I'm Lanipator of Team Four Star, ask me anything!

Who is the funniest character and why is it Nappa?

Because Nappa

how does it feel to be the 2nd most recognizable vegeta for me?

Feels good man

Are you going to make a Kai episode for the second season like you did with the first?

We do plan to yes, it's just a question of finding the time to write out the script for it.

Do I need an Adult?

It's ok, I am an adult

How does it feel to finally get to do a Super Saiyan scream?

I'm not gonna lie I was so psyched to do it going in to it. and when I was finally able to listen to a preview of the scene I had the stupidest fanboy grin on my face.

I'm not good at questions, you probably get asked this a ton. What episode are you most proud of?

At the moment the latest one. I'm not going to lie this is actually the episode I have been looking forward to for the longest time. Vegeta Vs Android 19 is actually one of the biggest reasons I wanted to play Vegeta. I had the biggest stupidest fanboy smile on my face as I was watching the finished product. Kaiser did a great job editing it. I'm very happy with it.

Nick, you play an amazing Vegeta and it's because of that I've got hooked to the series.

I must ask, based on TFS' Summer Update video, what is the rate you guys will put out episodes? Currently, it would be once a month, so, will it be twice a month, or every other week?

At the moment we really want to try to stick to One episode a month, plus some supplimentary material like deleted scenes Two Saiyans Play etc. Those don't tend to effect the rate at which our episodes come out, since we usually record those or make those on nights not dedicated to scripting.

Is YYHA completely dead?

Dunno honestly lol. Every now and then I do have the urge to work on it, though the problem is having that urge line up over a time when I actually have time to work on it. ^;

How far into the series is DBZA going to go. All the way up to the Buu Saga? DBZGTA?

As it is right now we at least want to try to get to Buu because of all the potential for parody we have there, but like anything I can never actually say when it will end. It's possible we go all the way through DBZ and DB and DBGT but there is always the potential that something happens to make us stop after Cell :/ At the very least we do plan to finish Cell though.

Who would win in a fight? Alucard or Mr. Popo?

What do you think those eyes are when Alucard unleashes his power restraints?

mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE

no mine.

Love DBZ Abridged - many thanks and applause go to the whole team for making something so consistently funny.

What made you want to use DBZ? Was it a collective decision among Team Four Star or did one person suggest it and the rest think it a good plan?

It was actually Taka and Kaiser who came to me with the idea since way back then, about 5 years ago, MasakoX Vegeta3986 and myself were currently going through the DBZ movies and making parodies of them. But they approached me about the project and we decided to form the whole team around it.

Hey! Been a huge fan since day one, is it weird if I prefer your release to the official?

The pacing is better, the voice acting is pretty damn good (especially your Vegeta ;), Kaiser does a wonderful job editing, and it's consistently hilarious in a way that still fits the spirit of the show.

Oh, and we're gonna get a Kai Abridged 2, right?

It's not bad to prefer one over the other, especially if you just want comedy. Though if pacing is an issue I would definitely reccomend picking up DBZ Kai, it's dub and pacing are FAR superior to the original (trust me I've had to watch all of the Freize Goku episodes of the normal dub three times through @.@)

Have you guys already cast the voice for Hercule, or is there an opportunity to audition?

We do have someone tentatively cast at the moment yes. And unfortunately we don't usually hold open auditions for the show :/

How hard is it for you and Taka to stay in character during the Two Saiyans Play videos?

After working with the guy for so long it's actually not that hard. We both seem to work really well with improving off one another.

So now that Nappa is alive again, will he be making brief appearances during the Android/Cell Saga?

Not sure yet lol. We don't have any big plans if that is what you are asking.

So whatever happened to Vegeta3986?

He and the group drifted apart due to personal reasons. I wish him the best of luck though :)

Really big fan of the DBZ Abridged series, so thank you for the laughs.

How did you guys manage to turn Mr Popo into such a bad ass? How important was it at the beginning of the series to sound like the English voice actors, do you attribute that to adding to your success? How fun is it to play some of the best characters from the series?

