Dragon Ball (Ocean dub)

Nappa: "Vegeta, What does the Scouter say about the awfulness of this dub?"
Vegeta: "IT'S OVER 9000!!!"

The Ocean dubs were a series of English dubs for the Dragon Ball anime series by Canadian dubbing studio Ocean Group, made in association with various companies and covering various parts of the franchise.

The Ocean dub originated as an early English dub of Dragon Ball produced by BLT Productions and Funimation for syndication in 1995. FUNimation and Ocean later dubbed Dragon Ball's sequel, Dragon Ball Z a year later. This dub, which was distributed by Saban Entertainment, was also shown in syndication. It later aired on Cartoon Network in 1998. These episodes, which were recorded by InterPacific Productions Inc at Ocean Studios, were heavily edited for content by Saban, and covered the first 67 uncut episodes of the series, reducing them to 53. The third movie was also dubbed in this form as an episode of the series, while the first three DBZ movies were given uncut dubs using the same voice cast in association with Pioneer (including a redub of the third film).

Bad Qualities

1. It's an expurgation of one of the greatest anime franchises of all time, as anything offensive or extremely violent is censored out in order to make it family-friendly.
2. Most of the great music the anime had is replaced with generic, western-oriented music and music from the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon in the Westwood dub.
3. The censorship is very over-the-top, as violent scenes (like Vegeta punching Goku in the face) are censored and death is barely even mentioned. In one episode where Goku was temporarily dead, the dub changes it to "Goku was sent to another dimension".
4. Very cheesy voice acting with hammy deliveries, with oddities like Jeice having a Scottish accent and Recoome (who's supposed to be rather dumb) talking in an upper-class manner. Nappa also sounds like a robot for some reason.
5. Some of the censorship is very questionable, like when Gohan's tears were censored out when he was kidnapped by Raditz, Mr Satan being renamed to Hercules or when Master Roshi drinks mugs of what is supposedly water.
6. Some animation errors, thanks to the censorship.
7. There were some very unnecessary and unfitting dialogue changes, like when Raditz flicks a bullet at a farmer and kills him, Raditz says "That smarts!".
8. There were unnecessary and annoying cartoon sound effects put into scenes.
9. The Westwood dub (the late Ocean dub) was really awful and it shared the same flaws as the early Ocean dub (unoriginal soundtrack and cartoon sound effects). In addition, it only covered the Android and Majin Buu Sagas. The rest of the series was skipped (even the remainder of the Ginyu Force Saga, which the early Ocean dub stopped in the middle of).
10. The theme song (while catchy) for the late Ocean Dub has the words "Dragon Ball Z!" being repeated over and over again as its lyrics and will get you on your last nerve immediately.
11. On the first episode they cut out the "Previously on Dragon Ball Z..." so people won't know what happened when Goku defeated Piccolo.

Good Qualities

1. It launched the careers of the voice actors who were working on the show.
2. Brian Drummond and Scott McNeil did phenomenal jobs voicing Vegeta and Piccolo.
   • Michael Dobson's performance as Nappa can also be unintentionally hilarious to some.
   • Saffron Henderson's performance as Gohan is great.
   • Kirby Morrow, Ian James Corlett and Peter Kelamis did great did jobs voicing Goku.
3. While it still has some problems, the Westwood dub of the Majin Buu saga is a slight improvement over their take on the Andriod-Cell sagas, as the production wasn't rushed, the voice acting improved, and there is some original music composed alongside with the stock music from other productions.
4. Some of the voices are more fitting in this dub, such as hiring actual children to play Pan and Uub.
5. The "BLT" dub of the original Dragon Ball and the uncut Pioneer dubs of the first three DBZ movies had lesser flaws and better voice acting compared to the Saban and Westwood dubs.
6. At least the Canadian dubs have a decent amount of fans who enjoy it, and they can also be enjoyed in a "so bad, it's good" way.
7. Some of the edits are understandable such as removing blood and alcohol.
8. As stated above the memorable theme song is catchy despite repeating the same lyrics over and over again.
9. It's not really as bad as the atrocious Speedy Video, Big Green Dubs or even the European Portuguese dub.
10. It spawned quite a few hilarious memes like the legendary "IT'S OVER 9,000!" meme.

Trivia

• Pioneer's DVD releases of Dragon Ball Z (the Ocean dub) are long out-of-print and hard to find.
• Brian Drummond would later voice Fake Vegeta in the Funimation dub of Dragon Ball Super, which essentially makes Vegeta from the Ocean dub appear in the show.
• Kirby Morrow voiced Goku at one point and tried to reprise his role, but he got turned down.
• Kirby Morrow (who voiced Goku in this dub and it's also known for voicing Cole in the first 14 seasons of LEGO Ninjago) died in 2020.

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