Greetings from a lapsed fan

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isucamper
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Greetings from a lapsed fan

Post by isucamper » Thu Jul 29, 2021 5:14 pm

10 years ago when I got my last Dragon Box, I lapsed as a fan. I had discovered Dragon Ball in the late 90s with the Ocean dub of the original series, and much of my interest would be driven for the next 10+ years directly thanks to Funimation holding the series hostage. When new Ocean episodes stopped being produced, I started doing research using the Word Wide Web from my dorm room to find out what the holdup was. That's when I first discovered Dragon Ball Uncensored and learned how much better the series actually was than I knew, and later, VegettoEX's homepage. I first bought Funi's VHS tapes, then their single box DVDs with the cutting edge Japanese subtitles, then their uncensored cuts. I was in the process of putting together a custom run of what Funimation had released with custom boxes, picking and choosing the best releases from various runs to get a complete set of episodes in the best quality possible, when they finally announced the Dragon Boxes. And once I had them all it felt like a journey had finally come to an end.

Then a time skip. 10 years go by and my life changes a lot. I got older. I got divorced. I fostered a successful career and climbed the ladder. Between then and now my only re-visits with the series were Battle of the Gods and Resurrection F, both of which I loved, but when Super started I was uninterested. It looked like a bloated retelling of the last two movies with worse animation. GT had left a bad taste in my mouth and a new series with a similar diversion in aesthetics did not demand any of my attention whatsoever. I'll just wait, I thought, and if it gets better then I'll check out.

It took an interaction with my girlfriend's co-worker's husband last week to finally bring me back in. He's a fan and he caught me up on Super, informing me that it had finished, gotten much better in the second half, and expanded a with a new Broley movie that was really good. This, and my gf, who is a big Urusei Yatsura fan, asking to rewatch the original series was enough to churn my butter again. Thus, I set out to get caught up on 10 years of Dragon Ball news in a few short days.

Holy shit. Funimation fucked up another remastering. Like, literal deja vu with their trailers and damage control. Holy shit, the Dragon Boxes aren't actually the perfect remasterings like we thought. They were created from faded prints and horrible audio. The sky isn't supposed to be green!! Holy shit, buying Dragon Ball Super is nearly as frustrating as it was procuring the original series and DBZ all those years ago. Ok, not really, but of course Funimation hasn't put out an attractive and affordable collection or box set, and I've got to buy 10 individual releases consisting of a measly 12 episodes each (time to go back to making custom boxes!) all while dodging a slew of bootlegs on Amazon and Ebay. THIS IS COMPLETE MADNESS. IS IT 2007 RUGHT NOW??

I just wanted to say 'hello again'. I'm excited to watch the new series :)

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Koitsukai
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Re: Greetings from a lapsed fan

Post by Koitsukai » Fri Jul 30, 2021 10:08 pm

Welcome back to Universe 7 (you have a lot of catching up to do).

I guess a binge watch of DBS as a brand new audience member must be exhilarating, even if I were to do it now, I know what's going to happen, you are in for a helluva surprises.

Don't forget to also read the manga, it's pretty much a different story.

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Planetnamek
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Re: Greetings from a lapsed fan

Post by Planetnamek » Sun Aug 01, 2021 11:26 am

I know the feeling, after the original run ended on Toonami I didn't think about DBZ for over a decade. It's only in the last few years or so that I finally got around to rewatching it and man it blew my mind how much had changed since my last brush with the universe.
"Why run away from something you're not afraid of?" - Goku

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