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

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Ocean Studios probably have all the answers but something tells me they will remain silent on the matter even in special circumstances such as this. Hopefully she's at least tried contacting them though, that could end up alerting the rights holder that there's interest if Ocean decides to do something

Would they though? I don't know why Ocean would feel the need to be silent about this. They'd be crazy to not want this dub to be released, they may not be the licence holder but for their name the more anime recorded in their studio the better. Since Kai is part of the Dragon Ball franchise it should open the door for Vancouver to continue dubbing anime. We've seen incredible stuff from them before like Death Note and Black Lagoon, the potential is there to keep going strong, they just need a push from a global phenomenon to pick up after a sluggish few years. If this dub stays locked in a vault license holders will just see this as a reason to avoid Ocean or Canadian dubbing companies in general, and for the sake of variety in the industry that must be prevented, if at all posdible.

I think Marni's best chance, rather than relying on inactive Twitter or Facebook accounts would be to call Ocean directly. Their phone number is out there (in my link below), presumably they will be able to pass her message on to the rights holder:

https://m.yelp.ie/biz/ocean-studios-vancouver

Otherwise, it wouldn't hurt to keep contacting the actors, Keenlyside, etc and ask if they can pass the message on to their agents or anyone they know personally that has contacts with the source. The more we spread the word the better, so I say we push on, reach out to as many people as possible who may be able to help.

[NitroEX]

Would they though? I don't know why Ocean would feel the need to be silent about this. They'd be crazy to not want this dub to be released, they may not be the licence holder but for their name the more anime recorded in their studio the better. Since Kai is part of the Dragon Ball franchise it should open the door for Vancouver to continue dubbing anime. We've seen incredible stuff from them before like Death Note and Black Lagoon, the potential is there to keep going strong, they just need a push from a global phenomenon to pick up after a sluggish few years.

Hey, it's their company policy. They're very likely to follow it even to a fault. Let's not forget who's behind the ever stricter NDAs and punishments of certain actors who've talked. For whatever reason, they've shown that they value secrecy around this project. Maybe they'll be reasonable this time, I really hope they are, but they could just as easily remain quiet about it as usual. At the end of the day I'm just speculating on what the possible outcomes may be. Best to be prepared for the worst.

I think Marni's best chance, rather than relying on inactive Twitter or Facebook accounts would be to call Ocean. Their phone number is out there

Yeah, she definitely should at least try contacting them if she hasn't done so already, it's a no brainer really.

[SX10]

I'm stupidly excited at the possibility haha! But you know if Ocean have been out pitching before, should an offer come their way I imagine they will be open.

[8000 Saiyan]

I too would have enjoyed hearing Dale Wilson with better direction and script but it appears he wasn't involved this time (unless he's just really good at keeping a secret). I've always been partial to the Cell arc more so than the majority of the Freeza stuff so hearing a version of that with Saffron Henderson's Gohan in the Cell Games, as well as a new Cell, is something I'm very interested in.

I don't think Ocean would skimp out on Cell's actor either, just like Freeza he's one of the main villains with tons of important dialogue with the main cast, they're bound to have cast an actor of high caliber for that role.

Dale Wilson is retired from the business as far as I know, so it doesn't surprise me if we don't hear him as Cell. Unless he has a personal attachment to the role like Eric Stuart towards Seto Kaiba for example.

How do you know Wilson's retired?

[Arian]

I too would have enjoyed hearing Dale Wilson with better direction and script but it appears he wasn't involved this time (unless he's just really good at keeping a secret). I've always been partial to the Cell arc more so than the majority of the Freeza stuff so hearing a version of that with Saffron Henderson's Gohan in the Cell Games, as well as a new Cell, is something I'm very interested in.

I don't think Ocean would skimp out on Cell's actor either, just like Freeza he's one of the main villains with tons of important dialogue with the main cast, they're bound to have cast an actor of high caliber for that role.

Dale Wilson is retired from the business as far as I know, so it doesn't surprise me if we don't hear him as Cell. Unless he has a personal attachment to the role like Eric Stuart towards Seto Kaiba for example.

How do you know Wilson's retired?

A co-admin of mine on the Ocean dub Facebook page had messaged Dale himself and he said this. I'd show you a screenshot or something but unfortunatley I don't have access to his Facebook.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Hey, it's their company policy. They're very likely to follow it even to a fault. Let's not forget who's behind the ever stricter NDAs and punishments of certain actors who've talked. For whatever reason, they've shown that they value secrecy around this project. Maybe they'll be reasonable this time, I really hope they are, but they could just as easily remain quiet about it as usual. At the end of the day I'm just speculating on what the possible outcomes may be. Best to be prepared for the worst.

