Dragon Ball Z Chaos
My Rant On Funimation

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What I have to say about Funimation.

Funimation is probably the most hated anime dubbing company when it comes to Dragon Ball Z. I see why. Dragon Ball Z was Funimation's guinea pig when it comes to Anime. When Funimation first got a hold of DBZ, Saban was making Funimation make pointless cuts and edits. I mean Raditz was saying "kill" and "die", but later those words were somehow wrong to be used anymore. "Kill" and "Die" references were then referred to as "Another dimension". There was no original music. However, the Ocean Group was doing the voices, and they were doing an excellent job. The Ocean Group saved the dub at the time. Shuki Levy's music was pretty decent also. Eventually Funimation and Saban parted ways. Funimation promised a better dub, and when the first 3 DBZ movies were dubbed, this seemed true. The first 3 movies were excellent. The original music was intact, the Ocean Actors were still doing the voice acting, and there were no edits in the uncut versions. It seemed to good to be true. Well guess what, it was.
 
The movies didn't sell well. so Funimation decided to revert to the Saban way of dubbing. However, this was a new nightmare of it's own. Funimation got rid of Shuki Levi. And worse of all, Funimation got rid of the Ocean Group. That's the biggest problem I have. I thought the Ocean Group were excellent voice actors, but Funimation got rid of them for some reason. Anyways Funimation hired their own new voice actors. Now I'm not going to bash all of the new voice actors, because these guys are just doing their job. Anyways Season 3 soon aired. It was horrorifying to watch. Especially if you were used to Ocean's voice actors. The new voices didn't match hardly any of the characters. There was once again different music. This time it was composed by Bruce Faulconer. This music doesn't fit the show at all. Another horror was the horrible script writing. I mean "The mondo cool" references just made the show dumb. And the blantant making Freezer seem like a homosexual is just inexcusable. Over time Funi's voice actors began to improve a little. However, Chris Sabat will never have a great Vegeta voice like Brian Drummond did. Nor will Sabat match Scott McNeil's Piccolo. Drummond is the greatest English Vegeta EVER! Another thing is that Funimation's so called "uncut" episodes aren't really uncut. It's just a way for them to make more money. Now I move on to pointless name changes. Mr. Satan has now become "Hercule". And Bra (aka Bura) is now "Bulla"? Bulla? Her name is really Bra, but was sometimes referred to as Bura. Now why not just use Bura? It doesn't make sense to me either.
 
Now here's something funny. Funimation began dubbing Dragon Ball and have done a pretty decent job of it. They actually kept the original music. I can actually stand watching the Dragon Ball dub. Funimation also got Yu Yu Hakusho. Yu Yu Hakusho is done very well. The voice actors are the same for DB and DBZ, but they've really stepped up in Yu Yu Hakusho. If you haven't seen this show I recommend it, because it truely is a great show.
 
Dragon Ball Z dub wise on the other hand is still not the best. However, I have heard that the new VHS and DVDs the "uncut" episodes are more "uncut" than before. It's about time. In closing DBZ is almost over. Funimation is going to redub the first 2 Seasons. The  good news is that we get the Japanese episodes English subtitled on DVD. The bad news is no Ocean voice actors. Well if Funimation decides to not censor these episodes then that'll sort of make up for it. I hope Season 3 is re-dubbed also. The current voice actors have a better grasp on things now, so Season 3 should be re-dubbed more than anything else because my ear drums were almost destroyed thanks to Season 3.
 
In closing I would like to say that DBZ was basically Funimation's guinea pig when it came to learning to dub Anime. DBZ was basically turned into something with the quality of a Saturday morning cartoon. DBZ is basically a lost cause now, but I hope that Funimation continues to successfully dub Yu Yu Hakusho and the rest of Dragon Ball. Maybe they've learned to give what the fans want with Yu Yu Hakusho. I haven't seen Blue Gender, so I can't comment on it. Now I know I may have sounded like I was abit harsh on the current voice actors. I was merely offering my criticism. They have gotten  better. I certainly don't agree with people warning Sean Schemmel up to 100% on AIM. The guy is just a Voice Actor. He doesn't make the big decisions when it comes to DBZ. He should just be left alone by some people. I hope the Funimation voice actors continue to grow and improve. And I hope Funimation improves as a overall company.
 
The next opinion will be on the AB/Ocean dub. For those few who may not know, the Ocean Actors continued to do DBZ for the AB dub. It is only seen in Canada, and it was shown in the UK for awhile.