Dueling Dubs / Anime

Multiple English dubs

Examples - Multiple English dubs

• Before listing any individual anime series, it is useful to mention one of the biggest reasons why this is so prevalent in anime: Animax. Animax is an international satellite channel owned by Sony that broadcasts English-dubbed anime to several countries in South and Southeast Asia.^note  They also used to broadcast Spanish-dubbed anime in several Latin American countries, but that branch went through a major format shift; see Network Decay for details. Ditto with their Central European branch, which broadcasted in Hungarian and Czech. Prior to around 2011, they rarely licensed existing English dubs for their English-language broadcasts (if a dub for a particular anime even existed yet, which it often didn't, as Animax tends to pick up series early on). Unlike anime on home video – where a dub ultimately belongs to the original creators in Japan so it can be used in any market that wants it – Sony maintains rights to nearly all Animax dubs. As a result of all that, it is extremely rare for an Animax dub to appear on home video in any country; American/Canadian dubs are typically used instead.
  • Examples of series that have an alternate English dub by Animax include (but are not limited to): Inuyasha, Ranma ½, YuYu Hakusho, Fate/stay night, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Maid-Sama!, Eureka Seven, Cardcaptor Sakura, Dragon Ball, Azumanga Daioh, Fairy Tail, K-On!, Ghost Stories, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Black Cat, and Sgt. Frog. Since these English dubs are often released before any North American ones exist, some fans who don't want to read subtitles will use them to get introduced to the series before an official North American release occurs.
    • There are some cases where an Animax dub ends up being the only one in existence, such as with Hayate the Combat Butler,^note  (Bandai Entertainment originally promised an (American) English dub for the series, but their increasingly dire financial situation resulted in a subtitle-only release, much to fans' irritation. Sentai Filmworks also released the series sub-only) Gundam ZZ, Yakitate!! Japan, Maria Watches Over Us, Nodame Cantabile, and the Pretty Series franchise. Emma: A Victorian Romance and Future Boy Conan were in this situation for several years until Nozomi Entertainment and GKIDS, respectively, gave them fresh English dubs. Urusei Yatsura has an incomplete American English dub (where only the first two episodes were recorded), but Animax's dub (under the title Alien Musibat) supposedly included the entire series.
    • There are a few rare cases where Animax dubs are legally available in North America. For example, Sony used their dubs of Nodame Cantabile and Samurai X on their streaming service Crackle, and the Blu-ray release of Gundam Build Fighters includes the show's Animax dub as an audio option. Their Cardcaptor Sakura dub is notable for being the only English dub of the show legally available in North America after the Nelvana/Ocean dub went out of print. Since it's the only uncut dub for the show in existence, it's that dub that is on NIS America's official DVD and Blu-ray releases. NIS America considers the dub to be an extra (rather than a feature) due to its poor sound quality. This dub is also available on Crunchyroll and Netflix. Even this dub has a few very brief cuts for content reasons; those scenes revert to subtitles on video and streaming.
  • The fact that many Animax productions are dubbed in East Asia^note Most are made in Hong Kong or Singapore, but others come from the Philippines or even Los Angeles. Many of the Southeast Asian ones do actually cast native English speakers from the US and Canada. is the other big reason why their stuff so rarely shows up in hard copy form. However, Animax dubs (with one major exception) are also known for having absurdly faithful (read: literal) translations. This has earned them some respect amongst purist English-speaking fans. Though you're just as likely, if not more so, to encounter poor sound quality and "actors" who barely speak English in some of them along with many cases of the actors playing more than one character.
• The other big reason for this phenomenon existing in English is Streamline Pictures, a Los Angeles-based licensor started around 1990 by the late Carl Macek (of Robotech infamy). It was one of the very first video companies in America to distribute non-child-friendly anime (usually just movies and OVAs) to a wider audience… and also the first to go under, doing so in 1997. When they shut their doors, all their licenses reverted back to Japan, and many of the bigger ones were snapped up by other companies, who promptly redubbed them (usually because they were part of existing franchises that got picked up by the new companies).
  • Anime originally dubbed by Streamline that ended up getting redubs include AKIRA, Lupin III films The Castle of Cagliostro and The Mystery of Mamo, various Dirty Pair productions, and 3×3 Eyes. Streamline was not directly responsible for the older dubs of Akira or Castle in the Sky, although they did distribute those movies and the dubs themselves were recorded by the same studio Streamline normally used, with the same voice pool.
  • Streamline attempted to release and dub Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, but they only made it to eight episodes and stopped due to financial difficulties. In 2001, ADV Films picked it up and redubbed the whole series from scratch using the now defunct Monster Island Studio. The ADV dub is widely considered to be the better version.
• Manga Entertainment, particularly its semi-independent British branch, is another big reason for this trope existing. Back in The '90s, they licensed and dubbed several anime for the UK market that ended up having other dubs by other companies in the US for a variety of reasons – usually because their dubs were recorded onto PAL master tapes (which use a different framerate than America and Japan), and because it was less convenient to even talk to people in other countries, much less exchange materials.
  
  These include A.D. Police Files (also dubbed by AnimEigo), Battle Angel (also dubbed by ADV Films), Bubblegum Crash (also dubbed by AnimEigo), Dark Warrior (also partially dubbed by ADV Films), Legend of the Dragon Kings (also dubbed by Central Park Media), The Mystery of Mamo (also dubbed by Streamline Pictures and later Geneon), Megazone 23 Part III (also dubbed by ADV Films), Patlabor Films 1-2 (also dubbed by Bandai Visual), RG Veda (also dubbed by Central Park Media), Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie (also dubbed by Streamline Pictures), Ultimate Teacher (also dubbed by Central Park Media with The Ocean Group) Vampire Princess Miyu (also dubbed by AnimEigo), Venus Wars (also dubbed by Sentai Filmworks), and Wicked City (also dubbed by Streamline Pictures).
  • Interestingly, the UK also got some of the alternate US dubs instead on later releases for various reasons (such as Cobra, Miyu, and Wicked City), and there were quite a few Manga UK dubs that the US did get (Angel Cop, Appleseed, Cyber City Oedo 808, Dominion Tank Police, Mad Bull 34, Project A-Ko, Violence Jack, The Heroic Legend of Arslan, etc), some of which – the two Patlabor films and Venus Wars – being released with the UK dubs before being re-released with new US dubs, and another - Arslan - being incomplete and finished by a US cast. Since the late 90s, it's been extremely rare for the UK (or other English-speaking markets) to get their own dubs since it's become much cheaper and easier to just port over the US-produced dubs. Some UK companies (like Anime Limited) have even funded and produced dubs of their own, but always with a US studio, with the same dubs later being recycled for the US release.
  • Also, despite being recorded in the UK, these old Manga dubs still usually featured American accents, with expats from North America or with Brits attempting fake American accents. They were also famous (and are frequently mocked today) for their use of Cluster F-Bomb so that they could earn 15+ or 18+ ratings by the British Board of Film Classification – Manga UK was trying to market anime as being for adults, and thought 12+ and PG ratings would make the titles seem too childish.
• The Dragon Ball franchise is the king of this trope when it comes to English dubbing. This has to do with the show having multiple rights-holders – and more importantly, multiple broadcasters – across the world over the course of two decades. Of the various companies that have handled the property, Funimation is the most closely associated with it, their work covering all four TV series, all movies, and all video games from 2002 on.
  
  Throughout the Anglosphere, the Funimation dub is the only one available on home video, making many of the other dubs increasingly difficult to find.
  • Dragon Ball Z
    • Funimation originally worked with Saban to distribute Dragon Ball Z. They put together a Vancouver-based cast (using many of the same actors as the early BLT dub of Dragon Ball), making use of Ocean's Studios (though Ocean wouldn't be involved beyond providing the studio space until later) to bring the show to American TV in 1996, editing the first 67 episodes and 3rd movie into 56 total episodes. Pioneer, who had home video rights at the time, produced uncut dubs of Movies 1-3 with the Vancouver cast (giving movie 3 a second dub with this cast). The series aired in syndication to massive success, but Saban dropped it from their syndication lineup to make room for more shows they produced themselves. Toonami picked up the show about a year later. Funimation would end up distancing themselves from the work of the Vancouver actors to the point where the only way to buy the uncut Pioneer dubs outside of the original DVDs and VHSes from 20 years ago is to buy a boxset from 2013 that included the TV edits of these movies (which is also the only way to buy the Saban dub episodes aside from the original 1996-1997 DVDs). However, Chris Sabat, Funimation's voice of Vegeta as well as the director of their Dragon Ball dubbing starting from Kai, would extend an olive branch when he had Brian Drummond, the Vancouver voice of Vegeta, cast as the Copy-Vegeta in their dub of Dragon Ball Super.
    • This is where Funimation's in-house dub studio began its life. When Toonami began asking for new episodes of Dragon Ball Z in 1998, Funimation decided to save costs by severing ties with Pioneer, and replacing the Vancouver cast of professional voice actors with Dallas-based actors (the vast majority of whom were stage actors and had no prior voiceover experience at the time) who could voice match the previous cast for far less money. Their dub continued with heavily localized scripts, but had fewer cuts due to looser cable TV standards, and an uncut version was made available on home video. This ended up covering the entire rest of the series (eps. 68-291, Movies 4-13, both specials). They would later go back and redub episodes 1-67 and Movies 1-3 uncut, but their scripts were often the same as the ones used in the Saban dub. To keep consistency between these uncut redubs from 2005 and the early material just after they took over from 1999, some of the cast redubbed some of the dialogue from their original run of 68-291 (this would be first seen on the "Season" DVDs and the Dragon Boxes), mostly just for the Ginyu/Frieza episodes where they first took over. Though there are additional redubs, mostly for Vegeta, going all the way up to the end of the Cell saga. Beginning in 2007, the dub has been available with both the Japanese musical score and the score produced by Bruce Faulconer and Nathan Johnson that was on the previous US broadcast and home video release.
    • It's worth noting the "Remastered" dub, as the re-recordings of 68-291 have come to be known, did make some mistakes. While the actual rerecording stops at the end of the Cell saga, they did still remix all the audio, and along the way, they accidentally used work-in-progress versions of the American score using incorrect, temporary placements of tracks, and the mixing of the original Japanese score often resulted in either the music or the voices being inaudible due to improperly adjusted volumes. And to top it all off, tons of alternate takes were used for various lines, some lines were even missing (some instances were fixed after the "Orange Brick" DVDs, others weren't), and any filters on voices such as pitch shifts (like on Frieza's third form, Yakon, or Super Buu) were left out. Due to all of this, and a perception among some that the redubbings just made the transition into 68-291 even more jarring, many fans are still clamoring for Funimation to reissue the original, pre-redub version of their dub. Some are even clamoring for a home video release of the TV edit, since despite that being what Americans saw on TV, it has never been available on DVD.
    • A Canadian company called Westwood media, and The Ocean Group, produced a dub of the second half of Z (episodes 123-291) using the Saban dub's Vancouver-based cast, which aired in various European territories such as the UK and Holland; Canada would switch to this dub starting from episode 183.^note Though even when Canada was airing Funimation's dub, for episodes 68-182, they used a unique TV edit produced by Ocean, which was distinct from the TV edit airing in other territories. It's likely that Ocean's access to Funimation's production materials at this time was how the Westwood Ocean dub got into production. This dub used the same script and video master as Funimation's dub, which was airing in the US, Australia, and New Zealand.^note  Canada and Europe still aired Funimation's dub for episodes 68-122, and the UK reverted to Funimation's briefly during the Fusion saga, though Ocean's dub was used for all reairings of those episodes. Precisely why and how this dub was produced remains a mystery.
    • One common misconception about this dub is that it was produced by AB Groupe, who produced the French dub and handled most of the European distribution of Dragon Ball. In truth, their role in this dub was simply distribution, though because Ocean eventually got ahead of Funimation, AB Groupe ended up providing the video master for the last few episodes.
