Correlation between purchasing/owning & increased knowledge

[Iberian_Saiyan]

This is my view on it: When people purchase a product, they are more likely to pay more attention to it, (The Story, Art, Animation, Lore, Dialog) because they payed their hard earned cash for it. If someone is watching it for free, they are more than likely to pay less attention to it because they have no money invested into it and they have the feeling of "Ah, I can always go back and view that part later", which they might never do leading to ignorance of a certain part of the series. For example, I have every Assassins Creed video game, I have my time and money invested into this series so I learned everything I could about the lore and plot (Because why stop now?) I'll also buy any future installments just because I'm so far deep into the franchise that It'd be foolish to leave my collection uncompleted even if I don't enjoy it like I used too. A friend a while back gave me a game that I enjoyed, but after that I didn't research anything about it like I did with the AC series, not even the company that made it, probably because I have nothing invested into it. (That leads to my overall ignorance about where the game came from, who was in charge, how long the development cycle was, and the lore that wasn't fully explained in the game.)To sum it up Mike, I agree with owning the product does lead to increased knowledge. (I'm sure there are surveys or statistic's proving this some wheres but more than likely not about Dragon Ball in general)

About the Super thread: Most people that complain about the current product and who watch the streams, more than likely are going to purchase the series on home release (Whether it be Dub or Original) which is why they are complaining now. I think you are more than likely to be dissatisfied with a product if you pay for it and feel you don't get your money's worth. If you don't pay for it, your more than likely to think: "Well, I didn't pay for it so no skin off my bones" and are less likely to complain. I think that's the reason people pay close attention to Super even though they don't own it yet, because they know they are going to own it in the future which animation and art is the number 1 thing people are upset with right now. If there's any possible way to get a change of that, it would be best to complain about it now while it's still in production, instead of waiting until the Dub release because it will be too late by then.

There is that majority who are just as knowledgeable about the series and not owning anything at all, though if they can afford it about 8 times out of 10 a big fan of a series is going to purchase the product itself.

I plan on buying Super on Blu-ray when it's out in Spain (by Selecta Visión) or in US (Funimation) but I will only start by its third season/arc because the first two seasons were painful to watch, especially the Resurrection F arc that had consistently bad animation and too many beam battles. Folks here often bring up "Dragon Ball Z animation wasn't perfect either" (I read what users post as a visitor) no one is saying that, simply that Super's animation was mediocre and DBZ rotten apples as I may call it were still better than Super's rotten oranges. As a fan of the franchise perhaps I should own the series by all of its volumes but I just can't, I don't like it at all.

[Kamiccolo9]

I see this in the strength debate area as well, with people who claim to know exactly what the Daizenshuu say... but when you dig deeper, it turns out EVERYTHING is a Daizenshuu to them (things like the "Super Exciting Guide" books, which they don't see a distinction between... which, OK fair enough, a guide book is a guide book...). There's another deeper level here because unless you know Japanese you're going to rely on second-hand information anyway, but still: I find it hard to consider yourself an expert in the material if you don't own the book, nevermind have the capacity to read it.

So look, I know I'm a jerk here. I hold all discussions to an impossible level. I've been doing this too long, know too much, and have the benefit of surrounding myself with people smarter than myself.

Is the point I'm getting at worth anything, though? What do you think about that: is there a direct correlation between putting in the effort to own something and therefore actually knowing more about it? Is it possible to pirate everything and still be an actual expert?

Okay, this is the part I really want to elaborate on. I agree with the rest about piracy and its correlation to ignorance of details, but I feel that is being discussed already, and don't really have any more to add to that.

For those of you that don't know, I am a history teacher at a local university, and my focus is in genocide, while also teaching ancient religions and Meiji Japan. I mention this to give context to the following post.

