Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" Dub Turns 16; Still Unreleased

[NinjaGoku]

In the interest of transparency, and because enough time has passed, I'm pretty sure we had someone contact us and request any mentions of his announcement be removed. Not even on the website-proper, mind you ('cuz I don't think we talked about it there?), but in other folks' conversations here on the forum.

I didn't comply, because I'm not in the business of removing valid conversations made with legitimate announcements from the horse's mouth.

(And that's only ONE EXAMPLE of people contacting us and requesting your conversations be edited based on publicly-available and publicly-stated information. Let no-one say VegettoEX doesn't fight for your right to party.)

VegettoEX, not only are you the founder, but you are the HERO of this forum, never forget that!

[Blade]

I just think that when you start to censor people's ability to discuss already-available things at the behest of going concerns you set an ugly precedent.

Kanzenshuu sure as heck wouldn't be the number one Dragonball fan site in my eyes if Mike & co bent to that sort of thing.

[Super Sayian Prime]

In the interest of transparency, and because enough time has passed, I'm pretty sure we had someone contact us and request any mentions of his announcement be removed. Not even on the website-proper, mind you ('cuz I don't think we talked about it there?), but in other folks' conversations here on the forum.

I didn't comply, because I'm not in the business of removing valid conversations made with legitimate announcements from the horse's mouth.

(And that's only ONE EXAMPLE of people contacting us and requesting your conversations be edited based on publicly-available and publicly-stated information. Let no-one say VegettoEX doesn't fight for your right to party.)

Do you remember when this happened? Tockar has "officially" announced his involvement with this dub twice. One was last year, but the other was years ago. I recall the latter causing some issues. Tockar deleted the post, and a few fan sites received notices from someone who claimed to represent him.

[jelleline89]

In the interest of transparency, and because enough time has passed, I'm pretty sure we had someone contact us and request any mentions of his announcement be removed. Not even on the website-proper, mind you ('cuz I don't think we talked about it there?), but in other folks' conversations here on the forum.

I didn't comply, because I'm not in the business of removing valid conversations made with legitimate announcements from the horse's mouth.

(And that's only ONE EXAMPLE of people contacting us and requesting your conversations be edited based on publicly-available and publicly-stated information. Let no-one say VegettoEX doesn't fight for your right to party.)

Could have easily been a troll.

Unless proof was provided that they were who they claimed to be, this really isn't noteworthy. What voice actor would bother coming to the forums and asking such a thing? It's hardly professional for them to do that.

While I so believe someone contacted you, I don't believe for a second they were actually who they claimed to be.

[VegettoEX]

Lots of voice actors have done some pretty unprofessional things on forums, blogs, and podcasts.

For what it's worth, I didn't say the person was Tockar, themselves. Super Saiyan Prime detailed the situation just fine.

That all being said, I could write a pretty hysterical book about the phone conversations I've had over the years, though (and probably will).

But let's not let this drive the conversation TOO MUCH off track . What's said is said and the Internet doesn't forget. I say this for voice actors, all of you, and even myself.

[TVfan721]

Is it possible that this was never released because maybe, just maybe, the quality was shit? None of us have seen it, and it's entirely possible that it was at the same level of quality as the Westwood Dub which may be why Toei didn't want it released.

[NitroEX]

Is it possible that this was never released because maybe, just maybe, the quality was shit? None of us have seen it, and it's entirely possible that it was at the same level of quality as the Westwood Dub which may be why Toei didn't want it released.

You might not have liked the Westwood dub but, as someone who's seen all of it in it's entirety, I can assure the quality of it was of a professional standard for the time and not "shit" like you are implying. Considering they had a rushed TV schedule, multiple directors and other shows to record at the time I'd say it turned out pretty good actually, especially when you compare it to Funimation's first attempts and the Big Green dubs of the same era.

If Ocean had gotten the opportunity to re record and essentially George Lucas their dub like Funimation's remastered version then I'm sure it would have been the overall better version in terms of acting. I stand by the opinion that McNeil, Drummond, Swaile, Dobson, Weseluck and Don Brown were a few examples of performers who were already giving consistently good performances in that dub and, in many cases, outdoing their Funi counterparts at the time.

Ocean already have a track record of good dubs dating back to the 90s and many DBZ fans still consider their '98 movie dubs to be of superior quality to FUnimation's so it's absurd to think that all of a sudden they'd produce a bad Kai dub that's of worse quality than Big Green.

