Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" Dub Turns 14; Still Unreleased

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by MasenkoHA » Fri Oct 19, 2018 7:30 am

TheBlackPaladin wrote:
I agree, it's totally absurd! As if this list weren't long enough, though, you forgot one: the FUNimation (semi) re-dub for the orange bricks, which saw some dialogue re-recorded, and some left as-is.
The partial re-dub for the orange bricks has superceded the existence of the original broadcast/home video release of the In-house Funi dub. To the point I think many fans assume that is the version they watched on Toonami.


Seriously, try explaining all this to a franchise newcomer...if they started banging their head against the nearest wall or table, I wouldn't blame them!
Meh let them discover that little world on their own I say. The average newcomer would probably seek out the Orange Bricks or Blue Rays anyways (if they dont outright pirate the show on some anime streaming site). It’s not like these different dubs are all readily available in stores.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by dagame10k » Fri Oct 19, 2018 8:52 am

Robo4900 wrote:
Cure Dragon 255 wrote:If you were curious about the truth, you would be more patient and wait for the truth, not just try to spin a narrative. Sorr, but as interesting as your post was, its still a narrative spun on feelings and some light facts to make it more believeable, which in this fandom is a dangerous thing indeed.
But, the thing is, there's so much interpretation going into turning these facts into a coherent idea of what actually happened. Hell, even the name of this dub is a misnomer. No "Westwood" company was involved in any Dragon Ball dub's production to my knowledge, the AB Z dub's common "Westwood" nickname comes from the name of the studio that the Vancouver Ocean dubs of Dragon Ball Z were all recorded at(Not BLT DB, though; that was recorded at Dick & Rogers Sound Studio). Now, it is possible one could stretch the truth -- I personally haven't been able to ascertain exactly how this worked, but -- if the Westwood studio was owned by a company called "Westwood", you could claim that a Westwood media or something was involved, but their involvement would purely be Ocean buying studio time off this Westwood company... Hardly something to name the dub after, particularly given the Saban and Pioneer dubs were also recorded at this same studio... And you don't see anyone calling the 1995 DB dub "The Dick & Rogers dub".
https://web.archive.org/web/20060103012 ... stwood.pdf
Robo4900 wrote:So... One should tread carefully when discussing Dragon Ball, since even the common name of this dub is arguably a piece of misinformation that's often overlooked and never questioned. Similarly, the idea that these dubs were "The Canadian dubs" is rather suspicious given they were produced by AB Groupe, primarily and initially for Europe, and of course, the idea that these dubs were produced to fit a cancon requirement is almost certainly bullhonkey...

So much misinformation, so few hard facts to work with... Really best if we keep speculation to a minimum, and heavily telegraph it when we do speculate.
Cancon was never an issue with the FUNimation dub on YTV, and had it been, YTV would have acquired episodes 108-167 of the Westwood dub at some point had it ever been made a issue.
One of YTV's own hosts on broadcast (Pat Kelly)admitted that YTV couldn't air new episodes as they had yet to receive them(from FUNimation), someone had uploaded a video on youtube, but can't seem to find it right now.
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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by Dark Vegeta-Sama » Fri Oct 19, 2018 9:48 am

Danfun64 wrote:Was the footage still from the AB Groups master despite the funi episode title cards?
Yes. The footage for the episodes was still exactly the same AB masters used in the European broadcasts, but FUNimation's episode title cards were edited back in.

It's unfortunate that they didn't just use FUNi's video masters at that point, because the picture quality of AB's masters was noticeably poorer in comparison. Looked at as a whole package, Westwood's DBZ run ends on a bit of a visually-subpar note. The acting and music in those final episodes were well done, however.
Godgoku95 wrote:i Asked Sean Schemmel about the dub while i was at Fan Expo in Vancouver and he claimed he never heard the dub
That's amusing.
Robo4900 wrote:
90sDBZ wrote:In the case of Rock the Dragon I'm guessing there was some sort of licensing or royalties issue going on.
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:It doesn't really seem like that big a mystery, at any rate. The plethora of tapes I have of the early seasons 1 and 2 airings of the show on YTV in the late 1990s all have that alternate Canadian version of "Rock the Dragon" playing before the show. Any Canadian fan old enough to have watched the show back then will tell you the same. We always had that same opening theme, even before the Westwood dub was produced.
It might shed some light on this -- and also raise additional questions -- that Canadian airings always had an "Ocean Group" logo shown in broadcasts, I believe even during the in-house Funi seasons. My guess is that Ocean were involved in the distribution in Canada, but that they only licensed the show off Funimation; licensing the opening theme would have cost extra or just been a messy tangle of rights since Ron Wasserman composed it under Saban, so instead they had Anitunes put together their own.
Though given the YTV situation, I would guess either my info on the bumper being on the in-house seasons is wrong, or the nature of this deal was more complex, and involved YTV and Ocean being in some kind of partnership for the licensing of Dragon Ball.
The Ocean Group logo did indeed appear at the end of every episode aired on YTV during FUNimation's original two seasons.

