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.

Moderators: General Help, Kanzenshuu Staff

User avatar
Basaku
I'm, pretty, cozy, here...
Posts: 1937
Joined: Sat Apr 19, 2014 3:00 pm
Location: Planet of the Apes

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Basaku » Wed May 06, 2015 8:21 pm

MCDaveG wrote: Correction - I don't remember when exactly, but Z and GT were also aired by three episodes a day (after Dr. Slump, Magic Knights Rayearth and Slayers). DBGT aired in French up to Baby Saga and somewhen at the end of the arc switched to Japanese.
Openings and endings were in Japanese even with the french dub and only the first version and Hitorijanai for the whole 63 episodes, 64th episode had the Dan Dan montage.
You're right with Japenese dub starting half-way trhough GT, but at least for the first airing it was never more than 2 episodes per day. Also I got some dates wrong, the very first airing councluded in early 2001 (DB from October 1999 to May 2000, DBZ from May 2000 to December 2000), later the show was re-aired twice. Would be nice if Derek could correct info in OP, I also updated my previous post

User avatar
danielsan_190196
Beyond Newbie
Posts: 180
Joined: Sat Jul 05, 2014 12:50 pm
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by danielsan_190196 » Wed May 06, 2015 11:12 pm

[questionable] Intertrack dubbed two versions of the first 26 episodes. One for Latin America, and the other for Spain. The first 26 episodes aired on Telemadrid in Madrid Spain, and in Barcelona, Spain, and Canal Sur Television in Andalusia, Spain. Then the Spanish broadcast was taken over by Videotake South and High Frequency for the movies and specials.
There aren't two dubs made by Intertrack. There's only the dub made in the early 90s by Video Doblajes S.A (i don't know exactly the name of the company), based on the Harmony Gold, and the one by Intertrack, with the script of the first 60 episodes based on the Harmony Gold one, but with the original names (Goku, Krillin, etc). Then, they used a script with a faithful japanese-to-spanish translation (made by Brenda Nava).
Cure Dragon 255 wrote:Ok me voy a tomar un poco de tiempo para saludar a todos mis hermanos y hermanas de Hispano America (Hola Garnet, Danielsan y otros que me olvido). Tambien saludo a los primos lejanos de España como UltimateHammerBro.
Muchas gracias! Saludos a vos también :) :wave:

dougo13
Beyond-the-Beyond Newbie
Posts: 349
Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2015 4:32 pm

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by dougo13 » Thu May 07, 2015 12:39 am

This list does not include the Fuji Television episodes broadcast in Japanese with English subs in Hawaii in 1992. These continued until DBZ episode #104 when Funimation demanded the subtitles cease as they had the US rights to the show.

User avatar
DragonDuck
Not-So-Newbie
Posts: 84
Joined: Tue Mar 31, 2015 8:02 am
Location: Somewhere far away

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by DragonDuck » Thu May 07, 2015 4:17 am

Let's talk about the Danish version ...

Manga:
The manga was released in the original left-to-right reading format in 2000 by Carlsen Manga. It was one of the most succesful manga ever released in Denmark and helped launch the manga industry in the country. It was translated from the German version by John Lysmand. It was later reprinted with alternative cover art from the original tankoubon release. (The first release's cover art was the same as the German version.) The translation was of a very high quality.

Anime:
Dragon Ball Z was first aired in 2003 on the public service channel Danmarks Radio 1 with a Danish dub based on the French version. The intro for the dub was not the French intro, but Rock the Dragon. The original Dragon Ball was never aired or released in Denmark. The translation for the dub was done by Søren Lampe and corrected a lot of the errors of the French dub, by using the Danish manga translation as a reference. The dub only lasted until episode 104, and none of the following episodes were released since. The dub would air in a certain pattern, restarting after Episode 27 as Danmarks Radio were buying licenses to and dubbing new episodes. After repeating, the dub would continue beyond episode 27 until episode 104. The show was reran again in January of 2011 on Danmarks Radio 1's sister channel, DR Ramasjang. The rerun had the same broadcast pattern as the original airing, but repeated after ep. 104. The rerun was continued on a channel called DR Ultra after Danmakrs Radio restructured their channels. Dragon Ball Z movies 1-9 and both of the TV specials were released on DVD and VHS in a 4:3 format, with a dub based on the AB Groupe "Big Green" dub, but with Danish manga names like in the TV seires.
Champion of 2nd Kanzenshuu Short Story Tenka'ichi Budokai

There should be a witty quote or something down here. I'm just not imaginative enough to come up with anything.

