Would Dragon Ball be successful in English-speaking countries if the old English dubs weren't Americanized?

[Dark Vegeta-Sama]

Where was this stated? I don't think the Saban dub would have been considered Canadian content since it only utilized a Canadian cast, some writers and a Vancouver-based recording studio, but otherwise it was wholly an American production.

At best it would have been a neat bonus but never a deciding factor, the latter seems to have always been about it being cheaper to record in Canada (which was a popular option at the time).

By Gen Fukunaga way back in 1997.

So is it you that picks who does the voice acting for the characters?
No, actually that's done in Canada. In fact, 35% of all cartoons shown in the US have the voice acting done in Canada. Partially because it's cheaper to do so there and also in order to show our cartoons in Canada a certain amount of work has to be done there.

https://dbzu.3gkai.com/opinions/gfukunaga.html

The cheaper rates and wanting their product to be considered Canadian Content to get on Canadian television were both the reasons

I don't know the exact timeline here since he didn't list years, but Peter Kelamis mentioned in that hour+ podcast he did with geekdom101 that they didn't actually get to see the saban dub air on Canadian TV until several years after the fact. In fact the in house dub might have been airing in America by that point.

It is true that here in Canada, especially back then, we often got stuff later than America did.

For example, the original FUNi/BLT dub of DB aired here in 1996 as opposed to 1995. Although I was a child at the time, I was lucky enough to catch some of the episodes when they aired, so I had some familiarity with Goku/Bulma/Roshi when DBZ aired later on.

Speaking from memory, the first 13 episodes (dub numbering) of FUNi/Ocean's DBZ dub began airing on YTV in the fall of 1998. And yes, that's all we got as our "season 1" essentially. 13 episodes airing over and over again for a year before episodes 14-53 would air in the fall of 1999. I remember the new school year beginning in September 1999 and my friends and I racing home to see the episodes of the Saiyan fight that we'd been waiting so long to see. By then we were getting 5 new episodes a week, so we cycled through the remainder of the Saiyan Saga and into the Namek Saga very quickly.

Kelamis started voicing Goku in episode 38, so his episodes as the character didn't air on YTV until October/November 1999, by which point the airing of the in-house dub of season 3 was already well underway in America. The VHS tapes of season 3 began releasing several months before that in America as well, whereas availability of official home releases of anime was spotty at best in Canada back then, not to mention extremely expensive. Incidentally, the in-house dub would begin airing on YTV on February 14th, 2000. As a kid, the wait for new episodes from November 1999 to February 2000 felt like an eternity, which is laughable looking back now, but it made the abysmal recasting of the characters sting that much more.

As far as DBZ movies 1-3, in which Kelamis also voiced Goku, those aired on YTV in the fall of 2001, which was also years after they'd aired in America.

[Scsigs]

So, I only JUST discovered this thread, so I'm gonna throw my hat into this right & I'm sorry if I hit on any points others have mentioned already, as I didn't read a lot of the posts beyond the first handful.

Yes, if Dragon Ball mad more faithful dubs back in the day, they would've succeeded and, I don't even think FUNimation couldn't have done so back then either had the right people been put in charge of them as shown with Kai & on where the current team has been doing very good work. The main problem with the old Z dub is that it was made to appeal to as many American children as possible, but also the dub team not understanding a lot of what either Toriyama or the staff at Toei's intentions were when creating & writing the show &/or thinking they could do "better" than them. A lot of the clips I've seen where people have directly compared the Z & Kai English dubs at the same moments genuinely come off like the Z dub writers genuinely thought they were making the show "better" by changing the dialogue or adding to the characters' motivations when it wasn't the intent of Toriyama & the characters aren't that emotionally complex in the ways the Z dub made them. The extra dialogue during scenes & moments that were meant to be quiet was also because of that, as other dubs made for kid audiences from Saban & 4Kids also had that since for some reason, it's thought that kids can't pay attention without constant noise going on or can't remember things that were said at least 10 seconds before.

In terms of the music, I think the Shunsuke Kikuchi music would've been fine to keep. The main reason it wasn't was because, like the script writing, it was felt that replacing the music was for the best to appeal more to US kids at Saban, who had Shuki Levy & Ron Wasserman do the music for it, then when FUNi went on their own, they contracted Faulconer Productions to pick up the slack.

