Alright. So far, fans of dbzoa and DBZU don't seem to mind that I've created DBZU 2. Some are delighted, others are ambivalent... and there's one group of people who pretty much can't stand it... FUNimation.

"Oh, that guys is just soooooo harsh on us! He's just complaining for the sake of complaining! Unlike Chris Psaros who, for instance, once bragged about that baseball talk when Yamcha plays baseball, he'll complain about EVERY change, whether good or bad, simply because it's not Japanese. Personally, I'm glad Psaros stopped at Season 3 which is where he should have, especially since FUNimation reached the pinnacle of excellence as of Season 4 and did spectacularly ever since."


Heh. There are a few things I should address. For starters, I have been harsh in some of my reviews. (only movie ones so far) However, as of Movie 8 I think I changed and became more fair and willing to compliment the good done. Heck, even back during my first review (Movie 4) I remember complimenting a funny changes made to Yajirobi's dialogue so that one doesn't really hold up. Maybe if I did more reviews I'd have more chances to compliment you guys, but that's beside the point. The release of Movie 9 will pretty much be my starting point for reviewing Season 6.

Now then, as for Psaros "stopping where he did being a good thing"... remember in his goodbye editorial when he said that Season 4 was just as bad as Season 3 had been and in some ways worse? I understand his reasons for leaving, but you can't really call yourself a fan of someone's writings if you're grateful for them retiring early. And who knows? Psaros has had a large influence on fan perceptions, if he'd reviewed Season 4 it'd have been a whole different ballgame. And accurate perceptions among the fans weren't exactly helped much by the "changes" going on in the Z Community at that time. (see "DBZ Web History 101" for more)

And Psaros also said he'd like see a Dragon Ball Z Uncensored 2 someday and have someone continue his work, so why would anyone be opposed to his wishes? But here's your point- Psaros was much nicer and willing to give you a chance, and I'm much harsher. So why I am much harsher? Because you don't deserve to have me be as nice as Psaros was.

Now let's look at it this way for a while... Psaros writes 18 editorials, 107 different episode reviews, 3 full movie reviews, submits tons of interesting opinions and many other actions and develops a huge following on the web among DBZ and Anime fans. He inspires dozens of spinoff sites (dbzoa.net being just one of many), even parody sites. He helps revolutionize countless anime fans, is linked to and talked about all over the place, and gets about 2-3 million hits. (not counting broken tracker times or the site being archived at dbzoa.net, where it has no tracker installed) Psaros also pretty much singlehandedly gives Saban a terrible reputation when it comes to censoring (well, Saban did that themselves but you get the picture) and exposes them for what they really are. He also leads and inspires many movements and people against Funimation. (hate/complaint letters, hate/complaint e-mails, anti-Funimation sites, anti-Funimation people, to an extent fansubbers and full-ep people just to name a few) Indeed, Psaros has easily had the most inspiring and influential DBZ site of all time, easily trumping the gargantuan Planet Namek, proving that it's not the size of one's hits that ultimately matters. Yet... how did you guys react?

You ignored him. You made up countless, countless excuses. Basically, it boils down to this- "Psaros is absolutely right... from a moral stand point of view. But you seem to be forgetting that Funimation is a business. And that they are businessmen. Is it not the job, nay, sole purpose in life for every business to extract as much money as humanly possible no matter what? Hmm... I do believe so. Sure, DBZ's been successful all across the globe and we've basically had the worst dub of all time, BUT- rather than blaming us, I think we made things better! Yup, people watch more DBZ and buy more stuff BECAUSE of us! Therefore, any 'subbie' complaints are worthless and meaningless, eeeend of story. Sorry, but there's no arguing with success, and it don't look broke so we don't want to fix it!"

Psaros has that much influence over so many sites, people, and the anime community and you simply brush it aside? You continue to hire Faulconer, his cat Mr. Fluffles, and their gang of college graduate ghost writers to compose bad techno, and you continue to pay Neel "Gay Freeza" Bligh ungodly sums of money for what he does, and you mistranslate Season 4 just like you did Season 3.