However, it disappeared in season three. It was nowhere to be found from then on, except for briefly (and randomly) reappearing again at the beginning of FUNimation's season four (the Cyborg Freeza/Trunks/Android warning) episodes. This is what you've seen, and it did happen for unknown reasons, but it was a short-lived anomaly. The Ocean Group logo disappeared again after appearing at the end of those few episodes and was never seen again. It didn't even appear again when YTV began airing the Westwood dub.
Robo4900 wrote:
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:There are some things that fans will probably never know. Whatever legal loophole allowed Westwood to do their own alternate dub after the FUNimation season 3 recast will likely never be revealed. After all these years, even the actors themselves like Brian Drummond and Peter Kelamis have said they don't know.

Don Brown said in a telephone interview conducted with one of the UKDB guys in December 2002 (about a week after he went in to record the final four episodes of DBZ) that he'd initially been told by producers that international audiences weren't happy with FUNimation's recast and that they wanted the original cast back. I have no reason to doubt what he said, but we'll likely never know for sure.
My best guess based on the various things I've heard has for a long time been that it was a combination of factors: It's known that Funimation charged a heck of a lot for their episodes starting from season 3, and that YTV had a lot of problems getting ahold of Funimation's tapes once they licensed them, the fans were not very receptive to the new cast meanwhile the old Ocean-based cast were sitting pretty, happy to return to do more if the opportunity arose, and of course, AB Groupe were handling Dragon Ball's distribution for the European territories we're talking about, so my guess is that when the UK, Holland, and Ireland(Plus some others?) were picking up DBZ, and Canada were having some troubles with their Funimation deal, AB Groupe saw an opportunity to produce their own dub instead of licensing Funi's. Ocean had already got a main cast in place, and could easily throw together the additional cast members they needed fairly quickly, and already had some arrangement in place with Canada, and Anitunes could easily get a replacement score going on the cheap, in fact they already had their own OP that they'd done for Ocean's distributed version in Canada, and with all the other stuff going on, if AB Groupe could get Ocean producing a dub on the cheap, they could get a very attractive-looking dub for Canada to pick up, and an in-house dub for AB themselves to distribute to the European countries they were putting Dragon Ball in English into so they didn't have to pay Funimation's extortionate prices to license the show.

I don't know how close this is to the truth, but given all the stuff I've heard about potential explanations and such over the years, I would say this is the most likely explanation. And yes, I am very deliberately not addressing cancon. I don't think cancon entered into any part of this aside from the minor element of it being somewhat convenient for YTV that they would have a stronger cancon percentage for airing this show they were already going to air. I would guess it would have been the same situation even if Ocean and its cast were based out of LA, all else being the same.
It's a solid theory, but you're placing too much stock in AB Groupe's involvement. Apart from handling European distribution and providing video tracks for the final four episodes, AB Groupe really had nothing to do with the actual production of the dub in Vancouver. While it's certainly never been widely advertised, there is a company called Westwood Media (also responsible for other English dubs of the time like Gundam Wing), and one of the major things that the UKDB guys were able to find out back in the day after all the mystery is that they were the company behind the later Vancouver dub.
Robo4900 wrote:
90sDBZ wrote:There's also another weird thing about the situation. The fact that Canada didn't switch to it until the Cell Games while the UK, Ireland, and Holland got it at the Android saga which sort of puts the Canadian content theory in doubt. And the Westwood dub contained extra cuts when it aired in the UK but I've seen some Canadian fans claim it didn't for them. Furermore when the UK got the Funimation dubbed Fusion saga on the air for a couple of months it aired without any extra cuts but later when the Westwood version aired it had the extra cuts.
As I say, I don't think cancon entered into it at all.
As for the cuts and such, I've always been dubious of the claims of Canada having a less-cut version. Only time I'm aware of Canada having a different edit of an episode to the UK is GT #64, where the UK version edited the ending montage to remove the Japanese text, while the Canadian master has been claimed by many to have included the full thing. I don't have a video of just the Canadian version to illustrate this, but I do have this, which I was sent a while ago. I don't have any guarantee of its authenticity, but it's all I have. :(
90sDBZ wrote:I've also been dubious of Canada getting less cuts as I've never seen a single video proving it in all these years. It could just be a Mandela Effect situation where Canadian fans are remembering Funimation's home releases which they also got alongside the Westwood broadcast.
Robo4900 wrote:Yes, that seems quite likely. Especially since I have heard people claim they saw the guy's face melting in Westwood episode 127 in the first broadcast, and that it was only edited out for future broadcasts, even though I have recently heard confirmation that on the first broadcast, the guy's face was not visible melting...
I just checked my recording of Blue Water's Dragonball GT episode 64, which aired on YTV on Friday, June 24th, 2005. Yes, we did get the less-cut version. It is not a false memory. There's some alteration of the audio placement, but the visuals are all there, untranslated Kanji and all. The Youtube link you posted with the "YTV vs. Toonami" comparison is accurate. It's also one of the only times I can think of where an untranslated Japanese song aired on YTV in one of the Dragonball series.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by 90sDBZ » Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:06 am

Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:
90sDBZ wrote:I've also been dubious of Canada getting less cuts as I've never seen a single video proving it in all these years. It could just be a Mandela Effect situation where Canadian fans are remembering Funimation's home releases which they also got alongside the Westwood broadcast.
I just checked my recording of Blue Water's Dragonball GT episode 64, which aired on YTV on Friday, June 24th, 2005. Yes, we did get the less-cut version. It is not a false memory. There's some alteration of the audio placement, but the visuals are all there, untranslated Kanji and all. The Youtube link you posted with the "YTV vs. Toonami" comparison is accurate. It's also one of the only times I can think of where an untranslated Japanese song aired on YTV in one of the Dragonball series.
We were referring more to the Westwood dub of Z specifically. Some Canadian fans have claimed that a less censored version of that aired on YTV, but there's never been any actual evidence to support it. All youtube clips of the Westwood dub seem to include the extra cuts that weren't present in Funimation's edited dub.

For example the scene were Super Buu jumps down the gunman's throat and expands inside him to kill him was left intact in Funimation's edited dub, but was cut from the Westwood dub so you only see Buu flying towards him and then reforming right after. To date I've never seen a version of the Westwood dub where that scene is left intact. Furthermore the edited Funimation dub of that scene aired on UK TV no problem, but when the Westwood equivalent aired on the same channel it was cut, which leads me to believe a less censored Westwood dub doesn't actually exist.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by Dark Vegeta-Sama » Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:27 am

Robo4900 wrote:But, the thing is, there's so much interpretation going into turning these facts into a coherent idea of what actually happened. Hell, even the name of this dub is a misnomer. No "Westwood" company was involved in any Dragon Ball dub's production to my knowledge, the AB Z dub's common "Westwood" nickname comes from the name of the studio that the Vancouver Ocean dubs of Dragon Ball Z were all recorded at(Not BLT DB, though; that was recorded at Dick & Rogers Sound Studio). Now, it is possible one could stretch the truth -- I personally haven't been able to ascertain exactly how this worked, but -- if the Westwood studio was owned by a company called "Westwood", you could claim that a Westwood media or something was involved, but their involvement would purely be Ocean buying studio time off this Westwood company... Hardly something to name the dub after, particularly given the Saban and Pioneer dubs were also recorded at this same studio... And you don't see anyone calling the 1995 DB dub "The Dick & Rogers dub".
linkdude20002001 wrote:
MasenkoHA wrote:I assume calling it the Westwood dub just makes it easier to distinguish that era. Calling it Ocean dub gets confusing if you mean everything Ocean Group dubbed or just episode 108-276. Calling it the AB Group dub may get confusing because fans seem to associate them with the weird movies they did with Big Green and porn star plumber Goku. I suppose the AB/Ocean dub might make the most sense
The reason I calld it "the Westwood dub" is becuz I was told by an actor or two that they believed the dub to have been produced by a company called "Westwood Media. It's really all I have to go off of. Perhaps we don't know who REALLY made the dub, but it at least has the distinction of being the only DB dub (as far as I'm aware) that was dubd at Westwood Studio (and Ocean Studio, depending on the day), so it's not the WORST possible name... If anyone who knows about this dub could be found and convinced to spill the beans, then maybe one day we can have a name that we don't have doubts over.
The Westwood dub was recorded at Airwaves Sound, one of the many recording studios in Vancouver at the time. Unfortunately, it is no longer around. Westwood Media was the company that produced the dub, but actual voice recording was done at Airwaves.
90sDBZ wrote:
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:
90sDBZ wrote:I've also been dubious of Canada getting less cuts as I've never seen a single video proving it in all these years. It could just be a Mandela Effect situation where Canadian fans are remembering Funimation's home releases which they also got alongside the Westwood broadcast.
I just checked my recording of Blue Water's Dragonball GT episode 64, which aired on YTV on Friday, June 24th, 2005. Yes, we did get the less-cut version. It is not a false memory. There's some alteration of the audio placement, but the visuals are all there, untranslated Kanji and all. The Youtube link you posted with the "YTV vs. Toonami" comparison is accurate. It's also one of the only times I can think of where an untranslated Japanese song aired on YTV in one of the Dragonball series.
We were referring more to the Westwood dub of Z specifically. Some Canadian fans have claimed that a less censored version of that aired on YTV, but there's never been any actual evidence to support it. All youtube clips of the Westwood dub seem to include the extra cuts that weren't present in Funimation's edited dub.

