My thoughts on the Dragonball community

[Dominator]

I'll be blunt, I only ever visit Daizenshuu EX and the Temple 'O' Trunks. Basically, the rest of the DB community is pretty messed up.

I've spent most of my time on team pages in the Megaman community, but I've noticed over the years, many DB websites with flashy layouts and pointless tag lines such as "this is your saiyan destiny" are all the same with little varying content.

And please don't get me started on "affiliation" as they all seen to have dozens of "affiliates" despite that they don't even know what the word means and I thought affiliation was something were a few webmasters were friends and started a sort of group on their site(s).

But I want to talk about animations and sprites. Someone had created loads of unique custom sprites and animations from scratch, then thousands of idiot webmasters steal them and there is hardly any credit being given in this community. Someone spent all that time ripping sprites, emulating and designing all this original stuff that almost everyone has gone and took it all for themselves.

There is much more that I could rant about, such as "free full dragonball gt episode downloads" and power levels.

Afterall, this is just my two cents. I want to see your thoughts.

[laserkid]

hey another DBZ and Mega Man community guy, nice to see it, are you looking forward to the new Mega Man Network board like I am?

Heh anyway on topic now, I don't actually see much of the DBZ community outside of this very message board. However if it is the same as it was 3 years ago, I definitely have some axes to grind. Back in 2002 I found two strong sects of DBZ fans, and I did not like either one of them, and still don't. You had on the one extreme groups like the Dragon Ball Z Otaku Alliance, folks who hated anything and everything to do with the English release, even (and based on some things I've seen I'd say especially) the subtitles on the DVDs, which is fine I suppose everyone has their own views. The problem I had with this group of people is they seemed happy to download fansubs and pirated stuff for DBZ, essentially to steal it, and they had the gall to play moral superiority with that action over those of us who just bought DVDs (be they FUNimations or Toei's soon to come ones at that time). But - at least they were articulate.

That ties into the second large group of DBZ fans out there. The inarticulate morons. I'd like to say this stuck to just dub fans, but it doesn't - It stuck to anyone who just felt they were too cool for proper English. You used to see everywhere DBZ websites that would have their title in either L337, opposing lowercase and uppercase, or both. Examples could include "SuPeR SaIyAjInN GoKuU's 5up3r L337 \/\/38p463" - yeah a grind on the eyes and mind. Trying to talk to these folks was really strange too, they were rather loopy. The modern day equivalent is people who champion DB AF as "4r34lz0rz" and attack out "violently" with the most retarded insults anyone has ever seen when called out on it.

Of course there were other smaller and just as annoying groups such as the "DBZ is old I'm over it" group which I'm pretty sure we've all dealt with in some way or another. These assholes will champion new anime as awesome, which is fine, I too like newer anime, I find myself with a peculiar addiction to Chrono Crusade, and Big O. Yet these folks will go on and on about how DBZ sucks because its not as good as their new super champion of a show. Yeah, annoying.

Then there's this message board. We're all of us clinically insane. Yet we manage to stave off the insanity with our love of Dragon Ball Z. We may have the occasional grammar or spelling shenanigans that will make Mike come down on us as a missionary on a pagan, yet we still manage good decent conversations. This has been the only DBZ community safe haven I've ever known to keep the idiots away without outright just not talking about DBZ. We don't beat down on each other for differences in opinion (we even have some pretty sharp differences in preferences between Toei or FUNimation DVDs). We also manage to be informative to each other, even when our brains want to explode in confusion (anyone remember the timelines discussion? Hehehe...)

So ultimately I'd be inclined to say the DBZ community is doing better then it was a few years ago, but then I only know Daizenshuu EX today.

[Heritic]

I'll be blunt, I only ever visit Daizenshuu EX and the Temple 'O' Trunks.

Hey, me too. They're really the only sites left that are worth looking at now.

