Your preferred name for this dub?

[Kakacarrottop]

I'm just interested to know what your preferred terminology is for the old 1996-1998 dub of DBZ's first two seasons. There were three (or four if you count Pioneer's home video distribution) companies involved with the dub, so this has led to people devising a lot of names for it, in order to help form a distinction from the subsequent English dubs. These are a list of names i've seen used over the years:

FUNimation dub (back when it was first airing)
Pioneer dub (when FUNimation's in-house dub started)
Saban dub (mainly during the mid-2000s when the Ultimate Uncut DVDs were coming out)
Ocean dub (became widespread around the time Kai started)
Ocean/Saban dub
Ocean/Saban/FUNimation dub
FUNimation/Saban dub
1996 dub
Original English dub
Edited dub
Syndication dub
Toonami dub (whenever its lumped in with FUNimation's in-house dub)
Westwood dub (this is mainly used in regards to the alternate AB/Ocean Group dub, but i've seen it attached to this one a few times)

Normally i just call it the "Saban dub". Thankfully everyone here instantly understands what i'm talking about. I think most people know Saban weren't actually producers of the dub. It just helps avoid confusion, since it was the only thing in the franchise Saban were involved with, aside from Vortexx/Kai briefly. You could say the same thing about the term "Ocean dub", since it separates it from FUNimation's Texas dub, but the problem is then people start lumping the dub in with everything else Ocean ever did, which creates the illusion that it was all one continuous thing by the same company.

[8000 Saiyan]

Saban-Ocean DBZ dub. That's all.

[huzaifa_ahmed]

What exactly were Saban, if not producers, of this dub? I am aware that they funded that stellar cast somehow. No way would one upstart Japanese-American Toei relative afford someone like David Kaye or Scott McNeil.

[Danfun64]

If I had to be precise, it would be Funi/Ocean/Saban (Funi/Ocean/Pioneer for the three uncut movies)...though I tend to say the Saban dub when I'm lazy.

[OmegaRockman]

I usually go with "Ocean cast dub" and call the dub with the Funimation in-house cast the "In-house cast dub." This indicates that the difference is in the voice cast, not the production company. Of course, when I talk about the In-house cast dub, I may make specifications depending on what version I'm talking about (namely Remastered set version vs. original broadcast Season 3 version).

[Adrian Malacoda]

The original Funimation dub, the original NA dub, the original US dub. That's what it is. I also happen to lump season 3+ of the dub in with this, because it really should be seen as one continuous production, but it can help to distinguish between the original dub and the remastered/redubbed version.

Sometimes, when speaking specifically about seasons 1 and 2, I add "the so-called Ocean dub" for clarification, perhaps followed by "not to be confused with the other so-called Ocean dub."

[NitroEX]

I used to call it "the Ocean dub" but nowadays I just call it "the Saban dub" as they were the bigger influence and driving force behind that version of the show. Some fans will complain that it doesn't give Funimation any credit but they get enough credit as it is (much of it, as with the Pioneer dubs, seems somewhat undeserved as their involvement appears to have been minimal at best).

I feel the Ocean dub is a better label for episodes 108 onwards but I'm also fine calling that the Westwood dub.

What exactly were Saban, if not producers, of this dub? I am aware that they funded that stellar cast somehow. No way would one upstart Japanese-American Toei relative afford someone like David Kaye or Scott McNeil.

Aside from enforcing censorship Saban were also responsible for providing the replacement score and getting the show on TV. The first two seasons were given a pretty big push on television before the network ultimately decided to cancel it. I believe this was before the Pokemon boom of the 90s so it was a time when little to no anime was being broadcast. It was probably due to Saban's trusted reputation in the industry (thanks to the success of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) that allowed DBZ to be given a chance in the first place.

[huzaifa_ahmed]

I used to call it "the Ocean dub" but nowadays I just call it "the Saban dub" as they were the bigger influence and driving force behind that version of the show. Some fans will complain that it doesn't give Funimation any credit but they get enough credit as it is (much of it, as with the Pioneer dubs, seems somewhat undeserved as their involvement appears to have been minimal at best).

I feel the Ocean dub is a better label for episodes 108 onwards but I'm also fine calling that the Westwood dub.

What exactly were Saban, if not producers, of this dub? I am aware that they funded that stellar cast somehow. No way would one upstart Japanese-American Toei relative afford someone like David Kaye or Scott McNeil.

Aside from enforcing censorship Saban were also responsible for providing the replacement score and getting the show on TV. The first two seasons were given a pretty big push on television before the network ultimately decided to cancel it. I believe this was before the Pokemon boom of the 90s so it was a time when little to no anime was being broadcast. It was probably due to Saban's trusted reputation in the industry (thanks to the success of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) that allowed DBZ to be given a chance in the first place.