  • Dragon Ball
    • In the US, two very short-lived dubs of Dragon Ball were created: one for five episodes and a combined version of Movies 1 and 3 in 1989 by Harmony Gold, and one for the first thirteen episodes and movie 1 in 1995 by Funimation working with Vancouver-based Josanne B Lovick productions, and recording at the Dick & Rogers Sound Studio. Harmony Gold's dub of the first five episodes were presumed lost until 2020, when a fan effort to locate these lost episodes found tapes containing the dub, albeit in poor quality. (though the dub for movies 1 & 3 were readily available online, ripped from a taping from a TV airing). The Harmony Gold dub is understood to have been produced as a pilot, only airing in a few test markets in America before Harmony Gold decided not to go ahead with dubbing the full series. The 1995 dub, these days known as the BLT dub (due to confusion about who produced it) or the Trimark dub (named after its home video distributor) was syndicated by a company called Seagull, and was given poor coverage and abysmal timeslots, thus found little to no success. Funimation severed their ties with the companies involved, tying up the home video rights to these first 13 episodes until 2009 (though thanks to Trimark, later Lionsgate holding the rights for so long, this 1995 dub is readily available on DVD, since the original 1995 DVD only went out of print in 2009). Gen Fukunaga would later imply in an interview that the poor handling of this 1995 dub may have been an intentional effort to skip to the more action-orientated portions of the show which he thought would fare better among an American audience. Toei didn't agree to this until the poor performance of Dragon Ball in 1995 lead Funimation to seek to pitch Dragon Ball Z as a new show to Saban to syndicate in the US, which they found much greater success with. Funimation would later come back to Dragon Ball in 2001 while they were dubbing the Cell saga of Z, though due to poor marketing, poor timing, and the fact that Funimation could not release the first 13 episodes uncut in the States until 2009 due to the rights being held by a different company, it didn't fare all that well in ratings and home video sales compared to Z, or even GT.
    • There are four competing dubs of the first Dragon Ball movie – One by Harmony Gold from 1989 using an LA-based cast (which edited together Movies 1 and 3), the second by Funimation and various Canadian partners in 1995 (two versions of this dub were made, one with the names Funimation would eventually use, and the other using Harmony Gold's names, which was rediscovered by Twitter user Tanooki Joe in 2019), the third by AB Groupe in the early '00s with an uncredited cast of English-speaking actors living in France, and the fourth being Funimation's uncut dub in 2010 (which only took that long to come out because the license for it was previously owned by Trimark, then Lionsgate when they purchased Trimark in 2002). Harmony Gold's dub was a fairly faithful translation of the Japanese original with some censorship, then the 1995 dub made some alterations to that but still kept it fairly faithful, then Funimation's 2010 dub arbitrarily removed and changed dialogue from the '95 script to make theirs. AB Groupe's is its own mess, being a poor re-translation of the French dub of the movie. Funimation also redubbed Movies 2 and 3 in 2000, just before they started dubbing the TV series proper; in those cases they did not recycle Harmony Gold's scripts (Harmony Gold isn't known to have written one for Movie 2), though the jury's still out on whether they would have got better results in Movie 3 if they had.
    • Westwood media and The Ocean Group also recorded a dub for both Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT for broadcast in Canada and Europe. The scripts for GT were their own translations of the Japanese scripts (and a far cry from the cut-and-paste scripts Funimation were using), while Dragon Ball used a modified version of Funimation's script, with various corrections and miscellaneous adjustments (though a few episodes were entirely rewritten based on the original Japanese scripts). These dubs also used the original Japanese score, and kept the tone faithful to the original Japanese shows. However, to save money, the head of Ocean, Ken Morrison, had the recording moved to the new low-budget Calgary-based "Blue Water" studio, with a new Calgary-based cast. This really stung for the Vancouver actors, especially since some of them had even auditioned and been cast for these dubs before the call was made to move them to the cheaper Calgary-based cast. Strengthening the misconception that AB Gropue, rather than Westwood media, produced these and the Ocean dub of Z, AB Groupe provided the video masters used for these dubs.
  • Other bits of the franchise:
    • AB Groupe, who produced and distributed the French dubs, while also holding distribution rights for the franchise throughout Europe, dubbed certain movies and specials for Europe using a FIFTH set of voice actors – in this case, the same actors who dubbed Code Lyoko – with a script directly and poorly translated form the French dub. These dubs became incredibly memetic among fans for their laughable writing and voice acting, and have been nicknamed the "Big Green" dubs, because of how characters refer to Piccolo. And yet, this was the official dub that was used when the movies and TV specials aired in the UK, after Westwood's GT wrapped up. Interestingly, they are the only one of these alternate dubs that aired in Europe to be released to home video in any form, with the ''Z'' movies and specials having been released on DVD in the UK and Holland; AB's dub of the GT special, and the three ''Dragon Ball'' movies were not released, only airing on TV, and only in the UK.
    • Coming all the way from Malaysia, we have the "Speedy" dub, produced & distributed by that company as a bootleg dub to cash in on Dragon Ball's success with these bootleg VCDs of the movies and some early episodes of the series. Like the Big Green dub, the Speedy dub is infamous among fans for its "Blind Idiot" Translation & abysmal voice acting, both of which are arguably worse than the Big Green dub. Additionally, the Speedy dub's soundtrack frequently distorts as a result of being transferred from what one can assume to be a decayed tape. It also seems that they didn't have proper isolated music and SFX tracks to use for dubbing, so at times, they seem to have simply constructed their own. This dub covers Dragon Ball movies 2 to 4, all 13 Dragon Ball Z movies, and the first 10 episodes of Dragon Ball Z.
    • Creative Products Corp. produced an English dub for Dragon Ball and the first two thirds of Dragon Ball Z for the Philippines, along with Dragon Ball movies 2 and 3 and Z movies 5, 6, 10, and 11 (Movies 5 and 6 were edited together, and Movies 10 and 11 were also edited together). Aside from the movies and a CD of their dubs of the music from the shows and movies, nothing of this dub circulated online until 2020, when some dubbed episodes of Z were uploaded on the Internet Archive.
    • Animax dubbed the Dragon Ball anime at Omni Productions in Hong Kong for their Southeast Asian stations in 2005. This dub is quite obscure and impossible to find – it's only known at all because it was mentioned on a couple of its voice actors' resumes, and a brief clip containing no dialogue of the fight between General Blue and Taopaipai turned up in one actor's demo reel.
    • The Tokyo-based Frontier Enterprises was also reportedly behind a dub of the first Dragon Ball movie in 1987— predating the Harmony Gold dub by two years— owing to its existence on a voice actor's resume (although erroneously listed as "DBZ"). Further information has yet to surface; it's speculated that it was screened exclusively on Japan Airlines flights like most of Frontier's other dubs, and the obscurity of Dragon Ball outside of Japan at the time, combined with the fact that it never reached English-speaking airwaves, means that it's unlikely any surviving audio exists outside of the original master audiotapes (wherever they may be).
    • and… there's probably still some dubs to find! This Kanzenshuu forum thread even has a handy chart!
  • Ocean recorded a dub of Dragon Ball Kai for an unknown producer, though it has yet to be broadcast anywhere. Kix UK looked to be picking it up, but certain industry insiders have suggested Funimation allegedly tried (and still are trying) to make sure it doesn't air. What aired on Kix was Funimation's dub. Thankfully, a company in Canada called Wow Unlimited, who are starting up a new TV channel, are picking it up. But, unfortunately, due to the difficulty in gathering funds for a new TV channel launch these days, it's unknown how long until they actually start up.
  • Even with Dragon Ball Super, Toonami Asia contacted LA-based Bang Zoom! Entertainment to produce a dub for the SouthEast Asian market, while Funimation has theirs' on Toonami US. The Bang Zoom dub ended after episode 27.
    • Hilariously, the Funimation dub of Super takes this trope to its logical conclusion by casting Brian Drummond, the voice of Vegeta for the Ocean dubs, as Copy-Vegeta and having him fight Christopher Sabat's Vegeta.
• For many years, Sailor Moon was known for its original dub by Toronto-based Optimum Productions. The first two seasons were handled by DiC in 1995 and were heavily edited with five skipped episodes and the two-part season one finale merged into one episode. This dub ranged from an alright Woolseyism to having Dub Induced Plotline Changes depending on the episode. The dub was originally canceled mid-way through the second season, but received funding by Irwin Toy in Canada to do the last 17 episodes in 1997. Pioneer later worked with Cloverway (a US branch of Toei) in 1999 to release the movie trilogy to video with the original cast from Optimum, with both edited and uncut versions released. When the series found success on Cartoon Network's Toonami block in the US, Cloverway worked with Optimum to dub the third and fourth seasons in 2000. This dub was released uncut on DVD and lightly edited on TV and VHS, but is notorious for its sloppy quality, with almost the entire cast changed because of its quick production schedule. It was also infamous for making Sailor Uranus and Neptune "cousins" instead of lovers. Cloverway was unable to dub the fifth and final season Sailor Moon Sailor Stars because of licensing issues, and the series fell out of print in 2005. A complete redub has been rumored since at least 2009 (with FUNimation publicly expressing interest), but it wasn't until 2014 that a new unedited dub courtesy of Viz Media and Los Angeles-based Studiopolis premiered to coincide with the release of Sailor Moon Crystal. It covers all five seasons, including the infamous final season, as well as other media previously left alone, such as skipped episodes and the 5 shorts. According to Viz, the materials for the original dub weren't kept, and the parts that do still exist are in poor condition. There's also possible rights issues with DiC's version, such as the ownership of their original music. There is somewhat of a Broken Base as a result: many fans consider the Viz dub to be miles better than the Optimum dub, while others have mixed feelings about the Viz dub, saying that it's not as memorable as the Optimum one and in addition it's lifeless and stale (a point proven by the dubbing of Nephrite/Neflite's death which became a Dull Surprise compared to the more emotional performances given in the DiC dub) and has some poor casting choices.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • The original anime was first dubbed from 1996-1998 by ADV Films, who mostly remixed this existing dub for the remastered release in 2004. However, some lines were re-recorded, and episodes 21-26 were partially redubbed with a few cast changes to accomodate the additional scenes of that release (released under the "director's cut" label in the US). In 2019, a new dub from VSI Los Angeles was released for streaming on Netflix with a completely different cast and a more literal translation. Spike Spencer, Amanda Winn-Lee, and Tiffany Grant, who played Shinji, Rei, and Asuka in the ADV dub confirmed that they re-auditioned for this dub, but were not asked to reprise their roles. It was not to last, however, as Spencer, Winn-Lee and Grant returned to voice their characters for the Prime Video redub of the Rebuild films. Both the ADV and VSI dubs are on GKIDS' Blu-ray releases, although the ADV dub is exclusive to the two pricier collector's editions.
  • The Death & Rebirth and End of Evangelion movies were originally dubbed in 2002 by Gaijin Productions for Manga Entertainment's VHS and DVD release, using most of the ADV TV series cast, but with some cast changes for the smaller characters. VSI also redubbed these films in 2019 for the Netflix streaming release. Like the TV series, both dubs are on GKIDS' Blu-ray releases.
  • The first three Rebuild films were dubbed by Funimation between 2008 and 2016, with Spencer (Shinji), Grant (Asuka), and Allison Keith (Misato) reprising their roles from the ADV TV series dub, along with John Swasey (Gendo) from the "director's cut" partial redub of 21-26. Even here, after the third film was released in theaters, Funimation worked with Khara to re-record some dialogue for the home video release. When all four Rebuild films began streaming on Amazon Prime Video in 2021, they were released with new dubs from Dubbing Brothers USA, with Spencer, Keith, Grant, and Swasey reprising their roles, along with Amanda Winn-Lee (Rei), Jason C. Lee (Aoba), and Brett Weaver (Toji) from the ADV TV series dub. Several members of the Gaijin dubs from the original movies also reprised their roles, including Michael Ross (Fuyutsuki), Amy Seeley (Ibuki), Kimberly Yates (Hikari), and Tom Booker (Keel).
• There are 3 official English dubs of One Piece, plus a couple of test-dubs:
  • There's the currently-ongoing dub by Funimation covering 700+ episodes, 1 game, 5 movies, and 6 TV specials.
  • There's the heavily-edited dub by 4Kids – 104 episodes (edited down from 142) and 3 games. This version has become memetic for having a Theme Tune Rap.
  • And then there's the fairly obscure Odex dub produced for Southeast Asia that covers the first 104 episodes.
  • There's also a rarely-seen test dub from Chinook/Blue Water that was produced by Toei to sell the series to TV stations, as well as another one made by Odex with a different cast to sell the series for South-East Asian television. Funimation also made a test dub themselves with a different cast when they originally attempted to get the series before 4Kids.
