People would be hard-pressed to find an anime that’s been dubbed, re-cut, and re-scripted as many times asDragon Ball Z. Ever since it left Japan and began airing overseas, countless different dubs and versions of the show have aired around the world, with no less than three major dubs being released in English, which themselves have variations and changes from different broadcast and home release bundles of the show.
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No overseas release of media is complete without some notable changes, from altered lines and scripts to entirely made-up mechanics and concepts — language dubs can create a wholly distinct feeling from the original content. For Dragon Ball Z, the transition to English audiences created some memorable, cheesy, and well-beloved moments that have endured in some form years after their introduction.
10New Language, New Names
As with most language translations, the vast majority of characters in Dragon Ball Z were given new names that better suit the new language and its vocabulary. Characters like Krillin are translated from Kuririn, Master Roshi was originally Kame-Sen’nin, and Tien was Tenshinhan. In a long forgotten dub by Harmony Gold, Korin was re-named Whiskers the Wonder Cat — yes, really.
While some characters like Son Goku are mostly unchanged, with only the pronunciation being changed, the new English names would slowly become as ubiquitous as their native Japanese names asDragon Ballbecame overwhelmingly popular in the late 90s and early 2000s. Giving someone a name is one of the most important things that can be done, and giving the cast of Dragon Ball the names they’re known by around the world has shaped how the cast is known and addressed forever.
9Attack Names, Fire!
Just like character names, the names of special attacks were changed for the English dubs, usually to be more easily remembered, spelled, and recited by the kids watching at home.Piccolo’s charged beam attack was originally named the Makankosappo, which became theSpecial Beam Cannon, while Krillin’s charged disc attack was called the Destructo Disc, and Vegeta’s attack name was almost a direct translation of Big Bang Attack from Biggu Ban Atakku.
While some of these attack names and declarations have become infamous, such as Raditz’s ‘Keep your eye on the Birdie,’ many of these became staples of playgrounds and front yards across the world as kids acted out the fight scenes they’d watched on TV with friends and toys. These new names have become icons of their respective characters and stand out as some of the most memorable sound bites from the show.
8Vegeta’s Earth-Shattering Yell
Vegeta realizes that Gohan and his watch, in reality a Dragon Ball radar, are responsible for stealing one of the Dragon Balls and denying Vegeta his wish. Enraged, Vegeta flies away at breakneck speed, visibly enraged and hollering his indignation to the heavens. For one of the English dubs, Brian Drummond was given the task of making this enraged screaming sound as imposing and fear-inducing as possible, and he delivered on all fronts.
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To this day, “You will not escape MY WRAATH” will rattle televisions and send shivers down the spine of all who hear it. The passionate rage of that yell is the embodiment of how people viewVegeta’s character, and it’s a fine example of a dubbed language team working full steam to create something impactful for a new audience.
The original Ocean Studios dub of Dragon Ball Z did its best to downplay violence, airbrush blood and gore out of scenes, and avoid the idea of death whenever possible to keep the show on a child-focused broadcast plan. This led to a series of amusing bits of censorship and after-the-fact objections to gratuitous violence, and this is one of the most beloved. As Nappa and Vegeta’s pods crash through a series of skyscrapers and buildings on their arrival to Earth, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake, they emerge to a crowd of stunned onlookers.
As Nappa takes a moment to breathe in the view, Vegeta comments, “Too bad it’s Sunday, those buildings would’ve been filled up tomorrow.” How did Vegeta know it was Sunday, or that Sunday is a day of rest and usually has less business than other weekdays? This is his first time on Earth; how would he know any of this, and why comment on it at all without prompting? It’s goofy, it’s blatant in its goal, and it’s absolute cheesiness that fans call back to all these years later.
6The Cargo-Robot’s Invisible Parachutes
A two-for-one deal on censorship that boggles the mind and induces fits of laughter. As news helicopters fly too close to the fight between the Z-Warriors and the Saiyans, and Nappa destroys one to teach them a lesson and warn them away. As it goes down in a ball of fire, one news anchor cries in horror, “They blew up the cargo robot!” as the shot cuts away. What’s a cargo robot, and why was it flying alongside emergency news helicopters? Who knows.
