For years and years, DB was first shown on the airwaves in 1995 and then DBZ, has been inundated with criticisms. On some days it's in the hundreds, on other days it can even be in the thousands. However, they have almost always, with virtually no exception, refused to listen to what any fan who wasn't 100% content with and their dub has had to say.

"You don't like the music? Well F*** YOU! Our highly expensive research shows that this is what the 2-11 year old male kiddies all like! Besides, the original stuff if just a bunch of goofy, gooky, cheesy, 80's-ish, horribly outdated, ridiculous to the American culture Jap crap! And it has... (shudder) 'moments of silence.' RIDICULOUS! Americans all HATE silence! You show silence and they'll flip the remote and never look back! You gotta have action in there- ALWAYS! OR IT'S EMPTY! Listen, anime snob, you think you know- but you're a f***ing idiot, and a vast f***ing minority among ALL fans, and you don't know JACK about making anime profitable and successful. F*** YOU!"

"You don't like the mistranslations? Well F*** YOU! We'll (mis)translate in whatever goddamn way we want! We OWN the series and it BELONGS to US so it is our right and privilege to do whatever we wish to it! Sides, the mistranslated scripts make sure our scripts writers have to work from scratch. It saves us the trouble of eliminating all potential foreign, bizarre and highly unusual Jap crap from there. Like say, 'sins of our fathers.' I mean, do you really want to listen to the Z fighters talk about how they became superhero's to pay for the guilt of the sins of what their fathers did during World War 2? That's something the American culture would have great difficulty swallowing. Oh, and our script writers are doing a FANTASTIC job adapting and beefing up the show- the ratings show and prove to ourselves that we've done everything possible to make the show as profitable and enjoyable to as many people as humanly possible."

"You don't like these new voices? Well F*** YOU! Hah, like you'd be saying that had they been the FIRST cast instead of those... Ocean people. We're taking the show in new directions, people, bear with us! Piccolo's no longer demonic- now he's 'down' with the thug life. This should help us appeal to a more... 'urban"' demographic. Also, we're bringing Goku in exciting, new directions. He's going to sound like a superhero from Superfriends, as we want this anime show to be like all other American cartoons out there. I mean, you expect us to be... ORIGINAL?! DARING?! To go against the grain? HAHAHAHA! Yeah right, we ain't gonna do anything to this show that'd make the American viewing audience feel... uncomfortable. And... discontent Look, we pay lots of money for our research, and we all are ALWAYS right. It's highly scientific demographical research, you think there's any way it could possibly be wrong? You f***ing anime snobs need to just go f*** off and go f*** yourselves. We hate you! There are millions of happy dubbies out there who aren't as pissy as you pathetic fools! Either join them, or buy every one of our DVD's and just shut the hell up and leave us alone goddammit!"


One person once commented that they had received, "a goldmine's worth of feedback and yet, they insist on ignoring it all." Well, not quite. The "goldmine of feedback" is fully acknowledged and used for all other animes- but almost never for DBZ. FUNimation has gone beyond mere stubborness and reached the epitome of arrogance, selfishness and vanity. They are convinced that they are absolutely PERFECT and that they can do NO wrong. Of course, it's like that "there is no arguing with success.... or stupidity" thing. They may treat the show like a piece of shit fresh from their ass, but look how much money they are making. At one point in 2001, according to one reporter interviewing them, the value of FUNimation was at about $32,500,000.

And their DVD's and VHS'es sell a lot- and Season 5 was sold to Cartoon Network for a whooping $10,000,000- and the others (except perhaps for the incredibly short, 15-episode Season 7) probably sold for even more. With toy sales, merchandising, video games, the Collectible Card Game, reruns, episode sales, movie sales and other tie-ins, I think it'd be safe to now appraise their value at over $100,000,000. And in 2000 Gen made his now infamous boast that his company had "more cash flow than we know what to do with." And that's nothing compared to what they have now.

I'm not saying that what FUNimation is doing is right or most profitable- I've debated the "does this really make our show more profitable?" angle for a long time. However, when you look at these facts it's easy to see why FUNimation is so quick to cling to the "we're always right, and we just make everything better" theory. If they're right, why bother? If they're wrong, big f***ing deal. The exec's don't care about the integrity of the show at all and are unwilling to admit that they've ever made a single mistake with the show. The money is all that matters at the end of the day. And why change that formula? They might make... less! And if the rate continues, without them bothering to do anything, they'll still make a shitload either way.

