Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" Dub Turns 15; Still Unreleased

[El Diabeetus]

It's tough to get pronunciations across using just letters for our stupid American accents . I think what Kirb's getting at is that instead of "Namek" in FUNimation's dub sounding like the "a" in "cane", it will be more like "calm" in the UK dub.

Ah, I get it. Now I want them to pronounce Gero as "Ghero", too.

Anything's better than pronouncing it as Jyro.

Haha, I don't know even Westwood's dub pronunciation choice for that was even more awkward that FUNimation's, still don't like FUNimation's proununciation for the name. But, The Westwood dub had it as Jar-oh.

[Kendamu]

Dr. Jar-Oh was a very jarring pronunciation! *uproar of laughter* *roll credits*

[penguintruth]

I used to think it was pronounced "GEARO"... because, y'know... gears. Machines. He's a robot man.

Yeah.

[Ringworm128]

When I first read his name I thought it was pronounced "Jee (as in jeez) row.

[KingofWisdom]

I didn't even realize until recently that the pronunciation in the FUNimation dub was incorrect.

[Kendamu]

I didn't even realize until recently that the pronunciation in the FUNimation dub was incorrect.

No worries. Most US fans wouldn't know or even care, really.

[linkdude20002001]

Oh yeah, there's one more thing I guess worth mentioning. I thought it was kind of trivial at first and didn't think it was worth mentioning, but now I think this ties into the fact that they're taking the treatment of this dub more seriously: Apparently they're going so far as to pronounce Namek as "Naw-mek" like it sounds in Japanese.

Really!?
That's awesome! This might be better than FUNi's dub. I've always hated how they say it. And because of FUNi, people try to correct me for saying Nah-MEK. >_>

[KingofWisdom]

Om nom nom naw-mek.

I hate most Internet memes, but I couldn't help myself.

[El Diabeetus]

I'm still more curious about what pronunciation they chose to use for Saiyan, if Nah-mehk is possible, hopefully sigh-yan joins it. But, it's English Dragon Ball, so I'm guessing we're gonna get Say-yan.

[KingofWisdom]

It'd be weird if they only went closer to the Japanese pronunciation with that one thing (especially with something that trivial). Now I'm sorta expecting Saiyan and Kaioken to be correct.

[Puto]

I wonder if they'll apply the same reasoning to Radits and Nappa.

[linkdude20002001]

Raditz is a pun on radish, though, so I hope not. But Nappa should be pronounced Nahp-pah, so maybe they'll fix that. Hmm... I wonder if they'll use God over Kami.

[penguintruth]

The pronunciation isn't going to mean a damn thing if the script and performances aren't good.

[KingofWisdom]

The music could also potentially kill the mood, depending on what we get.

[Kendamu]

The pronunciation isn't going to mean a damn thing if the script and performances aren't good.

That's a no-brainer. Hopefully them paying attention to pronunciation and being careful about who they're casting is a sign of their efforts toward things such as script and acting.

[Ringworm128]

IMO stuff like "Nahpa" and Nahmek" aren't that important compared to stuff like "Saiyan".

[Taku128]

Yeah, I put mispronunciations like Namek below mispronunciations like Saiyan. The former sharpens (in the case of the a) or softens (in the case of the e) the impact of the vowel to make it sound more natural in an English sentence, whereas changes like the latter are just blatantly wrong even if the intent is the same. FUNimation changed their pronunciation of Kaio-Ken, so I hope Ocean can go the extra mile and actually pronounce Saiyan in English correctly for the first time outside of promotional material narrated by people who don't know anything about Dragon Ball Z and thus naturally pronounce it correctly.

(Are they pronouncing the e in Namek like Japanese too? Because that's going to sound awkward as hell.)

[ultimateemail5000]

I am looking forward to this dub, and I am not in Canada or UK, or wherever it's going to air. I'm sure though there will be clips online or full episodes.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I am looking forward to this dub, and I am not in Canada or UK, or wherever it's going to air. I'm sure though there will be clips online or full episodes.

Yeah...you have stumbled across the single biggest problem/concern I have with this dub. Unless one lives in Canada or the UK, there won't really be a "legal" (or, for that matter, convenient) way for non-Canadian and non-British fans to watch the Ocean dub. We basically have to wait and pray for the brave soul who is quick enough to upload the episodes to YouTube, and then hope and pray to be one of the few people to watch them before they are taken down.

Then again, I'm approaching that possibility as though it's still 2001. I don't want to say that online streaming of shows was "non-existent," but it was practically non-existent back then. Certainly not nearly as prominent as it is now. So, for that reason, I'm hoping that CS Media (or whatever network is airing the Ocean dub) does what Nicktoons or CW/Vortex is doing and streams the episodes online. Granted, I'll then have to rummage around looking for ways to mimic a British IP address, but as they say, I'll "cross that bridge when I come to it."

Well, actually, now that I'm thinking about it...people outside the US, were you able to watch episodes of FUNimation-dubbed "Dragon Ball Z Kai" on Nicktoons.com?

[Ringworm128]

There's always a chance for a DVD/Blu release. If the announcement of the Buu saga for Kai has taught me one thing it's never give up hope on something no matter how unlikely it seems. And I can't speak for other countries but I've never been able to watch anything on Nicktoons.com in Australia.