I ended up going with one by our good buddy Tekkaman-James — you might remember him as the great artist who brought Appuragas to life. As seen in my original article, here is James’ image (now available in full-size when you click! Whoa!):

I wanted to share some of the other ones that came in, though. Our One Piece-lovin’ buddy Alex tossed this together, which I almost used:

Our artistically-awesometacular buddy Karan gave us this one. I liked it a lot (‘cuz… it’s God. Get it?), but if you didn’t “get it”, it wouldn’t have really worked.

And that’s all I’s gots for ya’ today.

“Is it canon?”

Actually, they all ask if it’s “cannon”, and these people should all be promptly shot out of a cannon.

Back in August 2008 on Episode #0145 of our podcast over at Daizenshuu EX, we talked with our buddy Desire Campbell about the idea of “canonicity” with the DragonBall franchise. I’m pretty sure I remember a good deal of what we talked about, but if you’re looking for more (and someone else’s perspective, which is always important), definitely check out the episode.

It might be important to actually define what “canon” means. Let’s ask our good friends over at Merriam-Webster:

More often than not, you’ll see “canon” tossed out there with regard to religion. Lo-and-behold, most of the definitions you’ll see will thusly head in that direction. You’ve got things like the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were not “canonized” into the Bible. In other words, some dudes decided that those particular words written by some other dudes weren’t what they wanted to bank on and teach to more other dudes.

And that’s really the big difference between the Bible and DragonBall (among… uhh… a gazillion other things, I guess). Whereas the Bible has THE CHURCH™ to define which particular collection of stories into one book (and even which translation) they abide by, there is nothing like that with DragonBall. Sure, there are the ultimate rights holders and production companies, but none of them have ever come out and said, “Look upon ye’ official canonicalness!” and pointed over to a very specific number and type of books. No-one has ever blatantly said, for example, “movies don’t count” or “GT never happened”.

There are a couple things you might toss out there, though. “Hey dumbass!” you may say, “Toriyama said DBGT was just a side-story!” You would be correct, Mr. Rude Fan! In his introduction to the DBGT Dragon Box, Toriyama wrote, “DragonBall GT is a grand side-story of the original DragonBall, and it’ll make me happy for us to watch and enjoy it together.” What does that mean, though? Is he saying he personally does not consider it part of the story (and whether he does or does not, what does it matter to you?), or is he just making a general, sweeping statement?

You may go on to say, “Hey jerkface! Those diaz books put the movies on the same timeline as the manga, so it thinks they count!” You would be somewhat correct there, as well! At points, the daizenshuu will note how, if it had to fit, a particular DBZ movie would possibly fit in at Story-Point-X… but then go on to say that it would be impossible for it to work out that way. They acknowledge them, though, so are they considering anything they talk about part of the canon?

Which brings me right back to my main point: no-one’s ever sat down and said, “Mmm, yes… we consider the official story to be the original 519 chapters as written by Akira Toriyama, plus these other things, and absolutely nothing else what-so-ever!”

They just haven’t. No-one in any official capacity, that is.

image courtesy of our buddy Tekkaman James

I’m always curious what folks really mean when they ask: “is it canon?” How are they defining what “canon” is for themselves? I would assume what they’re asking boils down to something like, “Did someone say this is supposed to fit in with the original manga, and are we expected to accept it as always having been this way, despite it being shoehorned in so many years later?”

But it just circles back around at that point, since no-one’s ever said anything like that. Whenever a new animated special comes out (Jump Super Anime Tour Special), whenever a new spin-off manga comes out (DragonBall SD)… no-one from the production side ever makes any claim like that. They’re just making stuff for the sake of making stuff (well, they’re making stuff in an attempt to make money off you at some point down the line). They may make an attempt for whatever new story they write to fit in in the loosest sense, and maybe even give it a broader description, like was the case with Episode of Bardock, which was promoted as a “sequel” to the original TV special from 1990.

Well, of course it was a “sequel” — it picked up where Bardock’s story left off. You don’t have to like it, and it can be tons of fun to point out some of the inconsistencies which causes it to not actually work out flawlessly in conjunction with its inspiration… but no-one’s making any claim about “canon” in there. It just… kinda… “is”.

So are they inside or outside the ship…?

Lots of fans like to create their own canon. A pretty common one is: “if Akira Toriyama wrote it in the original manga between 1984 and 1995, I consider it — and nothing else — to be canonical”. That makes sense; it’s from the original author and written during the time frame of the franchise’s original publication and production.

They may go on to create different “levels” of canonicity, too. The manga may be the base level, and then the TV adaptation below it (basically “less seriously”). In cases like this, it’s usually for the purposes of ironing out contradictions (generally created by filler material or expanded conversations) and deciding which “truth” to go with.

Going even deeper, you have things like the movies and TV specials, and how they are placed into a canon, if at all. One traditional viewpoint is that movies 9 (Bojack) and 13 (Hildegarn) can pretty easily fit in with even the original manga, so hey, let’s consider them part of the canon just to flesh it out and have extra material. What about the TV specials? Bardock gets all the spotlight these days, but what about Trunks? The TV special adaptation took huge liberties from Toriyama’s original “TRUNKS THE STORY” (such as Trunks already being Super Saiyan versus transforming due to Gohan’s death), but most fans seem to “go with” the TV version, and usually because they simply like it more. Is liking something reason enough to consider it part of the canon, though?

Which is her natural hair color…?!

Whatever you “decide” to “go with”, it’s all fine and dandy. It’s a great way to get further involved with the franchise that you love so much, and even just to keep track of things in your ever-increasing head of knowledge.

But that’s really the extent that you can take it. You have examples like DragonBall GT, which was an officially-produced sequel (as in one of the rights holders, Toei Animation, had permission and the capacity to produce it). Is it part of the “canon”, though? Well, you can’t really answer that. Some fans will accept it since it continues where the story left off, and the producers were the ones who made it (as opposed to Joe Schmoe on the Internet writing another AF fan-manga). Other fans won’t accept it since Toriyama’s involvement was limited and only at the beginning of production. Other fans will accept it but also try to work in DragonBall Online, despite the two crossing paths.

No-one’s “right” or “wrong” here. There is no, to bring it back to the definition, “authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture”.

Maybe there is, though. I don’t see anyone debating that what Toriyama originally wrote for the pages of Jump shouldn’t be taken as “canon”. That’s pretty “accepted” as the “authentic works of a writer”, correct?

It gets tricky the instant you step outside of that, though. How about things that Toriyama wrote or decided later on after the series’ completion? There are things like Mr. Satan’s real name being “Mark”, the Kaioshin coming from the Shin-jin and apples and Makaioshin and all that jazz… the original author declared all this, so is it “canon”?

While we’re at it, what about the revised ending that Toriyama drew for the kanzenban? It’s from Toriyama. It’s manga. Is it “canon”…? What about the prior version? Should it be disregarded, as if it never happened?

That brings us to a fun little thought exercise. Let’s say that Toriyama decides he doesn’t just want to keep slapping his name onto things with a “supervisor”-esque credit anymore, and writes a true continuation of the series. It could be right after the original manga, or after GT — it really doesn’t matter in this example. What would you consider this new story? Would it be part of the canon for you? It could go one of two ways. One school of thought places anything that the original author writes for the series (in this case, let’s say just in manga form to keep it simple) in the canon. The other school of thought believes that unless it was part of the original series and was always intended to be a part of the series, it doesn’t matter if even the original author comes back to it — it’s still a new addition, separate from the original canon.

And that’s why I think you can’t (and perhaps shouldn’t) even attempt to ask: “is it canon?” No-one who produced the series seems to care enough to make a declaration of canonicity, and it continues to expand with new productions every single year. I’m not pulling the, “it’s a fun series from a poop-joke author” card here like I usually do, either (well, maybe just a little bit). It really does continue to build with so many different bits of lore every single year, and so much so that if you’re asking what the “canon” is, you’re already so far down the rabbit hole that you’ll never decide on a proper answer.

(Next time on “Mike Rants About Insignificant DBZ Stuff”, perhaps something like “Why you’re missing the point about battle powers”… along with some of the other great “God hands down ye’ golden daizenshuu” images folks slapped together for us!)

Things are different in 2011. I first submitted an AMV in 2001, and then regularly from 2003-2008, nothing in 2009, again in 2010 (finally winning at Otakon with that one!), and doing many AMV panels there throughout the years with our generational cohorts. Shockingly (more so to us than maybe to anyone else), we actually skipped watching the AMV contest entirely this year — it conflicted with other events we had more interest in. All three of our panel submissions were declined, so unlike 2007 and 2010 with DragonBall-related panels (and other years in there sprinkled with AMV panels), we had nothing to prepare for in that regard. Even our hotel roommates had to bow out toward the end (through no real fault of their own), so it was the first time in around ten years that it was just the wife and I attending as regular ol’ attendees.

Having gone to the convention with that mindset (“I am just another person here!”), I felt like I actually had a lot to say about this year’s convention. Maybe some of it is helpful to someone. Maybe some of it is too rose-tinted. Maybe some of it is too critical. Maybe some of it will guarantee I never get another panel at the convention again. Oh, well.

COSPLAY

No, not of our own — never done that before — I’m talking about everyone else! I am of course drawn to the DBZ cosplay throughout the convention, but I notice a few other things here and there. Still a lot of Fullmetal Alchemist, still a bit of Ouran, a lot more Pokemon than in the past, still a good amount of Final Fantasy VII and Kingdom Hearts… you know, the usual suspects. What would normally annoy me (moderately disruptive behavior) was somehow one of my favorite examples of literal cosplay (as in playing it out in costume): the three dudes decked out in full Beastie Boys “Sabotage” outfits ducking and spinning down the hallway blaring the song on a boombox. I applaud you, good sirs.

Only managed to snap a few shots of DBZ cosplay this year, unfortunately:

Quite a few other good ones (Uub, Selypa). I should probably make more of a concentrated effort to take these types of photos. My bad.

WATCHINGS

The plan was to catch the Otakon debut of Trigun: Badlands Rumble and then head on downstairs in the short buffer period to get in line for Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos. I was led to believe both would be subtitled, but it turned out the Trigun movie would be dubbed, followed by a Q&A session with Johnny Yong Bosch. Having zero interest in the latter but still having an interest in seeing the movie, we crammed into line for the HD theater. A good portion of the folks behind us were told they would not make it inside, so I consider us somewhat lucky that we got in at all. Things ran about 15-20 minutes late, but with that being the norm for these types of events, nothing was particularly frustrating.

The dub was thankfully solid (not that I didn’t also think the same of the TV series dub, but it’s a Japanese production — I want to watch it in Japanese at a Japanese animation convention with one of the Japanese guests being the head of the movie’s Japanese animation studio [follow all that?]). As I’ve heard described elsewhere, the three main returning characters had re-castings that were so close to the prior actors that undiscerning ears might not even be able to tell the difference: Milly was a dead-ringer, Meryl was pretty close, and Wolfwood was better (from what little he spoke, anyway). I’m really glad we got a chance to see it first during a convention with such a massive audience, because I’m not sure it would have had some of the emotional impact just by ourselves, even at home in HD with surround sound. The instant Vash appeared screaming on the ground in the opening, the crowd erupted in laughter and cheers. The first moment Wolfwood’s gun/cross got unwrapped, the applause rivaled what I remember from Hiko slashing the Hell out of grunts back in 1999. These were magical shared moments, and ones that I will treasure for a long time to come. Without the audience? Next time I watch the movie, I will likely start picking apart some of the needless exposition, dragging pace of certain scenes, and occasional cheap 3D animation integration. Until then, every time I think of the movie there will be a smile on my face.

Like I said, the plan was to then run on down to Video 1 to get in line for the new Fullmetal Alchemist movie, but the overwhelming crowd and lack of a room-clear following the AMV contest left us in a weird situation: do we wait it out and hope we make it in, and what else could we be doing in the mean time if we decided to just bail? In retrospect, it sounds like we would have been able to get in if we stuck it out, but I’m OK missing out on one movie after having just sat through one immediately beforehand. Besides, without stadium seating, the poor short wife might not have been able to read the subtitles! Insert annoying “chibi” joke / FMA reference here. Funny, right?

We ended up walking on over to the Sailormoon / DBZ panel, instead. More on that later. Much more.

DEALERS ROOM

We buy less and less every year. We at least grab the obligatory gashapon to add to the display in our basement, but unless something major catches our interest (like the DBZ movie 4 program guide from last year), there really isn’t anything to pick up at a convention that I don’t already either own or have on pre-order elsewhere.

We perused the hanger in shifts this year: halfway through on Friday, and halfway through on Saturday. During our Saturday run, we happened across an enormous table filled to the brim with DBZ figures! Most dealers have a few figures and plushies from various series, but this guy had an entire table dedicated to just DBZ stuff. He (unfortunately) wanted to keep a low profile and had no business card or contact information (and declined an interview), but near as I could gather from what he let slip, he grabs a metric crap-ton of stuff when he goes to Japan, and when he needs to pay his daughter’s next college tuition fee, he heads to a convention and sells the stuff. What was most amazing to me was how reasonable his prices were — he easily could have added $5 to the price of any small figure, $20+ to the price of the larger stuff, and I would not have batted an eye.

picture swiped from our buddy TanookiKuribo

I had already grabbed the Piccolo “Creatures” figure elsewhere, and we picked up a few new ones from this dealer. Good little stash, I’d say.

I saw the program guides for DBZ movie 2 and the 10th anniversary movie, but I wasn’t willing to spend $25 a pop on program guides again this year. I almost walked out with a boxed copy of Famicom Jump: Hero Retsuden for the Famicom ($40), but the figure purchases changed that plan.

OTAKU IDOL

Something we had never attended before, Otaku Idol was at least a quick check-in for us this year with our friends Peter and Katie being participants. Due to what I assume is not wanting to overly criticize poor otaku souls, the largest dissections by the three judges were limited to things like “that song was within your range / maybe a little outside your range” or “great job moving around / I wish you moved around a little more”. We watched the ten finalists do their thing, and just about all of them were impressive in their own right. It was no surprise to hear that Peter ended up winning it all in the end based solely on his amazing “GA-GA-GA, GA-GA-GA, GAO-GAI-GAAAAAAR!” first-round performance.

IRON EDITOR

Since we didn’t make it to the Fullmetal Alchemist movie, we also had time later on to attend Iron Editor. After sitting around for a little bit waiting for the event to start up, we got the request to be judges yet again. I love that the AMV winners are played during the second half of the event, but that also means that we literally sit up there for one of the two hours and do absolutely nothing (well, we watch the videos along with the audience). I’m not sure how I feel about that. If we are asked again to be judges (which I certainly enjoy!), I will have to toss some ideas over to Peter (who took over hosting duties this year and did fantastically) in terms of how to make the judges appear to be more than dead weight on the stage. In the past we would choose some of the audience participants for contests, but even that isn’t enough. What else can we do? Hmm…

FAN PARODIES

We were mostly excited to see the Otakon debut of Fanboy Soze, but it sounded like there were a couple other new items being played that might also be fun to check out.

Our own Obligatory EVA Trailer was played Friday evening — that was an interesting experience. We put that together in 2003 when Sealab 2021 was still new. It actually won “Grand Prize” in the 2003 Anime Weekend Atlanta AMV Expo contest! I still love it to death and think it’s genuinely funny and well-put-together, even without any familiarity with either source material (Sealab and Evangelion). In 2011, though? Barely any response. Wow. Really goes to show just how much comedy is subjective, especially to an audience so many years removed from when it was originally created. Honestly, it was somewhat embarrassing. Really puts things in perspective! I wonder how many of our AMV-related works will stand the test of time — will any of them? I have an entirely different perspective since I actually worked on them, and can’t always remove myself from their creation process.

The biggest surprise in the parody block Saturday night was Macross 7.5 1/2. Especially for a one-man production, I was absolutely blown away. The entire thing could have ended after the 1-2 minute introduction, and I would have been satisfied, but the fact that it went into a full-episode parody hit it out of the park. There were a couple instances where it dragged or became a little confusing, and of course a little extra production help could have helped, but all-in-all you can color me impressed.

PANELS

Oh geeze. Where to start?!

I guess I have to preface this by saying that I absolutely adore panels. When done well, they can be some of my favorite experiences and memories from a convention. I’ll never forget the discussion at Shoujocon one year equating Jem and the Holograms to American shoujo, the genre’s/classification’s relevance to something like Escaflowne, etc. The gekiga panel at Otakon a couple years back was a fascinating look at where hilariously-manly storytelling could go above and beyond shonen and seinen. Every year in between I have attended a panel that blows me away with the amount of research, knowledge, and professionalism that can be presented by mere fans to their comrades.

The other side of panels is what drove me to start doing my own, not to mention the podcast over at Daizenshuu EX. You know the ones — a dude or two sitting up front that simply like something and want to talk about it. Hey, remember that time Person X smashed Person Y in the face? Yeah, that was awesome! What do you think about Event Z? Yeah, that was pretty sweet. Any other questions? No? OK, let’s attempt to be funny for the next fifty-five minutes.

There is a time and a place for that type of conversation, but a panel at one of the largest anime conventions is not it.

Here is a break-down of all the panels we had the opportunity to hit up this weekend. This isn’t even cracking the surface of what was offered, but it might be a pretty good surface-level glance at the type of stuff available to attendees:

• Remembering Satoshi Kon
  Presented by Daryl Surat (Anime World Order / Otaku USA), I knew what I was getting into with this one — a deliberate format, examples to back up claims, microphone etiquette, and all the other stuff that goes along with a fantastic panel. I learned new things, I remembered things I forgot, and gained an even larger appreciation for the late Satoshi Kon than I already had. Daryl gives himself a hard time by admitting that much of his research extends to on-disc extras and basic online research (indeed, much of what he covered is listed in the Satoshi Kon Wikipedia article), but it’s the way that it’s presented in-person that makes it so engaging. I can’t say enough good things about this panel.
• Becoming a True Pokemon Master: An Introduction to Competitive PKMN Training…
  We arrived just after the start of this panel (thanks to having to run from the convention center over to the Hilton), and it was filled up enough to have to wait for a couple folks to leave before we were let in. That means we unfortunately missed the beginning portion, so I have no idea who presented the panel and how the first half went, but I was impressed enough with what I saw. Things were a little rough around the edges (you don’t need to read entire paragraphs off your PowerPoint presentation — please learn how to outline!), but the content was solid. I had never heard of “RNGing” before, so I can definitely say I learned new things. The content was excruciating for the wife who had zero knowledge and interest, so this was definitely one for the hardcore fans, and them alone.
• Anime News Network
  Chris was at least aware of how bad this was and acknowledged it at the beginning, but the panel was basically just “what do you want us to talk about?” I can understand how that is  somewhat appropriate for a mainstay website/panel like this, so it gets a little bit of slack. Nothing particularly enlightening or enthralling either asked by the audience or answered by the panelists, but them’s the breaks. Lots of prizes for the audience, so at least the bribes were appropriate.
• FUNimation
  The only industry panel we attended this weekend, FUNimation’s was by-the-books, covering recent releases, current statistics, upcoming plans, and a few light announcements. Nothing earth-shattering out of the panel (still no Sailormoon! Blargh!), but for the DBZ superfans, we at least got some preliminary clarifications about the upcoming Blu-ray sets (un-cropped, apparently a new remaster). It sounds like they had one or two more announcements they were hoping to make, but the ink wasn’t dry and they had to hold off on them. Oh, well!
• Deculture! A Macross Panel
  Walked out after the first ten minutes. The panelists did not introduce themselves, could not get their words out, seemed woefully unprepared, and did not know how to use a microphone anyway. Having recently watched the original Macross TV series (finally!), we have still been riding a high of enjoyment about the franchise. An overview of all the series and some new tidbits of information sounded like a great time. Unfortunately, this seemed like it was destined to be the exact opposite of a great time.
• Unusual Manga Genres
  We only managed to catch the second half of this one as presented by Erin Finnegan (Ninja Consultants / ANN), but it was still a great time — endless examples of every niche genre spanning hilarious to serious and back again. She knew what she was talking about, was aware of the time constraints and adapted appropriately where necessary, spoke loud and clear… again, another fantastic panel that both enlightened and entertained, the two things I want out of every panel.
• Masao Maruyama Q&A
  Despite him attending the convention for years, I think this was actually the first time we had a chance to stop by the Madhouse director’s general Q&A panel at Otakon. Another by-the-books professional panel with the expected questions from the audience, but a great and honest commitment by Maruyama to secure funding for and complete Satoshi Kon’s unfinished work (The Dream Machine) was a testament to his own professionalism and integrity.
• Noburo Ishiguro Q&A
  Why waste time talking about things like Yamato and Macross when you can spend 20 minutes talking about the production of Cream Lemon?! That’s how things roll with Ishiguro! Lots of fantastic anecdotes dropped in this woefully-ill-attended panel.
• Birth of a Generation: Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon
  In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that we submitted detailed proposals for two DBZ-related panels (one was media-focused regarding parodies and homages in both Japanese and American popular culture, while the other was a more formal dissection of how and why the franchise seemingly failed in Japan this past year). Neither were accepted. I can deal with that — we got our panel last year, it went well, and I suppose you can have someone other than the folks who run the oldest-currently-running and largest English-language resource for the franchise who do this stuff on a daily/weekly basis run a panel about it (ugh, sorry for how amazingly egotistical that sounds… but I’m also not sorry…). This was going to combine TWO FRANCHISES, so I totally get it: twice the potential audience. Makes complete sense, and I might make the same decision. Unfortunately, it was quite possibly the worst panel I’ve ever attended in my life. To be fair, we arrived about 25 minutes into the one-hour block. It looks like they had a PowerPoint at some point, but by the time we arrived, they were already well into a line-up of questions from the audience. The two panelists admitted they weren’t really experts (they just like the series), could not answer any of the legitimate questions asked of them (one regarding “the lost movie” from DBZ), and spent far more time bantering about whether Tuxedo Mask, Moonlight Knight, or Super Saiyan Vegeta would win in a fashion contest, or just how friendly Goten and Trunks really were with each other. The audience walked all over them, the panelists let them and indulged them with each and every painful question, and I struggled to convince the wife to stick around and watch the rest of the train wreck with me. Here’s the conundrum, though: the audience seemed to love it. They cheered with each and every Q&A, kept running up to ask more questions, and seemed to be having a great time. Plenty of people walked out, too, but plenty of people walk out of every panel, so I can’t really make a call in that regard. It just flabbergasts me. These people had absolutely no authority, no real preparation, no presentation skills at all, and yet received both a time slot and free compensation. I’m sorry, what world am I living in that this is not only OK, but appreciated by the audience? Am I the crazy one, here? One of the reasons I love doing panels is that I get a chance to share information and adoration with fans who don’t already partake in that stuff online. They have questions, I have answers, and everyone leaves in a good mood with knowledge they didn’t have an hour prior. That fulfills me in a way that I don’t get in any other fashion at conventions these days anymore, and with the personal interaction that even the podcast doesn’t truly have. At this point, I just don’t even know what to do about it.
• The Abridged Panel
  A perfect example of a lackluster panel for me, but an extravaganza of awesomeness for others, and one that I totally understand and respect. People attend these panels to see their favorite “Abridged” series creators do some voices, share some new clips, yell things when bubbles appear on the screen, and gracefully accept the random fortune cookie tosses. Thrown in the mix you have people asking the obligatory questions like how to get into abridging on their own, and at the end of an hour, you’ve got a fantastically-attended panel full of laughs. I get it. Not for me, but I get it.

MEETING PEOPLE

With no panels of our own, we didn’t even bother trying to set up some type of community meet-up. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that if I was putting in so little effort, I wouldn’t be meeting too many new people! Major props to Doug (“Drabaz”) for recognizing me during the Friday evening fan parodies block. Having just recently spoken with him on our podcast about his custom LittleBigPlanet level, it was great to chat in person for a bit. The only other new meeting took the entire weekend, but I finally got a chance to man-hug our buddy MasakoX from TeamFourStar after the giant “Abridged” panel Sunday morning. It would have been criminal for him to have flown all the way out here and then never get a chance to say hello at some point, so I am incredibly grateful for him taking the time out of autographing gazillions of program guides, DVDs, books, bare chests, and whatever else fans were throwing his way to instead briefly hang out with us.

There were of course all the catch-ups with old friends, but two new people? That’s it? Lame, Mike. Very lame.

SO WHAT DID I ACTUALLY THINK?

Otakon 2011 was pretty fantastic. We saw a lot of great people, saw a lot of great things, had a great time, and I don’t see why I won’t be back in 2012 for my 14th consecutive time to the only convention I actually still go to. Some things still need work, but they always do, and I look forward to seeing it continue to evolve.

Say it with me: “Who the mother eff-in’ eff cares…?!”

As more and more news trickled out though, and especially up through this week with reading about the first “Episode of Bardock” chapter, I have really come around on this.

Think to a couple years back when this “new transformation” revival all began (acknowledging that we had a few prior examples such as Yamhan in DragonBall Z / Budokai 2):

We were introduced to Super Saiyan 3 Broli via Dragon Battlers and Raging Blast. Even in the home console game, he had absolutely no story — you spent the twenty stars to unlock a new stage to fight the character, and that was that. There was nothing special about it at all. The form simply existed, as-is, with no context. He was hyped up in promotional videos for the game, so that’s something… I guess?

The same thing happened the same year with Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta — we got an introduction via Dragon Battlers, followed by inclusion in Raging Blast with no contextual story to even frame the darn thing, once again obtaining the character by purchasing a stage with twenty stars (and completing said stage). SSJ3 Vegeta was just another slot on the character select screen. I mean, the stage essentially starts with Vegeta saying, “OK, here I am with Super Saiyan 3! Let’s fight!” and ends with the narrator saying, “Yep, all the Super Saiyan 3 characters just fought, and people like to get stronger!” Could there possibly be any less to it…?

Even if you did care about another couple characters getting such a powerful transformation (one whose point was, arguably, the fact that not everyone could do it), I can’t fathom how anyone could possibly get “Super Excited” about it without that key word there: context. Why did they transform? How did it happen? Was it an accident, or did they work toward it? When in the time line would this transformation happen? Is it just assumed that their target was Goku?

Toss this year’s Super Saiyan 3 (Future) Trunks from DragonBall Heroes into the mix, and you have one giant, steaming, smelly pile of apathy coming from this jaded, old fan.

Like I said earlier though, things are a little different with Super Saiyan Bardock. While he was first revealed as a new card and character for DragonBall Heroes in Japanese arcades (something so far removed that most English-speaking fans will never have the opportunity to experience it), it kept building from there. Next up was word that there would be a special manga presentation in V-Jump. Then Naho Ooishi (of DragonBall SD and the Jump Super Anime Tour manga adaptation) was going to be involved with it. Then it was going to be a three-part short story involving Bardock that ties in the new form from the arcade game. Then the Bardock TV special, along with the Trunks TV special, from DragonBall Z were finally going to be released as individual DVDs in Japan, previously only ever being available as extras within the two DBZ Dragon Box sets released back in 2003.

It was suddenly all Bardock all the time. He had his opportunities to shine here and there (for example, as one of the extra unlockable characters in Burst Limit alongside Broli), but it was never in a leading role like this.

This was an all-out assault crossing over to different media, providing opportunities for different types of fans to finally get engaged on a deeper level. Card collectors could pick up the card. Arcade dwellers could add him to their arsenal. Manga fans had a new story to read. Re-releasing the TV special lets the anime fans get caught up with the back-history (or in the case of younger fans, see it for the first time!).