Of course, one can argue that treating the show with more respect, and making it more appealing to the MASS American audience instead of just 2-11 year olds TMNT-style, might have made... more... mon-

FUNimation- "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no- too risky. Way too risky. Forget it, you fool. With this much money, we don't have to care what anyone who's negative has to say. So... F*** OFF!" That's how they feel. However, DBZ's always been successful and a HUGE phenomenon in many countries- like France and Mexico and Poland for instance. I've also specifically heard that it's been really big in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Malaysia as well. And of course, it was a bigger deal in Me-

Look, you get the picture. It's been proven internationally that well-done dubs can succeed- some of them even bigger deals in their respective countries than DBZ has been in America. (Of course, we're one of the largest countries, not to mention the single wealthiest, so I imagine that a less popular and all ages (ie, not just little kids. Look at Japan, not all 24,000,000 viewers there were just kiddies) appealing DBZ dub probably makes a lot more money here than most great, fantastic and well-done international dubs have abroad) My point is simply this- when you combine such an insane success and fortune with a bunch of people and exec's who don't have the slightest amount of integrity or respect for the show, along with a mass-psychological self-need within the company to justify everything they do as being right (to keep them from feeling too guilty about complaints from fans and about them raping the show), along with an absolutely enormous amount of arrogance and self-loving and congratulating, and lots of paychecks and success and popularity- what you get is something I call "FUNimation syndrome." With all that success, and with almost none of the people who work there truly giving a flying f*** about Toriyama's and Toei's masterpiece Toei (which instead is replaced with a self-love for their own "FUNiball Z" dub- and contempt for the Japanese version, thus why many of them have insulted and denigrated that version so much while being reluctant to actually acknowledge anything good about it)- I can see how and why FUNimation is so quick to never listen to fans.

What that brings me to is this- DBGT. From what I understand, the dub of episode 22 was very true to the original script. I noticed that about 2-3 minor swears were eliminated (perhaps because it was on a special "sample DVD" that came with the official walkthrough of LoG2, and "uncut" anything wasn't placed as a "warning" anywhere) and that there was one instance of ventriloquist dialogue when a robot kicked Trunks in carbonite. (he said something like, "heh, you're not so tough." Actually, I thought doing this made the scene slightly better which surprised me, since usually their added dialogue has no purpose beyond the elimination of silence) Also, Trunks said something about re-routing the fluids in Bebi's chamber to the "sewage system" (he said something slightly different in the original). Also, the narration was done by a newnarrator"tough-guy style" (man, this new guy sucks. He's even worse than Dale Kelly) instead of "Hi, ora Goku!" (the main protagonists talking about what'll happen next) Giru's and Pan's voices may not be very good but aside from that- not too many problems.

I know it's not a good idea to assume that every script is flawless and will be flawless just because of one accurate episode- after all, after FUNimation's best DBZ dub ever (Movie 6) we were then introduced to their worst dub ever (Movie 7). Still, despite this there was one glaring problem I couldn't get over- the music.

Remember how Chris Psaros said that the first guys sounded like they were hitting "demo" on a casio keyboard and Faulconer apparently had his cat run all over his? Well this new guy Mark Menza is even worse! I can say, without any question at all whatsoever, that he is an utterly talentless, horribly unspired, very poor and extremely untalented "musician." Wait, wait, he's not even worthy of the tile "musician" (which even Faulconer, to an extent, is)- all he produces is garbage, garbage, garbage- and more garbage.

For starters we have that godawful "Step into the Grand Tour" rap/e song. He then takes his "popular" theme song and remixes it for the ending music, the eyecatcher music, and the title and preview music- the worst song ever for anything DB and he insists on using it as much as possible! (it's even "remixed" sort of during episodes themselves) And the rest of his crap isn't much better- you've got dark techno, dark rock, light rock, light techno, dark rock-techno, light rock-techno, dark/light rock, dark/light techno, dark/light rock-techno- there is absolutely no variety beyond combining these 4 very unoriginal themes! And it's absolutely horrible and utterly disgusting! There is not one redeeming factor I can say about the music at all, except that occasionally there are brief moments of respite where the viewer isn't forced to have to endure it.

