Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by NintendoBlaze53 » Tue Jan 17, 2017 3:53 am

Lord Beerus wrote:
Kikuchi's score is the most lacking in sad moments, actually.
I greatly disagree with that.
God these songs are so good. Especially the third one. Didn't it debut in Movie 9? Also isn't that fourth one a rearrangement of DBZ ED2?

One thing I've always adored about Dragon Ball was the instrumental arrangements of the OP and ED's. They make the shows whole score resonate and was so glad Kai understood that. Unfortunately Super does not.... We needed Instrumentals of Chozetsu and the ED's to fill the OST.
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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by Nejishiki » Tue Jan 17, 2017 4:26 pm

NintendoBlaze53 wrote:God these songs are so good. Especially the third one. Didn't it debut in Movie 9? Also isn't that fourth one a rearrangement of DBZ ED2?
If I'm not mistaken, M1615 did indeed debut in Dragon Ball Z Movie 09. M1710 is a variation of We Were Angels, yes.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Wed Jan 18, 2017 3:23 pm

Lord Beerus wrote:
Kikuchi's score is the most lacking in sad moments, actually.
I greatly disagree with that.
Great examples, but you missed my all time favorite one.

Anyway, the idea that Kikuchi's score is in any way at all lacking for sad, sentimental moments completely absurd. Moreover, the notion that the Faulconer stuff is remotely equipped to carry that weight is even infinitely more insane.

Kikuchi's Dragon Ball/Z score nay not lend itself to each and every person's personal taste, but its falt out impossible to argue that its nothing if not greatly well rounded in terms of emotional tones. Kikuchi's score can be whimsically playful, dark and foreboding, operatically thundering, and yes, certainly by all means sorrowful and heartfelt. Not to mention just a flat out ass kicking traditional Wuxia score all around (totally of a piece with Shaw Bros. legend Yung Yu Chen).

Faulconer's score (in 99.99% of most cases) has only two distinct settings: thuddingly on the nose douchebag goofy for the most outwardly comedic moments, and monotonously "XXXXXXTREEEEEEEEME 2 THA MAAAAXXXX" for just about everything else. Its as 2 dimensional and lowest common denominator pandering as it gets, and yes it belongs much more in keepingly to a vastly stupider children's cartoon than Dragon Ball Z (a show which is hardly brain surgery to begin with).
Rukawa11 wrote:Definitely the original Dragonball, but there's no "wuxia" nature in post-Namek DBZ. The show becomes so radically different that you just can't have the same sort of music. You can't play the same track that was used when Goku fought Tao Pai Pai in the Red Ribbon Army Arc in DBZ where ssj Goku fights against Freeza. Again, it may not have been Kikuchi's choice to use that track for that specific scene, but it's not like there were better alternatives apart from two or three tracks that had already appeared in that episode (and the ten or so episodes before it).
Everything about DBZ, from Saiya-jin to Boo, is every bit as Wuxia in its nature and tone as what came before it in OG Dragon Ball. All of it (except maybe the Great Saiyaman stuff, but that's a tiny small blip on the radar).

All of the plotlines and character types are still taken straight from broad and familliar Wuxia archetypes: The Saiya-jin arc's almost goes without saying, but a lowly backwoods bumpkin youxia with martial honor and dignity discovering that he has familial ties to a wicked, corrupt, barbaric fighting clan/sect and has to fight their remnants (including their royal leader, a despicable savage who fancies himself a warrior of pride and respect). Freeza is your Bubai-esque effete Warlord/Emperor. Cell's a Youxia gone bad. The Namek arc plot being a quest to retrieve mystical artifacts created from the Ki of an ancient martial arts master/sage before the tyrannical Emperor can misuse them for his own corrupt ends.

The alliance/betrayal/blood feud between the Saiya-jin race and Freeza in most respects imitating almost any given boilerplate "clash of two martial arts sects", but most specifically/suspiciously the one from Secret Service of the Imperial Court, whose main villain Freeza shares more than a passing resemblance with. The Cell saga culminating ultimately in not only a test of strength and skill between two titan Youxia masters, but within the confines of a fucking martial arts tournament. Not to mention all, I repeat, damn near ALL of the over the top insane Ki techniques you see every Z-era character bust out with being directly ripped from Wuxia media of pretty much every era of its existence. Etc. and so on.

Image Image
Don't just take my word for it. You be the judge.

I cannot state this any more plainly: Dragon Ball Z is every bit as rooted to its core in Wuxia as DB is. All that DBZ really does differently from the back end of DB (where the tone really started to move drastically far away from Toriyama's pure Dr. Slumpian gag manga roots and started to take itself a bit more halfway seriously) is provide much more bountiful Sci Fi window dressing to jazz it all up for a late 80s/early 90s audience (and probably more importantly to Toriyama's notoriously ADD addled mind, to relieve his own boredom with drawing the same exact manga every single solitary week for 11 fucking years straight).

