Still gutted about Kirby Morrow. I was supposed to meet him at an anime con last year but it was cancelled due to covid. Few months later and he's no longer with us 😭
An alternative theory to the existence of the westwood dub Actually has to do with something called "CanCon laws" or "Canadian content laws" where in Canada, television channels are mandated to have a certian amount of Canadian content broadcast on their network. This combined with the cheaper price of Canadian voice work during the time of production. Might have actually had an influence in the Westwood dub being created. Though it doesn't fully explain why it was also broadcast in the UK
maybe the westwood dub was broadcast in the UK because both countries are part of the Commonwealth, i.e, Queen Elizabeth's monarchy. This may be the case because they got a better deal on canadian content as opposed to US content in terms of price. In australia where I am; Australia, alot of cartoons we have broadcasting here on TV is canadian because australia is also part of the commonwealth.
I think it’s because UK and Ireland viewers weren’t as fond of the Funimation dub and so when Westwood basically picked up from where Ocean left off (or least used the same talent) UK/EIRE stations were quick to pick it up (or so I’ve heard… as a Brit the only Funimation episodes I saw growing up were the Frieza/Garlic Jr sagas so I know very little about much outside of the Ocean/Westwood dubs 😂
same, I donated to the scholarship fund in his name set up by his brother Casey, I remember listening to podcasts featuring his fellow VA's that he was a really pleasant person with a wild sense of humour. From what I saw Brian Drummond and Kelly Sheridan remembered him most fondest because of his roles as Goku and Miroku... I also chuckle wistfully sometimes when I realise he came close to roasting Sean Schemmel for getting territorial, but didn't because he was kind. The story regards an old interview (Actually on YT) he did, but he mentions he was going to a convention and Schemmel tweeted "You're not Goku *I'm* Goku" and Morrow was tempted to make a delightfully mischievous comeback about how "Michael Keaton claims he's Batman". 😂 The "what could've been" still gets me chuckling. I reckon wherever he is now he's using that humour to slay King Kai... 😌
Support the man and his efforts. Regardless if its bleach or not. Love seeing you drop man, and may the next 10 years bring much more to your collection
Oh I'll admit, as someone who grew up in Canada I had almost misremembered well. The only thing that had me holding on to the idea that the funi dub might not be what I grew up with were particular lines of dialogue that I had remembered being almost completely different, like a couple inner dialogue's of vegeta's and whatnot. That and I grew up watching other anime like Gundam Wing and a Canadian cartoon called Reboot which all featured VA's who were in the ocean/ww dub. Despite that though, I came so close to completely misremembering it... well, thanks so much for preserving the ocean dub! While I appreciate it for nostalgic purposes, the funi dub will always be the main dub for me because of how often the ocean dub switched up its va's. I think goku was changed like 3 times, that and the funi cast being used for most of the games.just makes that decision even easier. All respects to drummond though, he was amazing as Vegeta.
Fantastic video. As a UK fan I've always preferred to watch subbed (since I never grew up watching DB on TV) but your work has been incredible. So excited to fully give it a watch when synced to the Dragon Boxes! Hopefully one day we'll get every dub (and the Japanese original) of this series all neatly collected in one place at their highest quality, since the official channels will never care enough to release them properly.
I had a similar experience with a group of people who were hoarding rare recordings of Latin-American Spanish dubs, a lot of these never got home releases so they're hard to find in good quality, I found a facebook group where people kept showing off snipets of good quality recordings they had but never actually sharing and making them accesible to the fans, it was kind of disheartening
The preservation of film and audio is unquantifiably important. It is being burn, thrown away and destroyed faster then it can be preserved. You have an absolutely legend for doing your part.
I've never even heard of the Westwood Dub, similar to Toonami stuff outside the states you think if had would be a 1 for 1 are often not and it's pretty interesting. While I don't have the same personal childhood connection you do, I can imagine the equivalent for me- a type of empathy. I think preserving anything is pretty cool, such an effort anyone in a historic field would thank you for. These people with a superiority complex sound like a step worse than scalpers honestly, indeed anyone who doesn't want to make a resource available to all be it information or something like this is just disingenuous, they don't really care about a pursuit of knowledge or of a franchise they claim to be a "fan" of. Some of these visuals were also pretty funny...Thank you though truly for contributions to the Dragon Ball Fandom and sharing this story.
