Rank your favorite voice casts

[TechExpert2021]

The Dragon Ball franchise has a lot of voice actors, both Japanese and dubs. I can only rank voice casts that I know the most. Here's how I rank them. Apologies if I missed some.

㊀ Original Japanese voice cast: The definitive Dragon Ball voice cast. The Japanese voice actors, or seiyus (声優), are talented; they give the series' characters memorable voices and portray the characters well. The Japanese narration by Joji Yanami is top-notch.

㊁ Funimation/Crunchyroll voice cast (post-Kai): I'm somewhat of a dub fan (but I'll always agree their 1999 dub of Z is a hot mess!) so I'm mostly familiar with the Funimation dub voice cast. They have become the most tolerable English voice cast of the Dragon Ball franchise since their dub of DBZ Kai. The voice actors have developed their roles and Funimation (as Crunchyroll since 2022) has since become an anime powerhouse outside Japan, joining Viz Media and other professional anime distributors. Chris Ayres' performance as Freeza blew Linda Young out of the water since they used to mistake Freeza as female, but actually, he's male. Colleen Clickenbeard fits Gohan's English voice very well, better than Stephanie Naldony's Gohan. Monica Rial as Bulma is much more talented than Tiffany Vollmer's Bulma. Doc Morgan as a narrator fits well within the narration style of Dragon Ball, along with Joji Yanami. Sean Schemmel as Kaio-sama sounds unfitting for the character, however.

㊂ Ocean Productions voice cast (Saban era): I'm not a fan of the Ocean dub voices, but their performances sounded great, given the fact that Ocean Productions has talented Canadian voice actors and they are heavily involved in voice acting in many animated productions outside of Dragon Ball, especially during the 1990s. They did an amazing job with the Pioneer dubs of the first 3 DBZ films.

㊃ FUNimation voice cast (2003-2009): At least they're somewhat better than their 1999 selves, but it does not come close to being acceptable by most fans. They range from being okay (Sean Schemmel's Goku) to mediocre (Stephanie Nadolny's Gohan) or outright trash (Tiffany Vollmer's Bulma). Quality varies between their dubs of the DBZ movies and episodes of their DBZ Ultimate Uncut dub.

㊄ Ocean Productions voice cast (Westwood/Blue Water Studios era): The Westwood-era performances are a downgrade from their original performances of the original Ocean/Saban dub. This is attributed to the horrible voice direction of the Westwood dub since they're trying to copy the scripts and dialogue of the FUNimation dub but with child-friendly edits to eliminate any references to death or hell from those scripts, much like the Ocean/Saban dub (although this practice is mostly abolished after the Fusion saga in the Buu saga). For the Blue Water dubs, their performances are okay but inferior to the FUNimation voices on some occasions. Their dub scripts are mostly superior to those in the FUNimation dubs of Dragon Ball and DBGT. Interestingly enough, Ocean Productions dubbed DBGT before FUNimation, so that's a nice quick start for them.

㊅ FUNimation voice cast (1999-2003): This ranges from average to downright awful. They were amateurs at the time of dubbing DBZ in 1999; their amateurish performances are mostly noticeable in the Namek and Garlic Jr. sagas. This is because FUNimation instructed them to imitate the original Ocean/Saban dub voice cast, which did not go well for the most part. They slightly improved in the Cell and Buu sagas, as well as their dub of Dragon Ball in 2001, but it is not enough.

㊆ Creative Products Filipino English voice cast: This English voice cast is the rarest voice cast to exist. From what I can tell, the dub used a female narrator as opposed to a male one. The voice acting is somewhat amateurish like the 1999 FUNimation dub of DBZ (correct me if I'm wrong), although the Filipino English dubs have accurate scripts. I have no further comment on it since their dubs of Dragon Ball and DBZ are partially lost as they had never made it to home video (except their dub of the 5th and 6th DBZ films but combined into one film, named DBZ: The Greatest Rivals). The only surviving copies of the dub are the TV recordings ripped straight off of RPN 9 during the airing of the Filipino English dub between 1994-1998.

㊇ AB Groupe "Big Green" voice cast: Laughably horrendous. They only dubbed all 3 Dragon Ball films, 13 DBZ films, and the DBGT TV special. The voice cast is mostly English-speaking voice actors residing in France (where the Dragon Ball franchise was massively popular there before the United States, as manga and anime became popular in France after the 1980s). Their "Big Green" dubs are not intended for serious viewing.

