Dragon Ball and the UK.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Thu Mar 03, 2022 11:17 am

NitroEX wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 8:58 amAs Ian Corlett once mentioned, they had the rights to produce a Canadian version and I guess there was nothing stopping them from selling it to overseas markets. As long as they weren't selling physical copies of it in North America Funimation probably didn't care. I doubt anyone back then could forsee fans preserving all the episodes and sharing them online.
Theoretically any company can have the rights to produce an English dub of Dragon Ball, independent of Funimation for a particular market if they buy a license from TOEI. The existence of the Bang Zoom Super dub shows that other English dubs can even be produced in the US, as long as they are made for distribution elsewhere (as we know the Bang Zoom dub was made for Toonami Asia). Funimation also have exclusive home video rights to all of North America. Though we don't have any reason to suspect legally alternate dubs can't be streamed or broadcast, even if Funimation can pull some strings to prevent it from happening.

NitroEX wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 8:58 am I think it's safe to say AB did produce the Big Green dubs. They were recorded in France after all, and only released in AB's territories. They only released them through third-party distributors though, which explains why Bridge Entertainment and Warner Vision were involved.
But why were the Big Green dubs never released in France, even as additional audio tracks on DVD releases? As far as I can tell AB are a distributor only. They also didn't produce the French dub, although they did distribute the one created by another French company (SOFI). Bridge Entertainment and Warner Vision's involvement was likely because AB didn't have home video rights for the Netherlands and the UK themselves so they had to strike a deal with whoever had the relevant rights for those regions.
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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by NitroEX » Thu Mar 03, 2022 8:00 pm

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 11:17 am Theoretically any company can have the rights to produce an English dub of Dragon Ball, independent of Funimation for a particular market if they buy a license from TOEI. The existence of the Bang Zoom Super dub shows that other English dubs can even be produced in the US, as long as they are made for distribution elsewhere (as we know the Bang Zoom dub was made for Toonami Asia). Funimation also have exclusive home video rights to all of North America. Though we don't have any reason to suspect legally alternate dubs can't be streamed or broadcast, even if Funimation can pull some strings to prevent it from happening.
Seems we're in agreement there.
But why were the Big Green dubs never released in France, even as additional audio tracks on DVD releases? As far as I can tell AB are a distributor only. They also didn't produce the French dub, although they did distribute the one created by another French company (SOFI).
I don't see why they'd have wanted to include an English track on a domestic French release. French fans had no memory of it as it wasn't broadcast there, and it wasn't well regarded by English fans.

I don't know the specifics of who had a direct hand in the creation of the French dubs but AB was surely involved in kickstarting the Big Green dubs as part of an overseas venture. It's pretty well known they had the license for those regions. This old email was from Funimation and they made it pretty clear AB Groupe handled things in Europe (at the time).
Bridge Entertainment and Warner Vision's involvement was likely because AB didn't have home video rights for the Netherlands and the UK themselves so they had to strike a deal with whoever had the relevant rights for those regions.
This doesn't seem likely to me. Why would those two companies randomly have video distribution rights if they were only going to wait for a French-made dub and then release nothing afterwards? I don't think Warner and Bridge would have sourced the same dub for their home video unless AB had been the ones coordinating it for them.

We know AB were distributing the series and movies to UK and Netherlands television so they likewise would have been the ones to orchestrate and approve of any home releases in those same territories. The only issue was AB had no base of operations outside of France to produce their own DVDs or VHS and facilitate them getting on store shelves, they just had the license for those regions granted to them by Toei. It likely would have been too costly for them to do it all alone so they partnered with companies in the UK and Netherlands that already handled that sort of thing (Warner and Bridge). Those companies were just a vehicle for them but they likely would have held the license as they were involved with the Dragon Ball brand very early on.

Toei themselves hadn't been established in Europe yet (2004) so they wouldn't have been overseeing these things like they are now.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Mon Mar 07, 2022 9:25 am

NitroEX wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 8:00 pm I don't know the specifics of who had a direct hand in the creation of the French dubs but AB was surely involved in kickstarting the Big Green dubs as part of an overseas venture. It's pretty well known they had the license for those regions. This old email was from Funimation and they made it pretty clear AB Groupe handled things in Europe (at the time).
That email doesn't say anything to indicate AB produced the Big Green dubs, only that they handled Dragon Ball releases in Europe, which generally refers to distribution not production. Any other European countries that had their own dubs produced them independent of AB, but AB still handled distribution. What reason is there to suspect the Big Green dub was any different and done in-house?
NitroEX wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 8:00 pm This doesn't seem likely to me. Why would those two companies randomly have video distribution rights if they were only going to wait for a French-made dub and then release nothing afterwards? I don't think Warner and Bridge would have sourced the same dub for their home video unless AB had been the ones coordinating it for them.

