France: Kai Boo dub + Kai Blu-ray coming

[Cold Skin]

Okay, so this falls a little flat after the reveal of the 2015 movie, but one of the voice actors has announced the news.
We owe this discovery to Dr.Murow!, one of the big bosses of the French forum http://www.db-z.com who is in contact with the very friendly Brigitte Lecordier (voice actor for Kid Goku, Kid Gohan, Kid Goten and C-18) via her Facebook account.

The Boo saga is being dubbed since June.
While it is not stated, there's every reason for it to be the international version named as Dragon Ball Z Kai - The Final Chapters as opposed to the on-going Japanese production of the Dragon Ball Kai Majin Boo arc.

While Brigitte Lecordier used to voice Kid Goku, Kid Gohan, Kid Goten, Kid Trunks, C-18, Videl and Kaio Shin back in Dragon Ball Z, several of her roles have been given to other voice actors instead, and she will only keep Kid Goten and C-18 in the new saga (roles that she had to keep because she is most famous and amazing for the roles of the kids from the Son family, and had previously dubbed C-18 in the Kai Cell saga), while Videl, Kid Trunks and Kaio Shin will have other voice actors still unknown for now, probably for the sake of diversity despite Brigitte's talent to modulate her voice.


Direct link to the French forum page with that picture and the announcement of the news: http://www.db-z.com/forum/index.php/topic,101.1290.html

TRANSLATION:

Spoiler:

SAMUEL: "Hey my sweet Brigitte, I forgot to ask: has the dub for the Boo era of Dragon Ball Kai begun? Can't wait to hear you play the roles of Goten, Trunks, Kaio Shin, C-18 and Videl again!! *Nostalgia*"
BRIGITTE: "Yes, we started the Boo saga in June!"
SAMUEL: "Aaaah neat! You'll have to fuse with yourself once again!"
BRIGITTE: "Well, actually... I've been replaced on many of my roles, I only have Goten and C-18 left. No more fusing with myself then!!! I'm very sad."
SAMUEL: "Whuuu-?! That's just not possible, Kaio Shin, Trunks and Videl with another voice?! But why???"
BRIGITTE: "I don't know?! I've been told it's to make it closer to the original Japanese..."

EDIT: Kazé just announced the arrival of Blu-ray sets for Kai, Dr.Murow! was once again the first one to notice and share the news.

https://fr-fr.facebook.com/kaze.fr
"Enjoy Dragon Ball Z Kai, the high definition remake of Dragon Ball Z, published by Kazé on Blu-ray discs at the end of the summer holidays!"

[Valerius Dover]

I'm more or less following anything related to Kai with interest right now. If I'm not mistaken, France is the third country to have The Final Chapters confirmed, isn't it? After Korea and Latin America?

[Cold Skin]

^ Korea for sure since it's being aired right now, but I don't know about Latin America, it's possible.

As for France, if it's like the first time around with Dragon Ball Z Kai for the Freezer arc, dubbing during summer would mean that the whole saga would be available on DVDs by the end of the year, with all questions about presentation and openings/endings being answered.
But there's no official announcement for the DVDs yet, so we can't know for sure, it's possible that Toei will say "nope, you guys don't make DVDs available before we're done on Japanese TV, we don't want people to find out about it before it airs".

[TheBlackPaladin]

Go France!

...But on the other hand, I'm finding myself more and more surprised that an English dub still hasn't been announced. I mean, I know it's inevitable, but we were the first to get a dub of Kai, and now two other countries have beaten us to the punch on dubbing the final saga. Odd.

[DBZ_Lee]

Great!

Really pleased for my friends over in France. I agree that it is a little strange FUNimation have yet to announce their dub. I think VegettoEX & Hujio are right when they say Toei Japan are putting the brakes on the English version announcement for the moment.

[SaiyamanMS]

I fail to see how Brigitte Lecordier confirming the Buu saga being recorded is any more official than Sean Schemmel and Kyle Hebert saying they were recording at one point before suddenly retracting their statements.

