The [WIP] List of Broadcast Dates for Dragon Ball Z in Finland

Dragon Ball Ireland · Post by **Dragon Ball Ireland** » Wed Aug 27, 2025 7:26 am

I previously made a thread like this for the known UK broadcast dates, but thought that since there is still little written about other territories that aired Dragon Ball in English I would cover them. For this thread I want to document all the Finnish broadcast dates.

All episodes are based on edited numbering since Finland aired the Saban dub first.

I asked Finnish fans on Reddit when their country had breaks between new episodes, and according to one fan's recollection it was like this:

The first break was halfway through Namek
The second break was the episode before Garlic Junior was defeated
The third break was about 20 episodes into the Android saga/arc

Dragon Ball Z first premiered in Finland January 15, 2003 on SubTV, one fan reported the channel initially stopped airing episodes at 57, which was probably the aforementioned halfway point in Namek.

According to forum posts from the time episode 80, which marks Goku's transformation to Super Saiyan premiered on September 19, 2003, so the dates for episodes 58-79 are educated guesses based on working backwards, likewise episodes 81-100 are determined by going forward if we assume 1 new episode was aired every weekday. Episode 100 in edited numbering is the episode before Garlic Junior was defeated so this is likely where this batch of new episodes ended.

In early 2004 a fan heard from a SubTV announcer that the next new batch of episodes would begin airing on September 1st that year, presumably starting from episode 101.

The following year SubTV announced they purchased 168 new episodes of Dragon Ball Z and would start airing from the episode Unwelcome Discovery (episode 124) on September 18, 2005, so we can assume the previous batch from 2004 ended with the episode before that.

By late 2005 it was reported new episodes of Dragon Ball Z were airing on Sundays, but soon Saturdays would be added.

According to one fan, halfway through 2006 Dragon Ball Z was airing on weekdays at 4pm, so perhaps its possible at some point new episodes premiered on weekdays once again, as SubTV wouldn't have been able to get through all the new episodes they bought if they just aired them on weekend mornings between September 2005 and the end of 2006.

The final episode aired on December 16, 2006, and as this episode was shown with the German dub the appropriate title is used.

With all that said the premier dates for Dragon Ball Z in Finland should be as follows:

Spoiler:

If there are any Finnish fans reading, I would appreciate your advise and input into this. Few questions I'd be curious to have answers to:

For the first three batches did new episodes always air Monday-Friday with 1 premier per day?
Was there any points where 2 new episodes premiered in the one day (this happened in the Netherlands on certain Fridays)?
At what point during the last batch did new episodes start premiering on Saturdays as well as Sundays?
At what point during the last batch did new episodes start premiering on weekdays again?

Thanks to all.

Tian · Post by **Tian** » Thu Aug 28, 2025 2:23 am

I still find funny that the SubTV wanted to fool the viewers to think that the Westwood dub was yet to be finished.

I wish they had the guts to admit that they actually didn't check with the distributor about how many episodes did the series actually have.

Fortunately for them, this didn't make it to the newspapers like the controversy with Digimon Adventure on Nelonen.

Dragon Ball Ireland · Post by **Dragon Ball Ireland** » Thu Aug 28, 2025 4:21 am

Tian wrote: Thu Aug 28, 2025 2:23 am I still find funny that the SubTV wanted to fool the viewers to think that the Westwood dub was yet to be finished.

I wish they had the guts to admit that they actually didn't check with the distributor about how many episodes did the series actually have.

Another curiosity is when SubTV put out that press release for new episodes in 2005 (after airing episodes 1-123) the number listed was "168", which is how many episodes the Westwood dub had, so it doesn't seem like a case of someone doing the math wrong.

Interestingly when SubTV responded to a fan confirming reruns after the series concluded they said they would start from "episode 124", which in edited numbering was the same episode the batch of episodes they purchased in 2005 started off with (Unwelcome Discovery), not the first episode of the Westwood dub (Goku's Special Technique), so I wonder if they ended up having to purchase episodes 108-123 twice.

Maybe its possible in late 2004 SubTV actually aired the Funimation dub for those episodes, but then repurchased the same episodes with the Westwood dub (like CNX did with the Fusion saga) after realising Funimation dubbed episodes were too expensive to license long term (if any Finnish fans can confirm this would be much appreciated). One fan on Reddit told me they purchased the series from different distributors and remembered the Android and Cell sagas having different voice actors, which would lend this idea some credibility.

Although that still wouldn't explain why after the final episode aired they said they were rerunning the series from episode 124 again, unless for whatever reason SubTV lost the rights to 108-123, or they were (accidentally) referring to episodes in uncut numbering.

For anyone curious, this was their response to a fan confirming they would rerun the series from that point after the final episode:

Spoiler:

Tian · Post by **Tian** » Thu Aug 28, 2025 2:53 pm

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Thu Aug 28, 2025 4:21 am Another curiosity is when SubTV put out that press release for new episodes in 2005 (after airing episodes 1-123) the number listed was "168", which is how many episodes the Westwood dub had, so it doesn't seem like a case of someone doing the math wrong.

Interestingly when SubTV responded to a fan confirming reruns after the series concluded they said they would start from "episode 124", which in edited numbering was the same episode the batch of episodes they purchased in 2005 started off with (Unwelcome Discovery), not the first episode of the Westwood dub (Goku's Special Technique), so I wonder if they ended up having to purchase episodes 108-123 twice.

