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This is not really about Dragonball, but my view of anime shows in history. I am old enough to remember watching a lot of converted anime shows, and I would like to talk about a few of them.(those I can remember)
The first anime shows I can remember watching were shown in the early
70's, shows like Force Five and Star Blazers, although Star Blazers is
the one I can most easily remember. The only memories I have of Force
Five were the big robots. Star Blazers, on the other hand, burned itself
into my mind with it's plot and action. I saw every single episode, from
beginning to end and loved it. It had plot, good characters and very
decent action, totally uncensored. It Was Good.
Then, I can remember Battle of the Planets, about a group of teenagers
of turned into bird-costume clad heroes fighting against the evil Zoltan
from the Crab Nebula, narrated by some wierd robot in an undersea base.
I believe I watched it because of the action, although some of the
characters baffled my young mind, especially the kid. He, for some
reason, spoke in a combination of words and beeps and bloops. That's
right, he would actually say "Bleep" or "bloop" about every other word.
Then again, it was the seventies. It wasn't until Cartoon Network began
running "G-Force" that I realized all that I had missed. G-Force had
tons more action than BOTP, plus all the characters had real names, the
kid got rid of his speech impediment, and there was NO ROBOT, and
finally and most importantly, there was NO CENSORING!!!! I was amazed at
how violent the series could be. they even had DEAD BODIES!! All I can
say is Congratulation to Cartoon Network for doing the right thing.
Going back a few years, another decent series caught my young attention,
Tranzor Z, a fairly typical Giant Robot Saves World show. An
americanized version of a japanese show called Mazinger Z, Tranzor Z
chronicled the adventures of a teenager who discovers his Megasmart
Grandpa has built a giant robot to fight an evil scientist who plans to
take over the world, a fairly standard goal for most evil scientists. My
friends and I loved the show and saw all the episodes. I want to say
that at this time, whenever a foreign show was imported into America,
they usually had the decency to bring the whole show over, beginning to
end, not like SOME companies today. I liked the action, it had some
decent humor in it, the only real problem I had with Tranzor was it had
some of the most god-awful dialouge I've ever heard, lines that never
would be said by anyone who had gone to school. But what amazed me was
that this show was REALLY violent. One episode had a guy get set on
fire, he ran around a little, then collapsed. only thing missing was
screams of agony, I guess they thought that would have been too much.
Now friends, lets skip Transformers, He-Man, GI-Joe, and go straight to
Ronin Warriors. Ahh, Ronin Warriors. The only show that surpasses
Dragonball Z in action. Massive battles in 98% of all episodes. Massive
UNCENSORED battles. It even ALMOST had nudity in one very brief scene.
It was showed in its entirety and left out nothing. A true Masterpiece.
Unfortunatley, it only ran for one season, and was never seen again.
Now let's talk about Sailor Moon. Yes, I'm not ashamed to admit I
watched this show. It was pretty decent compared to some of the stuff on
TV then. It had an interesting plot, fairly decent action, and good
characters. The biggest flaw was that for some reason THEY NEVER SHOWED
THE ENTIRE SERIES!!! That really got me steamed. And it would be a few
YEARS until Cartoon Network would get the rest of them and show them.
Once again, congrats to CN for doing the right thing.
Another famous series was Robotech. I don't need to tell you my friends
and I were fanatical about this show. We never missed a single episode,
frequent discussions about it, bought some merchandise, you can guess
what we thought of it. I was pleased that Cartoon Network got it and
showed it, but i'm afraid that this was one time they screwed up. They
showed the SDF-1 story, they showed the Masters story, but they NEVER
SHOWED THE INVID STORY!!!! And it was listed in the Next episode bit at
the end of the Masters saga. Boy was I mad.
And now the most recent anime show in america, Pokemon. I really like
this show. Fun plot, good characters, great humor, safe but exciting
action good for kids, but once again, THEY DON'T HAVE THE WHOLE THING!!
They get about halfway through the series (I think), then start over
again! You'd think if they were going to import a series, they'd get the
whole thing. (Sigh)
One more note, I must mention Power Rangers. It's not a cartoon, but it
is an imported show, so I feel I must comment on it. I admit upon first
hearing about it, I honestly believed it would NEVER last more than one
season. Boy was I wrong. At least six seasons, four rip-off shows,
innumerable incarnations, heavy merchandising, I was amazed. And I
admit, I liked the show. The first two seasons were chock full of really
decent action. They would spend twenty minutes at least fighting the
monster of the day, and they had some great fight scenes. Unfortunatly,
censorship raised it's ugly head in season three and on. What used to be
epic battles turned into what was basically monster executions. Monster
gets big, heroes get robot, one or two seconds later, show over.
In conclusion (YAY!!) I want to say that I wish the american people were
mature enough to not screw around with other peoples shows. The first
amendment says freedom of speech, but it seems like it's been changed to
"as long as it doesn't offend too many people, otherwise we'll change
it" It really makes me sad that we have to change other peoples art to
make it acceptable to the majority, when it should be left alone and
shown as it was meant to be shown. Well, my fingers are tired. That
means I'm done.
I hope you all enjoyed it.
- Dan Kelly |
   
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