That's really ALL that the Sci Fi elements of DBZ amount to when all's said and done: window dressing. The core Wuxia nature remains very much the same and intact throughout. This shit isn't Star Trek or 2001.

One of the (many legions of) reasons I posted the whole wuxia thing was to emphasize that DBZ is every bit as much steeped in Wuxia storytelling DB is, and that the idea that it isn't is based primarily on three things:

1) Fans getting distracted by the foreground window dressing and ignoring the obvious core tropes, cliches, and character types/dynamics being used.

2) Being generally ignorant on most things Wuxia-related and thus not even knowing what the fuck to look for in the first place (and no, that wasn't a personal shot aimed at anyone in particular, nor was it some veiled attempt to bolster myself up as the "Wuxia expert" on this site: its just the basic, plain on its face fact of the reality here).

And by that same token 3) having almost no frame of reference whatsoever of what the general Wuxia landscape throughout most of Asia looked like circa the bulk of the 1980s and 90s (hint: Toriyama was neither the first nor by any means anywhere close to the ONLY creator who was blending traditional Wuxia storytelling with modern Sci fi tropes during that particular period of time).

Most Western fans don't even have the barest concept of the existence of Wuxia or something that's AT ALL like it. Or at the very most they'll have some vague, nebulous notion of the genre has some sort of Chinese Kung Fu related something-or-other and that original DB is tied to it because Journey to the West and little else (which also ties itself in with the stereotype that a lot of Western DBZ fans have that all of original DB is more or less just the Pilaf arc at its nature, but that's a whole other rabbit hole in itself). To be maybe a tad more generous, maybe they'll actually hunker down to watch original DB and see a lot of the more blatantly Chinese dress and architecture that permeates the series (ignoring the fact that those Chinese visuals don't in anyway go away whatsoever once we get to the Z-era stuff, or for that matter the fact that sci fi tech and tropes are present from the very, very-most beginning of original DB).

A lot of it is basically people just mostly hurriedly glossing over DB itself (and more particularly how seamlessly it transitions into DBZ) and taking away from it a very superficial, surface-level understanding of not only how the series handles its Wuxia nature throughout its entire run, but of what that Wuxia nature even IS in the first place. Essentially at least SOME part of it also comes back to a fourth reason for why this mistake is often made: DB is still so often treated as an optional backstory prequel for DBZ rather than the first consecutive half of one whole series.

I know that Kendamu around these parts has his own particular catchphrase of "Remember kids: read the damn manga!" In keeping with that I'm going to steal a page from his playbook and provide my own twist that I'll (sadly) be using from now on in Dragon Ball discussions online:

"Remember kids: go watch (or read) some goddamned Wuxia!"

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Do it, or else early 90s Jet Li will go all Zanzoken/Afterimage technique on your ass.
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Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by floofychan333 » Wed Jan 18, 2017 10:54 pm

I think that some of Kikuchi's best BGMs came in DBZ, but fell off in quality to some extent around the middle of the Buu arc.
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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by Ripper 30 » Sun Feb 05, 2017 6:53 am

Rukawa11 wrote:I've noticed many fans consider Shunsuke Kikuchi's score to be some kind of masterpiece. Being a fan of the original version, what I'm about to say might sound blasphemous. Now, I've throughly enjoyed Kikuchi's score during the Red Ribbon Army, Tenkaichi Budokai, and Piccolo Daimao arcs, and it was still rather good up until the Namek Arc. But once Goku turned ssj against Freeza and all fights from that point started going off the scale in terms of speed and explosions, I've felt Kikuchi's outdated instrumentation failed to keep up with this major increase (it doesn't help that he's so reluctant to use snares in his drum beats). Also, there are countless scenes where there isn't any background music at all for up to five minutes. The fighting might start and still there's nothing but the sound of the wind.

As many of you are aware, Kikuchi used the exact same style of compositions for late 1960s and early 70s shows like Tiger Mask, Kamen Rider, and Mazinger Z. This kind of bgm was still prevalent up until the mid 80s (Saint Seiya, Dancougar, Hokuto no Ken, Zetta Gundam), but by the late 80s very few Animes had that kind of music and DBZ was probably the only Anime to air in the 90s with such retro musical pieces. It's rather ironic given the fact that DBZ was the flashiest anime in the 90s with all the ssj power ups, ki blasts, and fast-paced action scenes. I'm not sure what sort of vision the producers had by keeping Kikuchi's music in the Cell and Majin Boo arcs which aired alongside Yuyu Hakusho, Cyber Formula, Slam Dunk, Slayers, and Evangelion (all of which had modern and upbeat soundtracks).
I Disagree.