In history, you must use sources. For many, especially myself, you will have to use sources in a language that you do not understand. I have a very basic grasp of written Japanese, and a better, but by no means perfect (or even especially good) grasp of German, so when using works from these countries I have to either have a translator or a translated copy of the source, be it a book, letter, decree, or whatnot. In comparison, in the Dragon Ball franchise, we have the Kanzenshuu translations of the various guidebook information and creator interviews for those that do not own and/or cannot read the original sources.

Translation is an imprecise and imperfect art. Every language, be it English, Japanese, French, German, or Swahili will have intricacies, context, and connotations that do not flow into other languages. And merely learning another language does not bridge this gap; I can kinda-sorta speak German, but if I'm in a conversation with a German person, I'm not going to pick up on every layer of the conversation because I have not immersed myself in it. Same with translations. You may know that Japanese has different words for use in different contexts, depending on social status, age, familial relations, etc., but unless you have truly immersed yourself in that culture, you cannot possibly understand the subtleties of the language, the reasons behind why these things happen.

Each layer of translation adds another barrier between the original and the new product. This is unavailable. Even a directly translated English dub, taken directly from the Japanese script, will not accurately depict the original to a complete degree. And if a dub is based off of another dub, like I believe some of the European dubs are (correct me if I'm wrong,) then that just adds another layer. And if there are multiple dubs for a language, then the effort to make the two stand out apart from each other adds another layer. And it doesn't take much of this to render an entirely different meaning behind a line.

Building on this, context is essential to understand if you want to be considered an "expert." Picking a random example, Goten and Trunks' behavior would have a much different effect when portrayed to a traditional Japanese family than it would to a modern American one. The American is more likely to go "wow, those are some rowdy kids," while the Japanese person might be more likely to consider them more disrespectful than rambunctious.

In my field, I often have to interview survivors of genocide, or the families of victims. These tend to come about in five different ways:
1. Face to face interview
2. Interview over the phone
3. Interview over Facebook/Skype/other I'm service
4. Letters
5. Memories that family members have.

Each of these gets more and more unreliable. Not just because of misinformation, but because each gets more and more detached, and you miss the subtleties, An interview over the phone might get me all of the same hard facts that the face to face interview would, but I would not be able to see the hollowness of their eyes, the way their fists clench when they talk about what happened, the small tear that they let out by accident. An indirect interview takes out a great deal of the emotion, the power, of the source.

In the same way, translating from one language to another, while it may get most of the hard facts across, it will inevitably lose something. Whether it's the meaning behind the puns, or a reference that makes sense to one culture, but not another, the context behind a disobedient child, a different connotation for the word "god," and uncountable others. Only by immersing yourself in the other language and culture can you truly have the ability to really claim to understand them.

Incidentally, I haven't seen him around here in a while, but I'd love for Julian to chime in on this. I'm sure he'd be able to elaborate on it himself.

While any of us can read Herms' translations, and he's done a great job of providing us with notes to help explain some of the more ambiguous lines, it is nowhere near the same as actually reading the language for yourself. Just earlier today, I saw a conversation between Herms and Kei17, in which Kei resorted to posting in Japanese because it would be difficult to say in English, and Kei has a better grasp of the English language than plenty of the native speakers on the forum.

Anyway, I just hope this helps someone understand. Having a translation of a source is not equal to being able to read the source itself. There will always be at least one barrier to true comprehension if you are unable to read something in its own language. Even if you understand the words, it's entirely possible, and even likely, that the full meaning will escape you.

[Zephyr]

10/10 post, Kamiccolo.

Each of these gets more and more unreliable. Not just because of misinformation, but because each gets more and more detached, and you miss the subtleties

I'd just like to add that this is precisely why comparing something to a "game of telephone" is an argument against its authenticity.

[VegettoEX]

It goes without saying, but I want to say it:

I appreciate everyone's time, perspective, and graciousness with my babbling! Lots to think about and reflect on.

[rereboy]

I guess I'm the podcast/website equivalent of "It's 2016; things should be better!" like the folks watching Dragon Ball Super expecting the animation to be Disney-caliber.

