Interesting coincidences between dubs

[Tian]

As some of you know, I'm a fan of dubs in different languages, specially from this franchise.

I couldn't help but notice some interesting casting coincidences between several of them.

Here's a list of the ones I remember at the moment:

Dubs where Vegeta and Piccolo were dubbed by the same voice actor:
• English Creative Corps (Raymond Buyco)
• English FUNimation (Christopher Sabat)
• European Portuguese (João Loy / Vítor Rocha / Simon Frankel)
• Greek (Yiannis Papaioannou* / Konstantinos Kakkanas**)
• Russian (Diomid Vinogradov)

* Only in Z
** Only in DBS

Dubs where Goku was voiced by the same voice actor in both kid & adult stages:
• European Portuguese (Henrique Feist) (Thank you Quebaz)
• French (Brigette Lecordier*)
• Hungarian (László Lippai)
• Mainland Chinese (Liu Yi**) (Thank you Dragon Ball Ireland)
• Polish (Sebastián Perdek)
• Serbian MAT Produkcija (Nenad Nenadović)

* Piccolo Jr. Arc.
** Since episode 79 of OG DB.

Dubs where Freeza was voiced by a woman:
• English Blue Water (Jennifer Bain)
• English FUNimation (Linda Young)
• English Ocean Productions (Pauline Newstone)
• Greek (Matina Karra* / Emi Stylianidou**)
• Korean Tooniverse (Choi Mun-Ja)

* Only in Z.
* Movie 5 and TV Special 1.

Dubs where Vegetto was dubbed by one of his fusees's actors instead of both of them at the same time:
• Basque (Vegeta: Felix Arkarazo)
• English Ocean Productions (Vegeta: Brian Drummond)
• French (Vegeta: Éric Legrand*)
• Greek (Vegeta: Yiannis Papaioannou)
• Hungarian (Goku: Lászlo Lippai**)
• Italian (Goku: Paolo Torrisi***)

* Only in Z. Super has both Patrick Borg and Éric Legrand voicing him.
** Only in Z. Super has both Lászlo Lippai and Roland Czeto voicing him.
*** Only in Z. Super has both Claudio Moneta and Gianluca Iacono voicing him.

Dubs where Bardock didn't share actor with Goku
• Brazilian Portuguese (Wellington Lima)
• English AB Groupe (Doug Rand*)
* English FUNimation (Sonny Strait) (Thanks DB_fan1991)
• European Spanish (Antonio Villar)
• German (Björn Schalla / Simon Derksen)
• Greek (Yiannis Papaioannou** / Zaharias Rohas***) (Thanks TheRed259)
• Italian (Marco Balzarotti)
• Latin American Spanish (Octavio Rojas****)

* Only in Movie 5.
** Only in Z.
**** Movie 5 & Special 1
**** Only in Kai.

Do you guys have any coincidence between dubs you remember?

[Dragon ball master]

Wendee Lee The Voice of Bulma in the harmony gold dub some how returned to play bulma in the bang zoom dub.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Dubs where Goku was voiced by the same voice actor in both kid & adult stages:
* Hungarian (László Lippai)
* Polish (Sebastián Perdek)
* Serbian MAT Produkcija (Nenad Nenadović)

Liu Yi also plays him from episodes 79-153 of the mainland Chinese dub of original Dragon Ball, which of course includes the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai where he becomes an adult.

Do we know who plays Goku in the Macedonian dub of Dragon Ball Z? The Dragon Ball wikis (which I take with a grain of salt) say it is the only known international dub where Goku is voiced by a woman, which is untrue not only because of my Liu Yi example, but also Maria Plakidi plays him in the Greek dub for Dragon Ball Z episodes 38-39 and for the Taiwanese Mandarin dub of Super Broly its Wu Yuling. It would be interesting if there's another dub where that's the case though.

On the subject of women voicing adult males, there are also some dubs of Broly - Second Coming where adult Gohan is played by a woman, Catalan (Roser Aldabó), Indonesian (Wiwiek Supadmi) and apparently Korean too, although I haven't been able to find a cast list for that movie. There was also a second Persian dub of Super Hero on the Iranian streaming platform Digitoon where this is the case.

Funnily enough there is one dub where not only is Vegeta voiced by a woman, but by the same actor as Bulma. Zrinka Kušević plays both characters in the Croatian dub. Most fans I've talked to assume this was because they had a limited cast but the fact it had other male cast members begs the question whether or not it was an artistic decision. Not an entirely similar case as it was only when they were kids but Andrea Kwan voiced Goku and Chi-Chi in the Animax dub.

