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

[Mewzard]

So, no guarantee, but a new channel is considering the Ocean Kai? Huh. That's surprising.

Well, I still thing it's a bit on the too little, too late side...but genuine congratulations to those who would enjoy it if it does end up airing.

Well, it ever ends up in Super, they need to have Chris Sabat voice Copy Vegeta, this has to go both ways, lol.

[8000 Saiyan]

Mike McFarland does a good Roshi. He's supposed to sound like a 300-year-old man & he does.

I've never heard an old man that sounded like McFarland's Roshi. It's such a fake voice. I'd prefer if Funimation had cast an actual old guy in the part.

Then who would you have to voice Roshi, Chris Sabat? Like it or not, McFarland's Roshi is pretty much the most amazing Old man voice I've seen from someone who was in his late 20's who started it. And I'm not weird, you are.

You need to stop criticizing Funimation and welcome them with Open arms.

The most amazing old man voice? I disagree. And don't act as if your opinion is fact.

I've seen you in other forums, and you act pretty weird at times in those.

And I've given praise to Funimation numerous times, my friend, despite criticisms I have about some of their castings.

[Robo4900]

Then who would you have to voice Roshi, Chris Sabat? Like it or not, McFarland's Roshi is pretty much the most amazing Old man voice I've seen from someone who was in his late 20's who started it.

I must admit, McFarland's Roshi is a fun voice, but 8000 Saiyan just doesn't like him. And that's fine; to each their own, right?

And I'm not weird, you are.

You need to stop criticizing Funimation and welcome them with Open arms.

Don't be like that. As I say, to each their own. Criticising someone for saying McFarland's Roshi is bad is one thing, but telling someone they're wrong for not liking the Funi dub is just silly. You wouldn't like it if someone told you to stop criticising the Ocean or Blue Water dubs and welcome them with open arms, would you? So don't say the same to someone else.
(And in case you were considering saying something like "Funi is the dominant dub, so it's different", that doesn't factor into this, and it's probably the thinnest possible argument anyway. So don't try it)

I don't think that would be a reason to prevent a UK channel from having it. Remember that DBZ's Canadian dub was incomplete and being produced while it was being aired in the UK, I don't really see why Kai would be held back when DBZ clearly wasn't. I think Toei were the ones behind the situation with CSC media, probably something to do with the Dragon Ball rights reverting back to them around that time or something along those lines.

This is an entirely different situation.
The DBZ Canadian dub was done in a hurry in order, with them making the episodes on the basis that as soon as they were done, they would be sent ready to air, all done as fast as possible. This time, they've deliberately spent a ton of time getting it ready before opening it up to be used. Toei doesn't really have any reason to block the Ocean dub from being purchased by CSC media; apparently they weren't given the option. Toei make money off either dub, and actually it works to their favour to have multiple dubs going so they make more money of licensing, and yet CSC weren't presented this dub.
But then now somehow Wow are getting it?

And again, Kai was approved by the CRTC in April 2014. The dub might not have finished post-production until late 2013, or even early 2014; in fact, apparently the voicework on it didn't wrap until sometime in 2013(IIRC, they were doing pickups in 2013 for misc. lines throughout that needed to be re-recorded), while the Kix airing was early 2012. The timings just don't work out for it to have worked.

So, no guarantee, but a new channel is considering the Ocean Kai? Huh. That's surprising.

Well, at this point, I think it's safe to say it'll probably start airing this year on Wow Unlimiteed.

Well, I still thing it's a bit on the too little, too late side...but genuine congratulations to those who would enjoy it if it does end up airing.

Too little too late? What makes you say that?

Well, it ever ends up in Super, they need to have Chris Sabat voice Copy Vegeta, this has to go both ways, lol.

Yes! In fact, Brian Drummond said he would ensure this would happen if Ocean ever do Super, and Sabat seemed very on-board with the idea. So, that would be completely awesome.

[8000 Saiyan]

I think the only thing I really like about McFarland's Roshi is his comedic delivery. When he has to do the serious scenes, he falls pretty flat.

[Robo4900]

I think the only thing I really like about McFarland's Roshi is his comedic delivery. When he has to do the serious scenes, he falls pretty flat.

I thought he did a pretty good job in the Piccolo arc of Dragon Ball, actually.

[8000 Saiyan]

Too little too late? What makes you say that?

I think what he's saying is that Ocean Kai should have aired much earlier.

[Mewzard]

Too little too late? What makes you say that?