We know AB were distributing the series and movies to UK and Netherlands television so they likewise would have been the ones to orchestrate and approve of any home releases in those same territories. The only issue was AB had no base of operations outside of France to produce their own DVDs or VHS and facilitate them getting on store shelves, they just had the license for those regions granted to them by Toei. It likely would have been too costly for them to do it all alone so they partnered with companies in the UK and Netherlands that already handled that sort of thing (Warner and Bridge). Those companies were just a vehicle for them but they likely would have held the license as they were involved with the Dragon Ball brand very early on.
Because its not unusual for companies to buy up rights to properties only for them to sit on them. We also know other long running anime at the time like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh struggled to get past 1 season on VHS, Sailor Moon nearly bankrupt MVM, etc. Warner Vision may have felt discouraged from releasing Dragon Ball Z on any home media, only agreeing to test the waters with movies 2-4 when they could agree with AB to distribute the Big Green dubs and split the costs. As for Bridge, they only released the first few episodes of the original Funimation/Saban dub so that run may have been cancelled due to low sales, but then when the Big Green movies came along they decided that would be a safer bet. Again AB, as the head rights holder in Europe may have agreed to help with costs. Yes, Warner and Bridge sourced the same dub, but its more likely because Funimation's dub was too expensive for their liking than AB pulling any strings.

I do agree with what your saying about how AB may have initiated contact with Warner and Bridge rather than the reverse due to them nor having a base outside France, as companies often cooperate for mutual benefit. If it was cheaper for both parties I don't see any reason Warner and Bridge wouldn't have agreed if they saw potential for profit in the movies, regardless of the dub used.

I'm still not convinced AB produced the Big Green dubs though, anything is an educated guess at best.
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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by NitroEX » Mon Mar 07, 2022 9:46 pm

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 9:25 am That email doesn't say anything to indicate AB produced the Big Green dubs, only that they handled Dragon Ball releases in Europe, which generally refers to distribution not production. Any other European countries that had their own dubs produced them independent of AB, but AB still handled distribution. What reason is there to suspect the Big Green dub was any different and done in-house?
There's been zero indication of any other company involvement so unless you have something that states otherwise it only serves to confuse matters as we know for sure AB were involved in this.
Yes, you likely would have had a recording studio that AB hired to do the work but Funimation did the same with OkraTron 5000 and we don't refer to their dubs as the OkraTron 5000 dub or deny that the dub was produced by Funi, it's just splitting hairs at that point.

We have a comment left by David Gasman on his BTVA page implying that AB were in charge. It's telling that he doesn't mention any other company. He said the following:
DGasman wrote:Yo, I do play some of the games I'm in.
As for Z, none of us knew the series at all when we did it. I bought a ton of eps and watched them after, but it was too late.
We could have been SO MUCH BETTER if we'd known what the hell we we were doing. AB was in a hurry and we kind of just showed up and ripped through them. I'm actually sort of proud that they are even as good they are.
I'd love to do Rayman again.
Thanks for all the love,
David Gasman
And for what it's worth, Bloomberg's description of AB Groupe included the following:
"AB Groupe SA produces and distributes television programming in France."

So this implies they did also produce content as well as distribute it.
Because its not unusual for companies to buy up rights to properties only for them to sit on them. We also know other long running anime at the time like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh struggled to get past 1 season on VHS, Sailor Moon nearly bankrupt MVM, etc. Warner Vision may have felt discouraged from releasing Dragon Ball Z on any home media, only agreeing to test the waters with movies 2-4 when they could agree with AB to distribute the Big Green dubs and split the costs. As for Bridge, they only released the first few episodes of the original Funimation/Saban dub so that run may have been cancelled due to low sales, but then when the Big Green movies came along they decided that would be a safer bet. Again AB, as the head rights holder in Europe may have agreed to help with costs. Yes, Warner and Bridge sourced the same dub, but its more likely because Funimation's dub was too expensive for their liking than AB pulling any strings.

I do agree with what your saying about how AB may have initiated contact with Warner and Bridge rather than the reverse due to them nor having a base outside France, as companies often cooperate for mutual benefit. If it was cheaper for both parties I don't see any reason Warner and Bridge wouldn't have agreed if they saw potential for profit in the movies, regardless of the dub used.

I'm still not convinced AB produced the Big Green dubs though, anything is an educated guess at best.
I just don't find this to be more likely than the alternative. AB had earlier knowledge of the brand and would have easily been able to secure the UK and Netherland rights before these other home video companies would have had the chance to, which would also make sense if they had future plans to sell the show in these regions after witnessing it's proven success in France (a region in which anime was always more successful). The Funimation/Saban episodes being sold in the Netherlands would have been for the same reason we got those episodes on TV, AB would have sublicensed Funimation's dub for distribution on UK/NL TV and the same would have happened on home video, only they partnered with the native distribution companies for economic reasons I stated earlier.

