Oh Kami, here we go again. Join Ashley as we look over the times where the Dragon Ball franchise came into the public eye for all the wrong reasons
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the Top 10 Biggest Scandals
00:10Surrounding The Dragon Ball Franchise.
00:1510.
00:16Not-So-Super Animation
00:21On paper, the idea of a new weekly Dragon Ball series had fans rejoicing around the
00:27world.
00:28But then, Super started to air, and the monkey's paw curled.
00:32Instead of the hype action people expected, the animation was practically melting before
00:37their eyes.
00:38As it turns out, Dragon Ball Super had been rushed onto screens without the pre-production
00:43necessary for such an action-heavy battle shounen.
00:47The result?
00:48Fight scenes that looked really, really bad.
00:57They were so stiff, Super became the laughingstock of the entire anime community.
01:03To be fair, the show eventually clawed its way back to glory and delivered some genuinely
01:08awesome moments.
01:09But there's just no forgiving that rough start.
01:159.
01:16Roshi's Proclivities
01:29The franchise may still be relevant today, but don't forget, Dragon Ball started all
01:34the way back in the 80s.
01:36Things were different.
01:37For example, back then, Master Roshi trying to get in every girl's pants came across
01:42as a joke.
01:44But you can't really get away with that sort of thing in the modern climate.
01:47Unfortunately, Dragon Ball Super didn't do much to rein in Roshi's naughty behavior.
02:02If anything, it doubled down on it.
02:04Since that kind of stuff isn't a laughing matter to some anymore, it led to a formal
02:09complaint from the Ethics Committee of Japanese Broadcasting.
02:20Could you imagine what would happen if they saw what he did in the original series?
02:248.
02:25Toyotaro's Tracing
02:30Ever since the Dragon Ball Super manga began serialization, series creator Akira Toriyama
02:36has left some of the heavy lifting as well as drawing to a new artist, Toyotaro.
02:42Inevitably, there's a lot of parallels between his and Toriyama's work, but that's not
02:47the only place Toyotaro's found inspiration.
02:50In 2018, comic book artist Dexter Soi found that one of Toyotaro's drawings looked an
02:57awful lot like his rendition of Captain America.
03:01In parts side-by-side, it's pretty obvious that Toyotaro borrowed Soi's work to trace
03:06Goku's pose.
03:10Despite the massive blowback, no official channels ever released a statement on the
03:15controversy.
03:16Either way, Toyotaro continues to draw the super manga to this day, and for the most
03:21part he does a bloody good job.
03:277.
03:29The Big Green Dub
03:33Between 2000 and 2003, French broadcaster AB Group commissioned English versions for
03:40a handful of Dragon Ball films and specials, although calling them English dubs is pretty
03:47generous.
03:48The voices were recorded in France using local British and American actors, and you can tell.
03:55The translation also came with a whole lot of baffling name changes, like Piccolo, who
04:01was randomly renamed to Big Green, giving this infamous dub its name.
04:13With all due respect to those involved, it's kind of embarrassing that this is how some
04:18people had to experience Dragon Ball.
04:21Say what you will about the series' other English iterations, but they're leagues
04:25better than whatever this is.
04:27Well, except the speedy dub.
04:366.
04:39The Lost Episodes
04:40It's no small secret that Dragon Ball GT doesn't exactly put its best foot forward.
04:50So in order to drum up interest for the new series, the original English broadcast skipped
04:55the entire first arc, fast-forwarding to the much better-received Baby Saga.
05:01Then in a genius bit of marketing, they double-backed and tried to resell the skipped content as
05:07exclusive Lost Episodes.
05:15Both the UK and Canada got the Blue Water dub instead, which meant they didn't have
05:20to skip episodes, and were also spared of the horrid rap featured in the American version.
05:305.
05:32Popo's Design
05:33Remember what we said about Master Roshi?
05:40Well, the same principle applies to Kami's assistant, Mr. Popo.
05:44When he first appeared in the series, he was depicted with black skin, large red lips,
05:50and dressed in a genie outfit, which seemingly did not garner a negative response from Japanese
05:55audiences.
05:56However, when the series began to air overseas, his dark skin and prominent lips came across
06:01to some audiences as an offensive racial caricature.
06:08In response, the English manga has digitally shrunk Popo's lips in a few places.
06:13Also, during Dragon Ball Z Kai's original airing on CW4 Kids, they instead opted to
06:20make Popo blue.
06:22Interestingly enough, in every single official release since, Popo's design has reverted
06:28back to the way it was in his first appearance.
06:354.
06:37Something About Dragon Ball Evolution
06:48As every fan knows, live-action anime do not have a great reputation.
06:53Films like Dragon Ball Evolution are exactly why.
06:57For one, there was no passion behind the scenes, and it shows.
07:04It's honestly kind of impressive for a movie named after Dragon Ball to completely miss
07:09every single thing fans love about the series.
07:12Although, rest assured, the film isn't just a bad adaptation.
07:16It's simply a bad movie, period, to the point that fans are still trying to understand how
07:22it ever saw the light of day.
07:34If there's any silver lining, it's that this poor excuse for an adaptation motivated
07:39Akira Toriyama to give us a true Dragon Ball film with Battle of Gods.
07:493.
07:52Kenji Yamamoto Plagiarism
08:00For decades, fans of Dragon Ball video games were in good hands with composer Kenji Yamamoto.
08:06In fact, the response to his work was so positive, he was brought on to score the flagship Dragon
08:12Ball DK.
08:13But, as it turns out, his work was too good to be true.
08:17Fans quickly realised that Yamamoto's work sounded awfully similar to James Horner's
08:23tracks in Avatar and Danny Elfman's work on Terminator Salvation.
08:33Coincidentally, those two films came out the exact same year Kai did.
09:01The rabbit hole kept going deeper, encompassing Yamamoto's work on the games too.
09:25Soon enough, Dragon Ball had no choice but to remove his work from Kai and future game
09:31releases altogether.
09:322.
09:33The whole Vic Mignogna situation
09:36Vic Mignogna is one of the most featured voices in the English dubbing community, or should
09:40we say he was.
09:42In 2019, Mignogna was met with several accusations of inappropriate behaviour towards fans and
09:48peers.
09:49Following an official company investigation, dubbing studio Funimation officially terminated
09:54Mignogna's contract.
09:56They later recast all of his ongoing roles, including the legendary Super Saiyan Broly,
10:02a part he'd played since 2003.
10:12Mignogna responded by filing a defamation suit against his accusers.
10:16He lost the case and the appeal.
10:462019 was a rough year for the Dragon Ball dub.
10:49Following the very public departure of the previous entry, several incriminating audio
10:54clips were released onto the web.
10:56They featured other members of Dragon Ball's English dub saying all sorts of offensive
11:00slurs and crude jokes, mostly surrounding sexuality.
11:03To put it into perspective, the audio is so graphic at times that we can't really play
11:08most of it.
11:16These weren't background actors either.
11:18Any dub fan can easily clock these as the voices of Goku, Krillin, Chi-Chi and more.
11:24Funimation declined to comment on the story at the time, and to this day, there's never
11:28been any public recourse on the situation.
11:37Did we miss any buzz-worthy Dragon Ball scandals?
11:41Let us know in those comments below.
12:07And as always, thanks for watching.