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I'm a 17 year old senior in high school, and one day a few years back I happened to wake up very early and found 'Dragonball'. I found the characters interesting, and the plots funny, not even knowing about any of the cuts. I think I woke up and dazily watched about half of those episodes, before I went on the 'net and got confused by all of this other stuff.
Well, I talked to my friend Charles, who lives around 45 minutes away (Where they actually have a shop that sells anime stuff), and he was nice enough to copy me a tape with a whole bunch of stuff, and 3 of the DBZ movies. I saw
part of them, before I lent the tape to a friend. Somewhere before
this, I _think_ I must have watched some of the dubbed DBZ, I know
I did, in fact. I still have the first airing of episode 1 on tape
(With a scene of Kamesennin going 'I smell death in the air', as a
matter of fact.) I think that was the first full episode I got
to watch [I say 'full' loosely].
Anyway, this was at the point where I didn't want to get up early, so I started watching DBZ, and saw mostly the first 7 episodes, somehow, I managed to _miss_ the episodes with the big use of the 'next dimension' line, I honestly assumed Gokou died. In fact, I was _SO_ tired when I hazily watched the 'HFIL' episode, I thought it did read 'Hell' on their shirts,
and missing the intro, who was to know? After all that, I must
have seen a few here and there, and then I saw the very end of the season,
and thought that was that. (The last 3 US eps, I think) I didn't
know anyone 'went to the next dimension', I just assumed they died,
like they did in the original. Well, over the summer, I got a chance to
watch a bunch of the original Dragon Ball/Z, got a few fansubs, and
traded friends for some of the movies.
Well, I geared up to watch DBZ the next season, and I horribly heard the lines 'the next dimension', or whatever they had Kuririn say in the second season opener. I watched the season, and thought it alright, also getting a chance to read most of the manga, as well. I didn't mind watching the dub all that much, because I didn't have any access to stuff that dates back that far, but
I did grow to be disturbed by a lot of the things they did. Most of which
were so blatant, even if you hadn't watched the originals. Though, I
do like most of the voices picked for the series, I _didn't_ like
when they changed Gokou's voice actor, as well as Kamesennin's. Piccolo's
also a fave, though, as it's common, Vegita's could have some work done to
it. I think the person needs to be a bit more calm and collective about
his manner. I also recently had a chance to watch the first few of
the Spanish DBZ episodes. I'm surprised, a lot of the voices fit SO
well. (Gokou had a guy VA visably, though.) Gohan sounded good, as did
Chi Chi and Piccolo. They also had their own version of Cha-La, Head
Cha La, and they let the music be, too.
As for explaining things, they could have called the Afterlife the 'Afterworld' (or something simular) called 'Hell' 'Hades', they didn't even show heaven. They talk about Hades on a _lot_ of shows, heck, even that really lame Hercules cartoon this season called the character 'Hades'.. Animaniacs even had an episode where they visited "Satan", and called Hell "Hades". I don't know if I buy the morality thing with religion either -- what I do believe is Saban is very, _very_ protective of what it makes
after that whole incident with those kids dying and they blamed it
on 'Power Rangers'. Though, I'm wonding why that whole 'Slappy
Squirrel' cartoon where she guards 'The Garden of Eden', and a naked,
but always inginuitively-covered Adam and Eve from the snake, who
kept trying to feed them the fruit with the knowledge of good an evil..
they even had a Christmas Epsiode where the Warners visted Jesus in
the manger. I don't know, but I can chalk it up to Saban being paranoid
with the censors after that, on most things. Basically, I'm a supporter
of original DB, and don't particually like what's going on with the
dubbing, but I think the series could live up to its full potential,
dubbed, as well.
- Brady Hartel |
   
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