As you mentioned the Greek dub of Dragon Ball Z, one other funny coincidence about that dub is Vegeta and Goku share the same voice actors for certain portions. Yiannis Papaioannou plays Vegeta in most episodes and Goku in episodes 78-79 and 82-85. Manos Venieris voices Vegeta for episodes 11, 22, 25-26, 29, 39, 41-42, 44, 47, 54-55 and Goku for episodes 1-65 and Themis Psihogios ocassionally recorded for Vegeta from episode 111 onward as well as Goku for in episodes 88-291.

I also know the Creative Corp dub had nothing to do with the Tagalog or Tagalish dubs aside from sharing the same actors, like Nesty Ramirez as Goku for first half of Tagalog, as well as Apollo Abraham who voiced Krillin and Cooler.

Regarding different companies making similar choices we also know for Dragon Ball Kai, Funimation and Ocean both went the route of recasting Bulma and Freeza. In Funimation's case Monica Rial took over from Tiffany Vollmer, ditto Chris Ayres and Linda Young. For Ocean, Carol-Anne Day and Lee Tockar are the new voices for each character. Bulma was previously voiced by France Perras (Westwood) as well as Kristin Nowosad and Leda Davies (Blue Water GT and Dragon Ball respectively). Freeza's last Canadian voices pre-Kai were the previously mentioned Pauline Newstome (Saban/Westwood) and Jennifer Bain (Blue Water).

Of course, as mentioned, you also have Wendy Lee playing Bulma in both the Harmony Gold and Bang Zoom dubs, I'd love to know if that was an intentional choice or coincidental.

Additionally I've been told the Malay dub of original Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT as aired on TV2 circa 1999-2005 features cast members we've heard in the Speedy English dubs, sadly though these dubs are lost because no one seems to have recorded them, despite the series being a smash hit.

Dubs where Freeza was voiced by a woman:
* English Blue Water (Jennifer Bain)
* English FUNimation (Linda Young)
* English Ocean Productions (Pauline Newstone)
* Greek (Matina Karra / Emi Stylianidou)

I believe the same also holds true for the Persian dub of Bardock - The Father of Goku, although I don't know whether the cast for that special has been determined.

There may also be another dub of Dragon Ball Kai that aired on Cartoon Network India or Pakistan around 2012/2013 that's only known about from brief clips on YouTube. I've heard conflicting reports about whether this was a Hindi or an Urdu dub though, apparently it's easy to get confused between the two languages, but I know neither so can't confirm or deny. In any case assuming this dub can be found and is not the same Hindi dub Cartoon Network India recently aired we may find some similar casting choices.

[MasenkoHA]

Dubs where Freeza was voiced by a woman:
* English Blue Water (Jennifer Bain)
* English FUNimation (Linda Young)
* English Ocean Productions (Pauline Newstone)
* Greek (Matina Karra / Emi Stylianidou)

Other than the Greek dub this is less a coincidence and more Funimation and Ocean casted a woman to voice Frieza in the original English dub and Blue Water and Funimation Studios followed suit for consistency since their audience would have been used to Frieza sounding like a lizard woman.

[Tian]

Do we know who plays Goku in the Macedonian dub of Dragon Ball Z? The Dragon Ball wikis say it is the only known international dub where Goku is voiced by a woman, which is not true because of my Liu Yi example, Maria Plakidi also plays him in the Greek dub for Dragon Ball Z episodes 38-39 and for the Taiwanese Mandarin dub of Super Broly its Wu Yuling. It would be interesting if there's another dub where that's the case though.

Unfortunately no idea who played him in the Macedonian dub.

I just recalled that Bridgette Lecordier played teen Goku in the last episodes of the French dub OG Dragon Ball, before Patrick Borg was cast in Z.

I guess they didn't have time for a proper recasting because they dubbed multiple episodes in a day.

Funnily enough there is one dub where not only is Vegeta voiced by a woman, but by the same actor as Bulma. Zrinka Kušević plays both characters in the Croatian dub. Most fans I've talked to assume this was because they had a limited cast but the fact it had other male cast members begs the question whether or not it was an artistic decision. Not an entirely similar case as it was only when they were kids but Andrea Kwan voiced Goku and Chi-Chi in the Animax dub.