[UltimateHammerBro]

Wow, this is interesting. If I remember well, Kai was aired in France in several TV channels, and one of them aired it in Japanese with subtitles. That may be the way to finally see the international version with better quality.

I'm more or less following anything related to Kai with interest right now. If I'm not mistaken, France is the third country to have The Final Chapters confirmed, isn't it? After Korea and Latin America?

I think that the Latin America thing a few weeks ago was fake.

I fail to see how Brigitte Lecordier confirming the Buu saga being recorded is any more official than Sean Schemmel and Kyle Hebert saying they were recording at one point before suddenly retracting their statements.

I think that VAs in Europe don't have so many restrictions when talking about their work.
Besides, when Schemmel and Hebert retracted their statements, I think that few people believed them: it was a bit obvious that they had to do so.

[Cold Skin]

I fail to see how Brigitte Lecordier confirming the Buu saga being recorded is any more official than Sean Schemmel and Kyle Hebert saying they were recording at one point before suddenly retracting their statements.

I think that VAs in Europe don't have so many restrictions when talking about their work.
Besides, when Schemmel and Hebert retracted their statements, I think that few people believed them: it was a bit obvious that they had to do so.

Unless it's some big worldwide master like Disney, or big AAA movies/games, voice actors are authorized to reveal announcements that such production is being done because their won't be an official announcement for it anyway.

The only announcement will be a channel saying "we will air Kai" or shops saying "we'll have the DVDs for sell at that date", which voice actors aren't even aware of.
Since there is no official announcement for the simple fact that "a dub is being produced because we have plans for this show in our country", voice actors will often be the ones first casually talking about the existence of a dub. They're also free to talk about the working conditions, saying "this was awful because...", "we had a great time because...", "they wouldn't pay us for the screams, so we didn't do them", etc...

For the first Kai release, it was the voice actors who first said "we've started recording Kai and the recording will end at that specific date", and they don't have to retract anything because they're simply free to casually say it. It really is the official voice actors free to reveal official informations because they are the only one who might do it, they don't know how or when the dub will be used anyway, so they can't reveal anything that matters in the eyes of the "big bosses", if anything they spread the news and create hype for the upcoming product.

There's not that weird secrecy of the dub even existing that seems to be going in the US. But it might be because Funimation, possibly unlike France, won't use the dub for a while, so they don't want crowds to rage knowing that the dub is all done and ready and yet can't be accessed.

[UltimateHammerBro]

Well, in fact, companies sometimes get too nitpicky about VAs.In Spain, FOX fired the VA who dubbed Daryl Dixon in The Walking Dead because he uploaded a photo of him in the studio (as many VAs do), but there was a TV in the background showing a frame of the series (which was nothing more than a close-up of Rick Grimes). Neither him nor FOX wanted to make comments about it, but it's mostly known now. It's never happened before as far as I know, it was an imposition from FOX U.S.
Maybe Funi got angry about Schemmel and Sabat revealing that and forced them to say that they hadn't dubbed anything.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Without knowing how the acting industry in France works, it could very well be that they have NDAs as well, and the stated amount of time on their NDA that says they can't talk about their work may have only recently expired, allowing for Ms. Lecordier to talk about her work.

Maybe Funi got angry about Schemmel and Sabat revealing that and forced them to say that they hadn't dubbed anything.

I suspect it was something along these lines.

The reasons many companies are nitpicky about projects being revealed too soon are many, but by far the biggest one is that they usually have very specific marketing strategies that they want to use, and those strategies could be compromised--resulting in both an advertising problem and a financial problem--if people find out about the project too early. As it relates to Dragon Ball, let's look at the Ocean dub of Kai. Despite the fact that it hasn't aired yet, I've seen a lot of people say that they've lost interest in it already...because they heard about it so long ago, and yet nothing has happened. Well, if the voice actors involved hadn't said anything, we wouldn't know about it, and when the producers involved finally revealed the dub, it still would be fresh and new. Now, it's not fresh or new because of how many people have talked about it.