Now how is someone supposed to look at it like that? Psaros isn't nearly as "diplomatic and friendly" as you make him out to be, but you make me out to be Genghis Khan compared to him. You see, Psaros gave you guys the benefit of the doubt, tried to be nice and somewhat respectufl and did the "carrot" method in addition to the stick method. You guys nibbled on the carrot briefly, complained that the stick was hurting your head and said, "Not our flavor", threw the carrot to the ground and then threw us bad-quality overpriced DVD's and told us to stop complaining and starting being grateful and to get on our hands and knees and to start worshipping you.

I've seen Season 6... and it's terrible! The episode where Gotenks first appears, the last one which I saw, wasn't anything to brag about. The music was just... blah. There was no excitement, nothing memorable, particularly the score played when Gotenks formed. (in the Japanese version it was a full trumpets and orchestra up-beat song that plays ONLY TWO TIMES during the course of the entire anime, as opposed to Faulconer songs like "Dabura theme song" that even play out of nowhere such as when Kid Buu is seen blowing up a planet)

Gotenks... gah. He sounds like a girl! I won't get into why it's the director's fault, but it's hard to take someone who sounds like that seriously. (man, and you guys keep complaining about how "awful" Masako Nozawa is, even though that elderly Japanese woman sounds many times better than Sean Schemmel. And please don't tell me that Sean is "manly." He doesn't sound manly at all, he just sounds like an idiot superhero, and Masako's voice easily far outsurpasses it) Majin Buu, I'd prefer not to have to mention anymore than I have to before reviewing the episodes, but overall has almost the worst voice of all time (in ALL of his forms) beaten only by Freeza and #13 in terms of suckiness. A couple of the main characters had some good voices, but most of them don't play big roles throughout this season. The lines weren't really very impressive and aside from that "Army-ish" music theme that played briefly when the army showed up, there really wasn't anything all that great about that episode. And the rest of Season 6 isn't that great either.

You see? The Majin Buu saga is my favorite, just like the Cell saga was Psaros's favorite. Cell saga was his favorite because that's what got him hooked and started on DBZ. Majin Buu saga is my favorite because that's what got me truly hooked, and showed me just how inferior much English DBZ is. And I'm not happy at all with how it's been treated. I remember when a friend of mine contacted me about it (I had actually gotten him hooked on English DBZ earlier, snicker) and said,

""Hey D!! I hope you've been watching, I know i have. Whenever I have time, I've been an avid watcher, and I do love the Jap versions better, you were right! THey are totally more authentic. The Japanese voices are way better too! WEll, I wish I had more time to chat, but I Have to go. Talk to you soon." (I know, I still need to send you those fansub copies since you helped me buy that set. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten)


Just like that. Like me, he still really liked Funimation and English DBZ even after watching the Majin Buu saga fansubbed. Hell, when I talked to him and warned him about how bad the English dub was going to be (since I'd purchased a tape and seen some episodes earlier) he didn't believe me and thought I was talking crazy. But sure enough... HALLELUJIAH MY BROTHERS! Another soul hath been saved from the devil that is Funimation!

Even stories like that (and believe me, there are LOTS more just like this one from many other people) don't sway Funimation. How they explain that away, I don't know, but in any case... I see that the "carrot" method from Psaros was pretty much pissed on by Funimation. So seeing that, what do I do? Screw the carrot, I'm going to take the biggest stick I can find and beat you like Rodney King.

Granted that's how I first was and I have significantly mellowed out a lot over time since then, but you see? You guys do not deserve to be treated that nicely in critical responses. You lost that privilege after the first 100,000 or so times you defended yourself against complaints (literally) while basically saying and hinting that, "hmph, those subbie people are all wrong. They just don't understand the way of business." It's kind of like this.......



Byron Watson- "Well, I got done writing the script for DBZ Movie 7. Now it's time to hand it over to our Canadian team, script writer Mr. Christopher Neel Bligh. Oh, Neeeel!"

Neel Bligh- "Mondo cool big boy! Totally far out! I cannot wait to 'beef up' this script's comedy and take it into a whole new dimension of tail-kickingness!"