  • Of the three main English dubs, Funimation's is generally considered to be very good, with praise for its faithful adaptation and most of its voice acting (particularly its leads). While it has its detractors, reception has been good enough for it to last for almost fifteen years and counting. The 4Kids dub, on the other hand, gained negative reception due to its heavy censorship. The Odex dub is noted for its extremely faithful script, but it is infamous for its low production values, small pool of actors (really noticeable for a series with so many characters), and constant cast changes, although it did get slightly better toward the end of its run.
• Gatchaman is particularly notable for how its dubs were mostly rewrites until ADV Films finally gave it a straight dub:
  • An early alternative English dub titled "The Gutman" was said to have been produced in the late '70s, although little is known about this version except that it had 39 episodes. It may have been made only for the intent of airing it in the Philippines (before they licensed Sandy Frank's version), although there is also speculation that it was a failed English dub directly commissioned by Tatsunoko Productions-Yomiko before the sale to Sandy Frank.
  • Battle Of The Planets was the first, released in 1978. As its page details, it was heavily censored from the original source material. Due to the popularity of Star Wars, Sandy Frank decided to edit in space stock footage and voice-overs that suggested various battles were actually taking place in outer space. He also created the character of 7-Zark-7 to fill in any time gaps left behind by censoring death and destruction. This dub technically covered the whole original series, but reduced the episode count from 105 to 85. It was popular in the US when it was on TV, but has been off the air since the mid-80s (though it is mostly on DVD and also on Hulu).
  • G-Force: Guardians of Space was an attempt in 1986 by Sandy Frank to revitalize interest in the Gatchaman license for international territories, with Turner Program Services at the main helm for production. While this version stuck a little closer to the source material (i.e.: no Zark, less censorship), it was still watered down significantly and the name changes were criticized, along with a synthesized backbeat that was used to fill up all silent moments. It also had a very low budget, with only six voice actors in the whole cast playing multiple characters. This dub only went to Episode 87 of the original series, and also reduced the episode count to 85 (skipping episodes 81 and 86). The dub had no real conclusion and ended on a cliffhanger. It mostly aired overseas, with only four episodes airing on TBS in the US solely for contractual obligations, until the mid-90s when Cartoon Network ran it as a timeslot filler. It's pretty obscure, with only a few episodes on DVD, although it has its nostalgic fans.
    • There was also an earlier attempt at "G-Force" done in 1985, with Atlanta-based voice talent (including future Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actress Faith Salie). It only dubbed episode 26 as a test pilot, but the project fell through when Turner rejected the adaptation (citing it to be too expensive) and went with Fred Ladd and a Los Angeles-based production team.
  • Saban Entertainment's Eagle Riders from 1996 was not based off the original Gatchaman (due to Sandy Frank holding the license), but was derived from the two sequel series Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter. It was still heavily censored, with later episodes being cut and spliced together, and Never Say "Die" in effect. The series' (combined) episode count was also reduced from 100 to 65. This dub was only briefly shown in the US, but it did get a full run in Australia. It's notable for featuring Bryan Cranston as the voice of Joe… long before starring in Malcolm in the Middle and winning an Emmy for playing Walter White in Breaking Bad.
  • In addition, Urban Vision dubbed the 90s 3-part OVA remake in 1997 with Sky Quest Entertainment. It's a mostly straight dub, but a few names were localized (ie. Jun to June, Jinpei to Jimmy, Ryu to Rock, etc). On an interesting note, Jinpei/Jimmy's voice actress (Mona Marshall) also voiced the character in Eagle Riders, and Joe's (Richard Cansino) voiced Ken.
  • ADV's 2005 dub is accurate and covers all 105 episodes of the original series, and has been entirely released to DVD and Blu-ray. Their studio also redubbed the OVA series for their 2013 re-release of the franchise, with successor company Sentai Filmworks holding the license outright after Sandy Frank's rights finally expired. Sentai also dubbed/released the 1978 compilation movie in 2015 (though mostly with recycled voice tracks from the TV series dub), and also handled Gatchaman Crowds. They also rescued II and Fighter, but were released only on DVD subtitled-only.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! has its edited 4Kids dub (by far the best known), the short-lived 4Kids uncut dub that Funimation distributed (15 episodes recorded, but only 9 released), and a Singapore dub which is also uncut. Shaman King likewise has an edited 4Kids English dub and a short-lived uncut version.
• Digimon:
  • The Digimon series has its Saban (season 1-3)/Disney (season 4) version as well as Filipino and Singapore dubs.
  • Digimon Xros Wars has a Saban dub produced under the title Digimon Fusion, while an earlier alternate dub by William Winckler Productions was produced in 2011 (under the title Digimon Fusion Battles) and managed to be aired in Malaysia. Both dubs feature localized names, with the lead being called "Mikey" in the Saban dub and "Gerry" in the William Winckler version.
• The Super Milk-chan Show is a bizarre example. It has two separate complete dubs; both were made by ADV Films — There's an "Americanized" dub that was broadcast on The Anime Network, and a straight dub that was broadcast on [adult swim]. Both dubs were recorded near-simultaneously with the exact same voice cast (except Tetsuko for some reason). They were even both included on the same DVD release, although not on the same discs due to how the "Americanized" dub was edited. As you can imagine, nobody can agree which one is better.
• This has happened multiple times with English dubs of Studio Ghibli films, due to some of the studio's work making it out before Disney locked up international distribution rights for the entire catalogue (except Grave of the Fireflies, which has its own entry further down the list):
  • My Neighbor Totoro has two English dubs – the original, put together by Streamline Pictures for its initial American release; and Disney's later one, produced by John Lasseter and starring Dakota Fanning.
  • The same could be said for Nausicaä… except that nobody wants to admit that "Warriors of the Wind" exists, it being one of the most infamous translations in the history of the medium. Miyazaki himself wants everyone to forget about that version.^note  Although this is indeed Miyazaki's opinion on "Warriors", the words expressing it were uttered by Studio Ghibli co-founder and longtime producer Toshio Suzuki, who said (translated), "Please remove the memory of this version of Nausicaä from your mind." Fans have gladly obliged.
  • Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Porco Rosso likewise have alternate English dubs commissioned by Japan Airlines long before Disney's versions existed (though Castle was also shown in movie theaters in the United States during the summer of 1989 under the name Laputa). They were done by Streamline… though see that company's entry near the top of this page for an explanation.
    • In terms of official availability, the dubs of Castle in the Sky and Porco Rosso were included on the initial Japanese DVD releases, but Kiki remains relegated to the Ghibli Gai Ippai Laserdisc boxset (which also includes the aforementioned pre-Disney dubs of Castle in the Sky, Totoro and Porco Rosso)
  • Arrietty has two English dubs. The first dub was made by Studio Canal for a quick theatrical release in the UK and Australia using British actors; The second dub was produced by Disney for the North American market using Hollywood talent, and came out the the next year. This version renamed the film 'The Secret World Of Arrietty' and gave several of the characters American names in an attempt to market the film to a more mainstream audience. Fans' opinions on the dubs were set in stone before either saw the light of day – the UK version was automatically deemed superior. However, professional reviewers were much more positive about the American dub. North American fans were not happy when Disney announced that only the American dub would be included on its domestic DVD/Blu-ray (and that the UK DVD/BR would be region-locked to Europe), although both dubs can be obtained through the Japanese Region A Blu-rays. Ironically, as of today, Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones, Brooklyn) and Tom Holland (Spider-Man: Homecoming), the stars of the British dub, are now a lot more well known than Bridgit Mendler and David Henrie from the US dub (both were stars of Wizards of Waverly Place).
  • In an odd case of this trope, Kiki's Delivery Service and Castle In The Sky have alternate versions of their Disney dubs: the former removes the ad-libbed lines and new pieces of music, while Castle In The Sky changes the reorchestrated soundtrack back to the original and also removes several ad-libbed pieces of dialogue.
• There's two English dubs of 3×3 Eyes. Streamline Pictures made a dub of the original four OVAs in 1995 before shutting down. Shortly after, Orion Pictures picked up where they left off and released the first two episodes of the sequel series with the same cast before they shut down, leaving a release of the third and final episode in limbo in the United States. However, this dub was released in its entirety, including the final episode, by Manga Entertainment in the United Kingdom (albeit cut down from seven episodes to five due to edits to the original series). In 1999, Pioneer Entertainment (later Geneon) rescued the series and made another English dub with New Generation Pictures featuring late-90s Disney Channel stars like Brigitte Bako, Christian Campbell, and various additional cast members brought over from the Gargoyles cartoon, notably Ed Asner. It was even voice directed by Greg Weisman, the creator of that show. This dub covered all four episodes of the original series and all three episodes of the sequel series. Only the New Generation dub is available on DVD (albeit now out-of-print). The original Streamline/Orion dub, while it has its fans who remember it very fondly from the mid-90s, is only available on VHS.
• Mazinger Z has multiple incomplete dubs – Toei dubbed about 30 episodes themselves (through a company called M&M Communications) around 1977, in an attempt to sell the series. It was recorded in Hawaii, and the episodes had managed to air there. In the US, the edited-down Tranzor Z saw broadcast in 1985 (through 3B Productions). This dub was recorded out of Los Angeles, with Gregg Berger voicing the lead role. Meanwhile, the Philippines aired Toei's version and then continued dubbing where it left off. Allegedly the Philippine version was shut down by order of Ferdinand Marcos himself (which is also said to have happened with Voltes V).
• A rarity for a show of its length, Rurouni Kenshin has two complete dubs. The first dub made was the infamous "Samurai X" dub produced by Sony for Animax and recorded at Animaze in Los Angeles – which, though technically uncut, still toned down the dialogue significantly. A couple years later, another dub was produced by Media Blasters and recorded at BangZoom studio in Burbank. The Media Blasters version is more well-known in North America because it aired on Toonami and is (well, was) available on DVD, but Sony's Samurai X, previously unknown in North America despite being recorded there, is becoming better known due to it running for awhile on streaming sites Hulu and Crackle. This is perhaps the most literal case of dubs going directly in competition with each other on this page so far. Interestingly, Richard Cansino voices the title character in both dubs, and many other voice actors had roles in both productions.
• There are two dubs of the Giant Robo OVA, one by Manga Video with Animaze and one by Anime Works (the anime division of Media Blasters) with NYAV Post. The DVD Boxset includes both if you're interested, and there really is quite a difference - Manga Video's dub plays Big Bad Genya as a Psychopathic Manchild, while Anime Works' depicts him as a suave Diabolical Mastermind. The difference is interesting to say the least. Also, the Anime Works dub has a consistent cast for the entire series, while the Manga dub, which had to be produced and released over the years the OVA took to be completed, had multiple examples of The Other Darrin between episodes.
• The first animated Lupin III theatrical film, Mystery of Mamo/Secret of Mamo/Lupin vs. the Clone, has been erroneously claimed to have the most dubs in one language for one film: Toho made an English dub in 1978 for Japan Airlines to be shown as an in-flight movie during transpacific flights; Streamline recorded a dub in 1995 for North America; Manga recorded their own dub in 1996 for release in the UK and Australia; finally, Geneon redubbed the film in 2003 using their cast from "Red Jacket" (this dub was released in Australia in 2006 and the UK in 2008). All except the Geneon dub have become extremely rare… or were until Discotek picked up the film's license and lived up to its pledge to put all four dubs on the DVD. The differences between them are significant.
  • The 1978 Toho dub is the most faithful to the original Japanese, even as it Anglicizes the names of every major character except for, oddly, Lupin.^note  Jigen becomes Dan Dunn, Fujiko is renamed Margo, Goemon is dubbed simply "Samurai", and Zenigata becomes Detective Ed Scott. The Streamline dub plays it fairly loose with the dialogue and even looser with pronunciation, but it does call Lupin by his proper name. The Manga UK dub exists because Streamline's dub used Lupin's name (due to proximity to France, they had to change his name to "Wolf" to avoid being sued); this dub is an odd duck, with dialogue sometimes changing significantly to the point that characters' personalities and motivations are altered, especially Fujiko. The Geneon/Phuuz dub… well… if you've seen the first season of "Red Jacket", you know what you're going to get – no one can deny it's well-acted, but the dialogue is even more schizophrenic in its fealty to the subtitles than the Streamline dub.