Shunsuke Kikuchi's Music in Original Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z was amazing and Captured the Tone of the Show Better than Any DB Composer be it Tokunaga,Yamamoto,Sumitomo, Nathan, Levi or Fauconer, not saying they are bad But Kikuchi Composed some of the most Memorable DB Soundtracks which had Suspense, Comedic tone, Heart warming music, Sad Music and Great Fight Music and I never thought it was outdated infact it was the Typical 80's Music which gave DBZ a different feel and The Faulconer's Music felt more outdated and never ending AMV type of Music which never conveyed any emotions but only trying to force Badassery and Hardcore Action that's it not really fitting the mood of Dragon Ball and Yamamoto's score is my Second Favourite DB Score and his Music was great despite being Plaguirized but even it started getting repetitive but no one really complained specially that theme called "A Moment of Shuddering" https://youtu.be/NokXLGU7JBA and it played like 3 times in each Episode and initially I liked it but as it started playing when Perfect Cell was powering up against Goku it was just too boring so The Problem is not with Kikuchi's Music but DB Kai Music too had the type of issues the fans had with Kikuchi's Music and for me Kikuchi Score was actually more Awesome in Boo Arc with that "Childish" Feel like this kind of Music https://youtu.be/e4GEmEbZeOk or https://youtu.be/D7xRpxzKR98. Which suited Majin Boo Perfectly Specially the Fat Version and also it had some Awesome Music for Hype moments like when Piccolo faces Kaioshin in Tenkaichi Tournament https://youtu.be/p_MhOIItYYM and also the Episode Ending Theme https://youtu.be/ijMVw5zxvLY but who can Forget the Memorable Theme Played in This Scene : https://youtu.be/ux3mwdvmfA0
I prefer Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, DB/Z/GT Movies, Dragon Ball Super and Dragon Ball GT in Japanese.
For DBZ Kai and two new Movies I like both Dub and Sub. I Prefer Shunsuke Kikuchi Soundtracks over All other Composers.
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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by damkylan » Mon Feb 06, 2017 10:24 pm

Yes. But not for the reasons I'm seeing. Kikuchi's score certainly doesn't lack the material needed to provide upbeat and badass themes for pretty much every single moment in the show. Trust me, I've done the research. As a tremendous nerd with too much time to waste, I have a hobby of putting episodes into Movie Maker and creating an alternate Kikuchi score using only what music was available at the time of the episode, limiting repetition as best I can. I've even placed a Kikuchi piece into every single moment of an episode to emulate the way the American dub handled the music, mostly for the :lol: , but also to play around with how much material there really is.

The "problem" with the original score is simply that the dude in charge of music placement never really utilized the score to its fullest potential. By no means is most or even a quarter of it badly placed overall. But it can certainly get repetitive, leitmotifs can sometimes be completely misplaced (Piccolo themes being used for Vegeta moments, at least twice that I can remember) or not used enough at times, and there were just tons of great pieces, released and unreleased, that were left by the wayside far too often.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by DefinitiveDubs » Tue Feb 07, 2017 3:59 pm

As someone going into sound directing and editing, I'll throw in my two cents.

The biggest problem that Yamamoto and Sumitomo have is that they want to score Z like it's Power Rangers. They see Z as a juvenile show for children with bright colors, energy beams and silly puns. And while that's sort of true, they forget that Z also has a story with character development, and mostly takes itself seriously unlike OG and Super. So their music is always over-the-top and so loud that it overtakes the dialogue sometimes. Moments that are supposed to be powerful and emotionally charged come across as cartoony and one-dimensional.

I know all the elitists on this forum disagree, but I have always loved Faulconer's music. Super Buu's theme, Vegeta SSJ, Cell's theme, Ginyu Transformation and the SSJ3 theme are all wonderfully catchy and Faulconer's team understands the emotion behind the scenes they play in far better than the Kai composers ever did. BUT, it had a similar problem to Kai in that it was still scored like a cartoon. There's no silence, no subtlety. Every single scene has music playing over it, and like someone else said, when it's lighthearted, it sounds embarrassingly juvenile, and other times it's overly grungey, dripping with cringeworthy 90s edge. Basically, while I love the individual music itself, the scoring ends up being even worse than Kai.

I kind of agree with the OP in that Kikuchi's music sounds a bit dated today. It's great for OG and all the way through Frieza's death, but for the Android saga and later, it starts to lose steam. It's very old-fashioned and Fist Of The North Star-ish for a series that's suddenly filled with sci-fi, and there's an odd juxtaposition that bothers me. But oh man, Kikuchi understands subtlety and silence, and that's a lost art. And the insert songs are just awesome. They add so much color to the soundtrack that the other scores just don't have.

