Are all hit and miss. Depending on where you live, you could have heard any number of different dubs. And each of them have their pros and cons. I'll be focusing on the major two.
I don't have as much to say about Funimation because it was done after all the behind the scenes crap that happened with Ocean had passed by. Both Dubs are great, but for different reasons, and it really depends on your preference of tone. Ocean is generally more intense, with heavier music and intimidating voice acting. Funimation Uncut is your classic DBZ, with the great Bruce Faulconer score to back it up. DBZ Kai is more lighthearted, but everyone is obviously having fun with the dub work, so it's hard to stay mad if you hate happy things, like a soulless robot.
Being Canadian, I grew up with the Ocean Dub, so while I definitely appreciate the Funimation Dubs, I still have to hold onto Ocean in my heart. It is pure nostalgia for me, and with DBZ, you need all the nostalgia fuel you can get to power through the filler.
And then there's the Big Green dub, switching between poetic, almost Shakespearian dialogue:
And mind numbingly bad to the point of comedy.
All done by three voice actors apparently. Only watch if drunk or tired.
So, which did you grow up with? Which do you prefer? I expect a landslide win for Funimation, but it would be nice to see another Ocean fan.
The two most widely known dubs are the so called Ocean Dub, and the Funimation Dub. I hear a lot of people bash the Ocean dub for it's editing out of violence and censoring language, but after looking it up, I found a very interesting reason for it's varying shifts in quality.
When Funimation originally acquired the rights to Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, it was still a new company, having only been founded a year earlier. In 1995, Funimation wasn't the much larger company it is now. It worked in tandem with Saban Entertainment to achieve the funding required to keep the show on air. So, the voice work was outsourced to the Vancouver based Ocean Group, whom you might know from other mid 90's dubs, or more recently, the Dawn of War series of video games.
The first two sagas of DBZ, the Saiyan and Namek arcs, were both done by the Ocean Group, and looking back, they are very high quality, apart from their language censorship. But the show was having a hard time finding its audience, until Toonami arrived on Cartoon Network. The quality of the dubbing was too expensive, and so the first two sagas were repeated on TV constantly until Toonami gave the show better ratings. The Ocean Ginyus are amazing.
Once the show became profitable, Funimation moved away from outsourced Voice Acting to use their recently created in house studio. So, in 1998, Funimation's dub of DBZ was created, and became the mainstay for the United States audience.
But the Ocean Dub, despite not being needed anymore, still persisted. Due to Canada's laws requiring a certain amount of Canadian made content be shown on our broadcasts, the Ocean Group was again contracted to work on the show. Saban and an England based company continued to finance the Ocean Dub. New, Canadian composed music was created for the show, as well as recycled music from other productions, such as the Ocean dubbed Megaman show, in order to meet content requirements. However, due to management disagreements, a large number of the Ocean Group's VAs quit or were fired, leading to a decline in quality over the Android and Cell Arcs.
I think this dramatic drop in quality is where a number of Funimation fans beef with the Ocean Dub comes in. It was lazy, rushed, and poorly handled compared to the Funi dub, all because Canadian broadcasting throws a tantrum if we don't run our own shitty programming. But, despite that, the Fusion Saga up to the end of the Buu arcs was done much better, having found more solid voice work and better sound editing. I really love how much better Brian Drummond's Vegeta sounds in the Majin Buu series.
So, the Ocean Dub. Started out great, then due to Funimation's breaking ties with Saban and Canada's goddamn content rules, fell apart, before being built back up.
When Funimation originally acquired the rights to Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, it was still a new company, having only been founded a year earlier. In 1995, Funimation wasn't the much larger company it is now. It worked in tandem with Saban Entertainment to achieve the funding required to keep the show on air. So, the voice work was outsourced to the Vancouver based Ocean Group, whom you might know from other mid 90's dubs, or more recently, the Dawn of War series of video games.
The first two sagas of DBZ, the Saiyan and Namek arcs, were both done by the Ocean Group, and looking back, they are very high quality, apart from their language censorship. But the show was having a hard time finding its audience, until Toonami arrived on Cartoon Network. The quality of the dubbing was too expensive, and so the first two sagas were repeated on TV constantly until Toonami gave the show better ratings. The Ocean Ginyus are amazing.
Once the show became profitable, Funimation moved away from outsourced Voice Acting to use their recently created in house studio. So, in 1998, Funimation's dub of DBZ was created, and became the mainstay for the United States audience.
