#but in a 'i watched the 4kids version so i honestly know jack shit about this series and have zero motivation for it'

[threadmonster]

I haven't watched the live action but something about it existing and how people are responding to it has me not only wanting to watch it but to start One Piece altogether. I. Am. Miffed.

[theimaginatrix27]

So. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been deeply nostalgic for Dragon Ball Z. Specifically, The Funimation dub of Dragon Ball Z that I grew up with as an Aussie girl with some rough stuff going on at home, whose heart was captured by these characters. And I’ve been watching some videos about the history of that dub and the history of the releases of DBZ, and my deep yearning for the series has only been increasing. I’ve also heard criticism of the dub, and I understand it. I understood the criticism of the Yu-Gi-Oh dub when I came online and started learning things. And I was so grateful to find out that One Piece was redubbed after the 4Kids fiasco.

But here’s the thing I want y’all to know. I love the DBZ dub. I’m not a sub-hater or anything like that. I’m just blind. I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy this series without an English dub, however flawed. I loved the soundtrack to absolute pieces. I listened to some of the Bruce Faulconer Productions music for DBZ recently and felt like I was being swept back in time to the early 2000′s, where I would sit on the lounge-room or bedroom floor, hands busy with my clay as my imagination flew away to Z Earth, and the warriors who defended it. My father used to say I was obsessed, that I’d grow out of my love for this “kids’ show”. I never, ever did. I mellowed out, certainly. I found other stories to revel in and hiper-fixate on. But Dragon Ball Z will always be my first anime love. I can’t tell you one specific reason for this. It’s too many things to neatly sum up. The characters were my friends. They were there for me through some extremely rough years. And they had the voices of the Funimation dub. I would pay good money to own that dub in its entirety. I would treasure every disc, every single one, and I could probably binge-watch this series like I can’t with most others.

I wouldn’t mind trying the sub out either. I wouldn’t understand jack shit because I’m blind and although I learned basic Japanese in school, I never got beyond that. But I’d listen to it if I had the series on DVD. I’d still come back to the dub of my childhood, my old friends, the characters who kindled my creative fire and struck the sparks of what would evolve into my longest original series, the labour of love I call The Sisterlands, as well as the fanfiction series that became the Maginite Chronicles, a story that started as a silly little fantasy about fairies and warriors I would lose myself in, and became something richer and more precious to me than I ever would have guessed. The bunnies wouldn’t leave. They knew I needed them still.

One day, I want to own the original Funimation In-House dub, with the Bruce Faulconer soundtrack, in all its flawed glory. I would love to meet even one of the English voice cast and thank them, tearfully, for the gift they gave to me. This is no slight on the Japanese folks who made the series in the first place. I’d never have met Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta, Krillin or any of the others without their hard work. But the DBZ dub will always have a place in my heart. Kai is not the same, though I’ll admit what I’ve heard of it in snippits and snapshots is actually pretty good. I’ve wrestled with whether or not to accept Super into the canon of my fics, and honestly, I’m slowly coming to accept more of the series than I initially did. I’d love to own the entire series (sans GT). But I think Dragon Ball Z is always going to be my favourite version of my favourite section of that series. My heart is very full of memories, tears warm my eyes as the longing within me crests. I miss Watch Cartoons Online even more the longer I wish I owned the series legally. I can only hope that, one day, I do and can lose myself in it again.