Dragon Ball (All Series)

[Spark Of Spirit]

Kai is apparently ending at the end of the month with the end of the Cell saga. Thoughts?

As someone who did not really like the Buu saga in the anime, I can't really be upset at this. For all the problems I have with the Cell games overall, I do really like the ending. So I'm fine with it.

How about you Buu saga lovers or completionists? How do you feel about this news?

[Daxdiv]

BULL! That's my thoughts on it. Buu saga was my favorite saga if only for how wacky it was and how it felt more like the earlier parts of the Dragon Ball Series. Also, I say this every time, but my dream of the new ending was crushed. I so wanted to see Uub ride the Nimbus animated.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The Buu saga is excellent in the manga. If the original DBZ anime had been more faithful to the manga's more old school Dragon Ball-esque Buu arc with its focus on humor and mysticism, I would be pissed that its not getting redone, like Daxdiv. But as it stands I didn't particularly enjoy the anime's handling of the Buu arc, so I'm more in agreement with Desensitized that the Cell Saga is the perfect place to end Kai.

[Daxdiv]

I'm against Kai ending at Cell mostly because how it makes the final product feel incomplete. I'm actually curious to know how many episodes they would have used to wrap up the Buu arc, and what they would have kept. I'll admit, I'm probably more nostalgic for the anime at this point considering that I really got into DBZ after the Cell arc after a friend brought in a video of it during school hours, and I thought that Goku fighting in that other world tournament was a good way to start to get into the series. I was kind of right with that.

Though with Kai ending, I will say that I do wish that they come back and just redo the animation from the ground up next time rather than just trace over the old art. Maybe by then, we'll also have a new voice cast and see their take on the characters, in any language. I still find that fancy opening to be a major cocktease of what I was expecting Kai to be like, but instead we got traced art. I'm grateful that a new generation of kids were introduced to Dragon Ball thanks to this series, especially considering that last weekend it won some tournament that Nicktoons was hosting.

You know what else I've been meaning to ask to you guys? What's your stance on Kenji Yamamoto's score in Kai being replaced due to plagiarism? This thread has more details and pays more attention to than I bothered to, but I do find it pretty odd that this went on for a long time. I mean, I know Japan is pretty lax with this shit, judging from how other video games and anime out there have music that is taken/sampled from other works. I find it funny that they black listed him and edited back the old score from the original anime into it. I was curious to see how that would play out, but due to the earthquake and tsunami, that plan was sort of axed. Considering that I heard the next FUNi DVD release for Kai is being delayed, I assume it has to do with the music.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I was a bit surprised to hear about the plagiarism, myself, and was somewhat skeptical because it seems weird that it would only be brought up after DBK was near the end of its run. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the DVD sets that currently have the original DBK music (well, maybe that's the wrong choice of words if it is in fact not original to DBK, but I don't even know if they proved that the music was plagiarized yet or not).

To be honest, I really liked the DBK music. It wasn't necessarily as impacting or memorable as the original DBZ soundtrack, but it still fit Dragon Ball really well, and it helped give DBK its own distinguishing features aside from just being shorter. If future DVD releases replace all of that music with the original music....well then lets just say that the original DBK DVDs will probably become fairly rare and valuable collectors' sets just for the fact that they carry that so-called plagiarized music.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I also really liked the Kai (and original DBZ) music. It was one of the few things about the Americanized version I outright loathed was the stock boring rock music. It took away from the epic/mystic feel the show has.

Sorta like the One Piece rap outright killed the show over here. (Only the 4Kids version made the show awful instead of just slightly inferior)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, to be fair, just about every DBZ dub was massively inferior to the sub because of bad dialogue and inexperienced voice actors. Even a lot of the FUNi VAs have admitted, I believe, that DBZ was one of, if not, their first roles doing dubbed voices ever, and a lot of the VAs who are extremely fantastic VAs now were pretty bland or over-the-top sounding in the original FUNi dub. Putting nostalgia aside, I feel that the FUNi dub, as well as every other DBZ dub, suffered from a lot of problems. That's why the DBZK dub means so much to me, because it features most of the same VAs except this time they are actually really brilliant VAs and they have an accurate script to go by to boot.

Also, Frieza's dub voice in DBZK is absolutely PERFECT. Its the voice that I've always wanted to hear for Frieza in English.

But yeah, as for One Piece, 4Kids totally shat on the source material. But to be honest, to my admittance, I find it to be hilarious to watch when I see them butcher an important or emotional scene from the original version with incredibly out of place gags (seriously, though, they got pretty creative with how ridiculous they made some of their numerous changes).

Of course, One Piece is yet again another title that was rescued and done proper justice by FUNi's brilliant cast. If you haven't checked out the dub yet, I highly recommend watching at least a single episode in the English dub featuring the FUNimation voice actors. Its hands down one of the best dubs that they have ever done, and shows a lot of clear respect for the source material. They completely nail all of the humor as well as the more serious, emotional moments. Its all that I could ever ask for and more in a proper One Piece dub.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yeah, I started watching the dub when they were airing it on CN. It was great. Until they dropped it.

