Infamously, the original English dub of the first 56 episodes (edited from the first 67 episodes and the third movie of the Japanese version) of Dragon Ball Z (handled by Funimation and distributed to television by Saban with voice actors from The Ocean Group) bowdlerized the many character deaths by referring to the afterlife as "another dimension" and dead characters as having been "sent to another dimension" (to be fair, the afterlife in the Dragon Ball universe technically is a separate dimension that certain characters to travel to and from at will- when Goku gets revived the first time he's still stuck in the afterlife and has to travel back to the real world through King Yama's palace and out of Kami's Lookout). In episode 8 (episode 14 in the uncut version), Goku visits Hell (here, simply a place in the afterlife) and meets two body-building oni named Gozu and Mezu, wearing shirts that read "HELL" in block letters Funimation edited the shirts to read "HFIL" and referred to the location as the "Home For Infinite Losers".
This was reportedly the result of Saban's censorship guidelines at the time, which were particularly draconian; they forbid any explicit references to death, alcohol, or cigarettes, and even prohibited showing "children in distress", which meant that scenes of young Gohan crying had to be digitally altered to remove his tears. The now-defunct fansite DBZ Uncensored chronicled a long list of these changes on an episode-by-episode basis, detailing how FUNimation digitally erased cigarettes, changed the color of Master Roshi's beer from yellow to blue (resulting in the "Frothy Mugs of Water" trope which unintentionally implied Roshi was drinking seawater), and even added shrubbery and rocks to certain scenes in order to obscure Gohan's rather frequent displays of nudity. In one instance, Dende's younger brother Cargo simply disappears without explanation and is repeatedly talked about as if he escaped; in reality, Cargo, a child, is brutally killed on-screen by Dodoria right next to a thoroughly traumatized Dende.
The Nicktoons TV broadcast version of Dragon Ball Z Kai, a version of Dragon Ball Z that leaves out filler to be closer to the manga, is more forgiving with this scene, cutting out Cargo getting hit but leaving the body unedited a few seconds later (evidently, they're allowed to imply brutality but can't show it, especially if a child is involved). The Nicktoons version also showed Krillin's impalement with all references to the wound edited (though the implication that Krillin's been impaled is still present).
In Argentina, Magic Kids used to broadcast the show uncensored. Due to its popularity, Cartoon Network currently shows the uncensored version, and the animated movies are also uncensored.
While this is just the tip of the iceberg for Bowdlerization of both Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z (even after Saban was no longer involved with bringing DBZ to TV), FUNimation eventually made things semi-right by going back and redubbing those original episodes, then made it fully right by releasing those episodes in their uncut version on DVD. While FUNimation would continue to Bowdlerize Dragon Ball (although the Bowdlerization after they got it away from Saban would be considerably less destructive), this was done only to the episodes when they aired on Cartoon Network; all of their DVD releases of Dragon Ball material have featured uncut versions of the episodes (including the original Japanese language version).
Parodied in Dragon Ball Z Abridged: "Oh my God, they blew up the cargo robot! ... And the cargo was people!!!"
When Raditz first arrives, he crashes in the middle of some farmer's field. The farmer fires his rifle at Raditz, who catches the bullet, scoffs, and then flicks it back at him, striking the farmer right in the middle of the forehead. In the re-cut, the farmer simply falls over in shock at the sight of Raditz catching the bullet.
When the Saiyans first arrive on Earth in the original edited dub, Vegeta says his and Nappa's pods didn't kill anybody when they destroyed some buildings because said buildings were empty due to it being a Sunday. Since this was Vegeta's first visit to Earth, this raises the question of how he knew what a Sunday even was. Not long after, Nappa (after just blowing up an entire city) comments on how everyone was successfully able to evacuate before his attack could hurt them. Never mind the immense difficulty and duration it takes to evacuate an entire city, or the fact that a lot of people were clearly standing and watching as Nappa prepared his attack.
According to the games, they seem to know about days of the week, considering Raditz's attacks are all named after them.
The beginning of Dragon Ball has Goku, in the Japanese version (both in anime and manga) walk in on Bulma who's bathing and ask her why girls have a butt in the front. This was changed to Goku pointing out that she washed his back and wants to return the favor in the American dub, although he still points to his chest in a way that would refer to his inappropriate question.
In the scene when Oolong uses a wish to stop Emperor Pilaf's wish for world domination, the dialogue was changed. In the original version, Oolong flat out wished for women's panties, but someone decided to tone down his perversion. In the new dialogue, he wishes for, "the world's most comfortable pair of underwear." They just happen to be lady's underwear. This is present in the uncut dub as well.
