Did Dragon Ball episodes 79-153 air in China or were they found through fan efforts?

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Did Dragon Ball episodes 79-153 air in China or were they found through fan efforts?

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Tue Jul 02, 2024 5:41 am

For those of you unaware sometime in 1997 the Liaoyi team began to record a dub of original Dragon Ball, which was distributed among local stations in Beijing and Shenzhen, initially dubbing episodes 1-78 and sometime later doing 79-153.

At the time broadcasts were accompanied by text saying "Dragon Ball officially authorized by Japan to be broadcast in mainland China".

Liaoyi (Liaoning People's Art Theatre) co-operated with Shenzhen TV, likely because Wang Qiyu moved to the channel after working at Liaoning TV for 20 years and reportedly became head of the translation team, which could explain the connection.

From 2000 onwards any animation introduced to China had to be reported by the importing body to the local provisioncial-level TV drama review body for review. From there it was reported to the TV Drama Review Committee of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television for further review. If the show is approved the Social Management Department issues an "Animation Distribution License".

I read somewhere it has been speculated Dragon Ball episodes 79-153 were aired between March 1999 and June 2000 because it doesn't have a Cartoon Distribution License number and thusly couldn't have aired after that point unless it passed the review. However I recently received a message on YouTube, which said the following:
That Mandarin dubbing is called "辽艺国语 Liaoyi Guoyu" in China. Episodes 1-52 were released on VCD, and episodes 53-75 were broadcast on the WEB. Because it was a long time ago, no one recorded it at the time. The latter 76-153 were found by funs from the TV station's Betacam.

I remember that ten years ago, many people were sad that the 76-153 episodes were not available in Mandarin, but fortunately it did not disappear in the end.
So does anyone know if Dragon Ball episodes 79-153 were aired in China or, as this comment suggests were they uncovered by fans or provided by the TV channels?
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup:

Check out my blogs https://dragonballireland.wordpress.com/ and https://dragonballinternational.wordpress.com/

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Re: Did Dragon Ball episodes 79-153 air in China or were they found through fan efforts?

Post by gtavccat » Wed Jul 24, 2024 12:05 am

Haha, I posted that comment. :D
In the 1990s, 79-153 was also frequently broadcast and many people watched it.
After the 21st century, although TV stations still rebroadcast Dragon Ball, they rarely broadcast episodes 79-153, so they have never been recorded in full episodes.
Probably after 2015, the full episodes were discovered because the TV station threw away the Betacam tapes as garbage, and it was discovered by some second-hand dealers, and finally crazy Dragon Ball fans jointly bought it.

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