User avatar
kindertuin
Beyond Newbie
Posts: 173
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2005 12:59 pm
Location: Belgium

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by kindertuin » Thu May 07, 2015 6:22 am

Dragonball Z officially first aired in Belgium on 17 December 2001 on the network "Kanaal 2" (now known as "2BE").
This was the Ocean-dub. They showed, if I can remember correctly, until the end of Cell, or at least they showed the start of Cell.

User avatar
ShinGaijin
Beyond Newbie
Posts: 297
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2012 9:59 am
Location: France/Japan/Hong Kong
Contact:

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by ShinGaijin » Thu May 07, 2015 11:40 am

I'm pretty sure that Hong Hong was the very first "country" to get the anime...i've heard that so many times ! (February 1988, on TVB...90% sure).I'll check that.

EDIT : This isn't the best source, but... http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%84%A1% ... 8.E5.B9.B4

User avatar
DerekPadula
Regular
Posts: 529
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2009 10:53 pm
Location: East Grand Rapids, MI
Contact:

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by DerekPadula » Thu May 07, 2015 1:35 pm

I updated the Argentina section to reflect new information, including Info on the Magic Kids TV channel.

I added the anime info to Paraguay. Still need the manga.

I updated the Portugal anime info.

MCDaveG mentioned that 'only Germany had its own intro,' but Italy had them as well. The Italian Dragon Ball Intro: https://youtu.be/sd5v9UCvyac, DBZ Intro: https://youtu.be/TBwtHMg5OvQ, GT Intro: https://youtu.be/xwMokUKM6A0.

I added the Columbia section based on garnetjester's info.

This link is awesome: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Emis ... ragon_Ball, and I'll have to spend some more time on it. I wish that entire article was available on the English Wikipedia.

I added the South Africa section.

Updated Norway. Updated Poland.

I added the Denmark section.

DragonDuck, you said the Denmark manga was published in the, "original left-to-right reading format in 2000 by Carlsen Manga." The 'original' means that it was the original Japanese format of right-to-left. If it's left-to-right, then that means they Westernized it and flipped the order of the pages and content. So it can't be both 'original' and 'left-to-right.' So which was it?

I added the Hong Kong section. I never knew it was the first country to get the anime. Today I learned...

Thanks, everyone.
Author of Dragon Ball Culture and the It's Over 9,000! book: https://thedaoofdragonball.com/books and The Dao of Dragon Ball website: https://thedaoofdragonball.com/blog

User avatar
DragonDuck
Not-So-Newbie
Posts: 84
Joined: Tue Mar 31, 2015 8:02 am
Location: Somewhere far away

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by DragonDuck » Thu May 07, 2015 1:47 pm

DerekPadula wrote: DragonDuck, you said the Denmark manga was published in the, "original left-to-right reading format in 2000 by Carlsen Manga." The 'original' means that it was the original Japanese format of right-to-left. If it's left-to-right, then that means they Westernized it and flipped the order of the pages and content. So it can't be both 'original' and 'left-to-right.' So which was it?
Oh, whoopsie, sorry. I always get confused over them, but it was right-to-left, like in the original Japanese version.
Champion of 2nd Kanzenshuu Short Story Tenka'ichi Budokai

There should be a witty quote or something down here. I'm just not imaginative enough to come up with anything.

User avatar
sangofe
Kicks it Old-School
Posts: 7535
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2004 3:39 pm

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by sangofe » Thu May 07, 2015 3:56 pm

ShinGaijin wrote:I'm pretty sure that Hong Hong was the very first "country" to get the anime...i've heard that so many times ! (February 1988, on TVB...90% sure).I'll check that.

EDIT : This isn't the best source, but... http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%84%A1% ... 8.E5.B9.B4
France got it in 1988 as well.

User avatar
Tzigi
Regular
Posts: 559
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:36 am
Location: Poland
Contact:

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Tzigi » Thu May 07, 2015 4:00 pm

Still on Poland (that's actually fun how many Poles are here1) since you got some mistakes there:
GT aired in French with Polish subtitles up to the Baby Arc, then switched to the original Japanese voices, intro, and outro, with Polish subtitles. GT completed its broadcast in 2003. The entire series was then re-aired from start to finish two more times.