So what you're saying is...if DB had not had a replacement score, it wouldn't have aired on TV, & the "problems" of a more wide-reaching, Americanized adaptation...weren't Fukunaga & Watson's fault? I hear so much hatred for the way "FUNimation handled the dub badly", despite when I hear the stories of the freelancers that worked on the dub, it doesnt seem like there was a lot that could be done with their resources (namely, what Toei themselves had allocated), & contrary to popular belief, these "grunt" actors were not allowed to "share in the success", as it were. (& they still actually arent, which is shameful btw)

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Since I consider the original broadcast DBZ dub and the later dub produced mainly for the UK different products I typically refer to the former as the "Funimation-produced Ocean dub" as it makes that distinction clear and gives both Funi and the Ocean cast credit where its due.

I used to call it the "Saban dub" or the "Saban Ocean dub" but by that line of logic the Westwood dub (and possibly the mythical Kai dub) could be called the "AB Groupe dub", which would run the risk of lumping it together with another separate product (the Big Green dub), so for the sake of consistency I dropped references to Saban.

[NitroEX]

So what you're saying is...if DB had not had a replacement score, it wouldn't have aired on TV, & the "problems" of a more wide-reaching, Americanized adaptation...weren't Fukunaga & Watson's fault?

I wouldn't go that far. It's difficult to tell if the anime boom would've still happened without Z but I think it would have gotten an English dub with or without Funimation & Saban. They certainly helped speed things up in the US but due to it's success across the world I think it was bound to happen eventually. I'm sure there were probably other anime distributors in the US who were interested in a property like that.

The decision to use replacement music was just standard practice for Saban dubs and adaptations. They felt it was a necessary thing to appeal to a western audience, plus it came with the benefit of receiving music royalties for each broadcast and presumably avoiding the need to pay Japanese composers. Funimation, being a new company at the time, adopted Saban's strategies after working with them. We even know from an interview with Dale Kelly that the decision to use electronica and rock music was influenced by Batman Beyond which was a rival show for them when they started dubbing in-house.

It seems Fukunaga & Watson were mostly following trends of the time and didn't have much faith in the raw version of their product. The decision to use licensed rock music seems like another trend that they were following.

I hear so much hatred for the way "FUNimation handled the dub badly", despite when I hear the stories of the freelancers that worked on the dub, it doesnt seem like there was a lot that could be done with their resources (namely, what Toei themselves had allocated), & contrary to popular belief, these "grunt" actors were not allowed to "share in the success", as it were. (& they still actually arent, which is shameful btw)

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Toei were responsible for allocating resources to Funimation. Funimation paid them for the license and as far as I'm aware it was then left up to them to get the job done whichever way they could, with no monetary support from Toei. If you're talking about resources as in video footage and translated scripts then yeah, I suppose Toei did handle that poorly but it seems to have mostly been an issue of timing more than anything. Funimation had to meet Toonami's deadlines and needed the footage at a quicker rate than Toei could supply it. I'm sure the poorly translated scripts didn't help but then again, neither did their lack of an in house Japanese translator for their dub scripts. It seems they didn't get one of those until after 2005, perhaps it was just easier or cheaper for them to keep translating from the Mexican footage and recycle leftover scripts from the Saban era dubs.

[Adrian Malacoda]

Some fans will complain that it doesn't give Funimation any credit but they get enough credit as it is

You'd be surprised. People here generally seem to understand that, but not necessarily people... out there. I've seen at least one person who was under the impression that Funimation "bought the rights from Ocean" and that they saved DBZ from Ocean (as they did One Piece from 4kids). It's also fairly commonplace to place the blame on everything wrong with the dub on Ocean (the brilliant scientist, next dimension, Rygal-7 stuff), which sometimes also gets (wrongly) applied to the AB/Westwood dub; I've seen someone suggest (half-jokingly?) that the reason for the seemingly random sci-fi-ish dialogue was that "Ocean must have liked Star Trek" (ironic, considering that the post-Season 2 dub actually used a Star Trek font for the title cards). It's also fairly commonplace to treat the redubbed Funimation-only version as "the dub" or "the original dub" - referring to Linda Young as "the original Freeza" or the Season 3 opening theme as "the original opening theme" etc, and suggesting that "the Ocean dub" either never happened or is some weird foreign thing that has nothing to do with the US or Funimation at all.

Given that I feel Funimation gets too little blame/credit (or none at all) for the early dub, and Ocean gets way too much (especially for things they had nothing to do with), I would rather not mention Ocean at all - except the rest of the fandom does so, so I kind of have to. My preferred nomenclature would just be the original Funimation dub, remastered/redubbed Funimation dub, and Kai dub. Especially since splitting the Funimation dub into "Ocean dub" and "Funimation dub" also obscures the fact that Season 3 was also redubbed.

[Thouser]

The first two seasons were given a pretty big push on television before the network ultimately decided to cancel it.

The first two seasons were syndicated; they weren't on a network.

[Robo4900]

I usually say Saban-era Ocean. Similarly, I use Westwood-era Ocean and Pioneer-era Ocean for the AB Groupe revival and uncut movie 1-3 dubs, respectively.

[Hellspawn28]

To me it is:

1996-1998 dub
Toonami Era dub (1999-2003)
Ultimate Uncut/Remaster dub (2005-2007. I remember the Ultimate Uncut dub was on the Orange Bricks also)