This is a fantastic step toward extending the franchise and getting fans excited again. Up until now, everything has been developed and sectioned off into its own little silo with little-to-no cross over. Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans was included in Raging Blast 2, sure, but its assets were all still just within the one game (such as including Hatchihyack as a playable character). All of the new story bits have been introduced in DragonBall Online, sure, but they are again all within the one game. The closest may have been the Jump Super Anime Tour special, which was legally streamed (in various subtitle languages!) online, received a two-part manga adaptation (albeit released only just the one time, so if you missed it you lost your one and only chance), and had Tarble included as a playable character two years later in Raging Blast 2. Maybe the closest example of true merchandise extension so far were the two SSJ3 figures released under the DragonBall Kai Banpresto HSCF label:

(images courtesy our buddy Raithos)

Those examples have all felt like afterthoughts, though. The fact that “Episode of Bardock” is being treated as a “sequel” to the original anime story and has elements being spat out to so many other areas is a great sign. There is a clear amount of effort being put into this: new characters, new names (complete with puns!), research on proper locations that these events might take place in, etc. It is all being done right from the start, too, as opposed to tossing something out (such as a figure) later on down the road. Assuming they start off this way and continue with new items to enhance this story (a scenario in Game Project Age 2011 perhaps? a SSJ Bardock figure, of course? a re-release of all Ooishi-drawn manga in compilation form a year from now, maybe?), then we know they are on to something!

These companies (specifically Toei / Shueisha / Namco-Bandai) are finally realizing that their tactics need to change. With merchandise sales for the franchise decreasing year-over-year since 2007 (7.9 billion yen in fiscal 2007 to 2.7 billion yen in fiscal 2011), something had to give.

They are on the right track — Bardock and some back-history is a great place to start. Keep in mind that this is not about using something as minor as “Episode of Bardock” (and its associated releases) to bring the franchise back to the sales levels of 2007 (never mind the 90s), but rather about keeping it alive at all instead of fading into complete obscurity again until a third wave comes along a few years from now. It will be fun to see if they have a plan to sustain the franchise, or just got lucky with this one.

When we last checked in on the setup, I was considering cleaning out one of the extra rooms in our finished basement to make a quasi-”recording studio”. The room was a moderate disaster of half-empty boxes and miscellaneous extra crap from when we first moved in, but it would likely make for a fantastic recording area — low ceiling, closing door, a desk was already there, and the wireless signal reached all the way down there from two floors up.

Well, the room got cleaned out, and we have been recording down there for a few months now. I couldn’t ask for much better out of such minimal work! Here is an updated, general view of the area:

With the overview done, let’s dig into the hardware! I again have to preface this by saying that I don’t actually know anything about audio or any type of engineering, so this is all self-taught, trial-and-error based on moderate research and reading. I’m probably doing stuff wrong, I’m probably doing it all inefficiently… but it seems to be working out so far. Take my advice and recommendations with a modest-sized grain of salt.

One of the most important upgrades has been from the Behringer Eurorack UB802 (~$50-60) mixer to the Mackie 1202-VLZ3 (~$300) mixer. In addition to the two additional XLR inputs (which means no longer daisy-chaining something like Jeff’s mixer when he comes for a “Manga Review of Awesomeness”), I have much greater control over just about everything. It’s just an all-around better mixer. As I read in the reviews, I noticed a better sound with the same microphones I was already using, and there was a noticeable amount of less noise in the output signal — when tweaked properly, it is essentially whisper-quiet.

The output is still going from the “Tape Out” via the Behringer U-Control UCA-200 which came with my work mixer — no, I’m cheap and still haven’t purchased my own stand-alone UCA-202 (~$30) or similar device. This is one area that I may eventually upgrade. I’m not sure how or what I will do, since a dedicated Firewire setup is above and beyond what I need, but it feels like there might be a better way to get the audio to the computer with even better clarity and possibly normalization. Currently, the U-Control takes over as the input device, so switching Windows’ properties for what handles “in” and what handles “out” lets me use that for input, while still using the laptop’s on-board sound for output to headphones (to listen to test recordings and/or anyone on Skype).

Over on the microphone side, everything is basically the same as it has been for well over a hundred episodes. I am personally still rocking the MXL 990 condenser microphone (~$50-70), which is held up by a Samsom BT4 boom stand (~$40).

Within the last couple episodes, I have been keeping a duplicate of that same setup around for the wife so as to avoid using the Shure microphone (see below). It’s not that it’s a terrible microphone, but if I have something that’s so much better, why not use it? Having identical microphones in use (instead of both a dynamic and a condenser) also seems to help the levels and who gets picked up how much on which microphone across the room.

For when the extra microphone is absolutely necessary, I have at least tossed the Shure 8900 dynamic microphone (~$50) on an On-Stage MSA-9508 side boom (~$10-15) and gooseneck extension so it is far more adjustable in terms of position and comfort, instead of directly on top of the old RadioShack Heavy Duty Microphone Stand with Cast-Iron Base (~$30). The RadioShack stand with a larger mic clip and the boom extension also doubles as the Rock Band accessory of choice for guitar + vocals, so it all works out in the end.

In terms of headphones, I use the simple but serviceable Sennheiser HD201 (~$20-30) headphones. They are closed-ear with a super long cord, and they sound crystal-clear enough for the recording quality that I work with every week, so I haven’t felt the need to go nuts in this area.

You will probably notice some other stuff in the room that handles I guess what can only be called “logistics”. Perhaps you wonder how it is that we all read notes on the “Manga Review of Awesomeness” (OK, Jeff just uses his iPad, now…) or e-mails. Do we print out notes? Of course not! A second monitor mirrors the display from the laptop for others in the room to keep up with the general show outline. I am really tempted to put a flat-screen TV up against that wall on the left in the future, though — not only would it be incredibly bad-ass, but it would give the entire room a larger, more convenient view of the screen, too.

To just wrap up this section of the post, here is my general view of the room each and every week:

So what about the software and actual recording? Not much has changed in that area, except the effort I ask of my usual participants coming in over the Internet.

Everything is still recorded and primarily edited in Audacity. 44 kHz, mono. Done and done. I also still use the Call Graph plugin to record Skype conversations, but rarely in the same way as described last time around. Previously, I would take its 11 kHz output with my own track in the left channel and other side in the right channel, kill my track, turn the other track mono, re-export it, and use that as the secondary audio track to edit with, which isolates the other side of the conversation and lets me cleverly edit around any inadvertent talking over each other, etc.

These days, because all of the regulars (Julian, Heath, Jake, Corey, etc.) actually know how to use a computer, I simply ask them to record locally on their own side, as well — that’s the second track I use (after recording they send me the audio, usually as a high bitrate MP3, rather than the needlessly larger WAV). I still use Call Graph as a backup, and usually to line up the two separate tracks. I place my own local track up top, bring the Call Graph stereo track below it, and then the other person’s local track below that, line them all up, kill off the Call Graph track… voilà! It sounds far more complicated than it actually is — since Audacity lets you zoom in to insane degrees, I can line up the tracks to the tiniest fraction of accuracy possible.

By not using Call Graph (never mind its 11 kHz limitation, despite its amazing convenience and other customizations), we avoid any of that traditional “Skype noise” — you don’t hear someone’s call quality drop with their Internet connection fluctuations. In addition to that, by actually editing the show, we can avoid any excessive talking over each other, usually done by accident due to minor audio delays — I will typically just say, “Oh hey, start that sentence again.” It’s little stuff like that which folks may not even specifically notice, but I hope makes an impact in the back of their head somewhere while listening and comparing to other shows.

After editing the tracks (which have already been noise-removed prior to editing), I spit the product out to Levelator to even things out. I still bring everything into a project file in Adobe Premiere to line up the bumper music — it’s one of those relics I can’t let go of. The block-based dragging and snapping, along with a pre-edited bin of all the bumper music, makes it very easy to cut the sections apart. I usually leave a 10-second gap in between sections while editing to make it easy to visibly tell in Premiere where the sections need to be spliced with the jingles.

I may upgrade the software some day (likely Adobe Audition), but I figure until I know more about how audio actually works, it’s not really worth sinking the money into software.

About those other folks, though — what are they all recording with these days? Well, the two most relevant folks to note here are Julian and Heath.

Julian uses the Elecom HS-NB01UBK (~$30) headset that he picked up over there in Japan. As you have been hearing lately, it catches the bass of his voice quite well. It picks up a fair amount of background noise, but I am able to kill that off with some basic filtering in Audacity well enough. Since I am editing with multiple tracks, that means I can also just silence out an entire area on his side if I need to. I ask that my co-hosts don’t rely on that and practice proper microphone etiquette and all, but at the end of the day, you cannot control when the little one decides to yelp!

Then there’s Heath. Up until recently, he has been using whatever generic headset he’s had lying around (he tells me it was the Logitech USB Headset H530). You may have been able to hear it (even though I try to cut around it as much as possible), but it would randomly peak when he would start talking, and it picked up a rather huge amount of background noise — it’s the kind of headset that works fine for gaming and casual conversations, but not for podcast discussions. With all the great content him and I planned on bringing to the podcast in the future, this just couldn’t last. In response to some random chatter on Twitter, we made it known that we were looking to upgrade Heath to some actual audio equipment. Our buddies Lemmy and Ryan came through with some donations that covered it all… within minutes! Heath would really have no need for a mixer setup the way I have things, so we decided to go with a dedicated USB setup for just himself. In addition to a generic pop-filter and the same Samsom BT4 boom stand (~$40) that I use, we went with the USB version of my microphone: the MXL 990 USB (~$100-150). Unfortunately, the USB version of the microphone comes with just a little stand that would never work for the way we like to actually be comfortable while recording, so to complement the mic and boom stand, I sent him an old, only-semi-broken MXL 90 shockmount (~$35) that I had from my first microphone (I had since gotten a replacement as a gift). One of the screws was slightly stripped, and the inside rubber portion needed a little glue, but all-in-all it was in perfectly fine shape! Appropriately so, Lemmy wanted a picture of Heath’s new recording setup… and so did I for this blog post!

Here’s what the good sir had to say about it:

I’m loving the new setup, and the audio quality is SO much better! After messing around with things, this is the setup I finally settled on. It’s somewhat like what I was using before, only my Logitech headset is now replaced with my new fancy microphone and boom stand. The MXL 990 USB powered condenser microphone is plugged into my laptop on the left, whose only purpose is to record the mic audio in Audacity. The laptop is also used to connect to Skype if I’m recording with anyone else over the world wide web. I then use my personal desktop computer to look up references while recording; typically there’s Kanzentai on one screen and Daizenshuu EX on the other. I would record on this computer, but Audacity tends to crash once I hit the stop button. Luckily my mouse and keyboard are Bluetooth, so I can set the keyboard in my lap if necessary. Of course I just use my headset as head phones while recording. But more importantly, there’s usually a beer just to my right on the desk and there’s a mini fridge full of it behind me.

So that’s pretty much where we stand. I don’t feel the need to really upgrade a whole lot more on my end, with the possible exception of eventually having four of the same microphones so even Jeff doesn’t have to bring one over. Oh, and some more folding chairs would be nice. Maybe a new desk eventually, too. And a mini-fridge for beer convenience. Do they make silent mini-fridges…?

(NOTE: We did not consult each other re: mini-fridges prior to writing this…)

I guess we should also treat Jake to upgraded equipment at some point in the future. Julian, too, if and when he ever makes his way back to the states.

I have been mentioning for a while how a new mixer was on the horizon. Since (I think…) Episode #0112 of the podcast over at Daizenshuu EX, I have been using my trusty Behringer Euroback UB802 (which isn’t available anymore, but the Behringer Xenyx 802 is basically the exact same thing). It has certainly sufficed up until now. I have not been completely happy with it, though — Behringer stuff gets the job done, but you will occasionally be reminded why it costs so little. My own mixer once decided that it was only going to output sound in the left channel, only to have the right channel return to full functionality a few months later. The Xenyx 1204 that I got for work now doesn’t want to output audio at all (which is why my little guy became somewhat well-traveled).

I knew I wanted to upgrade to something that had at least four XLR inputs, which would finally get rid of that pesky situation where someone comes over and I suddenly have more people than inputs on the main mixer, resulting in a totally ghetto daisy-chain. I also wanted something of a higher quality, of course. This led me to the Mackie 1202-VLZ3. A solid mixer from a solid company with an appropriate amount of features = sold.

The big guy came in last week, and I love him to death:

I have yet another boom stand on order, so once that comes in and things get fully set up, I might consider doing a “Version 3″ of “My Podcasting Setup” (which was last updated just about a year ago). The basement “studio” has been awesome, and we just decided to put some shelves in, so it’ll get even nicer. Hurray!

Speaking of that there main show that I do pretty much every week, we get our e-mails and forum posts, sure… but I also like to occasionally step outside the internal comfort zone and see what other folks have to say about it. Just about two years ago, I posted up a couple choice quotes I happened to dig up, so I figured it might be worth it to do that again.

I really just wanted to share one particular bit of feedback, though. Upon clicking through to the person’s contact information, it didn’t seem that they are all that active (and this particular post was many months back), so rather than directly contact them (which I may still do), I figured it’s out there and public anyway, so I might as well publicly respond to it. Through the normal course of surfing + Google Alerts, I came across this thread on fanfiction.net where someone replied to a conversation about DBZ fandom and communities:

Having listened to vegettoex’s podcast for years until it boiled down to ‘what’s new in your life and lets recap a single volume of manga!’ sort of TL;DNL, I can say yes I’ve been to the forums. Not sure why you assume people haven’t been there as he’s one of the few big sites left from yester year. And while they are active in near 4chan trolling, gifs, bad AMV(bring back the good stuff please?) fandubing and the occasional decent debate, its still vanishing. Even there.

For starters, we make it a huge point to not excessively talk about ourselves. The introduction to each episode does indeed have a little “Hey, how ya’ doing?” segment, but it’s always a part of a larger “What new things came in…” or “What’s new on the site…” that is at least somewhat relevant to the DBZ-loving listener. I will certainly concede that much (much much much) older episodes may have had a little bit too much of the personal talk up front, but even then it was nowhere near what this post would lead you to believe.

The “Manga Review of Awesomeness” is a once-monthly topic. Its purpose was to allow new folks to follow along with a group of fans and their podcast about a franchise that has a ton of history that they might not be completely up on — they are “timeless” episodes that anyone can go back to at any time. Based on the feedback from our big survey, it also happens to be the most-enjoyed type of topic by a wide margin. “Majority” doesn’t mean “entire audience” though, so I can understand how there are folks who don’t care for it — that’s why it’s only once a month! I know for a fact that there are a bazillion other types of topics intermixed on a weekly basis, and they are purposefully arranged so that at least once a month there is a type of conversation (in-universe, product review, manga, etc.) that folks of a particular segment of the fandom can latch onto.

Yes, I run a very calculated show. I read and listen to every bit of feedback I can get my hands on. I’ve gotten back into the habit of listening to my own show even after I’ve edited it for release to critique it. I want it to be the best that it can be, to appeal to as many people as possible… but at the same time have just the right amount of pompous authority to show that we ain’t messin’ around, yo. You want to know something? Information you can trust? Ain’t no other place, bro-dawg.

(Also not entirely sure if they are referring to our website and/or forum with that stuff about troll images and such. That’s as far removed from the prison we run as can possibly be described.)

On the other hand, then we get comments like these on the rare occasion which reminds me exactly why I love doing this stuff so much:

Im a relatively new listener who once thought I knew everything about Dragon Ball from watching Toonami…..

I don’t think “thank you” covers it.

So that was a blog entry.

I’ve had a few in-depth blog ideas swimming around in my brain lately, but I just have not had the time to dedicate to any of them. Instead, you are stuck with a couple funny pictures… and that’s what the Internet is all about anyway, right?

Saw this at the grocery store and thought it was funny. Get it? It says “Pee-Pee”. That’s funny. I’m six years old.

For Christmas Dinner, you would think that “the kids” (all being adults) would all be able to hang out in the same room as the older adults. Not so. Not enough room. Stuck in the basement for a while with the actual children. You know, the ones nearly 30 years younger than you. Might as well make the best of it. Here is my talent at work. I’m pretty proud of it.

Plenty of stuff going on, and plenty of things to share on the blog in the future. Heath just started up something that I’ve been meaning to do for a while, too, so look forward to that nonsense. Expect pictures of the recording “studio” when the new mixer comes in early next month (not that it’ll look much different, or anything).

So yeah. There’s always Twitter where I’m tossing out random nonsense, and plenty of folks have been asking crap on Formspring.

My name is Mike, and I approved this blog post.

In September 2010, it was announced that Weekly Jump would have a special series of one-shots called “Top of the Super Legend” starting with issue 45 and going through issue 50. Current Jump artists would be contributing these new, short stories… but a certain “legend” of the recent past would also toss one into the mix: Akira Toriyama. A little later on, we learned that the story would be called “Kintoki“, and that was about all we got.

Toriyama’s work, KINTOKI: 金目族のトキ (Kintoki: Toki of the Golden-Eyed Tribe), was the last one of the bunch and released within issue 50. All of us from the extended Daizenshuu EX and Kanzentai communities are big fans of everything Toriyama has done over the years, but beyond comparing DragonBall to his prior works (especially its direct predecessors such as Dragon Boy and Tongpoo), we never have an opportunity to go in-depth about them about on our DB-centric sites.

Well, nothing’s really stopping us.

I decided to do a fun “bonus” podcast, and invited on Heath to talk about the new one-shot with me. Much like the “Manga Review of Awesomeness” recurring segment on my main show, what we did was recap the actual story of the manga, and then dove head-first into all sorts of things: name puns, correlations to other Toriyama works, our own thoughts on this new one, etc. It runs around 45 minutes, so it’s a pretty decent length show without going completely overboard (especially considering the one-shot itself is only about thirty pages!). We definitely had a fun time with it, and if you enjoy it and want to hear more like this in the future, let us know! We will probably do it anyway just to amuse ourselves, but it would be nice to know that someone out there actually wants to listen in, too.

OP/ED: “Riding on a Time machine~サイケデリック☆５５” by Hironobu Kageyama (from the album Cold Rain — CDJapan / Amazon Japan)

I am also convincing myself that it will help generate some nice blog-worthy subject matter that I otherwise would not have thunken ’bout. Not that I am out of things to write about, or anything… that certainly is not the case.

So go ahead — formspring.me up!

In 2009, we did not make a single AMV. It was the first year we did not do so since 2000 when I got into the game — we did not even make so much as a trailer! My combination of apathy and laziness toward the hobby was rubbing off on Meri as well, and we simply did not get around to making anything that year. Especially after what we were able to create back in 2007, I felt like I had tapped out any imagination I had left. I was pretty damn satisfied.

(Insert generic description about the life-long friends we made from our years in the hobby, still enjoying watching fantastic video output, the amazing creativity people have, yadda yadda yadda…)

We wanted to make something for Otakon 2010, though. It was the only convention we were going to be attending this year, and with so many friends no longer submitting videos (or working on the intro to the contest, instead), our quasi-vested-interest in seeing the overall contest was waning. Also, to be frank… the last few years of Otakon’s contest have been pretty difficult to sit through. I just have not enjoyed them as a whole. I have always said (as both an editor and a coordinator) that if you don’t like the contest, your only course of action as an editor is to put up or shut up — either make a video that you are proud of and submit it, or quit yer whinin’.

So we tried that this year.

The two of us really love songs that tell a story — you look at examples like our Kare Kano video “Fake” from a few years back, and you can see how much we enjoy a song that so perfectly captures the feeling of a series and its characters in mood, sure, but also does so via its lyrics. Is it us (again) just being lazy? Perhaps.

Cage the Elephant’s “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked” was getting lots of local radio play earlier this year with their album getting re-released (and apparently used in the opening to Borderlands, unbeknownst to us). The song was bound to hit us. The song has a great story to it. The song has a great attitude to it. It didn’t take much convincing from Meri before I agreed to it.

We agreed that it should be a multi-source video with a well-defined cast of characters: (1) the main character who comes across these “wicked” folks, (2) the whore, (3) the thief, and (4) the preacher. It was painfully obvious to us (as you will read later on) that Spike from Cowboy Bebop would make the perfect main character — Spike always works well with other series, and the old west vibe of the song fits in a little too well with the aesthetic of the show. Wolfwood from Trigun was the second easiest to cast, literally being a preacher with baggage, conflict, greed, and internal torture. The others were a little more difficult. We wanted to stick with shows in a 4:3 format to avoid cropping, so any more recent stuff was pretty out of the question. Choosing a notable character to act as the thief who holds up the main character at gunpoint was a tough one. We ended up going with Alucard from the Hellsing TV series (as opposed to Ultimate in its 16:9 format) since he definitely has a gun at all times, and he seemed like he might work well clashing up with Spike. The whore was the most difficult to cast — we did not want to go with Faye, since the other characters were all from different universes, so who would it be? What notable female characters could work in this context? We eventually settled upon Lust from the first Fullmetal Alchemist due to it also being in 4:3, and her demeanor fitting in well with the rest of the cast.

What would the point of the video actually be, though…? One morning en route the train station, I had the brilliant idea: Spike would kill them all…!

That proved a little more difficult than I thought. I remembered Fullmetal Alchemist entirely wrong, and we therefore had no footage to show Lust being killed. Alucard can’t die. Huh. All right, then. Our goal as creative editors is to tell the story we want to tell, though, and we ultimately (to quote Tim Gunn) had to just make it work. We are already making something “new” by combining the video and audio, so to take things out of context and tell that brand-new story really is the whole point!

We decided early on that we did not want to do a whole lot of compositing, and instead (to keep things simple for our lazy selves, and also as a partial challenge) wanted to be clever with our editing. No overboard effects. Keep it clean. Sophisticated. Appropriate for the music.

In the end, we only had one composite shot (someone else’s hand being turned into Alucard’s glove pointed at Spike), with the rest handled through creative editing and cuts.

OK… so there is actually another composite shot later in the video, too… for whatever reason, I don’t classify that in my mind the same way. I guess ‘cuz it’s on a TV.

The most difficult section to edit was the first chorus — it was also the last section we edited. The second and third verses feature a very distinct style of editing, which transitions into more traditional cuts for their respective choruses. The first verse+chorus combo of the video had none of this. There was no consistency! What could we do?! The problem was that the bass introduced in the second verse is not present in the first section of the song, which is what the masks and swipes were being timed to later in the video.

To be honest, we ran out of time and imagination before the Otakon deadline. Neither of us were happy with anything we tried. We had to show Spike somehow brushing her off and ultimately shooting her, but how could we do that with nothing interesting happening in the music yet? We ultimately went with a pretty awful split-screen (top and bottom) showing scenes of each character. Just cuts on a beat. No fades. No swipes. Nothing. It was ugly. It was not something I was proud of, but there was no more time before the contest submission deadline.

Something we had never done before was further edit a video after submitting it to a contest. Done is done, right? I was not about to let this one slide, though. It took us a month (and the impending Anime Weekend Atlanta Exposition AMV Contest deadline) to get it done, but we did. We wanted to do something that would set up the style of edits that would happen in the second and third sections of the video, so a similar style of masks and motion came into play. That bass still didn’t exist earlier in the song, so the timing was based off the lyrics, instead. There are still some split-screens at the end of the segment, but things at least have a flow to them, now. The execution style and initial editing was all Meri, while the timing and direction was all me. Good teamwork!

There you go. We made an AMV this year. Short and sweet, clocking in at just under three minutes. Is it my favorite video that we have ever worked on? Not by a long shot. Forcing these characters into this story certainly worked, but not as “perfect” as I would have hoped. I do think it is a fun video, which is pretty interesting considering that it is so clearly a “Drama/Serious” video underneath it all. What do you think? The attendees at Otakon seemed to like it, as we actually won first place for the first time ever in their contest. Huh.

(Yes, we will be putting up a downloadable version in the near-future. Just haven’t gotten around to it yet.)

I was tossing this out on Twitter one day, but I thought it would be fun to collect a bunch of links here to go along with this post. We never bothered to look to see if anyone else had made an AMV with this song (of course they would have), but it is fun to take a look afterward and see what is out there. Would they use any of the sources we used? Hilariously enough, all four of our sources have been used to make individual videos to the song!

• Here’s one with just Cowboy Bebop
• Here’s one with just Fullmetal Alchemist
• Here’s one with just Hellsing
• Here’s one with just Trigun

There are a ton of other ones out there, too. Take a gander through YouTube. Funny stuff.

While that was neat and all (along with the bazillion strange and nude pieces littered around), only one sculpture truly caught my attention:

It was called “Monkey King“. You put those two words next to each other, and I take note. He did not look like any of the “popular” versions of Son Wukong (with his staff, etc.), but it apparently is indeed him — I guess it is from earlier on in the story when he’s just the plain ol’ “Handsome Monkey King”, and not yet quite “Great Sage, Equal to Heaven” (or, ya’ know, the dude who tends to the horses and doesn’t realize he’s being made a fool of). The piece is by Hyung Jun Yum and was made out of plaster in 2002.

Neat.

We have shared stories like this before, where another website simply lifted the entire content of a major Daizenshuu EX feature (including hot-linked images and all). It is the Internet — we expect this on a daily basis. In fact, the darn thing even works in the first place because content is re-purposed and shared. Information wants to be free, right?

This was an interesting one, though. It is not as black-and-white as the example linked above. In fact, one could argue that Daizenshuu EX is the one at fault for not taking advantage of the different mediums and outlets. All of these different ways to communicate and get the message out are right there, so why not use them?

Let me explain.

Back in February I received an e-mail from a regular visitor who was concerned. I have removed some identifying information about the visitor from the e-mail below, as well as named-references to the source he is referring to (though I will ultimately “out” them later in the article):

I am one of your many fans who uses your website Daizenshuu EX (along with Kanzentai) to get news on what is occurring in the Dragon World. I am also a podcast listener. Since I support your work, I feel the need to at least inform you of a certain individual who is plagiarizing your work on YouTube and becoming popular for it (and of course, no credit is given to Daizex). You may already know and not care, but just in case you do care about someone stealing your information almost word-for-word and being credited and praised for it, I’ll give you the info.

It is a YouTuber named “(name redacted)“. I believe he is a member of your forums going under the guise of another username, but I cannot say anything in this regard because I have no proof. He is known for his DBZ news and has rapidly grown to have almost 2,000 subscribers, which is a lot of people who use him for DBZ news, and a lot of people who should be getting it from your site. (URL redacted)

Now, if you watch a lot of his videos you will notice that they are complete rip-offs of your website updates. Take for example, (URL redacted) . If you watch this, you will notice that it’s just an almost copy & paste of all the info from your website that you posted a few days ago.

Unfortunately, MY BEST PROOF he has deleted because I actually posted a comment on the video talking about it and he removed the video before I could write this email. It was a video copying your “Additional FUNimation Cast Changes” post, BUT, one thing that I noticed is that he misinterpreted the words YOU wrote: “As a minor aside, it is fascinating to be simultaneous talking about voice recastings for both the Japanese and English side of the franchise. It feels like conversations from ten years ago (the shift from Ocean Studios to an in-house FUNimation cast) have resurfaced in a tiny way!”

He thought you were talking about a possible UK release for the DBZKai series and made a video saying that, copying the text I have displayed to you in this email and talking about it. Then, when I told him he was ripping-off Daizex and also that he got the info you wrote wrong, he deleted it. His latest video (as of 3:40 PM EST Feb 16th) (URL redacted) is the only proof I have that I am telling the truth. If you watch this video, he even admits his misinterpretation and that he did make a video.

I wouldn’t even report this to you if he was a nobody, but he is very popular; his videos have thousands of views and as mentioned earlier he almost has 2000 subscribers. And you will find no credit to Daizex ANYWHERE on his channel. I personally do not believe it is fair for you to put a lot of effort in informing and entertaining the Dragon Ball fanbase for “(name redacted)” to take advantage of it and become popular.

