The Harmony Gold Dub & Broadcast Audio Discussion Thread

[superrayman3]

This has been brought up before as a possibility. Specifically, there was an old Usenet post that seemed to reference Funimation using the Harmony Gold dub as a sort of screener/test pilot to get stations on board with the show.

It's likely that Harmony Gold was told to destroy their materials or send them back to Toei, but the actual order is unknown. Harmony Gold might have held onto them until Toei requested that any materials they have be sent to Funimation. Of course, if this theory is true, Funimation could already have the Harmony Gold dub in its archives.

Wild speculation, but certainly intriguing.

Wasn't that post mentioned earlier in this thread? If it was I can't believe I forgot about it.

[Ashura]

Just to update this thread -- and a bunch of the PMs I've gotten -- Takarajima mentioned he was a bit busy to me and will be conversing with me about this shortly. I let him know I'll answer any questions he has about it as well.

[superrayman3]

Just to update this thread -- and a bunch of the PMs I've gotten -- Takarajima mentioned he was a bit busy to me and will be conversing with me about this shortly. I let him know I'll answer any questions he has about it as well.

Ok thanks for the update Ashura, next weekend my community is having a yard sale and me and my parent's might be cleaning out some of that storage building that "may" have a HG DB tape so while we're cleaning the building out (if we do that is) I'll be keeping my eye's open for the tape.

[Ashura]

This has been brought up before as a possibility. Specifically, there was an old Usenet post that seemed to reference Funimation using the Harmony Gold dub as a sort of screener/test pilot to get stations on board with the show.

It's likely that Harmony Gold was told to destroy their materials or send them back to Toei, but the actual order is unknown. Harmony Gold might have held onto them until Toei requested that any materials they have be sent to Funimation. Of course, if this theory is true, Funimation could already have the Harmony Gold dub in its archives.

Wild speculation, but certainly intriguing.

-Toei themselves likely has a copy of Harmony Gold's stuff.
-I tried to contact some of the people on those usenet posts to no avail. However, the usenet posts (which are in this thread I think) revolve around a guy who had a friend in the video industry who got a screener of the Blood Rubies film. Reading through it, my inference is that Funimation actually dubbed everything themselves from the beginning... only they used a version of HG's script including the weird names. (Also, it may be that these weird names were made up by Toei themselves... this seems likely.) Then, later-on, for whatever reason they changed the names back to be closer to the original and redubbed the lines that used Zero, MaoMao, etc. and cut in the TV footage for Blood Rubies.

[atm5508]

This has been brought up before as a possibility. Specifically, there was an old Usenet post that seemed to reference Funimation using the Harmony Gold dub as a sort of screener/test pilot to get stations on board with the show.

It's likely that Harmony Gold was told to destroy their materials or send them back to Toei, but the actual order is unknown. Harmony Gold might have held onto them until Toei requested that any materials they have be sent to Funimation. Of course, if this theory is true, Funimation could already have the Harmony Gold dub in its archives.

Wild speculation, but certainly intriguing.

-Toei themselves likely has a copy of Harmony Gold's stuff.
-I tried to contact some of the people on those usenet posts to no avail. However, the usenet posts (which are in this thread I think) revolve around a guy who had a friend in the video industry who got a screener of the Blood Rubies film. Reading through it, my inference is that Funimation actually dubbed everything themselves from the beginning... only they used a version of HG's script including the weird names. (Also, it may be that these weird names were made up by Toei themselves... this seems likely.) Then, later-on, for whatever reason they changed the names back to be closer to the original and redubbed the lines that used Zero, MaoMao, etc. and cut in the TV footage for Blood Rubies.

That would make sense too. Really, anything seems to be possible when it comes to this dub.

[superrayman3]

That would make sense too. Really, anything seems to be possible when it comes to this dub.

There's no doubt about that, this dub is one of the most interesting things about the DB anime in america, I'm still wondering how many episodes HG actually dubbed hopefully if we can find the last episode of the Spanish dub that still used some of the HG voice clips before switching completely to the original M/E we'd know how many episodes HG did.

[takarajima]

.

[DerekPadula]

Hi, Takarijma. Thank you for bringing the thread back to life. Quick update to let you know where I'm at.

My contact at FUNimation was moved over to the new Live Action department and a new lady took over the Dragon Ball franchise. We happened to meet at Anime Expo a few weeks ago and we've emailed back and forth a few times. Mostly me sending emails or leaving messages and not getting responses... but I did get one response.

She said that Toei is very, very stringent about their intellectual property, and said that even if they do find something on the tape that is useful, it's likely they wouldn't approve it for publication. FUNimation has to uphold their wishes, and so on.

I told her that I completely understand, but I'm still an optimist and hope for the best. It has been my recent experience that some of the employees at FUNimation tend to lean toward the negative / fears / concerns type of mentality, perhaps out of corporate protectionist business methodologies.

In any case, we're still waiting to hear back from Tommy. No news yet on the tape.

In regard to the higher quality Japanese audio, it's been a few weeks and she hasn't responded.

