The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Discussion regarding the entirety of the franchise in a general (meta) sense, including such aspects as: production, trends, merchandise, fan culture, and more.

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chungohan
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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by chungohan » Fri Dec 03, 2021 6:32 am

Well, what I really meant is that either in Mexico or Spain we speak Spanish, not Mexican... but the Mexican variant is obviously spoken in Mexico, not Spain :lol:

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Fri Dec 03, 2021 10:54 am

chungohan, thank you for the info.

Can you confirm some of the channels that aired the Spanish dubs? From what I gather other than TV3 it was K3, 3XL, and Canal Sur, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by chungohan » Fri Dec 03, 2021 11:46 am

The Catalan Dub was aired first on TV3, then C33, then K3 and 3XL. C33, K3 and 3XL were in fact the same channel which went through several name changes.

The Spanish dub was first aired on Canal Sur (Andalusia), later on TeleMadrid (Madrid) and finally for all Spain on the national channel Antena 3.

Also, movies were released on VHS tapes both in catalan and spanish. In catalan we didn't have all the movies, though I though they do in Spanish.

In Euskadi (vasque country) the series was aired by ETB (Euskal Telebista), in Galicia by TVG and in Valencia by Canal 9.

So yes, we have 5 different versions for a small country as Spain :crazy:

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by DerekPadula » Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:28 pm

Thanks for the corrections and additional info. I need this type of accuracy from fans like yourself who grew up experiencing it.
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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by TheRed259 » Sun Dec 05, 2021 12:15 pm

DerekPadula wrote: Tue May 05, 2015 4:35 pm Greece
Only DBZ was released on VHS. And that was in 2002. Also, the VHS release stopped at episode 100.

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by FruPunRounin » Sat Feb 05, 2022 12:48 pm

DerekPadula wrote: Tue May 05, 2015 4:35 pm
South Africa
Okay so using the wayback machine, since I was too young to recall the exact airings, DBZ did start airing in 2003 until late 2004/early 2005 on SABC 2 (using the Funimation dub that aired on Toonami in the US). Dragon Ball GT aired in 2005 (also using the Toonami US version. I dont know weather this included the "lost episodes" or not). According to some friends of mine who started watching DB before me, Dragon Ball aired some point after GT. I assume between 2008-2009. In 2009, DBZ started it's second broadcast in 2009 until late 2011 before being replaced by Dragon Ball Z Kai in January 2012. Kai aired until December 2012 using the Nicktoons US version. Reruns ran throughout 2013 on Saturday mornings in 4 episode batches. Dragon Ball GT started it's second run in 2015 (10 years after it's initial Broadcast), airing all 64 episodes, up until 2016 using the same version that aired in 2005. Reruns ran throughout 2016 on Saturday mornings in 4 episode batches. Dragon Ball Z Kai The Final Chapters aired from December 2019 - August 2020, airing uncut. Dragon Ball Super was the first Dragon Ball series NOT to air on SABC 2, instead airing on Cartoon Network starting in April 2020 using an edited version of the Funimation Dub. I assume that initially they wanted to give us the Bang Zoom dub. Note: The South African broadcast NEVER followed in the footsteps of the UK broadcast. It broadcasted similarly to the Australian broadcast.

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Sat Feb 05, 2022 2:02 pm

FruPunRounin wrote: Sat Feb 05, 2022 12:48 pm Okay so using the wayback machine, since I was too young to recall the exact airings, DBZ did start airing in 2003 until late 2004/early 2005 on SABC 2 (using the Funimation dub that aired on Toonami in the US). Dragon Ball GT aired in 2005 (also using the Toonami US version. I dont know weather this included the "lost episodes" or not). According to some friends of mine who started watching DB before me, Dragon Ball aired some point after GT. I assume between 2008-2009. In 2009, DBZ started it's second broadcast in 2009 until late 2011 before being replaced by Dragon Ball Z Kai in January 2012. Kai aired until December 2012 using the Nicktoons US version. Reruns ran throughout 2013 on Saturday mornings in 4 episode batches. Dragon Ball GT started it's second run in 2015 (10 years after it's initial Broadcast), airing all 64 episodes, up until 2016 using the same version that aired in 2005. Reruns ran throughout 2016 on Saturday mornings in 4 episode batches. Dragon Ball Z Kai The Final Chapters aired from December 2019 - August 2020, airing uncut. Dragon Ball Super was the first Dragon Ball series NOT to air on SABC 2, instead airing on Cartoon Network starting in April 2020 using an edited version of the Funimation Dub. I assume that initially they wanted to give us the Bang Zoom dub. Note: The South African broadcast NEVER followed in the footsteps of the UK broadcast. It broadcasted similarly to the Australian broadcast.
Regarding Africa I've heard "one of the English dubs" aired in Uganda. Have you got any information on this? I'd assume if it did it would have been the Funimation dub, similar to South Africa.
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by FruPunRounin » Sat Feb 05, 2022 4:31 pm

