Is the NickToons Version Also The International Version?

[Tanooki Kuribo]

I remember hearing a while ago that the Nicktoons version we have here in America was pretty much going to be the standard international TV version as well. I don't mean it would be in English, I'm talking about the edits and to some extent the Funimation dub script being the source of translation.

Am I crazy? Does anyone remember this? Anyone out there in other territories where DBZK is airing confirm\deny\add their two cents to this?

[PuppetDoctor]

I am not sure about other regions but I remember hearing that the Mexican version of Dragon Ball Kai would be using the Nicktoons version and be based off of the Funimation scripts. I think it was said on the Daizex podcast a few months back.

[bkev]

The Z Kai moniker is the international standard, but I think it's only the Mexican dub that uses its scripts/edits as a basis.

[sangofe]

The french censored video used seems to be based on it, however, it is still a bit different in some place. As far as the script goes, no, they remade a script from scratch.

[gmster]

Seems that Funimation is following 4kids's old practice of having their edited version being the international version. 4kids doesn't do this anymore, at least not with 5D's. They now give the Japanese raw footage. (Now everyone in other countries can hear the awesomeness that is Masaaki Endoh's openings.)

Why Funimation doesn't just give the raw footage to international buyers, I don't know.

[AgitoZ]

Seems that Funimation is following 4kids's old practice of having their edited version being the international version. 4kids doesn't do this anymore, at least not with 5D's. They now give the Japanese raw footage. (Now everyone in other countries can hear the awesomeness that is Masaaki Endoh's openings.)

Why Funimation doesn't just give the raw footage to international buyers, I don't know.

I thought they still did that, even for 5Ds, heh.

Anyways, how are we even sure that it's FUNi's doing? It could be Toei's doing, the uncut version being too expensive, and plenty of other factors.

[gmster]

I thought they still did that, even for 5Ds, heh.

They did at first, until episode 64. 65 onwards used raw masters for international. Must have been jarring for foreign viewers, going from 4kids dialogue and music to the original. It's only US and Canadian viewers that are screwed now, seeing that 4kids is skipping a chunk of 5D's episodes and are canceling the dub at episode 137, just 17 episodes away from the original ending so they can get to the shiny new Yu-Gi-Oh series, which is craptastic to say the least.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I thought they still did that, even for 5Ds, heh.

They did at first, until episode 64. 65 onwards used raw masters for international. Must have been jarring for foreign viewers, going from 4kids dialogue and music to the original. It's only US and Canadian viewers that are screwed now, seeing that 4kids is skipping a chunk of 5D's episodes and are canceling the dub at episode 137, just 17 episodes away from the original ending so they can get to the shiny new Yu-Gi-Oh series, which is craptastic to say the least.

The "65 and onwards" thing you speak of is only true of the German dub. Every other country still bases their dub on the 4Kids version, as I recall.

Anyways, how are we even sure that it's FUNi's doing? It could be Toei's doing, the uncut version being too expensive, and plenty of other factors.

I don't work for FUNi, so I couldn't tell you for sure, but I'm pretty certain that it's just that, that the uncut version is too expensive. It's much cheaper to buy pre-edited masters than it is to buy uncut masters. English fans usually have it pretty good...there's been no significant animated properties that I can think of where we got second-hand masters. Other countries, on the other hand, usually get second-hand masters. The original Mexican dub of DBZ is a rare exception where they actually got their footage straight from Japan, and based their scripts accordingly around Spanish translations of the original Japanese scripts (rather than translations of dub scripts).

[thedarkuniter]

Strange, I heard a story that Funimation actually had their scripts and stuff from the Mexican dub. Funny thing is, Spanish is easier to translate than Japanese and would easily been great source material for the original dub.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Strange, I heard a story that Funimation actually had their scripts and stuff from the Mexican dub. Funny thing is, Spanish is easier to translate than Japanese and would easily been great source material for the original dub.

As before, since I don't work at FUNi I don't know if that's true or not...but if that is true, I would be nothing short of shocked. I'm putting the likelihood of that at below 1%. For a couple reasons.

1) They started dubbing "Dragon Ball" before Mexico did.
2) All of their uncut DVDs have the Japanese audio track. If they got their materials from Mexico, they wouldn't have access to that. They would be dubbing over the Spanish track.
3) The Mexican scripts for their dubs were very accurate and faithful. FUNimation's were.......well......you know.

It's not just Mexico in this case. The very first country to get dubbing rights for "Dragon Ball" was France. Evey single European dub (that I'm aware of, anyway) is based off of the France-edited TV broadcast. Some countries--most notably Germany--do not have an uncut release yet because they would have to go through France to get the uncut video footage and Japanese audio track, and they didn't want to bother because of the costs that would be associated with doing that. So, the only DVD release that Germany has of DBZ is edited and only includes the German dub. And the video footage is the exact same footage used for TV broadcast by France back in the late 80's and early 90's.

[Puto]

2) All of their uncut DVDs have the Japanese audio track. If they got their materials from Mexico, they wouldn't have access to that. They would be dubbing over the Spanish track.

Getting materials from Mexico does not necessarily imply that they would only get the spanish dub track. They could easily get it with both audio tracks -- I'm sure France sent European sub-licensors both the French dub and Japanese audio for the movies (despite only giving the French dub for the series).

