Ancient question about Schemmel for oldschool PN veterans

[laserkid]

Having been around in the DBZ community since forever and a day ago, I remember the DBZOA, and I was never a huge fan of the place, in my opinion it was a bit of a nuthouse. That being said, I have to say that while my opinions were at odds with Great Saiyaman, he was pretty much the only one in that circle that would talk to me rationally.

Others over there would flip out because I'd call DBZ a cartoon, as if that was some sort of derogatory term for it, wheras Saiyaman would talk with me evenly. So I can't just sit by and let someone call his past actions and opinions psychotic - I believe he was often wrong - but he was at least rational, which is more than I can say for the majority of the active fanbase of the time.

Course, I was a member of DBZ: WDC a sort of counter group to DBZOA, so take that as you will. xD

[SJR]

By the time the DBZOA shut down, the place was mostly dead with only some hardcore nuts still showing up. So I don't think it's worth singling out any one person for criticism in regards to how much of a joke it had become.

But whatever, it's not like it really matters anymore.

[TheBlackPaladin]

It seems to me that the internet has softened up a tad on anime dubbing studios over the years. Have they completely relented in their criticisms? Certainly not. It is, however, a vastly different atmosphere than it used to be. Back in the old days, it was this fierce, passionate battle of words, in which the issues of "art vs corporate greed" and "freedom of speech vs censorship" took the center stage. FUNimation used to be despised as this corporate machine that hijacked an anime masterpiece for its own gain. Fast-forward a couple years, and now they're one of the best anime licensing companies in North America, if not THE best. For several reasons. The release of the Dragon Boxes was in many ways a glorified apology to the subbie community who felt slighted over the years with releases catered to the dubbie crowd, the Kai dub has demonstrated that they take the translation process much more seriously now (in spite of the occasional hiccup that occurs every once in a while), and even the release of these new Blu-Ray box sets indicate that they are treating DBZ much more carefully than they did in the past.

Things have really done a total 180. Well, okay, not a 180, because there is still the occasional criticism, but at the very least a 165 or a 170. I've been trying very hard to find it, but there was an interview conducted at DBZOA in 2004 (might have been '02 or '03 actually) with one of the animators of the final episode of GT. After what has happened over the years, this interview now has more irony in it than the average Shakespeare play. Towards the end, the interviewer asked the animator what he thought about FUNimation acquiring "One Piece" (which it was rumored they had since they had bought the domain name "onepiece.com"). Of course, this never actually happened. As we all know now, 4Kids ended up getting it. At the time, though, it was rumored that FUNimation had gotten it. The animator said, "Honestly...I think if Oda saw how FUNimation treated 'Dragon Ball,' then he would have pulled out of the deal." They went on to talk about how FUNimation was going to "destroy" One Piece, and how nobody in any fanbase was happy to hear that they had acquired it.

Oh, irony.....sweet, delicious irony....

It's not just FUNimation, though. Even 4Kids isn't getting as much flack as they used to. Partially because they now stream subtitled, uncut versions of their properties, but also because people are beginning to blame the right people for the edits they do to their programs. Now people are blaming the overly-conservative executives at the CW more than they are 4Kids. I'd say that they still have a ways to go before they get to the level of respect that FUNimation has, but you don't see as many passion-blinded people on the internet as you used to.

[GS7X7]

http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... rview.html

I think this was originally published in the summer of 2003. So this is an 8 years difference.

Funimation, at this stage, had done horrible work on DBZ Movie 7 as well as DBGT and was replacing the music for DBZ Movie 8. That's why there was strong negativity in the interview from me and the guy. (I think he posts here? Or maybe used to.) It took place during a certain point of history that no longer exists. (I don't mean that just literally but also figuratively)

Nobody could have predicted the future exactly but I'm glad Funimation grew up as a company for every last one of it's dubs.