Dragon Ball fan sites have a pretty long history and go back roughly about as far as personal, user created websites on the net in general go (early 1990s). The earliest ever fan sites I can remember were mostly foreign ones (Latino or Southeast Asian largely) stretching as far back as maybe around 1992/93-ish or so? That said, there've always been English language/Western ones mixed in there as well, notably Steve Simmons' Daimao Homepage (which has been online since at least 1994), Wuken's Homepage (up since around '95), Ed Gorgen's Dragon Ball page (I wanna say '95/'96-ish?), and so on.
By the time Mike/EX had put up the earliest ever iteration of what would much, MUCH later on become this version of the site (VegettoEX's Homepage) in 1998 or so, I'd been both an overall anime and DB veteran for about 9 and 6/7-ish years respectively. So Dragon Ball-dedicated fansites online were hardly anything particularly rare or special by the time EX had set foot in these waters.
In fact, I don't honestly remember very well the VERY-very first incarnation of the site, which was VetettoEX's Ultimate DBZ Links Page: it was basically just another Webring. That's 90s Internet for "hub of collected links to other sites dedicated to a certain, particular topic or subject matter". And back then, anime-related Webrings were basically a dime a dozen, and about as ubiquitous and commonly found on the internet of the mid through late 90s as ASCII art and badly Photoshopped Mortal Kombat 3 screenshots. So Mike's hardly sticks out in my mind all that much amongst the gobs and gobs of others that were floating around for a good number of years by that point.
What DOES stick out in my mind however is when, several months shortly after its original launch, it had been re-invented as VegettoEX's Homepage. That's the form in which I first remember coming across it sometime I think around the early summer of '98 or so.
(For posterity kids)
And what made it stand out so much in its earliest infancy back then was, ironically enough, something that Mike would many years later on be very much viscerally against: good 'ol piracy. My earliest clear memory of VegettoEX's Homepage was as what was easily THE best place to download what were at that point in time (again, early/mid-ish 1998 or so) fairly high quality MP3 rips of countless vocal songs and music tracks from all kinds of various Dragon Ball soundtrack CDs.
Back in the old days, your main avenues of obtaining Dragon Ball music was buying the various OST CDs at either Anime Conventions like Otakon, ordering them through the backpage catalogs of various video game and comic book/anime magazines, buying them directly from other fans online (generally either Dragon Ball fansites might have listings for the owner or their buddies selling this stuff, or some general anime websites might have a makeshift then-equivalent of an "online storefront" where you could place orders for imported anime merchandise from the folks running the site), or picking them up at basement sales in big urban centers that dealt in all sorts of bootleg material from overseas. There was also eBay, which has been around (under its original name, AuctionWeb) since '95, but was really only just starting to take off around 1997/1998 or so (that was the earliest point in which I remember the site making national headline news).
I can't say with any certainty that VegettoEX's Homepage was the VERY first Dragon Ball site ever that had whole OST tracks available to freely download, but its certainly one of the EARLIEST ones that I can certainly remember with any real clarity. Certainly the first one that made that its major claim to fame anyway. It makes perfect sense though and was rather prescient: Napster was only another year away. The tail-end late 90s was the dawn of the MP3 age.
Fun fact: I still to this day have a whole
ton of those old MP3 downloads that I got from the site in 1998 still saved on my current computer's hard drive.
Within less than year after those humble beginnings, the site had expanded into featuring what had by then become the next big trend in Dragon Ball fan sites: dissecting and ripping on the FUNimation English dub, which back then was still in its Saban/Ocean era (and endlessly rerunning the Saiya-jin and early Freeza arcs) and was only some months away from transitioning into its in-house "Season 3" incarnation. My memory of the site at that point was as one of the absolute
biggest and most glaringly intense hotbeds of anti-FUNimation vitriol shy of Chris Psaros' landmark DBZ Uncensored site, which came through via Mike's IMPASSIONED, and among old timers quite infamous, Editorial rants (some of which make virtually all of my own posts on this forum look positively genteel and restrained in comparison, and which Mike to this day still publicly cringes at the memory of).
