The Kohavision dub

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

Dragon Ball Ireland
I Live Here
Posts: 3511
Joined: Thu May 21, 2015 9:09 am
Location: Sligo, Ireland

The Kohavision dub

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Sun Dec 26, 2021 5:50 pm

For those that don't know the Albanian Dragon Ball dub by "Jess" Discographic is notorious for being produced illegally without a license from TOEI.

This dub, based off Funimation's version was recorded between 2005 and 2016, although it's not the only attempt at dubbing Dragon Ball in Albanian, nor was it the first.

In the now independent neighbouring country (Kosovo) there was an earlier Albanian dub aired sometime between 2000 and 2002 on the channel Kohavision. It has been said this dub covered the first 13 episodes of original Dragon Ball, was based off the Japanese version with all the original songs, although notably Goku's name was mispronounced (the "J" in "Jeice" replaced it to make more of a "Joke-u" sound).

Has anyone ever heard anything else about this dub? It seems to be lost, but I'd hope one day it will be found.

Also, as I understand it not all agree on the question of what to call people or products of Kosovo, with some referring to themselves as Kosovar, whereas others prefer Kosovan, hence the neutrality of the thread title. I only wish to be respectful towards both sides.
Last edited by Dragon Ball Ireland on Fri Sep 09, 2022 2:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

damn
Beyond Newbie
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Feb 11, 2014 9:08 am

Re: Kosovo's Albanian dub

Post by damn » Tue Sep 06, 2022 1:20 am

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 5:50 pm For those that don't know the Albanian Dragon Ball dub by "Jess" Discographic is notorious for being produced illegally without a license from TOEI.

This dub, based off Funimation's version was recorded between 2005 and 2016, although it's not the only attempt at dubbing Dragon Ball in Albanian, nor was it the first.

In the now independent neighbouring country (Kosovo) there was an earlier Albanian dub aired sometime between 2000 and 2002 on the channel Kohavision. It has been said this dub covered the first 13 episodes of original Dragon Ball, was based off the Japanese version with all the original songs, although notably Goku's name was mispronounced (the "J" in "Jeice" replaced it to make more of a "Joke-u" sound).

Has anyone ever heard anything else about this dub? It seems to be lost, but I'd hope one day it will be found.

Also, as I understand it not all agree on the question of what to call people or products of Kosovo, with some referring to themselves as Kosovar, whereas others prefer Kosovan, hence the neutrality of the thread title. I only wish to be respectful towards both sides.

Hi there. Sorry for getting to you this late but I'm not very active in this forum.

A couple of corrections.

The Original "First Version" DBZ Albanian dub(aired in Bang Bang) was in fact not based off of Funimation's version. It was probably dubbed on top of Japanese broadcast bootlegs since it's clearly from the Japanese version. There's a green "M" Television Station logo that appears for brief instances in some of the episodes(not familiar with Japanese/Asian TV Channels). You can hear Nozawa's screams effortlessly and since it was a Digital Channel you could change the audio language to the Original Japanese if you had a Digital Receiver.
The Newer Version(which I never watched) appears to have the same voice acting but using the Orange Bricks or Funimation Blu-ray sets(and somehow an even uglier logo than the first one).
I believe you might also know(or at least kei17 should) of the various differences in the musical placements as well as them using some other non-DBZ music in places. Although if you switched the audio track to Japanese the BGM was intact as in the Japanese version.

There was also an OG Dragon Ball dub on the same channel(or in Çufo) around 2015 or so which this time used the Funimation Dub.

About the Kohavision dub for Original Dragon Ball from early 2000s.
Goku was called "Son Joke-u", and his full name and surname was always spoken(they never called him Goku the other characters always called him "Son Goku"(or "Son Joke-u" in this case) like in the French or German dubs).

Based on my old post it appears that wikis etc. took the whole "they aired 13 episodes" and ran with it but I never said they only aired 13 episodes. I just said that I only remember the first arc. They might have aired episodes past that but I'm not sure if they did or not.

Kosovar is in Albanian(but it's a term that's seldom used since we are Albanians(Shqiptar) since Kosovo is the country/region and not a people). Either Kosovan or Kosovar is fine, personally I prefer Kosovo-Albanian but don't sweat it either way.

EDIT: It won't let me respond me to your PM so I should just say it here: I've never heard of this Tisak dd Viasat thing.

Dragon Ball Ireland
I Live Here
Posts: 3511
Joined: Thu May 21, 2015 9:09 am
Location: Sligo, Ireland

Re: Kosovo's Albanian dub

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Tue Sep 06, 2022 2:34 am

Thanks for your response damn, and for clarifying some things about the later Albanian dub. No worries about the late reply, good things are worth waiting for.

I must say I'm not aware who did the wiki edits for the 'Albanian dub' and 'Dragon Ball in Kosovo' pages, but I do hope whoever does will make those corrections.

