This year has been a bit of a mixed bag for Dragon Ball fans – Malaysia, the first new TV anime since the conclusion of Super in 2018, began airing this month, alongside the release of the highly anticipated Dragon Ball :spark”! zero. Of course, sadly, series creator Akira Toriyama sadly passed away in March of this year, which means that while the new series and games are enjoyable, there’s a tinge of sadness that comes with it, especially considering Toriyama’s It’s unclear just how deep Akira’s involvement was with Daima, but it also clearly ignited a passion that many fans of the Dragon Ball series haven’t had in a long time.
With all of this in mind, I finally decided to do something I’d been putting off for years: I started rewatching Dragon Ball Z. It has been about 20 years since I watched “Dragon Ball Z”. When I was a kid, it made me feel a little sick that I had written it down (ageing! yippi!), and I’d been telling myself for a long time that I would get around to writing it. After all, what exactly is an anime with nearly 300 episodes? That’s nothing! Besides, I remember a lot about this series anyway, so feel free to rewatch it. Did you know? It turns out I didn’t remember as much as I thought I would.
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Let’s be clear, I do remember the major beats and arcs, and I got plenty of reminders of them by checking out clips on various social media or going back to classic AMVs for a quick dose of nostalgia. Still, I’m obviously completely blocked out on how much of the beginning of the series is about young Gohan, alone in the world without Goku’s dad, learning how to be strong. I don’t remember Vegeta being a completely different color, since Toriyama hasn’t made an official color scheme for him yet. I certainly didn’t remember Christopher Sabat, best known for playing Vegeta and also voicing Piccolo.
You see, in my memory, the piccolo had an incredibly deep, gruff sound. It’s such an iconic feel to me, and in fact, I know this voice also played Wolverine in the 2000s animated series X-Men: Evolution! Except he’s voiced by Scott McNeil, but apparently it’s Sabat who voiced him in Dragon Ball Z, so what’s going on here? I’ll tell you what.
At that time, a dubbing studio called The Ocean Group dubbed the first 53 episodes of “Dragon Ball Z” (strictly speaking, it was compressed from 67 episodes) and broadcast it in the UK. After that, Funimation Dub (featuring all the characters you’re familiar with by now) aired for a while before switching back to the Ocean Dub cast. As you can obviously guess, this was because anime rights at the time were a bit like the Wild West, and as a kid I didn’t really notice that. But looking back, I realize that a lot of my memories of the show’s sound came from the game.
I played a lot of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 and Budokai Tenkaichi 2 when I was a kid, which used the Funimation Dub cast, I mean I would play them over and over again. These games were a staple of my childhood and I would play their stories over and over again, completely unaware that none of the voice actors were the same. Yet those voices, those sounds, have stayed with me all these years.
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In a way, I think it’s possible that they’ve replaced animation to some extent. I definitely haven’t watched the anime since it aired in the UK, it’s definitely a rerun, so as far as I know the use of Funimation Dub is beyond what I can find evidence of (most people online just talk about how it was used in Broadcast in the UK) Us). But I still vividly remember McNeil’s voice as Piccolo, how cool and husky it was, and I’ll never forget Rock the Dragon, which originally opened in the UK.
It’s weird to think about how much these games have shaped my memories of the series, but I also think it shows you how ingrained the gameplay is in Dragon Ball – why else would you think Spark! “Zero” sold 3 million copies in just one day after its release. But in a way, all these jumbled memories gave me the opportunity to rewatch Dragon Ball Z with new eyes.
I played Dragon Ball Z as a kid and its dub schedule was obviously messed up and the game at the time wasn’t technically consistent with the show, and now I have a new Dragon Ball Z that’s new to me at least. Still not quite what I wanted, I really just have to read the manga to get it (I’ll get there eventually). with sparkle! Zero, there’s also a new version of the series and I hope that even if the game ends up being a bit repetitive, there will be more and more ways to enjoy it because now I think it’s a bit traditional.
