Anime Dub Character VAs

[Cyber_Skaarj]

Not anime series this time. Here's where you get to have your say in which anime characters have the best and worst Voice Acting in dubbed versions.
My list is gonna start off with one of the more recently discussed animes in this particular Forum; DBZ. Piccolo and Vegeta are the best, with the VA's (especially in the later eps) pulling off voices that are very well suited to the characters. Frieza and the Ginyu Force (the latter from before the entire VA cast was replaced, except Ginyu himself, whose new VA was quite good) are also quite good. Goku's dub was one of the bad ones, though the complete change in VA cast halfway through the Namek arc actually improved that somewhat. The rest I find somewhat mediocre - not bad, but not really good either.
Tenchi Muyo is a rather well done dub, with most of the western VA's varying from good to great. Characters that stand out somewhat are Ryoko (I haven't seen the third season, however, so I can't comment on the change there), Ayeka and Tenchi himself. Kagato was a bit of a letdown after hearing the original Japanese (damn that echo effect made him sound cool ^_^).
Those are the dubs that I know better than the rest. Other memorable ones for me are Spike and Jet from Cowboy Bebop, Duo Maxwell from Gundam Wing, Ryoga Hibiki from (you guessed it ^_^) Ranma 1/2 and Bear and Mimiru from .hack//SIGN.
Other badly dubbed characters include Ranma from Ranma 1/2 (eps 1-64) - where his male voice was done by a woman so when he was male he still sounded, you guessed it, like a woman... Hikaru Shidou from Magic Knight Rayearth - I only heard a bit of the dub but the way her voice was done grated on my nerves for some reason so I switched it back to Japanese with subs, and Sepiroth from FFVII: Advent Children - they really should have tried just that little bit harder to find someone who could do an English voice that has the same ominous sound to it that the Japanese one did...

[Battlekrome]

Well for some reason i like Venus Terzo (Ranma female in oavs as well as Black Arachnia in Beast wars)
most of ADVs work is iffy... with some being superb and others being sub par
Evangelion is almost a given for introducing people to anime (then again past ep 8 is such a mind screw you curse hidakei anno(sp?))
Tiffany Grant comes to mind for her work as Asuka
(weirdly enough her husband is exec producer on live action Eva movie)
BGC2040 works well for it as did evangelion
notably Nene (but then i'm a nene fan)
Slayers dub was decent (mostly due to megumi's lina being a little too whiny)
and how on god's green earth they managed to find someone with a laugh MORE evil than the original for the oavs is scary...
go watch scary chimera plan dub vs sub to see what i mean
*twitch*
gyah VA for Rally Vincent(gunsmith cats) also did Mimiru... and Rei ayanami... and konoko in Oni and...
Bad dubs...
Dragonball Z had some bad ones...
Saber marionette J had some of the same as DBZ and well some of em are painful (can't stand goku's VA)
Naruto ugh!
and i hear horror stories about Sailor moon (Shi-ne=Die="Adios thief of hearts" ???) but then i think that was more translation that actually dub work (then of course there's the horror that could of been saban moon)
find that very rarely are dubs absolutely horrid but find that if the main chars can't cut it as good VAs it just ruins the experience (yaah for DVDs with both sub and dub)
and as for Sephiroth in Advent children, the credits list
George Newbern as sephiroth
other credits for him include
"Justice League" (voice) .... Clark Kent/Superman
(well that alone screws him)

[bissek]

The one problem I have with the Slayers dub is that they switched VAs for Zelgadis halfway through the first season - and kept the replacement for the rest of the series. The original was much better at the "mysterious mystic swordsman" act.

[Forum Troll]

If games can come into this discussion, then I absolutely cannot stand the dubs for Disgaea, and while I normally refuse to watch dubbed shows because I think that dubbing misses more original content than subtitles, for Disgaea I just really really hate the VA.
My friend insists on playing the game dubbed when we hang out...so much hate.
Cant really comment on anime, cause as I said, I avoid watching dubs.
Troll

[Light02]

my two cents of Dub anime, something I tend to watch more than subbed.
ADV bout the only two Animes from this group I can watch dubbed is Eva and there Kenshin dubs
FUNi there dubs are still lacking stick with subs all the way on this group
Ocean only dub I couldn't stand from the main studio is Ranma 1/2 sorry that dub was horrid compared to other Ocean dubs *points at the two women to voice both Male and Female Ranma Saotome*
West Coast dubs I can stand most of them the only I really couldn't stand was Tenchi Muyo (sorry but to me Ryoko sounded like a Lez in the dub the new voice works much better).
East Coast dubs yes most of them were good the most notiable bad dubs is anything 4Kids gets there hands on (ie Yu-Gi-Oh and One Piece)

[camk4evr]

The one problem I have with the Slayers dub is that they switched VAs for Zelgadis halfway through the first season - and kept the replacement for the rest of the series. The original was much better at the "mysterious mystic swordsman" act.

Apparently, during the dubbing of Slayers, a fair amount of time passed between the dubbing of the first and second half of the first season and were unable to contact the VA for Zelagadis.
Worst VA's: Tie
dub version of 'Amy' and 'Serena' in Sailor moon S (I never saw any of the SuperS dub).
Every one in One Piece. I couldn't watch more than a minute (literally) before changing the channel.

[Atlan]

Well, the award for worst dub ever, in the history of anything ever, would go to Sailor Moon's Naru, at least in the dub I have. She sounds like a 25 year old american truck stop worker. Ick. (Note: This dub had Usagi as Serina, Makoto as Lita, ect.)
An honourable mention goes to Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist. He went from dark and brooding, to an asshole. A normal asshole. A fairly cheerfull normal asshole.

[Battlekrome]

have to admit though that digimon was badly done...
the lets throw random jokes in that are so lame only brain dead 2 year olds find them funny...
then again i occasionally play 7 degrees of seperation with anime VAs
the megumi challange find an anime that takes more than 2 links to get to megumi hayashibara
for example Nadesico and Evangelion are linked by english Va of shinji
for oddity Hack//Roots has not one but 2! of the japanese VA from Hack//Sign! (mimiru and subaru / tabby and shino)
overall i prefer sub to dub but then thats mostly due to continually watching fandubbs... and well when i get anime on dvds it has dub and sub though i find that most dubs are well done
and occasionally you'll find dubbing outtakes (Burst Angel had some of them)

[nuclear death frog]

My list is gonna start off with one of the more recently discussed animes in this particular Forum; DBZ. Piccolo and Vegeta are the best, with the VA's (especially in the later eps) pulling off voices that are very well suited to the characters. Frieza and the Ginyu Force (the latter from before the entire VA cast was replaced, except Ginyu himself, whose new VA was quite good) are also quite good. Goku's dub was one of the bad ones, though the complete change in VA cast halfway through the Namek arc actually improved that somewhat. The rest I find somewhat mediocre - not bad, but not really good either.

I disagree with much of this.
Bejiita and Piccolo's voices, I found to be far too rough and grating.
Furiiza's voice was *far* too feminine -- which makes sense, because HE (yes, Furiiza is *male*) was voiced by Chris Sabat's grandmother. Furiiza in the original Japanese airing sounds cultured, arrogant, and incredibly menacing. His dub voice is just bad, and the actual lines he says are even worse because the script was terrible.
I don't really remember what I thought of the Ginyu Squad's voices beyond not being impressed.
I agree that Son Goku's voice was badly done, but I might have different reasons from you. I think it was bad because Son Goku was voiced by a woman in the Japanese (the same woman voiced both his sons as well), and he's supposed to sound innocent and somewhat naive, a little high-voiced for a man but not abnormally so. However, there are points where Son Goku is very sarcastic and a lot more intelligent than he normally makes himself out to be. His FUNi dub voice had none of those qualities -- due to the script and the voice itself, he just sounds stupid.
The supporting characters, unfortunately, often got just plain screwed over. Kaiou-sama ("King Kai" in the dub) in particular was voiced terribly. Yamucha also got hosed -- surfer dude? I don't think so. Jinzouningen Juuroku-gou ("Android 16") sounded far too robotic -- now, given that he was entirely machine, I can *understand* this decision, but I don't agree with it.
Now, there were, of course, exceptions. I for one *liked* FUNimation's decision to give Juuhachi-gou ("Android 18") a deeper, sexy voice than the teenage soprano she had in Japan. I also thought the smooth voice of Kaioshin ("Supreme Kai")'s assistant Kibit was superior to the *very* grating voice he had in Japan.
But those exceptions were few and far between.

[Knight of L-sama]

El-Hazard OAV 1.
Best Dub EVER!!!.
That is all.

[Cyber_Skaarj]

El-Hazard OAV 1.
Best Dub EVER!!!.
That is all.

From what little I've heard of it (in an AMV to the old Superman theme), I gotta agree. Especially Fujisawa.

[mondu_the_fat]

I haven't heard the Japanese version of Yu Gi Oh yet, but YuGi's american voice acting leaves makes me green with envy.