And, considering the OG DB dub was less Americanized & kept the original music (minus the insert songs because...reasons) & the later home releases of Z, GT, & the movies & specials had the dub dialogue remixed with the Japanese music & that's the default audio track for them, I think this would've been the right choice. Considering other countries had more faithful dubs with the original music & THEY succeeded just as much as the English dubs did, I think this only shows my point.

[Anonymous Friend]

The better question is would the show still have been a success with some on else controlling it in the early days. Would someone else have gotten it on broadcast television or worked out a way to get it on Toonami?

Also, starting with Dragon Ball. Z fells more and looked more modern. There's a good chance the first Dragon Ball arc might have gotten it cancelled before it got to the first tournament.

[ABED]

The better question is would the show still have been a success with some on else controlling it in the early days. Would someone else have gotten it on broadcast television or worked out a way to get it on Toonami?

Also, starting with Dragon Ball. Z fells more and looked more modern. There's a good chance the first Dragon Ball arc might have gotten it cancelled before it got to the first tournament.

Cartoon Network was a network that started out by airing Hanna Barbera cartoons. Kids don't care that much about what is "modern". Dragon Ball wouldn't have gotten cancelled. There's zero reason to think this is true. The show would do what it did in Japan - grow in popularity as it went.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

The better question is would the show still have been a success with some on else controlling it in the early days. Would someone else have gotten it on broadcast television or worked out a way to get it on Toonami?

Also, starting with Dragon Ball. Z fells more and looked more modern. There's a good chance the first Dragon Ball arc might have gotten it cancelled before it got to the first tournament.

Most international territories aired original Dragon Ball in its entirety before they got to Z and ratings were fine. Why would English-speaking countries be any different?

[MasenkoHA]

The better question is would the show still have been a success with some on else controlling it in the early days. Would someone else have gotten it on broadcast television or worked out a way to get it on Toonami?

Also, starting with Dragon Ball. Z fells more and looked more modern. There's a good chance the first Dragon Ball arc might have gotten it cancelled before it got to the first tournament.

Cartoon Network was a network that started out by airing Hanna Barbera cartoons. Kids don't care that much about what is "modern". Dragon Ball wouldn't have gotten cancelled. There's zero reason to think this is true. The show would do what it did in Japan - grow in popularity as it went.

I was about to say back in the mid to late 90s when DBZ starting taking off in the U.S literally 70-90 percent of Cartoon Network’s output was old Looney Tunes and Hanna Barber cartoons reruns and kids watched those with zero complaints

[shomangaka]

Yeah, even more successful imo

[Anonymous Friend]

The better question is would the show still have been a success with some on else controlling it in the early days. Would someone else have gotten it on broadcast television or worked out a way to get it on Toonami?

Also, starting with Dragon Ball. Z fells more and looked more modern. There's a good chance the first Dragon Ball arc might have gotten it cancelled before it got to the first tournament.

Cartoon Network was a network that started out by airing Hanna Barbera cartoons. Kids don't care that much about what is "modern". Dragon Ball wouldn't have gotten cancelled. There's zero reason to think this is true. The show would do what it did in Japan - grow in popularity as it went.

American cartoons and Japanese anime are not even close to the same style. There's a reason we still make the distinction even to this day. Plenty of other good Anime, even Dragon Ball, was shown on American television that did not catch on.

[MasenkoHA]

The better question is would the show still have been a success with some on else controlling it in the early days. Would someone else have gotten it on broadcast television or worked out a way to get it on Toonami?

Also, starting with Dragon Ball. Z fells more and looked more modern. There's a good chance the first Dragon Ball arc might have gotten it cancelled before it got to the first tournament.

Cartoon Network was a network that started out by airing Hanna Barbera cartoons. Kids don't care that much about what is "modern". Dragon Ball wouldn't have gotten cancelled. There's zero reason to think this is true. The show would do what it did in Japan - grow in popularity as it went.

American cartoons and Japanese anime are not even close to the same style. There's a reason we still make the distinction even to this day. Plenty of other good Anime, even Dragon Ball, was shown on American television that did not catch on.

And? Plenty of anime did catch on. Going all the way back to the 1960s with Kimba, Astro Boy, and Speed Racer.


