The History of Dragon Ball in Poland: Interview with a Polish DB Otaku

By: The Great Saiyaman

If you're reading this then you've probably also read my interview with Coola Yagami about the DB Mexican dub. I think it turned out very well and the information was pretty interesting to learn. Just imagine- a country actually dubbed DBZ CORRECTLY, with almost no CENSORSHIP, that used the ORIGINAL MUSIC and that treated the fans- like royalty! Not only that but Dragon Ball came BEFORE Dragon Ball Z- ALL 153 EPISODES! We're watching SSJ3 Goku take on Kid Buu right now, and Chibi Goku STILL hasn't meet Yajirobi in DB and Piccolo Jr.'s origins to American viewers are STILL as "mysterious and clouded in shadows" as Wolverine's used to be! (note- Movie 4 isn't as crappy and lame as you might think. You'll understand eventually.) Damn, I just can't help but be a little jealous of Mexico. FUNimation pretty much ruined watching DB on fansub for me, especially since they spoiled all the big scenes in flashbacks during Season 5's Cell sagas. Not only that but, through bad translations, crappy script writing and ventrilo- eh, you get the picture.

Then I got to thinking- aside from Mexico and a lot of South America, how did all the other foreign dubs get handled? Well, my curiosity was partially answered when one "Cap'n Ginyu" e-mailed me expressing his desire to write dbzoa.net a feature about the Polish version (he had also viewed a lot of Japanese and English DB as well) or to maybe be interviewed by me about me. I immediately accepted his offer of an interview but then balked- "Wait a second- this is really unoriginal! I did the exact same thing last time with Coola. I bet it'll just be copying and pasting all of my questions to Coola and it won't look very good." However, I realized that there were a lot more questions to ask Coola that I hadn't thought up at the time and that I could have rephrased a lot of my questions to him better. With renewed confidence and some new questions, I started e-mailing CaptGinyu and this is what he had to say...

Well, here's the first batch of questions. Thanks again for agreeing to do this.

"And same to you."

1. Just out of curiosity, but would you mind telling me a little bit about your home country of Poland? Like a brief history, current events, etc., what do you think about the French?

A. Well.... it's not a best place to live, but not the worst either. We are pretty poor here, compared to your standards... mainly because of II World War, change of political system (no commies now) and bad government afterwards. Now we have new government, and we should join the European Union soon, so everything should be better soon. As for the French.... well, they have funny language, eat snails and frogs and apparently don't know how to park, but hey, every nation has some strange habit... and ours is even worse than eating snails or lack of "parking skillz"...

2. Now then, when and how were you first introduced to Dragon Ball?

A. Nothing original - I was just surfing channels, saw an anime-style cartoon and started to watch it.... I think it was an episode of DB when Goku went looking for a "pichi-pichi gal".

3. When did Dragon Ball first begin in Poland? Also, what channel and time slot did it appear in?

A. Hmmm... unfortunately, I don't remember it too well, but I can tell you that CN started airing DBZ when we were near the end of DB. It was RTL7 channel (now bought by other company and renamed to TVN7). Timeslot - around 1 PM, Saturdays and Sundays, but it quickly changed to 3 PM and 7 AM, weekdays.

4. In America the first 13 episodes were shown at a crappy time, were heavily censored and were given a new musical soundtrack. The initial ratings sucked and based off of that data they decided that it wasn't a "good fit" for American audiences. Afterwards they skipped 140 episodes of story to go straight into DBZ. How did DB first fare when it arrived in Poland? Did Polish audiences get to see all 153 episodes of it first or did they just skip straight into DBZ?

A. Naw, no skipping, we got DB, then DBZ, then DBGT, plain and simple. DB wasn't as much of a boom as DBZ, but it did pretty well nonetheless.

5. Gen Fukunaga got hooked on anime while he spent some time in Japan plus his uncle is/was a big executive at Toei. In California working at a computer company he met Daniel of the wealthy Cocanougher family. Hearing about DB's success he made a deal with his uncle and Toei plus the Cocanoughers, and using their family's wealth he brought the rights of DB then DBZ over to America. Is there a similar story to how DB-Z was brought over to Poland?

A. If there is one, I don't know it. Sorry. But I think they just decided to buy a buttload of cartoons from France, and amongs them were 3 anime series - Dr Slump, Saint Seiya and Dragon Ball. I don't even think they knew it was from Japan....

