I'd love to know more about Dragon Ball in these territories if anyone can add to what I have below.
DRAGON BALL
DRAGON BALL Z1996-1999: Original Dragon Ball is said to have aired in French between 1995 and 1996 on Club RTL, RTL9 and Mangas.
2000-2016: At the time Yorin confirmed original Dragon Ball would premier on November 3, 2003, although this never happened, despite fans on (now defunct) forums reporting Teletext listings for episodes, complete with synopyses. It was rumoured that Yorin rejected the series because of the dirty jokes, but this has never been confirmed.
2017-2026: It has been stated that since 2018 Dragon Ball was airing in Belgium on La Trois during a program called OUFtivi, although one report indicates this broadcast took place around summer 2017.
DRAGON BALL GT2001-2003: The Dutch broadcast of Dragon Ball Z began airing on Cartoon Network August 28, 2000. Two episodes of Dragon Ball Z were aired every weekday with the first two episodes premiering on the debut day, and every weekday from that point there was a repeat of the previous episode followed by 1 new episode. This pattern continued until January 25, 2001 when the series reached episode 110 and then took a 3-month break. The series aired with Funimation's English dub for the first 107 episodes (edited numbering), and on January 23, 2001 when episode 108 aired Cartoon Network switched from Funimation's dub to the Westwood dub, marking the worldwide premier of this new English dub featuring the original voice cast from the first 53 episodes of Dragon Ball Z, although this time recording was done at Airwave Sound Design instead of Ocean Studios.
Prior to the Westwood dub's debut and the subsequent 3-month break Cartoon Network reran the first 110 episodes of Dragon Ball Z between January 29, 2001 and April 13, 2001, although this time instead of 5 episodes being aired from Monday to Friday there was 2 episodes and of course no new premiers. On April 16, 2001 Dragon Ball Z continued from episode 111, following the previously established pattern of 5 new episodes a week with 1 repeat followed up by the previous weekday's new episode, with the exception of the first day of the run, which, much like the series debut date had 2 new episodes. This second run of episodes continued until June 7, 2001, which featured a rerun of episode 149 followed up by the premier of episode 150. During the summer of 2001 Cartoon Network was airing Dragon Ball Z daily, on their website mentioning the holiday schedule being a chance to see their "toppers" no less than 3 times, indicating ratings remaining strong. Newspaper articles from 2001 mentioned a big layoff in the Dutch Cartoon Network. There was another rerun of Dragon Ball Z episodes that started on Cartoon Network after episode 150 premiered but on August 1, 2001 the Dutch branch of the network closed down. This of course meant episode 150 was the last new episode they would premier. Consequently Cartoon Network became the Dutch MTV and the local branch was replaced with the Pan-European feed, which was not widely available and the channel did not have the rights for Dragon Ball Z on.
Once Cartoon Network rebranded, Dragon Ball Z went on a break in the Netherlands for almost a year, but due to the popularity of Dragon Ball Z Yorin acquired the license, and even launched a "Cartoon Network" block, and at one point when they acquired more anime used the Toonami branding. On November 5, 2001 Yorin began to air Dragon Ball Z on their "Yorkiddin" block starting with episode 1. There were no new episodes airing until June 3, 2002 when Yorin premiered episode 151, however unlike Cartoon Network there was only 1 episode aired per weekday with no repeat of the previous weekday's episode during this first run of new episodes, which lasted until episode 179 premiered on July 11, 2002. Yorkiddin also had a "Yorkiddin Presents Cartoon Network" block where they aired several shows they acquired the rights to from Cartoon Network, including Dragon Ball Z. The "Yorkiddin Presents Cartoon Network" block was later renamed "Toonami". It has been said towards the end of its run the series was aired in a rush with two new episodes every weekday at 5pm and 5:30pm. Following episode 179 Yorin took a short break from new episodes until a new run began on September 2, 2002 with episode 180. During this new run there was 1 new episode aired from Monday to Thursday and 2 new episodes premiering every Friday, for example on September 6, 2002 episodes 184 and 185 both premiered. The Fusion saga began on November 8, 2002, on December 4, 2002 with the premier of episode 260, the final episode of this saga Yorin once again took a break from airing new episodes of Dragon Ball Z. May 5, 2003 marked the premier of the final saga of Dragon Ball Z on Yorkiddin with episode 261, however unlike the previous run only 5 new episodes aired from Monday to Friday with only a single new episode premiering on Fridays. The final episode of Dragon Ball Z aired in the Netherlands on May 26, 2003.
