Dubs that could have been but weren't

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

As the incredibly knowledgeable Tian told me POP TV in Slovenia had a weekend morning block called Ringa Raja, which not only dubbed all their content but had a deal with Video Art to release them on VHS.

It's a shame neither original Dragon Ball nor Z aired on Ringa Raja as this franchise has never had a Slovene dub and even if it got one and no one recorded it (like the voiceover, which is currently lost) a home release could have at least saved a few episodes.

Of course all us Ocean fans know if it hadn't of been for the change in union rules in 2002/2003 both original Dragon Ball and GT would have been dubbed in Vancouver instead of Calgary but with the same accurate scripts. Michael Dobson was cast in 4 roles only to learn his contract had been cancelled last minute and likely other cast members too.

I've also been told by fans who spoke privately to Uttam Pal Singh, Head of Cartoon Network India they were going to air GT sometime this year. If GT was aired it would have got 5 dubs, as Kai, Super and Z movies 5-9 and 12-13 were dubbed in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada. Apparently they opted to air One Piece instead and started from episode 891 but that's not doing too well.

Another one is an Irish dub as Ten na nGael said TG4 considered dubbing original Dragon Ball around 2004 when they were dubbing Justice League Unlimited but decided not to. This channel does not air Irish dubs exclusively, but as far as I can tell all animated content they air gets dubbed. Anecdotally, one person has said a single episode was dubbed but then they gave up after realising how long it was.

Truth be told while I'd love an Irish dub of Dragon Ball I'm kinda lucky TG4 didn't dub it, at least back then as very few of their dubs ever get home releases (Spongebob is the one exception as some episodes are on a compilation DVD) and even super popular shows they dubbed like Avatar : The Last Airbender and South Park are incredibly hard to find. I'm learning the hard way with my current search for the Irish dub of Xiaolin Showdown. Luckily TG4 confirmed for me they still have the masters but they no longer have the rights so can't provide me with a copy.

Thankfully our language seems to be having a bit of a resurgence, An Cailín Ciúin has been a huge success (and I'd urge everyone to go watch it and buy the Blu-Ray), and recently a new Irish kids channel Cúla4 (interestingly named after a block of the same name) launched, so I may try pitch the idea of them dubbing Daima as it looks like it will be a great show for children.

Anyone know of any other dubs which had a chance of being made but sadly never came to pass?

[Cure Dragon 255]

Wow you did it DBI! You finally found a country that doesnt care about DB. I've never seen Slovenia get mentioned at all in DB fandom so they must not like it.

[Tian]

I remember that back in 2015, Xunta Pola Defensa de la Llingua Asturiana (XDLA) and TPA (Televisión del Principiado de Asturias) had plans to dub and air an animated movie in Asturian (One of the several languages in Spain) and Dragon Ball was one of the options.

Unfortunately, it seems that Dragon Ball (or to be exact, one of the 15 movies they've considered) wasn't picked because no Asturian dub of any of the franchise's movies has surfaced.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Wow you did it DBI! You finally found a country that doesnt care about DB. I've never seen Slovenia get mentioned at all in DB fandom so they must not like it.

I think it's less a case that Slovenia didn't care about Dragon Ball and more they didn't care for the locally produced voiceover. All of original Dragon Ball and Z up to early Namek aired on POP TV, which is still more Dragon Ball than all of Scandinavia (although Denmark may change that soon depending on how far they get in Super), Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia, Kosovo, Russia and mainland China got. Granted a lot of those European territories had access to RTL II, but I mean native broadcasts.

We also still don't know whether Dragon Ball ever aired in Georgia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Estonia, most of Africa (excluding Spacetoon or the countries we know of that got the French, Portuguese and English dubs, think countries like Namibia, Mauritius, Lesotho and Ghana) or Tuvalu for example.

I remember that back in 2015, Xunta Pola Defensa de la Llingua Asturiana (XDLA) and TPA (Televisión del Principiado de Asturias) had plans to dub and air an animated movie in Asturian (One of the several languages in Spain) and Dragon Ball was one of the options.

Unfortunately, it seems that Dragon Ball (or to be exact, one of the 15 movies they've considered) wasn't picked because no Asturian dub of any of the franchise's movies has surfaced.