Bryon- "Umm... you know... some of us here at Funimation had some complaints and-"

Neel- "Complaints? Be quite. Look at DBZ's success- that is all... MY doing. The kiddies watching- they're not watching DBZ. They're Watching NBZ- Neel Bligh Z! It's like... I am to animes, what the King James bible is to new bibles. Look how many people read the King James bible! Dude- it makes the original translation look so dorky!"

Byron- "I'm not even Protestant in the first place Neel. And, yes, I agree it's a good 'remix' or whatever, but comparing yourself to that-"

Neel- "Dude, DBZ beat the WWE in ratings! Oh yeah, oh yeah, how do you like that Hulk Hogan? Or Steve Austin? Or The Rocket? The pen is mightier than the sword and I opened up a can of kick-tail on all their tails! Cowabunga! Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Oh yeah!"

Byron- "Gen... are you sure it's wise to-"

Gen- "I don't know if there's a real strategy, per se, other than that we tell our writers to stick to the original story by Akira Toriyama, I mean, you can't deviate from that. Besides that, though, we just want it to get 'hipped up' a little bit, you know, keep it from getting stale. But that's just sort of a subjective creativity thing that we leave up to our writers. We pretty much cut them loose on that sort of thing. Mr. Bligh- I am very pleased with Funimation's profit margins, and believe that that verifies the quality of your work. I'd even go so far as to state that you are directly responsible for some of the many millions of dollars that our company has made! Please, continue as you have always done."

Neel- "Oh yeah! I am the Super-Duper Saiyan of bodaciousness!"

Bryon- "(Can't say I didn't try...)"

Neel- "Now let's see... HMMMMMM.... HEY- I JUST HAD A BRILLIANT IDEA! Android 13 is BORING. But if I make him into a redneck- THE COMEDY WILL GO THROUGH THE ROOF! I CAN SEE IT NOW!"

Trunks- "We'll see, you Red Ribbon Redneck!"

Neel- "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, just picture Trunks saying that... hee hee. Now and- huh? Curse words? Gulp, NAUGHTY NAUGHTY WORDS?! What the HFIL is this doing here? It has noooo place in an adapted children's show. Well.... people still keep complimenting me on that whole making Dende say the 'P' word thing, which was kind of accident from when I was writing drunk, so I guess it wouldn't kill me to leave it alone again...."

(Later...)

Fan reactions- "Some of us liked and hated this dub. However, we all agree that having curse words in there rocked! Uncut's really becoming more uncut! Please keep this up Funimation!"

(Funimation also receives a handful of letters from angry soccer moms and preachers denouncing the usage of "ass" twice and "damn" once by 13 in the uncut version.)

Gen Fukunaga- "Wha... wha... wha.... WHAT?! Gulp... I... I...." (brow starts to sweat, knees start to shake, teeth start to chatter... loss of bodily functions begins as Gen urinates and then craps his pants.)

Gen Fukunaga- "Mo-mo- MOOOOOOMMMMMMMYYYYYYY!" (collapses to the floor, hides under the desk, assumes the fetal position and starts sucking his thumb.)

Cindy Fukunaga- "What is wrong, oh dear husband of mine!"

Gen Fukunaga- "Cindy Fukunaga! Co-Executive Producer and Director of Licensing! Oh... read... read.... the letters...."

(minutes later...)

Cindy Fukunaga- "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPP!" (Cindy Fukunaga passes out and collapses.)

(an hour or so later, after burning some office supplies to warm up... Gen remusters himself and...)

Gen Fukuanga- "No. I am the President and Executive Producer at Funimation Productions. This is no way for the President to be acting. Let's see... gulp. If... if word leaks out... advertisers and religious groups might possibly boycott us. Sure, that's never happened seriously to even a show like Southpark, easily 20X worse than uncut DBZ and always sticking it to the censors rudely... but it's a... possibility. I am far too greedy to risk that happening. We here at Funimation have a reputation to protect as a reputable anime dubbing company which never offends anybody over the age of 12 who doesn't like the show. Sure, we may get 100,000's of hate letters from those anime snobs and rabid deranged fans but... this is serious.

