Dragon Ball Fans Celebrate Goku’s Voice Actress With Rare Throwback Video

Since the Dragon Ball franchise debuted in the 1980s, one voice has been present to bring the protagonist of Son Goku to life. Masako Nozawa has supplied some of the biggest voices in the hard hitting, insanely popular Shonen series, providing voices for Goku, Gohan, Goten, Gotenks, Goku Black, and Bardock. Besides Dragon Ball, she has also assisted in bringing numerous other characters to life in popular franchises such as Digimon, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and One Piece to name a few. Now, some devoted fans have managed to dig up a rare video that shows Nozawa always had the “gift”.

Twitter User KenXyro dug up this older video that showed a younger Masako showing off her voice not just for Son Goku, but for other animated characters that have established her as the legend that she is within the world of voice acting for animation:

Dragon Ball Super just ended its English dub run on Toonami, where the voice of Son Goku is brought to life thanks to actor Sean Schemmel. While Schemmel and Nozawa may voice the same character, their tones could not be more different. It’s always a point of argument as to which is the better interpretation of Dragon Ball, or just anime in general, between the Japanese subbed version and the English dubbed interpretation.

Though Dragon Ball Super is currently on hiatus, Nozawa is currently supplying the voice of Goku in the spinoff series, Super Dragon Ball Heroes, that places the Z Fighters into some insane situations where they are currently fighting against the crushing power of the villainous Hearts. While the return of the Dragon Ball Super has yet to be confirmed, we are crossing our fingers that the series will return sooner rather than later, hopefully covering the recent amazing arc that follows Goku and Vegeta fighting against the ancient sorcerer Moro.

What do you think of this throwback video that shows off Masako Nozawa’s skills? Who is your favorite Goku? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and Dragon Ball!

Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami programming block on Saturday evenings, and is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese-language release of the series is complete, and available to stream on FunimationNOW and Crunchyroll. The manga has chapters that can currently be read for free thanks to Viz Media, and Dragon Ball Super’s big movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.