As for why that partnership didn't continue? I have no idea, but it's reasonable to assume the split of revenue from said partnership (coupled with the sublicensing from Funimation) diluted the profits to an extent that it wasn't mutually beneficial to continue it anymore. With the specials being produced in-house it cut costs for AB but the quality of the end product likely resulted in declining sales anyway. The UK market in particular would have been far less forgiving of subpar English dubbing.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Fri Mar 11, 2022 11:48 am

NitroEX wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 9:46 pm There's been zero indication of any other company involvement so unless you have something that states otherwise it only serves to confuse matters as we know for sure AB were involved in this.
Yes, you likely would have had a recording studio that AB hired to do the work but Funimation did the same with OkraTron 5000 and we don't refer to their dubs as the OkraTron 5000 dub or deny that the dub was produced by Funi, it's just splitting hairs at that point.

We have a comment left by David Gasman on his BTVA page implying that AB were in charge.
I was always under the impression that whoever was behind the Big Green dubs wasn't proud of their work. Everything seemed slapped together. Unwfitting and jarring vocal performances, the most basic translations of the French dub scripts, incorrectly naming the Ocean Studios cast in the credits, likely because it was all AB could provide. Whether it was AB or another company who produced the dubs it's clear this was a project done with the least amount of effort possible.

I'm aware of David Gasman's comment, although I'll admit I hadn't seen the Bloomberg's description of AB Groupe. I will concede that it gives validity to the claim AB do produce content, even if it doesn't verify the Big Green dubs as being directly their product.

I'll remain skeptical about AB being the producer, as a friend of the UKDB webmasters has on this forum said AB didn't produce the dub, but a Dutch company called Bridge Entertainment did. I won't name him, but based on emails other users on this forum have quoted over the years it appears the UKDB people were either given false information or there was another Dutch company with the same name (which would be some freak of a coincidence).

Here's the emails, which were quoted in older threads from two staff at Bridge Entertainment who either refer to lost contact with other producers or categorically deny being the producers themselves:
First of all, thanks for the compliments!
Then about the voice actors... we really don't have a clue. The problem is, that we don't own the home video-rights for the  Dragonball series and movies anymore, and that there is no contact anymore with the producers. And in the past, the  mastertapes were allready dubbed when we received them. We never received any actors lists whatsoever.

We apologise for not being able to awnser your question!

Kind Regards,
Anne Bijl


And from Sjef Scholte
Thank you for your inquiry.
We apologize for our late reply.
About the Dragon Ball series, actually a couple of companies, not only a company in the U.S. like FUNimation, might be licensed making English version of it for English-speaking countries in past times. Because the series has been airing longer than 10 years all over the world, then you could have been watch a English version of it made by a company in Europe. We are sorry that we are not able to refer the company name.
Thank you again for your understanding.
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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by 90sDBZ » Fri Mar 11, 2022 9:07 pm

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 11:48 am I was always under the impression that whoever was behind the Big Green dubs wasn't proud of their work. Everything seemed slapped together. Unwfitting and jarring vocal performances, the most basic translations of the French dub scripts, incorrectly naming the Ocean Studios cast in the credits, likely because it was all AB could provide. Whether it was AB or another company who produced the dubs it's clear this was a project done with the least amount of effort possible.

I'm aware of David Gasman's comment, although I'll admit I hadn't seen the Bloomberg's description of AB Groupe. I will concede that it gives validity to the claim AB do produce content, even if it doesn't verify the Big Green dubs as being directly their product.

I'll remain skeptical about AB being the producer, as a friend of the UKDB webmasters has on this forum said AB didn't produce the dub, but a Dutch company called Bridge Entertainment did. I won't name him, but based on emails other users on this forum have quoted over the years it appears the UKDB people were either given false information or there was another Dutch company with the same name (which would be some freak of a coincidence).
I remember people online all referred to it as "The Bridge dub" back in 2005 when those movies aired on Toonami. It wasn't until a couple of years later, during the early Youtube days, that people started calling it "The Big Green dub".

Interesting about them crediting the Ocean cast. I never noticed that before.

I'll never forget the disappointment I felt getting Movie 4 on VHS for Christmas 2003, only to discover it wasn't Funimation or Ocean, but a different cast that sounded nothing like the other 2, and felt completely off.

I was disppointed again in 2005 when Toonami aired the movies with that same dub. I was so excited when the early promos aired, as they didn't feature any voice audio. Part of me was worried they'd use that dub from my VHS, and unfortunately my fears were confirmed once they actually did air.

It's easy to see the funny side now, but at the time there was no other way to watch the movies in the UK, which really sucked. The fact that the Ocean and Funimation movie dubs already existed at that point made it even more frustrating. Like I could've forgiven it if those movies had never been dubbed in English before.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by Super Sonic » Fri Mar 11, 2022 10:05 pm

90sDBZ wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 9:07 pm I'll never forget the disappointment I felt getting Movie 4 on VHS for Christmas 2003, only to discover it wasn't Funimation or Ocean, but a different cast that sounded nothing like the other 2, and felt completely off.
Reminds me of time in 1992 when my dad bought a Fantastic Four VHS called "The Menace of Magneto". On the cover had the FF, Reed, Sue, Torch, Thing and mentioned them on the back of the box. But when we put it on, the Human Torch wasn't even mentioned. Instead had a robot called H.E.R.B.I.E. My dad thought it would've been the 60s Fantastic Four cartoon, but it was the 70s one with H.E.R.B.I.E. instead of the Human Torch.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by NitroEX » Mon Mar 21, 2022 8:18 pm

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 11:48 am I was always under the impression that whoever was behind the Big Green dubs wasn't proud of their work. Everything seemed slapped together.

