Dragon Ball-related Conflations

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

For those unaware a conflation is when two or more pieces of information are combined to make one, and is an easy way for rumours to form and spread because the sources alone are accurate without the context of the other piece(s) of information.

I've considered the possibility this has been the cause of certain misunderstandings within Dragon Ball discourse since even very knowledgeable fans tend to take these things as fact because they seem valid without separating the conflated ideas.

Some conflations off the top of my head:

Chris Sabat wanted Scott McNeil to play Piccolo in Funimation's dub of Kai

This was something me and Robo4900 discussed, but basically Scott McNeil was one of the very first people to be cast in the Ocean dub of Kai, and one of the most vocal actors that spoke about doing Kai when he shouldn't have. There was also at least one convention panel Scott McNeil did with Sean Schemmel. As Chris Sabat was the ADR director for Funimation's dub of Kai, naturally he is the one people will credit with casting decisions. I could see a scenario where some fans seen these panels where Scott McNeil said he was doing Kai and because Chris Sabat ended up playing Piccolo in Funimation's dub it may have been assumed Scott McNeil was an idea tossed around that didn't go to plan. I'm also aware not all Dragon Ball fans know an Ocean dub of Kai exists, hell to this day I still hear some fans shocked that the Ocean cast dubbed episodes 108-276/123-291, so by process of elimination it could easily be assumed these fans thought Scott McNeil was going to be in Funimation's dub as it may be the only English Kai dub they know of.

There was an Indonesian English dub of Dragon Ball

It was only a few days ago I heard about this, and while I have no way of disproving it it seems very unlikely. Basically on the Dragon Ball fandom wiki the trivia section states an Indonesian English dub is believed to have existed at one point during some time when there was a ban on Indonesian dubs, as reported by various lost media communities (who I'm not part of or aware of). I haven't read anything about there being a ban on the production Indonesian dubs. Although Indosiar apparently dubbed and aired all of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT between 1996 and 2006 only to then not dub anything until 2010 with Kai one possibility is that anyone who claims to have seen an English dub in Indonesia may have actually seen the Animax dub, which we know aired during this 4 year gap.

The Big Green cast dubbed Dragon Ball Z movies 10-13

Something interesting about the Big Green dubs is that while all 9 Dragon Ball Z movies and the 2 TV specials had various VHS and DVD releases the remainder only ever aired on Toonami UK in mid-to-late 2005. Additionally a lot of European dubs based on the French dub stopped at Dragon Ball Z movie 9, so because there was a Big Green dub of the GT special fans wondered for years did they dub the remaining movies as it would seem logical for them to not skip ahead. Of course neither Dragon Ball Z movies 10-13 nor Path to Power were aired on Toonami UK but I wouldn't blame fans from, say, America or Australia for being unaware of this, especially if they weren't closely following forums at the time.

Miscellaneous Canadian Dub Claims

Assertions like the Westwood dub being produced by AB Groupe since their logo appeared at the end of the credits in Europe, the series being dubbed in Canada because of CanCon requirements (there was good reason for dubbing in Canada like rates being good, and having a known company like Ocean help them get the show on TV, but we know most of what aired on YTV was the American dub and they already had enough Canadian content when they were airing Dragon Ball Z) and the Blue Water dubs being based on French scripts (they used French video tracks but either translated from Japanese or from Funimation's dub with corrections). Lee Tockar was also informed he could talk about playing Freeza in Kai around the time Funimation's dub was to begin airing on Toonami in the US, which may have played a part in the Facebook post he made about Ocean's dub airing somewhere in the world as he was likely not given all the relevant information that could have caused confusion. I also believe this helped fuel the idea Ocean Kai aired in Korea, which has thankfully since been debunked.

Has anyone else got any others?

[Tian]

Masako Nozawa was replaced as Goku in the original broadcast of episode 133

This is a false thing that people from the Latin Spanish dub like Mario Castañeda love to spread on cons and social media.

They apparently got it from fan forums where some users misunderstood about Akira not wanting to recast Masako.

I understand that as voice actors, they don't have to be fans of the series they work on but man, don't say stuff that isn't even true because you'll end up looking ridiculous or as a liar.

The Japanese OP and EDs of The Final Chapters are the original

Some people (mostly on Youtube) believe that Kuu-Zen-Zetsu Go and Dear Zarathrustra (and posterior Japanese endings) are the original opening and endings, and Fight it Up! and Never Give Up are the replacements for the international airings.

But they are unaware or forgot that The Final Chapters was always meant for the international market (as Mayumi Tanaka mentioned) and the Japanese airing was a last minute decision.

So, it's actually the other way around: Fight it Up! and Never Give Up are the original OP and ED while Kuu-Zen-Zetsu Go and Dear Zarathrustra (and posterior endings) are the replacements for Japanese airings.

EDITs: Oops, my bad. I checked my examples again and yeah, they're not conflations. Sorry about that.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

EDITs: Oops, my bad. I checked my examples again and yeah, they're not conflations. Sorry about that.

Yeah, I'd describe them more as misunderstandings but no problem anyway.

As I said conflations can easily be mistaken as facts because they come from two or more, often unrelated pieces of information that appear to correspond with whatever claim is accepted as fact.

The one about Chris Sabat wanting Scott McNeil to play Piccolo in Funimation's dub of Kai is quite widespread, but I do believe the fact McNeil was so vocal about it from day one and Brian Drummond not being originally as outspoken about his return (I believe the first time it was heavily suspected was in late 2012 when Attitudefan met Drummond at the gym and he said he "recorded some new lines") helped as unless fans were aware of Ocean's dub by process of elimination Funimation's dub is the only one they could have assumed McNeil was referring to.

That reminds me of another one. Prior to Funimation's Rock the Dragon DVD boxset being released there was a listing with a description stating "The original 29 episodes of Dragonball Z have been redubbed by the fan-favorite Ocean team!", which was questioned, understandably because the "reddubed" part was misleading. As I recall at the time people took Brian Drummond's aforementioned words about recording some new lines and Funimation's accidental summary suggesting the Ocean cast were redubbing the Saiyan saga episodes to mean they were back working on Dragon Ball Z, not Kai.

[Dragon ball master]

The full OG Creative product dub can't be posted online because of ""Illegal reasons"""

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

The full OG Creative product dub can't be posted online because of ""Illegal reasons"""

I wouldn't call that a conflation, more someone's justification for not wanting to share a rare dub they have online. Also, as much as I want to see this dub of original Dragon Ball these fans aren't wrong because they don't have a license from TOEI. It's possible Creative Corp Products still have the rights and the masters to this dub but they would still need to get a streaming license to post it online.