Ever since I've heard about the Japanese Broadcast Audio version, I have a desire to own and experience all 508 episodes of the entire Dragon Ball saga. The way you feel about wanting to experience the Canadian/UK Dub mirrors my desire to obtain and experience the Broadcast Audio. Your contributions to the fandom is very admirable and heroic.
Thank you for your efforts in preserving this dub! I grew up in the us, where our first introduction to Dragon Ball Z was the ocean dub. From 1996 - 1999, we were stuck with reruns of the first 53 episodes. Finally, seemingly out of nowhere, the series continued in 1999, but all the voices were changed. We got to enjoy the rest of DBZ with those new voices, but I always wondered what it would have been like if they'd kept the old voices (I was especially a fan of Brian Drummond as Vegeta). It wasn't until around 2010 that I learned the Ocean actors dubbed the rest of the series for UK audiences, and I was so happy to see the fandom sharing clips online; my dream had come true! So thank you for your effort in preserving the dub, I look forward to enjoying your completed restoration! Btw, we never thought we would get an official release of the Ocean dub, but a few years ago they quietly released the "Rock the Dragon" edition (which I was fortunate enough to get when it was still in stores). So maybe the Westwood dub will eventually see the light of day! Also, the Ocean actors have verified that they did record a new dub of Kai, so there's a chance we'll get that one day!
As much as I would love a Westwood dub rerelease, I know it will never happen, which is why I’m super grateful for these high quality preservations, since despite the censorship and stupid script, i loved the voice cast for the Saban ocean era, and finding out they actually did more episodes past that initial run made me really happy.
This is amazing. As someone who grew up in the UK, this is so nostalgic. I almost felt like I imagined them, especially since I couldn't find them online. It was actually from watching your original UK Dragonball video that I knew I wasn't crazy. 😭
This is why archiving and preservation is such an important thing in my opinion. Thank you so much for your own hard work with preserving and letting us know
Holy shit I have heard of these dubs before, and the UK has dubbed anime and cartoons before (For example there was dub of Urusei Yatsura that was way more comical that was made by the BBC) Apparently the blue water dub's GT voice for krillin was the inspiration for Abridged Krillin's voice so that's a nice little nod to such an obscure dub
I never got to experience the Blue Water dubs fir DB and GT, but I grew up on the Westwood dub of DBZ. So I have to give the biggest THANK YOU to you, Manifest, Dragonath among others for syncing the audio up to the merge (and to the rest of the SoM crew of course for all their work). You're making the 6/7 year old me of 20 years ago extremely happy. :)
I’m glad you’ve done this. I’ve learned a lot on how much you’ve returned to the internet memory. Someone also returned the majority of the Ultimate Uncut (FUNi eps 28-67) as well, so there’s that.
Fantastic work, this is for the ages! I wish we could get a more concentrated effort now on acquiring Ocean's dub of Kai. It exists, the licence holder is willing to air it to the right broadcaster in Canada and Ken Morrison of Ocean is apparently still intent on it being seen, but has cooled his jets to focus on more recent dubbing projects. The opportunity is there, I think they need a collective push. Worth noting, but Bandai are also heavily involved in this decision, so throwing them into the mix to see what might come of it.
People like you are a blessing. I never grew up with westwood but as a DB fan I appreciate your effort. I don't know how you remained so diplomatic when talking about that absolute psycho that broke the discs lol. People like that have something wrong with them.. I don't know of anyone *that* messed up in the broadcast audio community but I do recall the hoarding and egos -_-
I am elated and looking forward to spending some time squirrelling out your hard work online so that I can finally experience the dubs of my childhood! At one point I was able to find some Canadian DVDs on Amazon of the Ocean Dub early episodes (Raditz saga into Saiyan Saga I think) but obviously those were like 4 episodes per disc, couldn’t get them all and once it reached that point in the Namek saga that was it for Ocean/Geneon/Pioneer. To be able to see the rest as it was would be a dream! I remember being heartbroken when the dub changed - no offence to Chris Sabat but Brian Drummond was MY Vegeta, I had a huge tween crush on his voice lmao and for it to change was just miserable, but I kept watching bc I loved the show. The sheer delight when suddenly the original voices were back is something I didn’t ever forget!
