Dub Mistake #4,862: Piccolo Has Always Hated Gohan?

[Arian]

FUNimation has done some rather interesting things, dare I say bold things to their dub scripts. Changes that make you question how they're the biggest anime conglomerate in North America and most of the western world. With unacceptable, ridiculous changes that persist to this day.

But this particular dub slip-up takes us back to the year 2000 with the episode, Call for Restoration. And it was only ever seen in Canada.

That's right, this is one that they caught during production and quickly swept under the rug until Ocean got their hands on the soundbyte while editing their episodes to fill a content quota and brought it to every home in the great white north.

https://streamable.com/mg364

The first clip in the video is taken from FUNimation's Sacred Water DVD release, while the second clip in question is a recording of a YTV broadcast featuring Ocean's presentation of the same scene.

The only way I can even remotely rationalize this is to think that maybe because Piccolo kidnapped Gohan and left him to fend for himself against his will and that Piccolo had to care for him against his better judgment led to an underlying hatred between the two characters, but of course, they don't explain it that way, and I don't think Piccolo would have sacrificed his life for Gohan, and Gohan wouldn't have been devastated like he was if they "always hated each other."

It's clear to me that this was a blatant attempt to stir up drama that never existed, much akin to the "brilliant scientist" monologue. Yes, they fixed it, but this is one of those things that should have never been thought up, let alone recorded.

What do you guys think?

[Polyphase Avatron]

Wasn't Piccolo pretending to be under mind control then? Maybe he just said he hated Gohan as a lie, or the villains just assumed it for some reason.

[90sDBZ]

I remember that line, so it can't be a YTV only thing.

I think it's meant to allude to the fact that Goku and Piccolo were still enemies during Movie 1, which is when Garlic Jr last encountered them. If Piccolo hated Goku at that time, then it would be a natural assumption for those guys to think he hated Gohan too, as he was the son of his enemy.

Obviously Garlic Jr and co. weren't aware of what happened between them in the time since.

[Robo4900]

until Ocean got their hands on the soundbyte while editing their episodes to fill a content quota and brought it to every home in the great white north.

There is no evidence for this. Purely speculation. And it doesn't even make sense. Even when Ocean fully-voiced their dub in-house, it only counted as 50% Canadian. On top of that, there's zero evidence to suggest episodes 54-167 were ever considered Canadian content to any degree (aside from Ocean's own dub of 108+), and Canadian content never actually seemed to matter to YTV as far as Dragon Ball was concerned. So, your conclusion requires more assumptions than many other explanations, so it fails Occam's razor. For instance:

Presumably the reality is Ocean were distributing episodes 1-53 to YTV anyway, and for one reason or another, it seemed better to have Ocean do edits rather than Funi; YTV infamously had issues getting tapes from Funi, and it's known Funi used to make mistakes with their TV edits like "Don't piss off the Dragon God of love!" (which, IIRC, Ocean fixed). So YTV had Ocean do their own edits in addition to distributing.

But, we don't know. And making assumptions based off nothing is how dumb, baseless rumours like "Peter Kelamis left to work in LA", "The Ocean cast were told to imitate the Funi cast", or "Toriyama wanted to end the series in the Freeza arc" get started.

It's clear to me that this was a blatant attempt to stir up drama that never existed, much akin to the "brilliant scientist" monologue. Yes, they fixed it, but this is one of those things that should have never been thought up, let alone recorded.

What do you guys think?

I have no idea what the rationale behind this was... Perhaps this was the first take of the line, it was in the episode like that for a while, then Funi did a retake to replace it after thinking better of it, but Ocean ended up using the first take. Similar to how Ocean often used the early placements for the Faulconer score in episodes (similar to what we see on the "Remastered" dub, where the early placements were used).

[MyVisionity]

I remember this dialogue from the US airing so it must not have been Canada-only.

At the time I had only seen the in-house "Season Three" stuff before this arc and only so much else of the series, so I kind of just accepted that there was some kind of hatred between Piccolo and Gohan. That even though they had been fighting together, they merely only tolerated each other's presence. Or at least from Piccolo's side.

My guess is the writers were building off of Piccolo's history as a villain and rivalry with Goku, and just kind of lumped Gohan in together with that. It would be helpful to know what the original Japanese line was to get a better sense of why Funi wrote this dialogue.

[Xell]

That script and line delivery.. How on earth did I ever watch this dub..

[Freeza Soldier #156]

The reason everyone remembers that line is because it has made a comeback in the Orange Bricks. In Funi’s partial redub of this arc, they actually used the “Piccolo and Gohan hate each other” version of the line when they redubbed the character. Really dumb.

[MasenkoHA]

Wasn't Piccolo pretending to be under mind control then? Maybe he just said he hated Gohan as a lie, or the villains just assumed it for some reason.

I was about to say I’m pretty sure it was revealed Piccolo was faking his infection so Spice Boy what-his-name speculating he really hates Gohan doesn’t mean anything. I’d hardly call it an error outside of being another rewritten line from the Japanese version.


