I was listening to episode 9 of Trevor Devall's podcast where he interviews Karl Willems and Mike Iske, a prolific director and audio engineer at Ocean. By sheer coincidence, Karl mentions working on an animated Ultraman promotional video (first said at 42m04s) he claimed was from the 1960s. Well, he was kind of close. The first animated Ultraman series was 1979-1980's The Ultraman. It just so happens to be that series has a character named Kei Marume.
Karl mentioned The Ultraman was the first thing he worked on in a major capacity. That would date the show's English production to the early-mid 1990s. The bad news is that the series was never put into full production, so this video was never publicly released. Karl owns a copy of it on VHS, but during the podcast he dismissed the idea of releasing it on YouTube due to copyright concerns.
There were two other attempts at dubbing The Ultraman as direct-to-video releases done in the 1980s, though they didn't go far. I'm not sure we ever knew who voiced those dubs, but it wasn't Ocean.
Coincidentally, the podcast episode turned 10 years old last month. A new animated Ultraman production was also just recently announced.
There are two separate English dubs: the American one produced by Hasbro, and a Hong Kong one produced for Animax Asia. The former is the one with the infamous name changes. The second is a literal translation. As far as I can tell, neither has ever been officially released on home video. The Hong Kong dub still occasionally runs on Animax Asia because they got the show for free (Aniplex and Animax share a parent company).
The show wasn't successful in North America and given it only ran a year, not in Japan either. In Canada and the United States, the series was given early morning time slots and the toys hit the clearance sections pretty quickly. I was prime Beyblade/B-Daman-age at the time and I couldn't really care less about the toys.
One of the things I've been looking at is trying to find an Ultraman connection with other Vancouver actors. Michael's resume lists it as a movie (rather than a pilot or TV show) and says it was for IP Productions (short for Inter-Pacific Productions). That's the casting agency owned by Ocean Productions.
Yeah, now I'll need to know how many Ultraman movies were dubbed. That way, we can narrow down rhe list. The good thing about Ultraman English dubs is that they tend to keep the original Japanese names.
That's easier said than done. A lot of Ultraman movie dubs aren't documented well because they were only released in Asia or something.
I spotted a resume from Michael Dobson that said he voiced a character in an unnamed Ultraman film named "Murume." A quick Google search nets me no result. Anyone know if that sounds familiar?
Which year was it? There's at least one Ultraman movie each year.
I spotted a resume from Michael Dobson that said he voiced a character in an unnamed Ultraman film named "Murume." A quick Google search nets me no result. Anyone know if that sounds familiar?
I was listening to episode 9 of Trevor Devall's podcast where he interviews Karl Willems and Mike Iske, a prolific director and audio engineer at Ocean. By sheer coincidence, Karl mentions working on an animated Ultraman promotional video (first said at 42m04s) he claimed was from the 1960s. Well, he was kind of close. The first animated Ultraman series was 1979-1980's The Ultraman. It just so happens to be that series has a character named Kei Marume.
Karl mentioned The Ultraman was the first thing he worked on in a major capacity. That would date the show's English production to the early-mid 1990s. The bad news is that the series was never put into full production, so this video was never publicly released. Karl owns a copy of it on VHS, but during the podcast he dismissed the idea of releasing it on YouTube due to copyright concerns.
There were two other attempts at dubbing The Ultraman as direct-to-video releases done in the 1980s, though they didn't go far. I'm not sure we ever knew who voiced those dubs, but it wasn't Ocean.
Coincidentally, the podcast episode turned 10 years old last month. A new animated Ultraman production was also just recently announced.
These are anime dubs that aired on TV channels no one watches and have no home video release pending. I haven't made articles on them yet because they're recent enough that there's still a shot they don't get "lost":
- After School Midnighters (Red Angel Media - TOKU) - Black Jack (Digital Sound Magic - International syndication) - Darkness Boy Santa (Red Angel Media - TOKU) - Gigant Big-Shot Tsukasa (Unknown - Disney XD Asia) - Kowabon (Red Angel Media - TOKU) - Ultraman Max (Omni Productions - TOKU) [live action] - World Trigger (Ocean Studios - Primo TV)
This thread is mainly for me to list things so I know in the future.
C'mon guys, help this one out! This is fucking important, full seasons of shows.
These shows are so recent that they could still find a way onto other platforms/services.
I'm not sure what you'd expect from us either. The only people able to release these episodes are the people that worked on them. No one is going to leak something this recent if they want to keep their job.
YTV was pretty inept when it came to anime in general, from what I recall. They totally panicked when they realized a show they'd gotten dub rights to already had a Western presence, and said Western presence suggested the main characters were a couple. How did they fix that? They aired it when the target audience was at school.
Which show would this be? I find it hard to believe a broadcaster would buckle to fan drivel.
This is an anime series that was never released in North America. According to unsourced ANN information, it was dubbed in Singapore and aired on Cartoon Network Philippines.
The only reason I'm holding off on the article right now is that I'd like a proper release window. Unfortunately, Cartoon Network Asia's website was built using Flash during this era. All of that is gone as the Wayback Machine didn't grab the files. I can't find any confirmation on whether or not this aired in Singapore. A SGCafe user stated that as of March 2006 the VCDs were out, but the show hadn't aired on local TV. The rental shop says the VCDs came out in 2006.
There's no doubt that Animax dubbed it into English. You can spot listings for it on archived versions of their website. My point was that the clip you embedded might not be from that dub. It might be another one that no one knew existed.
The question mark is in the title because I'm not sure if these things actually happened.
What we know exists: Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (Animax - partially found, will never be officially re-released) SD Gundam Sangokuden Brave Battle Warriors (OKTO / CN Asia - Officially released on YouTube) Mobile Suit Gundam Age (OKTO / CN Asia - Pending official DVD/BD release in North America) Gundam Build Fighters (OKTO / CN Asia - Offically released on YouTube and DVD/BD in North America) Gundam Build Fighters Try (OKTO /CN Asia - Officially released on YouTube and DVD/BD in North America)
The above were all recorded in Hong Kong.
What I'm shaky on: Mobile Suit Gundam (Animax) Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (Animax) Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (Kids Central / CN Asia) Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny (Kids Central / CN Asia) Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (Arts Central / CN Asia)
All five of these have English dubs that were recorded in Canada and released in the west. However, with Asia being Asia, I'm wondering if there may have been alternate versions.
Animax Asia ran 79 in November 2004 and Zeta debuted in early 2005. By then, Bandai had already released the original on DVD bilingually in North America, but Zeta's launch didn't happen until October 2005. Was Animax Asia given first dibs on the Canadian dub? Did they produce their own dub? It's hard to tell if ZZ's indicative of how Animax aired the franchise because there wasn't a North American production.
The newer batch is also a mystery. SEED aired in Asia in 2004, shortly after the Canadian dub debuted on TV in the US. Destiny followed in October 2005, which was well before the first US DVD release in early 2006. 00 started in November 2008, which was around the time the series began airing on Syfy in the US. Same dubs, or did Asia get their own?
Truthfully, these are just the shows I've stumbled upon while looking for other things. There's certainly the chance that other Gundam shows have Asian dubs that've slipped through the cracks, or maybe even multiple dubs.
Hmm, I'm not sure that clip's from the Animax production. Animax's English language channels only signed on in 2004. That 3DO "game" came out in 1995. Maybe a clip from an English sales pilot? Possibly an entirely separate TV production whose origins haven't been revealed? The world's a big place and lots of English dubs get made/released in regions you wouldn't expect.