  • A bit of latterly research has shown that Mamo isn't the king of this. Turns out the Dragon Ball Z movie The Tree of Might has it beat. There's Saban's TV-edited dub, Pioneer/Ocean's uncut dub, Funimation's uncut redub, AB Groupe's "Big Green" dub, and a version that is on Speedy's Malaysian VCD. That's five, and unless something new appears on Lupin's end, that beats out Mamo by one (unless you don't count Saban's TV Edit due to its being a hackjob, but even then we've got a tie…)
    • The original Dragon Ball TV series has several: Harmony Gold's test dub, Funimation/BLT Productions' short-lived dub, Funimation's in-house dub, AB Groupe/Blue Water, Creative Productions (Filipino), and Animax Asia! Most of those weren't completed, and a couple are believed to be lost but still, the first five episodes of Dragon Ball have had at least six English dubs recorded for each!
    • The second Lupin III movie, The Castle of Cagliostro contains two dubs. The first dub was made in the 90's by Streamline Pictures, while the second dub was made in 2000 by Manga Entertainment using the Animaze studio. There's also a toned-down version of the Manga dub that removes most of the profanity
• The first Galaxy Express 999 movie got dubbed twice; a translation with Dub Induced Plotline Changes from New World Pictures, which is only available on VHS, and a second, more faithful dub in the mid-90s from Viz Media and Ocean Studios, which was also only available on VHS until Discotek Media released it on DVD in 2011 and Blu-Ray in 2018.
• It took over 30 years, and three separate tries for Saint Seiya to finally get a complete English dub:
  • The first was the 2003 edited "Knights of the Zodiac" dub from DiC on Cartoon Network using Toronto-based voice talent (with Tim Hanaguchi as Seiya). It was heavily censored, with edits like blood being painted black, green, or blue to represent "magical energies," among many others. It's most famous for its theme song, which was a cover of "I Ran" from Bowling For Soup. The show bombed in the US (even at the time, children could tell that the show was old), and was canceled after 40 episodes, with only 32 actually being broadcast on Cartoon Network (all 40 aired on YTV in Canada). Heavily panned at the time of its release, it's slowly growing a reputation of So Bad, It's Good.
  • A second dub with a Houston-based voice cast (featuring Illich Guardiola as Seiya) was produced simultaneously by ADV Films for DVD because they had sub-licensed the home video rights from DiC. This dub was completely uncut, and covered the first 60 episodes. ADV wanted to continue their dub, but they couldn't go farther than the episodes DiC had sub-licensed to them. They did attempt to license the series outright after DiC's license expired, but unfortunately that didn't work out. This dub was received slightly better than the DiC effort, but was noted for its rushed production values and subpar voice acting.
  • In 2013, Cinedigm released the first 73 episodes to DVD subtitled-only, and Discotek Media released the first four films and "The Lost Canvas" series to subtitle-only DVD, but all of those releases flopped.
  • Toei themselves produced a new uncut English dub of the original series from 2019-2020 for streaming on Netflix, which eventually covered all 114 episodes of the original series. It was also recorded in Houston at Sentai Filmworks, but uses a completely different voice cast from the ADV dub (with Bryson Baugas as Seiya). This is the same voice cast that was used for Netflix's 2019 reboot. While this dub is often seen as So Okay, It's Average, its reputation is certainly the best of the three efforts, with fans thankful that the show finally has a complete dub at all.
• The original Kimba the White Lion TV series was dubbed by NBC in 1967 and then re-dubbed for Canadian syndication in the late '80s. The original dub is the only one available on video (although a few random episodes of the Canadian dub are on DVD, as they managed to fall into the Public Domain).
• The 80s Astro Boy TV series was dubbed twice. There's the more well-known Nippon TV dub done with US actors based out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1982, but also the edited one produced for Canada using fairly well-known Montreal-based voice actors in 1986. The Nippon TV dub aired in English-speaking countries around the world to much popularity, especially in Australia, and was sold to a few local stations in the US. The Canadian TV dub was only produced to fill the legal Canadian-content queue, and thus was only shown in Canada, where the show also became fairly popular. Both dubs were edited, but while the Nippon TV dub only suffered from light editing (and changes to the episode order), the Canadian dub took a cut-and-paste approach.
• Crayon Shin-chan has had five different English dubs. Aside from the more familiar Funimation Gag Dub, it received two much earlier relatively straight dubs from Vitello and Phuuz Entertinment that never aired in America, despite being made there. It also had a dub made by LUK Internacional in 2015 that was released on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Yet another English dub consisting of only 12 segments was made in 2007 and was released on DVD and VCD in South Korea to teach Korean children English.
• The GoShogun movie The Time Étranger was dubbed for US release by Central Park Media and for UK release by Manga.
• Bubblegum Crash was dubbed by AnimEigo for North America, but there's also the Manga UK English dub for Europe. The original AD Police Files OVA also got dubs from both companies, however the original Bubblegum Crisis has only one dub (AnimEigo's), since a different company (MVM Films) got the UK rights and carried over that version.
• The original Mobile Suit Gundam got an English dub by The Ocean Group, but several years earlier, the Compilation Movies for the same story had gotten their own English dub by Animaze. While the quality of the TV series dub is contested, most Gundam fans like to pretend that the movie dub simply doesn't exist (although the pronunciation of the mecha's name as "Gun-damn" became something of an in-joke among English fans). Its bad quality is acknowledged by the cast/crew, and is usually blamed on the creator having a tight control on its production, and demanding weird choices. The dub is so bad that even Sunrise themselves refuse to re-release the old dub.
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex was initially dubbed by Animaze. However, by the time Bandai licensed the compilation movies "The Laughing Man" and "Individual Eleven", they could no longer afford the LA-based unionized studio, so those compilations were dubbed by The Ocean Group with a different cast.
• Mamoru Oshii's second Ghost in the Shell film, "Innocence", was dubbed twice due to license issues. The movie was first licensed in North America by DreamWorks SKG, who decided to release it without any English dub at all (and SDH subtitles to boot!), much to the fans' anger. Then it was licensed by Manga & Madman for the UK and Australia markets respectively; they hired Richard Epcar (Batou's VA) to get the Stand Alone Complex cast together and record a dub.^note  Although this dub uses the GITS:SAC cast, it notably does not use the same translator, scriptwriter, or voice director. Then, after Dreamworks's license lapsed a couple years later, Bandai picked up the film and decided to redub it with the entire Animaze crew. Both dubs ended up on Bandai's DVD, and also showed exactly why Bandai commissioned the redub – the masters Epcar used for the first dub had been pre-converted to the standard European framerate of 25fps; when that audio was back-converted to the American/Japanese standard of 24fps (4% slower), it made Manga's dub sound distorted.
• The first two Patlabor films were dubbed twice into English. They were first dubbed in the mid-90s by Manga UK for release internationally. However in the US, after Manga Entertainment lost the licenses, Bandai Visual picked up the films in the mid-2000s and produced new dubs for them with a new LA-based cast while the original dubs continued to be distributed in Europe and Australia. Neither cast is consistent with the OVA/TV series or third film, both of which have their own casts.
• There's the 1985 Robotech English dub by Harmony Gold, and there's also the faithful, uncut 2005 Super Dimension Fortress Macross English dub from ADV Films.
  • There is also an earlier, failed adaptation of SDF Macross by Harmony Gold (with its own theme song), that had lasted only three episodes and predated Robotech. The first episode was later included as a special feature on a DVD, while the VHS of the three episodes is tough to come by. This version was discontinued because HG wanted to air Macross in syndication, and needed more episodes to do so, so they went forward with the better-known adaptation.
• The first YuYu Hakusho movie was originally released in America in the late 1990s with an English dub by Animaze (produced by Media Blasters), years before Creator/Funimation's English release of the TV series. Funimation finally released the movie in December 2011 with a completely new English dub using their voice cast from the TV series. This leaves the second movie, "Poltergeist Report" as the only part of the franchise without a Funimation dub – it being licensed and dubbed in the mid-90s by Central Park Media. However, Funimation says they are trying to get the film and invoke this trope (since the franchise is a darling of the company), but there are complicated legal issues to untangle first.
• The Appleseed anime movie has two English dubs. The original one from Geneon, recorded at Animaze, was scrapped in favor of a new one from Houston-based Sentai Filmworks (the former ADV Films) using their in-house studio (now called Seraphim Digital) for consistency with the second film, which was released by Warner Bros. using Seraphim. The Seraphim cast was mostly carried over to Funimation's dub of the recent TV series, as well as the Appleseed Alpha prequel (not released in Japan), leaving only the original OVAs (dubbed and released about 20 years ago by Manga UK) without a dub with the Texas-based cast. Both dubs for the first film are on Sentai's Blu-ray release, but their DVD (which came first) only contains the original Animaze dub. Sentai's stated reason for the redub is that they felt the audio quality of the original dub was too poor to justify being the sole English dub on a Blu-ray. They've done this for a few other older films as well, most notably Grave of the Fireflies.
• The Space Adventure Cobra movie has two English dubs, both released in 1995. The Manga UK dub for Australian and UK VHS came first, and was a bit liberal in its adaptation. Notably, it replaced all the music with songs from Yello (best known for Oh Yeah from Ferris Bueller's Day Off). Streamline Pictures released their own English dub in some North American theaters a month later with the original music intact and a more accurate script (ironic, considering Streamline's notoriety for liberal dubs). They planned on releasing the film and the TV series to VHS, but were unable to due to their parent company (Orion Pictures)'s financial woes. However, it was issued on VHS by Urban Vision, and "replaced" the Manga UK dub in Australia and the UK due to Manga losing the license to the Yello music. Hulu's stream and Discotek's DVD also feature solely the Streamline dub. Discotek tried including the Manga UK dub, but once again ran into issues with the music, and the fact that it was recorded onto PAL tape. However, it did turn up on a French DVD.
• Street Fighter II V has two English dubs. The better-known one is the Manga Entertainment/Animaze version sold in North America and in Oceania (with the same cast as the original animated movies). The other was made by ADV Films' UK branch for Britain/Ireland (it was recorded in Houston). The latter has only a Region 2 VHS release since ADV-UK disbanded years ago. As such, it's hard to locate any copies outside of secondhand European VHS bins.
• The classic anime film Grave of the Fireflies was redubbed by Sentai Filmworks for the film's 2012 Blu-Ray release. The film was first dubbed by Central Park Media and Skypilot Entertainment in 1998, and that dub had been carried over for years, including on Sentai's DVD release (and ADV's before that), and was even included on the Blu-Ray as a bonus feature. The reason for the redub is mainly because the master elements for the original dub are long gone and its sound quality was considered unacceptable for Blu-Ray. The mixed opinions of the old dub probably didn't help either.
• Dinosaur King had a regional Singapore dub along with the mainstream US licensed version – ironically, the US one was on broadcast in Singapore while the regional dub went straight to video, picked up by some department stores to screen in the toys section. The main appeal of the "Singapore dubs" you'll see a lot in this section is that, unlike versions edited for US broadcast, they keep the OP and ED intact.
• Naruto: Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals has two English dubs recorded a year apart from each other. One produced in Hong Kong for Disney XD Asia and the other produced by Viz Media and Studiopolis and streamed on Hulu.
• Mega Zone 23's history of English dubs is quite interesting:
  • Let's start with the 1986 release of Robotech: The Movie from Harmony Gold and The Cannon Group. Carl Macek was unable to get the license to Macross: Do You Remember Love? to use for a Robotech film, so he got Megazone 23 instead and retooled footage from Part 1 to tie-in to Robotech since it had the same character designer and was animated on 35mm. The entire film was recorded twice before Cannon was happy. In the final version, the dialogue had little to do with the original script, the character names were changed, many scenes were omitted, and scenes from Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross were spliced in, all due to Executive Meddling. A new ending was also animated by the original producers to end the film on a more positive note. The film never made it past test screenings in the US due to it being considered too mature for children, but was released to some success in Latin America and Europe. It has never been officially released to home video in its complete form, but many a bootleg can be found among Robotech fans.
  • An English dub of Part 2 was also done by Harmony Gold in 1987, but with a partially different voice cast and completely different set of character names. This "International" dub was done as a "teaching tool" to assist Japanese speakers learn English, and was included with the Japanese laserdisc release. Interestingly, this dub's opening scene splices in footage from the "retooled" ending of Robotech: The Movie.