For example the scene were Super Buu jumps down the gunman's throat and expands inside him to kill him was left intact in Funimation's edited dub, but was cut from the Westwood dub so you only see Buu flying towards him and then reforming right after. To date I've never seen a version of the Westwood dub where that scene is left intact. Furthermore the edited Funimation dub of that scene aired on UK TV no problem, but when the Westwood equivalent aired on the same channel it was cut, which leads me to believe a less censored Westwood dub doesn't actually exist.
I would tend to agree with this. The Westwood dub was slightly more edited than FUNi's edited TV version, although most were time cuts.

There is a scene where Fat Buu alters his face to appear "handsome" and asks a woman if she finds him attractive that was present the first time the Westwood version of that episode aired on YTV, but was cut from future re-airings. I have recordings of both to verify that this cut did happen. Obviously, it's a mystery as to why that cut was made. However, I can't speak to how many other instances of that sort of thing would've happened.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by NinjaGoku » Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:39 am

Slightly off topic but other things to note with the DBZ dub. Odd censorship, such removing the scene where Super Buu creates a port-a-potty then uses the toilet.

Inconsistencies such as Dr. Gero strangling a driver's head through a car, but then it is shown on the 'last time on Dragon Ball Z' recap.

Did they use AB Groupe or Funimation's as source video? Who specifically edited?

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by 90sDBZ » Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:49 am

Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote: There is a scene where Fat Buu alters his face to appear "handsome" and asks a woman if she finds him attractive that was present the first time the Westwood version of that episode aired on YTV, but was cut from future re-airings. I have recordings of both to verify that this cut did happen. Obviously, it's a mystery as to why that cut was made. However, I can't speak to how many other instances of that sort of thing would've happened.
That is strange. I always remember that scene being shown in the UK broadcast. Perhaps it has something to do with YTV needing more time for commercials.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by Azelf89 » Fri Oct 19, 2018 11:53 am

NinjaGoku wrote:Slightly off topic but other things to note with the DBZ dub. Odd censorship, such removing the scene where Super Buu creates a port-a-potty then uses the toilet.

Inconsistencies such as Dr. Gero strangling a driver's head through a car, but then it is shown on the 'last time on Dragon Ball Z' recap.

Did they use AB Groupe or Funimation's as source video? Who specifically edited?
Ocean used Funimation’s video masters for most of the episodes, but switched to using AB Groupe’s video masters for the last few episodes.

AB Groupe’s masters we’re also used for Blue Water’s dub of Dragon Ball and (I think, though I’m not 100% sure) Dragon Ball GT.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by Robo4900 » Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:46 pm

Yes, but I had been under the impression Westwood was just a company that rented out studios, much like Dick & Rogers.
dagame10k wrote:Cancon was never an issue with the FUNimation dub on YTV, and had it been, YTV would have acquired episodes 108-167 of the Westwood dub at some point had it ever been made a issue.
One of YTV's own hosts on broadcast (Pat Kelly)admitted that YTV couldn't air new episodes as they had yet to receive them(from FUNimation), someone had uploaded a video on youtube, but can't seem to find it right now.
Yep. I believe I have cited this in the past.
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:The Ocean Group logo did indeed appear at the end of every episode aired on YTV during FUNimation's original two seasons.

However, it disappeared in season three. It was nowhere to be found from then on, except for briefly (and randomly) reappearing again at the beginning of FUNimation's season four (the Cyborg Freeza/Trunks/Android warning) episodes. This is what you've seen, and it did happen for unknown reasons, but it was a short-lived anomaly. The Ocean Group logo disappeared again after appearing at the end of those few episodes and was never seen again. It didn't even appear again when YTV began airing the Westwood dub.
I see. Most fascinating.
It does gel with the idea that Ocean were better at getting episodes to YTV, since if Ocean stopped distributing it in Canada when season 3 began, YTV would be getting it from Funi, and therefore the troubles we have discussed in the past about YTV not getting episodes from Funi fast enough would come into play here, and it would then further point to why YTV may have then negotiated to get Ocean's dub instead from 168 onwards.
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:It's a solid theory, but you're placing too much stock in AB Groupe's involvement. Apart from handling European distribution and providing video tracks for the final four episodes, AB Groupe really had nothing to do with the actual production of the dub in Vancouver. While it's certainly never been widely advertised, there is a company called Westwood Media (also responsible for other English dubs of the time like Gundam Wing), and one of the major things that the UKDB guys were able to find out back in the day after all the mystery is that they were the company behind the later Vancouver dub.
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:The Westwood dub was recorded at Airwaves Sound, one of the many recording studios in Vancouver at the time. Unfortunately, it is no longer around. Westwood Media was the company that produced the dub, but actual voice recording was done at Airwaves.
Can you point me to some sources on this? I've never seen anything other than vague allusions of the Dragon Ball Wikia kind that "it was produced by westwood media", with no further explanation, and with some conflicting information thrown in about it being produced by AB Groupe too... And given Brian Drummond has in the past talked about the fact his work on Z was recorded at a studio called Westwood, and that AB Groupe has often been pointed to as having produced the dub, even with them supplying the video masters for the end of Z and all of DB and GT... I'd always seen it as Westwood supplied the studio, AB Groupe put Ocean to work, Ocean did all the actual work.
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:I would tend to agree with this. The Westwood dub was slightly more edited than FUNi's edited TV version, although most were time cuts.