Unwitting and jarring vocal performances, the most basic translations of the French dub scripts, incorrectly naming the Ocean Studios cast in the credits, likely because it was all AB could provide. Whether it was AB or another company who produced the dubs it's clear this was a project done with the least amount of effort possible.
I think it was a combination of AB rushing a product out to fill a void in the English market while not having the connections or expertise to do it correctly. They evidently only knew how to produce things in France which immediately put the production on a shaky foundation. TheBlackPaladin once threw out the theory that part of the reason it sounds so strange was that they likely used the Rhythmo-Band technique for dubbing and ADR, which makes sense as it was commonplace in France, but it might not have necessarily been the best choice for an English production. Then there's also having adequate voice direction (and more importantly, a voice director who has an ear for bad sounding English dialogue, which was always less likely from any France based studio).
I'll remain skeptical about AB being the producer, as a friend of the UKDB webmasters has on this forum said AB didn't produce the dub, but a Dutch company called Bridge Entertainment did. I won't name him, but based on emails other users on this forum have quoted over the years it appears the UKDB people were either given false information or there was another Dutch company with the same name (which would be some freak of a coincidence).
Yeah... I've still got to go with AB on this one. I can see why Bridge would have been thrown out as a producer back in the day when fans had limited knowledge of what was going on but this just strikes me as a fan confusing the Dutch home video distributor as the company responsible for the dub itself. It's also a much bigger stretch to say that it was two companies sharing the same name, I just don't buy that as an explanation.
Here's the emails, which were quoted in older threads from two staff at Bridge Entertainment who either refer to lost contact with other producers or categorically deny being the producers themselves:
Interesting find. I do think the Bridge staff member saying "there is no contact anymore with the producers" is enough for me to believe they weren't the ones producing it independently at least.
90sDBZ wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 9:07 pm The fact that the Ocean and Funimation movie dubs already existed at that point made it even more frustrating. Like I could've forgiven it if those movies had never been dubbed in English before.
Technically the Big Green versions of some of the specials would have been dubbed first, especially if David Gasman's comment is to be taken literally. While Funi did dub quite a few of them earlier in the late 90s we know that the Dutch release of the first Cooler movie predates Funimation's 'Cooler's Revenge' as Funi released theirs in 2002 whereas the Big Green version was out in Netherlands by 2001.

I think people get confused because AB's movie dubs aired on UK TV in 05, and some of those hadn't had a home release even in the Netherlands, but those later movies were still most likely dubbed earlier than 05 based on the evidence we have.

The fact that the later movies weren't dubbed by Ocean/Westwood or Blue Water is another indicator that they may have simply been dubbed prior to AB outsourcing to Ocean, either that or they recorded them at roughly the same time as the Z episodes (so, roughly 2000 or so).

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by 90sDBZ » Mon Mar 21, 2022 8:43 pm

NitroEX wrote: Mon Mar 21, 2022 8:18 pm
90sDBZ wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 9:07 pm The fact that the Ocean and Funimation movie dubs already existed at that point made it even more frustrating. Like I could've forgiven it if those movies had never been dubbed in English before.
Technically the Big Green versions of some of the specials would have been dubbed first, especially if David Gasman's comment is to be taken literally. While Funi did dub quite a few of them earlier in the late 90s we know that the Dutch release of the first Cooler movie predates Funimation's 'Cooler's Revenge' as Funi released theirs in 2002 whereas the Big Green version was out in Netherlands by 2001.

I think people get confused because AB's movie dubs aired on UK TV in 05, and some of those hadn't had a home release even in the Netherlands, but those later movies were still most likely dubbed earlier than 05 based on the evidence we have.

The fact that the later movies weren't dubbed by Ocean/Westwood or Blue Water is another indicator that they may have simply been dubbed prior to AB outsourcing to Ocean, either that or they recorded them at roughly the same time as the Z episodes (so, roughly 2000 or so).
Only Big Green Movies 2-4 were released on VHS/DVD in the UK, so they could have at least licensed the Pioneer Ocean Trilogy instead even in the early 2000s.

