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

[Arian]

I just had a dream that not only was I watching Ocean Kai, but that there were Ocean dubbed video games as well.

Such a vivid imagination, don't you think?

[Cure Dragon 255]

I do that sometimes with my oh so dreamed about One Piece Latin American redub. My mind cast Patricia Acevedo as Chopper and Mario Castaneda as the Narrator.

[8000 Saiyan]

I do that sometimes with my oh so dreamed about One Piece Latin American redub. My mind cast Patricia Acevedo as Chopper and Mario Castaneda as the Narrator.

Was the One Piece Latin American dub bad or something?

[Cure Dragon 255]

It was based on the 4kids version. Which cuts out vital parts of the plot even if you dont mind it. It made One Piece flop harder than hard. You cant even find episodes of it online.

[Super Sayian Prime]

I just had a dream that not only was I watching Ocean Kai, but that there were Ocean dubbed video games as well.

Such a vivid imagination, don't you think?

Bandai Namco's way too cheap to do that. They've basically stopped dubbing all of their anime games outside of Dragon Ball and Naruto. They're not going to do a fanservice alternate English dub, especially when it would cost more to produce than the "main" one.

[Arian]

I just had a dream that not only was I watching Ocean Kai, but that there were Ocean dubbed video games as well.

Such a vivid imagination, don't you think?

Bandai Namco's way too cheap to do that. They've basically stopped dubbing all of their anime games outside of Dragon Ball and Naruto. They're not going to do a fanservice alternate English dub, especially when it would cost more to produce than the "main" one.

Are you saying they're so cheap that it wouldn't even happen in my dreams?

[Cure Dragon 255]

Poor Arian. Even dreams are too expensive.

[Super Sayian Prime]

Are you saying they're so cheap that it wouldn't even happen in my dreams?

Sometimes things are so unlikely that they have to be your dream's dreams.

[Robo4900]

I wouldn't call the Yamamoto score awful.

I wouldn't consider bad by any means.

I'm not saying the tracks themselves are bad pieces of music, I'm saying that the plagiarism ruins it. He made a career out of stealing the work of other artists, and yet even now that it's been made abundantly clear this is the case, people still clamour for his Kai music...
Ocean Kai will mean we won't have to choose between the music of a dirty theif, or awfully-used music that consistently misses the mark.
This knowledge alone is almost enough to make Ocean Kai the superior choice of dub in my mind.

Regarding the video games; they kind of have to put Funimation's dubbing in the games, otherwise the hardcore Funi fans would tear the games apart. If Vegeta and Piccolo don't sound exactly identical, and Goku doesn't sound like a manly superhero, and King Kai sounds like anything more than mere comic relief, then how could anyone possibly enjoy DBZ?

[Arian]

I wouldn't call the Yamamoto score awful.

I wouldn't consider bad by any means.

I'm not saying the tracks themselves are bad pieces of music, I'm saying that the plagiarism ruins it. He made a career out of stealing the work of other artists, and yet even now that it's been made abundantly clear this is the case, people still clamour for his Kai music...
Ocean Kai will mean we won't have to choose between the music of a dirty theif, or awfully-used music that consistently misses the mark.
This knowledge alone is almost enough to make Ocean Kai the superior choice of dub in my mind.

To say that the partial plagiarism in the music ruins Kai completely is an overstatement. The fact that Toei took it out and inserted a haphazard, rehashed Kikuchi score from Z is what ruined it. Remember that he didn't 1:1 copy tracks, I look at it more as he drew inspiration from them to create new pieces of work. That said, you're entitled to your opinion.

I will agree with you though that Ocean Kai's original score will be the best way to watch it without customization.

[NitroEX]

I think the window of opportunity for an Ocean dubbed DBZ game probably ended with the first Budokai. The PAL/European version published by Bandai was released without a dub at all (which turned out for the better in my opinion as the Japanese acting was better and the US Infogrames release had no Japanese track to choose from) but if Bandai, AB Groupe or whoever else would've spent a little extra money back then they probably could've got Ocean to provide an English track for the PAL release which would've been really cool.

I doubt it would've changed much for future games moving forward, they still would've homogenized the English dubs of the games at some point to favour the American publishers, plus with some of the crap they ended up releasing *cough*Battle of Z, and how low sales numbers eventually fell, extravagant English dubs would've been among the first things dropped, after all, they no longer use Ocean to dub the Gundam games and that probably has more to do with Ocean's higher costs and the dwindling prominence of the Gundam brand rather than Funi or Bang Zoom being better dubbing studios.

