Would you have liked to see Pioneer dub the franchise?

[Bansho64]

I've been watching the Ocean dub lately since I ordered the Saiyan and Namek arcs on VHS. I will admit that there was TONS of corny dialogue and the script was not always accurate but I really did start to enjoy it. Seeing the movies only made me like the Ocean cast more. Their work with the movies was the best I've seen them do and it's a shame Pioneer didn't have them do more. The acting in the movies was spot on and I can only imagine how good they would have done the franchise. We could have had an accurate dub of the whole series! What do you guys think?

[NitroEX]

A Pioneer directed dub of the series with the original soundtrack and Ocean cast would have been amazing, especially uncut. I have no doubt it would have been a superior product to the current dub on Funi's Orange bricks.

Unfortunately Funimation ran out of money and we ended up getting what we got.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

The Ocean cast did return for the Westwood episodes, though that wasn't with Pioneer's direction so its understandable that the dub wasn't as good as the 3 movies they dubbed.

Nonetheless, with Pioneer's direction and good scripts it would have been a superb dub, arguably better than the Funimation dub of Kai (which is already a fantastic product as is).

[Danfun64]

Sorry for derailing, but

I've been watching the Ocean dub lately since I ordered the Saiyan and Namek arcs on VHS.

...why vhs? You could have got the Ocean dub in better quality by buying the Rock the Dragon Collection, the Arrival single (for the alternate dialogue on the first couple episodes) and the three uncut pioneer movie dvds (or even better, the three uncut pioneer movie laserdiscs. The dvds probably have heavy compression due to how young the dvd format was at the time. Plus, uncompressed audio...)

Anyways, a faithful and uncut dub where Pioneer was in charge of the franchise, using either the Ocean cast or their own talent, would have been amazing. Apparently there was a chance that the characters voices would have been very different (closer to the original or something). I recently saw the dub of the movies. The dub for 1 and 2 were really good. The dub for 3 wasn't as good, but maybe its because Ocean did it before and were less enthusiastic or something... I also recently saw the first two episodes of the Saban dub (I already saw the whole series subbed, now I want to see the dub so I can better understand the US fanbase and compare it to the original by watching the kai dub, also for the first time). Script, music replacement and censorship aside, the dub seems fairly good...

I've heard that the Westwood dub doesn't approach the quality of the Saban dub until sometime during the Boo saga though.

Perfect Cell: [singing]Ahhhhhhhhhhhh![/singing]

edit: Changed my mind about seeing the dubs for now.

[NitroEX]

I've heard that the Westwood dub doesn't approach the quality of the Saban dub until sometime during the Boo saga though.

It's an opinion you see a lot online but, as with many opinions about the Westwood dub, I take them with a grain of salt. The Saban dub holds greater nostalgia for the majority of the fanbase and due to the fact that the Westwood dub never saw a release (and wasn't on TV in the US) most people simply haven't seen enough to accurately judge. The thing about the Saban dub is that it suffers from far worse censorship than the Westwood dub and, while this might not bother nostalgic viewers like myself, it will no doubt be a major detractor for a new viewer judging it for the first time. In terms of acting I think both have their strong and weak scenes no matter which saga you're watching so it's really up to the viewer to decide which were the most consistent.

Also, the Rock the Dragon collection is very expensive nowadays so I really can't blame him for watching the Saban dub on the old releases.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I would have loved a Pioneer dub of the franchise. I'm not sure I would have liked them to mess with the sound effects like they did with the three movie dubs, but other than that, I think it would have been fantastic, and it wouldn't have divided the fandom. On the flip-side, the Kai dub would be about as superfluous and unnecessary as it has been in Japan.

I recently saw the dub of the movies. The dub for 1 and 2 were really good. The dub for 3 wasn't as good, but maybe its because Ocean did it before and were less enthusiastic or something...