By the time Toonami UK aired the movies in 2005 Funimation had dubbed more of the movies than the Big Green cast, who stopped at movie 9.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Tue Mar 22, 2022 3:51 am

NitroEX wrote: Mon Mar 21, 2022 8:18 pmThe fact that the later movies weren't dubbed by Ocean/Westwood or Blue Water is another indicator that they may have simply been dubbed prior to AB outsourcing to Ocean
AB never outsourced to Ocean, the Westwood Z and Blue Water dubs were all produced in Canada by Westwood Media. AB's only role when it came to production of those dubs was providing video masters starting from the last 4 episodes of Z because by that point Ocean has caught up with Funimation. AB were the distributors for all the TV channels in Europe at the time though, so Westwood likely took the initiative and struck a deal with them.

AB producing the Canadian dubs has become something of myth over the years with fans constantly reiterating it in online discourse (I'm guilty of this myself) but there's never been any evidence to prove it. On the contrary things like Ken Morrison, not anyone affiliated with AB being responsible for moving recording to Calgary, AB's logo being present after the UK Westwood dub credits but not the YTV airings proves otherwise. AB's logo also followed the credits for Z edited episodes 1-107 (which we know were Funimation's dub) too, it's because AB held the distribution rights to all these English dubs in Europe not because they created any of them.

One last thing I'll add about the Big Green dubs and the emails quoted on these forums the poster who shared them also said in an earlier email he was told "The dub was made by the original owner and not by Bridge". Whether that means TOEI produced the Big Green dubs or Bridge had AB mistaken for "the original owner" we may never know, but as far as I can tell other than whatever research the UKDB people back in the day made this is about as far as anyone's been able to dig.
90sDBZ wrote: Mon Mar 21, 2022 8:43 pmOnly Big Green Movies 2-4 were released on VHS/DVD in the UK, so they could have at least licensed the Pioneer Ocean Trilogy instead even in the early 2000s.

By the time Toonami UK aired the movies in 2005 Funimation had dubbed more of the movies than the Big Green cast, who stopped at movie 9.
I'd imagine the reason AB and Warner Vision released the Big Green dubs on home video was because it cost them less than licensing the Pioneer movie trilogy from Funimation, because we know they charged a fortune back then. No US dub existing at the time would have also been an added incentive to create a dub on the cheap locally in France.

I don't know if Cartoon Network UK had much of a relationship with Funimation by the time Toonami UK aired the movies and specials. They had completely moved over to alternate dubs where possible, and supposedly by the time Kai came around the head of programming at Turner said they weren't looking to air it but if they did it would be the Ocean dub.
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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by 90sDBZ » Tue Mar 22, 2022 8:51 am

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 3:51 am I'd imagine the reason AB and Warner Vision released the Big Green dubs on home video was because it cost them less than licensing the Pioneer movie trilogy from Funimation, because we know they charged a fortune back then. No US dub existing at the time would have also been an added incentive to create a dub on the cheap locally in France.
Possibly, although wasn't part of the reason for Funimation's dub being expensive because of them charging royalties for Faulconer? If this was the case then maybe the Pioneer trilogy wouldn't have cost quite as much, as it didn't have Faulconer.

Either way I'm sure the Pioneer trilogy would have sold much better than the Big Green releases.

By the time Toonami UK aired the movies I got the impression they didn't care all that much anymore. If their relationship with Funimation was bad perhaps they could've asked Ocean to do a Westwood dub of the movies. Or even a Blue Water dub with the Calgary cast, as even that would have been a much better option than airing the Big Green dubs.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue Mar 22, 2022 9:19 am

90sDBZ wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 8:51 am
Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 3:51 am I'd imagine the reason AB and Warner Vision released the Big Green dubs on home video was because it cost them less than licensing the Pioneer movie trilogy from Funimation, because we know they charged a fortune back then. No US dub existing at the time would have also been an added incentive to create a dub on the cheap locally in France.
Possibly, although wasn't part of the reason for Funimation's dub being expensive because of them charging royalties for Faulconer? If this was the case then maybe the Pioneer trilogy wouldn't have cost quite as much, as it didn't have Faulconer.

Either way I'm sure the Pioneer trilogy would have sold much better than the Big Green releases.

Perhaps they got all the Big Green movies as a package deal and it just made sense to air those instead of licensing the Pioneer films from Funimation separately and airing the Big Green dubs for the rest?

God, I can't imagine living in the UK and going from Ocean to Funi back to Ocean to Blue Water to Big Green.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Tue Mar 22, 2022 9:55 am

90sDBZ wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 8:51 am Possibly, although wasn't part of the reason for Funimation's dub being expensive because of them charging royalties for Faulconer? If this was the case then maybe the Pioneer trilogy wouldn't have cost quite as much, as it didn't have Faulconer.

Either way I'm sure the Pioneer trilogy would have sold much better than the Big Green releases.

By the time Toonami UK aired the movies I got the impression they didn't care all that much anymore. If their relationship with Funimation was bad perhaps they could've asked Ocean to do a Westwood dub of the movies. Or even a Blue Water dub with the Calgary cast, as even that would have been a much better option than airing the Big Green dubs.
I'd imagine the Faulconer score was a factor. We know Funimation used it so they could charge royalties for every second it was played, which wasn't the case with Kikuchi because his score had a lot of silence.

