The "power" of RTL II

[Tian]

Over the years and in different parts of the internet, I've read countless stories about people from non-German speaking countries who were introduced to this franchise through the German dub.

A similar phenomenon happened with the Italian dub but it wasn't as widely available around Europe as the German dub was.

Many of those stories start the same way:
You're a kid from X country which didn't have the luck to have Dragon Ball localized or had the bad luck to have an awful localization, you get home from school and tune in Dragon Ball on RTL II, and even though you don't understand German, you enjoy it anyway.

You can read stories like this from people from countries like Bulgaria, Czechia, Latvia, Kosovo, Romania and Slovenia.

People that still fondly remember the times where they challenged the language barrier and time zone differences to watch their favourite anime. Some of them even learned German from that experience.

What a great "power", don't you think?

[TheRed259]

Interesting, although I think the most important (and not only for Europe) of the European dubbings was the French one for many different reasons, no matter how problematic it was.

[Tian]

Interesting, although I think the most important (and not only for Europe) of the European dubbings was the French one for many different reasons, no matter how problematic it was.

Yeah, while it screwed many of the localizations in Europe because of its use as source, many African fans got to know the series thanks to the French dub, whether by a local channel or an international channel in a cable & satellite provider like Mangas or GameOne.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

You're a kid from X country which didn't have the luck to have Dragon Ball localized or had the bad luck to have an awful localization, you get home from school and tune in Dragon Ball on RTL II, and even though you don't understand German, you enjoy it anyway.

Yeah, and as we discussed in DMs when the Kosovar channel (Kohavision) that aired Dragon Ball it appears they had neighbouring territories in mind, likely because they knew as a mainland European state they would face competition from larger established channels, like RTL II. For those who want to learn more check out page 15:

“The use of satellite depends on payment to several satellite operators from outside Kosovo, based on a profitable return and a growing audience among the diaspora. It appears that customer figures are growing, although some fees have been deferred while this process is taking place. The threat to this means of transmission is simply economic. If the customer base grows, then the two stations can pay for the service".

Kohavision received the terrestrial service for free up until 2004 when Dragon Ball was seemingly removed from their schedule. Sadly it doesn't seem like the series helped them much. According to pages 28-29 here the assessment team was advising donor money be redirected more towards informational programming or original content, as they seen foreign programming as being too dominant.

Granted this has nothing to do with the German dub, but it is interesting that some Kosovar Redditers told me they preferred watching Dragon Ball with the German dub and the one Kosovar I know of who posted here said many people had satellite and rarely used national channels for cartoons. I guess Kohavision realized kids TV was just not the business for them.

Interesting, although I think the most important (and not only for Europe) of the European dubbings was the French one for many different reasons, no matter how problematic it was.

What about the Greek dub? I believe other than the Junior TV Italian dub it the earliest dub of original Dragon Ball (and to a lesser extent Z, which mixes in elements of the Latin American and French dubs) to be based on the Japanese version.

Seemingly a few years after the Greek dub aired on ANT1 Slovenia aired a voiceover of the Japanese version for original Dragon Ball and early Z on Pop TV in the late 90s and then in the early 2000s Croatia followed with a subbed airing and Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo began creating dubs not based on the French dub.

So clearly at some point Japanese video tracks were being widely circulated further south of Europe. It was as if the Balkans were doing their own thing while the rest of Europe had to deal with the flaws inherent to the French dub, which the German dub fixed to an extent by referencing the manga as a source.

Something I still find bizarre is SubTV in Finland airing all of Dragon Ball Z in English with subtitles and only aired the final episode with the German dub and no subtitles. Naturally fans weren't happy. While I don't envy the fans who had no reason to suspect the final episode wouldn't air in English, it is interesting SubTV went with one of the most popular European dubs. I wonder if like the example with the Balkans the German dub was evidently being passed around various regions and the last episode somehow reached SubTV.

[Tian]

I guess Kohavision realized kids TV was just not the business for them.

Perhaps they eventually realized that trying to imitate RTL II's success with Dragon Ball and Digimon Adventure wasn't the best idea.

[TheRed259]

What about the Greek dub? I believe other than the Junior TV Italian dub it the earliest dub of original Dragon Ball (and to a lesser extent Z, which mixes in elements of the Latin American and French dubs) to be based on the Japanese version.

The Greek dub of OG Dragon Ball started airing on ANT1 in 1995. Shortly after, the episodes were playing on ANT1 Cyprus as well.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

The Greek dub of OG Dragon Ball started airing on ANT1 in 1995. Shortly after, the episodes were playing on ANT1 Cyprus as well.

I know that was my point, although I should have specified it being the first European dub to be based on the Japanese version other than the Junior TV dub, which premiered in Italy in 1989, as I know the Cantonese dub predates both. My point was that most dubs of Dragon Ball in the 90s and 2000s were based on the censored French dub, but the Greek dub seemingly broke away from that trend and may have been the cause or catalyst for Pop TV in Slovenia and later much of the Balkans to either air the Japanese version or base dubs on it, at least for the original series and early Z. It's interesting that at some point Japanese video masters for that portion of the series seemed to be circulating in south Europe between the late 90s and early 2000s.