If I could have it my way, I'd have Faulconer's score combined with Kikuchi's music placement, silent moments, and insert songs. I'd also only have it for the Android saga and later, for where they really fit. I'd keep Kikuchi for everything else, maybe even Yamamoto for a few things. But that's just me.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by NintendoBlaze53 » Wed Feb 08, 2017 9:24 pm

DefinitiveDubs wrote:As someone going into sound directing and editing, I'll throw in my two cents.

The biggest problem that Yamamoto and Sumitomo have is that they want to score Z like it's Power Rangers. They see Z as a juvenile show for children with bright colors, energy beams and silly puns. And while that's sort of true, they forget that Z also has a story with character development, and mostly takes itself seriously unlike OG and Super. So their music is always over-the-top and so loud that it overtakes the dialogue sometimes. Moments that are supposed to be powerful and emotionally charged come across as cartoony and one-dimensional.

I know all the elitists on this forum disagree, but I have always loved Faulconer's music. Super Buu's theme, Vegeta SSJ, Cell's theme, Ginyu Transformation and the SSJ3 theme are all wonderfully catchy and Faulconer's team understands the emotion behind the scenes they play in far better than the Kai composers ever did. BUT, it had a similar problem to Kai in that it was still scored like a cartoon. There's no silence, no subtlety. Every single scene has music playing over it, and like someone else said, when it's lighthearted, it sounds embarrassingly juvenile, and other times it's overly grungey, dripping with cringeworthy 90s edge. Basically, while I love the individual music itself, the scoring ends up being even worse than Kai.

I kind of agree with the OP in that Kikuchi's music sounds a bit dated today. It's great for OG and all the way through Frieza's death, but for the Android saga and later, it starts to lose steam. It's very old-fashioned and Fist Of The North Star-ish for a series that's suddenly filled with sci-fi, and there's an odd juxtaposition that bothers me. But oh man, Kikuchi understands subtlety and silence, and that's a lost art. And the insert songs are just awesome. They add so much color to the soundtrack that the other scores just don't have.

If I could have it my way, I'd have Faulconer's score combined with Kikuchi's music placement, silent moments, and insert songs. I'd also only have it for the Android saga and later, for where they really fit. I'd keep Kikuchi for everything else, maybe even Yamamoto for a few things. But that's just me.
Kai has no powerful and emotional music? I greatly disagree. I also love all of Kai's insert songs. Personally, though it may be nostalgia, I love Kikuchi's Buu tracks, it's one of the sole reasons I'm not enjoying Buu Kai as much as DBZ. If there is one complaint about Yamamoto I can understand and that's his bombastic nature of music, but this is most likely due to making music for video games for almost 2 decades before doing Kai.
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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by DefinitiveDubs » Wed Feb 08, 2017 11:38 pm

NintendoBlaze53 wrote:
DefinitiveDubs wrote:As someone going into sound directing and editing, I'll throw in my two cents.

The biggest problem that Yamamoto and Sumitomo have is that they want to score Z like it's Power Rangers. They see Z as a juvenile show for children with bright colors, energy beams and silly puns. And while that's sort of true, they forget that Z also has a story with character development, and mostly takes itself seriously unlike OG and Super. So their music is always over-the-top and so loud that it overtakes the dialogue sometimes. Moments that are supposed to be powerful and emotionally charged come across as cartoony and one-dimensional.

I know all the elitists on this forum disagree, but I have always loved Faulconer's music. Super Buu's theme, Vegeta SSJ, Cell's theme, Ginyu Transformation and the SSJ3 theme are all wonderfully catchy and Faulconer's team understands the emotion behind the scenes they play in far better than the Kai composers ever did. BUT, it had a similar problem to Kai in that it was still scored like a cartoon. There's no silence, no subtlety. Every single scene has music playing over it, and like someone else said, when it's lighthearted, it sounds embarrassingly juvenile, and other times it's overly grungey, dripping with cringeworthy 90s edge. Basically, while I love the individual music itself, the scoring ends up being even worse than Kai.

I kind of agree with the OP in that Kikuchi's music sounds a bit dated today. It's great for OG and all the way through Frieza's death, but for the Android saga and later, it starts to lose steam. It's very old-fashioned and Fist Of The North Star-ish for a series that's suddenly filled with sci-fi, and there's an odd juxtaposition that bothers me. But oh man, Kikuchi understands subtlety and silence, and that's a lost art. And the insert songs are just awesome. They add so much color to the soundtrack that the other scores just don't have.