As great as a UK release of the Pioneer movies would have been my copy of that old World's Strongest DVD with the Big Green dub is quite sentimental to me as its the first Dragon Ball Z DVD I ever owned that my mam purchased for me in 2004. Of course she did so unaware what dub was on it, but I appreciated the thought, and still own it today for that reason.
MasenkoHA wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 9:19 amGod, I can't imagine living in the UK and going from Ocean to Funi back to Ocean to Blue Water to Big Green.
It was crazy looking back. There was also the incident when Cartoon Network's sister channel CNX launched in 2002 and they aired the Funimation dub a few times before switching back to Ocean and rerunning those episodes again with Ocean's dub.

On a positive note I would say it helped me get into the Japanese version because I was used to different casts playing the characters I loved as I wasn't attached to any one particular Goku having seen so many different takes.
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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by NitroEX » Tue Mar 22, 2022 12:42 pm

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 3:51 am AB never outsourced to Ocean, the Westwood Z and Blue Water dubs were all produced in Canada by Westwood Media.
I wasn't saying AB were producing the Westwood dub, I just meant that they were outsourcing an English dub from elsewhere (in this case, Ocean/Westwood) rather than producing/acquiring it locally in France or continuing to distribute the Funimation dub.

I'm already aware of the other things mentioned.
One last thing I'll add about the Big Green dubs and the emails quoted on these forums the poster who shared them also said in an earlier email he was told "The dub was made by the original owner and not by Bridge". Whether that means TOEI produced the Big Green dubs or Bridge had AB mistaken for "the original owner" we may never know, but as far as I can tell other than whatever research the UKDB people back in the day made this is about as far as anyone's been able to dig.
Interesting. I suspect it's probably the latter as Toei seemed very hands off with the dubs back in those days. Aside from providing the initial footage and soundtracks we know they just supplied Funimation with crude translations and left them to figure it out. The only thing that could be considered evidence of Toei being a producer would be their credit in the Blue Water dubs, but that may have just been a formality or contractual obligation rather than them physically being involved in production. Drummond did once mention something along the lines of having his Vegetto voice approved by the producers but that was likely in reference to Ken Morrison at Ocean, or IPP, or someone other individual involved in the recording and casting of the Westwood dub. I doubt Toei were aware of much of it.

Obviously all this has since changed with Toei setting up operations in the US and Europe.
I don't know if Cartoon Network UK had much of a relationship with Funimation by the time Toonami UK aired the movies and specials.
It seems there was no relationship which makes sense seeing as they were still a smaller company barely holding things together in NA. Aside from Dragon Ball content distributed via AB, we never got any Funimation dubbed or licensed anime on UK CN/Toonami.
90sDBZ wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 8:51 am wasn't part of the reason for Funimation's dub being expensive because of them charging royalties for Faulconer? If this was the case then maybe the Pioneer trilogy wouldn't have cost quite as much, as it didn't have Faulconer.

Either way I'm sure the Pioneer trilogy would have sold much better than the Big Green releases.
For the TV airings AB probably just wanted to get some use out of the Big Green dubs as they evidently couldn't sell the rest of them on home video to either the UK or Netherlands market. It probably wasn't too far from the situation Ocean are in with Kai, once they had a willing vendor in Toonami they leapt at the chance to finally distribute the rest of them and recoup some of their loss. It really should have been Toonami's job to scrutinize the voices and performances before it aired, possibly forcing AB to commission newer dubs instead but it's not like anybody cared to speak up about dub changes on the US Toonami side either.

The interesting thing about Pioneer is that they did seemingly have a relationship with CN UK as we got Tenchi Muyo broadcast here, they had even sold VHS copies of it in the UK at the time so this wasn't a foreign distributor situation like with DBZ and AB. It might've been possible to at least acquire the Pioneer versions of the first three DBZ films for UK TV but the UK CN might not have even been aware they existed, either that or the Big Green versions were just cheaper to air.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by 90sDBZ » Tue Mar 22, 2022 9:10 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 9:19 am God, I can't imagine living in the UK and going from Ocean to Funi back to Ocean to Blue Water to Big Green.
It was nuts in all honesty. We went from Ocean, to Funi, to Ocean, to Funi, to Ocean, to Blue Water, to Big Green. As Dragon Ball Ireland mentioned we had the Fusion saga air with Funi originally only to switch back to Ocean for reruns. The UK/Ireland probably holds the record for most inconsistent DB broadcast.

But at the very least all the US and Canadian dubs made some effort to maintain consistency with each other, all sticking to the same character names and several attack names, although they did differ a little, i.e. Instant Transmission became Instant Translocation, HFIL became Hadies, and some pronunciations varied. Also both the Texas and Calgary casts started out impersonating the Vancouver cast.