I do think it would be amazing if they at least included some of the alternate English cast members as premium DLC or something like that but realistically it will remain a dream. Funi, Bandai Namco or OkraTron 5000 are notoriously cheap when it comes to dubbing DB games, I still remember Chris Sabat reprising many of his minor Z roles in the Xenoverse games instead of just paying the Kai actors to reprise them. For a long time they didn't even bother getting anyone to narrate the trailers either, Sabat just did them too so it sounded like Piccolo was trying to sell you a game.

[Nightmare Wheel]

Funi, Bandai Namco or OkraTron 5000 are notoriously cheap when it comes to dubbing DB games, I still remember Chris Sabat reprising many of his minor Z roles in the Xenoverse games instead of just paying the Kai actors to reprise them. For a long time they didn't even bother getting anyone to narrate the trailers either, Sabat just did them too so it sounded like Piccolo was trying to sell you a game.

Apparently that decision was imposed on him by Funimation to keep their dubs more in line with the old Z dub and not for budget reasons. Note that the very low budget Raging Blast 2 and Ultimate Tenkaichi used the full Kai cast. (Reused clips in the latter not withstanding.)

[8000 Saiyan]

I wouldn't call the Yamamoto score awful.

I wouldn't consider bad by any means.

I'm not saying the tracks themselves are bad pieces of music, I'm saying that the plagiarism ruins it. He made a career out of stealing the work of other artists, and yet even now that it's been made abundantly clear this is the case, people still clamour for his Kai music...
Ocean Kai will mean we won't have to choose between the music of a dirty theif, or awfully-used music that consistently misses the mark.
This knowledge alone is almost enough to make Ocean Kai the superior choice of dub in my mind.

Regarding the video games; they kind of have to put Funimation's dubbing in the games, otherwise the hardcore Funi fans would tear the games apart. If Vegeta and Piccolo don't sound exactly identical, and Goku doesn't sound like a manly superhero, and King Kai sounds like anything more than mere comic relief, then how could anyone possibly enjoy DBZ?

Are you talking about David Gasman? Now that guy sounds manly.

[NitroEX]

Funi, Bandai Namco or OkraTron 5000 are notoriously cheap when it comes to dubbing DB games, I still remember Chris Sabat reprising many of his minor Z roles in the Xenoverse games instead of just paying the Kai actors to reprise them. For a long time they didn't even bother getting anyone to narrate the trailers either, Sabat just did them too so it sounded like Piccolo was trying to sell you a game.

Apparently that decision was imposed on him by Funimation to keep their dubs more in line with the old Z dub and not for budget reasons. Note that the very low budget Raging Blast 2 and Ultimate Tenkaichi used the full Kai cast. (Reused clips in the latter not withstanding.)

I'm not convinced. If that was the case they'd have also used Linda Young in Xenoverse.

[Nightmare Wheel]

Funi, Bandai Namco or OkraTron 5000 are notoriously cheap when it comes to dubbing DB games, I still remember Chris Sabat reprising many of his minor Z roles in the Xenoverse games instead of just paying the Kai actors to reprise them. For a long time they didn't even bother getting anyone to narrate the trailers either, Sabat just did them too so it sounded like Piccolo was trying to sell you a game.

Apparently that decision was imposed on him by Funimation to keep their dubs more in line with the old Z dub and not for budget reasons. Note that the very low budget Raging Blast 2 and Ultimate Tenkaichi used the full Kai cast. (Reused clips in the latter not withstanding.)

I'm not convinced. If that was the case they'd have also used Linda Young in Xenoverse.

She was physically incapable of keeping up with Freeza's dialogue when they recorded for Kai. I doubt they wanted to take that chance of having that happen again.

[TheGreatness25]

She was physically incapable of keeping up with Freeza's dialogue when they recorded for Kai. I doubt they wanted to take that chance of having that happen again.

I really don't know if I buy that. She was able to keep up with "Frieza" the first time around -- albeit it wasn't a tremendous performance, but she was physically able to keep up with the dialog (whatever that means). I think it's just a nice way of saying that they thought her performance was bad, although it doesn't end up sounding much nicer because now instead of stating their opinion (that she was bad), they're making it look like she's physically incapable of doing something. I know that Linda Young's style was more slow and Kai was dubbed in a way where it sounds like they're rushing through all of their lines (my one complaint about the Kai dub), but they were able to have Young do Freeza the first time around and it's not like any extra dialog was added to Kai, so... I basically don't know why they sound like they sped through their lines, thus losing a lot of emotion. If I give the original Z dub more credit than the Kai dub, it's that at least in Z there was time to really marinate in the emotion of the lines, while in Kai, it's just like, "WhoaThat'sAPowerfulForceMyGoodnessNoWayHowCanThisBe?!"

