Next Episode Previews and FUNimation

[Son Satan]

Something I've been wondering for a while is why FUNimation never dubbed the next episode previews for DB or DBZ. I know that, at least for Z, they were given the masters for them but not the Japanese audio (for whatever reason?), but why would they decide to can them altogether? People have told me that it was because they didn't have the audio to translate from (not that they ever really did that too well anyhow), but I would think that they could get the gist of the next episode's content from the episode itself. Even on Toonami, most of the episodes were given some form of narrated preview, but those never used the original footage for those segments. Wouldn't it have been easier to just dub over already existing footage than splice together a new one entirely?

EDIT: Speaking of which, I know the GT singles had previews on them, which were dubbed, but doesn't that make it odder?

[Pokewhiz7]

Speaking of which, I know the GT singles had previews on them, but they were never dubbed, were they?

Uh, yes they were.

[Son Satan]

Speaking of which, I know the GT singles had previews on them, but they were never dubbed, were they?

Uh, yes they were.

Well, that just makes the whole thing seem weirder then, no? Why dub one set of previews out of three?

[Pokewhiz7]

Speaking of which, I know the GT singles had previews on them, but they were never dubbed, were they?

Uh, yes they were.

Well, that just makes the whole thing seem weirder then, no? Why dub one set of previews out of three?

I don't know. What's even weirder is that the Japanese previews are on there also.

[TheGreatness25]

As far as I know, FUNimation didn't have the rights to use the Japanese audio for next episode previews for Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z (they also didn't have the rights to use an opening or two from Dragon Ball), so they decided to leave them out altogether. FUNimation did their own next episode previews, which I don't get because on the singles they only have the preview for the episode of the next disc, but not for the rest. Basically they didn't want it inconsistent. Now they bought the rights to use the previews for Dragon Ball Z, but I guess they were lazy and didn't redub them (or even try to splice their own old dub audio into it). I guess they didn't want someone watching it in Japanese suddenly get a dub preview. However, this issue never existed for GT as they got the rights for everything, it seems. They even got Dragon Box-like GT footage.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Pokewhiz7]

(they also didn't have the rights to use an opening or two from Dragon Ball)

I believe they do, it's just that there aren't textless versions of them.

[G1Ravage]

FUNimation has always had the Dragon Ball Z next episode previews. They were dubbed in English and aired on Toonami, and one English preview was included at the end of every singles DVD. The problem was that they never received the Japanese audio track for the previews. In Japan, there were sometimes two versions of the previews. One version was shorter, and usually was combined with Goku narrating an advertisement for an upcoming movie. A second, longer version was recorded without the advertisement, and I believe that was used when Dragon Ball Z aired in reruns on another channel. Since the preview audio could be changed on a whim depending on the needs of the broadcaster, it wasn't automatically included in what FUNimation received. I mean, who the hell knew that at some point FUNi would be releasing the series on DVD, and might need it?

The original singles releases of Dragon Ball GT had the English AND Japanese next episode previews. These were all removed for some reason when GT was released in the season sets format.

As for FUNi not using certain versions of Dragon Ball openings, it has nothing to do with not having the rights. They weren't able to get creditless versions of these openings. so they simply omitted them.

[TheGreatness25]

Alright, fair enough. And as for dubbed previews, they are different than the Japanese ones. It's like FUNimation pieced those scenes together themselves. I was wondering for a while if all they did was remove the beginning (where it has the show logo) and border around the video, but then I checked out a dubbed next episode preview on DVD and it was totally different than the Dragon Box one.

So yeah, basically it was because of lack of audio. And I think the GT ones were omitted when they came out as a season set, was to bring uniformity to the sets. None of the others had them, why would GT? Silly? Yes. But it's an explanation.

[Captain Awesome]

I'm actually wondering that since it seems FUNimation are using the previous masters they had for Z (NEP footage but no audio) for the upcoming blu ray release; will they be sneaky and nab the Dbox audio track?, or will they just skip them altogether?.

That does raise another interesting question (probably best asked in the BD thread) but I wonder if they'll just replace the crappy audio from their Nth generation master with the much clearer Dbox audio?, since they have that on hand.