The first thing I did as I watched some of the videos was chuckle and take cheap shots at all of the mis-spellings. I suppose admitting I did such right here in the blog post is an extension of that cheap shot, but hey… did you expect anything less from me?

It is quite the interesting situation. Sure enough, if you watch the videos, they are essentially date-for-date and word-for-word reprises of the news updates over on Daizenshuu EX.

The big question to ask is — what’s wrong with that?

Earlier in the post I noted it may be our own damn fault for not taking advantage of the medium — if the audience is on YouTube, why are we not there to take advantage of them and provide them with valuable content in their home territory? Shame on us. People expect the news to be pushed to them wherever they are most comfortable.

(The answer is that I can barely find the time these days to do all it is that I already do, never mind produce video features of each news post!)

In the prior post about the website feature, I noted how you could spin it in a positive way — people were discovering content (and in this case, news) that they otherwise would never have encountered (OK, maybe they eventually would have…). They were reading my words and my feelings. More people than before were doing so. In at least an indirect way, Daizenshuu EX was being imprinted upon the masses! How is that not a plus…?!

You can look at it from the protective side, though, as our e-mail author clearly did… and they’re not even the ones making the darn website updates that are being “stolen” (that our visitors feel so protective and full of honor for the site gives me a feeling resembling joy I think). There is a somewhat “creepy” feeling having your words regurgitated back at you with no attribution. It is pretty disingenuous of this YouTube user to go making update after update, video after video, and never citing their source. That’s just lazy, if not completely amateurish. Don’t they think something is a little weird about that? Lifting so much content and not saying where they first learned about it?

It got more interesting just this week when a completely separate fan posted up a thread on our message board about it. Apparently this content-lifting-individual (or is it a group?) is no longer happy to just copy-and-paste updates into YouTube videos, and instead are running a larger, more traditional website. This is when I start scratching my head a little more. I am not sure how I feel about it.

It is at this point that I do not particularly care sharing the identity of these folks. It is definitely worth it to really showcase the extent they are going to.

You have an update of theirs like this one announcing the inclusion of Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans in Raging Blast 2. The translation of the scan is verbatim copied-and-pasted from Kanzentai, while the image the bottom (with our standard blue border and drop shadow) is ours from Daizenshuu EX — they could have clicked through to the source link (which I provided) and grabbed the original, full-sized image instead of using my tiny, formatted one. Only the former object is credited… and to be honest, I did not even see that credit at first. The news is not our own, but certainly the translation of it is, and to a much lesser extent, the formatting on the image is… well, that’s something.

Head on over to this update of theirs with a gallery of ten animation shots from Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans. To be fair, these ten shots were released by Namco-Bandai to their press partners (of which Daizenshuu EX is one) for free distribution and promotion. Take a look at the file names this group used, though: assets_20100821_animation_10.jpg, and so on. Head on over to the respective “Tidbit” page on Daizenshuu EX, and without looking, take a wild guess at what file naming standard I re-named them all with before posting.

I will let you in on one of our big, dark, pompous, egotistical, hilarious secrets — we absolutely love it when people, especially begrudgingly, have to visit Daizenshuu EX and Kanzentai for news. OK, it is not actually as mean in my head as it sounds when it gets written out like that. The truth of the matter is, both Heath and I (as well as our cohorts!) work incredibly hard to keep up-to-date with the news. We have our regular sources. We have our regular searches. We have worked our way into a position where sometimes news finds us. Honestly, unless you are another DragonBall fansite that has been around at least as long as Kanzentai (never mind Daizenshuu EX) and have the clout to leverage your position, you are ultimately stuck in a endless game of catch-up with us. That is not to say that someone could not come along in a couple years and upset the balance of “power” (for lack of a better phrase), but for the time being… we are it. If you want to know (in English) what is going on with the franchise, you either come to us, or indirectly find out from us via some other source.

Another source like this “Saiyan Team”.

(There is something to be said for news of a different “type”, though. There are other awesome sites out there like DragonNews who cover more fandom-related things than we do, and with an international twist. At the end of the day, though, with the franchise being of Japanese origin, any significant “news” comes out of Japan — and since we focus on the Japanese version of the franchise, well, guess where the majority of the news is being broken…?)

So what is the deal here? Are we just too protective of our own second-hand-generated content? I mean, it’s not like we were the ones who announced such-and-such product. We have broken some exclusive news before, but we certainly do not do it on a daily basis.

Maybe they are just some punk 16-year-old kid first getting into this whole “content creation” thing online. I know I sure had no idea what the accepted rules of society were when I first got into this back in 1998.

What I find most fascinating about the whole ordeal is that example where they removed a video after being called out on completely misinterpreting (some pretty clearly written) words in a news post. They back-peddled on the whole situation. They admitted fault in doing so. Any normal person, at that point, would probably sit back and re-evaluate what the heck they are doing. Yet here we are half a year later, and now their website updates are simply being copied word-for-word.

So I am opening up the discussion. What do you all think about this? Is there anything wrong with what this YouTube user is doing, taking advantage of an open space that we do not have the time to jump into? Quite clearly this is a very self-selected audience that is almost guaranteed to support me, but I definitely would not be opposed to some differing thoughts… because, honestly, I am not entirely sure how I even feel about it.

Hell, for all I know, the person responsible for the videos and site is reading this blog. It is not so far-fetched. All I ask is that, when you run to the comments, you keep it civil and intelligent. I wouldn’t expect anything less of you all, but I suppose I just feel the need to say that, anyway!

I voiced Appule.

I don’t even remember when it was that KaiserNeko and I first started talking about it — it was that long ago. It was something I was looking forward to for the longest time, and I got such an amazing kick out of doing it.

Despite my incessant commentary on the voice acting of various languages, I have very little personal experience (hey, few film critics have ever made a film!). I recorded a couple quick lines for This is Otakudom back in 2001, and stepped up to play a somewhat major character (“Chow Down Fast”) for S.T.E.A.M. in 2005. Both were directed by Scott Melzer, and everything was in-person at his house. It was very similar to how professional voice acting seems to be done in the US, with a director and single actor doing their lines at a time (though we typically had at least one other person in the room). We would do multiple takes, occasionally play the scene in real time while acting it out, etc. I did another couple quick lines for Scott’s next parody, but I will not be involved with it in any other way.

It was a bit different for Abridged. As we have discussed via interviews with TeamFourStar over on the Daizenshuu EX podcast, most (if not all) of their acting sessions these days are done live over Skype (with the actor locally recording their lines). This is exactly how I went about recording with my lovely director, KaiserNeko. I received the script ahead of time and picked out one line to do several different test “voices” with. I recorded the same line over a few times in these different voices, sent them off for review, and came back together again to finalize the tone of the character with a complete script. It was difficult to get a read on the man in terms of my performances — I couldn’t really tell if he was simply accepting mediocre work just to get it done, or if I actually pulled what he wanted out of my rear-end. That’s why he’s the “pro”, though… he just goes with it and keeps on truckin’ until he gets what he wants!

Interesting tidbit, though: I had to re-record two lines because of a wrong name in the script. In the TeamFourStar dub of the Bardock TV special, the Appule-esque minion killed by Bardock is named “Eachpe” (a play on “Peach”). Written in the script for my episode was “Pierre” (another minion from the Bardock TV special, a play on “Pear”). It was not until the final mixing stage that the error was realized! During the retakes, we kept going on and on trying to get an appropriate performance out of me for Appule’s final line, “Here I come, Eachpe…” For whatever reason, I simply could not hit that range with the character’s voice. KaiserNeko ended up taking a different approach with advice on other lines and attitudes to take to reach the point of emotion where Appule might end up saying that line — we ended up with some pretty ridiculous stuff spouting out of my mouth, but I ended out muttering out the take that was used in the final episode, so it was very much worth it!

I thought I did a pretty decent job. In particular, I think my delivery on Appule’s response to Zarbon asking why Vegeta was not nude in the tank was pretty dead-on. Overall, though? It’s up to you to decide. Hopefully it was a fun little cameo that you enjoyed. If you didn’t like it, though, don’t tell me. My poor ego couldn’t deal with it. Just go post about it anonymously on some other message board, preferably with a link back to Daizenshuu EX so I will end up finding it and ultimately drown my sorrow in alcohol.

By the way, one of my favorite gags in the episode is this:

Ooooooooh yeah!

When FUNimation (in conjunction with Pioneer) was releasing the first three DragonBall Z movies state-side back in 1997-1998, I was just beginning my website and writing quick reviews of the releases. Here is what my 15/16-year-old self wrote about “The Tree of Might” (DBZ movie 3), and specifically the uncut home release of its dub, back in 1998:

DragonBall Z Movie # 3:  The Tree Of Might

Was I ever surprised with this one!!  This IS NOT, I repeat, IS NOT the same “Tree of Might” that was shown on television.  It has been completely re-dubbed, and it is SOOO much better.  No more of that, “jerk” crap.  Instead of Taurus (yeah, it’s still “Turles” in the dub,  folks) saying to Piccolo, “And just who are you?” he now says, in a tone that suggests he is quite unimpressed with Piccolo, “Who the Hell are you?”  Just great!!  While the signature move names (for the most part) have still been changed (“Kienzan” – “Destructo Disc”…. “Taiyo-Ken” – “Solar Flare”….. “Genki-Dama” – “Spirit Bomb”… etc.), I must say, it was nice to hear Gokou (uh… whoops… it’s “Goku” in the dub, still) say “Kaio-Ken” the correct way!!  No longer is it being pronounced “Kayo-Ken”… we now get the true, wonderful, “Kaio-Ken!!!”…. I love it.  The new voice actors actually didn’t get on my nerves!!  Goku kept it pretty good, Oolong’s new one sucks like Hell, Roshi seems to have about three different people doing his voice, and….. uh….. Higher Dragon (yes, no more of that “Icarus” crap!! We get an actual translation of “Heiya Dragon”) must have had his Japanese “voice,” because it wasn’t half as annoying as it was as the TV version.  The gay-ass one liners have all been taken out, and I’m pretty sure they’ve stuck to the original Japanese script (from what I’ve read of the translated Movie # 3 script, so far).  I’m still in shock at the new queer names for some of the moves, though… no more “Kamayamaya” for “Masenko,” but now it’s called “Power Beam!”  “Souki-Dan” was “Here’s a power shot!”  Oh well… can’t have everything you want (actually, you can…. buy the sub-titled version!)  This movie is a whole hour long (15 minutes longer than # 1).  It’s a great hour, though.  There’s a ton of scenes in the Movie here that weren’t shown on TV, which made it all the more enjoyable.  The original Japanese soundtrack was also left intact in this movie, from “Cha La Head Cha La” to the ending song (who’s name I can’t remember… I’ll put it in when I watch the movie again).  This is just another example that says the guys behind the dub CAN pull something off that is somewhat worthy of Toriyama’s name.  Once again, I commend them.  Now, if we could only get this “Masenko,” Taiyo-Ken,” “Kienzan,” “Souki-Dan,” and “Genki-Dama” stuff right…..

Contrary to earlier reoprts, “The Tree of Might” is already available, on Dubbed VHS, sub-titled VHS, sub/dub Laser Disc, as well as sub/dub DVD.  Pick up a copy!!

SCORE —- 5.5 out of 7 DragonBalls

It is horribly embarrassing. To be fair, I was 16 years old — random cursing and slurs was awesome, and knowing any amount of Japanese (never mind character name pun origins) at that time was equivalent to being King of the Moon. I insisted upon spelling the main character’s name as “Gokou” (something I have done a complete 180 on) simply because it was “different” from what “THE MAN” told me it was. I used a numerical grading scale, something I would never imagine doing these days. I somehow managed to use more ellipses than I even do today. I used the wrong “whose”.

You can probably imagine me bashing my head against the wall right now.

At the same time, it is interesting to see some of the things I have not compromised on. I still have a huge problem with mispronunciations. I still have a huge problem with replacement musical scores. I still have a huge problem with revised scripts. Amusingly, these things all affect me far less due to the widespread availability of the shows in their original Japanese format — as you have come to hear me explain time and time again, an English dub these days is irrelevant to me (up through the point of it affecting greater conversations and information accuracy widespread-ness).

I think this is why I have more patience for kids on our forum over on Daizenshuu EX than a lot of you wish I had. I know that some of them just need a path and a guide. VegettoEX of 1998 was just a punk-kid with delusions of grandeur. He kept working at it, though, until those delusions were at least halfway real…!

Now you have to suffer with me whether you like it or not… which is just the way I like it.

Saturday afternoon at 1:30 pm, veteran voice actor and director Yûji Mitsuya was holding a second Q&A panel. We had missed out on his panel Friday afternoon due to conflicting events, but made sure to be open for Saturday’s panel. Mitsuya is perhaps best known to DragonBall fans as the voice of Kaiôshin in DragonBall Z, so while he is not necessarily in the same “importance” league as, say, someone like Toshio Furukawa or Mayumi Tanaka (both of whom are somehow tied to him in one way or another…!), he is no stranger to our extended anime fandom.

While it could be the subject of an entire blog post in-and-of-itself, and while it certainly is never a surprise to me, it continues to be an extreme disappointment to see how few people turn out for Japanese guests at anime conventions these days. Whether it is a lead animator, the creator of a series, a notable voice actor… it does not seem to matter. If they are not the hot English voice actor of the moment (hey, remember when Richard Ian Cox was the big shit for, like, a year?)… no-one comes to see them. It is incredibly sad when you take a step back and realize that we are all coming together to celebrate Japanese animation and culture (debatably, anyway; there is an argument for it all just being general nerd-culture-celebration loosely focused around anime).

But I digress.

Despite the ridiculously low attendance to the panel, Mitsuya charged forward like a champion with all sorts of stories. We heard about drunken sempai lessons and advice, learned how he formed a quasi-male-idol band with Toshio Furukawa (Piccolo) in the past, forming a theater group with Mayumi Tanaka (Kuririn, Yajirobe), and much later on after moving around so many times (keep reading!), ghost-directing the cast of Rurouni Kenshin for three months before deciding to allow himself to be credited and specifically choosing and mentoring Mayo Suzukaze for the lead character’s role based on her own theater performance. The man was just full of astonishing stories and genuine humility.

Then the fire alarm got pulled.

Translator Toshiyumi Yoshida first asked if we should all just stick around and continue, but Otakon staff insisted that we all must leave as the entire building had to be evacuated. In an amazing showcase of professionalism, Mitsuya suggested we all come along with him to the outside plaza there on the third floor and he would gladly continue telling stories and taking questions. So… the dozen or so of us followed him along and continued listening!

As we got going into the next story, Otakon staff insisted that we had to evacuate all convention center-related areas, including this outside area. Mitsuya was far from done, and insisted we all continue on with him! We traveled down an escalator, down some flights of stairs, and ended up alongside a wall outside of the convention center. Just as we started up again, Otakon staff yet again insisted that we continue onward away from the convention center.

Mitsuya was unphased. Much to the surprise of Yoshida, the entire group plugged onward with him and Mitsuya inside the nearby Sheraton hotel. We plopped in a corner and continued onward with the stories and questions! Mitsuya explained how he ran into Nathan Lane (the voice of “Timon” in Disney’s The Lion King) in New York and screamed “I am Japanese Timon! I am Japanese Timon!” into the frightened actor’s face. Unprovoked, he would burst into his characters’ voices and lines to describe his excitement over the roles and love of his fellow actors.

I managed to get in the last question he had time for. It was still quite a ways off, but did he know if he would be returning to voice Kaiôshin in DragonBall Kai…? The answer that we received confirmed quite a bit about the show’s production.

Mitsuya knew exactly what we were talking about, and admitted that he was not yet sure, himself. Being a director more than a voice actor, he is friends with the director of DragonBall Kai and has already expressed his desire to return to the role. What he told us next spoke volumes in very few words — he was unsure if they would be able to afford him, and if the series would even make it that far. He even slyly mumbled that he would be willing to take the job at a reduced rate!

With the entirety of Ginyu-Tokusentai being replaced with new voice actors (including Kenji Utsumi as Recoom, despite him returning to the show to voice Shenlong), along with plenty of other voice actors that have become much bigger in the industry since their roles in DragonBall, it has really made us wonder just how expensive DragonBall Kai actually is to produce, despite us always describing it as “cheap” and “a money-grab” and “half-assed” in almost every way. Hujio and I later discussed how it seems that these days we get confirmations of actors returning either very close to their first appearance in the series… or not at all. Many times it will not even come from the official site for the series, and instead from the actors themselves or their fan communities (such as the case with #17).

Branching off of that, we could not help but speculate further. Was the licensing of Kai to FUNimation for American distribution a way to raise quick capital to fund the further production of the series? When it was first announced, it was clear that the series would go through at least the Freeza arc, since the villain was clearly shown on all production materials. The fact that it would be moving onward into the next story arc with Cell was a very casual “announcement”.

At the end of the day, this set of rambling paragraphs is less about DragonBall and more about how great of a time we had with Mitsuya. His courtesy and enthusiasm is unparalleled, showcased by his desire for a group photo with everyone at the end of the “panel”:

What a freakin’ great time…!

(Thanks to Hujio and… oh hey, myself!… for the photos )

What I’m pretty sure they are saying is that there is no extra registration necessary for their little Guitar Hero competition, but anyone who wants to complete must already be a pre-existing, registered member of their “Summer Reading” program.

What are your thoughts on forcing these teens to be members of the “Summer Reading” program before they can even participate in the video game competition? It seems to me that they would not even know about it unless they visited the library to see the poster in the first place, though it is possible that they heard about it from a friend, saw it on a website, etc. In any case, the library has most likely already accomplished their main goal of getting the kids to come to the building in the first place (the same way retail establishments get you into the store with giveaways or sales in hopes you will purchase something else), so why burden them with extra restrictions? Sure, some kids will show up just to play the game and ignore all the lovely books and the fascinating learning establishment that encompasses them, but is it that big of a deal? Maybe there have been issues in the past with random hooligan kids, but even random hooligan kids should have a chance to walk past some books…!

This thread on the GameFAQs “DragonBall – General Message Board” area piqued my interest. I have a morbid curiosity in seeing how people explain Japanese pronunciations to other people in textual form. Someone wanted to know how to pronounce “Kuririn” — a valid question, especially considering that I have been working on my own pronunciation of the name for years. I know how to pronounce it, obviously, but my linguistic lack of skills have always slurred my “r” into “d” sounds! I think I have gotten it down pretty well these days… though I am certainly no Julian ^_~.

Anyway, this response made me chuckle:

Krillin. You’re not Japanese.

We have done whole podcast topics about “today’s fans with regards to the series and the way they view it (both the Japanese version and the English version, in relation to their [dis]placement)“. It is totally fine if you want to be that way — as Julian has humorously quoted (and I paraphrase), “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!”

Why bother with the “Japanese names”…? You speak English! It makes so much sense! We won’t even bother with examples like “Cell” and “Trunks” which Japanese-ify “English” words with their inherent extra syllables, but:

• What about some of the other character names, though? Don’t you say “Kami“…? OK, fine — maybe you try to be self-consistent and translate/speak it as “God”. I will give you an “out” on that one.
• Don’t you say “Goku“, which is a Japanese reading of the Chinese name for the Monkey King…? OK, fine — maybe you drop the “Son” surname to feel better about it and yourself.
• Don’t you say “Tien“, which is a reference to something Chinese, never mind that it is not even how his name is spelled/pronounced in the original Japanese version of the show? I suppose this is pretty similar to the “Kuririn/Krillin” adaptation…
• The name “Kuririn” is every bit of a pun-based name as “Ginyu“, which American fans typically write out and pronounce near-phonetically-equivalent to its original Japanese pronunciation — why is that one OK? Don’t you see the hypocrisy?
• Don’t you say “Kamehameha“, which is a combination of actual Japanese and gibberish?
• I am seeing hilarious conversations these days where dub fans are now trying to figure out which sounds “more cool” to keep, since the dub of (Z) Kai has changed things like “Destructo Disc” to “Kienzan” — their own overlords (the FUNimation English dub) won’t stay consistent for them, so they are left to flap about in confusion.
• Worst of all… the Viz manga (you know, the English version) spells it as “Kuririn“. This has nothing to do with pronunciation, of course, though… but it somehow seems relevant, ya’ know?

I mean, shit… what about other shows where a character’s name is a Japanese name…? Do you “translate” it for fear of being seen as anti-American? Do you call the author of the series “Bird Mountain“, and if so, how do you reconcile the fact that his studio is literally called “Bird Mountain“…?

Why is it OK to keep some names with their Japanese pronunciations, and then disregard all others while scoffing at anyone who doesn’t choose to use your preferred dub’s spelling? Much like folks who have only read Viz’s translation (which has exclusively used the spelling “Kuririn”), I would wager that if the name was never changed to “Krillin” in the first place, these folks wouldn’t even blink at “Kuririn” all these decades later. I hate to play this card, since I am so sick of talking about it (and you are so sick of hearing about it)… but is it not simply because FUNimation just happened to have decided to change that name?

It is entirely inconsistent. It is ignorant. It is fearful. It is arrogant. It is hypocritical.

The mentality of “STFU your not jap spell/pronounce it dis way” is laughably moronic when you are using other Japanese-based (if not un-changed, entirely Japanese) character names in the same breath.

Yes, I am right and they are wrong. I dare you to argue otherwise ^_~.

(P.S. – Oh, and to answer the question… Japanese is pronounced very phonetically and with few exceptions. クリリン breaks down to “ku – ri – ri – n“. The ku is a short syllable that sounds close to the beginning of our word “cool”, the ri is a short syllable that sounds close to the beginning of our word “reed”, and there are two of those in a row, and then the last syllabic-”N” sound is pretty obvious in that it sounds just like it does at the end of our words like “pen”. It all slurs together pretty quickly so that it sounds like what I talked about here [MP3 example included]. “Krillin” is something that I feel is a totally legitimate transliteration of the name, but let’s not pretend that “Kuririn” is absurd.)

(P.P.S. – To semi-quote myself being sarcastic recently… “Shit’s serious, yo.” No, this is not a big deal. At all. It does not affect anyone’s day-to-day life. Just felt like writing about it.)

I am sure I will get bored with taking photos of random things again very soon. Until then, I will populate a new blog category: Prized Possessions. I can be incredibly materialistic at times, and get a kick out of showing off the random crap I have accumulated over the years. Hey, some may call that a “character flaw”… I call it “great blog fodder”.

It is no secret that I moderately worship at the feet of a one Mr. Ryûsei Nakao. It is not as creepy and overboard as I might lead you to believe — I mostly just play it up for amusement. At the same time, I really do think he is pretty amazing at what he does, and is worthy of the respect he receives. While Freeza is one of his best-known and well-loved roles, Nakao has brought his voice to tons of other engaging characters. I have recently learned about his role as Mayuri Kurotsuchi in Bleach (which makes so much sense…!), but one of my personal favorites is that of Iizuka from the Rurouni Kenshin OVAs (you know… the one OVA series… perhaps if I say that enough times, it will become true?). As a stark contrast to Freeza and Kurotsuchi, Iizuka is just a regular guy. OK, fine… he is a a mole within an organization and not really just “a regular guy”, but compared to some of the other notable characters Nakao has played, that is the best description possible.

I think the guy is incredibly talented. Can you guess which of the items on this shelf is one of my most favorite things ever in the whole world like totally radical man?

Meghan grabbed this for me at Animazement 2009 when Nakao was a guest of honor (alongside Trunks’ voice actor, Takeshi Kusao). Notice the autograph on there? Here is a close up:

What did I tell you?! Nakao wrote my freakin’ name. Radical.

I have been looking for something along the lines of a see-through (maybe glass?) cube that I can put the figure inside of to keep dust off the base. Any suggestions on what I could get?

So, hey. Here you go.

Many years ago, I started working on a “Character Guide” for the website. It ultimately never turned into anything because I constantly bite off more than I can chew. Whenever I finished a page for a character, I realized I wanted to include even more information, and constantly found myself going back to do additional research. It was a never-ending cycle, so I eventually just gave up. Other areas of the website were far more important and useful.

In 2004, while still working on the section, I decided to develop a page for a character that appeared for a very limited amount of time. I had already done characters like Nappa and Raditz who, while they were only around for a short period of time, could still be considered “major” characters. My stipulation for myself was the character that I did a page for next had to at least have a name — no random characters like “Jingle Village Filler Man #2″. One of the first characters that came to mind was Appule. He was one of the most minor of henchmen, yet the fact that he not only had a name, but had a name that was actually spoken aloud during the anime, is what solidified the choice for me.

The character profile was slightly more interesting than others to write because Appule gained a palette-swap named Oran in the anime who occasionally replaced what might have been Appule in the manga — it was difficult to tell in black-and-white with so many henchman looking so similar to one another. I even enlisted the help of our forum to scan through some of the scenes and figure out exactly which character was absolutely Appule in which scenes.

After writing the character biography page, I quickly adopted him as my scapegoat character for random jokes. What really solidified the joke for me was the Sparking! series of video games on the PlayStation 2 (and eventually the Wii) — so many new characters were being tossed into the game, I joked often (on and off the podcast) that when they announced that Appule was a playable character, we would know that they had finally begun scraping the bottom of the barrel. With the first Sparking! game featuring 90 playable characters and its sequel featuring 129, it didn’t seem like there would be many other notable characters to toss in.

In December 2006, Namco-Bandai announced a port of Sparking! NEO (released outside Japan as Budokai Tenkaichi 2) for the Nintendo Wii. We received the game first in North America as a near-launch game for the console, but it took a little bit of time for the game to be released in Japan and Europe. As a fun extra for the delayed port, these versions received a couple new characters to the roster. Guess who was announced?

Appule would go on to be a regular roster choice in Sparking! METEOR (released outside Japan as Budokai Tenkaichi 3), fulfilling his destiny according to my jokes.

In 2008, TeamFourStar debuted their DBZ Abridged fan parody series. In the very first episode, Raditz makes an off-hand joke (after killing “The Farmer”):

On Episode #0135 of our podcast, KaiserNeko confirmed for us that it was a reference to our recurring joke with the character, launching Appule to even further in-joke stardom.

MIKE: And I have to say, I guess I’ll interrupt you, ya’ know, how you’re describing the process, there are certain jokes that almost seem directly aimed at Meri and myself.

MERI: Hah, what?!

KAISER: You know, that might actually have to do with the fact that I am a hardcore listener of your show!

(a little later in the show)

MIKE: I have to ask, was there an Appule joke early in that episode?

LANI & KAISER: Yes there was!

MERI: I thought so!

MIKE: I didn’t hear it the first time. Meri was like, oh my god, they just made an Appule joke. I was like, really?

LANI: “So this was why Dad said I couldn’t keep Appule…”

MIKE: Yes! Ah, Appule, these guys are right up my alley!

KAISER: Actually, ya’ know, when we wrote that joke I was thinking of you.

MIKE: Aww!

MERI: That’s so sweet!

KAISER: That’s mostly because, I thought he’s the ONLY person who’s going to get the joke!

That same year, I decided to pay tribute to my favorite, ridiculous, minor character in the series. I collected every single last bit of footage from the anime in which Appule appeared (including an episode during the Garlic Jr. filler arc where it seems like Vegeta kills an entire planet of Appule-esque characters), and tossed together a funny little trailer called “Dead In Two Episodes” in a couple hours. I did not end up using every last second of footage, but only because many of the scenes are just redundant shots of the exact same thing. For all intents and purposes, every scene of Appule appears in the trailer. I happened to finish the trailer in time for Anime Weekend Atlanta‘s “Professional” anime music video contest that year. It was nominated for “Best Trailer”, but I have to imagine it was only because there were so few trailers submitted to the contest.

