Bardock: The Father of Goku - Alone Against Fate Edition (Funimation dub edit)

[SaiyamanMS]

So, the dub of the Bardock special is considered one of the worst Dragon Ball dubs today that hasn’t been replaced by Kai. And for good reason too, heavy rewrites, massive amounts of dialogue added whenever nobody’s mouth is on screen, changed character motivations, randomly changed dub names, etc.

While there have been solid fandubs of this special in the past, I decided that I’d see if I could create something that would have more resemblance to the original Japanese version using only the official materials I had to work with. (Bardock/Trunks double feature, DBZ Kai and the Japanese special selection DVD.)

Notable improvements include:
- Massive reduction in dialogue added when nobody was speaking.
- Total removal of the names “Fasha”, “Shugesh” and “Borgos”.
- Totepo/“Borgos” no longer has any dialogue, just like the original Japanese version.
- Bardock’s final showdown with Freeza now has his accurately translated “everything changes” speech from episode 42 of Kai instead of the original dub dialogue showing regret for the people he killed.

Current issues include:
- Baby Goku’s crying switches between English and Japanese at times.
- A few Japanese grunts make it into a some moments.
- One scene involving Bardock’s visions has remnants of an echo effect for removed dialogue.
- Some notable rewrites can’t be erased with the dialogue that’s available.
Most of these things have been fixed in my new 2026 version using Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot’s Bardock: Alone Against Fate DLC.

I may look at working on this a bit further to solve some of the issues this release has, but for now, I think it’s a reasonably serviceable effort for now. I’m only supplying audio for this project (currently in the form of a mono MP3) and you’ll need to sync it with your own copy of the special’s footage.

Here's the link to the (OLD) audio file.

Edit: April 2026

I’ve created a brand new update for this project, with the new version being renamed the “Alone Against Fate” edition. As the name implies, it heavily makes use of dialogue from Kakarot’s Bardock: Alone Against Fate DLC.

I feel that it’s a massive improvement over the previous version, with much more accurate dialogue and fewer general issues. Baby Goku’s crying is now consistently the voice actress who played him in the Alone Against Fate DLC, the only time any Japanese vocals appear are during the Oozaru raid on Kanassa, there’s no remnants of echoes of removed dialogue. However, the lip sync on some scenes isn’t perfect due to the fact that the game dialogue wasn’t recorded with the animation in mind.

After the attack on Planet Meat, Dodoria’s voice actor switches from John Swasey to Chris Forbis (a number of the later scenes on Freeza’s ship aren’t fully adapted in the DLC), however I managed to completely replace Linda Young with Daman Mills. (A few of his lines are improvised from other sources for the scenes not adapted by the DLC.)

I’m really pleased with how this turned out and while it’s not 100% perfect, I consider it the definitive version of this project.

Here’s the link to the new version of the audio, it’s synced to the Seed of Might release, so you can apply it directly to their version of the special.

[LukeRobertsArt]

You've done a really good job on this one, a lot of the dub-isms of the time always bugged me and I'm glad to see a lot of them fixed.

Would you ever consider doing something similar to this with History of Trunks since it shares a few of the same issues in it's dub?

[SaiyamanMS]

You've done a really good job on this one, a lot of the dub-isms of the time always bugged me and I'm glad to see a lot of them fixed.

Thank you! It means so much to me that people actually appreciate this.

Would you ever consider doing something similar to this with History of Trunks since it shares a few of the same issues in it's dub?

I could consider it, though I don’t think it’d be quite as dramatic an improvement as this one is.

[PeteOfDawn]

Usually when it comes to audio edits like this using MKVToolNix to add the track to the original video is all you really have to do but with this it's not that simple. I'm not sure what was your original sync source was but this did not sync up to mine because of it not having the Dragon Ball Z Special title card and commercial break timings being different. I've edited the audio myself to the match the timing of Toei's Remaster. Use MKVToonNix to merge this audio with the remaster and the audio should be synced up fine.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KGMDoh ... sp=sharing

[PeteOfDawn]

Usually when it comes to audio edits like this using MKVToolNix to add the track to the original video is all you really have to do but with this it's not that simple. I'm not sure what was your original sync source was but this did not sync up to mine because of it not having the Dragon Ball Z Special title card and commercial break timings being different. I've edited the audio myself to the match the timing of Toei's Remaster. Use MKVToonNix to merge this audio with the remaster and the audio should be synced up fine.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KGMDoh ... sp=sharing

Here's and updated link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pSDTH0 ... sp=sharing

[SaiyamanMS]

Usually when it comes to audio edits like this using MKVToolNix to add the track to the original video is all you really have to do but with this it's not that simple. I'm not sure what was your original sync source was but this did not sync up to mine because of it not having the Dragon Ball Z Special title card and commercial break timings being different. I've edited the audio myself to the match the timing of Toei's Remaster. Use MKVToonNix to merge this audio with the remaster and the audio should be synced up fine.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KGMDoh ... sp=sharing

Yeah, the edit was primarily synced with the double feature version (since that’s the primary source of the audio). I’d had no major issues syncing it with my Japanese DVD rip simply offsetting the sync to begin after the Dragon Ball Z Special title card, but there was the slight difference in commercial timings, which wasn’t major but did add up a little over time.