This was apparently an accident which I will not allow to repeat. I will ensure that the script of Movie 8 has no dialogue which could offend any religious organization or person, be it the cut or uncut version. Yes... yes yes... At this rate, I may possibly receive as many as a dozen, or even TWO DOZEN letters like these, but... I'm strong, I'll manage it. Yes... yes I will. That is why I am the Great President of Funimation. (looks over at Cindy who's still unconscious) Hmm.... maybe I should get her some air..."


(Later... Chris Sabat asks for and receives the position of writer for Movie 8, perhaps to counteract some fan criticisms about his and Funimation's work. The result is the most accurate DBZ script ever since Pioneer dubbed Movie 3, and Movie 8 becomes the best-selling DBZ release of all time in America.)


Gen Fukunaga- "Hmm... perhaps I should fire Neel Bligh. As for the music, well... c'mon. Pantera Plug? Of COURSE the people loved it! And I hear Limp Bizkit is the 'in thing' right now! He certainly must be if he had sex with Britney Sp- hmm... That might offend the soccer moms and fanatical right wing who watch animes just to complain about them or listen to Piccolo talk about David and Goliath... Hmmph, maybe I'll just go with Mark Menza again.... AND PROFITS SHALL RISE!" (closes the door, puts on a backwards "Texas Rangers" hat and a chain with gold-diamonds reaing "G.Fuka", and puts on a cd and plays "Step into the Grand Tour" and starts badly dancing. Cindy soon wakes up and joins him.)

(Then Sean Schemmel, who actually SANG IN THAT GODDAMNED RAP SONG IN REAL LIFE BECAUSE HE THOUGHT IT'D BE REALLY, REALLY COOL, AND YES, I SADLY AM NOT MAKING THIS UP YOU CAN ACTUALLY HEAR HIS INCREDIBLY TERRIBLE VOICE IN THAT HORRIBLE SONG, walks by and...)

Sean Schemmel- "OH SHIZNIZZLES! I can hear those guys playing MY song!" (puts his ear near the door)

Untalented piece of shit- "STEP INTO THA GRAND TOUR!"

Untalented piece of sh... I mean, Sean Schemmel joining in- "GRAND TOUR, GRAND TOUR!"

Untalented piece of shit- "STEP INTO THA GRAND TOUR!"

Sean and the Shit- "DRAGON BALL GEEEE TEEEE!" (Sean walks off, starts talking to himself in his Movie 7- Super Hero Goku voice while moonwalking and raising his arms in the air.)

Sean Schemmel- "Oh yeaaah! Oh yeah, oh yeah! Let's all take it to tha grrraaaaaaaynd tour, and step into tha next level of Super Saiyan 4! Oh yeaaaaah!"
......



You see? On the other hand, you guys will brag about how wondefully you've handled Blue Gender. You'll also point out the spectacular job done with Fruits Basket, releasing the entire series on 4-episode full DVD's. You also make positive mention of Dragon Ball (first series) and, of course, Yu Yu Hakusho. You're quick to chime in about Lupin III, and mention that various other series (Tenchi GXP, Sakura Wars, Kiddy Grade) are in for "great treatment" (ie, the opposite of DBZ) as well. And citing that, you declare yourselves a great and majestic anime dubbing company worthy of commanding only the highest respect. However... let's look at it from this point of view.

There is a basketball team called, say, Fukaragi High School. And these guys are fantastic. Almost every high school they go up against they win greatly, and impress audiences and admiration from their opponents. But there are two schools that they suck miserably when the play at... Z High School and GT High School. Every time they play there, all of their 3-point shots turn into bricks. All of the slam dunks attempted by their head player never reach high enough, or just don't make it into the basket. When they play at those two places, they constantly forget about dribbling and get called for travelling multiple times. Their team even gets so desperate that they resort to illegal fouls, hiting people from behind and slamming their elbows into opponent's mouths. Many are suspended from games, the other side scores points.... for Fukaragi High School, it is a complete disaster.

