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

[JulieYBM]

I'd also like to point out—even if this is annecdotal at best—that kids during that era were still seeking out unedited material. Violence is popular with kids lol

[Scsigs]

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.

Ok, I'm gonna stop you right there. Legitimately, those arguments crop up because the OG Z dub had SO many inaccuracies to the Japanese version (a thing a dub into another language shouldn't do, mind you) that resulted in misinformation, dub-induced plot holes, changed character motivations & personalities, dub-induced memes out of serious moments, & cast some really ill-fitting actors on certain roles. Though ok for its day in some ways, when you look at not only what FUNimation gave us, but compare it to what the Japanese gave & what FUNi later gave, the Z dub is a relic of a bygone era of anime dubbing & children's media. Not to mention, the dub is pretty cynical when you take into account that they made it to appeal to as many Western children as possible, damn the consequences.
Kai's dub, by contrast, was made to be as accurate to the original Japanese dialogue as possible & it reflects the quality of it.

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.

Bruh. Lord Zedd in MMPR was supposed to be scary, so the parents had a reaction that made sense even if they reacted harshly in wanting him removed from the show or toned down. But that's also an apples to oranges comparison. I think the more direct comparison you should make is probably the levels of violence in each since PR adapted Super Sentai & parents started complaining about their kids trying to replicate the fighting in the show even though it was largely toned down from what was in Sentai. I assume there were similar complaints about DBZ.
As for what you just said about parents trying to get DBZ taken off the air, that wasn't gonna happen. Though, DBZ had already been struggling for 3 years to find a suitable network to air on. It previously aired in broadcast syndication on various kid's networks before landing on Toonami in 1998/99. After that, Toonami was happy to have it, as was the main channel, Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network has had other action shows & shows in general that had a similar level of violence & subjectmatter to DBZ after Z came out, so I doubt they were gonna let it go so soon after finding a golden goose that was bringing in the ratings. Your argument is completely off-base.

[miguelnuva1]

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.

Ok, I'm gonna stop you right there. Legitimately, those arguments crop up because the OG Z dub had SO many inaccuracies to the Japanese version (a thing a dub into another language shouldn't do, mind you) that resulted in misinformation, dub-induced plot holes, changed character motivations & personalities, dub-induced memes out of serious moments, & cast some really ill-fitting actors on certain roles. Though ok for its day in some ways, when you look at not only what FUNimation gave us, but compare it to what the Japanese gave & what FUNi later gave, the Z dub is a relic of a bygone era of anime dubbing & children's media. Not to mention, the dub is pretty cynical when you take into account that they made it to appeal to as many Western children as possible, damn the consequences.
Kai's dub, by contrast, was made to be as accurate to the original Japanese dialogue as possible & it reflects the quality of it.

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.

Bruh. Lord Zedd in MMPR was supposed to be scary, so the parents had a reaction that made sense even if they reacted harshly in wanting him removed from the show or toned down. But that's also an apples to oranges comparison. I think the more direct comparison you should make is probably the levels of violence in each since PR adapted Super Sentai & parents started complaining about their kids trying to replicate the fighting in the show even though it was largely toned down from what was in Sentai. I assume there were similar complaints about DBZ.
As for what you just said about parents trying to get DBZ taken off the air, that wasn't gonna happen. Though, DBZ had already been struggling for 3 years to find a suitable network to air on. It previously aired in broadcast syndication on various kid's networks before landing on Toonami in 1998/99. After that, Toonami was happy to have it, as was the main channel, Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network has had other action shows & shows in general that had a similar level of violence & subjectmatter to DBZ after Z came out, so I doubt they were gonna let it go so soon after finding a golden goose that was bringing in the ratings. Your argument is completely off-base.

DBZ aired edited on Cartoon network and was already dumbed down when it did.

All I said was said was if it was left uncut or had a more faithful dub back in the day would parents have tried to complain about it or would it have still gotten popular.

I personally think yes but I'm just mentioning a possibility, we're already talking about a what if.

All anime dubs for the most part of TV at the time we're dumbed down for American audiences and edited to be more kid friendly for a reason.

I'm not defending the orginal Funi dub at all. I appreciate it for getting me into the series and I still like the Falconer score for the most part but Kai is better in each and every way and is how I got the series.

I just mentioned how in the anime space the Dragonball community is the one where I see sub vs dub brought up the most and now its OG dub vs Sub vs Kai to different degrees. Not knocking what ever version people want to watch.

For the final part of Dragonball had they shown Gero running throug Yamcha more uncut on TV for example I could see parents having problems.

The DBZ vhs for the most part came in both edited and uncut as I remember it being a big think growing up hearing the Z warriors swear and how much more blood was in the series.

