For those who have been waiting for the moment, Star Wanderers, a project long in the making is now finally making its way out to readers. You can find it in the new project launched by Cirsova here today!
I am beyond excited to finally get this one out and available to readers. It's been a long time coming. Join in for some adventures of action and intrigue!
As the campaign description states:
Detective Ronan Renfield is a Galactic Enforcer sworn to protect the innocent and bring evil-doers to justice to maintain order throughout the stars.
The Agent is a nameless knight errant tasked with hunting the most brazenly wicked and blasphemous who threaten order and nature across the cosmos.
Alone, they face strange and diabolical horrors on backwater worlds and the corrupt and dangerous criminals who threaten civilization.
Together, they are the Star Wanderers!
This collection features eight thrilling tales of raygun adventure, swashbuckling sword fights, and cyberpunk mystery, including four never-before published adventures!
Of course that's just the general gist of what's going on. I'll bet you want to know what stories are included!
Back this project and you will get 8 tales of mind-bending mayhem and weird action across different planets, realms, and even slipped between reality itself!
Here are the stories:
Dead Planet Drifter - Ronan Renfield lands on a swampy world that has been overtaken by death and decay-worshiping cultists! [First Published in Cirsova Magazine of Thrilling Adventure and Daring Suspense, Vol. 2 Issue 11, 2022]
Cold Heart of Ouranos - The Agent travels to the ice planet Ouranos in pursuit of a genocidal mad scientist who has holed up in a lost city! [First Published in Planetary Anthology Uranus, 2020]
Golden Echoes - Ronan faces down a diabolical terrorist leader who uses illegal technology to carve a mystical paradise out of reality itself! [First Published in Storyhack Action and Adventure, issue 7, 2021]
Armageddon Spring - A cursed sorceress queen is doomed to conquer and seek revenge her wrongs, driven by a mysterious entity known as the Artisan! [All New Story!]
Cold Finger Girl - A young woman barely escapes the twisted human experimentation of the supposedly peaceful Plateau and it is up to Ronan to keep her alive! [All New Story!]
Judgement Sun - The Agent fights to protect a wayward prince from the undead cyborg minions of a necromancer intent on breaking the royal line and dooming a world by fulfilling an ancient prophecy! [First Published in Planetary Anthology Sol, 2020]
Midnight Machineguns - Ronan investigates a series of terrorist attacks carried out by exploding cyborgs, and the trail leads him to an apocalyptic transhumanist cult! [All New Story!]
Slow Death on San Sebastian - Detective Ronan Renfield and the Agent team up in an epic clash against a rogue elemental Knight who desires to warp the soul of an entire planet! [All New Novella!]
You might recognize some of those titles, but you definitely haven't seen them all! There's a lot more to see that has never seen the light of day before now.
This project was in the making for ages and I'm more than happy to finally be able to fully unveil it to you all today. All this exists on top of the add-on for Jacob Calta's original music for Star Wanderers. Be sure to check it out today.
These eight tales are the culmination of a lot of wandering, pondering, and cranking out high octane action, to try and best fit a niche I didn't really know existed before or not. Whether you like space cops, sword and planet, cyberpunk, sword and sorcery, weird horror, or just plain straight-out blood-soaked knock-down fighting, then you will find something here you've never quite seen before.
Trust me, it get strange, and that's the way I like it.
Fair warning, though. This edition is going to be a bit darker than our usual entries on this topic. Today, I wanted to step back and cover the fall of a comedian from the 1990s, a cautionary tale of self-destruction that happened out in the open for everyone to see.
Those who lived in that time remembered the 1990s as an era of rebels, how cool people were here and who they didn't take no guff from anyone. We'd lived through the stock times of safe pansies and The Jocks, and now we were going to redefine not only what Normal was, we were going to reach that utopia of alcohol and pills, and all we had to do was check our boxes, dot our i's, and cross our t's along the way. It was all so simple.
All you had to do, was look away from the ugliness. Just pretend it wasn't there and it would just fix itself.
The above story is a perfect example of the hidden darkness of that era. There you will see that the so-called Edginess of the 1990s was the precursor to the PC era it also brought in due to the abject cowardice lying at the heart of the mainstream. Just ignore it, man, it's just a joke. He'll learn his lesson next time. Don't take everything so seriously. What are you, some kind of ist or phobe? Very little has changed except to replace the vapid coolguy posturing with vapid shrewish librarian-level lecturing.
