Episode #0190 (13 September 2009)

[VegettoEX]

Episode #0190 (download MP3) (rss feed)
94:23; 64 kbps, mono; 43.2 MB

VegettoEX and Meri bring on Jeff and Scott to talk about ethics in fandom. Things have changed a great deal since the days of VHS fansubs, but with the franchise finally slipping into the modern distribution era with "Kai", questions on how to conduct yourself as a fan have never been more relevant. September's releases, your great e-mails, and a full catch-up on donation item namings round out the episode! Referenced sites:

• "DragonBall Online" Media @ jv247.com
• "DragonBall Kai" Official Website
• Viz DragonBall Chapter Books @ Amazon
• DragonBall Season One DVD Set @ Amazon
• Bardock TV Special Individual Disc @ Amazon
• Trunks TV Special Individual Disc @ Amazon
• "DragonBall Kai" Blu-ray Vol. 1 @ CDJapan
• [url=http://www.amazon.co.jp/ドラゴンボ ... ‡Žæ²¢é›…å­

[The Time Traveller]

I think I'll still listen to this since I kept zoning out into the chatroom during the live recording.

Most chat users were reminiscing about the whole fansub VHS thing, and there were a few that didn't even know about that, thinking that fansubs were a recent internet thing.


Also, there was a video, We could see the recording...

[SaiyamanMS]

Episode #01909 (download MP3) (rss feed)
94:23; 64 kbps, mono; 43.2 MB

Episode 1909? Wow, we've come a long way! >_>

*Downloading now*

[VegettoEX]

Episode 1909? Wow, we've come a long way! >_>

Fixed...

[JulieYBM]

Did not the original advertisements say Nozawa would he headlining an 'all-star cast'? I'm thinking the production crew might want to use voice actors that the current generation might recognize a bit more familiar with. The Ginyû Tokusentai aren't exactly huge characters, but alas. I'm thinking the Dragon Ball (Z) label will continue to use the original actors (i.e. in the games, as with Rôshi and Tenshinhan's new voices). Kai's probably run by a few cookie nuts, but it's still been fun.

[penguintruth]

I think I'll still listen to this since I kept zoning out into the chatroom during the live recording.

Most chat users were reminiscing about the whole fansub VHS thing, and there were a few that didn't even know about that, thinking that fansubs were a recent internet thing.

Also, there was a video, We could see the recording...

Heh, I was in there for a while.

Guys, you weren't really expecting Kai to be complete re-animation of DBZ, were you? That would be best, but come on, you know we can't have nice things.

Instead, they're doing a Zeta Gundam movies thing. (And I'm still irritated at Yoshiyuki Tomino, but at least he says he regretted the animation.)

Kai has had the weird effect of reigniting my interest in DBZ, and yet I've sort of come down from caring about Kai itself. I certainly wouldn't have cared as much about the Dragon Box a few months ago. I may have "voted with my wallet", holding out for a better release of DBZ, but Kai had a lot to do with it.

Also, I may have, at some point, had some contact with digital fansubs of Kai. But, of course, I am guilt-ridden over it and will turn myself into Toei.

Yeah, DBZ is Funimation's bread and butter and constant re-release of the show allows them to garner enough money to do other things, such as simultaneous streaming of One Piece and week-after streaming Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

Gen Fukunaga's comments were very weird.

I have to disagree with the Gohan e-mail. While I, too, for a while came to the same conclusion- that that build up in the filler doesn't mean much when Gohan doesn't really do much when the Saiyans arrive. However, after some thought, Gohan does, after all step in from time to time during that saga.

You can say, "Well, with all that build up, he should have done more", but we don't get to see what went on during the entirety of Gohan's training with Piccolo in the manga, or even in the series. So, for all we know, some of those same events could have occurred during that training.

And there's still plenty of quality filler. Strangely enough, I always griped about DBZ filler, but watching Kai, I miss some of it.

[JulieYBM]

Actually, Gokû is driving with Chichi and Gohan during the ten day wait for the Cell Games before teleporting to Lord Kaiô's.

[Herms]

Regarding the date of Planet Vegeta's destruction, in the manga Freeza does say at one point that he destroyed it 30 years ago, though this contradicts Goku being only 24-25 years old at that point. So even the original version does have one contradiction like that, though it makes much more sense for Freeza to mentally round 25 years up to 30 than for Raditz to round it down to only 3.

[penguintruth]

Regarding the date of Planet Vegeta's destruction, in the manga Freeza does say at one point that he destroyed it 30 years ago, though this contradicts Goku being only 24-25 years old at that point. So even the original version does have one contradiction like that, though it makes much more sense for Freeza to mentally round 25 years up to 30 than for Raditz to round it down to only 3.

Of course, we all know Freeza has problems with telling time.

[Joshua]

Well I understood what Jeff was saying in his closing comments on the ethics discussion. =/

[Chuquita]

While I wasn't involved with or old enough to drive out somewhere to buy tapes back then (nor did I know such things existed) I find the whole process of doing so very interesting. :3


As for the industry and adapting to a faster version of the internet, I have to say really like the official YouTube account Funimation's put up. They have full episodes of their dubs listed on the account, but to balance things out sales-wise, they'll have 3 or 4 thirty-second spot advertisements during the episode. As someone who's still so used to watching TV with its advertisements, I have to say the spots don't bother me at all. :3
I hope they continue to keep up the good work on their YT.


Their subtitles on the YouTube episodes (by subs I mean explaining kanji/hirigana/katakana symbols, not Japanese audio) are actually more spot on than on their TV channel. Whoever is in charge of Funi's TV channel's subtitles, on more than one occasion while watching Ouran on the TV channel I've found the subs mismatched to the episodes. Like it'd be subs from a different episode than the one airing. o_O;; I hope they can get that checked out, its a bit awkward.