If I could have it my way, I'd have Faulconer's score combined with Kikuchi's music placement, silent moments, and insert songs. I'd also only have it for the Android saga and later, for where they really fit. I'd keep Kikuchi for everything else, maybe even Yamamoto for a few things. But that's just me.
Kai has no powerful and emotional music? I greatly disagree.
But it's so stock. It sounds like every generic "sad" or "triumphant" orchestral theme from (insert modern shonen anime here). That Yamamoto theme used for Gohan's awakening is exactly what I mean when I say Kai's music is a Hollywood-esque interpretation of the story. A harmonic choir? Really? That only gives me a one-dimensional viewpoint where we hear eerie intro music before Cell gets an ass-whooping. Meanwhile, Tamashii vs. Tamashii actually realizes what the entire scene is about: Gohan's ascension, not just in power but in mind and spirit.
NintendoBlaze53 wrote:I also love all of Kai's insert songs. Personally, though it may be nostalgia, I love Kikuchi's Buu tracks, it's one of the sole reasons I'm not enjoying Buu Kai as much as DBZ. If there is one complaint about Yamamoto I can understand and that's his bombastic nature of music, but this is most likely due to making music for video games for almost 2 decades before doing Kai.
Kai's insert songs are ok, but they're corny. They specifically mention elements of the story, whereas Z's inserts were more about the general theme and tone of the scenes they played in. Those kinds of lyrics were fine when they were done for OG DB since that was a more lighthearted series, but for Z it just feels out of place.
Last edited by DefinitiveDubs on Wed Feb 08, 2017 11:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by Gligarman » Thu Feb 09, 2017 3:25 pm

I've always liked Kikuchi's score since it invokes the old-school 70's martial arts movies that inspired Dragon Ball.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by Danfun64 » Fri Feb 10, 2017 12:55 am

Kunzait_83 wrote:damn near ALL of the over the top insane Ki techniques you see every Z-era character bust out with being directly ripped from Wuxia media of pretty much every era of its existence. Etc. and so on.

Image Image
Don't just take my word for it. You be the judge.

.........

"Remember kids: go watch (or read) some goddamned Wuxia!"

Image
Do it, or else early 90s Jet Li will go all Zanzoken/Afterimage technique on your ass.
Where do those two live action gifs come from?
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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Fri Feb 10, 2017 4:57 am

Danfun64 wrote:Where do those two live action gifs come from?
Top one (next to the Freeza vs Pic gif) is from the first Child of Peach, a trilogy of Taiwanese wuxia movies from the 80s (that are partly based on the Japanese legend of Momotaro) and are about as ridiculously Dragon Ball-esqe in their overall ideas and tone/execution as it gets (complete with silly juvenile toilet humor and bad word puns mixing with high flying supernatural kung fu action that's equal parts whimsical and violent, and even down to the main male character being played by a female actress: also note the irony in a Taiwanese wuxia film taking from a Japanese folktale, while with DB it was a Japanese wuxia manga/anime taking from a Chinese folktale).

The bottom Jet Li gif comes from Wong Jing's early/mid 90s film adaptation of Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre (retitled The Kung Fu Cult Master for its international release for various silly/pointless reasons), staring Li, who was by that point just coming to the very end of his early career phase of being typecast as the central hero of every other Wuxia blockbuster out of Hong Kong.

Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre is also of course one of the most well known Wuxia stories that prominently features an afterimage/speed technique, utilized frequently by the hero Zhang Wuji as one of his signature techniques.

Should go without saying by now that these are hardly unique films: there's about a bazillion others like them (hence the Wuxia GENRE) and plenty more TV shows to boot and have been for literally as long as there's been film/TV. I go neck-deep into the above mentioned films and about a several dozens more in the Wuxia thread. They're generally not very hard to find either. My general mandate/message to people on this site since I've been back around has simply been: set aside the Naruto or Digimon DVD sets or whatever for awhile and go explore far, far outside of your usual Shonen-centric comfort zones.

Part of what has consistently made newer Shonen from the last 20 or so years so lame and terrible is that the authors mainly only look to or take influence from other Shonen authors' manga work from before them that they grew up on. Meanwhile Shonen authors from the 70s, 80s, and even early 90s had generally taken inspiration from a wide, vast range of diverse influences from all around the world and across various mediums. People here who are so deeply infatuated with Shonen manga (and predominantly newer Shonen at that) would probably do well to take a page out of the older authors' playbook and not solely fixate on Shonen at the expense of everything else in the world. Be as dynamic, adventurous, and eclectic as guys like Toriyama were, rather than a slavish, narrow-minded fanboy loyalist like your Odas and such.

Wuxia is a GIANT, massive, near endless ocean of works across all media to explore. If I were a DB fan and I'd only just (somehow) found out about this I'd be bouncing off the fucking walls trying to see more and get my claws into as much of it as I possible could. We're talking about an entire GENRE's worth of fantasy martial arts stories along DB's wavelength here: that should be a MASSIVE deal to fans who've been in the dark about it up till now.