As a result this long documentary also feels like it highlights the death of the 1990s and where it all ended up, showing the logical progression of the decade of Not Caring and rebel posing. The main subject aside, it also highlights the failure of peers, an entire system, and even the legal system, as they just stand by and let a man self-destruct and take down anyone he wants along the way. As I said, there is a sickening cravenness at the heart of things from back then that I don't think we've fully explored yet.
Only those who were kids at the time miss this era
Of course, one must also mention the staple of Current Year entertainment: the grifting. You cannot escape it. Mindless Mammon worship is everywhere and so blatant that it tends to come across so bluntly and without even a hint of shame.
You even see how internet streaming plays into the "drama" for fifteen minutes of fame to profit off the self-destruction and even throw fuel on the fire. The documentary covers just how far this world has decayed since its peak back in the 1990s where poisoning yourself was cool and knocking down others along your way was worth a hearty chuckle and a shrug. It's all just silly, so don't worry. He will obviously figure it out himself!
But, of course, that isn't what happened. The only memories of the 1990s left are those trying to throw the era under the bus to keep the cultural Eye of Sauron away from them, and those who want to return to it as some era of bootstrapping paradise where everyone was left alone to implode and that made things better.
The truth is that the decade was neither and it was only not noticeable because the pining party was either too young or lived in an isolated area where the destruction and decay had not already set in. Looking back now, however, all the signs are there and it all logically lead to the mess we are in today.
There is no going back to that time, no matter how much you miss the entertainment or your sixth grade classroom.
The fact of the matter is the past century has mostly been spent, not so much going in the wrong direction, but alternatively barreling downhill and letting our foot of the gas to let the momentum take us instead. And now we're paying for it with death worship, misery, and general mistrust, in place of the values we used to understand so intimately.
In fact, now that I think about it, I'm not so sure the above is a cautionary tale so much as a sum up of what the past three decades have logically brought us to. The worship of vice, the dehumanization of our neighbors and the desire to be Left Alone, the loss of trust and general hope for better days, and the craving of fame at the cost of self-respect and fulfillment. It's just the story of where we ourselves have let things decline to.
Make no mistake, there is more this than the self-destruction of one minor celebrity from his peak a quarter of a century ago. It's also the story of how cowardice and emptiness was allowed to fester, eventually eating the insides until nothing was left but the shell--that same shell being used as a skinsuit to lecture you today.
As a bonus, enjoy the segment where a supposed edgy shock jock gets infuriated and offended over being called an offensive name despite the depraved acts and disgusting things his dirty hands and stained soul have profited off of over the years. How dare you offend him! As mentioned before--this downfall isn't only about one man's destruction. There is much more going on, as there always is, which lead us to this point.
And that's where I will leave you for this week. Today's subject might be a little dark, but you have to remember that it's simply the bottom of a downhill slide we've been on longer than many readers of this post were even cognoscente of life itself. This means little for the future as long as we take stock in these failures and correct them in the times ahead.
This isn't meant to be a downer, a way to say there is no future ahead but bleakness. The above is some objective fact of life being miserable and hopeless but that it is the obvious endpoint of a time that merely squeaked by on momentum and the hard work of others to sustain themselves. Now that this era is over, it's going to require a mindset shift and the effort of everyone to push hard on the other direction--to forcibly build instead of allowing decay to fester on.
It's going to take some time, but it can be done. We're just going to have to learn from the past for once instead of ignoring or demonizing it.
Don't ever forget the mistakes we made, otherwise we can't even begin to fix them. And it's something we can no longer afford avoiding.
Back in the '90s, it felt like something new was coming out about every other day. Which, it was. People have described it as every day feeling like Christmas, which isn't entirely inaccurate, but a sign as to just how much was being put out at the time by the gatekeepers.
Today I wanted to highlight one such interesting project, which was released by the cereal brand Chex back in the mid-90s. This has always been a fascinating case.
Everyone alive today knows how popular DOOM was when it first released, pretty much singlehandedly reshaping the PC gaming scene in its image and truly kickstarting the FPS genre. One of the games that came in its wake, and one still looked back on as a favorite from that day, was the project called Chex Quest.
Essentially one of the first top tier DOOM mods before the scene really got well known, Chex Quest was an entire child friendly mission pack given out for free in cereal boxes. That's right, they gave out entire games as free bonuses back in the day. Not only that, but Chex Quest was actually really good. Such a thing is unthinkable today.