Which dub? Technically there are two Ocean dubs of Movie 3. One is an edited dub that was given "the Saban treatment" (corny scripts, censorship, replaced musical score, etc.) and aired on TV, also marking the last time Ian Corlett ever played Goku. The other is an uncut dub that went straight to home video and is more in line with the Pioneer dubs of the first two movies, with Peter Kelamis taking on the role of Goku that time around.

[ABED]

Assuming the money wasn't an issue, sure, though I've come to love the FUNi cast and can't stand Kelamis.

[Bansho64]

...why vhs? You could have got the Ocean dub in better quality by buying the Rock the Dragon Collection, the Arrival single (for the alternate dialogue on the first couple episodes) and the three uncut pioneer movie dvds (or even better, the three uncut pioneer movie laserdiscs. The dvds probably have heavy compression due to how young the dvd format was at the time. Plus, uncompressed audio...)

Forgive me for my geekiness but I really wanted to experience the series how the older 90s kids did when it premiered on Toonami. I figured that watching the vhs tapes could be the next best thing so I got out my old CRT television and my VCR and set them up. Not to mention that the Rock The Dragon set seems pretty expensive.

[Danfun64]

The dub for 3 wasn't as good, but maybe its because Ocean did it before and were less enthusiastic or something...

Which dub? Technically there are two Ocean dubs of Movie 3.

I meant to say the Pioneer dub. I think I implied that was what I watched, as the Pioneer dub came after the Saban one...

[huzaifa_ahmed]

I've stated before (though with imprecise information, & also rather inconclusively) that I would adore a straight dub of the franchise, most likely by Pioneer/Geneon, but also Bandai, as they (according to Taliesin Jaffe) cared more about their English side than Geneon/Pioneer, & always went bigger & better, & simply IME their VO casts were more accurate than Bandai's.

Viz, had Shueisha owned them in the 1990's, would obviously have been fantastic, seeing as they were very well-connected, & especially back in the day gave us decent-budgeted dubs, that IMO hold up very well, Naruto & Bleach being a few of them.

A Viz dub at NYAV (had they been around at the time) would have been the A-BOMB. Though the Ocean Group cast was not bad at all, I would have preferred a dub that had references to the Japanese audio, & would approve of one that at least attempted to match as closely as possible to the timbres of the Japanese actors, performance aside.

Like most of these VA's were wildly miscast, mostly in that they were far too heavy, namely Piccolo, but of course every male character on the show, aside from the children, who were wonderfully cast.

Saffron Henderson is the English Goku. Aside from her & Barbara Goodson, the rest simply aren't very good. It also helps that unlike the FUNimation in-house cast, she was a professional voice actor.

Scott McNeil, amazing as he is, is probably more suited to a character like...I dunno, Cell?

[Hellspawn28]

Pionner was one of the better dubbing companies of the 90's in my opinion. I would love to see Pionner dub the series if Funimation never did. They would have use Animaze to help dub the series. We would gotten a California voice cast for the series like Steve Blum.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Pionner was one of the better dubbing companies of the 90's in my opinion. I would love to see Pionner dub the series if Funimation never did. They would have use Animaze to help dub the series. We would gotten a California voice cast for the series like Steve Blum.

To add to that, I think I'm pretty much the only one on this forum to whom this would mean anything, but as much as I love (and I really do love) the performances of the FUNimation cast nowadays, it's a non-union dub, and the prospect of DBZ continuing to be a union dub based in California would have been very cool. It was a union dub when Ocean was the cast (although they were going through ACTRA, the Canadian union, which actually has higher dubbing rates than the U.S. union, SAG-AFTRA). I'm a union actor myself, and would have loved the opportunity to do something DBZ-related, even if it was just a tiny role with only one line. Alas, between the non-union status of the FUNimation dub and them being located in Texas, it looks like that was never gonna be in the cards for me.

[Vidmusc]

Without a doubt. If they had dubbed the series like they did the first three movies? I'd be all over that.

[Kunzait_83]

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. God yes. Ja. Si. Hai. Shi. Oui. A billion times over yes.