6. In America DBZ didn't too well during the first 2 seasons but it took off when DBZ started being shown heavily on the Cartoon Network. Is DB-Z really popular in Poland and if so, when did it first really take off?

A. Yeah, it became more and more popular when DBZ started, and the DBZ market bloomed when DBGT ended. But now, after the second and last rerun, it's starting to slow down a little bit.

7. Have all of DB, DBZ and DBGT been dubbed and shown in Poland yet?

A. Yup. One after another, no dividing to seasons. They bought rights to air two reruns, and the last one ended recently.

8. What is the name of the company in Poland responsible for the dubbing work?

A. Alas, I don't remember the studio that did the "dubbing" (it's not a Polish dub per se, but the French dub with Polish reader, or whatever you call a person that reads the script) in Poland, but the French company is "AB International."

9. I understand that the Polish dub is based off of the French dub... how exactly did that come about?

A. From what I heard, the AB International has/had exclusive rights to sell and air DB/Z/GT in this part of Europe, so basically we had no choice than to buy it from France.

10. In your opinion, is the French dub very good to begin with? I heard that they're the ones who invented the name "Hercule" because France, despite boasting about it's superior intellect and sophistication, had a significant soccer mom population that would have gone bonkers had Mr. Satan kept his name on television. That's the only thing I've heard about the French dub so you can understand if I'm a little bit suspicious.

A. Well.... No, at least not until DBGT. The overall translation is kinda good (there are still some really stupid mistakes), but names of people and attacks are often changed (both by French and Polish translators) or non-existant. Opening and ending are changed to a pile of random clips form Saiyan and Freezer Saga, and let me tell you - the opening song to DBZ and DB could be as well used in the Teletubbies shows. The voices are average - Piccolo's and Vegeta's voices are annoying and not too good, but Freezer and Cell had some nice VA's, and I even consider Buu's voice better then Japanese.

As for the censoring - it was pretty common at the time of DB (Kuririn's fart, Kuririn's fight with Dracula Man, most of Roshi's "adventures" and breaking Yamcha's leg come to mind), but lacks the "finesse" of FUNi's censoring - you can usually figure out what was going on.... heck, they show the cut out stuff in the recap most of the time!

Later, the censoring is really rare, the only censored scenes in DBZ I recall were "stupid Freezer cut himself in half", part of Kuririn's death (the "pumping" part), Kuririn doing "cowboy stuff" on Freezer's horn and when Piccolo ripped off his arm and grew a new one in Cell Saga, so it looked like he was pumping up his arm with new innards (weird... they left it in the end of DB). And I heard that there was uncut version of French dub, aired in France in late hours.

11. What exactly did you mean when you said that the show was a "French dub with Polish reader"?

A. Oh, crap, I don't really know the word.... Reader? Lector? Anyway, you can hear French dub while one person is reading the Polish script. It's not a dub, nor a sub. I noticed that other countries rarely use that type of translation and have tendencies to dub everything they buy. We do it rarely, and I'm grateful for it, because majority of anime in Poland is the Japanese version, so you can hear original voices in the background. The only anime that had a Polish dub I recall was Pokemon.

12. What can you tell us about AB International? Are they a very good dubbing company?

A. I would say no, but their work on DBGT was pretty good, so I'll say "they weren't".

13. So how much of the original music was kept in the Polish dub for DB, DBZ and DBGT?

A. As I said, the opening and ending to DB and DBZ were changed, but all of the BGM's were left. The only song I don't remember hearing was Spirit vs Spirit when Gohan transformed. And they left DBGT opening n' ending untouched.

14. Before DB came to Poland were there any other very popular animes that had come before it?

A. Yeah, there was a channel called Polonia 1 which showed some old anime i.e. Yattaman, General Daimos and Captain Tsubasa. And later, we had Sailor Moon. Thanks to the popularity of SM and DBZ we can now watch some pretty good anime in Polish television i.e. Slayers, Magic Knight Rayearth and Cowboy Bebop.

15. Does Poland have a stereotype that everything done in animation is automatically for kids?

A. Yes. But it recently became quite a topic, so it should change soon.

16. If somebody would rate original, unaltered Japanese DBZ a "10" in terms of censorship, and the first two American DBZ seasons a "1" then who would you rank the censorship of DB (by that I mean all 3 series in general) in the Polish dub?

