#DBZ is there because. come on. obviously | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tobiasdrake · 1 month

Note

Loving your breakdowns of the DBZ casts' fighting styles! While you mentioned Gohan already I'm honestly excited to see you explore Piccolo's traits as a fighter. There's a huge shift after he's reborn where he goes from hating and fearing martial arts to learning them to better defend himself from tricky moves like the mafūba, but between his unique physiology and sharp mind there's a lot to think about when it comes to our second favorite Namekian (obviously Dende is number 1. Little Green for life!).

Piccolo is the go-to Ideas man. He's often considered the "strategist" of the Dragon Ball cast, and that title is not without merit. His greatest asset is his intelligence. Though he can be prone to some boneheaded decisions and unbelievable oversights when he gets in his own head. Piccolo aptly demonstrates why every talented strategist needs talented field operatives too; He's better at making plans than executing them.

Piccolo shows up to every fight with a plan. In a sense, he's Goku's polar opposite. Goku is an adaptational genius; An ever-evolving counter-fighter who reads his opponent's moves and then tailors his approach to them. Piccolo is a schemer. He excels in the space between fights - but his ideas rarely survive contact with the enemy.

That's not his fault, mind you. It's just how it goes in a fight. Even when you can control for every other variable, you can't control for the other guy.

We first see Piccolo's knack for innovation at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai. The main thing hanging over his head has been the risk of being imprisoned via the Mafuba/Evil Containment Wave again. In his past life, he had a bit of an unconventional solution to that.

Awful plan, Piccolo. Just. Just awful. Scared of being pursued by martial artists, Piccolo decided to pick a fight with every martial artist on the planet before he'd even gathered the Dragon Balls and rejuvenated himself.

This awful plan revealed him before he was ready and nearly resulted in the very thing he was so afraid of.

There but for a stroke of luck, Piccolo's revenge would have been over and done right there. Aggroing every single martial artist on the planet simultaneously was a bad plan. D-

When he shows up to the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, however, Piccolo has had three years to devise a far better counter for the threat of the Mafuba.

Piccolo's Mafuba Gaeshi or Evil Containment Wave Reflect nullifies any risk of ever being sealed this way again. Instead it imprisons his would-be captor in the vessel that had been prepared for him.

This is the kind of shit Piccolo comes up with when he's given time to plan. His fight with Goku gives us this shit. Piccolo has a new technique!

No idea how he taught himself to do that, but it's not half as weird as some of the shit Tenshinhan can pull so I'll allow it. Giant Form Piccolo is the first of many brilliant ideas Piccolo's had that will ultimately be thwarted once fists begin flying.

Because Piccolo excels in the space between fights, but Goku excels in the fight itself. Piccolo's brilliant new technique merely provides Goku with something new to adapt to and overcome.

This isn't the only cunning technique Piccolo brings to the table that Goku thwarts either. His shiny new homing ki blast suffers a similar fate.

Look at that smug grin. Goku was made for this.

When the chips are down, Goku plays him like a sucker. Because that's precisely what Goku does. In a sense, GokPu and Piccolo are perfectly suited to hard-counter each other's styles. Goku's exceptional adaptation and counter-fighting makes it difficult for Piccolo to plan against him. Whatever Piccolo comes up with, Goku will adapt to it.

But Goku's biggest weakness is his exceptional gullibility. Goku's a born sucker. He's too good-natured, innocent, and honest for his own good. While Piccolo?

Piccolo is really good at sucker punches.

Piccolo is really, really good at sucker punches.

Piccolo is sort of a Final Exam Boss for the martial arts crew. He combines Yamcha's aggression, Krillin's underhandedness, and Ten's weirdness into a bizarre, ruthlessly innovative assault.

As the years pass, we see him continuing to innovate and scheme. By the time Raditz arrives, Piccolo has a new new technique!

A drilling ki blast designed to concentrate immeasurable power and then penetrate through a target. Made for the express purpose of punching far above his weight class.

Uh. If he can land it. Once again, Piccolo's plan fractures upon contact with the enemy. But that's okay because this time he has Goku on his side. And, as noted, while Piccolo excels in the planning stages, Goku excels at execution.

There ya go, Piccolo, I fixed it for ya!

Piccolo's next big scheme is, of course, Gohan.

Once more, for all the work Piccolo puts into preparing Gohan to fight the Saiyans, things don't work out so well when the time comes to put his plan into action.

Despite all the effort he put into preparing Gohan physically, when push comes to shove he isn't able to coax a fighting spirit out of Gohan once they get into the field. His plan shatters on impact with Nappa.

Trying to grab Nappa's tail goes about as poorly.

And yet he is vindicated for it all the same, when the Gohan he forged becomes the key to defeating Vegeta. Once again, Piccolo's innovation is the key to victory, but he needs Goku in the field to carry the ball for him.

The Android arc brings Piccolo his greatest innovation yet, and one of my all-time favorite techniques. Goku's Warp Kamehameha is my #1 but this is fucking cool.

Piccolo has a NEW new new technique! I love this move. Turning the sky into an inescapable minefield to corner an opponent and then converging it all at once. Called Hellzone Grenade in English which is frankly a fantastic name for it.

And yet. Once again.

Yeah, apparently 17 has an impenetrable force field. That's just cheating. I mentioned before that Piccolo's schemes never survive contact with the enemy, but the Android arc is where it gets completely unfair.

Against 19 and 20, he tries to set up one of his patented KO-fakeout sucker punches only for Vegeta to show up and steal his thunder.

Every time. This poor man isn't allowed to pull off a scheme. This isn't even about his dynamic with Goku anymore; Piccolo's getting robbed by the plot.

But that is where Piccolo's career largely ends. However, much like Krillin, Piccolo's particular traits give him staying power after he's fallen behind as a fighter. Piccolo's talents have always lied in sharpening weapons moreso than in using them, so the Buu arc sees him pivot to doing exactly that: honing Goten and Trunks into a sharpened blade to unleash on Majin Buu.

Which goes about as well as every other blade he's sharpened.

Man, Piccolo is not allowed to win at anything.

#dragon ball #dragon ball z #piccolo

44 notes · View notes

akiizayoi4869 · 1 year

Text

Zuko's Fever Dream

This dream that Zuko has when he's going through his little "metamorphosis" (odd choice of words there, Iroh) didn't make sense to me years ago as a little kid, and it still really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me now🤣. Like, if nothing else, this dream is a prime example, and a damn good one at that, of dreams not making sense. It shows Zuko as the Fire Lord, which makes sense, seeing as all he wanted at that point was to return home and claim his birthright (even if said birthright was never his to begin with). He's surrounded by a group of Fire Nation soldiers and two dragons, who are revealed as Azula and Iroh.

The dragon that is supposed to be Azula says this:

"It's getting late. Are you planning to retire soon, my Lord?"

"I'm not tired."

"Relax, Fire Lord Zuko. Just let go. Give in to it. Shut your eyes for a while."

As we see in these two images here, he almost does give in to what she's saying and almost falls asleep until the red dragon speaks up.

"No, Fire Lord Zuko! Do not listen to the blue dragon. You should get out of here right now. Go! Before it's too late!"

"Sleep now, Fire Lord Zuko."

"Sleep. Just like Mother!"

That whole dialogue exchange just doesn't make sense. The last bit that's said is interesting, and it also implies something that's disturbing on Zuko’s end: that he thinks for some reason that Azula, who was either 8 or 9 years old at the time, had something to do with Ursa's disappearance/death. Why does he think that? It doesn't make any sense to assume that his little sister had anything to do with that. It would have made more sense to have Zuko think that Ozai had something to do with it.

I guess you can interpret this dialogue as a sort of nod to their current circumstances. Azula is hunting down Zuko and Iroh for Ozai. By her telling Zuko to close his eyes and sleep, it's making him vulnerable to her, easy to capture. But then Iroh shouts at him not to fall asleep and to leave now while he still can. By doing that, Zuko can avoid being captured. That actually makes sense to me. But if this was supposed to be foreshadowing the eventual betrayal that was coming two episodes later, they could have chosen better dialogue.

