Funimation and swearing

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by KBABZ » Sun Dec 09, 2018 11:00 am

Goku Black arc is pretty dark though. Super swerves from Arale to "psychotic Goku murders Chi-Chi"!

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by MasenkoHA » Sun Dec 09, 2018 11:13 am

Robo4900 wrote: Indeed. Rather funny when "making the show hardcore" is something stereotypically associated only with the pre-Kai dubs. :lol:
I’m sure how they were presented on tv plus people’s nostalgia had a lot to do with it.

It’s funny how the perceived adult Z gave lines like “Helping people can be fun to!”

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by Robo4900 » Sun Dec 09, 2018 2:08 pm

MasenkoHA wrote:
Robo4900 wrote: Indeed. Rather funny when "making the show hardcore" is something stereotypically associated only with the pre-Kai dubs. :lol:
I’m sure how they were presented on tv plus people’s nostalgia had a lot to do with it.

It’s funny how the perceived adult Z gave lines like “Helping people can be fun to!”
True, although it's hard to purely attribute this to TV and nostalgia, given the whole GT affair... And not just the "YOU DON'T KNOW GT" nonsense, but the whole shebang of the soundtrack, the way the dialogue was adapted, the way the narrator spoke, the casting in general, the skipping of the first 16 episodes to get into the more action-y stuff...
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Sun Dec 09, 2018 6:46 pm

MasenkoHA wrote:It’s funny how the perceived adult Z gave lines like “Helping people can be fun to!”
A point I often brought up when discussing Kai with others on YouTube. It really is ironic that so many fans perceive the DBZ dub to be the more "adult-oriented" dub, and the Kai dub to be "the dub for kiddies." Ironic because, in reality, it's the exact opposite.

That said, I think I understand why so many fans had that false impression, and it leads me to one of my biggest gripes with FUNimation's marketing efforts for Kai: I lost count of how many people were under the impression that the edited version of the Kai dub seen on Nicktoons and the CW4Kids was the actual, final product. So many of the people I talked to were shocked to find out there was an uncut version of the Kai dub, with one person even accusing me of making it up. Thing is, I can't blame that on ignorance, because in all of FUNimation's advertising efforts for Kai, not a single commercial made use of the term "uncut," or anything to that effect.

So, if all one remembers is that they saw blood on Toonami, and not on Nicktoons, and that they noticed a lot of scenes cut out, with absolutely zero mention on FUNimation's part that they sell an uncut version on home video...I can see why people would walk away with the impression that the Kai dub is the "toned-down dub for kiddies."
A "rather haggard" translation of a line from Future Gohan in DBZ, provided to FUNimation by Toei:
"To think of fighting that is this fun...so, it was pleasant fight, as many as, therefore is a feeling which is good the fight where."

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by MasenkoHA » Sun Dec 09, 2018 7:00 pm

TheBlackPaladin wrote:
MasenkoHA wrote:It’s funny how the perceived adult Z gave lines like “Helping people can be fun to!”
A point I often brought up when discussing Kai with others on YouTube. It really is ironic that so many fans perceive the DBZ dub to be the more "adult-oriented" dub, and the Kai dub to be "the dub for kiddies." Ironic because, in reality, it's the exact opposite.

That said, I think I understand why so many fans had that false impression, and it leads me to one of my biggest gripes with FUNimation's marketing efforts for Kai: I lost count of how many people were under the impression that the edited version of the Kai dub seen on Nicktoons and the CW4Kids was the actual, final product. So many of the people I talked to were shocked to find out there was an uncut version of the Kai dub, with one person even accusing me of making it up. Thing is, I can't blame that on ignorance, because in all of FUNimation's advertising efforts for Kai, not a single commercial made use of the term "uncut," or anything to that effect.

So, if all one remembers is that they saw blood on Toonami, and not on Nicktoons, and that they noticed a lot of scenes cut out, with absolutely zero mention on FUNimation's part that they sell an uncut version on home video...I can see why people would walk away with the impression that the Kai dub is the "toned-down dub for kiddies."

Hit the nail on the head.

Z was mostly presented back in 1999-2003 as a hardcore show with hardcore music and cartoon characters bleeding and this is what nostalgic fans remember. Not god awful dialog straight from a 60s comic book and bad bad acting and a cast pathetically imitating another cast.

