My friend Tian has been helpful in this regard, sending on some stuff he's found my way and suggesting some ideas such as how Dragon Ball and Digimon could have been offered in a bundle considering they aired around the same time on channels like A1 in Macedonia, Kohavision in Kosovo, OBN in Bosnia and Herzegovina, moreover both were dubbed in Serbian by MAT Produkcija.
Today we will look at Dragon Ball's broadcasts across various Balkan and former Yugoslavian territories. If anyone would like to add info feel free to do so. Would be great to hear from more fans that grew up with these airings.
Turkey
AlbaniaThe first broadcast of original Dragon Ball with the Turkish dub began July 13, 1997 on ATV. It is not known how many episodes of Dragon Ball were dubbed and aired, although estimates say it was 90 episodes, although the series continued for 40 episodes after Tao Pai Pai. The series was aired completely uncut but was removed sometime in 1998 due to "questionable scenes".
Star TV began airing original Dragon Ball on February 3, 1998, and reportedly ran it until the episode natively titled 'Tao Bai Bai the Killer' and had many reruns. Only cuts in these airings were some minimal "Grabsch Scenes".
Dragon Ball returned on Star TV on January 17, 2002.
Dragon Ball GT was aired in Japanese with subtitles.
The Çukurova Media Group-owned channel JOJO, which launched in 2005 and was only available on the Digiturk platform is also said to have aired original Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT.
SloveniaAt some point in the early 2000s Dragon Ball is said to have aired on Gjeli Vizion.
Dragon Ball Z began airing sometime in the mid-2000s in Albania on Bang Bang, which was a kids channel that came with a DigitAlb package. DigitAlb was a subsidiary of Top Albania, which owned other channels that aired anime. There are other Albanian channels that are said to have run Dragon Ball Z such as Sofia HD, Clover and Prince Kids, and it was aired with the original footage for a few years before being resynced.
The original Bang Bang broadcasts of Dragon Ball Z episodes 28-291 used Japanese footage, but later Çufo broadcasts (which began from 2015) of episodes 1-27 (originally skipped) are synced to Funimation's remastered version (known by fans as "the orange bricks").
Çufo TV aired Dragon Ball Z and Battle of Gods in 2015, followed by Dragon Ball GT and Resurrection F the next year. Original Dragon Ball also premiered on June 22, 2015 when it ran on Bang Bang.
Dragon Ball Super started airing on Çufo TV in July 2018 and the final episode first aired on June 16, 2023, possibly on a rerun.
Tring Kids, Tring Tring aired Dragon Ball Z movies 1-2. Dragon Ball Z movies 1-2 dubbed by Onix Studio for DVD before being broadcast by Tring company. Dub of Dragon Ball Z movie 3 lost, but confirmed to exist. Tring Kids is only way to watch Z movies 1-2 in Albanian.
Original Dragon Ball, Z, GT and Super were all rerun on Çufo in 2020 and concluded on March 16, 2020, although Super was not yet finished as the Albanian dub hadn't aired in its entirety. Another rerun of all the series in Albanian on Çufo TV possibly started on March 28, 2022.
The 2020 run of Dragon Ball Z was 2pm on weekdays and it possibly concluded with episode 291's premier on October 29, 2020. Çufo IPTV, as of 2022 was airing reruns of previously aired Albanian dubbed episodes. Dragon Ball Z took a break on November 10, 2022 at episode 175.
Tring Kids aired the Albanian dub of Super Broly on September 25, 2022, the channel also aired Dead Zone on March 18, 2023.
Studio Suprem's dub of Super Hero aired on Çufo TV on February 26, 2023, becoming the first country outside of Japan to air the movie on TV, this airing, interestingly was only a few days after Funimation's Blu-Ray release.
Dragon Ball Daima premiered on June 2, 2025 marking the first European broadcast of any Dragon Ball Daima dubs, albeit an illegal one.
The Slovenian channel POP TV aired a lectored version of original Dragon Ball and followed it up with Dragon Ball Z. As this airing predates all of the Balkan dubs, which appear to use Japanese elements and directly translated scripts it is possible this Slovenian lector was used as a basis for those dubs.
The earliest known broadcast of Dragon Ball on POP TV was December 2001. According to one fan's recollection Dragon Ball was repeated about 4 times and by early 2003 Kanal A was airing the Piccolo arc. Dragon Ball continued to air on POP TV around this time and later that year Dragon Ball Z started airing.
Some Reddit users have also said the Slovenian lector switches from the Japanese version to the French dub at the point Goku arrives on Namek.
Serbia
MacedoniaBoth original Dragon Ball and Z were initially dubbed by MAT Produkcija (who interestingly also dubbed Digimon Adventure around this time). Original Dragon Ball was shown between 2001 and 2002 on Pink TV with a local dub based on the Japanese version. Dragon Ball Z followed from 2003-2004 on the same channel and then aired on Kanal D (the same year), the Novi Sad-based Kanal 9 (in 2006) and Niš-based TV station RTV Nais. The 52 episodes that were broadcast were based on the French dub. Pink had a reputation for broadcasting "kitsch programmes for the masses" but was known as the most important commercial channel for offering thematic channels thtough DTH in SBB’s Total TV package. A new dub by Loudworks followed in 2011 on Ultra TV, a channel which specialised in kid's programming and later on Pink Kids. There was also a provider by the name of Kopernikus that Ultra TV may have been available through. The second Serbian dub reached episode 105 and used several sources like the German dub and original Japanese versions.