The only part about this dream sequence that interests me somewhat is that Azula is portrayed as the devil on Zuko's shoulder, while Iroh is supposed to be the angel. Which, at this point in time, makes sense for Zuko to view the two of them like this. Azula is trying to capture him and Iroh, not to mention the rivalry he had going on with her thanks to Ozai’s abuse. Iroh has been the one family member he's had since Ursa left who has always been there for him. What's frustrating about this is that the narrative never makes Zuko question his views about these two. Iroh is obviously not this perfect angel who can do no wrong. He is very much a morally gray character who has done a ton of fucked up and sketchy shit. Azula isn’t the evil in Zuko's life that he must take down no matter what. That was Ozai. The fact that the narrative never challenges Zuko on his views on these two just stunts his character growth and is proof that he's not done growing.

Finally, we get up to my favorite part of this bizarre dream🤣

This shit. Wtf is this monstrosity😭. Were the writers thinking of the freaking fusion dance from DBZ when they thought of this? It literally looks like a fusion between Aang and Zuko. No wonder the poor boy woke up screaming. If that was me, I would have woken up screaming, too. The last bit of this scene was another thing that stood out to me.

Zuko touches his scar here as a way to reassure himself that he's still him. It just interested me because in an odd way, the scar is like a sort of comfort for him here? I guess? Idk. Maybe comfort isn't the right word to use. But this part just felt like something worth pointing out.

#atla #azula #zuko #iroh #Zuko's weird ass fever dream

407 notes · View notes

gokubrain · 8 months

Note

are you aware of the hit vegeta image song ‘love is like a ballad’ from the fusion reborn soundtrack where it’s essentially a kakavege love song 😭😭

https://www.animelyrics.com/anime/dbz/ainobaraado.htm

and i’m 99.9% sure it’s about goku too because it uses the word ‘yatsu’ which is only used by men to refer to other men in a derogatory way… it drives me so insane

OH YOU ALREADY KNOWWWW IM WELL AWARE OF THIS LMFAO thank u for giving me the chance to talk about it HAHA

under here cuz its kind of a lot:

lets break down the lyrics shall we ..

right off the fucking bat. starting off STRONG. for vegeta to even have the thought “on this small earth life must be protected to the end” is such a good line but pairing it with “but whenever i look at you i feel like a fool” CRAAZYYYYY. insane. protecting the earth is a huge part of all the earthlings’ characters, and without goku, vegeta wouldnt have those feelings. to talk about protecting earth in one line and then immediately talk about goku next is wildddd. “i want to protect the earth, you taught me the importance of that, and yet when i look at you im reminded that it’s because of YOU that i hold these feelings about this planet.” like okAAAY alright okay!!

“why do i treat you so harshly? why do i hurt you that way? yet still fight against great evils” GRAAAHHHH this is insane right LMAO

vegeta displaying confusion as to why he treats goku the way he does when they share the same goal.. when they fight the same battles.. this self aware-ness is literally what early-stage kakavege IS dude. vegeta feeling conflicted about his actions vs his emotions is the first step to realizing he’s in love with goku.. haha. lol

“for the sake of love […] i would even throw away my rank” VEGETAAA. WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUTTTTT LMFAO….

vegeta suggesting he would disown his own ranking, his pride, something very near and dear to him.. this is also early kakavege core LMAO i mean come on. thats just an insane fucking thing for him to say. unreal.

IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER….!!!

“IN TRUTH, THIS POWER IS NOTHING. ALL I KNOW IS YOU.” VEGETA……..!!!!!!!!

ALL I KNOW IS YOU? ALL I KNOW IS YOU???

“although i pretend to be a steel wall […] all i know is you” is just. i mean. EXPLICITLY kakavege. this is kakavege poetry. this is vegeta’s struggle perfectly put into lyric form. i cant believe this fucking song exists lmfao

NOW. NOW..

“the smile you give me is always warm” is wild when thinking about how the entire fusion reborn movie consists of 45 minutes of goku smiling lovingly at vegeta LMAO DONT EVEN THINK VEGETA DIDNT NOTICE. !!

“here i am, offering myself completely if we can be together”

AINT THAT JUST THE ICING ON THE CAKE FOLKS. DONT THAT JUST BEAT ALL LMFAO. ANYONE ELSE FEEL SUPER NORMAL RN?

offering myself completely. giving my all to you. devoting myself to you. THIS IS ONE OF THE FUCKING BUILDING BLOCKS OF KAKAVEGE DUDE. THIS IS ONE OF THE RUNNING THEMES, A KAKAVEGE LEITMOTIF. THIS IS SO VEGETA. I WANNA DIE LMFAO

“if we can be together” …. i mean. what even is there to say about that. how much more explicit can he be here. this is the most straightforward thing vegeta will ever say in terms of kakavege lmao this is it folks. this is IT !!!

its just unreal right. that a song like this even exists.. i mean its so obviously about goku, talking about training together and vegeta being mean to him and protecting earth together and throwing away his rank….. if you think even for one second that this is about bulma you are BLIND. like lets all be serious a moment lmao

and i love that this is related to fusion reborn of all things. that movie is the fucking kakavege bible dude i SWEAR. this whole song makes so much sense if you see fusion reborn as a love story, it all fits so perfectly with how vegeta would theoretically be feeling during the (vaguely referenced) place in the timeline that this movie takes place. this is buu arc shit baby its the point of no return for vegeta its the beginning of the end.. he is realizing his feelings for goku.. i live for this shit man seriously this is what i thrive on

also the goddamn song is called “love is like a ballad” i mean what else can even be said lmfao ..!

#sorry dude this is on u.. u shouldve known when u sent this ask that i’d be incapable of shutting the fuck up #blame urself. i am but a messenger for the truth #kakavege #dbz #answered

55 notes · View notes

tsuchinokoroyale · 11 days

Note

I’d love to hear more about your thoughts on JJK. Admittedly, I’m not well versed in shonen, so I never even considered that it was trying to subvert the genre.

P.S. Thank you for the consistently thoughtful takes and hot ass 😘

Ooooo boy I hope you’re ready for a whole ass essay 😎😎😎

Shonen as a genre has changed over time as any art form does, but it is still mired in tropes that can be traced back to the classics. The shonen genre is thus named bc its target demographic is boys to young men, for our discussion we’ll say teenage boys. While it obviously has big appeal for other demographics, it is mainly designed to both appeal AND communicate life lessons to that crowd of impressionable kids.

Because of this dual function you get this really odd genre full of super powerful special boys who love their friends but have no qualms about slaughtering their enemies. They typically espouse lessons about the merits of hard work, sticking to your beliefs ((so long as your beliefs are beneficial to society at large)), of goodness and friendship triumphing over evil. Look no further than DBZ and Naruto which can broadly be divided into Battle Arcs and Training Arcs, upping the ante for our special boy main protagonists until we literally have them fighting gods as the logical extreme of continuous escalation.

The Standard™ Shonen formula has a boy main protagonist who’s got some sort of motivation that is so ideologically pure that he’s basically impossible to defeat. Goku loves to fight, Naruto wants to be hokage, Tanjiro wants to cure his sister and slayer all the demons, etc. He forms/joins a band of merry outcasts with their own tragic backstories and sets out to defeat whatever villain appears for that arc. If they win, arc is over move onto training arc, if they lose, they train, fight and win, then train some more. The fun of the genre comes from the colorful side characters, and the little twists that come with each battle system, which brings us to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

At the time JJBA was being published, the big influence on manga was big beefy male led 80s action movies and Fist of the North Star, a manga about a beefy martial artist named Kenshiro going around beating baddies in a post apocalyptic world. Battle systems in Shonen were usually incredibly soft, most tied to physical combat enhanced by some poorly defined life force energy that could be called upon to even out fights and give big climactic finishes, like Ki from dragon ball and their iconic kamehamehas. Even JJBA starts off this way, with our beefy boys learning Hamon/Ripple and duking it out with vampires, til my man Hirohiko Araki was like “mmmm this is kind of limiting. Time to Change Everything~” and he came up with the concept of Stands, incredibly limited psychic/magic abilities that manifest as furries or sexy robots or a Lego version of the White House (?). You can see this idea really grow and expand within the part it’s introduced, going from “fire furry” and “robot knight with sword” to “guy whose stand turns into a ball that immediately erases anything it runs into but he can’t really see what he’s attacking since he has to be inside his stand in order for it to work also his name is Vanilla Ice and he’s a vampire in a thong.”

