Just contributing my two-cents. I was first introduced to DBZ while on one of our family vacations to Thailand, when I was around 6 years old. Granted, the dubbing was worse than the current NA version (they kept everything the same, except when someone had to speak they CUT OFF all background sound, including voices, and inserted the Thai voices.....good grief I still get shudders thinking about that...), but at least they kept it uncensored. My aunt had rented some episodes for me to watch. When I saw (at the age of six) Gohan IMPALED on Freeza's big pointy horn, I was shocked to say the least. BUT, now that I am grown up(relatively), I can look back and say that my childhood and adolescent years were definitely not marked by debilitating mental trauma simply because I was exposed to violence and such on TV. However, this is just my case, and obviously has no bearing on others.

Its simply (or maybe not so simply) a matter of culture. Here we have two very different styles of pop culture that in some fundamental ways just aren't compatible with each other. Those of you who have dreams of one day living in one, whole, unified-in-every-way-society......well that dream may be far from being realized with a good example right here! There are just too many conflicting ideas and beliefs in this world, nevermind two nations. By the way, anybody remember Transformers: The Movie? I saw that at a pretty young age too, and they killed off a fair amount of characters in there. So what if they were big robots, they all had personalities and human traits, and I pretty damn near cried when good ol' Optimus died!

Uh oh, I'm getting off topic, but thats alrite =). Well anyway, yes I agree that the NA version is a travesty to the DBZ name. I mean, would it be SO bad if they at least TRIED leaving the damn show be for a couple of episodes?? Now I've seen and bought a couple of fansubs here and there (a couple of movies and that series dealing with killing Evil Buu), but I've still missed a whole lot. I've never seen Freeza get killed by Goku, or seen Goku turn Super for the first time, or Brolly, or Cell, or the androids, or Fat Buu, or anything else, and maybe I never will because I stopped watching the NA version awhile ago. I just couldn't take it. Some things I could take with a grain of salt, but overall...no. Spirit Bomb? Eh, not bad, but I'd much rather hear "Genki Dama" or at least "energy ball" or some such. And whats Kay-o-ken? Is that some kind of laxative? I mean they ARE Asian looking characters, they could at least let them pronounce terms correctly. Ka-maeya-maeya? LOL, thats too much. Basically, I guess I'm saying that Japanese just sounds so much...cooler, as I'm sure most would agree. I just love it when Piccolo just calls Son Goku by "Son" (no not like father-son). I really have no problem with reading subtitles.

If they wanna censor the show and attempt to make it acceptable to the parents of six-year-olds, well I guess they've done a thorough job. But what they've also done is alienate the really passionate viewers (or those that want to be passionate like me) who would really give them their damn ratings. Whats worse, if they're gonna SELL us the damn episodes on tape, they could at least sell it to us in its original form. Leave the crap on TV if you want, but to come back and sell us the same thing on tape?? I think they should leave that to the other companies. At least THEY know what their target audience wants. Would you put Ninja Scroll on TV and target 6-year-olds? How about Fist of the North Star? With of show full of characters constantly dying/getting hurt/etc., whats the point of trying to tone it down for a different group? Gimme a break.

Things like this greatly dissappoint me, since I was so excited (as I'm sure everyone else was) upon hearing that Dragonball Z was coming to the States. Well go back I say, go back overseas where at least the show can stay the way it was meant to be. I understand that cultures and interest conflict, but if you really want to attempt something, at least don't do a piss-poor job of it. Shit, even if I were 6 again, I'd love to watch this show in its ENTIRETY. Ya know, one of the first anime's I ever saw was...Urotsukodoji. This was when I was in 6th grade. Heh, that may sound sick to some, but hey, if I can come out unscathed watching Overfiend (which I loved....errr....the story and tone and animation......the hentai part of it, well, it actually tempered me and prepared me--forever more-- for anything else I might encounter along in life...not much of ANYTHING surprised me ever since then =P ), then I'm sure other kids can live through some blood-letting and head bashing and body-incinerating all in the name of DEFENDING THE UNIVERSE!!! GO Z-TEAM!! .....ahem, whoops, hehe. I guess all I can cling to are the videos that I already have, as I'm too poor to even attempt to get all the episodes. Oh well. Enuff of this rambling, so DON'T go watch Urotsukodoji, but definitely look for the original DRAGONBALL Z!!!!(That kinda sounds contrary to what I said before, doesn't it? hehe)