It's never been horribly important to us to sound like the Dub cast, some characters just turned out that way COUGHVegetaCOUGH. We just want to make something that sounds and looks as good as possible.

As for Mr.Popo the whole thing about him being and over powered monster kind of started when I found this clip of Goten and Trunks waking up on the look out. They see Mr.Popo and go super saiyan and try to take him down. And Mr.Popo just blocks the incoming attacks of 2 Super Saiyans (even if they are young) like they are nothing.

How long does an episode take to make from concept to release?

Usually about a month but it really depends on what is going on in our lives at the time, sometimes the script can take a little extra time to get done due to outside influences.

What was your hardest line to say?

What was your favorite line?

What dragon ball z moment are you looking forward to voicing?

What dragon ball z movie would be/is your favorite to voice over?

Edit: And just to say: I love the work you gents are doing. Its very impressive, and I hope you make all the way to the buu saga.

Hardest line to say without slurring "No one ever goes to Freeza Planet 419. Not since it's species miraculously repopulated"

Favorite line to deliver: "Hello Gohan did you do your homework cause if not Chi Chi will KICK my ass"

Moment I'm looking forward to: Probably Super Vegeta Vs Second Form Cell

Movie I'm looking forward to: Brolly

Which gag do try to bring back, but can't seem to fit in?

I'm gonna be honest, everyone keeps asking about the Krillin Owned Count and if we've gotten rid of it. It's just not something we can put in without him actually being owned lol.

[deleted]

Thats a tough one... I know as a group there are a lot of things we want to fix about the first episode, some of them the way characters act / sound, and some jokes in general (the "and open bar" which was a Lupin III abridged reference and the part with Vegeta 3986 and I fighting over the microphone to play Radditz, just to name a couple).

Take off your shirt.

Done

Please tell us there will be more Piccolo and Nail moments, and hopefully Piccolo, Nail and Kami all arguing in Piccolo's head. That would make my life complete.

I believe there will. actually I think there is a deleted scene from ep 36 featuring them that will come out in a few weeks.

Are you guys planning on doing anymore of Hellsing:Abridged episodes?

Yeah, I think the next episode should be ready about Halloween this year (kindof a yearly thing although we do want to step up production on it.)

Hey Lani! I fucking love the work you guys do, and I think you're the best Vegeta, official dub or otherwise.

I have two questions for you. First, which character is your favorite to voice? And second, which episode is your favorite?

Thank you lol. My favorite character to voice is usually Krillin actually, I have a lot of fun working with what we write for him, especially when he gets "punch drunk". Though my favorite episode so far is actually 36 (which I know is the newest but still). I just had so much fun finally getting to do my super saiyan scream. Plus it's kind of Vegeta's last hurrah before getting bitched for a while lol.

One of my favorite things about you guys's series is your ability to work in running gags in multiple episodes. The most recent joke involving "DODGE!" had me in stitches! Which of the running gags in the series is your favorite?

As an aside, I've been thoroughly impressed to see the quality of the writing in your series improve as time goes on, given that it started off as well as it did. I'm a big fan, and eagerly await more updates! Thanks!

I think my favorite Gag was Vegeta and Gohan Fast talking on Namek "What are you doin" "what am I doing" etc

Have you ever been recognized on the street and asked to do a voice? If you have which was the most requested voice? Love you guys by the way!

I've been recognized every now and again, though not too commonly outside of conventions and they rarely ask me to do voices when I'm just out and about lol. Though I was recognized by a cop once and it did get me out of a ticket which was pretty cool lol.

who's your favorite saiyan?

Vegeta

When are you going to attend a Convention in Washington state?! We would love to see you at one!

When a convention in Washington State brings us out I guess :/ We can't really afford to fly ourselves out to conventions. The Conventions we do go to all fly us out and put us up in rooms since we are there to entertain their attendees. If you want us to come out to a local con just make it known to them, either by going to their forums or emailing their guest people. Most good cons will usually listen to their attendees lol :)

Any plans for a Dragonball Abridged?