You can FEEL the impact this had even to this day. Stands became Jutsus in Naruto, quirks in MHA, Nen in HxH, Cursed Techniques in JJK. And part of what made it fun was that it added strategy to the mix! Str8 physical fights are hard to strategize bc it’s basically just a numbers game, right? Like bc his power level is over 9000, it’s going to be a tough time until some plot contrivance and/or training occurs to drive *my* power level over 9000. But now there is an additional layer of *how* these powers interact.

My ability is to blow bubbles and his ability is to turn a single person who comes into contact with bodily fluids into a mindless zombie? Create bubble shields so they can’t splash blood on you. My ability is to fold anything into origami and if you touch the origami you begin to see one object as something else and his ability is an automatic tracking stand that hunts me down by creating face shredding tornados when I breathe? Make a city bus look like my dad ((part 8 is fucking nuts)).

As you can tell, JJBA really burst open the dam on creativity, but as per the examples I’ve given they can often feel very… silly and contrived. The Serious Anime Fan™ will complain and say those fights are full of asspulls, which they are, but that’s very much part of the fun of the series. BUT because diversity is the spice of life, you also get artists who are less interested in adhering to the Rule of Cool and more interested in making things explicitly “logical” which is how we get Hunter x Hunter.

While JJBA dabbles in using stands for characterization, HxH goes HARD into it. Nen abilities are ((usually)) manifestation of their user’s idea of power, creating a direct link between who that person is and what they can do as a result. This is balanced by people having innate Nen types which means the kinds of abilities they can use are limited, though there are rules restrictions and exceptions to this as well. We know all of this bc mangaka Togashi literally gives a college level lecture on Nen in the story, describing how it manifests, how it works, what it can and can’t do, and how individual rules can supersede the basic set of rules and the rules for doing that. I call this style Erudite Shonen, bc bitches be TALKING. In erudite Shonen, powers usually fall on the complex side, even Bungee Gum, which has the properties of both rubber and gum, can be used in insane ways like ricocheting bullets, gluing minors together, and/or cheesing a game of dodgeball and it’s all both shown AND told.

Now where does JJK fall into all this? Listifying the common Shonen tropes we have A Special Boy main protagonist with a pure motive, a crew, goodness triumphing over evil, prioritizing bonds and community over selfish gain, and the winning power of hard work.

Early JJK fits the mold pretty well. Yuji Itadori starts off the series special, with superhuman fitness before he ingests sukuna’s finger at which point he becomes a Naruto analog, where he is strong because he has a powerful spirit trapped inside him. He has the rather off kilter but still acceptable goal of “dying a proper death”. His squad of mentor Gojo, Fushiguro, and Kugisaki is established by episode 3. The villains are cursed spirits who want to eradicate humanity, the good guys are the jujutsu sorcerers who say “no u” to that. Yuji wants to gain power to protect others instead of just becoming powerful himself. And there’s a training arc! Sure, it happens after Yuji gets his heart ripped out, but he’s not even dead that long. Even the powers in early JJK present themselves as pretty simple, Fushiguro does shadow summoning, Kugisaki does hammer and nail resonance, panda, Inumaki does cursed speech.

It wears its darkness on its sleeve however, presenting Junpei as a potential future team member only to shockingly kill him. The whole star plasma vessel incident casts an unflattering light on Jujutsu society. But none of that COMPARES to the shitshow that happens in Shibuya, where JJK finally shows its real hand.

Over the course of the Shibuya arc, we watch our protagonist mount an offense against the villains that have been building themselves up over the course of the show, sacrificing so so much just to ultimately… lose. The Shibuya arc subverts not just idiosyncratic plot beats but story telling traditions as well. “The strongest” loses, multiple fan favorite characters are either taken out of commission or outright killed, the story progression slams the fast forward button as Yuji goes from having ingested 4 out of 20 fingers to 15/20 resulting in mass civilian casualties because his version of the 9 tailed fox is an actual monster, and ((meta-narratively)) worst of all, Yuji doesn’t even get to defeat his arch-rival, Mahito. Instead Mahito is unceremoniously absorbed by other big bad Geto/Kenjaku. It’s supremely unsatisfying and the weight of the tragedy is so immense you wonder how our heroes are gonna come back from this.

And thus begins the “deconstruction” phase of JJK. Cuz they just… don’t. As dark as Shibuya got, a standard Shonen would then go on to give the heroes a big fat W, some sort of come back after all that. But not JJK! Bc JJK is subversive 😏 this means the fact that the story is super unsatisfying is like, the point mannnn. This isn’t the worst thing that can happen. Chainsawman is also a story of major L’s and minor W’s and it’s my #1 favorite modern manga series. The difference is in intent, however. Chainsawman works as well as it does bc at its core, it loves Denji. He REALLY goes through the ringer, but it’s all in service of understanding what life is like for someone trapped on the hedonic treadmill and how one can ((attempt anyways)) to break out of it.

And then there’s JJK. It truly feels like the manga is designed to tear Yuji’s self sacrificial mindset to shreds for the sake of making him suffer and for the reader to feel bad for ever feeling like good has to triumph over evil. The real problem is, it feels as if the series is bending over backwards to make this shit happen.

Part of the change over is what was a previously simple-ish battle system goes full Erudite Shonen. There were hints that cursed energy could get more complicated, what with domain completion competition and guaranteed hits and simple domains and that one guys FPS ability I can’t explain. But we go FULL HxH level afterwards. All of a sudden oxygen delivery to the brain becomes important to cursed technique, there’s domain range and boundary fidelity and incomplete domain properties, disruption of somatic components becomes a factor, and… it honestly feels like utter nonsense at times.

Complexity isn’t bad, like I mentioned I LOVE HxH and could probably explain the chrollo-hisoka fight if you gave me a few hours to study, but I could not tell you all the new rules for cursed energy that seem just kind of invented on the spot in random chapters during this back half of JJK. Bc they involve concepts never really mentioned before, it feels like an asspull, like this was something made up to force the situation at hand. Thing is, more of those situations only benefit the villains. You get shit like a character winning a battle at the end of one chapter and then starting the next one to find they were killed off screen moments later, actually. It’s just like yeah it’s subversive, but the reason stories aren’t told like this is bc this shit sucks lmao. I think out of all the plans the heroes make like only a handful of them are actually successful, and even then they get so unwound by the next step in the plan that they may as well have not happened. It doesn’t help that the abilities are so complicated now you’ll get a chapter dedicated to explaining what one guy can do just to have him wiped off the face of the earth the next one.

So the crew is gone, our special boy is actually the most disempowered guy ever except for the fact that he can’t be killed for some reason, the good guys are NOT doing a great job standing up to evil since like 86% of their plans fail or have bad results, a gag character wins one of the most important fights in the story and it’s unironically the best thing JJK has done in a while, and it’s all just a very confusing slog to read. This is the danger of writing subversion for the sake of subversion with intent for contempt, kids 😮‍💨

Granted we aren’t at the end of the story yet so maybe I’ll be wrong and there’ll be like a reset button that fixes everything (( which would also suck )), but yeah. JJK wants what HxH did in the chimera ant arc but forgot that that story was possible bc it was fundamentally about humanity and love, not just the parts about how people suck and goodness can fail.

