Did Dragon Ball REALLY need Funimation to thrive?

[VegettoEX]

I continuously feel the need to point out that in a pre-Pokemon world on American television, Dragon Ball Z received a double-episode, full hour block in syndication at a much better time of day for its second season in 1997-1998. It was already on track to be a massive success before it moved to Toonami, where the after-school weekday block obviously helped knock it out of the park.

Also, yes:

Dragon Ball thrived in spite of how shitty Funimation treated it.

[8000 Saiyan]

Absolutely not. Like some have already said, all Dragon Ball needed was to be on TV. It didn't matter who dubbed it as long as it got on TV. In fact, Funimation should consider themselves lucky that they got Dragon Ball in the first place.

They probably do.

[dario03]

Absolutely not. Like some have already said, all Dragon Ball needed was to be on TV. It didn't matter who dubbed it as long as it got on TV. In fact, Funimation should consider themselves lucky that they got Dragon Ball in the first place.

Well not really. They have to get on TV, get a good slot, not get moved around a lot, get promoted, not given up on if it doesn't work right away, etc, etc. Like I said earlier, another company tried to release DB in the states and failed.

[VegettoEX]

Like I said earlier, another company tried to release DB in the states and failed.

Harmony Gold casually tried to use an edit of movies as a backdoor pilot, whereas FUNimation just went all-in and put the show itself right on TV from the start. They're comparable, but not entirely/directly. FUNimation clearly had more faith (and support, for that matter).

[dario03]

Like I said earlier, another company tried to release DB in the states and failed.

Harmony Gold casually tried to use an edit of movies as a backdoor pilot, whereas FUNimation just went all-in and put the show itself right on TV from the start. They're comparable, but not entirely/directly. FUNimation clearly had more faith (and support, for that matter).

Yeah, that's what I meant by not giving up to quickly. HG just kind of tried it out and then gave up because they didn't think it was going to work. It did have a limited TV release as well, both the movie edit and the few episodes they did, though I think that was after they had already gave up on it ever being anything big.
Funimation on the other hand tried it out for bit, didn't get much, switched to Z, still didn't get a whole lot, then got it on Toonami and it took off due to having a great timeslot on a channel that promoted it.

[VegettoEX]

switched to Z, still didn't get a whole lot, then got it on Toonami and it took off due to having a great timeslot on a channel that promoted it.

This is the revisionist history I keep fighting against:

I continuously feel the need to point out that in a pre-Pokemon world on American television, Dragon Ball Z received a double-episode, full hour block in syndication at a much better time of day for its second season in 1997-1998.

[Duo]

I was part of the Toonami generation, and many details of my memory about this are weak, but I distinctly recall seeing the show before it hit that time slot, particularly in regards to Namek material. I may have even owned my Arrival VHS by then, because I was extremely happy when I realized the show was on Toonami. That was when I was finally able to follow the episodes in a consistent order. Several times over...

Regarding the subject, no. Focusing on the dub, if the two seasons with the Ocean cast had not happened and it had launched with the same quality as Season 3, I struggle to imagine how things would be today. Fans were already well invested and suffered through that due to a lack of options. Some people convinced themselves that they liked it, others started buying DVD's or the manga as quickly as they could. The production quality improved "enough" by the time Cell was on the air, but FUNImation really didn't move out of the "adequate" zone until the late 00's. There are still some things that aren't ideal.

[Robo4900]

Dragon Ball Z initially got big because of the hard work and efforts of the Ocean group and Ron Wasserman, and the excellent source material they had to work from.

When the show came back with Funimation's cast, it only worked because people just wanted more Dragon Ball. If it had started out with the amateurs they were in '99 when it first aired, it would have never gone anywhere.
And of course, when the show got to GT, Funimation proved their obvious lack of understanding of what made Saban's dub good by completely screwing up, and generating a wave of hatred for GT that still hasn't wound down.

On top of this, Funimation's poor handling of Dragon Ball's distribution when they did the BLT dub screwed them out of having a proper backstory for Z, shortened the show's lifespan by roughly a third, and screwed them out of a potential big "Get ready for Dragon Ball Z! The next level of Dragon Ball!" thing.
If another company who actually knew what they were doing back in the early '90s got the Dragon Ball license, we could have very well started with the original series, and actually had one consistent cast and vibe across the whole run; it'd have probably been rather similar to the BLT dub, at least initially. It would probably transition into something a little more similar to the Saban dub one you get to the Cell arc, but who knows.

In recent years, Funimation have somewhat redeemed themselves, as they've been sticking close to the Japanese way of the show, and improving the voice acting, but no, Dragon Ball really didn't need Funimation. If anything, Funimation were detremental to Dragon Ball all the way up until they started dubbing the original series.

[GreatSaiyaJeff]

I'd say it's more Toonami that helped DBZ success more then Funimation.