It must say a lot that I sat through that awful 4Kids dub to watch the show, but I guess I'm one of the few. Most think the 4Kids version simply killed One Piece in America. Which is a shame because there's a good story in there underneath all the butchery.

Anyway, to stay on topic, yeah the original Funi dub was just not very good. But luckily they improved tons since then and now they get to voice on the improved version of the DBZ anime. So it's win-win, IMO.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Don't have Nicktoons, so I haven't been able to properly watch Kai. However, I've seen quite a few clips to marvel at how improved the VAs are since the original. This perfectly illustrates it.

[Daxdiv]

I heard that the Canadian version of Dragon Ball dub sucked as well. I will assume that everyone knows the story about how after FUNi decided to do things in-house, Canada did their own thing with the series by still using the original VAs like Scott McNeil & Terry Klassen, replacing the music I heard that was in the old Mega Man cartoon of all things, but still used the FUNi script for whatever reason. I also heard that the dubbing was bad in it, and that it was rushed. I've never seen an episode of it, but I always hear bad things, and for some reason this is grounds for a flame war to say that you prefer the Ocean dub voices over FUNi or vice versa.

I will also sing the praises that FUNi did the ultimate 180 as an anime distributor from going from "FUCK YOU! Were not listening to you!" to "We value your input and appreciate your continuing support. FUNimation loves you all."

[Spark Of Spirit]

The Ocean dub blows, yeah. Especially the theme songs. I don't know how they made it so bad, but it really is awful. I was watching both versions back in the day and was embarassed by how bad the Canadian version was. (Especially considering how great those VAs have been in other things)

Chris Ayres is easily the best english Frieza voice, though. No more nails on the chalkboard!

[Angus]

Anyone get a chance to see the original Dragon Ball yet? I'm just curious how uncut things got to be.

[Kiddington]

DBZ Kai is a godsend. Seriously; I've been watching some of the "original dub" on DVD lately for kicks, and man, is it awful. The voice acting sucks, the writing is groan-inducing, and nothing flows at all. Truly an archaic production if there ever was one. You can really tell just how much of an amateur company FUNi was in their early days.

All things considered, DBZ was in dire need of a good re-dub, and thankfully, we're getting it here. Kai rocks. Vegeta is even more badass now than ever, and the new Frieza was just epic. It's just too bad that it's ending early, and now we've got that whole "infringing music" fiasco going on as well. Oh well; 'tis life, I suppose.

but still used the FUNi script for whatever reason.

Actually, it was the other way around. Even after FUNi cut ties with the Ocean group, they still used the original scripts from their writers. Guys like Terry Klassen and Ward Perry are still credited as the main writers for FUNi's dub, even after Ocean was cut out of the loop.

Makes me wonder to this day if things would have been any better, had FUNi used their own writers/scripts. As I said, they were a very amateur company back then, so it probably would have been just as bad. I guess if nothing else, we might have saved ourselves a couple of "Mondo Cool's", though. 

[gunswordfist]

I had no clue that Kai is about to end, they are ending with the Cell saga and not the Buu saga and that it took them this long to end at this point.

I don't care for the Buu saga but I would have loved to see it get the Kai treatment. Either way, I think the Cell saga has the best ending.

Also, I thought I heard the manga ended after the Frieza saga. Did they continue after the show started?

[Daxdiv]

but still used the FUNi script for whatever reason.

Actually, it was the other way around. Even after FUNi cut ties with the Ocean group, they still used the original scripts from their writers. Guys like Terry Klassen and Ward Perry are still credited as the main writers for FUNi's dub, even after Ocean was cut out of the loop.

Makes me wonder to this day if things would have been any better, had FUNi used their own writers/scripts. As I said, they were a very amateur company back then, so it probably would have been just as bad. I guess if nothing else, we might have saved ourselves a couple of "Mondo Cool's", though. 

You know, I always did wonder why Terry Klassen's name was on the credits whenever I watched the show on Toonami. I just assumed that it was a different Terry Klassen. Since I actually learned that the Kenji Yamamoto that has been accused of plagiarized music, isn't the same Kenji Yamamoto that has worked on some of my favorite Nintendo songs.  Which for me was the biggest relief of all time. Welp, I learned something new for this. Still doesn't change the fact that both the Ocean and the FUNi dub used the same scripts and that both of them were horrible as hell.

As for dubs of DragonBall, the only other one I can tolerate that isn't Kai is the original series where Goku was a kid. I'm kind of glad that their dub of the original DragonBall was pretty faithful to begin with. Of course, it helps that their redub of the series came in during a time where FUNi was pulling that 180 I mentioned earlier.