Howdy ho! My name's Jim and I'm a student, so of course I have plenty of free time to waste, and I s...
Howdy ho! My name's Jim and I'm a student, so of course I have plenty of free time to waste, and I spend a lot of it right here. Look, there I am, right over there, reading an opinion! Give us a wave! Eh, whatever. Anyways, hope you like what I've got ...
Member since:13.01.2001
Reviews:41
Members who trust:5
If you've never seen the original Japanese version of Dragon Ball Z, then you probably think it's one of the best cartoons ever made. And not without good reason either. Kung-fu cartoons aren't exactly all that big anywhere outside of Japan, and when you see Dragon Ball Z for the first time, it's just like nothing else you've ever seen. People fly, shoot lasers out of their eyes, turn into giant monkeys, blast fireballs out of their hands... it's absolutely mental. Almost like someone dropped some acid while playing Street Fighter and then made a cartoon about it, and it's the perfect thing for when you just want to relax, switch your brain off and watch something on the TV.
But there are people out there who've seen the original Japanese version. They know all about just how weak the version we get to see is. They know all about how criminally bad some of the dubbed voices are compared to the original ones. They know about how the beautiful Japanese music of the original score has been replaced by that demented rock music that sounds like a mental patient got a Casio keyboard for his birthday. And, most of all, they know just how much material has been either "cleaned up" or removed completely...
If you've never seen it, then let me get one thing clear. The Japanese version is bloody. Really, really bloody. Robocop bloody. Ever thought it was weird how the characters in DBZ can have a hole blasted through their chest, or be pummelled senseless for hours on end, and still look like fresh and clean? Almost every single frame of the version we see has been "cleaned up" to remove miscellaneous blood, gore and the like. This is not how it was meant to be. Some bits are just too icky to clean up and are just cut completely, some episodes have as much as 80% of the content removed! Of course, it's perfectly obvious why they do this. If they left it the way it was, then it would never get shown on television. Claret all over the place, believe me, and almost every single instance gets tidied up so that we can watch it in the afternoons, instead of at about 2 in the morning on Channel 4.
So, a brilliant cartoon all in all. If you've never seen the original version, or don't really care about uts, then you'll love it just as much. But for people who know what the program's really meant to be like, it's almost painful to see it in such a sanitised form. Aw heck, it's still fun, cuts or no cuts.
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I bloody new it. ;)
The original dragonball series is on toonami at the moment and is far more gory but even that seems toned down. I always thought it should be Kill Bill style gore.
Love the review and love the program.
clanmac4 04.02.2001 17:10
Good opinion, I have seen the watered down version, my Daughter loves it. I did not know about the original - Thanks for that.
Manx 04.02.2001 17:05
It needed to be cut in order to appear on Cartoon Network. When it started it ran with a disclaimer and even then it was pulled for a bit. The success of DragonBall Z, though, has opened the gates and there are already two new (for British TV) anime shows.
Advantages: CN version censored for kids, kids love it Disadvantages: Not for everyone, I hate censorship, pointless censoring, violence?, adult-ish themes, kids love it, too commercialised
Deru 01.06.2004 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Dragonball Z
Feb 4th, 2001
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