So to quickly recap: VegettoEX's Homepage's trajectory went from Totally Generic DBZ Webring of Collected Fansite Links, to #1 Place to Get High Quality Pirated Rips of the Dragon Ball Soundtrack, to Firebrand Ravings of Fanboy Rage Directed At the FUNimation Dub (as well as, to be fair, its overall marketing and release handling in the U.S. as well... something which totally DID deserve every ounce of venom and bile aimed at it no matter how you slice it).
What also made this 3rd incarnation of the site stand out was when Mike/EX opened up the editorials page to other fans to write in THEIR own thoughts/musings/babblings about both DB as a series in general as well as (and really most often, since at the tail-most end of the 90s and early-most 2000s, this grew to become THE dominating topic of discussion about almost anything DB-related) the FUNimation dub and its overall marketing/handling.
In almost a weird way, this whole "Editorial" format was almost like a larval/prototypical version of what would in later years eventually become the site's forum and its community, with Mike holding court over a cadre of loyal site visitors and readers who all would publish gigantic Dragon Ball diatribes on the site (generally of the Japanese version purist/anti-FUNimation persuasion) for anyone to read.
And for the record, no before anyone asks, I never wrote or sent in an Editorial of my own to the site during those years: I was in high school at that point and much too busy going to Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails concerts and generally partying it up with my friends.
I simply just read them as I followed the site back then.
Sometime I think around 2001-ish (if my memory serves) is when VegettoEX's Homepage first changed its name to "Daizenshuu EX", the name that would stick with it till its merger with Kanzentai way, way, waaaaaaaaay later on down the line in 2012.
At around this point, despite the treasure trove of Dragon Ball media the site would act as a collection of (not just the MP3 rips, but all kinds of then-high quality images, Daizenshuu page scans, relatively well researched and sourced information, etc.) this was about the point when the whole FUNimation dub shit-show reached its most feverish peak.
The editorials still contained some pretty damn good tidbits of general DB series writings/analysis (probably some of the best on the internet at that point in time), but the overall tone of the place was deteriorating into almost a morass of toxic negativity due to an over-emphasis/hyper-focus on both the FUNimation dub and all the surrounding drama with it as well as backstage inter-feuding/beefs among both Daizex itself and other various prolific DB fan site admins.
1999 - 2003-ish or so was generally speaking, NOT a particularly fun time to be a Dragon Ball fan overall: mostly due to both the generally embarrassing and godawful cringe/insulting manner in which FUNimation themselves both dubbed, marketed, and generally handled the whole series, as well as a lot of the older/relatively more mature pre-dub era fans starting to slowly fade out from the scene and become growingly replaced with the very first generation of post-dub fans (many of whom, at their
absolute oldest, were of high school age and hormones/testosterone overload was in full effect).
This whole period probably still ranks, in my mind, as one of the overall shittiest periods of DB's Western fanbase's history, with Mike and his site right at the epicenter of a lot of it (though
hardly either the sole nor worst offender). For my part, while I have the utmost fondest memories of my high school years back then (most of my ugly, toxic adolescent drama had already happened and was dispensed with in elementary school/junior high: high school by contrast was a relatively carefree and lighthearted time for me in comparison), two of the decidedly NOT so fond memories of that time period for me revolved around music and anime, both of which had regressed and devolved
horrifically (at least in the mainstream) during the tail-end late 90s and early-most 2000s.
