Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" Dub Turns 16; Still Unreleased

[TheBlackPaladin]

As for English Goku, I dunno if I'd say Schemmel is perfect for the role, but his performance in Kai is not bad at all. In fact, I'd say it's pretty good.

Indeed, Kaio aside, He's on par with most of the Funi cast in the Kai dub, pretty good.

I'd go beyond pretty good and say he's damn near perfect for Goku. Schemmel, in my opinion, has given Goku the most complex portrayal he's ever been given in English. Granted, Goku's obviously not an overly complex character, but Schemmel has the most varied delivery for all of his lines. Schemmel's Goku sounds very happy and child-like in keeping with the nature of the character, and yet it has a certain realistic warrior quality to it that shines brilliantly during the scenes where Goku is angry. It would have been really pissed off if that character was recast, to the point where I might not even have checked out the dub of Kai as much as I've always wanted a loyal English dub. He'll always be Goku to me.

[RazorX]

You'd think there'd be a DVD box wouldn't you think? What's to say it won't happen again for ocean kai?

I hope Ocean's Kai dub does get a DVD/Blu Ray release.

And personally..Every character should literally just be recasted..why not start fresh for once?

No. The Funi dub should've been recast from scratch. Ocean has a lot of excellent casting for their characters. A lot of the appeal for the Ocean dub comes from its voice cast. The main Ocean cast needs to stay the same.

Kirby is a Good voice actor at times, his Rey Za Burrel(Seed Destiny), Miroku(InuYasha) were good, but his Goku, no, the guy never fit the character, and the casting people knew as much and turned him down for the role recast.

I liked him in the role but considering the comments the casting director(s) made to him about Goku's character, I think they'll find someone who's even better at Goku.

Kirby I guess is forgetful, he didn't start as Goku in the Westwood dub to begin with, he replaced Kelamis after a good chunk of episodes, the dub wasn't even close to 2 years. Production started Summer 2000, Don Brown said recording ended a few weeks before Christmas, they did it in 2 years 4-5 Months.

Maybe he was giving an estimate, but we know it took at least 2 and a half years, most likely more than that.

I never said that it was Ocean studios' fault for the whole "next dimension" thing. I only said that it gets associated with them, because they were the ones who were dubbing the series when that line was being used (when FUNimation started dubbing the series in-house, they stopped with that crap).

Ocean didn't use "next dimension" in their Android-Kid Buu dub. In the Buu saga they used "death", "die", "kill", etc freely. If someone criticises the "next dimension" line, it goes to Funi/Saban.

MasakoX for Goku.

Not in the Ocean dub.

Blue Water is a joke, I hope for this dub's sake they don't make the mistake of letting that crew handle it.

I don't think you have to worry about that. Kirby Morrow auditioned for Goku and as far as I know, he's based in Vancouver, where the Ocean cast is. If Kirby was able to go to Calgary (where Blue Water Studios is situated) he'd probably have reprised his role of Goku for DBGT.

As good as Blue Water are in Dragon Ball, Ocean owns Dragon Ball Z and I'll be disappointed if anyone except the established Ocean DBZ cast dubs Dragon Ball Kai.

[Dark Vegeta-Sama]

No English VA has ever been perfect for Goku.

Maybe Ocean can find somebody who is.

See Peter Kelamis in DBZ movie 2 for as close to an English Nozawa as you're ever going to get.

Under the right direction, Kelamis has the most fitting English voice for the character. It'd be great if they could somehow get him back for Kai.

[Dark Vegeta-Sama]

Maybe he was giving an estimate, but we know it took at least 2 and a half years, most likely more than that.

Production began mid-2000 (you can check Daizenshuu EX's old news updates from that time using the Internet Archive website to verify, since they posted a news story about Brian Drummond saying he was beginning to voice Vegeta again). According to an interview with Don Brown from the old UKDB site, the final 4 episodes of DBZ were recorded about 2 weeks before Christmas 2002. Those episodes were then aired first in the United Kingdom in March 2003, and very shortly afterward in Canada.

The Ocean dub of episodes 108-276 (or 123-291) was completed in a 2 1/2 year span, and no more than that. Kirby Morrow was rounding up.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

No. The Funi dub should've been recast from scratch. Ocean has a lot of excellent casting for their characters. A lot of the appeal for the Ocean dub comes from its voice cast. The main Ocean cast needs to stay the same..

If they all act the same way they did back in the day, they're no different. I much rather see a better ocean cast than what was presented, sorry. There's way better talent in the ocean pool than some of the choices that were made.

Like I said before just keep Brian Drummon and cast everyone else.

I hope the direction team from Death Note get involved, that dub was beyond awesome!

[TheBlackPaladin]

No. The Funi dub should've been recast from scratch. Ocean has a lot of excellent casting for their characters. A lot of the appeal for the Ocean dub comes from its voice cast. The main Ocean cast needs to stay the same..

If they all act the same way they did back in the day, they're no different. I much rather see a better ocean cast than what was presented, sorry. There's way better talent in the ocean pool than some of the choices that were made.

Like I said before just keep Brian Drummon and cast everyone else.

I hope the direction team from Death Note get involved, that dub was beyond awesome!

