Are There Any Updates On The Harmony Gold Dub Of Dragon Ball?

[KBABZ]

Okay. Whatever floats your boat.
Regarding the ads, they look like they were edited out on the VHS before it was digitized.

Darn, that's a shame!

[superrayman3]

Baking isn't necessarily an increase in quality, it's a solution to "Sticky-shed syndrome", which would mainly manifest in video in the form of dropouts, and it's somewhat risky too, particularly if done wrong, so I don't know if that's such a good idea.

I'm fully aware of what tape baking is primarily used for and know that it's not necessarily going to give an increase in quality, however on the flip side you also have to remember that nobody knows how this tape has been stored and it has probably accumulated quite a bit of moisture over time so baking the tape might not be a bad idea if not for that reason alone, also from my experience, it's pretty hard to screw up tape baking unless you have extremely fragile tape to work with and this more likely than not doesn't fit that criteria so everything should be fine so long as they know what to use when baking the tape.

[KBABZ]

Hey guys, fun update! As part of re-assembling the Harmony Gold version of the show, I've gotten into contact with a friend of mine on deviantART who'll help recreate the eyecatch logo! I'm so excited!!

[eledoremassis02]

There is still Jamie Snowden's copy

Fairly sure Snowden's copy is just Tanooki Joe's digital transfer, sent to him to commentate on.

Huh thats possible. It even has the same distortion on the top. Kinda weird he'd make up the mysterious ebay find but people've done a lot worse on youtube lol. Atleast he digitized it before it got lost in the mail. Who was he sending it too?

Hey guys, fun update! As part of re-assembling the Harmony Gold version of the show, I've gotten into contact with a friend of mine on deviantART who'll help recreate the eyecatch logo! I'm so excited!!

Sweet! I tried yesterday and it looked like crap so I hope someone more talented would give it a try!

[Robo4900]

There is still Jamie Snowden's copy

Fairly sure Snowden's copy is just Tanooki Joe's digital transfer, sent to him to commentate on.

Huh thats possible. It even has the same distortion on the top. Kinda weird he'd make up the mysterious ebay find but people've done a lot worse on youtube lol. Atleast he digitized it before it got lost in the mail. Who was he sending it too?

IIRC the narrative of the video in question was "look what disc came in my box for DBZ Kakarot!!" with no further explanation, though admittedly I didn't watch much of the video (I've rather lost my taste for Nostalgia Critic/CinemaSins-style "nitpicking a cut-down version of a thing" videos).

I heard Tannoki Joe was sending the tape to VegettoEX. I imagine the idea was for him to digitise it better, and maybe talk about it a bit on the podcast, but I think the FedEx courier probably did a runner with the tape. One tape sent by courier, it's not hard to imagine the guy deciding to take a look, and then realising "Oh, Dragon Ball tapes sell for a lot!"
It's possible the guy then realised it was essentially one-of-a-kind and junked it so as to not get found out. Or it's possible it's sitting in a cupboard somewhere and will turn up on eBay in a few years. Or maybe all this is baloney and in reality, what happened was it got lost in transit somewhere.

But I'd put my money on the courier wanting to fence it on eBay.

[eledoremassis02]

Fairly sure Snowden's copy is just Tanooki Joe's digital transfer, sent to him to commentate on.

Huh thats possible. It even has the same distortion on the top. Kinda weird he'd make up the mysterious ebay find but people've done a lot worse on youtube lol. Atleast he digitized it before it got lost in the mail. Who was he sending it too?

IIRC the narrative of the video in question was "look what disc came in my box for DBZ Kakarot!!" with no further explanation, though admittedly I didn't watch much of the video (I've rather lost my taste for Nostalgia Critic/CinemaSins-style "nitpicking a cut-down version of a thing" videos).

I heard Tannoki Joe was sending the tape to VegettoEX. I imagine the idea was for him to digitise it better, and maybe talk about it a bit on the podcast, but I think the FedEx courier probably did a runner with the tape. One tape sent by courier, it's not hard to imagine the guy deciding to take a look, and then realising "Oh, Dragon Ball tapes sell for a lot!"
It's possible the guy then realised it was essentially one-of-a-kind and junked it so as to not get found out. Or it's possible it's sitting in a cupboard somewhere and will turn up on eBay in a few years. Or maybe all this is baloney and in reality, what happened was it got lost in transit somewhere.

But I'd put my money on the courier wanting to fence it on eBay.

It was supposedly a bonus from the ebay seller and was a VHS copy in a recordble VHS, not the cover displayed on twitter. Which sucks cause we could of assumed the FedEx guy went back in time and packaged it to hide his crimes hahaha

[10gigtriforce]

Huh thats possible. It even has the same distortion on the top. Kinda weird he'd make up the mysterious ebay find but people've done a lot worse on youtube lol. Atleast he digitized it before it got lost in the mail. Who was he sending it too?

