English Dubs Outside of Funi and Ocean

[BeaBumby]

What are your favorite elements and aspects of the more obscure (to the general public) dubs of Dragon Ball? This includes AB Groupe, BLT, Harmony Gold, and any other obscure dub you can think of. Feel free to spread some cheer their way!

[MasenkoHA]

BLT dub is still produced under Funimation. Much like the Ocean dub of season 1 and 2 of Z it's still Funimation's dub.

Anyways, I like the Harmony Gold dub of the movies turned out as well as they possibly could for a tv broadcast dub in the late 80s. Not sure what happened with the actual show and the incoherent mess those 5 episodes turned out to be. Different writers, I guess.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I'd also like to give Harmony Gold credit for casting Barbara Goodson as kid Goku, as she probably gave the best performance out of all actors playing that version of the character in English.

[BeaBumby]

To voice my own opinion, Harmony Gold's dub is very cute to me, if that makes sense.

And anything AB Groupe touches is hilarious

[MasenkoHA]

To voice my own opinion, Harmony Gold's dub is very cute to me, if that makes sense.

There's a very 80s cartoon vibe (which I guess makes sense) in the Harmony Gold dub that makes me think of stuff like like Smurfs and Pup Named Scooby Doo and stuff like that. Not sure if its the recording equipment or style of voice acting but it's kind of charming. I always said Barbara Goodson's performance of Zero/Goku sounds like Masako Nozawa filtered through 80s American cartoons.

[BeaBumby]

To voice my own opinion, Harmony Gold's dub is very cute to me, if that makes sense.

I always said Barbara Goodson's performance of Zero/Goku sounds like Masako Nozawa filtered through 80s American cartoons.

Oh yeah! They changed everyone's names, right? Man, the 80's were different.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Funny how some of the names from the Harmony Gold dub introduced way back in 1989/1990 were carried over and used by FUNimation later on, some of which to this day like Master Roshi, Power Pole, Flying Nimbus.etc and even the infamous General Tao naming for Tao Pai Pai which for some reason got used later on in the Z dub before they went back and altered it to a more closer naming for the OG DB dub.

Also, the initial test dub of DB movie 1 (The one without the random clip from Dragon Ball ep 2 spliced in unlike the released version) in 1994 actually used the Zero name for Goku before being altered to the original name though the other characters had their original names already changed back even then (Yamcha instead of Zedaki, Bulma instead of Lena, Oolong rather than Mao Mao) but it was interesting to see that.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

To voice my own opinion, Harmony Gold's dub is very cute to me, if that makes sense.

I always said Barbara Goodson's performance of Zero/Goku sounds like Masako Nozawa filtered through 80s American cartoons.

Oh yeah! They changed everyone's names, right? Man, the 80's were different.

They did, here are the names they changed:

Goku - Zero
Bulma - Lena
Pilaf - Oculi
Turtle - Tortoise
Oolong - Mao Mao
Pocawatha - Pochawompa
Yamcha - Zedaki
Puar - Squeaker
Krillin - Bongo
Launch - Marilynn
Tenhinhan - Shinto
Korin - Whiskers the Wonder Cat
Grandpa Gohan - Tendor the Great
Crane Hermit - Lord Wu Zu
Taopaipai - General Tao Pei
Shenron - Dragon God
Chaoitzu - Chaozu
Mai - Femina
Senbei Norimaki - Dr. Slump
Akane - Sandy
Taro - Butch
Peasuke - Buddy
Aoi - Lois
Midori - Tammy Lafox

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I always said Barbara Goodson's performance of Zero/Goku sounds like Masako Nozawa filtered through 80s American cartoons.

Oh yeah! They changed everyone's names, right? Man, the 80's were different.