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Sat Feb 05, 2022 2:02 pm
FruPunRounin wrote: Sat Feb 05, 2022 12:48 pm Okay so using the wayback machine, since I was too young to recall the exact airings, DBZ did start airing in 2003 until late 2004/early 2005 on SABC 2 (using the Funimation dub that aired on Toonami in the US). Dragon Ball GT aired in 2005 (also using the Toonami US version. I dont know weather this included the "lost episodes" or not). According to some friends of mine who started watching DB before me, Dragon Ball aired some point after GT. I assume between 2008-2009. In 2009, DBZ started it's second broadcast in 2009 until late 2011 before being replaced by Dragon Ball Z Kai in January 2012. Kai aired until December 2012 using the Nicktoons US version. Reruns ran throughout 2013 on Saturday mornings in 4 episode batches. Dragon Ball GT started it's second run in 2015 (10 years after it's initial Broadcast), airing all 64 episodes, up until 2016 using the same version that aired in 2005. Reruns ran throughout 2016 on Saturday mornings in 4 episode batches. Dragon Ball Z Kai The Final Chapters aired from December 2019 - August 2020, airing uncut. Dragon Ball Super was the first Dragon Ball series NOT to air on SABC 2, instead airing on Cartoon Network starting in April 2020 using an edited version of the Funimation Dub. I assume that initially they wanted to give us the Bang Zoom dub. Note: The South African broadcast NEVER followed in the footsteps of the UK broadcast. It broadcasted similarly to the Australian broadcast.
Regarding Africa I've heard "one of the English dubs" aired in Uganda. Have you got any information on this? I'd assume if it did it would have been the Funimation dub, similar to South Africa.
Okay so I did some quick research and found that Dragon Ball Z started it's broadcast in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Uganda, on StarTimes Kung Fu as early as 2016 with the Funimation dub. Have a look:
https://web.facebook.com/STkungfu/video ... 266127208/
https://web.facebook.com/STkungfu/video ... 672047737/
Also, they've been airing Dragon Ball on the same channel since 2015 with a mandarin dub over footage from the Funimation version. One last thing I thought was cool was that they used the English version of Cha-la Head Cha-la in a promo: https://web.facebook.com/STkungfu/video ... 066834063/

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by 2quid » Wed Mar 02, 2022 10:18 am

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 8:44 am So, a source has confirmed for me there is a dub of Dragon Ball Z made in Pakistan, but it is very rare and no known copies are in circulation.

Kids Zone, who are a channel that dubs series into Urdu are planning to air the Z dub at some point, so hopefully it will be rerun. I am trying to follow up on which channel aired the series originally, but from what I gather it was the Pakistani Cartoon Network.

Worth noting English is also spoken in Pakistan, in fact Pop is airing the edited Funimation Super dub, although I don't think they ever aired Funimation's Z dub.
There is an Urdu dub of DBZ but you'd be hard pressed to find anything of its existence, especially as the DBZ that aired on CN Pakistan was the Hindi version. I think, but I'm not sure, that it aired on Cinemachi Kids, which was a very short lived channel because it was illegally dubbing and airing content
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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by kei17 » Wed Mar 02, 2022 1:08 pm

When I found a video on YouTube named "DBZ Urdu dub" over a decade ago it was nothing but the Hindi dub made in India. I pointed that out in the comment and the uploader furiously said to me that it's Urdu and from Pakistan. So I started to assume that it's always nationalistic nonsense when someone talks about the Urdu dub of the Dragon Ball series, but it'd be interesting if there were actually an Urdu dub.