Nothing official but it would be the project we work on first after finishing DBZA

Which character do you enjoy voicing the most?

Also great work on 36, I though Vegeta was absolutely fantastic!

Krililn, and thank you. :)

Love DBZA, you guys actually know comedy and what delivery is all about. What is the hardest and easiest part about making an episode?

Hardest part is almost always figuring out how to start off an episode (unless we had something pre planned) That is almost always a slow start. The easiest part for sure has to be the actual recording.

Is there a difference between your Vegeta and Chris Sabat? I assume since he's a "pro" his is better but they sound similar to me.

Back when we first started I did my best just to replicate the sound of his Vegeta although I think after some time they have grown apart (atleast I believe so).

How did the idea for the series come about?

It actually started with a conversation between Taka and Kaiser where Taka asked Kaiser what series he would abridge if he had a choice of any. Kaiser said Dragonball but he didn't want to impose on MasakoX Vegeta3986 and myself who at the time we abridging the DBZ movies. Eventually Taka convinced him to ask if I wanted in and I said hell yes. (as long as I got to be one of the writers and I get to play Vegeta)

Hey Lani, I just have two questions. First, what do plan to do with cell? I know that's all probably hush hush at this point but I'm just dying of curiosity! Second, this may have been stated before somewhere else, but how is TFS as a whole funded, if at all? There are many occasions in which I wish to contribute in any way possible and am curious as to how would be best if that is possible. Lastly, thank you for re-popularizing my favorite childhood show! You guys do phenomenally!

The first question is hard to answer since we really haven't gotten around to writing him yet but the second question is one I would love to answer once and for all.

A lot of people like to claim they know how our monetary system works within the team (Some claim we are Youtube parters making ad revenue off of all of our videos, some claim we make no money what so ever, others seem to think we are privately funded by a corporation). We do make a bit of money here and there. None of it however comes from DBZA. We make money from the T-shirts with our Art and ideas on them. No copyright is broken there so it is 100% legal. We also make a little money from videos that are NOT DBZA or Hellsing Ultimate Abridged (Moments with TFS, Two Saiyans Play, Con videos, etc.)

When we say it is a non-profit fan based parody, we mean that. The parody itself is non profit.

That being said it isn't a lot of money so Taka and I still have jobs while Kaiser has a sugar daddy.

Favorite anime? Also, has Team 4 Star thought about doing anything involved with the shittacular piece of shit Dragon Ball Evolution movie?

Loved the new episode of DBZ Abridged.

My favorite anime is Yu Yu Hakusho. And we have produced a Riff Track for DBE it's available on the Riff Trax iRiff website.

Hi! I know you from the proposal, so my questions are limited to that, I hope that's fine. A lot of people were asking why you proposed at Disney, is there a backstory there or no? Congratulations to both of you!!

Thank you :)

The only real back story there was that for the past 3-4 years Erika (my fiance) has really wanted to go to Disney. I had about a dozen different plans on proposing when we went down (I wanted to do it at the Wizzarding World of Harry Potter cause she is a HUGE Harry Potter fan, but nobody at Universal was willing to help me out with that so to hell with them) The one thing I knew was I wanted atleast a picture of the proposal if not a video. So Disney has these locations around their park that are disignated photo zones equipped with their own photographers (So I didn't just choose some random spot on Main Street I'm not THAT stupid). So we went back to the Magic Kingdom on our last night there to see the fireworks and the parade and get one more picture taken. So I told the photographer what I was doing so she could angle it properly. I proposed the crowd cheered (I obviously at the time had no clue I was photobombed, little distracted by the task at hand), and then the staff was really nice about it. The set us up in this VIP area to watch the parade and fireworks. It was a great time :)

Is Vegeta every going to get whipped?

