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

[Vekurotto]

Remember things were different in 95.

Dude you realize that more of the cartoons in Ameirca were way less watered down than they are today and actually required kids to think back then minus the plain incompetents of people that made 30 minute toy commercials and the people that licensed butchered anime and put it on TV? And what about in 2000? When Tenchi and Gundam Wing were on at the same time as S and SuperS? If that's what you're implying as different from now.

And Vekurotto, you never saw Nephrite and Sapphire's death episodes. They clearly said that they were dead.

You are right I have not seen Sapphire's death but I did see Nephrite's. While it's nearly the same it seems like I got this whole "next dimension" feel from it. Pretty much what I'm saying is that you know he died it's just that it feels like somebody (DiC) is trying to tell you that he's not really dead since he disappears and all and stuff .

Name changes was a factor back then.

And again, in 2000 the cat was outta the bag they still seemed to think that people the people that watched the dub of the series were stupid enough to not be able to put two and two together and continue to believe that they weren't in Japan and that Sailor Moon was an American creation.

And they kept the last names.

They never came out and called Usagi in the dub Serena Tsukino though. And Mamoru's last name was the only one that I ever heard except that they changed his last name to Shields from Chiba but again I probably only heard that once in the entire series and I probably got it from the manga since they actually used their last names like they actually had them. Pretty much, they always used their first names as if that was their only name.

It also doesn't help that they removed every bit of decent comedy from the series and that they literally re-wrote the series at a level that makes Funimation's Dragon Ball seem like a good try. And the S and SuperS dubs are just plain unwatchable. SuperS was already a not so good season yet I the dub made it feel worse than what it really was kinda like the Garlic Jr arc among dub fans. Except that unlike the Garlic Jr filler at least Funi didn't re-write the villains and the plot into incoherent babble so that we can see 15 year old gilrs in pretty suits. Seriously to this day because of the dub re-write of SuperS people have no idea what even happened in that series unless you saw it in Japanese. Kinda sounds familiar with some points in Dragon Ball but with Sailor Moon is was at a much much higher level.

Even with all of the problems I have with the series' dub I can at least sit through an episode of the DiC dub, even though I'd rather not because of the 3rd party RPG music, and some of the bullshittey that goes on, but it makes me wish that I could have of all the time back that I thought about even laughing at the poor quality of the dubs.

My point still stands, 4piece isn't any different than Sailor Moon's dubs no matter what year it came out. If 4piece is any worse than Sailor Moon when the same problems that are in 4piece are present in Sailor Moon then I think that you just aren't looking.

[VegettoEX]

Just to put this out there... when Meri and I re-watched all 200 episodes of Sailormoon a few years back, I discovered that:

- The beginning filler of R was vastly more entertaining than the actual canonical story animated afterwards, and...
- SuperS was amazingly more entertaining than S, in retrospect, probably due to Kunihiko Ikuhara's awesomeness.

To pull it back on subject, I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying the fascinating discussion taking place. Thanks, everyone .

[Super Sonic]

Got to agree with you there Mr. EX. Doom Tree arc is one of the best filler arcs ever.

With Vekurotto said, though, what I meant was how anime dubs on tv in 95 were still under "less Japanese, more American kids will like" thought. As well as an alternate lifetyle couple would have a snowball's chance in Hell on kids' cartoons then. And with last names, though Darien Shields is universal for English, seen some related merchandise that said Serena Tsukino, and figured it was similar to how Kit Fisto and most of the Jedi Council's names aren't mentioned in the movies but the related merchandise does.

[Victator Supreme]

Except for the Saban era (and even then its a streach) Funimation never took liberties like that.

"I didn't care anymore! I didn't care about being better that Kakarrot! I didn't care if I lived!" etc ;p

-Corey

I've been watching the show on dvd. I'm on the Garlic Junior Saga. I mostly watch the sub with Japanese subtitles. Now I think the redub was on the ball for the most part. Except for the hing when Goku spares Vegeta which is big. Then we get to the first Funi dub episodes from 99. By now their greatest sin is just doing horrible dialogue whenever they can. Juding by the sub they are following the original script more or less. But doing it in the worst possible way.

The line I hate most is when Vegeta is ressurected sees Goku as a Super Saiyan and says "Kakkarot you dog!!!" That doesn't even sound like something Vegeta would say. Or in the Galic Junior episode where Piccolo is fighting Yamcha. "The real Yamcha would tear you apart!!" What?

But for the most part its not taking liberties with the story. Its doing awful dialogue. There is a bit of a difference.

[Vekurotto]

I'm gonna honor Mike's wishes and let the conversation go back to Dragon Ball but I just want to say.

With Vekurotto said, though, what I meant was how anime dubs on tv in 95 were still under "less Japanese, more American kids will like" thought. As well as an alternate lifetyle couple would have a snowball's chance in Hell on kids' cartoons then.

Yeah I see what you're talking about but I still don't agree with how it was executed and it could have been done in a better way. And I honestly think that whoever made Haruka and Michiru cousins instead of lesbians was trying to make a horrible joke right? Either that or they made "cousins" a code word for lesbians because even though they tried to censor they're relationship they did a horrible job of leaving in all of the scenes where they would do uncousinly things like getting close to one another and the handholding scene that I would never do with my cousins even if they paid me.

[Majin Buu]

I've been reading this thread and it really puts everything into perspective regarding the fandom. In the past I used to frequent the IMDB and Gamefaqs DBZ boards and once in a while a dub vs. sub thread would come up and it would usually get pretty divisive (I would always be on the sub side, some of those dubbie's opinions would really piss me off). Now a days I only browse through the boards once in a while and if there's a dub vs. sub thread (or ever worse, a flamewar about which Buu was stronger than which) I just refrain from posting in it and getting sucked back into that pointless fanboy angst.

A while ago Azrael of the long defunct DBZ Otaku Alliance said that it's a shame that there has to be this fan war over which version is better since we're all essentially fans of a show called Dragon Ball Z. And I've always thought that he was right. It's a damn shame that Funi brought DBZ to America in such a heavily altered state that dubbies that have only seen that version have a completely different perception of the show. It's disheartening because they're not watching the show and experiencing the story the way it was originally meant to be seen and experienced by the creators (Toriyama and Toei), but the way a mere localization company thought it should be. And as a result, we have many of these dubbies insisting that this localization company's heavily altered version is better than the original version that came from the story's country of origin and had the approval of the story's creator (Toriyama did like the anime right?) and that end up clashing with those who like the original better. It really shouldn't be like that. Ideally the only differences that should exist between the versions is the voice acting and that should be the only point of contention in the sub vs. dub arguments. But it's not.

It also pisses me off that the majority of America sees Dragon Ball in general as a joke of an anime series when it is a well respected and popular series in Japan and other countries. And what make me even more pissed off is that it could have been the same way here had Funi only dubbed it properly.