Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by coola » Tue May 11, 2021 9:59 am

SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 2:18 pm
FPSSJ4_Goku wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 2:16 pm
SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 1:56 pm

I've seen some clips of it before, it's literally a voiceover guy speaking over the French dubs for all the characters in a monotone voice. :lol:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yklknySnrjg&t=37s

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CATKSgqbIz4&t=50s

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z6bc_x9UnUk
That sounds like a shittier version of how I created my old fan series Dragon Ball GB! I just did different voices for every character, and pitched them up or down depending on who it was.
LOL ikr, the lector reading is so flat and bland that it's hilarious. They didn't even try to make their voice sound any different from one character to the other.
Translation was at times terrible too, Magic Knight Rayearth, Saint Seiya and Slayers were same, and even back in 2000/2001, Kawaii (Polish anime/manga magazine) was ripping them apart, even today, save for Netflix and occasional releases of movies, anime is basically dead in Poland, at least light novel/manga are doing pretty good.

As for Arabic dub, i remember that topic, SHINOBI-03 said they had to change Vegeta turning into Oozaru to summoning Oozaru, due to negation of Darwin monkey-human philosophy.
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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by TheGreatness25 » Tue May 11, 2021 10:07 am

I think this is really hard to do without context. As I only know English, I feel like I can't judge other dubs because I'm not familiar with the proper delivery, etc. of the other languages. I also know for a fact that it's impossible to form a real opinion without seeing a good sample size.

For example, I know that I like the Japanese version because it just sounds good to me. But, I can't speak to how good the voice acting actually is because it's not my native tongue. I'm sure it's really good and I really enjoy it, but I cannot judge it... although I will! Lol

With regard to my "sample size"statement, I'll give you my story. I used to think that the Westwood and Blue Water dubs were atrocious. My opinion was based on very little exposure to the dubs. For novelty purposes, I watched the Westwood and Blue Water dubs all the way through and honestly, I got used to the voices and started to enjoy them. Of course, there was some poor casting and of course some of the acting was bad, but overall, it was a much better experience than I thought it would be based on my very limited exposure to these dubs before I actually watched them. Likewise, I always felt that Funimation's casting was passable, but with enough time of not watching that dub, returning to it was a bit jarring in that it sounded really off.

I honestly think that we automatically default to what we're used to and if we hear something out of what we're used to, it's automatically a novelty in our minds -- it's either "Whoa! That's amazing!" if it's extraordinary or "Bleh! That's terrible!" even if it's decent.

So, I can only speak to the dubs that I've had real exposure to.

1 (best) - Japanese version
2. Original Ocean/Pioneer dub (I find their work to be on a very high level in terms of delivery and sounding natural amd not forced. I cannot believe that they were inexperienced for the most part. Compare them to Funimation's in-house cast starting out -- what a tale of two totally different products)
3. Funimation modern (Kai and onward) dub (I feel like they race through the dialog a bit, but overall, I can't say it's bad)
4. Latin American dub (I don't completely know everything they say, but I can't really identify anything wrong with it; it's an enjoyable novelty for me, but know that there is a large population for whom this IS their dub -- great job keeping the music, etc.)
5. Westwood dub (makes me wonder how good they could have been if they were given the proper guidance and attention)
6. Funimation original Z/DB/GT dub
7. Blue Water dub (I really like it, but I can't stay it's much better than Funimation's)

I am unqualified to judge others. I want to throw in the Harmony Gold, "Big Green," and Malaysian dubs as numbers 8-10, but I had very, very little exposure to those, so, it's not fair.

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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue May 11, 2021 10:16 am

See this all seems rather biased and based on limited exposure. Is there any reason that Funimation Kai is ranking higher than the Latin American Cloverway dub of Dragon Ball and Z other than most people are most familiar with the Funimation dub?

Most of the high appraisal for Funi Kai amounts to “This is the best version of the dub I’ve had most exposure to”


I’d like to watch the Latin American dub someday but we only got the first 27 episodes of Z and movie 5 released as an option with the Spanish audio I think?

