AB Groupe dub

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The AB Groupe dub was an English dub of films from the Dragon Ball franchise produced by the French company AB Groupe. It is colloquially referred to as the Big Green dub due to Piccolo being renamed "Big Green". AB Groupe's dub is also known as the Toonami UK dub and Bridge Entertainment dub.

The dub covered all the original films and TV specials that Toei produced between 1986 and 1997, with the exception of Dragon Ball Z movies 10-13, and Dragon Ball: The Path to Power.

History

From 2000 to 2003, AB Groupe commissioned alternate English dubs of the Dragon Ball franchise for distribution in the UK and Netherlands through Cartoon Network. These dubs notably featured voices from Canadian dubbing studios Ocean Productions and later, Blue Water, which would also later be broadcast on Canadian television by way of YTV. However, AB had already begun producing English dubs of the films and TV specials, these were first released on home video in the Netherlands using Bridge Entertainment Group as the distributor. Here they released nine of the thirteen Dragon Ball Z movies and both TV specials on DVD. The UK would also see DVDs and VHS tapes of this dub being distributed in 2003 through Warner Vision International. However, only the movies Super Battle in the World, The Strongest Guy in the World and Super Saiyan, Goku were distributed before being discontinued.

These AB Groupe dubs of the films and TV specials were notable for being recorded in France using English speaking actors. It is not known why AB did not also commission the same Canadian studios to dub the movies as they did with the series, however, based on the Bridge Entertainment release dates, it can be speculated that the French production either started at an earlier point or at roughly the same time as the Canadian production.

This dub used the French dub audio tracks and video masters and adapted their scripts from the French translations. The AB Groupe dub is notorious for its poor voice acting (presumably due to poor and/or rushed voice direction and scripts, as well as the French "Rythmo Band" technique being commonplace for dubbing in France). There is also unusual character nomenclature as a result of using the French dub names. For example, as in the French dub, Krillin is named "Clearin", Bulma is named "Blooma/Bloomer", the Saiyans are called "Space Warriors", Super Saiyans are called "Super Warriors", Master Roshi is named "Genius Turtle", Chiaotzu is named "Chaos", Turles is named "Turls/Talles", Power Pole is named "Magic Stick" or "Magic Baton", Senzu Bean is named "Magic Beans", Dragon Balls are named "Crystal Balls" and Flying Nimbus is named "Magic Cloud". Most notably, this dub also refers to Piccolo as "Big Green", which is where the infamous nickname for the dub first originated. This change could be from the reason that in the French dub, Piccolo's name was also changed, but to Small Heart (Petit Cœur). Some names, although correct, are pronounced like in a French dub, for example Vegeta as "Vejituh", Gohan as "Gohand", Bojack as "Boujacque". Some character names from anime have been skipped or given bizarre names, for example, in this version of Bojack Unbound, Goku does not mention how Mr. Satan defeated Cell (despite the French dub did it) and renames King Piccolo to "Evil Bad Guy". This dub is also known to name most attacks as Kamehameha or give them strange names such as "I want Total Power" or saying random words like "Out of my way". It's also a thing from the French dub, where Dragon Ball was primarily intended for children, so the translators didn't pay much attention to the names of the attacks. However, AB Groupe dub simplified the names of attacks in few places, for example in Lord Slug, Goku in the French version when he uses Spirit Bomb calls it Force le lumière (Force of light), but in AB Groupe dub, this was simply replaced with Kamehameha.

These versions of the movies and TV specials were eventually all broadcast on Toonami UK for a marathon in 2005.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] The Legend of Shenron, Sleeping Beauty in Devil Castle, The Great Mystical Adventure, the first nine Dragon Ball Z movies, the two Dragon Ball Z TV specials, and Four-Star Dragonball is the Proof of Courage all featured this particular cast.

YTV did not broadcast the AB produced movie dubs in the same way that they did for the Canadian series dubs. While there is speculation that this was because YTV adhered to a Canadian content broadcasting rule, this is disputed due to the channel also broadcasting non Canadian programming in addition to a substantial amount of Funimation's Texas produced Dragon Ball Z dub. It is instead more likely that AB simply did not have any distribution outlet in North America and that Ocean Productions handled distribution directly to YTV instead, hence their company logo being featured at the end of the YTV broadcasts.

This dub has been translated and used in Sweden, Netherlands (subtitled only), Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland. In these translations, the names are often corrected to reflect the original translations used in those countries, such as "Big Green" being reverted back to "Piccolo". Some DVD releases in these countries feature the original English AB Groupe dub as an audio option.

Films/Specials

Dragon Ball Z

AB Groupe's English dub of the Dragon Ball Z films/specials was labeled out of order on DVD and VHS in the Netherlands. The Dutch release of the dub occurred between 2001 and 2003.^[5]^[6]^[7]Some of the titles were changed, but most based on Toei's original English titles for each movie.^[8] The Scandinavian release of the dub took place between 2003 and 2005.

