Oh my goodness, how have I missed this!!??!! And all this year?? Tsukihime, FSN AAAND Monogatari? I think my brain is going to explode
Right, time to plan a Monogatari rewatch. Ugh, I just remembered that I had read most of the first season of LNs but had to stop when I couldn't source the second season got aaages. Plan was to read and watch simultaneously but I don't think I'll have the time. Maybe I'll plan that for when they release the off season LNs in English! Or have they done that already??
Huge W for those that stream. Hopefully this creates even more UK Dragon Ball fans.
I'll be curious to see the audio options for DB and DBZ. The Japanese audio that Toei has used in their home releases for DB and DBZ isn't the best as they likely imprinted it onto the film itself and then wiped the original master audio for those unaware, which have degraded over time and so it sounds fairly muffled.
I'm sure most casual viewers will watch it dubbed for the nostalgia anyway, but just something to note if you're going to watch it in Japanese on Crunchyroll.
Toei (for whatever reason, probably legal reasons) refuses to accept the original broadcast audio of DB and DBZ that was recorded by Japanese fans on VHS tapes in the 1980s and 1990s when the show originally aired. You can hear the stark difference here between the muddied optical audio that Toei has and the original audio recorded on VHS:
It's only through the fandom that we have a quality track of the original Japanese audio of these classic shows, but they have yet to be released legally and officially. Recordings of each episode have been collected by these absolute Gods of fans and were released online, which have since been synced up to the best film scans of the series available. So unfortunately, the best release of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z is still illegal if you're a video and audiophile.
That being said, more legal Dragon Ball in the UK is always massive.
Nice. I hope the English dub for Super isn't too far off. I prefer the original Japanese for most anime, but I've always found Goku's original voice a distracting mismatch to the adult version of the character. IIRC, they kept the same VA for him as both a child in Dragon Ball and an adult in the later series.
Nice. I hope the English dub for Super isn't too far off. I prefer the original Japanese for most anime, but I've always found Goku's original voice a distracting mismatch to the adult version of the character. IIRC, they kept the same VA for him as both a child in Dragon Ball and an adult in the later series.
That's correct. Having grown up on the English Funimation dub, Goku's Japanese voice was something I had to get used to when watching the series in Japanese for the first time.
I think the original Funimation dub takes some liberties with the original Japanese script and how Goku was originally portrayed by Toriyama. Funimation kind of turned Goku into Diet Superman to appeal to Western audiences, whereas in the Japanese version he is more of an idiot, a bit of a country bumpkin, and someone who is mainly driven to become stronger and test himself against strong enemies. In English Z there's a lot of emphasis on saving the Earth and Goku being the protector of the universe, but in Japanese Z saving the Earth is more of a byproduct of Goku wanting to fight strong enemies or protecting those close to him, saving the Earth/Universe isn't at the forefront of his mind. Patrolling the streets for evil-doers isn't his priority.
Toward the end of the Saiyan Saga, English Z frames Goku sparing Vegeta as a morally "right" thing to do, in Japanese Z Goku spares Vegeta because he wants to fight him again to test his strength. Another example is when Goku gives Cell a senzu bean during the Cell Games because he believes Gohan has the strength to beat a full strength Cell. This isn't to say that Goku doesn't care about those close to him because he clearly does, but he will make questionable decisions if it means getting to fight someone strong as that is what drives a lot of his character.
The famous "I am the hope of the universe" speech Goku gives when he's facing Freeza in the English dub is probably the biggest mischaracterisation of Goku's intended character in the original English version. I believe the end of the original speech in Japanese is something like "I am a Saiyan who came all the way here to defeat you! I am Son Goku, the Super Saiyan!" whereas in English it's "I am the light in the darkness. I am truth. Ally to good, nightmare to you...". The whole point of that scene was Goku finally embracing his Saiyan heritage, which is lost in the original Funimation dub.
The way I see it, Goku is essentially a big kid, he keeps some of his personality from the OG DB, and so I can see why they continued with the somewhat higher-pitched voice in the Japanese version.
I'd highly recommend to anyone to watch the series through in Japanese at least once though, Japanese Goku's voice does grow on you. Of course, Kai's dub is a lot more accurate to the original Japanese script, so if you still want English Goku, I'd go for that.
I think the original Funimation dub takes some liberties with the original Japanese script and how Goku was originally portrayed by Toriyama. Funimation kind of turned Goku into Diet Superman to appeal to Western audiences, whereas in the Japanese version he is more of an idiot, a bit of a country bumpkin, and someone who is mainly driven to become stronger and test himself against strong enemies. In English Z there's a lot of emphasis on saving the Earth and Goku being the protector of the universe, but in Japanese Z saving the Earth is more of a byproduct of Goku wanting to fight strong enemies or protecting those close to him, saving the Earth/Universe isn't at the forefront of his mind. Patrolling the streets for evil-doers isn't his priority.
