Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" Dub Turns 15; Still Unreleased

[Scsigs]

Boo Kai was effectively sold as a separate series anyway, much like Super. Whatever contracts they had in place for the original Kai wouldn't have automatically granted them permission to dub the second batch, even if they wanted to it probably wasn't that simple.

And, if we look at other longrunning shows FUNi or any other company dubs, they still have to license episodes in batches due to how the companies sell them, as well as needing the funds to do so, so it's definitely a different contract that they have to strike up for it.

[MasenkoHA]

Boo Kai was effectively sold as a separate series anyway, much like Super. Watever contracts they had in place for the original Kai wouldn't have automatically granted them permission to dub the second batch, even if they wanted to it probably wasn't that simple.

Do we know how exactly Ocean got the rights to dub Kai 1.0? Was it whatever allowed them to dub the rest of Z without Funimation?

[TheBlackPaladin]

Boo Kai was effectively sold as a separate series anyway, much like Super. Watever contracts they had in place for the original Kai wouldn't have automatically granted them permission to dub the second batch, even if they wanted to it probably wasn't that simple.

Do we know how exactly Ocean got the rights to dub Kai 1.0? Was it whatever allowed them to dub the rest of Z without Funimation?

Add that to the pile of mysteries around this dub. Either way, it seems to be a consistent occurrence throughout the production of English dubs of Dragon Ball material that there's always a "mainstream" dub done by FUNimation, and an "alternative" dub done by someone else. Further adding to the weirdness factor is that the alternative dubs have always cost more to produce (in terms of actor rates, anyway, maybe they saved money in some other department) than FUNimation's mainstream dub. Even the Bang-Zoom dub of Super, which was non-union just like the FUNimation dub, had a higher rate for their actors.

[MasenkoHA]

Boo Kai was effectively sold as a separate series anyway, much like Super. Watever contracts they had in place for the original Kai wouldn't have automatically granted them permission to dub the second batch, even if they wanted to it probably wasn't that simple.

Do we know how exactly Ocean got the rights to dub Kai 1.0? Was it whatever allowed them to dub the rest of Z without Funimation?

Add that to the pile of mysteries around this dub. Either way, it seems to be a consistent occurrence throughout the production of English dubs of Dragon Ball material that there's always a "mainstream" dub done by FUNimation, and an "alternative" dub done by someone else. Further adding to the weirdness factor is that the alternative dubs have always cost more to produce (in terms of actor rates, anyway, maybe they saved money in some other department) than FUNimation's mainstream dub. Even the Bang-Zoom dub of Super, which was non-union just like the FUNimation dub, had a higher rate for their actors.

I’m not going to even pretend to be knowledgeable on this sort of thing but I imagine for at least the Westwood dub Ocean saved money by 1. Using their own stock music instead of licensing the Team Faulconer score from Funimation or making all brand new music 2. Using Funimation’s scripts (which we know Ocean still helped with even during the in-house Funi days since Terry Klassen and Ward Perry were still staff writers) thereby saving the need to hire writers

[NitroEX]

Do we know how exactly Ocean got the rights to dub Kai 1.0? Was it whatever allowed them to dub the rest of Z without Funimation?

I doubt we'll ever know for sure but maybe it was a leftover 'use it or lose it' type clause in their contracts with Funimation. They were still working with them on Funi's version of Kai so that partnership was still somewhat in effect when the Ocean dub started production around 2009-2010. I could speculate about it all day but at this point I doubt they still have the rights to produce more DB dubs and even if they did the Kai 1.0 situation probably clued them in that it wasn't a good idea to do any more.

Further adding to the weirdness factor is that the alternative dubs have always cost more to produce (in terms of actor rates, anyway, maybe they saved money in some other department) than FUNimation's mainstream dub. Even the Bang-Zoom dub of Super, which was non-union just like the FUNimation dub, had a higher rate for their actors.

To me, that's more a reflection of Funimation's practices rather than anything weird going on with the other dubs.

[Scsigs]

Do we know how exactly Ocean got the rights to dub Kai 1.0? Was it whatever allowed them to dub the rest of Z without Funimation?