I think what he's saying is that Ocean Kai should have aired much earlier.

That's exactly what I'm saying. FUNi's Kai dub ran from the middle of 2010 to the beginning of 2012 (not counting 98 airing on TV like a year later).

We're only a few months from it being 8 years since the debut of FUNi's Kai dub. That's a lot time to wait, with most markets interested in such a dub having already used FUNi's dub. Leaves the Ocean dub with few places to run. If I recall correct, doesn't FUNi own the home distribution rights in North America anyways? That really leaves only TV airings in Canada, unless FUNi lets some company have the rights to put out an Ocean Kai DVD set.

From a business perspective, it just seems hard to make any money on this dub with what tiny slivers are left in the pie that is DB fans wanting Kai in English-speaking markets.

Had this run, like a few months to a year after FUNi, they could have competed for the UK, Australia, etc, but that time has come and gone.

[Robo4900]

I think what he's saying is that Ocean Kai should have aired much earlier.

I don't think that really fits here. "Too little too late" implies there's been a big misseed opportunity. The actors, the crew, etc. are still all around and in work, aside from maybe one or two Vancouver actors who've moved to LA or something. But all the major players are still around, so if this succeeds, TFC would be just as likely as if this same situation had presented itself in 2014 or 2015.
(EDIT: Posted the above part before I saw your post. Leaving it here anyway)

That's exactly what I'm saying. FUNi's Kai dub ran from the middle of 2010 to the beginning of 2012 (not counting 98 airing on TV like a year later).

We're only a few months from it being 8 years since the debut of FUNi's Kai dub. That's a lot time to wait, with most markets interested in such a dub having already used FUNi's dub. Leaves the Ocean dub with few places to run. If I recall correct, doesn't FUNi own the home distribution rights in North America anyways? That really leaves only TV airings in Canada, unless FUNi lets some company have the rights to put out an Ocean Kai DVD set.

Well, this was a dub that was destined for TV-only anyway.
Besides, British TV has only aired Kai once on a fairly obscure channel that many don't get. If Toonami comes back in the UK at some point, Turner UK have said they would seek out the Ocean dub. Toonami would be a much bigger channel, and Ocean Kai would do very well there.

From a business perspective, it just seems hard to make any money on this dub with what tiny slivers are left in the pie that is DB fans wanting Kai in English-speaking markets.

Had this run, like a few months to a year after FUNi, they could have competed for the UK, Australia, etc, but that time has come and gone.

The dub wasn't finished until at least late 2013. The point wasn't to compete with Funi by being quick, it was to capitalise on Ocean's prior success in the UK and Canada, and probably also to use the fact the dub will probably end up being cheaper to license to their advantage.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

If I recall correct, doesn't FUNi own the home distribution rights in North America anyways? That really leaves only TV airings in Canada, unless FUNi lets some company have the rights to put out an Ocean Kai DVD set.

This dub won't be getting a home release. It would take a miracle, or at least some hard hitting persuasion for MangaUK. Honestly though Canadian broadcast will be enough, I just want this dub to be out, in any form, it doesn't matter, we've waited long enough.

From a business perspective, it just seems hard to make any money on this dub with what tiny slivers are left in the pie that is DB fans wanting Kai in English-speaking markets.

Money has already been lost. This dub didn't air when Kai was hot property, so any gains for the producers will be minimal at best, but that's still better than nothing so why not let a channel air it if all goes to plan?

Had this run, like a few months to a year after FUNi, they could have competed for the UK, Australia, etc, but that time has come and gone.

I don't think this dub ever had a chance of airing in Australia since they have always had Funi's dubs. It's possible it may still air in the UK if Toonami ever gets a revival.

[EnergizerConvoy]

You know Paul Dobson would work as Roshi considering he does a solid old man voice.

[NitroEX]

The DBZ Canadian dub was done in a hurry in order, with them making the episodes on the basis that as soon as they were done, they would be sent ready to air, all done as fast as possible. This time, they've deliberately spent a ton of time getting it ready before opening it up to be used.

The situational differences don't matter that much in my view, if they were able to sell the Canadian dubbed episodes in batches to a UK channel in the past (as with DB/Z/GT to Turner) then they could have realistically negotiated a similar arrangement for Kai with CSC as Ocean's Kai was in production around that time. I don't think the CRTC approval holds much importance in getting the show on air outside of Canada, it wouldn't be something a UK channel would be concerned about let alone need to wait for. And this is something that has been demonstrated in the past with the Canadian version of Z starting to air in Western Europe before showing up on Canadian TV.

