Sorry, I don’t really know how to phrase my question. For example, we know that over here in the USA, a box set of dragon ball z contains the English dub and the original Japanese track. If someone from somewhere else wanted to watch, let’s say SpongeBob on DVD, could they expect the original English track or was it commonplace to only have the local dub? ETA: Of course I’m referring to the time period before streaming, and I mean any type of popular cartoon.
Also German here. The lack of English(!) dubs on anime sold in Germany pisses me off more than it rightfully should, but if I want to watch Mononoke, Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle and the like, the DVDs always only have the options of German or Japanese audio with complimentary subtitles. I actually prefer the English dub in most of these.
It was also extremely weird to hear Phil Collins sing German lyrics for Disney’s Tarzan. I knew the (English!) soundtrack before I watched the movie and it completely caught me off guard.
Since Pretty much when I started watching anime, it was the japanese dub with English subtitles. Nowadays, I’m just learning 日本語, it’s a beautiful language after all.