IIRC the narrative of the video in question was "look what disc came in my box for DBZ Kakarot!!" with no further explanation, though admittedly I didn't watch much of the video (I've rather lost my taste for Nostalgia Critic/CinemaSins-style "nitpicking a cut-down version of a thing" videos).

I heard Tannoki Joe was sending the tape to VegettoEX. I imagine the idea was for him to digitise it better, and maybe talk about it a bit on the podcast, but I think the FedEx courier probably did a runner with the tape. One tape sent by courier, it's not hard to imagine the guy deciding to take a look, and then realising "Oh, Dragon Ball tapes sell for a lot!"
It's possible the guy then realised it was essentially one-of-a-kind and junked it so as to not get found out. Or it's possible it's sitting in a cupboard somewhere and will turn up on eBay in a few years. Or maybe all this is baloney and in reality, what happened was it got lost in transit somewhere.

But I'd put my money on the courier wanting to fence it on eBay.

It was supposedly a bonus from the ebay seller and was a VHS copy in a recordble VHS, not the cover displayed on twitter. Which sucks cause we could of assumed the FedEx guy went back in time and packaged it to hide his crimes hahaha

Unless he used that copy to make others and is now selling them for profit

[eledoremassis02]

IIRC the narrative of the video in question was "look what disc came in my box for DBZ Kakarot!!" with no further explanation, though admittedly I didn't watch much of the video (I've rather lost my taste for Nostalgia Critic/CinemaSins-style "nitpicking a cut-down version of a thing" videos).

I heard Tannoki Joe was sending the tape to VegettoEX. I imagine the idea was for him to digitise it better, and maybe talk about it a bit on the podcast, but I think the FedEx courier probably did a runner with the tape. One tape sent by courier, it's not hard to imagine the guy deciding to take a look, and then realising "Oh, Dragon Ball tapes sell for a lot!"
It's possible the guy then realised it was essentially one-of-a-kind and junked it so as to not get found out. Or it's possible it's sitting in a cupboard somewhere and will turn up on eBay in a few years. Or maybe all this is baloney and in reality, what happened was it got lost in transit somewhere.

But I'd put my money on the courier wanting to fence it on eBay.

It was supposedly a bonus from the ebay seller and was a VHS copy in a recordble VHS, not the cover displayed on twitter. Which sucks cause we could of assumed the FedEx guy went back in time and packaged it to hide his crimes hahaha

Unless he used that copy to make others and is now selling them for profit

Maybe he never had the tape but hired the original VA's to record the HG names.... hnn

[DrBriefsCat]

After watching the HG dub of these episodes, I must say the voice direction and acting is better than the in-house Funimation dub. Goku and Bulma sound a lot more tolerable compared to the Funimation VAs. It's too bad they couldn't have gotten Monica Rial to voice Bulma much earlier. The acting in the HG dub sounds more professional, kind of like the BLT dub, only it has the advantage of keeping the Kikuchi BGM.

Compared to Funimation's in-house dub though, the irreverent humor of the show feels neutered. Like the scenes where Oolong reacts to Bulma slipping him a laxative pill or any hint of Master Roshi's lechery. Considering the time this was dubbed (1989) and the format (terrestrial TV), the writers must have been scratching their heads about how to handle certain scenes. Cartoon Network could let a lot more slide because they were on cable and by 2001, children's TV was a lot less restrictive.

[MasenkoHA]

After watching the HG dub of these episodes, I must say the direction is better than the in-house Funimation dub.

The voice acting is a lot better. Unsurprisingly most of these voice actors like Barbara Goodson and Wendee Lee and Dave Mallow have an impressive and prolific resume in voice acting

Compared to Funimation's in-house dub though, the irreverent humor of the show feels neutered. Like the scene where Oolong reacts to Bulma slipping him a laxative pill and Master Roshi's lechery. Considering the time this was dubbed (1989) and the format (terrestrial TV), the writers must have been scratching their heads about how to handle certain scenes. Cartoon Network could let a lot more slide because they were on cable.

I think my main problem is as censored as the 1995 dub was it did keep a surprising amount. They kept Goku looking up Bulma's skirt (they changed her undies to solid pink for some reason but even the Toonami broadcast edit cut the scene out) they kept the whole idea of Oolong figuring out Pocawatha isn't Pocawatha by taking a closer look at "her" peeing standing up, they kept the whole Bulma giving Oolong a laxative, they kept the implication of Yamcha seeing Bulma naked in the shower and then later seeing her naked when he tore off the blanket on the bed that he thought was hiding the dragon balls. The biggest censorship in those first 13 episodes from BLT/Funimation was removing Roshi's lechery and changing him to some lonely old man who just wants to find a woman his age (honestly the Toonami edit probably handed a G rated version of Roshi's lechery the best even if some changes were weird) . Did tv standards really change that much between 1989 and 1995 to allow Funimation/BLT to get away with more in early morning syndication? Especially since they were being shown in more markets than the Harmony Gold dub was.

