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Hello,
I've written once before, thanking you for the work you've put into your
site. Once again, thanks.
I saw DBZ in Japanese on the International channel for the first time
last night, and wanted to share some of my first impressions with you.
I felt that this might be useful to you, as someone who likes to compare
Japanese DBZ to the American version. I believe that my impressions,
as someone who has very little exposure to Anime, might be
representative of a true American Anime fan. (If there is such a
thing!)
After having read much of the information on this site, I had my
expectations set pretty high as I tuned in to the International channel
on Sunday night to watch the authentic DBZ. What I experienced was
clearly culture shock.
I'll begin with the theme music that I heard at the beginning of the
show. Interesting. Definitely not what I was used to for an action
genre cartoon. As an American I was expecting something with an edge,
something aggressive - and it wasn't. It was fun though to see the full
intro that I hadn't been able to see before. But the music at the end
of the show was a total suprise. It sounded like children's music -
there was even Gohan waving "bye bye, bye bye" at one point. Maybe this
highlights the different age groups that the cartoon is targeted
towards, I don't know. But once again, American-Me was thinking
"Where's the guitars? Where's the aggressive or at least 'adolescently
hip' music?" This is a cartoon with explosions, death, maiming, etc.
etc. and there's children's music at the end?? It just wasn't all
fitting together.
But then, the biggest shock hit me when the show actually started. In
this episode, Super Saiyan Goku has beaten Frieza, but not killed him.
Frieza (what's left of him) and Goku do a lot of talking, (I don't speak
Japanese, but the gist seemed to be about their battle and Goku refusing
to finish him off) Goku takes off, Frieza is livid from disgrace, Frieza
attacks Goku in a last ditch attempt, and Goku sends a final blast down
to seemingly finish Frieza. What I couldn't believe was how feminine
Goku's voice was! Look at all the anime heroes I've grown up with -
Jesse Dart, Windstar Blackstar, Derek Wildstar, Mark & Jason, the kid
who piloted Grandizer (I can't remember his name, it's been over 15
years since I last saw those shows), and they all had very masculine,
archetypal "hero" voices. Even the most feminine looking characters,
like Zoltar and Paladin (from the Spaceketeers, or was it Starvengers?)
had unquestionably male voices. Japanese DBZ Goku sounded as masculine
as Marge Simpson or Joan Rivers! There was such a huge disconnect in my
mind between this super powered, muscular, heroic character, and his
alto ranged voice.
Other characters had the same problem - how can I believe or understand
that Frieza's this really powerful evil character when he sounds like
Alvin with his head in a vise when he launches his "final attack" at
Goku? He sounded manic and spastic, not diabolical or sadistic. I
think the American Frieza has this problem as well. First off, when I
first heard American Frieza's voice, I thought "wow, a female arch
villain" and then I kept hearing others call her a "him" - that took
some getting used to, same with Dodoria. That's a woman's name! In
English, there are no men's names that end in "ia", so why insist on it
being male? Either change the name or change the voice! Japanese
Kulilin falls into this category too - looks like a man, sounds like a
woman. Piccolo doesn't sound gruff or intimidating like American
Piccolo, he sounds just as testosteroneless as the others.
Only the voices of Vegeta, Bulma, Gohan, and the Eldest Namek (and the
new Eldest Namek) seemed to be appropriate to this American viewer.
Vegeta lost some of his "I'm sinister, don't-trust-me" character in his
Japanese voice, but at least it was clear that he was a male character,
and an important one at that. The two senior Nameks, leader-type,
powerful characters, had deep voices. The newly appointed Eldest Namek
showed his new rank by having both a commanding voice, and one that was
not as smooth or "wise" as the previous. This was a very good and
significant difference, that came through without any translation.
But all that being said, after sleeping on it, I thought that perhaps to
someone from the Japanese culture, these voices were totally
appropriate. It would be natural that Goku sounded as he did to a
Japanese person - maybe that's their archetypal "hero" voice. I don't
know, but I can tell you that after reading what you've wrote, hearing
American DBZ and Japanese DBZ, that maybe you shouldn't be so hard on
the Funimation folks' casting of the characters' voices. They make
sense to an American viewer, who makes up the audience to which the show
is being broadcasted.
As far as the content cutting and the blood and violence and such, I
didn't see anything that bad in Japanese DBZ, and I definitely agree
that the Saban folks were heavy handed with the digital paint.
And the actual scripts of the dialog - I won't even go there. I think
some of the changes to the Japanese script have been horrible, and make
significant, gut-wrenching scenes into plastic, sometimes even comic,
farce.
Thanks for reading, and keep up the good work. I'll be excited to read
about the differences between the season 3 episodes when you get the
time to write them.
- Chris Giancola |
   
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