There's a metric FUCKTON of blatant misconceptions and incorrect assertions, such as the main topic of this thread, that all stem primarily from not only general ignorance/inexperience with Wuxia, but also from the perspective that almost all fans here take of judging and analyzing Dragon Ball purely and totally against other Shonen and other kids' media in general. Which is COMPLETELY wrongheaded, because target demographic and genre are NOT even close to the same thing. Detective Conan is also Shonen, and just what the fuck does THAT series have to do with DB at all? Dragon Ball's creative choices and artistic identity has almost NOTHING (or very painfully little) to do with it being aimed at kids, and almost everything to do with its genre-roots and influences (which are well outside Shonen/kids media: hence a big reason why so many post-dub DB fans have probably remained completely in the dark about this for so long).

Most of these misconceptions could easily be corrected if more people just hunkered down and actually WATCHED some more of the actual genre material that all of these seemingly disparate components of Dragon Ball actually stem from and fit into. The music in this case being a big one (since pretty much ALL Wuxia scores from the early 1960s to the early 1980s effectively sounded exactly like Kikuchi, and more proto versions of that classical Chinese sound of course date back much, much farther), as well maybe finally setting aside the entirely false notion that DB becomes less of a supernatural martial arts fantasy simply because some light sci fi elements get sprinkled in later on (not much different than every other Wuxia media was doing at that point). Or hell, the idea that doing DB as a live action movie would somehow be this incredibly unique, painstakingly difficult, and potentially goundbreaking undertaking (when China's been literally cranking these things out by the busloads since the 1920s)

I'm sure you all know how to find and look for movies, TV shows, books/comics etc out there online. So don't just keep taking my word for it and glazing over my rambling-ass posts: go check this shit out. Nothing's stopping you. You all love Dragon Ball obviously, so its almost guaranteed you'll be swept away with all the incredible stuff to find in its native roots.

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Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by ekrolo2 » Fri Feb 10, 2017 9:01 am

Kunzait_83 wrote:Part of what has consistently made newer Shonen from the last 20 or so years so lame and terrible is that the authors mainly only look to or take influence from other Shonen authors' manga work from before them that they grew up on. Meanwhile Shonen authors from the 70s, 80s, and even early 90s had generally taken inspiration from a wide, vast range of diverse influences from all around the world and across various mediums. People here who are so deeply infatuated with Shonen manga (and predominantly newer Shonen at that) would probably do well to take a page out of the older authors' playbook and not solely fixate on Shonen at the expense of everything else in the world. Be as dynamic, adventurous, and eclectic as guys like Toriyama were, rather than a slavish, narrow-minded fanboy loyalist like your Odas and such.

I'm sure you all know how to find and look for movies, TV shows, books/comics etc out there online. So don't just keep taking my word for it and glazing over my rambling-ass posts: go check this shit out. Nothing's stopping you. You all love Dragon Ball obviously, so its almost guaranteed you'll be swept away with all the incredible stuff to find in its native roots.
As someone who's been reading lots of Elric, Conan and The Shadow lately, your rant about newer authors just retreading what other guys before them did without really getting where their predecessors got their own inspiration from hit a particular cord with me. It's basically what JJ Abrams did with Force Awakens, instead of channeling his love for I don't know, buddy cop movies into Star Wars, he just emulated Star Wars itself without getting the source or inject some of his own flavor into the mix.

But without going into a big ass rambling rant post too, what would you call a good entry point into the Wuxia genre?
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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by DefinitiveDubs » Fri Feb 10, 2017 10:14 am

Kunzait_83 wrote: Most of these misconceptions could easily be corrected if more people just hunkered down and actually WATCHED some more of the actual genre material that all of these seemingly disparate components of Dragon Ball actually stem from and fit into.
Part of the reason I love Dragon Ball is because I don't need a fucking map to get into it. You are advocating for said map. Toriyama doesn't give half a shit about how, where or why you enjoy the series. There's no underlying message you have to understand to "truly enjoy it". If I want to enjoy the series as an action show and not analyze it as a work of art, that's my own goddamn business and maybe you should understand that, and stop blowing up at other people's opinions in this thread like an autistic person would.

