I remember back in the mid 2000s Funimation in the anime community being considered a joke and the absolute worst at dubbing.
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Majin Vegeta should have remained unchanged in the Kai Dub
- Thread starter John Doe
- Start date
I remember back in the mid 2000s Funimation in the anime community being considered a joke and the absolute worst at dubbing.
When the Funi dub started out during the Frieza saga it was pretty terrible. I don't really care that much about script tweaks, but a lot of the line changes were infamously bad; the voices were fine but the acting was way off; the first wave of Faulconer tracks were largely generic junk, and the way they were queued into the show was even worse. There were some bright spots here and there but it was for the most part not good. It improved by leaps and bounds by the Cell saga, especially during the Cell Games ("Now's your chance!"), and by the Buu saga you can tell they had really hit their groove with the show. Everyone was firing on all cylinders, from the voice performances to the soundtrack. Faulconer's themes by then had become much more distinct and memorable, and significantly increased the hype factor for a lot of scenes (Goku's SSJ3 transformation being one of the most famous, but there are a lot of other good ones elevated by the music, like all the Majin Vegeta stuff in the OP).
I get that the Kai dub script is more accurate than the original dub's, but it'll just never sound right to me. The OG Funi dub for the Cell and Buu sagas is peak DBZ for me.
I get that the Kai dub script is more accurate than the original dub's, but it'll just never sound right to me. The OG Funi dub for the Cell and Buu sagas is peak DBZ for me.
Sabat was a sound engineer and for his first voice acting gig they just threw him into the deep end voicing half the characters in the namek/frieza arc
"Okay, you're voicing Vegeta, Porunga, the grand elder, Piccolo, Yamcha. Shenron, Recoome, Burter, Zarbon, Korin, King Vegeta, Mr Popo, Jeice, and Kami. Any questions?"
Goku, Gohan, Krillin, Frieza, Nail, King Kai, Ginyu, Dende, Dodoria, Guldo, Chiaotzu, and Tien are the other characters I can think of.
I dunno about that, maybe It's because I didn't really browse hardcore sub websites back then, but among the more casual anime forums there was a huge portion of fans that heavily preferred the English dub. Like I'm pretty sure "Granny Goku" is a term that came from that period. I think people have gotten way more respectful since then, especially now with the abundance of (legal) sources to view the JP original and with Super being sub only for a while
Not that people can't have their own opinions or preferences, but I'm pretty sure if the Kai dub had been what premiered on US television 20+ years ago (Jesus), it would be as highly revered by the Faulconer fanboys as much as the original dub was.
Like, DBZ did amazingly well in almost every country on the planet, but it took dumb script changes and Faulconer's incessant buttrock to make it "good"?
Like, DBZ did amazingly well in almost every country on the planet, but it took dumb script changes and Faulconer's incessant buttrock to make it "good"?
Yes many did hate it for changes that they weren't used to but it's kind of obvious because the changes were atrocious and it's not the job of the dubbing company to change the show to be completely unrecognizable. Many assumed that the Ocean dub would be as bad as it could get but when Funimation started doing it in house it became much worse, even if the censoring was gone. Heck many felt that the Ocean dub, while heavily flawed had some potential but almost no one liked the Original Funimation dub. It was quite literally a laughing stock.
You might have a point that you could make the same argument for the original but the problem is that the dub literally turned DBZ into not DBZ. You really can't use use the same argument. You can make many sound statements for why the dub is terrible. Bad voice acting, inaccurate script, bad editing a soundtrack that wasn't made with the show in mind...etc. Some of these changes wouldn't be bad on their own but once accumulated, they completely turn the source into something else entirely. Modern dubs try to present the same show to a different audience and that is a area where the dub failed at and for that reason alone it can be classified as a shit dub.
See when dub fans argue for why DBZ dub is better than DBZ sub, it literally always comes down to basically nostalgia and i would bet that most of them haven't even seen the original aside form a few clips on youtube. There are so many reasons why modern dubbing practices have done away with these sorts of changes to the source. Nobody really accepts this kind of sloppy work anymore and for good reason. There is really no good excuse for stuff like this. It's really unfortunate that DBZ was so misrepresented in the US. How many stupid comparisons has DBZ had to fucking WWE of all things from the US fandom by now. It's even worse when you consider that none of this had to happen. All these changes basically boiled down to the fact that Funimation assumed it's audience was dumb and that DBZ is nothing more than a dumb saturday morning cartoon show and here we are. It robbed plenty of new fans of a better experience and now years later, nostalgia has taken over and tons of people have fondness for a broken frankenstein abomination version of a show that is completely removed from any other version because they saw it as kids on Toonami.
Masako Nozawa wasn't my favorite actress from the original cast either but she did a good job of voicing Goku in DB and the change over to DBZ felt natural. I never understood the complaints like "Grandma Goku" which was never on my mind especially when comparing what was in the dub like Linda Young as Freeza , Stephanie Nadonly as Kid Goku and Kid Gohan all who are completely unbearable. Toriyama picked Nozawa for the role because she sounded like what Goku sounded like to him while he was drawing the manga and to me that's perfectly fine.
I think Sean has improved massively as Goku in the dub. Back then he was the worst English Goku by my estimation. Hated how bland, generic and bored he sounded in the Funi dub. He didn't fit who Goku is at all and i found his recent work much better. He does a good job of showing the silly side of Goku nowadays but back then it was just generic super hero spiel. His Kaio performance is still the absolute worst tho.
Personally i don't think Faulconer had any highs and i wouldn't listen to any of his music even if someone paid me. it's just a competition to see which tack hits the rock bottom because they are all lows IMO. I don't think i have heard worse music in any show ever. It's clear as day that his music was never meant for any version of DB and i don't really think it was meant for anything except causing me to put the volume to it's lowest point and while on it's own it didn't kill the dub entirely it did kill plenty of scenes. Like Gohan going SSJ2 (Then again that scene would be ruined even without the music )
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