The Ocean version of Kai probably would have aired in Canada before it's completion had YTV supposedley not turned it down.

Toei doesn't really have any reason to block the Ocean dub from being purchased by CSC media; apparently they weren't given the option. Toei make money off either dub, and actually it works to their favour to have multiple dubs going so they make more money of licensing, and yet CSC weren't presented this dub.
But then now somehow Wow are getting it?

Whoever holds the rights to the Canadian version seems to be acting separately from Toei, that's how it seems at least, otherwise, Toei would have offered them the choice of which dub to have. Wow Unlimited probably had to specifically seek out this dub and find the company that holds the rights to it, other channels either haven't bothered to do the same or didn't care about a different dub. CSC Media apparently did know about the Canadian dub, so they weren't ignorant of its existence, it just seems that it was Toei that got in the way for whatever reason.

I won't bother speculating as to why as there's too little evidence BUT, it does strike me as odd that both Manga UK and CSC Media made licensing agreements with Toei for Dragon Ball around the same time, why didn't Toei make any deals prior to this? Probably because some other company in Western Europe still held onto the UK rights and Toei needed to wait for them to expire first.

And again, Kai was approved by the CRTC in April 2014. The dub might not have finished post-production until late 2013, or even early 2014; in fact, apparently the voicework on it didn't wrap until sometime in 2013(IIRC, they were doing pickups in 2013 for misc. lines throughout that needed to be re-recorded), while the Kix airing was early 2012. The timings just don't work out for it to have worked.

But again, the dub wouldn't have to be fully recorded in order to be aired, just like with DBZ (or Funimation's Kai dub for that matter) it could have been aired in batches, this is pretty common procedure. Also, Scott McNeil was at convention panels speaking about recording for Kai going as far back as 2011 and 2012. I'm sure enough of the early material it was recorded for a first batch. I think it was very doable and not as impossible as you're making it seem.

[Super Sayian Prime]

I don't see why all 98 episodes of Kai would have to be finished before Ocean's dub would be available for broadcasters to purchase. I'm sure Nicktoons picked up the show long before Funimation was finished with their 98 episodes.

I'm not confident we'll get more than the 98 episodes currently sitting on a hard drive (and I'm not 100% sure we're even going to get those), but I believe the U.S. is the only English speaking TV market to get TFC. Australia, the UK and South East Asia haven't. If Ocean's dub of Kai got on the air a few years back, their version could've easily replaced Funimation's dub on TV while they were spending years waiting for Toonami to notice them. If anyone's interested in airing the last chunk of Kai, it could be an option, I guess.

[Scsigs]

Had this run, like a few months to a year after FUNi, they could have competed for the UK, Australia, etc, but that time has come and gone.

You DO know that Australia (as well as New Zealand) always get FUNi's dubs of DB material, right? Madman always licenses FUNi's dubs of that material for those markets. Only Canada & the UK got the Ocean dubs, which was out of convenience for prices & laws at the time since they spent less money for the UK distributor to have the Ocean cast continue to dub the episodes & export that dub for some reason & Canada has a law that specifically tells their broadcasters that all channels up there need to air at least 50% Canadian-produced content & they wanted more of that, so it was aired out of convenience. Ocean never stood a chance for Aussie & Kiwi distribution, sorry.

[NitroEX]

Had this run, like a few months to a year after FUNi, they could have competed for the UK, Australia, etc, but that time has come and gone.

You DO know that Australia (as well as New Zealand) always get FUNi's dubs of DB material, right? Madman always licenses FUNi's dubs of that material for those markets. Only Canada & the UK got the Ocean dubs, which was out of convenience for prices & laws at the time since they spent less money for the UK distributor to have the Ocean cast continue to dub the episodes & export that dub for some reason & Canada has a law that specifically tells their broadcasters that all channels up there need to air at least 50% Canadian-produced content & they wanted more of that, so it was aired out of convenience. Ocean never stood a chance for Aussie & Kiwi distribution, sorry.

You keep trying to infer the Ocean product was inferior and thus cheaper when in reality it mainly boiled down to distributors and their licensing agreements at the time.

[Scsigs]

Had this run, like a few months to a year after FUNi, they could have competed for the UK, Australia, etc, but that time has come and gone.