Also the different styles between Japanese Animation and Western animation isn’t really relevant to Abed’s point that Dragon Ball 86 being an older looking show really wouldn’t have impacted anything on the same channel kids were watching Scooby Doo (and its various knock offs ), Superfriends, Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny etc etc

[Anonymous Friend]

Cartoon Network was a network that started out by airing Hanna Barbera cartoons. Kids don't care that much about what is "modern". Dragon Ball wouldn't have gotten cancelled. There's zero reason to think this is true. The show would do what it did in Japan - grow in popularity as it went.

American cartoons and Japanese anime are not even close to the same style. There's a reason we still make the distinction even to this day. Plenty of other good Anime, even Dragon Ball, was shown on American television that did not catch on.

And? Plenty of anime did catch on. Going all the way back to the 1960s with Kimba, Astro Boy, and Speed Racer.


Also the different styles between Japanese Animation and Western animation isn’t really relevant to Abed’s point that Dragon Ball 86 being an older looking show really wouldn’t have impacted anything on the same channel kids were watching Scooby Doo (and its various knock offs ), Superfriends, Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny etc etc

Then what was the reason it did not catch on?

[MasenkoHA]

American cartoons and Japanese anime are not even close to the same style. There's a reason we still make the distinction even to this day. Plenty of other good Anime, even Dragon Ball, was shown on American television that did not catch on.

And? Plenty of anime did catch on. Going all the way back to the 1960s with Kimba, Astro Boy, and Speed Racer.


Also the different styles between Japanese Animation and Western animation isn’t really relevant to Abed’s point that Dragon Ball 86 being an older looking show really wouldn’t have impacted anything on the same channel kids were watching Scooby Doo (and its various knock offs ), Superfriends, Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny etc etc

Then what was the reason it did not catch on?

In 1995? Funimation’s television distributor couldn’t secure good timeslots everywhere. Cindy or Gen Fukanga even mentioned the reason they partnered with Saban for DBZ is because Saban could get them more coverage across the U.S and get them better timeslots (and even then some stations aired it as early as 6am) Funimation also shit canned the show for DBZ after the first thirteen episodes did lackluster. Plenty of shows didn’t catch on until well after 13 episodes.

Family Guy’s a pretty easy example of a show that didn’t catch on for its original run before it got picked up by Adult Swim and became a big enough hit with middle schoolers to get renewed

In 2001? It caught on just fine. Enough to get all 153 episodes dubbed and aired since Funimation said, when they first announced they were going back to og Dragon Ball, that they were only guaranteed a 28 episode first season (covering the redub of the 1995 episodes and the tournament saga) and Cartoon Network wouldn’t commit to a full series pick up unless those episodes performed. The real problem is by that point DBZ’s dub was two thirds of the way through so Dragon Ball was doomed to live in its shadow at that point. A Dragon Ball show with less action, no Vegeta and no Gohan and no Super Saiyans was going to lose a good amount of the DBZ audience. Potential fans who thought DBZ was a stupid meandering meat head show with muscle heads screaming at each other and standing for 3 hours but might have enjoyed the adventure stuff in the first half of the original anime had no reason to watch a show with Dragon Ball in the title. It’s not surprising it was a lot less popular than Z and even GT but it did well enough with the handicaps in place.

[Hellspawn28]

American cartoons and Japanese anime are not even close to the same style. There's a reason we still make the distinction even to this day. Plenty of other good Anime, even Dragon Ball, was shown on American television that did not catch on.

Sailor Moon was already pretty successful before CN got the rights to it. Even anime in the 80s like Voltron and Robotech did well on American television. Other anime that were on TV, but didn't do well is due to various reasons. Either poor marketing or the dub for the show was total BS.

[ABED]

The better question is would the show still have been a success with some on else controlling it in the early days. Would someone else have gotten it on broadcast television or worked out a way to get it on Toonami?

Also, starting with Dragon Ball. Z fells more and looked more modern. There's a good chance the first Dragon Ball arc might have gotten it cancelled before it got to the first tournament.

Cartoon Network was a network that started out by airing Hanna Barbera cartoons. Kids don't care that much about what is "modern". Dragon Ball wouldn't have gotten cancelled. There's zero reason to think this is true. The show would do what it did in Japan - grow in popularity as it went.

