Funimation's Catch 22
By: GreatSaiyaman777

In the past Funimation have said the extent of this repeatedly,

"The movie licensing rights? Well, Funimation cannot be blamed for the slow releases of the DBZ movies- that is all under the control of Toei. For you see, they are very picky about allowing us to license the movies and each movie must be seperately negotiated for one by one. Thus, we unable to release them all in as quick a fashion as possible."


Also, as Gen Fukunaga (sigh) once stated,

"We are desperatly trying to get those out of Japan. We have the exclusive use of the Dragonball TM in this territory, but the contract says that we have to negotiated them one at a time. There are a lot of issues that are starting to arise, stemming from the sheer amount of financial backers that all the movies after three had. Lots of other parties were involved, so it creates a real rights nightmare. Trying to get everyone's consent has thus far been a very slow process, but rest assured that efforts are being made. "


Now then, is this true? Truth be told- it is not. As someone from Funimation once admitted to me by accident approximately one year ago, "They acquired the rights for movies 8-13 a while back I don't know if they have rights to any of the music in those either." So what am I getting at? Well, you'd think I'm just complaining at Funi for taking their sweet time releasing the movies- far from it.

As horribly as they have treated DBZ, Funimation has a tendency to progressively become more intelligent and talented over time, so the longer they take the better in my opinion. But what's my point? Simple. According to the general rules of fansubs in America, it is perfectly koscher to fansub an unlicensed anime series/movie or episode. It is also perfectly koscher to download them online. Once the entire series or the movie has been announced as being officially licensed, Fans are then legally expected to take down their fansubs, and they and the downloaders are to buy the versions put out by the company that licensed it. All fine and dandy, right?

However, this is where Funimation's lie about the licensing can be used against them- Funimation hasn't admitted to licensing Movie 10-13 yet! And until they do it is COMPLETELY legal to offer them up for bit torrent on your website! Think about it-

You know this and you put it up on your site. Because of the quasi-legal status and the fact that it's officially "unlicensed" ANYBODY can come by your site and download ANY of the movies and this can be advertised pretty much anywhere! What will this do? Well for one, it'll score hits for all your websites. (woohoo! Got your attention, eh?) Secondly... it'll help introduce DBZ fans to the movies FIRST in their ORIGINAL format! Why is this important?

Because fans who've seen the movies first in their original format are infinitely less likely to tolerate bad dubbing of the movies! What this leads to is "fan conversions" to the original and more complaining over Funimation's shoddy dubbing! Sure, Funimation still claims a majority of fans as brainwashed dubbies, but the more subbie-original fans otu there, the more complaining and the more difficult of a time they'll give Funi when they butcher the rest of the movies! Best of all, more fans get converted! And it's all perfectly LEGAL until the movies are announced as being licensed!

So to sum it all up, putting Movie 10-13 legally up for bit torrent on your websites would,

1. Increase activism against Funimation.
2. Spread awareness of the movies in their original formats to more fans.
3. Help "convert" fans away from the dub and towards the original, see step 1.
4. Score more hits for your websites.

And lastly,

5. Make it more and more difficult for Funimation to get away with butchering the movies.



So what have we got? A completely and totally legal way to promote strong activism against Funimation and spread love of the original version of DBZ around! The perfect equation!

Furthermore, the "OVA Special" (see DaizenshuuEX for more details on it) can be put on there as well just for fun. (and since it's unlikely it'll ever be licensed period, it can probably stay up for pretty much forever) Plus, with the Toei boxed set 2 for DBZ containing the OVA Special remastered, a superior-quality version of said movie can also be remixed replacing the frequently-overcopied VHS fansub that's been in the market.

Well, hope this idea is of interest to those of you hardcore DBZ fans with websites. And hey, if one of you sets up a bit torrent for this you can bank on me linking to ya and telling the fans about this, just give me a holler and let me know. Power to the people and fans and let's all do everything we can to show Funimation that the fans of the show are completely opposed to the unprofessional, unintelligent and unethical manner in which they arrogantly continue to mistreat this wonderful series.

- GreatSaiyaman777