  • Carl Macek and Streamline Pictures later gave Part 1 a straight dub in 1994 with some of the same voices as the "International" Part 2 dub, as well as the Robotech film, but with all the original character names and dialogue. They also began dubbing Part 2 (supposedly with about 80-90% complete), and had plans on dubbing Part 3 before Orion Pictures' corporate problems resulted in all Streamline releases being halted.
  • Manga UK released a pretty straight dub of Part 3 on VHS for the UK in 1995 (with a completely different voice cast) that was also shown on the British Sci-Fi Channel.
  • It wasn't until 2004 that the entire trilogy was finally given a consistent dub, this time by ADV Films.
• Tekkaman Blade has two dubs, both using the "Teknoman" title and that were dubbed by Saban. The one aired on UPN Kids renamed the main character "Teknoman Slade" and only lasted 26 episodes. The alternate dub covered 43 episodes (out of 49) and kept the Japanese opening, but still used Saban's English theme for the end credits. There were also a few voice differences between each, including the main character: Bob Bergen voiced "Slade" in the US-aired dub, while another actor named David Thomas voiced "Blade" in the overseas version. Media Blasters' DVD release used the international dub masters, to the disappointment of fans who had nostalgia for the UPN version (which would seem to have been made and aired after the "International English" dub).
• Super Pig had two English dubs, one by Saban titled "Super Pig" and one that aired in the Philippines under the title "Super Boink". While Saban's dub replaced the BGM and opening and closing themes, Super Boink kept all the original music. Saban's version did not get a TV deal in North America, but was used as the basis for other international dubs and briefly aired in the UK and Australia.
• In a rather bizarre situation, Makoto Shinkai's 5 Centimeters per Second got dubbed twice into English, once by Houston-based ADV Films and once by LA-based BangZoom. ADV made their dub and released it to DVD in early 2008… right before their collapse resulted in the film's rights being snatched up by then-upstart Crunchyroll, who gave the film a new English dub. Bandai later sublicensed the redub and put it out on DVD, and it was also featured on Discotek's recent DVD release. ADV's dub, which garnered a ton of praise upon its release and is the one preferred by Shinkai fans, is exceedingly rare today (mostly because fans who own a copy know how irreplaceable it is and refuse to give it up for anything).
  • There's never been a straight answer as to why Crunchyroll decided to redub 5cm/s rather than just use ADV's dub. One rumor is that the Japanese producers were disappointed in ADV's handling of the film and wanted a more accurate dub from a different company – this makes little sense, however, since ADV (via its successor company Sentai Filmworks) is still the "go-to" licensor for Shinkai's work – Children Who Chase Lost Voices and The Garden of Words. A more likely explanation is that Crunchyroll yanked the 5cm/s license at a point when no one knew who actually owned what of ADV's assets and figured it would be easier to just commission a new dub rather than wait for the debris from ADV's collapse to settle.
• Urusei Yatsura had a widely-panned dub of the first two episodes by AnimEigo^note  (they would go on to dub five of the six movies (1 and 3-6) to much less scorn, but those – as well as Movie 2, Beautiful Dreamer, which was dubbed by Central Park Media in 1996 – are not known to have been redubbed by anyone), a British Gag Dub of episodes 1 and 3 that aired on BBC 3 as "Lum the Invader Girl", and a dub called "Alien Musibat" that aired on Animax Asia. Though the last one covered more of the series (supposedly all 195 episodes), little is known about it and episodes are difficult to find. Reportedly, an earlier dub entitled "Cosma the Invader Girl" was made in the late 1980s but only aired on local television in the U.S. state of Alaska.
• Voltes V had an English dub that aired in the Philippines in the late '70s, dubbed by Questor International (with English versions of the opening and ending themes). It also had an English dub produced as a compilation movie titled Voltus 5, by Uniprom Films and Toei (although it did not dub the opening). Both dubs are notable for having the same English names used for the cast. 3B Productions^note  who were responsible for the Tranzor Z dub of Mazinger Z would later re-release the compilation film in 1983, but with the Japanese opening switched out for a new instrumental.
• Maya the Bee had an American English dub by Saban Entertainment in 1989, although an earlier dub comissioned directly by the producers and recorded in South Africa by Sonovision also existed and had aired in Australia on Network Ten and in South Africa on the SABC. Little was known about the first English dub for a while, other than it used the same opening theme that was heard in European adaptations of the series, however the South African dub can now be found on YouTube.
• At least thirteen episodes of Magic Knight Rayearth were dubbed for TMS International in 1995, but the lackluster ratings of Sailor Moon led Fox Kids and other networks to pass on the series and it was shelved.^note  It is known that Ocean dubbed the first episode as a pilot, and that TMS used a different studio (Summit Media Group) for a 13-episode series, though it is unconfirmed on whether or not the later studio also redubbed the first episode for the TV run.. The first episode was shown at select anime conventions a few years later, and revealed that it would have had a replaced opening theme and renamed protagonists (Luce, Marine, Anemone). After the license lapsed, Media Blasters released their dub in 1999, which was produced by BangZoom, kept the characters' names, and covered the whole series.
  • If it counts, the OVA remake "Rayearth" was released in the US by Manga Entertainment, who produced a dub with Taj Productions in New York with yet another cast, even though Manga had worked with Bang Zoom before.
  • Media Blasters supposedly had pilots dubbed for the first episode by Bang Zoom, TAJ, and Coastal Carolina to decide which studio to use.
• Captain Harlock had two failed English dubs: The first was by ZIV International in 1981, which covered four episodes (1, 9, 2, and 3). However, while the first two episodes adapted had a relatively straight dub (aside from some name changes), the latter two episodes ventured into more of a Gag Dub territory, had more name changes^note  (Tadashi Daiba was renamed "Tommy Dexter" in the initial dubbed episodes, but "Tommy Hairball" in these ones), and a different voice cast. The second dub was by Harmony Gold in 1985, titled "Captain Harlock and the Queen of 1000 Years" It was a heavily-edited mash up of Harlock with another Matsumoto series Queen Millennia. It lasted 65 episodes, with segments of episodes being cut and pasted from both Harlock and Millenia. However, this version also flopped, and is hard to find. Another obscure dub of Harlock was produced by William Winckler Productions in 2010, though in the form of two compilation films that mashed up several episodes from the series.
• The anime adaptation of Captain Future also had two incomplete dubs, neither managing to cover all 53 of its episodes. The first adaptation by ZIV was released around 1981, and dubbed episodes 5-8. Harmony Gold would later release a compilation film adaptation of the first four episodes.
• Crusher Joe received a heavily edited English dub by Jim Terry Productions in 1988, titled Crushers. A later dub by AnimEigo was released in 2000.
• Aquarion Evol has received two English dubs. One produced by Funimation and the other made airing in on TV2 Malaysia.
• Hana no Ko Lunlun was first released in English by ZIV International in 1980 under the title Angel. It had a '70s disco-type opening theme replacing the original, and briefly aired on HBO. At least four episodes were released on VHS tape, but it is unknown if the dub got any further than that. Harmony Gold would later release a compilation film adaptation titled Flower Angel in 1985. Most recently, William Winckler Productions also went the compilation route and edited the series down into two movies, both under the Lun Lun the Flower Girl title. None of these dubs are widely available these days, with the most recent version only airing in Japan as a way of assisting viewers in learning English.
• The 1977 Space Battleship Yamato film had a little known English dub pre-Star Blazers. This version actually calls the ship the Yamato and preserves some of the Japanese names such as Captain Okita and 'Gorgon" enemy leader Desler. Curiosly, this is not the same 1977 Yamato compilation film that most purchasers of the Voyager Entertainment Yamato collection might have seen. It is still a compilation and is identical in every way (aside from cut footage). But this has a different ending. ^note  Apparently this is the first version of the film shown in Japan, where it has alternate footage of what the crew finds at Iscandar: Starsha had died and left them a recording as well as the Cosmo Cleaner.
• Yo-kai Watch has two dubs. A Southeast Asian dub, produced by Medi-Lan Ltd. for Medialink Animation International Ltd. that airs on Toonami Asia, Cartoon Network, and Okto, which is a straight dub and retains the Japanese names of the characters, as well as the Verbal Tics for characters like Komasan. The other dub is an American dub, produced by Sprite Animation Studios for Dentsu Entertainment USA, Inc. that airs on Disney XD, Disney Channel in the US, Teletoon in Canada, Cartoon Network in the UK, and GO! in Australia. While the American dub is somewhat edited, it's mostly faithful to the Japanese version. It is also closer to the translated games.
  • The 3rd season of Yo-Kai Watch also had two English dubs. The first dub was from SDI Media in Los Angeles and contained a different cast from the dub of the previous two seasons. The second dub was made by an unknown studio in Miami for Viz Media Europe, which aired on Cartoon Network in South Africa in 2019. The weird part is, despite the dedicated dub for Africa implying a lack of distribution rights on the newer episodes of the Los Angeles dub, Cartoon Network apparently swapped back-and-forth between some episodes of both dubs. Crazy, right?
• Doraemon:
  • The 2005 anime was dubbed into English thrice. The American dub, produced by Bang Zoom! Entertainment, aired on Disney XD and isn't completely faithful. The second dub is the UK dub produced by LUK Internacional ^note  Who also produced the Spanish and Portuguese dub. and formerly aired on Boomerang UK. Unlike the American dub, the UK dub is much more faithful to the Japanese version, but uses the name changes from the former dub. Another English dub airs on Disney Channel India.
  • The film, Stand by Me Doraemon, was dubbed into English twice. There's the American dub that was produced by Bang Zoom and screened at the 27th Tokyo International Film Festival and released on the Japanese iTunes Store. The other dub was produced and released in the Philippines and also received a release in Malaysia.
  • The 1979 anime of Doraemon had five English dubs. The first English dub was made around 1985 by Canadian studio Cinar, as The Adventures of Albert and Sidney, covering 50 episodes (150 segments). It was originally going to air on Superstation WTBS, but it was cancelled before making it on the air. This dub apparently only aired in Barbados. Albert and Sidney has a different theme song, a changed setting, and changed character names. The second English dub was made in the 90's in Malaysia by Speedy Video. Like the first English dub, the characters' names were changed (except for Doraemon) and had some edits to change the setting and deleted and/or toned down scenes that are questionable. This English dub also had tight voice acting and audio quality. Like Speedy's dub of Dragon Ball Z, this dub is also unlicensed. The third English dub was also made in the 90's in Singapore. It is more faithful to the Japanese version and is mostly uncut. The fourth English dub was a British Gag Dub that was made by Phuuz Entertainment. It was going to air on MTV UK, but only a pilot was produced and it was only released on a VHS that was given to the voice actors of the dub. The fifth dub was an American dub made by Phuuz Entertainment. Like the British Phuuz dub, only a pilot was made of this version. All five English dubs are very hard to find on the internet, but some episodes of the Malaysian English dub, some excerpts of the Cinar dub and the entirety of the British Phuuz dub can be found on various websites such as YouTube.
• Ojamajo Doremi has three English dubs. The first one was of the pilot episode done by The Ocean Group. The second one was by Voiceovers Unlimited and aired on Channel i in Singapore. The third one was by 4Kids Entertainment. Both Voiceovers Unlimited and 4Kids only dubbed the first season.
• The Vision of Escaflowne was originally dubbed by Ocean in the early 2000s, and a heavily butchered version of this same dub was shown on Fox Kids, while the VHS and DVD releases from Bandai were unedited and billingual. However, the HD remaster of the show in Japan included extra scenes not included in the original version of the show, and were thus never dubbed. When Funimation rescued the series in 2015, they successfully funded a redub of the series through Kickstarter that would include the extra scenes in their new DVD and Blu-ray release (the original Ocean dub would be included as a bonus feature without them). This is the third time Funimation has replaced an Ocean dub with their own cast following Dragon Ball Z and Shakugan no Shana.
• Sakura Diaries has two dubs, both from ADV Films. When they first released the show to VHS and DVD in 2001, they accidentally used the censored broadcast masters for their release, as well as their dub, which they had farmed out to Monster Island Studios in Austin. They later released a subtitled-only boxset in 2002 with the uncensored episodes. In 2005, they reissued the series in an unedited boxset with an unedited dub with a new cast from their regular Houston studio.