In November 2008 on Episode #0152 of our podcast, our buddy Jeff asked us about character name puns that had not been “completed”. For example, the Jump Super Anime Tour special completed “Vegeta” with “Table” (using the entire word “vegetable” now to form two distinct name puns). For whatever reason, Appule’s name was brought up:

JEFF: Well, that kinda leads to the question, are there any other characters that haven’t filled out their pun yet?

MIKE: Aahh… yeah!

MERI: “Paragas” — “a”…!

MIKE: “Broli” — “co”…!

JEFF: No, no, wait. I could say Appule… Appu… Paragas…

MIKE: He’s neither Saiya-jin nor vegetable.

JEFF: True. But, like, “Appule” and “Paragas”, you could say “Appu… ra… gas…”… never mind.

MIKE: So Jeff, you want Appule and Paragas to fuse!

MERI: SOMEONE DRAW THIS!

MIKE: Into what?

JULIAN: Oh noooo!

MIKE: What is the resulting fusion name?

JEFF: “Appuragas”.

Within a week, that drawing existed. Our listener Tekkaman-James created “Appuragas” for all the world to see:

Just this year (2010), a new line of figures call “Freeza’s Force” has been seeing a release in Japan. While the first line contained the expected characters like Freeza himself and all of Ginyu-Tokusentai, the third line was set to contain Appule (along with plenty of other extremely minor henchmen). I was more than happy to place my order when he became available for purchase on Play-Asia!

So that brings us all the way up through today. It may not seem it (especially after an action figure and even an appearance as a playable video game character), but there are plenty more places to take Appule. Hopefully we will see some more of him in the near future.

Long story short, The Farmer has nothing on Appule. We also certainly would not some kind of short manga explaining “Appuragas” and his origin story…

Guess I’ll write a short blog entry!

So the other night I was wired on coffee in the late evening. When I’m wide awake at night and should otherwise be sleeping, I usually pop some podcasts into my ears to occupy some brain cycles — I at least feel like I’m being halfway productive if I’m listening to something. I had cruised through the most recent episode of Buzz Out Loud, and while I was not OHMYGODTIRED, I was sleepy enough to roll over and give it the ol’ college try.

Within moments, I was OHMYGODTIRED, and felt myself dozing off…

… until I, very loudly and as clear as day, heard a female voice shout “PRINTER!” what felt like directly into my ears, which shook me away in a rather large bout of fright.

It certainly wasn’t the wife. My bet is on aliens.

One of our “Inconsistencies” videos.

For those who are unfamiliar with them, over at Daizenshuu EX we created a series of (so far) three videos in our “Inconsistencies” line (itself a multimedia extension of our “Filler Guide“). In conjunction with a podcast episode (where we discussed the same topic matter among several hosts), we would create a short, narrated video that showcased the differences between the original manga (comic) version of a scene from DragonBall and its later TV adaptation. In our first video, we presented a scene where one character (Vegeta) sees another character’s transformed state (SSJ Goku) in the TV version, which never actually happened that way in the manga, and what the ramifications would be from this. In our second video, we presented a scene where the villain (Freeza and Dodoria) who murders a character (Cargo) is changed when adapted to the TV version. In our third video, we presented a scene in which there is a slight change in the order of events in a scene (Piccolo pushing Goku out of the way of a blast from Freeza).

In all three videos, panning and zooming shots from the original manga version are presented with original narration. A short clip from the corresponding TV episode (with subtitles of our own creation, since we are using the original Japanese version of the show) is played. To conclude, we recap with a couple more panning and zooming screen shots from both the manga and TV versions.

They are basically nerd-erific showcases of dedicated love for the franchise. While we have not quite seen anything exactly along the lines of what we created, other examples do exist out there — our buddy MistareFusion created a great video that has fun analyzing what appears to be a very intentional nod to Star Trek in one scene from the DragonBall Z TV series:

Are we using copyrighted works “without permission”…? Sure. Does that extend to even things like using music from the TV series, in addition to showcasing an actual scene from it? Absolutely. There is no delusion here.

Is it “fair use”…? Let’s hold off for a minute on that.

The way that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) works is that if any kind of provider or host (let’s say YouTube) is notified by a rights holder (let’s say Toei Animation) that one of their works is being improperly used, stored, transmitted, etc., that provider or host must immediately remove or otherwise take down the infringing material. There is no review process until after the material is removed — if and only if the creator of said infringing material (let’s say me) chooses to file a counter-claim (in which they are saying that the material is not infringing, may actually be fair use, etc.). Basically, if you are notified to take something down… you take it down without question, or face further action. The rights holder faces no immediate repercussions for issuing take-down notices to content providers — this means they can issue take-down notices willy-nilly in blanket rollouts and hope for the best under the (safe) assumption that everything will be taken down with no argument. There is the potential for a horribly chilling effect on free speech when organizations hide behind the DMCA to remove legal commentary (for example, issuing a DMCA take-down notice on something they simply don’t like, rather than something genuinely infringing), but that is not the subject of this post, and not something I have enough familiarity with to authoritatively rant about.

YouTube works on their own personal “three strike” rule, whereby an account that receives three take-down notices from rights holders will be immediately deactivated. My main “daizex” account had received two notices of take-downs from YouTube regarding two prior videos:

• While working on my review of Ayumi Hamasaki’s “Rule” CD single and DVD, I edited a short video clip from the music video to include on the page. Within minutes the video was removed from my account with a take-down notice from the music rights holder in Japan.
• On April 1st of this year, we received a take-down notice on the opening theme to the video game DragonBall Z 3 (“Budokai 3″) for the PlayStation 2 (which can still be viewed here and here and here on YouTube via other users’ accounts). We subsequently removed other game-related videos from our account. This was legitimately just a case of, “We think this is cool and will post it up for folks.” There were no “education” or “review” pages associated with it.
• This morning, we received the following e-mail:

We have disabled the following material as a result of a third-party notification from TOEI ANIMATION CO.,LTD. claiming that this material is infringing:

DBZ Filler Inconsistencies: Video #3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_Y3KQRusWY

This is the third notification we have received alleging copyright infringement in one of your postings. Consequently, your account has been terminated.

If one of your postings has been misidentified as infringing, you may submit a counter-notification. Information about this process is in our Help Center.

Please note that there may be severe legal consequences for filing a false or bad-faith notice.

Sincerely,

— The YouTube Team

Were the first two claims pretty accurate? Sure. Does that diminish the accuracy or weight of the third claim? That’s up to you to decide. Personally, I think if anything is going to be called “fair use”, it is a video like one in our “Inconsistencies” series.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) breaks down the area of fair use as such:

There are no clear-cut rules for deciding what’s fair use and there are no “automatic” classes of fair uses. Fair use is decided by a judge, on a case by case basis, after balancing the four factors listed in section 107 of the Copyright statute. The factors to be considered include:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes – Courts are more likely to find fair use where the use is for noncommercial purposes.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work — A particular use is more likely to be fair where the copied work is factual rather than creative.
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole — A court will balance this factor toward a finding of fair use where the amount taken is small or insignificant in proportion to the overall work.
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work — If the court finds the newly created work is not a substitute product for the copyrighted work, it will be more likely to weigh this factor in favor of fair use.

(A-1) Was our video commercial in nature?
No. We were not enrolled in any revenue-sharing program via YouTube. We do not make any money off of Daizenshuu EX — while we do accept donations, any money received is put immediately back into the site for things like product reviews, hosting, etc. If you care to know, we’re in the hole. Always have been.

(A-2) Was our video educational in nature?
Maybe. While not a scholarly work in any way, an authoritative presentation of information could be considered “educational”. At the very least, it was “insightful”… or so we like to think ^_~.

(B) What was the nature of the copyrighted work?
Well, the copied work was creative (a fictional, animated TV series).

(C) What was the amount of copyrighted work used in relation to its larger whole?
Within our three-minute-and-sixteen-seconds video, the vast majority was original narration and still-shots from the manga and TV versions. Footage taken “verbatim” (for lack of a better phrase) plays between 0:30 and 1:26 (including fades in and out), meaning it is less than one minute in length, and less than one-third of the short video. As for an amount in “comparison” with the original product, are we comparing in relation to the one particular episode? An episode is roughly 22 minutes long. Are we comparing in relation to the entirety of the TV series? DragonBall Z is 291 episodes long, while its preceding and proceeding series have 153 and 64 episodes, respectively…

(D) What is the effect upon the potential market?
Our video is clearly not a substitute for the original product, in that we are constantly interrupting scenes with original narration and swiping them away to move onto the next point. We discuss roughly one minute or so of content from one TV episode of a long-running series. Furthermore, in this particular video we do not even discuss (never mind showcase) what is typically regarded as the most substantial and important “part” of the episode (Goku’s first SSJ transformation) — I personally think that is relevant to this fourth defense point, but you may disagree.

So where do we go from here?

I am not entirely sure. I think it is worth it to file a counter-claim with regard to this particular “Inconsistencies” video, but it is a lot of work for little value in return — which is exactly what the rights-holders are hoping for from an attitude out of those they issue take-down notices against. There is also the fact that some of the material on the channel as a whole was more legitimately “infringing”.

In the long run, though, I do not need YouTube to host these videos. I could just stream them myself on Daizenshuu EX all on my own! One of the reasons I put them up on YouTube, however, was — of course — the massive audience potential. We serve such a niche audience with our website that it can be difficult to find the right ways to reach out to and extend that audience. Our goal is simply to spread our love and enjoyment of the series (and specifically the original Japanese version of it), and a lot of fans out there just have no idea where to look for something like that. We have had plenty of new, regular visitors tell us they found us video YouTube, via our podcast listing in iTunes, via seeing us at conventions, etc. They are all great ways to reach out to that audience, so it made sense to explore that avenue.

The other side of me just wants to abandon it (YouTube being the “it”), though. We all know how ridiculous the comments are, and if we are not greatly expanding our audience there, then is it really worth it to keep producing for it? I am well aware (and have been constantly reminded), though, that the majority of people simply watch the video, smile, enjoy it, and move on with their lives. I consume media online in very much that same way. Positive feedback can be difficult to come by! While I joke that the negative feedback on the videos (from folks who generally are not our target audience to begin with) acts as a pretty huge hurdle to overcome in wanting to produce more, I recognize that plenty of folks out there actually do enjoy them and would not mind seeing more. With that in mind, I actually made a video showcasing the Bandai Playdia video game system exclusive to our Facebook page.

So. Uh. Thoughts?

(Oh yeah… curious to see that “Inconsistencies” video that resulted in the channel take-down? I tossed it up over on our Facebook page. Enjoy! We’ll see how long that lasts!)

One of the things that I love about the box is its use of “Super Saiya-jin” rather than the standard (even for Japan) “Super Saiyan“. Pronunciation issues and differences aside, “Saiyan” has almost always been the de facto standard for Japan’s own romanization of the term, so it is a little shocking to see an outlier like this.

More than anything, though, the splash text as a whole just reeks with dramatic awesomeness, and at least one fantastic mis-spelling. Can you spot it?

The strongest man in the space. SON GOKOU fights the series of the terrible baitles for our space. That’s where the legend of the Super Saiya-jin starts from. Burning blood!!

What more is there to say? I have a bunch more examples like this to share… just gotta remind me every so often, folks!

So here we go. I am happy to present to you the ~2010ver.~ of “My Podcasting Setup“. As always, I do not claim to actually know what I am talking about. I am probably wrong with much of what I do, and writing about how I accomplish it is most likely only perpetuating bad habits and sharing mis-information.

Oh, well.

I have killed two computers over the course of doing the show for Daizenshuu EX. First I blew the sound card in our Shuttle, and then its power supply died. Both are easy fixes, but it just sits over there on the other desk because I have been too lazy to open it up. Once that went down, I shifted over to using Meri’s old desktop from ~2000/2001 as a secondary recording rig. I tossed Ubuntu on it, and as described in the prior article, I used it to line-out for a dedicated Skype track recording.

All that is old hat.

Over on the Mac, Jeff uses a great application called Übercaster to record us locally and any extra, isolated audio tracks (such as Skype, bumper music, etc.). I’m running a standard ol’ Windows XP install both on my desktop and my laptop, and I have gone with a little Skype plug-in called Call Graph. It just works. When running alongside Skype, it automatically records the entirety of a call once one begins, recording your own audio in the left channel, and the other side (be it a single person or a conference call) in the right channel, spitting out a stereo WAV (or MP3) the instant you conclude the call.

Near as I can tell, though, it only records at 11 kHz — even if you tell it to record a 44 kHz MP3, it still records an 11 kHz WAV which it then converts to a 44 kHz MP3. This… is mostly serviceable. When you have folks like Julian who are just running a standard Logitech headset, anyway, the frequency of the audio file is not really taking much more of a hit than it already is due to the hardware. When we are done recording, I take the WAV into Audacity, split the stereo audio track, delete the left channel (myself), tell the right channel (Julian) to act as mono, and export the new, entirely-isolated audio track. Voilà.

(If I am recording with someone who knows what they are doing, I sometimes just have them record locally on their own end and send me their final audio once we are done recording… though I always am recording a back-up just in case.)

What about my own, local track, though? That I do not allow Call Graph to handle — I still record in Audacity at my standard mono, 44 kHz dedicated audio track. The two tracks (my own local track + Skype track) are easy enough to line up in Audacity for editing later on, either through a “1, 2, 3, clap!” or just from doing this for five years and understanding how a conversation is supposed to sound.

I still use a combination of Levelator and Audacity’s built-in noise removal for my post-processing — nothing special there. I am also stuck in my own ways by using Adobe Premiere to line up the segments with their respective bumper music tracks for the final mixing and export. I just really like the block-based dragging and snapping for that final step, I guess.

With that in mind, though, let us turn back over to the hardware.

The driving force behind everything is still my Behringer Eurorack UB802 (~$50-60) mixer. It is a great, compact little guy with two XLR inputs, phantom power support, decent gain/volume control, plenty of line-in and out support, etc. The UB802 seems to go through phases of being available versus unavailable, but the standard Behringer 802 (~$60) is something I picked up for Jeff over the last holiday season, and it is essentially identical to my own.

The main difference these days is that I have indeed jumped over to using a USB device to grab out the audio, rather than running an analog RCA-to-1/8-inch line-in cable. The Behringer U-Control UCA-200 actually came with the (larger) mixer that I use at work. It is their standard pack-in version with mixers, but the stand-alone UCA-202 (~$30-35) is what you will typically see for purchase online. I had spoken before about how the device takes over as the entire sound device for the computer — for example, I was unable to listen to the audio I just recorded through my headphones while it was plugged in. Once I stopped being an idiot and looked around a bit, I found that I could tell Audacity to still use the internal sound card for playback and use the U-Control device for recording, allowing me the same convenient usage I had always experienced.

For any recording where we need more than two local microphones (such as a “Manga Review of Awesomeness” or something for vgconvos), I no longer daisy-chain the RadioShack mixer into the Behringer. Instead, I have Jeff bring over his 802 and daisy-chain that into my mixer. We use the same process of RCA cables going from “Tape Out” on his to “Tape In” on mine that would have been used from the old RadioShack mixer, but now it is done with higher-quality equipment. It still introduces extra analog noise that I would rather not have to deal with, however. I have my eyes set on the Mackie 1202-VLZ3 (~$300) mixer with its four XLR inputs and non-Behringer, genuinely-high-quality parts. Behringer stuff is “OK”, but I have had a few issues here and there with the mixers to the point where I probably will not buy their stuff again.

Over on the microphone side, things are still pretty much the same… with the exception of what holds it for me. I am personally still rocking the MXL 990 condenser microphone (~$50-70), though these days it is supported by a boom stand. I am fairly certain it is the Samson BL3 (~$30), due to it not coming with a mic clip… but I no longer have the box to double-check that. Whoops. Sorry. The MXL 990 is just a tad bit heavy for it, but adjusting the three-legged support and balance of the boom extension will grant you just the right placement for comfort and not-falling-over-ness.

The main reason that the microphone is hanging on its side is because I accidentally stripped the screw-tightening mechanism for the shockmount, and have not felt like spending the money for the replacement MXL-90 shockmount (~$35) just yet. When you can buy the microphone (which itself comes with a shockmount) for just a couple bucks more, it is difficult to build up the desire to spend money to replace one that is just hanging on its side and not entirely broken.

Meri is still rocking the Shure 8900 dynamic microphone ($50). It is quite the handy mic to have around, since its included XLR-to-1/8-inch audio cable plugs in to the video camera I use at work, giving me a choice of a either a lapel mic or a hand-held mic. I double-wind-screen for Meri since her “pphf” sounds are a little harsher than my own. She is also still rocking the RadioShack “Heavy Duty Microphone Stand with Cast-Iron Base” (~$30), though it may be time to upgrade her to the Samson boom stand — they are just so nice to have! Comfort galore!

I guess the last thing to address is live recording and broadcasting that we occasionally do. Lately we have been using Stickam for no particular reason above any other service. We tend to broadcast Lo-Fidelity live more than anything else, mainly because it is just the two of us in one local recording area, so anything that happens can be broadcast with no extra effort — everything is right there in one place. When you start tying in things like Skype streams… sure, it can be done, but it requires more effort than it is really worth for such a budget setup like our own. Live recordings typically have two computers: one is a standard podcasting station like any other show, and the second is usually my laptop running the webcam. Our mixers have the “Tape Out” / RCA output that we typically use to output to the computer, but there is also the “Main Out” — I run a variety of cables and cord adapters to get that 1/4-inch stereo output down to an 1/8-inch plug. This runs to the line-in on my laptop, mirroring the exact same sound that is otherwise heading out to another computer for the main podcast recording. Sure, there is some (negligible) extra noise being introduced/lost going through all those adapters, but since that particular stream of audio is exclusively going to the live broadcast (and not the archived version for editing/release), it is not that big of a deal.

The next upgrade is going to be the room in which we record. Since moving into the new house, all recording has been done up in our loft. This is where we keep the computers, the old TV, CDs, DVDs, etc. It is a fantastic location (minus all the cat destruction, like my poor chair), but it is in a very open area. Sound bounces all over the place. When we have any more than two people, it starts sounding very “airy” in the recording, both due to the number of people (and thus the number of mics to adjust and compensate for) and the voices bouncing along the ceiling and down to the living room.

We have a finished basement with several rooms. Right now, “the brown room” (which is the second room off the main area) is a disaster of storage space. Boxes, appliances, and assorted things of nothingness take up all the space. It is perfect for a little recording studio, though. It is just the right size, the walls are not tall, the door can be shut… lovely!

Our Wi-Fi reaches down there, and since an entire show can be done with just one computer, there is nothing stopping me now from cleaning up that space and creating a great little recording studio in my basement. I might even get some extra sound-proofing padding for the walls… can you imagine how hot looking that place is going to be?! Speaking of “hot”, that is another perk to setting up shop in the basement — heat rises, and our loft starts boiling in the summer. The basement? Cool as can be!

I think that more-or-less covers how everything is rolling right now. Does anyone have any questions about any aspect, or better yet, suggestions on ways to do things even better? Specific articles to read to bolster some mad audio skillz? I still consider myself a total audio n00b, though I think I have a couple other skills that I have picked up over the last couple years that at least helps put together some decent shows…!

I have spoken at length how one of my favorite aspects of shônen is the camaraderie. This same concept showcased and executed in other anime “genres” works just as flawlessly on me — it is somewhat fascinating to watch this concept go from my standard shônen fandom over to josei, but how themes can cross over “intended” audiences and strike a chord with someone is what I have always loved about anime so much. For an obvious example, DragonBall is a show for young boys, and yet I still love it.

For those of you who may have followed some of my other online adventures over the years, it should come as no surprise that Honey & Clover was one of my favorite shows in recent history.

I conceived the above video in 2007 and created it together with Meri and Jeff over the span of about six months. It was one of the best projects I have ever worked on, both in terms of the actual collaboration process, and seeing my vision come to reality.

Needless to say, I had been waiting a long time for a domestic release of the show. R2s are nice, and fansubs are nice… but the convenience of a domestic DVD box set is always the sweet spot for us fans. Viz announced their license of the show way the heck back in July 2007, and while episodes would trickle (dubbed) to iTunes, the first DVD set would not hit until September 2009, over two years later.

I do not want to focus on the content of the show too much. I have seen it be “hit or miss” to some folks, with them either latching on to the characters and enjoying the progression of time with them, or being put off by the somewhat-spastic timeline jumping (suddenly we are months later in the story, and yet there is some excuse for a party every episode). “Hagu” can also be a dividing character, occasionally dipping into what feels like the dreaded “moe” territory with her petite size, stress-related frailty, and Morita’s insistence on dressing her up and putting her into wacky photo poses (all of which is strange, since the series is intended for older women… but far be it from me to comment on the desires and fantasies of the josei audience).

Personally, I feel like the show hits on nearly every level. The characters do not deliver trite and groan-worthy dialogue. Everything they say and do feels completely “real”. You feel for them when they have their epiphanies — the look on Ayu’s face, realizing she has been acting the same way with Mayama, after receiving the confessions from her fellow-generation peers…? It is heart-breaking tough-love. I have given a lot of shows a chance in my time, and few have hit me from their very start with such a mature and realistic way of sharing life stories.

Even if I wanted to expand upon the content of the show in greater depth, any review of the DVD releases from Viz will ultimately have to focus on their numerous pitfalls, giving the amazing content there-in a total shaft. And that really sucks.

Given/Family Name Subs
No, I am not fluent in Japanese. No, I did not take a bazillion years of the language in college (although I did take a bit). Yes, I know people who are fluent. Yes, some of them have translated purely on a fandom level. Yes, some of them have translated on a professional level. No, their work does not directly affect or grow my own personal understanding of the language. Yes, in some ways it does help. Yes, I have been watching anime for something like 15 years. No, I do not think that fact alone gives me the knowledge necessary to make 100%-accurate translation decisions all of the time.

With all this in mind (and feel free to take whatever I say with a grain of salt), I have always had a huge problem when a translator decides to place a character’s given name (their “first name”) in the subtitles when the character speaking aloud is clearly using their family name (their “last name”), regardless of any suffix being or not being used (-kun, -san, etc.). I feel that it speaks volumes about the relationship the characters have with each other, which is something that can (and does) regularly change over the course of a series. The audible and visible disconnect that occurs when I hear “Morita” and read “Shinobu” drives me slightly bonkers. If I did not already know what was going on and have a general knowledge of the language and personal interactions between the characters, I might be slightly confused. To make matters worse, some characters will refer to someone by their last name, while others will refer to them by their first name. Some characters exclusively call everyone by their last name. Some characters are always referred to by their first name. You cannot consistently subtitle something like this when you make a conscious effort to change what text appears, rather than going with what is actually being spoken aloud.

I can only imagine these intentional changes combined with utter carelessness leads to examples like what I will share below. “Shu” (Shuji Hanamoto)…? He is not even in this scene, never mind on screen. That’s Morita running away (sorry for the blended fields!). Does anyone even bother to proof-read/watch this before it gets pressed…?

You might be able to convince me to excuse a one-off mistake like this. It could have been an honest fluke. What if it kept happening, though? What if names that do not even belong to any character in the show begin to appear? Sure, perhaps they meant “Takumi” (again, even though it is clearly “Mayama” being spoken aloud)… but at what point does this become inexcusable? At only seven episodes in to the box set, a wrong name has appeared twice.

In another scene, Mayama (first name “Takumi”, but almost exclusively referred to by his last name) describes the location of Ayumi’s home to Shu. It is the “Yamada Liquor Store”… except the subtitles read as “Ayumi Yamada Liquor Store”. Really? Ayumi runs the place by herself? She owns it? Did someone just do a global search-and-replace, or something?

As the series moves on, the subtitles’ translation/adaptation of Hagu’s “Shu-chan” changes from “Shu” to his full first name of “Shuji”… despite the tone, delivery, and intent remaining the same as “Shu-chan” throughout. Why the inconsistency?

Far too often I find myself nerd-raging at the screen for a name being incorrectly-adapted for the bazillionth time each episode. It just bugs the Hell out of me… but maybe it’s just me.

“Hard-Subbed” Sign Translations
No, I will not go to the extent in proclaiming that “hard-subs” (subtitles or translations that are “burned in” to the actual video track, rather than being optional a la traditional dialogue subtitles on DVDs) somehow “defile” the “purity” of the “art”. They are, however, ridiculous in modern times. They look ridiculous in fansubs, and they look even more ridiculous in professional releases. You do not need to erase some Japanese text and replace it with English text. You do not need to stretch and curve English text around some available white space next to the Japanese text. You do not need to plaster giant text on-screen when what you are translating is one-third the size. Simply putting a translation (if one is even necessary) at the top of the screen is more than sufficient. It doesn’t take me “out of the moment”. Trust me. It’s OK. I give you permission.

One of these silly examples is a scene in which Takemoto returns home and winds up in a batting cage with his mother’s new husband. The “Home Run” sensor is hit, and the characters talk for a little bit about how funny and great it is. The phrase “Home Run” is used several times. It is clear what’s going on. When the frame heads back to that sensor one last time, Viz felt it was necessary to complement the ホームランwith “Home Run” plastered (and hard-subbed) in large font below it. Hey guys? I’m watching the show, too. I got it.

Of course, the old Solar fansub did the exact same thing (immediately followed by a verbal “Home Run!” subtitled at the bottom of the screen), but that is to be expected from fansubbers… though expectation does not excuse behavior.

Yes, yes, yes. It is a simple little translation that explains what is on the screen. We do need them from time to time. I am not so crazy that I do not think sign translation tracks should not exist — they serve their purpose and should always be welcome. It is just the almost-unnecessary ones like this that make my scratch my head a little bit, and only truly dislike them when they cross the line into intrusive hard-subs. Is the “Home Run” example “intrusive”? Not particularly.

What about this example, though? Check out Viz’s version, where “Lottery Ticket” has been hard-subbed onto the ticket, itself… as if you would be completely unable to tell from the context of the conversation.

Amazingly enough, the Solar fansubbers, in an age where digitally plastering text on as many things as possible was (and still is) the trend, chose not to do it.

I do not expect (or want!) perfect consistency between fansubbers and the domestic licensee. If anything, it is simply interesting to compare the two and try to decide how and why one of them felt it was necessary to translate or adapt on-screen text so differently from the other.

Post-Episode Previews
Be careful what you wish for, anime fans. Domestic licensing companies may not receive every single last bit of audio and video for things like next-episode previews (something North American DBZ fans have dealt with for years), and a compromise must always be made. In the case of Honey & Clover, something is missing, leaving a horribly confusing and seemingly-haphazard next-episode preview. It is an empty background screen with a sample of the opening theme playing. It feels half-complete, because it is half-complete. Would we have been better off without them? Perhaps changed around somehow?

The most interesting part of this specific inclusion is that they are not included on the original Japanese R2 DVDs! I can’t even tell what the darn thing is! Is it a sponsor card…?

What Do We Get?
I fully believe that more fans need to put their money where their mouth is and support their favorite franchises, whether that is through a purchase of a DVD set, merchandise, or some other way. You could argue that it is less about the consumer and more about the raw business model… but if you like something so much, you should at least try to support it somehow. So what exactly are we paying for with a release like this? Is it the sub-par video transfer? Is it the inconsistent name translations/adaptations? Is it the amateur hard-subs?

I desperately want to be able to support the official, domestic licensed products and the companies spending the money to bring them over to me in a convenient package. The question that has been asked so often in recent memory, though, is: when the free and infinitely reproducible product (digital fansubs) are leagues ahead of, or at least in the same ballpark as, the paid and scarce physical product (domestic DVDs)… where is the incentive?

What am I paying for? Did I just pay for the salary of someone to inconsistently name characters? Did I just pay for a dub I am never going to watch? Or did I just fund a future endeavor with another great show that I love…? Will it help bring that show over to me? What if the treatment is the same as what I just saw with Honey & Clover, though?