You DO know that Australia (as well as New Zealand) always get FUNi's dubs of DB material, right? Madman always licenses FUNi's dubs of that material for those markets. Only Canada & the UK got the Ocean dubs, which was out of convenience for prices & laws at the time since they spent less money for the UK distributor to have the Ocean cast continue to dub the episodes & export that dub for some reason & Canada has a law that specifically tells their broadcasters that all channels up there need to air at least 50% Canadian-produced content & they wanted more of that, so it was aired out of convenience. Ocean never stood a chance for Aussie & Kiwi distribution, sorry.

You keep trying to infer the Ocean product was inferior and thus cheaper when in reality it mainly boiled down to distributors and their licensing agreements at the time.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I, in no way, was saying that the Ocean dub was inferior, though using FUNi's scripts wasn't really a great choice, but I get why they did. I was just saying that it was cheaper to license the Ocean dub recordings rather than FUNi's at the time. Don't put words in my text that aren't there.

[Robo4900]

Christ...
This thread is getting crazy.

Money has already been lost. This dub didn't air when Kai was hot property, so any gains for the producers will be minimal at best, but that's still better than nothing so why not let a channel air it if all goes to plan?

It's hard to make that call when we really have no clue why/how this dub was produced. Again, it got CRTC approval in April 2014. That's very late in the timeline of Kai, and I don't think there's realistically much difference between if it started airing in 2014, and it starting to air now. If anything, I think it might even be better off now, since Super's hype has already stopped being so overwhelming, the talk of Funi's Kai TFC has died down almost completely... But, as I say, this might be the case. There's no way to be sure.

Really, I think it's difficult to say what's going on with any of this. Let's just wait and see. At the very least, Ocean Kai has a chance to make money and do decently well. If the UK decides to pick it up, even better. Ultimately, we have to see where it goes. There's not really anything we can do aside from sitting and waiting, so I guess we'll just have to do that, and enjoy Kai when it airs.

I don't think this dub ever had a chance of airing in Australia since they have always had Funi's dubs. It's possible it may still air in the UK if Toonami ever gets a revival.

Indeed. Toonami is popping up a lot now, it may very well come back in the UK. And if it does, Ocean Kai would be the perfect headliner; UK folks who would be nostalgic for Dragon Ball Z would be nostalgic for the Ocean dub, so doing Ocean Kai would be the thing to do. It'd be a pretty much perfect headline act for UK Toonami.
Man, that would get me so pumped.

The situational differences don't matter that much in my view, if they were able to sell the Canadian dubbed episodes in batches to a UK channel in the past (as with DB/Z/GT to Turner) then they could have realistically negotiated a similar arrangement for Kai with CSC as Ocean's Kai was in production around that time.

That's not how it worked this time around. CSC would have asked Toei what their options are for Kai, and they would have been given their options. Apparently, Funimation was the only option they were given. Thing is, they began airing Kai on Kix in early 2012, right? So they might have requested it and begun negotiations as early as mid-2011, by which point Ocean Kai probably hadn't even got a full video master yet.

I don't think the CRTC approval holds much importance in getting the show on air outside of Canada, it wouldn't be something a UK channel would be concerned about let alone need to wait for. And this is something that has been demonstrated in the past with the Canadian version of Z starting to air in Western Europe before showing up on Canadian TV.

You misunderstand.
The CRTC approval date gives us a timeframe by which the post-production would have been finished. It was approved in April 2014, so it was likely finshed around early 2014/late 2013. Remember, though, it's known that once the main voice recording for Ocean Kai was done, they went back and did pickups on lines that either didn't work, or otherwise had to be re-recorded. This is fairly typical, but it means they couldn't have just thrown it out to air by then. And again, the post production was likely still going on; mixing, music, any SFX adjustments they were making... All this stuff could have been in-progress throughout 2013 across the whole run. Kix began airing Kai in 2012, they may have asked about it back in 2011... Ocean Kai just wouldn't have been an option for them.

Again, it's in Toei's best interests to have multiple dubs going, because it makes more money. If the dub had been ready, they would have offered both to CSC. They didn't, so obivously they had a reason. There's not really any other explanation, anyway; if Toei had some kind of grudge against Ocean, they simply wouldn't have let them get the license to dub it. Having the dub ready, and just not offering it to CSC would be a trememdously crappy thing to do. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's illegal. But, it would also be a very bad idea; if they screwed whoever produced Ocean Kai out of this, they would likely be found out, and those guys would never work with Toei again. And once again, Ocean having a second English dub is good for Toei's business...
So it would make no business sense for Toei to deliberately screw the Ocean dub.