• The 80's anime of Perman had three English dubs. The first English dub was made in the early 2000's for airing on TV2 Malaysia. The second English dub was made in the late 2000's-early 2010's for Nickelodeon India. The third English dub is current and is made for Disney Channel Southeast Asia.
• The 2002 anime Mirmo Zibang! has two English dubs. The first one was made by Viz Media and ShoPro. The second English dub was made in Singapore by Voiceovers Unlimited. Both the Viz Media/ShoPro dub and the Voiceovers Unlimited dub are pretty hard to find online.
• Pop Team Epic: Kinda. In the Pop Team Story segment in first half of episode 9, Joseph's dialogues are in English. In the original Japanese version, Joseph was voiced by two people of Japanese descent with fluent English. (One of them is The Anime Man, a YouTuber who played the grown-up Joseph and also provided the English translation.) However, Funimation had Joseph's dialogues retranslated, and gave him new voices in their English dub.
• B't X was originally licensed in North America in 2006 by the short-lived Illumitoon, who dubbed the first 14 episodes, but only the first 8 made it to DVD from Westlake Entertainment, the rest airing exclusively on ADV's The Anime Network. The dub was recorded in Dallas, TX with many voice actors regularly heard in dubs from Funimation. Anime Midstream rescued the series, and released the first 25 episodes to DVD in 2018 with a brand new dub. This one was recorded by Sound Cadence studios in Dallas with much of the same cast in different roles, and Eric Vale reprising his role of Teppei from the original dub.
• A.I.C.O. Incarnation has two complete English dubs that, in a rather unorthodox fashion, were both commissioned by Netflix. The first dub was produced by the US branch of Malaysia-based IYUNO Media Group and recorded at Miami-based Studios VOA, which is something unusual these days. Despite the studio doing everything they could to perfect the dub, Netflix only used the first takes. That October, a new dub was produced by LA-based Bang Zoom! Entertainment, who had already established a relationship with Netflix. The Bang Zoom dub has a more faithful translation as opposed to the VOA dub.
• Chibi Maruko-chan has at least 4 English dubs: one made in India for the local version of Nickelodeon, one for Animax Asia, one recorded in Canada that went Direct to Video, and a more recent dub recorded in Hong Kong for the show's official YouTube channel. The last of the dubs is more faithful to the original version.
• Satoshi Kon:
  • Millennium Actress was originally issued in North American theaters and on DVD in 2003 by DreamWorks' GoFish Pictures subtitled-only, but Manga Entertainment produced a dub for the UK market in 2005 with London-based Village Productions. The dub featured a mostly British cast (a rarity in anime dubs), and featured Regina Reagan voicing Chiyoko at all three age versions of the character. The film was reissued in North American theaters in 2019 by Eleven Arts, featuring a brand new dub produced by VSI Los Angeles. This dub mirrored the Japanese version by having three actresses voice Chiyoko at different age points (Abby Trott, Erin Yvette, and Cindy Robinson respectively).
  • Tokyo Godfathers was released in theaters and DVD by Sony Pictures sub-only, but an English dub was created for Animax by Omni Productions in Hong Kong. In 2020, GKIDS released the film to theaters and later to DVD and Blu-ray with a new English dub by NYAV Post in New York and Los Angeles.
• Baki was originally released on Netflix in 2018 with a dub by the Los Angeles-based Studiopolis. When Sentai Filmworks licensed the home video rights, they were unable to use the dub on Netflix, and so their home video release includes a brand new dub recorded in 2021 by their Houston-based studio.
• Several of Netflix's original anime such as Kakegurui and Hero Mask (both originally dubbed by Los Angeles based studios) were redubbed by Sentai. In addition to this, both Sentai and Netflix managed to release two different dubs of Vinland Saga at the same time.
• Futari wa Pretty Cure has two English dubs: one that aired in Singapore on Kids' Central that also covered Max Heart and another that aired on YTV and just covered the first season.
• Grendizer and Daimos both have two Italian dubs. The first are the Japanese-to-Italian dubs by their respective companies. Later, dubbing studio Alsen produced a Compilation Movie called Daimos - Il figlio di Goldrake (Daimos, the son of Grendizer) where it connected the universes of Daimos and Grendizer by stating that Daisuke was Kazuya's father.
• Spy X Family has two different English dubs. One is created by Crunchyroll for North America. The second one is created by Muse Asia and seen in Southeast Asian markets as of December 2022.
• After Crunchyroll opened their Indian division, DARLING in the FRANXX, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, and Fire Force got Indian English dubs in addition to their American English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu dubs.

Other Languages/Regions

Examples - Other Languages/Regions

• Whistle! was streamed in Japan with a different Japanese vocal track and a new cast. It's speculated this was done either so that the original voice actors wouldn't be paid royalties, or because the original lead voice actress was arrested for drug possession.
• Both original Patlabor movies were re-recorded in Japanese with the original cast for the 5.1 re-release. The performances in the re-voiced versions aren't considered as good.
• The movie compilation trilogy for the original Mobile Suit Gundam was re-recorded in Japanese in 2002 in 5.1 with new sound effects and the original cast, with the exception of the ones that were deceased.
• Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory was also re-voiced in Japanese in 2006 in 5.1 with updated sound effects with the original cast.
• The 2.0 version of the original Ghost in the Shell film was re-voiced in Japanese with updated sound effects and the original cast, with the exception of the Puppet Master, where Iemasa Kayumi was replaced with Yoshiko Sakakibara for creative reasons.
• The Kai version of Dragon Ball Z was also completely re-voiced in Japanese despite just being recycled footage from DBZ. This was due to the original audio master tapes for DBZ being long destroyed, and impossible to mix in 5.1. Most of the original voice actors returned, although some did not (or were deceased).
• Arrietty has two Latin American Spanish dubs, one produced by Disney made at Producciones Grande, Mexico City and another one produced by Zima made at Elefante Films in Cuernavaca, Morelos. The Disney dub is available on streaming and in TV broadcasts. The Zima dub is only available on the Mexican DVD release. Both dubs have Arturo Castañeda and Miguel Ángel Ruiz as Shō and Spiller, respectively.
• Before Howl's Moving Castle, only some movies by Studio Ghibli had ever been dubbed into Italian, mostly from the English dubs or with little care for accuracy in translation. From 2004 onwards, distributor Lucky Red bought exclusive rights for the whole catalogue and, alongside dubbing new movies, redubbed everything which was already available in Italian. Unlike the previous versions, Lucky Red dubs are famous for being too faithful to the Japanese scripts, to the point that dialogues tend to keep Japanese syntax and are filled with archaic wording. That is to remind the audience they are watching a dubbed foreign movie and in order to give the feeling of Japanese characters trying to speak Italian. It's not exactly appreciated by everyone. ^note Actually this choices are responsibility of dialogue adapter and dubbing director Gualtiero Cannarsi, and other works of his faced similar criticism. A few of the original voice actors participated in both dubs, including three in Totoro, Sonia Scotti in Spirited Away, two in Mononoke, two in Kiki and three in Castle in the Sky.
• Golion got dubbed in Italian and Korean both in its original form and as Voltron.
• Naruto:
  • The Jetix dub was so detested by the Hungarian fans that when Animax picked up the show (or to be precise, its uncut Japanese version), they opted to start from scratch and kept only the voices that suited their characters best (such as Sasuke's). Well, until they had to recast some of them, that is.
  • It also received two Czech dubs; the first one for Jetix and the second one for Animax.
  • It also received two Malay dubs. The former was dubbed by Filem Karya Nusa Sdn. Bhd. for TV3 Malaysia and the latter was dubbed by EmasKarya for Animax Asia. The voices from the latter dub returned for the spinoff Naruto: Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals for airing on Disney XD Malaysia.
  • It also received two Hindi dubs. The first dub was made for Cartoon Network India but was shelved due to low ratings. The second dub was made for Sony YAY! and had completed, with Shippuden set to premiere in the middle of 2024.
  • It also received two Hebrew dubs. The first dub was made for Arutz HaYeladim. The second dub was made for the Junior Channel.
  • While the series itself has kept on consistent dub, the first movie was dubbed twice in Latin America. This was due to due to needing an uncut dub for streaming as the the first dub was made with the edited Cartoon Network English as basis.
  • Naruto Shippuden was also redubbed in Castillian Spanish with a recast for most characters.
• Robotech has been dubbed into Latin American Spanish twice. Most Hispanic fans grew up with the original (which featured Jesús Barrero as Rick and Patricia Acevedo as Lisa), and thus, hate the new dub with a passion.
• Rurouni Kenshin ("Samurai X") and Cardcaptor Sakura was ran twice in Indonesia, each for a different TV station. In a rare case, the latter dubs are considerably inferior than the earlier ones, especially for Kenshin because it's translated from American translation. As for Sakura... the earlier dub was exceedingly great (they got Sakura's Moe right!), that people can't help but feel that the latter dub (which did have issues) was a let-down.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Sailor Moon has only one Italian dub for the main series, but the first movie has two Italian dubs, one by the same company as the series using the same cast, and a more faithful redub with a different cast. The company behind the redub planned to redo the main series, but the franchise's legal issues kicked in before they could release any more of their planned redub. When the series was reissued on DVD in 2010, the licensor confirmed that they considered redubbing the series from scratch, but couldn't afford it.
  • Likewise, there are two Tagalog dubs of the Sailor Moon anime. One was used for the original release back in the 90s (With a Tagalized opening sang by then unknown Angelika Dela Cruz, who also was the 1st dub voice of the titular character), and the other is a more faithful redub for the recent reissue. Some fans believe it was only redubbed because the elements to the original Tagalog dub likely no longer exist.
  • The series was also dubbed into Thai twice for likely the same reason as in the Philippines. Both Thai dubs use the same voice cast and script, but the new dub is considered better because of the higher recording standards, and the actors' experience in their roles.
  • In addition, South Korea also has two dubs of Sailor Moon. The first dub features Dub Induced Plotline Changes with almost 50 episodes worth of content cut from the show. It puts the 90's-era English dub to shame in terms of editing (the Korean dub covered the whole series and STILL had fewer episodes than the English dub, which didn't even reach the last season). Korea got an uncut redub beginning in 2013, although with poorer voice actors.
  • There are also reports of multiple dubs of Sailor Moon airing in mainland China, including one of the first movie being dubbed by a local TV station.
  • Greece also has two dubs. One dub aired in the 90s and covered the whole series. The other aired in the early 2000s and covered seasons 1-2. It used the same script (complete with the same translation errors) and a new (lesser-received) voice cast. Like the Italian example, it was also canceled because the series' infamous legal issues.
  • Poland got a second voiceover for the series (where one narrator reads all the dialogue with the original voices audible) in 2011, replacing the one from the 90s, but it wasn't until 2015 that any part of the series got a full proper Polish dub, beginning with the R movie.
  • Russia first received Sailor Moon in the 90s with a voiceover-style dub with only a couple voice actors (and the Japanese audio still audible), but a proper redub with a full voice cast premiered on TV in 2018, although as per the norm with Russian dubs, the cast is still small with only two male voice actors.
  • The first season of Sailor Moon was dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese in the 90s, but the rest of the series wasn't dubbed until years later with a different cast, to much controversy among fans. A DVD release was attempted in 2010, but it started with the S season because the dub masters for the Classic and R seasons is lost, and the release was canceled due to poor sales. A different company picked up the license in 2018 and plans on reissuing the series in 2019 with a brand new dub, with fans lobbying for the original voice cast from the Classic season.
• Spirited Away has two Latin American Spanish dubs, one produced by Disney made at Prime Dubb, Mexico City and another one produced by Primer Plano made in Videorecord, Buenos Aires. After Disney bought Primer Plano's Argentine theatrical rights, they choose to release the film in cinemas with the Argentine dub instead of the Mexican dub. Since then, the Argentine dub is the more commonly seen of the two, being broadcast on TV, and released on DVD and on streaming services. The Mexican dub only aired on HBO and it's considered lost.
• Several Studio Ghibli movies have two Brazilian Portuguese dubs, due to having different rights holders. Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro both have dubs exclusive to the Discovery Kids channel, made at the Vox Mundi studio in Sao Paulo. The former film was originally dubbed at Double Sound in Rio de Janeiro, while the latter was dubbed at Dublavideo (also in Sao Paulo).