Interesting. I'm going to be honest I never heard about Asturian. Actually wasn't aware of a lot of languages until I got into researching Dragon Ball dubs

[Tian]

I think it's less a case that Slovenia didn't care about Dragon Ball and more they didn't care for the locally produced voiceover. All of original Dragon Ball and Z up to early Namek aired on POP TV, which is still more Dragon Ball than all of Scandinavia (although Denmark may change that soon depending on how far they get in Super), Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia, Kosovo, Russia and mainland China got. Granted a lot of those European territories had access to RTL II, but I mean native broadcasts.

Yeah, Slovenes were literally 30 minutes away from getting a dub for Dragon Ball.

Had it been aired during the Ringa Raja block (which started at 7:30) rather than the timeslot it got (7:00), we would've been talking about a Slovene dub by now.

We also still don't know whether Dragon Ball ever aired in Georgia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Estonia, most of Africa (excluding Spacetoon or the countries we know of that got the French, Portuguese and English dubs, think countries like Namibia, Mauritius, Lesotho and Ghana) or Tuvalu for example.

I remember I asked about those territories on my old Reddit account:

• Georgia: No local TV station aired it. PS2 videogames were played in cybercafes though.
• Bulgaria : Like Georgia, no local TV station aired it but Bulgarians were able to watch it on the German channel RTL II.
• Latvia: Like Bulgaria, no local TV station and people only watched it through RTL II.
• Estonia : This one is still a mistery to me. The Estonian who replied with more information said that they watched it through a foreign channel but it was somewhat localized. Not sure if they meant ads or there were subtitles in Estonian.

I'm grateful that my old posts are still up. For those wondering, no, I didn't get banned there. I deactivated that account on my own because I found Reddit too depressing to use at that time (although somewhat understandable because we all were in a pandemic)

At least, I decided give to it a second chance and yeah, the experience is way different and better than that first time.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I never realized so many countries had access to RTL II .

I would have thought the French dub was the most widely distributed European dub since it aired in a few countries within its own continent, Canada and South Africa.

Come to think of it now the German dub may rival the French version, as I haven't heard as many stories of fans getting TF1 through satellite or over-the-air antennas, although I'm sure there were still quite a few.

Ukraine is another country that's a mystery. I know some Redditors have said Dragon Ball aired on QTV, although I've not seen any evidence of it even though the channel aired other anime. That's not to say it didn't happen though, just that it's not well documented.

[Tian]

I never realized so many countries had access to RTL II .

Yeah, it's astounding to know how available that station was.

It reminds me of TVG, a Galician TV station was also available here in Argentina in cable. I do remember it very well because I watched Garfield in Galician there.

Spoiler:

TVG was the channel 52 in the schedule. Oh, the good old memories.

Now I feel kinda stupid remembering this because I recently found out that the Galician dub Dragon Ball Z was also airing there at the time it was available here (around 2005).

So yeah, I missed the chance to watch Dragon Ball Z in Galician because I know that the TVG aired here was the same one as Galicia and not the international feed.

[Danfun64]

I didn't realize there was enough of a Galician population in Argentina to warrant Galician channels airing there. Wasn't Argentina the nation that aired the Castellan dub of the Z movies airing concurrently with Zero y El Dragon Magico?

[Tian]

I didn't realize there was enough of a Galician population in Argentina to warrant Galician channels airing there.

Yes. In fact, we usually call people from Spain "Gallegos" (Galicians), regardless they're Galician or not.

Although the only exception are Basques which are referred by their correct term (Vascos).

Wasn't Argentina the nation that aired the Castellan dub of the Z movies airing concurrently with Zero y El Dragon Magico?

Yes, the Castillian Spanish dub of some Z movies was both shown on TV (some fragments though) and sold on VHS through newspapers in the 90s.

[Hellspawn28]

U.S. Renditions had the series at one point, but never did anything with it. Who knows if they would started at the Pilaf saga or go straight to Z? I could see Tom Fahn as Goku, Melissa Fahn as Bluma, and Steve Blum as Vegeta. Those actors did voice work for U.S Renditions as seen with The Guyver and Super Dimension Century Orguss.

[MasenkoHA]

U.S. Renditions had the series at one point, but never did anything with it. Who knows if they would started at the Pilaf saga or go straight to Z? I could see Tom Fahn as Goku, Melissa Fahn as Bluma, and Steve Blum as Vegeta. Those actors did voice work for U.S Renditions as seen with The Guyver and Super Dimension Century Orguss.

Tbh I don't think any company would have been as incompetent as Funimation and skipped straight to Z.