Yes, they are skipping 16 episodes, and some of the voices are messed-up- but so what? Those are legitimate problems and concerns, but those ones are the very LEAST of dubbed DBGT's problems. Even if everything else is done right, even if it's shown in chronological order- it'll still sound like nauseauting garbage with Menza essentially spraying feces throughout the episodes! DBGT is the best soundtrack of the 3 series- I even e-mailed Bruce Faulconer and he said that he'd probably agree with me on that one. But anyway, the soundtrack is now gone- and in it's place is souless, lifeless, utterly wretched garbage. Thought Movie 7's music sucked hardcore? Well GT's soundtrack is going to bring sucking hardcore to a whole new level of ass-sucking never before seen anywhere in any DB dub, or anywhere for that matter. In fact, the music is so terrible that FUNimation writes in their faq that,

"• FUNimation is known for its high-quality sound and post-production work. With DBGT, we have created an updated, edgy new soundtrack and have digitally remastered the sound effects.
• It is important to note that all of the episodes of Dragon Ball GT will be available to our fans (uncut), in both dubbed and subbed versions, in the near future. The subbed version features the original Japanese soundtrack. "


Hmmm... they're basically sticking to their "guns" (albeit incredibly shitty ones that keep shooting them in the face) while essentially saying, "if you think our soundtrack sucks ass, then just buy the DVD's and check out the Japanese version. It has the original soundtrack on there." That's interesting, because they've never said anything to that extent about DBZ officially, or in their other faqs. Apparently the music replacement of GT has become a big enough issue to actually be enough of concern to FUNimation for them to directly address this. (and to think, FUNimation is actually giving that idiot "significant investments" to produce this crap)

Despite this unfortunately, they don't really care. Although we know that everyone at FUNimation "hates DBGT's music and thinks it sucks," guess what?

"Dragon Ball GT: Preparation and DBGT Ramifications are listed as #17 and #18 in the First Alert Top 20 DVD sales for the week of July 20th, 2003. The First Alert list tracks overall DVD sales, including those of major distributors outside of animation.

The VHS First Alert numbers are even more impressive for DBGT. While some companies are moving away from VHS, FUNimation has maintained a commitment to the home video market, and it shows in their sales:

( Week of 7/20/03 ):
#1 DBGT: Preparation (edited)
#2 DBGT: Ramifications (edited)
#9 DBGT: Preparation (uncut)
#10 DBGT: Ramifications (uncut)
#13 DBGT: Proliferation (uncut)
#20 DBGT: Creation (edited)

I think that's very impressive. Even though more companies are pulling away from VHS it is still impressive to hold the #1 and #2 spots." (courtesy of dbzgtlegacy.com)


They don't care! GT is still selling well and even more than DBZ's did. Through a combination of hype and other factors, FUNimation has ultimately decided that it was their "genius" prevailing yet again. But on the other hand, it should be noted that this is the first time EVER that for a DB-related DVD to do so well and make it so high on the list, not to mention at a time when the DVD market is starting to become more and more saturated.... VERY interesting....

Still, the dub is still outselling the sub and you know how the FUNimation mind set works. They are "right" and fans are, as always of course, "wrong.: And, of course, as FUNimation is always right- their music must be "better" and "more profitable" than the original stuff would have been... or so they'd believe.

To make a long story short, FUNimation doesn't give a flying f*** about complaints about GT. Their asses are being slapped mighty hard with cash and they're too busy enjoying that feeling to take the time out to listen to legitimate gripes and concerns. And they're too afraid that their asses might be slapped slightly less hard with cash if they were to be brave enough to enact any change. However, CN will be showing GT on tv soon. And they want it to be a success. If they can be convinced that the original music on GT would lead to higher ratings and happier viewers, they might address this issue to FUNimation. And although FUNimation easily and happily pisses us off as unimportant, they can't ignore their allies at CN quite so easily, who do hold MUCH swagger with them and their company.

If FUNimation insists on sticking it's head up it's ass and ignoring what the fans have to say, then why don't we try talking to Cartoon Network/Toonami? Here.

Mailing Address: 1065 Williams Street- Atlanta, GA 30309
URL: www.cartoonnetwork.com
www.toonami.com
www.cartoonnetwork.com/feedback/ (note- your maximum message length is set to a limit. So if it's too long, just try to shorten it up a bit)


Tell them in your own words why you think they should use GT's original music, and not allow Mark Menza's garbage to pollute the show- particularly that wretched rap crap. If enough people can get their attention and make it into a big enough issue, then perhaps they'll listen. After all, FUNimation wanted to show GT in the summer of 2004 but CN is now forcing them to show it in October 2003. So it's obvious that CN has clout with FUNimation and can pull their strings when (and if) they want to. And if CN were to become convinced that the FUNimation way for the music of GT is the wrong way- then they could also force them to include the original music.

- GreatSaiyaman777