To compound the silliness of these blatant deaths being hand waved away, a barrage of helicopters is destroyed when they again fly too close to Nappa and Vegeta. As the Z-Warriors look on in terror, Tien cries out, “Look! I can see their parachutes. They’re okay,” as no parachuting persons are shown amid a wall of fire and debris raining from the sky. Not only is the coverup of the blatant deaths on the nose, it could’ve been circumvented by editing away the helicopter scenes, as Ocean had cut many scenes throughout the show up to this point. As insane and goofy as it is, a charm is added to the scene as a result, making these lines memorable for being so-bad-it’s-good in every way.
5A Brilliant Scientist
The Ocean dub had Vegeta compliment Goku’s father, Bardock, during theirfight, attributing the technique of creating an artificial moon to the man. Vegeta finishes the diatribe with, “Your father was an average fighter, Kakarot, but he was a brilliant scientist!” as he launches the fake moon into the sky. Discounting how Vegeta would know Bardock, Bardock was far from a scientist. The Dragon Ball special that covered his life story had been out for a while before Ocean began the dubbing process, and they would’ve likely known that the simple-minded, brutalist soldier was in no way a brilliant scientist.
Unlike the other odd lines that served the role of dismissing death, this is either an upfront lie by Vegeta or a script overlook that went unaddressed, though ultimately for the best. Either way, this line has remained hilarious all these years for those that know of it and its impact on the fans remains as strong as ever.
4Home For Infinite Losers
Being allowed creativity and subversiveness in dubbing a show can lead to spectacular results, and this is one of the best case scenarios. Originally, Goku’s fall off of Snake Way lands him straight into the middle of Hell itself. To skirt around the use of the word and religious connections for the western market, ‘HELL’ became ‘HFIL,’ or as one demon puts it, “The Home For the Infinite Losers.”
Short, sweet, and easy to edit around, HFIL worked for this one-off episode’s escapades but cemented the name in pop culture from that day forward. HFIL has been mentioned in later official Dragon Ball media, been used as the basis for fan animations, and used as an example of having fun with the craftsmanship that goes into translating media for new audiences from different cultures.
3Dying? No, Just Dimension-Hopping
What’s a dubbing studio to do when the show they’re aiming at young children is filled to the brim with corpses and on-screen character death? Break out the digital brushes, editing tools and script re-writes, because no one’s dying here; they’re just being sent to another dimension. Yes, really, corpses were digitally airbrushed out, and any disintegration or threat of harm was reworked to imply that falling in battle meant people were sent to a new, the next, or a different dimension, with the characters stating as such to ensure this clever ruse paid off.
While far and away not the only form of censorship in English dubs of the show, this one was especially egregious and has become so well known that video games, other television shows, and parodies would bring up dimensions time and time again in tribute to this hilarious era of early English anime dubbing.
2Bruce Faulconer’s Score
Sometimes a language dub will be accompanied by new musical scores to better fit the audience it’s being introduced to. For American audiences, something like Dragon Ball Z calls for heavy tones, rock, guitars, and drums, and Bruce Faulconer was tasked with doing just that.
Becoming a mainstay of the English version of Dragon Ball Z, Faulconer’s blood-pumping music has been in fierce competition with the original Japanese score for the title of best soundtrack, and the debate has raged on for years with no conclusive answers. Considered one of the best action scores of the early 2000s and impossible to misidentify, Faulconer’s score is often tied just as closely to Dragon Ball as Goku himself.
1IT’S OVER 9000
One of the first internet memes, and the single most recognizable and quoted line across every dub of Dragon Ball Z — and possibly of any anime ever made. The passionate, reverberating rage of “It’s over nine thousand!” has been used in songs, parodies, YouTube fan edits, and has been cheekily mentioned once or twice by official Dragon Ball media and merchandise in the years since.
The funniest part is that 9,000 is actually a translation error, and the originally stated number is 8,000, which is accurately stated in the various Japanese dubs and the later Dragon Ball Z Kai English dub. But for those in the know and those coming to the series for the first time, the 9,000 reading is the version most will recall and remember fondly.
