Celebrating 25 years since Dragon Ball first aired in the UK and Ireland

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

So it's been 25 years since Dragon Ball first premiered in the UK and Ireland, and as we've celebrated this before, I say why not do it again?

• Dragon Ball Z first premiered March 6, 2000 on Cartoon Network UK with a new episode every day at 5pm and repeats at 9pm weekdays and 11am and 9pm at weekends
  • The first 107 episodes were shown before the end of the year
  • The series repeatedly reran from the beginning a few times after Freeza's second transformation, the episode Trunks warned Goku about the Androids and the episode the puppy Bee was shot
  • There was a short break after the Saiyan saga with the Namek saga beginning in May or June 2000
  • Unlike the US there was no break between the Saban and inhouse dubs as episode 54 premiered straight after episode 53
  • There was another break when episode 63 and 64 with the latter premiering on September 4, 2000
  • Although there was no break between the Freeza and Garlic Junior sagas there was promos for the latter
  • Dragon Ball Z was airing with double bills from from 9pm-10pm on weekends in October, 2000 and weekdays in December, 2000
  • On December 18, 2000 the Toonami block officially launched and Dragon Ball Z was airing from 3pm-5:30pm
  • After episode 107, no more new episodes premiered until April 2001 and all episodes up to that point were rerun 2-3 times, excluding marathons
  • Between late 2000 and early 2001 episodes 1-107 were often rerun with the series starting from the beginning at the end of each run
  • Episode 108 premiered on April 2, 2001 marking the debut of the Westwood dub (which had aired 3 months prior in the Netherlands) and the Android saga
  • Between the beginning of the Westwood dub and the end of the World Tournament saga most breaks between new episodes only lasted about a month
  • Once the last episode of the Android saga aired Cartoon Network reran it 2 times before airing the Imperfect Cell saga
  • The Imperfect Cell saga ran until the episode Cell absorbed #17 and then the series was rerun from episode 108
  • Cell Games saga premiered September 3, 2001 and led into the Saiyaman and World Tournament sagas without any breaks and the series went on another break after 204
  • Episode 205, which marked the beginning of the Buu saga premiered April 8, 2002 and all episodes up until episode 237 were shown between then and the end of May
  • Dragon Ball Z episodes 227-231 (edited numbering) were broadcast between May 30th and June 4, 2002
  • The final episode of the Majin Buu saga before the Fusion saga ended abruptly possibly due to the violent nature of it
  • The week of June 7, 2002 Dragon Ball Z's double 6am timeslot was cut to a single slot at 6:30am on Fridays
  • When Dragon Ball Z was moved to CNX it received a lot more timeslots, including three double bills from 7-8am, 2-3pm and 5-6pm
  • CNX promos, which hinted the Funimation dub would be airing were first seen around September 21, 2002, which was over 3 weeks before the Fusion saga premiered
  • The Fusion saga premiered October 14, 2002 on CNX marking the brief return of the Funimation dub, which was shown at least 2 and a half times before the channel reverted back to the Westwood dub for the episode Gotenks defuses
    • During the Fusion saga's run 2 episodes aired (1 rerun of the last day's episode and 1 new episode, although on the day the saga debuted there were 2 new episodes) on weekdays from 5pm-5:50pm with reruns from 1pm-1:50pm and further reruns followed on the weekends
  • The Kid Buu saga premiered February 7, 2003 and unlike the Fusion saga only ever aired with the Westwood dub
  • Dragon Ball Z was rerun in full on both CNX and the eventual Toonami channel, and by early 2005 the latter was constantly repeating the first half of the Imperfect Cell saga
  • By the beginning of 2003 Dragon Ball Z remained on CNX at 7am and 5pm on weekdays and weekend times were also unchanged
  • Unlike Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT and original Dragon Ball, which premiered on CNX and Toonami respectively got no marathons and had nowhere near the same number of reruns
• Dragon Ball GT premiered March 3, 2003 on CNX, likewise with new episodes at 5pm, the first day featured the first 2 episodes
  • GT was shown in double bills from 5pm-6pm on both weekends and weekdays
  • When the episodes that Baby arrived on Earth aired in April 2003 CNX was showing Dragon Ball Z in the afternoon and was in the middle of a Freeza saga rerun
  • Dragon Ball Z at this time was shown at 1pm-2pm during weekdays
  • Episodes 1-44 of GT were rerun at least 3 times and there were no promos for new episodes, episode 45 just premiered on June 4, 2003 after another rerun concluded
  • GT was taken off the air before original Dragon Ball concluded in November 2004 but was brought back for one more full run between spring and summer 2005
  • Dragon Ball GT's last complete rerun started around the time original Dragon Ball was taken off Toonami and wrapped up on July 20, 2005

