Dragon Ball International

Category: Europe

  • POP UK responds to fan enquiry about airing Dragon Ball Kai

    The former Sony Pictures Television broadcaster, which is now owned by Narrative Entertainment has responded to a fan enquiry about them airing Dragon Ball Kai.

    POP previously aired Dragon Ball Super, which premiered in the UK and Ireland in July 2019, has been in reruns since and only in the last few months been removed from POP’s schedule, although many promotional videos can still be found on their website suggesting they have not lost the rights yet.

    Dragon Ball Kai previously aired in the UK and Ireland on the now defunct channel Kix (owned by another one of POP’s previous owners CSC Media), but despite a lot of rumours at the time the channel ended up airing the Funimation dub, allegedly because TOEI gave them no other option. This may have been because Manga UK’s season DVDs of Dragon Ball Z, which contained the Funimation dub were being released at the time as a means of avoiding marketing confusion, or Funimation might have pulled some strings, but unfortunately clarity was never given on this.

    It is worth noting both WOW Unlimited and Toon-A-Vision negotiated with TOEI to acquire the rights to Ocean Productions’ English dub of Dragon Ball Kai, and the company’s long standing producer Diana Gage has previously said fans should make their voices heard if they wish for this dub to see the light of day.

    It would inevitably be a great opportunity for POP if they were to air Dragon Ball Kai with an English dub that is not widely available or seen, and has a built-in fanbase with actors like Brian Drummond and Scott McNeil, but until then the best that can be hoped for is enough fans reach out to them advising they seek out the Ocean dub.

  • Dragon Ball going strong on Polsat Games

    Nearly six years after its premier on Polsat Games Dragon Ball remains a mainstay on Poland’s first independent TV station, which is offered as part of the nation’s largest satellite provider Cyfrowy Polsat.

    The innovative broadcaster allows viewers to switch from the Polish dub to Japanese audio with a remote. Not too shabby for a linear channel, and a wonderful way of giving viewers the freedom to choose whatever version they prefer or are in the mood for watching.

    Dragon Ball Super, which Polsat Games at the time aired weekdays at 4pm allowed the channel to reach 1.4 thousand homes and became their most popular programme.

    And while Super was the first Dragon Ball TV anime to receive a traditional dub it has not been the last, as last year Polsat Games began airing Dragon Ball Kai, which it continues to air alongside Super to this day.

    Currently Polsat Games airs Dragon Ball Kai weekdays from 9am-10am, 12:30pm-2pm, 3:30pm-4:30pm while Dragon Ball Super airs Monday-Friday from 11am-12:30pm. On weekends Polsat Games treats viewers to various quintuple airings of both Super and Kai, with the former airing Saturday from 2pm-4:30pm, Sundays 8am-10:30am and the latter airs Sunday from 11am-1:30pm, 2pm-4:30pm.

    As we speak the morning and afternoon weekday timeslots for Dragon Ball Kai have wrapped up the Saiyan arc and now begin with the early Namek arc, although the timeslots around midday on the same days are in the middle of the Cell arc. Dragon Ball Super has also finished up another rerun of the Goku Black arc and is to begin another rerun of the Tournament of Power arc.

    For more information see the full listings for Polsat Games on the week this article was written.

    With so much time allotted to Dragon Ball on their channel it seems safe to assume that Polsat Games and Studio PDK, the dubbing facility behind the recent Kai dub will have their eyes on Dragon Ball Daima whenever that is being licensed for Poland.

    I hope fans will get it, this recent surge of Polish Dragon Ball dubs is long overdue considering there was one time when all they had was Dragon Ball Z movies 12-13.

Category: Europe