Maybe if Funimation ever got their fingers out of their asses and released OG Dragon Ball on Blue Ray using Selecta Vision they can make the Spanish audio an option since that dub doesn’t have an English dub with US Broadcast music option to take up space

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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Tue May 11, 2021 10:18 am

FPSSJ4_Goku wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 9:57 am While we're here, might as well talk about the Arabic dub. If anyone here knows SHINOBI-03, you'll know that he's from the UAEs and saw the dub growing up. Here is his post about all things related to the dub and what was changed: viewtopic.php?t=11772

and here is a sample of the Arabic dub of the Saiyan Saga (DBZ, not DBZ Kai): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmgbNDYAmu4


They dubbed Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Kai 1.0, and are now dubbing Super. The original DB dub started in 2003 and only dubbed 52 episodes. Next was Dragon Ball Z, and at first, they dubbed 54 episodes (coincidentally, just like the Korean and Ocean dub), but then in 2010 they went back and dubbed all the way up to episode 104, then stopped there and didn't continue. In 2015, on the 15th anniversary of Spacetoon, they launched Spacetoon Go, a mobile app that allowed you to watch Arabic-dubbed cartoons. They also dubbed DBZ Kai up until episode 54. And they kept getting reruns up until 2020 when they FINALLY started to dub Super. However, apparently, it kept getting delayed because of Covid, and somehow it got illegally aired on Algerian TV without Spacetoon's permission.

TL;DR, the dub is so bad, it's good. By which I mean "it's so bad that the theme song is the only thing that's good". seriously. look up DBZ Arabic opening or Dragon Ball Super Arabic opening on YouTube. that's the only good part.
I think the funniest and most notorious thing about the Arabic Z dub is by far the way that they cut around the Saiyan characters going Oozaru. This is because apparently these scenes suggest Darwin's theory of evolution and said theory is considered offensive or sacreligious or something in quite a few of the Arabic countries over there, so as a result the Oozaru were instead changed to be "summoned" and all scenes of characters like Vegeta and Gohan transforming were cut out very awkwardly though the parts of them looking at the moon/fake moon/whatever were left intact.
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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by Cure Dragon 255 » Tue May 11, 2021 1:57 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 10:16 am See this all seems rather biased and based on limited exposure. Is there any reason that Funimation Kai is ranking higher than the Latin American Cloverway dub of Dragon Ball and Z other than most people are most familiar with the Funimation dub?

Most of the high appraisal for Funi Kai amounts to “This is the best version of the dub I’ve had most exposure to”


I’d like to watch the Latin American dub someday but we only got the first 27 episodes of Z and movie 5 released as an option with the Spanish audio I think?

Maybe if Funimation ever got their fingers out of their asses and released OG Dragon Ball on Blue Ray using Selecta Vision they can make the Spanish audio an option since that dub doesn’t have an English dub with US Broadcast music option to take up space
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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by FPSSJ4_Goku » Tue May 11, 2021 2:39 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 2:46 pm I’m confused. I think there’s more than 10 dubs of Dragon Ball.
There's 78.
So, you decided to read my signature, eh?

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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by FPSSJ4_Goku » Tue May 11, 2021 2:45 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 10:16 am See this all seems rather biased and based on limited exposure. Is there any reason that Funimation Kai is ranking higher than the Latin American Cloverway dub of Dragon Ball and Z other than most people are most familiar with the Funimation dub?

Most of the high appraisal for Funi Kai amounts to “This is the best version of the dub I’ve had most exposure to”


I’d like to watch the Latin American dub someday but we only got the first 27 episodes of Z and movie 5 released as an option with the Spanish audio I think?

Maybe if Funimation ever got their fingers out of their asses and released OG Dragon Ball on Blue Ray using Selecta Vision they can make the Spanish audio an option since that dub doesn’t have an English dub with US Broadcast music option to take up space
I've seen the Ocean, FUNimation Z, FUNimation Kai, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Latin American Spanish, and Portuguese dubs. I wouldn't say I have "limited exposure".
So, you decided to read my signature, eh?

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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Tue May 11, 2021 2:52 pm

FPSSJ4_Goku wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 2:45 pm
MasenkoHA wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 10:16 am See this all seems rather biased and based on limited exposure. Is there any reason that Funimation Kai is ranking higher than the Latin American Cloverway dub of Dragon Ball and Z other than most people are most familiar with the Funimation dub?

Most of the high appraisal for Funi Kai amounts to “This is the best version of the dub I’ve had most exposure to”


I’d like to watch the Latin American dub someday but we only got the first 27 episodes of Z and movie 5 released as an option with the Spanish audio I think?

