How Could they Even Censor DRAGON BALL...?

This is just a bawdy comedy of errors, now, isn’t it? Mistaken
identities. Sneaky pervs. Privates accidentally groped in the dark. I guess we’ve
all been kidding ourselves when we’ve acted like non-stop ‘fan service’ is a
new concern for anime. It feels like watching SHIN-CHAN, or something...

Speaking of which, I would’ve killed to be a fly in the recording studio when the dub crew
was desperately trying to figure out how they could edit this into something
suitable for Saturday morning programming in America. It’s not as easy as cutting
out quick shots of Gohan’s pee-pee and changing lines so characters are ‘transported
to another dimension’ when they’re obviously dying. This episode has a shower
scene for Bulma that doesn’t hide anything, a gag about Yamcha’s accidentally
feeling her up, another gag about Oolong slipping Goku a mickey so he can do
some peepin’ and at least a half-dozen panty gags. They either had to cut
this episode down to five minutes; or skip it altogether, with new
narration recorded to hastily fill in the glaring gaps in the story (ala G-FORCE).

== TEASER ==

Actually, now that I’ve written that all out, it might explain why this is the
first DRAGON BALL episode on Hulu that doesn’t have a dub available. The subs are
pretty comprehensive after this, but the dubs conspicuously jump to episode
#105 - - which is right in the middle of the ‘King Piccolo’ arc. It absolutely tickles me to think that FUNi had
to just throw their arms up and declare all those in-between episodes simply unsalvageable
for localization.

Anyway, this was actually a rather clever episode.
Considering how many shape-shifters are in pop culture, I’m surprised I haven’t
encountered a gag about ‘double-blind
disguises’ before this. And the notion
of the dashing bandit Yamcha having this crippling fear of women is a delightful. You
just have to get past the… weirdness of all the Bulma jokes, though.

And maybe the dub team couldn’t even do that?

Watch "Keep an
Eye on the Dragon Balls” and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the
previous episode.