There was also a second episode released by Chex and, eventually, a third one was put out for free online to complete the entire adventure. To this day, Chex Quest is considered one of the defining FPS titles from its Golden Age. And it was given out for free by a cereal company.
Check out the video above for more information. If you're a genre fan and haven't given it a shot, now is your chance. It's also perfectly safe for kids, too. There isn't really anything violence to be found, despite the genre it takes place in.
Again, this was a much different era than the one we live in now. Something this is unthinkable today, especially when every company is so aggressive against their perceived outgroups, but Chex Quest is a pleasant memory to when things were a little different and when possibilities in the mainstream were a lot more open to things than they are today.
It truly was a different and long over era. Oh well, we'll just have to work even harder to make the next one even better.
That's all for this weekend, and I will see you next time.
Time for an update! I know some of you have been waiting for this one since the teaser a little while back, and now I'm ready to share more.
Today I'd like to present the cover for Star Wanderers! The full reveal was put out on Cirsova's site here, but I wanted to talk a bit about it here. The art was done by one Anton Oxenuk, a prolific artist of the weird and the strange. He was obviously the perfect artist for Star Wanderers as you can clearly see for yourself! I specifically asked if we could enlist his services on this project and he thankfully agreed to contribute.
There is some info on the project to share as well. I know some have been curious on what exactly this project is about. Wonder no more! The description has been revealed, and now you will get a taste as to what Star Wanderers is all about!
Beware the Unknown!
The info:
"Detective Ronan Renfield is a Galactic Enforcer sworn to protect the innocent and bring evil-doers to justice to maintain order throughout the stars.
"The Agent is a nameless knight errant tasked with hunting the most brazenly wicked and blasphemous who threaten order and nature across the cosmos.
"Alone, they face strange and diabolical horrors on backwater worlds and the corrupt and dangerous criminals who threaten civilization.
"Together, they are the Star Wanderers!
This collection features eight thrilling tales of raygun adventure, swashbuckling sword fights, and cyberpunk mystery, including four never-before published adventures!"
As for what those eight stories are? They will be revealed when the campaign is fully revealed later this month. All the included tales were chosen for inclusion for a very good reason, one that will become very clear once the ending is reached. I've been working on this one for a good while for a very good reason!
Suffice to say, there are still a lot of surprises in Star Wanderers as this is a project I've been engaged in for a long time. I'm happy to finally be able to unveil it to you all, though we aren't quite done yet! This is just the start.
Who are these two mysterious protagonists and how do their separate journeys intersect with each other? What awaits out there in the Unknown? You'll just have to wait and see. There are some surprises still to come, both with the stories and the campaign ahead. So be sure to watch out! Cirsova and myself have got a few tricks up our sleeves.
And here is one.
Before I go, I'd like to reveal one more tidbit you might have missed during the recent reveal. This is a pretty big one!
That's right, there will be a special soundtrack created by Jacob Calta of 365 Infantry fame for Star Wanderers! He put his all into this one and I can't wait for you to hear it. Once again, more will be revealed when the campaign opens up later in April. We've got some fun stuff planned to celebrate this project.
As you can see, there has been quite a lot going on in the background getting this campaign together for you, the readers. We're almost ready to reveal it to you. It's just a little bit longer to go!
Beyond this, I'm also working on another project for release this year, but I will wait to reveal that for after the Star Wanderers campaign is complete and delivered. For now, just enjoy in the space madness! I guarantee you're going to have a blast with this one, just as I had with writing it. Just be sure that there is still more to come.
That's enough for this update, and I will see you next time!
Not much this week to share, other than I wish the weather would settle down. It's been all over the place and very hard to do anything because of. It's a shame because after a winter that was far less intense than the last few I was hoping to get into the spring easier. But alas . . .
Anyway, this week I wanted to share a bizarre animated film shared with me called Interface. It's a throwback to the old cable TV and rental store days with both its animation style and aspect ratio. It feels like both an obscure lost VHS movie and a modern generation flick at the same time, which, if that's what you go for, might be up your alley.
I'm not sure how many people who visit Wasteland & Sky might be into this, but if you remember finding this obscure animated movies in the corner of your old rental shop where the grey carpet was a little stained and you could smell the rain leakage in the ceiling, this might jolt you back to a different time and place. Even if you weren't there, Interface has such a strange style that evokes both lost eras and uncertainty for the future that it's hard to not give it a recommendation. A story of missing self in a world that has both changed and not changed, has moved on yet remains stuck, it's a fascinating look into a present that doesn't exist but also does.