So many of the issues with this release seem so avoidable, which is what disappoints me so much. I would probably look past the hard-subs if the name translations were at least halfway consistent. I might even excuse some of the extra video compression since we are getting the set for a decent price. Toss all of these factors together, though, and you have a situation where you hold the set in your hand, make that weird deep-breath through your teeth as if you are unsure about it, and put it back on the shelf.

When we have so much of a choice with our entertainment, I have a really hard time justifying the purchase and support of a product like this. I love Honey & Clover to death, but other series that I love are being treated extremely well right now, and those are the products that need and deserve to get first-dibs on my cash.

There is the conundrum, though — how do you speak with your wallet when the action of “speaking” itself is to not pay for something…? The message being sent is that I am not interested… which is not the correct message at all. I am very interested, but not with the way it is currently being handled. Does a measly blog post by some dude that likes DBZ send the right message? Somehow I doubt it.

And that really sucks.

This just makes me smirk a little too much, though. When Mike smirks, it usually manifests itself as a blog post. And you all have to suffer.

In case you have been living under a DBZ fandom rock for the last half-decade, there was a lovely bit of controversy in 2007 when FUNimation released a so-called “remastered” version of the DragonBall Z TV series on DVD in North America. Among things like lies about the remastering process, the whole thing was brought into a new 16:9 aspect ratio presentation by cropping 20% of the footage (the top and bottom of the screen) to fit it into that viewing window.

Hilarity ensued online.

Daizenshuu EX is (obviously) at the forefront of the English-speaking fandom in a variety of ways. We have been following the series as a website since 1998, which includes all of the North American releases. We have a wealth of knowledge and experience with the franchise as both an original Japanese entity and a domestic “reversioning”. We took a stand against the cropping. Many of the casual fans could not understand why it was an issue for us… and understandably so. If you simply wanted to watch the show, the cheap orange bricks were a wonderful way to legally to do so (something we agreed with from the get-go). These types of fans (of which there are plenty) met the opposition with well-written, researched, and thorough arguments on how we were all just a bunch of fags, should shut up, and just be thankful we ever got the show in the first place. Why do we care so much? These fans do not even notice the cropping, and would prefer that the picture fill up their awesome, widescreen HDTV.

(Wondering why Daizenshuu EX would care about the aspect ratio of DBZ would be like wondering why the health care industry has an interest in American health care reform. We bitch because we love.)

Two years later, DragonBall Kai began airing on Japanese TV, also cropped into a 16:9 aspect ratio (though it was actually being produced in a full 4:3 which was later presented as-is on the Blu-ray release). Some of the scenes were adjusted for more carefully-presented cropping (sliding them up or down a little bit to adjust for a center of focus), but overall, it was a similar process to the FUNimation release from two years prior.

Episode 43 of DragonBall Kai aired on 06 February 2010 in Japan. Almost immediately, there was a bout of fan outcry… on several different forums… on how ridiculous it was that Toei could be so sloppy as to not finish drawing Goku’s arm:

There were actually two camps, to be fair. While there were definitely (1) those that placed the blame on Toei’s art department (assuming it was a completely re-drawn scene that was never completed), there were also (2) others who were quick to place the blame on Toei’s cropping department — these folks knew the whole story (keep reading), and knew that it was an awkward and inadvertent cropping.

Sure enough, if you look at a different encode and frame of the episode as captured from Japanese television, you get a little more insight:

The slightest bit of Goku’s arm is visible at the bottom of the frame. Checking back on the original animation from the actual DragonBall Z TV series, we get the whole story:

What this says to me is that even without some prominent website that has a ridiculous interest in the presentation of the series pointing it out to them… certain fans still noticed a problem with the cropping. Not only that, but they brought their complaints and ridicule online to share with their peers.

The hypocrisy is a bit silly. Why was it unjustified to bring FUNimation to Elitist Weeaboo Fanboy Court™ over their cropping of the series, but it was totally fine to go after Toei for the exact same thing? Was it just an extension of the complacent American fan culture that has no problem with their domestic releases, but Japanese stuff is OK and funny to laugh at? Lolz Goku sounds like a girlie and his arm is missing?

Sure, it was totally just this one minor scene during one episode of Kai that gave us some laughs online. It was nothing compared to the FUNimation fiasco in terms of prevalence and significance. On some tiny level, though, it made me feel something resembling justification for my complaints against the domestic cropping.

People do notice this kind of stuff, even when it is not specifically pointed out to them. That’s all there is to it.

Oh, and just for the Hell of it, here’s how it looked on FUNimation’s faux-”remastered” orange brick numero tres. It looks nearly identical to the recent shot from Kai. Did anyone complain about it back in 2007…?

Thanks to Hujio and Kaboom for a bit of screen shot assistance!

Some of our favorite examples are things like:

• “Ultra Super Saiya-jin“, a term coined by Curtis Hoffmann back in 1993 in his summaries of the tankôbon to describe the in-between stages of SSJ that Vegeta, Trunks, and even Goku showcase after Cell has been introduced
• “Kushami“, the Japanese word for “sneeze”, also coined by Hoffmann in 1993 as a nickname for Lunch in her transformed state
• “AD” as used for years in the chronology of the series, a mis-translation of eiji or simply “Age” by Greg Werner in the late 1990s from his translation of the timeline in the seventh daizenshuu

There are other ones that we have not been able to track down the first-ever uses for. There is “Mystic Gohan” to refer to the character after his “upgrade” from the Old Kaiôshin (which goes back to at least the year 2000 in quick searches); there is the word “zenkai” incorrectly used as a proper noun to explain the power-up that a Saiya-jin receives after recovering from near-death, which appears to be an English-language-only development, possibly originating sometime in the early-to-mid-2000s; there is “base” that gets used to refer to the “normal” (tsûjô in Japanese), non-SSJ forms of characters, which appears to have become common-place in the English-speaking fandom during the PS2 video game revival for the franchise.

It really gets funny when people cross the line into delusional territory, though. A commenter on our third “Inconsistencies” video posted and asked why the video was receiving bad comments. When another commenter was challenged on their response of it being from “some guy [who] is being critical and nitpicking when he himself has made no creative contribution to this world”, they followed up and justified their existence and contributions to fandom with:

Well if you really need to know, I’m the first person to use the word “canon” in reference to continuity. That was on the Pojo forums way back in maybe 2002. You won’t find any record of that word being used in that context previous to that time either. So, yeah it’s more of a contribution to a subculture in general and not specifically to DBZ, even tho it was on a DBZ forum.
I’ll add that it was a more or less original contribution and not simply a commentary on a finished work.

Yes. You read that right. This individual honestly believes that they invented the term “canon” as it relates to continuity in a work, fictional or otherwise (or, giving them the biggest benefit of the doubt that I can, perhaps just DragonBall). Either that, or they at least have a hilarious (if not obnoxious) sense of humor about themselves.

The word “canon” shows up at least two years prior on alt.fan.dragonball (and probably much earlier if you are willing to dig). This person’s claim is essentially dead-on-arrival from the very beginning.

The word itself goes back thousands of years with this very same definition, so they certainly can’t take the claim in that respect. As far as I know (and I hardly claim to be an expert), the term originated with the Bible and what the church deemed to be the “true” and “correct” stories to include in their official version. The word and its associated phrases (“Such and such is canonical…”) have been floating around with not just anime, but all types of fiction for decades. I know little-to-nothing about Star Wars, but I know there are just as many heightened-emotion arguments about what is canonical with its expanded universe as there are with our own ridiculous arguments relating to DragonBall GT and the movies and the guide books and the international translations and so on and so forth.

That someone honestly believes that they were the first person to use the word “canon” as it relates to DragonBall… and did so only in 2002… and relays this information with the tone they did, propping their “original contribution” above something that is “simply a commentary on a finished work”…

I mean, it goes beyond delusional at that point, right…?

One thing to keep in mind is that I am not talking about a “blog” from a personal standpoint. This is work-work related (as opposed to hobby-work related), so the goals and methods will be slightly different. Are there any “professional” blogs that you follow? If so, what aspects really drag you in?

Here are a couple of my own thoughts:

Authoritative Tone
You know me well, by now — any writing that I do very purposefully takes on a tone of authority. If you simply act as if you know what you are talking about, it is all the more convincing! This is not something I am too concerned about, since the folks I will be calling on for articles have that authority… and I am the final word, anyway, so I get to copy-edit anything that needs it.

Be Personable
What makes a “professional” or “corporate” blog different from a standard press release is not just the tone, but the delivery. There needs to be a real voice. It can be a fine line walking between conversational and professional, but it can and should be done. Guest writers of relevant notoriety can be a huge help in lending a personable, yet authoritative, tone.

Outbound Links
Again, you know how I operate! If there is a source, it must be cited. Providing links to something other than your own website shows that you live in the real world and acknowledge that other people have ideas and opinions.

Make a Statement With the Post Title
It is a little basic, but it is true — grab the reader’s attention.

Know Your Goals
What do you want to actually accomplish with this blog? Do you want readers to comment? You need to ask them a question each time, then. Do you want to be picked up by news media? Be sure to mention your blog in conversations and other cross-promotions, have it readily accessible from your navigation… all the good ol’ regular stuff.

Maybe the best question to ask is: what makes a bad blog entry? What are some tell-tale signs that something is “off” and perhaps not credible, researched, authoritative, and even worth your time? Things like grammar and aesthetics (while important) are blatantly obvious, so we can skip past those!

The spontaneously-combusting XLR cables are not my fault, though. I swear.

I know it has been well over  a year since the last podcast episode (if you could call it that) for this blog, but I made it a point to say that shows here would be when I have something to say, and I would not do them just for the sake of doing them. That being said, I actually have an idea for a show to do. It is incredibly “meta” (and specifically about podcasting), but that is OK with me if it is OK with you! You have read before how I have upgraded equipment over the years, and what my typical workflow is for producing a show. That was a while ago, though, and a few things have changed.

I really want to do an updated version of that, but more from the audio end of it rather than a text-and-images description. It fine and dandy to talk about it, but what does it all sound like…? Sure, you could compare the earliest episodes of Daizenshuu EX‘s podcast to some of the most current ones, but that would be a pain to do.

What I am planning on doing is recording a few segments, under very controlled (read: “ideal”) situations in terms of surroundings and acoustics, to showcase exactly what my different microphones really sound like, and how that makes a difference for the listener. With myself more than anyone else you will be able to tell how upgrading and tweaking a few things can make a huge difference — it’s no secret that my regular male co-hosts Jeff and Julian have amazing, deep, booming, perfect radio voices, where-as I have to over-compensate.

Not that I can’t form a coherent sentence, or anything like that. Oh, Hell… if you’re reading this blog, you know what I’m talking about!

In a nutshell, I have a pretty good idea of how that part of the show will go. You will hear the different types of mics, positioning from them, what the most basic of software can do to help with it, blah blah blah. What about the other side, though? Is there anything about the behind-the-scenes production that you are interested in learning about? Not necessarily the tech behind things… but the research, methods, reasons, schedules, time-sinks… that kind of stuff.

In general, is there anything about any of the shows I am involved with (Daizenshuu EX, lo-fidelity, vgconvos) that you are curious about? Why we do the things we do and how we do them? Let me know! I will probably pull Jeff on that later segment to answer with me, because he’s just such a swell guy.

Anyone who has followed my wacky adventures online for any amount of time knows how much I squirm at FUNimation’s spelling of the name of this character:

フリーザ

I once wrote up a somewhat-detailed explanation on how to romanize the character’s name that I inserted into Wikipedia articles, which were then deleted and re-added to some pretty terrible DB Wikia articles, getting re-written and distorted along the way. If you read any of those sites, perhaps this explanation may sound familiar.

Like his brother and father, Freeza’s name is a pun on all things relating to the cold. As both Freeza’s and Coola’s names end in a short “a” vowel (rather than the long â/aa which usually signifies “er” in kana spellings of English words), Freeza’s name is typically spelled with an “a” at the end (as opposed to “Freezer”). Logic would of course follow that his brother’s name should in turn be spelled in a similar fashion as “Coola” (rather than “Cooler”). FUNimation chooses to spell the names as “Cooler” and “Frieza”, removing the consistency between the names and their final vowels.

The actual English word “freezer” would be written out in katakana as フリーザー / furîzâ, so it would stand to reason that we should spell the DragonBall character’s name as “Freeza” instead of “Freezer” (note that in Japanese, the Pokemon we know as Articuno is actually フリーザー…!). There are other, similar examples in the series. イレーザ / irêza is typically adapted as “Eresa” instead of “Eraser”, while the ミスター in ミスター ・サタン / misutâ satan should pretty clearly be adapted as “Mister” rather than “Mista”.

This all ignores the elongated î/ii sound in the middle of the name, which is dandy and all, except that it ignores the point of this post. That’s fine. With knowledge in hand (and knowledge is, of course, power), here is a breakdown of why “Frieza” irritates me so:

(1) Lack of consistency
As noted, if you are going to end one character’s name with “a”, it should follow that the other character’s name should end in the same way. Instead, FUNimation provides a name spelling of “Cooler”.

(2) Lack of common sense
Leading up to the written-form appearance of the character’s name in the TV version of the series’ title cards (original, edited, dubbed episode 34: “The Ruthless Frieza”), every single instance of the name written in our alphabet used the commonly-accepted “Freeza” spelling. If you turn on the closed captioning for TV broadcast recordings of episodes before (and even sometimes after!) #34 from 1997, during any case in which a character speaks “Freeza” by name aloud, it is written with the double-”ee” spelling… clearly indicating that there was no style guide provided to the closed captioning transcribers, and that they obviously thought it was the “correct” spelling.

In the closed captioning for season two, it was almost always written as “Freeza”

Original FUNimation DBZ dub episode 34 title card

Furthermore, Bandai actually released versions of the “Super Battle Collection” figures in 1997 in North America, which was the very first run of licensed (through FUNimation!), domestic figures. Which name spelling appeared on the box?

(3) Lack of fans’ ability to even spell the misspelling properly
Freiza. Frezia. Frizea. (Insert Maximum the Hormone joke here.) Even the dub fans have no clue how to spell it.

(4) Lack of pronunciation guide
How exactly do you speak aloud “Frieza”…? You may think it’s simple, but take a listen when you view GameTrailers’ video review of Raging Blast. “Saiyan” is pronounced as it should be (which is to say, not as FUNimation pronounces it), and “Frieza” comes out as something like “Fray-za”.

(5) Lack of other English-language production support
In the subtitle track corresponding to the Japanese audio on all FUNimation releases, the character’s name is spelled as “Freeza”. Thankfully, Viz was releasing the manga at a time when FUNimation consistency or alignment was laughable, and so the standard “Freeza” spelling also made its appearance.

FUNimation Japanese-Language-Track Subtitle Example

Viz Manga Translation Example

(6) Lack of any Japanese precedent
It goes without saying that no Japanese product had ever spelled the name with an “i” leading up to FUNimation’s release. When written with our alphabet, the spelling of “Freeza” was always and consistently used.

Japanese “Super Battle Collection” figure; image courtesy of dragonballtoys.com

SOURCE: Daizenshuu 4, “WORLD GUIDE”

SOURCE: “LANDMARK”

(7) Infestation of later Japanese products
It was painful to see websites for then-upcoming Japanese games, and even the final releases of games such as Battle Stadium D.O.N. and Jump Ultimate Stars, using the “i”-spelling. Since it was not consistently used before and even after, it appeared to be cases of the Japanese developers referencing official English products and not realizing the lack of accuracy.

Battle Stadium D.O.N. (PS2/Gamecube), unreleased in North America

You may try to make the argument that since a direct romanization of the name would be furîza, which does use an “i” due to using our alphabet, that there should not be any problem with using an “i” in an English adaptation/spelling of the name. Unfortunately for those making that argument, your logic is horribly flawed. A romanization is not necessarily the same as a name adaptation. We may spell “Kuririn” as such, but that is because the romanization aspects of it work perfectly fine in conjunction with the intended name pun (kuri meaning “chestnut”, a play on his head and shape). We spell the name as “Cell” because seru simply does not make any sense when trying to adapt the name into our alphabet, especially considering that the pun is based around the fact that he uses cells from other characters.

“Kuriza” is an interesting example. At Daizenshuu EX, we have decided upon a spelling with an “i” it in (rather than “Kreeza”), but this has nothing to do with FUNimation’s name spelling, and everything to do with preserving the same type of kuri pun as used in “Kuririn”. Toriyama abandoned the “cold” pun scheme for the character, and therefore we did the same with our spelling adaptation.

“Frieza” seems like a completely arbitrary spelling change, contrary to all common sense, for completely inexplicable reasons. Did someone think it made the name look cooler (pun completely intended)? I simply cannot think of a single reason why it could or would be changed.

At the end of the day, this is nothing more than endless whining by another purist, and if you read this far you will fall into one of two camps: (1) you loathe me more than you already did, or (2) you’re shaking your head in recognition that I am just preaching to the choir. I realize this. I truly do. I will change nothing. “Frieza” will always haunt me, just as horribly as misappropriated apostrophes in non-possessive words do on a daily basis. At least now I can endlessly annoy someone with a link to a single resource when they ask me why the spelling bothers me so.

Remember, kids: “i” before “e”… except in “Freeza”.

Caption, anyone?

Let’s share an example of #2, shall we?

I received an e-mail this morning from someone named Brad, apparently one of our visitors over at Daizenshuu EX, with the subject header “Pojo ripped your Dragon Box article.” Assuming that Pojo was still an incomplete and haphazardly-run shell of a website made in 1999, I was pretty intrigued by what I was about to see.

Look familiar to you? It should… minus the broken images and removed-introduction, of course.

That’s pretty astonishing to me. I can totally understand the viewpoint of some punk kid taking an article from another website and posting it up on his own, especially one so uneducated as to not hot-link the images. What takes it to a new level is the deliberate action(s) taken with it. The introductory paragraph about it being both a history lesson and emotional-roller-coaster is entirely removed, presumably because it mentions us by name as Daizenshuu EX right in the text. If the broken images weren’t a hint to the carelessness, though, this should take the cake:

Seriously?

I have no idea who “ptrunks19” is, but I think he’s a pretty hilarious guy (or girl; let’s be an equal-opportunity laugher, here). The entire thing is so asininely careless that you can’t help but roll over in a fit of hysterics. What clinches it is the main page update, which (in addition to the “article” page itself), directly attributes the writing with a by-line to “ptrunks19″:

Who the Hell is running this site? Do they have any idea what they’re doing? Does anyone actually visit this site for this type of content…?

At the end of the day, I think we all know that there are really only two English-language DragonBall websites you need to bother with, and that’s a pretty good feeling.

So a while back, I captured a commercial for DragonBall GT eyedrops off of a raw VHS tape from many years back (“many years back” being… ya’ know… 1997). I threw it up on YouTube, of course.

I lost it when I read this comment:

I couldn’t help myself. A couple seconds in Photoshop resulted in:

Fast forward to 2009. The site is eleven years old, and even the podcast is coming up on its fourth anniversary. The types of and volume of comments we have received over the years remains astonishing to me. No matter how much I see, though, I am continuously flabbergasted by some of the complaints people seemingly pull out of thin air.

One particular commenter on an outside forum took issue with our reference to FUNimation’s DragonBall Z season box sets released from February 2007 to May 2009 (you know, the faux-”remastered” box sets) as “orange bricks”.

Thankfully, our buddy Jacob put in his two-cents on the matter, but… seriously?

It was another clear example of someone wrongfully assuming something about us based on their own, personal, complete misunderstanding. Who knows? Maybe they purchased all of the season sets and somehow feel wronged by the upcoming Dragon Box sets. Maybe our reiterations, with each subsequent release, of the boxsets’ problems somehow made them feel “stupid” for falling into the trap. Perhaps they take issue with our dislike and overall-non-discussion of FUNimation’s English dub, and decided to aim their frustration at another topic. For whatever reason, this individual decided that we were using “orange brick” pejoratively, it was “asinine”, and it was an “insult”.

News flash, internet: that style of DVD packaging is referred to as a “brick”. Also, the sets happen to be orange. “Orange Bricks”. Genius, isn’t it?

See how the inside packaging stacks the discs on top of each other? See how the packaging folds over top itself for easy storage? When you stack things over top of each other and place them all next to each other, you can pretty easily see where the “brick” description came from. We don’t call “steelbooks” as such because they are super strong and read great literature to us; we call them that because they open up (like a book) and are metal-styled containers (like steel). Welcome to the world of various styles of DVD packaging.

(image courtesy of Metalwario64)

It’s cases like this where I wonder what the actual issue is. The person decided to harp on us for something, and rather than a legitimate reason, they made one up. Sure, it may have been legitimate in their own head for a short period of time, but I can’t imagine hearing the phrase “orange brick” is what first made them run furiously to their keyboard to type up a mean post about the poopie-head website they disliked.

Funny how no-one has a problem with the phrase “blue brick” in reference to the new DragonBall TV series “season” sets. If anything, it proves that FUNimation once again made a fanbase-fracturing decision to go with that format (cropped, DVNRed to death, etc.) for Z, and even legitimate descriptions of their products cause undue shenanigans across the internet.

We can’t please everyone. We know that. That’s the real issue that I’m writing about, I guess… if you have a problem, say what it is. Don’t hide behind some newly-made-up argument. Come out and say what’s on your mind, back it up, and be a man (or woman!) about it.

Preferably, above all else, actually know what you’re talking about before you criticize someone.

I almost make it out to be that there are thousands of people running around the internet shit-talking Daizenshuu EX, which I hardly doubt is the case. All the nice little e-mails and comments we get are fantastic, but they just don’t give me anything to write about!

And yes, I just wrote a blog entry legitimately using the phrase “poopie-head”.

Since about July 12th, we have known that the upcoming PS3/360 game DragonBall: Raging Blast will have a new vocal theme song performed by Hironobu Kageyama called “Progression“. Listings for a CD single of the song only began appearing online on September 27th. The game is not due out until November 10th (North America) / November 12th (Japan). The CD single is not due out until November 25th.

Here is just a taste of some of the most recent search engine referrals over on Daizenshuu EX:

• raging blast theme mp3
• dragon ball raging blast progression
• dragon ball raging blast op song download
• hironobu kageyama progression download
• progression raging blast
• progression kageyama hironobu mp3

To be fair, not all of the above-listed searches were specifically for an illegal download of the song. Also to be fair, the song has been featured in a limited capacity in trailers for the game; in fact, I was able to sample out a very short version of it to use as the closing for a recent podcast episode.

But seriously? We are months out from the game’s release and the song’s physical release. These people really think they are going to find a download of it? And with those kinds of terrible search queries…?!

We get tons of questions from people asking something along the lines of, “What was said in the Japanese version where/when [insert event here]…?” Sometimes they will phrase it just like that, but other times it will be preceded by, “I was watching my orange bricks…” or “I was watching my DVDs…“. I joked about it on the podcast recently, but the person could have saved themselves a week’s worth of time by simply switching over to the Japanese audio track on their DVD and finding out for themselves. I mean, it’s right there. It’s subtitled. It’s accurate.

That’s when I realized something.

These people are lying to us. They don’t own the DVDs. They’re watching the episodes online. They say they’re watching the “orange bricks” or “DVDs”, but what they really mean is that they’re watching someone’s encodes of those episodes online (usually on YouTube), and they’re dub-only, of course.

I like to think that we’re past the point of fans not even realizing that the Japanese track is on the discs, so this is my only logical conclusion.

So our little cat, Tara, has this fuzzy red/white ball toy that she loves. She likes to fling it around through the air and go chasing after it. She has even become slightly dog-like and will play fetch to some degree, depending on how lazy she is about bringing it all the way back to your feet.

There’s one big problem, though. When she picks this toy up in her mouth and wanders around, if there is no-one to take it from her, she will emit this incredible howl to get attention… while it’s still in her mouth. She’s a very vocal cat, anyway, so that’s not entirely surprising. It’s just a horrendous noise, is all, and one you can hear from anywhere else in the house.

(MP3 sample from latest vgconvos recording; bit.ly re-direction)

I mean, she’s super cute… but there’s a reason why we tend to hide the toy at night. Those 3 am howls don’t help the sleeping, much.

It’s such a shame. I share no pleasure in detailing the news that vagettoEx is banned. I don’t exactly know who he is or why he’s banned from whatever he’s banned from, though. Just figured I’d pass along the word.

Well, the mixer has the main-out as well as the tape-out. I busted out my audio cables last night and did a proper line-in to the laptop to complement the video feed it was serving. The feedback from the audience was great (being that the audio was great… no-one ever said the show was great ), so next time we broadcast, we’ll be doing it “correctly” again.

That gets me wondering, though… what do we gain from broadcasting it live?

I’m well aware of the effort it takes to build and maintain that “sticky” audience that we all so desire, and little things like fixing the audio on a live stream go a long way. How about that live stream, though? What purpose does it serve? Quite frankly, it seems pretty egotistical… people love us so much, they want to watch us as we record our shows! Aren’t we so flippin’ great?!

I don’t really think that about myself, though. No, seriously. If you were hanging with us last night, you heard me complaining about Jeff and his amazing radio voice and how much of a struggle it is for me sometimes to get into the range I want to be in. There are plenty of things I don’t like about my various shows, so adding a video stream on top of that just seems crazy.

I think it works for lo-fidelity, though. Jeff and I have both been podcasting for a few years, and we both edit our own main shows. We know the effort it takes. We know what goes into it all. Due to all that, this particular show is far more conversational than the one I do for Daizenshuu EX, and so it works well for a live stream… no random dead-air (not much, anyway ^_~), no confusion over what’s happening next, no piece-meal recordings (with the exception of the ahead-of-time Anamanaguchi interview), etc. We are able to get immediate feedback, too, and while we definitely gear it toward being a damn solid audio program and really just video stream because we can… it’s nice to pull in a couple random live things here and there, like someone’s off-the-cuff Top 5 list to go along with our own.

That doesn’t really address the bigger question of added-value, though. So I guess it’s best to ask you all — the ones who are following me enough to be reading this blog. Do you have any interest in video feeds of the podcast recordings? What do you find interesting / disinteresting about them? Know that we don’t have the time or resources to put on big productions, so if and when we stream anything, it’s just going to be… yep, some folks sitting around mics recording a podcast.

Really curious, though!

In Viz’s English translation of the DragonBall manga, this is one of #17′s first lines after being awoken/activated by Dr. Gero:

“Good morning, Dr. Gero…“. It’s a pretty straight-forward, more-or-less accurate translation of the original dialogue. Here’s how it is written in the original Japanese version:

Like I said, it’s a pretty accurate translation. What #17 says is, “ohayo gozaimasu, dokutaa gero-sama“. There’s one little thing that’s “missing” in Viz’s “translation”, though, as accurate as it is: it’s that “-sama” suffix. It’s not really necessary to translate, but it comes into play a little more than you might think. While you can clearly imply that #17 is being overly-polite (to the point of it being a ruse), it’s really driven home by the fact that he actually uses the “-sama” suffix… which he would never otherwise use for this jerk-face of a doctor that forced him back asleep. It’s that one specific formality that leads Dr. Gero to initially trust him (and also #18).

In the end, it’s not a huge lost-in-translation issue, but it’s certainly an interesting one, none-the-less.

Like this kind of stuff? Hell, you’re probably already checking out our weekly podcast about that there Japanese cartoon from the 80s/90s about monkey aliens hitting each other after staring at each other for an episode. At least it’s good fun, huh?

Until then, here are some random photos.

