Ocean/Funi Dub vs Uncut Redub w/dub music

[MasenkoHA]

Which do you prefer or hate less. The original 1996 dub or the in -house uncut redub Funimation did in 2005

[Bansho64]

For the first three movies or the Saiyan and Namek parts of the series?


For the series part, Ocean Dub all the way. The dialogue's atrocious in a lot of areas, a lot is cut, it doesn't have Kikuchi, and I'm not 100% on every single voice, but I'd still take it over the in house Funi dub because of how awesome a lot of the actors are. Specifically, Brian Drummond, Scott McNeil, and Saffron Henderson.

As for the first three movies, again, Ocean dub all the way. I'm even moreso on this side now. IMO, the performances that the Ocean actors gave in these particular movies are some of the best that we've gotten in DB material. And it's not just the VAs that make this shine either. The quality in translating these particular films is great and ahead of it's time in terms of FUNi standards. Peter Kelamis is a major part of why I chose what I did. The dude's......awesome to say the least. At least, that's what I think. Like, the dude's freakin amazing as Goku. The way he pronounces lines is so cool and he gives the role a lot of heart.

Sorry, but Ocean takes the cake on each IMO.

[Lookerman]

Bansho's got some valid points.

Maybe it's just me, but I found Ocean had better casting in some areas than Funi (this is early DB dub material we're talking about here, of course). And even those who weren't well-cast at least had actors with experience behind them. This is noticeable when comparing Ocean with Early Funi (roughly 1999-2006 or so).

Even with the remastered release, while the later episodes aren't that horrible in comparison. You can tell Funi's still not doing as good a job compared to some of their other dubs released around the same time. Only Kai really proved how they could do decent with the material.

In terms of scripting, Pioneer's dubs were among the best (especially for the time). But I think Funi's since outclassed them with Kai. In terms of voice acting, I still say the movies give Kai's cast a run for the money in areas. In others (like with Piccolo), I'd say they're on par with one another. The TV series, while still using the same voice casts shows just how much, even with awful adaptation, the Ocean voices were more experienced than Funi's during the first several years.

[Danfun64]

On the one hand, the worst dub errors have been removed, and some of the dialog is completely different (in a more accurate fashion). On the other hand, Johnson's score isn't as good as Kikuchi's...or even Levi's. Granted, it wasn't horrible...it was just "meh". Three more points against the UUC dub include having slightly worse voice acting that Ocean's dub...at last at the beginning; script inconsistencies (some of which come when the script switches from a variant of the Sabah run script to an alternate (usually accurate...but not so much in Tree of Might when Fuji invented that "That's not my name" line) script whenever a scene cut in the Saban was dubbed, and the UUC intro being horrendous. ("SO DARK AND HARDCORRRRE!!1!!" I'd argue that its worse than Step into the Grand Tour. At least that song had some form of emotion rather than just being pure grimdark)

[ABED]

Ocean dub for years, but the FUNi cast has caught up. I wish they could mix and match because there are a number of the ancillary roles like Kaio-sama and Gyumao that I wish were still the Ocean dub actors, but I can't stand Kelamis. His Goofy delivery is so off-putting.

[90sDBZ]

I like both, but I prefer the 1996-2003 version to the 2005-2009 Remastered dub. I actually think the Funimation and Ocean casts were pretty equal for their Season 1 and 2 dubs, but I like the Shuki Levy/Ron Wasserman score more than the Nathan Jonson score, and I think Drummond does evil Vegeta that tiny bit better than Sabat, so I prefer Ocean for those episodes and those episodes only.

Starting from "Ginyu Assault" the re-dub was only partial, and the differences between it and the initial inhouse dub became less and less over time. But the initial inhouse dub had better placement with Faulconer's music on those early Ginyu episodes so I've gotta give it that. And the initial dub had a more natural progression with some of the voices, like Sabat starting out doing an impression and then gradually making it his own over time. The remastered dub starts out with Sabat's more experienced performance, then reverts to his Drummond impression for the Trunks saga, before gradually evolving back into his more unique performance again further down the line.

And the remastered dub also added in some awkward lines that were completely out of place like Goku saying "Hey mister" to Yajirobe, and 18 randomly saying "Time for bonus points" before running out to correct Krillin for thinking she and 17 were a couple. They also removed part of the word "Kamehameha" when Goku uses it on Cell so it ends up as "Ka... me... HAAA!!!" or something to that effect.

Another thing about the remastered dub that I felt was very detrimental was the removal of voice filters for certain characters, particularly Super Buu. Justin Cook's Super Buu sounded incredible in the initial dub with his voice filter during screams. He sounded like a pure evil demonic psychopath, and his voice suddenly going super high pitched in certain scenes was a really cool touch. In the remastered dub he just doesn't sound as menacing as he used to, which is why I really hope they bring the filter back for Buu Kai.

Overall the Remastered dub is a decent way to watch the entire series with one voice cast, but lacks the more natural progression of the older dub.