The final scores of that year are 112-17 and 158-13. Fukaragi High School, despite those glaring losses, are still able to win the National cup. However... at Z and GT High Schools they are constantly being laughed at and made fun of. They are derided as talentless hacks playing at an elementary school level who are stupid. Despite their accomplishments, they are laughed and looked down upon by the Z and GT people.

"Hey, so what if we failed miserably at your two schools? Mistakes happen! Look how successful we are despite it!"
"So? National Champs... big whoop. You guys never know how to play right against us. You always do a crappy job. You expect us to respect that?"


Fukaragi High School keeps getting angry at the lack of respect shown by Z and GT High School and yet, year after year it's the same story of them annihilating Fukuragi very badly and Fukaragi playing very poorly against them. Hell, it'd be like if Mike Tyson were to got drunk and called me "fiffy" and I were to slap him once and send him to the hospital. Psycho champ or no psycho champ, even if he can still beat up guys that'd make me crap my pants, if he can't hold his own against me it'll be pretty hard for me to respect him.

That's the same problem Funimation has. While it is nice that shows like Yu Yu Hakusho get the "fair treatment" from you- so what? Where does that leave us DBZ or GT fans? Why should we have any respect for you? What have you done for us? We don't care how wonderfully you dub any other number of animes, if you're going to keep f**cking up DBZ and GT


(okay, I'll get off topic here and just stop for a minute and admit it and address it- skipping 16 episodes and bragging and hyping and lying about it's action helped you sell SPECTACULARLY, more than a "Fruits Basket" release-style would have done. Hell, if I was running the company I might be strongly incline to do that to. HOWEVER- I draw the line there. Beyond that, tossing 1/2 of the script to Neel Bligh and letting that greedy worthless fatass Barry Watson steal Sonny Strait's job and divide it with Chris Bevins and Chris Cason [all 3 of whom are your SINGLE CRAPPIEST DIRECTORS WITHIN THE COMPANY] isn't helping any. And Mark Menza alone would make any dub stink horribly. If you'd just have left the original script, not allowed Barry Watson to misabuse his power [and while I'm thinking about it, F**CK you Barry Watson for stealing Sonny's intended directing job. I hope all your negative karma comes back to haunt you someday] and for the love of the Guardian of the Earth had just left the original soundtrack in- us hardcore fans would be busy praising you AND the "mainstream wide-viewing American non-'anime-ish' anime audience" whom you're always bragging about, would be buying MORE of your GT products. Whether or not you want to believe it or are willing to accept it, that's the truth FUNimation.)


then why should you expect Z or GT fans to whoop and holler and praise you guys? The answer- you shouldn't. While I am glad about any other animes you dub right, dubbing other animes right isn't going to change how DBZ and GT have been treated. Sure maybe Tenchi GXP, Detective Co- er, Case Closed, Kiddy Grade and Sakura Wars or whatever will have their original soundtracks- but so what?

While us DBZ and GT fans would prefer that all your other animes be treated with respect, that's not what we ultimately want. What we ultimately want is a dubbing of the show that is done with care, integrity and respect. We want Movie 9's script to be as good as Movie 8's, minus the "uncut" cursing-censorship. We want Movie 9's voice acting to be able to captivate us, the opposite of how Movie 7's was completely unable to. We don't want some lame bands or musicians nobody's heard of from out of Dallas being tossed in, and we don't one of the top 10 MTV rock bands of last year inserting 1-2 minutes of one or two of their songs there while hearing you brag about the "live-action band climate" you're creating. We want to hear the original soundtrack in there booming in all it's glory like the first 3 Pioneer movies had, and we want the rest of the entire to be treated in this manner too.

So don't think you can just demand our respect or tell us that you've "earned" it. Funimation- if you really want to win over us DBZ and DBGT fans, don't just dub some other series we've never heard of with respect and integrity and then come bragging about it to us. If you really want to win us over then just dub what's left of DBZ and GT with respect. Until or unless you can ever do that, you should never demand and you certainly should never expect any DBZ and GT fans to have any respect for Funimation at all.

- GreatSaiyaman777