Dragon Ball (Ocean dub)

Dragon Ball (Ocean dub) 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).

Why This Dub Sucks

 * 1) It is an expurgation of one of the greatest anime franchises of all time, as anything offensive or extremely violent that the anime is known for 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 musics from Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) in the Late Ocean 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. One example would be Jeice having a Scottish accent.
 * 5) Some of the censorship is very questionable, like when Gohan's tears were censored out when he was kidnapped by Raditz or when Master Roshi drinks mugs of visibly frothy 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 which executes 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 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.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) It launched the careers of the voice actors who were working on the show.
 * 2) It spawned quite a few hilarious memes like the legendary "IT'S OVER 9,000!" meme.
 * 3) Brian Drummond, Saffron Henderson, and Scott McNeil did phenomenal jobs at voicing Vegeta, Kid Gohan, and Piccolo.
 * 4) It spawned the FUNimation dub, which was way better received than the Ocean dub.
 * 5) The 1995 Funimation/"BLT Productions" dub of the original "Dragon Ball" anime and the uncut Pioneer dub of the first three "DBZ" movies had lesser flaws, better voice acting, and better reception than the Saban and Westwood dubs of DBZ.
 * 6) Despite it's problems, the Westwood dub has slightly improved by the time they dubbed the Majin Buu saga compared to their take on the Android-Cell sagas. The production wasn't rushed, the voice acting improved, and the music had original compositions alongside with the stock music.
 * 7) At least the Canadian dubs have a decent amount of fans, and it can be enjoyed in a "so bad, it's good" way.

Trivia

 * Pioneer's DVD releases of Dragon Ball Z (the Ocean dub) are long out-of-print and hard to find.
 * Brian Drummond, the Vancouver voice of Vegeta, would later voice Copy Vegeta in the Funimation dub of "Dragon Ball Super" as a guest star.