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

[sangofe]

I'd like to throw in my two cents on the Saban thing. You said that if it were a Saban creation, it wouldn't have continued on, but I disagree. It's obvious that Funimation wanted to take a different route on Kai and Super, but still ended up using their Funi-isms like "Frieza" and "Tien." I think that Funimation doesn't want to confuse its audience (what a lame-ass idea, though), so it sticks to what's been established.

"Frieza" makes sense when you consider western spellings & pronunciations against Eastern ones. English makes 0 sense as a language if you try to look at it because it's a Gemanic language influenced heavily by French & has bits of other languages thrown it, so I don't know if that pronunciation is from its Germanic roots, or the French ones, but that's how that came about & it's stuck. "Tien" is a result of them translating his name slightly differently than the Japanese. I believe I read that it's more in the way of the Chinese pronunciation.

I hear you but I think nothing could change the pronunciation of Saiyan (which I believe was coined by Toei themselves). Imagine them saying Super Saiiya-jin or even "Sai-yan," it just wouldn't feel right in a dub. "Sei-yen" has just been etched in the western psyche so much that there's no really going back.

Pronouncing it "Say-an," I'm sure, is more in the way of pronouncing it in a more Western way too. Also remember that back in the 90s, pronunciation wasn't really a key thing that was adhered to a lot when dubbing anime if they adhered to what was in the original material at all. Same thing with "Kaioken," but that one's more egregious, since it should be pronounced right because of the fact that it's a move taught by King Kai. The way it's romanized, it makes sense that people would pronounce it "Say-an" because it's spelled like "traitor" & the like where "ai" is pronounced like that, unless told otherwise. Considering that I doubt they really watched the Japanese version too closely when initially dubbing the series back in the day, that explains the pronunciation differences between the languages.

And, just an aside here, am I the only one who doesn't care that the word's pronounced "Say-an" in the dub & even likes it? To me, "Saiyan" pronounced like that just hits the ear better than "Sai-an" does. That's just me, though.

Jeice and Burter arent really bad changes. it still retains the pun, albeit loosely.

Not really. Jeice doesn't sound like cheese at all; Burter kind of almost fits, but it's a bit of a stretch.
Not the most grievous Funimation name change (Bulla. Goddamn Bulla. I will never stop giving Funimation crap over that one), and honestly I'm not hugely bothered by those particular two, but if Funimation were supposedly taking a more accurate, close to the Japanese route, surely they'd be fine to make a small change like Jeice > Jheese, and Burter > Butta. It's a pretty small change, so it's unlikely to confuse or upset anyone, and it would be one more step in the "Let's do it properly this time" direction. Hell, they could even hedge their bets on it, and only change the pronunciation, leaving the spelling the same.
"Frieza" and "Buu" are just spelling differences, and don't really matter all that much, but Jeice, Burter, and Bulla are obviously just little screwups that could easily be fixed without any fuss; the only people who'd kick up a fuss are the people who consider the word "Bra" to be too lewd for children to hear... And those people are idiots.
I mean, they recast Freeza and took a totally different approach to his voice, so surely pronouncing Jeice and Burter closer to the proper, Japanese original names wouldn't be a problem?

Really, I think this just further demonstrates that, while the Funimation actors are all constantly striving to be better, the attitudes at Funimation beyond the actors are still pretty apathetic to what Dragon Ball actually is and should be.

Meh, "Jeice" & "Burter" aren't really anything to get mad at, really. If you heard those names, then someone told you that they were puns on "cheese" & "butter," I don't think you'd bat an eye. I also think it's more to actor pronunciation difficulties. Like, how the hell would you pronounce "Jheese" anyways?
Changing "Bra" to "Bulla," though, actually makes sense. If they changed it back in Super, that'd be nice, but I'd understand if they kept it. Back when they dubbed GT, it was the first time that her name was ever spoken on screen, since I don't think they ever did in Z, so they didn't know what exactly to do. And with how it's pronounced in the Japanese dub, "Burura," or something to that effect, I don't think they were really wrong with how they approximated it, it just lost the pun in the translation, but you can understand how they got it if you're told what her name originally was. It's similar to getting "Bulma" from "Buruma," since it's a pun on "Bloomers," so it should be rendered "Bluma/Blooma." I don't know. I feel like you're getting mad over something that doesn't matter as much as you want it to. I mean, it's certainly worth a discussion, but not legitimate anger.

