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

[JohnnyCashKami]

I mean, the fact that whoever created this dub cared so much about pronunciations and getting Goku right goes to show that they didn't want to create a dub for the sake of creating a dub. The fact they went for a replacement score and a cheesy theme song even before the Yamamoto scandal came to light does throw up some flags, but the fact a clip of a possible updated theme was found gives me hope that they decided not to go too far on the cheese factor. I will be happy if everything about this dub other than the music is on par with the Pioneer trilogy or just a bit better than the Saban dub. Honestly though I have a lot of nostalgia for the Ocean cast because I grew up with them, I'm going to watch this dub again and again one way or the other.

The Saban Z dubs were great so I'm not expecting to be disappointed. In fact, the Ocean Dub was way ahead of FUNimation in that they offered professional English dubs than mediocre ones. Let's not forget Ocean's Goku actually pronounced Kaioh-ken correctly unlike FUNi's Goku (Kay-oh-ken).

[MasenkoHA]

This has been one of my fears: the long delay has resulted in heightened expectations for many people. While I would very much like to see this dub, I've kept my expectations in check, and while I'm sure it's possible that this dub is great, I nevertheless do not at all anticipate that this will be on my personal "Top 10 Dubs Of All Time"-list.

Who knows, though...maybe it really is that good.

The fact that Henderson, Mcneil, and Drummond are involved gives me hope that the dub is passable at worst.

At worst, it'll be well-performed with decent enough scripts despite some inaccuracies (comparable to Funi's), but the censorship will be rather bothersome, and the score will be forgettable and dull.

Realistically, I imagine what we'll get is the dub will be solid; the censorship will be mildly bothersome, but the performances, generally faithful scripts, and solid scoring will indeed make it a solid dub overall, and while Funi's will remain the recommended default dubbed version, if only because it's uncut and Funi have dubs of basically everything else, Ocean's will remain a solid viewing option enjoyed by many, and be a perfect option for parents who think it's too intense uncut to show to their kids.

I was under the impression it was suggested that the Ocean Kai dub will be edited to the level of the Nicktoons broadcast. Which honestly wasn’t as bad as people want to pretend

[JohnnyCashKami]

The Nicktoons censorship was almost at the same level of Dragon Ball Kai itself, so it wasn't actually bad (unless I'm misremembering it) at all, in my opinion. Although the cut they made on the Gohan SSJ2 was annoying but understandable, kids are watching and Cell crushing a head to pieces wouldn't be a good idea for them to show.

Back then, the Westwood dub kept the Gohan SSJ2 scene mostly uncut as they just removed the blood (or oil, if you want to be technical). The monologue was alright and I quite liked the BGM they used (from Mega Man apparently).

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I mean, the fact that whoever created this dub cared so much about pronunciations and getting Goku right goes to show that they didn't want to create a dub for the sake of creating a dub. The fact they went for a replacement score and a cheesy theme song even before the Yamamoto scandal came to light does throw up some flags, but the fact a clip of a possible updated theme was found gives me hope that they decided not to go too far on the cheese factor. I will be happy if everything about this dub other than the music is on par with the Pioneer trilogy or just a bit better than the Saban dub. Honestly though I have a lot of nostalgia for the Ocean cast because I grew up with them, I'm going to watch this dub again and again one way or the other.

The Saban Z dubs were great so I'm not expecting to be disappointed. In fact, the Ocean Dub was way ahead of FUNimation in that they offered professional English dubs than mediocre ones. Let's not forget Ocean's Goku actually pronounced Kaioh-ken correctly unlike FUNi's Goku (Kay-oh-ken).

I quite enjoy the Saban dub. What it lacks in accuracy it makes up for in its performances, which were all fantastic. Aside from the Pioneer movies that dub had the best acting we'd seen in Dragon Ball dubs for well over a decade. Funimation's cast didn't get that good until Kai, and even since then Ocean still has better casting for certain characters, i.e McNeil as Piccolo, Drummond as Vegeta, etc.

Still, if Funimation can improve there's no reason Ocean can't. I thought Drummond stepped up his game as Copy Vegeta in Kai. That was his best work on the franchise available to date, and I really hope he has a chance to return again in future.

Schemmel is the best Goku however, his work on Kai, Super and the recent movies have earned him my respect. It will be very interesting to see how Richard Ian Cox compares. Then we will know what all the hassle about getting "the essence of the character as it was in the Japanese version" was all about.

[JohnnyCashKami]

Schemmel's artistic performance as Son Goku is definitely one of the best for English Goku VA but for me, Peter Kelamis will always be my English Goku.

[8000 Saiyan]

While I like the Saban dub for what it is, I disagree that all of the performances were fantastic. Tenshinhan and Master Roshi were really bad. Hopefully they get a VA with an actual aged voice for Roshi instead of a guy in his 20's or 30's doing his best old man impression. And Brendan Hunter better step up his game so that I can finally hear a great Tenshinhan voice in English. I suppose Pauline Newstone was miscast, but at least she did well as Frieza.