Hard to say, could be funny, might be character breaking though heh :/

Congratulations on the proposal, if this series goes on long enough for you to finish the Buu saga, do you have any idea of you'll go down the road of GT or continue with Battle of Gods since its still DBZ?

We'd probably do Battle of Gods before GT, hell we'd probably go back and do Dragonball before doing GT @.@

Hey Lanipator, congrats on your engagement! Here's to a happy union between you and your wife-to-be!

My questions: 1: How does Kaiser get all the editing done in 2 to 3 weeks? I've got a group of friends dicking around with FMA:Brotherhood as an abridged series and it takes our editor ~2 months to get stuff together. What kind of Adobe Premiere magic is he doing to achieve that kind of time frame?

2: How does it feel to be the 'gold standard' of abridged series out there, where if people want to try their hand at making one, there's the inevitable comparison to teamfourstar that follows in regards to humor, editing quality, voices etc.

1. Kaiser treats editing in the same way someone my treat meditation, he just zones in and gets to it. I honestly don't know how he does it, I just can't for the life of me, but he is just an editing machine. I'd compare it to someone trimming a Bonsai tree honestly. Patience and focus.

2. On one hand it feels good to be considered the "gold standard" by some people. On the other hand I really hope it doesn't discourage other people who don't have Kaiser's patience for editing to try. Lord knows if I were going to just try to start right now I don't think I'd be able to compare, I can't edit nearly a quarter as well as Kaiser can lol.

Lani you do an amazing job and i was laughing my ass off with the last episode. Vegeta has really become my favorite character thanks to teamfourstar and doing the other voices and making them so unique takes talent that I wish I had. Now enough with the ass kissing. . . are you EVER going to do a full length Dodge bitch? or do you have any plans or more parody songs?

Thank you lol, I would love to make something like that the problem is finding the time (more importantly finding the time before it becomes irrelevant). We do have some plans for another parody song though, so stay tuned for that one.

When you guys get to Goten, are you gonna have MasakoX voice him (along with teenage Gohan) like in the original Japanese Dub or are you gonna get someone else to voice him like the Funimation Dub? (and will they have a smokers voice like Goten does in the Funi dub)

It's kindof hard to say right now as we don't know who we'll be working with when it comes time to actually get to the Buu arc. As time has gone on we have added more and more actors to our roster. So I guess we'll see lol.

Never get to these AMAs on time, I may be in luck.

Two questions:

• Have you received any reaction from anyone involved in the originals?

• Are you planning on doing another DBZ Kai Abridged short? The first was hilarious!

EDIT: 2nd question already answered.

We have met quite a few of the people from the original Dubs, even got to hang out with some of them. Chris Sabat is an awesome guy lol. I'm not sure if any of them are able to officially able to say how they feel about it so in that regard I'll just say that the ones we have met have been some cool guys.

As for Kai 2 we do plan on it but it's just the problem of finding the time to write it out.

What is your favorite scene from DBZ and DBZA?

It's kind of the fanboy in me but finally having Vegeta go super saiyan.

Dude I am a huge fan I especially loved your performance of spudz my question for you is who would you voice if you could revoice any or voice a new character in an anime or a video game or cartoon show besides dbz of course?

Deadpool or The Flash

What's your power level?

Probably somewhere around 5-10? :( (Power levels are bullshit!)

Any chance of you guys releasing more of the Hellsing Abridged series more often than every Halloween? I loved the first three and I'd love to see more, but it's so long in between.

We do want to kick up production on those but DBZA takes priority.

first off congratulations! i hope you two will be really happy moving your relationship forward

second, what is/was your drive behind dbz abridged? just you and buddies sitting around and making fun of how silly dbz was?

First thank you :)

And the drive actually kindof spans from a love for the series it's self. For most of us DBZ was the first anime we ever watched (For me it was actually The Tree of Might movie) It means a lot to us. That being said we know it's not without it's faults and we lovingly like to point those out :)

From one theatre major to another, do you have any advice on life after undergrad?