That's interesting. I watched the first English dub of Z a bunch of times, but there was a gap of quite a few years from the final time I watched that version and the first time I saw Kai in English. I knew that the old dub massively toned down implications of violence and killing ("I'll send you to another dimension", "I saw a parachute; the pilot's okay", etc), but never twigged to the changes in Goku's personality.
That's interesting. I watched the first English dub of Z a bunch of times, but there was a gap of quite a few years from the final time I watched that version and the first time I saw Kai in English. I knew that the old dub massively toned down implications of violence and killing ("I'll send you to another dimension", "I saw a parachute; the pilot's okay", etc), but never twigged to the changes in Goku's personality.
The dubbing of Dragon Ball here in the UK is an odd story, to be fair. We started with the super-censored Z and the early, heavily inaccurate FUNimation dub, then switched to the Ocean dub (which was pretty much the FUNimation script but with the Canadian voice actors returning from the censored dub and different background music), then we switched back to FUNimation for when the show was moved to CNX (remember that?) before we then switched back to the Ocean dub for the final few episodes. GT then aired, with a dub by small Ocean team "Blue Water" that retained the original GT soundtrack (hooray!) but had some real bad performances (Boo!), then finally the original DB series aired, also voiced by Blue Water but thankfully not as bad in the VA department, and we here in the UK got an exclusive intro because the Canadian Blue Water Dragon Ball dub had an aboslutely horrendous intro so bad that the UK Cartoon Network knew they had to do something about it... It mistakenly aired on one episode and I was so confused...
Anyway, it's safe to say that I assume the Crunchyroll uploads will just be the revised FUNi dub the whole way across. In any case I'm also a sub-only guy for DB. I may have watched the series as it aired above but it didn't take long for me to want to know what the "real" show was like "uncensored" (early internet sites with bloody screen grabs will do that to someone in their teens) As soon as I got my hands on some fansubbed VHS copies of some of the movies I knew how I wanted to watch the show, it just so happened that I had to wait a while, even factoring in that I imported the US "orange box" sets it took a long time until I could say I watched the whole show in original Japanese.
In terms of Crunchyroll, I'm more interested to see what visual version is uploaded, the horrible zoomed in, cropped and super bright version or the more carefully upgraded (though still not amazing) original aspect ratio version we got with the recent blu-rays?
In terms of Crunchyroll, I'm more interested to see what visual version is uploaded, the horrible zoomed in, cropped and super bright version or the more carefully upgraded (though still not amazing) original aspect ratio version we got with the recent blu-rays?
If it's the old zoomed in, 16:9 monstrosity of the orange brick DVDs for Z then it would be a major disappointment. You would have to think they would use the 30th Anniversary scans as they are the best official release thus far, but you never know.
The DB scans we got on home video in the UK are pretty much untouched from the Madman release and are okay for the most part. I believe the US got a slightly blurrier and zoomed in version, which Crunchyroll may also use, but this is nothing the casual viewer would notice.
With DB they left in the original Japanese OP/ED, which is a plus, but with Z they removed them unfortunately in place of something else (so there's no CHA-LA-HEAD-CHA-LA). And of course whatever releases they end up using will all be marred by the slightly green tinge that plagues the series.
The GT Green Brick DVDs that they'll probably use, as Crunchyroll 're-released' them a while back, are not great video-wise and no original Japanese title cards or next episode previews - but again, may be serviceable for a casual viewer.
Remembering all this just reminds me that the home video releases of DB/Z/GT have all been sub par in one way or another. Even if Toei were to one day properly remaster it, you can't trust Funimation to not mess up the English release.
Not the first time...
When PreCure Season 1 streamed in the US on Funi & CR, they had a VHS-like (how? that was a 2004 show) hardsubbed master from Nippon Golden Network (a TV station mistaken for a fansub group) - but when the show started airing in Europe, they replaced it with propper SD masters, softsubbed (and also CR US got the new materials)
Kengo Saito has grown too powerful. Funny how Sorairo Utility started with him posting art of anime girls in golf gear on Twitter and now he's directing a full TV series.
I like the way it looks too and I don't think anything was off, just limited. as in, not a lot of key frames, panning across a still frame to hide lack of animation, montages of still frames, switching between two frames to give the illusion of more animation than there actually is etc. the usual tricks used in anime to hide budget constaints. I would expect the TV series to have a bit more budget behind it, but you never know.
Kengo Saito has grown too powerful. Funny how Sorairo Utility started with him posting art of anime girls in golf gear on Twitter and now he's directing a full TV series.
Hmm, I guess that looks pleasantly bland. Or blandly pleasant. But what kind of golf show doesn't have rocket launchers, snake women, or diseases that kill you if you golf too hard?
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. Maybe I'll plan that for when they release the off season LNs in English! Or have they done that already??
. Now please stop using that paw, or wait, are you out of wishes? tsukihime, Monogatari, FSN...