Yeah, there were several men in the cast (Hamer, Grubsic, Knesaurek, Belko, Kovac, Ipsa), so they did have male options for Veggie.

Croatian TV dubs are known for having around 4-8 actors and the Croatian dub of Z had some really questionable casting choices like Zrinka's Vegeta, Matko Knesaurek's King Kai and Igor Hamer's Puar.

As you mentioned the Greek dub of Dragon Ball Z, one other funny coincidence about that dub is Vegeta and Goku share the same voice actors for certain portions. Yiannis Papaioannou plays Vegeta in most episodes and Goku in episodes 78-79 and 82-85. Manos Venieris voices Vegeta for episodes 11, 22, 25-26, 29, 39, 41-42, 44, 47, 54-55 and Goku for episodes 1-65 and Themis Psihogios ocassionally recorded for Vegeta from episode 111 onward as well as Goku for in episodes 88-291.

Oh yes, the voice-switches during the episodes.

From what I've heard, they recorded the episodes in one take because ANT 1 (the channel that aired the anime series) wanted them for the noon.

Additionally I've been told the Malay dub of original Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT as aired on TV2 circa 1999-2005 features cast members we've heard in the Speedy English dubs, sadly though these dubs are lost because no one seems to have recorded them, despite the series being a smash hit.

Not even bootleg DVDs? Wow, it's a pity that it's lost.

I believe the same also holds true for the Persian dub of Bardock - The Father of Goku, although I don't know whether the cast for that special has been determined.

I just also recalled that it also happens in the Korean Tooniverse dub.

Other than the Greek dub this is less a coincidence and more Funimation and Ocean casted a woman to voice Frieza in the original English dub and Blue Water and Funimation Studios followed suit for consistency since their audience would have been used to Frieza sounding like a lizard woman.

Yeah, I'm aware about the voice-match casting that both FUNimation and Blue Water did for consistency reasons with Ocean cast and I agree there were not coincidences, at least when compared between them and not with dubs in other languages.

The thing is that I was originally gonna list Pauline, Linda and Jennifer in one single
English "section" but then I thought there would be someone who will be asking who the hell Jennifer Bain is and when did she voice Freeza, so I decided to list them in their respective dubs in order to avoid that.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Additionally I've been told the Malay dub of original Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT as aired on TV2 circa 1999-2005 features cast members we've heard in the Speedy English dubs, sadly though these dubs are lost because no one seems to have recorded them, despite the series being a smash hit.

Not even bootleg DVDs? Wow, it's a pity that it's lost.

Apparently there were some Malaysian sites that are now shut down and forums that had download links for the Malay dubs, kei17 said the download speed was ridiculously slow so he just gave up but regrets it now that they are so rare. I wasn't aware of these sites at the time, but if this information is true then there may be fans out there who still have the files, particularly Malaysian fans who grew up watching the series on TV2 and have nostalgia for that version.

And yeah, for the lack of bootlegged Malay dub VCDs or DVDs the only rationale I've heard is that illegally releasing a dub produced in Malaysia would have put Speedy Video under the radar more. What's bizarre about Speedy is the fact they put in the effort to produce and illegally sell dubs of their own, which flies in the face of what I've been told most bootleggers do, that is just lazily reusing already authored discs by other companies (in fact Speedy did this for some of Funimation's DVDs).

I've recently explored the line of enquiry for the Animax dub having a bootleg release somewhere, as Hong Kong has a thriving market for that kind of thing, and we didn't know there was a Creative Corp Product dub for Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle or Mystical Adventure until someone found a VCD/VHS of it, which was simply labelled "Dragon Ball". Sadly from what I've been told a lot of bootlegs are just copy and paste jobs, so for whatever English-friendly market (which I'm told is small as-is) there is in Hong Kong it would be even smaller for bootleggers that would go out of their way to watch 153 episodes on TV and record them all when they can easily just cheaply import and duplicate Funimation's blue bricks or Madman's saga sets.

I still hope one day recordings will surface though, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood's Animax dub was lost for about 11 years and only in 2020 were a few episodes shared. I've also teamed up with some other fans to email Animax requesting that they rerun the Dragon Ball dub that was shown on their channel in 2006 in the hope if they hear from enough fans they will consider putting it back on their channel. It's a long shot because Animax apparently only airs anime subbed now, but as the saying goes "if your not in, you can't win", but if it happened it would be the best case scenario since realistically if any recordings of Dragon Ball from Animax are found it will likely just be a few episodes, like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and many other Animax dubs that eventually turn up, but at least if the entire series is rerun theres always the chance of all 153 episodes being recorded in high quality.