From what I've heard, it was because AB Groupe didn't wanna license the FUNi dub because it was too much money for them to do so, so they contracted Ocean to do it, which, since they were already helping FUNi with translation & scripting their dub, they just reused their scripts with somme minor alterations. As for Kai, it might've been the same thing, but, as we saw with Super's alternate dub, Toei might've contracted them to dub it for the European & Canadian markets, but then changed their minds at some point afterwards.

This is what I originally typed for Kai because I thought you were talking about dubbing that before seeing your later responses.

To speculate, some shit must've went down behind the scenes. Kai having a Canadian dub is...interesting because I didn't think they'd do it because I thought FUNi's cast had become the definitive English voice cast at this point. Unless I'm mistaken, don't Dragon Ball games released in English-speaking countries outside of North America have the English dubs on them, or are they Japanese language-only? So, I was surprised to hear several years ago that they DID dub it in Canada. However, it's weird that it was seemingly dubbed in Canada for that market & the European market as an alternative to FUNi's dub, but has never made it off the hard drives at Ocean, despite apparently being ready to go. This signals to me that, at first, they couldn't find a TV network wanting to air it, or were waiting for a network to contact THEM, possibly after someone sent a word out so they'd know.

However, there's a more cynical view I have too that either FUNimation, but probably more likely Toei, wanted the international airings of the show in English to standardize the cast to the FUNi cast, as they've dubbed the most material out of every English-language casts that have come about & have remained largely consistent, as well as having gotten better over time at dubbing the material in both translations & scripts, as well as acting & directing performances. It makes sense from a marketing perspective, even if it'd piss off older fans. Outside of Singapore, or some other smaller markets where the people natively speak English in Asia, no other properties have to deal with this problem of so many dubs in different countries in the same language. I'm assuming that prices of exporting American dubs from FUNi got lower over time as well, since other dubs from the have made it to the UK on DVD & BR. Business stuff like this may be hard to swallow, but this is most likely what happened.

In terms of dubbing TFC, I remember reading someone say that the Mexican Spanish dub HAD to dub & air TFC on TV before dubbing Super, which explains why FUNi took so long to announce either's dubs, despite us knowing they dubbed TFC years prior & had started dubbing Super already (since Toonami was airing the first 98 episodes of Kai, they had to broadcast those episodes before getting to TFC as well). I remember Mayumi Tanaka had posted to her blog that they had started recording ore episodes of Kai, which we now know as TFC, back in 2013 that was intended just for the international market, but since aired in Japan when they needed a quick replacement for Toriko after it got cancelled, or they'd lose the timeslot due to how Japanese TV station timeslots work. I assume that Super airing alongside TFC a half hour later was enough of a loophole that Toei was fine with it, especially since the dub of Super was already starting later than it should've & TFC should've aired by then. Since Ocean's never dubbed Super, nor does it seem like they're going to, & their dub of Kai isn't going to air, there's no reason to dub it, especially since it's a separate licensing deal & would cost more money for no revenue. It's all having to deal with business.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Unless I'm mistaken, don't Dragon Ball games released in English-speaking countries outside of North America have the English dubs on them, or are they Japanese language-only?

It varies, but for the most part, Dragon Ball games released outside of Japan--even in European territories where the English dub never aired on TV and was ever sold on DVD--have both the original Japanese audio track and the English dub available as options. Every once in a while the games will be Japanese-only, but for the most part it's both. To date, Japanese and English are the only audio tracks recorded for the video games. So no German dub, French dub, Spanish dub etc. for the video games whatsoever. Just subtitle tracks.

I asked about why that is, and was told that European video game distributors are a little more conservative with which games get dubs in the local languages because in many cases they don't find it necessary given that English is considered "the unofficial international language." That's not to say European video game releases don't ever get dubs in the various European languages, that most definitely has happened and continues to happen--especially with high-budget, story-driven games--but action-oriented games that aren't mega-sellers typically don't get dubs.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Do we know how exactly Ocean got the rights to dub Kai 1.0? Was it whatever allowed them to dub the rest of Z without Funimation?

Do we know for sure dubbing companies need legal rights to dub any Dragon Ball material, other than getting TOEI's approval? After all, we know no company like Funimation can have exclusive TV or streaming rights, and all they can lock down is home video. It would also be in TOEI's best interest to have different versions in the same language because they profit from all of them anyway.