㊈ Speedy Video Malaysian English voice cast: Terrible and funny at the same time. As the Speedy dubs are bootleg dubs, they're not meant for serious viewing, like the "Big Green" dubs.

How would you rank your favorite voice casts?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

. This is attributed to the horrible voice direction of the Westwood dub since they're trying to copy the scripts and dialogue of the FUNimation dub but with child-friendly edits to eliminate any references to death or hell from those scripts, much like the Ocean/Saban dub (although this practice is mostly abolished after the Fusion saga in the Buu saga).

I don't think it was a case that the Westwood dub was trying to copy Funimation's dub. That dub was rushed out the door because Ocean had to get a dub out to sell to international territories like the Netherlands and UK who were likely finding Funimation's dub too expensive to license long term, so it was more a convenience matter. Of course once it came time to dub GT Ocean were able to plan out a dub right and wrote original scripts that were very faithful.

In any case it's a well known fact that the Westwood dub was a chaotic production, and I don't think its fair to judge the cast based on it, as I believe they did the best job possible given the circumstances, Funimation's original Z dub isn't any better. The Ocean cast's performances in the never-before-seen Kai dub is likely just as good, if not better than the Funimation cast's performances in Kai, Super and the revival movies.

I'm quite exhausted now and wouldn't be able to write a sufficient analysis of each cast but if I had to rank them based on ability it would be:

1. Japanese cast
2. Ocean Group cast
3. Bang Zoom cast
4. Harmony Gold cast
5. Funimation cast
6. Blue Water cast
7. Big Green cast
8. Creative Corp Product cast
9. Speedy cast

[MasenkoHA]

In any case it's a well known fact that the Westwood dub was a chaotic production, and I don't think its fair to judge the cast based on it, as I believe they did the best job possible given the circumstances, Funimation's original Z dub isn't any better.

As far as acting goes I would go far as saying for the most part it was actually worse in the Cell saga. Saffron Henderson and Jillian Michaels are infinity more tolerable than Stephanie Nadolny's Son Started Chainsmoking at 3 years old Gohan. Chris Sabat's Piccolo still sounded like a moron and his Vegeta was still sounding like Wish.com Brian Drummond (something not fixed in the remastered dub) so even lesser performances by Scott Mneil and Brian Drummond sound better. Sean Schemmel was getting better but really didn't get his Goku down until the Buu saga. Weirdly, I think Kelamis' Ninja Turtle Goku and the goofy 80s Saturday Morning sounding recycled Megaman music go together. And Kirby Marrow eh his performance is inoffensive. I seem to recall Vollmer still doing the over the top valley girl Bulma voice, only dialing it back for the Trunks special, and only really consistently dropping it for the Buu saga/original Dragon Ball. I really don't like Eric Vale or Ocean Guy's whose name I can't be bothered to look up as Future Trunks. I recall 17 and 18 being about equal between the Ocean and Funimation actors. The Megaman music is whatever but I can't stand the Faulconer score.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

As far as acting goes I would go far as saying for the most part it was actually worse in the Cell saga. Saffron Henderson and Jillian Michaels are infinity more tolerable than Stephanie Nadolny's Son Started Chainsmoking at 3 years old Gohan. Chris Sabat's Piccolo still sounded like a moron and his Vegeta was still sounding like Wish.com Brian Drummond (something not fixed in the remastered dub) so even lesser performances by Scott Mneil and Brian Drummond sound better. Sean Schemmel was getting better but really didn't get his Goku down until the Buu saga. Weirdly, I think Kelamis' Ninja Turtle Goku and the goofy 80s Saturday Morning sounding recycled Megaman music go together. And Kirby Marrow eh his performance is inoffensive. I seem to recall Vollmer still doing the over the top valley girl Bulma voice, only dialing it back for the Trunks special, and only really consistently dropping it for the Buu saga/original Dragon Ball. I really don't like Eric Vale or Ocean Guy's whose name I can't be bothered to look up as Future Trunks. I recall 17 and 18 being about equal between the Ocean and Funimation actors. The Megaman music is whatever but I can't stand the Faulconer score.

Yeah the inhouse cast's performances were quite rough for the majority of the Z dub. Everyone points to the Boo arc as when they got good, I'd still say they were so-so at best by that point. The Ocean cast similarly took some time to get back into the roles, we know there was a rotating roster of directors for the Westwood dub who were largely inexperienced and it showed in the Android arc and to a lesser extent the Cell arc. The Boo arc is when the Ocean cast really shined, direction and production values picked up and performances were coming close to their glory days from the Saban dub. I'd probably say Sean Schemmel and Kirby Morrow were even for Goku, Schemmel was a better casting but Morrow had acting experience on his side.