Local broadcaster A1 aired both original Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, producing a dub in the native tongue for each, although the latter was unfinished. The former premiered as early as February 2002 until at least February 2004, and the latter's debut followed around April 2004. Dragon Ball Z continued until at least December of that year. Dragon Ball Z was still airing as of December 2004 but was removed from the channel some time after. A1 shut down in 2011 following a tax fraud where the channel's owner was arrested by Macedonian financial police and the The State Agency for Electronic Communications declared them bankrupt. It was labelled as unpatriotic by government representatives. The Macedonian government reduced advertising expenditure on the channel and advised others to follow suit.
Croatia
Original Dragon Ball premiered on Nova TV July 9, 2002 and concluded on December 8, 2002 and later ran Dragon Ball Z episodes 1-104 beginning December 9, 2002 and ending sometime in 2003. Both series were aired in Japanese with Croatian subtitles
After 8 years off the air Dragon Ball Z returned with its first Croatian dub that featured a dubbed version of Cha-La-Head-Cha-La on the RTL Televizija channel premiering on February 10, 2011.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
While Bosnia and Hercegovina did not have their own dub the local stations imported other Balkan dubs. For example Televizija OBN, Hayat TV, Hayat Plus and Alternativna TV aired the Serbian dub. The series did receive a native broadcast during the early 2000s on RTV TK (Radio Televizija Tuzlanskog Kantona) a channel launched in 1993 and founded by the Assembly of Tuzla Canton. The channel faced a tough start with only seven employees and amateur equipment but earned viewers trust during the war and post-war years, which became their most valuable asset. In 2001 and 2002 this channel was declared the best in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in 2004 moved to a new location, which allowed the channel to advance. The OBN airings were sometime from 2003-2004 and the show aired in Japanese with subtitles switching to the French dub at some point during the Namek arc. In 2010-2011 the Loudworks dub was available on the local channel Hayat TV and the Serbian channel Ultra TV through some satellite providers.
Montonegro
Local channels Elmag TV, MBC and Montena aired the series likely sometime in the early 2000s. Later on Ultra TV, and by extension the newer Serbian dub of Z was available to residents through some satellite providers.
Kosovo
BulgariaWhen Dragon Ball premiered in 2003 Kosovo only had three broadcasters, one public station RTK and two privately-funded Kohavision (KTV) and TV21. KTV, the channel that aired Dragon Ball received funding from the U.S. and the Soros Foundation. The Kosovo Independent Media Program (KIMP), which started in 2001 provided direct support for the channel, which included programming subsidy support (part of a $2,000,000USD package alongside equipment costs).
The International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) was in charge of purchasing imported programs, which they provided KTV $157,754 for. In this report it was stated foreign programming helped boost audience levels and station/market identification but the Assessment Team was unsure if it was the best use of donor funding and there was fears the domination of imported programming led to less focus on local productions, suggesting the focus should be redirected to independent in-country productions commissioned by channels like KTV to make original content as well as informational programming. Dragon Ball premiered around April 2003 and again in October 2003. KTV aired the first known Albanian dub, which was a different dub than the dub later produced in Albania. It is not known how many episodes were aired, the first fan recollection of this dub online stated it was at least the first 13 episodes, although fans on Reddit have recalled watching episodes featuring Kuririn and Lunch, implying that more than 13 episodes were aired and KTV may have covered everything up to the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai at least. While many Albanian dubs like the dub Dragon Ball received years later in that country was an illegal production, KTV's director at the time LekÎ Zherka confirmed the channel could not broadcast pirated programming as their broadcast license must obey the copyright criteria it agreed to, meaning unlike channels connected to satellite receivers they aren't able to broadcast the same programming as the author or company without paying compensation.
It's worth noting, even at the time in Kosovo, no one relied on national channels as most natives had satellite dishes, which gave them access free over the air TV channels like RTL2 and Kika in Germany or Super RTL in Italy, which also offered anime and western cartoons. As KTV broadcast domestically and internationally using a satellite link, which had operators outside Kosovo and payment plans were based on profitable returns and an audience among the diaspora there was still an economic threat from deferral of fees, which was problematic as the IREX's report stated KTV could pay more if their customer base grew. Moreover from the beginning of 2004 all broadcasters in Kosovo that previously received the KTTN's terrestrial service free of charge had to begin paying fees, and the ability of independent (commercial) stations like KTV to pay them depended on their success attracting advertising and renewal of part of the monies received from international donors. In this respect it could be argued that while KTV may have initially had the Kosovar diaspora and neighbouring customers that speak Albanian in mind their dependence on satellite to reach audiences beyond the confines of their own region wasn't helped by competition from foreign broadcasters that had previously aired Dragon Ball and already developed a reliable audience for the dubs they aired.
Dragon Ball was taken off the air on KTV in late 2003 and has never been rerun since. As the USAID/Kosovo's 2004-2008 strategy refocused the costs of programming towards better informing the public and the Assessment Team were looking toward using the donor funding for local productions and improving news production it is no surprise that KTV gradually became exclusively a news channel and stopped focusing on imported entertainment like Dragon Ball.
Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Kai were also broadcast in several of these territories in Japanese with localized subtitles. The former premiered around January 2012 and the latter made its debut on April 17, 2013. Both shows were broadcast on AXN SPiN in Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia and Macedonia.Dragon Ball GT began airing on AXN Animax January 2012 in Japanese with local subtitles.