[90sDBZ]

Unless I'm mistaken, don't Dragon Ball games released in English-speaking countries outside of North America have the English dubs on them, or are they Japanese language-only?

In the UK we got the Japanese voices for Ultimate Battle 22, Final Bout, and Budokai 1. Starting with Budokai 2 our games have all used Funimation's dub, with the exception of Super Dragon ball Z which was Japanese voices only for some reason, and DB Advanced Adventure which came out here a year ahead of the US release.

Most of the games since Budokai 3 Collectors Edition have included the option to switch to Japanese, although Tenkaichi Tag Team was dub only.

There was a strange case with the UK release of the HD Budokai Collection, which for some reason had Budokai 1 as sub only, but Budokai 3 with dub and sub.

It's also interesting to note that all games since Xenoverse 1 have defaulted to the Japanese voices, with the dub available to switch too.

[MasenkoHA]

Do we know how exactly Ocean got the rights to dub Kai 1.0? Was it whatever allowed them to dub the rest of Z without Funimation?

Do we know for sure dubbing companies need legal rights to dub any Dragon Ball material, other than getting TOEI's approval? After all, we know no company like Funimation can have exclusive TV or streaming rights, and all they can lock down is home video. It would also be in TOEI's best interest to have different versions in the same language because they profit from all of them anyway.

Sure but it never sounded like Ocean licensed Dragon Ball Kai and it didn’t sound like AB Groupe had any involvement this time not even as a distributor.


For their alternative dubs for Dragon Ball, GT, and the second half of Z it sounded like it had something to do with AB Groupe having distribution rights in Europe and contacting Ocean to make an alternative English dub.

[Scsigs]

There was a strange case with the UK release of the HD Budokai Collection, which for some reason had Budokai 1 as sub only, but Budokai 3 with dub and sub.

The reverse is also true for NA. We had dub-only for Budokai 1 for some reason. Did you guys at least get a better subtitle track for the JP audio? I heard there were some weird translation choices for the original releases of it.

[NitroEX]

I don't care to remember the specifics of each company's history but I do know that the games were released under different publishers prior to some sort of merger which helps explain the regional differences of the Budokai series and Final Bout. Bandai released them for Japan and Europe while Atari released the American and later Australian games (I believe Australia also got Bandai versions until Budokai 2). Funimation were also involved in the North American releases as their company logo was printed on the box art, I would assume they had a hand in the localization of the American games compared to the Europe versions which retained the Japanese intro vocals and Japanese cast for the earlier games.

[Scsigs]

I don't care to remember the specifics of each company's history but I do know that the games were released under different publishers prior to some sort of merger which helps explain the regional differences of the Budokai series and Final Bout. Bandai released them for Japan and Europe while Atari released the American and later Australian games (I believe Australia also got Bandai versions until Budokai 2). Funimation were also involved in the North American releases as their company logo was printed on the box art, I would assume they had a hand in the localization of the American games compared to the Europe versions which retained the Japanese intro vocals and Japanese cast for the earlier games.

I mean, of course FUNimation's logo was on them. They were the company dubbing the games.

[NitroEX]

I mean, of course FUNimation's logo was on them. They were the company dubbing the games.

I know that, but Final Bout (US) obviously didn't use their cast, it was outsourced to an LA studio which leads some to believe it was the game publisher rather than Funimation. When it came to the Budokai games they had the means to dub them in-house but that clearly wasn't the case yet for Final Bout. Despite not directly localizing it the style is still reminiscent of early Funimation localization, notably removing the Japanese intro song for Final Bout, and later only using instrumental tracks for later Budokai and Tenkaichi games.

[90sDBZ]

There was a strange case with the UK release of the HD Budokai Collection, which for some reason had Budokai 1 as sub only, but Budokai 3 with dub and sub.

The reverse is also true for NA. We had dub-only for Budokai 1 for some reason. Did you guys at least get a better subtitle track for the JP audio? I heard there were some weird translation choices for the original releases of it.

It still had the weird translations, with Vegeta screaming "You auntsallies!" after Cell kills Trunks, and Goku calling Nappa and Vegeta "meanies!". The only correction I noticed was when Goku and Gohan come out of the Time Chamber. The PS2 version had Tien say "I sense Goku and his friends ki", while the HD version changed it to "I sense Goku and his son's ki", which is still odd as Tien knows Gohan's name.

