The Never-Ending Rant

Censorship Killed DBZ

by Ira Goldberg
Issue VI - March 26th, 2000

To be honest, I have never seen any of the uncensored episodes of Dragonball Z, let alone the Japanese ones in their rarest form. I don't really have the drive nor the pocket to buy the episodes on tape. Nonetheless, one thing is apparent; censorship destroyed the anime characteristic of Dragonball Z in America.

For some reason, DBZ is reaching new heigts of popularity but its true meaning is dropping near the level of classifying it as the teenager's Pokemon, which I would like to point out was only created to sell more video games in the first place. The unedited version of DBZ has moments that truly convey emotions of the characters, the likes of which we never get to know in the dubbed Funimation series because of the censorship. We never learn of the true anguish that all of the Z-fighters endure as time progresses and their coping with death.

The best example in the series is the death of Yamcha. In the unedited films, Yamcha's body, along with everyone elses body, does not dissappear. In fact, he is shown quite often throughout the entire series. When Krillin hunches over his fallen comrades body, which I will not when Krillin is shown on Roshi's TV is apparently holding something in his arms while in the hole, we don't get a true idea of whats going on. Yamcha's death is the death of innocence and the realizaton that the good guy doesn't always win. Things go wrong, terribly wrong. Krillin's utter rage taken out on the Saibamen and the two Sayans only manages to prove effective against most of the green men and thus further advances this notion of thigns not always being easy.

Another terrible travesty is the battle between Goku and Vegeta where you just don't seem to understand how monumental the battle is because you don't see any bruises or blood on either Goku or Vegeta's face. The two beat the hell out of each other and are struggling to win so badly and it is a classic battle of good versus evil.

On the other hand, Funimation has made some concessions and the moer recent episodes, despite terrible voice acting, give a better feeling of the whole situation. The death of Krillin could have been done a little better than just showing a cloud of smoke, but the anger of Goku is portrayed so well. The blood pouring out of everyone, especially Goku and Frieza serves more than just the blood and gore appeaser, but the true test of an ultimate battle of two mega powers attempting to defeat the other for the fate of the entire galaxy on a doomed planet.

My point being, somethings should be censored. Quite frankly, I don't care for the blantant sexuality and nudity in it. I don't really think Master Roshi and Oolong being perverts really serves any real basis for a support. I don't think it truly matters about some of the things put in there, but there is in an artistic part to anime and Funimation destroyed it, at least the Sayan saga.

Can I go to bed yet?