French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

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Bansho64
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French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by Bansho64 » Mon May 30, 2016 2:37 am

I've been reading some things lately about the French dubs of the original trilogy being pretty bad and having a lot of footage cut out. I'm sure it can't be any worse than what Funimation did. I'd actually like to hear opinions of these dubs from you guys. I'd like to hear the opinions of people who can speak French who've watched it also.
Last edited by Bansho64 on Mon May 30, 2016 11:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by sangofe » Mon May 30, 2016 7:55 am

Bansho64 wrote:I've been reading some things lately about the French dubs of the original trilogy being pretty bad and having a lot of footage cut out. I'm sure it can't be any worse than what Funimation did. I'd actually like to hear opinions of these dubs from you guys. I'd like to hear the opinions of people who can speech French who've watched it also.
The DB dub is by far the most accurate dub and less censored, from what I remember.

When it comes to the censoring itself, it's really a mixed bag - because initially there was little to no censoring, only a very few select scenes were censored, but the tv channels kept asking AB to censor more and more or they did censoring themselves. This applies for DB and DBZ. DBGT's footage was completely uncut. The scripts however... they were really, really awful (not to mention most of the voice actors being replaced by really sub part counter parts, but the topic's not about that).

And thus for the DVD release, they had problems finding the less censored versions...

When it comes to scripts, it's really hit and miss. Some episodes are very accurate, while others are very much "wtf". Gotta wonder, though, did they also work from the same horrible scripts FUNimation first started dubbing from?

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by genjosanzo8 » Mon May 30, 2016 8:22 am

in the first time AB group censored very few scenes like many countries for nudity scene or blood and like sangofe said footage have been cut many more after years, they have kept the most uncut footage but rather like release on VHS most cut version...

until the releasing of these dvd who have the most uncut french dub (the rest is subbed)
these two collection for dragon ball and dragon ball z is the release you have to buy if you really want the most complete french dub version for dragon ball and dragon ball z
https://www.amazon.fr/Dragon-Ball-Int%C ... ragon+ball
https://www.amazon.fr/Dragon-Ball-Int%C ... ragon+ball

dragon ball gt had only one complete release (vhs stop at the 54th episode) on dvd but even if the episode are uncut, it miss the jikai dub and the title who are completely
dub in french (the mangas french chanel have air these version one time with dragon box remaster footage but never been release on dvd and i don't heard about airing it again for the moment...)

for the movies you have an uncut release in two box even if one is in widescreen and one in fullscreen

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by sangofe » Mon May 30, 2016 8:30 am

What Gen's trying to say is that they splice the Japanese version in with french subs where their source is cut. And I honestly don't think they managed to recover the less cut version. I think AB's practice was similar to Toei - they probably threw those less uncut versions away a long time ago. (Even though for Toei is that they threw away best quality versions etc).

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by Puto » Mon May 30, 2016 10:16 am

Just an example of how terrible the French dub scripts got.

In the Japanese version of the Freeza battle, Goku has an amazing speech that ends with "I am the Super Saiyan, Son Goku!" -- those who watched the FUNi dub probably know that the English dub butchered that into "Ally to good, nightmare to you!". Well, the French dub has... "By the power of Kaio, transformation!".

In general, the quality and accuracy of the scripts varied wildly from episode to episode.
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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by sangofe » Mon May 30, 2016 12:34 pm

Puto wrote: In general, the quality and accuracy of the scripts varied wildly from episode to episode.
Yes, that. And I sure wonder why. Did they have some people that cared, and others who didn't give a flying fuck and just made up dumb things?

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Mon May 30, 2016 12:44 pm

The French dub is also a little notorious for several other things.

1) Affecting several other dubs. Many--not all--but many European dubs based their dubs of DBZ on the French dub, meaning that they inherited their edited footage, their edited audio, and their scripts. So, many European dubs were "second-hand dubs," using the French dub as their basis. This was true for a lot of the European Spanish dub, the European Portuguese dub, and--rather interestingly--the Big Green dub. If you ever were wondering what an English dub of the French dub would sound like, well, that's essentially what the Big Green dub is.

2) Weird name changes. "Saiyans" were changed to "Space Warriors," and "Super Saiyans" to "Super Warriors." "Piccolo" was changed to "Petit Coeur." I've also heard conflicting reports on their usage of the word "Kakarot"...I've heard some people say that they never used it, and I've heard others say that they used it, but not nearly as often as they should have. Indeed, I can find many scenes in the French DBZ dub where Vegeta says "Sangoku" instead of "Kakarot."