And then Kai comes along on tv with a much more um upbeat soundtrack, no swearing and no blood (although uncut Z dub barely bad any) and depending if one watched the Toonzai version (which many did) even more censorship like blue popo.

I noticed ever since Toonami aired Kai uncut and uncensored the amount of people who think Kai is some kiddified version of DBZ created by 4kids has dwindled down significantly to the point nowadays the only real complaints I see are A. lack of Faulconer music and B. Colleen Clinkenbeard’s Gohan.

Both complains I wholeheartedly and vocally disagree with but at least most of Kai’s backlash from the English dub fandom isn’t from false information

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by Danfun64 » Mon Dec 10, 2018 8:16 pm

TheBlackPaladin wrote:2) They seem to be aware that most of the people who still watch Dragon Ball on a regular basis and put money into buying the home video releases--at least in North America--are adults, who grew up with the show as kids. So, it could very well be that they're trying to make their dub with that demographic in mind.
To be honest, I blame the fact that NONE of Funi's in-house DB dubs have been released on DVD in an edited format (aside from AFAIK Path to Power, Lord Slug, Cooler's Revenge, the Return of Cooler, Super Android 13, Broly 1, and Bojack Unbound). The only edited DVD release for DB since the Orange Bricks (Rock the Dragon Collection) didn't even use the in-house cast.
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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by Cure Dragon 255 » Mon Dec 10, 2018 9:32 pm

And to that most would say "Duh adults are the ones watching DB now!" but I think differently. I think no edited DVD's have been released for these reasons.

-Funimation would be seen as an anime destroyer if they dared. Not unless its a nostalgia release like Rock The Dragon.
-There are so many edited versions and those are either lost or in the hands of fans.
-And Last but not least is Why would they risk releasing the TV Version of something and have people say I can watch that On TV for free!" or even worse the TV audience cannibalizing the DVD's or viceversa. its a terrible Idea.

The Black Paladin (Who is awesome BTW) has the right idea with what he's saying the Fact that it airs on Adult Swim instead of say Disney XD does say quite a lot. And here is where I disagree with him, he says that Adult Swim is the place for Dragon Ball because its mostly adults who watch DB nowdays.

But here comes the point where him and I diverge


2) They seem to be aware that most of the people who still watch Dragon Ball on a regular basis and put money into buying the home video releases--at least in North America--are adults, who grew up with the show as kids

Everyone, regardless of age can buy Dragon Ball DVD's! Them being uncut is not an indicator that only adults watch them or that kids wont. The fact that they sell so well, well beyond any Adult Nerd Demographic.

But Kids cant handle uncut DVDs!

I think that's bullshit. Kids can handle way more than people think. And sure, most kids do enjoy DB edited on TV, again, I doubt you could find anyone who would buy, say the CW4kids edited version of DBZKai. No. The DVD's are for everyone, regardless of their age or gender and stuff like that.
Marz wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:27 pm "Well, the chapter was good, the story was good and so were the fights. But a new transformation, in Dragon Ball? And one that's ugly? This is where we draw the line!!! Jump the Shark moment!!"

This forum is so over-dramatic that it's not even funny.
90sDBZ wrote: Mon Jul 01, 2019 2:44 pm19 years ago I was rushing home from school to watch DBZ on Cartoon Network, and today I've rushed home from work to watch DBS on Pop. I guess it's true the more things change the more they stay the same. :lol:

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Mon Dec 10, 2018 10:14 pm

Cure Dragon 255 wrote:The Black Paladin (Who is awesome BTW)...
Haha, aww, thank you. :) :oops: (<-----meant to mean "blushing," not "embarrassed")
Cure Dragon 255 wrote:...has the right idea with what he's saying the Fact that it airs on Adult Swim instead of say Disney XD does say quite a lot. And here is where I disagree with him, he says that Adult Swim is the place for Dragon Ball because its mostly adults who watch DB nowdays.

But here comes the point where him and I diverge


2) They seem to be aware that most of the people who still watch Dragon Ball on a regular basis and put money into buying the home video releases--at least in North America--are adults, who grew up with the show as kids

Everyone, regardless of age can buy Dragon Ball DVD's! Them being uncut is not an indicator that only adults watch them or that kids wont. The fact that they sell so well, well beyond any Adult Nerd Demographic.

But Kids cant handle uncut DVDs!