Super Battle in the World (Movie 3) (1990, AB Groupe version released in 2001)
The Strongest Guy in the World (Movie 2) (1990, AB Groupe version released in 2001)
Super Saiyan, Goku (Movie 4) (1991, AB Groupe version released in 2001)
Super Rivals (Movie 5) (1991, AB Groupe version released in 2001)
Fight! 10 Billion Power Warriors (Movie 6) (1992, AB Groupe version released in 2001)
Super Battle of the Three Super Saiyans (Movie 7) (1992, AB Groupe version released in 2001)
The Burning Battles (Movie 8) (1991, AB Groupe version released in 2002)
Super Guy in the Galaxy (Movie 9) (1993, AB Groupe version released in 2002)
The Father of Goku (from French title Le Père de Sangoku) (Special 1) (1991, AB Groupe version released in 2003)
Gohan and Trunks (Special 2) (1993, AB Groupe version released in 2003)
In Pursuit of Garlic (from French title À la poursuite de Garlic) (Movie 1) (1989, AB Groupe version released in 2003)

Dragon Ball

AB Groupe's English dub of the Dragon Ball movies has never been released on home video, and only ever aired on Toonami UK.

The Legend of Shenron (from French title La Légende de Shenron) (Movie 1) (1986, AB Groupe version released in 2005)
Sleeping Beauty in Devil Castle (Movie 2) (1987, AB Groupe version released in 2005)
The Great Mystical Adventure (from French title L’Aventure mystique) (Movie 3) (1988, AB Groupe version released in 2005)

Dragon Ball GT

AB Groupe's English dub of the Dragon Ball GT special has never been released on home video, and only ever aired on Toonami UK.

Four-Star Dragonball is the Proof of Courage (Special 1) (1997, AB Groupe version released in 2005)

Cast

The names of the cast used in this dub have not been disclosed for years, although it has long been believed that the cast consisted of American and British actors living in France. Some fans have also speculated that members of the cast may have appeared in the animated series Code Lyoko.

In 2015, actress Sharon Mann was confirmed as the voice of Krillin in this dub^[9] as well as other characters, including some adult male characters (e.g. Vegeta's adult form in The Father of Goku sounds the same as his child form).

Other voice actors such as Jodi Forrest, David Gasman, Doug Rand and Ed Marcus are also now strongly believed to have appeared in this dub (although they have not been officially confirmed yet). Before he was identified, many people referred to Ed Marcus as the "Old Bastard" (and many still do) due to him sounding quite old and poorly voicing a large number of characters. It was recently revealed that Paul Bandey was also involved in this dub, having voiced some roles that were originally claimed to be performed by Marcus. Some fans have even joked to have found that there was a second "Old Bastard".

Even before information for identifying the voice actors started to be determined, Forrest had confirmed her involvement in this dub in a Code Lyoko-themed forum. She said that she had performed the voice of young Gohan.^[10]

Reception

People from outside of Europe such as Alejandro Saab have mistaken the AB Groupe dub as being a parody or an abridged version of the series, rather than an official dub.^[11] In 2018, WatchMojo.com ranked it as number one on their list of the "Top 10 Hilariously Bad Anime Dubs".^[12] CBR included it on their list of the "5 Worst Anime Dubs of All Time",^[13] and stated in December 2019 that it had "spawned a variety of memes and hilarious moments."^[14]

Many people complained that the actors' voices weren't good choices for certain characters in comparison to the Japanese version, not realizing that the actors were chosen to sound more similar to the French dub.

Trivia

The original Japanese soundtrack by Shunsuke Kikuchi was retained, although the Japanese opening "Cha-La Head-Cha-La" and Japanese insert songs were occasionally replaced with instrumental mixes.
AB Groupe's previous English dub done with Ocean often avoided words such as "kill" (presumably due to pressure from broadcasters Toonami UK and YTV). However, such terms are used freely in this dub, despite the fact it was also aired on Toonami UK.
In the Big Green dub of Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks, the narrator says that all the Z-Fighters except Piccolo survived the Androids' attack, despite the fact that they are clearly shown being killed on-screen.
Despite Super Saiyan being called "Super Warriors" in the dub, the fourth movie was titled Super Saiyan, Goku and the seventh movie was called Super Battle of the Three Super Saiyans, respectively.
- Due to changes in the translation of the French version of Dragon Ball GT, the DBGT special episode is the only one to use the name Saiyan instead of Space Warriors in AB Groupe dub.
The ending credits at the end of the Big Green dub of Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone still shows the voice actors and crew from the Ocean/Pioneer dub.
- Similarly, the Big Green dub of History of Trunks (known as Gohan and Trunks), the French title of the special (L'Histoire de Trunks) was kept for some reason.