I remember there being controversy over the censorship from the PAL PS2 version carrying over to both the PAL and NTSC PS3 versions. Stuff like the hole in Goku's chest being altered to remove blood. This proves that both the PAL and NTSC PS3 versions started out under the same development, only to diverge later on. I believe the US release retained Rock the Dragon as the opening, while our release had the same generic intro as our PS2 version (minus Yamamoto's music).

Perhaps they just really wanted the re-release to be true to the PS2 versions of the respective regions. But then again the US PS2 version never had censorship so who knows.

[Robo4900]

Boo Kai was effectively sold as a separate series anyway, much like Super. Watever contracts they had in place for the original Kai wouldn't have automatically granted them permission to dub the second batch, even if they wanted to it probably wasn't that simple.

Do we know how exactly Ocean got the rights to dub Kai 1.0? Was it whatever allowed them to dub the rest of Z without Funimation?

Add that to the pile of mysteries around this dub. Either way, it seems to be a consistent occurrence throughout the production of English dubs of Dragon Ball material that there's always a "mainstream" dub done by FUNimation, and an "alternative" dub done by someone else. Further adding to the weirdness factor is that the alternative dubs have always cost more to produce (in terms of actor rates, anyway, maybe they saved money in some other department) than FUNimation's mainstream dub. Even the Bang-Zoom dub of Super, which was non-union just like the FUNimation dub, had a higher rate for their actors.

The reality of this is that Toei are perfectly willing to sell licenses to produce alternate dubs to whoever wants to. It's just that simple.

I’m not going to even pretend to be knowledgeable on this sort of thing but I imagine for at least the Westwood dub Ocean saved money by 1. Using their own stock music instead of licensing the Team Faulconer score from Funimation or making all brand new music 2. Using Funimation’s scripts (which we know Ocean still helped with even during the in-house Funi days since Terry Klassen and Ward Perry were still staff writers) thereby saving the need to hire writers

This notion falls down when one considers that GT was gearing up to use the original Japanese score and have newly-written scripts from the beginning, meaning that if Ken Morrison hadn't decided to try to make Calgary's Blue Water studio work, we would have got a Vancouver-recorded version of GT with the Japanese music and entirely original scripts.

Budget was never the reason for the stock music or reused scripts, it was a matter of convenience and speed.
It's worth noting that the Westwood dub of DB initially used Funi's already-existent scripts as a base, but carried out varying levels of rewrites. As the dub went on, the amount of rewrites increased; by about the mid-Red Ribbon arc, the dialogue was mostly original, and far closer to the Japanese dialogue than Funi's dub.

From what I've heard, it was because AB Groupe didn't wanna license the FUNi dub because it was too much money for them to do so, so they contracted Ocean to do it, which, since they were already helping FUNi with translation & scripting their dub, they just reused their scripts with somme minor alterations. As for Kai, it might've been the same thing, but, as we saw with Super's alternate dub, Toei might've contracted them to dub it for the European & Canadian markets, but then changed their minds at some point afterwards.

AB Groupe only ever acted as a distributor. Ocean produced this dub themselves through their production arm, Westwood Media. It's probable that the only reason they produced the alternate dub is because they reached an agreement with AB Groupe that would benefit both of them (probably Ocean charged AB less than Funi charged for episodes, and naturally it was good for Ocean to earn money from licensing a dub they were producing), and I realise that's kinda what you're saying anyway, but it's important to not overstate AB's involvement here, as many do.

To speculate, some shit must've went down behind the scenes. Kai having a Canadian dub is...interesting because I didn't think they'd do it because I thought FUNi's cast had become the definitive English voice cast at this point.

In 2011, Ocean had only been off the air in the UK and Canada for a few years, so it's not really that shocking, and Funi weren't particularly more special for having been on the video games.

Do we know for sure dubbing companies need legal rights to dub any Dragon Ball material, other than getting TOEI's approval? After all, we know no company like Funimation can have exclusive TV or streaming rights, and all they can lock down is home video. It would also be in TOEI's best interest to have different versions in the same language because they profit from all of them anyway.

