Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
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Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
And please no "Because One Piece SUCKS"
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
Because nobody was watching Fox Box/4Kids tv. Even 4kids abandoned it to take over the WB
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
Besides airing on a block of 4Kids' that did it no favors at all, the dub itself was god awful in pretty much every respect. Miscast voices on most if not all the characters, unfitting exaggerated accents, horrid mandated censorship, rewriting scripts into an incoherent mess and worst of all cutting out large chunks of episodes in the arcs thry did dub (East Blue to between Alabasta and Skypeia, so the early 100's) which in turn threw some very crucial plot points of the story out the window. It was a travesty of production in the truest sense, and i can't overstate enough just how FUNimation acquiring the license and picking up the ball that 4Kids dropped made a difference, and it was just a mess that went down as an unfortunate stain on the latter's legacy as a dub production company.
Last edited by SuperSaiyaManZ94 on Fri Nov 26, 2021 11:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
I think that despite the inaccuracies, replacement music, dumb jokes, and the like, the show came at just the right time where not much like it was on TV at the time as a kids' cartoon with a serialized story. In addition, the original version was a bit harder to come by since fansubs were something you had to put more effort into obtaining than you do today. Also, even while the scripts and music still still sucked and the acting got worse with the cast change, the arrival of Season 3 on Toonami with its less cut footage (retaining some of the blood and a lot more violence than the first seasons) and starting to actually acknowledge that characters could and would die (not counting those initial broadcasts of those early Season 1 eps since they quickly got edited to remove that dialogue) gave the series an edginess that wasn't really common on kids' TV at the time. I think much of the same could be said for the Yu Yu Hakusho dub, though that had the added benefit of also being closer in spirit to the original than DBZ (not perfectly faithful, of course, but a fairly reasonable representation of the show for the time).
Contrast that with 4kids One Piece, which not only came about in a post-Funi DBZ world, but in an era where digital fansubs were skyrocketing in accessibility and popularity. Fans were able to see the original version first, and the fans who didn't were made more aware of the changes that were being made to the show. In addition, coming after the DBZ and YYH dubs the 4kids One Piece dub with its even kiddier dialogue, censorship of violence, and Super Soakers instead of guns made it rather toothless in comparison to those shows. This was even more apparent when the TV-watching anime audience gravitated towards Naruto. The Saban era censorship practices simply didn't appeal to the show's target demographic anymore. (Heck, you could argue the same for the Saban era Z dub, but it had a distinct lack of competition.) Audiences had gotten better (even if only on the surface level of having blood in DBZ's case) with the other TV dubs Toonami was airing then, so why bother with this kiddified dub of a show when Naruto had "the good stuff," as it were? Especially when a lot of that audience moved on to fansubs anyway, especially for a lot of these hack dubs. That's just my take, though. My analysis may be WAAAY off base, so please let me know if there was something I missed.
Contrast that with 4kids One Piece, which not only came about in a post-Funi DBZ world, but in an era where digital fansubs were skyrocketing in accessibility and popularity. Fans were able to see the original version first, and the fans who didn't were made more aware of the changes that were being made to the show. In addition, coming after the DBZ and YYH dubs the 4kids One Piece dub with its even kiddier dialogue, censorship of violence, and Super Soakers instead of guns made it rather toothless in comparison to those shows. This was even more apparent when the TV-watching anime audience gravitated towards Naruto. The Saban era censorship practices simply didn't appeal to the show's target demographic anymore. (Heck, you could argue the same for the Saban era Z dub, but it had a distinct lack of competition.) Audiences had gotten better (even if only on the surface level of having blood in DBZ's case) with the other TV dubs Toonami was airing then, so why bother with this kiddified dub of a show when Naruto had "the good stuff," as it were? Especially when a lot of that audience moved on to fansubs anyway, especially for a lot of these hack dubs. That's just my take, though. My analysis may be WAAAY off base, so please let me know if there was something I missed.
Last edited by OmegaRockman on Fri Nov 26, 2021 11:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
I have to say no to that Masenko Ha. The reason the Fox block died was because there was some drama with them and 4kids. Despite One Piece not doing good in there they did have TMNT 2K3 which was a relatively big hit for them and it aired mostly on Fox.