Also wasn't there a thing where Funimation had crappy footage to work with in the season 3 days?

[dario03]

switched to Z, still didn't get a whole lot, then got it on Toonami and it took off due to having a great timeslot on a channel that promoted it.

This is the revisionist history I keep fighting against:

I continuously feel the need to point out that in a pre-Pokemon world on American television, Dragon Ball Z received a double-episode, full hour block in syndication at a much better time of day for its second season in 1997-1998.

That's not revisionist, that's what happened. The statement of "still didn't get a whole lot" might be a bit much but It wasn't an instant success, it started picking up after a few tries, then it got on toonami and got really big. It may have got some success before Toonami but its big run was Toonami.

Point being is Funimation didn't just go oh this isn't working and give up when regular DB didn't work out for them like Harmony Gold did.

[ABED]

I was a part of that generation that saw DBZ live in syndication. The show was not a huge success off the bat, nor was it an overnight success due to the great timeslot. It's reversing causality. DBZ's popularity grew over time. It got the two episode block because it did well. It wasn't a runaway success because FUNimation felt the need to cut costs. Cartoon Network gave the show a good timeslot and great advertising BECAUSE it was successful enough elsewhere they saw it as a good bet that it would only get more popular.

[Hellspawn28]

it took off in the US when FUNimation and Toonami got their hands on the show in the late 90s.

Dragon Ball didn't need FUNimation to make Dragon Ball popular. Someone else could have dubbed and still put it on TV.

I'm not so sure. Dragon Ball(Z) was dubbed several times in the past and its previous attempts at finding success on American TV constantly hit brick walls. That's not say FUNimation gave the show proper treatment it did (sub par voice acting, awful music and placement of it, terrible home releases), but Dragon Ball still persevered the success of Dragon Ball Z in North America was really a case being at the right place at the right time and being on a network that pushing heavily for the show to be next big thing.

There is always the home video market, I feel like Dragon Ball could have done well direct to video and later move on to TV (As seen with Tenchi Muyo! OVA). Toonami was created in 1997 and DBZ was not even on CN at the time. So having Dragon Ball release on VHS by Pioneer or Viz in 1993 or 1994 than later on TV in 1998 or 1999 could have happen. Even if a TV deal never happen, I still having Dragon Ball be only on VHS would still be popular. You don't need TV to make something popular since Anime already had a big fandom in the US before Pokemon and Toonami.

[ABED]

Popular for home video, but that's relative. DB wouldn't have been nearly as popular if it was limited to home video. You have to really be invested to buy them. TV allows you to sample.

[Hellspawn28]

Video rentals where still a major thing at the time too. You had titles like Ninja Scroll, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Vampire Hunter D, Ranma 1/2 and many others that did really well on video and would break into Billboard's Top 10 video charts. Even when Cartoon Network had anime on Toonami and Adult Swim in the early 2000's, you had titles like Initial D, Love Hina, Great Teacher Onizuka, Fruits Basket, Noir, Vandread and a few others that didn't air on TV and where still super popular in the anime & manga fandom in the US around that time.

[NitroEX]

Absolutely not. Like some have already said, all Dragon Ball needed was to be on TV. It didn't matter who dubbed it as long as it got on TV. In fact, Funimation should consider themselves lucky that they got Dragon Ball in the first place.

Well not really. They have to get on TV, get a good slot, not get moved around a lot, get promoted, not given up on if it doesn't work right away, etc, etc. Like I said earlier, another company tried to release DB in the states and failed.

I'm pretty sure it was Saban who was largely responsible for getting Funimation's version of DBZ on TV back then. They were an established company in the TV market as they had the track record of creating huge successes such as Power Rangers and even worked with Marvel on other successful shows like Spider-Man and X-Men animated series. Without them and their connections (and possibly their funding too), Funimation would likely not have been able to get the show on TV as they were an unproven and inexperienced company. Funimation were in a very lucky position to be able to get their hands on the Dragon Ball license due to Gen Fukunaga's family connections at Toei, without that in his favour he wouldn't have gotten anywhere near it and Toei would've most likely gone with a more experienced American company instead. Whether that would've turned out for better or worse really depends on which company got it instead, companies like Saban and 4Kids wouldn't have given us faithful scripts or music but their success in the kids TV market would have guaranteed mainstream air time (think Digimon for Saban and Pokemon or Yugioh for 4Kids). I don't think Saban would've been too interested in DBZ at the time though, after the backlash to violence in Power Rangers they were probably steering clear of martial arts cartoons, especially something as bloody as DBZ (plus according to Ron Wasserman, he seems to think they cared very little for the show), as for 4kids they were probably too busy with Pokemon to really care, they might've looked into acquiring it later on alongside Yugioh but, by that point, another company would have likely scooped up the rights.

