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- takarajima
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- Saiyajin no Tatsujin
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Re: The History of Dragonball Fansubs
The fansubs that I remember the most were the yellow ones made for the GT series with the "Super5" up in the corner of the screen.
- Akumaito Beam
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Re: The History of Dragonball Fansubs
I had literally just put all my DBZ stuff away in my crawl space a week ago thinking I'm officially done with this cartoon for a few years and then you come along with this amazing site and refresh my proverbial nerd boner. I can NOT wait for this thing to get fleshed out with time and I truely hope you keep up with it. You couldn't design a website with a niche topic that piques my interest more than this one if you tried. I am bookmarking this thing so hard. I really hope you aren't going to be put off from working on the site if there's not a huge reaction here, it's totally niche but that's why its so rad. I can't go to Daizex or Kanzentai for this sort of thing and that already puts you 100% above all DB sites that aren't Daizex or Kanzentai.
So...yeah! I'm pretty stoked! I hope you get around to tinkering with it again.
So...yeah! I'm pretty stoked! I hope you get around to tinkering with it again.
Re: The History of Dragonball Fansubs
Thank you! That made for some fascinating reading and watching!

It is in his character to be rude and a bit crass. He's a hick, with no formal education. That is Son Goku. That is who he is.
Superman in an orange Gi was the bastard son of FUNimation. Its not The real character, it is as false as Chatku.
-DemonRin
Superman in an orange Gi was the bastard son of FUNimation. Its not The real character, it is as false as Chatku.
-DemonRin
- medama_oyaji
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Re: The History of Dragonball Fansubs
Wow, this is really great! Both informative and INCREDIBLY nostalgic. I love looking at all those bonkers Anime Labs messages.
- Daimo-Rukiri
- I'm, pretty, cozy, here...
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Re: The History of Dragonball Fansubs
What a blast from the past, some of the cover art I've seen at thrift stores and pawn shops during the mid to end of the 90s.
I mostly remember the SSJ2 Gohan image on VHS cover slips.
I mostly remember the SSJ2 Gohan image on VHS cover slips.
Re: The History of Dragonball Fansubs
Cool site! It's been a decade since I watched VHS fansubs. Thank you for remembering me of how bad they were!
Re: The History of Dragonball Fansubs
It's weird how fascinating of a subject the fansubs of Dragonball are.
Looking back at the terrible quality of the subs and video, it was almost entertainment in itself. I miss those days.
Gets me all nostalgic..
Looking back at the terrible quality of the subs and video, it was almost entertainment in itself. I miss those days.
- takarajima
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Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
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Last edited by takarajima on Tue Mar 05, 2013 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
Yes, I've never seen a fan-sub VHS before. It was just fascinating reading the whole history and the various groups, clips, bad translations, all those Japanese advertisements...You're welcome, glad you liked it. ^_^
I take it that you came after the fansub era? How does it feel to take a look into the past? What was interesting for you?
Last edited by DBZ Mick on Sat Jan 28, 2012 9:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
It is in his character to be rude and a bit crass. He's a hick, with no formal education. That is Son Goku. That is who he is.
Superman in an orange Gi was the bastard son of FUNimation. Its not The real character, it is as false as Chatku.
-DemonRin
Superman in an orange Gi was the bastard son of FUNimation. Its not The real character, it is as false as Chatku.
-DemonRin
Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
I wasn't going to comment, but I figure you deserve all the accolades you can get so I just wanted to stop by and say thanks! The '90s fansubs have always fascinated me and I only wish I'd picked one of them up in Chinatown while the places there still sold whatever VHS they had left from olden days T_T. I'm thoroughly impressed. Also, the fact that you provide clips is pretty fun too.
[quote="Brakus"]For all the flack that FUNimation gets on this forum for their quote about DBZ, there's some modicum of truth to it: a 9-year-old is born every day. Or in some cases, "reborn". DBZ may be a kids' show, but it's been so close to so many hearts all over Japan, America, and quite possibly, even the world.[/quote]
Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
Here's some fun stuff "Anime Crisis" did:





I think overall the translation for movie 4 was good, and a digital script of AC's version is floating around still somewhere.
On the topic of 'quality,' this is how I watched SSJ2 Gohan fighting Cell:


Not naming names (*cough*Pandora's Cube*cough*), but seriously, a store sold this.
Feel free to reuse any of these shots!