They did, here are the names they changed:

Goku - Zero
Bulma - Lena
Pilaf - Oculi
Turtle - Tortoise
Oolong - Mao Mao
Pocawatha - Pochawompa
Yamcha - Zedaki
Puar - Squeaker
Krillin - Bongo
Launch - Marilynn
Tenhinhan - Shinto
Korin - Whiskers the Wonder Cat
Grandpa Gohan - Tendor the Great
Crane Hermit - Lord Wu Zu
Taopaipai - General Tao Pei
Shenron - Dragon God
Chaoitzu - Chaozu
Mai - Femina
Senbei Norimaki - Dr. Slump
Akane - Sandy
Taro - Butch
Peasuke - Buddy
Aoi - Lois
Midori - Tammy Lafox

You know, some of these actually sound like pretty good name adaptations especially for the time. Others however....not so much. I mean Occuli??? Whiskers the Wonder Cat??? Bongo??? Mao Mao??? XD

[MasenkoHA]

Dragon God isn't really a name change as much as its a translation from Chinese to English.

I don't think the village chief's daughter in Aru village even had a name in the original version. I think HG pulled Pocowhompa out of nowhere and Funimation changed it to Pocowatha

[Soppa Saia People]

i think Mao Mao is just literally a reference to his original Mao Zedong outfit, though they could've done Mao Mao for oolong and Meow Meow for Puar, and i think that would've been cute...

[BeaBumby]

Sooo how screwed up was the dialogue in the Harmony Gold dub lol

Ooh! Also I watched the opening to it, it's neat how they used some footage from the second opening before toei lost it

[ikaos]

Sooo how screwed up was the dialogue in the Harmony Gold dub lol

Ooh! Also I watched the opening to it, it's neat how they used some footage from the second opening before toei lost it

I'm just gonna leave this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PBT4nCXew0

[BeaBumby]

Sooo how screwed up was the dialogue in the Harmony Gold dub lol

Ooh! Also I watched the opening to it, it's neat how they used some footage from the second opening before toei lost it

I'm just gonna leave this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PBT4nCXew0

Wow that's
that's quite the dialogue

[AlexSketchy04]

Sooo how screwed up was the dialogue in the Harmony Gold dub lol

Ooh! Also I watched the opening to it, it's neat how they used some footage from the second opening before toei lost it

I'm just gonna leave this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PBT4nCXew0

Imagine that Harmony Gold had continued the dub, and got the chance to change Gohan's name to "Tendor" or "Uno"

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Hopefully one day we'll see the Animax dub. It covered all of OG Dragon Ball but no one seems to know where recordings can be found (I asked the guy who played adult Goku, even he didn't know). Piccolo is apparently referred to as "Lord Piccolo" so it could be a rather faithful dub.

[Mr.Poot]

Hopefully one day we'll see the Animax dub. It covered all of OG Dragon Ball but no one seems to know where recordings can be found (I asked the guy who played adult Goku, even he didn't know). Piccolo is apparently referred to as "Lord Piccolo" so it could be a rather faithful dub.

If I had to guess it's probably sitting in Toei's archives and won't be seeing the light of day anytime soon.

[Mr.Poot]

There's also the rumored Frontier Enterprises dub of The Legend of Shenlong the only evidence of it even existing being a voice actor claiming to have been in a Dragon Ball dub in 1987.

[BeaBumby]

Hopefully one day we'll see the Animax dub. It covered all of OG Dragon Ball but no one seems to know where recordings can be found (I asked the guy who played adult Goku, even he didn't know). Piccolo is apparently referred to as "Lord Piccolo" so it could be a rather faithful dub.

If I had a nickel for every time there was an extremely rare animax dub of something I'm a fan of, I'd have two nickels
Which isn't a lot but it's weird how that happened twice, right?

[Wrigglything]

If memory serves me right, I remember watching Bleach, Fairy Tail and Ranma 1/2 dubbed in English when I had the chance to watch Animax. I think all were done for Animax but I can only find proof for the latter two having dubs for Animax.
Trust me, go to the lost media wiki and search for Animax lost dubs. It is quite the rabbit hole and gives you a 101 on Asian English dubs.
But back to topic, from what little I've heard from the Bang Zoom dub, Michael McConnohie's performance as King Kai was quite good, and I think could be my definitive voice for King Kai, though I need to hear from him more.