In some regions there were no subtitles, but instead a lector who read every line of dialogue in Polish. A lector is an actor who reads the dialogue in a normal yet easy to understand voice, rather than act out the lines as each character.
There were no "regions" and the entire first airing used a voice-over (aka lektor) - only the underlying audio switched from the French AB monstrosity to the standard Japanese version but the lektor remained all the way up to the last episode of GT - check this TV rip2 of the latter half of the last episode to confirm it.

And this:
DerekPadula wrote: I updated the post to include a Finland section. It took several hours for me to write because I had to research the scandal in 2003 that may have banned Dragon Ball from Finland forever. I never knew that happened and thought it was extremely fascinating. Here are some great articles on the subject that I referenced in the section, which you can google translate to read.

http://www.kvaak.fi/naytaartikkeli.php?articleID=27, and http://www.kvaak.fi/naytakolumni.php?articleID=53, and http://www.kvaak.fi/naytauutinen.php?articleID=51
reminded me of our very own DB-related scandal. It's actually quite an interesting story and it could flesh your narrative out nicely: Dragon Ball/Z/GT started airing on RTL7. IT was a channel created by what's now the RTL Group and they had an interesting idea of airing as many number-7-related shows as possible. So they aired:
  • Sweat - translated into Polish as Siódme poty (seventh sweat) - this being an idiomatic expression in Polish for "to train somebody very hard"
  • 7th Heaven - self explanatory
  • Medicopter 117 - you get the idea, don't you?
  • a news program called Wydarzenia Dnia - 7 minut (day's events in 7 minutes)
So Dragon Ball with its seven Dragon Balls fit perfectly :)

Sadly RTL7 didn't do as well as expected and on the 01.03.20023 it got changed into TVN7 - essentially a rerun channel for one of Poland's two biggest non-national channels (TVN - the other being Polsat). For a while the shows remained the same but gradually it merged into TVN-rerun-exclusive (from there it evolved a bit further but that's beyond the point). So DB was re-aired on TVN7.

And, on 12.07.2003, TVN (not TVN7) aired "Uwaga" (a tabloid, sensationalist show) that used this page from the JPF edition of DB manga:
as fodder for accusing Dragon Ball of promoting paedophilia4. The whole transcript (in Polish of course) can be read here. Manga and anime had quite a history of being seen as sexually depraving way in the 90s in Poland but by the 2000s it seemed to pass. Uwaga revived this monster, caused instant rebuttals from the fandom but also made the editing houses put rating signs on manga covers (so, by looking at my first printing of Chobits, I can easily see between which volumes did Uwaga air - one has no sign and the next is tarnished by it). The most "fascinating" part of it was that DB was still airing on TVN7 - so in a bout of utter stupidity and schizophrenia the creators of Uwaga accused their own co-workers...

And one more thing: in the section about Czech Republic you mention the phenomenon of relying strongly on a version in another language. The very same thing happened in Poland - up until the beginning of 2003 (with the first day of this year the Polish law changed to conform with UE regulations) Polish cable TV providers effectively pirated foreign free to air channels and so we had:
  • RTL II - DB in German
  • Italia 1 - DBGT in Italian
    and yes, of course:
  • Cartoon Network with the wonderfully consistent and engaging DBZ version airing on Toonami5
Sorry for being so verbose. I simply happen to have written quite a long article about the whole history of DB in Poland for inclusion in a scholarly publication about anime and manga fandom in Poland. Sadly I've never gotten around to correcting it according to the reviewer's remarks so it will in all probability remain unpublished. So I thought that I could just as well reuse some of my research here.
________________
1. Miło spotkać swoich krajan na Kanzenshuu!
2. I hope that I can link to it for archival/scientific purposes here.
3. That's March the first for those who scramble their dates into illogical shapes.
4. No, I'm not making it up. I kinda wish I did.
5. And yes, I mean it. Complain all you want about this dub's inaccuracies. For Polish fans way back in the 2000s it was a marvel of wonderful voice acting, consistent translation and music that's not "I got a synthesiser yesterday and I want to show you what an awesome 8-year-old am I" that the AB Group's Club Dorothée's version was "blessed" with.
Last edited by Tzigi on Thu May 07, 2015 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Attitudefan
I Live Here
Posts: 2963
Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2010 9:51 pm
Location: Canada

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Attitudefan » Thu May 07, 2015 4:01 pm

In Canada, the show was already airing by 1998. There is a pic of me from Summer of 1998 with a DBZ T-Shirt, so I think that is sufficient to say that DBZ was in full swing by then. I actually think it might have been taken off the air until 2000 though, but I'm not entirely sure about that.