The average current anime looks better than Super overall. If you take a list of the animes of the law few seasons, most of them, overall, look better than Super.

Fans are right to call Toei out.

On topic:

A person can easily be an expert on a franchise nowadays without actually owning it thanks to the internet and the information in it.

However, people who invest on a franchise, namelly buying it, tend to be more interested and spend more time on it, so then end up being better informed.

So, there is a tendency due to that aspect.

Regarding piracy, a pirated version can easily be comparable to an official release in terms of accuracy, or be even better. It depends. So, piracy on itself doesn't really mean that people will be ill informed about the show. They might be regarding details of the official release, but regarding the show itself it just depends on how accurate the pirated version is.

[Geekdom101]

There are varying degrees of hardcore. A lot of us here and who came from that old era saw the series in 2 or more languages and have a totally different perspective.

I think a big portion IS the checkered dub history. I don't blame too many fans for being confused on certain things about the dub. I mean there was Big Green, Harmony Gold, Malaysian, Funimation Texas, Funimation Texas Seasons 1-2 redo, Ocean Seasons 4-6 redo, Funimation Texas Orange Brick Re-do, Kai, etc etc.

I've had TONS AND TONS of people confuse Ocean with Harmony Gold and Big Green with Ocean. Some people think the AB Groupe is a dubbing group. Some people think Ocean sold to Funimation. TONS of misconceptions. I'm planning on EVENTUALLY doing some kind of big project about the history of dubs, although Kirbopher did something SIMILAR in the Do You Know Voice Acting series.

A lot of folks who pirate the series are definitely lacking in knowledge and casual. You wouldn't believe how many people ask WHERE CAN I SEE DBZ FOR FREE? I also get HOW CAN I WATCH DBZ? and I tell them to buy the releases and they say "for free" and no, these aren't kids. They're grown folks who (presumably) work.

But the fact that he said "it couldn't have been Funimation" is a clue that they ONLY saw it on Toonami with Faulconer and now DO NOT own the series because if you buy the freaking DVDs or Blu Rays, Funimations logo is EVERYWHERE including on the intro "YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING".

THE ONLY way to pirate everything and have deeper knowledge is to make sure you pirate everything and read everything. I think somebody can definitely have torrents of the series and still read Kanzenshuu or go to Youtube or something and still learn. But the perspective will NEVER be the same as that of the older crowd. It sounds like that podcaster is just lacking in extreme knowledge, which is OK but seems to be very common and the problem is, some kid listens to that, gets confused, googles "DBZ dubs" and finds out theres like 100!

[Kendamu]

I made a comment about a recent Reddit poll that showed that most people there were over 18 but they also pirated. That caused me to call them out (on Twitter) for being old enough to get jobs but too cheap for a $20 Blu-ray set. It got RT'd by @KaiserNeko and I got a bunch of excuses back from people. It was kind of infuriating. It's especially infuriating considering these guys are supposed to be superfans who grew up with the show.

These are the guys who FUNimation takes into consideration when discontinuing the Level Sets or not re-issuing DBox footage and instead goes with cropped widescreen, heavy DNR, and colors on full blast. The guys who have those preferences are largely pirating the series and it's messing things up for everybody.

You may be a jerk, VegettoEX, but those guys are super jerkfaces and FUNimation is taking advice from people who aren't gonna spend money on their products, anyway.

EDIT: I guess I didn't hit the part about knowing stuff about the series. Of course there's a correlation between knowledge of the series and owning it. The people who will actually spend money on the series care enough to actually know what they're talking about. The people who pirated the series online just get their bad info from other websites where people pirate DBZ. Then, all that bad info just gets swirled around until all these super jerkfaces start thinking that they're super knowledgeable because they're all in agreement about the same false information.

Also, they've probably never even watched Dragon Ball. Eff those guys.