Sigh... but the biggest disappointment of the Ocean dub of Z was that they didn't get David Kaye to voice Cell. With great voice direction and scripts, he would have been amazing in the role, without a doubt better than Dameon Clarke. Clarke is a good Cell, but I think it's absurd to say that he's on Norio Wakamoto's level.

Even in his rage scene in Kai felt kinda forced compared to Wakamoto's delivery in Z.

[Robo4900]

The fact they went for a replacement score and a cheesy theme song even before the Yamamoto scandal came to light does throw up some flags, but the fact a clip of a possible updated theme was found gives me hope that they decided not to go too far on the cheese factor.

From the beginning, we knew that initially-spread opening song was just a scratch track; David Steele outright said he wasn't sure if it was the final verison.

But, of course, everyone paraded it around as the real thing, succumbing to the dumb clickbait, and now it's serious misinformation that's lead tons of people to be lied to.

The thing from that showreel will be what's actually in the show.

I was under the impression it was suggested that the Ocean Kai dub will be edited to the level of the Nicktoons broadcast. Which honestly wasn’t as bad as people want to pretend

Correct.

Funimation's NickToons edit was literally Ocean's video master.
Though, we have no confirmation what the dialogue edits will be like.

My guess would be something like Blue Water GT -- dialogue is faithful, but skirts around stuff censors tend to be uncomfortable about -- but we don't know yet. I was just offering a hypothetical worst case scenario there.

Still, we'll definitely see people complain that Ocean Kai is censored even if the dialogue turns out to be 100% faithful, not on the basis of the NickToons edit master, but because it won't have the constant swearing Funi littered throughout their version.

[JohnnyCashKami]

Brazil and Mexico's dubs of Kai were based on the Nicktoons source, it was censored yeah but the scripts were extremely faithful and they used the correct names/terms.

The Brazilian dub of Kai TFC was kinda weird in that they said "Dragon Ball Z Kai" when during the original run it was just Dragon Ball Kai.

Surprisingly, the German Kai dub refers to it as "Dragon Ball Kai" but the cover/video footage is FUNi's "Z Kai".

[Danfun64]

"extremely faithful"? The scripts appear to be more or less the same as the Funi Kai script, in the case of Kai 1.0, the Nicktoons script specifically. While the Funi Kai script is better than the Funi Z script, from what I gathered the Latino Z and Brazilian Z scripts were better than the Funi Kai script. Note that this applies to both Kai 1.0 and Kai 2.0 of the Latino dub, as well as Kai 2.0 of the Brazilian dub. The situation for Brazilian Kai 1.0 is apparently a bit more ambiguous. Apparently, they either corrected the Nicktoons script with manga translations, got access to the equivalent Brazilian Z scripts, or some mixture thereof. The jury's out on whether the dub is more accurate or less accurate compared to Brazilian Z ep 1-199, though apparently the Brazilian Z dub is still considered superior? IDK, I don't speak Latino Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese. I'm just going on what I've read.

Surprisingly, the German Kai dub refers to it as "Dragon Ball Kai" but the cover/video footage is FUNi's "Z Kai".

I think the "Z Kai" logo was done by Toei. Notice that the German Kai dub uses the 16:9 Kai 1.0 master instead of the 4:3 master used by Funi (and by extension Latin America).

[Super Sayian Prime]

It's funny you guys should mention the foreign dubs. I was checking Jason Cooper's (Ocean's video editor for Kai) site and noticed this entry on his Kai page:

- Performed the final quality control in various languages.

We've gotten a few indications of this, but it once again leads me to believe Toei funded this dub. Otherwise, why would Ocean be responsible for doing quality control on non-English versions of the show?

Unfortunately, this also suggests Bang Zoom has replaced Ocean in Toei's eyes. Not only were BZ responsible for that short-lived Super dub, they also handled soundmixing on last year's DBZ theatrical re-releases (which were solely by Toei USA).

[JohnnyCashKami]

"extremely faithful"? The scripts appear to be more or less the same as the Funi Kai script, in the case of Kai 1.0, the Nicktoons script specifically. While the Funi Kai script is better than the Funi Z script, from what I gathered the Latino Z and Brazilian Z scripts were better than the Funi Kai script. Note that this applies to both Kai 1.0 and Kai 2.0 of the Latino dub, as well as Kai 2.0 of the Brazilian dub. The situation for Brazilian Kai 1.0 is apparently a bit more ambiguous. Apparently, they either corrected the Nicktoons script with manga translations, got access to the equivalent Brazilian Z scripts, or some mixture thereof. The jury's out on whether the dub is more accurate or less accurate compared to Brazilian Z ep 1-199, though apparently the Brazilian Z dub is still considered superior? IDK, I don't speak Latino Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese. I'm just going on what I've read.