The Ocean version of Kai probably would have aired in Canada before it's completion had YTV supposedley not turned it down.

Not possible. See above; post-production across the entire 98 episodes may still have been going on well into 2013. Pickups, music, etc. It wouldn't work.

Whoever holds the rights to the Canadian version seems to be acting separately from Toei, that's how it seems at least, otherwise, Toei would have offered them the choice of which dub to have. Wow Unlimited probably had to specifically seek out this dub and find the company that holds the rights to it, other channels either haven't bothered to do the same or didn't care about a different dub. CSC Media apparently did know about the Canadian dub, so they weren't ignorant of its existence, it just seems that it was Toei that got in the way for whatever reason.

I won't bother speculating as to why as there's too little evidence BUT, it does strike me as odd that both Manga UK and CSC Media made licensing agreements with Toei for Dragon Ball around the same time, why didn't Toei make any deals prior to this? Probably because some other company in Western Europe still held onto the UK rights and Toei needed to wait for them to expire first.

Where the hell did you get any of this info? XD
All we know is that Marni Shulman reached out to IPP, then some point after that, was negotiating the rights to get the dub to air. That's all we know. And yet, you're phrasing this like there was some grand conspiracy here.
Look, dude, just slow down. You're starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist or something.

But again, the dub wouldn't have to be fully recorded in order to be aired, just like with DBZ (or Funimation's Kai dub for that matter) it could have been aired in batches, this is pretty common procedure. Also, Scott McNeil was at convention panels speaking about recording for Kai going as far back as 2011 and 2012. I'm sure enough of the early material it was recorded for a first batch. I think it was very doable and not as impossible as you're making it seem.

I've said this above in this post, but for clarity, it's known there were pickups being recorded at the end, which could very well apply across the entire 98 episodes.
Clearly, Funimation produced it in a way that it could air as it was being produced, but then you get oddities like attack names changing from Japanese to Funimation in the uncut dub starting from the Namek arc, and Freeza being voiced by Linda Young in episode 1. Ocean did things like that in the old days, and we got Kami getting recast after 16 episodes, Instant Transmission being renamed to Instant Translocation sometime after its initial introduction...

Doing a dub in an episode-by-episode way is fine, but that's not how Ocean did it, and I imagine the dub is likely better off for it.

[ButtfaceKalinski]

I wouldn't put too much stock into the CRTC approval dates being solidly indicative of anything. I honestly know little to nothing about that process, but just because I was curious I looked up some stuff that I was involved in and the approval dates for for two shows are identical, when one of those shows was finished probably 2 years earlier than the other.

[Robo4900]

I wouldn't put too much stock into the CRTC approval dates being solidly indicative of anything. I honestly know little to nothing about that process, but just because I was curious I looked up some stuff that I was involved in and the approval dates for for two shows are identical, when one of those shows was finished probably 2 years earlier than the other.

I assume you're referring to the two listings of Kai. I believe, when submitting it to the CRTC, they split the 98-episode run up into two groups -- perhaps two seasons? -- which were sent to be approved at the same time.

[ButtfaceKalinski]

I wouldn't put too much stock into the CRTC approval dates being solidly indicative of anything. I honestly know little to nothing about that process, but just because I was curious I looked up some stuff that I was involved in and the approval dates for for two shows are identical, when one of those shows was finished probably 2 years earlier than the other.

I assume you're referring to the two listings of Kai. I believe, when submitting it to the CRTC, they split the 98-episode run up into two groups -- perhaps two seasons? -- which were sent to be approved at the same time.

No, sorry. To be clear I have nothing to do with this show, I'm talking about stuff from over a decade ago, and I have since changed to a job I'm actually good at. Two separately titled shows have the same approval date, although honestly production was a bit of a mess and I think some of the back room staff should've pursued other careers too. The first of those two shows was definitely airing on Canadian TV before it was approved as Canadian content.

[Robo4900]

No, sorry. To be clear I have nothing to do with this show, I'm talking about stuff from over a decade ago, and I have since changed to a job I'm actually good at. Two separately titled shows have the same approval date, although honestly production was a bit of a mess and I think some of the back room staff should've pursued other careers too. The first of those two shows was definitely airing on Canadian TV before it was approved as Canadian content.

Still, it is all we have to go on in terms of finish date. And it would make sense given recording finished in 2013. And their IDs are consecutive, so surely that would have some sort of bearing on things?