If you made it this far congratulations you’re entitled to one big kissy on ur forehead from me and barnaby 😚😚😚

#no one is allowed to tell me how many words this is I don’t want to know #0 note post here we fucking gooooooo #this one goes out to the girlies who don’t understand why I’m single I’ve got yer explanation right hereeeee 😅

12 notes · View notes

mannatea · 3 months

Text

Random thoughts about DBZ because I’m rewatching starting at the Great Saiyaman Arc.

Gohan is just so wholesome and good. Even after all these years I still stan with my whole heart. When he finds out that Mr. Satan has been taking credit for (more or less) his and his friends’ work during the Cell Games, and all he does is just have a giggle about it? I love him your honor.

These episodes start off so goofy after the more serious tone of the Cell Games arc, but even though they’re not very serious there’s enough realism in there for the silliness to feel grounded I guess? Like yeah, “Gohan goes to high school” sounds so dull off the cuff, but there’s something seriously charming about him trying to “fit in” and “be normal”—and to a degree it’s a relatable issue, too. He really is just trying to make friends and keep them (after a lifetime so far of not really having friends his own age)(I think Dende sort of counts for this but they don’t see each other as often as, say, a school friend group does).

Videl doesn’t half-ass anything and frankly that’s one of the reasons I will always love her.

Seriously, I love her so much. I wish they’d had more time to develop her character and go into a bit more about why she acts the way she does, but a lot of that can just be inferred. It’s not really surprising that she’s out there like a bloodhound sniffing out bullshit from Day 1 considering her father’s fame and what that has probably meant for her for the last 7ish years.

Also she’s a Fashion Icon actually. Spandex shorts and a t-shirt? Same, girl.

She does attach herself to Gohan awfully quickly, which ties back into wishing we got more character development, buttttt it seems pretty clear early on that part of the reason she wants to know who he is is because he’s “just like her for real”: she definitely seems to understand she’s found someone worth her time.

I think there’s probably something to be said here about her father’s bullshit too, and filling her head with ideas about how she can only date someone as strong as he is (when she believes nobody like that exists, especially not someone her age) but really I feel like that connection forms so quickly because Gohan is not a simp or a fan of hers; he just has a similar idea of justice, and she really vibes with that. It feels like a genuine connection to another person, which she probably hasn't experienced often.

Anyway I just love how earnest and hard-working she is.

And I’m sorry because the shipping goggles are permanently affixed to my dumb face at this point in my life with these characters, but it’s still pretty cute (and funny tbh) that Videl and Gohan have this constant back and forth of her doing something and him being genuinely impressed by her, even though her accomplishments are like, absolutely nothing compared to what he and his friends can do. It just kind of sets up Gohan as a “look at my awesome wife” kind of guy, which he definitely is. LOL.

I also really like how he manages to recognize that she has limitations (as she is just a human being) without ever really coming across like he’s disrespecting her as a person. Above all, Gohan does try to be respectful. Or when he’s worried about potentially coming up against her father in the tournament because he’s concerned beating her father in a match might hurt her feelings? He’s such a good kid.

He’s also dumb as shit re: the hair comment, but there’s something about that stupid 5 second scene that I love too… Like Gohan was just spitting facts about short hair being harder to use against her in a fight, but she totally misunderstood his meaning and then gets mad about it. LOL. It feels very…teenagery to me (as it should). But when she comes back with short hair anyway, it’s nice because even though she was upset for having misunderstood him, she obviously recognizes the truth in his words. It was good advice—so she takes it.

I also feel kind of bad for Gohan for all the teasing he gets at the start of the tournament for his “friend” being a “girl” like pleaaase give him a break. The poor kid barely has friends. Let’s not pigeonhole him into a romantic relationship too.

Honestly Videl needs time to build up a good friendship too. She kind of sucks at making and keeping friends and doesn’t need the pressure of romance on her plate (even though she’s obviously sorta interested HAHAHA).

I mean I like that they do get together in the end (obviously, I was the biggest G/V shipper in the old days lol) but that their friendship felt highlighted first and foremost was always meaningful to me personally lol.

Also to backtrack, it’s still hilarious that ChiChi was suspicious of Videl until she found out she was rich. ICONIQUE.

Goten is the cutest little kid ARGHHHH. I love him so much.

One thing about watching the series in Japanese is that I miss out on the dub’s terrible rapping attempts by Gohan and frankly that is PEAK COMEDY.

Videl sounds 10x cuter in the original, too, now that I think about it. And Hercule sounds much more serious (despite his comedic relief character) which is a great contrast actually.

Announcer man is a fave too btw. I love him.

Backtracking again but Vegeta at the beginning of this arc was actually not as much of an asshole as I remember him being in the dub. But also why is his voice so smooth?? LOL.

Currently on the Trunks vs. Goten fight episode where Videl is like “WTF” about everything. I kinda feel bad for her, but I like that while her not knowing what’s going on is part of the comedy aspect of the episodes, she’s never treated like she’s stupid for it. For all of DBZ’s faults I will say some characters were done surprisingly well.

#dbz

11 notes · View notes

sweetescapeartist · 3 months

Text

MORE ABOUT AYA MATSUI

DISCLAIMER: This is not meant to attack Matsui nor any of the others who previously worked on the series (or those who currently work on the series). This is just to aid us in having an understanding of why Yamcha & Krillin are viewed in a negative light by the fandom. No hate towards them & we shouldn't harass any of them. We understand how things come about so that we can present corrections & prevent misinformation when appropriate by using discretion.

HER MISUNDERSTANDING OF VEGEBUL & DISDAIN FOR YAMCHA:

DBZ filler EP 124 & 125 were written by Aya Matsui. She is OBVIOUSLY a Vegeta fangirl who seems to not like Yamcha very much. In those episodes, Matsui writes for Bulma's parents talk about how amazingly strong Vegeta is and how good looking he is.

And without valid reason, Bulma was written to care WAY too much for the guy who threatened to kill her more than once, treated her like dirt, & was responsible for the death and torment of her friends.

And its revealed in the filler that Bulma wanted attention from her boyfriend AND a genocidal maniac who threatened her life multiple times. And the previous threat on her life was recent.

This filler honestly made Bulma look worse than she was in the manga. Bulma was horny & dumb in the manga and regretted her actions. DBZ filler made Bulma appear as if she developed Stockholm Syndrome for Vegeta along with her Hybristophilia (sexual interest & attraction to criminals; Bandit Yamcha, Zarbon in filler, Vegeta).

Matsui appears to have been one of the many who believed the lie Future Bulma told Future Trunks & then wrote for Bulma to fall for Vegeta in an unbelievable way before Toriyama revealed what REALLY happened. In reality, Bulma stupidly slept with Vegeta anyway despite him being evil & genocidal because she was horny and currently single after breaking up with Yamcha again. Then, Bulma couldn't stand Vegeta for years.

Aya Mastui & Toei had jumped the gun because they didn't know that Toriyama planned for Bulma to to regret sleeping with Vegeta. It WAS NOT some romantic story. There was no love between them when it began. They both hated each other after their one night stand & only came to care for each other over the span of many years due to Future Trunks.

It's a unique romance story that many VegeBul fans ignore for some reason in favor of a prince saving her from an abusive boyfriend when the prince was the actual abuser & so was she. Them forming a relationship due to their son from the future? No other DB couple has that kind of story.

Meanwhile, Yamcha gets ignored for the most part in DBZ EP 124 & 125 unless it was to make him look bad so that the currently evil Vegeta looked better. These two filler episodes were simply VEGETA WANKING. Just evidence of Matsui being a fan of Vegeta's design, but not understanding the character. And just as she did not understand the character well, most Vegeta fans don't understand him either & only like the husk of the character.

