Miss Portugal '97

[TheBlackPaladin]

OK, so, believe it or not, despite the odd title of the thread, this is Dragon Ball-related.

There's an oddity in the European Portuguese dub of DBZ that I was hoping some people could elaborate on. This dub, as I'm sure many of us know, is known among the international DBZ dubs for having particularly odd script/adaptation choices. It seems that, in many instances, they almost aimed for self-parody. One particularly odd moment stuck out to me: there's a point in the Buu arc where one of Babidi's monsters reveals himself and, in the European Portuguese dub, Goku exclaims (at 0:28), "It's Miss Portugal '97!"

.........As somebody who is not familiar with Portuguese models and cultural references, could somebody who is please explain this joke?

[rereboy]

What's there to get? Yakon is incredibly ugly. So, calling him, jokingly, a model, let alone Miss Portugal of that year, is funny. Obviously its not even remotely accurate to the original script, but its easy to understand what's funny about it.

These were the type of things that made the portuguese dub so much fun. It was amazing. Since the dub obviously didn't have very high production value, it would have ended up not being better if they took it more seriously, so they made the right choice in having some fun with it because that came across to the viewers and made it an even more fun experience. Also, Dragon Ball is the perfect anime for such an approach.

[UltimateHammerBro]

Oh my, the PT dub must have been so much fun to watch. It was really well received there by the general public, am I right?

Spoiler:

I don't even want to think how the audience would have reacted if Spain had gotten a dub with similar references. They'd have had bashed the company, associate it with right-wing governments, politicians would have been screaming at each other because of Dragonball... even more than they did back in the day in real life.

[sangofe]

I find nothing about this "joke" funny, and especially not in character for Goku.

[rereboy]

I find nothing about this "joke" funny, and especially not in character for Goku.

Its impossible to debate different senses of humor, but its easy to understand rationally why its funny, imo. And like I said, being very faithful to the original wasn't the highest priority. However, since we got the anime from France, what our dub team had to work with was already very different from the original since it included all the inaccuracies of the early french dub.

Oh my, the PT dub must have been so much fun to watch. It was really well received there by the general public, am I right?

Spoiler:

I don't even want to think how the audience would have reacted if Spain had gotten a dub with similar references. They'd have had bashed the company, associate it with right-wing governments, politicians would have been screaming at each other because of Dragonball... even more than they did back in the day in real life.

It was amazingly received. I mean, Portugal has a pretty small population and there's quite a few of portuguese fans on this forum. This says something.

[Quebaz]

Oh my, the PT dub must have been so much fun to watch. It was really well received there by the general public, am I right?

Spoiler:

I don't even want to think how the audience would have reacted if Spain had gotten a dub with similar references. They'd have had bashed the company, associate it with right-wing governments, politicians would have been screaming at each other because of Dragonball... even more than they did back in the day in real life.

From what I know, people who are now over 20 used to ditch classes and work just to watch it on TV every single day.
There was one similar thing in GT where the crew had to decide what name to give Giru and Goku's says "Well since It's the Expo's year, we can name him Gil", that was a reference to the Expo 98 in which its mascot was indeed named Gil.

[UltimateHammerBro]

Oh my, the PT dub must have been so much fun to watch. It was really well received there by the general public, am I right?

Spoiler:

I don't even want to think how the audience would have reacted if Spain had gotten a dub with similar references. They'd have had bashed the company, associate it with right-wing governments, politicians would have been screaming at each other because of Dragonball... even more than they did back in the day in real life.

From what I know, people who are now over 20 used to ditch classes and work just to watch it on TV every single day.
There was one similar thing in GT where the crew had to decide what name to give Giru and Goku's says "Well since It's the Expo's year, we can name him Gil", that was a reference to the Expo 98 in which its mascot was indeed named Gil.

Oh, I see. I thought Gil was just a romanization of Giru.

[Quebaz]

Oh, I see. I thought Gil was just a romanization of Giru.

It still is since that's what he says all the time, even before he was named.

[DrBriefsCat]

These were the type of things that made the portuguese dub so much fun. It was amazing. Since the dub obviously didn't have very high production value, it would have ended up not being better if they took it more seriously, so they made the right choice in having some fun with it because that came across to the viewers and made it an even more fun experience. Also, Dragon Ball is the perfect anime for such an approach.

Sounds similar in style to how anime like Crayon Shin-chan and Lupin III were dubbed into English.

[Luso Saiyan]

Oh my, the PT dub must have been so much fun to watch. It was really well received there by the general public, am I right?

It was, but I wouldn't say that it was because of the jokes and changes of the dub. At the end of the day, the story and characters were what made the series so iconic and popular. And that's something all versions share.

[Rukura]

The dub had a LOT of that stuff, which was quite fun(ny) at the time. A lot of crude humor that might also have been too edgy for primetime TV standards nowadays, let alone for us kids back then, now that I think about it

From what I know, people who are now over 20 used to ditch classes and work just to watch it on TV every single day.