Fun bit of trivia on that--Karl Willems (sp?), who directed the Death Note dub, also directed the three uncut Ocean/Pioneer Z movies. The guy seems to have a knack for producing good dubs.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

He sure does, it'd be a devistation if he's not in the team. Right there = fail.

And I'm really worried about the "change" in music, why not leave it? Kai has a good ost, far better than the crap both ocean and the original funi dub recieved.. at least FUNi added it with the season/dragon box sets.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I couldn't agree more, Daimo-Rukiri. Changing the music is such an outdated thing to do as far as adapting an anime. Only a pitifully small amount of companies (like 4Kids) continue to do it. Seemingly everyone else has moved on, and hopefully 4Kids will take note of how well DBZ Kai is doing when they acquire future anime. You don't need to change the music in order to make an anime successful.

[Turtle Marked Stone]

Replaced music makes me sad. New voice cast makes me happy. I have a hard time watching anything related to the Funimation English dub due to the voice work. Hearing things like they're willing to replace the lead star of the previous dub because he simply didn't fit fills me with hope. To be honest I think I'd trade the music for a very well done voice cast. I guess we'll see what happens when this dub actually comes into fruition.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

Changing the music and other things just means they couldn't get ahold of the Music License which really is just BS! This indicates that they're realyl not going to try at all on the dub, maybe we will get a damn good recast but why bother? Why not make it grade A like Death Note?

For all we know this is really just talk.

[Kaboom]

Has it been confirmed that they're replacing the music? Because if so, then that's an automatic fail right then and there, regardless of how fitting the voices or script may end up. Replacing music is just a big no-no in the industry these days.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

It's been confirmed several times by Sean, and Kirby really just confirmed that what sean said was true.

It's not like we need high expectations as this really will never see a dvd or blu-ray release.

[linkdude20002001]

Nothing's been confirmed since Scemmel's comment, but that was in April, and they don't seem to have a cast yet, so most likely it's possible we could get Kenji Yamamoto's score.

Also, Death Note's dub sucked in the pronunciation department, so it's not worthy of an A. A B+ maybe.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

Yea I know, but the actual script is grade A and that's really the dub in ink.

Well if you want to talk about pronounciation, ocean was terrible at it in their run.

[TheBlackPaladin]

No, it hasn't been confirmed. The only reason the discussion of music replacement started in the first place is because Sean Schemmel said (back when he still had a Facebook account)...well, a couple of things, actually. He kinda broke the story that there was even going to be an Ocean dub. He said that they would be replacing the music for the Ocean dub and adding sound effects where there previously were none, such as a "woosh" noise when Bulma turns her head.* He claimed to have listened to some of the replacement music they wanted to use and said it sounded terrible. Mind you, I'm not familiar with Sean Schemmel's exact music tastes, but considering that he's a clasically-trained musician who said several times that he hates Bruce Faulconer's music (despite graduating from the same music school as him), I have a bad feeling that they're going to be replacing it with cheap synthesizer music.

So no, it hasn't been officially confirmed, but the same person who first said the music would be replaced was also the first person to mention that there would be an Ocean dub, which apparently is going to happen after all. Here's hoping that Ocean learns of this consensus somehow and decides not to replace the music.

*For the sake of clarification, when I wrote "they," I'm referring to Ocean, not FUNimation.

[Mewzard]

Replaced music makes me sad. New voice cast makes me happy. I have a hard time watching anything related to the Funimation English dub due to the voice work. Hearing things like they're willing to replace the lead star of the previous dub because he simply didn't fit fills me with hope. To be honest I think I'd trade the music for a very well done voice cast. I guess we'll see what happens when this dub actually comes into fruition.

If you're referring to the original voice work, don't worry, the dub improved.

And the worst part about learning about this so early is that all we have for long periods of time is idle speculation, then the occasional hint comes along. It's almost as bad as a Duke Nukem Fan's situation (though, not as long, thankfully).

I'm having a hard time thinking of a good Ocean voice actor to replace Morrow. He wasn't what I was looking for in a Goku, but it's hard to say for sure who could pull it off. Look at Chris Ayres' Freeza: A voice not quite like anything he's done before, yet fits so well. There might be good VAs for the role who just haven't put the right spin on the voice. A large casting call might help, if they have good voice direction from the start.

[Turtle Marked Stone]

If you're referring to the original voice work, don't worry, the dub improved.

Oh no, I've heard the Kai acting and granted it is leaps and bounds better then the clips I've heard of the Z dub but it still doesn't sound..well very good to me in several departments. (No offense meant towards anyone who enjoys the cast of course.)

[Puto]

Nothing's been confirmed since Scemmel's comment, but that was in April, and they don't seem to have a cast yet, so most likely it's possible we could get Kenji Yamamoto's score.

Also, Death Note's dub sucked in the pronunciation department, so it's not worthy of an A. A B+ maybe.

Excuse me? The Death Note dub was one of the few ones that managed to pronounce almost every Japanese name to near-perfection! How the hell did it "suck in the pronunciation department"?!

[penguintruth]

Maybe somebody could e-mail Sean Schemmel and see if he really knows anything about this or not.

Somebody besides me. I doubt he'd answer me.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

Maybe somebody could e-mail Sean Schemmel and see if he really knows anything about this or not.

Somebody besides me. I doubt he'd answer me.

stalker