The fourth season of the ''

Dragon Ball Z ''Dragon Ball Z'' (''DBZ'') is a Japanese anime television series produced by Toei Animation. Part of the ''Dragon Ball'' media franchise, it is the sequel to the 1986 ''Dragon Ball'' television series and adapts the latter 325 chapters ...

'' anime series contains the Garlic Jr., Future Trunks, and the Androids arcs, which comprises Part 1 of the Cell Saga. The episodes are produced by

Toei Animation is a Japanese animation studio primarily controlled by its namesake Toei Company. It has produced numerous series, including '' Sally the Witch'', '' GeGeGe no Kitarō'', '' Mazinger Z'', '' Galaxy Express 999'', '' Cutie Honey'', '' Dr. Slu ...

, and are based on the final 26 volumes of the ''

Dragon Ball is a Japanese media franchise created by Akira Toriyama in 1984. The Dragon Ball (manga), initial manga, written and illustrated by Toriyama, was Serial (literature), serialized in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' from 1984 to 1995, with the 519 indi ...

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

series by

Akira Toriyama was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He came to be regarded as one of the most influential and important authors in the history of manga, authoring highly influential and popular series, particularly Dragon Ball (manga), ''Dra ...

. The 32-episode season originally ran from September 1991 to May 1992 in Japan on

Fuji Television JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as or , is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and- ...

. The first English airing of the series was on

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (CN) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the Cartoon Network, Inc., a sub-division of the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It launched on ...

Toonami Toonami ( ) is an American late-night television programming block that broadcasts Japanese anime and American action animation. It was created by Sean Akins and Jason DeMarco and currently produced by Williams Street, a subsidiary of W ...

block, where

Funimation Entertainment Crunchyroll, LLC is an American entertainment company based in Coppell, Texas. It currently operates the anime-focused eponymous over-the-top subscription video on-demand streaming service. The company was founded as Funimation in May 1 ...

dub of the series ran from November 1999 to October 2000. Funimation released the season in a box set on February 19, 2008 and in June 2009, announced that they would be re-releasing ''Dragon Ball Z'' in a new seven volume set called the "Dragon Boxes". Based on the original series masters with frame-by-frame restoration, the first set was released November 10, 2009.

English dub production

Beginning with the episode "Goku's Special Technique", the Vancouver-based

Ocean Productions Ocean Productions, Inc., is a Canadian media production and voice acting company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is part of the Ocean Group of businesses. Ocean Group is involved in intellectual property acquisition and development, ...

began their own alternate English dub for the remainder of the series, in association with French company

AB Groupe Mediawan Thematics (formerly known as AB Groupe) is a French television channel business and audiovisual distribution group in the field of broadcasting that is owned by Mediawan. History Mediawan Thematics had its roots under the name of AB P ...

. This dub used the same scripts and episode titles as the concurrent Funimation dub. Ocean's actors had previously voiced the original Funimation/

Saban Entertainment BVS Entertainment, Inc., previously known as Saban Productions, Saban Entertainment and Saban International, is a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company. Founded on April 24, 1980, as a music production company by Haim Saban and Shuki Levy, it ...

dub of the first two seasons, which aired between September 1996 and May 1998 on

first-run syndication Broadcast syndication is the practice of content owners leasing the right to broadcast their content to other television stations or radio stations, without having an official broadcast network to air it on. It is common in the United States whe ...

. In 1999, they had been replaced for the third season by Funimation's new Dallas-based voice talent. Most of the original Ocean actors returned to their roles, however, the Saban Entertainment background score from the first two seasons was not used, instead being replaced by recycled music from the 1994 '' Ruby-Spears Mega Man'' cartoon, which Ocean was involved with. The composers of the recycled ''Mega Man'' music, Tom Keenlyside and John Mitchell, also composed a brand new theme song, which replaced Saban's "Rock the Dragon" theme song from the first two seasons. Parts of the dub were recorded at Westwood Studios instead of Ocean Studios, which has led to some fans referring to this as the "Westwood dub", in order to distinguish it from the earlier Ocean-voiced dub of the first two seasons. This alternate dub aired on the British version of Toonami in the early 2000s, and later Canada's YTV, which kept using the Funimation dub up until the Cell Games episodes of Season 6. The American version of Toonami and Australia's

Network 10 Network 10 (commonly known as the 10 Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Paramount Global's UK & Australia division and is one of the five national free-to-a ...

continued to air Funimation's Dallas-voiced dub. __TOC__

Episode list

References

{{Dragon Ball anime 1991 Japanese television seasons 1992 Japanese television seasons 2000 American animated television seasons Z season 4