I don't even think you're necessarily wrong. But acting like an elitist douche isn't helping your case. Based on your logic, if I wanted to watch Star Wars, I'd first have to watch every 40s serial and spaghetti western it was inspired by in order to "get it". There's nothing wrong with most people deciding that they don't fucking care. Sometimes I just want to turn my brain off and watch a show about superpowered aliens flying at high speed and shooting energy beams. And if Kikuchi doesn't fit my "tainted and ignorant western" tastes of what fits with that, then whatever.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by Bansho64 » Fri Feb 10, 2017 10:41 am

DefinitiveDubs wrote: Part of the reason I love Dragon Ball is because I don't need a fucking map to get into it. You are advocating for said map. Toriyama doesn't give half a shit about how, where or why you enjoy the series. There's no underlying message you have to understand to "truly enjoy it". If I want to enjoy the series as an action show and not analyze it as a work of art, that's my own goddamn business and maybe you should understand that, and stop blowing up at other people's opinions in this thread like an autistic person would.

I don't even think you're necessarily wrong. But acting like an elitist douche isn't helping your case. Based on your logic, if I wanted to watch Star Wars, I'd first have to watch every 40s serial and spaghetti western it was inspired by. There's nothing wrong with most people deciding that they don't fucking care.
He's not saying that you have to watch every wuxia, but that he thinks it's good to understand it and how it plays in DB. I think you're mistaking his encouragement for something a lot worse.

Also, some of that stuff you said was pretty rude. Elitist? Not in the least.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by DefinitiveDubs » Fri Feb 10, 2017 10:51 am

Bansho64 wrote:Elitist? Not in the least.
Uh, let me point to his post again.
Kunzait_83 wrote: There's a metric FUCKTON of blatant misconceptions and incorrect assertions, such as the main topic of this thread, that all stem primarily from not only general ignorance/inexperience with Wuxia, but also from the perspective that almost all fans here take of judging and analyzing Dragon Ball purely and totally against other Shonen and other kids' media in general. Which is COMPLETELY wrongheaded
He's essentially saying that Dragon Ball is not a shonen anime, and it's wrong to compare it to something like, say, Naruto. Which is, frankly, retarded.
Kunzait_83 wrote: Most of these misconceptions could easily be corrected if more people just hunkered down and actually WATCHED some more of the actual genre material that all of these seemingly disparate components of Dragon Ball actually stem from and fit into.
So, believing Kikuchi doesn't fit with sci-fi elements is wrong because I'm a foolish westerner and don't understand its influences that come from a Chinese genre of fiction. In other words, taking the show at its face value is WRONG and before judging it at all, I have to understand every little fucking component that comes from its inspiration. Because looking at someone else's culture and thinking yours is an improvement totally isn't the way in which modern society is founded.

All of this is well within the requirements to be considered an elitist. The idea that you "understand" a piece of media better than everyone else does. Your encouragement is solely so that more people might agree with you. And if they don't? They're just a bunch of baka gaijins.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Fri Feb 10, 2017 12:37 pm

DefinitiveDubs wrote:
Kunzait_83 wrote: There's a metric FUCKTON of blatant misconceptions and incorrect assertions, such as the main topic of this thread, that all stem primarily from not only general ignorance/inexperience with Wuxia, but also from the perspective that almost all fans here take of judging and analyzing Dragon Ball purely and totally against other Shonen and other kids' media in general. Which is COMPLETELY wrongheaded
He's essentially saying that Dragon Ball is not a shonen anime, and it's wrong to compare it to something like, say, Naruto. Which is, frankly, retarded.
*Pops Advil*

I NEVER said at any point that "DB isn't Shonen". You literally just made that up. Obviously its Shonen (Wekly Shonen Jump and all that). My point was that people greatly over-emphasize the Shonen aspect and blow its relative importance out of proportion to the point where people lose perspective on what the Shonen tag ultimately amounts to and instead treat Shonen as if its somehow its own genre. Which it clearly isn't. All Shonen ultimately amounts to is "This manga/anime is aimed at kids". That's it. The idea of there somehow being "Shonen tropes" is complete bullshit, as Shonen encompasses a WIDE range of shit, most of which have very little in common among one another. Target demographic isn't the same thing as genre (the latter of which is where things like tropes enter into things).

Dragon Ball is aimed at Japanese kids; so is Pokemon, so is Devilman, so is Death Note, so is Mermaid Saga, so is Area 88, so is Rokudenashi Blues. Beyond their demographic, there's absolutely NOTHING that ties them together. Its long been a recurring meme in fandom that Shonen is somehow a unified "genre" that Dragon Ball is a part of and which is all bound together by various common tropes; which simply isn't true. Per the above examples, Dragon Ball is a fantasy martial arts/wuxia series, Pokemon is a toy/merch ad, Devilman is a gothic/horror-driven superhero, Death Note is a detective/serial killer thriller, and Mermaid Saga is pure horror, Area 88 is a war/fighter pilot drama, Rokudenashi Blues is a dramedy about teenage Japanese street thugs. THOSE are where their tropes come from and inform what kind of series they are; by comparison, their target demographic holds far less creative relevance (except for Pokemon in that above list).

