u/ChoiceOutrageous5864

So I know this sounds super out of nowhere but this is something that is brought up in the original Z Sub and it's something I find interesting

For Context: During what I believe to be a Filler Episode, Nappa and Vegeta discuss Gohan's sudden burst of power during the Raditz fight, intrigued Nappa asks Vegeta if they should consider creating more Hyrbids in order to essentially refurbish and create more powerful Saiyans, but Vegeta shuts it down very quickly with almost these exact words "But then we'd have a bunch of powerful Saiyans wondering why they're taking orders from us"

So what I am proposing is, what if Vegeta and Nappa decided to go along with that plan in order to create an Army strong enough to rival Frieza? How would that change the story? Please give me your best discussions

As the title says, I grew up on the Dub and having Sean as my titular version of Goku during my childhood. When I first heard Masako as Goku I did not like it at all, during my early teenage years, I used to be one of those people that were like "Waah Goku should sound like a Manly manly MAN! waaah" (that's honestly how those particular people sound, it borderline feels sexist and I don't throw that out often, I'm so embarrassed I was one of them) because I had no concept of how Japanese Voice acting actually worked or really Dragon Ball in it's true form

Since then, I've obviously learned more, and I've given it a second look, over the years, I learned about Masako and what a wonderful lady she is, and despite still considering Sean as my titular Goku, I grew to appreciate her as a person and let go of that bias a little

Now in my adulthood, after being exposed to Japanese media a lot more, learning the intricacies of the language, I genuinely cannot watch English media for most animes anymore and the same has come to apply for Dragon Ball, and I must say, Masako deserved her props from me a long time ago, because anything Sean does good, she does so much better, the screams the emotions in her tone, the dialogue, she really embodies the character of Goku, a character who is meant to sound as silly and whimsical as possible, so much more than he could ever hope to (at least in my eyes), though It also helps that Sean Schemmel as a person is a massive dickwad in general.

I implore you, give the Sub version of Goku a chance, even if you don't think the voice matches to at least hear some of her performance, you will never hear a better scream from Goku than when Masako says "Kaioken Sanbai Da!"

Just to be clear, I don't actually have anything against Sean personally, I'm mostly kidding around (except for him kind of being a bad guy) I also don't think his performance as Goku is entirely inferior, there are certain things he does do better than Masako Nozawa in some small ways

Did anyone else have an awakening by this? or am I wrong for thinking she's better now and giving respect to a woman of all things from the way some people talk about it, let me know

I've never had the chance to do this until now, I've only picked up occasional copies in the library or something

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started diving into it, but for the most part I liked it, I'm not gonna pretend it wowed me or anything, it's not like the Yu-Gi-Oh anime to Manga where there are massive changes to the story that makes it basically a new experience, but it was still a pretty good read. It cleared up a lot of misconceptions you hear people say are due to dubbisms and has a pretty campy style to it that I thoroughly enjoyed

However, I kind of prefer the anime in some respects, especially Cell Saga and beyond, sometimes it feels like the story is just one hype moment after hype moment with no respite, I get timeline wise it makes sense and I know a lot of anime fans don't like filler, but I think in Dragon Ball at least, it genuinely has its place and adds a lot more meat on its bones because I'm gonna say it, some of it feels very bare bones at times. It is definitely not my favorite Manga of all time, to be fair maybe that's because I grew up on Anime first, but it just feels like something is missing that could be there and I'm 90% sure I'd feel this way even if I hadn't seen the Anime as a kid

Now just to be clear, I understand why it is the way it is, I'm not saying it's bad, that couldn't be further from the truth, it is a legendary manga story that has earned it's place in history but I also think there is room for improvement that the anime generally provided (even with some of the lower filler moments) that make Dragon Ball Z feel like a full adventure rather than a quick Freight Train of moments compiled together into a single ride

Is it just me that felt this way? Please let me know

Edit: Ok so I left this context out, but I bought the Manga at my Local Store and the owner (really nice man) said it was all the Z Era Stuff and it's what they had at the moment since the rest of it before was sold out (I guess somebody got the opposite idea of me lol) and I was so excited to head into it I kinda just rolled with it. From what I'm understanding it seems like the Kid Goku Stuff to Z Mesh is more important than I thought, similar to the beginning of Yu-Gi-Oh Manga to Duelist Kingdom, I genuinely had no idea the bridge would be like that, I kind of figured the Kid Goku adventures would be this own thing

that being said, I still feel like what I said is valid and to the people bringing it up, its not related to the point I was trying to make... my issue is not that the reading experience was short, my issue is that there weren't a lot of downtime in between moments in the story for the Z Saga as a whole, it feels like we jump from one major plot point to the next, adding Kid Goku to it doesn't fix that

To bring up Yu-Gi-Oh again, while I knew where it was headed having watched the Season 0 Anime, having Yugi go through the punishment games with various bad guys that weren't actually in the anime, was an interesting experience because it gave me more time to enjoy reading the Manga and leading to major points like Death T and Bakura, there's "padding" I guess you'd put it except it doesn't feel like padding

Dragon Ball at least the Z parts of it doesn't have that and since it doesn't, I don't have much faith the earlier parts will either and that to me is a bit of sad thing since I think additional events like that add to the longevity of the story and leads to a longer experience

So I grew up with the first five episodes of Z and the GT Movie on DVD's and became obsessed with it, tuned in for the Kai dub and watched the original Z Dub, Super, the whole shebang. Recently I decided to delve into the Sub and Manga since I've been doing that with a lot of animes like Yu-Gi-Oh the past year, and I am kind of surprised just how different it feels, So much so I don't think I could ever go back to Dub again

For one the acting is leagues better, I have a lot of issues with the English VA's performances (if I'm being honest and I'm not trying to sound like I'm being rude, sometimes they make me cringe) even as they've gotten more experienced but I don't really feel any of that with the Japanese VA's, they all sound super emotional and like they are embodying the characters not just acting like them

The dialogue is a lot more sincere as well, I've come to get a new appreciation for certain characters like Chi Chi a lot more due to how her lines are translated in the Japanese Sub and why she's so protective of Gohan (though part of that may be because I'm a father now), especially when she says to Gohan "You are a kid so you should act like a kid". Even major characters like Piccolo where at first he was taking Gohan to train him to become one of the Demon Clan, which makes his turn to good and his love for Gohan so much more impactful to me than the English Dialogue's little Tsundere thing it had going on for whatever reason. I genuinely don't think I've ever seen that motivation of Piccolo's adapted in any medium of Dragon Ball in terms of the Dub at all, not even in Z Kakarot but it's honestly a shame because it makes total sense, Piccolo should still be evil and should still be thinking ahead of the Saiyans beyond just "me wanna kill Goku after" like he seems to do in the Dub unless I'm missing something from one of the dubs but I doubt it. I don't want to get into much more in case anyone wants to check it out themselves

As of now I'm about to finish the Frieza Saga, I've gotten past Goku turning Super Saiyan and I'm very much looking forward to the Cell Saga, I love Cell's JP voice and I have the Super Buu Saga on DVD from a long time ago with Sub as an option so all I'll need is the first half of the Buu Saga.

I'd love to hear if anyone else has had this experience before, with Z or any other DB Show and if it had an impact, pls do