Back in day, what were some of the best fansubs?

[Bansho64]

I've been learning lately that, back in the day, older people had quite a bit of trouble trying to get DB in its original form with subtitles. In the 80-90s ish times, the internet was kinda an infant that was still growing slowly. So, the people that really wanted to see the series in the format that I mentioned had to watch fansubs.

Anyways, I got curious about fansubs because of Super surprisingly. Before the simulcast and Crunchyroll, people were fansubbing stuff on the internet, and the Dragon Team subs were known as some of the best out there.

My question is, back in the day, what were some of the best fansubs for the older fans? Basically, what was their "Dragon Team"?

[TheBlackPaladin]

I'd like to hear more about this too. It was a different time back then, and fansubs on the internet were a relatively newish thing...as I understand it, until the internet speeds began to justify all the time it would take to download an episode, most people got fansubs by going to their local Chinatown and buying crappy VHS tapes from stores of questionable legitimacy.

It's before my time, so I don't know about "best," but if only because it's fun to bring up, one fansub "group" (apparently it might have only been one dude) was Anime Labs, notorious for adding in R-rated swearing on numerous occasions. They/he also had a funny but odd habit of using subtitles to throw shade at people he didn't like.

Also of note is...I forget their name, but apparently the original Japanese versions of Dragon Ball and a bit of Dragon Ball Z were aired on a TV station in Hawaii, legally and officially subtitled in English (which is not super-uncommon, I've heard that because of Hawaii's high Japanese population, there are a number of TV stations that air Japanese programs subtitled in English). Since this was a "legitimate" airing, calling it a fansub group is a bit of a stretch, but VHS tapings of these officially-subtitled airings did end up circulating a bit, becoming pseudo-fansubs.

[Danfun64]

@TheBlackPaladin you are referring to Nippon Gold Network, which was the main source of original DB subs back in the day.

There was another channel (forgot what country) called Pearl which aired DBZ back then, which also had bootleg tapes circulating. Pearl translated the show from japanese to chinese, and then from chinese to english, showing subtitles in both languages. They were only used by fans as a last resort, considering how bad they were.

There was a website covering all this stuff, but it got redesigned and the old content disappeared.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Joke answer below

[spoiler]Anime Labs and dont you f*ck*ng forget it you candy *ss f*gg*t. F*CK![/spoiler]

Real answer...I think Steve Simmons was a fansubber way back when. I think his are the best... that I know of.

[Hellspawn28]

Ctenosaur had some decent fansubs from what I can remember. I remember my local Japanese collector shops and fee markets had fan sub tapes during the early 2000's before 2002 or 2003. I was one of the lucky kids to find ways to watch DBZ when most of my age group where unaware of the Japanese version. I also like fan of anime and other Japanese media like Godzilla before I was a fan of Dragon Ball Z, so I knew about subs.

Fan subers like Anime Labs added swearing because they wanted DBZ to be edgy and gritty. They want to show that DBZ that DBZ was not for kids and it was a Japanese show for adults. The only thing from that era that is still around today. I still remember in the 5th grade, one kid was like "You guys are watching the baby's version of DBZ. The Japanese version is so hardcore!!" and he brought a fan sub tape of Goku vs. Nappa with F bombs. We watch it after school and steak in a room with one of the TV's. We didn't get caught, but it was so cool.

[DrBriefsCat]

Back in the '90s, I remember tapes of the TV episodes being of varying quality. Sometimes the image would look washed out but still watchable, despite being multi-gen. Other times, you could barely make out the subtitles.
Often copies of the movies looked better, because of an LD source.

There was another channel (forgot what country) called Pearl which aired DBZ back then, which also had bootleg tapes circulating.

It was Hong Kong.

[sangofe]

Ctenosaur had some decent fansubs from what I can remember. I remember my local Japanese collector shops and fee markets had fan sub tapes during the early 2000's before 2002 or 2003. I was one of the lucky kids to find ways to watch DBZ when most of my age group where unaware of the Japanese version. I also like fan of anime and other Japanese media like Godzilla before I was a fan of Dragon Ball Z, so I knew about subs.

Fan subers like Anime Labs added swearing because they wanted DBZ to be edgy and gritty. They want to show that DBZ that DBZ was not for kids and it was a Japanese show for adults. The only thing from that era that is still around today. I still remember in the 5th grade, one kid was like "You guys are watching the baby's version of DBZ. The Japanese version is so hardcore!!" and he brought a fan sub tape of Goku vs. Nappa with F bombs. We watch it after school and steak in a room with one of the TV's. We didn't get caught, but it was so cool.

Yeah, ctenosaur. Plus they were really friendly. shipped me VHS tapes to Norway for only the tape and shipping cost

[Kunzait_83]

Ctenosaur was definitely my preferred subber of choice back in those prehistoric years. Pearl was really good though for getting ahold of certain rarer Freeza arc eps.

[Gaffer Tape]

Yeah, I definitely have some Ctenosaur tapes in my collection. I still think they're pretty good, although they had one major mistranslation that I totally believed until I got the Dragon Box for it only five years ago. In the episode where Gohan has a date with Angela, and they go to the tea shop or whatever, the Ctenosaur subs have Angela tell Gohan that the boy is supposed to ask the girl how old she is. So he does, and she responds with... 13! I always thought that was hilarious. I could totally buy that Angela was 13, and Gohan's reaction really sold it. However, when I got the Dragon Boxes, the subtitles instead revealed it was about asking how many spoonfuls of sugar she wanted in her tea, which was 13. Still funny, but it doesn't quite top the age joke. I'm not saying I'm holding that against them for one mistake, but it just totally blew my mind how one little change can totally change the context of a scene.