I remember way back in the day when I was heavily browsing DB websites. I probably browsed through tons of sites via links and affiliates on a daily basis. Now I hardly know what's going on in the DB community because well, I only visit two websites. I don't really want to find out either.

I only remember one website that I used to go to before Daizenshuu EX and that was DB Unlimited. Looking back now, I hate that place. I mean the site is designed nicely and everything but it's run by the most arrogant people I've ever seen. Their forum topics consist of "Which form of Buu is stronger?" and "Goku vs Superman". However, I don't really know if it's still like that, since I haven't visited that place for maybe 3 or 4 years now.

The DB community as a whole still seems to be overrun with rumors of Akira Toriyama being dead (this time by a car accident) and that AF is coming soon. I honestly don't remember what the DB community was like before all of this since I was a fan brought in by the dub.

[Dominator]

Ever heard of the DaBlackGoku forum? Everyone hates each other now, it's almost overrun with flamers and n00bs, the respected members are RACIST, and the admin has disappeared into thin air.

And to quote Laserkid, I only ever hang out at the Mechanical Maniacs board and my friend Cutman.EXE's place, don't really go that far into the MM community lately.

[spikemcruffy]

j

[Jerseymilk]

Of course there were other smaller and just as annoying groups such as the "DBZ is old I'm over it" group which I'm pretty sure we've all dealt with in some way or another. These assholes will champion new anime as awesome, which is fine, I too like newer anime, I find myself with a peculiar addiction to Chrono Crusade, and Big O. Yet these folks will go on and on about how DBZ sucks because its not as good as their new super champion of a show. Yeah, annoying.

Unfortunately, that's really a problem with anime fandom in general it seems. For a group that acts as if we are so much deeper and ahead of things culturally, we sure are fickle! I mean series that are mediocre at best are being raved about simply because they're brand new! And it's reasons like this that make me stay away from the general anime fan community. >_> Oh well....the one good thing about it, is it weeds out the people that were only into it because of the novelty from the people that truly love it.

[laserkid]

the whole "we're cultured" bullshit will piss me off to no end when being applkied to why their tastes are better than someone elses. Its the same justification for fansiubs of shows coproduced by US companies (Big O II, and Ninja Scroll TV for instance). But that is another rant.

[*PINHEAD*]

Back when I was really into Dragon Ball, I remember scouring the intarweb looking for information on the series. I was lucky if I could find a site legible and intelligent enough to offer some decent information, such as PlanetNamek. Alas, now I own a decent amount of graphic novels, tankoubon, and kanzenbans, so I don't really browse for DB related things anymore. But I find this site and forum pretty cool.

[Sun_Wukong]

I'll be blunt, I only ever visit Daizenshuu EX and the Temple 'O' Trunks.

Not to be rude, but you still visit T.O.T? I personally cant stand Trunks so there's really no point for me to go there on a regular basis.

[LaRésistance]

Funny, I had the exact same discussion with French Dragon Ball Z fan on the forum of the site I write for (DBNet-Fr.com), we have the same problem here with sites in French. A couple of sites are created each week but they're all the same.

A couple of weeks ago a guy came on the forums to plug his site, I went to take a look. The site had a hentai section forbidden to those under 18, the only problem is that the webmaster is 14 years old...

The American anime community is pretty much like the French one except that [in France,] most fans have a lot of respect for Dragon Ball.

[laserkid]

I don't visit the TOT often either, and I am a Trunks fan. I just never got hooked on TOT like others. *shrug*

[Alias]

I think you guys have become too cynical for your own good. DaizEX and TOT are hardly the only good DB websites in existence. What about DBA - The Goten Shrine? I think it's better than TOT any day. Announcer Guys's fanart site. DragonBall Doujinshi. There's many shrines, fanfic, fanart, and personal websites that are really good. They may not have the same history or popularity as the ones everyone's used to, but that doesn't make them any less good. I'm not at home, so I don't have my favorites list available, but here's a few sites I visit...