Also censorship aside the Harmony Gold scripts are just way off. The Funimation dub (both the 1995 and by extension in-house dub) would at least keep the general gist of what the characters were saying.

Like Robo said it really is give and take. The Harmony Gold dub had good voice acting (If incredibly 80s American cartoon voice acting) and they kept the Kikuchi score ) but the scripts were incredibly inaccurate and it was overtly sanitized. The 1995 dub had solid voice acting and the scripts were a lot better but they changed the score to something that was just okay. The 2001 redub was visually uncut (outside of tv airings) , kept the Kikuchi score (and did a far better job adapting the opening theme than Harmony Gold did) but the voice acting was pretty bad and it was too reliant on the 1995 dub's scripts and was too censored for an uncut release.

[Danfun64]

Episode 3 may have removed "any hint of Master Roshi's lechery", but the double feature certainly didn't. Tone it down, sure, but he still wanted a favor from Bulma Lena that she wasn't fully comfortable with, groped the butt of the airplane stewardess, and stared at some young women shortly after arriving at the tournament grounds.

To be honest, I think "I want to give Bulma Lena a magic wand" was better censorship than "could you please hook me up with an elderly woman?". The latter maybe have been closer to what Roshi was actually saying, but it butchered his character more.

As for what you were saying MasenkoHa, it seems that each generation (HG -> BLT -> Funi -> BW) would take the base script of the previous one, make a small layer of corrections, and make another layer of adaptations. Has anybody ever done a comparison of how much each previous script was kept? For example, if someone took the BLT dub of say, ep 1, and determined the number of lines from HG that were identical or mostly identical?

Take the scene where (in the original) Oolong warning Bulma and Goku about the Ox-King. In the HG dub, Oolong Mao Mao was warning about some nonsense about spirits in the Diablo Desert. In the BLT dub, Oolong was warning about Yamcha. Finally, in the Funi dub Oolong properly warned about the Ox-King.

[10gigtriforce]

it kinda makes sense for the tv show to be more censored than the movies, feature(length/sold in store) stuff usually gets away with more more easily. as does prime time tv vs day time kids shows.

As far as the actors I'd keep about everyone but bulma, Tiffany and Lalainia Lindbjerg the only ones I like for her so ether ofthose would do, and goku. Dunno, none of his childhood english VA do him justice imo. but beyond that I do like everything I've seen, or just dont care about that character enough to care about the voice. Its obvious these actors are more experienced though, and id have liked to see a full db dub from people with their experience.

[MasenkoHA]

Episode 3 may have removed "any hint of Master Roshi's lechery", but the double feature certainly didn't. Tone it down, sure, but he still wanted a favor from Bulma Lena that she wasn't fully comfortable with, groped the butt of the airplane stewardess, and stared at some young women shortly after arriving at the tournament grounds.

To be honest, I think "I want to give Bulma Lena a magic wand" was better censorship than "could you please hook me up with an elderly woman?". The latter maybe have been closer to what Roshi was actually saying, but it butchered his character more.

I want to see your belly button from the edited 2001 dub was probably the best handling of the scene even if it's just weird.

As for what you were saying MasenkoHa, it seems that each generation (HG -> BLT -> Funi -> BW) would take the base script of the previous one, make a small layer of corrections, and make another layer of adaptations. Has anybody ever done a comparison of how much each previous script was kept? For example, if someone took the BLT dub of say, ep 1, and determined the number of lines from HG that were identical or mostly identical?

I haven't gone in depth but from the first episode it felt like Harmony Gold did their version>Funimation/BLT changed a good portion but kept a lot in>Funimation made some small adjustments to the 1995 script with some of the lines in 2001 surviving from the Harmony Gold days. Episode 2-4 were way different between Harmony Gold and Funimation's 1995/2001 scripts with only some bits being similar. Episode 5 Funimation kept a lot of the Harmony Gold jokes and one liners in.

it kinda makes sense for the tv show to be more censored than the movies, feature(length/sold in store) stuff usually gets away with more more easily. as does prime time tv vs day time kids shows.

The Harmony Gold dub basically treated Curse of the Blood Rubies/Mystical Adventure as a tv special presentation not really a direct to video or theatrical thing so I don't know if it really explains why Harmony Gold let Roshi get away with more in the "movies" since they were all made for tv and probably shown in similar time slots.

