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I'll readily admit that the anime that holds the number 1 spot in my heart is
"Sailor Moon" (though not the crappy American dub), but I have come to love
DragonBall Z, too (for some reason, they didn't broadcast just plain
DragonBall in my area). And in case anybody's curious, I've only ever seen
the dub (plus 2.5/3 of the dubbed movies on Cartoon Network). It's my shame;
it's my Scarlet Letter. But that's not important.
Anyway, here's my little anecdote about how I started to watch the series; I
was a fan of the series "Biker Mice from Mars" (a suprisingly well-done
American cartoon that never got the ratings it deserved--don't get me started
about television nitwits who would replace a cool series with, say, "Jack
Hanna's Animal Adventures" or "Action Man"), and during the last season, the
weirdos at Channel 7 decided to broadcast it at 6:30 am on Saturday mornings.
Being a dedicated fan, I not only DID wake up at 6:30 to watch it; I would
wake up at 5:30 AM to make sure I didn't miss it, and I taped it (starting two
minutes early and ending two minutes late).
This gets to DragonBall Z; just be patient.
Anyway, they cancelled the series, but part of me still hoped (and still does)
that some genius programmer would get his head out of his ass and run "Biker
Mice" reruns early on Saturday morning as opposed to "Sky Dancers" or
"DragonFlyz" or "Night Rider" or whatever they put on. So I would get up
really early and watch these abysmally horrific cartoons, just in case they
suddenly started to run the show again. They never did, even after I expanded
my search to Sunday mornings. Still, I was persistent.
Then, one morning....
"DRAGON DRAGON, ROCK THE DRAGON, DRAGON DRAGON BALL Z!"
"Hmmm," I said to myself. "That is a really sucky opening theme, even by
American standards. "
Fortunately, what was between the opening and ending theme was much better,
and even though I wouldn't wake up at 6:30 AM to DBZ, I was more than willing
to tape it. I mean, sure, I wasn't exactly hooked, but I was starting to get
curious as to whether or not Goku would ever make it to Namek.
Thankfully, Cartoon Network picked the series up, and now I've seen most of
the dubbed episodes. All things considered, it could be worse (I can hear you
saying: "HOW?", but give me a minute), and I came to enjoy it. Even with some
of its more notable problems, the dub still has great action, and some really
humorous moments--like in one of the early episodes, when Yamcha is playing on
a baseball team, and dances joyously into a fight. I get a kick out of the
fight scenes, and now, I usually tune in to the series every day.
That said, now it's "bitch about the dub time." One of the things I really
had a problem with was the digital painting. The one episode that stands out
in my mind was after (I'm not quite sure if I've got this right) Vegita
manages to reduce giant berzerker ape Gohan to cute little naked Gohan. Know
which episode I mean? They paint what's apparently supposed to be a strip of
fabric that gets torn off Vegita's pant leg across Gohan's little naked butt.
Now, I don't know about you people, but I don't have a problem with butts. I
happen to have one myself, and always have. Seeing a naked butt doesn't
disturb me, and I don't think it would disturb any five or six year old to see
one, either (they have asses as well, and have probably seen them, too).
The lack of blood sucked, too. I think blood lends authenticity to a story,
and actually helps to show that violence has consequenses. I think that's
kind of where the effort to tone down DBZ's violence failed. When you "send
characters to another dimension" and show someone being pummeled mercilessly
for fifteen minutes straight and they don't have so much as a bruise, I think
it shows kids that you CAN beat the crap out of someone and not hurt them.
This kinda crap would instigate violence! A five year old might think, "Hey,
I can bash little Janey's head in, and she'll just be unconcious!" If you
show the blood, show the arms and heads and stuff being cut off, it has more
of an impact.
I thought the "Another Dimension" stuff was kinda stupid, too. I mean, anyone
with half a brain in their head is going to realize that these characters
died. Any child with any grounding in Christian religion or who has ever seen
a picture of an angel knows what a halo means. Let characters die. Kids know
what death is, even if they've never experienced the death of a relative or
anything like that. They know it from seeing roadkill, or from losing a pet,
or whatnot. Death is a necessary component of life. Let a kid know about it
early on, and I think they'll be able to cope with the notion better. (And,
digital painting or no, I could see "HELL" on the shirts. Eat that, parental
watchdog groups! ^-^).
