Weird Old Dub Stuff

[TheBigBoy]

Thought it would be fun to have an old fashioned dub bashing thread exploration of some of the interesting qualities and quirks of the English dub. I was going to limit to the Funimation dub but hell, any of the dubs work. I'm talking about censorship, changed intentions or motivations, messing with the story or canon, bad deliveries, stupid jokes...etc. Most of these I'm sure will be well trodden ground but maybe we'll find something new or amusing here.

Let's start off with one of my favorites. Dende's "Don't piss off the god of love! line. It comes completely out of left field and was on the TV version somehow. No idea how it got through. It feels like some sort of early take of intentional outtake that somehow got left in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H8tQwOv14A

What are some of your favorites? I'm sort of interested to see some of the thing that come from the original Dragon Ball dub as I'm just starting to watch that with my kids. It has a reputation for being more accurate but a lot of it seems...off (side request: are there episode comparisons or OG DB anywhere?)

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Let's start off with one of my favorites. Dende's "Don't piss off the god of love! line. It comes completely out of left field and was on the TV version somehow. No idea how it got through. It feels like some sort of early take of intentional outtake that somehow got left in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H8tQwOv14A

As you say it was an outtake, probably wasn't removed because of a lack of quality control. Funimation did record a TV-safe line "Don't tick off the God of Love", which was shown during later reruns on YTV in Canada.

Funimation's original Dragon Ball dub has a lot of weird lines that mess with the continuity like Goku knowing about power levels, the implied feud between the Crane Hermit and Tao Pai Pai and at least two occasions where Kami and the Demon King being extra-terrestrials is spoiled. Blue Water's dub fixes these errors.

[ABED]

Can't remember which episode, but it's the scene where Gohan and Kuririn are looking for Bulma so they can get the Dragon Ball. In the unedited version, the exchange goes something like

Kuririn: Maybe a mountain lion attacked her.
Gohan: I wouldn't want to be the mountain lion.

In the edited version, the first line is removed.

[WittyUsername]

Chaotzu was referred to by the narrator as an emperor when he was brought back to life at the end of the Freeza arc. Presumably, the script writers for the dub had watched or at least heard of the Mystical Adventure movie, where the character was an emperor, and assumed it was part of the same continuity as the actual series. I actually can’t remember if the remastered dub fixed that.

Speaking of movies, the FUNimation dub for Sleeping Princess at Devil’s Castle had the characters act as if they’d already seen Goku turn into a great ape before.

[Tian]

For some reason, in the MAT Serbian dub of Z, Kaioken was adapted as Leptonski Udarac (Lepton Punch)

[TheRed259]

For some reason, in the MAT Serbian dub of Z, Kaioken was adapted as Leptonski Udarac (Lepton Punch)

A similar terminology was used in some episodes of the Greek dub:
https://youtu.be/YZGvWtNOtlc?t=15

[90sDBZ]

Here's some lesser known ones that don't get mentioned as much because they're from the alternate English dubs.

A big one that comes to mind is in Blue Water GT, where Goku is about to blow himself up against Omega/Li Shenron, and says "This is the move that defeated Majin Buu". This implies that Vegeta's Final Explosion was what killed Buu, which is obviously incorrect.

There's also another line where Mr Satan says to the earthlings "I saved you from Cell, Majin Buu, and don't forget Baby". But the people of Earth shouldn't have memories of Buu being a villain.

And there's a line from Westwood Z that confused me as a kid. When they wish back Cell's victims, Yamcha says "Please heal all those hurt by Cell", which I thought was an odd choice of wish considering most of Cell's victims were dead. This lead me to believe that Trunks was alive the whole time, and it wasn't until years later that I realised this wasn't the case.

Obviously this was a censorship thing, as the Westwood dub avoided reference to death until the Fusion Saga. They should've just stuck with using "Next Dimension", as it made more sense in the context of the show without causing unnecessary confusion.

[MasenkoHA]

Funimation's original Dragon Ball dub has a lot of weird lines that mess with the continuity like Goku knowing about power levels,

Sadly, Goku knowing about power levels is actually consistent with their Z dub. The characters from earth are constantly talking about hiding and sensing “power levels.” It’s dumb because power levels should only refer to battle powers that the Freeza Force uses to calculate an opponent’s strength on their scouter. But it’s a dumb in a way that stays true to their own terminology where power levels is used by everyone as part of the dub’s agenda to whitewash any East Asian concepts from the show and de-mystify everything and make the series seem more sci-fi than it actually is.