[Puto]

And I think the GT ones were omitted when they came out as a season set, was to bring uniformity to the sets. None of the others had them, why would GT? Silly? Yes. But it's an explanation.

That and Toei didn't provide the NEP BGM to licensors. European GT dubs had to makeshift their own BGM for the NEPs.

[jjgp1112]

Actually, the dub's next episode previews are different from the JP ones. The NEP at the end of episode 171 I can confirm uses different footage in the dub.

[Son Satan]

And I think the GT ones were omitted when they came out as a season set, was to bring uniformity to the sets. None of the others had them, why would GT? Silly? Yes. But it's an explanation.

That and Toei didn't provide the NEP BGM to licensors. European GT dubs had to makeshift their own BGM for the NEPs.

Well, even if they have didn't the music, FUNimation would've changed it in the first place for at least Z and GT.

Alright, fair enough. And as for dubbed previews, they are different than the Japanese ones. It's like FUNimation pieced those scenes together themselves. I was wondering for a while if all they did was remove the beginning (where it has the show logo) and border around the video, but then I checked out a dubbed next episode preview on DVD and it was totally different than the Dragon Box one.

Which is what I found strangest; that they'd make their own NEPs instead of using existing reels.

[Puto]

And I think the GT ones were omitted when they came out as a season set, was to bring uniformity to the sets. None of the others had them, why would GT? Silly? Yes. But it's an explanation.

That and Toei didn't provide the NEP BGM to licensors. European GT dubs had to makeshift their own BGM for the NEPs.

Well, even if they have didn't the music, FUNimation would've changed it in the first place for at least Z and GT.

Not on the green bricks, which are supposed to have the original music and all.

[Krycek7o2]

That and Toei didn't provide the NEP BGM to licensors. European GT dubs had to makeshift their own BGM for the NEPs.

I never knew that. Seriously, every time you put a message out, I learn something new concerning Dragon Ball.

[Son Satan]

That and Toei didn't provide the NEP BGM to licensors. European GT dubs had to makeshift their own BGM for the NEPs.

Well, even if they have didn't the music, FUNimation would've changed it in the first place for at least Z and GT.

Not on the green bricks, which are supposed to have the original music and all.

Well, I was mainly thinking about the singles, as even the GT bricks don't have the previews.

[TheBlackPaladin]

As I understand it--and someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong--the reason FUNimation didn't have the Japanese audio for the NEPs was because technically Toei themselves do not own the audio to the NEPs (at least in the case of DB). I believe that would actually be the legal property of Fuji TV.

[Pokewhiz7]

As I understand it--and someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong--the reason FUNimation didn't have the Japanese audio for the NEPs was because technically Toei themselves do not own the audio to the NEPs (at least in the case of DB). I believe that would actually be the legal property of Fuji TV.

But, they're on the Japanese Dragon Boxes, I'm pretty sure.

[Puto]

No, that's just how Toei rolls in general. Some other Toei shows had NEP issues internationally too. Examples...

- European dubs of Ojamajō Doremi had to halfass the BGM for the NEPs.
- International releases of Sailor Moon (other than recent ones based on new masters) had no NEPs.
- Several international Digimon dubs lacked NEPs. German Digimon Adventure had them, but they had to halfass a BGM for them. Interestingly, the Brazilian dub has the correct BGM.
- IIRC, Mexican Saint Seiya had to halfass the next episode preview BGM too.
- Portuguese One Piece (among others) had to halfass the next episode preview BGM. Interestingly, FUNimation got the right BGM.

And so on. You guys probably see where this is going.

[TheBlackPaladin]

That too. I've heard that while this problem has generally gotten better over time, Toei used to be notorious for giving their international clients much lower quality masters of their properties than the masters they used for airing stuff in Japan.

[Son Satan]

As I understand it--and someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong--the reason FUNimation didn't have the Japanese audio for the NEPs was because technically Toei themselves do not own the audio to the NEPs (at least in the case of DB). I believe that would actually be the legal property of Fuji TV.

But, they're on the Japanese Dragon Boxes, I'm pretty sure.

They are, but at least some of them could be Fuji's property, like the retooled ones for reruns that appear on the DBoxes. Although, not all DB reruns were on Fuji, so maybe not.