Where did the misconception that AB Groupe produced the Westwood and Blue Water dubs come from?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Admittedly I'm guilty of this too, as some of my past posts would tell. Much of that was because I, like many other fans was going off what I heard, but how was this conclusion reached?

Is it because the Westwood dub premiered in the Netherlands first? Things of this nature, although rare, do happen in anime. For example the Capsule Monsters mini-arc of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! first aired in Ireland on RTÉ2, as did the final episodes of the main series. Ocean have also dubbed other series like Powerpuff Girls Z, which only ever aired in Asian territories rather than where it was dubbed, which was in Canada. Even more recently Dragon Quest: Adventure of Dai's dub was first seen on the UK's BBC iPlayer, despite being another dub produced and recorded in Canada.

Of course there is also the fact that the first 60 episodes of the Westwood dub never aired in Canada despite being recorded there. Again it might seem unusual on paper, but it's not really when you consider the fact that Dragon Ball Z premiered in Canada before Europe, so naturally the former would be expected to finish airing the series before the latter. YTV by extension bought new episodes earlier than European territories, we know Funimation's dub was expensive to license because of the Faulconer Productions score, but as Canada is closer to the US and not separated by an ocean shipping costs would have been less meaning the Dutch and British branches of Cartoon Network would have been feeling the pinch more. I guess one might expect because AB were the European rights holder that they could have outsourced to Ocean to give the channels they distributed Dragon Ball Z to a better deal, but it doesn't explain why the Funimation Z and Westwood scripts are near identical. AB had no working relationship with Funimation other than distributing their dubs in Europe. It makes more sense for production materials to be shared with Ocean because Funimation chose them as their recording partner back when they first dubbed Z. The aforementioned Powerpuff Girls Z, again, despite having a Canadian dub never aired in Canada. It happens.

Another possibility is AB's logo, as seen in European broadcasts, but again it was also shown during European airings of Funimation's dub, and was absent from the Canadian airings. Conversely the Ocean Group's logo was often seen in Canada, indicating they were heavily involved with the show, which we know to be true as fans have noted YTV-exclusive edits in recent years, which also contained Ocean's sound effects.

Speaking of sound effects, these are heard in the Westwood dub. The score used in the Westwood dub has also been heard in other shows Ocean worked on like Megaman, Monster Rancher and LBX.

Then when we come to the Westwood dub's sequel - Blue Water GT, who got the ball rolling? No one from AB, it was none other than the head of Ocean, Ken Morrison.

The voice actors have also always attributed the Westwood dub to Ocean, I've never heard any of them mention AB. From what I've seen of the old UKDB site it was also common knowledge back in 2000-2003 that Ocean created the Westwood dub, as I never saw AB mentioned in any creative capacity with regards to it.

To sum up my Ted talk giving AB credit for anything other than distribution only makes things more confusing, the Westwood dub and its mysterious background really doesn't seem so mysterious when you take AB out of the equation and conclude it was Ocean all along.

[MasenkoHA]

AB Groupe distributing the dub is probably where people got the idea they produced/comissioned the dub. Didn't AB Groupe also provided the masters to Ocean/Blue Water for Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT?

There's also stuff like the Blue Water Dragon Ball theme being an adaptation of the French Dub's theme instead of Makafushigi Adventure .

It's like how people think Saban produced the original first two seasons of US Dragon Ball Z but they only distributed the show in syndication and provided the replacement score.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

My best guess would be it generally comes down to convenience.

Didn't AB Groupe also provided the masters to Ocean/Blue Water for Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT?

Ocean began using French masters from the final 4 episodes of Dragon Ball Z, yes. The reason for that was because by that point Ocean caught up with Funimation and needed to find masters elsewhere. Dubbing companies use whatever materials are convenient. Indeed Funimation themselves imported their video tracks from Mexico as it saved time rather than getting them from Japan. A lot of the original Brazillian Portuguese dubs also used Mexican materials, despite Intertrack not having anything to do with them.

Ocean has dubbed some French cartoons, so it's likely they had connections within AB. Saffron Henderson confirmed to a fan recently Josanne B Lovick was responsible for bringing a lot of animation to Vancouver in the early days and attended an industry convention called Mipcom, which AB also had a presence at, so it's possible Ocean and AB had a good working relationship even before the former became associated with Funimation. I'd still expect in scenarios like that it would be Ocean who would make the first move.

There's also stuff like the Blue Water Dragon Ball theme being an adaptation of the French Dub's theme instead of Makafushigi Adventure .

YTV got a separate OP for Blue Water Dragon Ball, which also has no resemblance to Makafushigi Adventure. It may have been because Ocean were in a hurry to get an OP together and quickly adapted the French theme they had each access to and the plan was to eventually exclusively use the YTV OP. Toonami UK ocassionally aired the YTV OP so it's possible it was offered to them for the purpose of phasing out the other OP, but they ultimately decided to keep it because it was what fans had become accustomed to.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Of course, we know that AB was behind the French dubs of the anime (both series and movies) and most of the countries in Europe used that as the basis for their own translations including it's heavily censored version of the episodes and S.O.F.I's scripts. The Big Green dubs of the movies and specials was also something made under their direction (or lack thereof, given how apparently rushed and nonexistent the direction was on the dubbing process) and were apparently more or less machine translated from the poorly translated French scripts, barring the GT special which was sourced from one of Toei's own script adaptations.