There is a scene where Fat Buu alters his face to appear "handsome" and asks a woman if she finds him attractive that was present the first time the Westwood version of that episode aired on YTV, but was cut from future re-airings. I have recordings of both to verify that this cut did happen. Obviously, it's a mystery as to why that cut was made. However, I can't speak to how many other instances of that sort of thing would've happened.
Yes, that seems to track with what I've heard...
Though I've never heard of any confirmed or specific instances of a cut that differed between airings outside of GT #64, so this is big news! :o :D
Azelf89 wrote:
NinjaGoku wrote:Slightly off topic but other things to note with the DBZ dub. Odd censorship, such removing the scene where Super Buu creates a port-a-potty then uses the toilet.
Inconsistencies such as Dr. Gero strangling a driver's head through a car, but then it is shown on the 'last time on Dragon Ball Z' recap.
Did they use AB Groupe or Funimation's as source video? Who specifically edited?
Ocean used Funimation’s video masters for most of the episodes, but switched to using AB Groupe’s video masters for the last few episodes.
AB Groupe’s masters we’re also used for Blue Water’s dub of Dragon Ball and (I think, though I’m not 100% sure) Dragon Ball GT.
You are correct.
AB's masters were used in DB, which lead to a lot of censorship ending up in there, unlike GT, which was uncut in the French dub, and as a result, is only cut in the Blue Water dub in episodes 8, 15, and in the UK version, 64. The cuts in 8 and 15 are shots where Goku's junk is in view, which naturally had to be excised or zoomed. I'm not aware of any other cuts in Blue Water's GT.
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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by MistaL » Fri Oct 19, 2018 7:12 pm

Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:I just checked my recording of Blue Water's Dragonball GT episode 64, which aired on YTV on Friday, June 24th, 2005. Yes, we did get the less-cut version. It is not a false memory. There's some alteration of the audio placement, but the visuals are all there, untranslated Kanji and all.
Do you think you could upload that recording of the end of the episode for the sake of us having it in a form where it isn't playing side-by-side with the UK version?

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by Dark Vegeta-Sama » Fri Oct 19, 2018 9:24 pm

90sDBZ wrote:That is strange. I always remember that scene being shown in the UK broadcast. Perhaps it has something to do with YTV needing more time for commercials.
That seems likely. YTV played more and more commercials as time went on.
Robo4900 wrote:
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:It's a solid theory, but you're placing too much stock in AB Groupe's involvement. Apart from handling European distribution and providing video tracks for the final four episodes, AB Groupe really had nothing to do with the actual production of the dub in Vancouver. While it's certainly never been widely advertised, there is a company called Westwood Media (also responsible for other English dubs of the time like Gundam Wing), and one of the major things that the UKDB guys were able to find out back in the day after all the mystery is that they were the company behind the later Vancouver dub.
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:The Westwood dub was recorded at Airwaves Sound, one of the many recording studios in Vancouver at the time. Unfortunately, it is no longer around. Westwood Media was the company that produced the dub, but actual voice recording was done at Airwaves.
Can you point me to some sources on this? I've never seen anything other than vague allusions of the Dragon Ball Wikia kind that "it was produced by westwood media", with no further explanation, and with some conflicting information thrown in about it being produced by AB Groupe too... And given Brian Drummond has in the past talked about the fact his work on Z was recorded at a studio called Westwood, and that AB Groupe has often been pointed to as having produced the dub, even with them supplying the video masters for the end of Z and all of DB and GT... I'd always seen it as Westwood supplied the studio, AB Groupe put Ocean to work, Ocean did all the actual work.
I completely understand the desire to see secondary sources. The issue here is that everything I'm recounting to you is stuff that the UKDB guys were able to decipher back in the day from speaking to the actors and exhaustively researching, even phoning locations in Vancouver and asking question. Gradually, over time, it all became stuff that "we just knew" but had no plan as far as documenting the information long-term (although, luckily, I have a few things printed out). One of my disappointments has been seeing how many misconceptions there've been about the Westwood dub, and how so much was forgotten in the years since or just never found out by newer/younger fans who didn't have the luxury of being present in the online community back when this dub was actually airing. Obviously, sources of the time are typically going to be the most accurate. Asking an actor now, while it's certainly nice to be able to do, might garner some misinformation because they may have forgotten details over the years. For example, Peter Kelamis said back in 2001 that he chose to leave the show due to being in Los Angeles most of the time, but nowadays he's said they recast him without his knowledge after the show had temporarily stopped production. All due respect to the man (he's my favourite Goku and I love his standup comedy), but I'll tend to place more credence into what he said 17 years ago rather than now, because memory is a funny thing. Actors work on so many projects as it is that it can be hard for them to remember every detail of every project they ever worked on absolutely perfectly almost 2 decades later.