The English dub changes General Blue being shocked and uncomfortable with Bulma's advances because he's gay to because he's a prude. It also changes Blue crushing on the Robot KidObotchaman to him mistaking Obotchaman for his long-lost brother.
During the Fortuneteller Baba arc of Dragon Ball, Yamcha fights an invisible man and has a difficult time. Krillin solves the problem by yanking Bulma's top off, causing Master Roshi to suffer a massive nosebleed that drenches the invisible man and allows Yamcha to find him. In the Cartoon Network version, Master Roshi instead dumps tomato soup on the invisible man.
The Toonzai airing of Dragon Ball Z Kai was somewhat more censored than the Nicktoons version, most famously digitally altering Mr. Popo (who looks like a cross between a genie and a truly unfortunate racial stereotype of an African person, although it's doubtful that the target audience would recognize the latter) to be colored blue instead of black.
They renamed the Galic Gun to the Galic Blast, the Recoome Eraser Gun to the Recoome Eraser, and the Spirit Bomb to the Spirit Blast.
They removed Shenron in the intro, leaving a lot of blank space in the process, apparently because he was too scary for kids.
The "classic dub" of Z also had a major character shift in the form of Goku, who was written in characterization to be a selfless paragon of justice a la Superman. The more accurate characterization of Goku (used within the dub of Dragon Ball Z Kai and Dragon Ball Super) is of a somewhat selfish Idiot Hero who is good-natured and does have a moral code and sense of justice but is primarily driven either by a desire to fight strong opponents or smash anyone who has hurt/killed his friends into a fine red paste. This pretty much speaks volumes of what kind of tone Funimation wanted out of the dub. They did pretty much the same thing for Bardock, who was the protagonist of his special, not a hero — if anything, he was a remorseless killer, and obviously FUNimation couldn't have that, so he was changed to a "reluctant killer" who was downplayed example of My Species Doth Protest Too Much.
Many times when a character was punched hard enough, they'd spit out Blood from the Mouth, which was censored into saliva as if they'd just been winded rather than internally bleeding.
Other Examples:
The infamous 1980s-1990s French dubs for children of anime by the AB Groupe such as Dragon Ball Z sometimes censored Master Roshi's sexual harassment of Bulma without censoring the images. In one of the first episodes of Dragon Ball Z, Bulma brings Roshi a gift, and he starts fondling her breasts while saying she should let him pet her instead. In the French dub, he does exactly the same thing, but exclaims "I bet these are chocolates!" (speaking of the gift, but it sounds like he means...).
The French edits were also very inconsistent with regards to violence. Despite having been aimed at children, most of the fights and many death scenes were kept as they were, unedited (with some of the shots even showing up in the intro), but just as many were simply cut.
For instance, Vegeta killing Dodoria is cut down to the former opening his hand and the latter disappearing between two shots, with the viewer left wondering what exactly happened. Mind, Dodoria's earlier slaughtering of innocent Namekians (including a child) isn't edited, which adds to the censorship's inconsistency. Zarbon's death is a little less vague, but only thanks to the dialog, because the animation simply shows him being hurled into a lake, and Vegeta's finishing move is censored out.
One of the most baffling examples is Vegeta killing Guldo: Guldo's neck is shown getting pierced, but the animation of his head falling off is cut. Even so, the sequence of Vegeta blowing up his severed head isn't edited at all... and in the following episode's recap, they actually show his head falling off.
Similarly, Freeza getting cut to pieces is edited out, even though the subsequent shots showing his scattered bits aren't, and the following episode's recap again reinstalls the deleted shot.
Likewise, Krillin's death at the hands of Freeza. The act itself was cut, and remained so in later recaps and flashbacks. Except the censoring was radically toned down after the end of the Freeza arc, so when the event was shown in another flashback, it wasn't edited. Do mind, the series was still handled as a kids' show even at this point. So while earlier, scenes like Freeza blasting one of his henchmen with an energy beam had to be cut, him thrusting his hand through the chest of another suddenly became children's material.
Though the censorship was notably brutal during the early sagas, the Buu (or Bubu as he came to be called) saga was left practically unedited, including all the violence, gore, Master Roshi's antics and characters Flipping the Bird. Some dialogue got rewritten to be more kid-friendly and a lot of the show's terminology was thrown out to make everything sound simpler to viewers, but other than that, this part of the series managed to escape the French censors relatively intact.
