Whatever happened to DBZOA?

Castor Troy · Post by **Castor Troy** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:25 pm

Super Ghost Kamikaze wrote:
Pizzaguylol wrote:Also, the reviews on DBZ Uncensored 2 are NOT by Chris Psaros.
I simply can't STAND DBZ Uncensored 2. It was poorly-managed, did nothing for me, and the episode comparisons were just...they were very bland to read. Nothing felt "right", and the whole thing really just fell apart. And the site design was made worse. Overall...I just want to forget the page ever EXISTED.

Agreed. DBZU2 was a terrible knock off of DBZU. Psaros had pretty legitimate reasons for his complaints, but DBZU2 was just bitching for the sake of bitching.

Although this line of stupidity always cracks me up..
http://www.animecauldron.com/dbzuncenso ... rdock.html

"Kakarroto does NOT translate to "Kakarot" and there is no excuse at all whatsoever for this change."

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:39 pm

I never liked DBZ Uncensored, though I thought it was a pretty neat resource for the changes (and his commentary was pretty funny sometimes). He just came off to me as such an insufferable condescending asshole that I thought the funniest part of the site was when he NERD RAGE'd over Freeza's "You're the first one who's ever hurt me, besides my loving parents, that is" until, oops, turns out that's in the original! "Oh you wacky Toriyama, I love the line! *brownnosebrownnose*"

NeptuneKai · Post by **NeptuneKai** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:43 pm

Rocketman wrote:I never liked DBZ Uncensored, though I thought it was a pretty neat resource for the changes (and his commentary was pretty funny sometimes). He just came off to me as such an insufferable condescending asshole that I thought the funniest part of the site was when he NERD RAGE'd over Freeza's "You're the first one who's ever hurt me, besides my loving parents, that is" until, oops, turns out that's in the original! "Oh you wacky Toriyama, I love the line! *brownnosebrownnose*"

Oh man I totally agree, this guy’s nerd rage was great.
"DID KING KAI JUST SAY GOKU'S WIG WAS GONE;WTTTFFFF!?....oh wait...he said ring...well I guess it's not THAT bad of a line."
It seems as if a lot of current uncensored sites have been becoming more professional and less biased.

Post by **Herms** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:52 pm

Rocketman wrote:He just came off to me as such an insufferable condescending asshole that I thought the funniest part of the site was when he NERD RAGE'd over Freeza's "You're the first one who's ever hurt me, besides my loving parents, that is" until, oops, turns out that's in the original! "Oh you wacky Toriyama, I love the line! *brownnosebrownnose*"

Actually, he said something more like "Well I'll be jiggered, I guess it was Toriyama's pent-up Oedipal rage."

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:27 pm

Herms wrote:Actually, he said something more like "Well I'll be jiggered, I guess it was Toriyama's pent-up Oedipal rage."

"And the only reason I called the line crappy is because I thought it wasn't in the original script. ... I STILL think it's a pretty weird line, but that's our wacky Toriyama for ya."

Eh, same difference.

Post by **Herms** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 11:07 pm

Rocketman wrote:"And the only reason I called the line crappy is because I thought it wasn't in the original script. ... I STILL think it's a pretty weird line, but that's our wacky Toriyama for ya."

Eh, same difference.

Darn, forgot that part. For some reason I've just always remembered that first bit; I just think there's something funny about the phrase "pent-up Oedipal rage". I do agree that he had good writing skills but was too extreme and unforgiving. Unfortunately, he set the tone for much of the debate about the dub, even to today. His site did serve a needed function back then, but I wonder if American fandom might have been different had he been a...calmer person.

At any rate, Psaros did coin my all-time favorite description of DBZ (this is from memory too, might be a little off): "Dragon Ball Z is a show about people and things that, if you're not already a fan, you probably don't care about."

GS7X7 · Post by **GS7X7** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 4:48 am

I figured I should comment on this.