Even people that were over 20 at that time. There's always anecdotal evidence brought up of how universities (like Técnico) would pretty much stop to watch it

There was one similar thing in GT where the crew had to decide what name to give Giru and Goku's says "Well since It's the Expo's year, we can name him Gil", that was a reference to the Expo 98 in which its mascot was indeed named Gil.

Totally missed it, really clever on their part, I must admit.

For a while, after discovering the original Japanese version, I did get a little upset because of what we "missed out" on and get a little against it. Maybe it's me getting a little older, but I can look back and kinda like it for what it is and what it was back then, while still very much prefering the Japanese version. We did have the original music all the way, which was a plus.

[kei17]

What they did is nothing different than FUNi's silly changes in their DBZ dub. The show is enjoyable enough on its own, and low budget doesn't justify the changes they made. It's nice that the series became popular and got a lot of enthusiastic fans as a result, but I still despise any kind of over the top localization and consider it as an insult to the original author.

[Dicrypter]

The portuguese dub is realy a precious thing, they are like 7 to 9 people making the dub and they say a lot of jokes

[Akumaito Beam]

I've always wondered how often gags like these were. Was it a straight up constant comedy dub or did they just crack jokes like this once in awhile?

[sangofe]

I find nothing about this "joke" funny, and especially not in character for Goku.

Its impossible to debate different senses of humor, but its easy to understand rationally why its funny, imo. And like I said, being very faithful to the original wasn't the highest priority. However, since we got the anime from France, what our dub team had to work with was already very different from the original since it included all the inaccuracies of the early french dub.

Oh my, the PT dub must have been so much fun to watch. It was really well received there by the general public, am I right?

Spoiler:

I don't even want to think how the audience would have reacted if Spain had gotten a dub with similar references. They'd have had bashed the company, associate it with right-wing governments, politicians would have been screaming at each other because of Dragonball... even more than they did back in the day in real life.

It was amazingly received. I mean, Portugal has a pretty small population and there's quite a few of portuguese fans on this forum. This says something.

You know, the french dub script's not always a very different or bad adaptation. The problem with it, was that it varied so much, though. But I haven't checked this particular episode.

[Luso Saiyan]

Was it a straight up constant comedy dub or did they just crack jokes like this once in awhile?

It wasn't constant. It usually happened when characters were gloating.

[rereboy]

What they did is nothing different than FUNi's silly changes in their DBZ dub. The show is enjoyable enough on its own, and low budget doesn't justify the changes they made. It's nice that the series became popular and got a lot of enthusiastic fans as a result, but I still despise any kind of over the top localization and consider it as an insult to the original author.

Honestly, that's just taking things way too seriously, imo. Extreme faithfulness is not all that matters.

[Eire]

One of the most important DB's aspects is comedy. Comedy's prime purpose is to make people's laugh- and everybody who decides to write a comedy should be aware that when it comes to international release things will be changed to appeal to local audience.
Especially since DB isn't niche production deeply rooted in culture a'la Hyouge mono but quite generic humour targeted towards children. So in this case I find changes excusable, like in Shrek.

[Big Momma]

What they did is nothing different than FUNi's silly changes in their DBZ dub. The show is enjoyable enough on its own, and low budget doesn't justify the changes they made. It's nice that the series became popular and got a lot of enthusiastic fans as a result, but I still despise any kind of over the top localization and consider it as an insult to the original author.

Honestly, that's just taking things way too seriously, imo. Extreme faithfulness is not all that matters.

I'm not as "Serious" about it as Kei (In that that one Miss Portugal joke doesn't bother me), but that sort of thing definitely matters.

This isn't how everyone things but if were to create my own series, and it ended up being popular enough to get dubs overseas, I'd be a little irked if they changed things like that. Especially if it were to the extent some of the older dubs did. If a show is good/popular enough to even warrant being adapted overseas, shouldn't it be able to become successful on it's own in those places? Without script/music/tone/character changes?

[rereboy]

I'm not as "Serious" about it as Kei (In that that one Miss Portugal joke doesn't bother me), but that sort of thing definitely matters.

This isn't how everyone things but if were to create my own series, and it ended up being popular enough to get dubs overseas, I'd be a little irked if they changed things like that. Especially if it were to the extent some of the older dubs did. If a show is good/popular enough to even warrant being adapted overseas, shouldn't it be able to become successful on it's own in those places? Without script/music/tone/character changes?

You are missing the point, I believe. Dragon Ball became successful in my country due to its own merits because the dub didn't change essential stuff like the plot. Added jokes like miss Portugal '97 wouldn't matter in the slightest if the show didn't stand on its own feet.

However, the portuguese Dub would never be a masterpiece because they worked with very limited resources and had about 10 people for all the voices in the show. So, instead of trying to be super faithful, they just relaxed a bit and had some fun with it in the little things. The result was an added element of humor to the show that fit pretty well, made it even more memorable and didn't change anything essential to the show, not even the tone since DB is already pretty humorous by itself.

Without this, the dub frankly wouldn't really be any better. It wouldn't suddenly become a very high quality Dub because the version we got (from France) already had plenty of inaccuracies, and the resources we had weren't that great. It could be a tad more faithful but it would be less memorable and less fun. It simply wouldn't be worth it, honestly, because accuracy isn't everything.