While in Italy, we were able to browse through Naples, Pompeii, etc. We even took a trip to the top of Mount Vesuvius! You take a van up most of the way (frightening beyond belief on the way back down on the narrow, windy roads), but must walk up the rest of the way to reach the top. Our regular camera’s battery died shortly before we reached the top, but I did have my iPhone on me and was able to snap this at the peak down into the pit of the volcano:

Here is a view of Naples far below:

Yeppers. Good times.

I suppose it’s kinda funny that the example I’m going with is the DragonBall franchise, and specifically that in North America as distributed by FUNimation.

Let’s ignore any and all thoughts I have about FUNimation as a company from my fan perspective. That is entirely irrelevant to this discussion. This is a business conversation, a new media conversation, and a marketing conversation… all things I have knowledge of and expertise in completely independent of my hobby/fandom.

I ran a quick search on Twitter this morning for “dbz” just to see what was out there. In addition to the pain of seeing such a huge audience and struggling with getting our site and podcast into their consciousness (insert Cartman “HOW do I REACH these KIDS…?!” quote here), I could clearly see the business side being discussed… without these kids even knowing they’re talking a little inside baseball. Here are just a few examples of what I saw:

@Ryan_Toro_69 DBZ season nine. Thirty bucks. 39 episodes. Final season…..WAT DO I DO?!?

@FHD210 Downloading Dragonball. Never saw that one, only DBZ and GT. And Cities of the Underworld: fascinating documentaries

@OnslaughtSix I am now awake! Dragonball finished, which is an amazing feat after how long I’ve been trying to download it. On to DBZ!

@iEgg Just got a sudden urge to watch the Android Saga in DBZ… <3 DBZ! LOL! Anyone know where I can watch it online free?

While it may be a small sample size that does not statistically speak of the entire population, I felt from a quick looksie-through that it was representative enough for the purposes of this discussion. Note how only one of the four was considering paying for the privilege of watching the series. The sense of entitlement is overwhelming, and is completely accurate to the overall aura you get browsing around the internet.

That’s not to say that FUNimation isn’t catering to those people. With announcements like the recent agreement with Toei Animation to stream new episodes of One Piece for free, and near-simultaneous with their Japanese broadcast (subtitled in English)… FUNimation has certainly been a leader in this field, and is throwing their weight around as one of the few remaining domestic anime juggernauts (which essentially equates to them and Viz) to get the times a-changin’.

FUNimation is certainly offering up a decent chunk of anime for free viewing via locations like their YouTube channel, but I’d argue that the DragonBall franchise is one series that they are not taking seriously. Perhaps CEO Gen Fukunaga’s age-old quote about making so much “Poke-money” off the series remains true, and they don’t need to address it. Perhaps Toei’s involvement makes it impossible to explore every avenue that needs exploration. Regardless, if the above Twitter quotes are any indication, fans want to watch the series, they want to watch it now, and if FUNimation isn’t there to provide this service, then the pirating will continue.

I’m not naive. I may not have any desire to get into the scene and find it thoroughly disgusting from top to bottom, but I know what’s out there. I know how many groups are subbing DragonBall Kai. I know that groups have taken Dragon Box masters and have released dual-audio MKVs with the original Japanese track and FUNimation’s English dub. I know about the custom subbing projects on the invite-only torrent trackers. Again, if FUNimation isn’t going to step in… the fans are going to take control of the property. It’s already near that point, and there will come a concrete point in time when FUNimation won’t be able to regain control.

At the end of the day, I have one main suggestion for FUNimation: give your fans more incentive to support you. Your Twitter account is a great start, but the responses I see are half-hearted pandering and senseless corporate-talk. Look at companies like United Airlines — they have even created their own (albeit silly) new phrase, “Twares” (think of them as something like “discount fares distributed via Twitter”), to provide an amazing incentive for that “sticky audience” to… well… stick around.

FUNimation is losing as much control over the DragonBall franchise as they are making money off the DBZ season boxsets. Their 15-year-old licensing nightmare with KidMark (now Lionsgate) is destroying their ability to capitalize on people wanting to go back and explore the rest of the series. Their lack of online, streaming episodes is driving people to go to inordinate lengths to sack away terabytes of digital pack-rat-ery.

We all know that the domestic anime industry needs an overhaul, and one that might not come in time to save it. I may be incredibly biased in my perception, but it seems to me like DragonBall goes above and beyond the “anime industry” and is simply a cartoon that people remember watching as kids, and want to re-experience. As much as the fandom side of me finds incredibly disgust with the DBZ season boxsets, they were exactly what the doctor ordered on the brick-and-mortar side. Unfortunately for FUNimation, brick-and-mortar grows increasingly irrelevant with each passing day.

I’d love to help ya’. Hit me up at @vegettoex. I’ll probably end up making baseless and impossible demands like re-calling all currently-existing DVD sets and replacing them with Dragon Box masters in an equally-appropriate price-per-episode ratio that the old sets used, not to mention hiring our own community to localize future English dub and video game scripts just so we can stop some of the information nightmare nonsense we live with every day… but hey… that’s a hardcore fan for ya’.

With no real qualifying description on where the hate comes from, and yet being a member of our forum for over a year at that point, Adam / JAPPO wrote on 23 March 2008:

Ummm….. thanks?

(oh and yes I am. I hate daizex, for the record).

With a little bit of reasoning behind it (but not doing the additional reading to show that we do in fact agree with their statement), ShadowRaditz89 wrote on 12 April 2009:

I don’t like Daizex, they are too opinionated and refuse to acknowledge when they are wrong.

…

Toei Animation officialy lists it as an OVA. Because Daizex disregards this, I don’t acknowledge them as a reliable source.

With some snide-looking eyes, Amerowolf wrote on 10 February 2009:

Thanks to rachetcomand for the news tip, oh, and Daizex, but you know…MFG is better than those guys. >_>

Under fire from other IGN board members, pmc64 wrote on 07 April 2009:

i don’t have an account there. I don’t think anyone there likes the dub anyways. Haven’t you ever listened to the podcast? they loathe the dub.

With their head on straight, jjgp1112 responded:

Mike himself said that Dub fans make up a good amount of the board, and has a strict policy against acting like assholes toward Dub fans and Funi fans like how you do all the time.

In yet another example of people thinking what they want to think and hearing what they want to hear, King wrote on 09 March 2009:

I know Daizex will burst for anything that the japanese will pump out, even though the japanese kind of did the same thing like the U.S did…BUT IN JAPANESE VERSION.

Thankfully, Jacob was around and actually listened to what we said when he responded:

Not really. As the usual panel (plus!) explain in the latest podcast, just because it’s a Japanese production they won’t give it a pass. They’ll give DBE one viewing to be fair, just they did FUNi’s orange boxes and will Kai, but if the product is displeasing…

We smiled a bit when Brent contributed to a post on Bethesda’s Blog on 30 January 2009:

I listened to the MKast podcast while Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe was still in development, and I listen to Daizenshuu Ex’s and Major Nelson’s podcasts every-so-often.

We were a little confused when MDUNNER28 originally wrote this on 30 March 2009, but then they kept talking about our show with each subsequent post, so I suppose they learned to like us…?

Episode 170 of Daizenshuu EX is available. If you can get past the hosts’ goofy elitism, it’s a pretty good show.

Based on this comment (along with a few others) that vashkey made on 11 April 2009, Meri and I did a little aside on Episode #0174 of the podcast to once again re-iterate that just because something’s Japanese, it doesn’t mean it gets a free pass, it doesn’t mean we will automatically like it… and in fact, by the way… we aren’t completely in love with it. Once again, people hear and read what they want to hear and read.

It’s almost ironic though if you keep up with the daizex website. They bash the Funi remaster so much, but they’ve been praising Kai. I watched the first couple of episodes of the Funi remaster before watching Kai and alot of it is the same when it concerns cropping. In alot of scenes if not all Kai matches up the Funi remaster perfectly. Daizex’s predisposition is pretty obvious.

We were tickled with our description as “nifty” when Seleria wrote on 11 March 2007:

Hinode gave me a link to this nifty site called Daizenshuu EX, where there are scans of Dragon Ball artworks by other famous mangakas.

Over on the “Profile” page of Rumic World, Harley wrote:

this is a Dragon Ball site I browse through fairly often. I’m not a huge Dragon Ball fan, but I like to visit well made series-specific sites.

On their links page, Kanzentai wrote:

One of the best old school sites and it’s probably the only one left! This is one of my personal favorites because it has such unique information, and the largest DragonBall music database ever!

Hey… thanks, guys!

All in all, it’s incredibly interesting to see the types of responses and comments that are out there (and the style in which they are written). Every single last bit of feedback should be taken to heart in some capacity, but when you have been doing this sort of stuff as long as we have been doing it, you start to recognize which ones are legit and constructive, which ones just didn’t do their homework, and which ones are just not worth your time. There are so many more that I have seen over the last eleven years, and I wish I could have saved more of them. I’m sure they’re still out there on the internet somewhere, and I’ll come across another batch for another blog entry at some point in the future.

You know what? Things are just fine.

In terms of telephone service, it makes complete sense to abandon the land lines. While the quality of cell phone calls still leaves a lot to be desired, it suffices more than enough for my phone conversation purposes, which typically do not last longer than one minute unless I am calling my parents. If I am on the road or otherwise out and cannot be reached, my simply not answering the phone is exactly the same thing as someone calling me and not being home to pick up the phone. Combine that with text messages that completely replace voice mail in terms of disseminating tiny bits of information in quick, easily-digestible form… well, you’ve got a winner.

As for television, it is equally fine without it. We have enough things to keep us busy after the move that we have no time to just sit around and mindlessly watch television, anyway. Once things settle back down a little bit (which they are already beginning to do), we still have more than enough viewable-passive-media to keep us entertained until the ends of time without needing to obtain anything else. Throw video games into the mix, and I have a hard time understanding why I would ever actually need cable service on my television. In fact, the word “television” does not accurately describe that 50″ Kuro in my living room now, since everything from that to the “old TV” to the computer monitors are really nothing more than display surfaces of varying sizes and aged technology. Whether it’s a video game, a DVD, a Blu-ray, episodes downloaded online and burned to DVD+RW for viewing on the PS3 or 360… all of these display surfaces act in exactly the same way without needing to pay someone to be constantly broadcasting a live signal to them which I have no interest in tuning into, anyway.

I will admit there is a strange sort of “learning curve” to not being able to just sit down, hit a power button, and expect an in-progress video. Everything must be manually initiated. In the long run, I prefer this. Beyond the cost savings, I find that I gain precious minutes here and there that might otherwise be spent mindlessly flipping channels before realizing there is nothing to watch and starting up some other activity. Now-a-days, I just go right into whatever that “something else” would have been.

I’m constantly reminded of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer wants to cancel his mail. Can we do that, yet?

Making it even worse was coming down with a cold over the weekend. However, my sickness benefits you, because it gives me something to blog about. See… when I’m sick, I like to watch terrible movies. There’s nothing more comfortable to me while blowing my nose and drinking endless glasses of water than curling up on the couch with a cat and denying myself the privilege of watching something genuinely worthwhile. Yesterday, those two movies were Hancock and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

These will not be long, in-depth, helpful reviews. Remember my state of mind while watching them.

Hancock was interesting for half of its length. Once the big “plot twist” comes in (and is literally thrown through the wall of a house), it immediately becomes garbage. Similar to the most recent Hulk movie where I found Banner a more interesting character wandering around South America trying to keep himself under control (rather than Hulk-ing out and smashing things), I found Hancock a much more interesting character trying to deal with his public image and vices. The same could be said about characters like Batman, and in more recent American comic book film cash-ins, Iron Man. The faults and demons of these characters are far more interesting than the BANG ZOOM CRASH aspects. Sure, coming around the same time as Iron Man and having a superhero with a drinking problem is a little strange, but Tony wasn’t flying through the sky drunk dropping cars on buildings. All in all, it wasn’t a terrible movie, but lost its purpose and soul by going the flash route midway. As one last point, I would like to say that all children in this movie (especially the very first one you see, and the main child throughout the rest of the movie) were terrible actors beyond belief.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was almost entirely garbage, on the other hand. I wish I remembered more about the “first” (well, prior) movie, but I saw it in theaters when it came out, and I have a difficult time remembering anything about movies I’ve seen, anyway. I know comic fans had a problem with Galactus being a giant space cloud, but knowing next to nothing about the series, I found it an acceptable change (unlike “the giant squid”, where I have problems with both the original and movie-changed ending). The overall story, however, was laughable. The acting was only acceptable, with Jessica Alba being exceptionally terrible, yet again. The cheese factor goes above and beyond comical to ridiculous with scenes like the bachelor party dancing (do kids think this stuff is funny, ‘cuz I sure don’t…?). I would like to say more about the movie, but despite seeing it less than 24 hours ago, I am already forgetting nearly everything about it.

I certainly don’t regret watching either movie. They were the perfect type of ridiculous (if not “stupid”) popcorn action movies I look for when I’m sick and need to take my mind off of just how terrible I feel. What about you all? Have you seen either movie and have some thoughts you’d like to share? How about things you like to do when you’re sick?

I think the big thing I am going to harp on is just helping people understand why people join these sites and do the things they do. Once you understand the why, everything else falls into place. As far as I can tell from observation and my own personal experiences, the main reason is just selfish validation. What I mean by that is that people are using these sites basically for the purpose of having their own existence justified and validated by receiving positive feedback. Whether it’s Digg promoting things, Facebook with the “like” button and status update responses, Twitter and getting responses to tweets… everything is intended to be a virtual pat on the back to just prove that you exist.

While narcissism extends far into adulthood, there is no denying that it is far more prevalent among children (especially teenagers) and their rebellious age. It is always about finding your place, understanding where you fit into the world, blah blah blah.

What does everyone think about this? Would you describe it differently? What other reasons do people have for joining and participating in these social networking communities?

On March 23rd, I came home to see the standard orange/pink-ish slip the post office leaves when they have a package that will not fit in the mailbox that they attempted to deliver (but would not just leave on the porch for whatever reason). I could take this slip to the post office to pick up the package.

On March 27th, I placed an order on Amazon for a new microphone, XLR cable, and windscreen.

On March 28th, Amazon e-mailed me to tell me that the XLR cable and windscreen had been shipped (the microphone would come separately).

On March 30th, I finally had a chance to go down to the post office with my slip to pick up the package with my digital audio cables. I went there directly after work without first stopping off at home. I handed the slip to the nice lady behind the counter, she gave me a box, and I went back out to the car. As I walked to the car, I remembered that the slip had said “oversize envelope” as a description. I was holding a box. I opened the box to find the windscreen and XLR cable. I walked back into the post office and explained to the lady that I was pretty sure I had another package there waiting for me. It was impossible for the slip that I had just brought in (received on March 23rd) to be for an item that had not yet even been ordered at the time (March 27th). The now-sassy lady dismissed me away saying I would have another slip if I had another package, and she walked away without checking for me.

There was another slip in my mailbox upon returning home, this one (obviously) being for the XLR cable and windscreen, which I had just picked up.

I really hope when I go back to the post office that there is a different person working there. I suppose as long as I have a slip with my name and address, they will just give me whatever package matches that name and address.

But seriously. Logic, people. C’mon.

So Facebook recently went through another redesign. If you use the internet for more than checking your e-mail (which young people apparently do not use anymore), you are probably well aware of this. One of the biggest changes was the way in which the “Status Update” is structured and conveyed. Personal pages look much more like a Twitter stream than the previous status update structure did, but the biggest change may be in the verbiage. The standard Facebook status update always said something like this:

Michael LaBrie is writing a blog post right now.

With the change over to “What’s on your mind?”, someone familiar with the Facebook service and has that “(name) is…” wording so heavily ingrained in their muscle memory (if it doesn’t auto-populate the word “is” for you) would probably think something along the following:

So if I type in a random update the way I would type a tweet (say that five times fast), the result is as I would expect from using Twitter:

Here is where the disconnect comes in, though (completely ignoring all the people who manually type in “is” by themselves). I typically use the Facebook application on my iPhone to keep tabs on friends and their status updates rather than using the website. Until getting the very latest update to the application this morning, if you went to input a status update, the text input screen would still say “(name) is…”. Thankfully, here is what you will get now:

So what on Earth am I supposed to do…?! It does not seem like a huge problem, but for someone as grammatically-aware as I am, you can imagine the horrors I have unleashed upon myself when I compared a Facebook status update made on the web site directly (see above screens) versus one made from the iPhone application:

Ack! Apparently I is own a house!

The “problem” (if you want to call it that) is that Facebook has trained their users with a certain vocabulary. That standard verbiage is still entirely useful and seemingly encouraged, but they have opened-up that status update to “allow” any type of wording that a user desires. I can already see the confusion among friends and family with the way they have been typing their most recent status updates, and I can not even imagine how I would explain it to some of them.

While I don’t think MadThad0890 quite explained what he was trying to say all that well, I think he’s fighting the good fight in one respect, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the live-action movie.

Enough with this “not a true fan” nonsense.

While I have zero interest in FUNimation’s English dub of the series, I do not see this upcoming live-action movie as becoming a huge part of my extended fandom, and (insert a whole bunch of other things here), like MadThad says, that doesn’t make me or anyone else “less” of a fan. We’re all on equal ground. We’re all a bunch of people on the internet getting together and talking about a series that, quite frankly, next to zero of us have had or ever will have any stake in its production or even its further success. We gain nothing from it even existing, beyond perhaps our own continued friendships and camaraderie.

I may have been running my site for well over a decade (including the podcast portion for over three years), but that does not make me any “better” or “more” of a fan than FUNimation’s self-described nine-year-old born every day that pops in an edited, dubbed-only DVD to watch Broli smash up some folks. It certainly makes me a different kind of fan, and I don’t see myself being able to hold a sustained conversation with said nine-year-old, but I’d argue that his (or her!) excitement in watching a crappy action scene in one of my least-favorite animated DBZ movies genuinely rivals my own excitement when, say, a new $200 music boxset is announced.

You’re probably wondering what the title of this post has to do with anything, though. That’s a great question, so let me explain.

I think MadThad is trying to justify his own position by using us as “evidence” without actually understanding our “position” (if we even have one), and is basically reading and hearing what he wants to read and hear.

They don’t support the movie at all. At all.

Now that’s just not true. Especially when you listen to my review of the “Junior Novel” and Julian’s review of the movie on Episode #0168 of the podcast, you will hear that while we think of it as an entirely separate entity… and quite an absurdly ludicrous one, at that… I wouldn’t really call that not “supporting” the movie “at all”. As I’ve mentioned time and time again, I would love for there to be a live-action DB movie that is done fantastically, respects the source material, takes its own necessary liberties, introduces the franchise to a whole new audience, etc. Unfortunately, it sounds like Evolution is not going to be that movie, so while I support it in theory, now that I think about it, maybe MadThad actually is correct in saying we don’t support this movie.

But if I recommend going to see it just for the sake of seeing how much of a spectacular disaster it is, is that considered “supporting” it? It sounds like it’s nowhere near the level of The Legend of Chun-Li in its terrible-just-terrible state, with Evolution being more along the lines of having fun with how terrible it is.

You know what? Just like in the first podcast episode of WTF EX when Jeff and I couldn’t come to a conclusion after an hour-long discussion, I think the process of writing out this blog entry has thoroughly confused me… and I’m the subject of debate, here!

Long story short, as I’ve noted over on our message board, I think what the DB web community has always needed, continues to need, and will always need… is exactly what shônen is all about: we need friendship and understanding in an open forum. I’ve been around long enough to see every single name in the book thrown around, every half-thought-out argument tossed in as evidence or proof, and thousands of fans come and go. If we’re going to make it another 25 years, we’ve gotta stop telling each other who’s the bigger fan…

… because if you’re the one saying that, there’s a good chance you won’t be sticking around with us. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Ever since the dawn of Daizenshuu EX (and VegettoEX’s Home Page and Ultimate DBZ Links Page before them), I have done anything and everything in my power to keep things as “real” and “transparent” as I can with the site. I have never asked the community for anything, and do not expect anything in return for running the site. There have been plenty of generous “donations” over the years (for example, our buddy godofchaos has been hosting the podcast for us free of charge, and we’ll be porting over the forum to his server in the near future; many years ago our old buddy Scott, or SREDBZ, used to host our website for us). We’ve even had prize donations for website contests. These have always been unsolicited, mean the world to us, and make the community a better place.

I’ve had people ask about monetary donations in the past, but I’ve always struck them down. This is for fans, BY fans, gosh darn it! Things are a little different now. I’m not a 16-year-old punk kid starting a links page. The wife and I are lucky to be two educated adults with full-time, well-paying jobs, but there’s no denying what the current economic situation is.

Time to be a little realistic. Especially with our first home purchase entering the picture, one can’t help but wonder what a couple extra bucks would mean.

There are new guide books coming out. There are new CDs coming out. Shipping from Japan ain’t cheap. Equipment could use replacing and upgrading. Thinking about trying some new conventions.

Despite never having done so in the past, I’m seriously considering putting up a PayPal “Donate Now!” button over on Daizenshuu EX. Part of me feels… ya’ know, so what? Tons of other websites, blogs, and podcasts do this (including some of my favorites). I even paid for a premium version of a podcast for a while before it unfortunately passed on, and I didn’t think twice about supporting it. I tossed a couple bucks over to the CO-OP guys right after they got laid off from 1UP.

The other part of me freezes up and feels like a total sell-out. It goes against everything I’ve tried to do in the past. I feel like we are in such a (comparatively speaking) great, financially-secure place… what right do I have to ask anyone for anything, even indirectly like this? What reason do they even have to take me seriously?

So I guess that’s what my question is. What reason(s) do you have for even taking such a request seriously? If you saw that button pop up, how would you feel? How do you think the rest of the fanbase and community, the ones who don’t take the time to respond but are just as important, would feel? What would you like to see done with any donation you may or may not make, regardless of how little or grand it may or may not be?

I’m definitely waiting to hear your responses. It’s not as important or dire as I think I’ve made it out to be, but your thoughts and responses are genuinely welcome. I’m going to cross-post this on the Daizenshuu EX forum (there’s obviously a larger reader base there right now), but please feel free to leave blog comments. If you would rather privately send your thoughts, go ahead and just send them on over to VegettoEX@aol.com.

Thanks so much, everyone!

We are cleaning out a few things in the apartment as we get ready to eventually move into the new house, and I have been pulling together all of the various magazines I have sitting around. I came across this:

Back in March 2001, an issue of Beckett DragonBall Collector had a two-page column called “DBZ Online”. It was mostly a feature about FUNimation’s official DBZ website, but the very end of the column had a little box for other (fan-created) websites that fans could visit. Lookie, here! What’s that second site listed…?!

Again, it’s laughable when you consider the source and the companion link (“Da Black Gohan”? Really? This is where you want to send people?)… but you can’t help but smile to see your stuff given some attention somewhere.

These Beckett magazines were always of dubious quality, even though a couple halfway-authoritative people signed on to do some translation and writing work. For example, in this particular issue, Greg Werner (of The Ultimate DBZ Info Site) wrote articles about DragonBall GT (two years before it would be mentioned by FUNimation in the US) and a follow-up translation of the timelines featured in the daizenshuu and Perfect File books.

Long story short, it was great to find the magazine again and get a decent scan up online so I won’t lose it. I wonder if the people on Wikipedia working on the DBZ articles will now consider Daizenshuu EX a credible source since it’s been listed/featured as an authoritative reference in a media source. *insert snarky smirk here*

YouTube has a post up on their own blog talking about devices and services that enable a consumer to view YouTube directly on their television. Makes sense, right? I mean, we know about Microsoft’s partnership with Netflix to get that service on the 360, and PS3 owners have no doubt seen the YouTube link right when they launch their browser. There are plenty of other set-top boxes and new televisions coming out with integrated services like these, as well. For those of us that live the modern, technology-based lifestyle, none of this requires any explanation.

Remember that the majority of the world doesn’t think the same way we do, though. Plenty of people are quick to point out that you can also hook up a computer to an HDTV, but most appear to be completely clueless. These two quotes stuck out to me (from what I could stand reading through):

great stuuf what is the channel number in the unite kingdom

… and…

what the number of the channel it’s gonna be on? will it work on cable

What I think this really proves is that general consumers still think of “TV” as meaning “a channel I flip to”. It’s easy for us to make fun of or at least chuckle at these types of responses, but for those of us trying to reach new audiences (ones that still don’t understand what it is we’re doing), seeing these types of comments is incredibly frustrating.

• Brazil
• Japan
• Croatia
• United States
• Japan
• United States
• Australia
• Italy
• Japan
• Netherlands
• Australia
• Germany
• Japan
• United States
• Netherlands
• Spain
• Denmark
• Italy
• United States

That’s just beautiful, and I feel like we’re actually accomplishing something…! Let’s get Daizenshuu EX as a household name in Uzbekistan, and I think I could call it a day.

You can review the situation for yourself in the blog post from last week, but long story short, I accidentally flipped the surge protector off with my main computer hooked up to it, and it wouldn’t boot after that. Thanks to a flurry of recommendations from personal friends as well as all your blog comments, I had a few avenues to go with in terms of problem-solving.

One of the first suggestions was that I might have blown the power supply in the system. I was perhaps a little hasty in messing around with things, but I decided to rip that sucker out before I did anything else. The problem was that once I got it out, I didn’t really know what to do with it! If it was indeed the power supply that was busted, we discovered it would be tricky to replace since it was a proprietary 1000-watt Dell power supply which they did not just sell as a standard replacement part. There were a few on eBay for purchase in the $50-150 range (which isn’t too bad), but I couldn’t really be guaranteed I’d get a solid product that way. Off-the-shelf power supplies wouldn’t be too helpful, since this one had both a 20-pin and 24-pin connector each going into the motherboard (very strange). For a better idea of what I was dealing with, and at Jeff’s suggestion, here’s a comparison between this Dell power supply and a sentinel machine from The Matrix.

Once Jeff and I got the darn thing back into the system and amazingly remembered/figured-out how to rewire the entire thing, the next step was to check the RAM. We took out all 4 GB and planned on going through them to see if any caused the system to crap out during the boot process. Much to our surprise, we got the computer booting right up with one stick of RAM, but with no mouse or keyboard. The boot process informed us that the system configuration had changed, and to either press F1 to continue or F2 to enter the BIOS setup. Well, no keyboard was plugged in. We plugged in the USB keyboard at that point to see if it would let us continue after a button press, but no-go. We held the power to shut the system back down. We then proceeded to put the entire thing back to normal with all 4 GB of RAM and the standard mouse and keyboard combination (though a different USB mouse than I usually use, but this different one actually being the mouse that came with the system in the first place, which I typically have plugged into the Linux system). Ah-HAH! Same result as before, with it immediately shooting to about one-quarter of the way through POST, and with no beeps to indicate any kind of problem. Reusing an image here, but this is what it looked like:

After another hard shutdown, we decided to give it a go with no mouse and keyboard, but keeping the 4 GB of RAM in the system. Much to our delight, we got through the entire boot all the way into Windows! Once we got to the desktop, we plugged in a mouse and shut it down normally. Out of morbid curiosity, I decided to try booting without the Dell USB keyboard, and a cheap ol’ PS/2 GE keyboard that I think we bought at Radio Shack a few years ago (which, again, I typically have plugged into the Linux machine).

Bingo.

For whatever reason, the Dell USB keyboard was preventing the computer from booting.

No, it wasn’t a specific USB port. We tried different ports, and I’m using all of my USB ports for various things right now (other than that Dell keyboard, of course). The only USB issues we ran into were the back six ports not working upon those first couple reboots (only the two on the front of the machine seemed to work). I’ve had this happen to me, and whatever the problem is, it seems to resolve itself. Perhaps it’s a loose cable inside; I dunno. Speaking of loose cables, the only other small matter that we easily corrected was that the top CD/DVD drive didn’t show up in Windows; it was indeed a loose cable. We were trying to figure out what the POST process was telling us when it said “drive two” was missing, but we assumed it meant a hard drive (since “slot two” out of 0, 1, 2, and 3 doesn’t have a SATA drive in there). We quickly realized that was ridiculous, since there was never a hard drive there, and the computer would neither know nor care if a random extra hard drive was or was not there.