It's tough to get real work with this degree I'm not going to lie @.@ Just make sure you get as many contacts as you can, start early. I've been very lucky in the fact that things have turned out the way they have so far. Best of luck to you.

Big fan of the show! How did you train to be a voice actor? Just practice in your free time or did you take any classes / training?

I had a very lonely childhood lol, so that gave me a lot of free time to play around. I liked making funny voices and mimicking those I liked. The reason I can do the Vegeta voice is because I used to play a lot of Boudokai and would constantly trash talk my opponent in his voice. As for Training I have was a theater major in college so I had a lot of acting training which is probably some of the best experience you can have to be any kind of actor really, voice or otherwise lol. I've also had a lot of choral experience and voice lessons.

So Lani....What is the best part about working with Takahata, KaiserNeko, and everyone else?

The times when we aren't working lol. Those guys are two of my best friends.

I just want to thank you for doing what you do. I literally am laughing out loud each and every episode. There is no other DBZ series done as well or even half as funny. You have made it a great experience for both knowledgeable and casual DBZ fans.

Thank you lol :)

Love your work with TFS and on YYHA. I've gotten a lot of my friends into abridged series' because of you and TFS, and Vegeta is more often than not immediately a favorite character.

Do you have any intention of returning to YYHA? Many of us really miss it and I was super excited for the Dark Tournament, but I understand if that's permanently on the back burner because of other obligations.

I do every now and then get the urge to work on YYHA (I've even had several scripts come and go for the next episode) unfortunately a lot of it is about whether or not the urge to work on it coincides with the time to be able to work on it :/

You guys have made me laugh harder than any other web series I can think of! Have there ever been any gags you had to scrap just because you couldn't get the animation to line up with your script?

There are hundreds of ideas we had to scrap, seems almost every episode we come up with one or another.

I didn't like that movie. Have you seen any others?

I saw the Conjuring recently, thought that was pretty good... and Pacific Rim.

First, you are amazing. DBZ Abridged has served my circle of friends with plenty of entertainment and dozens of inside jokes.

Have you guys ever done a panel at the Montreal Comicon / would you be interested in doing so?

Honestly we'd love to meet all of our fans at their local cons but unfortunately it's nearly impossible to do so ^; We can't afford to fly ourselves out to them so usually it's the conventions themselves that choose to bring us out for their attendees. Usually the more demand there is at a convention for a certain guest (or group of guests) the better chance of them having that guest out.

How did you guys decide on Mr Popo's personality? It seems so fitting for him.

Long story short, there is this scene where Goten and Trunks wake up on the look out and start attacking Mr. Popo as SSJs. He just blocks their SSJ punches as if they are nothing. And thus all mighty over lord Mr.Popo was born.

If you could work with any voice-actor (living or dead), who would you love to work with?

Billy West

Do you ever intent to do the movies you missed like Dead Zone and The World's Strongest?

We didn't "miss" them. They were just finished before Team Four Star was a thing. I'm not sure if they are still on Youtube though but you might be able to find them. Not my finest work but still they are something lol.

How many episodes do you predict DBZ abridged will have once you finish Cell?

That's really tough to guess at... If I were to make an over under bet I'd place it at about the 60 mark.

If we ever meet, can I have a big hug?

I'm a pretty huggy person, so yes.

Lani, why are you so sexyfine?

Push ups, sit ups, and plenty of Juice

just gotta say congrats enough on that buuuut have you thought about making a small video where yami(from yugioh) meets vegeta with littlekuriboh

Can't say I had ever thought about a video like that but it could be interesting if LK and I could come together on something like that.

I loved your work as Vegeta in DBZA, is there any plans to make more abridged versions of specials and movies and/or re-dub Dead Zone and The World's Strongest?

We do plan on trying to do Return of Cooler sometime in the next few months. But we really want to get to 17 and 18 first.

i heard you guys already designed cell and were proudo f him right? will cell be the funniest character to date? is popo gonna make another appearnce?