Takarijima, why didn't you show me this page before?! http://animepast.net/Crisis/

It's so much more compelling than the things I was given and sent to them. I'm going to email her this page right away and reiterate my question and incentive offer. i.e. free high quality Japanese audio for their future releases.

[superrayman3]

So, I took a look at the copy of the Harmony Gold dub that's floating around on the Internet, and I gave Ashura the parts that were missing, so he's got a complete copy of the movie now (yay).

Sweet, glad to hear such good news.

However, even with that being the case, my copy of the Harmony Gold dub is not only more complete than what's available on the Internet, but it also has much better audio quality as well (though it's not perfect: the beginning has some problems). Here's a sample: http://animepast.net/temp/harmony_gold_sample.mp3

O.O wow that audio quality is incredible it's so clear that I could barely tell that it was from a VHS source you've found a very rare gem indeed.

Assuming that you guys can come up with some good stuff, I'll give a complete copy of the Harmony Gold dub movie to Ashura & Derek and to those who help (And of course, although we all wish Ashura and Derek the best of luck in getting the movie released, do keep in mind that it's not guaranteed that this will happen, and so trading with me may be your one and only opportunity to see the whole movie (which is indeed not floating around the Internet) in pretty good quality.).

If I had something of interest DB related to trade for the HG dub I'd do it in a heartbeat, sadly right now the only things DB related I have are official VHS/DVD releases, I could donate money for future fansub purchases if that's an option.

Thanks for reviving this thread takarajima .

[takarajima]

.

[atm5508]

Thanks for the update Derek!

[sonikku956]

Hmm, the voice acting isn't half bad...

[Ashura]

As I mentioned to takarajima privately, I'm willing to send him what fansubs I have for his archival purposes. 'Course, I was also capturing stuff for him prior to this turning up. Please help out if you can; we're really close to having a legitimately good copy of this to restore and send to Funimation.

[DerekPadula]

Have you emailed her yet?

I took the page down for the moment. I'll gladly make a different page and stick it somewhere else, more unrelated to me and AnimePast, if that'd be alright.

Agh, yes, I sent it to her at the same time I posted the message. Now I look dumb because she went to a page that was under construction. If you publicly published it on the internet, why would it have been a problem to share with them? In hindsight, that's my fault... I should have asked if it was okay first.

Please either put it back up or, as you mentioned, send a new page that shows the comparisons in a very clear manner that doesn't require them to download anything or jump through any hoops. We want to make it as easy as possible and very clearly state the problem and the solution.

Thank you.

On a side note, there's nothing to be afraid of. The Constitution protects free speech, collecting of Dragon Ball tapes (the pursuit of happiness) and the right to post short clips for archival or comparison purposes online. As long as you're not profiting off of them, you're fine, and they would have no reason to be upset.

[takarajima]

.

[DerekPadula]

No worries. Okay, I just sent you a PM. Thanks.

[DerekPadula]

Alright, I just e-mailed the VP's at FUNi a link to a private YouTube video comparing the Japanese audio that Takarajima gave me.

I only did it a few minutes ago at 12:20 am and one of them already responded saying they got it, appreciate it, and will discuss the issue after they're done with the anime convention madness they are currently dealing with. He's either working super late or in Japan. Not sure which.

So that's a step in the right direction!

[superrayman3]

1 hr 14 minutes 51 seconds in. A small snippet of Goku's feet getting drug along the ground due to the Kamehameha blast is cut out. Probably due to time.

Sorry for brining this edit from your movie 3 edit list up Ashura but wouldn't that Kamehameha actually be a Do Don Pa since Tao Pai Pai was the one who did the attack and Goku was trying to catch it?

[Ashura]

I guess you're probably right, yeah? Good catch.

[superrayman3]

"I looked at the voice actor pseudonyms, and here's their actual names (where known)

• Betty Gustafson = Barbara Goodson
  Wendee Swan = Wendee Lee
  Clif Wells = Clifton Wells
  Jeffrey Platt = Michael McConnohie
  Myron Mensah = ????
  Colin Philips = Dave Mallow
  Reba West = Rebecca Forstadt
  Ryan O'Flannagan = Kerrigan Mahan
  Penny Sweet = Edie Mirman
  Ray Michaels = Mike Reynolds
  Ted Lehman = Tad Layman
  A. Gregory = Bill Capizzi (deceased)"

Sorry for bringing this list up Derek but I think I've figured out Myron Mensah's identity, a while back I recall somewhere someone mentioning that Lord wuzu (Crane hermet in Movie 3) was voiced by the same guy who voiced lord Zedd in Sabans Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series, well after looking up the show's cast I noticed that the voice actor for lord Zedd was credited to Robert Axelrod, using this info I googled his name and found this http://www.fanpix.net/gallery/robert-ax ... ctures.htm, as I was checking his bio one of the other names he goes by listed was none other than Myron Mensah, with this I think I can safely say that Robert Axelrod is the same Myron Mensah credited in the Harmony Gold dub of Dragon Ball.

Edit: I just checked his IMDB page and he is indeed the same Myron Mensah credited in the HG dub.