Regarding what I said in PMs it turns out one of the wiki editors is saying Plus Licens (TOEI's license broker for Nordic countries) sold the Dragon Ball Z rights to Tisak dd in 2011 and Viasat was supposed to air it. That seems unlikely to me though because
Tisak dd is a Croatian newspaper distribution company and Viasat is a Nordic TV channel, so all of that information seems irrelevant to Kosovo.

Do you remember any timeslots Kohavision aired Dragon Ball on? Was it shown weekdays or weekends? Did Z or GT ever air?

Hope I'm not asking too many questions, I'm just really curious about this dub. I've tried to reach out to whatever Kohavision staff I could track down for more information about this dub but haven't heard anything back.
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

damn
Beyond Newbie
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Feb 11, 2014 9:08 am

Re: Kosovo's Albanian dub

Post by damn » Tue Sep 06, 2022 3:23 am

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 2:34 am
Do you remember any timeslots Kohavision aired Dragon Ball on? Was it shown weekdays or weekends? Did Z or GT ever air?
Man that's a long time ago but I'm pretty sure it was aired daily in the mornings. There were only 3 main channels RTK(National Government channel), KTV/Kohavision and RTV21.
Z and GT never aired in any of these channels. Only Original Dragon Ball did.

If you've read my original post then you should know that Digimon Adventure was also licensed around that time(probably earlier than Dragon Ball). I remember that one was aired in like 5PM or so and re-runs were probably around 11AM the next day, but I'm mostly guessing here because I can't remember it correctly. Seem to remember Digimon being the more popular of the two at the time, probably partly because of the Panini sticker album that everyone was trying to collect.

Shortly after that KTV didn't show any anime anymore but they showed some trash cartoons like Sandokan and Princess Sheherazade instead. Probably trying to appeal to the more religious muslim audience :roll: but then again maybe it was also cheaper to license cheap French/Spanish cartoons compared to Anime.
In the early days Kohavision were trying pretty hard to differentiate themselves from RTK and RTV21 by trying to appeal to all target audiences but also mostly focusing on shows that would interest the young demographics(they also licensed britcoms like 'Allo 'Allo and OFAH around the mid 2000s and a bunch of Latino Soaps in the 2000s among other things) since it was a new channel that launched in the post-war era when they were only doing 2-hour block news. That's ancient history now.
Of course nobody ever relied on the national channels for good shows back then since most of us had satellite dishes and could access German(or Italian) free OTA TV and just watch anime in RTL2 or western cartoons in Super RTL, Kika etc.
Ah, simpler times.

Dragon Ball Ireland
I Live Here
Posts: 3511
Joined: Thu May 21, 2015 9:09 am
Location: Sligo, Ireland

Re: The Kohavision dub

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Sat Dec 09, 2023 3:33 pm

So AlbanianTelevisioner recently revealed some schedules for 2002 and 2003, which confirm that Dragon Ball did indeed air on Kohavision during this time, and it was shown in the early mornings.

Image

Image
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

Tian
Advanced Regular
Posts: 1121
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2015 10:21 pm
Location: Argentina

Re: The Kohavision dub

Post by Tian » Sat Dec 09, 2023 3:55 pm

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2023 3:33 pm So AlbanianTelevisioner recently revealed some schedules for 2002 and 2003, which confirm that Dragon Ball did indeed air on Kohavision during this time, and it was shown in the early mornings.

Image

Image
This is great! Good finding, man. :clap:

Hopefully we can find, at least, a promo. I've already checked several YT channels dedicated to TV archive in Kosovo and there's nothing recorded of Kohavision from years 2002-2003 (which sucks because that kind of channels are a really good way to find lost dubs)

Dragon Ball Ireland
I Live Here
Posts: 3511
Joined: Thu May 21, 2015 9:09 am
Location: Sligo, Ireland

Re: The Kohavision dub

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Sat Dec 09, 2023 5:10 pm

Tian wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2023 3:55 pm This is great! Good finding, man. :clap:

Hopefully we can find, at least, a promo. I've already checked several YT channels dedicated to TV archive in Kosovo and there's nothing recorded of Kohavision from years 2002-2003 (which sucks because that kind of channels are a really good way to find lost dubs)
Ah, I can't take any credit for this. It was someone on Discord that shared this with me, I'm just disseminating this information further. But yeah, I'd love to see a promo even just to see how Dragon Ball was marketed in Kosovo.

Interestingly these schedules do give credence to Digimon premiering before Dragon Ball as it was listed as airing in 2002.
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

Tian
Advanced Regular
Posts: 1121
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2015 10:21 pm
Location: Argentina

Re: The Kohavision dub

Post by Tian » Sat Dec 09, 2023 5:28 pm

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2023 5:10 pm Interestingly these schedules do give credence to Digimon premiering before Dragon Ball as it was listed as airing in 2002.
I've been checking the dates and Kohavision seemed to often run shows only once and replace them once they were finished (or Kohavision stopped caring)

So...