I knew about a lot of these and it’s still fascinating to see an alternate dub. I’m hoping the process of sinking it up to the dragon box footage goes well. I was doing something similar with the American Toonami broadcast recreating all the edits in better quality but this is of higher importance as otherwise we can’t access this audio track. Thank you for your hard work in preserving the Westwood dub and I’m hoping we get that one last episode in good quality of the Blue Water Dragon Ball dub
Once again a fantastic in depth look at DBZ and how it unfolded here in the UK. I usually direct people to your videos nowdays instead of trying to explain it all myself, you do a better job!
Wow this is great. Yes I'm in UK and got into DBZ via the games like Budokai 2 & 3. But did watch the series after. I remember the UK versions on tv too. The theme tune really stuck in my head. I got into the series late due to not having cable at first. And yeah I don't have any problem with "piracy" when it's for content that isn't legally available.
Great vid. Gave me real nostalgia.. Cartoon World... Damn it. One thing to note though, I don't think most people actually remember this but on CNX the Funimation dub was actually being used for a bit. I can remember it like it was yesterday, no heavy internet use so was more of a word of mouth situation
Yep we have discussed this on the Kanzenshuu Forums. Funimation dub was used the first time the fusion saga was aired. You can even hear it in the promos for the fusion saga aired by CNX.
Impressive video. This is a real glow up compared to the first Toonami UK one. I can totally relate to a lot of what you're saying, from the confusion of watching the Funimation dub to discovering Cartoon World forums... Even the part about talking to peers who insist they watched the Funi dub on TV. It's wild to hear others experienced the same thing, it's almost like you're describing what happened to me at times. Considering how corrupt some of the people at Funimation turned out to be, I feel blessed my memories of the alternate dubs weren't overwritten by the video games. And yeah, the time for the anti-piracy argument has long since passed in my view, I think we would all gladly pay for this stuff had it been released by now but none of these companies will ever care to do so, and as far as I'm concerned they've wavered their right to scold fans for preserving it themselves. Oh and fuck the hoarders. between them and the Ocean dub of Kai being prevented from broadcast... It's been a very rough time for fans of Canadian dubbed Dragon Ball.
Being a Brit, I was a generation later to experience the Westwood and Blue Water Dubs, but my earliest memories are seeing commercials for Dragon Ball Z on CNX Hopefully one day we can see more CNX promos
Amazing video Dood as someone who is a fan of dbz all his life (32) cool to see this. And anyone who would deny the spread of a thing they claim to love isn't a fan they are just dumbm
I remember your UKDB site. It was there that I was corrected on some of the long-mistaken identities of some of the Ocean Dub cast that had proliferated in the early days of the Internet.
Wouldn't really call this "wasting" 10 years, you did the DBZ community a solid in doing what you did and should be commended for it. :) As for the "sharing of copyrighted material" personally, I agree with your stance. There are several shows like Cybersix and Cardcaptors which will never get a home video release for various reasons and regardless of how you feel about them, they deserve to be preserved because they have value. Art is culture, and if the folks who own it don't care to archive it that's where we the fans who do care need to step in.
I know I won't get a direct link on this comment, but as a supporter of fan preservation and fan edits, if anybody familiar with my channel has access or knowledge of how to aquire these clean Ocean Eps, I would be forever grateful. I want to re-watch the dub I grew up with and perhaps I may even make combined episodes containing both Ocean/Funi/Kai audio/footage😅 ✌️
The Ocean/Westwood dub is vastly superior in quality to the Funimation version. Better voice acting, editing, sound, music, direction, talent, pacing. It's what DBZ and fans deserve. I stopped watching DBZ because of Funimation. They straight up ruined the show. Now I actually want to watch what I missed and thought could never be. DBZ fans in the UK were treated well. More people should be aware of this. You are doing amazing work. Thank you!
