Nostalgia bites me in the ass again!

[amadeupname]

So, as many of you probably know, I used to be a huge - and I mean ginormous - Dragonball Z fan. Still am, a bit, in a "this was my first anime ever, and even though I realize now it's pretty generic and kind of sucks in places, I still love it" way. I still have at least one of my T-shirts, still have the framed Piccolo pic that someone bought for me, still have the posters and wall scroll, still have my action figures (I think -- I might have given them to my brother =X); I still have that idea for my fanfic that I never really wrote, and thank god I didn't because that character was a total Mary Sue.

Her name was Tirana, and she was a Saiyan from goodness-knows-where anymore. She crash-landed on the planet in one of those typical pods that every single Saiyan in existence seems to own at least one of, and Piccolo found her and adopted her. And named her Tirana, which meant "orphan" in Namekian. (Oh! The angst!) And apparently managed to keep her secret from everyone but Dende and Gohan until she was sixteen or so. She tortured Vejita, and Goten, Trunks, and my Stu were all in love with her. Oh, and did I mention that her bangs were naturally pink?

In the first version of the story, a Saiyan named Ramu attacked (and I stole that name from Island of the Blue Dolphins), effectively kicking Piccolo's ass and then disappearing. I took that out later and was going to add it around the fourth or fifth chapter, but never got around to it. He was going to lust after Tirana and try and make her his "Saiyan Queen", like so many other clicheed fics do.

And then there was my Stu, Kiyoshi (an actual Japanese name, woohoo!), who was a Namek who ALSO crash-landed on the planet around the time Tirana revealed her existence to the rest of the DBZ cast. And dear god, did he have an angsty past, where his (rare!) twin brother attacked him and gave him the scar on his left eye. Poor mopey Stu. Anyway, Kiyoshi!Stu decided to take a universal cruise, and his brother followed him, trying to kill him for some reason or another. Did I mention he stayed at Vejita/Bulma/Trunks' house?

Kiyoshi and Tirana became best friends, and I was going to have him eventually get drunk on sake and try and kiss her, or something. Or kill himself. All I know is he was going to get drunk and do something painfully angsty. And Kiyoshi's brother, whose name I forget (it was another Japanese name, it started with an "A" and meant something like "bright boy"), apparently teamed up with Ramu before landing on the planet and trying to kill the Sue and Stu.

I still want to write that fic, and maybe someday I will. After I completely revamp the characters and the storyline, and maybe watch more of the series so I can have SOME continuity. And I highly doubt I'll ever publicly post it, except maybe on this journal.

Anyway, the reason this all came up is because I started looking for JKwok44's Dragon Ball Home Page - Frozen in Time.... I didn't like the fanfiction on there too much, but it had this cool midi on there that I haven't listened to in forever, and I loved it so much. This is it. I really want to find out where it's from -- someone told me it was from Macross Plus, but I don't remember who, and either way I'm still not sure. Anyone out there know?

At that point I was remembering all the fanfics that I used to love, and I tried looking for some of them. I do remember Sarah Slutz's stuff, but apparently her page has been moved and I can't get to the new one. Which really sucks, because I wanted to reread her stuff and see if it was as good as I remembered, or if I was really deluded back then. And I really did like her stuff, too, even if it was about Vejita's Sue sister.

So... anyone know what that song is? And does anyone else want to go on a hunt for old fanfics that probably don't exist anymore?

EDIT: Well, I found her fanfiction.net page! Which apparently has all the stuff I remembered anyway! Woohoo! Now on to look for other stuff >_>;

If you're interested at all, check out her fic The Madness Game, which is what I'm in the process of rereading.

Comments

[maxpegasus.livejournal.com]

Dragonball Z fanfiction can tend to be amazingly gay.

Also, Dragonball's cool, why doesn't anyone ever remember it? - Dragonball Z is alright, but since everything after the Super Saiyan Son Goku incident was something Toriyama was never going to write, and Dragonball GT sucked extreme arsehole, there's more reason to believe that more effort went into Dragonball, the original story of Son Goku's Childhood.

The Jackie Chun/Red Ribbon/Tao Pai-Pai/Tenshinhan/Demon King Piccolo/Piccolo Jr stuff was fantastic, and that's simply a quick summary of the better moments of the entire series.

I own both Dragonball and Dragonball Z entirely in Japanese/Subbed, and I'm looking into the Dragonball Z Jap/Subbed movies... I'm tempted to buy GT, someday, due to the fact I may have been too hard on the English version by Blue Water Dubbing.

... So... Yeah. There's no shame in liking Dragonball, since it has been given a bad name by awful n00bs, there's still no reason to hate it. Anyone is entitled to watch it, and if they prefer eighties buzz words and toned down violence/gore/dialogue/drama, then that is their own problem. Not yours.

The new game, DBZ: Tenkaichi Budokai is about the best game they've done of it, in other news!

[thesaneminority.livejournal.com]

Dude, send me the subbed DB/DBZ! I'll love you FOREVAR!!!

