An observation on Dragon Ball's English-speaking fanbases.

[Tsukento]

After a while, I've started to notice that out of a good chunk of manga/anime and even shounen series', Dragon Ball has the most different kind (aka clusterfucked) of fanbases I've ever seen.

It's really odd having really just noticed how exactly we all, as well as others, have progressed through the years with this franchise. It's also really odd seeing how incredibly different several groups regard what (almost) the very same show that everyone else is watching.

Remember when Dragon Ball Z first started airing in the US, back in 1996? Back then you either had your VHS bootleg viewer who slammed the dub for editing so much (or someone who went by ol' Chris Psaros' DBZ Uncensored site) and you had your dub viewer who took everything that was said to heart, including next dimensions, Goku's father being a "brilliant scientist" and Tien being able to regrow his hand.

Then when Season 3 came along, it seemed like the dub crowd grew a bit more. Didn't seem like there was a problem. BUT WAIT! Something happened! Part of that group that had been watching since Season 1 had split off out of disgust in the new voices. Thus we ended up with the start of two dub fan groups. The group of fans for the Japanese version continued on with their claims that the dub was still full of it and that the Japanese version is far more "adult oriented." They continued to cling onto their bootleg VHS fansubs.

Season 4 kicks in and the bigger dub crowd begins to take notice of Bruce Faulconer's music. Not only this, but DVD starts to come around and some dub fans are now exposed to the Japanese version. So we end up with some dub fans changing their opinion on the series and jumping ship onto the Japanese version fanbase. The once bootleg VHSers took notice of the DVDs and began to replace their deteriorating tapes for the better quality DVDs. However, that fanbase ends up having a (very) small amount of people complaining about Saiyan being used instead of "Saiya-jin" and saying that the subs are censored (although this was only technically *slightly* true with a few bits of dialogue in the Ginyu DVDs). Not only this, but we also get some dub fans who enjoy both versions, as well as some Japanese version fans who enjoy the dub.

So that leaves us with a Japanese version loyal fanbase, a misguided Japanese version fanbase, a once-dub now-Japanese version fanbase, a Japanese version fanbase that enjoys the dub, an English dub fanbase, a nostalgic English dub fanbase, and an English dub fanbase that also enjoys the Japanese version.

Holy shit, this is getting complicated!

We move on over to when Dragon Ball is being dubbed to its entirety.

You have your basic Japanese version fans and your basic English dub fans. Sounds about right. Dragon Ball's first dub only lasted for 13 episodes and aired at an incredibly early time during syndication (earlier than DBZ's first two seasons; 5:30am if I'm not mistaken). So we don't get too much of the nostalgia fans. We do, however end up with the fans that enjoy both sides of the series. Unfortunately, there also comes the fans that started with Z who slam Dragon Ball for not being strictly fighting; your DBZ fanbase that doesn't care for Dragon Ball.

Moving on to GT, this is where it gets humorous and somewhat complicated.

GT was always considered the black sheep of the Dragon Ball franchise, regardless of what language it's in. So you automatically have the Dragon Ball fans who don't like GT. However, some did end up liking GT for what it was, so you have that fanbase there. But then there's also the group that enjoys the Japanese version of GT, but hates the English dub version. That's three groups right there, so far. Then comes the fans who've watched DBZ's dub, enjoyed GT but hated the dub music. So now we've got four groups.

Great. Seems like that's all of them, right?


....

Right?

Videos start to leak the internet. Ocean Group has been dubbing the series, starting with Season 4 for Canada and Europe. So the nostalgic DBZ dub fans get to hear the old cast reciting the same lines the FUNimation cast had done. Not only that, but three more groups pop up; a group that has come to enjoy both sides of the dub, and two groups that lacks intelligence who are known as the Pro-Ocean Group and Anti-FUNimation fans, and the Pro-FUNi and Anti-Ocean Group. The Pro-Ocean and Anti-FUNi are well known for flaming anyone who does not agree with their opinion on the Ocean Group dub, regardless if you like the FUNimation dub as well. They are also prone to claiming the music in the FUNi dub is terrible, meanwhile forgetting that the Ocean Group dub's music is simply reusing music from the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon and the Monster Rancher dub.

As if that wasn't enough, this continues on with GT as well. Take GT's fanbases, mix them in with the fanbases of the Z dubs and you have one hell of a mess.

To make matters worse, then come the Dragon Boxes and Season boxsets.

So now we have a fanbase loyal to the Dragon Box quality, a fanbase loyal to the Season boxsets, and a fanbase that would prefer to have either one. Not only this, but the Season boxsets start up ANOTHER different type of fans. You now have your fans who enjoy the English dub with the Japanese music. Unfortunately, this has lead to some fans of the English dub music to start slamming on Japanese music for not being "upbeat" and "hip" like Bruce Faulconer's music.

Gah!

So let's review all the fanbases.