[Metalwario64]

Here's some lesser known ones that don't get mentioned as much because they're from the alternate English dubs.

A big one that comes to mind is in Blue Water GT, where Goku is about to blow himself up against Omega/Li Shenron, and says "This is the move that defeated Majin Buu". This implies that Vegeta's Final Explosion was what killed Buu, which is obviously incorrect.

There's also another line where Mr Satan says to the earthlings "I saved you from Cell, Majin Buu, and don't forget Baby". But the people of Earth shouldn't have memories of Buu being a villain.

And there's a line from Westwood Z that confused me as a kid. When they wish back Cell's victims, Yamcha says "Please heal all those hurt by Cell", which I thought was an odd choice of wish considering most of Cell's victims were dead. This lead me to believe that Trunks was alive the whole time, and it wasn't until years later that I realised this wasn't the case.

Obviously this was a censorship thing, as the Westwood dub avoided reference to death until the Fusion Saga. They should've just stuck with using "Next Dimension", as it made more sense in the context of the show without causing unnecessary confusion.

Even Funimations dub skirted around trunks being dead. They kept saying he was "in bad shape" and even krillin scolds Vegeta for his rage saying "that won't help trunks!" Or something. Lol

[90sDBZ]

Even Funimations dub skirted around trunks being dead. They kept saying he was "in bad shape" and even krillin scolds Vegeta for his rage saying "that won't help trunks!" Or something. Lol

It's definitely an odd choice, as Funimation's edited dub usually had no issue referencing death.

Though ultimately the wish made in that version is still "Please revive all those killed by Cell", making it clear that Trunks did infact die.

[MasenkoHA]

Here's some lesser known ones that don't get mentioned as much because they're from the alternate English dubs.

A big one that comes to mind is in Blue Water GT, where Goku is about to blow himself up against Omega/Li Shenron, and says "This is the move that defeated Majin Buu". This implies that Vegeta's Final Explosion was what killed Buu, which is obviously incorrect.

There's also another line where Mr Satan says to the earthlings "I saved you from Cell, Majin Buu, and don't forget Baby". But the people of Earth shouldn't have memories of Buu being a villain.

And there's a line from Westwood Z that confused me as a kid. When they wish back Cell's victims, Yamcha says "Please heal all those hurt by Cell", which I thought was an odd choice of wish considering most of Cell's victims were dead. This lead me to believe that Trunks was alive the whole time, and it wasn't until years later that I realised this wasn't the case.

Obviously this was a censorship thing, as the Westwood dub avoided reference to death until the Fusion Saga. They should've just stuck with using "Next Dimension", as it made more sense in the context of the show without causing unnecessary confusion.

Even Funimations dub skirted around trunks being dead. They kept saying he was "in bad shape" and even krillin scolds Vegeta for his rage saying "that won't help trunks!" Or something. Lol

The Funimation dub pre-Kai has always been weird on what they are and aren’t okay with. They’ll use kill and die but every now and then throw a more kids tv broadcast friendly “destroy” even in the uncut dub.

The uncut dub from the Captain Ginyu saga to Kid Buu generally avoided any swearing but had no problem referring to hell as in the place but then in the uncut Saiyan saga they wouldn’t even do that and referred to hell as “the underworld” and “the place of no return” and then in the Namek saga they’re finally throwing around PG swearing with bastards, pissed, damns , and hells


Then you had the original Dragon Ball dub trying to downplay the sexual content that the footage didn’t force them to keep but every now and then they’ll make the dialog worse than the original like Old Lady Paozu calling Goku a “randy boy” instead of blushing that he noticed she’s a girl after patting her crotch or Bulma telling Yamcha he’s going to make it up to her for being gone for so long “and he’s going to enjoy it” instead of just telling him he needs a haircut

[TechExpert2021]