As fans, we obsesses over this stuff. Actors don't. For them, it's just a job.

Back to the point at hand, unfortunately, I can't provide you with any hard evidence regarding Westwood right now, but I'll keep looking through whatever old printouts I can find. The Westwood document that dagame10k posted is a pretty good reference though.

Regarding Airwaves, there is something I can show you.

I was wondering why you wouldn't have seen Peter Kelamis mention Airwaves in one of the UKDB interviews that are still plainly available in the Web Archive I had linked to several months ago. I now see what happened.

https://web.archive.org/web/20021106211 ... rvew.shtml
JR: Which studio is doing the redub? We heard it is not the Ocean studios, but another Vancouver studio. Is that true?

Peter: Where I was doing the re-dub, it was (We Know, but you don't need to -Me). I believe they are still doing it there but I am not 100% on that.
Out of context, this "We Know, but you don't need to" would seem incredibly strange, but I now recall what happened. This interview was conducted in October 2001, and in its initial posting, Peter Kelamis said "Where I was doing the re-dub, it was Airwaves Studios. I believe they are still doing it there but I am not 100% on that." Several months later, in 2002, the mention of Airwaves was removed from that interview by the guys who ran the site because apparently Airwaves was getting inundated with phone calls by fans trying to get information on the actors. Again, this is all behind the scenes stuff that was discussed, but it's been so long now and Airwaves is no longer around so there shouldn't be any harm in revealing it. At any rate, there did seem to be a concerted attempt to keep details of this dub's production relatively low-key.

Luckily, I have a printout from late 2001. Here's a picture of the interview printed in its original form.

Don Brown also specifically stated that he recorded his lines at Airwaves during the aforementioned telephone interview in December 2002.

Also, as a point of clarification, Ocean Studios was where recording happened during FUNimation's first two seasons, but the Westwood dub was recorded at Airwaves. It sounds like Dragonball Kai was recorded at Ocean Studios between 2010 and 2014, but that would've been the first time the Canadian cast actually recorded in that specific location since their collaboration with FUNimation in 1996-1997.
MistaL wrote:
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:I just checked my recording of Blue Water's Dragonball GT episode 64, which aired on YTV on Friday, June 24th, 2005. Yes, we did get the less-cut version. It is not a false memory. There's some alteration of the audio placement, but the visuals are all there, untranslated Kanji and all.
Do you think you could upload that recording of the end of the episode for the sake of us having it in a form where it isn't playing side-by-side with the UK version?
Unfortunately, I am not capable of doing that at present because I don't have any video capture equipment. The computer that I used to capture video back in the day died many years ago.

However, I would be happy to do that in the future, when I have the right equipment to do a proper transfer. My plan is to purchase a nice media desktop setup with high-quality capture equipment, but it's going to require some big spending and likely won't happen for a few more years. At present I'm just using a pretty basic laptop.

I'll keep you informed though, when it happens.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by Robo4900 » Sat Oct 20, 2018 1:56 am

Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:I completely understand the desire to see secondary sources. The issue here is that everything I'm recounting to you is stuff that the UKDB guys were able to decipher back in the day from speaking to the actors and exhaustively researching, even phoning locations in Vancouver and asking question. Gradually, over time, it all became stuff that "we just knew" but had no plan as far as documenting the information long-term (although, luckily, I have a few things printed out). One of my disappointments has been seeing how many misconceptions there've been about the Westwood dub, and how so much was forgotten in the years since or just never found out by newer/younger fans who didn't have the luxury of being present in the online community back when this dub was actually airing. Obviously, sources of the time are typically going to be the most accurate. Asking an actor now, while it's certainly nice to be able to do, might garner some misinformation because they may have forgotten details over the years. For example, Peter Kelamis said back in 2001 that he chose to leave the show due to being in Los Angeles most of the time, but nowadays he's said they recast him without his knowledge after the show had temporarily stopped production. All due respect to the man (he's my favourite Goku and I love his standup comedy), but I'll tend to place more credence into what he said 17 years ago rather than now, because memory is a funny thing. Actors work on so many projects as it is that it can be hard for them to remember every detail of every project they ever worked on absolutely perfectly almost 2 decades later.

As fans, we obsesses over this stuff. Actors don't. For them, it's just a job.

Back to the point at hand, unfortunately, I can't provide you with any hard evidence regarding Westwood right now, but I'll keep looking through whatever old printouts I can find. The Westwood document that dagame10k posted is a pretty good reference though.
I see. That's very interesting.
I've tried to gather what I can about the Westwood dubs over the past few years, but I really wasn't involved in the Dragon Ball fandom at all until I joined Kanzenshuu, so gleaning what I can from various sources that still exist at the moment has been difficult... So, it seems I still have much to learn. :)

Any information you have on these dubs, any interviews you can link, any printouts or whatever you can pass along, I'd love to give a look. :)
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:Regarding Airwaves, there is something I can show you.