I'd also go a step further and argue that as fairly good as Pioneer's 3 DBZ movie dubs were, they're also probably in some ways (naming conventions, some of the voice casting) not exact representations of how a dub from them in the mid 90s would've turned out had the rights gone straight to them from the get go instead of passing through FUNimation/Saban first. I would argue that a number of creative and casting decisions were probably foisted upon them as holdovers from the by then already in syndication Funimation/Saban dub of the main series. I would find it VERY likely to surmise that a from-the-jump ground up dub by Pioneer made for a straight to video, non-TV market (ala Ranma 1/2, Patlabor, etc.) without any other fingers in the pie would've most likely had a number of differences in its overall approach from what inevitably became of the 3 movie dubs as we know them now.

So what would that have meant for the series (and in many ways, the trajectory of anime in the U.S. market) going forward in this alternate history? An at the very least more than passable and accurate dub from the beginning, along with a subtitled alternative right alongside it. No massive fan schism, no bugfuck drama, a DRAMATICALLY decreased number of persistent misconceptions about the series' basic premise and other details: basically DBZ would've just been another new licensed video anime release on the video store racks alongside stuff at the time from the likes of Streamline, Central Park Media, AnimEigo, Viz, ADV, U.S. Renditions, etc. that the already-established anime fandom of the day (including myself) would've snapped up like a motherfucker (first on VHS, then later on DVD) and simply called it a day. No muss, no fuss.

This would also mean that like Ranma, like the rest of the film and OVA industry of the time, Dragon Ball very likely would never have seen a mainstream children's TV airing in the U.S.: MAYBE some of it might've wound up on Sci Fi Channel's Saturday Anime or MTV or some other non-child-centric anime-friendly station of the time, but that's a wild guess. Unlike most here, I personally would've been more than okay with that and I in all honesty cannot say that a possible (since DBZ was the primary but not the sole show that caused it) non-existence of the "Toonami anime revolution" of the late 90s/early 2000s would cause me to shed a great many tears. Another can of worms in itself though.

But yes. An alternate reality where DBZ was just another video market dub/sub release and never got tangled up in the same mess that Sailor Moon, Ronin Warriors, Robotech, and other such kinds of dubs got ensnared in nor accrued any of the inane baggage its carried for the last nearly 20 some-odd years is an alternate reality that I (as someone whose fandom never rested upon the TV aired dub's existence) would LOVE to at least visit.

Some have in the past argued that within that less mainstream of a market and without the legions of squealing, merch-buying tykes, a series of Dragon Ball's sheer size never would've been able to see official completion. And I counter argue that if Ranma could do it (as it did: in 1992 no less), Dragon Ball all but DEFINITIVELY could've done it. And even IF by some bizarre, freakish miracle it never finished its first run at a U.S. license, another licensing company would've just inevitably taken another crack at it: or else barring that we'd have all just inevitably downloaded fansubbed rips of the Dragon Boxes anyway once those hit.

One way or the other, it'd have gotten out there. Its fucking Dragon Ball after all. It was never any great big secret, even from a number of us American anime fans in the late 80s/early 90s. The way that things did end up turning out is hardly in any way, shape, or form the ONLY possible scenario in which DB/DBZ would've made it here and been successful in an official capacity. Not by any stretch of the imagination. In many ways, its one of the most needlessly convoluted and idiotically, senselessly careless ways it could've clumsily stumbled ass-backwards onto the mainstream stage. And it STILL became an enduring pop cultural icon anyway. That speaks untold volumes about it.

Would it bother me all that particularly much that in exchange for a video-over-TV release and the removal of all this nonsense drama and baggage that a LARGE percentage of today's fanbase possibly or probably would never have seen or gotten into the series at all? Um... you want the "politically correct" answer, or my honest one?

I'm (largely) kidding on that last point. Kind of.

[DBZfan2015]

I have a question. Why was Tree of Might dubbed twice by Ocean Dub? One version has Ian Corlett as Goku, the other has Peter Kelamis voicing him.