This is exactly what I've been getting at that people seem to not understand; there's no exclusivity to these dubbing agreements, so there's no reason Ocean or Bang Zoom or whoever can't just get their own license from Toei to do a new dub.

As for "locking down" home video, Funi can only do that because they're the only company who owns the rights to do Dragon Ball home video in the USA. Probably that is exclusive, or at the very least Toei would be potentially doing a lot of harm to their business if they did it non-exclusively. Meanwhile, as you note, "TV or streaming rights" aren't something a production company can just have, it's a matter of streaming and TV companies acquiring a license to broadcast this stuff.

So, yes. You're absolutely right, and I don't really understand why so many people fail to understand this.

The reverse is also true for NA. We had dub-only for Budokai 1 for some reason. Did you guys at least get a better subtitle track for the JP audio? I heard there were some weird translation choices for the original releases of it.

The PAL PS2 version used a translation of the Japanese dialogue. The NTSC PS2 version adjusted this dialogue to allow for better dubbing of the cutscenes (but also, because it's Funi, they made some weird changes to the lines). The subtitles in the NTSC version match the dub dialogue, so yes, the PAL version does have a better subtitle track. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the PS3 version uses the NTSC dub subtitles regardless of whether you're playing in Japanese or English.

[MasenkoHA]

This notion falls down when one considers that GT was gearing up to use the original Japanese score and have newly-written scripts from the beginning, meaning that if Ken Morrison hadn't decided to try to make Calgary's Blue Water studio work, we would have got a Vancouver-recorded version of GT with the Japanese music and entirely original scripts.

Using the original Japanese score is likely cheaper than producing their own original score. I know Funimation had used some bs excuse that keeping the music cost too much but if something as hastily and cheaply thrown together as their Sleeping Princess dub could retain the score that just doesn’t add up. If recycling the Berring score would have been cheaper than retaining the Japanese score Funimation absolutely would have done it for their dub of Sleeping Princess.

Of course I don’t think Blue Water/Ocean kept the Japanese score for DB and GT to be cheap I think they kept it because unlike pre-2007 Funimation they don’t see a point in replacing music just to make extra money/don’t trust the source material to appeal to the target audience.


And sure they were now writing their own scripts for GT (and Dragon Ball by Red Ribbon) but they also cut cost by switching from their Vancouver studio to their budget friendly studio in Calgary.

Of course we don’t have the numbers but I’d be very surprised if at least their dub of GT didn’t cost less than Funimation’s.

And really what does that say about Funimation if Ocean/Blue Water could produce a better quality dub for less money?

[TheBlackPaladin]

Using the original Japanese score is likely cheaper than producing their own original score.

Other way around, actually. Especially in that case. Gen Fukunaga said in an interview that they stood to gain from the replaced score, since they could charge royalties for every second of the new score's usage. One of several reasons the replaced score was heard non-stop in the DBZ and GT dubs.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Replacement scores make dubs more profitable because of royalties, so even if using the Kikuchi score was cheaper from day one Funimation still would have been better off using the Faulconer score. Artistically it wasn't the best decision in retrospect, but from a business perspective it made sense. Though, why they didn't use a replacement score for OG DB when they got around to dubbing it inhouse, is anyone's guess.

If anything Ocean's decision to use the original scores for OG DB and GT in the Blue Water dubs was admirable because they put making a good product over easy money, especially in their case because they had such a vast library to choose from.

Not saying the decision to replace the score in Kai was a cash grab though. For all we know Ocean might have gotten wind of Yamamoto's plagiarism early on, or there may be a version with Kikuchi's score that was intended for the UK and other markets. Either way this dub will have a replacement score, so all that will matter is whether Keenlyside and Mitchell's score is better or worse than how the Kikuchi Kai track would have hypothetically sounded with the Ocean cast's performances.

[MasenkoHA]

Using the original Japanese score is likely cheaper than producing their own original score.

Other way around, actually. Especially in that case. Gen Fukunaga said in an interview that they stood to gain from the replaced score, since they could charge royalties for every second of the new score's usage. One of several reasons the replaced score was heard non-stop in the DBZ and GT dubs.

Again it is cheaper to keep the score. It was just more profitable to use their own score for royalties.


You have to spend money to make money mindset