This is also the same dub that made Piccolo SIGNIFICANTLY nicer to Gohan than he was in the Japanese version during the training from hell period in the Saiyan saga calling Gohan “little friend” and telling him he’s looking after him.

[Robo4900]

That script and line delivery.. How on earth did I ever watch this dub..

IKR, man. It's always amazing to realise just how poor one's taste was in childhood.

The reason everyone remembers that line is because it has made a comeback in the Orange Bricks. In Funi’s partial redub of this arc, they actually used the “Piccolo and Gohan hate each other” version of the line when they redubbed the character. Really dumb.

LOL! Wow, that's amazing.

Lends further credence to my theory that this was the first take; it's known the OBs often used incorrect takes, missed lines, used the early arrangements of the Faulconer score, etc.

[Arian]

I remember that line, so it can't be a YTV only thing.

I remember this dialogue from the US airing so it must not have been Canada-only.

Now, I can't speak for what UK viewers saw, but Cartoon Network USA used the exact same dialogue as the SIngle DVDs.

https://streamable.com/wsmxf

I did wish to address this though, which is why it took so long for me to make this submission:

My guess is the writers were building off of Piccolo's history as a villain and rivalry with Goku, and just kind of lumped Gohan in together with that. It would be helpful to know what the original Japanese line was to get a better sense of why Funi wrote this dialogue.

I hardsubbed the episode from the recent Blu-ray to snip this clip from the Japanese version with an English translation for all to see.

https://streamable.com/1mn42

As you'd guess, the explanation given here is pretty solid and requires no mental gymnastics to justify. It's not a great explanation, but acceptable for the moment, at least.

While doing that, I was just curious as to what Spice sounds like in the remastered version since I had previously heard they re-dubbed him.

And just like Freeza Soldier #156 had gotten to state before I could get to it, they revived the incorrect line!

https://streamable.com/fkj6z

It doesn't surprise me too much given Vegeta referring to Goku as 'Goku' in the re-dub of the Captain Ginyu Saga, but this is even worse, admittedly.

And Vinegar isn't even re-dubbed! There are so many things to say but I'll leave it at this, why be so selective and picky over an overall subpar product to begin with? Especially if you're going to make it even more subpar being so random in who and who not to do over? It just takes the dub even further into nonsense and stupidity.

So Robo4900 was right, at least in his theory of them overlooking what's actually correct and just using everything that they originally planned to use before Cartoon Network stepped in and refined it some.

And I was technically wrong for jumping to the conclusion that Ocean's edits were to fill a content quota, but YTV expressly stated that they had no hand in editing the show for content whatsoever, so that's definitely not the reason, whatever it may have been.



Taken from: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2 ... rogramming

[Robo4900]

And I was technically wrong for jumping to the conclusion that Ocean's edits were to fill a content quota, but YTV expressly stated that they had no hand in editing the show for content whatsoever, so that's definitely not the reason, whatever it may have been.



Taken from: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2 ... rogramming

Yes, indeed.

My theory on Ocean's edits is Funi sent Ocean their dub production materials so Ocean could edit things together to give to YTV. Ocean always distributed the show to YTV, so presumably for some reason, it made sense to keep that arrangement going, and the most efficient way was for Ocean to edit it themselves rather than wait for Funi to have a finalised TV master to send to Canada. Ocean would then create a Canadian TV-safe edit to the best of their abilities, and that's what YTV were given.

But, like all else relating to the Canadian involvement in Dragon Ball's dubbing and distribution, we really have no idea what was going on; we can only guess.

[Metalwario64]

Lends further credence to my theory that this was the first take; it's known the OBs often used incorrect takes, missed lines, used the early arrangements of the Faulconer score, etc.

The craziest part is that this character was redubbed (was it by J. Michael Tatum?) in the season sets, and they referred to the older script.

Years ago, when I started getting the single DVDs (before giving up and losing a large number in a move), I noticed a similar discrepancy that I posted on the forums when I learned of it.

In the single DVD of the Cell games during the resting filler where Gohan, Goku and Krillin are all hanging out with the flashback to the fight with Vegeta in the Saiyan arc, the single DVD had the dialog that matched the Saban era dub dialog in the Saiyan arc flashback, wish Gohan asking Goku if he remembered how he stood up against Vegeta years ago, but in the bricks (and I seem to recall the broadcast of the dub years ago) the dialog matched the Japanese version where Gohan reminds Goku that he promised he would take him fishing years ago when they fought Vegeta, and in the flashback Goku mentions it as he did in the Japanese one.

I believe the latter was in the original broadcast since I seem to recall being confused as to why they "changed" the line for no reason, but since the Cell Games DVDs had other alterations, like Hebert redoing Kelly's narration, I think perhaps unless someone still has recordings of that episode of the broadcast to prove me wrong, that they may have redone it for consistency with the Saban era dub.