At this stage I feel even those with power over the actors have done what they could to punish them for their actions. We know from Geekdom101's interview that when Drummond spoke to the production coordinator recently her response was "I still can't say where that is going, I will let you know as soon as I find out, if anyone asks you are playing Vegeta". There is a difference between that and being told "You said what? You shouldn't have told anyone about this". The less confrontational response indicates a change of approach to Ocean's relationship with the actors, specifically those who have spoken. It sounds to me like the damage has been done, Ocean knows the existence of this dub is known, so if the actors speak to them at least if they have Marni's Tweets to discuss they will be able to alert the rights holders there is enough interest to get the dub out. They really have nothing to lose if the opportunity exists. At the end of the day Ocean need more titles to be able to compete with Funimation, Bang Zoom, etc for being a relevant dubbing studio in 2017. Kai is their chance to get back in the game big time.

[SX10]

Marni tweeted IPP's twitter asking about "North American" distribution rights, so I believe she may even need to talk to Funimation at this point. She is aware to ask for the Canadian dub and they know way more about it than any of us do right now.

Actors on twitter notice us in numbers so I say tag and tweet because Brian Drummond and Lee Tockar have talked to the production co-ordinaries before, they can do it again.

[Super Sayian Prime]

Are we sure IPP produced it? I always suspected they might have simply been involved in the casting process at most. That seems to have been their main role on other anime and cartoons such as X-Men Evolution and Planet Hulk.

Ocean Studios probably have all the answers but something tells me they will remain silent on the matter even in special circumstances such as this. Hopefully she's at least tried contacting them though, that could end up alerting the rights holder that there's interest if Ocean decides to do something.

We've kind of speculated on the last page that IPP and Ocean are the same company. The phone numbers and addresses are almost identical. You're right that IPP seems to be their casting agency. I only mentioned them because they're the only Ocean affiliated company that has any sort of social media presence.

I doubt Keenlyside and Mitchell know who paid for the dub's production. Remember, on their site they list Cartoon Network US as the client ... They'd probably be able to point Marni in the direction of Ocean, but that's another telephone game.

[Robo4900]

Marni tweeted IPP's twitter asking about "North American" distribution rights, so I believe she may even need to talk to Funimation at this point. She is aware to ask for the Canadian dub and they know way more about it than any of us do right now.

No, bad idea. She should talk to IPP, see if they can direct her to the people to ask. Failing that, Toei. Funimation would absolutely try to push their Kai dub.

Actors on twitter notice us in numbers so I say tag and tweet because Brian Drummond and Lee Tockar have talked to the production co-ordinaries before, they can do it again.

Yeah, I tagged Drummond and Tockar in one tweet; I suggested to Shulman that if she can't get in contact with IPP, Drummond or Tockar might have an email address or something of a producer or someone at Ocean who can help her out somewhat.

I dunno if Drummond or Tockar could help in any way, but if you think there's any chance they can help out, shoot them a Tweet. We don't want to overload their inboxes, and I really don't know if there's anything they can do to help this along, but if you guys really think it'll make a difference, I don't see why not.

[Arian]

I sent Lee a Facebook message and Brian a tweet to inform them of the situation and see if they can at all help us with this.

[SX10]

Marni tweeted IPP's twitter asking about "North American" distribution rights, so I believe she may even need to talk to Funimation at this point. She is aware to ask for the Canadian dub and they know way more about it than any of us do right now.

No, bad idea. She should talk to IPP, see if they can direct her to the people to ask. Failing that, Toei. Funimation would absolutely try to push their Kai dub.

Actors on twitter notice us in numbers so I say tag and tweet because Brian Drummond and Lee Tockar have talked to the production co-ordinaries before, they can do it again.

Yeah, I tagged Drummond and Tockar in one tweet; I suggested to Shulman that if she can't get in contact with IPP, Drummond or Tockar might have an email address or something of a producer or someone at Ocean who can help her out somewhat.

I dunno if Drummond or Tockar could help in any way, but if you think there's any chance they can help out, shoot them a Tweet. We don't want to overload their inboxes, and I really don't know if there's anything they can do to help this along, but if you guys really think it'll make a difference, I don't see why not.