I'm GreatSaiyaman777 of Dbz Uncensored 2. I'm seeing some complaints about the work but I actually did a lot of excellent content that I'm very proud of when I look back on, and I would like to show you some of these parts which I'm particularly proud of.

1. http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... mzaint.rtf (interview with Ramza- reveals the truth about Anime Labs)

2. http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... iyama.html (this was a piece written by a friend of mine who actually got to meet Toriyama at a Shonen Jump convention)

3. http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... dokai.html (this piece explains how to play the European version of Tenkaichi Budokai)

4. http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... views.html (this is from when I found out about why the previews were missing)

5. http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... ubfan.html (I think this guy posts here)

6. http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... rview.html (this is an interview with a Toei employee about Funimation and the DBZ dub. He actually posted on this board a few times too)

7. http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... /tien.html (Funimation's script writer- I actually found out the truth about Funimation's dub scripts- that literally most of them for DBZ were horribly mistranslated, which finally stopped when they hired Steven J.)

8. http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... sucks.html (this is one of my favorites. I was actually by someone from Funimation that told me where to direct complaints, or rather who to fuss about)

9. http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... mov07.html

10. http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... mov08.html (these are my only movie reviews I really like! I will be the first one to say that my first reviews, especially the tv specials, were pure crap and I've said it many times before! If you read any movie reviews on DBZU 2, only read Movie 7 and 8 and possibly 6. 7 I especially loved writing because of how incredibly horrible that dub was for it!)

11. http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... music.html (my favorite editorial, my initial reaction to gt's rap)

Just a note, I never did any actual episode reviews. Wedge did the first few and then Leia did some.

----------
Hell, he was probably embarrassed by it, if he ever actually took the time to read through any of it.
-------------

Actually when I spoke to him once he said he was honored that someone would actually take the time and want to do a sequel to his site. I doubt he ever read it more than a glance- from what I've been told from friends (and have read from various people on message boards) that have e-mailed him, he pretty much has nothing to do with anime or the anime community at all and hasn't watched any in years. (unless he decided to within the past year) Judging by comments on his site, I think he's kind of embarassed about DBZUncensored (mainly because people irl seem to poke fun his anime nerd past to him) so I imagined he'd be embarassed by any kind of sequel site to his.

-------
Although this line of stupidity always cracks me up..
http://www.animecauldron.com/dbzuncenso ... rdock.html

"Kakarroto does NOT translate to "Kakarot" and there is no excuse at all whatsoever for this change."
--------

Well, mistakes happen. I didn't even know Japanese at the time and had just begun DBZU 2. I was corrected about on the Dbzoa boards and later e-mailed Steven J. about it who set me straight. Hell, EX used to call Goku Gokuu, we all make mistakes with the language sometimes or at first, it's not a big deal. And it wasn't just complaining for the sake of complaining- you oldschoolers got all your rage going on during seasons 1-3 because of how shitty the dubwas then. By Season 5, all of your rage had died- even Psaros's, because anime nerd rage kinda just dies over time

Me, my rage began during season 6 when I then found out how crappy the show was- because the dub was still shit. Thus it was fresh, and got sic'd on the newer parts of Funimation's treatment of the series. Considering this atrocity (http://youtube.com/watch?v=98mFN5eqwfI) I think, I dunno- maybe people were right to bitch at Funimation over DB because they continued to rape DBZ's dub and wound up raping GT to the bitter end?

Oh, and you're Jon's friend right? I remember I used to beef with him because of something he did to someone I knew (you probably don't know what it is since it'd only be filtered from his point of view and he probably didn't tell you the whole thing) but, that's all internet drama in the past. I'm not looking for any beef with you or anyone here. Anything I've written on my site about anyone here is years old and doesn't necessarily reflect my current views, and apologies to anyone it offends.

Anyway, I originally started DBZU 2 in late 2003 mainly because I had gotten hooked on the original version, and had been inspired by Psaros's old Dbz Uncensored.