To briefly use a non-Dragon Ball example, let's look at Superman. JJ Abrams wrote a script back in the early 2000's, but somebody leaked the script, and all hell broke loose when fans read it because of how many liberties were taken with the source material. The early, unintended bad fan reaction is considered one of the biggest reasons that Warner Bros ultimately decided not to make that script into a movie, despite the fact that money had already gone into pre-production. All that money spent for nothing.

For any interested, a respected VO blogger wrote this article for an online VO publication talking about the consequences of revealing one's work.

[Cold Skin]

It's official, Blu-rays are coming in September (it says "la rentrée", the time when summer holidays end and pupils get back to school, which is September), so I've edited the first post and title of this topic rather than creating a new one just for that.

So far, we only had DVDs for the Freezer and Cell sagas, it will be the first time we get Blu-rays for a Dragon Ball product (aside from Dragon Ball Evolution).

[Valerius Dover]

It's official, Blu-rays are coming in September (it says "la rentrée", the time when summer holidays end and pupils get back to school, which is September), so I've edited the first post and title of this topic rather than creating a new one just for that.

So far, we only had DVDs for the Freezer and Cell sagas, it will be the first time we get Blu-rays for a Dragon Ball product (aside from Dragon Ball Evolution).

So, France has the initial 98 Episodes on DVD? And they're releasing the Buu arc as early as September? That sounds awesome! I thought we'd had to wait longer before getting answers.

[Cold Skin]

^ Nope, it would be too early for the Boo arc to be released when the dub has just started in June and will likely be still going-on in September.

It's likely the first 98 episodes that will get released as Blu-Ray discs - as they were only available on DVDs until now, which some fans considered a missed opportunity since Kai was made to bring the series to HD -, perhaps so that they can precisely release the Boo arc on Blu-ray discs afterwards.
Specifications are unknown for now, all we have is this announcement by the publisher.

I think they wouldn't release the Boo arc on Blu-ray discs with the previous sagas being only on DVDs, so they release Blu-rays for the previous arcs so that the Boo arc - and maybe Battle of Gods someday - can be released on Blu-ray without fans thinking "but the rest of the continuity is not even available in HD"!

On a sidenote, that picture of Goku's Kame Hame Ha is precisely the one that was shown on the cover of the Saiyans/Freezer pack, although it might just be a coincidence (for example the Shenron picture does not appear at all on the Kai DVDs).

[dbboxkaifan]

France got the unfortunate 16x9 AR on their home releases and sadly the International Edition will likely be 16x9 only this time around which is a shame because I'd prefer to watch it in 4x3 AR like Kai Pt. 1 was for me.

Maybe there's some hope that FUNimation will receive the 4x3 AR edition.

[Cold Skin]

Toei Animation confirms it with their official European site (it didn't take too long):
http://www.toei-animation.com/fr/conten ... urope_2014

ORIGINAL FRENCH TEXT:

Spoiler:

"L'éditeur de DVD français Kazé a acquis les droits DVD de Dragon Ball Z Kai (167 épisodes) pour la France et tous les pays européens francophones.
Black Monkey, une société polonaise, a acquis les droits merchandising de la série Dragon Ball Z pour créer des maillots de sport techniques pour hommes d’après les personnages les plus emblématiques de la série. Ces produits seront vendus exclusivement en ligne sur le site web de la société dans les pays européens suivants: France, Pologne, Portugal, Espagne, Royaume-Uni, la Suède, la Finlande et l'Allemagne."

TRANSLATION:

Spoiler:

"The French DVD publisher Kazé has acquired DVD rights for Dragon Ball Z Kai (167 episodes) for France and all French-speaking European countries.
Black Monkey, a polish company, has acquired merchandising rights for the Dragon Ball Z series to creates sports undershirts for men based on the most legendary characters of the show. Those products will be sold online exclusively on the company's website in the following European countries: France, Poland, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland and Germany."

