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Kiwi Farms
For as long as the Internet has gone on, people have been taking the piss out of the stuff they watch. And out of all the ways to do that endeavor, one of the biggest ways to do that is through the way of the abridged series, retelling the show in a funny way. And one of the biggest names in the abridging games is the guys we're talking about Team Four Star.
Team Four Star started in 2008, hitting the anime fandom square in the mouth with Dragon Ball Z Abridged, or DBZA. It was an instant hit and became one of the most popular shows in its little corner of YouTube, even gaining the attention of folks like Sean Schemmel and Chris Sabat, two of the biggest people in any DBZ English dub regardless of the studio doing it (seriously, the saga of DBZ in English is probably something worth talking about all on its own, but that's not my story to tell). Over the course of ten years, Dragon Ball Z Abridged would mesmerize fans with their takes on the characters, the sagas, and various movies.
But as they say, nothing lasts forever.
In February 2020, one year and five months after the end of Team Four Star's take on the Cell Saga, KaiserNeko announced that DBZA was officially closing up shop after 60 episodes. (https://archive.vn/2C6vQ) The reasons for this decision was posted on both YouTube and their Patreon pages. The main reasons they gave were:
-burnout after doing DBZA for over a decade
-feeling that they didn't want to turn into a zombie of declining quality a la The Simpsons
-The Cell Saga brought a sense of finality to DBZ before the Buu saga took everything off the rails
-TFS feeling that DBZA had a chance to hurt their future prospects, namely Toei coming in and delivering a copyright barrage that could wipe them off the Internet.
Perhaps the biggest thing about this announcement was not only the fact that a staple of YouTube was closing its doors, but they had announced they were not in fact going to tackle the Buu saga, they were also making a sizeable amount of money of Patreon (as of me writing this ,a low end of 2 dollars a month and a high end of 25 dollars a month and with their 1,858 patrons this amounts to anywhere between 3,716 dollars a month and 46,450 dollars a month if my math is right) and they still collected it before offically announcing DBZA is over. (https://archive.vn/W64n1) But...they also have other shows in their portfolio.
Along with DBZA, TFS has also entertained with abridging the likes of Hellsing Ultimate, Attack on Titan (albeit one episode only due to copyright issues) and Final Fantasy VII. Along with abridging, they also have Unabridged, which can only be described as TFS trying to do their take on The Office, and DragonShortZ, which consists of the TFS crew creating their original scenarios withthe same DBZA personalities and humor. (and was even the way TFS decided to do the Buu saga before pulling the plug altogether.
So what's the future looking like for these guys? At the moment, SocialBlade has them at 3.5 million subscribers, although they took a brief dip once they announced that DBZA was over. (https://archive.vn/frLIw) Along with their shows, they also have their podcast Talkcast Podshow where they talk about various things in pop culture.
Whether the glory years of TFS are gone for good or if they can strike gold with something different remains to be seen at the moment, but the crew has made it pretty clear that DBZA isn't coming back. And while part of me thinks that DBZA could come back if inspiration strikes after staying away from it for a while, I think that we've seen an era come to an end. And if you want abridging, at least Something Witty Entertainment is around to make anime fans laugh.