January 29th 2004
Hi everyone as you no doubt have gathered from the title of this update I am closing this website. When I say close I mean that I will no longer update it. The website will remain here to be seen as long as my awesome hosts Geocities say it can be open. Of course as with any closed website some links will eventually die.
To be honest I should of done this a month or more ago but I really couldn't be bothered. For the sake of the visitors I tried to get four articles out of myself as my goodbye but I've only managed to do three (which can all be found as part of the Features section).
Why am I closing the site? To be honest I have just lost interest in the whole Dragonball world which happens with everything eventually. I opened this site on August 2nd 2000 for the fun of it. Over the years it grew into a leading source of news and information for New Zealand DBZ fans being the only website that dedicated itself to that. Most other DBZ websites had news from the USA but I wanted to do news from NZ. For a while I wanted to go global and also report news from the USA but I was begged not to.
This being a goodbye and all I have memories flowing in and 90% of those are good such as when I ran the competitions and gave DBZ fans the opportunity to win stuff or when I broke the news that Eric Vale (voice of Trunks) would be coming to this years Armageddon.
Running a website for three years I have many people to thank so heres a quick list........
*Geocities - If it wasn't for you guys then this and many others websites wouldn't exist Thanks for letting free websites live on!
*Planetnamek.com - This awesome site which has now closed was the first very good DBZ website that I went to and it was this site that gave me the idea of having news on the main page where as before I had only listed updates on this page which is just boring...
*Monique Falcon and Nigel Horrocks and Net Guide magazine - At a time in 2001 when this website still got very little hits I wrote to Net Guide to ask if they could put my website in. Not only did they put the website it the magazine but the magazine designer (Monique) and editor (Nigel) also emailed me telling me I had an awesome site!
*SFranky - The webmaster of Dragonball.co.nz was an exceptionally nice guy who let me write on his site which was a really fun thing to do
*Manga Entertainment - For two reasons. Firstly these are the people that bring all the DBZ videos and DVDs into New Zealand so thanks for that but secondly and more importantly I'd like to thank them for letting me have Dragonball Z videos for free in order to give them away on this site
*TV3 New Zealand - If it wasn't for you guys Dragonball Z would never have been popular in New Zealand and I would never have known of it. Despite the fact the episodes were brutally cut and that you skipped 16 episodes (neither of which were apparently your fault) I thank you for brining DBZ to New Zealand!
*Funimation Productions - Although I could list several reasons why Funimation is a gigantic pain in the ass I thank Funimation for bringing Dragonball Z to the Western world without them nobody would know who or what Goku was...
*Armageddon Pulp Culture Expo - Without these guys people in New Zealand would of ahd no chance of meeting the voice actors from Dragonball Z - Sean Schemmel (Goku, King Kai), Chris Sabat (Vegeta, Piccolo and others), Stephanie Nadolny (Kid Gohan and Kid Goku) and Kyle Hebert (Teen Gohan, Pikkon and others) and upcoming guest Eric Vale (Trunks) and getting their autographs or watching NZ premieres of DBZ movies, episodes, Dragonball and DBGT. You guys thow one awesome event which gets better each year! And thanks especially for letting me announce that Eric Vale would be coming to NZ before your site!
*Hayley Sharp - I thank her for being the only girl to enter the Armageddon Kamehameha contest, for being the only DBZ cosplayer and for emailing me after the event
*Cole Marentette - He chose this website to be home to his fan fiction "Zukin: the Black Wolf of Space" and for that I thank you greatly!
*Daizenshuu Ex - One of if not the best Dragonball Z sites around it was this site that inspired several sections on this site (including the DVD and Movie guides) and was the most original site around. If I remade this site I'd make it more like yours.
*For those that emailed me - Every time I got an email it made me glad to know that people liked my website and that people cared. I know I'll probably get emails now begging me not to close the site.
Theres probably many more to thank but I can't think of anymore at this time!
So thats my goodbye. Feel free to email me at gohan2k@ge3000.cjb.net with anything you want to say this year sees the release of the Dragonball series and movies as well as the continued release of GT. Plus there should be Dragonball GT on TV sometime soon (before July I would guess). Heres a short list of upcoming releases...
Dragonball GT Volume 5 "Ramifications" - Out Now!
Dragonball GT Volume 6 "Preparation" - Out Now!
Dragonball Z Movie Collection 2 (Movies 4-6) - Out Now!
Dragonball GT Volume 7 "Annihilation": - February 11th
Dragonball GT Volume 8 "Salvation" - February 11th
Dragonball GT Volume 9 "Calculations" - March*
Dragonball GT Volume 10 "Revelations" - March*
Dragonball Z Series 3 Collection 2 - March*
Dragonball Collection 1 "The Saga of Goku" - April*
Dragonball Collection 2 "Tournament" - April*
Dragonball Feature Movie "Mystical Adventure - April*
Dragonball Z Series 3 Collection 3 - April*
So there you go. Especially look at the seventh volume of DBGT released in february as that is the one where Goku becomes a Super saiyan 4! I won't be buying any of these though actually I am selling all my DBZ DVD's which over 40+ DVD's covers all the episodes of Dragonball Z and the first eight movies. I am selling them all via the auction site Trade Me so if you want to to bid on them just click here to check out whats on offer also check out the "Auctions update" at the bottom of this page (and yeah I know that this is just really a shameless "bid on my auctions" plug).
Anyways I'd like to leave you all with a listing of my personal favourite Dragonball Z websites - these are the best....
-Daizenshuu Ex
-Dragonball Z Uncensored
-Manga Entertainment New Zealand (source of latest releases in NZ)
-Madman Australia (source of releases before NZ ones are announced!
-Armageddon Pulp Culture Expo
-DBZ Superpope (tonnes of awesome info on every old DBZ video game)
And so I bid you and this website farewell. Feel free to start up a website of your own I'm not going to open another website although I may in the future for now I shall venture forth. I suppose I'm getting to emotional about this so...
See Ya!
~Gohan2k~
(he's me and the owner of this website August 2000 - January 2004)