They say DVDs when Kazé clearly announced Blu-ray on their official Facebook page, so it's possible that Kazé will release both DVDs and Blu-rays even if DVDs were already available for the Freezer and Cell saga, but I think it's more likely that their rights encompass DVDs and Blu-ray because the Boo saga doesn't have DVDs unlike the previous sagas, so Kazé needed the ability to release both formats even if it's just for the Boo saga.

All that we know for sure is that Kazé confirmed Blu-rays for Septembers and that Toei Animation confirms they have the DVD rights (probably including Blu-ray rights in the formula) for all 167 episodes.
The episode count is 167 episodes, so as expected, it's the international version of the Boo saga, no surprise there.

[Valerius Dover]

Dragon Ball merchandise in Sweden? There's never been a dub or anything, just the manga release. Even then, it's still practically unknown.

[TheBlackPaladin]

They're also free to talk about the working conditions, saying "this was awful because...", "we had a great time because...", "they wouldn't pay us for the screams, so we didn't do them", etc...

Actually, if you don't mind me going slightly off-topic for a moment, I'm curious about the part of your quote that I underlined. I know that in the French dub of DBZ, in many cases the screams and "battle vocal sounds" were not dubbed, with the vocal audio either remaining silent or switching over to the Japanese audio. I always found this a tad odd...do we know for a fact that they did this because the studio/producers/clients wouldn't pay the actors for the screams?

Either way, I was glad to see that they corrected this in the French dub of Kai.

[Cold Skin]

^ Yeah, there are quite a bunch of interviews of the French cast for Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Kai on Youtube, and they say that one of the things that have changed compared to Z is that they have to do the screams now, which they say is the most exhausting part.
They say that back then, it was a very cheap production and the dub producers - having to pay voice actors for each line - didn't want to pay them for the screams (which count as lines, even probably as several lines if a scream is long enough since the actor has to actually scream several times, catching his breath in between).

So instead of making them perform the screams, they saved money as much as possible by switching to the Japanese track whenever possible (screams, breathing, and even short lines in Japanese such as C-18 saying "Kuso!" before rushing at Cell and being absorbed or Goku's final "You're gonna pay!!" against Broly left in Japanese, etc...

The made an except for the cinema movie (Movie 12 + Movie 13 combined) since it was a pretty exceptionnal occasion where they did more than usual (Japanese opening kept, translation of the credits, Movie 12's music tracks replaced with tracks from Movie 13, etc...).

And as you said, Kai's dub was much more serious and didn't go the cheap way this time, so they did pay them whenever it was necessary to perform their character from A to Z, which also helped the voice actors to understand the story for the first time.

[TheBlackPaladin]

They say that back then, it was a very cheap production and the dub producers - having to pay voice actors for each line - didn't want to pay them for the screams (which count as lines, even probably as several lines if a scream is long enough since the actor has to actually scream several times, catching his breath in between)...

Yikes! And now I have this image in my head of the producers motioning the actors to keep their screams going as long as possible to minimize payment.

I find VO/voice acting fascinating overall, so it's always fun for me to learn about how it works in different countries (in the U.S., at least as far as union projects are concerned, voice actors get paid according to the number of hours spent in a studio, rather than the number of lines). Thanks for that write-up!

[Cold Skin]

^ If you're fascinated by voice acting, I wish you could read French, cause Vegeta's voice actor Eric Legrand has his own website where he pretty much explains every aspect of the job behind the curtains, the good sides, the bad sides, the way things should be done properly, the way things are sometimes done poorly, how it's done when there are talented producers behind it, how it's done when it's cheap and bad producers instead, the explanation behind things that people complain about, the whole process of dubbing, etc...

The guy's not afraid of giving his true opinion on the job and all people involved in this kind of job to clearly state what it's like in all possible situations.
But yeah, it's not long, but very complete for each aspect, but unfortunately for you (yet logically) all those explanations are written in French, so...
It's really too bad cause you would find more than you can expect, even when you already know quite a bit about dubbing. It's an inside truthful perspective.