AB Groupe

AB Group logo

The AB Group (also known as AB Groupe) is a French broadcasting group, and the distributor of the Dragon Ball franchise for European and Canadian markets. The AB Group is also known for collaborating on the Westwood Dub with Ocean Productions for Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT.

Overview

The company was founded in 1977 by Jean-Luc Azoulay and Claude Berda as a music production company. In 1987, it went into the world of television. They are responsible for creating many of the European dubs of the franchise (notably the French). They created the Engish dubs of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball GT, as well as the second half of Dragon Ball Z (123-291) for their markets in association with Westwood Media, Ocean Studios, and Chinook Animation.

They also produced English dubs of most the features and specials for UK distribution in collaboration with other production companies. These productions are notorious among fans for the script (which was based off the French script), the changing of character's names (for example Piccolo is called "Big Green"), as well as poor voice acting. Despite being aired on Toonami UK, only the movies Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might, Dragon Ball Z: The World's Strongest, and Dragon Ball Z: Lord Slug were distributed on DVD due to poor sales. However, Dragon Ball: Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle and Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure, the first nine Dragon Ball Z movies, and the two TV specials of were dubbed by this company. They were released in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Ireland on VHS and DVD. Some of the names of the films were changed, but most resembled the Japanese film titles. These dubs are known by fans as the "Big Green dub".

Their other major anime property is Sailor Moon, however they mostly had a hand in its French release.

Also, AB Group notably sends copyright takedown notices to TeamFourStar for their Dragon Ball Z: Abridged series.

AB Film Titles

• DB Movie 1 - The Legend of Shenron
• DB Movie 2 - Sleeping Beauty in Devil Castle
• DB Movie 3 - Mystical Adventure
• DBZ Movie 1 - In Pursuit of Garlic
• DBZ Movie 2 - The Strongest Guy in the World
• DBZ Movie 3 - Super Battle in the World
• DBZ Movie 4 - Super Saiya Son Goku
• DBZ Movie 5 - Super Rivals
• DBZ Movie 6 - Fight! 10 Billion Power Warriors
• DBZ Movie 7 - Super Battle of the Three Super Saiyans
• DBZ Movie 8 - The Burning Battles
• DBZ Movie 9 - Super Guy in the Galaxy
• DBZ Special 1 - The Father of Goku
• DBZ Special 2 - Gohan and Trunks

See also

• Westwood Dub