[Geekdom101]

Also, they've probably never even watched Dragon Ball. Eff those guys.

Or Read the Damn Manga.

You need a shirt that says "READ THE DAMN MANGA" with the BattleGeekPlus logo

[Kunzait_83]

I think part of my problem is the stretch in logic. You like a show. You like a show a good bunch. You get a friend to talk about it with you. You decide that other people should hear your conversations. You record it and release it. You clearly do not know what you're talking about, can't answer questions about it, and still think this is something other people will want to listen to.

What.

OK, fair enough: I ran a website for a long time before I had any right to say I knew what I was talking about. I didn't know what it meant to have an audience and to be responsible to and for them. Been there, done that. I guess I'm the podcast/website equivalent of "It's 2016; things should be better!" like the folks watching Dragon Ball Super expecting the animation to be Disney-caliber.

Oh trust me: I MORE than sympathize with this logic ("if you're gonna put something out there about your thoughts on something or other of whatever given topic, have the common courtesy to at least vaguely know what the hell it is you're talking about first, especially now in the age of google and wiki") far, far, FAR more than you could possibly know. There's one of my - now-patented I guess - monster mega-posts resting somewhere on the backburner of my mind (possibly-maybe never to see the light of day here, but who knows) in which the kind of persistent mentality of ignorance you're describing here plays fairly heavily into it to one degree or another.

I do agree with others here that its still certainly POSSIBLE to not have bought any official releases and still know your stuff: provided you care THAT much to the point of doing your reading on the matter. In cases like that, those people clearly DO care very much, they just may not have the monetary means to swing any kind of purchase (which in today's economy is more than understandable). By that same token, buying an official release also isn't even necessarily an indication that you're a "hardcore" on series knowledge and are even intending to be one: some people only like something to the point of watching it on TV and maybe getting a home release, and leaving it at that.

Sure, odds are that if you pirate rather than buy or buy rather than pirate, that very likely would indicate in most instances which way on the scale of "hardcore/casual" you more swing to: but its hardly an iron clad given.

And in either case though, it doesn't ultimately undermine your point: if you care THAT much to the point of putting your thoughts on the matter out there into the ether, do some basic, cursory homework first just as a common courtesy to the listener/reader.

That's one of the things about the modern internet with its deluge of podcasts and youtube channels: everyone wants to be an amateur talk show host or TV/Radio star now. We in America have lived in an exhibitionist culture (nurtured without a doubt by our long-standing celebrity obsession), and always have: we just now have WAY more tools than ever before with which to indulge and abuse that - often times, unhealthy - tendency of ours. Everyone WANTS to be a star and the center of attention: very, very exceedingly few ever think about whether or not they SHOULD be by way of objectively measuring/gauging their own degree of talent and/or level of knowledge & skill on something.

[Theophrastus]

A lot of folks who pirate the series are definitely lacking in knowledge and casual. You wouldn't believe how many people ask WHERE CAN I SEE DBZ FOR FREE? I also get HOW CAN I WATCH DBZ? and I tell them to buy the releases and they say "for free" and no, these aren't kids. They're grown folks who (presumably) work.

I mean...you could try directing them to Hulu (though Toei is still doing that dumb "only three 'seasons' available at any given time" thing for Z, even though they don't do that for literally anything else). If they're from the US and can actually access the service, anyway.

[Geekdom101]

A lot of folks who pirate the series are definitely lacking in knowledge and casual. You wouldn't believe how many people ask WHERE CAN I SEE DBZ FOR FREE? I also get HOW CAN I WATCH DBZ? and I tell them to buy the releases and they say "for free" and no, these aren't kids. They're grown folks who (presumably) work.

I mean...you could try directing them to Hulu (though Toei is still doing that dumb "only three 'seasons' available at any given time" thing for Z, even though they don't do that for literally anything else). If they're from the US and can actually access the service, anyway.