[...]
I see. Very interesting.
I can't remember if I've read that interview already, but thanks for the clarification. Does make a lot of sense... Very interesting. :)

One thing I note from that interivew... Kelamis says he was directed by Karl Willems!!... Did Willems really direct the Westwood dub? I thought he only directed a few short spans of it, and the Pioneer movies!
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:Don Brown also specifically stated that he recorded his lines at Airwaves during the aforementioned telephone interview in December 2002.

Also, as a point of clarification, Ocean Studios was where recording happened during FUNimation's first two seasons, but the Westwood dub was recorded at Airwaves. It sounds like Dragonball Kai was recorded at Ocean Studios between 2010 and 2014, but that would've been the first time the Canadian cast actually recorded in that specific location since their collaboration with FUNimation in 1996-1997.
I see...

Very interesting stuff. So it seems AB were just the European distributor... And Westwood Media actually did the production... This does bring to mind, for me, where the rights reside now. I would assume it reverted back to Toei... Which, I suppose, would be good news in terms of the likelihood of Funi doing a DVD release someday, since they'd only need to get it from Toei, not AB or Westwood or anyone...

Of course, Westwood is defunct, right? And AB were only ever a distributor... So I guess we can pretty definitively say the producers of Ocean Kai are not the same guys who did the Westwood/BW dubs.
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:Unfortunately, I am not capable of doing that at present because I don't have any video capture equipment. The computer that I used to capture video back in the day died many years ago.

However, I would be happy to do that in the future, when I have the right equipment to do a proper transfer. My plan is to purchase a nice media desktop setup with high-quality capture equipment, but it's going to require some big spending and likely won't happen for a few more years. At present I'm just using a pretty basic laptop.

I'll keep you informed though, when it happens.
If you're based in Canada, I have a friend who has a rather excellent VHS capturing setup that I'm sure he'd be willing to cap your tapes with sometime. I can direct you to him if you like. :)
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by NitroEX » Sat Oct 20, 2018 5:47 am

Robo4900 wrote:
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:It's a solid theory, but you're placing too much stock in AB Groupe's involvement. Apart from handling European distribution and providing video tracks for the final four episodes, AB Groupe really had nothing to do with the actual production of the dub in Vancouver. While it's certainly never been widely advertised, there is a company called Westwood Media (also responsible for other English dubs of the time like Gundam Wing), and one of the major things that the UKDB guys were able to find out back in the day after all the mystery is that they were the company behind the later Vancouver dub.
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:The Westwood dub was recorded at Airwaves Sound, one of the many recording studios in Vancouver at the time. Unfortunately, it is no longer around. Westwood Media was the company that produced the dub, but actual voice recording was done at Airwaves.
Can you point me to some sources on this?
It's not strong evidence but last year I noticed a credit on Azur Vancouver's website that read:
DRAGON BALL Z (animation)
1999-2001: ADR Recordist

I did email Hendrik J. Britton at the time (who owns the studio) and he explained to me that he recorded the voices during that time on DragonBall Z, and that the studio he recorded it at (which was presumably Airwaves - as Azur's studio didn't exist at the time) was subcontracted. So basically Airwaves just hired him to record the voices.

Unfortunately, the DBZ credit has since been removed from the Azur site, although it is on Hendrik's IMDB, just with the wrong year (1996 instead of 1999) and on wayback machine.

Interestingly enough, Hendrik added in the email that he couldn't talk about voice directors or cast members on that dub due to signing an NDA.
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote: I would tend to agree with this. The Westwood dub was slightly more edited than FUNi's edited TV version, although most were time cuts.

There is a scene where Fat Buu alters his face to appear "handsome" and asks a woman if she finds him attractive that was present the first time the Westwood version of that episode aired on YTV, but was cut from future re-airings. I have recordings of both to verify that this cut did happen. Obviously, it's a mystery as to why that cut was made. However, I can't speak to how many other instances of that sort of thing would've happened.
While I don't have the recordings to prove it, I too have a similar memory of the UK broadcasts being tampered with after the fact, specifically, the scene where Hercule's pupil Karoni is introduced at the start of the Cell Games. There's a specific scene after his introduction where he's freeze-framed to omit suggestive hip thrusting but you still hear the sound effect of the thrust - it's very odd and confusing to a viewer watching that scene unless you remembered the original airing where his hip thrusts were left intact - which I did see, hence why I noticed it in later airings.
Azelf89 wrote:
NinjaGoku wrote:Slightly off topic but other things to note with the DBZ dub. Odd censorship, such removing the scene where Super Buu creates a port-a-potty then uses the toilet.
I don't find that edit odd at all - toilet humour that explicit usually doesn't fly on kids TV, it's in poor taste.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Sat Oct 20, 2018 8:09 am