But yeah neither dub had an amazing Trunks at that point. Alistair Abell sounded like a tortured soul, which worked well because that's what he was. Eric Vale was more youthful sounding but I don't think that was the best approach to take. Kirby Morrow would have been fantastic as Trunks though. I always thought the androids were intentionally given robotic sounding voices. In terms of the other actors, Ted Cole played #17, for #18 it was long thought Enuka Okuma voiced her in the Westwood dub but in more recent years it was revealed to be Farrell Spence at the start but then Willow Johnson took over at one point. I like the replacement score from Tom Keenlyside, John Mitchell and David Iris even if a lot of it is just lifted from another show, thrown together and doesn't entirely fit Dragon Ball. The Faulconer score doesn't fit at all and is by far the inferior choice if Kikuchi isn't an option. The Westwood score actually has some silent moments though, and has more of a chilled feel to it overall, I think it works better even if the more action oriented tracks get a bit cheesy sounding.

I'd still say on the whole the Westwood dub is still better than the inhouse Z dub. If its a choice between seasoned actors badly directed and inexperienced actors with meh direction I'd take the former any day. It's easy to take clips in isolation of one of the actors on their bad days (which both Westwood and inhouse Z had) and write off an entire dub, but a lot of fans who do this have never given the Westwood dub a chance beyond that. I've watched both dubs of Z in their entirety and prefer Westwood.

Of course by the time Kai came around the Funimation cast had experience and were mostly churning out solid performances with good direction to back it up, and while I have nostalgia for the Westwood dub Funimation Kai is the better production. Its such a shame we don't have Ocean Kai, as we know Ocean took their time with that dub, aside from the replacement score evidently took a more faithful approach, and of course had the better cast. It would be much more fair to compare the Funimation and Ocean casts if we had both Kai dubs as each featured the two casts in the best possible circumstances, although I imagine Ocean would still come out on top. Brian Drummond was one of the highlights of the Super dub for his cameo as Copy Vegeta.

[Cure Dragon 255]

1-Japanese: I dont usually watch DB in Japanese but this is Toriyama's vision most accurately as possible and they are the best.
2-Latin America sans the Kai dub: This one is the most respectful and accurate to the Japanese version and is the version I watch most consistently and enjoy the most.
3-France post Kai: They are mostly the same as the old days except with MUCH more experience and WAY BETTER direction plus a much more accurate translation.
4-Spain: These actors are done so dirty by the fandom and the historical context this dub cast worked with. They are good but the awful French dub scripts REALLY LIMIT what they can do with their performances. I am MEGA LOOKING forward to Spain Kai.

[MasenkoHA]

Yeah the inhouse cast's performances were quite rough for the majority of the Z dub. Everyone points to the Boo arc as when they got good, I'd still say they were so-so at best by that point.

I think the Boo saga was around when the Funimation cast mostly got their shit together, yeah. They weren't amazing performances but most of them finally reached some level of competence. At any rate I never noticed as much of a leap in acting quality between the Funi legacy cast in the Buu saga and Funi Kai, except perhaps Sabat's Vegeta and Piccolo.


.

But yeah neither dub had an amazing Trunks at that point. Alistair Abell sounded like a tortured soul, which worked well because that's what he was. Eric Vale was more youthful sounding but I don't think that was the best approach to take. Kirby Morrow would have been fantastic as Trunks though

My problem with both were they were just plain bad performances. Abell seemed to have no clue what he was doing (which might have been a directing issue) and Vale has such a forced put upon tough guy voice that Funimation likes to rely on , incidentally he's one of those few performances that somehow got worse in Kai and Super. I assume with Abell it might have been a Sailor Moon S dub situation where the veteran actors fared a bit better since they were used to voicing the characters for a while but the replacement/newcomers mostly gave far worse performances since they were only ever given shitty voice direction to work with.

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I always thought the androids were intentionally given robotic sounding voices.

They definitely were. One of the problems with the Funi dub (and by extension the Ocean dub for using pretty much the exact same scripts) is the writers or Barry Watson or whoever seemed to be under the impression 17 and 18 were fully mechanical with several references in the dialog indicating they were 100 percent robot. It definitely influenced the direction for all 4 actors. It also had the side effect of Krillin later explaining to Goku that 17 and 18 were once human before Gero modified them and that's why 18 can have children seem like a huge retcon, even though they were actually translating the dialog pretty faithfully in that rare instance.