Weird Old Dub Stuff

[WittyUsername]

Were the “lost episodes” dubbed later than the rest of the show? I was under the impression that FUNimation dubbed them first, but simply held off on releasing them until after the rest of the show already aired.

[Scsigs]

Yeah that stood out to me on my recent rewatch. But honestly the scripts and baughmans pan felt a bit off from what came before .. er... Later in the "lost episodes" dub.

Baughman's Pan, I've never really liked much, tbh. While I wouldn't call her bad & I didn't hate her, I kinda prefer the new VA from Super Hero.

[Metalwario64]

Yeah that stood out to me on my recent rewatch. But honestly the scripts and baughmans pan felt a bit off from what came before .. er... Later in the "lost episodes" dub.

Baughman's Pan, I've never really liked much, tbh. While I wouldn't call her bad & I didn't hate her, I kinda prefer the new VA from Super Hero.

Same. Her line delivery was always just kinda weird to me. I mean a lot of the cast was back then but I guess since she wasn't really putting on much of a voice it made it more apparent or something?

Were the “lost episodes” dubbed later than the rest of the show? I was under the impression that FUNimation dubbed them first, but simply held off on releasing them until after the rest of the show already aired.

Definitely were because like the performances lined up much more with the end of the Shadow Dragons arc with Chandler being much less.. dry, flat and edgy in his narration being a good tell. And Elise Baughman's Pan sounded a bit higher pitched suddenly during the episodes they original dubbed compared to before where she was like... trying less to sound so forcefully youthful I guess?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

And Elise Baughman's Pan sounded a bit higher pitched suddenly during the episodes they original dubbed compared to before where she was like... trying less to sound so forcefully youthful I guess?

One thing we can give the Blue Water dub credit for is casting age appropriate roles. Caitlynne Medrek was 13 and Zoe Slusar was 14 when they were cast as Pan and kid Goku respectively.

[LostTimeLord]

Speaking of GT, I have a theory regarding the infamous "think you know GT" teaser. One of the curious things about it is that they used the actual instrumental for Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku in that teaser even though their eventual English cover (recorded for the 'remastered' DVDs) would use new synth instrumentals.

Why record a new backing track if they have the original? Well, maybe they didn't. Maybe the teaser sourced that instrumental from the scene in episode 61 where Kaioshin listens to Dan Dan on his cassette player? And if so, maybe the tinny sound of the music coming from Kaioshin's headphones is what prompted them to add a VHS filter over the video?

Either way, the version of the dub with the Japanese music has Kaioshin humming the rap song over the top of Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku, which is kinda funny. It's the scene immediately after the eyecatch.

[M16U3L2015]

Just wondering, has any DB song ever been dub in English by Funimation using the original instrumental before Kai finally did it?

I know that the Blue Water dub of GT used the original instrumental for Dan Dan Kokoro and the English version of “Cha La Head Chala” for the english Filipino dub.

[Scsigs]

Speaking of GT, I have a theory regarding the infamous "think you know GT" teaser. One of the curious things about it is that they used the actual instrumental for Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku in that teaser even though their eventual English cover (recorded for the 'remastered' DVDs) would use new synth instrumentals.

Why record a new backing track if they have the original? Well, maybe they didn't. Maybe the teaser sourced that instrumental from the scene in episode 61 where Kaioshin listens to Dan Dan on his cassette player? And if so, maybe the tinny sound of the music coming from Kaioshin's headphones is what prompted them to add a VHS filter over the video?

Either way, the version of the dub with the Japanese music has Kaioshin humming the rap song over the top of Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku, which is kinda funny. It's the scene immediately after the eyecatch.

I doubt it. It's more likely that they got a karaoke version of the track (Japan's big on karaoke, so that wouldn't be surprising). Toei wouldn't have given them the stereo audio, as for some reason, even though they HAVE the stereo mix because GT airs in Japan in reruns with it, every home release of GT since the Dragon Boxes has the shitty mono audio. Plus, audio separation technology wasn't really what it is now back then, if it even existed in a form that FUNi could've used. Blue Water also recorded an English version of the song, which would've required a karaoke track as well, so it's more than likely FUNi also got the same track they did.

As for their cover, before they recorded an English version of 'Dan Dan' for GT, they recorded an English cover of 'Mafushigi Adventure' for their dub of Dragon Ball, but recorded their own version of the backing track for it with a band. Clearly they did the same with 'Dan Dan.'

[LostTimeLord]

Toei wouldn't have given them the stereo audio, as for some reason, even though they HAVE the stereo mix because GT airs in Japan in reruns with it, every home release of GT since the Dragon Boxes has the shitty mono audio.

I'm not talking about the mixed programme audio, I'm talking about the isolated music track used for dubbing. They must have had separate music-only and effects-only tracks because they used them to make their 5.1 mixes, and you can even hear that isolated cassette player music on the rear channels of the 5.1 mix (albeit very quietly). If I'm not mistaken, some of Kikuchi's DBZ music was never released on the soundtrack albums but fans were able to rip clean versions from Funi's 5.1 mixes.

Of course it's a bit of a stretch that Funimation's marketing team would have to have been aware that the Dan Dan snippet exists in episode 61, but it's not impossible. And while some of the international dubs obviously had access to the clean instrumentals, Toei don't seem to have been particularly on the ball with providing all the materials their licensees might need. It seems unlikely that Funimation would record new instrumentals if they didn't need to, and as far as I'm aware they always used the original instrumentation outside of Dragon Ball and GT. Though obviously it could all be a coincidence.