Alright, yeah, that's what I meant and calling it 'extremely faithful' might have been too excessive. The Mexican dub of Kai TFC was slightly better than the Brazilian dub, for example, on the Brazilian dub Goku said "Saiyamen" and the Mexican dub was "Saiyaman" maybe irrelevant for some but this is kind of a big deal as they love to be as accurate with the terms and names.

I think the "Z Kai" logo was done by Toei. Notice that the German Kai dub uses the 16:9 Kai 1.0 master instead of the 4:3 master used by Funi (and by extension Latin America).

Most likely but I've never liked the 'Z Kai' logo. It looks tacky, unprofessional and the cleanliness of it was gone. I mean, the Z just looks so forced and unnatural in there but then again, the show was originally called "Dragon Ball Kai" and not "Dragon Ball Z Kai" so that's no surprise.

[linkdude20002001]

I agree about the logo. Had they re-colord the “BALL” part of the logo to red, it would’ve lookt a lot better. It would’ve lookt more like the Dragon Ball Z logo, which would make sense since it’s a refresh of DBZ...

[mikezilla2]

So still Dead ?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

So still Dead ?

Until we hear more about Wow World's launch and programming that remains to be seen.

[Robo4900]

So still Dead ?

Wow Unlimited have moved their channel launch back to June, so... We're waiting on that now.

[JohnnyCashKami]

So is it guaranteed that Wow Unlimited launches in June? And Ocean Kai will be one of its shows to premiere on that channel?

I'm really anxious for that to happen.

[GokuDaimao]

So is it guaranteed that Wow Unlimited launches in June? And Ocean Kai will be one of its shows to premiere on that channel?

I'm really anxious for that to happen.

Not guaranteed, only assumed. Because as Super Saiyan Prime posted in his blog, they can push the launch date to September 1st if requested in writing.

We don't even know if or when Kai will show up on the network. Last we heard though, negotiations for it were looking good so I'm just assuming that they're banking on a surprise-type scenario.

[Robo4900]

So is it guaranteed that Wow Unlimited launches in June? And Ocean Kai will be one of its shows to premiere on that channel?

I'm really anxious for that to happen.

Not guaranteed, only assumed. Because as Super Saiyan Prime posted in his blog, they can push the launch date to September 1st if requested in writing.

We don't even know if or when Kai will show up on the network. Last we heard though, negotiations for it were looking good so I'm just assuming that they're banking on a surprise-type scenario.

Dragon Ball is a big deal, and is pretty much always a hit with English viewers, so I imagine they'll be aiming to get that and put it front-and-centre. And since it's the cast all the oldschool fans would remember from back in the day, I imagine they'll make use of that in their marketing so anyone who happens to catch a promo and hear the familiar tones of McNeil's Piccolo or Drummond's Vegeta will be curious.

I don't imagine "NEW UNAIRED DUB" will be a big thing, since that's a complex thing to explain to people who don't know the situation, but I imagine "Hey guys! Dragon Ball!" will be pretty front-and-centre along with any other anime they're looking to air.

[Azelf89]

While we’re all waiting, here’s something that you guys might find interesting.

A little while back, I contacted Steve Olson (the narrator for the Blue Water dubs of GT and OG DB) on Twitter and asked if he was ever auditioned for Ocean Kai (specifically, reprising his role as the narrator, or at least lending some additional voices for that dub).

Recently (less then 8 months later), he actually responded to my question:

Hi, my schedule at the time was limited. For Kai, I only did some incidental voices.

With this, that pretty much confirms that, while he is part of the dub, he’s not back as the narrator. And since Doc Harris has already confirmed that he wasn’t back either, unless they got Jim Conrad (BLT dub narrator) to reprise the role, I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to be getting an entirely new narrator for Ocean Kai.

[Robo4900]

While we’re all waiting, here’s something that you guys might find interesting.

A little while back, I contacted Steve Olson (the narrator for the Blue Water dubs of GT and OG DB) on Twitter and asked if he was ever auditioned for Ocean Kai (specifically, reprising his role as the narrator, or at least lending some additional voices for that dub).

Recently (less then 8 months later), he actually responded to my question:

Hi, my schedule at the time was limited. For Kai, I only did some incidental voices.

With this, that pretty much confirms that, while he is part of the dub, he’s not back as the narrator. And since Doc Harris has already confirmed that he wasn’t back either, unless they got Jim Conrad (BLT dub narrator) to reprise the role, I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to be getting an entirely new narrator for Ocean Kai.

Interesting.

I doubt Jim Conrad was brought back, so unless Doc Harris was lying for NDA, I imagine we'll hear a new narrator. Perhaps someone like French Tickner or Dave Pettitt.