• Japanese VHS bootleg fansub loyalists
  Misguided Japanese version fans
  Japanese version fans
  Nostalgic English dub Z fans
  Post-Season 2 English dub Z fans
  Once English dub-Now Japanese version fans
  Japanese version fans who enjoy the dub as well
  English dub fans who enjoy the original as well
  The Z fans who don't like Dragon Ball
  The DB/Z fans who don't like GT
  The fans who like GT, but not the English dub
  The English dub fans who like GT, but not the dub's music
  The English dub fans who enjoy both the FUNimation and Ocean Group dubs
  The Anti-FUNimation, Pro-Ocean Group fans
  The Anti-FUNimation, Pro-Blue Water fans
  The Anti-Ocean, Pro-FUNi fans
  The Anti-Blue Water, Pro-FUNi fans
  The Dragon Box fans
  The Season boxsets fans
  The fans who enjoy both releases and would prefer to own either one if given the choice
  The fans who enjoy the English dub with the Japanese music
  The fans who enjoy Bruce Faulconer's music but hate the Japanese music

That's TWENTY TWO fanbases right there.

And this is over a series that's been long over and done with. This is far different from any other series that simply has the Japanese version fans, the English fans, and the fans who enjoy both versions.

Man...

Any thoughts you guys wanna share or point anything out I might have missed?

[Kaboom]

My head hurts.

[Tsukento]

Glad I'm not the only one.

[Saiyan-Professor]

That's TWENTY TWO fanbases right there.

And this is over a series that's been long over and done with. This is far different from any other series that simply has the Japanese version fans, the English fans, and the fans who enjoy both versions.

Man...

Any thoughts you guys wanna share or point anything out I might have missed?

People that are excessively fussy and concerned with minute details (anal-retentive) tend to be Dragonball fans.

Addendum: I believe that more fan-bases can be derived from GT alone.

[Kunzait_83]

b

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

We're probably going to have a lot more once the movie comes out.

I'm sure I was watching Dragonball on WB at 5 AM(it was after Sailor Moon) when I was much younger. When was that?

[Tsukento]

We're probably going to have a lot more once the movie comes out.

Yeah. I left that out because so far, everyone's mixed on an unreleased movie.

I'm sure I was watching Dragonball on WB at 5 AM(it was after Sailor Moon) when I was much younger. When was that?

God, I think that was like...maybe 1995? I remember Sailor Moon used to have an early afternoon timeslot on UPN before being slammed into the early morning timeslot of 5am. Dragon Ball/Z, in my area, aired on WB.

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

We're probably going to have a lot more once the movie comes out.

Yeah. I left that out because so far, everyone's mixed on an unreleased movie.

I'm sure I was watching Dragonball on WB at 5 AM(it was after Sailor Moon) when I was much younger. When was that?

God, I think that was like...maybe 1995? I remember Sailor Moon used to have an early afternoon timeslot on UPN before being slammed into the early morning timeslot of 5am. Dragon Ball/Z, in my area, aired on WB.

That sounds about right. I think like, Poke'mon came on at like 6 or 7 in the morning, and I woke up too early to watch it and ended up with Sailor Moon and either Saiyan or early-Namek DBZ purely by accident.

[DaemonCorps]

Confusion Galore!!! English Fan Divisions Among One Series is probably what Tanooki Kuribo would have named this topic.

... and yeah, I noticed that, too. Just goes to show you that we have a reason to be cranky in comparison to fans of newer shows that are getting what we always wanted. Heck, it's challenging enough just to be able to identify which group(s) you belong in.

[Saiyan-Professor]

You realize of course that this ENTIRE clusterfuck could’ve been very easily avoided had Gen Fukanaga simply not been related to a TOEI exec.

FUNimation would’ve gone on to become the nobodies who did Cyboars, and either Pioneer/Geneon or ADV would’ve probably snapped up the rights and did at least a marginally competent dub from the getgo with bilingual releases first thing out the gate. Hell if Geneon had gotten it, their U.S. branch would’ve probably never gone out of business.

I tend to believe that other companies would have done something similar. It is not a proper means of conducting business to provide everyone with what they want all at once. Companies have to put a product on the market and fashion it in a way were you can keep the consumers suckling from the corporate teat. Complaining is not going to solve anything, you either have one of two choices. Buy the merchandise in one of its various incarnations that is sold presently and be satisfied with it or wait an inordinate amount of time and watch Dragonball in a format that is to your liking with your grand kids or great grand kids. Do not blame Funimation but the capitalist economic practices of the U.S. and other countries.

[fps_anth]

Ouch...my head.

I'm the fan that watched the dub and never really complained about it because I didn't know any better. Then, I got my first DBZ DVD, and decided to try out the Japanese version.

And holy crap. BLEW MY FUCKING MIND.

Since then, I can't stand the dub

[Tsukento]

Confusion Galore!!! English Fan Divisions Among One Series is probably what Tanooki Kuribo would have named this topic.

... and yeah, I noticed that, too. Just goes to show you that we have a reason to be cranky in comparison to fans of newer shows that are getting what we always wanted. Heck, it's challenging enough just to be able to identify which group(s) you belong in.

I believe the closest you can get is with One Piece.

