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I've been slowly making my way through the many, many editorials of this page, and I found myself noticing one major point that everyone seems to make. Many American shows aimed at the same audience as DragonBall Z escape completely unharmed with just the same kind of material FUNimation goes crazy trying to sanitize. So anyway, I'm going to give my thoughts on why that happened, why that's continuing to happen, and why Vegeta's dub voice actor is not as horrible as everyone says he is.
But first, I'm going to jump in the bandwagon and explain where I'm
coming from and how I got to know Dragonball Z.
The first anime I was introduced to was Samurai Pizza Cats. That isn't
relevent, or very interesting, but after that was canceled, I moved on to a
different anime, Sailor Moon. At this point, I was exposed to the dub version,
and only the dub version. But through that show, I learned the the terror of Really Bad Dubs. From the extensive knowledge I eventually gained of the superiority of Sailor Moon's origional version, I became rather familiar with Japanese culture. So when I first saw Dragonball Z some number of years later, I was prepared for what may have been done to it, but I had no way of telling what was cut or changed and what was not. There are some rather interesting things about my impression of this anime before I knew exactly what was cut.... First of all, I was completely unaware of the very possibility of digital paint. The blood-free battle scenes therefore were rather odd, and I assumed that it was just too much trouble to keep track of individual wounds on characters, so they kept them unmarked. Second, I heard Vegeta's American voice first and in my opinion, it suits him just fine. Sure, his Japanese voice probably has much more talent, but there's something about the American Dragonball Z. Cut as it is...Ah, yes, I'm finally getting into the promised subject of these ravings.
FUNimation's Dragonball Z is, admittedly, much, much worse than the
original version of it. However, there is something about the changed music, the voice actors, the digital paint....all those needless, petty changes that make it, not better...if they actually made the show better, it would be scary. But they make it somehow, more familiar. Less alien, more tangible. I'm not sure. I'm out of synonyms. But the bottom line is, that when they translate a Japanese show into American, as much as everyone regrets it, it has to actually BECOME AMERICAN. Which is really a frightening concept...This is why the show has crazy things like music and names, and dialouge being changed and slaughtered. Or at least, my best guess at a cause.
Now, onto more pressing matters. "Another Dimension." WHY? Everyone asks.
Why can they say "die" in Johnny Quest but not in Dragonball Z? Why is the blood edited out? Why are the bodies painted over? Must the dubbers be so insanely paranoid? Now....please don't hurt me, but YES. I think I understand why the censorship has been so immense. Dragonball Z is very, very violent. There IS no denying that. The battles are costly and take episodes. There are buckets of blood. Yeah. Americans think this stuff is cool. They're not going to start killing each other because they watch this show. But keep in mind, Dragonball Z is, as I've said, very, very violent. The American
shows that can say "die", and have blood, and keep in perverted jokes and mild
nudity are different from Dragonball Z in a very important way: They're total
jokes. They're not serious. They're not close to reality. Sure, some of them are. But if you put yourself in FUNimation's place (I know, that is a scary thought) it's important to understand that it's all that on top of the violence, and this show goes right over the edge. It gets too serious. Not too serious for Americans to handle, but too serious for Americans to admit to openly accepting.
People would still watch. They wouldn't have less viewers. Different viewers,
still, but Dragonball Z is a show that revolves around fighting. FUNimation does not do a very good job of meeting the standards of American television. But if they kept the show as great as it was supposed to be, it would not be the kind of show Cartoon Network would accept.
These are just my really pathetic opinions. Regardless of any of this, I
still hate how they ruined every line of dialouge, and it disturbs me how they
paint over bodies. I don't mind the erasing of blood, but most of their cuts are stupid and annoying. What I do think, is that they are somehow inevitable. This show could have gotten off a lot better. The first episodes were so very
promising. But with the reinterpretation of every aspect of the show, the crazy dialogue, and the stupid BG music, Dragonball Z has emerged as a completely new lifeform. This is the American Dragonball Z. Where Goku sounds like a man, Piccolo has "real feelings" for Gohan and Vegeta says "YOU STUPID FOOL!" Like it or hate it, the dub has a much different feel than the original, and we might as well enjoy it. Afterall, technically they're right. Goku and the others DID go to another dimension when they died. Where else could you find a place like HFIL?
- Jackie B. |
   
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