Again, if you don't like dry humor and slow pacing, or story that relies almost exclusively on visual and obscure dialogue to carry you along, Interface might not be for you. But I quite liked it, and that's why I'm sharing it with you today. This early spring time with uncertain weather is probably the best time to give it a viewing.
That's all for this week! As you know by now, I've got a project I'm putting together with Cirsova called Star Wanderers, and it's almost ready to unleash on the world. Until then, I'm still scrambling behind the scenes to keep up with myself. 2024 has been all over the place so far. Here's hoping it straightens out a bit as the year goes on.
Have a good weekend, and I will see you next time!
You might have caught this project recently announced by Cirsova with my name attached. Perhaps you have an inkling of what this might mean, perhaps not. Either way, it will be fully unveiled very soon, so be sure to sign up early to be notified first!
I have a few things I would like to share with you about it, but I'd rather wait for the project to be fully revealed before we get started on that, so I will refrain from posting about it for now.
Until then, sign up for the Star Wanderers crowdfunding campaign here! With Cirsova and myself, you know you'll be getting something truly out there.
It's been a decade so far, and we're not even halfway through it.
I wanted to go a bit more in depth in today's post, especially considering we are entering the Easter season. With this one, we're going to go into a recent phenomenon we've been consistently brushing with on Wasteland & Sky quite a bit this year. While we've talked about the lost decade that was the 2010s, and what happened to the people that started that decade so full of promise before detonating, we haven't talked about the sort of person they grew up as. Who were the kids that turned into the medicine-addled tradition hating mess that now struggle with suicide and consistent feelings of despair in Current Year? Who were they back in the 20th century?
They were once considered "The Kid Who Reads." A stereotype that no longer exists, they are also a relic of a failed period of western education that included anti-bullying legislations, participation trophies, and "self-esteem" egoism. But when all that ended up being built on sand, when it all crumbled down, what became of this cohort?
That would be the subject of today's post.
Again, this topic edges out of the scope of the blog a bit, but I wanted to dwell on this because it goes a long way to describing what exactly has happened since the heyday of Generation Y back in the 1990s, and how they ended up where they are today, lost and broken with no bearings or ambition for the future. We then can posit where they will be heading next in this, the decade of their mid-life. Hopefully, where they are going will not be where their unthinking momentum will take them, and where it lead so many to detonation over the course of the 2010s.
What I wish to figure out is if there is a way to put a finger on the problem and finally attack it head on, because time is running out on the illusions an entire generation has built up for themselves. The '20s is a decade of change, of old things finally falling away, which means it is time to finally accept the changes of the last three decades were destructive and must be reassessed before anything is done. This is the last chance to finally address these deeper issues that have been ignored for far too long by a generation that wants to ignore itself into extinction.
I linked the above podcast episode by The Distributist, Dave Greene, because I honestly think it is a very good summation of a very real problem we're dealing with right now. The first ten minutes or so might be lost in context if you don't keep up with online discourse, but once the proper presentation begins, it is gold from start to finish. Watch, or listen, to the episode to get a good read on the situation that lead to the creation of The Kid Who Reads, what he twisted into as he aged, how he fell apart with time, and the important crossroads he stands at today. I highly recommend setting time aside and watching (or listening) to the above episode, because it is quite enlightening on the state of an entire cohort of people.
For those confused on Generational Theory, because it's all over the place these days, it should be specified that Greene's definition of "Millennial" crosses over with our own Gen Y and the typically obscured term "Younger Gen X/Older Millennial" or "Geriatric Millennial" or "Xennial" all of which awkwardly appears in most discourse of this nature. Essentially, this is what became of the "Nintendo" Generation, the one that came after the "Mall" Generation.
We are mainly dealing with those born in the Gen Y cohort
Generation theory works in a sort of gradient scale where they bleed into each other, starting from one end before slowly making it's way forward. It's not hard science, it can't be, but is a way of understanding where the wider culture is sitting a specific time and place. Generation Y, therefore, are the younger brothers of Gen X, advertised to and treated like, the younger brothers of said older cohort, who grew up before "Millennials" were created as a marketing term, and before they were created as base after Generation Y had already hit their twenties.
They are also the primary demographic of "The Kid Who Reads" that Greene discusses above. So that is where we will begin.