When it came to the Big Green dub all consistency with previous broadcasts went out the window. Piccolo was "Big Green", Krillin was "Clearin", Roshi was "The Old One", King Kai was "Majesty", Dragon Balls were Crystal Balls, Saiyans were Super Warriors, and the Spirit Bomb became Kamehameha (as did other techniques).
.
While Ian, Peter, Sean, Kirby, Jeremiah, and Jeffrey all sounded different, it at least felt like they were all playing the same character. David Gasman's Goku sounded nothing like any of them, and basically as un-Goku-like as possible.

As a 12 year old kid watching at the time I honestly couldn't believe Toonami UK cared so little about the fans as to air that dub, and longed to watch the movies with one of the casts I was familiar with.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Mon Mar 28, 2022 6:21 pm

So, something worth noting for better or for worse is that on this day 10 years ago it was finally revealed that the Dragon Ball series would be coming to DVD in the UK and Ireland.

It should be noted that while this day marks the anniversary of said announcement, it had leaked much earlier than that. Fans less than a year earlier noticed a BBFC listing for Dragon Ball Z, which Manga UK were quick to shut down. It's likely with such a massive license on their hands strict NDAs were in place the company had to abide by. Fans of course knew, with such specifics like the number of discs, episodes per disc and special features listed this listing was legit and only a matter of time before it would be revealed publicly.

Prior to the formal announcement Manga UK confirmed via Twitter on 16th March 2012:
Worst kept secret in the anime biz isn't it? Will reveal all at MCM Expo Birmingham on Sat 31t March.
As the aforementioned announcement predates said convention by 3 days, it seems Manga UK knew they wouldn't be able to contain the excitement for a Dragon Ball home release any longer. It was a long time coming, and the DVDs they initially released would become huge sellers despite already being imported in large quantities.

Regardless of how one feels about the orange bricks they were a very lucrative product for Manga UK, and led to the rest of the series, and all the movies and specials that have had releases in other English-speaking countries (with the exception of Path to Power and Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return) being released here. For countries that once only ever had three movies with poorly done English dubs on store shelves, I was happy to see that in only a few years time from Manga UK picking up the series fans could walk into a HMV and have so many more options.

Here's another article published the same day, courtesy of animechronicleuk by Jeremy Graves, at the time a freelance videographer for Manga UK, who went on to be Community Liaison for the company, and then worked his way up to being a Marketing Executive for Anime Limited.

The mention here of a "Malaysian dub cast" can likely be chalked up to Jeremy confusing the Big Green dub with the Speedy dub, but I do appreciate the fact he acknowledged the Ocean Group dubs in this article, as it shows Manga UK were at least aware of them. From what I've heard Manga UK were interested in acquiring the Ocean dubs as extra audio tracks at one point, but were unaware they were edited, which would mean they couldn't sync to uncut footage. The higher-ups wanting a bilingual release for a flagship property shut down the idea.

Since then none of the Ocean dubs have been released on home video here, or even seen the light of day since Dragon Ball's original run on Cartoon Network, CNX and Toonami ended in 2005. Manga UK's announcement was also a good nine years after the closure of the UKDB site I mentioned previously, which may explain another scoop I've heard, that being Manga UK were unaware who owned the Ocean dubs. It is therefore no surprise the company's head at the time Jerome Mazandarani said there were "rights complications" with the Ocean dubs to a friend of mine who asked him if these dubs could be released.

Sadly in the years since UKDB closed much of their research was lost to time and only shared among fans who either owned or frequented the site at the time (sadly I wasn't one of these lucky ones), which has led to misconceptions Manga UK were likewise led to believe, such as AB Groupe producing said dubs. Indeed not only did the UKDB crew uncover the Westwood and Blue Water dubs were in fact produced by Westwood Media, a production arm of Ocean (by extension meaning yes contrary to popular belief Ocean, did, for all intents and purposes produce their own dubs), but more recently a veteran of these forums took the initiative to call Ocean Studios himself and was told by a higher up the company still had all the masters for these dubs and could easily provide them should any distributor be interested in doing a DVD release.

With the successes Manga UK since had with this franchise it is arguably a shame the information about who produced the Ocean dubs wasn't more widely circulating at the time. In theory they could have worked out a deal with Ocean and TOEI to get the Canadian dubs released physically as an independent release that would not need to compete with the season sets, which catered to the two other markets, which no doubt existed among UK and Irish DVD buyers, that being fans of the Japanese version and Funimation's dub.

I certainly would have welcomed a release with all the Ocean dubs and the TV promos recorded over the years as a love letter to UK Dragon Ball fans. I do hope something like this could still become a reality. Manga UK in the last year has undergone two rebrandings, firstly to Funimation on 19th April 2021 and more recently Crunchyroll on 2nd March 2022. The same team still work at the UK office, so I urge anyone that wants the Ocean dubs to be available once again to continue to email, Tweet the company to make your voice heard. It may never happen, but it's always better to try.
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:

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by Ten na nGael » Tue Apr 05, 2022 5:40 am

That's interesting. I don't recall ever actually seeing the Manga UK DVDs in a shop here. Toy shops have started to stock Dragonball stuff, but that's about it.