• Original Dragon Ball premiered October 6, 2003 on Toonami at 5:30pm, as well as additional timeslots at 8:30pm and 7:30am Monday-Fridays
  • Pilaf saga was rerun 2-3 times and after it was shown there was a short break before the Tournament saga
  • After the Tournament saga there was a break that lasted about the same length of time as the break after the Pilaf saga
  • Around late January 2004 the Red Ribbon Army saga was about to start airing
  • The Fortuneteller Baba saga and Tien sagas were aired together with no breaks in between
  • After the Tien saga there was another break for all of summer 2004
  • Piccolo saga began September 2004 and led into another short break before the Piccolo Junior saga, which began November 1, 2004
    • At this time Dragon Ball was shown weekdays at 7:30am and 5:30pm as well as 5:30pm on Saturdays and Sundays at 10am and 5:30pm
  • Following the end of the Piccolo Junior saga Dragon Ball had one more brief run before being taken off the air in spring 2005
  • Based on listings from TV & Satellite Week issues 36, 37 and 38 "Dragonball" remained in one-off slots in September 2005 on Sundays at 1pm. I personally have no recollection of these airings but it would be great to hear if original Dragon Ball was still shown at these times rather than Dragon Ball Z being mislabelled (which I have seen in newspaper articles documenting Cartoon Network UK's schedules)
  • Original Dragon Ball was only on the air for a year and a half and was taken off a few months after the final episode aired

• The Dragon Ball movies and TV specials were shown on Toonami initially between May 30, 2005 and June 3, 2005 but continued past that point. Broadcast dates were as follows:
  • Dragon Ball Z movie 1 (Big Green title In Pursuit of Garlic) May 30, 2005 at 11am and 6pm
  • Dragon Ball Z movie 2 (Big Green title The Strongest Guy in the World) : May 31, 2005 at 11am and 6pm.
  • Dragon Ball Z movie 3 (Big Green title Super Battle in the World) : June 1, 2005 at 11am and 6pm.
  • Dragon Ball Z movie 4 (Big Green title Super Saiya Son Goku) : June 2, 2005 at 11am and 6pm.
  • Dragon Ball Z movie 5 (Big Green title The Strongest Rivals) : June 3, 2005 at 11am and 6pm.
  • Dragon Ball Z movie 6 (Big Green title Fight! 10 Billion Power Warriors) : June 10, 2005 at 5:30pm and rerun on August 26, 2005.
  • Dragon Ball movie 1 (Big Green title Legend of Shenron) : July 29, 2005.
  • Dragon Ball movie 2 (Big Green title Sleeping Beauty in Devil Castle) : August 5, 2005.
  • Dragon Ball movie 3 (Big Green title The Great Mystical Adventure) : August 12, 2005.
  • Dragon Ball GT TV special (Big Green title Four-Star Dragonball is the Proof of Courage) : August 19, 2005.
  • Dragon Ball Z movie 7 (Big Green title Super Battle of the Three Super Saiyans) : October 7, 2005*
    *This is based on process of elimination as LanDi Sama mentioned catching the end of movie 7 "the other day" and since all movies premiered on Fridays it would logically be the Friday before movie 8
  • Dragon Ball Z movie 8 (Big Green title The Burning Battles) : October 14, 2005.
  • Dragon Ball Z movie 9 (Big Green title Super Guy in the Galaxy) : October 21, 2005.
  • Dragon Ball Z TV Special 1 (Big Green title The Father of Goku) : October 28, 2005.
  • Dragon Ball Z TV Special 2 (Big Green title Gohan and Trunks) : November 4, 2005.