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Wed Mar 02, 2022 3:33 pm

All I know is that Cartoon Network in Pakistan aired the Hindi dub of Dragon Ball Z. One of the wikis listed season 5 as being dubbed in Urdu for KidZone, but I'd take that with a grain of salt as it would be really strange for a random season to be dubbed and nothing else. Only similar example I can think of is the French Canadian dub by KaBoom! Entertainment of Z episodes 124 and 125, but that made sense because it was for a promotional DVD.

It's also not unheard of for the series to be shown in one language in a certain country only to later be superseded by another, as from what I understand the series was aired in the Phillipinnes in English (Creative Corp dub) before being replaced by the Tagalog dub on GMA7, so maybe something like that could have happened to the Urdu dub, hence its rarity?
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by 2quid » Thu Mar 03, 2022 3:29 am

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Wed Mar 02, 2022 3:33 pm All I know is that Cartoon Network in Pakistan aired the Hindi dub of Dragon Ball Z. One of the wikis listed season 5 as being dubbed in Urdu for KidZone, but I'd take that with a grain of salt as it would be really strange for a random season to be dubbed and nothing else. Only similar example I can think of is the French Canadian dub by KaBoom! Entertainment of Z episodes 124 and 125, but that made sense because it was for a promotional DVD.

It's also not unheard of for the series to be shown in one language in a certain country only to later be superseded by another, as from what I understand the series was aired in the Phillipinnes in English (Creative Corp dub) before being replaced by the Tagalog dub on GMA7, so maybe something like that could have happened to the Urdu dub, hence its rarity?
I seriously doubt it, Dragon ball is popular enough in Pakistan that people would have known, and that there would be at least some posts on the internet to properly validate it's existence. The only thing we have to go on is a promo for Dragon ball by Cinemachi Kids (the illegal channel that did not last very long). It's a bit of an oddity though, the promo shows Dragon ball but is promoted as DBZ, and the promo is also in English. Ultimately that point doesn't mean anything because Cinemachi Kids' promos that exist on youtube today are mostly in English but we know these shows had Urdu dubs, there's about 2-3 clips out there to prove it.

I think this is the most likely scenario - that Cinemachi Kids perhaps dubbed Dragon ball in Urdu, but was mistakenly promoted as DBZ, or they dubbed DBZ but mistakenly aired footage of DB - but seeing as the channel closed very quickly after it launched, there simply may not have been enough time to clip it, and I'm sure DB/DBZ was one of they very last things they were doing before the shutdown.

I'm glad Kids Zone exists now, not only is the level of voice acting much better than I expected, but they are really adept at using social media to promote themselves and seem very in touch with their viewers. Also they're acquiring everything legally haha. A low bar some might say.

IF Kids Zone is airing DBZ (I don't think it currently is but I haven't seen the schedule for a few months) then 100% those episodes will be Urdu dubbed, not only is their whole MO, but there's quite strict laws against Hindi dubs in kids content these days. I think it's a good thing tbh, as far too many kids would be growing up speaking Hindi and not knowing the Urdu words for certain things. Why do you think almost everything CN and Nick in Pakistan show these days is in English haha. Pakistan can't legislate against it's official language after all.
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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Mon Sep 05, 2022 11:39 am

Thanks for the info 2quid, that's fascinating stuff.

I've compiled all the info I could both remember and gather from other fans about the history of Dragon Ball in the UK and Ireland, and this is the most comprehensive account I could compile.

Broadcasts
Home Video
Manga
Hopefully there are more fans out there from non-English speaking countries. There's still a lot of places like Cambodia, Macau, and all of Spacetoon's territories where the history of the series is lacking, but someone out there must know about these countries and more.
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by FPSSJ4_Goku » Thu Sep 08, 2022 9:57 am

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Mon Sep 05, 2022 11:39 am There's still a lot of places like Cambodia, Macau, and all of Spacetoon's territories where the history of the series is lacking, but someone out there must know about these countries and more.
Well, regarding Spacetoon, boy do I have news for you! I have some information on the Arabic dub, made by the Syrian dubbing studio Venus Centre, and broadcast on Spacetoon, the largest children's TV channel in the Middle East, after MBC-3, of course.


