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

[8000 Saiyan]

It depends on what the area of struggle is. One of the interesting things about dubs is that the actors are the least influential in how a dub is handled, but the most influential in how a dub is remembered.

What I mean by that is that their efforts may be the most immediately identifiable, but there's only so much they can do if the director has no clue what they're doing, or if the script is poorly adapted, or if the translators didn't come up with a particularly good translation, or if the producers have made an effort to ignore the original material and "re-version" the show rather than faithfully dub it...or, in some particularly bad cases, a combination of all four.

What if the ADR tools aren't very good? I've heard that they can cause some awkwardness.

[TheBlackPaladin]

It depends on what the area of struggle is. One of the interesting things about dubs is that the actors are the least influential in how a dub is handled, but the most influential in how a dub is remembered.

What I mean by that is that their efforts may be the most immediately identifiable, but there's only so much they can do if the director has no clue what they're doing, or if the script is poorly adapted, or if the translators didn't come up with a particularly good translation, or if the producers have made an effort to ignore the original material and "re-version" the show rather than faithfully dub it...or, in some particularly bad cases, a combination of all four.

What if the ADR tools aren't very good? I've heard that they can cause some awkwardness.

Definitely. It's one thing for a voice actor to sync their delivery to the lip movements of their characters, but it's another to do that and deliver their lines in a convincing way at the same time. ADR tools play a vital role in informing the actor how to deliver their lines.

This is one of the reasons I'm sympathetic towards voice actors. They're not faultless, but there are countless things that can go wrong that aren't their fault, and yet they'll often get blamed--sometimes exclusively--for the poor final result.

[8000 Saiyan]

While I hope this dub isn't truly cancelled and hope it airs on Teletoon, I have to wonder: If Ocean has really cancelled this dub, then why didn't they reveal this directly to the internet if they knew that people were aware of this dub?

[Ajay]

If Ocean has really cancelled this dub, then why didn't they reveal this directly to the internet?

It was never officially announced in the first place, so there's no reason to officially announce its cancellation, either.

[NitroEX]

While I hope this dub isn't truly cancelled and hope it airs on Teletoon, I have to wonder: If Ocean has really cancelled this dub, then why didn't they reveal this directly to the internet if they knew that people knew about this dub?

Ocean aren't the ones making the decision to cancel anything, it's in the hands of whoever paid for the dub. The dub was also never announced officially, all the information has either come directly from actors or musicians.

[TheBlackPaladin]

While I hope this dub isn't truly cancelled and hope it airs on Teletoon, I have to wonder: If Ocean has really cancelled this dub, then why didn't they reveal this directly to the internet if they knew that people knew about this dub?

Ocean aren't the ones making the decision to cancel anything, it's in the hands of whoever paid for the dub.

And that, in and of itself, has been an ongoing, unsolved mystery. It's not clear who commissioned this dub.

[NitroEX]

And that, in and of itself, has been an ongoing, unsolved mystery. It's not clear who commissioned this dub.

It wouldn't surprise me if AB Groupe were behind it considering they were also responsible for the previous dubs. Other than them I suppose Toei has the authority to create their own dub independently of Funimation but it doesn't seem very likely for them to spend money on a second English dub, especially considering how close they are with Funimation.

AB would've at least had the motive to dub Kai since it was a successful strategy for them in the past (plus I believe they still own the rights to Dragonball in their territory at least). I suppose some dark horse company could've produced it instead and tried to copy AB's strategy but they would've also had to first acquire the rights for Dragonball and that's on top of all the dubbing costs involved, way too much of a gamble to be plausible in my opinion.

Since AB is a French company it would make a bit more sense for them to not have their finger on the pulse of the Canadian and UK TV industries when it comes to anime. Since anime still appears to be big over in France (not to mention AB's prior success selling their English dubs) they might've made the mistake in assuming that a Kai dub would be accepted with open arms despite Toonami and YTV's anime blocks no longer being around.

This is all just speculation but it seems to make sense. The rights seem to have changed hands since then in places like the UK and we have no idea how Toonami's return might have affected things (could Turner's Dragonball liscense extend to all of North America including Canada?). Keep in mind that this dub was being put together as early as 2009 when none of this was happening.

