Tanooki's Crazy Blabbering Bout The Days Of Ol'

Tanooki Kuribo · Post by **Tanooki Kuribo** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:05 pm

This past weekend I went back to the house I grew up in. My grandparents live there now. I haven't really gone to this house in probley 8 years, maybe more. They usually come to our house... Anyways. I wanted to see how my old room looked. Surprisingly it has become some kind of storage room that really didn't change much other then just throwing junk in it...

How is this DragonBall related? Well I saw some things that just made me think about the old days and how much crap has changed. The first thing I saw, which was kinda hard to miss were these stickers I made from images on the Internet back in 1997 or so. I printed these out on sticky paper and stuck them on my closet. Back then you couldn't find DragonBall stickers in stores we hadda make our own!

You see these pictures kids? These few images were pretty much all the DragonBall pictures you could find on the Internet back in the day. There are also some obvious bootleg stickers there that I bought for 50 cents like the Super Saiyan Vegeta with the DragonBall GT logo on it. And the Brolly sticker with (hard to see) Master Roshi in it.

When it came to TV in September of 1997 it seemed like the greatest thing that could happen to a DragonBall fan. I taped every episode from TV thinking I was going to have these tapes forever. Now they just sit in a pile with the rest of the useless crap. But at one point these videos were so important to me I would worry about them not being preserved the right way, but here they are just rotting in a moldy muggy room.

Yea, they were censored but after every episode that aired I would go to a site called DragonBall Z Uncensored which would show that days episode (or whenever he decided to update) to see what I missed. A lot of times I was pissed but was just happy to have any DragonBall Z in English...
http://www.animecauldron.com/dbzuncenso ... index.html
(Its just a bunch of dead links now)

Once it started airing on TV, very few item made it to store. There wasn't really much so if you saw anything DBZ related in a store you usually would just grab it. Like I did with these tattoos. They are all beaten up and dirty now, and the shelf's don't have any cool action figures on them anymore but back then that shelf kicked ass. I remember seeing these in Stain Island mall in a comic store and going fucking nuts that I found a DragonBall Z item in an American store. It was pretty much unheard of at the time. Even if they were only tattoos.

And this... I don't know what to make of...

My whole room was filled with DragonBall posters, they were all ripped down except these. I don't really know why. I remember getting these before that episode "Princess Snakes Hospitality" aired and I never knew who that girl in the picture was. When I saw that episode I was like oh my god its her, its Hebi Hime. To this day I still call her that.

SSJ2bardock · Post by **SSJ2bardock** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:26 pm

Those were the good days man, back when dragonball was still new to America and I had no idea what was going to happen on the next episode.

Vivisection · Post by **Vivisection** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:11 pm

Wow, I remember doing things like that.

^ From '97 or so - despairing of ever owning the manga in book form, I made a reasonable facsimile using scanlations and a binder.

laserkid · Post by **laserkid** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:28 pm

Yeah, I can totally relate to that feeling. I swear to God when I found an anime import shop at the Irvine Spectrum (I lived in southern California back then) in 1997 that had the super battle colleciton toys I went totally apeshit insane, and instantly bought both Trunks and Super Saiyan Trunks, while a friend of mine bought Cell (he was as obsessed with that villain as I was/am with Trunks). I went even crazier when a few years later Irwin toys started showing up in toysrus.

Hell one of the few times I had an AIM conversation with this websites owner, Vegetto EX, was both of us talking about how Irwin was releasing the super battle collection toys under their label. I think I went a little overzelous though, since I don't believe I had an AIM chat with him after that. xD

I remember DBZ Uncensored as well, how could I not, that was my first DBZ website back in the day, until Chris Psaros, God bless him, gave up on the site. It was fortunate that shortly before that I found and came in contact with a little site you might know about called Vegetto EX's page.

Velasa · Post by **Velasa** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:28 pm

Vivi, that's just totally awesome. I know I have old stuff like this- not quite as cool as your two stories, but I'll see what I can pull out tomorrow.

NeptuneKai · Post by **NeptuneKai** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:30 pm

Vivisection wrote:Wow, I remember doing things like that.

*Snips*
^ From '97 or so - despairing of ever owning the manga in book form, I made a reasonable facsimile using scanlations and a binder.