[Cure Dragon 255]

U.S. Renditions had the series at one point, but never did anything with it. Who knows if they would started at the Pilaf saga or go straight to Z? I could see Tom Fahn as Goku, Melissa Fahn as Bluma, and Steve Blum as Vegeta. Those actors did voice work for U.S Renditions as seen with The Guyver and Super Dimension Century Orguss.

Tbh I don't think any company would have been as incompetent as Funimation and skipped straight to Z.

This post brought a revelation to me. I was about to say "Well, Z was a success, wasnt it?" But then realized yeah, Funimation basically made OG Dragon Ball Flop. I dont know of any other region that didnt make OG Dragon Ball as big a success as Z or at least close. Yeah, Funimation's marketing skills REALLY SUCK. They are always dependant on a tv deal to make their shows a hit. The only true business smarts they had was embracing streaming as well as they did. Streaming IS the future and they did mega well to invest in it.

EDIT: On second thought, Funimation didnt embrace Streaming, they were just forced to move things there. They thrived in spite of themselves not because.

[MasenkoHA]

U.S. Renditions had the series at one point, but never did anything with it. Who knows if they would started at the Pilaf saga or go straight to Z? I could see Tom Fahn as Goku, Melissa Fahn as Bluma, and Steve Blum as Vegeta. Those actors did voice work for U.S Renditions as seen with The Guyver and Super Dimension Century Orguss.

Tbh I don't think any company would have been as incompetent as Funimation and skipped straight to Z.

This post brought a revelation to me. I was about to say "Well, Z was a success, wasnt it?" But then realized yeah, Funimation basically made OG Dragon Ball Flop. I dont know of any other region that didnt make OG Dragon Ball as big a success as Z or at least close. Yeah, Funimation's marketing skills REALLY SUCK. They are always dependant on a tv deal to make their shows a hit. The only true business smarts they had was embracing streaming as well as they did. Streaming IS the future and they did mega well to invest in it.

EDIT: On second thought, Funimation didnt embrace Streaming, they were just forced to move things there. They thrived in spite of themselves not because.

About the only smart marketing Funimation ever did was starting with season 3 they would release most episodes on home video well before their television debut

[Vegetto95]

U.S. Renditions had the series at one point, but never did anything with it. Who knows if they would started at the Pilaf saga or go straight to Z? I could see Tom Fahn as Goku, Melissa Fahn as Bluma, and Steve Blum as Vegeta. Those actors did voice work for U.S Renditions as seen with The Guyver and Super Dimension Century Orguss.

It's funny, because I recently (as in just last week lol) watched Black Magic M-66 for the first time (surprisingly good OVA, btw) and saw it had an English dub, which I was slightly surprised at considering it's a fairly obscure OVA from the late 80s. As someone who always watches Japanese anime exclusively in its original Japanese, I thought "Oh boy, I wonder how bad this'll be lol", and was pleasantly surprised after watching a few minutes. It wasn't AMAZING or anything, but the voicework was still pretty decent and the dialogue was quite accurate to the Japanese version.

So out of curiosity, I looked it up and saw that US Renditions dubbed it in 1995, the same year FUNi started dubbing Dragon Ball with their relentless censorship, horrid voice acting (no, I'm NOT one of those people who think that the Ocean VAs did a stellar job, quite the opposite lol), and butchered altered scripts.

And it made me wistfully wonder about whether or not there's some alternate universe out there where FUNimation never got the license and one of the other many companies who actually gave a shit about accuracy and faithfulness to the original version had pumped out all of Dragon Ball instead, and what a different (and likely much, MUCH better) landscape not just the Dragon Ball fandom, but perhaps the ENTIRE anime scene in America as a whole would be nowadays.

I mean, considering 1) how CRUSHINGLY DOMINANT FUNimation has become in the American anime industry since the late-2000s or so, and 2) how they likely would have NEVER gotten off the ground in the 90s in the first place without Dragon Ball & Z, seeing as they had no other experience and NO OTHER PROPERTIES LICENSED FOR EIGHT WHOLE YEARS until they got Blue Gender and Yū Yū Hakusho in 2002, I think it's all but INDISPUTABLE that the industry as a whole would be quite different in that alternate universe if FUNimation had not gotten Dragon Ball in 1994, as they very well might not have stuck around very long at all and would have went the way of ADV and Geneon, and some other company or companies would have become the dominant anime distributor(s) in the US, likely without suffering all the pitfalls along the way that FUNi did before they finally stopped changing the shit out of their dubs.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Tbh I don't think any company would have been as incompetent as Funimation and skipped straight to Z.