A. 8, I think.

17. In America FUNimation, following CN's cenorship policies, censors...
a. Blood.
b. Some instances of gun play.
c. All instances of someone smoking.
d. Any "excessive cleavage" (ie, Maron in a skimpy 1-piece thong, that chick from the first tournament in her underwear)
e. Anything "too religious." ("Buddha," "Mr. Satan," "Kami" being translated to God)
f. Homosexuality (well, there's only that dude near the end of DBZ anyway)
g. Anything involving beer.
h. Nudity.
I'm really curious about this one... how much of this did the Polish dub censor?

A. Okay, so....
a. As I said, the really bloody scenes like Kuririn being impaled on Freezer's horn were cut out, but besides of that, it's still there.
b, c, d. Untouched.
e. Well, there was this "Hercule" thingy, but the rest is left I think. Kami is still God, no "Guardians" allowed.
f. Uh.... I don't remember anyone clearly saying "Look! A queen!", but all the stuff when he tried to seduce Trunks is untouched.
g. Naw, beer is good, so they left it.
h. The baby genitals are still there (Weeeee!), but boobies are a no-no. Pretty strange if you ask me.

18. Are there any differences between the censorship of the Polish dub and that of the French dub?

A. Okay, so.... (nah, there aren't any)

19. In America when Bulma flashed Roshi they changed it and drew it to look like Krillin had tossed a "can of tomato soup" on the Invisible Man. How did the French dub handle the censorship of that scene?

A. They just cut it. Plain and simple. One second Yamcha is losing, then the Invisible Man is red all of the sudden. Annoying lack of finesse in terms of censorship, if you ask me. I must admit, that FUNi is much better at this.

20. Just out of curiosity, how were the 2 scenes with Bulma's and Vegeta's asses handled?

A. If you're talking about the "Bulma flashes Roshi" scene, than it was cut out. But later there was very little censorship, so they left scenes like that, so yes, Vegeta's ass was still there. Same with "Goten, Trunks & Goku in the bath" thing at the end of DBZ.

21. In America FUNimation has frequently boasted about "Americanizing" DBZ, going so far as to once say that doing that was "their job" and that viewers would refuse to watch it if there was ever anything "too Japanese" in it. Did DB ever get "Polandized" in the Polish dubbing process or get "Frenched up" in the prior French dubbing process?

A. No, I don't remember anything like that.

22. So does the Polish dub have any infamous, much-lampooned lines in it like, "look, I can see their parachutes, they're okay"?

A. Yeah, I remember there were 3 lines similar to that, but it wasn't about "death is bad". Most of them are from the first series.
1. "I love cactus milk."
2. When Kame should be asking Bulma "Will you show me your panties?", they made him say "Will you go on a date with me?" They did similar thing with Rou Kaioshin. Sigh.... at least it was better than "Gimme a sandwich." in the Dragon Power game.
3. After Yamcha saw nude Bulma washing her hair, his line was changed from "I was always shy around women" to "I was always afraid of shampoo." Dear God....

23. Cursing-wise, what is the Polish voiceover (is that the common term that they call it by or is it something else?) like?

A. Uh... now that you mention it, I don't remember hearing any cursing or pseudo-cursing. They usually use something like "Oh no", "Impossible", or "You'll pay for this".

24. So how exactly does it work to have someone read a translated script of what's being said of an original anime or a dub of it? Are the people who do these really talented and do they usually try to find voices that match the original ones of characters?

A. Naw, there is only one narrator and he doesn't try to imitate original voices. Not that it's a bad thing.

25. I'm really curious... what was it like listening to Gogeta, Vegetto and Gotenks? Did the French dub give them 2 voices each and did the script reading of them have two different script readers at once?

A. As I said, there is only one narrator. As for the French version.... now, this is weird. For the first episodes, they gave him voice of Trunks. Then, for the first two episodes of Gotenks vs Buu fight, he was speaking with voices of Goten and Trunks, which is correct. Later, it was just Trunks' voice again. Same with Vegetto - for the first episode he had voice of both Goku and Vegeta, but then they changed it to just Vegeta's voice. Gogeta was only in the DBGT series, when we had original voices, so there's no problem here.

26. Do script readings usually pretty much match the translation from the original they came from?

A. By original, do you mean Japanese or French version? If French, then yeah, the translation is not bad, even if some names of characters and attacks were changed. The Japanese -> French translation is average from what I can tell.... it's not that bad, but there are some pretty stupid mistakes, like: (Japanese Gohan): I feel strong Ki, but I don't know who is it. (about Cell) (French/Polish Gohan): I'm reading someone's mind, but I don't know who is it. (when you're reading someone's mind, it's pretty hard to not know who is it) Thankfully, this "reading mind" thingy was only for a brief moment in Android Saga, normally it's just "feeling his energy".