I think that's bullshit. Kids can handle way more than people think. And sure, most kids do enjoy DB edited on TV, again, I doubt you could find anyone who would buy, say the CW4kids edited version of DBZKai. No. The DVD's are for everyone, regardless of their age or gender and stuff like that.
Well, allow me to clarify my position a little bit. I'm not saying that kids "can't handle" the uncut version. I don't have kids, but if I did, I'd have zero issues showing them the uncut version. Quite the contrary, I'm of the belief that those in charge of broadcast standards for American children's TV shows are over-protective (and way too much so, for that matter). It seems as though they try to construct their editing guidelines with this thought in mind: "How would the most easily-offended person imaginable react to this show?"

Case in point...

That one still makes me laugh. I mean, c'mon. Did they really think they were going to get any angry phone calls from concerned parents yelling, "HOW DARE YOU, THAT ALIEN HAD A D***!!!"?

So kids absolutely can handle the uncut version, I didn't mean that. What I meant was that it seems--just anecdotally, from personal observations on my part--that while anybody certainly can buy Dragon Ball DVDs, the ones that actually are buying them are primarily adults. Or, heck, forget the DVDs for a second, the ones who do nothing more than distantly keep up with Dragon Ball by watching it on TV or watching clips on YouTube...seem to primarily be adults. The reason for that, I believe, is because over in North America, most of the people who still watch and discuss the show are adults who grew up with the show as kids. The Nicktoons and CW4Kids-edited versions of Kai certainly did bring in some new fans who were kids, but they seem to remain the minority. It's not a matter of today's kids not being able to handle the uncut version, so much as it is a matter of today's kid not being that interested in Dragon Ball...at least over here in North America.

To bring it all back to the original topic of the thread, my theory is that FUNimation may have purposefully started swearing in their Dragon Ball dubs more because they're aware of the fact that most of the audience that watches their dub nowadays are adults, and they are attempting to cater to that audience demographic. It's for that same reason that the show ended up on Adult Swim and not a different, more kid-friendly network or time slot.

That is, however, just a personal impression that I get. I certainly could be completely wrong. I don't have the sales data, and that kind of info would be strictly internal FUNimation info anyway. Who knows, maybe I'm very much mistaken, and there are just as many kids watching Dragon Ball today over in North America as adults, if not more so. I'd be surprised to find out that was the case, though.
A "rather haggard" translation of a line from Future Gohan in DBZ, provided to FUNimation by Toei:
"To think of fighting that is this fun...so, it was pleasant fight, as many as, therefore is a feeling which is good the fight where."

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by Cure Dragon 255 » Mon Dec 10, 2018 10:55 pm

I love your posts so much. So well made and thought out. I think we finally on the same page. I do disagree that kids dont care for Dragon Ball. The real reason Dragon Ball isnt on Kids TV is the same reason its censored so much. THE EXECS!!!!!ONELOL! They think kids cant handle drama or anything serious. I assure you that if Dragon Ball aired on kids TV it would again be king. The only reason it isnt is the EXECUTIVES. And I'm not saying this as a fanboy or anything. Dragon Ball is kiddie catnip. Its always a smash.

Wow... the above first quarter of my post seems made by a raving lunatic, which I am. But its not very good at being a serious post.

But yeah. Look at this interview with Margaret Loesch, who put the X-Men on Fox Kids when she fought tooth and nail when other networks balked.
ML: I got very clear responses from the networks. Almost without exception, the responses were the same but always in different words. I can actually specifically quote one of the network executives: “Margaret, you have to stop pitching us these comic properties. Don’t you understand that comics are read by 18 year old nerdy boys and that they’ll be of no interest to anybody else? It’s for a tiny, little population of nerdy, young men and it definitely won’t make good television. Just because they’re good comics doesn’t mean they’ll translate to television. The comics are so complicated and overwritten that talk, talk, talk, they’ll never make good television. Don’t come back with another comic…you’ve pitched Spider-Man, the X-Men, and Silver Surfer…don’t come back anymore.”
Or heck! Look at this story about the inception of Battle of The Planets. Its REALLY long so I'm going to spoil it and highlight the most important parts.

I still think this is the case. Sure there's duds here and there like Digimon Fusion (Ojectively one of the worst flops on Nickelodeon.) But I still think kids love Dragon Ball and would dominate utterly if given the chance.

