My Take on FUNimation's Practices and Their Version of Dragon Ball Z
By Justin C. Buehner
Although this subject has been beaten to death repeatedly, I feel everyone is entitled to their two cents on the matter. As stated in the title of this essay, this is my take on the subject.
Before I start bashing and tearing FUNimation apart, however, I wish to get out of the way what good they did. For starters, if it hadn't been for FUNimation, many people would not know what Dragon Ball Z was. My brother and I would have never had exposure to this great anime (which is what I must absolutely emphasize to those who don't understand anime that IT'S NOT A GOD FORSAKEN CARTOON!), and would not have become the fans we are today. They handled the release of the first three movies and their airing on Cartoon Network beautifully. With Saban out of the picture we are getting (visually) uncut videos, and censoring on CN has been (although some would disagree) satisfyingly low. Thanks to FUNimation, DBZ has been able to reach masses that would have never otherwise been reached.
Yet even though my brother and I still watch the dub, we have major problems with it. Even though FUNimation has done us a great service, it does not excuse them from completely bastardizing the series as "Saban forced them to do" and are continuing to do on their own.
(I'd like to add that, while writing this essay, I was over at The Temple O' Trunks and have just seen Goku's transformation into Super Saiya-jin in Spanish... simply amazing. I had chills all over my body and tears coming from my eyes as I was watching [no joke!]. It was truly moving. THIS is how dubbing should be done! I envy all who have Telemundo >=| ).
Since it is the foremost point of ridicule, I will look at the dialogue and the script changes first. While I understand cutting swearwords out (as I understand it, it's used sparingly), what I do not understand is the complete rewrite of the show. Isn't the show already written? Why do they have to do this? The answer: Gen Fukinaga himself stated, in an interview (Mr. Chris Psaros has the interview posted in the Opinions section on his page) that they are targeting a younger crowd, around four to eleven years of age. Therefore, he gives us the impression that he thinks all the viewers of the show are young, hyperactive children with short attention spans that have low IQs and can't understand anything unless it's spelled out for them. By trying to appeal to a crowd younger than the one original Japanese one (mid/late-teen to early adulthood), they sacrifice the more appealing and artistic qualities. The maturity that the show posseses is being tampered with, even eliminated, to make it, to paraphrase Mr. Greg Werner, "suitable for kiddies that aren't even out of the womb". Need evidence? Look at Mr. Wener's page. In the part of the site that details the fight against Freezer, it's stated that, after Kuririn is killed by him, Freezer says something to the degree of "Who dies next? The boy, perhaps?" (which may be totally wrong on my part, and if so, I apologize in advance). Instead of that, we get "POP GOES THE WEASEL!", which is sounds incredibly stupid, ruins the mood and tone of the scene, and is totally unforgiveable in my opinion. Then there are numerous instances of bad dialogue becoming worse dialogue (Bahta's "Bite me!" becoming "Turkey!" and Kuririn's "ready to kick butt/tail" incident are good examples), and things that are just flat out retarded (Gohan's statement upon summoning Pornuga, anybody?). Now, with the advent of Gundam Wing's faithful adherence to the original script (God, I love that show. You know, I really felt Katra's pain when his father died), FUNimation has absolutely no reason, for a lack of a better term, to fudge the script anymore.
As I stated earlier, Gen Fukinaga himself in an interview stated that they are targeting a younger crowd of around four to eleven years of age. Now, in the same interview (mentioned above), he (or mabybe it was his wife. I dunno, they're both exactly like Al Gore: pathological liars) clearly states that the series is more popular with an older crowd. That is something I can attest to, since one of the wrestlers, a freshman, at my school, along with his brother, are also avid fans of the show, plus, with the help of the translated manga, I have turned two more of our wrestlers, also freshmen, onto the series. If the show is so popular with older people, THEN WHY DO THEY CONTINUE TO GEAR IT TOWARDS THE YOUNGER AUDIENCE?! The way I see it, if they find something is more popular with an older audience, then they should gear it towards an older audience. If they have trouble with airing it on it's current timeslot, then they should do what Cartoon Network has done with Gundam Wing: air a slightly censored (CENSORSHIP ME HATE!) version on the regular timeslot and and the same episode at midnight, only the uncut version. If that doesn't work, then they should have some talks with Showtime. They (Showtime) have shown some anime from time to time (Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie and one of the Gowacaizer movies, assuming there is more than one, are the two I know of). If all else fails, there's always exclusive tape and DVD release.