Wow was your mom pissed at you for using all of that ink? I want to do this for One Piece (yes I know official releases exist and I do buy them but I want to print out the manga from Water 7 arc and it doesn't look like VIZ is going to move their ass faster then 1 book per 2 or 3 months. )

SonEric84 · Post by **SonEric84** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:44 pm

ha, This is awesome. I taped all the episodes off of tv and my friend printed off a HUGE amount of color DB pictures, I had a whole folder full...I wish I still had them. We also played the import DB games and wondered who all the new characters were and how they came into the series. It was fun back then.

djkalteraphine · Post by **djkalteraphine** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:46 pm

The wall of DB. I put this up between ages 12 and 14, adding bits at a time. It's actually sort of dilapidated now. Perhaps when I get my own place next year, I'll restart one.

SSJ2bardock · Post by **SSJ2bardock** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:48 pm

djkalteraphine wrote:The wall of DB. I put this up between ages 12 and 14, adding bits at a time. It's actually sort of dilapidated now. Perhaps when I get my own place next year, I'll restart one.

I used to have something like that, it has since been taken down.

Chuquita · Post by **Chuquita** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:22 am

I used to (and still might) have the digital equivalent to that on my very first PC from 98'. It is a gold mine of dbz images from "back in the day".

I remember I would download manga scans and summaries from Planet Namek, and those short videoclips and humorous stuff from 3GGG, and everything was so bright and shiny and new.

I would be in awe of that "From Japan" page in those old Nintendo Powers back before I even had the internet.

Its almost too easy to find anime in general nowadays; it kind of takes away some of the thrill, even if everything does cost less now. ^^;

Big Momma · Post by **Big Momma** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:44 am

Ah man, how nostalgic. I remember those good ol' days as well. Sneaking into my cousins room while he still lived at my grandparents' house and watching some of his DBZ videos. Seeing all these images online of characters I'd never seen before. Even falling for the Dragonball AF thing. Then, I discovered the real AF, Dragonball GT. However, America was still in the Namek arc, and everyone had Dial-up back then, so no streaming video/fast downloads.

In fact, in 8th grade, I found a single picture of SS(J)3 Kid Goku in GT, and was psyched about it. I used it in a Shop Class project(We made buttons) and I got a B. I was proud of it.

SSJ2bardock · Post by **SSJ2bardock** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:47 am

Ah, I fell for the AF rumor too. I honestly believed that there was a Super Saiyan 5,6,7,8 etc.

Big Momma · Post by **Big Momma** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:49 am

SSJ2bardock wrote:Ah, I fell for the AF rumor too. I honestly believed that there was a Super Saiyan 5,6,7,8 etc.

...and Daizexs' April Fools joke didn't help any either. I happened to find the site the exact day they announced that "AF was real"

(I still remember the pic of EX eating his shorts

)

Genki-Dama · Post by **Genki-Dama** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 3:29 am

Now i am wishing I had kept all of my old stuff instead of throwing them away.

Post by **Herms** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:18 pm

I did the "print out an entire tankoubon worth of scanslations" thing too back in the day, only with Toriyama World's translation of Kajika. I eventually ended up giving it to a friend who I lost track of long ago.

SonEric84 · Post by **SonEric84** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:46 pm

Does anyone remember the "I can't believe it's not Burter!" picture? I really wish I still had that.

Vivisection · Post by **Vivisection** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:48 pm

SonEric84 wrote:Does anyone remember the "I can't believe it's not Burter!" picture? I really wish I still had that.

That and the shopped "Velveeta" Vegeta one.

SonEric84 · Post by **SonEric84** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:49 pm

I'd love to get my hands on those again.

omegacwa · Post by **omegacwa** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:51 pm

I remember the first Dragonball merchandise I bought, besides a few old (new at the time) ocean dub tapes, was a Goku t-shirt I found on the bargain rack at my local Sam Goody, I was so amazed that I found some DBZ stuff that I bought it even though it was huge, it was the only one they had. Wow, it was awesome being a fan back in the day when you couldn't find shit.

SonEric84 · Post by **SonEric84** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:53 pm

omegacwa wrote:I remember the first Dragonball merchandise I bought, besides a few old (new at the time) ocean dub tapes, was a Goku t-shirt I found on the bargain rack at my local Sam Goody, I was so amazed that I found some DBZ stuff that I bought it even though it was huge, it was the only one they had. Wow, it was awesome being a fan back in the day when you couldn't find shit.

Yeah, it's kind of funny though because back then I wished for days like these when everything would be available to me easily, and now that it is I kinda wish I could go back.