[8000 Saiyan]

Ocean wins for me.

[Robo4900]

Ocean all the way. I watch Dragon Ball in the original Japanese these days, but if I ever decide to watch it dubbed, it'll be the Ocean dub for as much of it as I can manage. The OG Funi dub has some charm to it, and some of the weirdness is a good laugh("Cat loves food ye-yea-yea-yeah", and "Jeice! Are you alright? Is it bleeding? Be careful, Jeice, or you'll stain your gloves."), but ultimately, the Ocean actors are much better than the Funi actors were during the original Z dub, and the 68+ redubs just make the whole thing jarring as hell. Plus, they had to use the WIP tapes to get it without it already being fully mixed, so a bunch of effects and some lines are missing. IMO, the combination of these factors makes the 68-291 redub not really worth bothering with.

The redubbed 1-67 is good, but not great, as they largely recycled the Saban scripts, which are not good, and the transition from that to #68 is pretty jarring, and impossible to get used to until the end of the Androids arc, when the redubbed lines stop.

[precita]

Ocean actors themselves were good, but the writing/dialouge and cut episodes/scenes make the original dub impossible to go back to.

It's not 1997 anymore.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

For the voices themselves the Ocean Group actors win. The vocal performances were just bang on and many of the actors truly did the best they could with the material they had.

The 2004 in-house redub had slightly better scripts, but it was only when Kai came around that Schemmel, Sabat et al were on par with their Ocean counterparts.

[DrBriefsCat]

The music in the Ocean dub from the Saban era was more bearable than Funi's in-house one. While Faulconer's music had its moments, it belonged in a different series. Shuki Levy's music fit the tone a bit better, but was more limited than Kikuchi's.

The voice acting in the Saban era dub was leagues better than the in-house one until Funi started to dub Kai.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Got to echo the majority here definitely Ocean. The uncut redub is kind of a dud now we have Kai. Plus Johnson's score was petty bland too. One good track that was it, was the one where Krillin or Gohan visit Grand Elder the only memorable track that stuck out tbh.

Shame we can't have a Ocean Kai vs FUNi Kai thead... Sigh.

[MasenkoHA]

Shame we can't have a Ocean Kai vs FUNi Kai thead... Sigh.

Is it true they actually did dub Kai they just lacked a distributor?


I'd kill for Safferon Henderson to do Gohan again

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Shame we can't have a Ocean Kai vs FUNi Kai thead... Sigh.

Is it true they actually did dub Kai they just lacked a distributor?


I'd kill for Safferon Henderson to do Gohan again

Yes! We have it on good authority there are no Canadian TV channels interested in the Ocean dub of Kai, and Kix aired Kai in the UK so to this day the dub has lacked a place to air.

But it would be amazing to see Henderson play Gohan again, hell even hearing a snippet of this dub (other than the leaked theme song) would be a dream come true.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Shame we can't have a Ocean Kai vs FUNi Kai thead... Sigh.

Is it true they actually did dub Kai they just lacked a distributor?


I'd kill for Safferon Henderson to do Gohan again

Yeah. Someone paid for it. Then something somewhere fell apart and the dub never saw the light of day and never will. FUNi were allowed to release Kai on BD for Canada, UK got FUNi dub on BD and TV and now with Super being the hot new thing no chance Ocean Kai will ever be seen/heard.

[TheGreatness25]

I'll be honest: I don't even see the logic in dubbing Kai twice from two different dubbing companies for the same language. Although I do think that the Ocean cast is a lot more talented and would love to see it, I am sincerely surprised that an Ocena Kai is even a thing.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Thing is its inevitable in business for those involved to work on projects that could in theory be considered pointless provided there is an opportunity to make a return on their investment. Seen as how the Ocean Kai dub began pre-production as early as 2009 it is possible Ocean saw the potential to sell their dub to enough markets before Funimation got to them, although the absence of Ocean's dub seems to indicate the exact opposite happened. In hindsight the producers might feel it was pointless, but at the time I'm sure the intention was there considering the effort that was put into casting, scoring, etc.

I'm still holding out for a Canadian broadcast. Its probably unlikely, but if Teletoon or some other station airs the Funimation dub of Super and wants more Dragon Ball to maintain ratings it may be enticing to air Ocean Kai alongside it to test the waters airing separate English dubs and see if the cast can generate interest in an Ocean dub of The Final Chapters and Super. Yes Super is a sequel to Kai, but so is Z to Ball and Z aired before Ball, in Canada's case with separate dubs for each show so whose to say whatever network picks up Dragon Ball won't see any reason for history to not repeat itself.

[Danfun64]

Toei doesn't allow dubbing companies to dub Super if they dubbed Kai but not The Final Chapters. TFC would have to come first. If an Ocean Super dub is ever to come out (which is extremely unlikely) Ocean Kai would not only have to air in its entirety, but TFC would have to be dubbed as well.