Maybe if Funimation ever got their fingers out of their asses and released OG Dragon Ball on Blue Ray using Selecta Vision they can make the Spanish audio an option since that dub doesn’t have an English dub with US Broadcast music option to take up space
I've seen the Ocean, FUNimation Z, FUNimation Kai, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Latin American Spanish, and Portuguese dubs. I wouldn't say I have "limited exposure".
I've seen the original Japanese version and all of the FUNi dubbed material both Ocean including Kai in full, some of the Westwood/Blue Water dubs, some of the Latin American/Spanish dub, French dub, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Big Green, Speedy, Arabic and a little of the Greek and German dubs.

Note that some of these aforementioned were mostly clips and not full episodes, but in general they gave me a general taste of what the dubs are like good and bad.
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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by kei17 » Tue May 11, 2021 2:58 pm

FPSSJ4_Goku wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 2:39 pm
MasenkoHA wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 2:46 pm I’m confused. I think there’s more than 10 dubs of Dragon Ball.
There's 78.
Then why did you list them best to worst? Isn't it more reasonable to list ten bad dubs?

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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by Aim » Tue May 11, 2021 7:56 pm

kei17 wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 2:58 pm
FPSSJ4_Goku wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 2:39 pm
MasenkoHA wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 2:46 pm I’m confused. I think there’s more than 10 dubs of Dragon Ball.
There's 78.
Then why did you list them best to worst? Isn't it more reasonable to list ten bad dubs?
Your name seems familiar.

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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by Aim » Tue May 11, 2021 7:57 pm

I personally think Kai Eng is def not second, all English dubs have fallen flat in the end. Don’t get me started on Super. MMA Goku def best Goku amIright

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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by sunsetshimmer » Thu May 13, 2021 8:57 am

SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 2:18 pm
FPSSJ4_Goku wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 2:16 pm
SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 1:56 pm

I've seen some clips of it before, it's literally a voiceover guy speaking over the French dubs for all the characters in a monotone voice. :lol:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yklknySnrjg&t=37s

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CATKSgqbIz4&t=50s

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z6bc_x9UnUk
That sounds like a shittier version of how I created my old fan series Dragon Ball GB! I just did different voices for every character, and pitched them up or down depending on who it was.
LOL ikr, the lector reading is so flat and bland that it's hilarious. They didn't even try to make their voice sound any different from one character to the other.
That's the point of lector. Most movies and shows in polish TV has that (cinemas have subs instead). We barely dub any live action movies or shows unless target audience are children. Problem with polish version of DB was that french dub itself was awful and had bad translation and then we once again translated something that was already a bad translation which resulted in pretty much unwatchable show. Also lector himself wasn't good. Most of shows have one of few recognized lectors and they're doing good job, also having the same voices narrating most movies mean you're used to hearing them, but that guy came out of nowhere and did bad job as his voice simply didn't work. It's not a job everyone can do, just like in regular dub. The only good side of this is that we at least got original music, that's especially important for GT. Speaking of GT, for some reason second half of it was actually aired with japanese dub, not french.
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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Thu May 13, 2021 9:58 am

sunsetshimmer wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 8:57 am
SuperSaiyaManZ94 wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 2:18 pm
FPSSJ4_Goku wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 2:16 pm

That sounds like a shittier version of how I created my old fan series Dragon Ball GB! I just did different voices for every character, and pitched them up or down depending on who it was.
LOL ikr, the lector reading is so flat and bland that it's hilarious. They didn't even try to make their voice sound any different from one character to the other.
That's the point of lector. Most movies and shows in polish TV has that (cinemas have subs instead). We barely dub any live action movies or shows unless target audience are children. Problem with polish version of DB was that french dub itself was awful and had bad translation and then we once again translated something that was already a bad translation which resulted in pretty much unwatchable show. Also lector himself wasn't good. Most of shows have one of few recognized lectors and they're doing good job, also having the same voices narrating most movies mean you're used to hearing them, but that guy came out of nowhere and did bad job as his voice simply didn't work. It's not a job everyone can do, just like in regular dub. The only good side of this is that we at least got original music, that's especially important for GT. Speaking of GT, for some reason second half of it was actually aired with japanese dub, not french.
I know they also did a lector version of Sailor Moon, though unlike DB and DBZ they actually used the Japanese version uncut with the voicover.
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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Thu May 13, 2021 1:37 pm

sunsetshimmer wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 8:57 am That's the point of lector. Most movies and shows in polish TV has that (cinemas have subs instead). We barely dub any live action movies or shows unless target audience are children. Problem with polish version of DB was that french dub itself was awful and had bad translation and then we once again translated something that was already a bad translation which resulted in pretty much unwatchable show.
Out of curiosity, sunsetshimmer, since the last two DBZ movies did get actual Polish dubs (and not a lector VO), were those dubs any good?
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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by sunsetshimmer » Fri May 14, 2021 4:03 am