Good points Robo. I figured as she was asking for North American distribution rights that Funi would be the people to contact. I was worried too that they would push their dub, but I think Ms. Shulman can see that we only want the Ocean dub and no substitutes.

I sent Lee a pm on Facebook and a tweet to both Brian Drummond and Lee. Just reaching out to anybody.

As exciting as this all is it's frustrating not knowing who to go to. I really hope the actors see and can take action.

[Robo4900]

Alright, that's two rounds of messages to Drummond and Tockar. Probably a good idea to leave it at that; if you really want to show your support, like some tweets. This one could do with some love.

As for the not knowing who to go to... IPP/Ocean should know. If they're useless, the actors should be able to help. If they can't help, Toei might work.
Funimation would be a really bad idea.
Ultimately, all we can do is support this as much as we can, and trust Shulman to do things right. And given her attitude so far, I think she can be trusted.

[NitroEX]

At this stage I feel even those with power over the actors have done what they could to punish them for their actions. We know from Geekdom101's interview that when Drummond spoke to the production coordinator recently her response was "I still can't say where that is going, I will let you know as soon as I find out, if anyone asks you are playing Vegeta". There is a difference between that and being told "You said what? You shouldn't have told anyone about this". The less confrontational response indicates a change of approach to Ocean's relationship with the actors, specifically those who have spoken. It sounds to me like the damage has been done, Ocean knows the existence of this dub is known, so if the actors speak to them at least if they have Marni's Tweets to discuss they will be able to alert the rights holders there is enough interest to get the dub out. They really have nothing to lose if the opportunity exists.

Sure, their position softened in some areas, but Brian Drummond and Scott McNeil are some of their most notable and prominent actors in Vancouver. Not much that they could realistically do to them. The point was that their mindset was made pretty clear on it via their actions beforehand. They've also probably become increasingly more tight lipped as a result of all this mess. I hope you realize I'm not defending the idea of them remaining quiet, I'm just saying it's a possibility.

At the end of the day Ocean need more titles to be able to compete with Funimation, Bang Zoom, etc for being a relevant dubbing studio in 2017. Kai is their chance to get back in the game big time.

That's assuming desperation on their part, for all we know they probably have more business than they can handle from American/Canadian pre lay work and dubbing cartoons for countries other than Japan. At this point "competing with Funimation" isn't even realistic as one is a distributor while the other isn't, the more accurate thing to say is "competing with Okratron 5000" but, like Bang Zoom, those studios are favoured for their cheap prices among other things. Ocean doesn't want to become a fully non union dubbing company like them, they would probably lose access to their best talent and they value good performance.

[Robo4900]

Hopefully though, Ocean Kai might at least see Ocean's return to Dragon Ball dubbing. Maybe more anime will be handed to Ocean as a result, that would be nice, but ultimately, Dragon Ball is probably the main thing here; Ocean's return to being Canada's Dragon Ball voices would be excellent. Especially so if it can get going in the UK too.

One step at a time, though. Ocean Kai needs to get on air. That's what's important right now.

[8000 Saiyan]

Dale Wilson is retired from the business as far as I know, so it doesn't surprise me if we don't hear him as Cell. Unless he has a personal attachment to the role like Eric Stuart towards Seto Kaiba for example.

How do you know Wilson's retired?

A co-admin of mine on the Ocean dub Facebook page had messaged Dale himself and he said this. I'd show you a screenshot or something but unfortunatley I don't have access to his Facebook.

Okay, then. Guess BioZero216 will be happy when someone tells him Wilson's not playing Cell in this dub.

[NitroEX]

We've kind of speculated on the last page that IPP and Ocean are the same company. The phone numbers and addresses are almost identical. You're right that IPP seems to be their casting agency. I only mentioned them because they're the only Ocean affiliated company that has any sort of social media presence.

Okay, so this is a bit of a weird coincidence but I recently tried emailing Dale Wilson just on the off chance he could tell me if he reprised Cell or not, the Marni tweets started coming in around the same time so I mentioned the situation in a response to him as well as IPP, thankfully he was kind enough to provide some clarification and it looks like you are correct. He specifically told me:

"IPP is pretty much the same as Ocean.Ocean's the studios and IPP is Kens
production company i guess you could call it.Contracts were all signed with IPP
hope this helps"

So whether she contacts Ocean or IPP the outcome should be more or less the same I'd imagine. Thankfully she's received both contact numbers so it's in their hands now.