[huzaifa_ahmed]

Pionner was one of the better dubbing companies of the 90's in my opinion. I would love to see Pionner dub the series if Funimation never did. They would have use Animaze to help dub the series. We would gotten a California voice cast for the series like Steve Blum.

To add to that, I think I'm pretty much the only one on this forum to whom this would mean anything, but as much as I love (and I really do love) the performances of the FUNimation cast nowadays, it's a non-union dub, and the prospect of DBZ continuing to be a union dub based in California would have been very cool. It was a union dub when Ocean was the cast (although they were going through ACTRA, the Canadian union, which actually has higher dubbing rates than the U.S. union, SAG-AFTRA). I'm a union actor myself, and would have loved the opportunity to do something DBZ-related, even if it was just a tiny role with only one line. Alas, between the non-union status of the FUNimation dub and them being located in Texas, it looks like that was never gonna be in the cards for me.

Yeah, it would be nice if FUNimation somehow unionized Super. I mean, out of respect for say, Dameon Clarke or Laura Bailey...It is downright embarrassing, IMO, that FUNimation cheaps out on such a popular show, & even then they have clamoring fanboys, as if Performance# doesn't Matter# ....0_0.

Anyhow, Pioneer's American dubs, aside from special exceptions like HS Ultimate,& celebrity dubs, were all non-union. Bandai brought us mostly union dubs, & similarly for Viz IIRC. I'm sure you would know this, just clearing up for the non-actors here (including myself)


Kunzait_83


Actually, Ranma 1/2 was handled by Viz Media, only DISTRIBUTED by Pioneer. & I agree wholeheartedly that Dragon Ball would have been still very popular without the mass butchering of the material, especially if it had been handled by a part-Japanese commpany (a la Naruto & Bleach).

I mean, LOOK at the (albeit smaller, simply because of the appeal of the shows) popularity of all the unedited Toonami dubs BY Japanese companies, & Naruto & Bleach, & the mass popularity of Dragon Ball in Latin American countries, & worldwide in general.

It isn't because of a barely-licensed, barely-funded, barely-translated, barely-a foreign-dub produced by a family member...it's because of the STORY & CHARACTERS. It's just a fun journey with a lot of heart, & I think EVERYBODY can appreciate THAT

[Lord Beerus]

If the quality of how Pioneer dubbed the first three Z movies is retained for everything in the franchise, then hell yeah, I'd be up for it.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Would it bother me all that particularly much that in exchange for a video-over-TV release and the removal of all this nonsense drama and baggage that a LARGE percentage of today's fanbase possibly or probably would never have seen or gotten into the series at all?

And it's at that exact moment that the argument loses from my own particular front, actually. Much like you have personal reasons for why that wouldn't bother you, I have personal reasons as to why it would definitely bother me.

No DBZ on Toonami, very likely does mean no Gyt discovering it. And considering it was through that that I became a fan of the anime and manga 'genre' period, as well as meeting all of my friends and most importantly my longest real life friend/girlfriend/fiancée...well, without all of that, I can honestly say I would be a very different (ie: far more depressed) person than I am today, if I were even still around at all. So seeing as I do kind of enjoy my life as it is now (other than it's own fair share of hang ups, but hey, what life doesn't have those?), the notion of never coming across Dragon Ball is, quite frankly, terrifying to me.

As far as seeing how Pioneer would handle it though...I guess I'd be sort of interested, though for the most part I figure they likely still would have outsourced to Ocean and maybe even likely had a similar cast to what it had, even without FUNi's involvement. As such, there'd be voices I'd be okay with, and voices I wouldn't be. As far as edits go, I'm of the mind that edits are perfectly fine so long as an equally uncut version is also made available, but the removal of a TV airing would probably remove the need for edits in the first place too so...I'unno. A great thought in it's own way, that the edits never would have existed, but...some of them are such great narm material nowadays that I'd almost hate to lose that too. The journey Dragon Ball took to get through to it's completion here in the US, and even further to get treated with proper respect, is certainly an ugly one...but in a way, it's kind of so ugly it's beautiful, IMO.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Pionner was one of the better dubbing companies of the 90's in my opinion. I would love to see Pionner dub the series if Funimation never did. They would have use Animaze to help dub the series. We would gotten a California voice cast for the series like Steve Blum.