There was a rare version of the BLT dub of the first DB movie done back in 1994 when FUNimation was a new company. It's the same as the later 1995 version of the same dub and served the same purpose (a pilot/test dub to sell Dragon Ball to American syndicated TV stations and networks), except for the following:

• The Harmony Gold names for the characters were used. A few of them, such as "Master Roshi" and "Flying Nimbus", were carried over to the 1995 version of the dub.
• The opening is slightly different; the song is the same except for the line "Zero, he's our hero!" and the show title card is different.
• The text "FUNIMATION presents" and "The Curse of the Blood Rubies" is shown at the beginning of the movie. This also appears in the later 1995 version of the dub, but in a different typeface.
• The ending credits are in a different typeface, which is the same typeface used for the "present" text.
• The FUNimation production logo screen is different and was only used in this version of the dub.

This version was never released on home video commercially nor aired on TV.

––––––––––

Another odd thing is that the Cartoon Network airings of the DBZ TV specials from 2003 had all of the licensed songs replaced with Faulconer Productions music tracks. The YTV airings of the TV specials from 2002, however, had all of the licensed songs intact. I assume it's most likely that FUNimation lost the rights to the licensed songs that were used in their dubs of the DBZ TV specials in 2003.

[MasenkoHA]

Another odd thing is that the Cartoon Network airings of the DBZ TV specials from 2003 had all of the licensed songs replaced with Faulconer Productions music tracks. The YTV airings of the TV specials from 2002, however, had all of the licensed songs intact. I assume it's most likely that FUNimation lost the rights to the licensed songs that were used in their dubs of the DBZ TV specials in 2003.

More likely, Cartoon Network didn’t want to pay royalties to use the licensed music.

[Dbzfan94]

Even Funimations dub skirted around trunks being dead. They kept saying he was "in bad shape" and even krillin scolds Vegeta for his rage saying "that won't help trunks!" Or something. Lol

It's definitely an odd choice, as Funimation's edited dub usually had no issue referencing death.

Though ultimately the wish made in that version is still "Please revive all those killed by Cell", making it clear that Trunks did infact die.

And later on, when Yamcha was telling Trunks what happened, he says something to the effect of “when Vegeta saw you get killed he lost it.”

[Metalwario64]

Yeah I remember that. Trunks also told future Bulma he was dead. So weird to randomly skirt around it, then backpedal, but the old dubs were, if nothing else, inconsistent. Lol.

[90sDBZ]

Yeah I remember that. Trunks also told future Bulma he was dead. So weird to randomly skirt around it, then backpedal, but the old dubs were, if nothing else, inconsistent. Lol.

Reminds me of another line from Funimation's dub. When Vegeta dares Frieza to transform and mentions Zarbon telling him about Frieza being able to transform, even though Zarbon's line was omitted from the dub.

And there's also instances of recaps/flashbacks using slightly different dialogue to the actual scene.

[TheBigBoy]

I was sort of surprised when I found out Vegeta's "Super Saiyan bargain sale" line wasn't a goofy dub addition.

[Metalwario64]

Yeah I remember that. Trunks also told future Bulma he was dead. So weird to randomly skirt around it, then backpedal, but the old dubs were, if nothing else, inconsistent. Lol.

Reminds me of another line from Funimation's dub. When Vegeta dares Frieza to transform and mentions Zarbon telling him about Frieza being able to transform, even though Zarbon's line was omitted from the dub.

And there's also instances of recaps/flashbacks using slightly different dialogue to the actual scene.

The worst case I think was in GT when Vegeta was having a flashback to when he was Majin Vegeta and Goku, instead of saying "Looks like this will take longer than I thought" when he sees Vegeta turn SSJ2, he says "it's quite a shame, I considered you my friend Vegeta!" lol

[Yellow Flower King]

Ay si Chachito, Cachito.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS85l_e-fhQ

[WittyUsername]

Yeah I remember that. Trunks also told future Bulma he was dead. So weird to randomly skirt around it, then backpedal, but the old dubs were, if nothing else, inconsistent. Lol.

Reminds me of another line from Funimation's dub. When Vegeta dares Frieza to transform and mentions Zarbon telling him about Frieza being able to transform, even though Zarbon's line was omitted from the dub.

That one wasn’t actually the dub’s fault. The Japanese version of the anime omitted that scene as well.