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The Ocean Group - TV Tropes

  • ️Sat May 25 2013

The Ocean Group (Creator)

The Ocean Group (also known as Ocean Productions, Inc., Ocean Media and Ocean Studios) is a well-known Canadian studio based in Vancouver, British Columbia. They're responsible for the dubbing of quite a few anime series, as well as a few foreign language live action films and original English language productions. They're probably most well known for their work on nearly every release in the Gundam franchise up until 2010, and for being the unofficial dubbing studio of the works of Rumiko Takahashi.

Their most prolific clients include Viz Media (who mostly nowadays use either Studiopolis or Bang Zoom! Entertainment), Geneon (now defunct), and Bandai Entertainment (now defunct), among others. They were also used by Funimation and Central Park Media in their early days. Keep in mind that the use of the voice actors in Ocean's talent pool does not mean Ocean had anything to do with the production (for example WildBrain and its legacy subsidiaries Studio B Productions, Nerd Corps Entertainment, DHX Media, and DiC Entertainment have used the Vancouver talent pool extensively, as have the other two major Vancouver animation companies Mainframe Studios and Atomic Cartoons); Ocean is just a production company based in Vancouver that pulls from the same voice pool the rest of the studios do (it's a very common misconception). Also do not forget that there is a non-union sister studio in Calgary, Blue Water Studios. All shows listed were recorded in Vancouver unless stated otherwise.

Not to be confused with Ocean Software, an 80s/90s video game company.

The Ocean Group has dubbed the following:

The voice actors frequently used by them have also provided voice or on-camera talents for the following Western Animation, Anime, films, series and video games,*, including, but far from limited to:

Productions largely or wholly recorded or filmed in Vancouver or produced through Ocean itself 

Cross-regional productions 

Some tropes that The Ocean Group is most well known for:

  • Only So Many Canadian Actors: Many of their voice artists often overlap with this trope, appearing in several other Canadian-produced animated (and sometimes live-action, as is the case with Teryl Rothery and Scott McNeil) works, and occasionally with actors from the Montreal and Toronto pools (albeit mostly for animation).
  • The Other Darrin: Many examples. Their dubs had issues with recasting on several occasions:
    • Ranma ½: Happened with Ranma himself (both boy and girl), Kodachi Kuno (twice), Cologne, Dr. Tofu, the Jusenkyo Guide, and Nabiki Tendo (temporarily).
    • Inuyasha: Happened with Sora, Eri, and Kohaku in the original series, and Kagome, Sesshomaru, Lady Kaede, and (once again) Kohaku when the show was revived for The Final Act.
    • Maison Ikkoku: The dub was put on hold after episode 36, and revived years later. Many voices changed, including Yusaku Godai, Ikuko, Yotsuya, Kozue, Ritsuko Chigusa, Kentaro's mother, Kentaro's father, and Kentaro himself.
    • Dragon Ball Z: Happened when Funimation decided to move the dub in-house, and the entire Ocean cast was fired. Most of them came back though when their dub was revived for Canadian and European markets for the Trunks Saga onwards. Notably, they had three Gokus (Ian James Corlett, Peter Kelamis, and Kirby Morrow).
    • Shakugan no Shana: Happened again, when Funimation chose to continue the dub in-house instead of getting Ocean back from the first season, which was originally licensed by Geneon, due to a 2-year long delay caused by the Geneon/Universal merger red tape that was occurring at the time.
    • Project AKO: The opposite, where the Ocean cast replaced another cast after the first film, which was dubbed by Manga UK.
    • Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Another case of Ocean taking over for another cast. The actual TV series was dubbed by the California-based Animaze, while Ocean handled the recap movies, which was technically the same material. Partial case of this and Dueling Dubs.
    • Mega Man Powered Up: Due to the Calgary-based Blue Water being used as the recording studio, as opposed to the main Vancouver-based studio, everyone was recast. While some of the recasts were understandable due to some of the characters being younger than their '90's iteration (Mega Man being voiced by Cole Howard instead of Ian James Corlett, for example), some were less so (Dr. Wily being voiced Dean Galloway as opposed to Scott McNeil).
    • Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: Due to a Canadian voice actors' strike, the Ocean cast couldn't return, and the show was instead given to Ocean's non-union sub-studio, Blue Water.
    • Saber Marionette J: Happened with Cherry and Luchs in the original show, and the almost entire cast for Saber Marionette J to X. Contrary to popular belief, they were not replaced with Animaze when J Again was dubbed, because it came first.
    • Monster Rancher: Happened with Genki, Golem and Monol.
    • Ronin Warriors: Bizarrely happened with half the cast for episode 2 (and only episode 2), and other random members changed for one episode at a time at other points due to the tight schedule of dubbing. According to legend, episode 2 was such a bad case because many members of the cast had caught a nasty head cold that was going around Vancouver (it was eventually discovered that episode 2 was actually recorded first as a pilot, with many voices changing for the series proper, and this episode never being redubbed for consistency). Years later when the sequel OVAs were dubbed, many voices changed again.
    • Madeline: Quite egregious. The titular character has a new VA and the other VAs are shuffled around or replaced with every new season of the show. Examples include Chantal Strand and Andrea Libman, among others.
    • Barbie: Kelly Sheridan was retired as the voice of Barbie in DTV movies produced in Canada and was replaced with Diana Kaarina. The former did come back to do the voice of Barbie in DTV movies, but she was eventually replaced by Erica Lindbeck.
    • A non-dubbing example: Dr. Robotnik had different voice actors in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Underground (Long John Baldry in Adventures and Garry Chalk in Underground). Interestingly, his voice in the pilot for Adventures was provided by Jim Cummings, who is based in Los Angeles and is otherwise unassociated with Ocean.
    • The Vision of Escaflowne: Happened with the dub for the 20th Anniversary Director's Cut version. Funimation started creating an all new dub in-house with their usual voice actors, replacing the original Canadian cast. The original Canadian dub is still being included on the home video release as an added bonus.
    • Beyblade Burst: Both Ocean AND Blue Water ARE The Other Darrin for the franchise as all of the previous Beyblade series were dubbed in Toronto. Though over time, they too would be replaced with actors from the LA vocal pool.
    • Powerpuff Girls Z: This was understandable since the original cast of the 1998 series (i.e. Tara Strong, Tom Kenny, etc.) would've been INCREDIBLY expensive to hire for a low budget anime, as well as the fact that most of them rarely do anime dubs in general.
    • Future Card Buddyfight: Due to a nearly two year-long gap between the dub going on hiatus in the middle of it's second season and resuming at the start of it's fourth season, several characters were recast, including Gao (from Sabrina Pitre to Melissa Dorsey), Kuguru (Maddie Duke to Emma Duke) and Zanya (Shawn Seward to Kas Nixon).
    • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: For the English version of the HD Remaster, NYAV Post will be redubbing both series (Fridge Logic suggests they could have just made the HD Remaster sub-only to avoid having to go through the trouble of redubbing the series from scratch, or could have used Ocean's budget studio Blue Water to fill in the gaps).
    • Silent Möbius: Another case of Ocean being The Other Darrin here, the 1991 movie was dubbed in the early 90's by Studiopolis for Streamline Pictures in Los Angeles featuring some of the voice actors from Robotech. However, when Bandai Entertainment licensed the 1998 TV series and dubbed it in 1999, they opted to use Ocean instead of having the Streamline cast reprising their roles likely for cost reasons. 8 years after the TV series was dubbed, the Vancouver cast would redub the 1991 movie and dub its 1992 sequel as well.
  • Those Two Actors: Kirby Morrow and Kelly Sheridan were well known for this, regardless if their roles were main characters or minor one shots.