Its just a matter of a visionary exec giving the show a chance.
Marz wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:27 pm "Well, the chapter was good, the story was good and so were the fights. But a new transformation, in Dragon Ball? And one that's ugly? This is where we draw the line!!! Jump the Shark moment!!"

This forum is so over-dramatic that it's not even funny.
90sDBZ wrote: Mon Jul 01, 2019 2:44 pm19 years ago I was rushing home from school to watch DBZ on Cartoon Network, and today I've rushed home from work to watch DBS on Pop. I guess it's true the more things change the more they stay the same. :lol:

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by TVfan721 » Tue Dec 11, 2018 12:20 am

MasenkoHA wrote:Just something I was thinking about. At least in the early days Funimation seemed to be pretty damn wussy about even the most mild of swears in their uncut products back in the day. It was mostly a bunch of darns and bite me and friggin. Then oddly enough you had Dende’s infamous “Don’t piss off the God of love!” which somehow made it past Toonami’s censorship back in 1999 but when Funimation rerecorded a bunch of dialog for season 3 in 2007 for vocal consistency with their in-house redub of the first 67 episodes Laura Bailey!Dende says something a lot milder (please don’t anger the dragon or something like that) so the orange bricks which was presumably marketed to young adults had a line of dialog much tamer than when the show was aimed at the 2-11 demo!

And then there was their *snicker* Ultimate Uncut redub of Dead Zone. In the Pioneer/Ocean dub hell is used twice. But for Funimation’s redub both cases of the word hell were omitted. Gohan can piss in Krillin’s mouth but god forbid Kami or Chi Chi say hell

But fianally by Kai the dub has the characters swearing lef and right. A lot of bastards and hell and damns.


Does anyone know what happen? Was there someone in Funimation who was big on the not swearing who either left or lightned up?
You're leaving out the fact that Funimation ADDED a bunch of swearing to Season 3 when they rerecorded all the new dialog in 2007. Yeah they removed the Dende line but the word "piss" was added to one of Vegeta's lines to Gohan as well as "damn" and several others.

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by Attitudefan » Tue Dec 11, 2018 1:41 am

TVfan721 wrote:
MasenkoHA wrote:Just something I was thinking about. At least in the early days Funimation seemed to be pretty damn wussy about even the most mild of swears in their uncut products back in the day. It was mostly a bunch of darns and bite me and friggin. Then oddly enough you had Dende’s infamous “Don’t piss off the God of love!” which somehow made it past Toonami’s censorship back in 1999 but when Funimation rerecorded a bunch of dialog for season 3 in 2007 for vocal consistency with their in-house redub of the first 67 episodes Laura Bailey!Dende says something a lot milder (please don’t anger the dragon or something like that) so the orange bricks which was presumably marketed to young adults had a line of dialog much tamer than when the show was aimed at the 2-11 demo!

And then there was their *snicker* Ultimate Uncut redub of Dead Zone. In the Pioneer/Ocean dub hell is used twice. But for Funimation’s redub both cases of the word hell were omitted. Gohan can piss in Krillin’s mouth but god forbid Kami or Chi Chi say hell

But fianally by Kai the dub has the characters swearing lef and right. A lot of bastards and hell and damns.


Does anyone know what happen? Was there someone in Funimation who was big on the not swearing who either left or lightned up?
You're leaving out the fact that Funimation ADDED a bunch of swearing to Season 3 when they rerecorded all the new dialog in 2007. Yeah they removed the Dende line but the word "piss" was added to one of Vegeta's lines to Gohan as well as "damn" and several others.
"Piss of the God of love" not only doesn't make sense but seems really out of character for Dende to say. I am sure they changed it since Dende swearing seems so out of place and the dragon isn't a god of love either.
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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Wed Dec 12, 2018 10:08 am

TheBlackPaladin wrote:So, if all one remembers is that they saw blood on Toonami, and not on Nicktoons, and that they noticed a lot of scenes cut out, with absolutely zero mention on FUNimation's part that they sell an uncut version on home video...I can see why people would walk away with the impression that the Kai dub is the "toned-down dub for kiddies."
It's still absurd that the fans who complain about Kai being the kiddy dub would think that the version with inferior voice acting and bad jokes (i.e DBZ) is the version that appeals to adults.