With regard to the German dub I must admit I was not aware it helped a lot of fans to learn the language, that's really cool, and in my opinion another reason why dubs should be taken seriously as an art form and a valid viewing experience for anyone, not as inherently a dumbed down version of the original audio tracks (sure you can argue some of them are, but as we've seen from things like the Pioneer movie trilogy, Latin American and mainland Chinese versions of Dragon Ball there are good dubs too).

Also related, but does anyone know anything about the airings of Dragon Ball on a short-lived private channel called TV3 in Switzerland? I've seen it mentioned in passing on Reddit but this channel reportedly aired the German dub (likely the same one RTL II aired as from what I've been told there is generally not enough of a demand for Swiss German dubs) of Dragon Ball between 1999 and 2001. Swiss people saw Dragon Ball from either French, German or Italian channels through the use of antennas on TVs or over-the-air (apparently at this time having 5 channels as urban residents did was a huge deal, even I didn't know how good I had it as a kid ), but this is the one case I'm aware of a local broadcaster airing the series.

[TheRed259]

The Greek dub of OG Dragon Ball started airing on ANT1 in 1995. Shortly after, the episodes were playing on ANT1 Cyprus as well.

I know that was my point, although I should have specified it being the first European dub to be based on the Japanese version other than the Junior TV dub, which premiered in Italy in 1989, as I know the Cantonese dub predates both. My point was that most dubs of Dragon Ball in the 90s and 2000s were based on the censored French dub, but the Greek dub seemingly broke away from that trend and may have been the cause or catalyst for Pop TV in Slovenia and later much of the Balkans to either air the Japanese version or base dubs on it, at least for the original series and early Z. It's interesting that at some point Japanese video masters for that portion of the series seemed to be circulating in south Europe between the late 90s and early 2000s.

Yes, I get it. And as for the change to the Latin American dub maybe this has something to do with Toei itself or AB Groupe. For example, episode 127 from Dragon Ball Z in both Greece and Romania is based on the Japanese version while episodes 126 and 128 are based on the Latin American dub.

Spoiler:

Romania (The numbers here are wrong by the way. Episode 125 is actually 126, Εpisode 126 is actually 127 etc.)
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... MdPjrgrqzL

In Episode 126 at the beginning and at the end you can listen to the Mexican narrator and sometimes the other voices as well. In Episode 127 you can listen to the Japanese voices and in Episode 128 to the Mexican ones.

Greece (Episode 126 at 1:00 the Latin American title card)
https://www.tiktok.com/@greekanimetv/vi ... 8511155482

Greece (Episode 127 at 1:25 the speed is faster and the episode doesn't have the Latin American title card)
https://www.tiktok.com/@greekanimetv/vi ... 9791928602

I can't post Episode 128 from the Greek dub right now since I found it on a website that has all episodes but if you find it you will see the "Goku tiene dos problemas" title card from Latin America.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Was reading an interesting thread from 2001. Basically in Austria original Dragon Ball aired on a channel called ORF1 but got cancelled after 52 episodes because apparently parents complained about the sexual content but fans with cable found other ways to watch what aired on ORF1 (which was the German dub).

Maybe it's more relevant to the power of RTL II than the German dub, but thought it was cool while there was disappointment about the abrupt cancellation these fans were fortunate the German dub remained in its native territory. Probably helped if what these fans are saying about RTL II marketing the show as not being for children whereas anime on ORF1 was exclusively aimed towards kids is correct.

[Cure Dragon 255]

I was so sad when I learned about RTL 2 stopping airing anime. The channel was as mighty as Cartoon Network, or TF1 and Pokito was German speaking People's Toonami. They even aired Pretty Cure and were consider so powerful an ally to Toei they even aired an English dub there.

If you can rename the thread PLEASE do it! RTL 2 was a major ally of anime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpVVUT8xHt0

[Tian]

Was reading an interesting thread from 2001. Basically in Austria original Dragon Ball aired on a channel called ORF1 but got cancelled after 52 episodes because apparently parents complained about the sexual content but fans with cable found other ways to watch what aired on ORF1 (which was the German dub).

Thanks! When I was looking for the info about the Slovene broadcast (the one I shared with you), I also found a Slovene commenting that they watched DB on ORF1 (And another thread confirms that this Austrian channel was also available in Slovenia) but didn't specify how much of it was aired.

If you can rename the thread PLEASE do it! RTL 2 was a major ally of anime.

I'm aware of this.

Not only they did have a dedicated anime block, they also had ties with a recording company (Arts of Toyco) for the German versions of the opening and endings, a TV show where they often interviewed the voice actors from the anime series and showed the behind of scenes of the dubs (beTV)

I wish I could find the behind of scenes of Yu-Gi-Oh! with Konrad Bösherz (Yugi) and Sebastian Schulz (Atem). It used to be on YT but it's not longer there.

But of course, I'll change the title since I agree that we owe more this to RTL II, due to its wide availability around Europe made this phenomenon possible.