Pioneer and Bandai were known for more faithful and respectable anime dubs at the time with decent budgets behind them (unlike ADV's lower budget dubs for instance) so they would have been more preferable, they also managed to eventually secure TV deals for other anime with Toonami but it's difficult to determine if they needed that door to be opened first by Dragon Ball Z or if the Pokemon boom was enough to spark an incentive for channels like Toonami to take the plunge into anime regardless. At any rate, without the reach of Toonami I don't think it would have become such a mainstream hit. That really would have been pivotal advertising for either company. Viz media was another company with a similar approach to the other two however they have always been more focused on selling manga so I'm not sure they would have been aggressive enough to pursue and invest in mainstream television options for DBZ, although there was a bit of a push for Naruto to be seen on television later on so who knows.

I personally think it would have worked out better if Pioneer or Bandai had been the ones to get the license because, like Funimation, they were geared towards selling the anime on home video, the difference being that, as we saw from Pioneer's DBZ movie releases (and Bandai's anime releases too), they favoured a faithful approach from the get go rather than trying to pander to a mainstream child market. These companies also had deep enough pockets to afford decent acting talent whether it be from LA or Vancouver, that means a faithful, well-acted dub from day one without sitting through 10 years of Sabat and Schemmel learning on the job in order to "get good" and Sabat being cast in so many roles due to budget. This also means no replacement music so no Ron Wasserman or Bruce Faulconer and of course, none of Funimation's questionable script alterations. I don't think it would have always been perfect this way however, for instance, thanks to the U.S. release of Final Bout we had a taste of what Bandai's LA castings might have sounded like (albeit without any care or proper direction since it was a throwaway video game) but as someone who was very fond of most of the Vancouver casting choices I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the acting as much had they stayed on that path with the series, both companies did use Ocean's dubbing services for certain anime so there was always a chance it would still fall to them somehow (especially if they could handle any visual edits and censorship internally) but there was always a chance we could have gotten LA castings instead, for better or worse.

Overall I don't think Funimation deserve much credit for DBZ being able to thrive, sure they got the ball rolling by acquiring the license and moving forward with it but, like I mentioned, they owed a lot of what they accomplished to Saban's connections and influence and the fact that they got their foot in the door with Toonami a few years later means another more competent anime distributor likely could've managed a similar deal, especially if they sold DBZ as part of a package of shows with other action anime in their library. If we're talking about the first Funimation DBZ dub being the reason that it thrived then I think a lot of credit should go to the Ocean Group and Ron Wasserman for their contributions and making that version work as well as it did - which was ultimately a good enough product on it's own to be sold to Toonami and become such a hit in reruns. I mean ask yourself this; would Funi have been able to sell an in-house dub with green actors from the very beginning or did they need the push from having Ocean's production's version of the first two seasons? Could Funimation have even created their own in-house dub without first learning the ropes from Ocean? Remember that they copied a lot of the business practices of the companies they worked with while on DBZ, from Saban's practice of replacing music and collecting music royalties to Pioneer's home release strategy to Ocean's dubbing practices (and even imitating the voices of the original Ocean cast) to even being influenced by Batman Beyond's soundtrack when choosing a third replacement score, they learned from the best and exploited those skills to their advantage. Without the learning experience that was gained through their various partnerships, Funimation would have failed miserably on their first try and I doubt they'd have been able to sell the show in whatever pitiful form it would be in. It's well documented that Funi knew nothing about anime localization when they first got the license, it's the reason they sought out Ocean for help in the first place.

We can obviously give credit to Funi for the success of their later in-house dubs but I still don't think you can look to that and say it was the sole reason DBZ was a success, DBZ thrived in every country it was in regardless of Funimation's involvement. Even in English speaking countries like the UK which, for the majority of their run, featured a completely different dub cast and different replacement music to Funimation's score, those English dubs still did exceedingly well. I think it's accurate to say that DBZ thrived despite Funimation's mistakes with it. It came out at the right time and was a fresh and interesting product for many around the world. Funimation weren't the ones who made it succeed, they were just the ones lucky enough to be selling it to an American market at the right time.

[ABED]

Video rentals where still a major thing at the time too. You had titles like Ninja Scroll, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Vampire Hunter D, Ranma 1/2 and many others that did really well on video and would break into Billboard's Top 10 video charts. Even when Cartoon Network had anime on Toonami and Adult Swim in the early 2000's, you had titles like Initial D, Love Hina, Great Teacher Onizuka, Fruits Basket, Noir, Vandread and a few others that didn't air on TV and where still super popular in the anime & manga fandom in the US around that time.

All significantly shorter than DB.

[8000 Saiyan]

Despite how Funimation treated Dragon Ball until 2009, they have had my full respect since Dragon Ball Kai. They casted Chris Ayres, who is simply the best English voice for Frieza. I think people should give them enough credit for that.

