Dub vs. Sub Reviews - DBZ: The Bardock Special

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Dub vs. Sub Review:
DBZ: The Bardock Special

Voice Acting

Japanese - Masako Nozawa does her usual incredible job in her role of Bardock, while the rest of the cast also does extremely well.

English - The only good thing about the English dub was Bardock's voice. Sonny Strait (voice of dub Kuririn) really surprised me with his portrayal of Bardock. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast didn't live up to his standard...the only other decent voice was that of Toma....Yes, we have to suffer through Furiiza's grandmother-like dub voice again...Thank goodness Furiiza doesn't talk a whole lot in this... *shudder*

Music

Unfortunately, FUNi still hasn't learned that most of us don't like their music. Typical dub garbage music. This is truly a shame, considering the high quality of the original Japanese score (need I mention "Solid State Scouter" and "Hikari no Tabi"?)

Dialogue Translation

I think that they decided to write their own script for this one. The translation was NOT very good.

Important Names

They actually left some of the names alone....except for those of Bardock's team. However, most of them weren't mentioned in the original version (they were noted in an official volume later), so this is forgivable.

Plot

For some bizarre reason, they decided that Bardock's ability to see the future should become the ability to read minds. This contradicts the terrifying visions we see Bardock having later....It's really stupid.

Censorship

As with most FUNimation releases, you can buy censored or uncensored version of the dub. The things they probably censored in the dub are:

Violence - I think they removed some of the blood.
Nudity - They probably gave baby Goku a diaper
Sexual Situations - None
Profanity - I'd imagine that they weren't aloud to swear.
Mature Ideas/Issues - None

Kat's Opinion

Hands down, the subtitled version! I saw this dubbed first, and was not impressed...I actually thought it was somewhat bad. When I saw it subtitled, on the other hand, I liked it a lot. This is one disk that got quite a bit of repeat play when I first bought it. ^_^ To this day, the Bardock Special (subbed version) is one of my favorite DB features.