Dragon Ball's Christopher Sabat on when he finally felt Vegeta’s impact

I’ve never met a Dragon Ball fan from the ’90s who wasn’t profoundly affected by the series in some way, whether it was their first exposure to anime and manga, a character whose personality they idolized, or the inspiration the show gave them to hit the gym. The late, great Akira Toriyama changed shonen anime, creating an influence seen in One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, and many more.

I wouldn’t be the man I am today without Dragon Ball Z. So when I reached out to Christopher Sabat for Polygon during the franchise’s 40th anniversary celebration, I was surprised to learn that Vegeta’s English voice actor rarely stopped to reflect on his role as the Prince of All Saiyans.

Until relatively recently, English-dub voice actors didn’t receive much recognition. Sabat, the voice of hundreds of anime characters, like All Might in My Hero Academia and Kuwabara in Yu Yu Hakusho, began his Dragon Ball journey modestly. (Polygon will share more on that soon.) Today, he’s best known for bringing several Dragon Ball characters to life, including Vegeta, Piccolo, and Yamcha. He’d never even heard of the series before being cast to voice it. It wasn't until years after Dragon Ball Z ended that Sabat fully grasped the impact the English dub had on the anime community.

Speaking to Polygon, Sabat shared three separate stories about “magic moments” when he realized just how much influence he had, both on the anime community and on the character of Vegeta.

Seeing the Android Saga air and San Diego Comic-Con

Christopher Sabat: One of the coolest moments was actually watching the premiere of Dragon Ball Z when it finally fired back up again after being on that long pause forever. That was a really cool moment. Another interesting moment was when we visited a Comic Con for the first time. I'd never been to one. And our first one was at San Diego Comic Con, and I had no idea what to expect. We just showed up, and there were mountains of people there, and Funimation had just rented a 5-by-10-foot booth. They weren't really anticipating needing line control or anything like that.

And so we were kind of getting in trouble with the fire marshal, and luckily, we had some neighbors who were cool enough to let our line drift into theirs.

I was not expecting that at all. That was a huge shock to me. But still, I always felt like I was just kind of the English-language option of a DVD. At that moment, I didn't go, "I am Vegeta. I believe I'm this character." I mean, I put every amount of effort I could into it, but I never sat down and said, "Yep, that's me, all right. Everyone thinks that's me."

Getting mobbed in Australia

The [second] moment is the first time we went to a convention in Australia. At this point, I've been going to conventions here and there, and so I knew what they were all about, but I had never experienced anything quite like getting to Australia, because Australian fans — at least back when we went there, this was probably, gosh, 2002 or something like that — they were absolutely nuts for it, in a very passionate way.

So when we got off the elevator going to our signing, it let us off right where everybody was, and everyone went berserk. You would have thought that we were The Beatles walking out for some reason. It was insane. And I was like, "Man, okay, maybe this is crazy. A lot of people like this show."

The Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods premiere

But I'll tell you the most important moment — the moment that really made me realize, “Wow, I've actually done something.” The moment I felt real responsibility over [Vegeta] was when we went to the premiere of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods in the theater.

And at this point, a lot of people from Toei and Shueisha and people from Japan came to the premiere. I remember talking to someone in the production department, and they said, "You are Vegeta in the United States. We love the work you did. To these people, you are Vegeta. Your voice is Vegeta's voice." And that was the first time that I'd ever really been formally recognized at all.

I mean, everyone was cool to me. Everyone was fine. I mean, we had some meetings and things before then. I'd met some of the executives before. But this is the first time anyone ever made me feel like, "Wow, you're really the guy." And that's the first time I ever thought, "Wow, maybe I'm not just the English-language option of a DVD.” Maybe it meant something more than that.

We just kept doing it because we loved doing it. Over time, these people had become my closest friends. Eric Vale, Dameon Clarke, Sean Schemmel, Sonny Strait, Brina Palencia, all these people were just… They all became friends. We're just doing it because we love doing it, not necessarily because it was something we thought would make us look important. It's just something we did.