Nothing wrong with being a Vegeta fangirl or fanboy. Just pointing out a fact & how it skewed Matsui's depiction of reality in this & other instances. I just wonder why there aren't many fangirls/fanboys of End of Z Vegeta? That's my favorite Vegeta. Vegeta fans try to make evil Vegeta like EoZ Vegeta, so why not be a fan of the developed version of him instead of taking away development from the so-called "most developed character"? Seems unreasonable & illogical to me. Matsui seems to have became a fan of EoZ Vegeta with how she wrote GT Vegeta to behave.

But, back to her dislike for Yamcha...

Matsui wrote the filler scene of DBZ EP 70 where Bulma has a dartboard with Yamcha's face on it when Krillin & Gohan are searching for her.

That dartboard was not present in the manga. And why would Bulma have that after she cried over Yamcha's death and went to Namek to bring him back to life? Makes her look worse than when she didn't take accountability for the arguments she started with Yamcha as she briefly fantasized about Goku for a moment on Namek in the original manga.

I personally believe that back then, Matsui may have felt some sort of connection with Bulma in some way (not saying for a fact), but she didn't understand the character well (as many Bulma fans don't) & didn't realize that Bulma started the arguments instead of Yamcha. Then, Matsui gave Bulma a "Yamcha dartboard" in the episode she adapted.

HER DISDAIN FOR KRILLIN:

LASTLY... Aya Matsui also seemed to not like Krillin very much either as shown by DBZ EP 117 where Krillin is treated as a joke for most of the episode, Malon treats Krillin poorly, & she flirts with other guys right in front of him (even with Krillin's close friend Yamcha). Then, in DBZ EP 167, there is a scene that has Yamcha & Krillin training to fight Cell, and both are treated as clumsy jokes rather than highly skilled martial artists. But, Krillin is treated as more of a joke than Yamcha as Yamcha mocks then kicks him in the face.

So, Matsui seemed to have strongly disliked Yamcha, but disliked Krillin a bit more. Why do I say so? BECAUSE Matsui was the head writer of DBGT where Krillin and his family are inaccurately portrayed. Marron & others were written to behave like Bulma & Krillin is almost always insulted by his wife & daughter. And Yamcha is mostly absent for the entire series. She is also one of the ppl who worked under Takao Koyama; the headwriter for DBZ who strongly disliked Krillin. So, Koyama, Matsui, Kubota, & others of Koyama's "underlings" who worked on DBZ & GT wrote episodes that depicted both Krillin & Yamcha in negative ways.

So, thanks to Koyama, Matsui, & others, many fans do not understand Yamcha nor Krillin and have a false depiction of them which in many cases resulted in undue hatred of the characters.

Again, this is not to attack Matsui or anyone else. Just gathering information to share an understanding as to why filler scenes in DBZ have negatively impacted the perception of certain characters for all of these years. First we must know & understand, then we correct the perception in our own unique ways when the opportunity presents itself.

#Aya Matsui #Vegeta #Bulma #Yamcha #Krillin #DBZ filler #DBGT #DBZ #DB #DB fandom

17 notes · View notes

canonmisogynyvictimstournament · 9 months

Text

PROPAGANDA

CHLOE BOURGEOIS (MIRACULOUS LADYBUG) (CW: Child Abuse)

1.) Girl was done so dirty… She was starting to develop and could’ve had a redemption arc and then they made her even more one-dimensional than she was at the start, dumbed her down, and the creator on twitter claimed she was never abused and that she never cared about her childhood friend, only his status. And in a scene that thankfully got cut by editors, her father was going to disown her, adopt her sister instead (who is like a “nicer” replacement for her) and pass Chloe onto her abusive mother.

And then a male character gets introduced who is also at first an antagonist with a backstory that gets revealed later, also a childhood friend of the same character, but it’s acknowledged that he got abused by his parent and he gets a redemption arc and a romantic subplot and a spot on the hero team (which Chloe was excluded from because she was irresponsible with her power and revealed her identity publicly… Except he also did that)

This show is about girl power btw.

2.) Chloe was done so fucking dirty. So basically, the creator of the show (Thomas Astruc) created the character in the first place as a stand-in for his childhood bully (red flag no.1) Because of this, any development that she as a character got from the other writers (and it was a lot) got retconned, just because he hated her. Other, objectively much more evil, (male) characters (the main villain!) were portrayed as more sympathetic than her, because god forbid a hurt, abused, emotionally immature, unloved little girl be portrayed as anything other than an unlovable, unforgiveable unchangeable demon. Also she’s obsessed with clothes, shoes and handbags, because she’s a mean girl, don’t you see, so obviously the nice girls (who don’t wear makeup while Chloe does) are better than her.

3.) Stuck up spoiled rich girl is treated as worse than the actual villains of the show. At some point we get a glimpse into her awful traumatizing home life and she starts to be redeemed, but the second something doesn’t go her way she backslides and is suddenly even more evil and dumb. Also her father is incredibly neglectful but it’s portrayed as her somehow abusing him into doing what she wants and he’s so sad about his awful evil daughter. He gets a redemption arc but never actually becomes a better father. She’s seen as unfixable.

CHI-CHI (DRAGON BALL)

1.) okay so to start at the beginning, she was introduced as a young kid but they put her in a super revealing bikini styled outfit. pretty sure it was supposed to be armor too, so besides just being a disgusting design choice even in-universe it’s impractical. but besides that she was pretty charming as a kid, she was cute and funny and pretty tough, and had a cool gimmick in her blade/ laser helmet. even when she reappeared in late Dragon Ball, she was a bit abrasive but was overall rational and kind. she was strong enough to make it into the World Martial Arts Tournament, one of only 16 to qualify.

but come Dragon Ball Z and on, she’s reduced to just a shrill, nagging, aggressive wife and mother. all she gets to do is cook, worry, and berate her husband and sons. her physical strength is only used so she can comically hit Goku. sure its played for laughs, but he’s shown to be afraid of her. I only recall her leaving her house once or twice in DBZ. just the worst mother character stereotype, with nothing left to make her likeable. she’s portrayed as irrational but despite her aggressiveness, half the time her wants are completely reasonable. can’t blame a woman for not wanting her husband to die every other day!! her writing us ass but I still love her and she deserves better!!!

2.) So in Dragon Ball she wasn’t the BEST character to start out with. Toriyama hasn’t ever been the best at writing women or not making stupid fucking sex jokes about them. So she had to deal with that. The outfit she wore as a kid was… NOT GREAT. Let’s say that! Then in late Dragon Ball her entire character revolves around Goku and trying to marry him, which she gets by tricking Goku and getting beaten by Goku in a tournament in one hit. Not off to a great start. Then Z started and Toriyama just… gave her an ENTIRELY NEW new personality, and that new personality was just a stereotype of a tiger mom. Regardless of how correct she might’ve been about letting Gohan fight (and she WAS completely correct, he was 5-6 for a HUGE chunk of Z) the narrative frames her as a hysterical and unreasonable woman nagging at the menfolk and not letting them do things. So naturally people hate her without even considering why she’s upset because the story itself frames her as in-the-wrong. The whole franchise also just forgets that she’s a martial artist and never has her DO ANYTHING.

This is only scratching the surface, there’s a LOT more because the franchise is like 40 years old and we’d be here all day.

3.) GODDDD okay so full disclosure i guess shonen is such an easy pick but like. out of every shonen wife she was and is THE most hated by the narrative and creator (maybe tied with sakura omfg). shes always made out to be a beast, got her fighting skills shafted after she got married, was always played like she was hysterical for worrying about her kid dying in battle, and not to mention the creator actively HATES her. like toriyama just straight up hates writing her. its bad. its really bad. shes just “bitch wife” but for no reason :(

#polls #round 2 #week 3 #new #cw child abuse

30 notes · View notes

allseeinganalyst · 7 months

Note

PLEASE TALK MORE ABOUT GOBUL I LOVE THEM TO PIECES OH MY GOD...

Sure!

I really *like* Goku x Bulma. I think there is a very sweet “childhood friends to lovers” aspect behind them, and Bulma shows a lot of concern and love for him as a friend that I think translates into more quite easily.