The goals of it were primarily to help inform people still hook on the dub about the differences between the versions and to get them interested in the original version, and to try to convince Funimation to do a better version. When GT's rap came out I also wanted them to not rape gt. The first one I did a lot but the second one, not so much. (I actually do think that Movie 8's dub script was decent because of all the complaints that I got directed towards Funimaiton about the movie dubs, especially 7) The 3rd one, well.... like GT's dub opening, that's a no-brainer

Some of you may not remember it or have ever known it but, during it's time DBZU 2 was quite popular. Over time though, I made one -huge- mistake that pretty much killed the site and my popularity with it, in additional to credibility. Although anonymous sources I reference aren't just made up- say, I dunno, a guy who's friends with the company posting secret about the music composer on in the -shadows- of a message board somewhere. (one of you should get this reference)

http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... butal.html

Before that mistake though, I'd already seen Chris Sabat posting as eatmoreokra on ign's boards, trying to stir up a topic towards Blue Gender anonymously. He'd also posted on a DB message forum a while ago arguing with some DB fans who hated the dub, his post there being pretty enlightening. Considering that how the head of Tokyopop Stu Levy had anonymously tried to drummed up support for his company on his website and the popularity filling my ego, well, pride came before a fall. But that's all in the past.

I'm sorry some of you don't like DBZU 2 (I know some of you were fans back then- hey Mac!) but, during it's time it was pretty big and I did a lot of work and research there I'm proud of. I convinced KevinTRod from YGO Uncensored not to close his site and to keep it going, and I got him to merge it with JD's YGO Uncensored 2. I even convinced a friend into opening his own One Piece Uncensored site but it's gone now and most of you probably wouldn't remember it. All this stuff happened years ago and I haven't thought much about it since, this is the first time I've thought about a lot of this in years. (oh and complaints about the cursing? Watch the uncut dub of Movie 9! All my bitching about cursing actually led to something there)

Dbzoa eventually died off simply because, the staff did not care at all about the site. You can only have about 10 staff members who never do anything for a site make up the majority of it's leadership for so long before a cave-in is inevitable. I left before then because of that and other reasons (staff conflicts) and Dbzoa remains dead.

I've been gone for a while but when Dbzoa died (taking DBZU with it) I decided to come back and make sure that my new site's host, Anime Cauldron, would now host DBZU so that people could continue to enjoy it instead of risking the web archives closing DBZU (which they do whenever the domain name owner makes them, which happened to planetnamek.com). I don't really have much to do with DBZ or the community these days, but I still like DB so I lurk here from time to time since it's basically the last DBZ info site still active and going strong.

I'm glad you're grateful that DBZ U's still around and, though DBZU 2's not quite the same as Psaros, I hope you can appreciate some of what I've done on DBZU 2 and may do in the future there. And please don't just write it off- I did make some good discoveries like finding out why the Japanese previews were cut from the dvd's, (now that I think about it, I owe a lot of thanks to EX for that info. Man, I remember e-mailing him back and forth back then, fun times) just how they came about using mistranslated scripts for 60% of the series, and finding out the truth about DBZ's music from the Genterview. At least give me the credit where it's due, it wasn't just mindless ranting directed at no cause.

When reading the site, just bear in mind that most of it was written between 2003-2004 when the DBZ dub was still horrible, the GT dub was horrible and being raped, many of the Dbz movies were horrible and being raped and that a lot of what I said and wrote was to try to stop from happening and to try to get a decent dub to come out of the picture while convincing dub fans to convert to the original version.

As for the current state of the site, when I get around to it I plan on interviewing other fansubbers besides Ramza on the site.

http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... mzaint.rtf

Well, that's my two cents. Things certainly have changed a lot over the years! I have many goals far beyond DBZU 2, but that site certainly was fun for me during it's heyday.