FOX (4Kids TV) 1.3/6 Avg. (8a-12n)
Di-Gata Defenders 0.6/4; Biker Mice from Mars 1.1/6; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1.2/6; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1.6/7; Sonic X 1.9/8; Dinosaur King 1.6/7; Kirby 1.4/7; Winx Club 1.0/5
WOW at SONIC X.
These are actually pretty healthy ratings for the twilight of Saturday Mornings.
FOX (4Kids TV) 1.3/6 Avg. (8a-12n)
Di-Gata Defenders 0.6/4; Biker Mice from Mars 1.1/6; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1.2/6; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1.6/7; Sonic X 1.9/8; Dinosaur King 1.6/7; Kirby 1.4/7; Winx Club 1.0/5
WOW at SONIC X.
These are actually pretty healthy ratings for the twilight of Saturday Mornings.
Spoiler:
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
I'd also like to point out a few things that FUNimation genuinely did better at, despite their inexperience & outdated practices:
1) FUNimation put their all behind Dragon Ball Z, whereas 4Kids didn't even want One Piece. The latter more-or-less just kicked One Piece to the curve the moment their contract was up—I think that apathy shows in the end product. FUNimation, on the other hand, went out of their way to redub 67 entire episodes from Seasons 1-2, so the show'd have a (mostly) consistent voice cast from beginning to end. Love 'em or hate 'em, that's not something most companies would do.
2) Related to the above, the show had a pretty solid cast...at least for the time. The Ocean dub had a stable of experienced voice actors, and even the in-house dub did a pretty decent job at casting. Even at the start, we had...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
—Sonny Strait as Krillin (who was pretty much good since Day 1)
—Eric Vale as Trunks
—Kent Williams as Dr. Gero
—Chuck Huber as Android 17
—Meredith McCoy as Android 18
—Damien Clarke as Cell (all forms)
—Chris Rager as Mr. Satan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...and so on. As for Sean Schemell & Chris Sabat, they were...inexperienced & awkward at the start. But, they also have an extremely wide vocal range & a lot of passion for their roles—furthermore, Sean Schemmel has an extremely powerful set of lungs. Hence, it didn't take long for them to start turning in great performances as well.
3) The Ocean Dub score, and the Team Faulconer OST, were made specifically for the show—4Kids's score, meanwhile, was at least partially made up of stock music from their other dubs. Considering that "Shuki Levy" & "Bruce Faulconer" are so beloved (though they stole the credit from the true heroes), while "John Angier, Louis Cortelezzi, Matt McGuire, Ralph Shuckett, & Dan Stein" are barely recognized...I think the results speak for themselves.
4) DBZ's plotline was mostly untouched, once we got out of Ocean territory. And even in Ocean, they were much more selective about what parts they edited—you didn't have entire arcs getting the axe, like you did with One Piece. Hence, a much more coherent story (outside of moments like "Vegeta killed Goku's Grandpa!").
5) This last one's a personal opinion, but...even disregarding the above, Dragon Ball Z's just a better show in general. Even watching the FUNi dub of it, I didn't enjoy any of the arcs I watched, except for the Black Cat arc & the Arlong saga. As a result, I flat out dropped it in the middle of Skypeia. DBZ, on the other hand, I was utterly absorbed in—even though my first exposure to it was through the Budokai & Legacy of Goku games.
That's right—I felt more from the story in DBZ's video games than I did from One Piece's actual anime . Not sure how popular of an opinion that is, though, so take this as you will.
1) FUNimation put their all behind Dragon Ball Z, whereas 4Kids didn't even want One Piece. The latter more-or-less just kicked One Piece to the curve the moment their contract was up—I think that apathy shows in the end product. FUNimation, on the other hand, went out of their way to redub 67 entire episodes from Seasons 1-2, so the show'd have a (mostly) consistent voice cast from beginning to end. Love 'em or hate 'em, that's not something most companies would do.
2) Related to the above, the show had a pretty solid cast...at least for the time. The Ocean dub had a stable of experienced voice actors, and even the in-house dub did a pretty decent job at casting. Even at the start, we had...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
—Sonny Strait as Krillin (who was pretty much good since Day 1)
—Eric Vale as Trunks
—Kent Williams as Dr. Gero
—Chuck Huber as Android 17
—Meredith McCoy as Android 18
—Damien Clarke as Cell (all forms)
—Chris Rager as Mr. Satan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...and so on. As for Sean Schemell & Chris Sabat, they were...inexperienced & awkward at the start. But, they also have an extremely wide vocal range & a lot of passion for their roles—furthermore, Sean Schemmel has an extremely powerful set of lungs. Hence, it didn't take long for them to start turning in great performances as well.
