"Ahh....the latest web crusade. I love these things. Now as I’m sure you all know, I get some form of sick pleasure from writing editorials over the latest DBZ controversy. So, I reckon i’ll speak about Full Episode Sites.

Full Episode Sites are sites that take DBZ episodes, encode them and distribute them for free on the net. Sound pretty harmless, don’t they? I’m pretty sure you’ve been to these sites, downloaded them and watched. Don’t be fooled my friends. All Full Episode Sites are a division of the DBZ Cult.

Farfetched, you say? Impossible, you scream? As Kurt Angle (An Olympic Hero and Three-Time Gold Medal Winner) says, “Oh, its true. Its true.” Think about it. Why are these episodes put up? Most of them are for free. There is no real monetary gain from it. The episodes are usually fansubs of unreleased DBZ material. This stuff is given away to get you hooked on the doctrine of the Cult- “Subbed Is Awesome. Dubbed Is The Devil’s Tool”. And when these episodes are shown, WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE OWNER, that is called stealing. FUNimation gets culled of the money and royalties that rightfully belong to it. If this kind of crap continues, then DBZ could actually be considered losing money (okay, that’s kinda extreme) and discontinue showing DBZ in the US, something that the DBZ fans have been fighting for. I’ll admit, I was sucked into these sites before. Long, long ago, there was a site (can’t remember the name of it, I think it was called the New Saiyan Cinema) that offered free DBZ episodes! I downloaded every episode I could, from where Season 2 ended, right until Vegeta gets killed by Frieza. The site shut down soon after, thus hooking me on DBZ worse than ever before. Besides, why would you want to download them? They are of typical crappy fansub quality, they are shown on a screen that is WAY too small and then you can’t read the subtitles! Kinda defeats the quality, dontcha think?

What can you do? Don’t go to these sites. Report them to FUNimation. Tell your friends not to go. Avoid these sites like the plagues. The sad part is, these sites don’t seem to realize their end is soon, with all the DBZ episodes being released in America at a steady rate. Soon, oh so soon. Oh, and by the way (you’ll notice I typed “by the way”. I absolutely HATE IT when people put “BTW”. Are you so goddamn lazy that you can’t type 5 letters and 3 spaces?! Jesus...), if you think I’ve “sold out”, you’ve lost your everlovin’ mind. Nothing pisses me off more than when people try to get a few quick hits to their site by showing off stuff that doesn’t even belong to them. I hate it when people STEAL from others. If you think I’ve sold out, then write me an e-mail and i’ll be sure to write you back about where you can go, how fast you can get there and how many shovels you can stick up your ass while you’re at it.

The Super Texas-Jin,
Jonathan “Underfaker” Lindsey
*******



Yay, this one deals with episode downloads. Naturally, I'll respond to it.

"Ahh....the latest web crusade. I love these things. Now as I’m sure you all know, I get some form of sick pleasure from writing editorials over the latest DBZ controversy. So, I reckon i’ll speak about Full Episode Sites."

I get something sick, but it isn't a pleasure. More like sick to my stomache from you being stupid.

"Full Episode Sites are sites that take DBZ episodes, encode them and distribute them for free on the net. Sound pretty harmless, don’t they? I’m pretty sure you’ve been to these sites, downloaded them and watched. Don’t be fooled my friends. All Full Episode Sites are a division of the DBZ Cult."

Yes they sound pretty harmless. Especially since the ONLY people who are actually going to buy spliced-up Videotapes with only about three episodes are parents for their snotnosed kids and the "hardcore" fans that Gen likes to brag about who buy the Uncut tapes and watched the original Dragonball in syndication.

"Farfetched, you say? Impossible, you scream? As Kurt Angle (An Olympic Hero and Three-Time Gold Medal Winner) says, “Oh, its true. Its true.” Think about it. Why are these episodes put up? Most of them are for free. There is no real monetary gain from it. The episodes are usually fansubs of unreleased DBZ material. This stuff is given away to get you hooked on the doctrine of the Cult- “Subbed Is Awesome. Dubbed Is The Devil’s Tool”. And when these episodes are shown, WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE OWNER, that is called stealing. FUNimation gets culled of the money and royalties that rightfully belong to it. If this kind of crap continues, then DBZ could actually be considered losing money (okay, that’s kinda extreme) and discontinue showing DBZ in the US, something that the DBZ fans have been fighting for."

No they don't, the hardcore fans who stayed up until 5:30 every Sunday to watch DB will still buy the tapes.

"I’ll admit, I was sucked into these sites before. Long, long ago, there was a site (can’t remember the name of it, I think it was called the New Saiyan Cinema) that offered free DBZ episodes! I downloaded every episode I could, from where Season 2 ended, right until Vegeta gets killed by Frieza. The site shut down soon after, thus hooking me on DBZ worse than ever before. Besides, why would you want to download them? They are of typical crappy fansub quality, they are shown on a screen that is WAY too small and then you can’t read the subtitles! Kinda defeats the quality, dontcha think?"

I envy you. You got free episodes with subtitles in Japanese, and you even complained about it too. Y'know, there's that thing called Fullscreen, which makes it fit the entire screen. Problem solved. Typical crappy fansub quality? Yeah, fansubs are so crappy. That's why most fansub tapes out there are rated of the highest quality, equal to FUNi's dub tapes. That's why they were so popular, because the quality was so bad. That's... why I ran out of things to say.

"What can you do? Don’t go to these sites. Report them to FUNimation. Tell your friends not to go. Avoid these sites like the plagues. The sad part is, these sites don’t seem to realize their end is soon, with all the DBZ episodes being released in America at a steady rate. Soon, oh so soon."

What sites? FUNimation has already shut them down. Steady rate? Don't make me laugh. FUNimation started in 1995. It's now 2004 - They still have EIGHT Movies and TV Specials left to release Uncut. Over 100 episodes remain unreleased, and the redub of DBZ 1-66.5 is still an issue. Steady rate my ass.

"Oh, and by the way (you’ll notice I typed “by the way”. I absolutely HATE IT when people put “BTW”. Are you so goddamn lazy that you can’t type 5 letters and 3 spaces?! Jesus...), if you think I’ve “sold out”, you’ve lost your everlovin’ mind. Nothing pisses me off more than when people try to get a few quick hits to their site by showing off stuff that doesn’t even belong to them. I hate it when people STEAL from others. If you think I’ve sold out, then write me an e-mail and i’ll be sure to write you back about where you can go, how fast you can get there and how many shovels you can stick up your ass while you’re at it."

BTW, downloadable episode pages tend to get thousands on thousands of hits daily, and even then, they have nothing (which is my big beef with downloadable episode sites - get bombarded with spam and popups, vote 50 times, repeat, and finally you get to the episode page only to discover the epsiodes are down or there weren't any in the first place.) That aside, this arguement doesn't matter any longer. FUNimation has shut down every downloadable site from this point to Hell. The Japanese version, while missing previews, and eyecatches and recaps on some discs, is widely available, and Z subs are pretty much dead now. The only thing you'll find on a P2P program are VHS rips, and even then those are scattered, usually around music videos. In closing, I'll say that FUNi only supports episode downloads by overpricing their DVDs. That's all...

- >UltraSeiya