Nah. Funimation is superior in every way. The Ocean dubs 1-53 is Good. But the Westwood dub 108-276 Is garbage and poorly made. You’re just a funi hater
So THATS why i found ocean dub footage of DBZ as far as the Buu Saga on RU-vid.....I was so confused because in the US, the mid point of the Frieza Saga was Funi dub.
I remember when I was little I'd record GT on tape because I loved it so much. That was the Funimation dub with the "welcome to the grand tour" opening. I'm glad that fans were able to preserve the Westwood dub. Fans wouldn't have to resort to this if they'd just have an official media release, but the community fills in that gap and I love it. I heard that ocean even dubbed kai and it's just being shelved off due to copyright issues.
Well, I found the place where these are uploaded. If you're into watching a lot of anime using alternative means, it's really easy to find these encodes. That's all I'll say on this post. In any case, every community seems to have that one person that will ruin it for everyone else. It happens and that's just how incohesive people seem to be - petty, angry, and pessimistic. But the data hoarding is real. I've experienced it at first hand and the trade offs are worth it, in my opinion. But I will say this - hoarding this sort of thing all to yourself is truly selfish. This is anime, we're talking about. But, then again, what do I know? What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.
I understand the feeling. In my country,it's pretty common for movies to get multiple dubs over the years(hell,some movies have gotten four or even FIVE different dubs here!),with most of them only being preserved through fans' efforts. Akira,for instance,has had three different dubs,and if it wasn't for fans sharing recordings and materials,only the second dub could still be heard from this day(the first dub was only released on VHS in the early 90's and the third dub was only broadcasted in a specific channel a few times around 2000-2001). Yu Yu Hakusho was dubbed twice in my country.The second dub was broadcasted on Cartoon Network in the mid 00's and got a complete DVD release,but the first dub was only aired on TV during 1997 and 1998(the cast is 99% the same in both versions,by the way)and that too would have been lost media if it wasn't for fans(and recently, higher quality recordings of the first dub have surfaced on the internet,YAY!) Evangelion got THREE(!) different dubs in my country(with most of the main cast being kept in all three)and the first two would have been lost media too if it wasn't for the fans(first dub aired on TV between 1999 and 2002/2003 and the second dub aired between 2008 and 2010. Third dub is the Netflix version). Even Dragon Ball itself got multiple dubs in some movies and batches of episodes in my country(and we have all of them preserved too!)
Dude I knew you were a legend but... DAMN! Freakin awesome mate!!! Love your vids man thanks for this, your time and your efforts in showing the diff! Loving being subscribed aye!
Damn another heart holy crap, thanks mate! I feel the love, hope you know it's reciprocated, I'm soooooo happy I found your channel. Considering how much you put into this vid and collection it's just....damn... Thank you again for how much you've put into this, I don't get alot of down time so when I do your vids are amazing just to relax and enjoy and get some head space.
In canada on YTV we got a hybride of the Westwood song intro with the funimation Dub during freeza saga until the end !!! I still have the episode of Goku become Super Sayen for the first time and the last episode of Z on VHS !!!
As someone from the Netherlands: Thank you so much for preserving my youth!!! DBZ just isn’t as nostalgic without Brian Drummond and recycled Mega Man music
Damn this was a good and nostalgic video bro also for another video idea I was thinking you should do another top 10 anime op good video Imran keep up the good work!
Had no idea there were 2 different dubs. Mind blown! Thinking back, I do remember the voices suddenly sounding different in DBZ. I used to record the UK episodes on VHS for my cousins and uncles who missed it. No idea what happened to the tapes now though
Raaass as if people are that weird to destroy lost content just so other people can't have them. Absolute freaks. Big Up to you though Imran, love your DBZ content and love what you have contributed to what we grew up with in the UK. Been watching the Westwood dub on the Internet archive recently 😁
Since the Akria Toriyama's passing I've been on a kick to get hold of these episodes, mostly as I like obscure dubs including Tokusatsu ones, anyway just wanted to say thanks to your work, I already had copies of the Ocean Westwood Z dub synced to better quality video but audio may not be, going to look into getting your work to go along side the GT and dragonball. Sucks that the hoarder community went that low and petty.