TheBlackPaladin wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 1:37 pm
sunsetshimmer wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 8:57 am That's the point of lector. Most movies and shows in polish TV has that (cinemas have subs instead). We barely dub any live action movies or shows unless target audience are children. Problem with polish version of DB was that french dub itself was awful and had bad translation and then we once again translated something that was already a bad translation which resulted in pretty much unwatchable show.
Out of curiosity, sunsetshimmer, since the last two DBZ movies did get actual Polish dubs (and not a lector VO), were those dubs any good?
Last two were BoG and RoF technically, so i assume you mean DBZ Movie 12 & 13. Yeah, they were dubbed and it wasn't that bad. It had some ups and downs but was overall better than anything we got until then. Then we got DBS dubbed as well recently and i liked it for most part.
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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by OmegaRockman » Sun May 16, 2021 11:40 pm

Please note that as an American I'm going to have an English-speaking bias. Also, as a monolingual the stuff I know about these dubs' scripts I learned through the grapevine from years reading people's posts on this forum and any other critiques come from what I could gather from clips.

(Dis)honorable mentions:

Westwood Z
Rushed performances and reused Funi scripts hold this one back severely, but the cast is a notable improvement over the era's in-house Funi regardless. I just wish it had a Kikuchi option like Funi Z.

Harmony Gold DB
While the movie dubs are strangely accurate aside from the name changes, the TV series is filled with punching up that is somehow worse than Funi's Canadian and in-house efforts. The name changes alone make both the TV and movie dubs automatically bad IMO, which is sad because the cast is fantastic. Guess we could extend this entry to Zero y El Drago Magico, especially with the missing M&E elements early on, but I haven't watched enough not do I know enough Spanish to give it a fair shake.

BLT/Funi English DB
Good cast, so-so script, music changes kill it in the end.

Funi In-house DB
Points for keeping the music, but they're immediately lost for the script changes and incredibly hit-or-miss cast. The good castings can get really good at points, but the repeats from the low talent pool at the time definitely get distracting and Stephanie Nadolny as the lead makes watching this comfortably nearly impossible.

Blue Water DB
The best of the OG DB bunch, but the holdovers from the Funi scripts make it hard to call this dub good until a certain point where they really go in on the corrections. The cast is also probably as bad as in-house Funi, but in a different way: while Funi has wildy varying deviations of surprisingly good and charismatic performances to embarrassingly bad performances, BW just kinda stays bland throughout. Nothing remarkably bad, but nothing remarkably good, either. Maybe a good restoration would get me to give this dub more of a chance, but for now I'm not as enamored as I am with BW's GT.

European Portuguese
I know that a lot of folks in Portugal love it, but I can't call this a good dub in the same way I can't call ADV Ghost Stories a good dub.

Now to the actual list:

10. French Z
More for impact than quality, but that doesn't make this dub quality. The translations from what I can gather are better than Funi's, but still not great. Consequently, they caused a lot of problems for that region with some errors (Space Warriors, Satan's Little Heart) persisting in some regions to this day even when the French version corrected them starting with Kai. The undubbed screams don't help matters.

9. Funi Z/GT (Ocean 1-53, in-house, the whole shebang)
You all know why this is here. At least the Ocean cast was good from the start, but there's no saving that script and replacement music. Obviously not counting the uncut Ocean cast films here. Then there's the in-house dub. Probably my least favorite dub on a personal level. The other dubs further down are undoubtedly worse, but I either have no personal attachment to them or I at least get a chuckle out of them. This one, though... it had such a negative impact on the English-speaking fandom as a whole that I can't abide it. I'm lumping in-house GT in here for being more of the same, though it's admittedly marginally better than the Z dub. Only marginally, though, which is why I put it on the same level. Thank God for Kai.

(Signed the self-admitted biggest Kai fanboy on the planet)

8. AB Groupe English
The performers here are competent based on their Code Lyoko dub. Sadly, they seemed to have a severe case of not giving a shit; strange and inconsistent casting, strange and inconsistent translation choices, strange and inconsistent all around. Plus a few carryovers from the French dub. Ironically, I actually unironically like their Bardock dub better than Funi's, though. It's not good, mind you, but at least the script is mostly there.

