First off, I dont wish to offend you, this is just some stuff which i find unbelievable to hear. I dont find it that hard to relate to japanese culture, true there are some things that arent easy to "get" but Its certainly not out of my reach. I dont know wether you're coming from the capitalist point of view or you actually believe that this is the correct way of it being done. Personally I just like things to be original and creative, I dont think they should be altered for a market, well definately not towards the wrong market (which is what they've done with dbz).J-Dude said:Okay...yeah I'm American. And in America, dudes voice dudes...with the exception of kid Gohan and Bart Simpson...I know it sounds like the whole "Americans are intolerant of other cultures" crap, but its hard to relate to a LOT of Japanese concepts and styles. The Orient was isolationist for Millenia, so their culture is so different that they might as well be a different species from the Western world. In the U.S., the media has tought us several constants and prejudices when it comes to entertainment:
1: Heros who fire energy blasts and can anihilate planets (unless its a strict comedy) have fierce masculine, not meek female voices. Constant cannot be breached for viewer will not take character seriously and will resort to histerics and fear viewing for public embarassment.
2: Vocal casts in a dub must be done without regard for the original voicing so characters sound like they LOOK like they should sound, and avoid unnatural voices in pitch and tone so the character will be taken seriously.
3: Whenever possible, awkward phrases translated fom the original must be replaced with adlibbed, more US appropriate dialogue (ie: Bojack Unbound: Krillin holds on for dear life as other tourney contestants fall beside him into the water, many grabbing his bald head and slipping. Original line "How come?" US viewer is unsure what was meant by this. Line does not mesh viewer comprehension and forces several rewinds and replays to try and understand. Revised line "I wax..." adds relatable comedic material and meshes perfectly.)
And I agree about the music, I'd much prefer hearing stuff from Bruce Faulconer than the improvised rock. But Nooo...they dropped Bruce and substituted the walking musical disaster, Mark Menza, a Nickelodeon standard composer of course *gag* (that bastard screwed whatever little GT had in it to Hell with his one-theme-fits-all BS...Bruce himself loathes his so-called work in GT).
It looks like you're making excuse, "its hard to relate to" no it isnt, you just have to accept thats their way of doing things. Thats all there is to tollerance, accepting that doing something another way, is not wrong, but just different. However, yes many people cant tollerate these things and wont watch something because its got a "girly" voice for the main character, but should we then cover it up just so people will watch it and we can pull in more sales? or let people learn to apprieciate the variety and originality?
Your stereotypes lead you to completely disreguard a persons entire character, and believe their characters design and development should all be scraped to fit within your idealisation of what they should be like. Its not you telling the story remember. If they dont look to you like they sound, thats because you've been led to believe that if character is to be successful it must forfill certain stereotypes. I wont begin to explain how much this frightens me.
Yes I know sometimes its hard to make some english phrases fit into the spacing the animation has, but they could at least try a little harder to make it closer to the original, there are so many flaws in the funimations dub over the entire of dragonballz pretty much because of this. Being from the US doesnt mean squat most of the time, anybody with a brain and knowledge of grammar should be able to comprehend what they hear, as long as its all cohereant afterall. What I and most people dont like, are the completely different tangents that the voice actors go off on. This means their actions and what they say dont correspond (not just in the short term, i mean the bigger picture), this produces inconsistancies in not only plot but character too.
And to be honnest, i dont like falconner either. I prefer the classical japanese soundtrack.
Personaly I love to expand my horizons, and i find unedited, unfiltered and original works always have a much better way of doing this. Revised, revisited, or reworked things are always conforming to a set of rules, this destroy the value of the original, and it seems tainted to me.