender]

It's a unique voice but so is Linda's, same goes for his laugh, very regal and memorable but also love Linda's. I feel Young does the moments of blind rage better but they both have the range needed for the character.

It legitimately sounds more like Rita Repulsa to me (and not just because others have said it either), and then there's, well, the thing about Young being an impressionist of Newstone at the beginning like most of the in-house cast.
It also had the effect of shifting Freeza's perceived gender a lot more to the opposite side than somewhere in between as the original (apparently based on Dongfang Bubai) was.

Yeah I can see the Rita Repulsa comparison although Young's Frieza is certainly not as one-note and unhinged. On the perceived gender side, yeah that just comes with the territory of both the early English voices. I don't see much of a problem especially given you need to suspend some disbelief a bit (in my view) if you want to enjoy Nozawa as adult Goku for instance.

I will say Young did a lot to bring it back to a more androgynous voice whereas Newstone's was distinctly and almost fully female sounding.

[MasenkoHA]

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It also had the effect of shifting Freeza's perceived gender a lot more to the opposite side than somewhere in between as the original (apparently based on Dongfang Bubai) was.

Funny enough, Dongfang Bubai is typically played by a woman. If Funimation had generated any good will you could MAYBE argue that casting a woman to play a Dongfang Bubai type character was smart casting.

But given Funimation completely rescored the show to sound less kung fu and more Batman Beyond, continuously screwed up plot points and made continuity fuck ups , and downplayed the show eastern roots as much as humanly possible they certainly don't deserve that benefit of the doubt and its obvious they cast Frieza based on "hurr durrr it looks kinda like a woman don't it?"

Still "Freeza is based on Dongfang Bubai" is, ironically enough, the best argument for Frieza being voiced by a woman.

[GhostEmperorX]

Funny enough, Dongfang Bubai is typically played by a woman. If Funimation had generated any good will you could MAYBE argue that casting a woman to play a Dongfang Bubai type character was smart casting.

But given Funimation completely rescored the show to sound less kung fu and more Batman Beyond, continuously screwed up plot points and made continuity fuck ups , and downplayed the show eastern roots as much as humanly possible they certainly don't deserve that benefit of the doubt and its obvious they cast Frieza based on "hurr durrr it looks kinda like a woman don't it?"

For sure, I most certainly wouldn't give them anywhere near that level of credit for such a thing considering they wouldn't even have known who that character was or why it's significant, nor would most of those who are fans of that version even have a clue as to the inspiration either.

And true, it was most likely a casting decision made based on appearance (although I would say that Freeza sort of looks boy-ish in general in 1st and final forms, apparently Goku thinks the same in the original dialogue too). At least they sort of accidentally nailed it with Chris Ayres later though, but this was more due to circumstance.

I don't see much of a problem especially given you need to suspend some disbelief a bit (in my view) if you want to enjoy Nozawa as adult Goku for instance.

I mean, I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of all the roles she was cast for beyond the children (especially for Boo Saga Teen Gohan, and for Bardock who I can really only hear Akira Kamiya being), but it actually does work for Z Goku's personality, especially with how downright playful and comedic he usually is. Plus Nozawa doesn't really sound all that female or even like a grandmother. Haven't quite heard a voice like it either even though I've heard others that are more on the boy side.

[YoungDefender]

But given Funimation completely rescored the show to sound less kung fu and more Batman Beyond, continuously screwed up plot points and made continuity fuck ups , and downplayed the show eastern roots as much as humanly possible they certainly don't deserve that benefit of the doubt

I mean in all fairness to funimation it's hard to see the kung fu or eastern roots in fighting the Ginyu Force on Namek or an evil space pirate mogul or biomechanical androids or a pink goo monster.. once again from space.

Things got fairly sci-fi as early as the red ribbon army saga in Dragon Ball and western influences and references feature throughout Dragon Ball from Terminator, to Frankenstein to Alien, Jaws and others. This series is not inspired exclusively by Journey to the West.

[MasenkoHA]

But given Funimation completely rescored the show to sound less kung fu and more Batman Beyond, continuously screwed up plot points and made continuity fuck ups , and downplayed the show eastern roots as much as humanly possible they certainly don't deserve that benefit of the doubt

I mean in all fairness to funimation it's hard to see the fung fu or eastern roots in fighting the Ginyu Force on Namek or an evil space pirate mogul or biomechanical androids or a pink goo monster.. once again from space.

