In a world without the english dub..

[Captain Cadaver]

Suppose Saban/Ocean Group decided not to dub DB & DBZ for America, not Blue Water doing so for the UK. How much of an impact would this have made on Dragon Ball's international popularity, or the popularity of Anime/Manga in the west in general?

Discuss.

 

[sei'taer]

It would have crippled the industry in the west. Not having an anime or dub isn't always bad for a series now because the medium is popular. That wouldn't be possible without the success of Dragonball Z

 

[Evil Vegeta]

I honestly think DB would've been hella obscure if that happened.

Most people like to shit on the dub, but it pretty much made DB what it is today.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Whilst it wouldn't be as popular as today, I don't think it'd massively cripple the success of the series, and anime in the west in general. The series was already massively popular in most European countries long before English speaking ones got it, which would kept the manga's sales comparatively close to what they are today.

Even though DB caused a boom in anime for English speaking countries, the influence was already there with Pokémon, of which was far more popular than DBZ during the 90s.

Worst case scenario would be that DB becomes a manga for the less mainstream reader, much like the other titles of it's time such as Hokuto no Ken and Saint Seiya. Given it's popularity in other countries, I still doubt this though, especially since if 4kids were to still dub OP or Naruto's dub still came about due to the popularity of other anime, it'd eventually lead people to Dragon Ball due to the influence it had on both.

 

[sei'taer]

We had a lot of anime series here, but we didn't know them as anime. I don't doubt we'd have still gotten dragonball and other series, but without anime coming into the Mainstream, we'd have had a lot more 4kids One Piece than we had Funimation's Dragonball Z.

I certainly cannot see a wall of manga at Barnes and Nobles without the success of dragonball Z and Sailor Moon. There just wouldn't be a market for it.

 

[kriss-]

Dragonball would be completely fine in Japan and it would still be recognized as one of the greatest Manga's of all time. However, without the English dub it wouldn't be as widely known, or even close actually.