Also, it's worth mentioning that Toei have hired Ocean more recently to dub another anime called World Trigger so I highly doubt they'd rehire a company who were bad at their jobs.

[Super Sayian Prime]

If Toei wants to hold people to quality control, maybe they should look at their own productions first.

[kei17]

Is it possible that this was never released because maybe, just maybe, the quality was shit? None of us have seen it, and it's entirely possible that it was at the same level of quality as the Westwood Dub which may be why Toei didn't want it released.

I highly doubt this hypothesis myself, but maybe it's because of the too many changes they made, such as the musical score, sound effects, opening theme, and so on. Recently, Toei seem to have been trying to enhance their control over foreign dubs, so there's a possibility that they once allowed Ocean to do it freely, but later rejected it. Again, I don't think this is likely, but this idea crossed my mind.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Toei Allowed Glitter Force and Digimon Fusion. Believe me, they dont care about dubbing quality or faithfulness to the original product.

[kei17]

Toei Allowed Glitter Force and Digimon Fusion. Believe me, they dont care about dubbing quality or faithfulness to the original product.

I thought they're "trying to enhance their control over foreign dubs" because since BoG, they started forcing their own English theme songs on overseas licensees when it comes to the DB franchise. I do agree that they still don't give a shit about quality control in general, but with the existence of an already faithful English dub, they might have thought that another version dubbed in the same language with more unnecessary changes (to them) was unacceptable and decided to push the FUNi dub.

I'm just talking about a faint possibility. Don't take this idea seriously.

[eledoremassis02]

I honestly wonder if there is some problem between FUNI, TOEI and Ocean that's jamming both Ocean Kai, Buu Kai and Super. It seems really odd they all seemed stalled for some reason.

[jelleline89]

Toei Allowed Glitter Force and Digimon Fusion. Believe me, they dont care about dubbing quality or faithfulness to the original product.

Yet they were pretty strict with how Viz Media produced their dub of Sailor Moon, what's your point? Just because Toei allows some of their products to be edited more than others, but I wouldn't be surprised whatsoever if they took a different stance towards the editing of their arguably most popular franchise.

For example, Toei recently stopped letting FUNimation cover One Piece openings and endings with an English Dub when before they were allowed to. This shows that Toei can change its mind and influence how one of their properties is produced.

[B]

Yet they were pretty strict with how Viz Media produced their dub of Sailor Moon, what's your point?

Sailor Moon was originally a manga series, and the author has final say and control over many aspects of how adaptations are handled or even if they exist. Precure and Digimon are Toei originals that they can do what they want with, unfortunately.

And yes, Dragon Ball is also an adaptation, but Toriyama is not Sailor Moon's author in regards to authoritative quality control. Evolution left him with egg all over his face.

[Mewzard]

For example, Toei recently stopped letting FUNimation cover One Piece openings and endings with an English Dub when before they were allowed to. This shows that Toei can change its mind and influence how one of their properties is produced.

But was that a Toei decision, or a FUNimation decision? I remember FUNimation stopped dubbing Detective Conan OPs as well. Was that an editorial mandate from from the powers that be in Japan? Or FUNi just deciding to do some cost-cutting?

Toei may be doing some quality control for select popular series, but it's hard to say. Is that the reason? Did the Ocean dub just take too long to reach the point of release, and FUNi released in too many markets for the Ocean dub to make any sense? Did something behind the scenes fall apart, so we're left with little more than fragments of what will never be?

Hard to say. We may never know. We may never see the Ocean dub of Kai.

[NitroEX]

Did the Ocean dub just take too long to reach the point of release, and FUNi released in too many markets for the Ocean dub to make any sense? Did something behind the scenes fall apart, so we're left with little more than fragments of what will never be?

Hard to say. We may never know. We may never see the Ocean dub of Kai.

We know that the actors did what they needed to do and voiced their roles to completion, the same is true for the editors and musicians as well since all the episodes were approved by the CRTC. Point is, Ocean aren't a company known for having things "fall apart" behind the scenes so there's no reason to believe incompetence was the case here.

I personally blame the television networks in Canada. This dub was a made for TV product so the only one's who could be barring it from entry are the networks themselves. I'd be inclined to put some of the blame on Funimation as well but let's be honest, they never intended to sell a home release of this dub. They're probably glad it never came out tbh.

[Mewzard]

We know that the actors did what they needed to do and voiced their roles to completion, the same is true for the editors and musicians as well since all the episodes were approved by the CRTC. Point is, Ocean aren't a company known for having things "fall apart" behind the scenes so there's no reason to believe incompetence was the case here.

I personally blame the television networks in Canada. This dub was a made for TV product so the only one's who could be barring it from entry are the networks themselves. I'd be inclined to put some of the blame on Funimation as well but let's be honest, they never intended to sell a home release of this dub. They're probably glad it never came out tbh.

I wasn't implying things on their end due to incompetence, but more disagreements in the background, contract issues, etc. All it takes sometimes is a little issue for everything to fall apart (especially if Toei is legitimately getting touchy about how to handle Dragon Ball and such).

[NitroEX]

I wasn't implying things on their end due to incompetence, but more disagreements in the background, contract issues, etc. All it takes sometimes is a little issue for everything to fall apart (especially if Toei is legitimately getting touchy about how to handle Dragon Ball and such).

I can believe that Toei were the ones responsible for prevented the UK from getting the Ocean dub but I don't believe it had anything to do with quality nor do I believe they'd stop this dub from airing in Canada due to broken NDAs. Both of those assumptions seem very out of character for a (previously negligent) company like Toei not to mention the fact that they chose to rehire Ocean to dub World Trigger after the fact, it just doesn't add up to me.

The whole Kix situation will probably remain a mystery as to why Toei prevented them from using this dub but it could possibly have had something to do with Manga UK releasing the orange bricks around that same time, I could somewhat understand them wanting to keep some vocal consistency in that case but even then it's a stretch. If that wasn't the case then perhaps the Ocean dub just wasn't complete in late 2012 and Toei went with a dub that was. As far as I'm aware they used the Funi (Kai) dub for some asian territories so it's not hard to imagine that being the case for the UK as well.

Until further evidence surfaces saying otherwise I'm just going to stick with Canadian networks being the main roadblock for this dub now, especially since we know it's complete and ready to go.

[TheBlackPaladin]

For example, Toei recently stopped letting FUNimation cover One Piece openings and endings with an English Dub when before they were allowed to. This shows that Toei can change its mind and influence how one of their properties is produced.

But was that a Toei decision, or a FUNimation decision? I remember FUNimation stopped dubbing Detective Conan OPs as well. Was that an editorial mandate from from the powers that be in Japan? Or FUNi just deciding to do some cost-cutting?

Neither, technically. One Piece gets most of its opening songs from bands and singers signed to the Japanese record label Avex Trax, who decided a few years ago that they were no longer going to authorize the dubbing of any of the music that they own the rights to. So, not only did FUNimation stop dubbing the OPs, but so did every other country that was previously dubbing them. Even Germany, who is much, much farther along with their dub than FUNimation is and dubbed more OPs than FUNimation, ceased dubbing them.

Dragon Ball, conversely, gets most of their OPs (and EDs) from Columbia Records. However, I have theorized that perhaps they gave the same mandate that Avex did, and that that's why we've been seeing all these "Engrish" songs as of late (the international version of the Buu-Kai arc, Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, etc.).

[NitroEX]

This might be slightly off topic but I figured it was worth noting. I discovered through my twitter feed that Ocean previously dubbed an anime pilot for TV back in 1995, this is part of the intro for it. Fun fact: the instrumental being sung over in that clip was a track that was later used by the Westwood dub of DBZ, if you don't believe me go and check the opening narration of episode 159 (Puzzle of General Tao) or 157 (A New Guardian) and you'll hear the same song.

Anyway the series was called Magic Knight Rayearth. According to these sources Ocean also dubbed at least 12 episodes of the show but ultimately the TV deal for it fell through. The show was later dubbed (I presume) in full by another studio but the Ocean version has never been released publicly.

So it seems it isn't a new thing for Ocean dubbed anime to go unseen, much like their dub of Kai. Since no further measures were taken to get their dub of MKR seen on television at the time I suspect Kai may also have suffered the same fate of a TV deal gone wrong. MKR does appear to be getting some form of release by DIscotek Media who, as of now have released a lot of Ocean's anime library, but since Funimation have a tight grip on all things DBZ and Kai I've come to the conclusion that it'll probably never be released.

And on that depressing note, Merry Christmas.