From June 3rd 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc7Vj3cRG64

I've tried!

[Bardo117]

I honestly would've never messed with the audio tracks on my orange bricks if it weren't for me growing up wth the spanish(Mexico) dub, and the fact I found this website

[Kunzait_83]

I made a comment about a recent Reddit poll that showed that most people there were over 18 but they also pirated. That caused me to call them out (on Twitter) for being old enough to get jobs but too cheap for a $20 Blu-ray set. It got RT'd by @KaiserNeko and I got a bunch of excuses back from people. It was kind of infuriating. It's especially infuriating considering these guys are supposed to be superfans who grew up with the show.

These are the guys who FUNimation takes into consideration when discontinuing the Level Sets or not re-issuing DBox footage and instead goes with cropped widescreen, heavy DNR, and colors on full blast. The guys who have those preferences are largely pirating the series and it's messing things up for everybody.

You may be a jerk, VegettoEX, but those guys are super jerkfaces and FUNimation is taking advice from people who aren't gonna spend money on their products, anyway.

I guess I'll be that guy then: its 2016. America has been in a DEEP recession for quite some time now. Shit's been fucking horrific out there economically for an ever and ever more frighteningly growing number of folks, and if you (royal "you", not just specifically Kendamu) happen to be blessed enough to be doing well (or well enough) at this point in time to live at least reasonably comfortably, then congratulations: you're one of the EXCEEDINGLY lucky ones.

Look if this were 16 years ago, hell even 10/12 years ago, I'd be 100% on your side on this. But this ain't the late 90s/early 2000s anymore, and we as a nation aren't swimming in late Clinton-era surplus cash anymore and haven't for about an entire generation now. If someone really and truly IS doing perfectly alright financially and their pirating habits really are just a matter of their being too cheap and lazy, then obviously you're totally right on this. But realistically, since at the very least 2008-ish or so now (give or take), that probably hasn't been the case for a LOT of people who are pirating stuff right now. Most regular people on average are seriously struggling and barely holding on by a fucking thread.

Given the circumstances, I'd cut most people today more than a modicum of slack for saving money on frivolities and just watching their old favorite shows online for free rather than shell out for Blu Ray sets. If you're (again, royal "you") in a position today where you can comfortably buy a Blu Ray or DVD set of an anime (particularly the entirety of a fairly large series like this) without having to worry about weighing it against making the rent or having any food for that week, you should just be immensely grateful for being so fortunate rather than brow beating others for not being as lucky.

I'm not saying that that's what Kendamu did here, and I don't doubt the possibility that maybe the particular people he was speaking of here really were just some spoiled, entitled little snots: but being completely realistic, I can't imagine that "lazy, cheapskate assholes" accounts for a particularly vast majority of people who pirate today. More often than not, if I had to wager, if someone pirates in the 2010s its very, VERY likely because they have no other financial recourse... unless they feel that binge-watching the Cell Saga is more important than eating or having a roof over their heads.

[Kuririn Fan]

I made a comment about a recent Reddit poll that showed that most people there were over 18 but they also pirated. That caused me to call them out (on Twitter) for being old enough to get jobs but too cheap for a $20 Blu-ray set. It got RT'd by @KaiserNeko and I got a bunch of excuses back from people. It was kind of infuriating. It's especially infuriating considering these guys are supposed to be superfans who grew up with the show.

These are the guys who FUNimation takes into consideration when discontinuing the Level Sets or not re-issuing DBox footage and instead goes with cropped widescreen, heavy DNR, and colors on full blast. The guys who have those preferences are largely pirating the series and it's messing things up for everybody.

You may be a jerk, VegettoEX, but those guys are super jerkfaces and FUNimation is taking advice from people who aren't gonna spend money on their products, anyway.