But the Ocean Dub, despite not being needed anymore, still persisted. Due to Canada's laws requiring a certain amount of Canadian made content be shown on our broadcasts, the Ocean Group was again contracted to work on the show. Saban and an England based company continued to finance the Ocean Dub. New, Canadian composed music was created for the show, as well as recycled music from other productions, such as the Ocean dubbed Megaman show, in order to meet content requirements. However, due to management disagreements, a large number of the Ocean Group's VAs quit or were fired, leading to a decline in quality over the Android and Cell Arcs.
I think this dramatic drop in quality is where a number of Funimation fans beef with the Ocean Dub comes in. It was lazy, rushed, and poorly handled compared to the Funi dub, all because Canadian broadcasting throws a tantrum if we don't run our own shitty programming. But, despite that, the Fusion Saga up to the end of the Buu arcs was done much better, having found more solid voice work and better sound editing. I really love how much better Brian Drummond's Vegeta sounds in the Majin Buu series.
So, the Ocean Dub. Started out great, then due to Funimation's breaking ties with Saban and Canada's goddamn content rules, fell apart, before being built back up.
The Funimation Dub was the result of the higher ratings and better funding that Funi achieved once the show became popular during the rise of Toonami. Like Ocean before it, it has its ups and downs, but overall remains very solid. There are really three variations of the Funi dubs: the terrible first round, the excellent Uncut Dub, and the fantastic DBZ Kai Dub.
When Funi first started doing the dubs, they didn't want viewers to notice the change in voices for fear of alienating fans. So, early Funimation dubs have Christopher Sabat doing awful, awful work, with a hissing Vegeta that sounds more like an old man, mentally retarded Recoome, and just a bad Nappa voice. Sean Shemmel was always solid, and still is the best Goku voice the show has done, overall. In some areas, Kirby Morrow or Ian James Corlett beat him out, but on the whole Sean is Son Goku.
The Uncut Dub came later when Funimation went back to redub the older episodes previously done by Ocean. It was much more consistent, with Sabat finally getting his Vegeta voice down to what we expect, and really just letting them make the character's their own, rather than doing a bad copy of Ocean's voices.
DBZ Kai is an extension of that. With the more lax censorship laws, the voice work had even more time and experience to come up with a truly great dub, that far outdoes anything Funimation's DBZ efforts beforehand were ever capable of. It still has its hiccups like Gohan and Recoome, but on the whole, if you were to watch DBZ for the first time, this would be the one to go with.
When Funi first started doing the dubs, they didn't want viewers to notice the change in voices for fear of alienating fans. So, early Funimation dubs have Christopher Sabat doing awful, awful work, with a hissing Vegeta that sounds more like an old man, mentally retarded Recoome, and just a bad Nappa voice. Sean Shemmel was always solid, and still is the best Goku voice the show has done, overall. In some areas, Kirby Morrow or Ian James Corlett beat him out, but on the whole Sean is Son Goku.
The Uncut Dub came later when Funimation went back to redub the older episodes previously done by Ocean. It was much more consistent, with Sabat finally getting his Vegeta voice down to what we expect, and really just letting them make the character's their own, rather than doing a bad copy of Ocean's voices.
DBZ Kai is an extension of that. With the more lax censorship laws, the voice work had even more time and experience to come up with a truly great dub, that far outdoes anything Funimation's DBZ efforts beforehand were ever capable of. It still has its hiccups like Gohan and Recoome, but on the whole, if you were to watch DBZ for the first time, this would be the one to go with.
I don't have as much to say about Funimation because it was done after all the behind the scenes crap that happened with Ocean had passed by. Both Dubs are great, but for different reasons, and it really depends on your preference of tone. Ocean is generally more intense, with heavier music and intimidating voice acting. Funimation Uncut is your classic DBZ, with the great Bruce Faulconer score to back it up. DBZ Kai is more lighthearted, but everyone is obviously having fun with the dub work, so it's hard to stay mad if you hate happy things, like a soulless robot.
Being Canadian, I grew up with the Ocean Dub, so while I definitely appreciate the Funimation Dubs, I still have to hold onto Ocean in my heart. It is pure nostalgia for me, and with DBZ, you need all the nostalgia fuel you can get to power through the filler.
And then there's the Big Green dub, switching between poetic, almost Shakespearian dialogue:
And mind numbingly bad to the point of comedy.
All done by three voice actors apparently. Only watch if drunk or tired.
So, which did you grow up with? Which do you prefer? I expect a landslide win for Funimation, but it would be nice to see another Ocean fan.