NitroEX wrote:I don't find that edit odd at all - toilet humour that explicit usually doesn't fly on kids TV, it's in poor taste.
Good to know you're in favor of dictatorship then.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by Kakacarrottop » Sat Oct 20, 2018 8:35 am

NitroEX wrote:
Robo4900 wrote:
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:It's a solid theory, but you're placing too much stock in AB Groupe's involvement. Apart from handling European distribution and providing video tracks for the final four episodes, AB Groupe really had nothing to do with the actual production of the dub in Vancouver. While it's certainly never been widely advertised, there is a company called Westwood Media (also responsible for other English dubs of the time like Gundam Wing), and one of the major things that the UKDB guys were able to find out back in the day after all the mystery is that they were the company behind the later Vancouver dub.
Dark Vegeta-Sama wrote:The Westwood dub was recorded at Airwaves Sound, one of the many recording studios in Vancouver at the time. Unfortunately, it is no longer around. Westwood Media was the company that produced the dub, but actual voice recording was done at Airwaves.
Can you point me to some sources on this?
It's not strong evidence but last year I noticed a credit on Azur Vancouver's website that read:
DRAGON BALL Z (animation)
1999-2001: ADR Recordist

I did email Hendrik J. Britton at the time (who owns the studio) and he explained to me that he recorded the voices during that time on DragonBall Z, and that the studio he recorded it at (which was presumably Airwaves - as Azur's studio didn't exist at the time) was subcontracted. So basically Airwaves just hired him to record the voices.

Unfortunately, the DBZ credit has since been removed from the Azur site, although it is on Hendrik's IMDB, just with the wrong year (1996 instead of 1999) and on wayback machine.

Interestingly enough, Hendrik added in the email that he couldn't talk about voice directors or cast members on that dub due to signing an NDA.
The Westwood dub started airing in January 2001 and the earliest reference I can find of it is a Brian Drummond interview from late 2000. It's pretty much a certainty that an unknown number of episodes were recorded during 2000, although It seems strange the Westwood dub would have stretched as far back as 1999, with that perhaps just being him getting dates messed up. I always just assumed 99 was the one year Ocean were inactive during that whole 1995-2002 DB dubbing stretch.
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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by 90sDBZ » Sat Oct 20, 2018 10:24 am

I just remembered another inconsistency with the UK broadcast. When the last episode of the Fat Buu saga aired in the UK for the first time, which was the episode where the puppy gets shot at the end, it showed the puppy getting shot and then the closeup of Buu's shocked face before the episode ended abruptly with even the ending credits and NEP being skipped. It literally went straight into commercials from there.

This was the last "new" episode of DBZ to ever air on Cartoon Network UK before the move to CNX a few months later. While this episode was still being re-ran on Cartoon Network it would always end abruptly just like this. Then during the later reruns on CNX and further down the line Toonami UK, they would actually show the end of that episode.

This is the only case I can think of where something was cut at first then not cut during a later broadcast. What makes it weird is that they always showed the puppy getting shot which was the worst part, but would cut away before the ending narration during those early broadcasts on Cartoon Network UK.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by SX10 » Sat Oct 20, 2018 10:28 am

JohnnyCashKami wrote:
NitroEX wrote:I don't find that edit odd at all - toilet humour that explicit usually doesn't fly on kids TV, it's in poor taste.
Good to know you're in favor of dictatorship then.
That you can equate something like that to dictatorship is very amusing. Nitro was only stating why an edit like that would be made and to be honest it's not a very important part of the story is it?

The cuts made to this will literally be the cut shown on Nicktoons, unless they feel maybe they want to revise their cut in the lead up to airing on Wow! (long shot)

But still no word on an air date us killing me :cry:
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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by MasenkoHA » Sat Oct 20, 2018 12:00 pm

JohnnyCashKami wrote:
NitroEX wrote:I don't find that edit odd at all - toilet humour that explicit usually doesn't fly on kids TV, it's in poor taste.
Good to know you're in favor of dictatorship then.
I don't think you know what a dictatorship is.

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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by Scsigs » Sat Oct 20, 2018 12:28 pm

JohnnyCashKami wrote:
NitroEX wrote:I don't find that edit odd at all - toilet humour that explicit usually doesn't fly on kids TV, it's in poor taste.
Good to know you're in favor of dictatorship then.
You compare an edit of a scene that was just dumb (& also removed in Kai because it wasn't in the manga) due to the VERY childish toilet humor that it is to a dictatorship, a form of gov't where someone rules above all people in a society with a military force & no say from the citizens? Really? That makes NO sense.
Only dubs that matter are DB, Kai, & Super. Nothing else.
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Re: Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" dub seems to be coming...

Post by MistaL » Sat Oct 20, 2018 12:31 pm

JohnnyCashKami wrote:
NitroEX wrote:I don't find that edit odd at all - toilet humour that explicit usually doesn't fly on kids TV, it's in poor taste.
Good to know you're in favor of dictatorship then.
Holy shit, you are actually mentally fucking insane.

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