3) The Ocean Dub score, and the Team Faulconer OST, were made specifically for the show—4Kids's score, meanwhile, was at least partially made up of stock music from their other dubs. Considering that "Shuki Levy" & "Bruce Faulconer" are so beloved (though they stole the credit from the true heroes), while "John Angier, Louis Cortelezzi, Matt McGuire, Ralph Shuckett, & Dan Stein" are barely recognized...I think the results speak for themselves.
4) DBZ's plotline was mostly untouched, once we got out of Ocean territory. And even in Ocean, they were much more selective about what parts they edited—you didn't have entire arcs getting the axe, like you did with One Piece. Hence, a much more coherent story (outside of moments like "Vegeta killed Goku's Grandpa!").
5) This last one's a personal opinion, but...even disregarding the above, Dragon Ball Z's just a better show in general. Even watching the FUNi dub of it, I didn't enjoy any of the arcs I watched, except for the Black Cat arc & the Arlong saga. As a result, I flat out dropped it in the middle of Skypeia. DBZ, on the other hand, I was utterly absorbed in—even though my first exposure to it was through the Budokai & Legacy of Goku games.
That's right—I felt more from the story in DBZ's video games than I did from One Piece's actual anime . Not sure how popular of an opinion that is, though, so take this as you will.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
Exactly Funimation's Dragon Ball Z dub came just as the anime boom in the western world was beginning, and once it got a good time slot it was prime candidate to be the monster hit it was. By the time 4Kids One Piece dub hit the airwaves western audiences had been exposed to more than their fair share of anime, and a serialized show like that was nothing special anymore. It was also released after Funimation put out the Ultimate Uncut DVDs for Dragon Ball Z, so there was a greater appetite for full uncut series, and another heavily altered dub like 4Kids One Piece was seen as an unwanted step backwards.OmegaRockman wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 11:10 pm I think that despite the inaccuracies, replacement music, dumb jokes, and the like, the show came at just the right time where not much like it was on TV at the time as a kids' cartoon with a serialized story.
The difference is that Funimation owed their success to Dragon Ball Z, it was the property that transformed them from a nobody company to the biggest anime studio in English-speaking countries. It was just another show to them. 4Kids had already established themselves with massive hits like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, which likely explains the apathy you mention towards One Piece. Even if it failed they still had other series doing well and they likely anticipated being able to license more anime that would achieve relative levels of success. Unfortunately karma hit 4Kids bad, and not long after One Piece things took a turn for the worst.Fionordequester wrote: ↑Sat Nov 27, 2021 12:06 amFUNimation, on the other hand, went out of their way to redub 67 entire episodes from Seasons 1-2, so the show'd have a (mostly) consistent voice cast from beginning to end. Love 'em or hate 'em, that's not something most companies would do.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
There seems to be this weird misconception that Dragon Ball Z’s dub didn’t have a large hatedom online all the way back in 1996. Anime had been kicking in North America well before Dragon Ball Z hit syndication.
There’s a huge difference between companies like 4Kids and Saban and Funimation’s target audience of 6-11 year olds and the audience who would watch fansubs online, who usually tend to be older.
Do you really think 8 year olds were put off by how kiddy One Piece was even though equally kiddy shows were still doing well? Unfitting voices is nothing new and was a common criticism all the way back to the days the Vancouver based cast voice Dragon Ball Z for Funimation (and probably long before even that)
Hell did Dragon Ball Z Kai’s ridiculous censorship on the CW ,that often made the show incoherent, kill its ratings? Sure it left a huge stain on how the show was received in online circles until Toonami somewhat saved it by airing it uncut but it still did well with its intended young audience at a time the Saturday Morning cartoon format was pretty much on life support. And it was young children making Dragon Ball Z Kai a hit for the CW as companies don’t tend to care about viewership outside of the target demo.
4Kids One Piece didn’t fail because the audience the series was aimed at knew better and was watching the real version online it failed because it aired on a channel nobody really cared to watch and was still getting crushed in the ratings by the WB
There’s a huge difference between companies like 4Kids and Saban and Funimation’s target audience of 6-11 year olds and the audience who would watch fansubs online, who usually tend to be older.