  • When both movies premiered on Netflix, they were again re-dubbed at Vox Mundi with many of the same voice actors. Spirited Away was also re-dubbed, but at MGE Studios, with Selma Lopes (Yubaba/Zeniba) and Priscila Amorim (Chihiro's mother) reprising their roles. Haku was voiced by Felipe Drummond in the first dub, and by his younger brother Eduardo in the Netflix dub (which Felipe himself directed).
  • The standard dub of The Cat Returns was made in Sao Paulo at the Sigma Studio; a dub made in Rio aired on HBO, but is currently lost.
• Ghost in the Shell has three Hungarian dubs: from 2004, from '06 and HBO made the third in 2022. Gabor Vass dubbed Batô in the first two, all other voices between each version differed.
• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was dubbed thrice in Cantonese. The first dub was the theatrical release, which was also on VHS and LaserDisc, cutting out five minutes from the film and turning the film into an outright Gag Dub Hong Kong Dub in an attempt to make the film Lighter and Softer and Denser and Wackier, with '80s Hong Kong pop culture references galore. The second dub was released on VCD and DVD, which is uncut and tones down some of the humour from the previous dub, but is still heavily based on said previous dub. Finally, a Truer to the Text dub was finally made in 2010 for the Blu-ray remaster. In the first two dubs, Nausicaä's name was changed to Mulan.
• Filipino dubs are a strange case. When an anime finishes airing on one TV station, and eventually the station loses the rights to air it, a competing TV station will pick up the rights, and re-dub the show with its own cast, sometimes, even getting an actor from the previous dub to voice a different character.
  • Code Geass has two dubs: one for TV5 and one for Hero TV.
  • Magic Knight Rayearth also has two dubs: one on ABS-CBN (The main trio's names are Luce (pronounced like Lucy), Marine and Anemone, and had a dubbed version of the opening) and the GMA version (which uses the original names and the original Japanese opening).
  • Machine Robo Rescue has two Tagalog dubs too: One for GMA and one for Hero TV, the voices and dialogue are nearly identical.
• Transformers: Energon and Transformers: Cybertron have two Hungarian dubs. The originals (produced by Mafilm Audio), debuting on Cartoon Network in 2004 and 2005, had good casting, but were met with contempt due to the new name changes. The second versions (BTI Studios), shown on Megamax in 2013 and 2014, use a confusing mix of Marvel comic translations and the old dub names. Apart from a few returning voices, both of the new dubs have cheaper casts. Energon's new dub also translated the Theme Song.
• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman has also had cases of multiple dubs in other countries, due to its already complicated adaptation situation:
  • A Spanish adaptation of "Battle of The Planets" (La batalla de los planetas) was released in 1980, though only 59 of the 85 episodes were dubbed (which was also the case for the French dub). An adaptation of the "G-Force" version was later released in the early '90s. There are also two dubs for the Gatchaman sequel series: A straight dub of Gatchaman II that aired in the early '90s on Antena 3, followed by an adaptation of Saban's Eagle Riders version (Comando Aguila) that aired on the same network in the later portion of the '90s.
  • France had a French adaptation of Eagle Riders, along with a compilation film adaptation of Gatchaman II titled "Gatchman, le Combat des Galaxies"
  • Italy's dub of the original series was (mostly) adapted from "Battle of the Planets", although both sequel series were straight adaptations of Gatchaman II and Fighter. However, a dub of "Eagle Riders" was also later produced.
    • Although the Italian translators did use Sandy Frank's scripts for the first series, they opted for keeping the characters' original names, save for Jun becoming "Pretty Jane"/"Pretty Jun". This dub also did eventually use the final four Gatchaman episodes and the other sixteen skipped by Sandy Frank, although they broke "Battle of the Planets" continuity by suddenly having no Zark and using different title cards. Italy was able to acquire these episodes due to actually having licensed Gatchaman before Sandy Frank gained the worldwide distribution rights.
  • In an unusual case, South Korea had a straight-on adaptation of Gatchaman II, yet also had previously made a two-episode OVA summarizing the series with in-house Korean animation and altered designs (traced and recolored from the original cels). This OVA was later dubbed into Spanish as the movie "Heroes del Espacio", making yet another Spanish-language adaptation of Gatchaman II.
• Voltes V had a Tagalog dub in 1999, which aired on GMA. However, Hero TV later acquired the series for cable airing (Since GMA still owned the free TV airing rights) and produced their own dub in 2005, titling it Voltes V Evolution. It wound up a controversial decision, as Filipino celebrities were cast as the characters, causing older fans to feel disappointed by the voice changes.
  • The 2003 anime adaption of Astro Boy have a few of Chinese dubs. Except for the Hong Kong Cantonese dub which airs on TVB, one is for Taiwanese Chinese version (which also translated the title opening song, see here.), one is for China Golden Eagle Cartoon channel version (which the only Chinese dub to cover the entire series), one is for CCTV-14 version, and, one is for Donghexing VCD dub (which based off the edited English dub, you can see here)
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • The first season, the last 10 episodes of Season 2 and Season 3 were redubbed in Italian between 2009 and 2014, and aired in the summer of 2014. Many inconsistencies in the old dub were fixed (Kanto towns kept their English names during Seasons 1-2 and various attacks were translated differently than the games up until halfway Season 7 - except Thunderbolt which was corrected only in Season 11), they gave consistent VAs to the characters (not counting various voice changes like Brock, Gary and Meowth, in the older dub every Officer Jenny/Nurse Joy had a different voice while now every Jenny has the same voice as the others, same for Joy), replaced the Italian openings with translated versions of the English ones and gave completely new voice actors to Misty and Giovanni (who now has six different Italian voices as a result). But on the other hand, this dub has some issues (like Cubone being called "Orphon", the name it had in the Beta translation of Red/Blue, for some reason). Bizarrely, while Alessandra Karpoff (Misty) was replaced by Benedetta Ponticelli in the redub, Karpoff returned for her cameo in Sun & Moon.
  • It also has two Hindi dubs. The first and best-known dub produced by Crest Animation Productions and later Sound & Vision India for Cartoon Network, and another one produced in-house by UTV Software Communications for Hungama TV. Some Indian fans were not happy that when the re-runs of the older episodes came, the voices have changed, much to their surprise. Also, Nachiket Dighe, who dubbed Tracey Sketchit, Chili and Reggie in the 2003 dub, returned in the 2014 dub as Ash Ketchum.
  • For some unknown reasons, the episode "Hypno's Naptime" was dubbed into Norwegian twice. All the other episode only have one dub though.
  • In 2021, Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys was redubbed in Brazilian Portuguese with Ash's current voice actor, as well as the cast of the original series before the dub moved from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro.
• Dragon Ball:
  • A number of Dragon Ball Z episodes have two Hungarian dubs, but unlike most examples here, both were done by the same people, at the same time and based on AB Group's French dub, but only one version was ever released officially. Years after the series' cancellation, fans purchased much of the then-unaired episode dubs, many of which were non-finalized studio recordings that differed from what would have ended up on television. Some had certain lines missing and had bad audio quality, but when the series got re-aired in 2013/2014, it turned out the broadcast versions had their issues as well: episode 223 had some scenes where the French voices were still clearly audible, whereas the studio version didn't have this problem.
  • The Dragon Ball movies have two Italian dubs each: at first they were voiced from a completely different voice cast with a script faithful to the original, and later got a second dub with the same voices and adaptations from the regular series. Curiously, Battle of Gods and Resurrection of F are both voiced from the cast of the first dub of the older movies rather than the regular one. Many initially tought that it was done because Paolo Torrisi (the voice of Goku in the series) died, but the truth is that they wanted a dub faithful to the original version and so the "faithful dub" cast was prefered (Actually, Piccolo's voice from this other cast died too a year before and was replaced).
  • Dragon Ball first aired in Italy in 1989, with a completely different cast than the movies and the redub.
  • The original little-known Latin American dub of Dragon Ball lasted only 50 episodes, and was based off the US Harmony Gold dub of the series (which itself is pretty obscure, having only actually dubbed 5 episodes out of the 50 or so that were translated). The other one is better known and received.
  • The Harmony Gold version itself was adapted into a few languages, and a couple even call Goku "Zero" to this day.
  • Dragon Ball also has two Brazilian Portuguese dubs: Gota Magica (which aired on SBT and cable), and Alamo/DPN (which aired on Globo, cable and DVD). The latter dub contains most of the franchise's standard voices. While some of the actors appear in both dubs; only Mario Jorge Montini (Umigame) and Marcelo Campos (General Blue) kept their characters.
  • When Battle of Gods was released in Brazil, the film got two Portuguese dubs. One was done at the Clone studio for DVD, while the other was done at the Unidub studio with most of the anime cast. The Clone dub is often considered to be just as bad as the dub for Dragon Ball Kai, as many of the series actors were not available.
  • Dragon Ball Super: Broly has two Latin Spanish dubs for some bizarre reason: one produced in Mexico by Labo with the regular cast for the Dragon Ball anime dubs plus some Startalents, and one in Argentina by Palmera Record.
    • There are also two Italian dubs: one made for cinemas and one for TV, with the DVD/Blu-Ray release featuring both audio tracks. The two dubs have the exact same cast, with the main difference being that the first one is faithful to the original while the second features the same adaptation changes as the main series (so Piccolo is called Junior, Beerus is referred as a Lord of Destruction rather than a God, etc.)
• AKIRA:
  • Akira has two German dubs, one in 1991 and one in 2005.
  • Akira also has three Brazilian Portuguese dubs. One was released on VHS from the Álamo studio. Another was done at the Capricórnio studio for cable TV. The third was done by Mastersound for the film's DVD release. Both the cable and DVD dubs feature Guilherme Lopes as the colonel.
  • The film was also dubbed into Latin Spanish three times: twice in Mexico, and once in Argentina. The most circulated dub is the second Mexican dub, which originally aired on the long-defunct Locomotion channel. Irwin Daayán voiced Shotaro in both Mexican dubs.
  • The film also has three European Spanish dubs: 1992 for theatrical release, 2002 for DVD, and 2004 for a DVD re-release. Interestingly, both DVD's also contain the original dub. Albert Trifol Segarra voiced Tetsuo in the first and third dubs.
  • The film has two Italian dubs. The first one (made in 1992) was wildly inaccurate, as it was based on the American version. The redub was made in 2018 for the movie's 30th anniversary, based on the Japanese version.
• This was particularly endemic with any anime from Saban Entertainment that had been dubbed before they picked up the rights. In some cases, the shows were not dubbed in that country, but for the most part they were. As examples:
  • The Littl' Bits was dubbed twice in French (Lutinette et Lutinou / Les lutins de la forêt) and Spanish (Belfy y Lillibit / Los Bits).
  • Honeybee Hutch was dubbed twice in French (Le petit prince orphelin / Micky l'abeille), Spanish (José Miel / La abejita Hutch) and Italian (L'ape Magà / Un alveare d'avventure per l'ape Magà).
  • Hakushon Daimaō was dubbed three times in Spanish (Yam Yam y el genio / Bob embotellado / La familia genio) and twice in Portuguese (Gênio maluco / Bob o gênio).
  • Jungle Tales was dubbed three times in Norwegian (Jungelpatruljen – Jungelens helter). Two of them were made for the VHS releases, while one was made for broadcast on Fox Kids. The first VHS dub is considered to be the worst for its amateurish voice acting.
  • Saban's Adventures of the Little Mermaid has two Norwegian dubs. The first one was a Hong Kong Dub for VHS which left the theme song in English, while the second one was made for airing on Fox Kids, dubbed the theme song, and is much more fondly remembered.
• Kaibutsu-kun was dubbed into Hindi twice. There's the Pogo TV dub and the current Hungama TV dub.
• Case Closed was dubbed twice into European Spanish: A DVD dub that covered only the first 25 episodes; and a TV dub that aired on Antena 3 (covering over 400 episodes). Jonatan Lopez voiced Shinichi Kudo in both versions (until episode 80, when the TV dub moved from Barcelona to Madrid). The TV dub had two dubs of episode 80 (one in Madrid, and one in Barcelona).