A summation of The Kid Who Reads is of a child who wasn't taught to think so much as told how to parrot back buzzwords and correct terms in order to be affirmed as a Decent Person. Back in the late '80s and into the 1990s, the way to raise your kid was to assume they needed to be programmed right, and once that programming was set in, natural Progress and History would guide them to Eden on Earth eventually. All you had to do was follow the script, and Baby Boomers hammered that in anywhere they could. Education was made to repeat mantras and slogans, repeat them back for grades as if they were dog treats, and do so from birth to death. A generation of show dogs crafted by a generation that had Figured It All Out. Do what your teachers tell you, get any degree (you don't want to flip burgers into adulthood otherwise, do you?), and you will always get what you work for.
Of course, this didn't turn it to be correct, and reality soon collapsed in as early as 9/11. Essentially, an entire generation was raised wrong and learned it at the same moment, and most of the divide from some generation comes in how they reacted to and learned from understanding they were lied to. A large chunk of it, unfortunately, doubled down and fell to their own egos. What you are left with is a broken person, struggling against their brain and body in order to do the will of their masters. It is no wonder pills and therapy are in high demand these days.
Because The Kid Who Reads doesn't actually read because of the love of knowledge or creation, their ability to grow and understand was stunted. They were taught to read the right books and get the correct worldview carved out in them like some dodgy, random form of scripture Baby Boomers decided was True. For fictional examples, you can find them in the above video in the likes of Lisa Simpson and Daria--girls who do what they're told and are given the impression they are smart because they check the right boxes so the right people call them smart, but when it comes down to it are ultimately vapid and empty people with no reason or rationality for anything they do. They want to be seen as smart, actually being smart is a second place to them. and according to their Baby Boomer parentsmasters, as long as you follow their script, you are smart!
You can see examples of this everywhere, especially in the online world and especially in regards to politics, where the virtue signalers will repeat vapid party lines and billion dollar slogans like kindergartners saying what the teacher wants so they get an extra cookie at lunchtime. They aren't seeking Truth, they aren't seeking knowledge, and they aren't seeking understanding. The only thing they want is to prove they are Right, because that is all that matters. And those that aren't Right? Clearly they are defective and of lesser quality. They didn't follow the script that makes them smart. It is really that silly.
Though fedoras all but gone now, the outdated remnants feeling like hippies at a roller disco, this was the first place they first truly cropped up in the wider culture outside of the education system. This was possibly because this was when they first began leaving school.
If you're too young to know where this cohort came from or where they ended up, I recommend the below video. For a summary, post-9/11 western cultural nihilism lead a bunch of anti-traditionalists to go on a crusade to save humanity with their big fat brains. Embarrassment ensued, because Gen Y is very good at embarrassing themselves.
Now, the point of bringing this up isn't specifically about the atheism fad, it's more about the mentality these people put forth, thinking that repeating things they never bothered looking into on a deeper level or only repeating sources that backed up their narrow view of life, made them smart and therefore superior beings. Because that is what they were told life was about.
The Kid Who Reads was going to change the world. That is, after all, what they were raised to believe.
Until reality reasserted itself.
As we've seen, fedoras are all but gone now. Did The Kid Who Reads truly just give up without a fight, or are they still out there today? As mentioned earlier, they most likely turned into the Culture Warrior in the 2010s, either falling further into their ego or trying to find a way out of the trap they were lead into so long ago. Would they finally stop relating to others by flexing corporate slogans and IPs they put no thought into themselves beyond base level "Of COURSE smart people think A is good and B is bad!", or would they finally break from that mold crushing in on them?
How come doing what they were told wasn't enough to get them to achieve happiness? Why did doing the right thing not prevent them from getting laid off or getting a promotion? Maybe they were failures after all, not Smart in the first place? Or perhaps it was the world that was wrong? Either way, it's a ball of contradictions bouncing around inside their slowly fracturing minds. In other words, despite being called "free-thinkers" or "empaths" or whatever made up term they gave themselves, were slowly being eaten out from the inside.
And record suicide rates from the cohort in the 2010s show just that. It was not a good decade for them, all told. All of that capped off with the following decade sealing them away in exile as the pandemic began. Any ego left was either crushed out of them, or poisoned the cohort further into delusion. There isn't much or a road ahead except to finally abandon the NPC script an entire generation has leaned on for near four decades at this point.
So where does that leave The Kid Who Reads today in the 2020s?
I once opined that the worst thing the Baby Boomers did when their parents' generation died was that they regressed into themselves. They didn't become the elders the younger generations needed, they didn't take over for their parents, and instead escaped into themselves, doubling down on vice, greed, and juvenility. As a result, we've been living in a world run by children for decades now, and it doesn't feel like that will change for a while yet.