Bonus Note: While I've heard from several sources that the German dub of DBZ is far from great, it also appears that they suffered the least from using the French dub as their source, because they took the liberty of making a lot of adjustments to the translations they were provided and basing them on the manga translations instead. So, their translations were slightly more accurate and didn't have the aforementioned weird name changes. That infamous, "By the power of Kaio, transformation!" line in the German dub was instead, "I AM THE LEGENDARY SUPER SAIYA-JIN!"
sangofe wrote:
Puto wrote: In general, the quality and accuracy of the scripts varied wildly from episode to episode.
Yes, that. And I sure wonder why. Did they have some people that cared, and others who didn't give a flying fuck and just made up dumb things?
I couldn't say myself without knowing what happened behind the scenes, but the guess you provided is certainly a possibility. For the original English dub of Sailor Moon, the faithfulness of the dub scripts varied according to who the dub script writer was. There was one writer whose name seemed to appear in the credits of every well-adapted episode, and there was another writer whose name seemed to appear in the credits of every poorly-adapted episode.
Last edited by TheBlackPaladin on Tue May 31, 2016 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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."

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by sangofe » Mon May 30, 2016 12:59 pm

TheBlackPaladin wrote: 2) Weird name changes. "Saiyans" were changed to "Space Warriors," and "Super Saiyans" to "Super Warriors." "Piccolo" was changed to "Petit Coeur." I've also heard conflicting reports on their usage of the word "Kakarot"...I've heard some people say that they never used it, and I've heard others say that they used it, but not nearly as often as they should have. Indeed, I can find many scenes in the French DBZ dub where Vegeta says "Sangoku" instead of "Kakarot."
About "Petit Coeur." it's a mixed bag. In DB they start using "Satan", then they switch to "Satan Petit Coeur." Heck, they even say Piccolo sometimes (and in a very few occasions Piccolo in Z too). But in DBZ they mostly say Petit Coeur...
And if I remember correctly, they said "Kakkarot" in the Saiyan saga a few times, and in one of the movies Broly says it a lot, even though the prononciation is awful, and although my mind's clouded when it comes to the Z dub - I only watch Kai in french now since that dub's very much superior.

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by Danfun64 » Mon May 30, 2016 2:16 pm

Perhaps the french dub of kai is superior the the Japanese and English, but does the kai kikuchi score annoy you? I liked kikuchi in Z, but it slightly repetitive even then. As I heard that they used less tracks than Z had, used them in weird places, and character themes were used indiscriminately with the other music...

I don't think I can enjoy Kai (1.0) without either the Yamamoto Score or the English dub (thanks to being the only dub that is surround sound, making it possible to replace the poorly placed Kikuchi score with (as the fans have already done) Yamamoto, Faulconer, or a superior Kikuchi placement more faithful to Z.

Aside from the aformentioned Japanese and English, which versions of Kai used Yamamoto for any portion of its first run?
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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by sangofe » Mon May 30, 2016 3:00 pm

Yes, that's slightly annoying. It's too bad they never dubbed anything with the Yamamoto score. And I meant the dub's superior to the french DBZ dub, not to the english. I think they'd be pretty much on par, because the french kai dub has its problems, too. (Namely bad replacement voices).

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by gregoryluis09 » Mon May 30, 2016 4:54 pm

Danfun64 wrote:Aside from the aformentioned Japanese and English, which versions of Kai used Yamamoto for any portion of its first run?
The Brazilian dub used the Yamamoto score for the first 18 episodes in Cartoon Network's first run and is still used in Bandeirantes's airings (Bandeirantes only have the Saiya-Jin and Freeza arcs).

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Mon May 30, 2016 5:14 pm

The Latino Spanish dub also used the Yamamoto score for the first...I don't know how many, but I want to say it was in the realm of 13-18 episodes. Then the show went on hiatus, and then when it came back, it aired every remaining episode without any more hiatuses, and with the Kikuchi score. Reading between the lines, it seems like the point of that delay was to get the new audio mixes ready.
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."