Nostalgia really is a powerful drug :roll:
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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by KBABZ » Wed Dec 12, 2018 11:03 am

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote:
TheBlackPaladin wrote:So, if all one remembers is that they saw blood on Toonami, and not on Nicktoons, and that they noticed a lot of scenes cut out, with absolutely zero mention on FUNimation's part that they sell an uncut version on home video...I can see why people would walk away with the impression that the Kai dub is the "toned-down dub for kiddies."
It's still absurd that the fans who complain about Kai being the kiddy dub would think that the version with inferior voice acting and bad jokes (i.e DBZ) is the version that appeals to adults.

Nostalgia really is a powerful drug :roll:
Agreed. I mean, most old dub DBZ fans like it partly because of the Narm Charm; half of it sounds ridiculous and kooky by today's standards. With Kai however I feel a legitimate attempt to play the story with the proper drama and gravitas as the original Japanese version. That might not come across for people who don't like, say, Schemmel as King Kai, but for me I'd much prefer stuff like the tense scene between Vegeta and Gohan on Namek over "That is one whopper of a lizard!".

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Fri Dec 14, 2018 9:15 pm

I can see how some would see "damn" as somewhat offensive but.. piss? That's a strange one. "Piss off"? Yeah. Piss? No.

FUNi's Kai dub at one point had Ghurd sorta sound like he was saying "sheeit" but it wasn't.
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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by Cure Dragon 255 » Fri Dec 14, 2018 10:23 pm

You should be asking The Black Paladin because I was responding to his arguments. But if you indeed ask me and only me, I do think and mantain until the cows come home that kids LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Dragon Ball and would come to watch in droves if only some visionary executive gave it a chance, in all of north america, both USA and Canada. Marni is doing God's work. For those who dont know who she is look at the Ocean Kai thread.
Marz wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:27 pm "Well, the chapter was good, the story was good and so were the fights. But a new transformation, in Dragon Ball? And one that's ugly? This is where we draw the line!!! Jump the Shark moment!!"

This forum is so over-dramatic that it's not even funny.
90sDBZ wrote: Mon Jul 01, 2019 2:44 pm19 years ago I was rushing home from school to watch DBZ on Cartoon Network, and today I've rushed home from work to watch DBS on Pop. I guess it's true the more things change the more they stay the same. :lol:

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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by Kunzait_83 » Fri Dec 14, 2018 11:23 pm

KBABZ wrote:Agreed. I mean, most old dub DBZ fans like it partly because of the Narm Charm; half of it sounds ridiculous and kooky by today's standards.
The whole talking point of "the dub was fine by the standards of its time, but obviously wouldn't fly by the standards of today" is something that's ALWAYS gotten under my skin a great, great deal.

(Note: the following rant isn't in any way aimed directly at KBABZ but at a much more general sentiment held within the overall U.S. fanbase)

There is absolutely nothing about the universal standards for basic things like competent acting and script writing that had dramatically changed in between 1999/2000 and the 2010s/today. Nothing whatsoever. Bad acting today was just as bad back in '99/2000, and lines like "pop goes the weasel!" or whatever were just as inappropriately corny and cringe back then as they are now.

This idea that "the standards for these things were different back then than they are today" has always struck me as ridiculously myopic, because the people who make this claim are talking purely from their own perspective as people who were small children back then who have since grown up. YOU ("you" in the broad sense I mean, not KBABZ in particular) may have only realized how bad the FUNi dub is back in 2010 or whenever... but that personal growth and development on your part is IN NO WAY a reflection or indicative of what the broader "standards" for television and general creative media were like back then or even how they've grown since then.

Dragon Ball was a hit back then based ENTIRELY around its visuals and its innate core concepts (things that FUNimation COULDN'T inherently ruin with the shitty production and artistic quality of their voiceovers and music): on ANY other show back then, one with a VASTLY inferior "core" to it having THAT voice acting and THAT level of scriptwriting? ANY other show from then with his low grade of a production behind it would in NO way have had this kind of far-reaching and long-lasting impact where people would still be talking about it with reverence today. That show wouldn't have changed people's lives or gotten them sucked into a whole new medium that they never knew about beforehand. It'd simply be another bad show that would've come and gone without hardly anyone noticing or caring.