You got the Japanese version fans who hate all dubs, the Japanese version fans who like dubs but don't particularly care for either OP dub, the Japanese version fans who hate the 4Kids dub but love the FUNimation dub, the 4Kids fans who hate the FUNimation dub, the 4Kids fans that enjoy the FUNimation dub, and the FUNimation dub fans who like only a few aspects of the 4Kids dub.

Don't even get me started on the the views regarding the manga as well. x_o;

[omegacwa]

I like both the Japanese and English Dubs. Although I find myself almost never watching the dub anymore, basically cause it's the "been there done that" mentality. The English version was fun one, or two times through, but now I don't really have any desire to watch it again, although I almost always watch the Ocean Dub Version of Movie 2 because it's awesome.

I also use to watch the Mexican Dub on Telemundo when I was younger solely because it was unedited, and I understood/understand some Spanish. Although I felt/feel a lot of the voices sound similar and/or are extremely generic sounding.

[Herms]

I like both the Japanese and English Dubs.

Just to be nit-picky, but there is no "Japanese dub" of DragonBall. Dubbing refers to the replacement of a show or movie's original dialog with dialog in another language (or sometimes the same language, when the movie's dialog needs to be changed for whatever reason), it's not merely a generic term for dialog. So saying "DragonBall's Japanese dub" is like saying "DragonBall's Japanese translation".

Anyway, the topic: I agree with Kunzait that all these different fans groups is just because of all the different versions of the show that have been released in the English-speaking world. Different fans will always have different opinions of things, and the more stuff there is, the more things there are to have opinions on. If other anime had a bajillion and twelve different English dubs, then their fan communities would have as many different kinds of fans as DragonBall.

[JulieYBM]

I was born in 1990 so I was eight or nine when I got on with the Ocean episodes on Toonami, I never really noticed the voice change nor did I care, all I knew was that it was new DBZ and it was awesome. I remember it well, I was at Suncoast and noticed two new tapes--my first ever--I obviously picked the tape with the most episodes (the second Ginyû tape) went home and was scarred crapless by the uncut-ness of it.

Over the years I've come to find I like both the FUNi cast (not the scripts or broadcast score) and the original JPN cast. I play the English Sparking METEOR with both ENG or JPN tracks depending on my mood. I do not particularly like Linda Young's Freeza but if she were ever to pass on I would not be against casting Andrew Chandler to voice Freeza.

So throw me into the "Likes dub and original casts plus original music, would probably stick to dub if it were more accurate" crowd.

[Wojak]

After hesitating, I found guts enough to read this topic, and as the others, my head friggin aches.
Still it's an interesting topic. I can say that I'm one of the few that started with the Spanish dub, with original Japanese BGM, and uncut (if I remember correctly).
You should add the ones that started with the Mexican/Spanish dub since they got it via sattelite . I realize that that's just a promille of the fans, and the last sentence should be seen as a joke and nothing else,

[omegacwa]

I like both the Japanese and English Dubs.

Just to be nit-picky, but there is no "Japanese dub" of DragonBall. Dubbing refers to the replacement of a show or movie's original dialog with dialog in another language (or sometimes the same language, when the movie's dialog needs to be changed for whatever reason), it's not merely a generic term for dialog. So saying "DragonBall's Japanese dub" is like saying "DragonBall's Japanese translation".

Wow, that really is nitpicky, considering they dubbed in the Japanese voices over the blank soundtrack.

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

I like both the Japanese and English Dubs.

Just to be nit-picky, but there is no "Japanese dub" of DragonBall. Dubbing refers to the replacement of a show or movie's original dialog with dialog in another language (or sometimes the same language, when the movie's dialog needs to be changed for whatever reason), it's not merely a generic term for dialog. So saying "DragonBall's Japanese dub" is like saying "DragonBall's Japanese translation".

Wow, that really is nitpicky, considering they dubbed in the Japanese voices over the blank soundtrack.

You dont' "dub" over nothing. Dubbing does, specifically, refer to replacing the original voices with new ones.

[Super Sonic]

Thing I've noticed with fanbases are they are often divided into older and younger fanbases that do not acknowledge each other. Younger are your elementary and middle school kids while older are your older teens and adults. DB isn't the only one that has this, and a few companies realize this and note that the two fanbases react differently. For example, Yu-Gi-Oh's older fanbase complained about changes while its younger fanbase made the show a hit. Similar with the first Pokemon movie. Pokemon's younger fanbase outnubered its older one about 200 to 1 when the movie came out, thus why complaints about changes to it from Japanese fell on deaf ears, especially since it made more money than most of this board will ever earn in their lifetimes.

[snaku]

I guess you could say I'm a pro-Ocean dub, Japanese dub convert.

My first exposure to the series was the Ocean dub in '97, and once Funi switched voice actors to their own I hated it. I gave them until the end of the Freeza saga before I stopped watching Funi's new dub. So I started watching the Japanese dub in bootlegs through snail mail, starting at Trunks' arrival. And that's how I finished the series.

I always wanted to hear the Ocean group's dub of the rest of the show, but copies of the episodes are so hard to find, and there's still no official release.