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Everyone knows about Dragon Ball’s English Dub by Funimation. Whether you’ve seen it on the Orange Bricks, filler and all, or have watched Kai, it’s no doubt one of the most recognizable dubs in maybe the entire industry. Some people even argue that the Funimation cast does a better job than the original Japanese VA’s. However I’d like to bring the attention to the much older, original dub of DBZ created by Ocean Production’s in Vancouver. It debuted in 1995 to huge success on Toonami. Here’s an example of some of the people on the cast:
Ian Corlett as Goku
Brian Drummond as Vegeta
Scott McNeil as Piccolo
Saffron Henderson as Kid Gohan
Don Brown as King Kai
and Terry Klassen as Krillin
Just to name a few. The Dub was censored during it’s run cutting out some of the more bloody moments, like when you see the hole in Goku’s chest after Piccolo kills him and Raditz. They also cut out some of the parts showing gohan getting knocked around by Raditz and the Ginyu Force. These didn’t detract from the overall experience however since they usually added a flash to indicate that Gohan in fact did get hit. They also weren’t allowed to say death and kill in the dub. This changed lines like “I’ll kill you,” to instead be “I’ll destroy you.” This dub, like the original Funimation Dub, replaced the music by Shunsuke Kikuchi. Instead the score used in the Ocean Dub was composed by Shuck Levy, with the title theme “Rock the Dragon” (which had lyrics unlike Funimation’s op) was composed and written by Ron Wasserman. Shuck Levy and Ron Wasserman actually composed the music for Power Rangers as well. In fact, Saban and many of the people who were involved with the production of Power Rangers worked on this dub, which is why some fans title it “The Saban Dub.” This dub also featured many sound effect changes in an attempt to make the sfx more “modern.” The show aired the first and second season of DBZ, which is the Saiyan and Namek Sagas respectively, until it was unfortunately cancelled at Episode 53: Goku…Super Saiyan. Why this happened is unclear, however if anyone does know then please feel free to message me in the comments below. Before Ocean threw in the towel, in 1997 they attempted at doing what would be the very first uncut version of DBZ. The uncut version was not a collection of uncut episodes however, instead it was a dub of the first three DBZ Movies: The Dead Zone, The World’s Strongest, and The Tree of Might. While the TV Show was produced by Funimation, these movies were produced by Pioneer Studios. This dub featured a second voice actor for Goku, Peter Kelamis, who replaced Ian Corlett in the show in Episode 38. It also featured, what I still think to be, the most accurate translation of the original Japanese scripts for Dragon Ball, period. This includes cursing by the way if you were curios, and the mention of death. They even kept the original score by Kikuchi. These movies did extremely well and Dragon Ball fans were eventually going to get a full dub of the series uncut like this, but complications happened and Funimation took over.
However this is not the end of Ocean. While the American audience got the Funimation Dub, in 2000 the UK, Canada, and The Neverlands got the return of the Ocean Dub. Now in coinciding with Westwood Studios and AB Group, the original cast returned to finish the entire series starting at Episode 108: Goku’s Special Technique. This time the dub worked a little bit differently. The script in the original Ocean/Saban Dub had been completely original with Funimation copying it later on when they redubbed Season’s 1 and 2. This time however the Ocean Dub had used Funimation’s scripts making some small tweaks here and there. The music also was not composed by Shuck Levy anymore. Instead the show featured music from the group Anitunes. This included the theme song by Ron Wasserman being replaced by a new theme by Anitunes. The music by Anitunes actually reused music from many other Ocean produced dubs and cartoons like Monster Rancher, and even the Mega Man Cartoon Series. This was due to the time constraints and the budget mainly being focused on the voice acting. However in the last season the show did get original tracks. Near the end of the dub’s lifespan in the Buu Saga, they even allowed the words death and kill to be used. Something also worth noting is that in Episode 145 we got a third voice actor for Goku, who was Kirby Morrow. This dub is referred to by the fans as the Westwood Dub, so I will use that name to refer to this later dub to differentiate from the earlier, Saban Dub.
The next thing about this dub is availability and the problem with Funimation. The original Ocean/Saban Dub can be bought two different ways. The first one is to buy the DVDs that contain 3 episodes per DVD. Funimation even copied this after their Dub took over. The price can range from 10 to 20 dollars per DVD. The other is the Rock The Dragon Set that contains the entirety of Season’s 1 and 2. It also contains a booklet talking briefly about the impact the Ocean Dub had on Toonami. The set came out in 2013, and it is extremely expensive. Some sets I’ve seen even go up to $900. The later Ocean/Westwood Dub however has no release. The only way to watch it is to find it online. The episodes themselves have either been recorded on a VCR or DVD player from 2001-2003. The videos were compiled by many different members of the Dragon Ball community with the visual quality being not very good. However there is someone out there as we speak syncing up the highest quality audio with the highest video quality of DBZ, which is from the Dragon Box DVDs. I won’t say where, but I will say that it’s on a popular anime website. Anywho, you may ask “Well why is it not available?” That’s a great question, so here’s two answers. The first reason is that it’s in licensing hell between three companies. The second one is more potent however, because of Funimation. I won’t go into here about Funimation since I’m sure everyone here knows about a lot of the shit they’ve pulled, but one thing is that they hate other people associated with their biggest cash cow. Sean Schemmel had even got Peter Kelamis’ appearance at a con cancelled since Sean didn’t want another Goku there other than himself. They released the Rock The Dragon Box Set as a way to shut up the fans who still talk about the Ocean Dub, and they haven’t included it in anything since. They try to cover it up, never mentioning it ever. That’s pretty much the gist of the whole deal with Ocean Studio’s Dragon Ball, however there is one more thing of interest.
In 2010 DBZ Kai was broadcasted to the world, but did you know that there was an Ocean Dub of that? It is lost media since it has never been released, but has been confirmed by almost the entire cast of the Ocean Dub, with everyone returning except for the three Gokus. This means there was a 4th Goku for this dub, with many people saying Goku was played by Richard Ian Cox in this dub. The dub has been said to have been uncut, and it was completely finished. It had a completely new script/ translation, and it featured music by Anitunes once again, this time using completely original tracks composed for DBZ Kai. Whether it will release or not is uncertain, but as of recently there has been interest by multiple networks to air this dub.
As for my thoughts, I grew up on the dubbed version of DBZ Kai, but I do not think it’s the best version to watch the show. As a kid it’s all I had seen of Dragon Ball, but since then I’ve watched the entire series many times in many different languages. The best version of DBZ to me is still the filler/ original version for the show, and my favorite dub is the Ocean Dub. I didn’t grow up with it so I have no bias towards it, in fact I first watched this version only two years ago. I just find it an objectively better version of the show to me compared to Funimation. “Is this because of the stuff Funimation’s done?” Not completely, but it does factor into my decision. Overall I think the voices in the Ocean Dub fit the characters better, and I think that they fit the character’s better, with Peter Kelamis doing an amazing job of bringing the tone of Masako Nozawa’s Goku to English perfectly.
Anyways that’s my Ocean history lesson for anyone who didn’t know about it and I’m curious to hear what you guys have to say.