Do you really think 8 year olds were put off by how kiddy One Piece was even though equally kiddy shows were still doing well? Unfitting voices is nothing new and was a common criticism all the way back to the days the Vancouver based cast voice Dragon Ball Z for Funimation (and probably long before even that)
Hell did Dragon Ball Z Kai’s ridiculous censorship on the CW ,that often made the show incoherent, kill its ratings? Sure it left a huge stain on how the show was received in online circles until Toonami somewhat saved it by airing it uncut but it still did well with its intended young audience at a time the Saturday Morning cartoon format was pretty much on life support. And it was young children making Dragon Ball Z Kai a hit for the CW as companies don’t tend to care about viewership outside of the target demo.
4Kids One Piece didn’t fail because the audience the series was aimed at knew better and was watching the real version online it failed because it aired on a channel nobody really cared to watch and was still getting crushed in the ratings by the WB
Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
Did it even "fail" that hard? The fact that it never got an angry online "this is the REAL version of the series, even the author agrees the Japanese version is garbage" following is that it ended and got replaced by a different dub before all the little kids that watched it got old enough to go on the Internet, but that's not "failing". That's just "ending".
The Funi dub didn't last all that long on TV either, did it?
The Funi dub didn't last all that long on TV either, did it?
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
4Kids OP also aired on Toonami, but that didn’t seem to do it any favors either. In terms of why FUNimation had better luck with DBZ than 4Kids had with OP, I guess it might have just been the time in which it was released. DBZ was something unusual for American children’s television at the time, so there was probably a cool novelty factor to it that appealed to kids. 4Kids OP came out at a point when that kind of stuff had become much more of the norm, and the heavy censorship didn’t do it any favors when placed alongside something like Naruto.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
Sonic X was more popular in America than it was in Japan. Know older folks couldn't decide whether it had a bad dub or was just a bad show altogether, (apparently Chris Thorndyke was just as annoying in Japanese as he ws in English) but kids apparently loved it.Cure Dragon 255 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 11:11 pm
WOW at SONIC X.
These are actually pretty healthy ratings for the twilight of Saturday Mornings.
4 seasons from Fall 1999-Spring 2003. I'd call that lasting a bit.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
They meant the One Piece Funimation dub, not DBZ.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
Sonic in general has never been very popular in Japan, despite being a Japanese IP. The franchise’s popularity has always been a distinctly Western phenomenon.Super Sonic wrote: ↑Sat Nov 27, 2021 7:00 pmSonic X was more popular in America than it was in Japan. Know older folks couldn't decide whether it had a bad dub or was just a bad show altogether, (apparently Chris Thorndyke was just as annoying in Japanese as he ws in English) but kids apparently loved it.Cure Dragon 255 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 11:11 pm
WOW at SONIC X.
These are actually pretty healthy ratings for the twilight of Saturday Mornings.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
Well, there is ONE upside to One Piece not becoming the next big kiddie fad. Funimation actually treats One Piece with genuine respect and they dub the show accordingly. We wont see any stupid jokes or rotten tricks like bad DVD or Blurays.
And even if it wasnt a kiddie fad its still HUGELY popular. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo52vQyAR6w this video for example has 21 million views. That's nothing to sneeze at!
And even if it wasnt a kiddie fad its still HUGELY popular. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo52vQyAR6w this video for example has 21 million views. That's nothing to sneeze at!
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
I think Adamant was referring to the Funi dub of One Piece not Dragon Ball ZSuper Sonic wrote: ↑Sat Nov 27, 2021 7:00 pm
4 seasons from Fall 1999-Spring 2003. I'd call that lasting a bit.
And the Funi dub of DBZ lasted six seasons from Fall 1996 to Spring 2003. I don’t know why fans continue to insist on ignoring that the first two seasons that aired in syndication are part of the Funimation dub. The Funimation dub didn’t start at Ginyu Assault. It started at Arrival of Raditz.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
In my opinion, the main reason why DBZ did better than One Piece is something that certain people on this site would hate to admit: it was just a better dub. I mean, ignoring the purist anger at the script changes and replacement score, Funi DBZ was better than 4Kids One Piece in just about every aspect:
- Much more coherent script writing
- More fitting voice actors, even after the switch to in-house
- No censorship after Saban left (although even the Saban censorship was somewhat less ridiculous)
- Score specifically composed for the show, rather than pulled from a stock music library
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
I was only referring to seasons 3-6 due to how Adamant said it, and thought he was talking about DBZ. Speaking of 1996 and One Piece, the Mermaid Princess from the dub was born that year, so anyone else feel old?MasenkoHA wrote: ↑Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:16 amI think Adamant was referring to the Funi dub of One Piece not Dragon Ball ZSuper Sonic wrote: ↑Sat Nov 27, 2021 7:00 pm
4 seasons from Fall 1999-Spring 2003. I'd call that lasting a bit.