To be clear I’m NOT on the Chi-Chi hate train, because I think there are valid af reasons for her acting the way she does because of who she is as a person. There are times when she is annoying, yes, but these are exaggerated and flanderized to stupid levels by “fans” (and also by the show itself from time to time — the Cell Games arc springs to mind).

The thing is, I think because of who Bulma is, these things would just… not be present. Chi-Chi needs Goku to work and her kids to study because that’s the idyllic family life she wants and you do need to work to make money to live, even in the weird, quasi-feudal world of Dragon Ball.

But that problem… doesn’t exist for Bulma. She’s like…Tony Stark. She’s heir and later president of Capsule Corp, she’s the richest woman on the planet. Vegeta doesn’t work or do chores, why would he? So… Goku would be free to live the life he wants AND live it with his lifelong friend. I don’t remember it being mentioned that she’s an incredible cook for him like Chi-Chi, but who cares, she’ll just hire fuckin’ Dragon Ball Gordon Ramsay to cook for him every night. Or she’ll build a robot that can do it. She’s Bulma, she’ll manage.

I also think Goku would be affectionate back to her. First off, he does like spending time with his wife in canon and gets a little sweet with her, so Super’s odd notion that he doesn’t know what kissing is aside, I think we can assume he can be affectionate. Maybe not MASSIVELY so, but he can be.

Secondly moments with that are often undercut with Chi-Chi being angry for comedic reasons. See the Flanderization of her character I mentioned above. And while I do think that’s still going to happen with Bulma—she can whine rant and bitch with the best of ‘em and I love her so much for it — there’s going to be… less of that? To a degree? Goku coming in from training will probably be met with a “GO SHOWER, YOU STINK” but there likely won’t be too much upset about mud or setting a bad example for his son. She’ll watch him go and admire how hot her husband looks.

That brings me to the main reason I like to muse about this pairing — in Dragon Ball, when couples hook up, they have kids. Every major main character couple has done it. So obviously “Gohan” would be born to Bulma.

See, after Bulma, Trunks is my favourite Dragon Ball character. Specifically his future self, but I liked grown up GT Trunks too (in theory)… so thinking about the character that would replace him gets me thinking…

I’m imaging a son (though a Daughter would be cool AF but anyway…) and I like to think they’d be called a play on “Fundoshi” (traditional Japanese Underwear) or “Mawashi” (Sumo Wrestler Underwear) or something that blends the Asian Mythology from Goku with the Underwear theming of Bulma… or we could just call him “Singlet” or hell… maybe he’s just “Trunks”— I think it’s obvious Bulma isn’t that interested in letting her husbands name their kids (see Super with Bulla/Bra).

And he fundamentally changes just about every part of DBZ and Super when you think about it. Namek especially. But all of it. And you gotta think while the kid WILL have a study program it’s gonna be so different to Chi-Chi’s “HIT THE BOOKS” approach, and Bulma would for sure be like:

“Huh? What? Yeah sure sweetie, go train with Dad. Mom needs to finish fixing this perpetual energy generator. Here, actually, take the radar and tell Dad he needs to bring me the Dragon Balls! Call it a boys day out! Father-Son bonding!… Mamma needs a facelift anyway…”

It’s that. That gets me. That question: “What would be different about this series of Bulma and Goku had a kid instead of Gohan existing?”

I’ll spare you my thoughts on that but basically I think Bulma and Goku would make not just a cute, but very interesting couple narratively.

#GoBul isn’t my favourite ship #lol that would be Bulma x ME #I’m joking I’m joking #but I do like talking about Dragon Ball #and Bulma. I love talking about Bulma.#Ask the Analyst #GoBul

17 notes · View notes

gretchensinister · 5 months

Text

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you @marypsue for tagging me! (I didn’t lose the post! You just alerted me in October and in October I wrestle with poetry.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

WELL. 734.

2. What’s your total word count?

1,407,987 oh that’s a much more normal number. (The question then becomes the reason for the amount of fics under 1000 words.)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The vast majority of my fics are for Rise of the Guardians. I have a significant-length fic for Venom and another for Thor. I have recently used Ao3 for an original work that I think fits with Ao3’s vibe and is like, 1000 levels of AU down and sideways from blacksand; an intensely explicit 2nd-person fic involving Moder, the monster from The Ritual; and, what I am still very excited about, a 150k foray into The Dark Crystal.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos

The first is Give You Everything, which is the Venom fic. This doesn’t surprise me, as I posted it fairly soon after the first movie came out and I’m pretty sure of everything I’ve written it has the greatest number of people who would be likely to see it. The others, though! “Single Snowflakes” “How Old?” “What It Means To Ask” and “Down and Dirty”: These are all Jack Frost/Bunnymund short fics that I wrote in response to prompts! Furries rule the Earth I guess!

5. Do you respond to comments?

For the past several years, I try to respond to all of them. But on my earliest fics I didn’t (though I did print them out and put them on my refrigerator to help me through grad school).

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

“Warmer Than I Thought”-Jack is going to die and he’s not going to come back the way he was. (I love seeing this in my daily kudos email because it is just plain angst. That was the vibe yesterday, huh, Guest or Username?)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

“His Time”- The Guardian polycule has essentially become the pantheon of a new earth, and they’re in love and they’re making it good this time.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

The closest I got was a person who appeared to be crabby about me a) having the characters talk to each other too much and b) enjoying the praise other commenters had given me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

9. Do you write smut?

All the time, and probably more extensively than is useful for people who want to get off. I do want what I write to be hot, but it’s also about intensifying the connection and vulnerability between characters, and explore whatever emotional weirdness they’re dealing with.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I think I’ve only written one crossover that wasn’t for a prompt, so basically no.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Once someone talked to me about translating one of my fics into Spanish. I was very excited and gave permission, and then I never heard anything else, so I don’t know what came of that.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I was going to say no...but on the table beside me is a DBZ fic that my friend and I wrote passing a small notebook back and forth in 7th grade. (I do plan to put this on Ao3 to, you know, archive it. :D)

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Pitch Black/Sanderson Mansnoozie, pretty obviously, but the vital thing for me to lose it about a ship is for the people involved to be opposites/opposed in some cosmic/fundamental way.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

I have a mostly-canonverse post-movie getting-together blacksand fic where the big change is that both Pitch and Sandy change their bodies and pronouns after the events of the movie so that they’re both women (to have a clean slate?) but I lost steam for it because my ideas for it weren’t distinct enough from ground I’d already covered in Without Contraries There Is No Progression.

16. What are your writing strengths?

With a little input from others, I will say dialogue, the use of different registers of language, and sensory descriptions.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I’ll tell you what, plot does not come naturally to me. So of course I want to write one of those big political space empire stories.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

I wouldn’t do it for more than a few words or like, one of those stock Latin phrases that can be easily looked up or that I just know thanks to my milieu. I’m more curious about this question being here at all. Is this common enough to go in a list of general questions about fic? It’s not something I see often enough in published fiction or in fic to even remember if I have.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Probably a dead tie between Sailor Moon and DBZ. A very popular genre among my friends when we were in middle school was having a hapless reporter interview anime characters. Not a clue why! But we thought it was hilarious.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

I’m super hype about Incarnation, as you probably know if you’re on my blog reading this post, but the ultimate favorite still goes to A Draught of Light, aka how I tricked myself into writing an original epic fantasy novel by telling myself it was going to be a 10,000 word blacksand AU. The thing is though, the version that’s really my favorite is the one I privately revised to streamline a few things and change it so it was even less related to Rise of the Guardians than it already was. So it goes. I still love the one on Ao3.

Who's writing that I haven't seen tagged recently... @linddzz, @bowlingforgerbils, @queerpyracy, @sylphidine

#rambling #meme

10 notes · View notes

beyondblue2 · 10 months

Text

To the Dragon Ball Super Haters

So I still to this day see people making the same complaints about Dragon Ball Super, so let me just say this: I don't believe you can dislike Super for the vast majority of complaints made about it and still enjoy DBZ. Allow me to elaborate.