I hate to even make this analogy in the first place, but in many respects its no different whatsoever from things like Super Sentai/Power Rangers vs some of the (now justly forgotten) 100% U.S. made knockoffs that sprung up back in the early 90s in the wake of Power Rangers' initial success. Power Rangers had acting, scriptwriting, and musical production quality that was in many ways just as unacceptably low grade and brain rottingly bargain basement as FUNi's DBZ work in these areas: but it also was working off of footage and some raw concepts from a VASTLY superior and smash hit Japanese TV show, and that solid foundation managed to by hook or by crook withstand whatever else the U.S. production might do to it. All it needed was to be seen by the right audience at the right time.

People today still (insanely enough) remember and talk about Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers with no small degree of fondness, to a point where it even got its own (godawful) Hollywood movie reboot fairly recently: no one's doing that for garbage like this and with good reason, despite the general production quality of said-garbage for the most part being VERY closely equivalent to the puerile level of Power Rangers' own U.S. footage and audio.

I mean, imagine if FUNimation did more than just take the footage/animation a legendarily successful Japanese martial arts cartoon and try to retrofit onto it the audio of some cheeseball Masters of the Universe knockoff American superhero cartoon: imagine if they just said "fuck it" with regards to Dragon Ball Z's footage entirely, and decided to just make up their own original cheeseball superhero action cartoon from total scratch and spring for commissioning their own Westernized animation and designs for this show. Still retaining ALL the same exact cast of actors and writers and the same exact Faulconer score and everything: but just staple those elements onto their own original animation footage that's actually created to match up to their vision of a cornball 90s kids' action superhero sci fi adventure show.

Think the impact would be in ANY way equivalent then? Hell, think there'd still even be legions of adoring Faulconer fans over on youtube praising the score to this day without the nostalgic goodwill of DBZ's asskicking visuals to accompany it? You see people doing likewise for the scores for ANY such similar cheesy U.S. kids' shows like it (at least to this ridiculous degree)?

My whole point with all of this is: the quality of FUNimation's acting, writing, and musical scoring could in NO way stand up on its own even back in 1999/2000 without the foundation of Dragon Ball itself to prop it up. Without the special qualities inherent to Dragon Ball itself, all their "original" contributions are exactly what they've ALWAYS been right from day 1: useless dead weight. Because the "standards" for them were ALWAYS well far below acceptable, even back in the Television landscape of 1999/2000 where - in terms of things like acting and writing at least - we had shows like The Sopranos, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Freaks & Geeks, Spawn, etc. all acting as standard-bearers within these realms.

This is in many ways no different from the whole "no one else anywhere in America knew what Japanese anime was until MY sheltered-ass first heard of it via Pokemon and DBZ on Cartoon Network" paradigm that I've also talked about a lot on here: just because YOUR (again, "your" broadly speaking here beyond KBABZ) standards and sensibilities took until 2009/2010 or whenever to grow the hell up, doesn't therefore also mean that the more broadly universal standards of the rest of television and movies and whatnot throughout all of popular culture had the same or similar timetable of a trajectory as you personally.

Trust me: what you as a sheltered 8 year old found to be "awesome" back in 1999 or whenever was seen as JUST as cringe-worthy to ANY other adult back then as it is to you as an adult today. NOTHING else has changed about basic standards of acting and writing from 2000 to today: the one and ONLY thing that had changed is that you finally grew the fuck up and gained some self-awareness. That's pretty much it. The standards and sensibilities and even pop cultural awareness of the middle school children of 1999/2000 are in NO way applicable or comparable to the more universal standards and sensibilities of those things to quite literally EVERYONE ELSE in the world back in 1999/2000.

This is probably my singular BIGGEST personal pet peeve with Dragon Ball's Western/English language fanbase: the degree to which they take their own personalized perspective as small children back in the late 90s/early 2000s and retroactively project it out onto ALL of popular culture around them from back then.

Its one of the single-most actively infuriating and face-meltingly idiotic aspects about this fanbase: and really, it extends to a LOT of other millennial-age fans of various "nerd" properties out there in general, including just about 98% of the whole "Toonami generation" of U.S. anime fans, who genuinely and sincerely act like the ENTIRETY of late 90s/early 2000s popular culture solely revolved around and can be measured by what was "hip" and "hot" on the 3rd grade playgrounds of the time.

It's ALWAYS come across to most people who weren't small kids back in those days (raises hand) as incredibly self-absorbed, self-important, and myopic, and it just flies utterly in the face or what reality was actually like back during those years. I can guarantee you, Schemmel was in NO way robbed of an Emmy in 2000 for his "I am the hope of the universe" speech; and while Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh, and Toy Story may have been the singular obsessions of everyone you knew as a kid at that age back then, I guarantee you that VASTLY more people at that time were much more absorbed into dissecting the themes of Fight Club and The Matrix, or speculating which characters were going to survive Oz that season, and so forth.