EDIT: I guess I didn't hit the part about knowing stuff about the series. Of course there's a correlation between knowledge of the series and owning it. The people who will actually spend money on the series care enough to actually know what they're talking about. The people who pirated the series online just get their bad info from other websites where people pirate DBZ. Then, all that bad info just gets swirled around until all these super jerkfaces start thinking that they're super knowledgeable because they're all in agreement about the same false information.

Also, they've probably never even watched Dragon Ball. Eff those guys.

What about my case?

[MozillaVulpix]

If you step back and look at these kind of situations, it's a little ridiculous to think people are claiming to be experts without actually putting any investment in it.

I'll be completely honest: I was originally exposed to the series through piracy. Because I got into it only a few years ago, it doesn't air on TV anymore, and Australia doesn't have Hulu. Plus, I didn't initially want to buy physical releases of what was essentially my guilty pleasure and nothing else. Of course, things have changed since then, and I HAVE bought official releases of the manga and some of the anime. Not everything, because I've been buying it in bits and pieces, but I have full intentions of finishing my collection.

Anyway, another bit of 2 cents that people haven't mentioned yet: some of my knowledge did come from piracy, but I've also learnt a lot about the series from...this website, pretty much. If you know where to look, you can be educated about the series without even watching a full episode.

[Speedster]

You don't need to purchase the Dragonball Anime in order to own it legally. Dragonball aired on TV and depending on the time period you watched it you could record it on VHS tapes, DVDs, Blue-rays or Hard Drives. Additionally you have to assume that those people asking questions about the English dub are Americans and that if they had purchased the Dragonball anime they would have bought the Funimation dub. This is a very American way of thinking. You don't consider the possibility that a Brazilian for example who legally owns the Brazilian dub and is most probably ignorant about the English dub may now wish to know more about it as he became more proficient in English.

As for the manga. I purchased the Viz 3 to 1s. I don't reference them anymore as the translation is inaccurate- some scanlations did a much better job plus they are in electronic form which is easier to access on the go than a hard-copy. And if I want to cross-reference something I can do it with the Kanzenshuu Chapter Guide all without leaving the comfort of sitting in front of my computer/laptop/tablet.

Personally the sole reason I purchased Dragonball was not because I needed it for more knowledge. I did it order to support the franchise. But purchasing the entire Dragonball (manga+anime) collection is not a small investment as some on here make it sound. Even the cheap manga version of 3 to 1s that I have cost me around $150 dollars and the entire anime in DVDs cost me more than $300. If you count the specials and movies the total bill exceeds the $500 – and that is the bare minimum. I reckon that those willing to spend 500 dollars on Dragonball are hardcore fans but those who do not are not necessarily casual (though many of them probably are).

[90sDBZ]

It's honestly very common to come across these kinds of misinformed fans who aren't willing to go on Google and search things up. I've seen all sorts of misconceptions over the years from people who either innocently don't know, and others from those who simply don't care to know. These are a few examples that come to mind:

-I recently read a comment complaining about BoG because Uub was excluded from the movie, even though he and Goku hadn't met yet.
-I read another comment on Youtube about the 1st Goku vs Beerus fight in BoG where they asked why didn't Goku go up to Super Saiyan 4.
-Many fans claim that Broly is stronger than Buu
-People thinking Goku could've beat Cell
-People on Youtube constantly referring to English Kai as if it isn't done by Funimation, particularly in Kai vs Z comparison videos.
-Many, many fans seem to mistake Season 3 Funimation for Ocean dub, largely because of Sabat's Drummond impression. There are fans here in the UK who honestly believe we got the Ocean dub for the entire series, and simply won't believe that Ocean never dubbed episodes 54-107.
-Many fans refer to the Ocean dub as if it's one single production which Ocean themselves produced, unaware of Funimation and Saban's hand in it early on, or the fact that the Westwood dub was a different production altogether.
-Some people have actually purchased the old singles over the Orange Bricks just to get the Faulconer score, even though it exists as an option on the Bricks.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Anyway, another bit of 2 cents that people haven't mentioned yet: some of my knowledge did come from piracy, but I've also learnt a lot about the series from...this website, pretty much. If you know where to look, you can be educated about the series without even watching a full episode.