How does it make sense to change the name Bra to Bulla? How is that anything else than censorship?

[Scsigs]

Meh, "Jeice" & "Burter" aren't really anything to get mad at, really. If you heard those names, then someone told you that they were puns on "cheese" & "butter," I don't think you'd bat an eye. I also think it's more to actor pronunciation difficulties. Like, how the hell would you pronounce "Jheese" anyways?
Changing "Bra" to "Bulla," though, actually makes sense. If they changed it back in Super, that'd be nice, but I'd understand if they kept it. Back when they dubbed GT, it was the first time that her name was ever spoken on screen, since I don't think they ever did in Z, so they didn't know what exactly to do. And with how it's pronounced in the Japanese dub, "Burura," or something to that effect, I don't think they were really wrong with how they approximated it, it just lost the pun in the translation, but you can understand how they got it if you're told what her name originally was. It's similar to getting "Bulma" from "Buruma," since it's a pun on "Bloomers," so it should be rendered "Bluma/Blooma." I don't know. I feel like you're getting mad over something that doesn't matter as much as you want it to. I mean, it's certainly worth a discussion, but not legitimate anger.

How does it make sense to change the name Bra to Bulla? How is that anything else than censorship?[/quote]
I don't think I said it necessarily makes sense to change it to that, I meant that you can see why they changed it to Bulla & if they're serious on keeping her same as such in the Super dub.

[sangofe]

Meh, "Jeice" & "Burter" aren't really anything to get mad at, really. If you heard those names, then someone told you that they were puns on "cheese" & "butter," I don't think you'd bat an eye. I also think it's more to actor pronunciation difficulties. Like, how the hell would you pronounce "Jheese" anyways?
Changing "Bra" to "Bulla," though, actually makes sense. If they changed it back in Super, that'd be nice, but I'd understand if they kept it. Back when they dubbed GT, it was the first time that her name was ever spoken on screen, since I don't think they ever did in Z, so they didn't know what exactly to do. And with how it's pronounced in the Japanese dub, "Burura," or something to that effect, I don't think they were really wrong with how they approximated it, it just lost the pun in the translation, but you can understand how they got it if you're told what her name originally was. It's similar to getting "Bulma" from "Buruma," since it's a pun on "Bloomers," so it should be rendered "Bluma/Blooma." I don't know. I feel like you're getting mad over something that doesn't matter as much as you want it to. I mean, it's certainly worth a discussion, but not legitimate anger.

How does it make sense to change the name Bra to Bulla? How is that anything else than censorship?

I don't think I said it necessarily makes sense to change it to that, I meant that you can see why they changed it to Bulla &if they're serious on keeping her same as such in the Super dub.[/quote]

Right. I thought you were one of those "Bulla fanboys" and wanted to hear the logic behind it. On another note, I don't understand why they need to keep it that in the Super dub, though. But that's something else and not part of this topic.

Back on topic; has anyone heard any news about the Ocean Kai dub being closer of airing?

[Arian]

Back on topic; has anyone heard any news about the Ocean Kai dub being closer of airing?

No, although I did see 1 or 2 people ask Marni already how the meetings went. I'm sure it takes time to finalize any agreements, especially if they're going between Canada and Japan.

The question that I wish to pose is, where do we go from here? Do we just sit and wait for Marni and Wow! to give us the nod? Do we ask other networks if they want Kai? I don't know, it just feels like we could be doing more, but I could be wrong...

On a side note, I noticed that the channel that Wow! is going to replace, Comedy Gold is broadcasting in 480i. I really hope that when the channel changes hands that they give it an HD upgrade. I don't want my precious Ocean Kai to be compressed or confined in any way.

[Scsigs]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GT the first time where they actually said her name? In Z, she had like one line and nobody referred to her by name; we just knew her name from supplemental information?

