Dragon Ball Super (ドラゴンボール超スーパー Doragon Bōru Sūpā) is a Japanese anime television series produced by Toei Animation, which began airing on July 5, 2015. It's a continuation of the original Dragon Ball manga, featuring the first new storyline in 18 years. The series takes place after the defeat of Majin Buu in Dragon Ball Z and reveals the events of the ten year time skip following the Buu Saga, also repeating the events of the movies Battle of Gods and Resurrection ‘F’.
The show aired on Sundays at 9:00 a.m. on Fuji TV. Its overall plot outline is written by Dragon Ball franchise creator Akira Toriyama, while the individual episodes are written by different screenwriters. It is also a manga series illustrated by Toyotarou, serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine V Jump.
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Dubbing History[]
The first announcement of an English dub came from Toonami Asia in November 2015, who announced they were producing their own English dub to air exclusively in Southeast Asia and India. The dub was produced by the Los Angeles based Bang Zoom! Entertainment. Although intended to air by mid-2016[1], the release ended up being on January 21, 2017 (14 days after the premiere of FUNimation's dub). Voice actors that were involved with Harmony Gold's brief dub of Dragon Ball and Animaze's dub of the video game Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout are present in this dub, though none of them reprise their roles (with the exception of Wendee Lee, who reprises the role of Bulma). The casting for this dub mostly stays close to the vocal types of the original Japanese actors, with some exceptions (Goku, Krillin, etc.). The dub also has various script censors, toning down Roshi's perversion and, once again, referring to Mr. Satan as 'Hercule'. The dub was cancelled after Episode 27 (according to Ray Chase they were hired to do 52 episodes) due to the closure of Toonami Asia in early 2018.[2]
On November 4, 2016, after much fan anticipation, FUNimation Entertainment announced that they had acquired the rights to Dragon Ball Super and would be producing an English dub, with many cast members of their previous English-language releases of Dragon Ball media reprising their respective roles. As well as officially announcing the dub, it was also announced they will be simulcasting the series on their streaming platform, FunimationNow. On December 7, 2016, IGN reported that the FUNimation dub of Dragon Ball Super would air on Adult Swim Saturdays at 8 p.m. with an encore showing in their Toonami block later that night at 11:30 p.m. beginning January 7, 2017. This was later confirmed on Toonami's official Facebook page. The North American premiere of Dragon Ball Super was watched by 1,063,000 viewers for its 8 p.m. showing on Adult Swim. The series completed its run on October 5, 2019.
Cast[]
Episodic Characters[]
Additional Voices[]
Notes[]
- Wendee Lee reprises her role as Bulma in the Bang Zoom! dub, nearly 28 years after being cast as the character in the Harmony Gold dub of Dragon Ball.
- Alexis Tipton takes over the role of Trunks from Laura Bailey as Bailey currently resides in Los Angeles. While reprising the role for a completed series or movie is simpler, an ongoing series would prove more difficult to have to be constantly flown to and from L.A. to Dallas and back, thus possibly interfering with her other works.
- Though archive audio of Bailey as Trunks can be heard in a flashback in Episode 2.
- Despite the Bang Zoom! dub sharing some consistencies with FUNimation's dub (such as the name "Master Roshi"), other established characters and terms are referred to by their original Japanese names and pronunciation (Tenshinhan, Shenlong, ki, etc.).
- Daman Mills fills in various pieces of Frieza's dialogue for Christopher Ayres in Episodes 26 and 27. Mills went on to serve as Ayres' understudy for Frieza due to Ayres' diagnosis of late-stage emphysema, including voicing Frieza in the video games Dragon Ball FighterZ, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot and Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero. However, Ayres was able to reprise the role for the film Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which would be his final performance as Frieza before his passing in 2021.
- Matthew Mercer takes over the role of Hit from Aaron Roberts, Hit's voice actor in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 and Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle, due to the backlash from fans who felt the latter's voice was unfitting for the character. Aaron Roberts would ended up voicing Cae instead.
- Magetta's voice is listed as "N/A" in the end credits. His voice seems to have been done utilizing a text to speech program.
- In the FUNimation dub, Cloned Vegeta is voiced by Brian Drummond, the voice of Vegeta in the Ocean dub of Dragon Ball Z, and the first English voice of Vegeta overall.
- Erica Mendez has been rumored to be the voice of Trunks in the Bang Zoom! dub, under the name Haley Lewis, but she has since denied her involvement with the dub.
- Reception of the Bang Zoom! dub from the FUNimation voice cast has been mixed.
- Chris Rager expressed his disappointment for the dub on Twitter from the initial preview clips as he felt that FUNimation were the only true English voices for the series and thought the Toonami Asia dub was deliberately copying him as well as the other cast members.
- Sean Schemmel and Kara Edwards have given their support for the dub. According to Lex Lang, he and Schemmel talked about the Toonami Asia dub before it began production, with the latter offering the former advice on Goku. Kara, meanwhile, favorited tweets on Erika Harlacher's casting of Videl on Twitter and praised her performance.
- Patrick Seitz is the lone voice actor to appear in both dubs.
Transmission[]
| Date(s) | Channel | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-2019 | Cartoon Network (Adult Swim/Toonami) |
United States | 
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Video Releases[]
| Distributor | Year | Format | Contents | Region | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FUNimation Entertainment | 2017-2020 |  + 
|
The Complete Series | 1 NTSC A DVB-T |
United States |
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| 10 Volumes | ||||||
References[]
- ↑ (Nov. 10, 2015) Toonami Snaps Up Dragon Ball Super in Asia
- ↑ (Jan 9. 2018) Anime News India on Facebook. Retrieved February 15, 2018
External Links[]
- Official Adult Swim Website
- Dragon Ball Super (anime) at the Anime News Network
- Dragon Ball Super at the Internet Movie Database