And the Funi dub of DBZ lasted six seasons from Fall 1996 to Spring 2003. I don’t know why fans continue to insist on ignoring that the first two seasons that aired in syndication are part of the Funimation dub. The Funimation dub didn’t start at Ginyu Assault. It started at Arrival of Raditz.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
Dragon Ball Z and One Piece were both on Cartoon Network, as for why One Piece failed I don't know why.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
The tones of the two dubs might have played a big part. Funi had a clear direction in aggressively reshaping DBZ into a 'hardcore action cartoon', while 4Kids' One Piece seemed to have a lack of confidence in the original material.
So you end up with moments where a joke happens during an action scene and it feels like the music is cutting itself off with how quickly it switches back and forth between 'action' and 'comedy' modes. And you get voices like Usopp's, which totally exaggerates his comedic persona at the expense of any range when sincere moments actually show up. One Piece was already known for its tone shifts, but the 4Kids version pushes everything up to eleven and then shifts the tone around even more. Funi, however, seemed to understand the appeal of their DBZ and kept it on the same track.
4Kids' new plot holes and inconsistencies can't have helped, but I doubt they were affecting viewers' enjoyment on an episode-to-episode basis.
So you end up with moments where a joke happens during an action scene and it feels like the music is cutting itself off with how quickly it switches back and forth between 'action' and 'comedy' modes. And you get voices like Usopp's, which totally exaggerates his comedic persona at the expense of any range when sincere moments actually show up. One Piece was already known for its tone shifts, but the 4Kids version pushes everything up to eleven and then shifts the tone around even more. Funi, however, seemed to understand the appeal of their DBZ and kept it on the same track.
4Kids' new plot holes and inconsistencies can't have helped, but I doubt they were affecting viewers' enjoyment on an episode-to-episode basis.
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Re: Why did 4Kids One Piece FAIL while Funimation's Dragon Ball succeeded?
The OP dub also had the infamous aspect of giving most if not all the characters unfitting over the top accents. Sanji's awful Sylvester Stallone-esque Brooklyn voice was by far the worst of the lot, and his 4Kids VA David Moo has gone on record before stating that he didn't like the direction he was given for the character hence why he'd retired from voice acting shortly after the dub ended. 4Kids' other dubs prior like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh also had this to a degree, but with One Piece they pushed it to laughably absurd levels. It's no mystery why FUNimation's dub is worlds better in every respect. How ironic that they were in talks to license it first before 4Kids then they eventually got it after the latter dropped the license.LostTimeLord wrote: ↑Sun Nov 28, 2021 10:52 am The tones of the two dubs might have played a big part. Funi had a clear direction in aggressively reshaping DBZ into a 'hardcore action cartoon', while 4Kids' One Piece seemed to have a lack of confidence in the original material.
So you end up with moments where a joke happens during an action scene and it feels like the music is cutting itself off with how quickly it switches back and forth between 'action' and 'comedy' modes. And you get voices like Usopp's, which totally exaggerates his comedic persona at the expense of any range when sincere moments actually show up. One Piece was already known for its tone shifts, but the 4Kids version pushes everything up to eleven and then shifts the tone around even more. Funi, however, seemed to understand the appeal of their DBZ and kept it on the same track.
4Kids' new plot holes and inconsistencies can't have helped, but I doubt they were affecting viewers' enjoyment on an episode-to-episode basis.
Last edited by SuperSaiyaManZ94 on Sun Nov 28, 2021 11:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
DB collection related goals as of now:
1.) Find decent priced copy of Dragon Box Z Vol. 4 (Done)
2.) Collect rest of manga
3.) Get rest of Daizenshuu (2-7)
1.) Find decent priced copy of Dragon Box Z Vol. 4 (Done)
2.) Collect rest of manga
3.) Get rest of Daizenshuu (2-7)