Mr.Popo will always come back. As for Cell, we do have some plans for him but haven't really gotten around to actually writing him yet. We hope he'll have some good dialogue with our other characters.

Do you have any plans on Abridging the Battle of the gods movie??, also amazing series, it's probably the best was to rewatch it :D

It's going to be hard to get to that anytime soon since some of the characters in that (Buu, Goten, Kid Trunks, Videl, Hercule) haven't even shown up in our show yet, so we don't want to jump the gun and write for a character that we are unsure of yet :/

Do you know anything regarding a forth episode of Hellsing? Also, I loved Vegeta in the latest episode. Him finally becoming a super sayian is a moment I have been looking forward to since I began watching years ago. Edit: Nevermind about the Hellsing. Already saw that you answered this elsewhere.

I'd say expect Hellsing 4 around October.

How does it feel arguing with yourself? Since you're Vegeta, Krillin, and Piccolo a good chunk of the show is you yelling at yourself . Also, i just want to say that you are good at voice acting pathetically scared and so god damn cocky. Keep up the that stuff, please.

It did become quite amusing in the middle of Namek when a lot of the script was nothing but Vegeta Krillin and Piccolo, I think there were one or 2 times when it was me for almost half an episode.

Do you guys ever plan on Abridging GT or is it so noncanon it hurts?

We may, but it will be a long time, if we plan to do anything after finishing DBZA it's actually gonna be Dragonball.

What and how exactly are you changing these episodes from the ones I watched as a kid on toonami?

Generally we try to cut out a lot of the filler so you don't have people staring at eachother deep in thought for 5 minutes at a time.

How much input on the script do you have for your characters and your non-characters?

Also, your episodes are amazing, and I die laughing watching each of them. Some friends of mine and I once quoted the entire first season, in order. We're a bit obsessed.

Kaiser Taka and myself each have a pretty equal level of input when it comes to the show. Usually though writing for our own characters does come a little more naturally.

What was it like during the two sayians play when vegeta forced krillin to play slender the arrival?

Well the beginning where they actually talked to eachother was just me improving with myself so pretty easy lol.

/r/dbz would be the place to do it really. They are more familiar with your work and /r/IAma has a "Strict" no Internet fame policy.

Or do both.

shrug Sorry I'm fairly new to reddit, if they want to tear this down I understand but I had no idea lol

Comic Con next year? Please? I'd love to meet you guys.

I would love to go to Comic Con but I'm probably going to be a bit busy planning a wedding at that time ^;

Whats your favorite fruit?

This is the hardest question I have had to answer.... Tomato I think... depends on my mood lol.

So, I know that you guys are tired of this one. It's generally hard to stay into the series when you have to wait 30 days for 11-ish minutes of content. Has there been any discussion about how to speed up the process? I love the series, but with 36, it had been such a gap that I had trouble picking up some of the jokes that referenced past episodes. Just trying to help...

We understand that it can be kindof a long wait between episodes. Unfortunately when it comes to scripting we are working around 3 full grown men's schedules (including jobs, family and friends). And after the script is finished we then have to work around even more people's schedules in order to get lines from people. Then of course there is the editing which can usually take anywhere between 2-3 weeks depending on how intensive the episode is and IF we have to do a last minute rewrite.

If you were approached by Spike to work with them in making a DBZ-A video game would you do it? (Please would you?)

They'd need to get Toei behind it first, that's an uphill battle lol.

I have some fan art to send you, if I were to do that would it be lost in the tons of other fan art or is it worth it to send in. I love your work by the way and it inspired me to make it for you guys! :D

Sure feel free to send it to us, I try to keep up with the DBZA email (it does sometimes get away from me though >.>) You can find the address on our website :)

Between Krillin, Piccolo, and Vegeta who is your favorite character in the abridge series?

Personally mine is Vegeta, I love how snarky you guys made him. "You've just initiated your self-destruct sequence"

It's hard to say, cause Piccolo is actually my favorite character in DBZ, Krillin is my favorite to voice but Vegeta is my favorite to write for... so yes.