Here's a quick comparison video.

[WittyUsername]

FUNimation also used a different instrumental for the Yu Yu Hakusho opening.

[wjbraden]

Actually, Funimation used to re-record the instrumentals for everything they dubbed back in the day. Even stuff that wasn't really that old or wouldn't have had potential sound degradation, like Blue Gender and Fruits Basket. It was just the way things were done.

[jjgp1112]

All this talk makes me weep for when Funimation was still allowed to dub all of the One Piece intros

[Doctor Seaweed Roll]

All this talk makes me weep for when Funimation was still allowed to dub all of the One Piece intros

That is genuinely what helped my boomer dad to enjoy One Piece as dubbed intros helps with his immersion whenever he decides to watch a non-sci-fi or racing anime as those are ones he says he can follow just by visuals

[Scsigs]

All this talk makes me weep for when Funimation was still allowed to dub all of the One Piece intros

That couldn't get the rights to cover the rest of the songs, sadly. I'm not too heartbroken about it, but I genuinely don't understand why they didn't do their own version of the Strawhat cover of 'We Are' for the recap arc where it was used & why they stopped using their cover of 'We Are' for background music in the show when it's used in later episodes if they still had the rights to not only make an English cover of the song, but continue to use it. If it was because the VAs can't sing, most of the VAs they got to make covers of 'Dragon Soul' for Kai couldn't either, so why not? There's an AI cover of the song on YouTube & it's really good. And, if they stopped using their already-produced cover because it was sung by Vic Mignogna, why not get someone else to re-record it? They've hired people to cover openings & endings before, so why not? It's so stupid.

[LostTimeLord]

Actually, Funimation used to re-record the instrumentals for everything they dubbed back in the day.

The remastered GT sets came out in 2008, and by that point Funimation were already dubbing the One Piece intros with the original instrumentation. Is there any evidence that Funimation actually had the original instrumentals to any of the songs they re-recorded? Has anyone involved ever explained why they felt the need to re-record the backing tracks without making any meaningful changes to how they sound? Just because something existed doesn't mean that Funimation had access to it. They were given the DBZ episode previews without any audio!

I genuinely don't understand why they didn't do their own version of the Strawhat cover of 'We Are' for the recap arc where it was used & why they stopped using their cover of 'We Are' for background music in the show

The Straw Hat version of We Are! wasn't a new recording for the anime, it had been released on CD a few years earlier as part of an album sung by various One Piece characters, so the license might not have been any different from the other theme songs.

The other reprises of We Are! have mostly been new recordings, although the original shows up in episode 1000 and the TV special Episode of East Blue. As the the dub of Episode of East Blue replaces the original 1999 We Are! with Mignogna's English cover but leaves the new Japanese cover alone, they seem to be intentionally leaving new recordings as-is. As for episode 1000, after 790 episodes without dubbed openings I could that either being an oversight or done intentionally for consistency.

Anyway, my original upload is dead now, so I've re-posted the comparison elsewhere: https://sendvid.com/45pxvonp

[wjbraden]

The remastered GT sets came out in 2008, and by that point Funimation were already dubbing the One Piece intros with the original instrumentation. Is there any evidence that Funimation actually had the original instrumentals to any of the songs they re-recorded? Has anyone involved ever explained why they felt the need to re-record the backing tracks without making any meaningful changes to how they sound? Just because something existed doesn't mean that Funimation had access to it. They were given the DBZ episode previews without any audio!

Not really, but it should be noted that other dubs around the world did use the original arrangements to those shows with no issue, so it stands to reason they did have access to them, but chose to make new arrangements. Can't find anything on it at the moment, but I seem to recall that Sabat or Barry Watson had some connections to the local music scene in Dallas, which is how they found and contracted people like Carl Finch to make the new arrangements for them. I wouldn't be surprised if it was done to just give people some work and make them sound a bit "fresher" and Americanized (I remember a lot of the covers going heavy on the guitar, and in the case of Case Closed, having a bit of a country twang in first ending). For Dragon Ball GT though, it was probably done because whatever Toei had sent them sounded terrible and actually needed new instrumentals to sound decent.

The other reprises of We Are! have mostly been new recordings, although the original shows up in episode 1000 and the TV special Episode of East Blue. As the the dub of Episode of East Blue replaces the original 1999 We Are! with Mignogna's English cover but leaves the new Japanese cover alone, they seem to be intentionally leaving new recordings as-is. As for episode 1000, after 790 episodes without dubbed openings I could that either being an oversight or done intentionally for consistency.

Ok so I'm either I'm missing something or I'm going crazy here, but Episode of East Blue only has "We Are! For the New World ~With 100 Friends~" used as the ending, with no use of the original "We Are!" in the special, as an insert song or otherwise. Other sources do list the original as an insert song though, so I'm extremely confused. I even skimmed through the whole special just now...
Never mind I found it, it was a very small snippet. Wow, never knew they did that, I was under the impression that they've never used any dubbed theme music for new material once they were told they couldn't anymore, back around 2012 or so when the first Season 4 Voyage came out. Truly bizarre why they chose to drag this out for a random special.