To add to that, I think I'm pretty much the only one on this forum to whom this would mean anything, but as much as I love (and I really do love) the performances of the FUNimation cast nowadays, it's a non-union dub, and the prospect of DBZ continuing to be a union dub based in California would have been very cool. It was a union dub when Ocean was the cast (although they were going through ACTRA, the Canadian union, which actually has higher dubbing rates than the U.S. union, SAG-AFTRA). I'm a union actor myself, and would have loved the opportunity to do something DBZ-related, even if it was just a tiny role with only one line. Alas, between the non-union status of the FUNimation dub and them being located in Texas, it looks like that was never gonna be in the cards for me.

Yeah, it would be nice if FUNimation somehow unionized Super. I mean, out of respect for say, Dameon Clarke or Laura Bailey...It is downright embarrassing, IMO, that FUNimation cheaps out on such a popular show, & even then they have clamoring fanboys, as if Performance# doesn't Matter# ....0_0.

Well, I'll come to FUNimation's defense here a little bit. "Cheaping out" may not be the best phrase to use, because union dubs can end up being expensive. The session rate for a SAG-AFTRA dubbing session ($64.25/hour, with a 2-hour minimum) isn't too much higher than the typical session rate for a non-union dub (often $50/hour). However, considering the many, many characters--and by extension, actors--involved with Dragon Ball, that extra $14.25 per hour--per actor--adds up after a while. Then there's residuals...if a union dub ends up getting a TV deal, two extra payment stipulations come into play: if more than one episode is covered in a single dubbing session, it's an additional $20/episode, and if episodes of a union dub end up on TV for more than a year, then for each additional year those episodes remain on TV, every single actor involved gets an additional residual payment of $27.50/episode they were in, even if they only had one line.

That really, really, really adds up after a while. It'd be one thing if that was just the main cast (who, if they were in every episode of, let's say DB, DBZ, and GT, would get recurring yearly payments of $13,970, not counting their session fees). But nope, every actor has to be covered under this payment structure if the dub is a union dub. As you can imagine, Pokemon ended up being quite an expensive dub when it was still union, and the Naruto and Naruto Shipppuden dubs have been incredibly expensive. Expensive as a Hollywood movie, no, but the math is still pretty staggering. Combine that with piracy, declining anime sales, and Japanese companies pushing for bigger profits, and that's why you don't see as many union dubs nowadays. I'd have to imagine that if DB, DBZ, GT, Kai, the movies, and Super were all dubbed under this payment structure, it would be just as expensive if not more. As an actor myself, I'd like to think that kind of money would be justified, but on the other hand--and I'm not pointing fingers at any specific people--it seems that a lot of anime is watched through unofficial means, which doesn't always allow the original animation or dubbing companies to recover the costs.

So, not to preach to anybody, but regardless of the anime in question, please support the official release!

[Gaffer Tape]

I have a question. Why was Tree of Might dubbed twice by Ocean Dub? One version has Ian Corlett as Goku, the other has Peter Kelamis voicing him.

It was originally dubbed during and aired as a part of season 2. Literally. It was split into three episodes (with some stock footage added in to pad it out) and just aired in between two episodes with no indication of what it was, that it was a movie, or that it was not part of continuity. Very confusing. And it was actually Ian Corlett's last appearance as Goku. Later on, it was stitched together as a movie to air on Toonami, since it meant they wouldn't have to censor it for broadcast, as it already was.

But then when Pioneer did the three movies as movies, they naturally redid it as an actual movie, closer to the original and uncensored. And by that time, Peter Kelamis had taken over the role of Goku.