All of those little items were corrected, though, and rather quickly at that. With all of those minor issues out of the way (and after copying over Episode #0161 of the Daizenshuu EX podcast, which was being held hostage on one of the hard drives, to three other locations just to put my mind at ease), we figured we may as well just go ahead and install that new video card! Jeff thought it was so new and clean and pretty that we should take a picture of it before tossing it into the mix, so here you go:

That’s an ASUS EN9800GT PCI-Express blah blah blah card. It’s $129.99 on Newegg, has a $25 mail-in rebate, and came with a free copy of Call of Duty: World at War (which I played for approximately sixty seconds in the campaign mode on easy before dying from a grenade, despite there being an indicator on the screen). Anyway, everything’s running silky-smooth now, including Prince of Persia which looks gorgeous. I was also able to finally beat Portal that Saturday evening, with the entire group huddling closer and closer to the screen during that final level and amazing boss battle. Yes, it took me a while. Yes, I’m slow at games. Yes, it was amazing.

I’ve also picked myself up a UPS to put over in the corner with this machine. It was incredibly stupid of me to not have one in the first place, and while it’s unfortunate that I had to deal with the ramifications of my own shenanigans, it at least prompted me to finally take care of it. I actually can’t remember off the top of my head which one I grabbed, but it was one of the “Geek Squad” ones from Best Buy (I’ll update and add in a link later when I’m home).

So there you have it. Problem solved, and I learned a ton of stuff in the process of fixing it all. All this nonsense due to my carelessness… and a keyboard.

… which, by the way, works on the Linux machine perfectly fine and doesn’t prevent it from booting. Rofls.

First and foremost, let me make it explicitly clear that I hold absolutely no (serious) delusions of grandeur and hardly see myself as any sort of true “celebrity”. With that being said, I also have been running prominent (for their community/audience) websites for well over a decade, moved on up in several hobbies, presented at conventions, etc. I’m out there. People know my name and plenty of other things about me. People have come up to me in public. I’ve been asked to sign things (OK, just once that I remember). OK? OK. Just sayin’.

While I occasionally read a little too much idealistic and unrealistic prose over on Techdirt, as a whole I really enjoy what is posted there, and tend to agree more than disagree with what Michael Masnick has to say. Above-mentioned review of my YouTube comments and a few e-mails to Daizenshuu EX perfectly mirrors the title of an article from the other day, “Reading Comprehension: A Terrible Thing To Waste“.

In 2007, some people who somehow signed up for the program without meaning to, started Google searching the program — and commenting on that post, often complaining that they were signed up against their will. In April of 2007, one person noted that the charge on his credit card was denoted as being for AMZ*Prime Club. Within days, if you did a search on that phrase, we were the top result. At first, our comments started to fill up with angry messages from people who claim they never agreed to sign up for the program. Then… people started emailing and calling us demanding a refund.

Particularly with our “Rumor Guide” and detailed explanations of things from the originial Japanese reference material, many people write in to “correct” us, but end up saying the exact same thing, simply in their own words (and typically with FUNimation-only verbiage). It is almost always followed and ended by some snarky comment, demanding praise for their valuable time wasted on us (that’s if it hadn’t already started with a horribly-written insult). Just like Techdirt ended up:

Five minutes later, she replies:

How the hell do I contact Amazon – it seems to me that you and Amazon are probably working in collusion to fleece people.

And… with that I give up. Apparently, it wouldn’t matter how clearly Amazon explains their program. There are still some people who will not be able to figure it out.

… I have had too many instances where responding back and forth with readers/listeners/fans ends up with me tossing my hands up in the air. While the following example is not one where I responded back and forth with the author (I didn’t bother replying at all), and is also not an example where they don’t realize they are actually agreeing with us, it still fits in with the whole mentality of these sorts of comments. This may be completely over-the-head of my non-DBZ-fan friends and readers… but chances are, if you’re here reading this, you have some familiarity with DBZ ^_~.

In your rumors guide, u said that Trunks can’t reach SSJ2.. and your reasoning was that because it was a big deal when Gohan ascended to SSJ2 and beat Cell..

However u didn’t consider that the “big deal” could have been over Gohan’s power and NOT over the SSJ2 transformation. We all know 2 Saiyans can have different strengths even if both are SSJ form. For example, Trunks and Goten in early SSJ form can’t beat Vegeta or Goku. Also, SSJ Goten was slightly weaker than SSJ Trunks.

What I’m tryin to say is, ppl weren’t surprised at the new “SSJ2″ form that Gohan transformed into. The big surprise was over the fact that Gohan’s SSJ2 form was even more powerful than Goku’s and Vegeta’s SSJ2 form.

Now, back to Trunks. During the Cell saga when Future Trunks fought Cell, he clearly became an “Ascended Super-Saiyan”. Even the episode was titled “Trunks Ascended”.

Later on, during the Majin Buu Saga, episode “230 – Super Saiyan 3!”, Goku CLEARLY stated that an “ascended super-saiyan” is also known as “super saiyan 2″.

So there u have it.. Future Trunks WAS indeed able to become SSJ2.

There are so many things wrong with this e-mail. They are clearly writing in response to one particular entry in the “Rumor Guide“, and yet despite having a well-researched and correct explanation in front of them, there is some… I don’t even know what to call it…? I don’t think “sense of entitlement” is the right way to explain it, but it’s along the same lines. As I’ve noted time and time again, there seem to be a large contingent of FUNimation-only fans that yearn to “correct” information based off the original Japanese… and while that’s not to say there isn’t the opposite (I mean, hello!… I’m right here!)… oh, you can see where this is going (an “It’s FUNimation’s own fault there’s a fractured fanbase, not mine” editorial is too much effort for me, these days). Let’s just move on.

The other article I wanted to point you over to was “Some Things Need To Change” by Michael Arrington over on TechCruch. Arrington takes a lot of flack for things he does and says, but at the end of the day, I think he’s pretty accurate in saying:

I write about technology startups and news. In any sane world that shouldn’t make me someone who has to deal with death threats and being spat on. It shouldn’t require me to absorb more verbal abuse than a human being can realistically deal with.

Again, please refer to the beginning of this entry where I plainly state that I’m not placing myself among the larger crowd of genuine success stories in the tech world. I’m just some guy on the internet talking to other nerds. There are clear parallels and warning signs, though. Do I really want to take any of my projects “further”, whether it’s a legitimate business or just a highly-expanded-upon hobby-venture? If there are already fake YouTube accounts set up with the sole purpose of insulting one of my websites (whoops; just legitimized it by acknowledging its existence!), repeatedly have to delete anti-Japanese comments from my actual YouTube account… blah blah blah. I don’t mean to make it out to be a larger situation than it really is (let’s be honest… it’s not). At the same time, they’re all horrible reminders about what kinds of people are out there, and how easily they have access to provide “feedback” to you. Why should anyone have to put themselves in a position where that’s even a realistic situation? Perhaps I’m being the unrealistic and delusional one, expecting and hoping to just go about my business having fun with enjoying things without receiving negative comments in response.

The problem is that I love what I do when I’m not hiding from some crazy fucker who wants to kill me or being spat on by some unhappy European entrepreneur we didn’t write about.

CONCLUSION: My buddy David summed it up pretty well when he told me…

I think YouTube, Hulu, and similar large online forums just show how the world really is: loudmouthed, hateful, and ignorant.

Also, if your first name is “Michael”, you appear to be doomed on the internet. Even further additionally, does John Gabriel’s theory just make that much sense?

As I’ve stated before, I’m not looking for “sympathy” or even agreement with the topics discussed and relayed in these types of posts. People seem to like the “behind-the-scenes” look into how things are done at Casa de EX (like my podcasting setup), and I figured this all worked together nicely to provide yet another view. Especially if you disagree with what I’ve presented, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Pretty interesting how I’ve essentially degraded internet comments to a worthless pile of trash not suitable for a second glance, and then say I value them. Let me instead end it on a funny e-mail.

From: < name removed >
To: vegettoex@aol.com
Sent: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 7:04 pm
Subject: PLEASE RESPOND¡¡

You know Yoshio Anzai (shueshia) ?
Please give me information about yoshio anzai and contact information for yoshio… please
ATT: < name removed >
Bogota Colombia
Thanks

Hey, it’s snowing outside!

(Any uplifting things you’d like to hear about? )

Yesterday early afternoon I was unplugging my laptop’s power cord from the surge protector which the main rig is also plugged into. I accidentally flipped the switch on it, effectively cutting power to everything there. No biggie. Nothing that hasn’t happened before. Flipped the switch, and everything immediately came back on (monitor, computer, stereo, scanner, wireless headphones, etc.). I headed out into the dining room where I was working on hooking up the new HD digital camera to my laptop (sorry; that’s all work-work related, and not play-work related!) and installed a few things.

When I wandered back out to the main rig, it was sitting on this screen:

Very strange. I figured it perhaps just got itself hung up, and I would reboot and go into Safe Mode if I had to. Manually turned it off, let it sit for a minute, turned it back on… same thing. OK, now this is getting bad. I completely unplugged everything and let it sit for a long while, in the meantime consulting some friends online for opinions.

The opinions started pouring in that perhaps the power supply fried itself (or something along those lines). I found it very sad that such a simple little thing would cause such a drastic effect, but I suppose it’s not unheard of. This is also one of the aspects of computer hardware I know very little about; I can install a new optical drive or a hard drive or even a stick of RAM, but that’s about the extent of my internal-computer-knowledge.

(NOTE: Yes, everything whirled-up and sounded pretty normal when I rebooted it. The green lights on the front USB ports indicated they had power. The monitor definitely isn’t “frozen” with a burned-in screen, or anything, because I can cycle through inputs and it changes to show that it has no connected source.)

I ended up at Best Buy and picked up a 700 watt power supply, which was a contrast to the 1000 watt power supply inside my Dell XPS 710 (but all opinions seemed to be that 1000 watt was pretty ridiculous, especially considering I wasn’t exactly launching any spaceships with this computer). I had to spend some time at the in-laws’ after picking it up, but jumped right into potential repairs upon returning home. I eventually figured out that I needed to remove all three of my hard drives in order to get access to pulling out the pre-existing power supply, and it was around then that Jeff was able to run over and help me pull it apart.

Holy Hell.

Long story short, the power supply that came with it is a proprietary 1000 watt monster. I know very little about what I’m about to mention, but it had both a 24-pin and a 20-pin connector (yes, two of them) that went directly into the motherboard, which seemed very different from not only the new 700 watt power supply I picked up, but anything Jeff had seen before. As opposed to the new power supply, The Beast had all of its wires coming directly from one spot (which you unfortunately can’t see off-screen to the left in the above picture), all filtering and twisting and winding throughout the system. We eventually managed to feel them out and get every single last bit unplugged from devices, but now I’m pretty much left with a system that has no power supply.

This is all assuming the power supply was even in the issue in the first place, which I never really got full confirmation on (not that I’d ever be able to). I called Dell customer support out of morbid curiosity (warranty expired exactly a year ago), and after being potentially up-sold to “North American-based premium customer support”, I spoke with someone I could barely comprehend and ultimately had to say goodbye to without any real help.

So now I’m out in the cold all by myself. If it is indeed the power supply, Dell does not directly sell a replacement, so I’m potentially buying a new or refurbished one off of eBay ($50-150). If that’s not the problem… well… what is? And how do I even tell?

I’ve got a GeForce 9800 GT showing up this week, too… I was planning on finishing up Portal with it and running a bunch of other stuff all silky-smooth…

Didn’t sleep much last night due to my frustration. This is on top of a 360 whose graphics card fried itself alive (not covered by Microsoft’s extended warranty, though I’ve since paid the $100 to have it replaced), and a spontaneously-bricked PSP whose current status is theorized to be a fried motherboard (which cannot be brought back from the dead with a Pandora’s Battery, which I’ve already tried courtesy of Corey, and I will thus have to pay $100 to get it replaced or just buy a new one), and a Rock Band drum whose blue pad snapped a wire inside.

(To answer a couple quick questions, yes, if I get it back up and running or can hook up the SATA hard drive with Episode #0161 on it somewhere else, I’ll go ahead and post that show. If not right away, it will be retroactively posted in the future. Yes, I should be able to record another show on-schedule next week if we feel up to it… I can record on the laptop, and do all the mixing on the Shuttle which has all the project files and bumper music masters. Knock-on-wood, but here’s hoping that main C:/-drive isn’t farked… should be completely fine, though…)

• daizenshuu
• dragonball fansite
• dragon ball fansite
• dragon ball podcast
• dragonball podcast
• dbz podcast
• best dbz website
• best dragonball website
• best dragon ball website
• dragonball website
• dragon ball website
• dbz website

I don’t know if anyone actually uses those types of search phrases, but if they came to mind for me to use, perhaps someone else will do the same. There’s still a long way to go for us to show up for simple searches like “dragonball” or “dbz”, but hey… we’ve gone eleven years and have done this well. What’s another decade or so? We’ll out-last everyone and end up on top by default .

Anyway…

I have had this little issue for a while, but have not been able to solve it as-of-yet. When Apple decided to allow wireless downloads of podcasts to the iPhone from within the iTunes Store, I decided to try it out with Lo-Fidelity.

It worked perfectly fine, except that I am completely unable to locate it for deletion when the phone is connected to the computer and the iTunes application. It is not under “Music” and it is not under “Podcasts”. It simply does not exist, as far as I can tell. Except… ya’ know… it actually is there somewhere on the phone’s drive, since I can still tap and listen to it.

Thoughts? Similar experiences? Solutions? I haven’t tried downloading any more podcasts over WiFi for fear of not being able to delete them. I have to imagine this is some sort of strange, isolated case…

Hello. Today is Monday, December 15th. We are calling regarding an important, personal business matter. This call is NOT a sales or solicitation call and requires your immediate attention. Please return this call before end-of-business Tuesday, December the 16th, to 1-877-857-9756. You may return this call between the hours of 8 AM and 9 PM eastern standard time. Again, that number is 1-877-857-9756. Thank you.

Please note today’s date. Yes, today is January 21st… not December 15th. There’s strike number one. OK, fine. Strike number one was even calling me in the first place, and this was a strike after many strikes within the actual voice message. But still… seriously? And you’re calling before your actual “business hours” even start…?

When you Google around with the phone number, you get a variety of responses on forums and “Who called me?”-type sites. Some claim it’s a scam, some claim it’s a hijacked (but legitimate) number, some claim it’s a debt collection agency, etc.

Being that I don’t exactly owe anyone any money, that’s certainly not the case with me.

I received a couple of these a few months back, but with personal voice messages as opposed to this pre-recorded one. While en-route between the ceremony and reception for the wedding of a couple friends a couple months back, I decided to actually return the call from that previous annoyance. A very grumpy lady answered with no identification. I explained to her that I kept receiving calls from this number and I would like them to immediately cease. She asked me to confirm my phone number. I told her that if she was unable to see which number I was calling from, there was little chance that they were any sort of legitimate organization and I had no desire and was under absolutely no obligation to divulge any information about myself. She (obviously) started getting very angry, and refused to identify herself or her organization despite my repeated attempts at asking, claiming they “represent” many organizations. I ended up hanging up on her since I was getting nowhere, and I hadn’t received any calls from them since.

I wonder if this is the same place, or if I am just cooincidentally getting hit up again? I know there has been yet another disastrous credit leak due to a keylogger inside the Heartland systems, so everyone should be on their toes with nonsense like this.

It’s no secret that I love podcasts. They provide an excellent complement to just listening to music, and for someone who works a job where my ears can be free when I want them to be and can be filled with that I want them to be filled with, I love that choice. What I especially love is when honest-to-goodness friends get in on the action, and especially friends that I don’t get a chance to see every weekend. It stinks that some of us only get to see each other during conventions (and lately weddings!) and a couple other points during the year, so whenever friends like to get in on the podcasting action and let me hear their voices throughout the day, I love it to death.

I just wanted to give a brief run-down on some personal friends who are podcasting, hopefully toss some listeners their way, and remind them that they’re great people and it’s fantastic that we can share something so incredibly nerdy like podcasting.

JEFF: Lo-Fidelity
OK, this one’s kind of a cop-out answer, since now I’m “co-hosting” the show. Originally, Jeff and our buddy Brad (both of whom I’ve known from AMVs for many years now) started up the show to discuss indie music, do some reviews, discussions, etc. I absolutely adored it, because Brad’s one heck of a stand-up fellow, the nicest guy in the world, and has plenty of worthwhile opinions to share. I had an opportunity to guest-host in Brad’s place one episode (I think it was seven), and then I got just a couple more before the show went on hiatus. Almost exactly one year later Jeff decided to start it up again, this time with me filling Brad’s shoes (not an envious position to be in). We’re really hoping to get Brad on the show whenever we can, though, so that’s great. Even though I’m part of the show, it’s a completely different dynamic with Jeff hosting it. I just show up with my equipment, Jeff hosts/moderates it, does all the editing, most of the prep-work, posts it up, etc. I actually feel more “comfortable” (maybe “differently comfortable” is more accurate) with recording this way, as opposed to being the “host” of my other shows (even though I’m surrounded by co-hosts on all of them!). It’s a great dynamic, and when I listen to the show, I still feel like I’m checking in with Jeff to see what’s going on (even though he lives right around the corner and I was right there to record with him).

BRYCE: Otaku Generation
This is an interesting case, because I met Bryce because of the podcast he’s a part of. When Meri and I headed over to Pennsylvania one night to record the show after having been invited on, that was the first time we ever actually met Bryce. Since then, we’ve been able to hang out at conventions, have him over on Video Game Conversations, and just general hang out and chill like any other friends would. It’s been fantastic to gain a friendship through a hobby like that, and is one of the reasons I haven’t completely lost hope in humanity.

KEVIN & BOB: The Appcast
They literally just posted their first episode this week, but it was so great to hear Kevin and Bob (both of whom I’ve also known through AMVs for several years now) doing a show. I was so impressed and proud of their sound quality and organization with the very first show. I’ll admit that a bunch of us are total iPhone dorks, with Kevin and Bob being the obvious leaders (thus, the podcast), so it’s wonderful to be able to listen in on my friends geeking-out.

In a nutshell, I feel like it almost lets me “hang out” with my friends a little bit whenever a new show is out and I’m busy at work plugging away at something. It sounds a little creepy and anti-social, I suppose, but it’s the truth. It’s not like we don’t actually get together in person! Really! I promise!

We have a brief series of original video clips over on Daizenshuu EX called “Inconsistencies” (which are placed on our site and also our YouTube channel). They explore changes between the original manga and TV adaptation of the DragonBall series in what we consider to be a fun and visually-interesting way. For a little side-project website, I’d say they’re pretty darn well-produced. We don’t have slick graphics and animated intros like stuff on Game Trailers, but we’ve got motion blur and decent audio!

Ever since the first (of three) clips went live, the overwhelming response has been that of FUNimation English dub fans who take extraordinary issue with someone speaking English and not only referencing terms and names from the original Japanese version, but also showing said Japanese version. General assumed intelligence level pre-conceptions of a FUNimation English dub fan who can still manage to type properly aside, these comments showcase what I feel is a huge problem with the safe anonymity of the interwebz, and especially mass-consumption social networks like YouTube. There is zero accountability, zero sense of self, and zero sense of community (shockingly opposite of what these sites attempt to create: community). I wish I could say it’s just children being children, but it’s terribly far from the truth. It’s difficult to analyze the situation without full knowledge of just who these people are, but I have to imagine it would be naive to assume they are all uneducated, bored, neglected children.

John C. Dvorak has written some interesting things regarding the value online comments, and a conversation between Leo Laporte and Amber McCarther on an episode of the net@night podcast (forgive me for not having the exact episode) placed YouTube comments at the absolute bottom of the totem poll, with absolutely zero value to society. So how about this example? Let’s take a look at it, and give the commenter the unfortunate satisfaction of attention.

Wow. You said Genki-Dama and showed subtitles. You’re a fucking Japanophile. It’s called Spirit Bomb. Stop thinking you’re cool by using Japanese terms. You’re not cool, you’re not elite, you’re just an idiot. DBZ in Japanese sucks. Everyone is voiced by the same 60-year-old constipated woman and the music is way too cheerful and mono quality. Seriously, this video made me sick because of how elite you think you are by saying Goku-sama and stuff. Fucking loser.

FALLACY: The translation of “Genki-Dama” is not “Spirit Bomb”, making the FUNimation term inaccurate. This person simply prefers that name, and therefore claims the original is somehow wrong.

TRUTH: I’m an idiot. Then again, we’re all foolish at some point or another. The verdict’s out on whether or not I’m retarded, though.

FALLACY: Not everyone is voiced by “the same 60-year-old constipated woman”. Notable American voice actor Chris Sabat provides more roles to his company’s production of the DragonBall series than any single Japanese voice actor in their own original production of the show. What they’re really trying to say? “lolz you like the gay goku voice“.

TRUTH: The music is indeed mono. Then again, the show started in 1986.

FALLACY: No-one said “Goku-sama”. They simply ran out of insults at this point and wanted to wrap it up.

I won’t lie; these types of comments do wear down on you after a while. I don’t know the exact phrase or who to attribute it to, but you have to consider that if you don’t think you’re crazy, but everyone around you is telling you that you’re insane, you should really take a step back and re-evaluate the situation. In this case, is the overwhelming negative response from these YouTube commenters the “correct” opinion? Or is it, as I’ve always held to be the case, just a bunch of childish, near-sociopaths flapping their mouths online where they can’t be smacked upside the head? I’ve never had anything more than a single, friendly disagreement at any convention I’ve ever been to before, and since I know these types of people are out there, that just leads me to believe that (a) I haven’t had the chance to be in the same room as them, or (b) they don’t have the balls to say this stuff in real life. Sure, it’s the typical “elitist” standpoint to take, assuming that these “commoners” are somehow “beneath” you… but is there any validity to it?

Furthermore, how do we overhaul the comment system to make it worthwhile? If we do so, don’t we just make it geared towards what we want to hear, rather than what the possible majority actually have to say? I guess those questions will have to be further discussed in whatever and whenever podcast we do!

Part of me wants to invite these people onto a show just to genuinely hear why they think this way and what the basis is for their points, but then the elitist side of me jumps in and just assumes they’re children that wouldn’t be able to hold a professional discussion without nervously squawking their way through, hanging up, or otherwise being useless.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m not looking for validation or support. I’ve been doing this stuff online for over ten years, and have a thick-enough skin that I can move on with my life. Just felt like sharing those thoughts, and on a place with a small-enough readership that I don’t expect that validation .

iTunes is a very mysterious entity. We have only a vague, outsider understanding of how things are ranked. That’s why it is very important to optimize your shows with keywords in their title and descriptions. This is something I absolutely did consider when starting up the podcast for Daizenshuu EX, but the final decisions definitely aren’t completely working in my favor. That’s not to say things are “bad” or “not working”… let me explain and show you!

When I started the podcast for the site, just like the canned intro says every week, I wanted it to be an extension of the website rather than its own separate entity. Sure, it can stand on its own (so can the website without the podcast), but they tie together and complement each other nicely. That’s why I decided against calling it something like “OMG DRAGONBALL DRAGON BALL DBZ PODCAST”, and simply went with Daizenshuu EX – The Podcast. We have “DBZ” in the description of the show (“DBZ discussions, reviews, and the latest news from…”), but…

Consider when someone comes along and puts those keywords right in their title rather than just the description. There are a couple podcasts to go along with blogs for the upcoming live-action movie, and there’s something called Dragon Ball Z Universe! – The Podcast (which appears to be by a fan of our own website and podcast, but doesn’t really seem to be an actual audio podcast, and more like PDFs delivered via RSS every so often). This was all fine and good, since if you’re searching for “dbz” or “dragon ball” or “dragonball“, anything that came up would be entirely (OK, mostly) relevant.

Now there’s a “podcast” simply called Abridged, which as far as I can tell is completely unrelated to the production any of the actual “Abridged” series out there, and is just some guy or gal collecting episodes and putting them up for download via an RSS feed (thus the “podcast”). This is completely fine; don’t misunderstand me. However, since the “Abridged” phenomenon is getting so huge, even though they don’t have any of TeamFourStar‘s DBZ Abridged episodes up in the feed yet, simply referencing those entities by name seems to be pumping up their “relevance” in searches according to iTunes.

Again, don’t misunderstand me… I have no problem with these “podcasts” (which isn’t an entirely accurate term for some of them) getting attention and an audience. That’s awesome. Far be it from me to tell anyone not to create content and get fans! The problem lies with our own show, being what I consider the most relevant for those general search terms (we cover anything and everything DragonBall, as you know!), getting pushed out of the most-visible locations!

When you do a search for “dbz” in the iTunes store, we used to show up as one of the two podcasts in the mini-section “Podcast” bubble at the top. No longer true!

Now you have to click through to see us.

In a further bout of confusion, we don’t show up at all for a search of “dragonball“, but show up as #43 in the general search for “dragon ball” (and still needing to click-through on the “Podcast” bubble to find us there).

So let it be known that for ultimate visibility, it certainly helps to have a more generic name! That’s OK… in my delusional world, we’re the best at what we do ^_~. And hey, if YOU dig what we do, spread the word! Tell a friend! That’s what shonen is all about… friendship and camaraderie!

The feed URL that should should be using (and is now linked throughout) is: http://www.vegettoex.com/blog/feed/

By the way… if you read this blog and haven’t responded over on this entry letting me know you’re here, absolutely do so! I’d love to know who’s checking this thing out. Thanks so much!

As you may or may not know, I’m a somewhat big fan of The Legend of Zelda. In fact, two of the series’ games make up my top three games of all time. I have a strange history with the series after 1998, though. I found myself really wanting to enjoy Ocarina of Time, but simply losing interest (and quite frankly, becoming horribly bored with the game) after getting about halfway through. I tried playing another three times since then, and each time I got through less of the game before it bored me to tears. I started Wind Waker and got to the second dungeon before my now-classic “randomly dropped the game” syndrome kicked in. I didn’t play Twilight Princess at all, and instead watched Meri play through the entire thing. See, she’s the 3D fan for the series, while I champion the 2D games. It all works out in the end.

Regardless of this fact, I still adore the story and implementation of Ocarina of Time in nearly every way, even if I never got through the game. To know that there was a manga series about it certainly raised a nerdy interest in me, and when I heard that Viz would be bringing it state-side, I was all over that.

I think it’s really important to take a quick look at the ways in which I’ve viewed Link as a character, though. With the exception of Zelda II‘s wonderful, “I FOUND A MIRROR UNDER THE TABLE“, Link has essentially been mute from his debut onward (with the additional exception of fighting noises from the N64 era onward). This, however, is only in gameplay. There have been other areas in which Link has fleshed himself out a little bit, and I wanted to look at some American and Japanese examples that form my idea on just who exactly Link is before diving into the manga review.

With the games themselves out of the way (and ignoring anything and everything on the CD-i), there’s no getting around the Super Mario Bros. Super Show‘s special Friday inclusion of the Zelda cartoon. Link suddenly became a snarky horn dog, far removed from the emotionless splash of pixels we had all become used to playing. The iconic, “Well excuuuuuuuuse ME, Princess!” ended up defining Link as a character for many fans for many years, probably up until around the time that more games came out to help wash away the memories (don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed the show!). It seemed like an all-too-obvious American, 1980s/1990s take on the character, and is certainly the most distinct of any incarnation.