Things got fairly sci-fi as early as the red ribbon saga in Dragon Ball and western influences feature heavily throughout Dragon Ball from Terminator, to Frankenstein to Alien and others. This series is not inspired exclusively by Journey to the West.

It's not inspired exclusively by Journey to the West but it inspired heavily by kung fu movies and Eastern religion and that didn't go away just because aliens and cyborgs showed up. If anything the Saiyan arc plays way more into Buddhism. Goku goes to the afterlife and meets King Yama (and in the anime also meets Gozu and Mezu) and is then trained by Kaio who eventually turns out to be one of 4 Kaios who watch over a cardinal direction of the universe functionally making the Kaio The Four Heavenly Kings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Heavenly_Kings


And those alien and cyborg characters are still fighting the heroes with kung fu and chi attacks no different than when the characters were grounded to earth. It's even been pointed out the Freeza Force armor resmembles samurai armor. Hell, the most sci fi heavy storyline in Dragon Ball still culminates in a martial arts tournament.

[GhostEmperorX]

I mean in all fairness to funimation it's hard to see the fung fu or eastern roots in fighting the Ginyu Force on Namek or an evil space pirate mogul or biomechanical androids or a pink goo monster.. once again from space.

Things got fairly sci-fi as early as the red ribbon army saga in Dragon Ball and western influences feature heavily throughout Dragon Ball from Terminator, to Frankenstein to Alien and others. This series is not inspired exclusively by Journey to the West.

Not sure if you've seen it already, but the Wuxia thread on the site might be an interesting place to stop by if you've got any time. It explains what the deal is with all those elements and why they don't seem to have that much bearing on the main premise of the series.
As for these aspects, one can see how this is the case because of how many of these elements are there (although it's really been sci-fi since day 1 with the capsules, and later with the RRA) even before them going to space (Kikuchi himself even commented on this "escalation" in the "Great Complete Collection" soundtrack release).
But outside of some inserts (SSS, BPU) composed by others, the staff and directors really weren't interested in reflecting those elements within the score. The greatest example of this for me was in Movie 6, when the Big Gete Star (a literal reference to Unicron from the 1986 G1 movie) was approaching New Namek, and it was just complete silence, not one track was made for it unlike what it was referencing.

And as mentioned above (which I somehow forgot initially), the afterlife that only gets explored in detail during Z is, well, purely a fantasy element.

EDIT: Also, with scores like the one for Movie 2, when Kikuchi was doing Sci-Fi material (Dr. Willow's theme in particular) it was mainly informed on older material from films of the genre, like maybe Alien (Jerry Goldsmith) or something else along those lines.

[Taku128]

Overrated: Stephanie Nadolny as young Goku and Gohan. Her delivery always sounded forced, and the Bobby Hill rasp to the voice she used makes no sense for a pair of characters who grows up to have the light, smooth voices of Sean Schemmel and Kyle Hebert. I've never understood why so many fans hate her replacement in Kai, outside of pure nostalgia.

Underrated: John Burgmeier as Tenshinhan. I don't know if his performance is actually underappreciated within the fandom or not, but I've always loved his more subdued, naturalistic performance in the role during the mellower moments of the series. He can get intense when the moment calls for it, but a lot of his line reads when he doesn't need to scream remind me of the natural-sounding deliveries of a lot of the Japanese cast. I wish more of the FUNimation actors were closer to his tone, as he can actually sound a bit out of place at times next to the more animated performances of the other characters in the dub.

[GhostEmperorX]

It's not inspired exclusively by Journey to the West but it inspired heavily by kung fu movies and Eastern religion and that didn't go away just because aliens and cyborgs showed up. If anything the Saiyan arc plays way more into Buddhism. Goku goes to the afterlife and meets King Yama (and in the anime also meets Gozu and Mezu) and is then trained by Kaio who eventually turns out to be one of 4 Kaios who watch over a cardinal direction of the universe functionally making the Kaio The Four Heavenly Kings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Heavenly_Kings

Speaking of "Four [insert figure here]" and common Eastern mythology... I wonder why the "Four Gods" (Seiryu, Byakko, Genbu, Suzaku) don't seem to have any references in DB as far as I know.