[MasenkoHA]

I'd also like to point out—even if this is annecdotal at best—that kids during that era were still seeking out unedited material. Violence is popular with kids lol

Indeed. I contribute a huge amount or Dragon Ball Z’s success to the violence. Especially when Toonami allowed the characters to bleed when basically no other kids show was getting away with it

[JulieYBM]

I'd also like to point out—even if this is annecdotal at best—that kids during that era were still seeking out unedited material. Violence is popular with kids lol

Indeed. I contribute a huge amount or Dragon Ball Z’s success to the violence. Especially when Toonami allowed the characters to bleed when basically no other kids show was getting away with it

Yeah, I recall even the edited broadcast still feeling unlike anything I have ever experienced before with American cartoons. It was a real revolution.

[Hellspawn28]

Blood should be allowed in kids media, as people do bleed. I always hated how any blood gets edited.

[AlexSketchy04]

Let's say that instead of FUNimation, another company got the rights to Dragon Ball in North America and other English-speaking countries and did faithful English dubs of the classic 1986-1997 DB anime run. Would Dragon Ball be massively successful in America and other English-speaking countries if the old English dubs were faithful to the original Japanese versions and weren't heavily Americanized?

Ya'll would probably cancel me for this.

I understand why people take Mexico and Latin America as an example, and even Europe, but the American market is completely different from any of them, this is a more "puritanital" market when it comes to children's content.

A huge chunk of the world is very used to importing content from the USA and beyond, America isn't, LATAM is also very familiarized with serials and soap-operas with lots of violence, America isn't. I am Hispanic and grew up watching novelas, so I know what I'm talking about. I think Dragon Ball Z would have been Americanized, or at the very least censored to some degree on the states, script and visually wise. I don't see general audiences accepting a foreign show for kids, and I don't see the show having aired on a network with a much older audience, Fukunaga and Watson even mentioned it.

That said, I think think that changing the music and re-writes are pretty stupid, the show is "family friendly" enough that it doesn't even warrant it save for a few moments, same with the music, I always found the silence argument pretty strange because I recall other shows from the same era using much softer music or having silence, which almost never happened during the Funi days.

But well, that's my opinion on the matter.

I'll be honest, I think I was mostly correct, but instead of General Audiences, I would say executives, I don't see them accepting a show how it is was then.

Still, as Masenko mentioned, the show is clearly Asian even when whitewashed.

[GhostEmperorX]

Wonder if it's ever been gone over how, ultimately, Toei themselves just never cared one bit about what would become of their IP's overseas so long as the licensing companies for a given IP properly paid them their fees.
As in, whether the latter in each country would actually maintain the dialogue, BGM, etc or make significant alterations, omissions, and replacements was a decision that Toei entirely left to these companies.

And barring author intervention or the IP failing, they wouldn't normally seek to do things a different way.

Of course, as many a thread and discussion on the net can attest to, DB was far from an exception to this. Even if Funimation stayed rejected back in the 90's, something tells me that Toei wouldn't have introduced any detailed stipulations to whoever got it after Harmony Gold, even the more qualified ones, other than the usual (that it be aired on TV and succeed, after which they collect their money).

[JulieYBM]

Yeah, anime companies didn't much care for foreign markets as much as they do now back in the 1990s. I believe that Toei Animation North America is now the company personally overseeing the subs, dubs and streaming for their anime in North America, as opposed to Crunchyroll doing it all in-house?

[Alehandrew]

By Gen Fukunaga way back in 1997.




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.

I had the exact same experience as you, also in Ontario lol. Racing home to watch the Zone with friends, play Mario Kart 64 and GoldenEye, only to see Raditz again and losing our minds waiting for new episodes haha. The changing voices pissed us off too, and then when most went back to "original" with the westwood dub, it just felt so much like "wtf is going... this is so lame". Not to mention finding clips online of other dubs later in the series, the movies etc while waiting made the experience "one of a kind" lol

[Yellow Flower King]

Many have made this argument already but it bears repeating: Dragon Ball was a success because of itself. Countries have dubbed it respectfully, badly, HORRIBLY, its been aired censored, uncut, remastered, digitally destroyed visually. Dragon Ball was going to be a hit. Always. Not that translations and dubs that are true to the original shouldn't be praised and preferred though,

[Alehandrew]

Many have made this argument already but it bears repeating: Dragon Ball was a success because of itself. Countries have dubbed it respectfully, badly, HORRIBLY, its been aired censored, uncut, remastered, digitally destroyed visually. Dragon Ball was going to be a hit. Always. Not that translations and dubs that are true to the original shouldn't be praised and preferred though,

Agreed. I actually think it would have done much better with proper, competent releases from the get-go.

[kemuri07]

The reality is no one knows anything. It doesn’t matter whether or not DBZ “could” have been a success if it didn’t have Americanized dub, the only thing that matters is that DBZ had a global release during a time where anime was known, but nowhere near what it is today.

No one knows anything, so producers acted appropriately as they would have in the mid 90s.

[Zebra]

They probably didn't need to replace the original soundtrack, but considerable censorship was needed for the franchise to become a success in America at the time. And considering how badly the original DB flopped when it was brought to America in 1989 and 1995, it's clear that they needed to skip to DBZ.

[Scsigs]

Many have made this argument already but it bears repeating: Dragon Ball was a success because of itself. Countries have dubbed it respectfully, badly, HORRIBLY, its been aired censored, uncut, remastered, digitally destroyed visually. Dragon Ball was going to be a hit. Always. Not that translations and dubs that are true to the original shouldn't be praised and preferred, though.