Most criticisms of Super, like inconsistent animation, or power of friendship shenanigans, or half-cooked plot, or powerups that have very little buildup, or hell, even powerups that really only change the user's hair color... are all present in DBZ. I think most people don't want to argue that DBZ doesn't deserve its legendary status because you'd be fighting alone against a horde. But it's much easier to proclaim your hatred of something new and cite a decline in quality.

These people either A) don't like DBZ either and therefore shouldn't be so entrenched in the franchise, B) don't dislike Super for the reasons they give but want to sound like they have good taste, or just dislike it for stupid reasons, or C) were tricked by people who come from points A or B into believing things are worse than they are, because they have the media literacy of a toddler.

It's like this. Say you run into someone while you're talking about how much you love Reese's Cups. And they tell you Reese's are a garbage treat and you're an idiot for liking it. And you get upset, obviously. And eventually you go "okay, explain it to me. Why do you hate them?" And they tell you that peanut butter is objectively terrible. Which, first off, it's not, that's your extremely subjective opinion. But second, didn't I see you eating a PB&J sandwich in the break room earlier? And they're like "yeah, PB&J is delicious, it's the best sandwich ever, nobody's disputing that." And you're just like... it has peanut butter though. And they're like "okay but you're taking it out of context." WHAT CONTEXT, BRO!? Either you think peanut butter is nasty or you don't! So you're either lying about hating Reese's to sound edgy and cool, or you're lying about loving PB&J because you don't want to be ostracized for being a freak.

That's basically what it boils down to. If you don't like Super, I'm not saying you're not valid. But be real. You probably don't like it because you were a kid when DBZ came out and your tastes have changed since then. I'm not going to sit here and act like Super isn't flawed, but let's not pretend that those same flaws didn't exist in Z, either. And don't give me that "Goku should be heroic" shit either, that was something the American dubbing crew did on their own. The same dub where Goku and Chichi had a weird offscreen kiss sound effect also told us Bardock was a brilliant scientist who invented the fake moon. Goku does heroic things from time to time, but he always does it with a kind of selfish basis of reasoning. He loves his friends, but he'll let Vegeta go to get a better fight later. He'll give Frieza some energy, but one more betrayal of trust and Goku will obliterate him.

You're either down with the main character being a flawed and interesting character and therefore will enjoy the Dragon Ball franchise, or you're not. In which case, stop clogging up the Tumblr tags and YouTube comments with your bitching and complaining. You don't see me infiltrating the Attack on Titan community to talk about how much it sucks. You know why? Because I fucking hate that series and I don't WANT to talk about it all the time. So if you watched some essayist trying to recreate the Nostalgia Critic or whatever and he told you Super sucks and you just parrot what he said without a sparking synapse in that smooth soap bar of a brain in your skull, then please, just shut the fuck up. For your own sake as well as mine.

#dbz #dragon ball #dragon ball super #dragon ball z #goku #son goku #vegeta #frieza

15 notes · View notes

ojamayellow · 20 days

Note

Idk much abt DBZ powerscaling but I’m curious where ur boy ranks in the Z-Fighters in terms of power / fighting ability :0c

Aha... I think Swooten is kinda low-tier, at least at first...

Swooten got REAL lazy in training some point in his life because he was focused on his magic instead to do low tier villain stuff (like stealing and shit) for a few years and then realised "Ah crap, I'm losing my touch."

So when he trains with Yamcha (which starts like, the time gap between Cell Games Saga and Great Saiyaman Saga, Yamcha is retired as a fighter at this point) Swooten gets a lot stronger because he's focusing more on physical strength and harnessing his ki rather than magic.

(I should mention Yamcha doesn't know of Swooten's evil intentions for a while, especially when Swooten has been shapeshifting to look human to him. And Swooten's ki is too alike mortal ki, not demonic ki, something that personally pisses off Swooten but tldr despite being of Demon Realm race, Swooten has a *situation going on).

Swooten's flaws in fighting is his ego and old habit of relying on magic, which is strong, but can leave him wide open for an attack.

So, I do want Swooten to be a capable fighter but I can't have him like, obviously stronger than Goku or Vegeta and especially not 18, his bestie. He's basically an Earthling when it comes to Z-Fighter comparisons, despite being of Demon Realm race.

(*This is a tool that will be useful for later).

...I hope this all made sense? Dragon Ball fighting skills and power levels etc. can be all so confusing to pinpoint.

#yuya-the-entertainer #kit.txt #kit's oc talk #ask #thanks for asking!#swooten #dragon ball

3 notes · View notes

roy-dcm2 · 1 year

Text

Make the DBZ Movies Canon

I've said it before - I love shonen movies because they're just MORE. More time with the characters we love with a bigger animation budget (most of the time).

Again, imagine being the kid that LOVES Goku in 1997, and you want to see him go all out. Goku only uses SSJ3 twice in the anime, but he uses it 2 more times in the movies. You get 100% more SSJ3 with the movies. (Gear 4th Luffy is in a similar situation)

Also, imagine if fighting was like sex for sayans. How many GOOD fights did Goku have in his adult life? Piccolo, Vegeta, Freezer... maybe Majin Buu? Then it's nothing until Broli, I think.

(What about Cell, or Ginyu or Raditz - If sex ended with you bleeding on the floor, you wouldn't call that a good experience. lol)

But add in the movies and you could count - Jenemba, Android 13, Cooler, Slug... maybe Turles. (Not to mention OG Broly) Plus, all the other ones that were victories for the other characters like Garlik Jr, Bojack, or... Broly. Come to think of it, they were mostly there to make Gohan (or Goten) look good.

(It's almost like they're subs for Goku, when Goku's not around.)

So, here's my ideas on what you could do with the movie villains to add them to the canon in some capacity. Some would be big changes, and other tiny changes.

One big change up would be starting with Dr. Wheelo. Make him the LAST Dragonball villain. The set up is that he wants to be the World's Strongest. He should try to clash with Goku and his friends like 1 year after Goku became tournament champion. Because he's completely out of his debts as a DBZ villain, but he's just tough enough to give Goku + Tien, Yamcha, & Krillin a challenge. And Toei could just RETCON him in say that it happened. (Maybe make a TV special to show it.)

Next guy you gotta keep is Obviously Garlic Junior. He would make a great re-occuring villain for Gohan. Obviously, Dead Zone slots in pretty much unchanged into the anime right now. It's just a matter of who-meets-who when with Gohan/ Krillin/ Kami. I'd LOVE to see GJ capture Videl, or Pan, and he embues them with evil Energy and Gohan has to fight them but also save them.

Turles would require a major overhaul. The concept of the Tree of Might is AWESOME, but the fact that he's a random doppelganger of Goku REALLY stands out. Maybe we could change him to look like Raditz, and what I would do with him is I would actually put him in Universe 7.

This would be a NEW movie where Turles is attacking planet Salad. He hates that the Sayans are good guys in Universe 7, and so he's gonna use the Tree of Might destroy the planet, kill the vast majority of Saiyans, and he's gonna eat the fruit of might to power up. And... what if since he's ESSENTIALLY absorbing a bunch of different Ki, he triggers the Super Sayan God transformation in himself. Of course, it means Kale, Califla, Cabba, and like Goten / Trunks have to save the day.

Here's another great one. Lord Slug. I think they need to give him the Broly treatment. He needs a canon movie in Super. And he's def gonna be an interesting threat because now he can also borrow the new "orange" transformation. And this time, Goku needs Ultra Instinct to take him down.

They could also make him like an Evil Wizard. He's not just terraforming the Earth, now he wants to open up Earth's demon realm to unleash chaos because he feeds off of demon energy. That would also be an excuse to sideline Vegeta.

Meanwhile, Cooler only needs to be reconned into those two years where they were training to fight the Androids.