In general, though, I preferred the not-fansub-but-thought-they-were Nippon Golden Network. They just seemed more professional, since, well, they were. The only thing that annoyed me about them was that they didn't translate the next episode previews. They showed them, but the subtitles just read "PREVIEW".

[Nejishiki]

Yeah, I definitely have some Ctenosaur tapes in my collection. I still think they're pretty good, although they had one major mistranslation that I totally believed until I got the Dragon Box for it only five years ago. In the episode where Gohan has a date with Angela, and they go to the tea shop or whatever, the Ctenosaur subs have Angela tell Gohan that the boy is supposed to ask the girl how old she is. So he does, and she responds with... 13! I always thought that was hilarious. I could totally buy that Angela was 13, and Gohan's reaction really sold it. However, when I got the Dragon Boxes, the subtitles instead revealed it was about asking how many spoonfuls of sugar she wanted in her tea, which was 13. Still funny, but it doesn't quite top the age joke. I'm not saying I'm holding that against them for one mistake, but it just totally blew my mind how one little change can totally change the context of a scene.

Oh, so that's why I have that memory! That's one of my favorite episodes and I was always confused why I recalled an age joke when the official release didn't reference it nor did I hear it. It's a remnant from one of the tapes we owned.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Actually, Bansho64, I just remembered that Kanzenshuu did an entire podcast episode on this very topic. Go to this page, and then to episode #259 (the one that's currently at the bottom of this page). Since my first time checking out the original Japanese version was on the officially released DVDs in the mid-2000's, this was an interesting episode for me! It was very cool to learn just what fans outside of Japan had to go through to watch the original version.

[Bansho64]

Actually, Bansho64, I just remembered that Kanzenshuu did an entire podcast episode on this very topic. Go to this page, and then to episode #259 (the one that's currently at the bottom of this page). Since my first time checking out the original Japanese version was on the officially released DVDs in the mid-2000's, this was an interesting episode for me! It was very cool to learn just what fans outside of Japan had to go through to watch the original version.

Thanks man! I'll check it out. Official subtitles for older DB things have always been a constant for me, so this is a pretty new subject for me.

[Milton]

Man, oh man...this takes me back.

I echo the folks who said Ctenosaur Video; they would tend to be a bit rough with some language choices, but they seemed to be consistently decent. The majority of episodes on tape I had were from the NGN broadcast, though. The episodes I had began with Goku landing on Namek, but by the time I got to about episode 94, they inexplicably switched over to Anime Labs. That transition was...interesting.

Funny note, and I'm curious if anyone knows the answer to this here: my Freeza saga episodes that were from the NGN broadcast seem to skip over episode 79 entirely. The tape that I had featured 3 episodes; 77, 78 and 80 were from NGN while 79 was from the Pearl broadcast. Given how brutal some of the content was in that episode, did NGN purposefully skip that one for content?

Also, does anyone remember the name of the group that worked on GT? Their subs (to me, anyway) were almost one part Ctenosaur, one part Anime Labs in terms of quality.

EDIT: Also, for those interested, it seems Ctenosaur Video lives on! They're now Kurotokagi Gumi and they specialize in mostly older live-action samurai films.

[Gaffer Tape]

Hmm, the one GT tape I have was, I believe, subbed by "E. Monsoon." I could be totally wrong. I haven't watched that tape in years, but I remember they had a big CG logo at the front of the tape. And, yeah, they were definitely a bit liberal with the swearing, even throwing some fairly heavy cussing into the opening pop song!

[Milton]

Hmm, the one GT tape I have was, I believe, subbed by "E. Monsoon." I could be totally wrong. I haven't watched that tape in years, but I remember they had a big CG logo at the front of the tape. And, yeah, they were definitely a bit liberal with the swearing, even throwing some fairly heavy cussing into the opening pop song!

I do recall having at least the first 4 episodes subtitled from E. Monsoon...my copies of the Trunks and Bardock specials were done by them, as well as my movie 13. My Baby arc tapes though were not Monsoon.

On that note, weren't E. Monsoon and S. Baldric the same?

[TheBlackPaladin]

And, yeah, they were definitely a bit liberal with the swearing, even throwing some fairly heavy cussing into the opening pop song!

I simply must know more details about this. I just have this funny image in my head of "DAN DAN" playing and the subtitles reading, "HOLD MY F***IN' HAND."

[lolman196]

I just checked my copy of DBGT 1-4 by E. Monsoon and this was the only "swearing" I could find in the opening.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Geez, what a fucking dissapointment...LOL.

[Gaffer Tape]

Really? I'm pretty sure my subtitles went with "Up and down the god damned winding road." Maybe that's still a disappointment, but it just seems so out of place in this song and that line in particular. Just makes me think of a very angry Wizard of Oz scenario.

[Kunzait_83]

EDIT: Also, for those interested, it seems Ctenosaur Video lives on! They're now Kurotokagi Gumi and they specialize in mostly older live-action samurai films.

Exactly the same fate that befell AnimEigo for awhile (before they began their more recent KickStarter era of classic anime releases) throughout the bulk of the mid to latter 2000s. Switching from anime to Chanbara seemed to be a recurring theme among some of the very old guard anime licensing/fansubbing groups once they hit the aughts and the CN-inflated bubble started to drown out everything else. Makes a lot of sense: live action Hong Kong and Japanese film always had a ton of overlap with that older era of anime fandom.