Within the tail-end of the 90s/early-most 2000s, music saw the final erosion and demise of the progressive (both musically and politically) and cerebral hardcore punk/grunge/alt rock rock scene of the 80s and early half of the 90s (which meant the utter WORLD to me and had helped get me through those aforementioned difficult elementary school/junior high years with my sanity relatively intact), and the rise of knuckle-dragging, jock jamming Nu Metal (and its cousin genre of suck, post-grunge) and vapid, empty-headed teen bubblegum pop. So long Fugazi, Bikini Kill, Babes in Toyland, Bad Brains, L7, Mudhoney, Primus, Skunk Anansie, Alice in Chains, and Smashing Pumpkins, hello Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Disturbed, Creed, Nickelback, Puddle of Mudd, Staind, Brittany Spears, Christina Aguilera, N'Sync, Backstreet Boys, etc.
With anime, that time period saw the demise of the Seinen/Art House-focused Western anime fanbase that I grew up within throughout the tail-end of the 80s and the entirety of the 90s beforehand in favor of the rise of hyper-commercialized Shonen and its fanbase of... significantly less discerning (to put it kindly) and abrasive elementary school children. So long Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, Robot Carnival, Manie Manie Labyrinth Tales, Bubblegum Crisis, Crying Freeman, Dagger of Kamui, Battle Angel, Golgo 13, Vampire Hunter D, Area 88, Patlabor, Angel's Egg, Roujin Z, Barefoot Gen, and Grave of the Fireflies, hello Gundam Wing, G Gundam, Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh, Digimon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Shaman King, Duel Masters, Zoids, Beyblade, Zatch Bell, Medabots, Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, etc.
To say nothing of when these two things would CONVERGE and overlap with one another via the AMV landscape of those years (and the coining of the archetypal "Linkin Ball Z" video) creating an almost Singularity/Black Hole of late 90s/early 2000s cringe.
Dragon Ball Z and its "reversioned" FUNimation dub (and its marketing of the show as "The Kewlest, Edgiest, most Hardcore Xtreme 2 Tha Maxx" G.I. Joe/Justice League-wannabe instead of a wacky and off-its-meds bizarre Wuxia/martial arts fantasy epic) were right smack at the epicenter of that latter transition, and the amount of cringing and facepalming that both myself and most of my friends were doing anytime the topic of Dragon Ball or other anime (of the more Toonami/Cartoon Network-ish variety) came up - which back then ended up being WAY too often - was off the charts.
In point of fact, this whole clusterfuck of a period, and all the drama, negativity, and headaches that came with it, was what ended up prompting Mike to shut down the site and disengage from both Dragon Ball and its fandom
entirely sometime around 2002/2003-ish or so. During which time, if I have my timeline correct, he went off to college, linked up with his future wife (and former DBZ fan site admin herself from that very same late 90s/early-most 2000s era), and generally did a fuckton of growing the hell up.
2004 saw the site relaunched in a form not-too-dissimilar from its current one, with the debuts of both the forum as well as the podcast. My join date on the forums is right smack dab on New Year's Eve of 2004, back when I was still in college myself. But I was definitely lurking for a good number of months prior to that since the relaunch.
Daizex cruised on throughout the mid/late 2000s and early 2010s (pretty much my whole 20s) in this incarnation until it finally merged with its "rival" site Kanzentai in 2012 (a little over a year and change before I turned 30), bringing it into its current, present-day form. During all those years, I'd been an on-again, off-again community regular. My feelings on the overall fanbase are... decidedly "mixed", to put it utmost kindly. I've spouted off across various threads on here about my various myriad of issues with the twists and turns that both Dragon Ball as well as general U.S. anime fandom has taken throughout the past 20-some-odd years or so, so I won't re-litigate all of that here. Many of those issues do indeed pertain to this community here as well.
But for all my problems with the broader fandom overall, I'll say this much for this particular corner of it: the folks here (both those who run it, and many of those who are regular, frequent, and noteworthy users) are nothing if not INSANELY tolerant, patient, and welcoming... to almost at times seemingly superhuman levels.
