Im shocked any of you can stomach the dubbed voices… they are terrible.
I suppose I should understand - my wife HATES reading subtitles, which is the reason she asks me to watched dubbed versions of anything that I get off netflix or download… But then, she complains that the anime is childish and dumb. Bah.
DBZ was the WIN in japanese… the music is better, the voices are more natural… everything just fits better… I havn’t seen the entire Ocean Dub, but the android voices in those clips posted earlier were atrocious… Vegeta seemed somewhat legit, but Krils voice and Gohans were VERY lousy IMO…
And don’t get me started on Funimation’s dub… that’s some of the worst shit on the planet, not to mention they cut out all the blood and edited a TON of the clips to be more ‘kid-friendly.’ They ruined the series.
I agree with everything you just said, and I watched the entire series in english FIRST!!!
The only thing that ever bothered me about the japanese version of it was baby gohans cries, but they pissed me off in the american version as well so I think it evens that part out.
The Japanese version is unquestionably superior to the American hack job, and that includes the voices. The one merit that the Ocean Group voices have is that they’re professionals who at least tried to invest some personality in the characters. FUNimation’s in-house VAs sound amateurish in comparison. The Japanese VAs ARE the characters.
FUNimation fucked up the script all along. There is not a single fully intact line between the Japanese version and the American version in the history of the dub. Early on, it was at least passably close, but later on it strayed so far. Ridiculous.
Only voice in Japanese that mattered was frieza’s…the dub is fine with me. I didnt like vegetas raspy voice tho…or the fact that Piccolo sounds like a monster in the dub.
Not really. In terms of voice acting and nuance, I think the Japanese VA was better, but the actual voice wasn’t really as good. Now, some of the Goku stuff (specifially the stuff from the Cartoon Network era dub) was wooden and took some getting used to, but it got better as the show progressed. The real problem was dialogue changes which made you get a different feel from the characters than the JP version, which I thought was better.
I mentioned the last volume of Dragon Ball on DVD a day or two ago, and that’s a good example. If turn on English voices but still keep the subtitles on, you can see a lot of changes in dialogue that took place which sort of appeal to kids/fanboys. And they don’t really have any sort of respect for dramatic silence. Every moment of eerie silence with background music, or just a pause in speach is filled with panting or gasps or filler words, because I guess 3 seconds without somebody talking is craziness. It’s feels a little dumbed-down. The same applies to DBZ.
I like the Japanese music better- not a big fan of Head Cha-la or the ending song, though I did like the ending sequences, and they beat the Cartoon Network dub music just because they were awful. The CN dub music (different from the Ocean Group dub) had its moments, I remember Babidi having some weird Black-Sabbath-sounding synth music which I liked, but generally the Japanese background music is better.
Voice acting is a case-by-case thing. Japanese Frieza and Perfect Cell I liked better, the rest are sort of a toss-up, IMO.
I personally liked the English dub of DBZ…I thought Vegeta and Piccolo’s voice were right on the mark.
I hated the fact they always had music playing in the English version of Z…it ruined the Android 16 speech to Gohan. :\ Lack of Unmei no Hi made it worse.
The English version had some pretty okay music IMO…Vegeta’s theme, Gohan fighting Frieza, Heroic Trunks. There was also this one song that was never released by Faulconer that played when Goku was going to sacrifice himself and teleport Cell away from Earth. Sounded like a dramatic version of Trunks’ song.
Japanese Cell was voiced by the legendary Norio Wakamoto, which is instant win.
I don’t hate the Japanese voices but I really prefer to watch my anime dubbed because I can’t stand reading subtitles when I’m watching anime. I don’t mind Goku’s voice in Japanese but when the woman starts screaming “KAMEHAMEHA,” my ears bleed. I don’t care what anyone says, I think she sounds freaking awful. I also don’t care of Arika Toriyama picked these VAs. Doesn’t mean I have to like them.
^^ Great scene to compare and show why the Japanese Original is far, far, far superior to any of the garbage dubs in America. I know reading subtitles sucks for some of you out there, but watch these episodes in both formats and you’ll see hands down why Subbed is the ONLY way to watch.
No, I like it too. Majority of all Japanese voices are better than American ones. They just fit more. Well, Kenshins voice in Rurouni Kenshin was sort of childish in the Japanese version.
Goku’s VA was a girl btw.
Anyways… DBZ = One of the best animes of all time. Yes, even with the cliche powerups, but DBZ was like the first to have that, that’s why it is so good. Every other anime after that is just like “Blah”.
The Japanese music was much better as well. Their soundtracks pwn. Like the opening… “WE GOT POWER!” lol… But man that was such a long time ago… How nostalgic.