Anyways, I think YTV started airing it in 1996 originally. YTV, in 2007, had a retro week to celebrate 10 years on air, and on the last day, due to many requests, DBZ was shown (Ocean dub Betamax footage, grainy and all) and they announced it was part of their original line up that helped the success of the channel and programming like "The Zone" during after school hours. By 2000, DBZ had already been on air in Canada for at least 3 years.
Last edited by Attitudefan on Thu May 07, 2015 4:08 pm, edited 3 times in total.
My favourite art style (and animation) outside Toriyama who worked on Dragon Ball: Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, Masaki Satō, Minoru Maeda, Takeo Ide, Hisashi Eguchi, Katsumi Aoshima, Tomekichi Takeuchi, Masahiro Shimanuki, Kazuya Hisada

User avatar
DerekPadula
Regular
Posts: 529
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2009 10:53 pm
Location: East Grand Rapids, MI
Contact:

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by DerekPadula » Thu May 07, 2015 4:06 pm

Quick comment on the France versus Hong Kong thing.

The first episode of Dragon Ball anime was broadcast in France on March 3, 1988 on Club Dorothée, an afternoon children’s program on channel TF1.

In Hong Kong it premiered on February 21, 1988, on TVB Jade.

So the Hong Kongers beat the French to the title by 10 days.

*That's the date according to the Chinese Wikipedia article linked to earlier in this thread.
Author of Dragon Ball Culture and the It's Over 9,000! book: https://thedaoofdragonball.com/books and The Dao of Dragon Ball website: https://thedaoofdragonball.com/blog

User avatar
sangofe
Kicks it Old-School
Posts: 7535
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2004 3:39 pm

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by sangofe » Thu May 07, 2015 4:18 pm

DerekPadula wrote:Quick comment on the France versus Hong Kong thing.

The first episode of Dragon Ball anime was broadcast in France on March 3, 1988 on Club Dorothée, an afternoon children’s program on channel TF1.

In Hong Kong it premiered on February 21, 1988, on TVB Jade.

So the Hong Kongers beat the French to the title by 10 days.

*That's the date according to the Chinese Wikipedia article linked to earlier in this thread.
Haha, talk about a close race!

User avatar
Basaku
I'm, pretty, cozy, here...
Posts: 1937
Joined: Sat Apr 19, 2014 3:00 pm
Location: Planet of the Apes

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by Basaku » Thu May 07, 2015 7:29 pm

Still few things to correct in Polish section Derek ;P first airing of GT concluded in early 2001, not 2003. It never increased to 3 eps per day during first airing, nor DBZ. 3 episodes happened only during re-runs after GT first ended. And of course we never had subtitles, it was always lector reading the translation.
Tzigi wrote: And one more thing: in the section about Czech Republic you mention the phenomenon of relying strongly on a version in another language. The very same thing happened in Poland - up until the beginning of 2003 (with the first day of this year the Polish law changed to conform with UE regulations) Polish cable TV providers effectively pirated foreign free to air channels and so we had:
  • RTL II - DB in German
  • Italia 1 - DBGT in Italian
    and yes, of course:
  • Cartoon Network with the wonderfully consistent and engaging DBZ version airing on Toonami5
LOL RTL was a goldmine of spoilers for Poles back in the day. My grandma used to watch it to catch further episodes of Bold and the Beautiful, she didn't know a word in German but could always tell what was happening :P

User avatar
DerekPadula
Regular
Posts: 529
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2009 10:53 pm
Location: East Grand Rapids, MI
Contact:

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by DerekPadula » Thu May 07, 2015 8:29 pm

I'll take care of the remaining stuff tomorrow, but I wanted to pass this along because I thought it was cool. I just received an email from Caspar Phillipson, the Danish voice of Goku, and he said:

"I think it is correct that it must have aired 2003 to start off with, so I think the Danish fan you are in touch with is right. And yes indeed, we did dub based on the French version. It was quite a different experience to suddenly work with an American version when we did the dvd-movies. We did, however, spend quite some time making a sincere and original Danish version, regardless of which material we were dubbing from. Directed by Jan Tellefsen, who became and remains a great friend through our hours in the booth."