And the thing is, I like DBZ when that was all they were showing on Cartoon Network (well, that, Sailor Moon, Ronen Warriors, and Gundam Wing). I never really got the chance to get into DragonBall, since I didn't have money for anime and I didn't know what manga was then. I think I'll start picking up the manga, as that's probably got a bit less frustration included (and it's cheaper! Woo!) I never did get past the Cell Saga anyway; by the time they got around to the next storyline, I got sick of all ther reruns and turned to other anime to sate my cravings.

[maxpegasus.livejournal.com]

I would send it, but it is all on DVD! - There's a guy on EBay from Scotland who sells them a lot cheaper, but they are copied from original discs, if you get my meaning. I paid like the translated to dollar from pound price of $200 for Dragonball Z, and about $60 for Dragonball... the Dragonball Z set I got was like, Chinese official, basically.

The Cell part is good, and I suppose I think Majin Boo is slightly better than what I originally thought. Especially since Vegeta sort of decides to finally be friends with Son Goku, and drop the whole lot of crap rival partnership, in a way.

In DBGT, Vegeta has a Freddie Mercury style 'tache for the best part of the series!

The American DBZ is a load of toss, and they've just dubbed it again as an uncut version... but, the price is stupid. It's uncut, but with about three episodes or so per DVD. And Dragonball Z is way over two hundred episodes long.

It'd be cheaper, in the long run, to invest in a HK release.. the subtitles are always known to be bad, but the version I got was pretty close enough... they refer to some characters like Kururin as Korin, sometimes, but everything else is solid. The shame is, the set I got was fourty DVD discs, and about six/nine of them are just in Japanese with Chinese subs. So, it can be a bit annoying, but I had to watch the Perfect Cell thing in Japanese, and barely scrape by with my past experience of Japanese words. Fighting Animé uses really basic Japanese threats, mostly.

Dragonball is cool, because it is so retro. It's not as overblown as Dragonball Z at all, though... which is somehow refreshing. Most of the earlier fights are like martial arts movies with a little more room for flashy moves/high jumps, and so forth. The climax is great, but the animation is like vintage... although, I would say better than the earlier episodes of Dragonball Z, somehow. There's way more comedy, too... which is really good for moving the plot along without boredom.

I must say, too... the Americans did a fairly good job with Dragonball. They released it quite cheap on DVD, and had the option of Japanese/English... they even kept all the original music, the original opening/ending, but they did the songs in English vocals. All the perverted stuff is in there, the blood, violence, and questionable dialogue... like the "Die!", "I'll kill you!" threats, that were once replaced with lines such as, "Hey! They're okay, I can see the parachutes!" when Tenshinhan watches the Saiyans blow up some news helicopters in DBZ.

They've made no effort to hide anything... however, the first two discs of the set I've got are really horrible to watch... changed music, changed opening/ending, and goofy rock music and kiddy cartoon BGM for the series. The violence was missing, too... but they seem to have figured that everyone would complain again, and the rest of the series is all an almost hundred percent faithful English translation, with charming voice acting, most of the time.

One thing I wouldn't recommend is buying one of the countless "DB/DBZ/DBGT ALL SERIES AND MOVIES!!!!!!" That you see on EBay often, they're Data DVD that can only be played on a PC with certain software, have bad picture quality and size, and are really poorly made. Either that, or you could try TorrentSpy.Com if you have BitTorrent/Tornado, Etc. Just search for Dragonball/Dragonball Z or whatever, and they can find a number of downloads from many different sites over the web.

Hope I could be some help... and if you lived a little closer, I could've thrown a marathon and got some drinks in. Sorry...~ ;.;

[thesaneminority.livejournal.com]

Aww, it's okay. One of these days! I promise, I'll come over to the UK to visit all my online friends who live there, and we can have a marathon. I'll even smuggle over Pocky, or buy it, or whatever you'd rather snack on.

Yes, the "parachutes" line... I never saw that, actually, but the dub always pissed me off. Made Piccolo sound like an overgrown cheerleader... *sniffle, sob*

Like I said, I don't really have a lot of money, so I'll probably be going for the torrents. I have a lot more anime I really want to get to anyway.

ahh ...

[celesma.livejournal.com]

I remember my own DBZ Sue. (wipes away a tear) Good times, good times. As of this moment I'm planning to resurrect her in a fic that involves harassing Frieza, and lots of jokes about how being able to account for your towel at all times makes for one hoopy hitchhiker.

Re: ahh ...

[thesaneminority.livejournal.com]

Sounds a bit like my cousin's Sue, only she's Frieza's daughter. >_>;

[bowzerj.livejournal.com]

I remember my first DBZ character... I got obsessed with Zarbon (Zaabon? The green dude from the Cell Saga) 'cause he had what was trying to be an English accent and was amazed that other countries decided to show they knew we existed by doing this. So I made up a back history type thing for his people and it ended up being quite terrible until I went back to it a while ago. I basically made the planet a big spherical UK. It got invaded a lot, invaded other places as GRRR!Vengeance a lot later, made up of pretentious people who love to use big words (like pretentious), and eventually blew up.

Which I hope won't happen to my little island.