Movies
TV Series
Links

Kugu the Adventurer: https://archive.org/details/dragon-ball ... ic+Dub.mp4
DBZ Arabic dub: https://archive.org/details/dragon-ball ... arabic-dub
DB Arabic opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad5KfP3r1lE
DBZ Arabic opening (Saiyan arc): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SYBvhrAtQw
DBZ Arabic opening (Freeza arc): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KboH80veWao
DBZ Kai Arabic opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W9L8amFJpM
DB Super Arabic opening and ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z_htYtr67U
DB Super Arabic opening (Goku Black arc): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyvJ3ezCD80
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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by 2quid » Wed Mar 08, 2023 11:54 am

Heads up DBIreland, CN Pakistan is currently airing a new, Urdu dub of Dragon Ball Super.
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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Wed Mar 08, 2023 12:11 pm

2quid wrote: Wed Mar 08, 2023 11:54 am Heads up DBIreland, CN Pakistan is currently airing a new, Urdu dub of Dragon Ball Super.
Thanks for letting me know. It's always great to see Dragon Ball being dubbed in more languages.

I've also been talking to someone on Discord recently who offered to reach out to Kohavision, the channel in Kosovo that aired the very first Albanian dub (not the widely shared illegal dub) so I'm hoping soon we will know more about that dub, and Dragon Ball's broadcast in that country.
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Mon Jun 26, 2023 6:44 am

Found this old forum post which notes the date GT premiered in Malaysia - June 26, 2004. It took Z's timeslot, which from what I've gathered was weekends at 9:30am on TV2.

Hopefully someone out there has a premier date for the original Dragon Ball (I've heard it was circa 1999) and more info about the Malay dub in general, as not much is known other than the fact it existed and aired on TV2.
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Son Gokuu » Tue Dec 26, 2023 6:07 am

Hi There!
The information in Spain is wrong.

Dragon Ball began to be broadcast on regional television in 1989 in Andalucia (March 2 ,Canal Sur) with only 18 episodes.
It was followed in 1990 in Galicia (February 8, TVG). A few days later it would arrive in Euskadi (February 21, on ETB) and Catalonia (February 26, TV3) at their respective languages.

Telemadrid (Madrid) and Canal Sur again (Andalucia) aired Dragon Ball in 1990 in a Castilian and Canal 9 (Valencia in valencian language) in the same year.

Mexico has NOTHING to do with the Spanish dubbing of Dragon Ball for Spain. I also see that Intertrack was founded in 1993, so...

Kind regards.

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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by DerekPadula » Tue Dec 26, 2023 6:51 pm

Thank you, Son Gokuu. I've seen a lot of debate from fans in Spain about their releases. It seems like there is confusion or misinformation surrounding the subject. For example, my translator, Antonio (MrKaytos), was given a hard time on his social media recently regarding a statement he made about the history of the releases in Spain's different regions.

When it comes time to format and publish my book, I will need to speak with the different companies involved with its release to confirm or deny the information we've collected.
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Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Vegard Aune » Tue Dec 26, 2023 7:17 pm

So I just looked at what you have for Norway and it does seem to be rather out of date. The manga got a second release in Norwegian starting in 2016, done in a 3-in-1 format with a brand new translation. There was a fair bit of weirdness with the names but aside from that it was a much better translation than Schibsted had, and unlike Schibsted it was actually translated straight from Japanese. (I did a thread on it way back when, though after a certain point I fell behind on reading it and also felt that there wasn't really much else to say that hadn't already been said.) It wrapped up in 2022, but then this year they also started releasing Dragon Ball Super, which is currently sitting at four single volumes released. Super, too, is translated straight from Japanese, and while the names still match the 2016 release so you have stuff like "Vejita", "Friiza", "Tranks" rather than "Trunks" and others (Those are the big ones though), the new characters introduced in Super are mostly spelled the way fans have come to know them, so, Beerus, Whis, Champa, Vados, Jaco, Zamasu... Also of notice for me at least, the Omni-King is "Allkongen", or "The All-King", and at the moment absolutely no variations on "Zen-ou" have been used anywhere.

The Super Hero movie also got a theatrical run over here. Subtitled-only. The subtitles were plainly retranslated from English and were, um... very, very poor. This also included them using English dub names such as "Shenron" or "Krillin" despite both Norwegian translations of the manga using "Shenlong" and "Kuririn". Also characters kept dropping the Norwegian equivalent of an F-bomb which really does not seem fitting for the target demographic.
Last edited by Vegard Aune on Tue Dec 26, 2023 7:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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