Anyway... How do you guys think Pauline Newstone would fare as "Frieza" either in the original Z dub or in a Kai dub? All we got to see out of her performance as Freeza was the very early first-form Freeza stuff and a little bit here and there when either a flashback or Freeza in Hell. I feel like her performance wasn't dramatically better than Linda Young's. Do you think she would be recast as well in this role?

[8000 Saiyan]

Even though she was miscast in the role, I think Newstone would have nailed the character even with accurate scripts.

[Nightmare Wheel]

She was physically incapable of keeping up with Freeza's dialogue when they recorded for Kai. I doubt they wanted to take that chance of having that happen again.

I really don't know if I buy that. She was able to keep up with "Frieza" the first time around -- albeit it wasn't a tremendous performance, but she was physically able to keep up with the dialog (whatever that means). I think it's just a nice way of saying that they thought her performance was bad, although it doesn't end up sounding much nicer because now instead of stating their opinion (that she was bad), they're making it look like she's physically incapable of doing something. I know that Linda Young's style was more slow and Kai was dubbed in a way where it sounds like they're rushing through all of their lines (my one complaint about the Kai dub), but they were able to have Young do Freeza the first time around and it's not like any extra dialog was added to Kai, so... I basically don't know why they sound like they sped through their lines, thus losing a lot of emotion. If I give the original Z dub more credit than the Kai dub, it's that at least in Z there was time to really marinate in the emotion of the lines, while in Kai, it's just like, "WhoaThat'sAPowerfulForceMyGoodnessNoWayHowCanThisBe?!"

Anyway... How do you guys think Pauline Newstone would fare as "Frieza" either in the original Z dub or in a Kai dub? All we got to see out of her performance as Freeza was the very early first-form Freeza stuff and a little bit here and there when either a flashback or Freeza in Hell. I feel like her performance wasn't dramatically better than Linda Young's. Do you think she would be recast as well in this role?

Age can you hit you hard and fast, especially for a voice as harsh sounding as her Freeza. If you listen to the last few games she did the voice for you can tell it's getting more difficult for her. All of her voices for the different forms also began to sound exactly the same when they were different before, she speaks pretty slowly and her yelling is much weaker.

[sangofe]

She was physically incapable of keeping up with Freeza's dialogue when they recorded for Kai. I doubt they wanted to take that chance of having that happen again.

I really don't know if I buy that. She was able to keep up with "Frieza" the first time around -- albeit it wasn't a tremendous performance, but she was physically able to keep up with the dialog (whatever that means). I think it's just a nice way of saying that they thought her performance was bad, although it doesn't end up sounding much nicer because now instead of stating their opinion (that she was bad), they're making it look like she's physically incapable of doing something. I know that Linda Young's style was more slow and Kai was dubbed in a way where it sounds like they're rushing through all of their lines (my one complaint about the Kai dub), but they were able to have Young do Freeza the first time around and it's not like any extra dialog was added to Kai, so... I basically don't know why they sound like they sped through their lines, thus losing a lot of emotion. If I give the original Z dub more credit than the Kai dub, it's that at least in Z there was time to really marinate in the emotion of the lines, while in Kai, it's just like, "WhoaThat'sAPowerfulForceMyGoodnessNoWayHowCanThisBe?!"

Anyway... How do you guys think Pauline Newstone would fare as "Frieza" either in the original Z dub or in a Kai dub? All we got to see out of her performance as Freeza was the very early first-form Freeza stuff and a little bit here and there when either a flashback or Freeza in Hell. I feel like her performance wasn't dramatically better than Linda Young's. Do you think she would be recast as well in this role?

Age can you hit you hard and fast, especially for a voice as harsh sounding as her Freeza. If you listen to the last few games she did the voice for you can tell it's getting more difficult for her. All of her voices for the different forms also began to sound exactly the same when they were different before, she speaks pretty slowly and her yelling is much weaker.

Good thing Masako Nozawa's still kickin' ass!

[TheGreatness25]

Age can you hit you hard and fast, especially for a voice as harsh sounding as her Freeza. If you listen to the last few games she did the voice for you can tell it's getting more difficult for her. All of her voices for the different forms also began to sound exactly the same when they were different before, she speaks pretty slowly and her yelling is much weaker.

I guess so. Though I wouldn't look too deeply into the Freeza forms sounding the same in the video games. I feel like that might be a directing decision (or oversight). Kind of like how the filter was removed from #19 in the orange bricks. I think that Freeza's voice in those forms was the result of some filter even dating back to the original (I kind of have a hard time seeing her do the third form voice on her own).