Next up: visual censorship. Flickers, blood, gore, and the like are not really taboo on American television (I swear, we are one strange nation), so I understand to an extent why they censor this, even though I don't agree with it, and ridiculous censors, such as Gohan's tears in one episode, his toe in another, and the sign that read "occupied" being painted over, are unacceptable. However, I feel that the problems aren't stemming from FUNimation's policies, but the degredation of the American family. Nowadays television is relied upon as a babysitter. Many parents just are not spending as much time with their kids as in the past, allowing them to run free and do as they please without regard to either authority or the consequences of their actions. And when something like Littleton, Colorado or Columbine occurs, people look for the easiest thing to blame: television, video games, music, movies, and guns. No one cares to blame the human nature of the perpetrator; it's not their fault they commited such a horrible crime. "He watched too much Gundam Wing; he played Mortal Kombat too often; he listened to too much rap with explicit lyrics; his parents had guns in the home..." ...the list of excuses go on, and it appals me that no one fesses up to their wrongdoings.
The music. Lord knows we all love music, and the music of DBZ just adds richness to the series. Don't believe me? Check out the battle between SSJ2 Gohan and Perfect Cell on VegettoEX's page, listen to the background music in the fight between Piccolo and Sanshyo in DBZ movie 1, the beginning and end of the battle with Garlic Jr. in movie 1, or see the music video of Gohan's first explosion into SSJ2 at The Temple O' Trunks. You'll see what I mean. With this much good music, it boggles the mind as to why FUNimation has to remove and has some "composer" write and play "music" on a keyboard, which flat out sucks. Why does the American score suck? First off, it's repetitive. It's played over and over and eventually, to much annoyance, gets stuck into your mind. Secondly, there's no variation. There are only four themes I can identify: dread, heroic, comedic, and peaceful. Each theme is based on the same rhythm and beat, and nothing else is used. And finally, it's uninspired. It doesn't enhance the viewer's experience, all it's there for is to fill the so-called "break in the action" (if you've read the article in the Dallas Observer, you'll know what I mean, and was probably as angry about how it was written as I was) which is so necessary for numerous reasons I can't begin to explain. Once again, I bring up Gundam Wing and it's use of the original Japanese score (I just love the closing theme, don't you?). Also, it would seem that it would probably cheaper to use the original music instead of paying more to have some "composer" write a "score" for it. Just imagine how much FUNimation could possibly save if they went with this idea. And since they proved that they do own rights to the original score by playing the original ending at the end of the uncut tapes, they cannot say they can't do so.
If the dialogue is the most annoying aspect of the dub, then the voice acting comes in a close second. Save for a select few, FUNimation really screwed the fans over on this one. How so? Well, first off, they have absolutely no emotion. The VAs aren't trying to put themselves into their character's position or understand the situation, all they're doing is reading the lines on the paper as Christopher Sabat tells them to, not to mention they have absolutely no exposure to the original Japanese version (read VegettoEX's interview with Monika Antionelli if you don't know what I mean). Secondly, they don't fit the facial expressions very well. In the dub episode "The Fusion", just by watching Freezer's facial expressions you can tell that, in the original version, he gets to a point where he's all out screaming at Kuririn, Gohan, and Vegeta. The woman who voices him does a terrible job of this. Thirdly, they flat out don't fit. Along with script changes such as the removing of much needed dialogue and the adding of useless lines, the VA's make the characters sound totally different than what they are intended to sound like, and because of this, you get the wrong impression about what the character is like. An example would be what FUNimation has done to Kuririn. They have changed him from a brave, intelligent fighter who is a little afraid to die (because he already has once) and who wishes only to find a girlfriend, whom we've all come to know and love, to an annoying, cowardly little pest that was better off dead. It's a disgusting practice that angers me greatly, since Kuririn is one of my favorite characters. And finally, the voices sound absolutely terrible. Nail's voice is too grating and speaks too fast, Piccolo sounds way too gruff, Kuririn sounds like a mockery of Trey Parker's Jimbo from South Park, Gohan sounds much older than six... I could complain forever. Then there are the minor characters and voices like Chi-Chi's, Bulmas, Kaio-sama's, Freezer's, and Vegeta's (a marginal one... personally, I felt Brian Drummond was better) that I have absolutely nothing good to say about. And then Gundam Wing comes along yet again, using the original dub cast of DBZ, and completely blows out of the water, and now with the return of Ian Corlett, Goku's first and undoubtedly his best VA, to The Ocean Group (I'm not kidding, read the end credits and you'll see it there, although I've only been able to see it on the uncut episode credits at 11:00 pm [Alaska Standard Time]), we can only imagine how much it can get better.
So now my essay is over. I hope I got my point across and I hope that I didn't come across as a rambling idiot. If you, the reader, feel as if I had been unfair in anyway, please let me know, and if I have offended anybody, I am deeply sorry.