Funimation dub
From Dragon Ball Wiki, the ''Dragon Ball'' encyclopedia
The Funimation dub was the second English dub track produced for Dragon Ball Z.
[edit] History
Originally, FUNimation and Saban Entertainment contracted Ocean Studios to dub the first 53 episodes of the series for North American release. However, when Saban stopped working with FUNimation, the latter could no longer afford the services of the cast at Ocean Studios nor could they afford the original musical score produced by Shuki Levy and Kussa Mahehi. Therefore, from episode 54 onward (the beginning of season 3), FUNimation began using their own in-house talent, based in Ft. Worth, Texas, to dub the rest of the series. All the episodes from 54 to 276 (291 uncut) were dubbed by FUNimation, and were broadcasted with that dub in the United States.
Pioneer had the initial rights to distribute the first two seasons in DVD, and relased them with the Ocean dub. FUNimation later relased DVDs for episodes 54 (season three) onwards, which contained FUNimation's dub. When FUNimation acquired the rights for the first two seasons from Pioneer, it created the Ultimate Uncut Special Edition line to release its own version of the first two seasons in DVD. FUNimation then re-dubbed the first 53 (67 uncut) episodes (the first two seasons) with its in-house talent for consistency with the rest of its dub.
The first three movies had also been dubbed by the Ocean Group, and released in DVD by Pioneer. The rest of the movies (4-13) had been dubbed by FUNimation's cast. When FUNimation acquired the rights for the DVD distribution of the first three movies from Pioneer in 2004, it re-dubbed those three movies using FUNimation's cast. They were released in the Ultimate Uncut Special Edition line, in the "First Strike" boxset. At this point, FUNimation had all the episodes and movies from Dragon Ball Z dubbed or re-dubbed by its in-house talent.
The Remastered Box Sets use the FUNimation dub for all the episodes and movies.
[edit] Changes from Japanese dub
- The FUNimation's script does differ from the Japanese dialogue, notably having characters speak during a scene that was intended to be silent. The FUNimation script made changes to the story and errors. In the FUNimation dub of episode 85, Gohan Returns, the dialogues of Gohan and Frieza lead viewers to believe that Goku has been killed, and then revived by the Dragon Balls, rather than just knocked out, as in all other versions. Though the incident is never specifically spoken of again, later dialogue seems to correct the earlier error. Also, the origins of Android 17 and Android 18 are made that they were based off of human counterparts, whereas in the Japanese version they were kidnapped by Dr. Gero.
- In the FUNimation dub of Dragon Ball, the character of General Blue is altered to have a long lost brother Samuel in order to mask his homosexual tendencies present in the original Japanese anime. This however, doesn't work because of the numerous other references to it throughout the anime.