YESS!! I had that same confusion around 2007/2008 when the orange bricks were being released. Watching the namek episodes were familiar and then I remember being confused but couldn't put my finger on why the android saga felt different.... And then when I started hearing the Megaman music and Trunk's theme on obscure RU-vid vids it was an EPIPHANY! The music jogged my memory and everything clicked and made sense 😍
Years ago in school a kid brought this DBZ movie where Goten & Trunks wished for Goku's dad back with the dragon balls expecting Grandpa Gohan and instead Bardock returns. The part that bugs me the most is I don't know what was the name of the movie because it was subbed and he recorded it on VHS. But the one thing I will never forget is the Japanese McDonald's Commercial that kept playing during the break with a Kid singing and trapping two sticks together for Happy Meal. And I've only met like two other people that seen this movie my entire life
7:50 "and even Canada" Why does it sound like you're surprised? We aired the Westwood and Blue Water dubs all the way through as well, since they counted as Canadian Content. I used to think the Westwood DBZ theme was something I'd imagined.
I definitely don't blame you for holding onto it for a bit, but it does really bother me that, without a shadow of a doubt, many of the most sought after pieces of lost media are being hoarded by assholes with bad intentions. Keeping it for the sake of preservation makes sense, and would require some level of gatekeeping, but you just know these dudes are having massive power trips over what is essentially little kids cartoons for a country they'll never step foot in. Like, seriously? And thank you for your efforts in keeping those episodes alive.
The funimation dub actually did air in the UK fully but on local networks, so both dubs aired. I can't remember the station/network name but the UK dub also aired in the USA as I clearly remember 2 versions of the cell saga (and of course the JP version aired on the international channel since the early 90s).
Pretty sure Dragon Ball Z never aired on any UK channels other than Cartoon Network, CNX and Toonami. All these channels only aired the Funimation inhouse dub from episodes 54-107 and early airings of the Fusion saga on CNX
For the past couple months I've been remaking the Ocean Dub using the bluray Level Sets. You can see some of the episodes I've done on my channel if you're interested. If you ever wanna collab on creating/preserving things hit me up cus I'll definitely be interested! :)
Man I love the ocean dub/ Westwood dub. I’d love a collection of all of them. I own the manga; and like you I own the funimatiin dub on dvd and I even own Kai on Blu-ray. Last night I watched some reruns of toonami tapes and more than 15 years later my ears still picked up the dialogue; the way they said it, the music that played; the atmosphere. Man it took me back. I always had a soft spot for Bruce falconers score thanks to legacy of goku 2 (not to mention the namek saga and the famous super sayain transformation being done by the funimation team). They’re both amazing soundtracks and hit the nostalgia spots since I was exposed to both soundtracks in a way back then. I remember watching megaman and instinctively knowing that cutman (scissorman, whatever his name is) had krillins voice. I’ve had so many arguments with my friends over this who suffer the Mandela effect of the funimation dub. Probably thanks to the amount of budokai 3 we used to play. Some really awesome simple times these voices bring me back to. Thanks for documenting these over the years. It’s a shame to think people would hold onto this stuff just for bragging rights.
All I know is that it would be VERY cool if Sony/Crunchyroll and Toei decided to go back and do one final, ultimate remaster/restoration of EVERY single episode of DB, DBZ, Kai, and even GT. But to really go above and beyond...they would also do whatever it took to acquire rights to the entirety of the Ocean/Westwood/Blue Water Dub and include that as an optional audio option. From what I understand, Kai also received a complete Ocean Dub, it just has never been released. So with any luck they could secure THAT as well. The original Manga turns 40 years old in 2024....so it would be a really cool thing to finally get an "ultimate, comprehensive, definitive, everything included" release of the entire Dragon Ball mythos.
i recently stumbled across an upload on archive with a bunch of english dubbed dbz episodes from the philipines(? at least SEA area). i liked that dub more than any of the other english dubs that i heared so far.
We in South Africa also experienced DB the same way as the UK and US switching from Oceans to Funi. Only difference is that it never aired on Cartooon Network instead we got it on SABC 2 one of out local tv networks. And I think it was a couple of years after it aired in the US.
