Z دراغون بول

This dub had two stages, which are considered by the Arab audience as different 'seasons'. The first, started in September 2003, which included only the Saiyan Saga and later the Frieza Saga (with the excluding of Garlic Jr. Saga), with 53 episodes. Several years later, the dubbing would continue, being promoted as Dragon Ball Z 2 (season 2) from episode 54 onwards, however, the dubbing would abruptly end again, in episode 104. 187 episodes never received a dubbing.

Unlike the Arabic dub of the first series, this one turned out to be much more successful, which led to the formation of a notable fan community in the Arab world. The next Arabic dubs to be produced would be the dubs of ドラゴンボール改 and ドラゴンボール超, since the GT series never received an dub in this language.

Cast

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1st stage (episodes 1-53)
In September 2003, Spacetoon began airing Dragon Ball Z alongside Sunrise's Gundam Wings and Nippon Animation's 1999 anime adaptaion of Shonen Jump's Hunter X Hunter. However, only the Saiyan Saga and later the Frieza Saga (with the excluding of Garlic Jr. Saga) were dubbed, initially concluding with 53 episodes similarly to the Korean dub and Saban's syndicated run of the FUNimation/Ocean English dub on American television.

2nd stage (episodes 54-104)
After fan-outcry over the dub's sudden cancellation, Spacetoon's now-defunct sister channel (now late-night programming-block) Space Power that targeted an older demographic renewed the dub for a second season in February 2010 from where it last capped off back in 2003. It also briefly air on Spacetoon around the tail-end of Ramadan and the start of Eid of the same year. But unfortunately, the show abruptly ended yet again the following year, leaving out 187 of the 291 episodes undubbed.

Due to the this dubbing break of just over 6 years, most of the cast was changed, due to the unavailability of the actors, many of whom were already participating in other projects in Venus Centre, and others Syrian dubbing studios. Also, it was the case that several actors returned to the project, but were forced to take other roles, thus replacing the other actors that already not be.

Sadly, the actor Zeyad Errafae'ie, who played Son Goku, was unable to return to dubbing, as he would pass away in 2009.

Censorship

 * See more on Dragon Ball Wiki

The series received several censorships, including its plot itself, in its Arabic dub. The titular artifacts, the Dragon Balls, lost all connections to any dragons. Scenes of Shenron being summoned with the balls to grant wishes were removed, and it was explained that that the balls themselves had the power to bring characters back to life, and etc. All references towards evolutionary concepts have also been removed, thus it was explained that Goku's monkey-tail and the Saiyans were artificial machine-like. Instead of the Saiyans transforming into giant apes under the moonlight, the giant apes were regarded as separate entities who were merely summoned to the scene by the Saiyans, as any form of transformation or evolution conflicts with Muslim religion. In Dragon Ball Z, Raditz was rewritten from Goku's evil brother to his nemesis friend. (Despite the dub retaining the implication of it being the first time that they met canonically, yet the plot (such as Gohan's kidnapping) was rewritten to fit this change).

Adaptation
Most of the names are transliterations from Japanese to Arabic, with two notable exceptions being the following:
 * Son Gokū is Gogo (full name: Son Gogo).
 * However, his Saiyan name remains, being adapted as Kakarot.
 * Krilin is Hoshi.
 * Son Gohan is Johann.
 * Muten Roshi is Torto or Bialhakim Torto (lit. The Sage Torto).
 * Ten Shinhan Tian.

Videos
The opening/ending theme used is a custom theme song written and directed by famous high-profil Arabic dubbed anime/cartoons song writer/director, singer and composer Tarek Al-Arabi Tourgane. Typical for 90's and 00's international dubs, visuals in the opening are a mix of the OP and some scenes from the anime series. The same theme song was kept in Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Z Kai, and got a special revamp for Dragon Ball Super's ending theme.

Sample dubbings
A relevant detail to note is that the title card of each episode with his name, were always cut in the first stage of dubbing, in 2003. Already in 2010, in the second stage of dub, the titles of each episode were read by the narrator.