27. What does the "AB" in AB International stand for? Also, were any other companies besides AB International involved in bringing DB over to Poland?

A. Hell if I know.

28. So what year did DB, DBZ, and DBGT first come to Poland? Also, I was a bit confused when you said that Poland didn't divide the series up into seasons. In America we usually get about 40-50 new episodes each year (Monday through Friday) followed by reruns, some of which are shown on the weekend. During DB's run in Poland, how often did they show new episodes and how often did they show reruns?

A. I don't really remember which year was it. Around 1997 I think. No, we don't have seasons, they just aired DB/Z/GT, one after another, without intermissions. After that, they aired it two more times.

29. Did any of the DBZ movies hit movie theatres in Poland? Also, have any other anime movies hit movie theatres there as well?

A. Yeah, we got chance to watch joined movies 12 & 13 in movie theatres. It was a Polish DUB (not a voiceover). The translation was very good (original attack and character names), but voices were average. Later it was released on VHS. For the other animes, we got Pokemon movies (Polish dub, just like TV series) and Princess Mononoke (sub, I think).

30. Have Akira Toriyama or any of the rest of the Japanese cast ever traveled to France or Poland in conjunction with any DB-related events?

A. Nope.

31. In America, all the movies and tv specials so far have been released on VHS and DVD. Episodes have also been released, (VHS and DVD) many of them prior to their debut on the Cartoon Network. Has Poland ever released the episodes, movies and tv specials for sale like this or in any other way?

A. Yes, for now we have movies 1, 2 and 3 (French dub with Polish voiceover, but with better translation) and movies 12 and 13 (Polish dub) on VHS. No TV specials or episodes, and no DVD's.

32. Have any of the Japanese versions of the DB episodes, movies and specials been legally released for sale in Poland on DVD?

A. No.

33. Have any subtitled episodes from other animes ever been shown on Polish television?

A. Yeah. A channel called "Hyper" (mainly about PC games) aired some anime series, which were Japanese versions with Polish voiceover in most cases. Amongst them were two series with professional Polish subtitles - Iria and Cowboy Bebop. God bless those guys.

34. I was just wondering but do Poland and France have their own version of "DBZUncensored" for their versions or are there any other anime "Uncensored" style sites in those countries?

A. Naw, we're just too lazy. Besides, we don't get censoring tears or HFIL, so a site like that isn't necessary. Same with other anime - besides erasing some of lines about breasts in MKR and Slayers, we don't get much censoring at all.

35. Speaking of which, where did you find out about this website from?

A. From DBZUncensored.... and I found about DBZU from the good ol' Planet Namek.... rest in peace.

36. About fansubs... did Poland ever have a fansub market (Japanese and/or French version with Polish translations) and if so, what can you tell me about it?

A. Yeah, we have some fansubs, but not of DBZ.

37. Earlier you said that the French version messed up some of the attack names. Which of the attack names got changed and what did they become?

A. Oh, boy, this ain't gonna be pretty.... The most butchered attack was of course the one used most often - Kamehameha. At first it was just Kamehame Wave, and that's okay, but later thay came up with some strange stuff.... Magic Power? Infinite Light? Oh, the humanity.... in DBZ they corrected it in the French dub and they just shouted "Kaaaaa, Meeee, Aaaaa, Meeeee, AAAAA!" (Yes, Kameamea), but the Polish translator kept pulling some strange ideas out of his ass.... Shockwave, Highest Power....Ugh! And when we got Japanese voices (yes, in the middle of Bebi vs Goku fight in GT they somehow managed to get original version from AB... I think they just didn't finish dubbing, but wanted to sell it to us anyway.) he kept using the f*****g Shockwave! AGH! Taiyoken is "Solar Fang" (????), Genki Dama is "Vigor Ball" and "Gendi Ball", Dodonpa is "Fire Ball", Kikoho is "Absolute Power", Makankosappo is "Death Beam", and so on.... they like to add goodbye-present-like lines too. But the translator's job with attacks isn't that bad.... at least not as bad as with characters.

38. Did the French dub ever experience any voice changes over the course of it's run or have any voice actors that you felt voiced too many different characters?

A. Well, some voices changed while moving on to the next series, but I think that's basically it. And no, I don't think there was a Chris Sabat equivalent in the French dub.