However, the younger generations can't afford to let this be the standard. We can't continue to allow infrastructure to die, neighborhoods to crumble, and standards to decay to near apocalyptic levels. And unfortunately, I don't see the younger generations who have no examples on what a room of adults is supposed to look like will have the example to fix it.
What is going to have to occur is the remainder of the older generations (quickly being narrowed down to Gen X and Y as the only ones with any semblance of living memory of better times and with the means to use said knowledge) are going to have to rise to the occasion instead. And that's going to involve making a lot of hard choices, including finally ejecting The Kid Who Reads as a viable path in life as they all already know deep down. It was wrong, and it was always wrong, regardless of how an entire cohort was tricked into believing its was real.
The Kid Who Reads is a dead end archetype that must be retired. It is time to finally grow into The Adult Who Is, and to finally become what the younger generations have been denied due to your former masters' failures. It is time for Gen Y to be who they can be.
The 2020s is the decade of change, we've stated that before, finally letting the remnants of the rot of the 20th century to finally fall away, and ready ourselves to move into something more. We're not going to need failed mutations clinging on since the turn of the century to continue to steer us forward. It is time to finally break that mold.
Again, this whole spiel might be a bit of the scope of the blog, but I do feel it is important to keep in mind in the context of everything on Wasteland & Sky. Times have changed quite a bit in the near decade since I started this blog, and they're not done changing yet.
Here's hoping that when it finally does, The Kid Who Reads will be sitting in the dustbin of history where it belongs. We're better than that, and we always have been. It's simply time to start acting like it.
Welcome to the weekend! Let us get to today's subject.
An sort of addendum to the recent post on Rooster Teeth and Akira Toriyama, I wanted to discuss the early days of DVD. The reason for this is because it is the first period of home releases where preservation itself was considered a selling point for the form. VHS and Beta were never sold to people as something you would own once and then never need again for the rest of your life. DVD, however, actually was.
For those who don't remember, or just aren't old enough, DVD, much like CD, was sold as one time one buy and it would last Forever as you would never need to do anything else. The late '90s and early '00s were very big on preservation as a selling point. And for the most part, it held true. If you were lucky enough to buy something back then, or buy it used now, there is a good chance your disc actually does function.
However, certain distributors and production companies did cheap out back then, which means there is a specific chunk of old media that actually hasn't been preserved at all. I wrote about that topic here. Today, I want to go in the other direction. What hasn't been preserved, not because of the quality of the actual discs, but due to the companies themselves simply not releasing the series properly to begin with. Believe it or not, there are still plenty of movies and TV series that have not had proper re-releases since their early days on standard definition TV or a cropped VHS release.
One perfect example of this is the anime that helped break the form overseas--Dragon Ball Z. Though it has had multiple releases over the decades ever since Funimation first released the clamshell Arrival VHS back in the '90s, there have been countless releases of the series. However, did you know that there has never been a complete version of Dragon Ball Z that wasn't a terrible mess that is close to unwatchable or incomplete in some way. Aside from one release in Japan (the now-rare Dragon Box releases), the entire series has never even had a presentable release before.
And it is just DBZ. The original Dragon Ball anime, GT, Super, and the movies, all have at least some form of watchable release that holds up. I can confirm my season releases of the original Dragon Ball anime on DVD have good presentation, multiple audio tracks, and still work after all these years. And it is also the only complete release of said series. The sequel series, Dragon Ball Z, however, has had multiple releases over the decades and ever single one has tremendous issues. Check out the above video to see what I mean.
All of this is to show that preservation isn't always a problem of faulty discs and shoddy production companies. Sometimes the source itself, or the one in charge of the license, simply refuses to release the product in question in a state that can be preserved in the first place. And what better way to show that than with what is possibly the most popular anime series ever released. Especially since due to the current state of streaming above all else, the likelihood of Dragon Ball Z now getting a proper home release at all is extremely low.
It's weird to think about for those of us who grew up with the Greatest Toys Ever. Preservation became a goal of a generation that released good things should be carried on, and demanded such from the companies that never thought twice about it. But now in the digital world, and over the last decade, we've started to fail in our original goal. Of course, not everything needs to be preserved, or will be, but one advantage Gen Y has is an eye for knowing what effected them and what has a chance of striking a chord with future generation. I'd like to think one of the most popular anime series of all time would be one of those, but who really knows at this point.
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