This whole "late 90s/early 2000s childhood" framework of examining broader standards of pop culture, art, and media entertainment that has always been prevalent within this fanbase (and in much of U.S. anime fandom of the past 15 years) is tantamount to basically saying "Nothing of the ENTIRE history or evolutionary growth of film, television, or creative media in general truly mattered or started 'evolving' until I first clawed out of my mom's vagina: only THEN everything started moving forward and started to matter. Popular culture was permanently set on pause until I first arrived and started following it, and the ways in which its grown throughout my lifetime obviously only syncs itself up to my own personal perspective and development from childhood to adulthood."

This whole mindset is on-its-face ridiculous, its been a pervasive thing in U.S. Dragon Ball fandom for almost as long as this forum has existed (so well over a decade), and it NEVER gets called out and shredded nearly as much as it easily deserves to be.
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Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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MasenkoHA
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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by MasenkoHA » Fri Dec 14, 2018 11:44 pm

^^^^

I want to voice my agreement that it’s always irritating when someone tries to argue something terrible was “good for its time” because they need to justify something shitty they liked as a kid be it Dragon Ball Z or Power Rangers or Sailor Moon.

Funimation’s dub of Dragon Ball Z was NOT the standards of the time even for its contemporaries (i.e other kids shows) Batman Beyond came out the same year Funimation’s atrocious in-house dub of season 3 started. Gargoyles came out the same year as DBZ’s syndicated dub started. Fucking Batman the goddamn animated series came out 4 years before Dragon Ball Z started in the US and Canada.

You (that you includes me as I was a late 90s/2000s kid) didn’t like Funimation’s Dragon Ball Z because it was good at the time anymore than you liked Power Rangers (which came out the same time period and same kids programming block as much smarter kids shows like X-Men, Batman, and Animaniacs and crushed all those shows in the ratings) you liked it because you had low standards as a kid and watching cartoon characters beat each other up was good enough.

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KBABZ
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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by KBABZ » Sat Dec 15, 2018 12:40 am

Kunzait_83 wrote:
KBABZ wrote:Agreed. I mean, most old dub DBZ fans like it partly because of the Narm Charm; half of it sounds ridiculous and kooky by today's standards.
The whole talking point of "the dub was fine by the standards of its time, but obviously wouldn't fly by the standards of today" is something that's ALWAYS gotten under my skin a great, great deal.

(Note: the following rant isn't in any way aimed directly at KBABZ but at a much more general sentiment held within the overall U.S. fanbase)
Thanks for the disclaimer there, haha. I do agree with your points; Dragon Ball is a fantastic story when told with the proper reverence and gravitas of the original take of the story (keeping in mind the often irreverent humour of Toriyama, of course). While I know you're not a fan of the Kai dub performances, for me what I appreciated is that it allowed me to experience the story told "straight", which meant that I could go through the whole story closer to how it was written in the first place. I can't watch the old dub of the show because it's impossible for me to take seriously at all. And as a fan of the original Dragon Ball anime, while a lot of the deeper plot elements were beyond me (for example, Roshi and Tien and the 22nd TB), as an adult I can really appreciate them and it helps make the journey through Goku's adventures that much better.

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PhoenixEX
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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by PhoenixEX » Sat Dec 15, 2018 9:21 am

What happened was that the franchise was moved to Adult Swim rather than Cartoon Network.
As for Z Kai, they don't curse at all in the Nicktoons version but they do in the Adult Swim version.
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MasenkoHA
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Re: Funimation and swearing

Post by MasenkoHA » Sat Dec 15, 2018 9:28 am

PhoenixEX wrote:What happened was that the franchise was moved to Adult Swim rather than Cartoon Network.
Adult Swim is a programming block for Cartoon Network not its own separate channel. But I digress.

As for Z Kai, they don't curse at all in the Nicktoons version but they do in the Adult Swim version.
Yes, because the Nicktoons and CW4Kids is edited for a Y7 FV rating and Adult Swim allows it to keep its PG rating.

This thread was never about “Hey did you notice the characters don’t swear when the show is edited for content to air on a kids programming block?”

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