[Puto]

I remember hearing a while ago that the Nicktoons version we have here in America was pretty much going to be the standard international TV version as well. I don't mean it would be in English, I'm talking about the edits and to some extent the Funimation dub script being the source of translation.

Am I crazy? Does anyone remember this? Anyone out there in other territories where DBZK is airing confirm\deny\add their two cents to this?

I'm pretty sure the French dub and overall release isn't based on NickToons' cut.

[jjgp1112]

Strange, I heard a story that Funimation actually had their scripts and stuff from the Mexican dub. Funny thing is, Spanish is easier to translate than Japanese and would easily been great source material for the original dub.

...I think you're misinterpreting the story about the Bardock The Father Of Goku dub. THAT was from the Mexican dub, but nothing ese was.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I remember hearing a while ago that the Nicktoons version we have here in America was pretty much going to be the standard international TV version as well. I don't mean it would be in English, I'm talking about the edits and to some extent the Funimation dub script being the source of translation.

Am I crazy? Does anyone remember this? Anyone out there in other territories where DBZK is airing confirm\deny\add their two cents to this?

Well, yes, the Mexican Spanish dub of Kai is indeed based on the Nicktoons-censored dub of Kai, both in terms of scripts and in terms of footage. The credits and episode titles were not even translated into Spanish (narrated in Spanish, yes, but the title cards are still written in English text, as well as the credits). Many of the names of attacks and people have been kept intact, however, because Irwin Daayan (the director of the dub and the voice of Dende in both the Z and Kai dubs) did some research on his own time, asking fans on Twitter what the original names and pronunciation of certain names were. So, any people or attacks that are named correctly is actually Daayan "taking some liberties" with the translation.

Here's a sample. The scripts and even the delivery of the lines that the actors give are clearly based on the English version, and the re-cast actors sound like Spanish versions of the English voices, most notably Gohan....and yes, that is Linda Young's laugh you hear.

[kei17]

The french censored video used seems to be based on it, however, it is still a bit different in some place. As far as the script goes, no, they remade a script from scratch.

Yeah, it does look identical to the Nicktoons version. Oddly enough, it's cropped, though.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

... The credits and episode titles were not even translated into Spanish (narrated in Spanish, yes, but the title cards are still written in English text, as well as the credits).

That's very odd. Don't know why they wouldn't just make some Spanish title cards. I don't think something like that would fly here in the US. Do the Spanish fans seem to mind this?

[TheBlackPaladin]

... The credits and episode titles were not even translated into Spanish (narrated in Spanish, yes, but the title cards are still written in English text, as well as the credits).

That's very odd. Don't know why they wouldn't just make some Spanish title cards. I don't think something like that would fly here in the US. Do the Spanish fans seem to mind this?

From what I can tell, Spanish fans are livid about the Kai dub for a number reasons, that one included. However, as I mentioned earlier, Mexico rarely dubs anime directly from the Japanese source. I remember a Latin American fan once blasted some edits to the English Yu-Gi-Oh dub, so I asked him--politely--why he cared. His response was that he and other Latin American anime fans actually care a lot about how America treats their dubs for anime because their dubs will usually end up being based on ours.

DBZ is one of the super-rare instances where they dubbed directly from the Japanese source, so there's no way the Kai dub can not be considered a downgrade. Having said that, I listened to some later episodes and, putting the issue of footage sources and indirect translations aside, the acting didn't sound half bad. The actors all sounded very emotional and realistic in their delivery.....in my limited knowledge of the Spanish language, of course.

PS: The credits aren't the only thing they kept in English. In episode 17 when they go to pick up the bodies, the version of "Over the Star" that plays in the background is the English version.

[AgitoZ]

PS: The credits aren't the only thing they kept in English. In episode 17 when they go to pick up the bodies, the version of "Over the Star" that plays in the background is the English version.

That one isn't as surprising. Insert songs are rarely dubbed anyways. If they got the Japanese masters they would've kept it in, it just happens that they got English ones.

[TheBlackPaladin]

PS: The credits aren't the only thing they kept in English. In episode 17 when they go to pick up the bodies, the version of "Over the Star" that plays in the background is the English version.

That one isn't as surprising. Insert songs are rarely dubbed anyways. If they got the Japanese masters they would've kept it in, it just happens that they got English ones.

I'm not surprised--you're right after all, insert songs are very rarely dubbed--I was merely pointing it out as another example that the Mexican Spanish dub is, in fact, based on the Nicktoons-censored English dub.

HOWEVER.....

Now that I'm thinkin' about it, since insert songs are rarely dubbed, I think we've found a relatively accurate way of determining which of the other international dubs are based on the English dub. Any dub of Kai where the English version of "Over the Star" plays during episode 17 must be based on the English dub. So...does anybody know of any other dubs where this is the case? I'm curious about Brazil's dub in particular.

UPDATE: Yes.....yes, it too is based on the English version.

[sangofe]

The french censored video used seems to be based on it, however, it is still a bit different in some place. As far as the script goes, no, they remade a script from scratch.

Yeah, it does look identical to the Nicktoons version. Oddly enough, it's cropped, though.

It is not, though, the censoring is different. Less in the French.