Rant #1: December 29, 2001 

How I got started with Dragonball Z and joining this site

If I really think about it, I am pretty much a newbie to Dragonball Z.  I have talked to some people online that have been watching DBZ for at least five years, mostly the Japanese version.  I didn't even know the show existed until my Junior year in high school, about three and a half years ago.  I didn't even like anime until then.  One of my friends was telling me about this awesome cartoon that comes on Cartoon Network called Dragonball Z and he got me to watch one episode.  It was the episode where Gohan is found by the orphans and he helps them avoid the Child Welfare people.  I can admit I was unimpressed... until Pigero punched Gohan in the face and the five year old got back up.  I had no idea what was going on, however, so my friend began to explain to me the series and his favorite character, surprisingly Frieza!  I got a little interested in it and caught the show a few days later, the Catch Bubbles training episode.  That is when I got hooked.  I bought my first DBZ t-shirt during Spring Break of that year (1999 I believe) and buying the dubbed videos.  By the end of Spring Break, I had most of the dubbed videos and movies.  After watching them all, I was disappointed because the videos stopped when Goku was going to fight Burter and Jeice.  I finally began looking at sites on the internet and eventually stumbled across Planet Namek.  They had lots of information but I will admit it wasn't one of my favorites.  The site that was my favorite closed down, and I feel bad because I cannot even think of its name.  In any case, I started to find out more about the series, learned about the other sagas, and found out the series I was watching was edited.  I didn't like the fact that I was missing so much of the show because of the edits.  I waited for the new episodes to be released.

During the summer of that year, the new videos were released in uncut format, but something was very different.  I noticed the change in voices as well as music.  I must admit I didn't like the voice change, and really didn't know what all was added to the show since it was uncut.  Then I saw what everyone had been saying with the blood and people actually saying die rather than next dimension.  The best uncut episode that was released was Krillin getting gored by Frieza and his blood spouting everywhere, and then Gohan's enraged attack on the villain.  It was beautiful!  I was getting more into the show and continued to buy the videos straight up to the beginning of the android saga.

By this point, I had already graduated from high school and was well into my first year of college.  I began downloading the original Japanese episodes since I had a T3 connection in my dorm and started watching as much as I could.  At this point I stopped buying the videos, and till this day I still haven't.  I was content with watching the Japanese fansubbed episodes as well as looking at the sites online.  One day I stumbled across a site called Animewar.com and took a look at its DBZ section.  It was pretty light with information, but it did say it was looking for new staff.  By then, I knew almost everything about the show, but not all, and decided to apply.  I sent in my application, which basically was my name and five to ten lines about the Dragonball series.  I got a response from the webmaster, Kevin, the very next day and we talked a bit about his new site that was under construction, a site called DBZGTLegacy.com.  He said he was closing Animewar and opening this new site in its place.  Of course, I said yes and thus began this site.  I joined it November 26, 2000 and have pretty much been running it since Kevin turned it over to me while he is dealing with his school work and preparation for college.

Well this is sort of a new thing for me.  I have never really written editorials of anything, and I felt this was something I could do weekly to give out my thoughts and feelings on the site and other matters.  Next week will be a continuation of this one, which deals with the history of the site.  More of my rants will come, dealing with my thoughts on Funimation, the dubs, and other matters.  Hope you enjoy this section and feedback is welcome.