And then Metal Cooler can return after Majin Buu. In this new version, both Goku and Vegeta can go SSJ2, and Goku can say SSJ3 just burns too much ki.

A weird one would be Super Android 13. I think he works as a Terminator homage. (Like 3 robots just show up at a mall wanting to kill Goku) But there's NO WAY to make him work. There's no space where we can keep Goku, Vegeta, Trunks around. So i'd place him somewhere else...

The only place where he would make sense is in "The Great Saiyaman" Saga. Ya know, after the timeskip, but before the Buu Saga starts. So, it would be Teen Gohan, Goten, and Trunks (and Vegeta / Piccolo) taking him on. With Gohan going SSJ2 for the win.

(That would be great since Broly 2 is definitely on a dead timeline.)

Obviously, Bojack slots in almost completely unchanged. This is after Cell is dead. There's nothing stopping Toriyama/ Toyotaro/ Toei from saying it happened. Another WIN for Gohan.

BTW, they could also redo "Bio-Broly" and instead of being a clone of Broly, it could be a clone of Bojack. (Bio-Bojack)

Jenemba is a weird one. A big draw of the movie is seeing Goku and Vegeta have to do the Fusion. That means we'd have to add him to what is now the end of the "timeline" after the canon Broly (/SH) movie. This does mean that neither Goku or Vegeta are dead, but that doesn't matter much.

They could start off by letting the dead warriors like Pikkon and Olibu fight. (Or maybe a team of villains taking on Jenemba for time off their sentence or reincarnation, like Cell or Bojack.)

Then Jenemba reaches his final form and the path to the living world opens up, and we get the chance for Gogeta to win the day.

Finally, there's Hirudegarn. Again, he slots in without a problem after Majin Buu.

But really finally, there's one more antagonist that needs to be added to the official Canon and that is "Baby." What makes him great is the body-snatcher/ body horror aspect. He's a synthetic alien parasite.

They could change him up a little bit. So that he's not made by the Truffles, and instead he's made by the Cerealians. He was a bioweapon they weren't able to implement before they were wiped out.

It's main plan is to destroy Freezer and his empire. So, Baby starts in space until someone like Jacco accidentally takes it to Earth. It be best to make it TWO movies. One where Baby takes over, and then a last desperate band that has to take on Baby Vegeta with Ultra Ego.

22 notes · View notes

akiizayoi4869 · 11 months

Text

So I was watching DBZ season 3 yesterday, and man do I have some thoughts about the Saiyans and their demise at the hands of Frieza. We know that the Saiyans weren't exactly good people. Even before working under Frieza, they destroyed other races and conquered planets. They were pretty much seen as the strongest beings to ever exist, until Frieza shows up and goes "lol nah you guys are nothing in comparison to me, you're all a bunch of monkeys!". Suddenly, the Saiyans weren't the strongest in the universe anymore. They no longer had the ability to do as they pleased. They now had to work for someone who they didn't like, and feared that person because they knew he could kill them all in the blink of an eye. Which is eventually what ends up happening.

Honestly, I couldn't help but feel somewhat sorry for them. They were terrible beings who went around killing other living beings in space, and that didn't stop once they were under Frieza's control. They did it for profit. And what's more, they enjoyed it. But you can see that after a while, they don't want to be stuck under Frieza's thumb anymore. So they rebel.

Now obviously, the rebellion wasn't going to work. None of them were strong enough to defeat Frieza. But they still tried to anyway. And they died doing it. In a fucked up way, it was poetic justice: after killing who knows how many life forms, they finally got what was coming to them. In the form of someone who was far worse than them. Then, we get to this guy:

Watching Vegeta be killed by Frieza never fails to make me sad, as well as give me a bunch of mixed emotions. Because on the one hand, it felt like Vegeta, much like his people, got what was coming to him after all of the terrible things he did. But on the other hand? When you really think about it, Vegeta was a victim of circumstances from the time he was a child. He basically had no choice but to do whatever he was told. Does it excuse his actions? No, but at the very least it makes you somewhat understand who Vegeta is.

Watching him fight Frieza was something else, because he goes from being overly confident to being scared shitless with each one of Frieza's transformations.

It was karmic justice in a way, but it was so damn brutal. Seeing Vegeta just go from being confident in himself to being terrified of Frieza's power and watching Frieza having fun beating the shit out of Vegeta and slowly killing him. Then finally at the end, we see Vegeta just...breakdown in tears. Telling Goku about what Frieza did to their fathers, as well as the entire Saiyan race. Pleading with Goku to destroy Frieza and get revenge for them all.

It was just a very sad moment that I think was really well done. Because it pulls off something that at this point, most of us probably never even thought of being possible, given everything that he did. It makes you actually feel sorry for Vegeta, as well as the Saiyan race.

#DBZ #Vegeta #Frieza #Saiyan race #Never thought I would be making a post about DBZ on this blog #But season 3 always gets me in my feels😭

86 notes · View notes

notdogice · 1 year

Text

So I want to show off some of my Pony Town cosplays because I just feel like doing so. This first batch is just going to be various one off cos' that I've made over the years that I haven't made any others that would justify a tag ingame. Some of these are old and probably needs an update while others are ones that I've made more recently.

Gohis. While I do have have Deltarune and DBZ tags in Pony Town, I'd rather just stick this one here. Made this in 2022 to match my pfp, if that wasn't already obvious.

Aku. My oldest cos coming from 2017. As you can see here, I have actually updated him over the years for he is one of my beloveds.

Chuck Quizmo. He's the newest cos in this bunch as I made him a few months ago. Also don't mind that one green dot, didn't realize it was there until after I finished writing this post. It's fixed now.

Fern. I originally made her back in 2018 and updated her around 2019. Might update her once more.

Zolo. Yes this is a 4Kids One Piece dub cos. If you seen the clip, you can hear this image. This cos only works ingame. Made in 2022.

Hawkodile. Made him in 2019 when Unikitty was a fandom that you could see a fair sized group of on PT.

Hermes v1. Originally made in 2018 that I've touched up a little sometime in 2021(20?).

Tight Pants (Leslie Hall). Truly an icon. Made in 2022. Might update her.

Linebeck. One of my beloveds, and I can't believe that it took me until 2022 to make him in PT.

Lord Betrayus. Another beloved. Made him in 2021. Fun fact, this isn't the first Betrayus cos I've made. The first one I did was in Creatures of Sonaria of all places.

Lord Dominator. Made her in 2022. Meant to be a show accurate cos. Actually, a lot of my cos' are made to be accruate to the source material, no matter how difficult it may be. There are a few exceptions though.

Lord Kogane. Holy fuck it's another one of my beloveds, but this time from a show that I literally have not seen anyone else have a cos for. I might evetually make one for Tengu, but I still have flashbacks to when I was trying to find reference pictures for Kogane. Obviously made in 2022.

Mira. A 2019 cos that I have updated since then. She might need another one though.

Mohawk Cat. I struggled a lot while making this one, and those reasons aren't very obvious from the final product. 2022.

Nezuko. Can't remember if she was December 2021, or Janurary 2022. Either way, I might update her, but I really don't want to either.

One Winged HHGreg. He is the perfect fusion. Very much December 2021. I have him fliped here because you can't see the wing the other way. Also if you know the video, you can here this image.

Pink Sheep. Woah, another 2017 cos! I have updated him, but a part of me wants to update him again.

Pinkie Pie. That's right, this is my only cannon MLP character cos on PT. Made her in 2017 and I have updated her, but only barely.

Rosemary. High Guardian Spice Abridged made me want to make a HGS cos. Another 2022 cos. Possibly might make more of these cursed beings.

Samurai Jack. This dude has literally never been touched since 2017. Haven't played as him since then, and never been updated. Absloute raw 2017 PT energy. If I wanted to work on him, I wouldn't even bother with this relic and just make an entire new pony.

TBH. Last but not least, autism creature. Technically only works ingame with a custom expression just to move the eye highlights up, but still works just as fine in the editor. 2022.

14 notes · View notes