Everything we know about the Animax English dub of Dragon Ball

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It has been mentioned before that there is a dub covering all 153 episodes of original Dragon Ball that aired exclusively on the Animax channel in Southeast Asia in 2006 and is now considered lost.

Having recently spoken to someone that worked on this dub I've been able to uncover some information I wasn't previously aware of.

The dub was recorded at Medi-Lan, which was located in the Mong Kok District of Hong Kong at the time. I haven't been able to find out who produced the dub, but my source did confirm Medi-Lan was hired out to dub it, and he believes it was dubbed for Animax. I had previously suspected Omni Productions was the producer, as it has been listed on some actors' LinkedIns and associated with this Dragon Ball dub, although my source told me Omni was simply a company of actors hired by different studios and production companies (in this case Medi-Lan).

The cast list, as far as I'm aware is:

Andrea Kwan - Kid Goku, Kid Chi-Chi
Dave Bridges - Adult Goku, Master Roshi, Tenshinhan, Puar, Shu
Russell Wait - General Blue, Tenshinhan, King Piccolo
Darren Pleavin - Yamcha (original)
Scott Evans - Yamcha (recast)
Claudia Thompson - Bulma
Candice Moore
Victor Lee
Rick Thomas (described to me as the actor's boss, so he was possibly the director)

I was also reading this thread from the time:

Animax is going to air the entire the Dragonball series - Dragonball, Dragonball Z and Dragonball GT - in Southeast Asia already, from July - a four-episode preview of Dragon Ball was shown in 25th June (see - www.animax-asia.com/schedule/download/s ... -jun06.pdf - and look in 25th June, fourth page) - and is therefore very soon to be broadcast in its network in South Asia.

Also see -:

www.animax-asia.com/schedule/download/s ... -jun06.pdf

www.animax-asia.com/schedule/download/s ... -jun06.pdf

What I find interesting about the above, that I've never heard before is that Animax did at least plan to air Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT. I'd love to know whether or not they did, and whether or not there was dubs of both series exclusive to that market. Probably unlikely, as Dave Bridges said in an interview he only got to play adult Goku towards the end of OG Dragon Ball, but information about the Vendar dub and the alleged Frontier Enterprises dub have leaked in recent years, so it may not be impossible there is a full dub of Z and/ or GT out there we haven't seen. Nonetheless it's great to know when the OG Dragon Ball dub premiered.

Luckily the addresses listed brought me to the Animax official site, which lists the countries its available in, and where the Animax dub was likely aired. The countries it lists are Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Phillipinnes and Singapore.

That's all I can gather for now for anyone interested in this dub. Let's hope one day it sees the light again.

[Asin]

This is a fascinating topic. Do we have any clips or anything regarding the dub so we have an idea on how it sounded, perhaps?

[Robo4900]

This is a fascinating topic. Do we have any clips or anything regarding the dub so we have an idea on how it sounded, perhaps?

All we have is a three-second clip from Russell Wait's voice reel: https://youtu.be/5eTVLvvWlys?t=37

All we can ascertain is that Russell Wait did his martial arts noises in a high pitched tone, and the original score was used in this scene. I guess it's probable that the entire original score was kept, possibly sans some number of the insert songs.

Andrea Kwan - Kid Goku, Kid Chi-Chi
Dave Bridges - Adult Goku, Master Roshi, Tenshinhan, Puar, Shu
Russell Wait - General Blue
Darren Pleavin - Yamcha (original)
Scott Evans - Yamcha (recast)
Claudia Thompson - Bulma
Candice Moore
Victor Lee
Rick Thomas (described to me as the actor's boss, so he was possibly the director)

From the comments of the video I linked, Russell Wait also voiced Tenshinhan and Lord Piccolo, which is interesting given you credit Dave Bridges as Tenshinhan. I wonder if Ten's voice switched partway through like Yamcha's.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Thanks for the additional info Robo4900 , and to Asin, as for clips.... there is the General Blue one linked above and two more.

I've been shown one promo for Animax, where you can hear Dave Bridge's adult Goku here and Andrea Kwan's kid Goku here.

It'd still not much to go on, the former is just part of a scream, and the latter is just a two word line of dialogue. That's all that can be found for this dub currently.

I have hope that one day recordings of this dub will be found. I've spoken to one person that may know someone that has recordings of the Creative Product Corp dub of OG Dragon Ball, which has been lost for over 20 years now. Surely if that can surface there's still a chance for a dub from the late 2000s.