It's nice to get an inside perspective like that. Also, perhaps more importantly, Caspar's story contradicts this bit of info added to this thread earlier, where it says, "Dragon Ball Z movies 1-9 and both of the TV specials were released on DVD and VHS in a 4:3 format, with a dub based on the AB Groupe’s “Big Green” dub, but with Danish manga names like in the televised Dragon Ball Z series."

> Caspar is saying that the films were based on the American version, not the AB Groupe version. Any comments from the Danish fans here?
Author of Dragon Ball Culture and the It's Over 9,000! book: https://thedaoofdragonball.com/books and The Dao of Dragon Ball website: https://thedaoofdragonball.com/blog

superrayman3
OMG CRAZY REGEN
Posts: 862
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2011 10:29 am
Location: West Virginia USA

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by superrayman3 » Thu May 07, 2015 11:53 pm

DerekPadula wrote: United States
How come the U.S. list doesn't include even a single mention of the Harmony Gold Dub even though it was also an official U.S. version, that we have a decent amount of information about its history as well? :eh:
If anyone has any of the DB/DBZ/DBGT or Maho Tsuaki Sally Japanese single DVD's that they'd be interested in selling send me a PM and I'll see if we can work something out. ;).

User avatar
TheBlackPaladin
I Live Here
Posts: 3772
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2010 10:05 pm

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Fri May 08, 2015 1:16 am

DerekPadula wrote:> Caspar is saying that the films were based on the American version, not the AB Groupe version. Any comments from the Danish fans here?
I'm American, so I'm not a Danish fan, but my theory is that he may just think it was the American version. After all, most of the voices in the Big Green dub seemed to have an American accent. Probably faked, of course, but they were American accents nevertheless. So, he probably heard that and thought, "Oh, I guess this is the American dub."
A "rather haggard" translation of a line from Future Gohan in DBZ, provided to FUNimation by Toei:
"To think of fighting that is this fun...so, it was pleasant fight, as many as, therefore is a feeling which is good the fight where."

User avatar
songohan619
Patreon Supporter
Posts: 1435
Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:17 am
Location: Askøy, Norway

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by songohan619 » Fri May 08, 2015 3:53 am

Actually, some sources say that the DB Anime aired in Norway many years ago!

User avatar
sangofe
Kicks it Old-School
Posts: 7535
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2004 3:39 pm

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by sangofe » Fri May 08, 2015 4:19 am

songohan619 wrote:Actually, some sources say that the DB Anime aired in Norway many years ago!
Those aren't true.

User avatar
sangofe
Kicks it Old-School
Posts: 7535
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2004 3:39 pm

Re: The History of Dragon Ball in Every Country

Post by sangofe » Fri May 08, 2015 4:22 am

DerekPadula wrote:I'll take care of the remaining stuff tomorrow, but I wanted to pass this along because I thought it was cool. I just received an email from Caspar Phillipson, the Danish voice of Goku, and he said:

"I think it is correct that it must have aired 2003 to start off with, so I think the Danish fan you are in touch with is right. And yes indeed, we did dub based on the French version. It was quite a different experience to suddenly work with an American version when we did the dvd-movies. We did, however, spend quite some time making a sincere and original Danish version, regardless of which material we were dubbing from. Directed by Jan Tellefsen, who became and remains a great friend through our hours in the booth."

It's nice to get an inside perspective like that. Also, perhaps more importantly, Caspar's story contradicts this bit of info added to this thread earlier, where it says, "Dragon Ball Z movies 1-9 and both of the TV specials were released on DVD and VHS in a 4:3 format, with a dub based on the AB Groupe’s “Big Green” dub, but with Danish manga names like in the televised Dragon Ball Z series."

> Caspar is saying that the films were based on the American version, not the AB Groupe version. Any comments from the Danish fans here?
I think he's wrong. Why? Because the script is too similar to the big green dub included on the dvds.

Post Reply