What is the state of Dragon Ball in the U.S?

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PacificOceanDub
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What is the state of Dragon Ball in the U.S?

Post by PacificOceanDub » Thu Oct 15, 2026 5:28 pm

As we all know, for close to 30 years everything "Dragon Ball" went through FUNimation before it got released in the states. We heard Schemmel, Sabat, etc. on everything from Z to Kai to the Video games and so on and so forth. Now that FUNimation no longer exists, what is the deal? Is it safe to assume that Sean Schemmel and Chris Sabat are still THE U.S. voices of these characters? Or is each new Dragon Ball product at the mercy of whatever Crunchyroll decides to do?

Does Crunchyroll themselves even do production stuff like dubbing? Or are they strictly a distributor? Obviously whoever holds the keys to the kingdom cared enough to get Stephanie Nadolny to voice Goku for 'Daima', but I'm just curious. Does anyone know what exactly the terms of Dragon Ball's U.S. deal is these days?
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Re: What is the state of Dragon Ball in the U.S?

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Thu Oct 15, 2026 5:56 pm

PacificOceanDub wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2026 5:28 pm As we all know, for close to 30 years everything "Dragon Ball" went through FUNimation before it got released in the states. We heard Schemmel, Sabat, etc. on everything from Z to Kai to the Video games and so on and so forth. Now that FUNimation no longer exists, what is the deal? Is it safe to assume that Sean Schemmel and Chris Sabat are still THE U.S. voices of these characters? Or is each new Dragon Ball product at the mercy of whatever Crunchyroll decides to do?
Theres no way Sean Schemmel and Chris Sabat will be recast as Goku and Vegeta as long as they're both around. They're too iconic in the roles and Crunchyroll isn't going to risk the backlash.
PacificOceanDub wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2026 5:28 pm Does Crunchyroll themselves even do production stuff like dubbing? Or are they strictly a distributor? Obviously whoever holds the keys to the kingdom cared enough to get Stephanie Nadolny to voice Goku for 'Daima', but I'm just curious. Does anyone know what exactly the terms of Dragon Ball's U.S. deal is these days?
Yes, Crunchyroll do dubbing work as well, the old FUNimation recording studios was renamed Crunchyroll studios and a second studio also called Crunchyroll studios was built.

Nothing has changed. Crunchyroll are effectively Funimation 2.0.
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 will be writing :thumbup:

Check out my website https://www.dragonballinternational.com/

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