Continued from Page 1 I did most of the petition in one night, fueled by insomnia and a burning desire to get results, and we basically just tweaked it for about a week before posting it online. Before we did so, I e-mailed the editor of both Dragonball and Dragonball Z at Viz, Jason Thompson, to say that I had this petition and was going to post it up. I was somewhat surprised that he said it was a good idea, and though he's responsible for what is and isn't in the comic right now, he is for an uncensored version. He wished me luck, and even said he would show it to some of his co-workers. He was a big help, and though I'm not sure, I bet he was pretty instrumental in exposing the company to the petition and the idea of having uncensored graphic novels.

Julian: I knew that there was a fairly large fan base out there, many of them like me, who would balk at the idea of censorship. Still, I was surprised at how quickly it garnered signatures, especially considering it got about 1,000 (signatures) in the first few days. I'm glad that it has made an impression on the people at Viz. If they receive approval from Shueisha, they may have at least one uncensored DB volume out before summer. Still, it's not certain, and Bird Studio may say no to the idea.

Julian: I have been a fan for about 3 and a half years, back when I was about to get out of sixth grade. One of my friends showed me this cartoon which had a unique style to it, an innovative idea of stringing episodes together, and far more violence than I have ever seen. Though I started out watching the dub, I quickly found myself puzzling over the information on the Internet that didn't make any sense, but soon learned the basics of the series, and the doctrine of the original being better than the dub, etc. I began reading the manga about a year after it came out in the US. Though I now own several Japanese volumes of DB and DBZ, I continue to watch the dub, perhaps because it is how I got my start with this whole epic.

Julian: First of all, I believe that if you know you have an older audience out there, it's best to provide them with an uncensored version, because they're probably big fans of the original and are going to complain if you alter anything. Second, of all, complaints of a select few adults should not be enough to change the ways of a company. They must reemphasize the fact that the parents are responsible for what their children see, and not the companies. They should avoid censorship if possible, but if it must be censored for television, make an uncut version available commercially.

Julian: Well, they already release "uncut" tapes for everything after season two, and the new DVDs are both uncut and have a subtitled Japanese track. Everything before that gets into complicated issues with Pioneer's rights to that part of the series because they released it, and some other stuff. I don't believe that it will have much of an impact on dialogue decisions or more music, because this petition wasn't aimed at them and because FUNimation is just the kind of company that doesn't listen to very many people. They could have people kicking in the back door; with voice actors pleading for some sanity, while the management is calmly unaware of it Concludes on Page 3

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