[DrBriefsCat]

Did tv standards really change that much between 1989 and 1995 to allow Funimation/BLT to get away with more in early morning syndication? Especially since they were being shown in more markets than the Harmony Gold dub was.

Probably not. Over-the-air TV was generally more restrictive than cable.

The 2001 redub was visually uncut (outside of tv airings) , kept the Kikuchi score (and did a far better job adapting the opening theme than Harmony Gold did) but the voice acting was pretty bad and it was too reliant on the 1995 dub's scripts and was too censored for an uncut release.

I got the impression Funimation was dubbing the show primarily for Toonami broadcast and didn't care about translation accuracy enough to make a separate dub for DVD.

The Harmony Gold dub basically treated Curse of the Blood Rubies/Mystical Adventure as a tv special presentation not really a direct to video or theatrical thing so I don't know if it really explains why Harmony Gold let Roshi get away with more in the "movies" since they were all made for tv and probably shown in similar time slots.

The copy of the movie with the commercials intact indicated it was aired in the evening. Perhaps it was treated more as a prime-time family movie?
As for the individual episodes, it's unclear what time of day they aired because most of the commercials were cut out of the copy that turned up.

[Danfun64]

I want to see your belly button from the edited 2001 dub was probably the best handling of the scene even if it's just weird.

I disagree. It basically means that every scene where Roshi sees a pretty woman in a bikini is equivalent to the woman being nude.

Honestly, the best way to censor that scene would have been for Roshi to hint that he saw Bulma attractive but not ask any favors that would make her uncomfortable.

[10gigtriforce]

I want to see your belly button from the edited 2001 dub was probably the best handling of the scene even if it's just weird.

I disagree. It basically means that every scene where Roshi sees a pretty woman in a bikini is equivalent to the woman being nude.

Not really, theres a difference between someone putting it on display for everyone to see and you coaxing a pretty young thang into doing it just for you.

granted... roshi does go crazy around bikini clad women anyway...

[MasenkoHA]

I got the impression Funimation was dubbing the show primarily for Toonami broadcast and didn't care about translation accuracy enough to make a separate dub for DVD.

That's the impression that I got as well, since the show was being dubbed to give Toonami viewers more Dragon Ball Funimation probably didn't feel like spending extra money to record too many alternative lines for the uncut dvds so they limited the amount of alternate lines they would have to do by just watering down the dialog whenever possible.

Noteworthy the Curse of the Blood Rubies redub, which wasn't made for kids television airings, kept the sexual content that the series dub normally shied away from (Oolong's panty fetish, Roshi wanting to see Bulma's boobs, pafu-pafu being adapted as bouncy bouncy)

I want to see your belly button from the edited 2001 dub was probably the best handling of the scene even if it's just weird.

I disagree. It basically means that every scene where Roshi sees a pretty woman in a bikini is equivalent to the woman being nude.

Honestly, the best way to censor that scene would have been for Roshi to hint that he saw Bulma attractive but not ask any favors that would make her uncomfortable.

Not really. How is that equivalent? It's no different than weirdos who get aroused by seeing women's bare shoulders. He wanted to see her belly button because it was covered and it turned him on to see a mid-riff. This is a guy who watches aerobics videos like it's porn.

It's still a weird thing to ask for but asking Bulma to see something from her that's covered keeps the intent better than (give me a kiss/you're pretty so I'll give you a gift anyways/set me up with an old lady my age that's pretty like you)

[KBABZ]

One facet of the Harmony Gold dub that I haven't seen anyone mention yet is that the script often jams in half a line too many, making it feel like the actors have to rush the last third of their line to get it into the timeframe where nobody else is saying anything. It rather ruins a lot of moments IMO!

[eledoremassis02]

One facet of the Harmony Gold dub that I haven't seen anyone mention yet is that the script often jams in half a line too many, making it feel like the actors have to rush the last third of their line to get it into the timeframe where nobody else is saying anything. It rather ruins a lot of moments IMO!

It defintly did suffer the silece is boring problem. I so think the two movies were done generally well and the first 2 episodes. I feel like there was a decrease and more adapting as they went tru it

[KBABZ]

One facet of the Harmony Gold dub that I haven't seen anyone mention yet is that the script often jams in half a line too many, making it feel like the actors have to rush the last third of their line to get it into the timeframe where nobody else is saying anything. It rather ruins a lot of moments IMO!

It defintly did suffer the silece is boring problem. I so think the two movies were done generally well and the first 2 episodes. I feel like there was a decrease and more adapting as they went tru it

It's not just silence is boring (which to be honest isn't much of a problem with Harmony Gold), it's rushing to squeeze in just a little bit of extra dialogue when it's generally performed more naturally in, say, the Funimation dub. This means the actors are saying their lines with an unnatural quickness to them.