Pioneer and Bandai were known for more faithful and respectable anime dubs at the time with decent budgets behind them (unlike ADV's lower budget dubs for instance) so they would have been more preferable, they also managed to eventually secure TV deals for other anime with Toonami but it's difficult to determine if they needed that door to be opened first by Dragon Ball Z or if the Pokemon boom was enough to spark an incentive for channels like Toonami to take the plunge into anime regardless. At any rate, without the reach of Toonami I don't think it would have become such a mainstream hit. That really would have been pivotal advertising for either company. Viz media was another company with a similar approach to the other two however they have always been more focused on selling manga so I'm not sure they would have been aggressive enough to pursue and invest in mainstream television options for DBZ, although there was a bit of a push for Naruto to be seen on television later on so who knows.

I personally think it would have worked out better if Pioneer or Bandai had been the ones to get the license because, like Funimation, they were geared towards selling the anime on home video, the difference being that, as we saw from Pioneer's DBZ movie releases (and Bandai's anime releases too), they favoured a faithful approach from the get go rather than trying to pander to a mainstream child market. These companies also had deep enough pockets to afford decent acting talent whether it be from LA or Vancouver, that means a faithful, well-acted dub from day one without sitting through 10 years of Sabat and Schemmel learning on the job in order to "get good" and Sabat being cast in so many roles due to budget. This also means no replacement music so no Ron Wasserman or Bruce Faulconer and of course, none of Funimation's questionable script alterations.

I don't think it would have always been perfect this way however, for instance, thanks to the U.S. release of Final Bout we had a taste of what Bandai's LA castings might have sounded like (albeit without any care or proper direction since it was a throwaway video game) but as someone who was very fond of most of the Vancouver casting choices I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the acting as much had they stayed on that path with the series , both companies did use Ocean's dubbing services for certain anime so there was always a chance it would still fall to them somehow (especially if they could handle any visual edits and censorship internally) but there was always a chance we could have gotten LA castings instead, for better or worse.

And with Pioneer or Bandai getting the rights, we wouldn't have had the dub vs dub wars.

Agreed on that one, Steve Blum doesn't scream Goku to me. Same with Milton James as Vegeta.

[NitroEX]

Despite how Funimation treated Dragon Ball until 2009, they have had my full respect since Dragon Ball Kai. They casted Chris Ayres, who is simply the best English voice for Frieza. I think people should give them enough credit for that.

If they had cast Ayres from episode 1 of Kai I would give them more credit for that, instead, it was very apparent that they wanted Linda Young back in the role and the recasting was more of a happy accident on their part. Because of that, I'm less inclined to praise them for it. I love Ayres' performance and have no problem directly praising him and what he did with the role but I don't feel the need to give Funimation props when they avoided recastings on Kai as much as possible from the outset. If they had taken more risks and perhaps also recast characters such as King Kai, Piccolo (or alternatively, Vegeta), Yamcha, Recoome, Kami and (dare I say) teenage Gohan I'd be more willing to give them praise. As far as I can tell the only reason Nadolny didn't come back as well was due to personal issues with the director (Sabat), if it wasn't for that we probably wouldn't have a new kid Gohan either. The recastings were improvements when they occurred but they didn't do them as often as they really should have in my opinion.

[8000 Saiyan]

Despite how Funimation treated Dragon Ball until 2009, they have had my full respect since Dragon Ball Kai. They casted Chris Ayres, who is simply the best English voice for Frieza. I think people should give them enough credit for that.

If they had cast Ayres from episode 1 of Kai I would give them more credit for that, instead, it was very apparent that they wanted Linda Young back in the role and the recasting was more of a happy accident on their part. Because of that, I'm less inclined to praise them for it. I love Ayres' performance and have no problem directly praising him and what he did with the role but I don't feel the need to give Funimation props when they avoided recastings on Kai as much as possible from the outset. If they had taken more risks and perhaps also recast characters such as King Kai, Piccolo (or alternatively, Vegeta), Yamcha, Recoome, Kami and (dare I say) teenage Gohan I'd be more willing to give them praise. As far as I can tell the only reason Nadolny didn't come back as well was due to personal issues with the director (Sabat), if it wasn't for that we probably wouldn't have a new kid Gohan either. The recastings were improvements when they occurred but they didn't do them as often as they really should have in my opinion.

I think Hebert does a good job as Gohan. Sure he may sound older than his age, but then again there are a lot of people who sound older than their age. For example, Christopher Daniel Barnes didn't really sound like he was 19 years old as Spider-Man, but he still did an excellent job.

They also should have recasted Roshi. Sadly, they didn't and we still don't have a great voice for him.

[ABED]

I don't have a problem with Sabat voicing three important characters. He's gotten really good at all three and I don't believe they actually bleed into each other at all. You can tell it's the same actor, but you can tell which character is speaking just by listening.