Some crude editing can be seen when one of Princess Snake's attendants shoots herself with a gun: She's shown pointing the gun at her head, but the shot of the gun going off is replaced with a clip of the characters talking from a couple of seconds earlier, and with the sound of the gunshot overlaid, so they flap their mouths without saying anything. Afterwards, the character suddenly appears lying on the floor. The scene as a whole could have been deleted, since it was only used as a gag anyway.
Many other noteworthy examples abound. Recoom kicking Gohan, nearly killing him, is replaced with an extended freeze-frame of Recoom grinning, and Gohan suddenly disappears from the scene. This scene is shown unedited in the following episode recap. Freeza cutting off Nail's arm is also censored, despite that he could regrow it and that a couple of other "disarmings" from earlier episodes were left uncut. The fight between Goku and Freeza also contains many cuts: they would show one of them preparing for an attack, instantly followed by the opponent suddenly lying on the ground with new bruises.
The French edit of the original Dragon Ball anime would also often leave in questionable scenes and only change the dialogue, again pretty inconsistently. For example, when Yamcha freaks out over seeing Bulma naked through a closed window, which is clearly shown, he explains that he screamed because the shampoo had burnt his eyes, and his fear of women is changed to him being afraid of shampoo. And while a lot of gags about Roshi's perverted antics got entirely removed or rewritten, some of them only had things like nosebleeds edited out with the rest being kept. At times, entire scenes got removed if precise censoring proved too meticulous, and often reruns would cut the episodes progressively shorter, an act which extended well into DBZ. As a result, some episodes would just fade to black at random, and viewers only found out what happened in the following ep's recap.
The German dub of Dragon Ball GT removed just some short action scenes or brutal scenes. It got worse, the TV broadcast didn't show SEVENTEEN episodes, removing Goku's first fight with Baby, Uub's escape from Baby's stomach, Goku vs Super 17, the Shadow Dragons Sixinglong and Sanxinglong, the entire battle against Super-Yixinglong (including SSJ4 Vegeta and Gogeta). All missing parts are told by the narrator in the episodes introductory.
In a Dragon Ball episode, Goku interrupts Master Roshi while he's on the toilet. In the Italian dub, it was changed into interrupting him while he's taking a shower... but we still hear the toilet flush, then see Roshi opening the door while putting his pants up and Goku covering his nose for the smell.
Manga-related edits:
Some changes were made when adapting the manga into an anime, some of which involved making things a bit less potentially inappropriate.
The anime removes the multiple times Bulma's breasts are exposed early in the manga.
Some instances of violence are toned down:
In the original manga Vegeta decapitates Guldo with a karate chop, resulting in a fountain of blood; in the anime he fires a beam through his neck and pops his head off with no blood.
Likewise, Gohan's killing of the Cell Juniors and Buu's killing of Babidi are far more graphic in the manga than the anime.
In the manga, the scene where Dr. Gero strangles the motorist to death is much more graphic: he chokes him until his neck deflates like a balloon then tears his head off.
In general, the manga has more blood and guts visible than the anime. For instance when Saibamen and Cell Juniors are killed, their guts are clearly flying. Same thing when Freeza is cut in half, some of his entrails are hanging out.
And lastly, perhaps the most extreme example, is in the Buu Saga. After tracking down Babidi to his ship, Gohan glances over and sees a dead family: the mother is cut in half, the father's hand is chopped off and the child is very clearly on the ground dead. None of this happens in the anime.
The US manga has had quite a few edits as well:
Mr. Popo's lips were recolored so he doesn't look like a blackfaced minstrel (an outdated racial stereotype that Americans now consider an Old Shame). This is slightly better than what the 4Kids broadcast of Dragon Ball Z Kai did with him: they recolored him blue. No wonder Mr. Popo got rid of Blue Popo in Dragon Ball Z Abridged.
Roshi's request to grope Bulma's breasts in exchange for putting out Mount Frypan's fire is changed to him just looking at them (this also removes the "puff-puff" joke). Also at the start of the DBZ storyline the request is again changed to him asking for a kiss. Immediately after Bulma calls him "ornery" instead of "perverted."
All instances of giving the middle finger are changed to the character making a fist.
In Trunks' Bad Future there's a scene were #17 holds a gun under a man's chin and then shoots him off-panel. In the US the gun is removed, implying #17 just punched the guy. That wouldn't be bad, except you see #17 reach for his gun in the previous panel! Also, how is punching a guy to death better than shooting him? This makes even less sense when you consider they left in the scene with the two gunmen shooting the elderly couple before encountering Buu and Mr. Satan.
Some images of a naked young Gohan have his penis removed. Oddly, naked Goku isn't edited earlier in the manga.
Bulma was originally braless underneath her strapless top, but in the US manga she wears a strapless bra.