Velasa · Post by **Velasa** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 5:38 am

Hey, cool to hear from you ^^ Thanks for coming in here and giving your side.

I don't really have an opinion on the issue either way, but if I get the chance I'll pick through some of the links here.

Though I'd like to have a moment of silence for PN. I still miss that site when I think about it too much, all these years later.

Conan the SSJ · Post by **Conan the SSJ** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 6:29 am

I did post a few editorials myself, in addition to the GT special uncensored review, though a number of those were written in some of my early interweb days with the community. So hopefully no one's upset at the little work I put in DBZ U2. But shoot, I like to think they're alright reads. >>;

Anywhoooo.

It's good to hear from you, GSM. Haven't seen ya' on AIM for ages, hot damn though, one long post. Any luck giving the season sets a chance?

Chuquita: I don't think any of the scripts are viewable on those archives anymore. Which sucks, since I lost all of GT when my old hard-drive crashed last Fall. I actually found reading the show quite enjoyable.

Velasa: Nice to meet ya'. Welcome to the boards~

GS7X7 · Post by **GS7X7** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:17 pm

"Though I'd like to have a moment of silence for PN. I still miss that site when I think about it too much, all these years later."

Has anyone tried buying the domain name planetnamek.com from it's current owners? If you did it then you could get the web archives to reopen, thus essentially bringing the site back from it's grave.

"Any luck giving the season sets a chance?"

I was excited as hell about them. But when I found out that like 15-33% of all the visual footage got cut I lost interest in them. Knowing Funimation they'll probably a new "enchanced version" later (read- the actual Dragon Box episodes, which Spain used and they could have used the first time) so I figure that in a couple years they should put out a decent version.

I still wish there was complaining at Funimation in the way of DBZU/2/DBZOA, at least about the missing footage- what they did with that was even worse than what they did to the dub.

Post by **TripleRach** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:47 pm

GS7X7 wrote:Hell, EX used to call Goku Gokuu, we all make mistakes with the language sometimes or at first, it's not a big deal.

Exactly how is that is a "mistake"?

His name has three syllables. Go Ku U. It's a perfectly standard and acceptable romanization.

GS7X7 · Post by **GS7X7** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 2:19 pm

Actually now I remember. It wasn't Gokuu that he used but I think it was "Gok + o +u" (for some reason the filter doesn't seem to want to let me type G-o-k-o-u) because there was a popular toyline in Japan that used that spelling for Goku's name.

Conan the SSJ · Post by **Conan the SSJ** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 3:42 pm

GS7X7 wrote:I was excited as hell about them. But when I found out that like 15-33% of all the visual footage got cut I lost interest in them. Knowing Funimation they'll probably a new "enchanced.

Just so you know, I've observed the season sets closely with some of the counterpart FUNi singles and the cropping is more-or-less equivalent to FUNi's previous DVDs when viewed on a standard-def/4:3 television set (their zoom-in technique + whatever minuscule amount of overscan which trims the vertical frame, though the latter doesn't apply when viewed on a computer), at least my television anyway. The cropping issue, while completely unecessary, is an interesting case regarding loss of footage. Almost everyone here, including EX and a number of Dragonbox loyalists, gave at least the first season a shot, I wish you'd do the same. Rather the quality of these sets is bad or not should be your own opinion. While there are some irky and terrible examples of "remastering" in the first couple seasons (due to some detail loss and instances of "Frame bleeding"), especially in Season 2, the quality's gotten better with each set that's released. I doubt all those whom got the Bardock/Trunks special combo DVD cared much about the wide-screen, mainly because the point of the DVD was getting better-quality encodes of those specials, with dubs w/t Japanese BGM (Bardock's even having Cha-La), and even with the eye-catchers.

Okay, my season set rambling is done.

