Dragon Ball on Toonami Asia

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Dragon Ball on Toonami Asia

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:40 am

We all know what a juggernaut Toonami was in the US in the late 90s and early 2000s, and UK and Irish fans have made the UK version of Toonami relatively well known around here.

What we don't know as much about however is the now defunct Asian version of Toonami. I've put together the information I could gather about it, but does anyone else have anything to add they might know about the channel?

Dragon Ball Z

Trailers, and clips on Toonami Asia's Youtube page indicate Funimation's remastered English dub from the orange bricks was used for the broadcasts. Z was run on Toonami Asia from approximately 2013-2016, maybe in reruns for longer, it was shown on the 'Anime Seige' programming block, weekends at 09:30am. Z was also run weekdays at 06:30pm.

Dragon Ball Z Kai

As early as 2013 Kai was also run on Toonami Asia, most likely with the Kikuchi score and Funimation's dub. According to a description for one of their videos Kai was also part of the 'Anime Seige' block. On a side note it seems Kai premiered on Cartoon Network in the Phillipinnes on August 15th 2011 at 08:00pm in India/Thailand and 09:00pm in Malaysia/Singapore and on the same channel in Southeast Asia the same day.

Dragon Ball Super

Probably the most notable premier on Toonami Asia was the alternate English dub of Dragon Ball Super produced by Turner and recorded at Bang Zoom in Los Angeles. After months of shock speculation about an English dub by a company other than Funimation airing the first preview for Bang Zoom's dub of Super was shared on Toonami Asia's YouTube page on 3rd December, 2016, with the dub beginning on 21st January 2017 with a new episode the following day, and every weekend until March 5th when the first season ended at episode 13 would follow the same pattern. From March 6th the first 13 episodes were shown in loops. A second season of the dub was aired between October 28th and November 18th with 2 new episodes on both Saturday and Sunday, meaning 4 new episodes were aired every weekend.

Original Dragon Ball movies

Sadly all we have for this broadcast is expired links to Toonami Asia's old schedule, although any recordings would be a great find. We do however know from those listings at the time that the channel aired the two movies listed as Great Mystical Adventure and Legend of Shenron during two timeslots (03:00pm and 11:00pm) on the 12th and 13th of July 12 2016 respectively. Surprisingly, at the time Toonami Asia's listings for the Dragon Ball Z movies they aired like Revenge of Cooler all used Funimation dub titles, except for these OG Dragon Ball movies which led fans to speculate whether or not a different English dub was used. The titles were the same used for the Toonami UK airings of those movies in 2005, but since Big Green's titles are direct translations of the original Japanese titles it is not certain these were the dubs aired, and the Big Green movies were never distributed outside of Europe. Alternatively it may have been the Speedy dubs, but sadly unless someone who watched these movies when they aired can confirm we may never know. Although based on a promo for Path to Power (which aired Mondays at 09:30am around September/October 2014) Funimation's voices can be heard, so it may have just been their dub.

Dragon Ball Z movies

I can't find any information about them, but I do recall reading at the time they were airing on the channel.

Also does anyone have a complete list of countries Toonami Asia was available in?
Do you have any info about international non-English broadcasts about the Dragon Ball anime or manga translations/editions? Please message me. Researching for a future book with Dragon Ball scholar Derek Padula :thumbup: