Weird Old Dub Stuff

[LostTimeLord]

The Orange Bricks were the first instance of them remixing the dub dialogue with the Japanese music that had that, then the Dragon Boxes had that track, but they fixed it by replacing it with Cha-la. However, I believe the later Blu-Rays of Z went with the version of the audio tracks with the different song from the Orange Bricks.

Going back to the 2007 mix probably made more practical sense, given that the Blu-rays have all been sourced from the same film reels as the Orange Bricks - whereas they would have had to resynchronise the audio for the Dragon Boxes (and patch in the NEPs from the Japanese track, even though they're intended to be automatically skipped). Though who knows whether Ch-La Head Cha-La's appearance on the Dragon Boxes was a correction that they forgot to replicate for the Levels, or intentionally done just for the Dragon Boxes because they emphasised the Japanese presentation (and had the Japanese lyrics on-screen). Or even if it was an 'error' on Dragon Boxes, as it's presumably the only place where none of the Japanese music or effects carry over.

[M16U3L2015]

So, when it comes to FUNi not having Cha-la, I have a feeling it might've been a licensing thing more than anything, but it IS weird that in the "English dub with Japanese music" audio track, they use that stupid instrumental they had made.

I doubt it's a licensing thing since they dubbed the opening themes for OG and GT without any problems.

I think it's also unlikely that it's because Toei didn't send them a high-quality instrumental track, since they had no trouble recreating the instrumental for the dubbing of the GT songs, and also that several European dubs of "Cha-La" didn't use the original instrumental track.

[MasenkoHA]

If they had licensing issues with Head Cha La it wouldn’t have been included in the Japanese audio either and all the instrumental variations of Head Cha La played in the show would have probably had to get taken out too. And again movies 3, 4, and 6-9 do include Head Cha La in the English dub with Japanese music option

It just seems to be a case of them not having it for the M&E track they were given just like all those cases of every missing vocal insert song and the Chorus of Doom missing in episode 27.

As far as I can tell, they've NEVER included the insert songs even when remixing the Japanese music into 1 of the dub tracks. I think the first time they did that was when they did Super, where they produced covers of them for it of questionable quality. It's just like...why? Are/were they afraid of the kids out there knowing the shit's from Japan or something if they somehow already don't know? Don't know if they kept a lot of the insert songs in the first half of Kai before the Kenji Yamamoto plagiarism scandal forced Toei to create new dubbing tracks with the Kikichi music fast, but I DO remember the "Ginyu Tokusentai" song being dubbed as "Ginyu Force Rules," as it fit the moment & I guess may not have actually been produced by Yamamoto like the opening & ending songs & it's not from Z.

With a Burning Passion Defeat the Red Ribbon Army in episode 65, Dragon Ball Densetsu in episode 76, Blue Travelers in episode 78, and Mesaze Tenkaichi in episode 86 were included in the original Dragon Ball dub but all other vocal songs were missing. And GT’s dub had Dan Dan at the end of episode 64.


It’s just Toei providing shitty M&E tracks. Same reason almost every dub has missing vocal songs. Kai seemed to have mostly had translated songs across the board because Toei and Columbia Records Japan were finally providing proper instrumentals to dub over on the music track

[Scsigs]

So, when it comes to FUNi not having Cha-la, I have a feeling it might've been a licensing thing more than anything, but it IS weird that in the "English dub with Japanese music" audio track, they use that stupid instrumental they had made.

I doubt it's a licensing thing since they dubbed the opening themes for OG and GT without any problems.

I think it's also unlikely that it's because Toei didn't send them a high-quality instrumental track, since they had no trouble recreating the instrumental for the dubbing of the GT songs, and also that several European dubs of "Cha-La" didn't use the original instrumental track.

OG, they kept all the JP music when they dubbed it, so all they had to do was just license the rights to do that & then they had the cover made for it.
GT, they originally didn't keep the background music, opting for an original score & different opening. The cover of 'Dan Dan' didn't come until they rereleased GT uncut in the Green Bricks in 2008 when they remixed the dialogue audio with the JP music & made that cover. By then, they probably just had the rights to do that from licensing the JP music.

[LostTimeLord]

By then, they probably just had the rights to do that from licensing the JP music.

Funi's original release of GT was the DVDs, which had the Japanese audio, and I very much doubt that any license for the background score would be tied to a particular language track - it's not like the new mix was modifying the BGM itself. The composers are also some of the few people from the Japanese production that Funimation always credited, even on the Canadian-dubbed episodes, so I think it's safe to say that the original score has probably always been included in the license.

Funi might have had to get a new license to cover the theme music for the 'Remaster', and more than likely would have needed it approved, but that would have been completely separate from the rights to simply use the original score in their dub.

[SHINOBI-03]

Anyone remembers when FUNimation inserted random profanities in video games, or at least what used to be profanities for its time?

At the top of my head there were a couple of instances from Budokai Tenkaichi/Sparking with one of Jeice's lines using "Wanker" and 18 calling Zangya a "Skank", and in the following releases they removed these lines.

Now I haven't played the games with dub but the examples I used were the ones that I remember really stood out because everyone on YouTube's "censorship in gaming" section used to bring them as examples.

[MasenkoHA]

Though who knows whether Ch-La Head Cha-La's appearance on the Dragon Boxes was a correction that they forgot to replicate for the Levels, or intentionally done just for the Dragon Boxes because they emphasised the Japanese presentation (and had the Japanese lyrics on-screen). Or even if it was an 'error' on Dragon Boxes, as it's presumably the only place where none of the Japanese music or effects carry over.

Actually there does seem to be a connection between Funimation receiving text or textless material for the Japanese OP and ED and vocal songs missing from the M&E track

Harmony Gold got a version of Dragon Ball movie 3 where there was no Japanese text in the credits and an instrumental only version of Dragon Ball Densetsu plays at the end of the movie. The version Funimation got included Japanese text in the credits (infamously in the original release Funimation even tries to cover up the Japanese text with a half blue screen and it looks tacky as hell ) and the vocal version of Dragon Ball Densetsu plays.


The version of Dead Zone and World Strongest Pioneer and Ocean dubbed under Funimation had Head Cha La and Gohan’s insert songs included and Japanese credits. Funimation’s later in-house redub has textless versions of the credits and no Head Cha La and instrumental only versions of Gohan’s song. And I’m pretty sure every Z movie that does include Head Cha La/We Gotta Power in the English with Japanese music option has Japanese text in the credits. Definitely in the case of Tree of Might. The Funimation and Saban tv version even cut out the “Find the Dragon Balls” Head Cha La opening entirely and rewrote it so Krillin already had the dragon balls on him so American kids in 1997 would be spared from seeing Japanese on their tv screens.


I’m guessing the only reason all the Japanese vocal songs in Z were still missing for the Dragon Box version (even though we finally got Head Cha La and the NEP) is because Funimation just used their already finished audio mix from the Orange Bricks instead of doing a new mix with the English audio and the presumably more completed Japanese M&E track that would have been provided to them for the Dragon Boxes

[GTx10]

I like the Orange Bricks replacement opening. It's kind of catchy. (CHA LA is still the best) Although the song doesn't work for the We GOTTA POWER visuals. But what happened to the "original" replacement opening song from the Cooler's Revenge movie? Why didn't they use that?

If you select the English score for that movie it actually plays that alternate theme, which was present on the original movie release. Then if you select English voices with the Japanese dub then you get the current replacement theme. Best of all worlds I guess.