One of our forum members, TheBlackPaladin, has done some great digging around ANMTV regarding the upcoming dub of Dragon Ball Kai for Brazil, who will be third in line to receive the show internationally following U.S.A. and Mexico. It seems that the local Portuguese dub of the show will be retaining its original Japanese title (sans “Z”), the new dub is already being worked on, and it will air on their Cartoon Network beginning in early 2011.
Similar to the Mexican dub, however, the new Brazilian dub will have a number of re-cast voice roles. Confirmed to be re-cast so far are the characters Vegeta, Piccolo, Gohan, Yajirobe, and Freeza; confirmed to return include the actors and actresses for Bulma, Chi-Chi, and Kuririn. Also returning will be Wendel Bezerra, the original voice of Goku, who took up a campaign on Twitter and directly appealed to the show’s producers and licensors (having a “long talk” with them about the role and its fans).
Much of this situation directly mirrors the upcoming Mexican dub of Kai with its financial issues, voice replacements, and online campaigns fronted by those directly involved in its production.
Speaking of the Mexican dub, rumors of the English version somehow coming into play with its translation may indeed be true. While FUNimation does not appear to have any influence over the production itself, as voice actor and director Irwin Daayan previously hinted, materials received appear to be FUNimation’s (including the “Z” title addition), and the script may be based on FUNimation’s English adaptation rather than directly from the original Japanese. Some fine translation work over on our forum revealed that the new Mexican versions of “Dragon Soul” and “Yeah! Break! Care! Break!” appear to be based on FUNimation’s own lyrics for the songs (which change certain lines rather than adapt them from the original lyrics). It should be noted that, as of right now, this is only the case with the lyrics to the songs, as no proper footage from the series exists with the upcoming Mexican dub to compare just yet.