39. What kinds of DBZ-related products have been designed specifically for Polish markets?

A. I can't think of anything besides manga, and stuff like bubble gum or lollipops with DBZ stickers, or "tatoos". While I'm at it, I would like to mention the company that brought DBZ manga here and translated it - JPF. They did a wonderful work with translating it.... original or properly translated names, good work with editing the "sound effects", no censoring, true to the form of tankobon.... And new volume every two weeks! (currently we are on volume 36) Oh, thank you, thank you very much, JPF!

40. Were there ever any bootleg DBZ products in Poland?

A. Yes. Mostly crappy action figures, T-shirts, that sort of stuff. Heh, seeing a "Goku with a gun" action figure was one of the funniest things in my life. No bootleg CD's, though.

41. As of now in the U.S. 7 DB games have currently had domestic releases here. How many different DB games have Poland and Europe gotten?

A. I think the only games legally released in Poland were GBA games and Budokai, but the pirated PSX games can be obtained quite easily. Europe.... I only know that France has most of the PSX and SNES games, and you can buy UB22 in UK. Strange.... both European versions don't have pre-match conversations. Were they too lazy to dub/sub it?

42. While we're on the topic of Europe, how many other European countries can you think of where DB also proved to be successful? Also, are there any other European countries besides Poland where the French dub was shown with a voiceover?

A. Italy, Spain, Germany and UK I think, but don't quote me on that. The only thing I'm sure about is that the German version is German dub of French dub. Heh. (Note from GreatSaiyaman777- the UK Ocean dub is based off of the FUNimation Z dub. Also, the German dub is based off of the French dub. For more on those two dubs check out ukdb.net)

43. Having seen both the Japanese version and the Polish version, what are your thoughts about the differences between the two and which of the two do you prefer to watch more?

A. Japanese, all the way! No stupid names, nice voices, no censoring (there is not much of it in Polish version, but still....). Of course, quality of the sub is very important. Ooooh, just thinking about this "everyone is cursin', foo'!" Anime Labs sub gives me the creeps.

44. How exactly have so many DBZ fans in Poland come to see so much of the English version?

A. Two words - Cartoon Network. We have it too and it's pretty popular.

44. How exactly have so many DBZ fans in Poland come to see so much of the English version?

A. Two words - Cartoon Network. We have it too and it's pretty popular.

45. How exactly are dubbed American DBZ episodes on CN presented? Are theyshown as is and many Polish happen to be great at English? Or are they given a voiceover or are they subtitled?

A. Well, there is a Polish version of CN, where the shows are dubbed, but DBZ ain't there. Law matters I think. But we can see it on English CN. Yeah, a lot of Polish anime fans know English, but I think most of 'em don't know what's a "mondo cool".

46. If you were to ask a Polish DBZ fan who prefers FUNimation DBZ over French DBZ why they prefer it, what reasons would they cite?

FUNi, from what I know. I'm not sure about the hardcore DBZ fans, but the newbies would choose the USA dub, at least I think so. The reasons: better voices - especially Piccolo and Vegeta, Brian Drummond and Scott McNeil did a helluva better job than French VA's, so did Chris Sabat, at least later, in the Majin Buu Saga.... opening theme - say what you want about "Rock The Dragon" and Faulconer's DBZ Theme, after hearing opening theme of French DBZ everything'll sound good to you.

BGM - well, at least some people. De gustibus non est disputantum. better dialogue - can't blame 'em for not knowing what "mondo cool" is.

47. Now here's the one big question I've really been wanting to ask you... you mentioned to me that you've also seen some of FUNimation's Dragon Ball Z episodes. What were your thoughts about them and what are your thoughts about the FUNimation version of Dragon Ball Z in general?

A. Not too good. You have most of original names, that's true, but the translation is even worse then our not-so-good Polish version, and that's something. And with all the reruns, lack of original score (The new one isn't so bad, though.... Yeah, I really like some of Faulconer's themes. Sue me.), "mondo cool" dialogue, little ol' "grandma" Frieza, and all.... Well, it's bad. And I really, really, REALLY hate the job they did with the Ginyu Force. I'm talking about stupid "Ah-nuld" Reecome and "drunkard-voice" Ginyu, who is "cooked like dinner". But be aware that some of the people here prefer the USA dub over Polish one. Foolish mortals, I think they just don't know what "mondo cool" means.