• Dragon Ball Kai had a sneak peak of the first 6 episodes between December 26th and 28th 2012 with double bills each day from 6-7pm, followed by the series general launch on January 5, 2013
  • For the general launch the series started from the beginning with double bills at multiple timeslots during the day (namely 8am, 6pm and 9pm)
  • 2 new episodes premiered every weekday
  • Kix often reran Kai from episode 1 when the schedule changed around
  • The first 53 episodes of Kai were shown 3-4 times before summer 2013
  • Episode 76 was to begin airing October 1, 2013 but Kix, in error reran old episodes instead
  • Kai's first complete run wrapped up on November 27, 2013 with episode 98 and then the series began from episode 1 again
  • After the series ended Kix began rerunning episodes 1-53 a few more times, although episodes 54-98 eventually had some reruns too

• Dragon Ball Super began airing on Pop July 1, 2019
  • Pop aired Super at 7pm on weekdays, 8:30pm on weekends
  • 5 new episodes a week were shown on weekdays with
    4 during weekend reruns, 2 on Saturdays and 2 on Sundays
  • On September 2, 2019 a second slot was added to Super's weekday timeslot, meaning from that point on 2 episodes a week were shown once new episodes premiered
    • This of course meant on September 16, 2019 featured a double bill with episodes 66 and episode 1
  • Episodes 1-66 were rerun a number of times before episode 67, which premiered March 2, 2020
  • Another rerun of Super began on June 16, 2020
  • The last batch of new episodes began with episode 105 on September 1, 2020

Miscellaneous Info

• Cartoon Network UK had an exclusive "Dragon Ball Z Rewind" block on Saturdays 11am-12:30pm, 9pm-10pm and 11am-12pm and 9pm-10pm Sundays where new episodes shown during the week were rerun
• Cartoon Network UK held "Saga Sunday" marathons where they aired as many episodes as they could and carry on the following week
  • Examples of these Saga Sundays, included the following:
    • Freeza saga : November 4, 2001
    • Garlic Junior, Trunks and Android sagas : November 11, 2001 8am-12am
    • Android saga : December 11, 2001
  • On a side note the Garlic Junior, Trunks and Android sagas : November 7, 2001
• Toonami UK also held some Dragon Ball Z marathons, as documented in old Cartoon Network magazines. Some dates were as follows:
  • Freeza, Garlic Junior, Trunks and Android sagas : August 2-3, 2003 from 6am-9pm
  • Imperfect Cell, Perfect Cell and Cell Games : August 9-10, 2003 from 7am-9pm
  • Great Saiyaman, World Tournament, Babidi and Majin Buu sagas : August 23-24, 2003 from 7am-7pm
  • Majin Buu, Fusion and Kid Buu sagas : August 30-31, 2003 from 7am-9pm
• Toonami UK eventually stopped airing the Rock the Dragon OP for earlier episodes like the Saiyan and Freeza sagas, using the Westwood OP for them although the Garlic Junior and Trunks sagas retained the Faulconer Productions OPs
• Sky regularly received questions about when new episodes of Dragon Ball Z would air during the weekly and monthly Q&As on their information channel
• During the UK broadcasts of Dragon Ball Z episode 76 (or 61 edited) Dende's "don't piss off the God of love" is muted during the "piss" line
• It has been noted that there was retroactive editing in the UK broadcasts namely:
  • When Caroni first introduced himself at the Cell Games there was a pose and sound effect but on future airings the pose ended on a freeze frame but the hip thrust was cut
  • Cell absorbing his first victim reportedly being more graphic, showing the face melt
• Conversely on Cartoon Network whenever episode 238/253 aired it ended abruptly with Majin Buu's shocked face as Bee was shot and no credits or NEP was shown, but during later reruns on CNX and Toonami the end of the episode was shown in full
• During the original airing of the final Cell Games episodes Cartoon Network aired a poor quality copy, which had a message on-screen saying "We apologise for the poor picture and sound quality on this programme. Please do not adjust your set"
  • Curiously during this broadcast two frames of the Japanese eyecatch were seen at the beginning of the latter part of episode 179/194
• The reason Cartoon Network stopped airing any Dragon Ball content on either their main channel or Toonami in 2006 has of course never been disclosed
  • From what one fan was told via email Toonami stopped airing Dragon Ball content because of the high cost of licensing
  • This fan was also told when the license expired Cartoon Network believed it would be better spent on original programming

Big thanks to everyone that contributed their memories of these broadcasts, feel free to share any more in this thread.