In summary, based on news reports and airing patterns, the sagas as fans in English-speaking countries generally know them as likely premiered (180-210 and 262-276 are extrapolated) in the Netherlands on the following dates:It was reported on November 2, 2001 Dragon Ball Z series was to begin being released on DVD January 29th the following year.
- Saiyan Saga (episodes 1-26) : August 28, 2000-September 29, 2000 (Rerun followed from January 29, 2001-February 14, 2001 with 2 episodes airing every weekday, and premier date of episode 1 on Yorin's Yorkiddin block was November 5, 2001)
- Namek Saga (episodes 27-53) : October 2, 2000-November 7, 2000 (Rerun followed from February 15, 2001-March 6, 2001)
- Captain Ginyu Saga (episodes 54-60) : November 8, 2000-November 16, 2000 (Rerun followed from March 6, 2001)-March 9, 2001)
- Freeza Saga (episodes 61-92) : November 17, 2000-January 1, 2001 (Rerun followed from March 12, 2001)-April 2, 2001)
- Garlic Junior Saga (episodes 93-102) : January 2, 2001-January 15, 2001 (Rerun followed from April 3, 2001-April 9, 2001)
- Trunks Saga (episodes 103-110) : January 16, 2001-January 25, 2001 (Rerun followed from April 10, 2001-April 13, 2001)
- Androids Saga (episodes 111-124) : April 16, 2001-May 2, 2001
- Imperfect Cell Saga (episodes 125-137) : May 3, 2001-May 21, 2001
- Perfect Cell Saga (episodes 138-150) : May 22, 2001-June 7, 2001
- Cell Games Saga (episodes 151-179) : June 3, 2002-July 11, 2002
- Other World Saga (episodes 180-184) : September 2, 2002-September 6, 2002
- Great Saiyaman Saga (episodes 185-194) : September 6, 2002-September 18, 2002
- World Tournament Saga (episodes 195-204) : September 19, 2002-September 30, 2002
- Babidi Saga (episodes 205-216) : October 1, 2002-October 14, 2002
- Majin Boo Saga (episodes 217-238) : October 15, 2002-November 8, 2002
- Fusion Saga (episodes 239-260) : November 8, 2002-December 4, 2002
- Kid Boo Saga (episodes 261-276) : May 5, 2003-May 26, 2003
In 2003 stores imported the US DVDs as there was no home releases in print at the time. Funimation's uncut DVDs specifically could be found in such stores. Funimation's Bardock : The Father of Goku VHS and History of Trunks were available on VHS and DVD respectively). The DVDs may have been Madman imports though, rather than Funimation. The local editions of the two TV specials from Bridge Pictures were both released on May 6, 2003.
Bridge's product manager Janey Van Ireland announced on December 10, 2003 a new concept for the home video market known as the Mega DVDs aimed at kids due to high demand for unreleased episodes of long series that would be released the next year. The Dragon Ball Z TV series was announced as one of the titles, alongside Totally Spies, Pokemon and Medabots. From January 20, 2004, Bridge Entertainment began re-releasing Funimation's edited Dragon Ball Z dub on the Mega DVD series, which contained 8 episodes per disc. All these releases were localized with Dutch on the covers and in the DVD menus.
Dutch promos were stylized the same way as the eyecatches. The first airing of Dragon Ball Z featured eyecatches with a pink background and fighting animation overlaid on it, although this is lost media. Musical promos were used when there wasn't enough commercials to fill a timeslot and often ran late evening before the start of a new block on the channel. One in particular was set to the song 'Natural Blues' by Moby, which featured Kaio and environmental shots from the show. Promos were always used for new arcs whether the show was coming back from reruns or was in the middle of a run of new episodes. There were promos for the Garlic Junior saga, Cell's first appearance (which was foreshadowed), along with an eerie ad with footage of cells multiplying with Nine Inch Nails music in the background.
