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Akira Toriyama with his pet cat, Koge (1987)

Blue Water Studios

Blue Water Studios in 2020

The Blue Water dub was an English dub of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT produced by AB Groupe and Westwood Media. The voices were recorded at Blue Water Studios in Calgary, Alberta (Ocean Group's budget sister studio). It was shown in Canada, UK, Ireland and the Netherlands instead of the Funimation dub.

History[]

An alternate English dub of the Dragon Ball Z anime for the UK and Canadian markets had previously been done by Ocean Productions (the dubbing studio used in the Funimation/Saban dub of the Saiyan and Namek Sagas). This dub originally ran from 2000 to 2002 and was produced by AB Group and Westwood Media. Once production of Dragon Ball Z was complete, AB Groupe and Westwood began to work on the series' sequel, Dragon Ball GT despite the fact that FUNimation had not begun production on their dub of the series. Like Dragon Ball Z, the Ocean Group was also contacted to provide a voice track for this dub using their Vancouver studios. However, Westwood revised their plans, with voice production moving to Ocean's budget studio, Blue Water Studios (also known as Chinook Animation), in Calgary, Alberta, Canada instead to save money. This version uses the French dub as the primary source material, therefore containing some content edits, and the script changes (like for example names are from Ocean dub instead of French) therefore has no connection to the Funimation dub. The original Japanese opening has been retained, albeit with completely new lyrics and a different rhythm and melody, as well as being shortened to one minute. The only ending theme used was an instrumental of "I'm Not Alone".

With the success of the Blue Water dub of Dragon Ball GT, Westwood contacted them again to create a dub of the original Dragon Ball series despite the fact that the first 13 episodes had already been dubbed in Vancouver in 1994. The Blue Water dub also uses the French dub as the source material, therefore also containing content edits as well as using AB Groupe's opening title sequence for said dub, along with an English singer and a translation of the lyrics (though the UK broadcast usually featured a completely different opening). However, at least with the first several episodes, the script for Funimation's dub of the series was re-used, albeit heavily re-worked. While this dub uses the terminology from Funimation's dub, there were some exceptions such as the Power Pole being called "Nyoi-Bo" and most of the names of attacks are left from French script. This dub was aired in Canada concurrently with Dragon Ball GT, and in the UK after the Blue Water dub of Dragon Ball GT completed its run.

Cast[]

Character Name Blue Water Voice Actor
Goku Jeremiah Yurk (adult/SSJ4); Jeffrey Watson (teen); Zoe Slusar (kid)
Pan Caitlynne Medrek
Trunks Matthew Erickson
Gohan Scott Roberts
Goten Robert Scott Henrickson
Chi-Chi Debbie Munro (adult); Carol-Anne Day (teen); Katie Rowan (kid)
Vegeta Roger Rhodes
Bulla Leda Davies
Bulma Kristin Nowosad (adult); Leda Davies (teen)
Videl Jennifer Holder
Krillin Dan Gascon (adult); Mike Thiessen (teen/kid)
Android 18 Jennifer Bain
Hercule Dave Pettitt
Uub Brendan Hunter
Master Roshi Dean Galloway
Dende Jeffrey Watson
Emperor Pilaf Dean Galloway
General Lock Steve Olson
Baby Adam Hunter
Piccolo Ethan Cole
Frieza Jennifer Bain
Ii Shenron Noah Umholtz
Yamcha Victor Atelevich
Puar Chris Simms
Commander Red Noah Umholtz
Tien Brendan Hunter
King Piccolo Mike Shepherd
Kami Mike Shepherd
Shenron Dave Pettitt
Narrator Steve Olson

Trivia[]

  • Interestingly, the original background music for Dragon Ball GT by Akihito Tokunaga was kept (similar to Funimation's dub of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z Kai, and Dragon Ball Super and the Orange Brick version of Z and the Lime Green Brick version of GT), the episodes were aired in their proper order, and the scripts were kept much closer to the original Japanese version. FUNimation's concurrent GT dub instead skipped much of the Black Star Dragon Ball Saga and used a heavy metal replacement score by Mark Menza. An English version of the GT theme song was used, however while the original Japanese instrumental was kept intact (albeit shortened), the lyrics had absolutely no connection to the original Japanese theme song.
  • In Dragon Ball, Japanese insert songs were replaced with music from Tom Keenlyside's Dragon Ball Z score. The original Japanese background music by Shunsuke Kikuchi was kept otherwise.
  • Despite airing in regions that had received the Ocean Group dubs of Dragon Ball Z, there are some inconsistencies in pronunciation, such as Dr. Gero's name being pronounced as it is in the Funimation dub as opposed to the Ocean dub's "Gyro".
  • Pan's voice actresses in the Funimation dub and Japanese version were both in their early 30s. In the Blue Water dub, her voice actress Caitlynne Medrek was only 13 years old, which is much closer to the character's actual age.
  • As was the case with the Ocean dub, additional sound effects were inserted to both the original series and GT.

Gallery[]

See also[]

External links[]

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