What are your memories of watching Dragon Ball on UK/Irish TV?

[Kid Buu]

Wow, that is quite the trip down memory lane. It used to always confuse me with the voices changing between Funi and Westwood!

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Wow, that is quite the trip down memory lane. It used to always confuse me with the voices changing between Funi and Westwood!

Yeah, it was so random when the Ocean cast returned after we got the same switch to the inhouse cast as almost all non-European countries that got the English dubs.

The CNX situation is of course the most curious example, as we know the inhouse cast initially returned for the Fusion saga, then at some point in reruns possibly in January 2003 the Ocean cast returned.

[Hellspawn28]

It still feels surreal that the UK got DBZ much later than the US did. I always thought 1996 was late for us.

[Kid Buu]

Wow, that is quite the trip down memory lane. It used to always confuse me with the voices changing between Funi and Westwood!

Yeah, it was so random when the Ocean cast returned after we got the same switch to the inhouse cast as almost all non-European countries that got the English dubs.

The CNX situation is of course the most curious example, as we know the inhouse cast initially returned for the Fusion saga, then at some point in reruns possibly in January 2003 the Ocean cast returned.

I remember CNX debut. Even recall watching a HK movie called Bio Zombie on it, as well as Batman of the Future reruns.

Also remember watching the 5pm episode and the 9pm one despite knowing the former was going to be a rerun.

It still feels surreal that the UK got DBZ much later than the US did. I always thought 1996 was late for us.

It always felt like the UK was late to the anime scene. I've heard about Captain Tsubasa and Saint Seuya being a big deal in come EU countries but never here.

Pokemon was a big hit here, like the rest of the world though.

[90sDBZ]

It still feels surreal that the UK got DBZ much later than the US did. I always thought 1996 was late for us.

We've been later than the US getting pretty much everything, except for the Kid Buu saga and GT, which we actually got before the US.

OG DB didn't air here until late 2003, which was after GT had ended. The movies didn't air here until 2005, Kai didn't air until late 2012, and Super didn't get a TV deal until 2019.

We had an even harder time with home releases, getting basically nothing prior to the Orange Bricks in 2012, and having to wait much longer than the US on several other releases since.

To address the topic, my favourite memories of the UK broadcast are probably watching Goku vs Frieza on Cartoon Network for the first time. That fight was legendary, and seeing it for the first time not knowing what would happen was an incredible experience for 7 year old me.

Although there's many, many, many other memories I have that were also awesome. Generally any time a promo would pop up for new episodes I'd be excited about it for weeks until it aired.

The Android saga promo finally showing up was huge for me, as I'd spent several months watching reruns of Raditz-Trunks, and DBZ had become my favourite show during that period. I'd always continue watching the reruns throughout the broadcast, from Cartoon Network, to CNX, to Toonami.

The daylong marathons were hype too. I remember one weekend the entire Saiyan Saga was being aired, but I had to go off with my family. I came home in the evening and tuned in to see Krillin picking up Yajorobe's sword with the intent of finishing Vegeta. Fortunately there were plenty of other marathons that I didn't miss.

I did go on holiday for 2 weeks during the Cell Games first broadcast, and came home to see SS2 Gohan dodging all of Cell's attacks. At first glance I didn't recognise Gohan, and very briefly thought it was Goku. Luckily it wasn't long until Cartoon Network reran the episodes I missed.

[Kid Buu]

It still feels surreal that the UK got DBZ much later than the US did. I always thought 1996 was late for us.

We've been later than the US getting pretty much everything, except for the Kid Buu saga and GT, which we actually got before the US.

OG DB didn't air here until late 2003, which was after GT had ended. The movies didn't air here until 2005, Kai didn't air until late 2012, and Super didn't get a TV deal until 2019.

We had an even harder time with home releases, getting basically nothing prior to the Orange Bricks in 2012, and having to wait much longer than the US on several other releases since.