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by TheBalishChannel » Mon May 30, 2016 5:26 pm

Image

Do these boxes contain remastered footage? I'm looking for releases that contain the original French footage and so far it's been very confusing. I see that after Volume 44 of the original French singles (containing episodes 220 to 223), AB Groupe/TFI VIdeo restarted their release with official TOEI vectors for the covers as opposed to their own illustrations and FUNimation vectors. I've read across numerous websites that the last two boxes in this set...

Image
...were never released, which would leave the original singles release incomplete. Since then, I've managed to find two auctions on French websites that are selling these supposed unreleased boxes containing the rest of the episodes, but from the looks of it they don't ship outside of France.

What would be the most convenient way for me to collect the original French releases of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT, with all of the original footage and no remastering done? Thanks!

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by genjosanzo8 » Mon May 30, 2016 5:51 pm

you can try some website like cash concept or "leboncoin" even if i think they don't ship to international.
these release have no remaster and from what i seen they are more cut than the box i give link.
ab group first release miss more footage and more dub lines than these box.
in the uncut box you can see the moment where ape vegeta fight goku and goku throw a ki blast in his eye, or when ape vegeta take goku in his hand with the french dub. In these box you don't have theses moment in french. The footage is very crap like an old vhs transfer on dvd honnestly you will waste money buying the cut one

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by Danfun64 » Mon May 30, 2016 8:27 pm

I think he wants the old cut box for the same reason some Americans want the Rock the Dragon Edition...nostalgia.

Are there really more dub lines on the uncut french dvds? I thought that everything not in the cut release was filled in by the Japanese audio...
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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by genjosanzo8 » Tue May 31, 2016 12:25 am

Danfun64 wrote:I think he wants the old cut box for the same reason some Americans want the Rock the Dragon Edition...nostalgia.

Are there really more dub lines on the uncut french dvds? I thought that everything not in the cut release was filled in by the Japanese audio...
In france several version of each episode exists and the french dragon box is the most uncut that can be found for the french dub....a fansub team have seen each airing to have their french dub before french dragon box was out and even like that these box have more audio.
In dragon ball title card have french dub for the second part episode. they never been aired with these title card on tv.

the problem i have with these box is that before selling these box AB group choose to sold the more cut version they have, it is the reason that a lot of episode miss footage and dub that exist. In france AB group is known to don't caring about people , the 18 last episodes of dragon ball z haven't been aired in "public" channel and when they sold these episode on vhs with the mention "uncut episode" it was a lie because it was the censored version...so only the french dragon box worth for the french audio, for the image it has more cropping than the dragon box, is really poor in quality and miss a lot of things

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by sangofe » Tue May 31, 2016 2:42 am

TheBalishChannel wrote:Image

Do these boxes contain remastered footage? I'm looking for releases that contain the original French footage and so far it's been very confusing. I see that after Volume 44 of the original French singles (containing episodes 220 to 223), AB Groupe/TFI VIdeo restarted their release with official TOEI vectors for the covers as opposed to their own illustrations and FUNimation vectors. I've read across numerous websites that the last two boxes in this set...

Image
...were never released, which would leave the original singles release incomplete. Since then, I've managed to find two auctions on French websites that are selling these supposed unreleased boxes containing the rest of the episodes, but from the looks of it they don't ship outside of France.

What would be the most convenient way for me to collect the original French releases of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT, with all of the original footage and no remastering done? Thanks!
Those are dub only and censored.

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by genjosanzo8 » Tue May 31, 2016 4:03 am

yes and more censored in french dub than the other box. if he want just for nostalgia the most uncut french dub he just could search old recording on the web it remain some
It is not to be for piracy but buying french dragon box worth it even with the compression problem i have these box too. but these old dvd you search could be more complete than AB group have release teling that they didn't have more footage.that was lost (proof is that they could have all that exist in french in the dragon box so these footage wasn't lost at all)

these old french box didn't worth spending money on them . it just give to AB way to continue cutting box

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by TheBalishChannel » Tue May 31, 2016 4:14 am

sangofe wrote:
Those are dub only and censored.
That's good; those fifteen boxes are a lot more common than the original seven. Do you know whether or not the AB Video website provides international shipping for their items? Most of these sets' prices are extortionate when you're looking to buy them off of eBay or Amazon through their International Shipping options. What would be the most convenient way to obtain these from the United States?

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Re: French dubs of DB, DBZ, and GT

Post by sangofe » Tue May 31, 2016 9:56 am

I have no idea. Personally I've bought the boxes while on holidays in France...

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