Dragon Ball Daima’s Studio Really Wanted Goku’s OG Dub Actor Back

Dragon Ball Daima was a major celebration of how far the franchise has come in the 40 years since its debut with Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, and it turns out the studio behind the new anime really wanted to bring back Kid Goku’s original English voice actor for the occasion. Dragon Ball Daima made its debut last year as fans got to see a whole new take on the Dragon Ball franchise, and it featured the final original story from the late franchise creator Akira Toriyama. But it was also a walk down memory lane as Goku was turned into a child once more.

Dragon Ball Daima turned Goku into a child for this new era of the anime, and the English dub went even further back with its nostalgia by bringing Stephanie Nadolny years after she stopped contributing to the franchise. Speaking to CBR about her return to the franchise with Dragon Ball Daima, Nadolny reveals that Toei Animation specifically requested to bring her back for the new anime as “…they wanted the OG back. They wanted that nostalgia.”

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As Kid Goku voice actor Stephanie Nadolny explained, she had been keeping out of the loop on Dragon Ball’s current events for the past few years because her time had passed, “I didn’t know anything. I’ve been out of the loop because all my characters have grown up, and I was doing different things with other companies, other voices, video games and things like that.” But she had been hearing about Dragon Ball Daima when it began development, and Toei Animation had reached out with the hopes that she would reprise her role as the younger voice of Goku, “I was contacted. Believe it or not, we know very little as voice actors.”

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“We don’t know when it’s coming out, what we’ll be doing next, or what will even happen at our session,” Nadolny continued. “We have zero clue, but it makes it fun. It’s a challenge. And so I heard that [Daima] was in production, and Toei Animation (Thank you, God) — they’re amazing, they wanted the OG back. They wanted that nostalgia. It brought back a whole other wave of nostalgia for those who watched the show 25+ years ago. For me, it was like riding a bike. I’ve been doing the voice for years anyway, so it was back to that.”

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Nadolny also noted how there were some changes to the English language dub version of the script to better fit the current vernacular, but also emphasized how much Toei Animation had been listening to the fans for this new project, “Toei Animation and the fans,” Nadolny stated. “They listened to the fans, and they all brought me back.” It was certainly a big boost to the English dub release as fans haven’t heard Nadolny in a Dragon Ball role for quite a long time, so it was a blast from the past to hear her as Goku once more.

Dragon Ball Daima’s entire series run, including English dub, is now available for streaming with Crunchyroll (while the Japanese dub is available with Netflix). Dragon Ball has yet to reveal any future plans for its anime franchise as of the time of this writing, but fans are eagerly waiting to see what’s coming next.

HT – CBR