7. Greek Z
The small pool of actors that made them have to use voice filters to be less noticable, inconsistent script sources, and overall rushed production makes this one a nightmare from what I can tell. I wish they could get a decent Kai dub to make up for this mess (same goes for lots of other countries, too, honestly).

6. Albanian
This is a fandub that somehow made it on TV. 'Nuff said.

5. Filipino CPC Cooler films
This seems to be from an era of the Filipino English dub where they got actors who could mostly emote, but Piccolo is strangely miscast and the script is somehow less accurate than Funi's. Bad bad bad.

4. Arabic Z
The changes they had to make are immeasurable, and they couldn't even finish at a somewhat sensible stopping point until Kai. Then they just jump around series like madmen without finishing a damn thing. What?

3. Filipino CPC Z ('91)
Barely any lip syncing, performers that seem to try but obviously have a hard time acting in a language they're not used to, bad miscasts, the works. This thing was a wonderful discovery history-wise, but as a dub it's pretty awful.

2. Serbian (Old)
This is just a shoddily put together product. No lip syncing, lifeless performances, outside sounds are picked up. Seems like nobody gave a shit. The new Serbian dub being based on Funi scripts is a travesty on its own, but to call the old dub a bad product doesn't even begin to describe it.

1. Speedy
All the problems with the above two except with the added bonus of having performers who barely have a grasp on the language they're dubbing in, let alone act in it. Plus there seems to be some unlicensed shenanigans going on based on some movies having an incomplete M&E track.

There's probably some other dub that's really bad that I missed and I'll probably smack myself for forgetting it, so maybe I'll have to write a followup in the future. For now, this is my list.
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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Mon May 17, 2021 1:36 am

OmegaRockman wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 11:40 pm 1. Speedy
... Plus there seems to be some unlicensed shenanigans going on based on some movies having an incomplete M&E track.
Albeit a surprisingly high-quality M&E track. Like, legitimately very surprising, it's bewildering to me how they of all people got a hold of such a high-quality M&E track. The best theory I've heard is that Speedy apparently had some connections to the company that dubbed DBZ in Cantonese, and that dub apparently also had a great M&E track.
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: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by kei17 » Mon May 17, 2021 6:31 am

Speaking of the legitimacy of the Speedy dub, I'm not sure about the old English dub on VCDs, but their later DVD release containing their new Malay dub has got Toei Animation's company logo on covers and it's sponsored by Sharp, a Japanese company. I don't think it was a bootleg release. My guess is that they did obtain the license officially but used questionable masters given by a Hong Kong company.

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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by OmegaRockman » Mon May 17, 2021 8:41 am

kei17 wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 6:31 am Speaking of the legitimacy of the Speedy dub, I'm not sure about the old English dub on VCDs, but their later DVD release containing their new Malay dub has got Toei Animation's company logo on covers and it's sponsored by Sharp, a Japanese company. I don't think it was a bootleg release. My guess is that they did obtain the license officially but used questionable masters given by a Hong Kong company.
Is it possible that some of their dubs were licensed but others weren't? Because they also did dubs of Super Sentai shows like Jetman and Kamen Rider that also have gaps in the M&E tracks, pointing to at least some amount of shenanigans going on. Their Kamen Rider '71 dub even used Kikuchi's DBZ music in at least one instance, which strangely works since Kikuchi also did the original score for that series!
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Re: Top 10 worst Dragon Ball dubs

Post by FPSSJ4_Goku » Mon May 17, 2021 8:47 am

OmegaRockman wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:41 am
kei17 wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 6:31 am Speaking of the legitimacy of the Speedy dub, I'm not sure about the old English dub on VCDs, but their later DVD release containing their new Malay dub has got Toei Animation's company logo on covers and it's sponsored by Sharp, a Japanese company. I don't think it was a bootleg release. My guess is that they did obtain the license officially but used questionable masters given by a Hong Kong company.
Is it possible that some of their dubs were licensed but others weren't? Because they also did dubs of Super Sentai shows like Jetman and Kamen Rider that also have gaps in the M&E tracks, pointing to at least some amount of shenanigans going on. Their Kamen Rider '71 dub even used Kikuchi's DBZ music in at least one instance, which strangely works since Kikuchi also did the original score for that series!
Wait, really? That's actually pretty cool, not gonna lie.
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