Maybe its possible in late 2004 SubTV actually aired the Funimation dub for those episodes, but then repurchased the same episodes with the Westwood dub (like CNX did with the Fusion saga) after realising Funimation dubbed episodes were too expensive to license long term (if any Finnish fans can confirm this would be much appreciated). One fan on Reddit told me they purchased the series from different distributors and remembered the Android and Cell sagas having different voice actors, which would lend this idea some credibility.

Although that still wouldn't explain why after the final episode aired they said they were rerunning the series from episode 124 again, unless for whatever reason SubTV lost the rights to 108-123, or they were (accidentally) referring to episodes in uncut numbering.

It appears that the new management of SubTV at the time may have messed up the distribution deal of Z that the former owners had or maybe, the new management decided to act as distributor as themselves.

As we both know, SubTV was bought by this Swedish group named Bonnier in 2005. Bonnier also owned both the Danish and German divisions of publisher Carlsen-Verlag (which released the Dragon Ball manga in Danish and German respectively).

That SubTV/Bonnier/Carlsen-Verlag connection was likely the reason why the last episode was "accidentally" aired in German.

Yellow Flower King · Post by **Yellow Flower King** » Wed Sep 17, 2025 4:54 pm

We need to talk about...

The person most credited with bringing anime to the Nordic countries is Swedish video distributor Christer Hagström. Through his company, he introduced a variety of anime titles to Sweden, which subsequently spread and gained popularity across the entire Nordic region, profoundly influencing a generation and the region's media landscape. A documentary about his significant role was released in 2022.

Dragon Ball Ireland · Post by **Dragon Ball Ireland** » Thu Sep 18, 2025 3:17 am

So today it has been 20 years since, what I guess we can call the final season of Dragon Ball Z in Finland aired, as from what I've been told there were no more breaks once that last batch of episodes starting with Unwelcome Discovery premiered.

This must have been an exciting time for Finnish fans, not only for the massive number of new episodes SubTV licensed, but also because Dragon Ball Z returned to the air after nearly 10 months. I spoke to a Finnish librarian who checked schedules from newspapers and Dragon Ball Z was taken off the air on Christmas eve 2004 and returned on this date in 2005.

Even if the new management messed up the distribution deal fans must have been over the moon not only when they read that press release which said 168 new episodes were licensed but also because they could finally watch reruns again. This was of course before the streaming boom and when DVDs were expensive, especially to import (Finland only got some of the movies with the Big Green dub on home video) so options for rewatching the series were limited back then.

I was not aware of Christer Hagström, but that is really interesting. I should check out that documentary.

Yellow Flower King · Post by **Yellow Flower King** » Thu Sep 18, 2025 4:49 am

Heads up though, he didnt work on Dragon Ball but he did some of the most iconic anime ever for Europe, especially in Finland, but basically he created the regions anime industry and unlike nepo baby Funimation with NO TV INDUSTRY, no Cartoon Network to do the hard work. Every single release was Home Video and done on comission, if still dubbed.

Dragon Ball Ireland · Post by **Dragon Ball Ireland** » Thu Jan 15, 2026 9:12 am

So thanks to a lovely lady at the National Library of Finland I was able to learn a few more things about Dragon Ball Z on SubTV.

In addition to the final batch of episodes, which started airing September 18th on Sundays, Saturdays were added on January 7, 2006.

Dragon Ball Z returned to airing on weekdays June 14, 2006. Not sure if from this point SubTV picked up where the new episodes on weekends left off or if they reran the series before reaching the episodes weekend airings reached and continued from that point.

I previously thought August 21, 2007 was the last day SubTV ever aired Dragon Ball Z but it was in fact August 27, 2007.

Great to finally have all this info after years of very little being known about the Dragon Ball anime in Finland.

EF2024 · Post by **EF2024** » Fri Jan 16, 2026 6:58 am

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Thu Jan 15, 2026 9:12 am So thanks to a lovely lady at the National Library of Finland I was able to learn a few more things about Dragon Ball Z on SubTV.

In addition to the final batch of episodes, which started airing September 18th on Sundays, Saturdays were added on January 7, 2006.

Dragon Ball Z returned to airing on weekdays June 14, 2006. Not sure if from this point SubTV picked up where the new episodes on weekends left off or if they reran the series before reaching the episodes weekend airings reached and continued from that point.

I previously thought August 21, 2007 was the last day SubTV ever aired Dragon Ball Z but it was in fact August 27, 2007.

Great to finally have all this info after years of very little being known about the Dragon Ball anime in Finland.

That being the westwood dub except for the final episode too? Lucky! Funnily enough toonami uk had closed by then after their disastrous live action rebrand.

Kanzenshuu

The [WIP] List of Broadcast Dates for Dragon Ball Z in Finland

The [WIP] List of Broadcast Dates for Dragon Ball Z in Finland

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Re: The [WIP] List of Broadcast Dates for Dragon Ball Z in Finland

Re: The [WIP] List of Broadcast Dates for Dragon Ball Z in Finland

Re: The [WIP] List of Broadcast Dates for Dragon Ball Z in Finland

Re: The [WIP] List of Broadcast Dates for Dragon Ball Z in Finland

Re: The [WIP] List of Broadcast Dates for Dragon Ball Z in Finland

Re: The [WIP] List of Broadcast Dates for Dragon Ball Z in Finland

Re: The [WIP] List of Broadcast Dates for Dragon Ball Z in Finland