If anyone's curious about whether or not he reprised Cell, he did mention this:

"I am fairly certain i did voice cell for this production.Was supposed to get paid for it ages ago but
haven't heard a thing. As i recall it was supposed to be out in CD/DVD form but that's all i can tell you.
Sorry"

I questioned him more about the "CD/DVD" part and he reiterated that he's not COMPLETELY sure that the sessions he's thinking of were for the CD/DVD so it's possible he might be getting his memories mixed up on that one. My initial assumption was that he might've been thinking of the Pioneer movie recordings (which were released on laserdisc and DVD) but after double checking the credits he doesn't appear to be featured in any of them (Kami was actually played by Ward Perry in those films and, of course, no Cell). He tells me he's done somewhere around 50 years work in the acting business so it's actually quite understandable that he doesn't remember all the specifics about every role, I tried giving him the exact years it would've been recorded (2010-2014) but that didn't seem to help in jogging his memory. So going by this it does seem likely that he reprised Cell in Kai, unless he's thinking of the Westwood Z recordings he did for Cell (which would've been recorded sometime in 2000-2002).

Because he's not 100% certain about the whole CD/DVD thing it's probably best to take that part with a grain of salt and not go crazy speculating on it. At this point we already know that a home release is pretty much out of the question anyway as the Funi dub has been released practically everywhere.

He actually recommends asking Dameon Clarke for further clarification about this subject as, being younger, his recollection might be better. In hindsight, he does seem like a good person to ask since he and Dale Wilson do have history with eachother. Clarke actually mentions him briefly in this interview, it seems that Dale got him into the voice acting business for his Cell role so I assume they've remained close over the years. It's possible that they talked with eachother about Kai 1.0 while it was still being recorded.

For anyone who's wondering, I did ask Dale's permission if I could share this. He said he doesn't mind.

[8000 Saiyan]

I get the feeling Dale's probably talking about the Westwood Z dub, not the Kai dub, given that Kirbopher did state that he had got information from Dale that he had heard rumors of Kai, but never recorded.

[NitroEX]

I get the feeling Dale's probably talking about the Westwood Z dub, not the Kai dub, given that Kirbopher did state that he had got information from Dale that he had heard rumors of Kai, but never recorded.

It's possible, although the way Kirbopher worded it seemed a little vague as to whether he was told that information by Dale or someone else (on Dale's behalf). It's also possible Dale was concerned about breaking an NDA at the time.

Dameon Clarke seems like the next best person to ask.

[8000 Saiyan]

I get the feeling Dale's probably talking about the Westwood Z dub, not the Kai dub, given that Kirbopher did state that he had got information from Dale that he had heard rumors of Kai, but never recorded.

It's possible, although the way Kirbopher worded it seemed a little vague as to whether he was told that information by Dale or someone else (on Dale's behalf). It's also possible Dale was concerned about breaking an NDA at the time.

Dameon Clarke seems like the next best person to ask.

You could ask him about that on his Twitter.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I'm very conflicted about Dale's comments on Cell. On one hand I am slightly more optimistic about the possibility of him reprising that role, but on the other the rest conflicts with what we know about both the Westwood and Ocean Kai dubs.

At this stage it is highly unlikely that either was intended, or will be made available for home video distribution, so I'm not sure where the talk about a DVD set came from. The most likely scenario is that Dale recorded his lines for either of the two dubs and he wasn't told how the production (in this case the dub) would be released, after all Drummond did imply a lack of clarity in his interview with Geekdom ("are they doing a DVD set, what the heck is happening"), either that or he was misinformed.

It wouldn't be too dissimilar from Funi Kai being announced for Toonami and Lee Tockar misinterpreting what he heard as Ocean Kai getting a release date. What was said to the actors about the production and distribution of this dub has been sketchy at best, but then again we know they're never told the full story even if they ask, so its not too surprising.

Also, according to IMDB Dale Wislon has played a few roles over the last few years, but his last released performance was in 2015 (which is after this dub was completed, at least as far as the Cell arc) so it's not out of the realm of possibility he did play Cell and he was simply trying to not break an NDA when he talked about hearing "vague rumours".

With regards to Marni, it's definitely good news she has the contact number for Ocean/IPP, the ball is now in their court regarding whether or not they can send her the right contacts for this dub, so if all goes to plan with those calls we might be seeing Ocean Kai sometime in 2018. I just hope it hasn't been written off so it can get on TV without any sort of taxation/legal issues and that TOEI won't get in the way again (which shouldn't happen since this dub was made specifically for Canada).