Theophrastus wrote:So do we have any knowledge about who could possibly be funding this production? IIRC, before the actual confirmation from Morrow on that podcasr, didn't Sean Schemmel mention something about an "alternative English dub" being produced?
Does that imply that Funimation is funding this for whatever reason, or is it more likely that some other company (does Westwood Media still exist?) came to them and said "hey, sell us a license so we can produce a dub using the Ocean voice actors and air it in Canada and anywhere else outside the US that'll take it"?
'Tis a mysery. We have no clues as to who's producing the Ocean dub or why.
Sean Schemmel was the first "official" person to mention the Ocean dub. He said on his Facebook that the (then unreleased) FUNimation dub of
Kai was going to be great (which--side note--it was!), and a Facebook user calling himself "Subzero Ice"--who also happens to be a Kanzenshuuer--mentioned that he thought the Ocean dub would be good as well.
Schemmel then elaborated that yes, there would be an Ocean dub, and that he thought it would be bad. He said that he didn't think it would be bad because of the actors, but because the soundtrack was going to be replaced with "crappy Canadian music," and that even the sound effects were going to be modified. He mentioned one particular moment that stuck out to him where Bulma casually turns her head, and an over-the-top "whoosh" sound was added in for no apparent reason. Interestingly enough, that implies that he may have seen some of the dub...and this was back in 2010.
He then asked Subzero Ice how he even knew about the Ocean dub, as it was supposed to be strictly internal FUNimation info. Subzero Ice did not elaborate, and has not elaborated since. I'm curious as to whether or not he'll reveal who he is once the Ocean dub airs. Either way, if he can't reveal his true identity, it's a safe assumption that there's job security concerns, so I don't blame him. Revealed identity or no, it hasn't stopped him from dropping a few interesting nuggets of info here and there. Apparently, the UK channel that's airing
Kai now was aware of the existence of the Ocean dub, but Toei did not give them the option to air it, telling them that they had to use FUNimation's dub.
Our last clue is that, in the credits of the Nicktoons-edited version of
Kai, "Ocean Studios" was listed as being responsible for helping with the edits. My takeaway from that is that there's no way this dub was ever going to be anything other than a TV-only dub, so Ocean was likely involved with both recording an alternative dub and creating a "TV-safe" version.
Too many voice actors and behind-the-scenes people have said that this dub was recorded for it to be a hoax. I 100% believe that voice actors were brought in and recorded their dialogue. However, I'm no longer 100% certain that we'll see it. I suspect that there's some kind of (possibly unforeseen) technical or legal difficulty we don't know about that's keeping it from being released. The thing to keep an eye on is Canadian TV. This dub is being recorded in Canada, and I have a hard time believing it's a coincidence that
Kai hasn't aired on Canadian TV yet.