Digimon seems to have been aired until early 2003 and then replaced by Sandokan (which only lasted 26 episodes) and then Sandokan would be replaced by Dragon Ball.

Given the only timeslot DB had and the fact it aired between April and October, we can tell that Kohavision aired more than the assumed 13 episodes... unless they aired them in a loop but it's unlikely.

Dragon Ball Ireland
I Live Here
Posts: 3511
Joined: Thu May 21, 2015 9:09 am
Location: Sligo, Ireland

Re: The Kohavision dub

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Fri Dec 15, 2023 11:03 am

Tian wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2023 5:28 pm Given the only timeslot DB had and the fact it aired between April and October, we can tell that Kohavision aired more than the assumed 13 episodes... unless they aired them in a loop but it's unlikely.
Well, we don't know that only 13 episodes were aired. In fact I'd say since when I asked on Reddit some fans recalled Kuririn and Lunch making appearances I'd say its likely Kohavision aired more than that and ran everything up until the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai at least.

Here's are some of the responses I got (first three here were in Albanian but translated via Google Translate, fourth quote was posted in English):
Mjekerrziu wrote:

"I remember a sequence in the KTV version when the person who was speaking (Krilini nashta) could be seen moving his mouth for quite a while, he was saying something much more meaningful to Goku, while dubbing in Albanian and summarizing it in : "Goku! Use the stick!"."
Mjekerrziu wrote:
"It was so ridiculously simple that since then, at least once a year, we had the phrase "goku, use the stick". DigitAlbit's version has been very personal to me."
Revolutionary-Sun151 wrote:

"I came after 5-6 years then. It seems to me that goku was called Son Gjoku, but I don't remember it well."
96bottlesofpepsi wrote:

"I unfortunately don't remember a lot of how the dub sounded though, all I remember was that it was an episode with either Lunch being introduced or something with her character."

Anyway the Youtuber AlbanianTelevisioner has kindly provided the archived links for these old schedules. Here's the listing for April 2003 and October 2003. What I find interesting is Dragon Ball is not shown as airing in the same timeslot on the July listing, so I suspect there may have been a break in which new episodes were recorded and aired later in the year.
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

Tian
Advanced Regular
Posts: 1121
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2015 10:21 pm
Location: Argentina

Re: The Kohavision dub

Post by Tian » Fri Dec 15, 2023 4:25 pm

Mjekerrziu wrote:

"I remember a sequence in the KTV version when the person who was speaking (Krilini nashta) could be seen moving his mouth for quite a while, he was saying something much more meaningful to Goku, while dubbing in Albanian and summarizing it in : "Goku! Use the stick!"."
Interesting. According to what this person is saying, the Kohavision dub may have had poor lip-sync like the old Serbian dub or it may have been a voice-over. I want to believe it was the first one because I'm not a big fan of voice-overs.
Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2023 11:03 am Anyway the Youtuber AlbanianTelevisioner has kindly provided the archived links for these old schedules. Here's the listing for April 2003 and October 2003. What I find interesting is Dragon Ball is not shown as airing in the same timeslot on the July listing, so I suspect there may have been a break in which new episodes were recorded and aired later in the year.
Thank you and AlbanianTelevizioner for the links. I'm glad there are archives like these around.

User avatar
Dragon ball master
Beyond Newbie
Posts: 134
Joined: Fri Jun 16, 2023 5:16 pm

Re: The Kohavision dub

Post by Dragon ball master » Fri Dec 15, 2023 5:32 pm

I found out for the cufo dub they just used the dubbed opening dub with sub titles and with there logo.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-b29gbCnDP

It's kind of weird that they kept the funi opening but it's not a bad choice.

I also found the opening for the Georgia dub with the voice over and in 4:3
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pcPCHI64jYM

Dragon Ball Ireland
I Live Here
Posts: 3511
Joined: Thu May 21, 2015 9:09 am
Location: Sligo, Ireland

Re: The Kohavision dub

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Fri Dec 15, 2023 5:40 pm

Dragon ball master wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2023 5:32 pm I found out for the cufo dub they just used the dubbed opening dub with sub titles and with there logo.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-b29gbCnDP
Worth mentioning, the Albanian dub aired on Kohavision was a different dub than the one that later aired in Albania on Cufo and Bang Bang. Goku was not referred to as "Son Joke-U" in that dub.

Maybe this dub should be called "the original Albanian dub" despite being much less known to minimise confusion about the later Albanian dubs being this dub. Also, assuming Kohavision dubbed Dragon Ball inhouse it may have not been an illegal production. This dub is also unfortunately lost.
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

Post Reply