Great thread by the way Tian .

[TheRed259]

Dubs where Vegeta and Piccolo were dubbed by the same voice actor:
* Greek (Yiannis Papaioannou / Konstantinos Kakkanas)

It's worth mentioning that Yiannis Papaioannou was in DB/DBZ (for the most episodes) while Konstantinos Kakkanas was in DBS.

Dubs where Goku was voiced by the same voice actor in both kid & adult stages:
* French (Bridgette Lecordier*)
* Piccolo Jr. Arc.

Brigitte Lecordier voiced adult Goku in ep. 32 of DBGT as well. You also spelled her name wrong.

Dubs where Freeza was voiced by a woman:
* Greek (Matina Karra / Emi Stylianidou)

Same here: Matina Karra was in DBZ while Emi Stylianidou in DBGT, DBZ TVSP1 & the Movies that were released by DeAgostini.

Dubs where Bardock didn't share actor with Goku

In the Greek dub, Yiannis Papaioannou was in DBZ while Zaharias Rohas was in DBZ TVSP1 & Movie 5 that were released by DeAgostini.

Do we know who plays Goku in the Macedonian dub of Dragon Ball Z? The Dragon Ball wikis (which I take with a grain of salt) say it is the only known international dub where Goku is voiced by a woman, which is untrue not only because of my Liu Yi example, but also Maria Plakidi plays him in the Greek dub for Dragon Ball Z episodes 38-39

That's true. They had a 3 months break between episodes 37 and 38 and for some reason they started recording the new episodes in September 1998 using the old distribution their had for OG DB. Maria Bonikou from DB came back as Krillin for some episodes.

Oh yes, the voice-switches during the episodes.

From what I've heard, they recorded the episodes in one take because ANT 1 (the channel that aired the anime series) wanted them for the noon.

In addition to the general lack of organization and the speed of the work, the reason they were changing the voices was also economic because the directors wanted the actors to have approximately equal lines and therefore the secondary roles sometimes appeared with different voices. Something similar was also happening in the French dubbing.

[MasenkoHA]

Dubs where Bardock didn't share actor with Goku
* Brazilian Portuguese (Wellington Lima)
* English AB Groupe (Doug Rand*)
* European Spanish (Antonio Villar)
* German (Björn Schalla / Simon Derksen)
* Italian (Marco Balzarotti)
* Latin American Spanish (Octavio Rojas**)

* Only in Movie 5.
** Only in Kai.

Do you guys have any coincidence between dubs you remember?

Now I'm curious, how many dubs didn't have Goku and Gohan share a voice actress as a child? I think the German dub didn't but I'm not sure of too many other examples. (I know Funimation Studios originally had different voices for child Goku and Gohan but I don't really count that since Delgadillo was replaced by Nadolny when it came time to dub original Dragon Ball)

[90sDBZ]

Piccolo being called "Big Green" in the Big Green dub, and then in Funimation's Season 1 redub Gohan refers to Piccolo as being "like my big green uncle".

Chris Ayers sounding similar to TFS Frieza.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Piccolo being called "Big Green" in the Big Green dub, and then in Funimation's Season 1 redub Gohan refers to Piccolo as being "like my big green uncle".

Don't forget in Blue Water Dragon Ball episode 113 there was that one guard who said "We have a situation here; a big green situation!", which aired about 8 months before the Big Green dubs began airing, also on Toonami UK.

[Tian]

It's worth mentioning that Yiannis Papaioannou was in DB/DBZ (for the most episodes) while Konstantinos Kakkanas was in DBS.

Added.

Brigitte Lecordier voiced adult Goku in ep. 32 of DBGT as well. You also spelled her name wrong.

Fixed. Yeah, I sometimes remember her name with a D.

Dubs where Freeza was voiced by a woman:
* Greek (Matina Karra / Emi Stylianidou)
Same here: Matina Karra was in DBZ while Emi Stylianidou in DBGT, DBZ TVSP1 & the Movies that were released by DeAgostini.

Added.

In the Greek dub, Yiannis Papaioannou was in DBZ while Zaharias Rohas was in DBZ TVSP1 & Movie 5 that were released by DeAgostini.

Added.

