I agreed with them at the time. I was 17 and had gotten into the show the year before. I remembered having to wake up every Sunday morning at 5:30am to watch this Dragon Ball Z show in syndication; only to find out that the show was cut to hell. I was livid*, understandably, that I had to wake up at such a ludicrous hour to watch a cartoon that was edited for 8-year olds. Luckily, though, I found a classmate with a similar interest in the show. Even luckier, he held a copy of the the subs. Let me clear something up, though- subs back then were different. Not only were they on VHS, and copied so many times that the picture was often indecipherable; the fansubbers had taken about as many liberties as Funimation did. The last time I had heard "SHIT!" and "FUCK YOU!" as many times in rapid succession was when my friend had sat me down for an entire day of mafia movie watching.

Still, though, that Dragon Ball Z Otaku Alliance seemed like a match for me. This was a group that simply wanted a good subtitling of the show. They were die-hard fans; so shouldn't they get what they want? Its only as a 23 year old now that I see how different things are. Dragon Ball wasn't meant for us. It never should have been targeted towards the diehards. We were going to buy the products anyway no matter what we said, and Funimation knew it. Giving us a version that suited us was no better than those crappy fansubs that I had to deal with for the next two years. It was an absolute master-stroke for Funimation to give us a subtitled version of the show on the DVDs, though. It was even better that they hand chose someone from the community to handle the translations. Steven "Daimoh" Simmons was a very well respected individual in the Dragon Ball community, and word of his hiring greatly relieved members of the DBZOA, yet gave them other fears. What if he would be strongarmed to use the Americanized names? What if he were converted to being a "Funi supporter", like Jon Allen and an increasing amount of the Big 5 webmasters? Still, though, it seemed like an olive branch, and most members were at ease.

...until the first DVD shipped. The community was suddenly up in arms about the lack of the opening and ending credits for each episode. Where each episode usually got its own op and end, there was now one general one. Even more disturbing was the lack of the "next episode" spots at the end of each ep. I spent days as a Namek message board staffer calming down the rancor to the point where it just tired me. Jon Allen came in to soothe minds, but it helped little. It had seemed that "Funi" had dropped the ball again and the DBZOA had a new fight...

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