'Dubbies'

Around the DBZ web community, there are a multitude of webmasters of constantly refer to people as ‘Dubbies’ and what’s more they speak of them as if they’re the spawn of the devil. According to them the only true DBZ fans are the ones who have seen the Japanese versions, and in the more extreme cases, who were introduced to the whole thing by the Japanese episodes. Is this a reasonable opinion to assume?

First of all I’d better describe what is meant by the term ‘Dubbies’, as some of you are no doubt puzzled. It can basically be defined as someone who watches the dub of Dragonball Z, and who hasn’t seen any Japanese episodes. To elaborate further, this supposedly annoying virus in the community is someone who watches only English/American DBZ.

Some webmasters despise ‘Dubbies’ and will only converse with others who have watched all the Japanese episodes and know of the insane butchering of the whole series. This is, in my personal opinion, ludicrous. Fortunately very few people take that point of view, although a lot of webmasters believe that the average ‘Dubby’ knows very little on the state that DBZ is in, and doesn’t really pay much attention to them unless they know a lot about the original. Stupid as it sounds, this is true.

‘Dubbies’ may not know an awful lot about the edits made to the original series, but they do recognize quality programming when they see it, obviously taking a liking to DBZ. Just because they haven’t seen the original doesn’t make them any less important in the community.

One argument I’d like to bring up is that the vast majority of these webmasters, or in some cases, fans, couldn’t have possibly seen a legal copy of Japanese episodes. They would have had to buy a pirated fandub/sub, or download it illegally from the huge reserves on the Internet. Surely this would mean that they’re in no position to criticize the ‘Dubbies’, they may not be quite as knowledgeable on the original DBZ, but at least they watch it without breaking the law.

In case you haven’t already figured it out, I am in fact about three-quarters ‘Dubby’. I was introduced to DBZ when it was aired on cartoon network, and I grew to enjoy it, completely oblivious of the fact that there was an original, unedited version available. I still thoroughly enjoyed it though, and even managed to make a very respectable and fairly successful site merely with my knowledge of the dub.

Most of you have probably noticed that I am extremely knowledgeable on all aspects of DBZ, and yet I’m mainly ‘Dubbish’, proving a fact that contradicts the statements of many. Us ‘Dubbies’ are just as valuable to the web community as full-bred fans of the original thus there should be more respect shown to us. Without ‘Dubbies’ we wouldn’t have anyone to stick up for FUNi, nor would we have anywhere near as many fans of this legendary franchise. ‘Dubbies’ are quite possibly the most valuable people in the whole of the web community, and I think this regardless of what some arrogant people believe.