Bouncing off of this; I mean, Mike, you list Kanzenshuu's "top searches" each year. How many people find this place by total happenstance. Pretty sure I did!

[Iberian_Saiyan]

Michael, for us folks that don't live in US it's sometimes hard to get new shows because certain countries either take weeks, months or even years to release them on DVD/BD. Some don't even get released at all. My only option most of the time is to download the weekly episodes I watch and this is how I stay up to date with the rest of the series and yeah, I do buy series boxsets although unfortunately they're not as I'd hope sometimes. Recently I bought a boxset of a Canadian show I love but the PAL DVDs don't have subtitles and that really sucks as they tend to be quite useful whether for jokes, low volume or just to have them on at all times.

[Bulma]

I agree with VegettoEX and I'm gonna share my experience with you:

I live in a third-world Southamerican country, but lucky enough, our Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z/Dragon Ball GT dub was made straight from Japanese in México, by an outstanding team, then part of a company called Intertrack. They used the original score and kept much of the original names (like attack names, Saiya-jin, characters and places names in general, etc.).

Before the series were dubbed in so-called "Neutral Latinamerican Spanish", we got here some DBZ movies, dubbed in Spain. They had a strong regional accent, and changed a lot of words (Kame Hame Ha was "Onda Vital", even "Cha-La Head Cha-La" was changed to "Luz, Fuego, Destrucción" -Light, Fire, Destruction-, no relation at all with the original phrase). Some stores sold those VHS as "originals" but were copies. I bought some, others were given to me as gifts. I have all the VHS collection of the Spanish dub movies, but they are not original, just good copies. I didn't knew back then.

When Dragon Ball aired on TV in the late 90's, I started to videotape the episodes on VHS, straight from TV. Then I did the same with DBZ. Is that piracy? I don't know. I did it to own it for myself. At that time, there wasn't recordable DVDs! I still own those dozens of VHS, brings me good memories.
In early 2000 I started to work and began buying the manga. I bought the best edition available here, edited by "Planeta de Agostini" from Spain. The first ones (white cover), were mirrored (so you don't have to read them in japanese style, but in western style). Then arrived the more cheaper and "japanese style" (yellow cover). I couldn't complete my collection, because they stopped bringing them to my country, and I didn't wanted to buy the other version (I don't recall if it was from Argentina or México), because it wasn't divided in 42 books, it were more books, so they were even cheaper and being Latinamericans, the importation cost lower, so I never completed my 42 books (I need like 12). I'm not saying the Latinamerican versions of the manga are bad, but I've already invested a lot of money in the 42 books collection.
At that time I had to save money for my thesis, so I just ordered the first Kanzenban and I couldn't spend more money on my DB mangas. I hope someday to complete the Kanzenban collection (spanish first, then Japanese). A good friend of mine felt sorry for me and gave me the complete series on DVD (pirated of course, the series has never been released here for sale legally, just in an obscure version alongside a newspaper, the same version my friend copied and gave to me). I thank him because I didn't have to take out my old vhs anymore after that!
Things got better and through a family connection, I was able to get the complete Dragon Ball series in DVD from Japan (not the Dragon Box, that's too expensive!), I was able to get the individual disc collection and I am very proud of it. Then I started to recieve the DBZ discs as gifts from my family.

All this story may br boring and I apologize for my grammar mistakes. But I can tell for experience that I have learned much more about Dragon Ball through owning the material, re-watching, and speacially the original japanese DVD's. I even have improved my Japanese!

I know how expensive is to import manga and original anime from a country like mine (Chile), so I don't demonize piracy, but if you are really a fan, you will spend your money on manga rather than in beer and a DVD with 6 low quality movies in it.

Edited because of some terrible grammar and spelling mistakes.