Recently FUNimation has been doing a great thing- they've been putting out bilingual multiple episode DVD releases of Dragon Ball. Even better, Dragon Ball is actually a pretty good dub, unlike some festering piles of dog kuso they've recently been putting out. (coughcough, GT, coughcough) Not only that but the uncensored version has all of the funny stuff that gets cut out to meet Cartoon Network's pretty anal censorship standards. (Yeah, you heard me. So what if they're better than Saban's? That'd be like bragging that you beat Mike Tyson in a spelling bee.)
However, there are one- nah, two problems. The first is the fact that the ending kanji writing is cut out and also left untranslated. The second is that the English and Japanese previews all are cut out. Why is this so? If you've read some of my other editorials then you know by now that Toei are the bad guys in these cases. They hope that by making these foreign DVD's "incomplete" that they can discourage importing since fans can just eagerly look forward to a "Dragon Ball complete" boxed set like what just came out for the first 1/2 of DBZ.
However- most fans don't realize this. Hell, it took me 2-3 months of research to eventually find this out- er, with some help from VegettoEX of course. (Interestingly enough, it'd appear that Gen and the other "top" execs apparently denied the real reason for the lack of previews to all of their "lowlevel" employees based upon a "need to know" basis. Perhaps this is because Toei, in the bizarre fashion of many a secretively obsessive Japanese anime company, ordered them to keep this little fact a secret. Regardless of why FUNimation did so, what is known is that the top brass certainly knew. After all, Gen's uncle is a high-ranking exec at Toei and I'm certain that he wouldn't see any need to keep any secrets from the son of his beloved brother or sister.)
Thus, the typical fan reaction of many a fan to FUNimation's DBZ DVD's has been something similar to this.... "Why the HFIL did they cut out the previews? Why? The box says 'uncut' and they must think I'm damn retard if I'd swallow their bs and beg for seconds and thirds! And why, when I e-mail them, do they deny knowing jack about the situation? Plus they've only got one English previews and it's that damn monster truck announcer sounding like a moron to Faulconer's repetitive shitty techno! FUNimation always screws up everything DBZ they get their dirty hands on, they just plain hate DBZ! I bet they're just f***ing of these DVD's cause they hate us fans so much! Well, F*** YOU FUNIMATION! I'm not about to hand over MY money for YOUR crappily overpriced DVD's just to be lied to and be given incomplete episodes! Screw you, better translations, schmizlations, graphics, schmapics, f*** it. I'll be just fine with fansubs. Even if they ain't as accurately perfect as yours, they're 1,000X more accurate than your crappy dub and that's good enough for me! Screw you FUNimation, you ain't gettin my money or my respect and I'm gonna make sure every damn DBZ person I know realizes that they're been assraped by your DVD's as well!"
It should be noted that the other DBZ stuff that gets cut (and hasn't been put back in yet) IS completely FUNimation's fault, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here. The point is, despite high DVD sales amongst the millions of DBZ fans out there, the previews issue has continuously been a big pain in the ass for FUNimation. Thus, when it came time for them to DB they decided.... "Let's cut out ALL of the English previews and deny the existence of previews in this series period. That way, we won't have to deal with anymore complaints about the DVD's not having all the previews. If nobody, at least hardly anybody, knows about the previews then it won't be an issue." And so there are no previews on the edited version shown on Cartoon Network. And there are no previews on the "uncut" VHS tapes. And there are no previews on any of the DVD's, English or Japanese.
To tell you the truth I'm really disappointed that they cut out the English previews. Unlike the "monster truck announcer" DBZ previews that I could care less about, DB is actually dubbed pretty faithfully. And I think I could easily be happy and content with seeing the English previews without there being any Japanese previews.
So will the previews ever come back? Not likely, but it's still possible. Dragon Ball will probably have a "perfect" release next year or later, since the DBZ "perfect" release in Japan has been so popular and since Toei is interested in drumming up as much domestic support for the live-action movie as humanly possible. After that FUNimation will have full rights from Toei to put back in the Japanese previews and to translate the names of the members of the Japanese cast for the Dragon Ball series. But unlike DBZ, with DB the previews issue has barely evoked a squeak of protest towards FUNimation so this might not ever happen. And unlike DBZ, FUNimation doesn't seem to have any plans on doing a Toei-style complete set for DB. Perhaps when all of the DB DVD's have been released they'll do a "complete" full release along with Toei that will have the previews. I don't think it's a big enough issue to boycott FUNimation's excellent, well-priced DB DVD's or to "wait it out" that long but I do hope that they at least put back in the English previews someday.
- GreatSaiyaman777