This post brought a revelation to me. I was about to say "Well, Z was a success, wasnt it?" But then realized yeah, Funimation basically made OG Dragon Ball Flop. I dont know of any other region that didnt make OG Dragon Ball as big a success as Z or at least close. Yeah, Funimation's marketing skills REALLY SUCK. They are always dependant on a tv deal to make their shows a hit. The only true business smarts they had was embracing streaming as well as they did. Streaming IS the future and they did mega well to invest in it.

EDIT: On second thought, Funimation didnt embrace Streaming, they were just forced to move things there. They thrived in spite of themselves not because.

About the only smart marketing Funimation ever did was starting with season 3 they would release most episodes on home video well before their television debut

The Home Video Release was smart. But not so smart. The home video release was just the TV dub. Same shitty acting, score, scripting everything, but with "dirtier" language that was still corny and lame. I read the sub lover reaction to the Home Releases (Prior to Funimation actually releasing good faith, honest to god SUBS.) It was brutal. Everyone was in despair, it was then sub lovers just gave up on the dub entirely and went sub only.... Which I can hardly blame them for. If I had to stomach any of Season 3 I would be a dub hater too.

The one weird thing. Me and my bro used the internet to download Freeza getting cut down. It was censored but extremely bloody for the era. Of course the Uncut Latin American Z dub outdid it entirely.

[Hellspawn28]

U.S. Renditions had the series at one point, but never did anything with it. Who knows if they would started at the Pilaf saga or go straight to Z? I could see Tom Fahn as Goku, Melissa Fahn as Bluma, and Steve Blum as Vegeta. Those actors did voice work for U.S Renditions as seen with The Guyver and Super Dimension Century Orguss.

Tbh I don't think any company would have been as incompetent as Funimation and skipped straight to Z.

U.S Renditions was known to put out anime titles that were only on VHS, and their titles mostly appeal to video store junkies. They might feel OG DB may be too kiddy compare to other titles at Suncoast, Blockbuster, etc like The Guyver, Devilman, Orguss, etc.

[Cure Dragon 255]

U.S. Renditions had the series at one point, but never did anything with it. Who knows if they would started at the Pilaf saga or go straight to Z? I could see Tom Fahn as Goku, Melissa Fahn as Bluma, and Steve Blum as Vegeta. Those actors did voice work for U.S Renditions as seen with The Guyver and Super Dimension Century Orguss.

Tbh I don't think any company would have been as incompetent as Funimation and skipped straight to Z.

U.S Renditions was known to put out anime titles that were only on VHS, and their titles mostly appeal to video store junkies. They might feel OG DB may be too kiddy compare to other titles at Suncoast, Blockbuster, etc like The Guyver, Devilman, Orguss, etc.

Ah, but they have an ace up their sleeve! Sexual Jokes concerning a minor! That will surely make it a hit with the anime underground!

Ugh.

[MasenkoHA]

U.S. Renditions had the series at one point, but never did anything with it. Who knows if they would started at the Pilaf saga or go straight to Z? I could see Tom Fahn as Goku, Melissa Fahn as Bluma, and Steve Blum as Vegeta. Those actors did voice work for U.S Renditions as seen with The Guyver and Super Dimension Century Orguss.

Tbh I don't think any company would have been as incompetent as Funimation and skipped straight to Z.

U.S Renditions was known to put out anime titles that were only on VHS, and their titles mostly appeal to video store junkies. They might feel OG DB may be too kiddy compare to other titles at Suncoast, Blockbuster, etc like The Guyver, Devilman, Orguss, etc.

Eh they were interested enough to acquire the license and Z isn't much more mature than OG Dragon Ball

[Cure Dragon 255]

Yeah, if Kunzait and Vegetto EX are to be believed, and they kept reciepts, there was already a huge fandom for Dragon Ball among adults even back then.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

U.S. Renditions had the series at one point, but never did anything with it. Who knows if they would started at the Pilaf saga or go straight to Z? I could see Tom Fahn as Goku, Melissa Fahn as Bluma, and Steve Blum as Vegeta. Those actors did voice work for U.S Renditions as seen with The Guyver and Super Dimension Century Orguss.

Tbh I don't think any company would have been as incompetent as Funimation and skipped straight to Z.

Actually Creative Corp Products had that idea before Funimation for the Filipino English dub, arguably to a greater extent as they didn't begin with 5-13 episodes of the original series and jumped ahead from the get-go. They started with Dragon Ball Z, dubbed about 26 episodes and then began working on the original series, which they dubbed up to episode 122 or 132.