Y’know, it gives me such a belly laugh, hearing Goku’s squeaking
war cries when he’s smashing all the parts of Pilaf’s death trap apart with his
staff, but… I can’t help but think I’d be
laughing harder if this were dub.
Yep. I’m going to crack that can of worms open again,
because DRAGON BALL’s an especially illustrative argument point in the sub vs.
dub debate.
For one, I really think FUNimation’s best dubbing era was in the
mid to late 90’s, when they took a lot more creative liberties with the material.
There was this wonderful, added entertainment layer, where the voice actors
would be goofing on the material at the same time they were staying on message.
And to that end, comedy simply works better when you’re hearing it in your
language. There isn’t two-second delay the screws up the timing a little when
you’re reading the subtitles.
And Saffron Henderson does such a stellar job as
Goku. I could listen to her read the phone book in Goku’s voice and still be
amused.She brings us to another discussion point, actually…
When FUNi skipped ahead to DBZ, they shrewdly let Saffron go
on, playing Gohan, while they recast Goku. The son sounds just like the father.
A no brainer, right?
Well, by some strange logic, Goku’s Japanese voice actress
has always been the same woman. As in, the same voice for 30 years, no matter
how old the character gets. It already sounds off when you watch DBZ subbed,
and this big muscle man still talks like a little boy. It sounds even more off
BATTLE OF GODS because the woman’s in her 70’s, right now, and can’t really
pull off the little boy voice anymore, so Goku ends up sounding like a cackling witch more often than not.
Anyway, everybody’s got an opinion. We’ve established that
many of you lunatics prefer DRAGON BALL CLASSIC over DBZ. Do any of you… actually prefer the sub or the dub?
Watch "The Dragon Balls are
Stolen!" and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous
episode.
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