Let’s jump over to Japan, though.

The first Zelda manga I ever picked up was actually a gift for Meri sometime shortly after 2000; it was one of the 4-koma comic series. For those unfamiliar, think of your typical American comic strip in a newspaper. The panels are the same size, run consecutively/chronologically, and tell a short (usually humorous) story. Series like Azumanga Daioh also were released in the 4-koma style. In this particular manga, there are a whole bunch of these very short (funny!) strips throughout the issue. Picking up bombs, finding hidden places… all the usual scenarios you would expect to play in a Zelda game are represented. While I cannot fluently read any of the text, the artwork is enough to get the hilarity across.

At Otakon 2007, one of the Japanese bookstores was unloading cheap copies of Akira Himekawa‘s manga, so I picked up two random volumes. These would be the versions that Viz would eventually bring out to the US about a year later. I didn’t do much other than flip through them, but I could tell that Link was at least talking with other characters and going about with his adventures almost exactly as we saw (and played) in the respective video games.

This takes us up to the American release of the manga, and the actual “review” of it (geeze, it seemed like it took a long time to get here!). With all of these “versions” of Link in mind, it was tough to jump into this and figure out how to accept him as a character. Add to that the fact that Viz brought it out under the “Viz Kids” label, and as a guy in his mid/late-20s, you start really wondering how or why you should read it at all.

Yes, there will be “spoilers” in this review (both for the original story from the game, as well as new plot points added to this manga).

Since this particular manga tells the story of Ocarina of Time, I found myself assuming the role of that Link in my head, and I did so pretty easily. I knew where the story was going and how it was going to get there, but also knew that some plot points may be different.

It was a little tough to get used to a character that was so verbose, especially since Ocarina of Time (the video game this manga is based on) really solidified the “mute” Link. He clearly has “conversations” in the game, but you only ever get the OTHER characters’ side of it. Instead, the manga presents us with a character not afraid to show emotion both with his body and his voice, and even has plenty of internal monologue moments. It makes sense, and most likely wouldn’t work too well as a manga without these traits (though I’m sure plenty of doujinshi have explored this).

The story had enough nods to exact scenes from the video game to satisfy that itch, but also presented enough new plot points and character development to make me want to read it rather than just go play the game for myself, instead.

Things directly from the game that I liked included Saria waiting for Link by the bridge on the outskirts of the forest, carrying Princess Ruto around for a while inside Jabu-Jabu, and shooting an arrow into the painting to fight against the ghost/spirit version of Ganondorf.

Some of the new elements are what really help the story shine, though. The Stalfos that gets personified as something more than just a random, nameless bad-guy (it meets and battles Link both in the past and future) was a nice touch. One of the most heart-breaking parts of the manga was Link’s little dragon friend that was corrupted into an evil beast, which Link was forced to behead and kill in order to save the Gorons.

Even with a couple of these more “intense” story moments, they are not enough to bring the entire package to anything more than standard kids fare (and at times, maybe a little too childish). The Zelda franchise wouldn’t attempt to show its slightly darker side until Twilight Princess (though I’d argue that the Nightmares in Link’s Awakening did it first), so while it does make sense to have this particular manga be so heavy on the children focus, it might partially alienate the fans that have grown up with the series looking to jump into the manga. Sure, the manga is eight years old at this point, but I don’t see myself having too different an opinion on these elements eight years ago, either.

At the same time, what else should I expect? Nothing, really. I expected a children’s manga, and that is exactly what I got. Perhaps I was hoping for a couple extra bits here and there that might be more “adult” in tone, but it was not meant to be. That being said, I don’t mean to diminish what is actually presented and done well, which is the vast majority of what I’ve read.

I found the artwork a little busy and confusing at times (I had the same thoughts recited back to me by Meri, so I know I’m not alone). The logical flow didn’t always seem so logical, and the fading of edges and spreads could be misleading. The art seems to be very shoujo in style with trends of shounen story development (and with “Akira Himekawa” actually being a pen name for “A. Honda” and “S. Nagano” [both women], and the Zelda series also having a strong female fanbase, this makes a lot of sense).

One thing that made my inner-nerd rise up in protest (both figuratively and literally, in that I couldn’t resist pointing it out to Meri) was the note on one of the in-between-chapter pages showcasing Link on top of Epona which says, “It’s unusual for him to hold his sword in his left hand.” Sorry, ladies! Link has exclusively been left-handed throughout his entire history, and wouldn’t be shown holding a sword in his right hand until the Wii version of Twilight Princess at least six years after this manga’s publication! Sure, it’s just a minor thing, but if they were going to make such an obvious note of it, that note should not be so glaringly incorrect!

One important “defect” with this particular Viz version of the release is the misalignment and binding of some of the pages (mostly toward the middle and later on in the volume). It seems to have been placed too far into the middle of the book, rendering the ends of some sentences completely unreadable. Hopefully this is fixed in future printings (this particular version I own is the first printing from October 2008).

While I have only gotten around to reading the first volume of the Ocarina of Time series (of two total), I look forward to grabbing the second volume and all subsequent releases (hopefully Majora’s Mask, etc.). Volumes one and two are available now from Viz under the “Viz Kids” label for $7.99 a pop. It’s a nice way for me to quickly re-experience games that I enjoy in theory, but can just never fully get into when I sit down to play.

So back in mid 2005, I decided I was going to jump on this “podcast” bandwagon with Daizenshuu EX. I was looking for something “new” to try out, and I always liked doing things bigger & better with that site. For our first episode, I’m pretty sure I used a very cheap (~$10) headset I had lying around (which has since broken itself into a million pieces because it was so cheap). After that, I moved on to what most people seem to do when they have no idea: RadioShack!

Before getting into that, I should at least mention the way I record things. With Daizenshuu EX, we try to have Julian on as much as possible (which can be difficult when he’s over in Japan, but we do our damndest). I have found that for me, the best way to record him on my computers has always been to have CPU #1 output Skype to CPU #2, which records Julian on his own audio track. You may hear Dave & Joel do a “1, 2, 3, *clap*” during their recordings; turns out we do a very similar thing. This lets me line up the claps on both audio tracks so I can edit them together in sync with one another. I actually do the clapping myself which gets recorded on both tracks. I know, I know… I just said that Julian gets recorded on his own track. Let me explain.

My main computer is a Windows XP machine (started out using our Shuttle, but have since moved on to our big XPS; this doesn’t really matter, though). All of the recording stuffage from our local side goes into the “line in” port on the computer. Here are my audio properties while recording:

You’ll note that the “Line-In” port is muted on the local side. This is a bit misleading. What it is actually doing is preventing any audio coming in over that port from being output from the line-out port. In a nutshell, it comes in (and gets recorded), but doesn’t go out. This allows me to:

(1) Run Skype on CPU #1
(2) Record myself on CPU #1
(3) Only have Skype’s audio running over the line-out port to CPU #2

Is this a great way to do things? Probably not. Are there better ways? Probably. It works for me, though. It allows me to have separate audio tracks for each of us, which means I can process the audio differently for each of us (there is more “clean-up” that needs to be done on Julian’s than on our own, mostly just due to it being over Skype).

Right now I am outputting to a computer running Ubuntu, which itself records into Audacity, the same as on my Windows XP machine. In this particular case, the OS on CPU #2 is completely irrelevant… it just needs to record whatever I want to send to it.

You might still be asking how I line up my own claps on both audio tracks if I don’t record myself on CPU #2. Easy. I temporarily “un-mute” that line-in on CPU #2, so I’m recorded on both tracks. Once I clap, I just turn it off and it’s back to Julian by himself being recorded on CPU #2.

So let’s get back to equipment. After abandoning crappy headsets for an episode (or two; I don’t remember), I was off to RadioShack. I ended up getting their more basic equipment, which worked perfectly fine for a while. In fact, it still works, but we’ve since eclipsed the sound quality by miles.

I started out with the RadioShack 4 Channel Stereo Sound Mixer ($30). It’s an incredibly basic little mixer that has four 1/4-inch inputs with their own individual volume controls, two sets of RCA inputs, and one set of RCA outputs. I have never really used those inputs, but the output goes from the RCA-to-1/8-inch (standard headset) adapter, which would be plugged into the line-in on CPU #1. For mics, I bought a bunch of their cheapest unidirectional dynamic microphones (~$20-30; similar item). Since everyone was recording into their own mics, unidirectional seemed the way to go (recording from just one, head-on direction). I eventually purchased their cheap omnidirectional microphone ($30), but never did much with it.

That stuff worked for us for… well… I don’t even remember. Quite a long period of time. Maybe two years…? With a combination of tweaking levels and working with other software (things like Levelator), I was able to get it sounding halfway decent. There was a huge room for improvement, though, and once I realized we were actually serious about this, I decided to upgrade equipment.

To this day, though, I still use their desktop microphone stands ($11) and gooseneck microphone extensions ($8). I also have their standard “Heavy Duty Microphone Stand with Cast-Iron Base” ($28), which is mostly used for playing Rock Band, though we also toss Jeff’s mic into it (since his mic doesn’t use a shock-mount like the MXL 990s). Definitely time to upgrade to some boom stands, though. Anyway…

When it was time to upgrade equipment, I figured that since I didn’t actually know the technical ins-and-outs of audio, I should get some quality material, but not go completely overboard. After doing a bit of research, I ended up with the Behringer Eurorack UB802 ($60) for a mixer, and the MXL 990 condenser microphone ($50-70). I am able to get a really nice sound out of these, which is leagues ahead of anything I was able to get out of RadioShack equipment.

That only covers me, though. What about Meri? What about other local guests? Well, I suppose I could have gotten the next step up with the Behringer mixers with additional XLR inputs for mics (I actually did get the 1202 for work earlier this year, which is great), but we have been able to manage. I tend to end up with Jeff’s microphone here a lot, so if it’s here, I toss it over to Meri (or I have another MXL 990 sitting around, which also works). For the record, Jeff has a Shure 8900 dynamic microphone ($50).

More than two of us? That’s a problem, since the 802 only has the two XLR inputs, and I can’t get enough volume/gain out of the old RadioShack mics by plugging them directly into the 802. I need to pre-amp them with… gasp… the old RadioShack mixer.

Yep. For right now, if I have three or more people locally recording, I use a combination of the Behringer and RadioShack mixers. The RadioShack mics go into the RadioShack mixer like always (and up to a volume of about three or four), which then gets output as a whole over to the “Tape In” on the Behringer mixer. That can allow me up to six people locally recording with their own microphones, though this is not an ideal situation. Any more than one extra mic starts to really contribute to extra noise, which is a real pain to deal with cleaning.

So that basically takes us up to today and how we record shows. I do all of my recording into Audacity, and use a combination of its own noise removal filter and Levelator to balance out shows. I actually piece together segments with their bumper music over in Adobe Premiere, since I like the easy drag-and-drop of the timeline more than trying to do it in Audacity.

My typical Daizenshuu EX workflow looks something like this:

(1) Turn off cell phones, test levels, make sure everything’s recording on its proper audio track, etc.
(2) Record actual episode
(3) Export the two individual audio tracks from each computer
(4) Toss each audio track into Levelator
(5) Bring the levelated audio back into a new Audacity project
(6) Run noise removal on each individual audio track
(7) Drag both processed audio tracks into another new Audacity project
(8) Line up the claps from each audio track
(9) Edit episode
(10) Export, encode, etc.

There’s still so much for me to learn and things I specifically want to learn about, but it’s pretty daunting. I’d love to upgrade to a bigger mixer at some point. I would also love to learn about things like noise gates and compressors (I’ve had my eyes on the DBX 266XL Compressor Gate for a while; ~$120). I’ve heard Rym note a few times that for podcasting purposes, dynamic mics are better than condenser mics, so I’d like to investigate that a little more (I do think that my mic picks up more than it should and then messes with the balance a little bit; I also can’t wait to move and not have things like our current loud refrigerator always being picked up). I’d also like to move toward non-analog input. I’ve played with the Behringer U-CONTROL UCA200 USB Adapter (UCA-202; $30 sold separately) that came with the 1202 mixer, and it does help cut out a tiny bit of noise. Unfortunately, the USB interface seems to take over and negate what I’m used to doing with the muting input going to CPU #2, which totally throws off any Skype recording I would need to do.

So that’s basically it! If anyone’s interested, I’d be more than happy to further explain how I do things, but I have to follow that up by saying that I literally have no idea what I’m doing and continue to be learning as I go along. I’d love additional suggestions and clarifications from people if you have anything to offer!

Prompted by discussions I have had with friends over Anberlin‘s new version of “The Feel Good Drag“, I decided to take a look at it and four other notable re-recordings from my library. What made the original version good or bad? How about the new one? Was it worth re-recording in the first place?

I do not really have much of an idea what imeem is, but it appears that there are just a whole bunch of songs up for free streaming, and they tend to have links to purchase the song if you are interested. I guess you have to sign-up/login if you want to listen more than once…? Whatever. With that in mind, I suppose I will just link over to there (where available) so you all can listen along with the music (rather than me putting up ten MP3s in a single blog post).

For the purposes of this list and discussion, I will not be including demo versions of songs as the “original” version. If I were going to do that, I would have at least five versions of Saosin‘s “I Wanna Hear Another Fast Song” / “Sleepers” that I would have to compare…! Also, versions from an EP that appeared right on the next full length essentially as-is from version to version (such as The Get Up Kids’ “Red Letter Day” and Finch‘s “Letters To Youi”) also will not count for this list and discussion.

(1) Anberlin – “The Feel Good Drag”
Original Version: Never Take Friendship Personal (2005)
New Version: New Surrender (2008)

This was absolutely one of the best songs off of Never Take Friendship Personal, which itself was a near-perfect album beginning to end. Anberlin has stated that they wanted to bring this song back because it never got the “chance” it deserved previously (and ended up making it their first single and music video off of New Surrender). I personally believe it was already a wonderfully-produced song, and had a pretty sick amount of emotion coming from Christian’s vocals. So what happened in the new version? It is far too “safe”. The screaming is removed from the breakdown (which itself was so far-removed from anything else Anberlin had done), and the production is far too overdone. In general, it just feels like the soul of the song was missing. It was still the same song, but that piece that made it special was no longer there. Unfortunately, that is how I feel about the album New Surrender in general; it is defintiely Anberlin, and there are definitely some good songs, but there is no spark.

(2) New Found Glory – “Hit or Miss”
Original Version: Nothing Gold Can Stay (1999)
New Version: New Found Glory (2000)

As the song that put New Found Glory on the pop-punk map, “Hit or Miss” was a pretty huge deal. The original version of the song off of Nothing Gold Can Stay was already a “single” in that a music video was already made (starring Corey Feldman, no less). The acoustic guitar opening really defined it, and while the production is not up to the level that their later material would be, it is still very clear sounding and well done. I was very apprehensive when I heard they were going to be re-recording the song for their “major label” debut (as well as their single and a re-done music video), and I remember not liking it all that much upon first hearing it. As time went on, it became apparent that the new version was indeed a solid improvement on the original, and quite possibly what they originally wanted it to sound like (and was indeed what it sounded like during live performances). Jordan’s vocals were much cleaner and at appropriate levels when compared to the music. The “I’ve had so many chances…” dual-vocals near the end are finally audible. All in all, it is a solid re-recording of the original version, and is typically my go-to version for playing (despite my love for Nothing Gold Can Stay).

(3) Reel Big Fish – “Beer”
Original Version: Everything Sucks (1995) / Turn The Radio Off (1996)
New Version: We’re Not Happy ‘Til You’re Not Happy (2005)

I will consider the version off of Turn The Radio Off the “original” version, considering that most of the songs off of Everything Sucks ended up being re-recorded for more “proper” album releases later on down the road. With that in mind, it was a total shock to see a ten-year-anniversary version of “Beer” re-recorded as a b-side for We’re Not Happy ‘Til You’re Not Happy. What was the real purpose of this, though? It sounds much more “full” and is performed slightly slower, but other than that, it does not contribute a whole lot. I simply do not have a whole lot to say comparing these two versions. The new version is just a b-side, so it is not like it was re-done as a “new single” for the band presenting them to a new audience. It is… well, it is just there for the sake of being there, almost.

(4) Saosin – “Bury Your Head”
Original Version: Saosin EP (2005)
New Version: Saosin full-length (2006)

The original version of “Bury Your Head” was presented as the first highly-public debut of replacement vocalist Cove Reber (though he had done a couple recordings prior to this, including the studio version of “I Can Tell There Was An Accident Here Earlier“). This version of “Bury Your Head” received an actual music video, done in the style of a live performance. The new version seemed like a forced-inclusion by Capitol for the band’s full-length (and while I do not have a source to quote, I believe that is the actual truth; the band did not want to re-record and include it, while the label highly suggested they do such). The new version features more drum-fills, though they do not necessarily feel like they belong here as much as they do on other new song arrangements on the album. Reber’s dual-vocals in places feel like they are there just to add to the breadth of sounds in the song, rather than enhancing what is already there in his performance. Maybe it is because the song’s inclusion was forced, but there is a distinct lack of emotion in the performance of this song compared to the rest of the album.

(5) The Starting Line – “Leaving”
Original Version: The Starting Line (2001) / With Hopes of Starting Over EP (2002)
New Version: Say It Like You Mean It (2002)

While The Starting Line technically first recorded the song during their We The People recording sessions, the entire album was more or less scrapped when Drive-Thru came along. It was then re-recorded nearly identically for their Drive-Thru debut EP, With Hopes of Starting Over. It was then recorded for a third time for their proper first full-length, Say It Like You Mean It, where it was used as their second single and music video (after “The Best Of Me“). The original version of the song has a rough feel to it, but is incredibly genuine. Kenny’s voice is still young and squeaky in the past, which would start to change for the full-length, and continue onward through all of their subsequent releases. The radio-muffled extra “Without saying goodbye…” would evolve over the versions of the song, which is probably for the better. The original version uses these cheap production tricks to try to put some extra “oomphf” in there, but I personally believe that it hurts the otherwise genuine qualities of the recording. The new version of the song does more than just change the production values, and actually changes a bit of lyrics, shortening the “As weekdays and weekdays unwind / I’ll be found staring back in time” to simply “Let’s travel back in time!” The new version also opens more akin to the band’s live performances of the song, with Kenny singing the beginning of the song’s chorus before the full band breaks in. While it could be argued that Mark Trombino over-produced Say It Like You Mean It, I feel that this song, at least, particularly benefitted from this outside viewpoint (I also agree with Howard Benson’s production of “The World” off of Based On A True Story, rather than the band’s preference of the Tim O’Heir version). The removal of the “cheap” effects really helps the song, and everything is brought into balance with each other. The new version also ramps up the chorus speed to a more noticeable level. Like New Found Glory’s re-recorded version of “Hit or Miss“, I find myself revisiting the re-recorded version of “Leaving” more than the original(s), though also like the New Found Glory song, I have a huge place in my heart for the original(s) that I do occasionally revisit.

Regardless…

Is there anything in particular you readers would like to hear some thoughts on? I will still try to post amusing pictures and such taken in the wild, but I also want to be able to type up some premeditated garbage every so often, too. If you are following this blog, you are either genuinely interested in things I may have to say, or are one of those creepy people that hates me yet follows me around the intertubes reading everything I write hoping to one day pin me on something ever-so-minute when I run for President of the World and destroy all of my plans.

Things I use? Things I do? Places I have been? Specific-fandom stories? I’m full of it! In lots of ways!

Daizenshuu EX (www.daizex.com)

While a wee circa-sixteen year old child in 1998, I started up a fansite for a silly little Japanese cartoon. One of my goals when starting up the site (written right on the web page) was a completely egotistical, slightly delusional, and childish aim to become something like a “household name”. I guess I was looking to be an internet celebrity before they existed. As the years went on and I realized that this was going to be a hobby for me and I would be entering the “real world” and such, I became much more genuine with my intents and goals for the site. I wanted to do things that either: 1) no-one had ever done before, or 2) bigger and better than anyone had done before. Fast-forward many years to 2005, and the idea of a “podcast” is suddenly becoming serious business on the internet. Due to the site simply being so old and nothing more than a hobby, many of the things I wanted to do with it were simply impossible, but starting up this new portion of it would allow me to keep up with the times, so to speak, and bring something completely new to the table that few anime sites were doing, let-alone one-show-specific fansites. It has since been the main pet-project of mine (in general and for the website), but it has also allowed me to generate some pretty amazing content that I otherwise would probably never have done, so I am very thankful for that. As more and more time passes, I find myself incredibly conflicted on what I want to do and how I want to cover it for the website; the podcast allows me to explore any and all avenues and still generate compelling content at the same time.

Video Game Conversations Podcast (www.vgconvos.com)

In very early 2008 I decided to do two things: 1) put some of my new podcasting equipment to another use to get a good bang for my buck, and 2) be very greedy and get my friends to come talk about video games with me (this is the kind of stuff we sit around and talk about, anyway, so I thought it made sense to turn it into a show!). I also had a lot of random video game musings that I did not have an appropriate outlet for, so I figured a new website that I could both randomly blog on and also do a new podcast on would be a great idea. Jeff was itching to do some recording at the time (with Lo-Fidelity being on hold), and I somehow convinced Andrew to come record with us, as well. We have now been going for half a year, and I think we have a really good basis for something very nice down the road. I am happy with keeping the podcast monthly, and I do not see that changing at all. I love that I have a place to write random bits of gaming nonsense, and I love even more when one of the other guys also write content. As you have just read (and are possibly confused by), I am slightly conflicted in my goals for the site; I want to keep it this side-project with minimal effort, but I think there is a great basis for a larger entity that I would truly love to explore. Huh.

WTF EX (www.vegettoex.com)

Once we launched vgconvos, I thought it would be nice to have a single place online that I could link out to all of these projects I had. I created vegettoex.com as this place, and further decided to toss up a blog on it so I could have yet another outlet that would be my catch-all; if it didn’t relate to DB or video games, this would be the place to write it. I then decided (does my train of thought even make any sense?) that since I had this catch-all place, if I ever wanted to do a podcast about something else completely random, well, this would be the place for it. I so far have only done three episodes, and while I have enjoyed them, this is something I need and want to be very careful about. I certainly do not want this to be (and we slightly addressed this in the first episode), “Oh, Mike just likes listening to the sound of his own voice!” It certainly isn’t. Well… is it? It is also something that I have mentioned time and time again, but there is so much garbage out there in the world that it almost pains me. Most podcasts are terrible. Most panels that I have seen at conventions are terrible. While I never pretend to be the best at anything I do and expect to automatically have legions of followers, I do believe that the material I put out is well above the level of being “meh”, and this lets me put out non-DB and non-gaming better-than-“meh” material. I will absolutely strive not to do shows just for the sake of doing shows, and will make them worthwhile and enjoyable. I have tried to do many blog posts that follow that school of thought, and I hope to continue it with the podcast in the future. Just don’t expect much of a regular schedule! In the end, I expect to use the site more for its blog than anything else, and the podcast will be an extension of that for topics that can’t be covered in a simple blog post or otherwise need more “hosts” to discuss it.

Lo-Fidelity (www.lofidelity.info)

This has almost become a second-priority podcast all of a sudden! I told Jeff I was unable to commit to a weekly schedule, so for now we are shooting for bi-weekly and we will see how it goes. I absolutely adore the format and content of the show, and I want to help my friends with their podcast endeavors in any way that I can. I thought the “first episode” we did for the re-launch was extremely solid, and I am so happy to be a part of it. Furthermore, I love that all I have to do is just do my homework (listen to music), show up to record, and my job is done. I don’t have to edit, I don’t have to mix… it’s wonderful! I’m sure this is how Jeff feels about all the project he’s done with me!

I have basically created a mini-audio-empire for myself with three (what I consider) very solid shows, and a random extra tossed into the mix. What do I want to do with all of this, though? This is all just side-project hobby stuff for me. Sure, I have a “real life” job where I do similar things (including yet another podcast), but what does this contribute to the world? Am I accomplishing anything? What is the meaning of life? Who is going to win the Super Bowl? Why did I just ask a football question when I can’t care any less about the sport?

So today Firefox on my work laptop (3.0.4 running on Windows XP Pro SP2) let me know that two plugins/add-ons had updates. Sure, let’s do it! I let Adblock Plus update itself to 1.0, and DownloadHelper update itself to 3.5.1.

After doing so, my bookmarks toolbar suddenly had nothing in it.

I checked in the “Bookmarks” >> “Bookmarks Toolbar” menu option, and thankfully the four items I had set there were actually still there. They just weren’t showing up on the actual toolbar for me to click. Huh.

I did a little Googling to figure out what may have been the problem (assuming it was the add-ons updates), and came across this blog entry. Much to my dismay, it was completely incomprehensible. Sure, there were capital letters and punctuation, but the words didn’t actually make any sense. None of the comments were any more helpful, either. I tried to follow along with what they were saying, but there was a severe lack of context in every single comment.

Luckily, I happened to resize the Firefox window (I don’t know why), and found something interesting:

What on Earth are the bookmarks doing way the heck over there on the right…?! I tried a few things (like manually dragging the icons over to the left… not that it would do anything…), but I was not making any progress. They would stay on-screen now that I had changed the window size, but they stayed flush up against the right side. That doesn’t really help me much, since I have trained myself to head up to the left to click them.

I ended up right-clicking to customize the toolbar area, just to see what would happen:

Without even doing anything on the following screen, my bookmarks toolbar suddenly reverted itself back to normal:

Well, that was certainly interesting.

A little part of me dies on the inside (in addition to the part that wants to get up and punch a brick wall) every time I see the wrong it’s/its and they’re/there/their. Just as horrific to me is when people add an apostrophe into a word when they are simply trying to make it plural.

You are not reading multiple book’s, you are reading multiple books. Nothing is belonging to the books. They belong to you.

Speaking of books, my buddy Andrew picked me up Eats, Shoots & Leaves a while back. I thoroughly enjoyed it, since I realized that I was not alone in the world with these feelings of rage (not that Andrew shares these feelings… his grammar ranges between wonderful and incomprehensible). The problem is that I simply do not know what to do with myself and this rage. It is impossible to change the world, and it is impossible for me to never encounter these errors that drive me to (non-literal; I’m just making a blog post) insanity.

I cannot even imagine what copy-editors and other similar professionals go through in their daily lives.

That’s a non-referral Amazon link up above, by the way. I do not want any money. I just want people to learn and share in my internet rage.

What you’re about to hear is a little bit of an experimentation on a few different fronts. The beginning of the episode (the “meat” of the episode, if you will) was actually recorded after all of the other stuff, which in this case is the end of the episode. Follow all that?

In a nutshell, Jeff is working to revive Lo-Fidelity (his music review/appreciation podcast), and we were farting around with my mixer and his MacBook Pro to test levels and all that kind of boring pre-recording stuffage. We ended up amusing ourselves in the process and were wondering what to do with all of that material. I suggested we just dump it over here on WTF EX, and then further decided that rather than just dump it, let’s record an “intro” to it and make it an actual episode. Furthermore, let’s not edit a damn thing other than dragging it into the production timeline and creating transitions between the “segments”.

So here you go. If you ever wanted to hear us completely unedited, uncut, and uncensored (but thankfully not in a cropped-widescreen presentation), this is it. I hold myself absolutely non-responsible for anything I said, and instead place all of the blame of Jeff. What you’re about to listen to is the ramblings of one man who had already recorded an entire normal podcast, and another who’s itching to record his own.

You have been warned. Please enjoy.

Jeff is back on this episode, and Meri also joins us, as we talk about our first-ever e-mail addresses and some early internet ignorance. I thought we had a couple pretty interesting stories, and it certainly drives home the idea that we were all stupid early teenagers at some point in our lives.

Enjoy the show, and have a great Thanksgiving weekend~!