Fusion Reborn (Spoilers)

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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).
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).

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.
 
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Yep, definitely purist. I'll respect wanting to keep things for yourself the way Akira originlly envisioned them, but you need to understand something about the American audience: Our media is huge, and half the time unique from the rest of the world. I take a class on media literacy, and I can tell you that through advertisement, steroetypical messages, and other things that every American is similarly affected whether they mean to be or not. The American media isn't just part of our culture...it IS our culture.

This may make people think that Americans can't stand things that aren't purely American. Not entirely true, but it is much harder to realate for them. But I was listing constants in AMERICAN media not MY constants. These are things the typical American viewer expects, and you risk losing the audience if you don't abide by their expectations.

I know that sounds sad, but the American media is HUGE, and correspondingly causes HUGE infuences on the American mind. Half these built in prejudices are from consumer advertising. "Your not cool if you're not like that guy, you have to be this way and use this product to be beautiful, etc".

I have since learned from my classes how to see through this and not take it seriously, but the damage is done, growing up with a media like that, you can't help but be influenced into seeing the world as being this or that.

One thing that the media has inadvertently said is that Asian people and their customs are wierd, so don't even bother to understand them or their values. This of course is a crappy way to view things, but often, these things are too deep rooted in the viewer, and they tend to avoid the culture.

Funimation new this going into it. They realized they either would have a smash hit, or a sad flop. Oceangroup had gained a little audiencee with their dub, but they proved the music which tried abiding by the original seemed indistinguished and plain to the viewers. And the voices which I assume were meant to be something close to the original cast weren't unique enough.

Like I said, these are from built in ways of viewing things. If you're taught all your life that roses are ugly, then you will likely be disgusted in later years by the sight of them.

I can't stand to hear the Oceangroup dub personally. Vegeta sounded ratlike, Goku sounded a bit annoying, and Krillin was a nail-chalkboard combo in a can. Hearing the Funimation changes was a breath of fresh air for me.

I know that the original music of DBZ was basically the same as in Dragonball, though technically in Japan, there was no Z, just one LONG series. I watched Dragonball when it came around and I know now that the music is unchanged from the original. Hearing it in DBZ never sounded right to me. It always reminded me of circus music. It was fine for Kid Goku and his earlier stuf,, because it sounded very kidlike. But DBZ was the more serious action-packed version of its predecessor. And action that extreme required something different for the minds of a people who link heavy-metal rock to explosions.

In came Bruce Faulconer, who the American audience loved to pieces. In my opinion, he's the best soundtrack artist there is. The Japanese music didn't work with the hard corse American audience, so they needed a new score.

This helped DBZ in America evolve drastically. The music now helped move the story, it was a main motivator, not just background. The Japanese music was inconsistent, and had huge gaps between parts with music. In US DBZ, there are few if any gaps, so the music is immersive and ever present.

In short, it was perfect for the audience it was trying to reach and it worked.

Just realize that Americans have a LOT of channels and selection, and if you don't hook 'em quick with something, they're likely to pass it by without further ado. The US DBZ does that, and fulfills its purpose. I don't think there were THAT many plotholes. The ones you listed seemed rather trivial, and I had never though about them before.

True, I didn't remember in the Red Ribbon Army saga of Dragonball that Gero was even present, I just assumed I missed an episode. I found that interesting. But half the viewers didn't even bother to notice or didn't see anything wrong in the first place. The dubbing isn't perfect, but it was good enough.
 
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You've simply backed up what I said. My main point was, things shouldnt be altered because people are so into their own world they wont accept anything else. You seem to think that the only way dbz can be good, is if it blends nicely into american culture, and is aimed at the right market, personally I think any sort of show/movie is an artform, and you dont take a pallette knife to the mona lisa to make the impressionists like it more. When you watch dbz, you should know you're watching something from japanese culture, you shouldn't surpress this, changing things, altering things, immediately closes off a whole other way of thinking.

Culture isnt an obstruction of making money, its something that brings diversity into the world, and thats a good thing.
 
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I think it is a matter of of preference. If you saw the japanese versions first, you would probably like the Japanese version, same with the english version.

I could watch either version and be satisfied, but the US version just appeals to me more because I prefer english Goku (I would expect myself to hate the Japanese Goku, but for some reason I think it fits well).

I do not like the Japanese soundtrack because it sounds old/out of place to me. It sounds a bit too cheery. It worked for Dragonball, but it doesn't seem like it fits to me. I liked the music for the english Janemba, a bit over used I must say, but at least it doesn't have growled out lyrics like the Brolly Movies.
 

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