Something else that's interesting is this promo gives the timeslot this dub aired - Monday to Friday at 6:30pm, so maybe at this time it would have been shown uncut?

[KingVegetto]

So we have yet another lost English dub of Dragon Ball? Interesting. This one isn't does not intrigue me as much as the Ocean Dub of Kai does, but i'd still be interested to hear the differences from Funimation's dub regardless.

I've heard mixed things about Animax's dubs, they are probably best known for doing the first English dub of Ghost Stories(before ADV did their infamous over-the-top dub)and from what i've seen of it the voice-acting sounds slightly stitled and awkward. Watching Animax's take on Ghost Stories for me was proof that ADV made the right decision in not trying to do a straight dub of it as the show just isn't all that interesting when it's played straight. I certainly hope their dub of Dragon Ball was of better quality.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

So, I've found out a little bit more tidbits about this dub, sadly no more leads about recordings, although hopefully someone has a line of contact to Russel Wait, as he used a clip for his reel I wonder if he may have any.

Some corrections, it turns out Andrea Kwan was cast as both kid and adult Chi-Chi, Candice Moore's roles included Kuririn/Krillin, Lunch/Launch, Mai, and Fortuneteller Baba, Dave Bridges also played the Ox King, young Piccolo, and King Piccolo's henchmen. In terms of how the voices sound, this forum's own wjbraden's source confirmed Bulma sounds like Akane Tendo, and Tenshinhan sounded like Ryoga (both from Animax Asia's dub of Ranma 1/2).

As for the cast list, given how many roles Dave Bridges played I am beginning to suspect the cast was indeed very small. I may ask Dave Bridges again, but since the aforementioned source uses the Funimation names (other than Tien) and Animax's dub of Yu Yu Hakusho apparently recycles the Texas scripts I am beginning to suspect the same may be true of this Dragon Ball dub, although I hope not, as it would be interesting to see how it compares if Animax/Omni Productions/Red Angel Media or whoever was behind this dub went in their own direction.

I'm not sure if there was a cast switch for Tenshinhan, but I have heard conflicting reports about whether it was Dave Bridges or Russel Waits who played him.

Anyway here's what we know of the cast (with updates) so far:

Spoiler:

Andrea Kwan - Kid Goku, Chi-Chi
Dave Bridges - Adult Goku, Master Roshi, Tenshinhan, Puar, Shu, Ox King, young Piccolo, King Piccolo's henchmen
Russell Wait - General Blue, Tenshinhan, King Piccolo
Darren Pleavin - Yamcha (original)
Scott Evans - Yamcha (recast)
Claudia Thompson - Bulma
Candice Moore - Kuririn, Lunch, Mai, Fortuneteller Baba
Victor Lee
Rick Thomas

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

It'd be funny if Omni Productions had something to do with this, considering how infamous they are for their laughably awful dubs of the Takara Transformers trilogy (Headmasters, Super-God Masterforce, Victory) especially given Rik Thomas is listed here and along with being Galvatron and others' VA in the Headmasters dub he also was part of the production team.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It'd be funny if Omni Productions had something to do with this, considering how infamous they are for their laughably awful dubs of the Takara Transformers trilogy (Headmasters, Super-God Masterforce, Victory) especially given Rik Thomas is listed here and along with being Galvatron and others' VA in the Headmasters dub he also was part of the production team.

I believe it was Omni Productions, yes. I've asked one fan from Hong Kong who watched this dub and he said Omni was behind it. Sadly he didn't remember much else, although he did say Animax (at least the English feed) didn't air Dragon Ball Z so we can assume there are no more lost Animax dubs apart from this one.

I did come across one blog from the time talking about this dub. Nothing major other than the fact it appears this dub was uncut. This blog is from July 10 2006 and the blogger States on that day the first episode aired, so either it aired a bit later in the Phillipinnes than other Southeast Asian countries, or the first 4 episodes of this dub were rerun from that date (remember there was a 4-episode preview on June 25, 2006).

Sadly it doesn't seem this dub was very well documented at the time, and had a very minimal internet presence (only other source I've found is forum thread in the first post), and testimonies from fans have been hard to come by. Hopefully one day we will hear more from people who watched this dub on Animax and know if there are recordings.