They're referring to the credits in Kai where her name is written out.

The credits also refer to the Grand Elder as Guru and retain the names for those two gunmen from the Z dub. That being said, Super's official subs suggest that they are keeping the name.

If you're talking about the Crunchyroll subs, their subs are completely stupid in terms of some naming conventions. They seem to give the translators a list of the names that were in FUNimation's dubs at some point, rather than their names from the DVD subtitles. Like "King Kai-sama" rather than "Kaio-sama" & the like. Plus, didn't they use "Zamas" rather than "Zamasu"? The dub of Xenoverse 2 pretty much indicates that FUNi's going with the full "Zamasu" instead. There's still time if they wanna keep her name as it originally was intended, so bug Sabat about it if you want them to change her name back before they dub the next arcs.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Back on topic; has anyone heard any news about the Ocean Kai dub being closer of airing?

Honestly I think we'll need to wait on an update from Marni, but I'd advise people to be patient as she seems to be doing her best to get this dub, and that's more than most, if not all Canadian TV executives can say.

We can always try suggesting to other networks, if there is word of Toonami returning to the UK maybe someone at Turner if possible? I'm actually really curious as to the Tweet Lee Tockar made about the powers that be clearing him to say he's playing Freeza. It's been well over a year, I would hope something IS happening with that? Who knows what it could be, but the fact him and Drummond have been quiet since then and the Geekdom interview I would hope its because Ocean still need them to stop talking because the dub is going somewhere.

[sangofe]

Back on topic; has anyone heard any news about the Ocean Kai dub being closer of airing?

No, although I did see 1 or 2 people ask Marni already how the meetings went. I'm sure it takes time to finalize any agreements, especially if they're going between Canada and Japan.

The question that I wish to pose is, where do we go from here? Do we just sit and wait for Marni and Wow! to give us the nod? Do we ask other networks if they want Kai? I don't know, it just feels like we could be doing more, but I could be wrong...

On a side note, I noticed that the channel that Wow! is going to replace, Comedy Gold is broadcasting in 480i. I really hope that when the channel changes hands that they give it an HD upgrade. I don't want my precious Ocean Kai to be compressed or confined in any way.

I do too, but if it doesn't it's not the end of the world; what matters is the audio - the video is easily available either way.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

On a side note, I noticed that the channel that Wow! is going to replace, Comedy Gold is broadcasting in 480i. I really hope that when the channel changes hands that they give it an HD upgrade. I don't want my precious Ocean Kai to be compressed or confined in any way.

Granted it wouldn't be ideal, but as said it can be fixed, at least in terms of video as someone will sync it up to edited Blu-Ray footage. Either way I'm sure if this dub comes out there will be a lot of fun edits, like Ocean Kai with Yamamoto, Ocean Kai with Kikuchi or Ocean Kai with Sumitomo. Depending on how good the replacement score is it could also be interesting to see how it works with the Funi dub or Japanese track.

[Super Sayian Prime]

Back on topic; has anyone heard any news about the Ocean Kai dub being closer of airing?

No, although I did see 1 or 2 people ask Marni already how the meetings went. I'm sure it takes time to finalize any agreements, especially if they're going between Canada and Japan.

The question that I wish to pose is, where do we go from here? Do we just sit and wait for Marni and Wow! to give us the nod? Do we ask other networks if they want Kai? I don't know, it just feels like we could be doing more, but I could be wrong...

On a side note, I noticed that the channel that Wow! is going to replace, Comedy Gold is broadcasting in 480i. I really hope that when the channel changes hands that they give it an HD upgrade. I don't want my precious Ocean Kai to be compressed or confined in any way.

Unless the news is bad, I wouldn't really expect Marni to give us any more details over Twitter. If they've picked up Kai, they'll be saving that for the channel's unveiling. Truthfully, even if the news is bad we're not really entitled to know about that.