[Tian]

Of course, we know that AB was behind the French dubs of the anime (both series and movies) and most of the countries in Europe used that as the basis for their own translations including it's heavily censored version of the episodes and S.O.F.I's scripts.

Exactly. It's not weird to suggest that the misconception came from the fact that AB Groupe was seen as some kind of license holder of the franchise (until Plus Licens took over) for most of Europe due to their involvement in the production of the dubs.

Not to mention the fact that there were times where AB has given the Japanese masters (plus English scripts) to some countries like Spain whenever those countries surpassed the French broadcast.

This was also the case of the Polish voice-over switching sources from French to Japanese around episode 30 or so because apparently, the French dubbed block of episodes wasn't ready yet.

I wonder whether AB Groupe also had the rights to the Latin American Spanish dub in Europe because some countries like Greece and Romania used it.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Of course, we know that AB was behind the French dubs of the anime (both series and movies) and most of the countries in Europe used that as the basis for their own translations including it's heavily censored version of the episodes and S.O.F.I's scripts.

Exactly. It's not weird to suggest that the misconception came from the fact that AB Groupe was seen as some kind of license holder of the franchise (until Plus Licens took over) for most of Europe due to their involvement in the production of the dubs.

Not to mention the fact that there were times where AB has given the Japanese masters (plus English scripts) to some countries like Spain whenever those countries surpassed the French broadcast.

This was also the case of the Polish voice-over switching sources from French to Japanese around episode 30 or so because apparently, the French dubbed block of episodes wasn't ready yet.

I wonder whether AB Groupe also had the rights to the Latin American Spanish dub in Europe because some countries like Greece and Romania used it.

Yes, it seems to be that most if not all countries that had Dragon Ball/Z on TV over there more or less used the French dub as the basis for their own respective dub versions across the board, with the same set of censored masters and scripts. However, some actually did try to do better with what they were given including Spain like you mention but also Germany with their own dub, as they tried to improve the scripts where possible which apparently was based on their domestic translation of the manga and included such corrections as using the proper Saiyan and Super Saiyan terms as opposed to Space/Super Warrior(s) which most others used among other examples.

[Tian]

However, some actually did try to do better with what they were given including Spain like you mention but also Germany with their own dub, as they tried to improve the scripts where possible which apparently was based on their domestic translation of the manga and included such corrections as using the proper Saiyan and Super Saiyan terms as opposed to Space/Super Warrior(s) which most others used among other examples.

That's true. Some dubs sticked strictly to the French dub and others took their own route.

If I recall correctly, a fellow Kanzenshuuer from Germany named Timo had mentioned that the reason why the German dub didn't use the Arianne / AB Groupe opening was because Andy Knotte, the president of Arts of Toyco (a record company widely known for producing German versions of anime songs) didn't like it, so RTL II (the network that aired DB, DBZ and partially, GT) had to get the rights for the original Japanese songs.

Another European dub I recall, besides the German and Italian dubs, that didn't use the Arianne / AB opening was the Danish dub but for some weird reason, they used the Rock The Dragon opening in its original English version.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

However, some actually did try to do better with what they were given including Spain like you mention but also Germany with their own dub, as they tried to improve the scripts where possible which apparently was based on their domestic translation of the manga and included such corrections as using the proper Saiyan and Super Saiyan terms as opposed to Space/Super Warrior(s) which most others used among other examples.

That's true. Some dubs sticked strictly to the French dub and others took their own route.

If I recall correctly, a fellow Kanzenshuuer from Germany named Timo had mentioned that the reason why the German dub didn't use the Arianne / AB Groupe opening was because Andy Knotte, the president of Arts of Toyco (a record company widely known for producing German versions of anime songs) didn't like it, so RTL II (the network that aired DB, DBZ and partially, GT) had to get the rights for the original Japanese songs.

Another European dub I recall, besides the German and Italian dubs, that didn't use the Arianne / AB opening was the Danish dub but for some weird reason, they used the Rock The Dragon opening in its original English version.

Yes, it seems some dubs there took liberties and even tried to improve from the materials they were given by AB/S.O.F.I. Others (the majority of the rest of Europe) more or less adapted the French footage and scripts as is apparently. Some even went to just using the French dub exactly like Poland where all they did was add a lector VO over the French voices instead of a proper dub in their own language.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

French is the fifth most spoken language, so it's not surprising that dub was so widely distributed. It didn't just air in European territories, but also on TQS in Canada and 2M in parts of Africa like Morocco, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.

The French dub doesn't have much connection to the Blue Water dubs other than sharing video, and having a UK-exclusive OP based on the French OP. Westwood less so, as I believe the last 4 episodes only used French masters when Ocean was ahead of Funimation. Funimation's title cards were reinstated during reruns of the final 4 episodes, so Ocean may have gotten their video tracks to air on YTV eventually.

[GokuDaimao]

I cannot contribute much to the inherent train of thought, especially since its easily to look back and scoff because a lot of us know better now, but I do think that AB's logo appearing at the end of certain UK/European broadcasts may have had something to do with it.