Dragon Ball
Dragonball | Dragonball Z | Dragonball GT Dragonball is a series that was created by Akira Toriyama. Early Dragonball is loosely based upon the Chinese tale: Journey to the West, the story of the monkey king. Dragonball started out as a manga which appeared in Shonen Jump, but it 1986, Dragonball started its still continuing journey on television. The original Dragonball series (which is comprised of the first 17 volumes of the manga) aired from 1986 to 1989. Then in 1989, Dragonball Z (manga volumes 17 to 42) made its debut. This marked the change of the direction in which the series would head. Originally, Dragonball was more of a comedy and perverted humor, but in 1989 things changed. Dragonball shifted to a more battle/fighting based series. Dragonball Z ran until 1996, but Toei, the production company wanted to try and squeeze all they could out of the series so they created Dragonball GT. Which Akira Toriyama only did consultant work on. Dragonball has not only been popular in Japan, but in many different countries as well. Finally the US has been added to this list. FUNimation Inc. bought the rights to distribute Dragonball here in the US from Toei. Since then FUNimation has been distributing the series. At first FUNi enlisted the help of Pioneer to help them distribute the series (season 1 and 2, and movies 1 - 3). These were aired by Saban (the producers of such quality programming as the Power Rangers), which meant the series was heavily edited. The show did not seem to take off on network TV, and FUNi had to find another market. This became the beginning of DB's current state. Cartoon Network took interest in the show for its Toonami block, and decided to try it on for size. Guess what, it seemed to fit. Cartoon Network has been airing DB ever since... When the FUNi was with Pioneer, they used the Ocean group (a company that provides voice actors for animated series) which was located in Canada. When CN decided to purchase season 3 & 4, FUNi decided that they would move production to their home town in Texas. Which would eliminate the Ocean group. Even though season 1 & 2 were heavily edited, most DB fans had gotten use to the VA's from Ocean and were very angry at the fact that FUNi was leaving them behind. To worsen matters even more between the fans and FUNi, FUNi cast VA's from the local town that had never done voice acting before. Never the less, fans were not pleased, and were rather upset at FUNi's lack of respect for the series. This is not to say that the VA's haven't improved, because they have. The fact of the matter is that FUNi's track record is poor, and their loyalty to the fans and the series doesn't seem to be their first priority. Another main complaint that the majority of fans have is the editing that occurs to the series. This appears in many different forms. To seem them all check this site out |
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