As far as the voice acting goes......I haven't seen the original Japanese
version, so I can't do a rundown and say, "So and so was nothing like so and
so." I thought Piccolo's voice fit his character, and that Saffron Henderson
sucked as Gohan. And yeah, I thought Freeza might be a girl at first, too. I
mean, the voice, and the lips, the color scheme....makes ya wonder (look out,
Freeza: here comes Jerry Fallwell!)
The American voices worked for me, worked well enough, anyway. Thing is,
though, thanks to my favorite subtitled (VKLL) and a CD collection of songs
from Sailor Moon (JAPANESE songs; the English ones suck sour frog's ass!),
I've become addicted to Japanese voices. The actors tend to have a much
better range, can express emotion better, and they scream really well! What
more could you ask? I love the language, and its musical quallity. I'm
certain the Japanese actors could whip the American ones in a voice-off (if
there is such a thing), in any case, but in all reality, a subtitled anime
series broadcast in the US probably wouldn't catch on (a pity and a sin, lemme
tell ya, especially since it could improve reading rates AND encourage
billingualism).
What I've never understood is why an anime series can be adapted nearly
flawlessly, dubbed, and distributed direct-to-video in the US, but any attempt
to prepare a broadcast series results in the series being hacked to pieces.
For example, look at "Neon Genesis Evangelion." The storyline was unchanged,
there were no cuts, the voice actors were terrific, and there was no attempt
to cover up parts that weren't in the Japanese version. Result; the series
gets a ton of new fans, ADV makes tons of money, and young men sit up in their
computer room at the end of episode 25 and go, "What the Hell was THAT about?"
for nights on end. Success! Of course, you can attribute this to the great
story; Evangelion is extremely gripping and can be addictive (so says the guy
with all 13 volumes in his video rack). But ADV did a great job adapting what
was one of the most popular anime in modern times for an American audience.
Other series have been very well, too. Ranma 1/2 has had four or so seasons
and all its OAV's dubbed and is still selling well, for example.
But watch out when someone decides to prepare an anime for broadcast. There
seems to be an unwritten rule that if you want to broadcast a Japanese cartoon
in this country, you have to ruin it completely first. Look at what they did
to DragonBallZ and Sailor Moon. Since I've got more experience with the
latter, I do want to touch on it briefly. If you decided you didn't like
Sailor Moon when you saw the dub, you can blame DIC. The original is much
better. DICK--I mean, DIC--changed relationships, changed attack names,
changed character names (Death Phantom became Doom Phantom, and Black Lady
became Wicked Lady), came up with really sucky music, changed one character's
gender (Zoisite), and picked the worst possible voice actress for Sailor
Moon--Terry Hawkes, who, with the help of the talentless re-writers,
transformed lovable, innocent ditz Usagi into idiotic valley girl mallbunny
Serena. Somehow, DIC almost completely ruined what was one of the coolest
animated series I've ever seen! Same with DragonBallZ (though DIC didn't have
a hand in this).
What if the two series had been released direct to video? One can only guess,
but I'm willing to bet both of them would have been 300000% better. That's a
conservative estimate, I know.
I do want to touch on some of the good things about the dub, though.
Remember, kiddies, it could have been worst. Much, much, much worse. They
could've changed all the characters' names, "Americanized" them, if you will.
Some exec at Funimation probably had the following thought at some point; If
Usagi=Serena, then Goku=Steve. There could've been worse voice actors, too;
ever see "Thundercats"? The performances are shockingly stilted, and the
actors show no real emotion at any point. Even with the major cuts the show
experienced, the storyline still remained essentially the same, and there
weren't any crappy "transitional" scenes (Sailor Moon fans will know what I'm
talking about; strictly DragonBallZ fans, fortunately, might not). As many
others have pointed out, if not for the dub, many American fans would never
have HEARD of DBZ. So you have to give them that much credit. But the
differenced between the Funimation version and the Japanese version is the
difference between reading one of those "Classics Illustrated" books and the
actual novel. You know the story, but you lose alot in the translation.
Sorry for rambling like this! If I ever write another essay, it'll be much
better. Thanks for listening!
- "Stoker1439" |
   
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