Which makes the "stigma" that this place apparently has in some corners of Dragon Ball fandom online (that of an "elitist, snobby" little insular clubhouse that treats dub fans with utmost hostility and contempt) all the more amusing to me, and indicative of some swathes of the dub fanbase's weird, patently bizarre persecution/victim complex that has historically always interpreted negativity towards the FUNimation dub of the series as negativity towards THEM its fans
personally (to say nothing of the fact that this place actually DOES enforce some basic standard of spelling, grammar, and readability: god forbid someone makes anyone actually write like a grown-ass adult for two seconds).
The reality of this place is of course anything but: yes, its
always from day one had an overall pro-Japanese/anti-FUNimation dub slant. That comes with its origins dating back to the cusp of the transition from the pre-dub era to the post-dub era of fandom, and nothing's probably ever going to alter that. But ever since its 2004 relaunch, the tone and tenor of this forum has ALWAYS been one of IMMENSE friendliness and tolerance of all manner of personalities and points of view. Just the fact that
my motormouth ass is still welcome around here after all the crap I've spat forth over the years speaks
volumes about this place. Out and out bannings, while they do happen from time to time, are UNBELIEVABLY rare and always have been right along. And certainly they're almost NEVER over someone simply holding a contradictory opinion about something as inconsequential as an English language version of a decades old Japanese cartoon for children.
If people think that this site and its community are somehow inherently hostile and vitriolic against the dub (or its fans) NOW, or at ANY point in the past 14-ish years since its 2004 relaunch... they should take the Internet Wayback Machine to circa 1999/2000/20001 or so and read back through the old editorials of the time and get some perspective on what "vitriolic"
actually looks like. Woof.
Point being, negativity towards a damn PRODUCT like FUNimation's DBZ is in NO WAY the same thing as negativity towards a group of PEOPLE (such as the dub's fans) personally, and if this simple concept was understood better then there's no way that this community would have the sort of weirdly off-base reputation that it has among some circles of online fandom.
All in all though (to bring things back around to a more positive note) this site is without question EASILY the single best thing to
ever happen to North American Dragon Ball fandom in the over-arching long term. The site's (and really by extension, Mike's) origins in the earliest years of the dub and late-most twilight years of the pre-dub fandom I think are absolutely CRUCIAL to what it is that this place has offered to the modern DB and anime community online for the better part of the last 14 years in particular: historical context and a lifeline to factual accuracy of information.
So this might be a controversial view to some, but its one I've held for more than a solid decade or so now: had this site not relaunched in the manner that it did back in 2004, if Mike had decided to leave behind Dragon Ball and its fanbase for good when he went off to college circa 2002 or whenever (and really, at that point in time, who the hell would blame him?) and there was no Podcast, no Guides, no Con Panels, and no forum... then I genuinely, sincerely think that the Japanese version of DB/DBZ would have WAY less of an overall presence within North American fandom than it does today and has had in the last decade+.
I don't think we would've gotten stuff like the U.S. Dragon Box releases for sure, and possibly not even that one Viz Daizenshuu release, among other things like that. You wouldn't see things like Death Battle or Cinemasins (which go out to a MUCH wider audience beyond even that of DB fandom) actually presenting fact-checked Japanese series lore during their videos pertaining to this series. I think that misinformation spurred on by both the dub's lousy mistranslations as well as all sorts of batshit fan rumors and "theories" would have overtaken things WAY more. I think that the fandom overall would regard the series as even less if a "real anime" than it has already, and its unconscious, but no less widespread, perception as "more of an American Action Cartoon than a Proper Anime" would be WAY more overt and widespread.
Generally speaking, I think that the VAST majority of any traces of DB's Japanese version within fandom would be overtaken and dominated by dub misinformation, insane and ridiculous rumors/fanon, and perspectives horribly skewed by the dub's late 90s/early 2000s marketing, and any "links" connecting it to its late 80s/early 90s pre-dub roots among Western anime fans would be all but totally gone, as there's unfortunately and regrettably VERY few people from those years who are especially visible or active in online anime fan circles today.