I think overall the translation for movie 4 was good, and a digital script of AC's version is floating around still somewhere.
On the topic of 'quality,' this is how I watched SSJ2 Gohan fighting Cell:


Not naming names (*cough*Pandora's Cube*cough*), but seriously, a store sold this.
Feel free to reuse any of these shots!
Last edited by Ashura on Sat Jan 28, 2012 11:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
My favorite movie henchman is Sancho.
Follow my stupid crap on Twitter. Please note, I do not have time to reply to any PMs about color correction methods anymore; sorry about that.
[ Hoyoyo! Please pick up our Dr. Slump DVD! ]
Follow my stupid crap on Twitter. Please note, I do not have time to reply to any PMs about color correction methods anymore; sorry about that.
[ Hoyoyo! Please pick up our Dr. Slump DVD! ]
Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
Why does it say Anime Crisis if they're Anime Labs? Did they go by different names?
Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
Actually, I was just editing that mistake. I'm pretty sure they were different groups. I only think this because Movie 4 seemed to be much better quality all around than any Anime Labs thing I ever saw. I never had anything else 'Anime Crisis' other than this, so I'm not really sure. As an aside, Goku was referred to as Gokuh in their script.
My favorite movie henchman is Sancho.
Follow my stupid crap on Twitter. Please note, I do not have time to reply to any PMs about color correction methods anymore; sorry about that.
[ Hoyoyo! Please pick up our Dr. Slump DVD! ]
Follow my stupid crap on Twitter. Please note, I do not have time to reply to any PMs about color correction methods anymore; sorry about that.
[ Hoyoyo! Please pick up our Dr. Slump DVD! ]
- Saiyajin no Tatsujin
- Beyond Newbie
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- Location: Roshi Island, training under the Turtle Master.
Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
Nice. Yep, that's 'em alright. God, I couldn't stand that shit. I got ripped off back in 2001/2 by an anime shop who was selling the entire GT series on VHS. I repeatedly asked them if they were the Super5 digital copies (that I did NOT want), and they assured me they weren't. So when they arrived and ended up being what I did NOT want, you can imagine how pissed I was. I tried getting my money ($50) back from them, but I never did. They ended up getting in trouble for selling pirated material and had to shut down soon after. Oh well.takarajima wrote:Super5 did things digitally, and they came late compared to the VHS fansubbers, so I didn't give them a section on the site. I do have a tiny section that hints at the beginning of the digital era, with part of a capture of an NGN episode on there, though.Saiyajin no Tatsujin wrote:The fansubs that I remember the most were the yellow ones made for the GT series with the "Super5" up in the corner of the screen.
Here's a small snippet of the GT special, which has the Super5 logo, for you: DBGT Super5
Your site is awesome, though, man. It brings back a lot of memories. Keep it up!
- medama_oyaji
- Beyond-the-Beyond Newbie
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Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
ha ha, you picked a pretty good pair right there. It was always cool when the message for one eye catch related to the next. I also loved seeing the commercials on fansubs. The Poporo spaghetti ads were something that my friends and I would sing in class together in high school, ha ha. I also remember the Tony the Tiger ads where he would say "Guuuuuuuu-reato!"takarajima wrote:
Any in particular that you liked?
They do make me laugh...!
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Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
Interesting. They seem to had used the laser disc release instead of VHS.Ashura wrote:
Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
Don't recall ever seeing bad DB/DBZ fansubs, but I do remember watching almost all of GT some summers ago (probably 09 or 010) via the Super5 subs. Funny but interesting stuff. It came to a point where I prefered to watch with those subs instead of the Steve Simmons ones.
Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
I remember some guys called "Ctenosaur video" or something like that were really nice. They sent me their fansubs for only covering up the video, and it was quite easy to say that they had used the laser disc for source, and only copied once. I was so happy to see some of the movies in great video quality, including the Dragonball movie 4. I don't remember anything bad about the subs either, but then again, my english level was really low, and I hadn't been exposed to much Japanese yet.
Re: Here is the Real Story of Dragonball Fansubs...
Most movie fansubs mainly used the Laserdisc releases as their sources. I used to have several of these fansubs and they all had the typical signs of video noise. I'm guessing it was because of the large quantity of anime available on the format back in the day.kei17 wrote:Interesting. They seem to had used the laser disc release instead of VHS.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't LaserDisc the format of choice to transfer to VHS for fansubbers back in the 90's? This was before my time, I was a wee lil' lad watching DBZ on Telemundo! Ha!