Now I'm curious, how many dubs didn't have Goku and Gohan share a voice actress as a child? I think the German dub didn't but I'm not sure of too many other examples. (I know Funimation Studios originally had different voices for child Goku and Gohan but I don't really count that since Delgadillo was replaced by Nadolny when it came time to dub original Dragon Ball)

Well, I remember that in the Brazilian Portuguese dub, Goku was voiced by Úrsula Bezerra (who also voiced Chiaotzu) and Gohan was voiced by Fátima Noya (who would also voice Goten)

[90sDBZ]

Piccolo being called "Big Green" in the Big Green dub, and then in Funimation's Season 1 redub Gohan refers to Piccolo as being "like my big green uncle".

Don't forget in Blue Water Dragon Ball episode 113 there was that one guard who said "We have a situation here; a big green situation!", which aired about 8 months before the Big Green dubs began airing, also on Toonami UK.

True, although the Big Green dubs were out on VHS/DVD long before that episode aired.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

True, although the Big Green dubs were out on VHS/DVD long before that episode aired.

They were, but I think it's pretty safe to put this down as a coincidence considering the Blue Water scripts were done by Canadian writers who may have liked the series but were not intimately familiar with it. That much is evident because of oversights like in GT episode 59 with Goku saying "It's the same one that finally defeated Majin Boo!" which was likely a valid rendition of a vague line about how Vegeta blowing Majin Boo away that I can understand why someone who we know was a huge fan like Steve Simmons would go with "Vegeta, I'm going to use that same skill you used when you tried to blow Boo away!" instead.

It's easy for us to see these things from a fan's perspective and tempting to view mentions of "Big Green" as easter eggs but when it's just another show these people were working on (which is quite likely considering how busy the Ocean Group were in the early 2000s) far more things are likely to be a result of chance than intention. Still funny when they turn out the way they do though.

I do wonder where the whole "Big Green" thing came from though. Apparently in the French dub (which we know the Big Green dub was based on) Piccolo was referred to as "Petit Cœur", which means "my little heart", so I don't know if by the time Goku is an adult and Piccolo softens up AB/Chinkel or whoever was behind these European English dubs went with "Big Green" as a friendly/affectionate term, but it was still a weird choice. From what I've been told in SOFI's original Dragon Ball dub Piccolo was introduced as "Satan" but they transitioned to "Satan Petit Coeur" before dropping the "Satan" part, so maybe it was a gradual choice to show his softening up over time, although considering there was no Big Green dub for the series it wouldn't have the same effect without the context of the original series.

Of course Piccolo's morality was still.... questionable in those early movies, although he had come a long way from the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai.

[Quebaz]

Dubs where Goku was voiced by the same voice actor in both kid & adult stages:
• French (Brigette Lecordier*)
• Hungarian (László Lippai)
• Mainland Chinese (Liu Yi**) (Thank you Dragon Ball Ireland)
• Polish (Sebastián Perdek)
• Serbian MAT Produkcija (Nenad Nenadović)

Henrique Feist voiced Goku throughout the whole thing, too.

[Lukmendes]

Now I'm curious, how many dubs didn't have Goku and Gohan share a voice actress as a child? I think the German dub didn't but I'm not sure of too many other examples. (I know Funimation Studios originally had different voices for child Goku and Gohan but I don't really count that since Delgadillo was replaced by Nadolny when it came time to dub original Dragon Ball)

Checking it out here, kid Gohan's voice actress only ever voiced kid Goku in one episode in the Brazillian dub (Fátima Noya, in Z's episode 211), but for the most part they never shared voice actors.

Kinda funny kid Goku is usually voiced by Úrsula Bezerra, who's a sibling of his adult voice actor, Wendel Bezerra, but they never thought about hiring relatives to voice Goku's relatives and kept that at just Goku himself.

[Tian]

Dubs where Goku was voiced by the same voice actor in both kid & adult stages:
• French (Brigette Lecordier*)
• Hungarian (László Lippai)
• Mainland Chinese (Liu Yi**) (Thank you Dragon Ball Ireland)
• Polish (Sebastián Perdek)
• Serbian MAT Produkcija (Nenad Nenadović)

Henrique Feist voiced Goku throughout the whole thing, too.

Oops, I forgot that one. Thanks for the reminder!

[DB_Fan1991]

FUNi dub: Bardock is voiced by Sonny Strait and not Sean Schemmel.

[Tian]

FUNi dub: Bardock is voiced by Sonny Strait and not Sean Schemmel.

I can't believe I forgot this one too. Thanks for the reminder!