• Doraemon:
  • The 1979 anime was dubbed into Italian twice. The first dub aired on Rai 2 in 1983, and changed the names of most of the characters. The second dub was produced in 2003 by Mediaset and aired on Italia 1, then later moved to Boing and Hiro. Due to the huge popularity of the second dub, Mediaset would later dub the movie Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur 2006 (Doraemon: Il dinosauro di Nobita) and the 2005 anime into Italian using the same voice actors, except for Sewashi's voice actor who was replaced with Nobita's voice actor, Davide Garbolino.
  • The 1979 anime have two Korean dubs; one is MBC2 dub which aired in 2001-2002, only covered the early 1979 anime episodes which aired on Japan in 1979 to early 1980s (like in mainland China) and an well-known dub was also aired in Champ TV a few years later, in 2006, does covers most of the 1979 anime series.
  • The 1979 anime was originally dubbed into Mexican Spanish in 1981-82 by SISSA - Oruga. This dub is now long-lost, and a better-known dub was made in 1999 at Sonomex and Candiani.
  • The 1979 anime of Doraemon also had two Castilian Spanish and European Portuguese dubs. The dubs are made by LUK International S.A.
  • China and Taiwan also have different Chinese dubs, but China has a few more dubs than Taiwan, while Taiwan covered the 2005 anime series and most of the 1979 anime series.
    • The lesser-known Guangdong Chinese dub, which only dubbed a few early 1979 anime episodes, aired on not only Guangdong TV Channel, but it also aired on several China channels. Also, any of you didn't know, that Doraemon in this dub is voiced by the famous voice actor courtesy of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf who also voiced Wolffy too!
    • The CCTV dub, which the first dub aired in 1991, is mostly common in 1990s among Chinese fans. It also have weird name changes too. And then the second and recent dub aired in 2007, 16 years later, and it was aired 9PM every night on CCTV's block "Cosmic World" and also used the recent Chinese names for the characters itself!
    • The unofficial Liang Ying dub on now out-of-print VCDs and DVDs. It also does dubbed the movies too!
  • The 39th film, Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicles of the Moon Exploration, have three Chinese dubs. One is the Cantonese dub made in Hong Kong. Doraemon's Taiwanese voice actor, Chen Meizhen, has voiced the main character in both the Chinese and Taiwanese dubs of the film.
  • A weird variation: when the 2005 anime series was localized into English, that version was broadcast on Disney Channel Japan primarily as a way to help Japanese viewers to learn English and familiarize them with American culture and its differences from Japanese culture. This version also had an alternate Japanese-language track with the regular seiyuu re-recording their respective roles.
  • There are two Vietnamese translations of the Doraemon manga issued by the same publishing house: an unlicensed translation with the characters' names and dialogues altered; and a licensed, Truer to the Text translation with the characters' name remaining intact. The latter is readily available in bookstores, but not online. In an interesting case, however, in response to the fans' demands, a scanlation group named Dorahome, who are affiliated with VOZ.vn^note Vietnam Overclocking Zone, a Vietnamese forum originally dedicated to technology discussion (hence the name), nowadays considered a localised amalgamation of 4chan and Reddit, released their own translation of all 45 volumes of the original manga (plus 24 Long Tales volumes and 6 Plus volumes). Said translation is actually based on the official "unlicensed" translation.
• Ojarumaru was dubbed into Cantonese twice. There's the TVB dub and the Cable TV Hong Kong dub. Both dubs had dubbed the same amount of episodes.
• K-On!:
  • K-On was dubbed in Malay twice. There's the NTV7 dub and the Animax dub. The latter covered both seasons.
  • It also received two Cantonese dubs. There's the TVB dub and the Animax dub.
• The Mysterious Cities of Gold has two Japanese dubs.
• Dr. Slump has two Italian dubs. The first one was done in the 80's and covered only a small bunch of episodes. The second dub, released in 2003-2004, uses the same cast of voices that did the 90's remake series and covered the entire series.
• Mobile Suit Gundam was dubbed in Italian twice. The first one aired on television in the 80s and featured various name changes (for example, Amuro Ray was renamed "Peter Ray" and Char was called "Scia"). This dub is also notable for being the only release outside of Japan to include the infamous “Cucuruz Doan’s Island”. The second dub was made in 2005 by d/visual and was both aired on TV and released on DVD. This dub was more faithful to the Japanese version.
• 1969 anime film Flying Phantom Ship (Soratobu Yuureisen) was one of the first anime films to be dubbed into Russian and shown in the USSR. It has three dubs.
  • The first one made in the Soviet Union was slightly censored with some scenes being cut, some redrawn and some dialogue changed, which shortened the movie by 3 minutes and 38 seconds. Nevertheless the soviet dubs back then were of realy high quality in terms of voice-acting and Flying Phantom Ship wasn't an exeption.
  • Since then the movie got a new full translation made by MC Entertainment without any changes to the source material, albeit it was a voiceover translation with more poor quality voices.
  • The third dub was made in 2009 by Reanimedia, well-known to many russian anime-fans by their high quality of dubbing and localiztion, this time getting a dub which, unlike the MC Entertainment one, was able to compete with the soviet version in terms of quality, featuring actual theatrical actors.
• One Piece has two French dubs. The first dub only covered the first 52 episodes, while the second dub (made in Belgium) covers the whole series.
  • It also has two Latin American Spanish dubs, both made in Mexico City: The first one, based on the 4Kids version, was recorded at Candiani Dubbing Studios and aired on Televisa from 2006 to 2008. The second one, based on the original version, was recorded at Labo and released on Netflix in October 2020.
• Saint Seiya: The Hades Saga OVAs have two Latin Spanish dubs, one produced by Toei Animation's Latin American division for television, and one produced by Tower Entertainment for DVD release. The TV dub generally used newer actors, while the DVD dub got as much of the original cast as they could.
  • The four original movies have two Italian dubs. One keeps the voice cast from the anime dub, while the second uses completely different voice actors and is more faithful to the original.
• Maya the Bee has 3 different European Portuguese dubs.
  • The first dub was televised by RTP and aired in the late 1970's. It was the only dub to air on television. It uses a different instrumental for the theme, and all episodes were dubbed.
  • The second dub was produced by Prisvideo (currently known as Pris Audiovisuais) and was released on VHS in 1996 and DVD in 2003. 30 episodes were released across 6 DVD's.
  • The third dub was produced by RBA in 2008. Flip (Carlos Macedo) and Willy's (Peter Micheal) voices from the second dub were carried over to this dub.
• The first two seasons of Moomin (1990) have two Norwegian dubs each. The first one was made for airing on the channel NRK and was latter released on DVD. The second one was made for VHS and done by Salut Audio & Video APS. The TV dub was more consistent with the voices while the VHS dub did have the characters change their voice actors alot.
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has two Latin Spanish dubs: the original made in Los Angeles by Intersound for Telcom International Group was based off the original Japanese version and had Guillermo Romano reprising his role of The Cowardly Lion from the classic The Wizard of Oz film while the second made in Mexico for CINAR was based off their English dub.
• Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas got three different dubs in Italian: a regular one, an overly faithful one that leaves all the technique names and the English loanwords untranslated and one that keeps the same translated terms as the original series dub. DVD/Blu-Ray releases have the three different dubs, while other airings alternate: Pay TV channel Man-Ga uses the first dub, Netflix the second and Italia 2 the third.
• There are two Cantonese Chinese dubs of Tamagotchi with different voice actors; one airs on ViuTV while the other is broadcast by TVB. There are a few differences between the dubs besides the voice actors as well, such as their titles (the TVB version is called 寵物反斗星 [Chǒngwù fǎn dǒu xīng] and the ViuTV version is called 他媽哥池 [Tāmāgēchí]) and Himespetchi's catchphrase "Gigakyun!" not appearing in the ViuTV dub.
• When Neon Genesis Evangelion premiered on Netflix, it was redubbed into English, Spanish (Latin and European), French, German, Brazilian Portuguese and Italian. While the English and European Spanish versions feature completely different voice casts, the rest of the dubs brought back quite a few of the the original actors.
  • If you include the Renewal, Latin America (Mexico and Brazil) had three dubs of the series in total. Víctor Ugarte voiced Shinji in all three Spanish dubs, while nine Brazilian voice actors dubbed their characters in all three versions.
  • The TV series had three Italian dubs. The first one was the original. The second one was released in 2019 for the Netflix release, and was retired after a week due to poor reception; its dialogue adapter Gualtiero Cannarsi's obsession for overly literal translations often resulted in complete nonsensical dialogue. A third dub was released in 2020, this time based on the script for the 2019 English redub, which was better recieved (although "Berserk" is mispronounced as "Bersherk").
  • On the same folder, the Death and Rebirth and End of Evangelion movies got four dubs. The first one was done in 2005 and had almost all the cast of the main series dub reprising their roles, except for the voice actors for Misato, Kaworu and Shigeru Aoba. The movies were then redubbed in 2009 in between the release of the first two Rebuild movies, this time with the entire original cast. And then there are the two Netflix dubs as for the main series.
  • The situation with the German dub got even more interesting when the Blu-Ray release of the series by Leonine in Germany did again use the original dub (series and films). It's been said that the Netflix dub has proven so unpopular that Leonine avoided it like the plague.
• Beyblade V-Force has recieved two Polish dubs. The first dub was made in 2004 for Fox Kids/Jetix Poland, while the second dub was made in 2013 for Kids Co Poland.
• Lupin III:
  • Lupin III: Part 1 haves two Italian dubs: the original one was made in 1979, had multiple errors and had a very limited cast of voices. The second dub was made in 1987 alongside the dub of Lupin III: Part III, features the same cast as the latter series and is more faithful to the original (minus some some dialogue softening.
  • The Pink Jacket series itself also had two Italian dubs: the original one from 1987, that was heavily edited and had numerous cuts, and a new one from 2021, that is integral. The 2021 dub is actually a partial one: while most of the characters have been redubbed (with Lupin and Jigen being voiced by their newer voice actors since the original ones died, while Goemon is voiced by his voice actor from the first dub and Fujiko's voice actress was never changed since then), parts of the 1987 dub are still kept around (including all of Zenigata's dialogue and some lines from Fujiko).
• Voices of a Distant Star was dubbed in Italian twice. The first dub was made by European Television Service for D/visual in 2005. The second dub was made by ADC Group for Kazé in 2010.
• Children Who Chase Lost Voices was dubbed in Italian twice. The first dub was made by Wan Take for Kazé. The second dub was made for Dynit.
• My Neighbor Totoro was dubbed in Polish twice. The first dub was made by Studio Sonica for Canal+. The second dub was made SDI Media Poland.
• The Cat Returns was dubbed in Hungarian twice. The first dub was made in 2005. The second dub was made in 2015.
• Princess Mononoke was dubbed in Hungarian twice. The first dub was made in 2000. The second dub was made in 2015.
• The 1981 Sanrio animated film The Fantastic Adventures of Unico based on the Unico manga series by Osamu Tezuka was dubbed twice in Italy. The original 1986 dub which become difficult to find ^note  The original 1986 Italian dub only aired on a few television stations in Italy and never recieved a home release , and a 2022 dub ^note  For the Italian streaming service CHILI. with Unico and The West Wind's voice actress reprising their roles for the Italian dub of Unico in the Island of Magic (which took 39 years).
• The 1980 anime adaptation of The Wonderful Adventures of Nils has two Hungarian dubs, the first made in 1988, the second in 1999. The original infamously mistook Akka the goose matriarch for a male, which was corrected in the second dub. Episodes 27-52 of the first dub are forever lost due to deterioration, hence TV broadcasts of the series always switch to the second dub after episode 26, inadvertently giving Akka a mid-series sex-change.
• Hello! Sandybell was dubbed twice in Italian: the first dub was released in 1983, while the second in 1999. Both dubs were censored in a way or another: the earlier one had three episodes aired only once and removed in reruns due to their plots including overly dramatic and/or violent scenes, cut some brief scenes of violence and altered a few lines of dialogue, while the second dub just removed scenes featuring blood.
• Magic Knight Rayearth had two different Italian dubs: the first was made for TV and was heavily censored, while the second dub came out one year later on home video and was more faithful to the original. The voice casts of the two versions were very similar, with many voice actors appearing in both versions, but only two of them (Davide Garbolino and Flavio Arras) voiced the same character in both versions.
• Yo Kai Watch, like Tamagotchi above, has a TVB and ViuTV dub in Hong Kong.

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