DBA - http://www.jackskeleton.com/gotangel/index.html
DragonBall Doujinshi - http://www.dragonball-doujinshi.com/
Announcer Guy's Site - http://www.geocities.com/shinban_no_ochan/
Announcer Guy's Deviantart account - http://announcerguy.deviantart.com/

But yeah, browsing for DB sites isn't the most cheerful of ventures. I go on big searches every week and almost anything that looks promising turns out to be either a broken link or the last update was in 1942. -_-

I wish the community was as vibrant as it was 3 years ago, but that's just wishful thinking. It's never gonna be like that again, but that doesn't mean everything is over and doomed to decay. Contrary to popular belief, newbies are not the scourge of the earth, there's still fantastic fanart and fanfiction being made, DragonBall is still phenomenally popular around the globe, new toys are being designed daily, new games are coming out, Dragon Box info is all over the internet, Dragon Fall and Japanese Doujinshi are everywhere (and being translated by myself), new theories about Saiya-jins and Nameksei-jins are being brought forth, ships are still argued, and Vegeta's passionate love for Kamesennin will endure the test of time! (betcha didn't expect that one!).

[laserkid]

Nobody said it isnt possible for there to be new, good websites, just that...



...we don't have a clue what they are.

[Heritic]

But yeah, browsing for DB sites isn't the most cheerful of ventures. I go on big searches every week and almost anything that looks promising turns out to be either a broken link or the last update was in 1942. -_-

This is exactly why I stopped browsing DB sites long ago and just stick to the two. It's not that I don't want to accept new sites as good, but it's more that I'm too lazy to go looking for them.

[Alias]

Meh, lazy.

I'll make a list later of the ones I've got...

[askani son]

What was that about Vegeta and kame-Sen'nin?

[Alias]

You can't picture those two as a couple?! Kamesennin, the old but experienced lover... Vegeta, the arrogant but passionate prince... Romantic trysts... Moonlight walks... Love under the stars... Vegeta giving birth to a healthy, 8 pound baby (tut, tut, didn't use birth control)... Their liaison discovered, the two fleeing into the wilderness to raise their love child...

Weirdo.

[Fuujin]

Nobody said it isnt possible for there to be new, good websites, just that...



...we don't have a clue what they are.

Yeah, that's the problem for me too. I just can't filter out the gold from the crap. I just... I just can't face the "Draggvon bLKaalllazzzzzz!!elevenONEONE" sites... I'm sorry...

Same goes for fanfics. I like them, I really do. But for Polish community, there's one site that has most of the quality work. No such deal in foreign sites. There's too much of it I guess.

One question - do any of you know a good information site? I'm talking general topics, like characters, attacks, and the such... But done skillfully. So far, the only good technique list I've found was the Ultimate DBZ Info one. Daizenshuu EX has quality content, that;s for sure, but... there's not too much of it.

And please... I don't like yaoi, and the fact that... mean, Kamesennin... I don't really... I mean... That's... Gh... Oh man... AGH! GHA! YEEEAAAARRRGGHHH!

Am thinkik my brain broke.

[Alias]

I don't visit information sites, so I can't offer any help there.

If you're looking for good fanfics on fanfiction.net, a good trick to try is hopping through people's favorites lists. That's how I come across most of the best work.

As for Yaoi... Okay, I won't post another of those... How about Kamesennin and Piccolo? Piccolo ain't male.

I wonder if Piccolo would be interested though, Kamesennin's awfully pushy (and perverse) about romance... He might end up offending Piccolo's sensibilities...

^_^

[*PINHEAD*]

Eugh...I'm not particularly a fan of fanfiction, as I have never had enough interest, let alone time, to read any. Especially not any romantic DB-based fanfiction.

There is, of course, the Saiyan Kanzenban Elite site, which I used to visit before. I haven't been there in a while, so I don't know of any updates or if it's still up. Then there's always that Pojo site...I know, I know...but I found it had useful information to some extent.