The Never-Ending Rant
DBZ: The Next Generation of Voices
by Ira GoldbergIssue II - December 25th, 1999
A few months ago I remember a friend of mine remarking that the voice acting of Dragonball Z was terrible. He also ranted on and on about how the American translations took away so much from the meanings. Quite frankly, I couldn't careless about the whole thing. I found his whole arguement stupid, and with the exception of Freeza and Mr. Popo I actually thought the voice actors were exceptionally good.
But then the new episodes came out starting the beginning of September and low and behold all the voice actors had been changed. For some reason it didn't have the same impact as before and its not simply knowing the voices from a year of watching it. They're just not good. Its simply my belief that for whatever reason they decided not to rehire any of the original voice actors, they in turn have hurt the show even further and it sounds even more directed to five year olds now than ever.
One of my biggest complaints is that of King Kai, who I can barely understand let alone see him as a wise diety-like creature. King Kai's voice gave you the impression that he was ages older than his appearance. Vegeta is yet another terrible conversion, now being extremely raspy and he sounds like a typical cartoon villian let alone a teenager opposed to a thirty year old fighter. The Ginyu force just didn't have the same effect they did prior to voice acting. Their comical side-gag was completely lost after conversion. Krillin by far was the worst of any of the voices. No longer is our little, bald-headed friend an slightly cowardice, dedicated friend, but now sounds like a constipated old man which. If the voice HAD to be cast, Roshi would probably the best choice though it still would provide little improvement.
But there are a few decent improvements, in my opinion. for instance, I do like the voice of Mr. Popo, despite how short his appearance is, far better than his Shaft-like voice prior. Don't get me wrong, I love an Isaac Hayes sound-a-like, but he doesn't belong in this series. Freeza's voice does get better and though my question as to whether its a she or he is getting worse, I have to say its pretty good. His second stage voice was very well cast and the third stage is pretty neat with a mix of his prior two selves. I would prefer some more cryptic voice for his fourth stage but you can't always get your way. Piccolo's voice was my personal favorite prior to the change, but his voice is not to bad now. It still doesn't give the same feeling of the Piccolo I was hoping to show up for the entirety of the Freeza saga, but its good to see they didn't butcher his voice to badly nor Goku's, though I really would have liked to see the main character staying the same.
It was such a great original casting job. It makes you really wish that they never had to change it on us dedicated vewiers of the edited version no matter how edited it may be. If someone can explain why they fired the whole voice staff Drop me a Line. In any case, its like a TV show, you don't just recast the actors of Seinfeld. They grew on us and you just can't shake them. And do Tien and Yamcha sound exactly alike to anyone else? R.I.P. DBZ!