[Kakkaroto735]

So, the dub of the Bardock special is considered one of the worst Dragon Ball dubs today that hasn’t been replaced by Kai. And for good reason too, heavy rewrites, massive amounts of dialogue added whenever nobody’s mouth is on screen, changed character motivations, randomly changed dub names, etc.

While there have been solid fandubs of this special in the past, I decided that I’d see if I could create something that would have more resemblance to the original Japanese version using only the official materials I had to work with. (Bardock/Trunks double feature, DBZ Kai and the Japanese special selection DVD.)

Notable improvements include:
- Massive reduction in dialogue added when nobody was speaking.
- Total removal of the names “Fasha”, “Shugesh” and “Borgos”.
- Totepo/“Borgos” no longer has any dialogue, just like the original Japanese version.
- Bardock’s final showdown with Freeza now has his accurately translated “everything changes” speech from episode 42 of Kai instead of the original dub dialogue showing regret for the people he killed.

Current issues include:
- Baby Goku’s crying switches between English and Japanese at times.
- A few Japanese grunts make it into a some moments.
- One scene involving Bardock’s visions has remnants of an echo effect for removed dialogue.
- Some notable rewrites can’t be erased with the dialogue that’s available.

I may look at working on this a bit further to solve some of the issues this release has, but for now, I think it’s a reasonably serviceable effort for now. I’m only supplying audio for this project (currently in the form of a mono MP3) and you’ll need to sync it with your own copy of the special’s footage.

Here's the link to the audio file.

Any chance of us getting an update on this? The idea is really promising, and now you have the DB Kakarot Bardock DLC to pull voicelines from.

[SaiyamanMS]

Any chance of us getting an update on this? The idea is really promising, and now you have the DB Kakarot Bardock DLC to pull voicelines from.

Definitely! This is actually something I’m interested in doing an updated version of eventually, but it’s not particularly high on my priority list right now. Currently I’m working on a recut of Dragon Ball to remove filler content (which I know already exists, but I’m cutting more than the Milkman cut, with some occasionally over-ambitious edits), where I’m currently up to General Blue.

[Kakkaroto735]

Any chance of us getting an update on this? The idea is really promising, and now you have the DB Kakarot Bardock DLC to pull voicelines from.

Definitely! This is actually something I’m interested in doing an updated version of eventually, but it’s not particularly high on my priority list right now. Currently I’m working on a recut of Dragon Ball to remove filler content (which I know already exists, but I’m cutting more than the Milkman cut, with some occasionally over-ambitious edits), where I’m currently up to General Blue.

Good to hear. When you do get around to continuing this, I can help provide voice lines. As for the Recut, I would be prepared to make some sacrifices with those big edits, in terms of watchability. A lot of the best fight scenes were filler, and Milkman left a lot of that stuff in. There's a tight line between improving the pacing of scenes and killing their flow. Anyways, good luck on your project. PM me if you need help with anything.

[Scsigs]

Any chance of us getting an update on this? The idea is really promising, and now you have the DB Kakarot Bardock DLC to pull voicelines from.

Definitely! This is actually something I’m interested in doing an updated version of eventually, but it’s not particularly high on my priority list right now. Currently I’m working on a recut of Dragon Ball to remove filler content (which I know already exists, but I’m cutting more than the Milkman cut, with some occasionally over-ambitious edits), where I’m currently up to General Blue.

Try &see if you can use anything from DBZ Kakarot. The Bardock DLC has more accurate lines than the special's dub got. Maybe some of the other games have stuff too.

[SaiyamanMS]

I’ve created a brand new update for this project, with the new version being renamed the “Alone Against Fate” edition. As the name implies, it heavily makes use of dialogue from Kakarot’s Bardock: Alone Against Fate DLC.

I feel that it’s a massive improvement over the previous version, with much more accurate dialogue and fewer general issues. Baby Goku’s crying is now consistently the voice actress who played him in the Alone Against Fate DLC, the only time any Japanese vocals appear are during the Oozaru raid on Kanassa, there’s no remnants of echoes of removed dialogue. However, the lip sync on some scenes isn’t perfect due to the fact that the game dialogue wasn’t recorded with the animation in mind.

After the attack on Planet Meat, Dodoria’s voice actor switches from John Swasey to Chris Forbis (a number of the later scenes on Freeza’s ship aren’t fully adapted in the DLC), however I managed to completely replace Linda Young with Daman Mills. (A few of his lines are improvised from other sources for the scenes not adapted by the DLC.)

I’m really pleased with how this turned out and while it’s not 100% perfect, I consider it the definitive version of this project.

Here’s the link to the new version of the audio, it’s synced to the Seed of Might release, so you can apply it directly to their version of the special.

[Metalwario64]

I had no idea this even existed... when rewatching it recently I really wanted to at least go in the 5.1 track and remove all the extra dialog but this is way more than that! I'm gonna check it out soon!