This is the argument I make for people who argue that the US dub was the ONLY reason DBZ became successful in English-speaking North America. Dragon Ball Z has very likable & entertaining characters, engaging conflicts, good action, & a great artstyle from Toriyama. The reason you like the show are because of his creativity & how well Toei did at adapting it from the manga. If you need a bad dub that actively changed things from the Japanese dialogue, was inconsistent even with itself, replaced the background music, & has aged terribly, you don't like the show as it was intended. I feel like this is why the biggest thing people who are nostalgic for the Z dub hate Kai for is the new dub, even though it's actually the best English dub it he franchise, bar none, because of how respectful it was of the Japanese dialogue & how the actors gave great performances.

[LostTimeLord]

In the UK, there was already an enormously popular version of Journey to the West in the 80s, Monkey (a dubbed/localised version of Nippon Television's live-action adaption), which the BBC had repeated in an after-school slot just before the Dragon Ball anime began in Japan. If things had played out differently, could a timely British localisation have played up the connection and marketed itself as an animated quasi-reboot of Monkey?

Of course, in reality the opposite happened. We got a heavily Americanised version that skipped way past the Journey to the West stuff, and those early Dragon Ball episodes wouldn't air over here until 2003. Even though 'new' episodes of Monkey ('lost episodes' not dubbed during the original run) coincided with the premiere of Dragon Ball, the two shows were aimed at different generations. But I do like the idea of a parent catching some Dragon Ball that their kid's watching and going "wait... is.. is this Monkey?"

But, regardless, if the BBC could make Monkey work while leaning into the show being foreign (complete with white actors dubbing the characters with heavy accents! Yikes!) then I think that Dragon Ball could have worked over here without being Americanised.

[Doctor Seaweed Roll]

In the UK, there was already an enormously popular version of Journey to the West in the 80s, Monkey (a dubbed/localised version of Nippon Television's live-action adaption), which the BBC had repeated in an after-school slot just before the Dragon Ball anime began in Japan. If things had played out differently, could a timely British localisation have played up the connection and marketed itself as an animated quasi-reboot of Monkey?

Of course, in reality the opposite happened. We got a heavily Americanised version that skipped way past the Journey to the West stuff, and those early Dragon Ball episodes wouldn't air over here until 2003. Even though 'new' episodes of Monkey ('lost episodes' not dubbed during the original run) coincided with the premiere of Dragon Ball, the two shows were aimed at different generations. But I do like the idea of a parent catching some Dragon Ball that their kid's watching and going "wait... is.. is this Monkey?"

But, regardless, if the BBC could make Monkey work while leaning into the show being foreign (complete with white actors dubbing the characters with heavy accents! Yikes!) then I think that Dragon Ball could have worked over here without being Americanised.

I remember that dub of Monkey airing on BBC Canada before school & it was around 2009-2012 & absolutely loved it

[super michael]

We will never know if DB/DBZ would have succeeded or failed if the dub was faithful to the Japanese version.
Here is a better question, why did One Piece English dub fail? I know One Piece used to be on Cartoon Network. I think I did watch some episode on Cartoon Network, it didn't impress me, so I didn't watch it. Many years later I watched the Japanese version of One Piece and I liked it, I am up to date with the episode.

I can't say why I didn't like the English version of One Piece, this was many years ago. I think it was around the time when Luffy was trying to get Sanji to join his crew.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

We will never know if DB/DBZ would have succeeded or failed if the dub was faithful to the Japanese version.
Here is a better question, why did One Piece English dub fail? I know One Piece used to be on Cartoon Network. I think I did watch some episode on Cartoon Network, it didn't impress me, so I didn't watch it. Many years later I watched the Japanese version of One Piece and I liked it, I am up to date with the episode.

I can't say why I didn't like the English version of One Piece, this was many years ago. I think it was around the time when Luffy was trying to get Sanji to join his crew.

Did the 4Kids dub of One Piece air on Cartoon Network in the US? I know it aired on Toonami UK, but I've only seen the Funimation dub, which is regarded as much more faithful and without the censorship.

[super michael]

We will never know if DB/DBZ would have succeeded or failed if the dub was faithful to the Japanese version.
Here is a better question, why did One Piece English dub fail? I know One Piece used to be on Cartoon Network. I think I did watch some episode on Cartoon Network, it didn't impress me, so I didn't watch it. Many years later I watched the Japanese version of One Piece and I liked it, I am up to date with the episode.

I can't say why I didn't like the English version of One Piece, this was many years ago. I think it was around the time when Luffy was trying to get Sanji to join his crew.

Did the 4Kids dub of One Piece air on Cartoon Network in the US? I know it aired on Toonami UK, but I've only seen the Funimation dub, which is regarded as much more faithful and without the censorship.

I believe One Piece was on Cartoon Network and then went to Toonami, although I am not sure. I know Dragon Ball was on Cartoon Network and then moved to Toonami.