Going off-topic here, but if you think that is bad, the UK is only now getting a Sailor Moon home release....in 2025.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

We've been later than the US getting pretty much everything, except for the Kid Buu saga and GT, which we actually got before the US.

What I think is astounding is that GT aired in full here before it even began in the US (where it didn't premier until November 2003). Ocean had to catch up with Funimation when the Westwood dub started, but by the end they got way ahead, at least with all the content chronologically from that point on.

As you say though, unlike the US we didn't get original Dragon Ball until late 2003, so Ocean may have also been in a hurry to get through that older content, which Funimation started dubbing inhouse two years prior. The fact Blue Water GT almost exclusively used Japanese to English translations and their dub of original Dragon Ball referenced Funimation's dub makes it seem there was a bigger rush to get the latter done than the former (add that to the fact all 153 episodes aired in just over a year).

Going off-topic here, but if you think that is bad, the UK is only now getting a Sailor Moon home release....in 2025.

MVM released Sailor Moon DVDs back in 2004, but supposedly almost filed for bankruptcy because sales were so disastrous. Granted it was the edited DiC dub and it was probably more cost effective for fans to import the uncut US DVDs.

I'm glad Crunchyroll UK (formerly Manga UK) are finally releasing Sailor Moon though, hopefully it does well this time.

[Kid Buu]

Oh I stand corrected on Sailor Moon - thanks for that!

It seems the TV Stations wanted to milk DB IP as much as they wanted to here. Instead of airing DB alongside DBZ, just do one show at a time.

[EF2024]

My brother said they still aired original dragon ball on toonami in sept 05 I didn’t believe him then but now I see it’s been mentioned in the tv guides wow. What a shame toonami pivoted to the Pokemon and beyblade toy anime fad. It’s left me wondering if sky one had managed to keep Pokemon advanced battle would we have seen db run on toonami into 2006 like that blue logo era wallpaper that was found on the internet archived version of the toonami website.

[90sDBZ]

My brother said they still aired original dragon ball on toonami in sept 05 I didn’t believe him then but now I see it’s been mentioned in the tv guides wow. What a shame toonami pivoted to the Pokemon and beyblade toy anime fad. It’s left me wondering if sky one had managed to keep Pokemon advanced battle would we have seen db run on toonami into 2006 like that blue logo era wallpaper that was found on the internet archived version of the toonami website.

I'm still not sure if those online TV guides can be trusted. I kept a very close eye on the Sky Guide at the time in the hopes of the DB shows returning. I never saw any of them on there again after they had that movie marathon during the summer.

I do remember OG DB very briefly returning to a Saturday or Sunday slot for a few weeks around late spring or early summer. That was the last time I saw it air personally.

Honestly I'm not sure how much longer they could've kept the reruns going. Z had been on the air constantly for 5 years, and had been rerun countless times. OG DB unfortunately never reached the same level of popularity, and had very few reruns. GT seemed to have done decently well as it did get more reruns than DB, but it was only 64 episodes so could only be rerun so much.

Toonami US was very different in that they'd take Z off the air for a bit then bring it back. Toonami US also had success with lots of other shows, whereas Toonami UK didn't air as much anime, and over relied on the DB franchise to an extent. Because Z was constantly getting reruns and marathons for all those years, people likely got tired of watching the same episodes over and over.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Yeah, I'm also pretty confident original Dragon Ball wasn't shown in late 2005. I have printed schedules from a lot of newspapers from the time and can confirm on occasion Dragon Ball Z was mislabelled as "Dragonball" on the TV guides for Cartoon Network between 2000 and 2002, and it 100% didn't air on regular Cartoon Network or CNX. This is likely another example of such mislabelling.

[Ten na nGael]

Strictly speaking I saw DB first on French TV on holidays and or picked up via satellite here, but it was the UK TV run where I really saw DBZ.

To address the topic, my favourite memories of the UK broadcast are probably watching Goku vs Frieza on Cartoon Network for the first time. That fight was legendary, and seeing it for the first time not knowing what would happen was an incredible experience for 7 year old me.

Same here man. I remember Cartoon Network doing a big special omnibus run of the Frieza saga and I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen.