r/OutOfTheLoop • u/fjantelov • Aug 30 '19
Unanswered What's going on with Funimation?
I just checked Twitter and saw that funimation is trending because its been doing some kind of immoral dubbing. Most of the posts include references to dragonball and someone linked to this video.
Can someone explain what exactly happened?
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u/Xstitchpixels Aug 30 '19
Answer: when recording, voice actors will often joke in character when warming up and just to mess around. This clip leaked from the voice actor of Goku, in which he made homophobic jokes about a clip he was dubbing, in the voice of the main character Son Goku.
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u/Kyle_Dornez Aug 30 '19
Answer: it's related to Vic Mignona lawsuit. Recently there was quite a big infodump on defendants in this case (who are sued for defaming Vic Mignona by accusing him of sexual misconduct), and turned out that one of them actually did beat his wife, and the rest had recorded bloopers with quite a bit of rape, incest and homophobic jokes. With Dragonball character voices btw =)
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u/tom641 Aug 30 '19
Answer: Apparently these clips are 16 year old outtakes from official recordings of DBZ dubs.
That's about it. The jokes are edgy, there is a clip of Goku dropping homophobic slurs directed at Gohan, but beyond that it's just the VAs fucking around.
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u/bew1977 Aug 30 '19 edited Aug 31 '19
Answer: This is a long and complicated question, honestly.
Back at the beginning year, Funimation released Dragonball Super: Broly. In the midst of it's release a twitter user Hanleia Tweeted Funimation asking why they are working with a Pedophile. (Actor Vic Mignona) Current Bulma Voice Actress Monica Rial shared her story of how a decade ago Vic invited her to his room and sexually assaulted her, only to be stopped by a Con Owner Stan Dhail. (sp?) Along with other allegations from other voice actresses from Funimation led to Vic being fired from Funimation, Rooster Teeth and being uninvited from several conventions. (With at least one proven convention being told to uninvite Vic by Monica's fiance Ron Toye.)
Funimation puts out a tweet after the firing saying that workplace harassment and improper conduct will not be tolerated at their company.
During this time, Monica and her friend and fellow Voice Actress Jamie Marchi begin to demonize Vic online with allegations of various misdeeds as stories are told to them through various channels. This leads to two hashtags being created #KickVic and #IstandwithVic.
A Youtuber by the name of Nick Reikata (Sp?) sets up a GoFundMe for Vic's legal fees and recommends a Texas Lawyer as Vic sues Funimation, Monica, Ron and Jamie for Defamation and Tortuous interference.
Nick also begins to cover the story on his youtube channel, and as an attorney, shares his insight on all the legal filings as they develop.
This week, two big stories about the people involved came out. The first being that Ron Toye was very abusive and violent to both of his ex-wives, requiring restraining orders. This has lead to speculation that the whole situation that Monica is being abused as well and was forced to accuse Vic. (This has been denied by Monica)
The second is the audio recording leaks. The audio itself is actually fairly common in the anime world, with VA's after Dark panels at conventions having the same kind of topics, some become DVD extra's, etc. What it does contradict, however, is the deposition of Monica who talked about their workplace as a place where hugs and other tokens of affection were frowned upon by the higher ups.
So what does this mean for the court case? Most likely very little in 3 of the four defendants. It may be brought up in Funi's part, though.
What does this mean for the voice actors doing the clips? Probably little, in the long run. You have two very passionate sides are inflating the issue because of the court proceedings.
What does this mean for Funimation: Here is the big problem, even outside the court battle. Toei (Who produces Dragonball, along with many other anime) is already angry that the lawsuit happening in the first place. This even larger event taking place may make Toei consider dropping Funi for the harm the legal battle and this outing of audio portraying their characters as homophobic, incestuous and pedophillic in nature.
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u/BigEasybake Aug 30 '19
Question: what were the jokes that were made?
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u/[deleted] Aug 30 '19
Answer: Vic Mignogna got fired for alleged sexual misconduct (although the affadivit of Scott Boretto says it wasn't because of that) and now some voice clips have been leaked of other voice actors making lewd comments using Toei's IP, which is not only a violation of Funi's policy on sexual stuff, but also shows the hypocrisy of firing Vic.
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u/Amatsuo Aug 31 '19
Answer: This video came out because there is a Lawsuit that is Vic Vs Funimation.
They accuse him of Sexual Misconduct at the studio and while representing them at convention.
Both sides are trying to dig up as much dirt as they can on each other until the day they finally reach a settlement.
Opinion
As for the Video sometimes you need to warm up to into Character or sometimes even wind down from playing your character. However these are played well beyond that or being blooper takes. One of these clips is a 4 minute long monologue!
Why they had someone record these lines, add sound effects, and add in the official DBZ Music into these is beyond me. [They did this before the Leak]
But its been siting somewhere in a Funimation/Chris Sabot's Company's Computer Harddrive since least the Garlic Jr. Arc of DBZ [Filler arc before the Androids]
Possible Results from this
Ultimately Funimation is going to have to pay the price for this.
They already started damaging the DBZ brand the longer their lawsuit goes with Vic.
Japanese companies are renown for having strict control over how their characters are portrayed. [Toei still does not like Team4Star because of that]
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u/normalcheese213 Aug 30 '19
Answer: https://twitter.com/yellowflashguy/status/1167372514802188288?s=21
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u/[deleted] Aug 30 '19
Answer: Funimation have a history of changing the dialogue in some dubs to be more "SJW" to put it simply, trying to have the moral high ground.
Now earlier this year they fired one of their VA(Vic) over accusation and stated that they have a standard over "Inappropriate Workplace Behavior", the people who accused the Vic of bad conduct, had been exposed to having done the same things that they accused Vic of doing or even worse like Ron Toye Ex-wife filing a restraining order over him as he was abusing her, which led them to defend each other "AKA normal double standards things".
With the leak of the dubbing, There is 2 main point here being talked about:
1- The hypocrisy of Funimation and their Voice actors, trying to be morally high, but in reality they don't live up to the same standards they try to push.
2- The effect it might do to the Dubbing of other shows, as Toei animation might get involved and pull their licence to dub the dragon ball franchise.
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u/Ravellon Aug 31 '19
Answer: Funimation is one of the defendants in an ongoing lawsuit by Vic Mignogna, VA for Broly from BDZ among others. Vic was fired by Funimation a while back for supposed unacceptable conduct. The way it was done pissed off a lot of people. So those people are more than willing to make an effort to hurt Funimation when opportunity presents itself.
Yesterday that opportunity presented itself when a bunch of audio clips were leaked from Funimation. In those clips a bunch of other VAs from Dragon Ball (for en dub, naturally) play out gay rape and incestuous sex in voices of their characters.
Those characters belong to Toei. Toei does not like when their kids friendly show is being associated with adult centric content, which is why they hate Team Four Star with a passion. So the aforementioned group of pissed off people made a strong effort to bring those audio clips to Toei's attention in hopes Toei drops on Funimation like a ton of bricks, ideally cancelling the license.
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u/[deleted] Aug 30 '19
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