In Response To 'A Revised Opinion Of FUNimation'

First, I’ll list a few pros of Funi. Funimation has changed the DBZ series quite a bit since they’ve gotten their hands on it. What started off as villains saying things like “Green bean head” and “next dimension” has slowly become better (So long as you don’t count the episode where Trunks returns to the future and talks about palm reading and boogie men… anyway). The dialog hasn’t become perfect of course, but hopefully they’ll keep improving it and I feel it’s at least acceptable now.

However, that is not enough. Simple concepts like being realistic are completely avoided. If I had a 100 foot tall monkey jumping on my legs I wouldn’t come out with just a few scratches and a little torn clothing. This seriously detracts from the experience, and you know none of those kids Funimation is trying to market to believe it.

They have yet to give Uncut DBZ on TV. Bad Funi. And they sell a 291 episode series in 3 episode sets on DVD. Now, I don’t need to go into great details about DVDs, but lets just say if a DVD can hold a 120 minute movie, the dialogue in three languages, plenty of extras, and they’re only putting 3 20 minute episodes on one for us, they’re trying to rip us off.

The voice acting is not good in the dub. While the voices are a matter of opinion, and I will say some of them have been good (Brian Drummond tops the Japanese version when he did the scream after discovering Gohan had his last dragonball, in my opinion) at certain parts in the series, much of the voices sound forced and the acting isn’t right. Goku isn’t a superhero, he’s a child trapped in a mans body. Gohans voice doesn’t fit his age when he’s very young or later on when he’s fighting perfect Cell. Piccolo sounds very gruff, like he always has a sore throat in the dub. Vegeta is not PURE arrogance, and the American version made him lose all his character to that one trait. I could go on, but you get the idea. It’s really probably not the actors fault either, as they’re generally told how to do the voices I believe. Though I think a good lesson in how to do it would be to actually WATCH the Japanese version, as I know so many if not all of them haven’t. And of course the dialog is still not up to par.

Some people think the commonly held opinion is just crammed down peoples throats, and that very few people that go around hating Funis work actually believe it. I disagree completely….. I’ve heard 7 year old children who call the show silly. My 4 year old step brother thinks Pokemon is more serious…. Come on. They constantly try to convince you that someone who is dead isn’t, and that the bad guys never really kill. Cell killed Trunks…. It’s not THAT hard to let it be and simply have him die in the dub.

All I ask for is a dub comparable to Gundam Wing. It is EXCELLENT! The voice acting was solid, the voices didn’t sound forced (except for Septums… I really hated that guy) and fit the characters. And there were no silly catch phrases, Americanization's, or attack lines that made you want to vomit. And I don’t think that’s really a lot to ask. I mean, if one CN show can do it, can’t the other?