Is there any countries where Super or the recent movies was the Dragon Ball anime's debut?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It's no question Dragon Ball has seen a resurgence in international popularity over the past decade, even more so when Super came along.

I know it's been asked before whether any fans grew up watching Super specifically (which kind of makes me feel old), but something else I thought of was this. Is there any countries where Dragon Ball has never been on the air or had a theatrical or home media release until Super became a thing?

So far I haven't been able to find any information on Dragon Ball being broadcast in the Aland Islands, Faroe Islands, Guernsey, Jan Mayen Islands, Libya, Liechtenstein and Svalbard before Crunchyroll began to stream Super with subtitles in Japanese, or when Super Broly was released in Angola, Aruba, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, British Virgin Islands, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Cote d'Ivoire, Curacao, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Gabon, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guinea, Jersey, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mali, Malta, Martinique, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mozambique, Palestine, Papau New Guinea, Qatar, Reunion, Saudi Arabia, Sint Maarten, Switzerland, Togo, U.S Virgin Islands. From what I can tell also Super Hero may have also been the debut of this franchise in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Laos, Mauritania, Mongolia, Nigeria, Northern Mariana Islands, Tanzania and Zambia.

Of course having never been to a single one of these places other than Malta I don't consider myself qualified to say Dragon Ball has in fact never been seen in any form until Super and the two recent movies were released, but is there anyone who can confirm?

[MCDaveG]

I guess the thing with Switzerland would be as there are three languages, that they either watch French, German or Italian TV.
So far, DB and Z went there through French TV. Don't know if they were getting the German dub when it aired in Austria or if there were some people watching the Italian.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I guess the thing with Switzerland would be as there are three languages, that they either watch French, German or Italian TV.
So far, DB and Z went there through French TV. Don't know if they were getting the German dub when it aired in Austria or if there were some people watching the Italian.

Thanks, sorry for the late response but I thought I should say because I was talking to some Swiss fans on Reddit recently, and was told their country is split into three regions for media, German parts under German distributors, French parts under French distributors and Italian parts under Italian distributors, meaning shows streaming may be locked in one language or another. In the 90s and 2000s fans received analog TV by using an antenna that was on their TV set or on the roof, if a second antenna was aimed to the French transmitter they could get three more channels. There are no national dubs other than ads with 5 voice actors doing every ad in French with bad lip sync. Swiss fans have access to international TV through cable, AB1 was a paid channel in France but included in regular cable in Switzerland, which means that the AB1 airings of original Dragon Ball, Z and Curse of the Blood Rubies in the early 2000s would have been accessible to more Swiss fans than French fans who didn't have pay TV.

With regards to Malta, something else I heard recently is apparently the UK Cartoon Network runs there, which could possibly mean some Maltese fans may have watched the Westwood and Blue Water dubs when they were airing.

[MCDaveG]

Cool, thanks for the interesting info.
Quite similar to my country, except we didn't got ads and anything, it was just kids watching German RTL II and ORF1 and Polish dubs (one man show voiceover over the French version on RTL7) on Cable TV from the countries around.

[sangofe]

It's no question Dragon Ball has seen a resurgence in international popularity over the past decade, even more so when Super came along.

I know it's been asked before whether any fans grew up watching Super specifically (which kind of makes me feel old), but something else I thought of was this. Is there any countries where Dragon Ball has never been on the air or had a theatrical or home media release until Super became a thing?

So far I haven't been able to find any information on Dragon Ball being broadcast in the Aland Islands, Faroe Islands, Guernsey, Jan Mayen Islands, Libya, Liechtenstein and Svalbard before Crunchyroll began to stream Super with subtitles in Japanese, or when Super Broly was released in Angola, Aruba, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, British Virgin Islands, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Cote d'Ivoire, Curacao, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Gabon, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guinea, Jersey, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mali, Malta, Martinique, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mozambique, Palestine, Papau New Guinea, Qatar, Reunion, Saudi Arabia, Sint Maarten, Switzerland, Togo, U.S Virgin Islands. From what I can tell also Super Hero may have also been the debut of this franchise in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Laos, Mauritania, Mongolia, Nigeria, Northern Mariana Islands, Tanzania and Zambia.

Of course having never been to a single one of these places other than Malta I don't consider myself qualified to say Dragon Ball has in fact never been seen in any form until Super and the two recent movies were released, but is there anyone who can confirm?

Wasn't broadcasted in Iceland, Norway or Sweden either.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Wasn't broadcasted in Iceland, Norway or Sweden either.

True, but SF distributed DVDs in Iceland, Norway and Sweden between 2003 and 2005 with movie dubs based on the Big Green dub, so Super wouldn't have been Dragon Ball's debut in those three territories.

I'll take it with a grain of salt because the wikis are reportng the Swedish dubs (which only covers the 9 Z movies and TV specials) are rumoured to have aired on the Norwegian Cartoon Network around 2001. Can you confirm for sure this broadcast never happened?

[sangofe]

Wasn't broadcasted in Iceland, Norway or Sweden either.

True, but SF distributed DVDs in Iceland, Norway and Sweden between 2003 and 2005 with movie dubs based on the Big Green dub, so Super wouldn't have been Dragon Ball's debut in those three territories.

I'll take it with a grain of salt because the wikis are reportng the Swedish dubs (which only covers the 9 Z movies and TV specials) are rumoured to have aired on the Norwegian Cartoon Network around 2001. Can you confirm for sure this broadcast never happened?

No, I can't confirm but if it did it slipped by me. I was always on the lookout for Scandinavian dubs to air on TV.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Wasn't broadcasted in Iceland, Norway or Sweden either.

True, but SF distributed DVDs in Iceland, Norway and Sweden between 2003 and 2005 with movie dubs based on the Big Green dub, so Super wouldn't have been Dragon Ball's debut in those three territories.

I'll take it with a grain of salt because the wikis are reportng the Swedish dubs (which only covers the 9 Z movies and TV specials) are rumoured to have aired on the Norwegian Cartoon Network around 2001. Can you confirm for sure this broadcast never happened?

No, I can't confirm but if it did it slipped by me. I was always on the lookout for Scandinavian dubs to air on TV.

Just had a look into this because I'd seen Dragon Ball Z on DR1 (which as you know is a Danish channel) in an Icelandic TV guide, but turns out they can get foreign channels through Vodafone and Síminn packages, which also give customers access to Rai 2 (which aired the movies in Italy) and Cartoon Network (US version). Probably unlikely Dragon Ball ever aired on native Icelandic channels though.

I would presume there are similar services in Sweden and Norway, even if there was never a local broadcast in either.