The Dutch Cartoon Network had "Dragon Ball Z Rewind" marathons at weekends, which showcased stained glass images of characters and footage of Super Saiyan Goku fighting Freeza with background music from Adagio for Strings or similar artists. Although such love and care was rarely given on Dutch kids TV the subtitles were described as a letdown. Tenshinhan, for example is referred to as Goten once, and for the Namek saga it was spelt "Nemek" for several episodes, which was never fixed on reruns. Whenever the artificial humans were mentioned in dialogue there was an encoding error which rendered the translation as "andro iden" with a space, instead of "androïden". Additionally Nappa's Saiba men were referred to as the "Cybermannetjes", the little cyber men. The Dutch broadcast on Yorkiddin is said to have flip flopped between the Ocean and Funimation dubs by the time the Majin Boo saga aired, with Ocean airing from Trunks' arrival all the way up to the episode Rou Kaioushin was introduced, then airing Funimation's dub for about 5 episodes. Moreover Dragon Ball Z edited episode 239 aired with the Ocean dub on November 8, 2002 and on November 14, 2002 Yorkiddin switched to the Funimation dub.
In Belgium the Dutch broadcasts of Dragon Ball Z on their version of Cartoon Network and Yorin could be seen through satellite providers. The national Belgian broadcast of Dragon Ball Z began on Kanaal 2 on December 17 2001. The Namek and Freeza arcs aired sometime in 2002 with the Garlic Junior arc following in December 2002. Reruns started from the first episode after every time an arc concluded, and then after the most recent episode there would be another break before new episodes. Dragon Ball Z was initially aired during Kanaal2's Cake block alongside another popular anime Digimon as well as Flemish comedies like Family Backeljau and American sitcoms like That Show. Kanaal 2 (now known as "VTM2", also known as "Kanaal Twee" from 2003 to 2008) reportedly aired the English dubs of Dragon Ball Z by Funimation from episodes 1-107 (edited numbering) and the Westwood dub from episode 108 until the end of the Cell arc, although it has also been stated the Japanese version aired with Dutch subtitles. All the episodes up to the end of the Cell games were rerun multiple times over.
2004-2018: Yorin stopped airing anime altogether, both on the main channel and its Yorkiddin block on March 12, 2004, and from this date on Dragon Ball never returned to Dutch TV. By September 2004 Belgian fans contacted Kanaal Twee asking why further episodes of Dragon Ball Z weren't being aired and were told that Kanaal Twee didn't have broadcasting rights to those episodes yet, and that all information would be available on the screen, TV guides and text.
2019-2020: In early 2019 Netflix submitted the first 3 seasons of Dragon Ball Z to the Dutch classification board Kijkwijzer. As the first two seasons were rated 6+ and season 3 was 12+ fans speculated that the streaming service would be using Funimation's edited dub with the Ocean cast for seasons 1-2 and inhouse cast for season 3 because of higher levels of censorship and violence in the former and latter respectively.
DRAGON BALL KAI1998-2002: Anecdotal reports say Dragon Ball GT aired as late as 1998-2000 on Club RTL.
2003-2005: Dragon Ball GT made its debut on the Dutch Cartoon Network May 27, 2003. GT aired in the Netherlands with the Blue Water dub, which AB Groupe received from Ocean and Westwood Media to distribute in Europe. Dragon Ball GT's premier also broke from Yorkiddin's current pattern as a new episode was premiered on a Saturday (which was May 31, 2003 that week). Nonetheless GT continued airing on Yorkiddin with 5 new episodes Monday to Friday until episode 22's premier on June 24, 2003 when the series went on a break and had reruns for several weeks. Yorkiddin began airing new episodes of Dragon Ball GT on September 3, 2003 with episode 23 and 5 new episodes a week Monday to Friday continued to air until October 30, 2003 when episode 64 aired and the series, as well as Dragon Ball in general came to an end on Dutch TV. Dragon Ball GT began a rerun on November 3, 2003.