I remember the Cartoon Network UK dub wasn't that well known when it first started airing here. Took about five or so years before Dragonball became somewhat popular. The oldest form of the Irish fandom came from people watching it by tuning into French national TV in the mid-90s or seeing it on holidays, but that's a minuscule fraction of the fans today.

TG4 were going to dub the original Dragonball at some point, around they same time they started dubbing Justice League Unlimited, but it never went anywhere.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Tue Apr 05, 2022 8:53 am

Ten na nGael wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 5:40 am That's interesting. I don't recall ever actually seeing the Manga UK DVDs in a shop here. Toy shops have started to stock Dragonball stuff, but that's about it.

I remember the Cartoon Network UK dub wasn't that well known when it first started airing here. Took about five or so years before Dragonball became somewhat popular. The oldest form of the Irish fandom came from people watching it by tuning into French national TV in the mid-90s or seeing it on holidays, but that's a minuscule fraction of the fans today.
I'll be honest the only stores here I've ever seen stock Manga UK's home releases were HMV (until it closed around 2015) and Head Records in Liffey Valley for the short time it was open (around 2015/16 I want to say). Haven't seen any DVDs or Blu-Rays in stores since then. I've seen the manga in a number of bookstores, including Eason. Other kinds of merchandise are being sold in Golden Discs now like mugs, notepads and posters. Game stores also tend to have some of the games no matter where you go, but they are the only place I know of outside Dublin that has Dragon Ball stuff rather consistently.

That's really cool, I wasn't aware of any fandoms that existed here prior to Cartoon Network airing the series in 2000. I had seen it a few months prior having briefly lived in America but I thought I was one of the few people who saw it beforehand.
Ten na nGael wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 5:40 am TG4 were going to dub the original Dragonball at some point, around they same time they started dubbing Justice League Unlimited, but it never went anywhere.
I've never heard this before but that's really interesting too. I kinda wish there was an Irish dub of Dragon Ball, although I wouldn't have had the foresight to record it, but it would have been cool to see, especially because I've met people who were unaware we have our own language, Dragon Ball would have been a great introduction for a lot of people. As far as I know the closest things to anime TG4 ever dubbed into Irish were Avatar The Last Airbender and Xiaolin Showdown which were both anime-inspired, as most of their dubs were American cartoons, but great to hear they were at least interested in Dragon Ball at one point, even better if they were willing to dub the original series first rather than going the expected route of doing Z first.
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:

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by Ten na nGael » Thu Apr 07, 2022 5:02 am

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 8:53 am but they are the only place I know of outside Dublin that has Dragon Ball stuff rather consistently.
Yeah outside of Dublin I only really see it in terms of toys at the bigger toy stores or very occasionally I've seen the manga in the bigger bookstores in county towns.
Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 8:53 am That's really cool, I wasn't aware of any fandoms that existed here prior to Cartoon Network airing the series in 2000. I had seen it a few months prior having briefly lived in America but I thought I was one of the few people who saw it beforehand.
It was how myself and a few others got started, just enough French to sort of make out the story. Very rare now though. I watched the Cartonn Network dub for a little while in 1999, but soon after switched to the subs in 2000. It was possible to get them at the Dublin docks like how most people got Commodore and Amiga games.
Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 8:53 am I've never heard this before but that's really interesting too. I kinda wish there was an Irish dub of Dragon Ball, although I wouldn't have had the foresight to record it, but it would have been cool to see, especially because I've met people who were unaware we have our own language, Dragon Ball would have been a great introduction for a lot of people. As far as I know the closest things to anime TG4 ever dubbed into Irish were Avatar The Last Airbender and Xiaolin Showdown which were both anime-inspired, as most of their dubs were American cartoons, but great to hear they were at least interested in Dragon Ball at one point, even better if they were willing to dub the original series first rather than going the expected route of doing Z first.
Most of the problem with dubbing stuff in Irish is actually related to the gender imbalance. The intersection of people with properly fluent Irish and voice acting talent is quite small and heavily skewed toward women, just as Live Action acting is. This was sometimes a problem with the Justice League dub as well where women (e.g. Wonder Woman, Zatana, Hawkgirl, Supergirl, etc) all had distinct voices but you were clearly hearing the same voice again and again with the men. Although I liked how Darkseid used more 19th century grammatical forms (e.g. "Taoi"), it makes me interested in how certain things in Dragonball would have been handled.

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Re: Dragon Ball and the UK.

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Sun May 15, 2022 5:15 am

So with the release of Super Hero not far away I decided to go back through some information about the movies and specials I've been personally cataloguing.

For anyone interested here is all you need to know about any and all releases of the Dragon Ball movies and specials in the UK and Ireland:

Broadcast
Theatrical Releases
Streaming
Home Releases
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:

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