American cartoons and Japanese anime are not even close to the same style. There's a reason we still make the distinction even to this day. Plenty of other good Anime, even Dragon Ball, was shown on American television that did not catch on.

Irrelevant to the point. Being older isn't a deterrent, nor is being foreign. DB didn't catch on bc of a garbage timeslot. Do you really think a show only being a few years younger makes THAT much of a difference to the audience?

[gokaiblue]

I was going to say no because of the era, but the more I thought about it, it probably would have been as successful as it was in the 90s if all the circumstances were the same except for its subpar dub. Pokémon is a good example where, even though there were still differences, it was still pretty faithful and successful. The other series that came to mind was Naruto, but that had the benefit of DBZ and others paving the way in the US.

[MasenkoHA]

I was going to say no because of the era, but the more I thought about it, it probably would have been as successful as it was in the 90s if all the circumstances were the same except for its subpar dub. Pokémon is a good example where, even though there were still differences, it was still pretty faithful and successful. The other series that came to mind was Naruto, but that had the benefit of DBZ and others paving the way in the US.

That and I don’t think 6 year olds in the 90s were nearly as xenophobic as out of touch baby boomers tbh.

[gokaiblue]

I was going to say no because of the era, but the more I thought about it, it probably would have been as successful as it was in the 90s if all the circumstances were the same except for its subpar dub. Pokémon is a good example where, even though there were still differences, it was still pretty faithful and successful. The other series that came to mind was Naruto, but that had the benefit of DBZ and others paving the way in the US.

That and I don’t think 6 year olds in the 90s were nearly as xenophobic as out of touch baby boomers tbh.

And that's the part that still makes me wonder if a faithful dub would have been successful at that time because of the attitudes of those in charge. It's definitely an interesting hypothetical.

[miguelnuva1]

I want to argue yes but at the same time I remember parents thinking Lord Zedd was too scary for the Power Rangers at the time.

I think DBZ and Sailor moon as well did it right. Release a dub to get popular with fans and then remake the series years later to be more faithful.

Dragonball however for some reason I guess do to the large fanbase decided it had to turn into fajbwars about Sub vs Dub vs Kai.

[MasenkoHA]

I want to argue yes but at the same time I remember parents thinking Lord Zedd was too scary for the Power Rangers at the time.

I’m gonna be honest chief, I’m having a hard time following what that has to do with literally anything.

[miguelnuva1]

I want to argue yes but at the same time I remember parents thinking Lord Zedd was too scary for the Power Rangers at the time.

I’m gonna be honest chief, I’m having a hard time following what that has to do with literally anything.

If Parents thought Lord Zedd was too much for Power Rangers and complained as popular as Power Rangers was would they have no done the same thing to a more faithful dub and uncut Dragonball is my entire point. Kids were allowed to watch Dragonball which led to its popularity but had parents being trying to get the show off the air or changed where would it have gone.

[MasenkoHA]

I want to argue yes but at the same time I remember parents thinking Lord Zedd was too scary for the Power Rangers at the time.

I’m gonna be honest chief, I’m having a hard time following what that has to do with literally anything.

If Parents thought Lord Zedd was too much for Power Rangers and complained as popular as Power Rangers was would they have no done the same thing to a more faithful dub and uncut Dragonball is my entire point. Kids were allowed to watch Dragonball which led to its popularity but had parents being trying to get the show off the air or changed where would it have gone.

My issues with that is

1. Power Rangers, particularly Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was targeting a much younger audience than the audience for Dragon Ball The audience for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was like 2-6 years old. Even at its most juvenile the dub of Dragon Ball Z was aiming for the general grade school age. The viewing habits of a 4 year old are going to be much more closely monitored than the viewing habits of a 9 year old

2. Uncut Dragon Ball Z was released fairly early on. The show was also much less edited when new episodes started airing on Toonami. The overtly censored and only available censored era of DBZ only lasted for about 2 and half years. All kids had to do was buy a vhs tape at wal mart or best buy to see Frieza skewer Krillin with his horns. And again the edited dub on Toonami was still more “hardcore” than MMPR because it was aired on cable and going for a slightly older demo