It's hard to say where we'd go from here. If Wow isn't able to obtain the dub, is there anywhere else to go? We'd need to know why that happened. Was it a cost issue? A digital rights problem? Is Toei simply barring it from release? The first two may be problems that someone else could rectify/ignore (see DHX's recent hiring of a Toonami Asia employee). The last is a death sentence. We could bark up Toei USA's tree, but Toei's not exactly known for having a great grasp on fan interests.

[8000 Saiyan]

On a side note, I noticed that the channel that Wow! is going to replace, Comedy Gold is broadcasting in 480i. I really hope that when the channel changes hands that they give it an HD upgrade. I don't want my precious Ocean Kai to be compressed or confined in any way.

Granted it wouldn't be ideal, but as said it can be fixed, at least in terms of video as someone will sync it up to edited Blu-Ray footage. Either way I'm sure if this dub comes out there will be a lot of fun edits, like Ocean Kai with Yamamoto, Ocean Kai with Kikuchi or Ocean Kai with Sumitomo. Depending on how good the replacement score is it could also be interesting to see how it works with the Funi dub or Japanese track.

I would like to see Ocean Kai with the Kikuchi score (with a better placement).

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

On a side note, I noticed that the channel that Wow! is going to replace, Comedy Gold is broadcasting in 480i. I really hope that when the channel changes hands that they give it an HD upgrade. I don't want my precious Ocean Kai to be compressed or confined in any way.

Granted it wouldn't be ideal, but as said it can be fixed, at least in terms of video as someone will sync it up to edited Blu-Ray footage. Either way I'm sure if this dub comes out there will be a lot of fun edits, like Ocean Kai with Yamamoto, Ocean Kai with Kikuchi or Ocean Kai with Sumitomo. Depending on how good the replacement score is it could also be interesting to see how it works with the Funi dub or Japanese track.

I would like to see Ocean Kai with the Kikuchi score (with a better placement).

I still think the Kikuchi placement works for the most part. If anything it would be nice to hear it alongside the Vancouver cast in more than just the Pioneer trilogy.

[SX10]

Unless the news is bad, I wouldn't really expect Marni to give us any more details over Twitter. If they've picked up Kai, they'll be saving that for the channel's unveiling. Truthfully, even if the news is bad we're not really entitled to know about that.

I actually believe this to be the case as well. If all goes well she won't be able to say due to NDA's & an unveiling to go along with the channel launch. Maybe a vague, positive message if all goes well.

She seems open and transparent enough to let us know if it hasn't worked out. Damn I hope it's going well.

[MistaL]

On a side note, I noticed that the channel that Wow! is going to replace, Comedy Gold is broadcasting in 480i. I really hope that when the channel changes hands that they give it an HD upgrade. I don't want my precious Ocean Kai to be compressed or confined in any way.

Granted it wouldn't be ideal, but as said it can be fixed, at least in terms of video as someone will sync it up to edited Blu-Ray footage. Either way I'm sure if this dub comes out there will be a lot of fun edits, like Ocean Kai with Yamamoto, Ocean Kai with Kikuchi or Ocean Kai with Sumitomo. Depending on how good the replacement score is it could also be interesting to see how it works with the Funi dub or Japanese track.

The only reason projects like Yamamoto Revival were possible is because the Funimation dub was in 5.1 surround sound. Since the Ocean dub will be only a TV release (if it does come out) it'll only be stereo, meaning there won't be an isolated vocal track and projects like that won't be a possibility.

[Robo4900]

The only reason projects like Yamamoto Revival were possible is because the Funimation dub was in 5.1 surround sound. Since the Ocean dub will be only a TV release (if it does come out) it'll only be stereo, meaning there won't be an isolated vocal track and projects like that won't be a possibility.

Some TV is in 5.1. But yeah, this likely won't be. It could be, but it probably won't be.

But, if it is in 5.1, and it does broadcast that way, and it's capped that way... I honestly think it'd be better to either do it in reverse(Funimation with the Ocean score), or to put together a new, revised Kikuchi replacement score. That way, we can bury the two awful options of heavy plagiarism from Yamamoto, and terrible placement from Kikuchi.

I've said it before, I'll say it again -- one of the big things I'm looking forward to from Ocean Kai is the fact we'll finally have a not-awful music option for Kai. That plus the Ocean cast being in it basically means that once this airs, I'll be unlikely to watch standard Kai ever again.

(And yes, I firmly believe the music will be, at the very least, not-awful. It's the guys who did the Westwood score a while back, and that score was perfectly fine, if a little repetitive. This time, they actually have the time and money to put together a variety of new tracks for it, whereas last time, they had a limited pool of tracks from Mega Man and Monster Rancher to reuse, which they had very little time to actually figure out placement for. So, it should be at least a little better than the Westwood score was, and that score was already pretty decent, so this will be fine. This, combined with the fact it won't feature heavy plagiarism, means it will probably end up being better than either previous Kai score)

[MistaL]

one of the big things I'm looking forward to from Ocean Kai is the fact we'll finally have a not-awful music option for Kai.

I wouldn't call the Yamamoto score awful. Yeah the whole plagiarism thing sucks, but it did have a good handful of tracks that fit perfectly into the scenes they were inserted, at many times even better than the original Kikuchi placement from Z. The Super Saiyan speech comes to mind as a good example of that.

[Arian]

I've said it before, I'll say it again -- one of the big things I'm looking forward to from Ocean Kai is the fact we'll finally have a not-awful music option for Kai. That plus the Ocean cast being in it basically means that once this airs, I'll be unlikely to watch standard Kai ever again.

I wouldn't call the Yamamoto score awful. Yeah the whole plagiarism thing sucks, but it did have a good handful of tracks that fit perfectly into the scenes they were inserted, at many times even better than the original Kikuchi placement from Z. The Super Saiyan speech comes to mind as a good example of that.

I have to agree with MistaL here. Most if not all of Yamamoto's compositions, while many borrowed from other artists, I wouldn't consider bad by any means. His video game stuff, especially.

His Kai stuff was not AS stellar as his earlier works, but still pretty solid.

[8000 Saiyan]

While it's not on the level of Kikuchi's score, I think the Yamamoto score is pretty good. Lots of great tracks.

[8000 Saiyan]

I'm of the opinion that they will probably wind up recycling Funimation's scripts. This dub has always lagged behind the Texas one in production and the shared video makes me think shared scripts, like end of Z.

Time will tell. They can't be too far off from each other.

This isn't aimed at yourself Super Saiyan Prime, but I do see a lot of people really crucify Ocean Group for AB Groupe's mistakes & I honestly don't get it. AB Groupe were in charge of the decisions made and they obviously rushed all of it. Even the Buu arc was rushed, despite improvements.

When you hear what Ocean Group can do if given the time and proper prep work, I don't get why some have an instant uneasy feeling about Kai, given what we know about it.

I love the Ocean Group actors and even I find the Westwood dub years hard to handle. But you can tell it's an issue with direction, which is a direct response to pressure to crank them out as fast as possible.

It should be only logical that DB Kai's production won't be anything like the Westwood dub years. They worked on it for a fair few years & even had call backs to re-record certain lines.

Plus, to my knowledge, Ocean do have services available regarding script translations and they surely knew that if you're going to have a second English dub, it had better stand out.

I suppose it's because whenever some people think of the Ocean dub of Dragon Ball Z, they think of the Saban dub, which had innaccurate scripts. It's like they forget the Pioneer dubs even exist.

[SX10]

The bad scripting is a problem, but I actually think it's the poor quality of the Westwood dub that's in their minds. What I have trouble understanding, is why they think that the quality of work will remain as low on future Ocean DB dubs. Especially since they know about Death Note, Black Lagoon etc. being Ocean dubs.

[8000 Saiyan]

The bad scripting is a problem, but I actually think it's the poor quality of the Westwood dub that's in their minds. What I have trouble understanding, is why they think that the quality of work will remain as low on future Ocean DB dubs. Especially since they know about Death Note, Black Lagoon etc. being Ocean dubs.

I guess some people think Dragon Ball is Ocean's Achilles Heel or something. To them, they do great work on other stuff, but it's impossible for them to do anything great with Dragon Ball.