In summary, based on news reports and airing patterns, the sagas as fans in English-speaking countries generally know them as likely premiered (23-64 are extrapolated) in the Netherlands on the following dates:In Belgium the Dutch broadcasts of Dragon Ball GT on their version of Cartoon Network and Yorin could be seen through satellite providers. In 2005, RTL Club was airing Dragon Ball GT Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 2.40pm in Belgium.
- Black Star Dragon Ball Saga (episodes 1-16) : May 27, 2003-June 16, 2003
- Baby Saga (episodes 17-40) : June 17, 2003-September 26, 2003
- Super 17 Saga (episodes 41-47) : September 29, 2003-October 7, 2003
- Shadow Dragon Saga (episodes 48-64) : October 8, 2003-October 30, 2003
DRAGON BALL SUPER2024-2026: On June 23, 2024 at the Heroes Comic Con GoAnime was seemingly teasing at their booth they had licensed Dragon Ball Kai, which led to fans reaching out to them on social media for further information. GoAnime confirmed at that time they would enquire about which English dub would be used and Kai would also be streaming on Videoland. A few days later a GoAnime rep said Kai would be streaming with a Dutch dub and that if viewers were interested they would look into an English dubbed option. Nonetheless Kai was streamed exclusively in Japanese with subtitles, likely because "Dutch dub" was a geberic licensing clause.
DRAGON BALL DAIMA2016-2026: Dragon Ball Super simulcast was received in the Netherlands as confirmed at the time by Daisuki.
DRAGON BALL MOVIES2024-2026: Dragon Ball Daima was available in Japanese subbed in multiple languages in Belgium, Luxembourg through Crunchyroll and Netflix, although only if users manually changed their profile language to English.
Thanks goes out to:2000-2017: Bridge Entertainment released Dragon Ball Z movies 1-9 with the "Big Green" English dub on VHS and DVD. Every movie VHS/DVD featured a cover corresponding to the Big Green dub movie order rather than the official TOEI order (for example Movie 1 was TOEI's Z Movie 3 Tree of Might), so the covers were in the correct order but the movies inside were wrong. Subtitling was provided by a company named Hoek & Sonépouse.
Dragon Ball Z movies 5 and 6 were released on DVD February 2, 2001, followed by movie 2 on June 21, 2001, movies 3 and 4 on August 21, 2001, and movies 5 and 6 following on November 6th the same year.
2018-2026: By September 2019 Resurrection F was submitted to Kijkwijzer for classification and a month later Battle of Gods was added. The former got a 12+ rating and the latter was rated for age 6+. The most recent two movies Broly and Super Hero also got added and were rated 6+, although their inclusion may have been for the theatrical releases as neither has been streamed in the Netherlands yet. Broly was released in the Netherlands, first January 24, 2019 in theatres and then on Blu-ray by Periscoop Film June 7, 2019. In terms of box office success Broly grossed $430,721 opening weekend and $708,182 over its run, although some reports have it closer to $720,000. It was distributed by Dogwoof Pictures across 75 theatres.
Broly also got a theatrical screening on January 25, 2019, marking the first time Dragon Ball was ever in cinemas in Luxembourg. The next movie to get a theatrical release was Super Hero on October 5, 2022.
On July 6, 2023 Resurrection F and Broly began streaming on Crunchyroll, although unlike Oceania as well as North and Latin America the first 13 Z movies weren't available at this point. The movies were streamed with both dub and subtitle options for English, German and French.
Super Hero was released theatrically in the Netherlands on August 18, 2022 opening at $163,231 and grossing $408,571 over its run. Distribution was handled by Universal Pictures International (UPI).
Battle of Gods received a limited theatrical run on March 1, 2025 in the Netherlands and March 8, 2025 in Luxembourg and Belgium courtesy of Piece of Magic Entertainment in honor of Akira Toriyama.
- ThunderPX for the wealth of information regarding Dragon Ball in the Netherlands.
- TheRed259 for inspiring this topic with the thread on Greece and Cyprus.
- Jord for mentioning the eyecatches feature Shawn Stasiak's theme