48. In America, our view of the typical Frenchman's day is this- a man, say Pierre Le Vierre, walks out of bed half-drunk then walks or bikes to his job. Along the way he carries a half empty bottle of red wine in his right hand and a huge chunk of cheese in his left. In his "man's handbag that looks like a lady's purse but isn't really one" he has several huge loafs of French bread that he frequently nibbles on to satiate his appetite during the course of the whole day.

Also, while walking to work he makes a point of spitting on every American tourist he sees and telling them how "stoopeed" zey are. At his job at the factory, Pierre intentionally loafs and goofs off the whole time because he's infuriated at management for not agreeing to his union's increase to wages by 1.5%, despite a troubled economy. Pierre spends most of his day fantasizing about what a great, Utopian and completely perfect dream world France and everywhere would be had the Great Napoleon conquered England and all of Europe and colonized the rest of the world, especially those former colonists over in America. Pierre also imagines that he would have made an excellent governor of the colony of Tripoli or perhaps just a simple mayor of Casablanca.

On his way back to work Pierre stops by a bar, drinks several bottles of wine and spits at and yells at the tv whenever George Bush or anything relating to America appears on it. On the way home he his friends gang and beat up on several American tourists who had the audacity to tell him that he'd know how to speak German and be eating bratwurst had America not lost over 100,000 good boys who fought Germany and Japan in World War II.

After pumping up his blood through fighting with the American tourists (whom Pierre viewed as completely 100% representative of everything George Bush and his plans for Iraq stand for- regardless of whether they like Bush or not) who came to France hoping to enjoy themselve while also pumping some money into the French economy, Pierre later tosses some rocks at a French McDonald's with some friends and they burn it down as they laugh at America's latest failure at cultural imperialism. (As opposed to simply boycotting it in a simple, civilized, non-violent, intelligent way like Mahatma Gandhi would.) Finally, at home Pierre spends his whole night laughing maniacly at hilarious Jerry Lewis movies while nibbling on delicious sauteed frog legs, contemplating plans to go on a strike with 100,000's of other French workers angry because the people in management are all greedy, bourgeouis, capitalist, swine pig dogs intent on keeping they, the working class, down.

Is that what the French are really like?

A. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute! I don't know French people too well, but I think you are exaggerating a little bit. They can't be that bad. But I'll tell you something - recently one of the biggest companies in my city was bought by Michelin, a French company, which led to some serious dismissing. Now, the people here are complaining about those "French capitalistic pigs". Ironic, isn't it?

49. Well, it's just about time to wrap this up. Any last words you'd like to say?

A. I know that the FUNi version isn't too good, but give it a chance. Japanese version isn't necessary ultra-mondo-cool just because it's original. You shouldn't divide things to "Good = original" and "Bad = dub". I think that's all. Oh, and Ginyu Force rules. Yeah.

Once again, thank you Cap'n Ginyu for agreeing to be interviewed by me. Hmm... you know, the Polish actually version doesn't seem so bad. The idea of watching an anime be voice-overed seems kind of unusual to me, but I can see where it'd work. Original music, good voice acting, mostly good scripts- there's a lot of good to be said about the French version. At first I thought it was a bad anime dub since C.G. complained about it a bit, but c'mon- you call those stupid dialogue alerts? Heh, man, I don't think you know just how much we Americans got you beat there!

Yeah, they censor a bit of blood and violence... and the theme songs sounds like it's lame... and there are a couple of odd dialogue bits- but man, the French dub sounds like it's lightyears beyond what we got. Sure, it may not be as el perfecto as the Mexican dub but it still sounds like a great dub. (Your Majin Buu sounds even BETTER than the original Japanese one? That I gotta hear! And THAT compared to the atrocities FUNimation did to poor Majin Buu, man..)

I guess yeah, it'd probably be more fun for a Polish fan to see the Japanese original with subtitles than to the hear the French dub with a voiceover (while, on the other hand, a straight-out all Polish dub might be more preferable to them) but you guys still lucked out considerably more than we did. So I guess I have to say that if I was studying French or Polish then I'd definitely prefer watching those versions over the U.S. version any day of the week. Heh, and I wonder what the deal with "Spirit vs. Spirit" being cut out of every dubbed version is... Maybe they just didn't like the fact that it had Japanese sung lyrics and/or they didn't want to dub them into other perspective languages? Oh, and one last thing- be sure to check out these Polish DB manga pages that Cap'n Ginyu was nice enough to scan for me- he just wanted to help point out and illustrate that Polish DBZ manga is shown without any censorship. (Some countries actually censor the manga... can you believe that? Pretty ironic that some others would and ours don't...) Well, see you next time!