[VegettoEX]

Guys, you weren't really expecting Kai to be complete re-animation of DBZ, were you? That would be best, but come on, you know we can't have nice things.

No, of course that's not what we were expecting. We never said that.

To repeat what we said:

Now that we've gotten this far into Kai and we are seeing the extent they are going to with the censoring, re-casting voices, cutting of certain material but not others, inappropriate musical scoring... it seems as if a completely new series would have been the "best way" to handle the underlying material. It still could have been called Kai and it still could have been the same damn story, but starting the production materials up from scratch just seems like it would have allowed them to do it "right" instead of what we see as now being pointless and uninteresting. I still think the manga-centric-TV-version concept is excellent, and I love the idea of the cast coming back to do it, and even Kenji Yamamoto getting in on it... but the end-result we've seen so far just leaves us all scratching our heads.

But that's Kai, and I'm more interested in the "ethics" side of the discussion .

Regarding the date of Planet Vegeta's destruction, in the manga Freeza does say at one point that he destroyed it 30 years ago, though this contradicts Goku being only 24-25 years old at that point. So even the original version does have one contradiction like that, though it makes much more sense for Freeza to mentally round 25 years up to 30 than for Raditz to round it down to only 3.

Good point. I totally forgot to mention that, but I guess since it's less of a flat-out "contradiction", it must have slipped my mind during the recording.

on more than one occasion while watching Ouran on the TV channel I've found the subs mismatched to the episodes. Like it'd be subs from a different episode than the one airing. o_O;;

That's... borderline unacceptable...

[penguintruth]

To be fair to Kai, the censorship is only for television, though.

[linkje]

do you guys have any plans for episode 200 like an video podcast when we finally see all the faces doing the podcast?

[Kendamu]

I lived in Nowhereville, Indiana during the whole fansub movement and by the time I was online (maybe age 13 or 14) my parents weren't gonna help me give money to some random person on that big, scary 56k Interwebs I was so interested in. So, I never even saw any full episodes of Japanese DBZ until I had a PS2 and was able to watch DVDs. By that point, though, the VIZ manga and I had become very good friends the same way the Pioneer/Ocean/FUNi dub of DBZ Movies 1-3 (as seen on Cartoon Network) had become such good friends back when I first got into DBZ.

[VegettoEX]

Do you guys have any plans for episode 200 like a video podcast when we finally see all the faces doing the podcast?

I'm not saying anything about episode 200 right now, because I have nothing fully planned or finalized. For all I know, it'll just be a regular ol' episode.

As we noted a few times, we streamed this episode live. It included video. It's not particularly interesting, since we're all just sitting around behind microphones, and typically ones with big windscreens.

We rarely do it on this show because it's a pain in the rear to try and stream audio that includes a second audio track (Julian on Skype) to both the main recording rig and the streaming rig. It's possible, but it's not easy to set up (properly), and it's generally not worth the trouble.

When everyone's local to the recording (as we were in this case), it's a butt-load easier.

[SparkyPantsMcGee]

Quite possibly my favorite podcast so far. The ethics conversation was something I am fairly familiar with. I am the type of person who goes out and buys CDs, DVDs and etc. no question. I have downloaded some in the past I soon put that to rest due to guilt trips and because animation is something I want to peruse in the future.

One thing you failed to mention though was the impact free downloads have on kids(age 10-14). When I was around that age Napster first appeared. A friend of mine introduced me to the program and I was sucked in. At the time I didn't know it was illegal, it was just music for me to have on my computer. It wasn't till Metallica started attacking Napster that I started getting the hint that this was actually bad.

The point I'm trying to get across is that this is the age were the piracy starts. At this age, kids start getting involved with downloading because: a)they have no money, b) they don't know better, and c) their big brother said it was fine. If businesses and so on went after them instead of the self entitled older teens, the kids that would just shrug it off and do whatever they feel like, then maybe internet piracy can hit a slow point.

I have a question though. I have a friend who pirates like their is no tomorrow. Its really getting on my nerves and his "excuse" is always "I have no money, blah blah blah". I understand not having any money but I don't think that justifies what he does. How can I get him to stop?

[VegettoEX]

One thing you failed to mention though was the impact free downloads have on kids(age 10-14). When I was around that age Napster first appeared. A friend of mine introduced me to the program and I was sucked in. At the time I didn't know it was illegal, it was just music for me to have on my computer.

We did actually address this. I remember Scott bringing it up, saying that some people honestly don't think it's illegal, for example, to download a show just because it's not licensed in the country you live in.

No, no, no... it's still illegal. There's no getting around that. Completely ignoring morals and ethics at this point, there's nothing you can say or do that changes the fact that it's still illegal to do so. International copyright law protects the intellectual property in this scenario.

I have a question though. I have a friend who pirates like their is no tomorrow. Its really getting on my nerves and his "excuse" is always "I have no money, blah blah blah". I understand not having any money but I don't think that justifies what he does. How can I get him to stop?

You can't always change someone's mind. People will do what they do based on the information they have and what they perceive the consequences to be. We spoke at length about justification and entitlement, and that seems to be exactly what's going on.

[Ramoro-san]

This was probably another one of my favorite podcast episodes ever. It was endlessly fascinating to me because I learned so many new things. I didn't realize fansubbing and all that had such a history. Everyone had very intelligent and well-articulated points to make about the issues. Great discussion!

Are you possibly going to do a little review of DragonBall Season One next time? I'd like to hear at least some brief thoughts about how the release turned out and all.

[NeverRamza]

I listened to this while at work today and very nice job.

In regards to TheDuck, I remember hearing at some point that in his series of conversations with Gen at Funimation he also helped convince them to use their own studio and break away from Pioneer.

Ah, those sure were some interesting days in DB fandom.