Basically, things would be almost exactly like the Dragon Ball Wiki, except engulfing almost the WHOLE fanbase across the board. Hell, the DBWiki
itself would probably be in even WORSE shape than it already is were it not for this place and the impact that its had over the years (I'm genuinely unsure/doubtful whether there'd be almost next to ANY accurate or sourced information from the Japanese version on there).
I think that the best and most invaluable thing this place has done over the years is act as a source of history and a filter for quality control and standards within North American/English speaking DB/Z fandom. Its something of a living time-capsule that keeps DB connected to its past... its
real past mind you... giving the present fanbase some BADLY needed context about what this series actually even
is at its root core amidst all sorts of misleading and inaccurate appraisals and assorted BS nonsense stemming from bad dubbing and even worse marketing that has persisted for many years/decades afterward via almost raw inertia (and of course the N-word: Nostalgia).
Don't get me wrong: I certainly don't think that the original version would be COMPLETELY obscured. It was still very much available for anyone to stumble across via the DVDs audio tracks and Simmons' wonderful subtitles (neither of which we would've gotten in the first place without the constant bitching and persistent pestering of both the old pre-dub fanbase, as well as the aforementioned cacophony emanating from this site in its earlier days and others like it), and that all by itself I'm sure would've netted it at least SOME new fans across later generations; folks who would've dug more deeply into things and injected more accurate info out there into the internet ether. Herms and folks like him would still be out there somewhere I'm sure.
But I think that those people wouldn't have had such a central hub, an anchor if you will, like this place to help compile all of it together into a neat, presentable, and digestible whole, which is what this place has always consistently offered. Likely there'd be some scattered faint traces of real, accurate info about the original version dancing around out there, across various smatterings of fan blogs (I can easily see Herms making one in this possible timeline of events and spending a few years impotently shouting accurate, real Japanese series info into an empty and uncaring abyss, before finally giving up), random forum posts buried somewhere deep on all kinds of otherwise dub-centric sites, and the odd, occasional Wiki edit: but it all but certainly would be likely drowned out and scattered about willynilly and without any sort of focal point to any of it. And furthermore, you also wouldn't have the tangible connection to the older fandom from the early-mid 90s and the fansub era: ALL of that would CERTAINLY be almost completely wiped away by time.
In all honesty, I'm not sure to the extent that I MYSELF would still remain connected to this series. Certainly my fandom for Toriyama's ridiculously silly magnum opus has proven itself to be
absurdly resilient and stubborn as all hell throughout the years... but I don't know if it'd survive fully intact up to THIS point, THIS far into things (into my 30s even) were it not for this place and the
immense impact that its had in keeping alive in the fandom zeitgeist and consciousness the version/incarnation of Dragon Ball that I'd originally fallen in love with in the first place a decent number of years before even
Mike himself had gotten into it, much less created this site in
any capacity. Certainly not within the possible/potential online landscape that I just outlined.
So yeah: some
immense kudos and thanks to Mike LaBrie for not totally shrugging this stupid silliness off entirely back in the day and giving his fellow Japanese DB fans a rallying point of sorts to aggregate accurate information and analysis about the original version, and kudos/thanks to Kanzenshuu and all of its staff today who continue to keep online English Language/North American Dragon Ball fandom's head from being ENTIRELY lost up its own ass as it continues to chug ever onward throughout the 21st century.
And of course, thanks to all involved for keeping (or at least GREATLY helping to keep) myself from chucking all my DB shit into the garbage out of embarrassment and frustration years and years ago, and keeping my head in the game at the very least just long enough to be here to both A) own the full run of U.S. Dragon Boxes, and B) enjoy a DB game as ass-kicking as FighterZ (as I pass the time posting this whilst eagerly awaiting its newest round of DLC characters to finally drop).
I'm happy to share whatever I can remember.