[8000 Saiyan]

I doubt AB Groupe was responsible for the production of this dub.

[Fionordequester]

I doubt AB Groupe was responsible for the production of this dub.

And why's that?

[8000 Saiyan]

I doubt AB Groupe was responsible for the production of this dub.

And why's that?

It's just a hunch I have. Plus, AB Group hasn't done anything with Dragon Ball after so many years. And this dub has a higher budget despite the fact that it's TV-only.

Damn, eight pages left to reach 200, and still no recent news about the dub.

[Super Sayian Prime]

I don't think it's correct to use the word "cancelled" in regards to this. Its planned release may have been cancelled, but by all accounts Ocean finished the original run of Kai. There's a difference between something unreleased sitting in a hard drive in BC and something that was axed before being produced.

[8000 Saiyan]

It was never officially announced in the first place, so there's no reason to officially announce its cancellation, either.

We probably won't get any direct confirmation from the producers themselves that it was officially cancelled. Unless a producer creates an account here on Kanzenshuu and confirms it was cancelled.

[AzuraRacon]

Plus, AB Group hasn't done anything with Dragon Ball after so many years.

Well, unless you count getting the first episode of DBZA flagged

[simtek34]

Plus, AB Group hasn't done anything with Dragon Ball after so many years.

Well, unless you count getting the first episode of DBZA flagged

True Dat.

Now what if Ocean does Super????

[TheBlackPaladin]

Now what if Ocean does Super????

That's a theory that has been tossed around. Hopefully this time they'll be sure to actually get a TV deal before paying for an entire dub only to find out that nobody's interested.

[Robo4900]

(Dragon Ball Super spoilers ahead, although it's the Battle Of Gods arc)

I would love to hear Brian Drummond doing his rage scene from the Battle Of Gods arc in the episode where Beerus hits Bulma. Obviously, it wouldn't be quite as insane as he would have done things back in '96, but I imagine his wrath is still pretty impressive.

Although honestly, I wouldn't count on an Ocean dub of Super. It'd be nice, and I wouldn't totally discount it, but I don't think it's likely.

[Dbzfan94]

(Dragon Ball Super spoilers ahead, although it's the Battle Of Gods arc)

I would love to hear Brian Drummond doing his rage scene from the Battle Of Gods arc in the episode where Beerus hits Bulma. Obviously, it wouldn't be quite as insane as he would have done things back in '96, but I imagine his wrath is still pretty impressive.

Although honestly, I wouldn't count on an Ocean dub of Super. It'd be nice, and I wouldn't totally discount it, but I don't think it's likely.

I don't think the BoG arc qualifies as spoilers because the movie has been out for almost 4 years now.

[NitroEX]

I would love to hear Brian Drummond doing his rage scene from the Battle Of Gods arc in the episode where Beerus hits Bulma.

This fandub is probably the closest thing you'll ever get.

[Robo4900]

I don't think the BoG arc qualifies as spoilers because the movie has been out for almost 4 years now.

Yeah, thus why I said "Although it's the BoG arc." I think there are probably some people out there who haven't seen it and are holding off until we get the Super dub, but those people are probably few and far between. Still, there's basically no effort required to put a quick "BTW, this post contains spoilers for this thing" at the beginning of a post, so IMO it's worth doing since Super hasn't aired in English yet.

This fandub is probably the closest thing you'll ever get.

That sounds more like his Blue Water voice IMO.

[huzaifa_ahmed]

I don't think the BoG arc qualifies as spoilers because the movie has been out for almost 4 years now.

Yeah, thus why I said "Although it's the BoG arc." I think there are probably some people out there who haven't seen it and are holding off until we get the Super dub, but those people are probably few and far between. Still, there's basically no effort required to put a quick "BTW, this post contains spoilers for this thing" at the beginning of a post, so IMO it's worth doing since Super hasn't aired in English yet.

This fandub is probably the closest thing you'll ever get.

That sounds more like his Blue Water voice IMO.

Which, if you arent into this stuff, was a literal non-union Ocean replacement voice-match, not too far off from this fandub itself. Blue Water has voice-matched Ocean Group VA's in several cheaper productions, like the English dub of Rockman.EXE 5 Double Soul for Nintendo DS.