Adamant · Post by **Adamant** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 5:31 pm

Conan the SSJ wrote:Just so you know, I've observed the season sets closely with some of the counterpart FUNi singles and the cropping is more-or-less equivalent to FUNi's previous DVDs when viewed on a standard-def/4:3 television set (their zoom-in technique + whatever minuscule amount of overscan which trims the vertical frame, though the latter doesn't apply when viewed on a computer), at least my television anyway. The cropping issue, while completely unecessary, is an interesting case regarding loss of footage.

While that is true, and the TV I have in my dorm room is really really horrible in this regard, the fact remains that on a good TV, the difference between the sets will be huge. Unless you're planning on never watching these episodes on a quality TV, isn't it better to buy the sets that can look good if viewed with the right equipment rather than something that'll look like ass no matter what?

EDIT: and yeah, different TVs crop and zoom differently. The old TV I used to have at home had awful picture quality, but it didn't crop the picture that much.

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 5:50 pm

Adamant wrote:While that is true, and the TV I have in my dorm room is really really horrible in this regard, the fact remains that on a good TV, the difference between the sets will be huge. Unless you're planning on never watching these episodes on a quality TV, isn't it better to buy the sets that can look good if viewed with the right equipment rather than something that'll look like ass no matter what?

The right equipment is expensive, and my little 13'' TV has only a tiny black bar at the top and bottom of the picture, so...

GS7X7 · Post by **GS7X7** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 6:35 pm

Actually Conan I did buy the first set. I enjoyed it but... that cutting.... well....

DBZ is Funi's number one cash cow. If there's a buck to be made they'll always put out new DBZ merchandise for the fans to buy. (and of course, it pretty much all sells like hot cakes)

I figure that sometime in the future, maybe after the live-action movie helps revive interest in DBZ (assuming the live-action isn't like the Hulk was) they'll announce a new enhanced "perfect" edition, and the dvd's will be released without any cutting or cropping Dragonbox-style. That's when I'll buy up all their dvd's.

GS7X7 · Post by **GS7X7** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 1:04 am

One last thing... if you do read through DBZU 2 it's probably best to do it through in chronological order through the updates and reach each part as it appears in order.
http://www.animecauldron.com/dbzuncenso ... hives.html

Otherwise a lot of it might not make sense at first, esp. since news updates were a huge part of it and a lot of things I did made references to prior that wouldn't make sense unless you read the other stuff that preceded it.

DBZU 2's not really episode review-centered and not that I think about it.... hmmm.... when I update again I need to change and alter a few things. I never realized the impression newcomers immediately looking at the episodes and the first few movie reviews in comparison to Psaros's would get.

As for eps/movie reviews, I'd only recommend Movies 6-8, the rest are pretty crappy. (it took me a while to get in the groove for the movie but hey, you try taking over from Psaros left off and you'll see just how hard it is)

Dark Vegeta-Sama · Post by **Dark Vegeta-Sama** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:49 pm

GS7X7 wrote:----------
Hell, he was probably embarrassed by it, if he ever actually took the time to read through any of it.
-------------

Actually when I spoke to him once he said he was honored that someone would actually take the time and want to do a sequel to his site. I doubt he ever read it more than a glance- from what I've been told from friends (and have read from various people on message boards) that have e-mailed him, he pretty much has nothing to do with anime or the anime community at all and hasn't watched any in years. (unless he decided to within the past year) Judging by comments on his site, I think he's kind of embarassed about DBZUncensored (mainly because people irl seem to poke fun his anime nerd past to him) so I imagined he'd be embarassed by any kind of sequel site to his.

On Psaros' current site that he still occasionally updates, he recently expressed that a part of him regrets his decision to close down the site when he did.

I found that part interesting.

GS7X7 · Post by **GS7X7** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:44 pm

Ah, but he did also write this-

"A third party was hosting DBZU for several years, but I think it's gone from the web now. Whew!"

I told him several months about DBZU being re-hosted somewhere else. He still hasn't updated this part since then so not really sure how he feels about the site still being around.