And in Dragon Ball's specific case its especially relevant because what people constantly tag as "Shonen tropes" within it are actually just plain 'ol Wuxia tropes. And other, later Shonen series in the wake of DB that make use of them don't just suddenly make this into its own genre: those are just later series ripping off/copying DB without really understanding what it is they're copying.
DefinitiveDubs wrote:
Kunzait_83 wrote: Most of these misconceptions could easily be corrected if more people just hunkered down and actually WATCHED some more of the actual genre material that all of these seemingly disparate components of Dragon Ball actually stem from and fit into.
So, believing Kikuchi doesn't fit with sci-fi elements is wrong because I'm a foolish westerner and don't understand its influences that come from a Chinese genre of fiction. In other words, taking the show at its face value is WRONG and before judging it at all, I have to understand every little fucking component that comes from its inspiration. Because looking at someone else's culture and thinking yours is an improvement totally isn't the way in which modern society is founded.

All of this is well within the requirements to be considered an elitist. The idea that you "understand" a piece of media better than everyone else does. Your encouragement is solely so that more people might agree with you. And if they don't? They're just a bunch of baka gaijins.
Calm. The. Motherfucking. Hell. Down.

You are 100% not only putting (bugfuck insane) words in my mouth and reading WAY too deeply into things, but I think you're actively LOOKING for a reason to get offended and be set off.

I don't in ANY way get a goddamn thing out of the whole "I can understand this piece of media better than any of you". Point of fact, I was originally supposed to talk about Wuxia and DB on this site all the way the hell back in fucking 2010: I didn't end up doing it till late 2015. Part of the reason? Because I freely admit that I'm NOT a fucking "expert" on this shit. I'm just an ordinary-ass fan. I'm in NO way comfortable with being seen as an "authority" on any of this shit. If I'm a "elitist", that makes me an unbelievably shitty one.

And furthermore, dude: I'm 33 goddamn years old. In what plane of reality could I, at this stage in life, even POSSIBLY begin to care about being seen (by random internet strangers no less) as "the guy who gets DB better than other people"? That's a level of sad that defies description. I have vastly more real shit to be worried about than what the fuck a bunch of 13 to 20-something year olds on a forum think about my "Dragon Ball expertise".

If I at any point in my posts on the matter come across as frustrated, then I apologize up front for that: but a lot of the reason for the frustration is that this aspect of DB has long been thoroughly and completely buried in post-dub fandom discussions, when it used to be that Wuxia was NOT some sort of arcane, obscure genre, but something that a lot of anime fans generally tended to be into. I was a dipshit 4 year old kid when I first got into it, and its been a part of Western pop culture, to varying degrees, since eons ago. Do I think that a BIG part of the problem here is that people on this community are perhaps way, WAY too over-fixated on Shonen, at the expense of tons of other things? Yeah I clearly do, but the goal here is NOT for me to sneer and look down on anyone (something I couldn't be less interested in doing): I'm simply trying to say "Hey guys, there's a ton of AWESOME shit out there that you've been ignoring and glossing over for far too long now! Its great, come check it out!"

The mental gymnastics it takes to get "You just want to be a smug elitist and look down on everyone!" out of "Hey guys, there's like fifty bazillion other films/books/shows that are very much like DB, you GOTTA check em out ASAP!" is beyond exhausting to fathom. You're doing the whole classic "You think you're better'n me?! You think you're better'n me?! Huh?! Do you?! Huh?! You ain't no better'n me!!!" song and dance, and its completely unwarranted, not to mention incredibly tiresome. Stop. Chill. Breathe, Its JUST a fucking anime/manga. Take a Xanax and lie down or something.
DefinitiveDubs wrote:
Kunzait_83 wrote: Most of these misconceptions could easily be corrected if more people just hunkered down and actually WATCHED some more of the actual genre material that all of these seemingly disparate components of Dragon Ball actually stem from and fit into.
Part of the reason I love Dragon Ball is because I don't need a fucking map to get into it. You are advocating for said map. Toriyama doesn't give half a shit about how, where or why you enjoy the series. There's no underlying message you have to understand to "truly enjoy it". If I want to enjoy the series as an action show and not analyze it as a work of art, that's my own goddamn business and maybe you should understand that, and stop blowing up at other people's opinions in this thread like an autistic person would.
.....

WHO'S blowing up at who here again? Who just name called who here for no fucking reason out of the blue?

Also when you talk about "analyzing it like a work of art, you immediately make me think that you're doing that thing some people here have been doing sometimes where you seem to be mistaking Wuxia as a whole for this hoity toity, super artsy academic thing. And uh... a LOT of the genre isn't ANYTHING at all like that. SOME of it is here and there, sure: but a LOT of it, especially the kind of stuff DB was taking from, most of it is pretty broad appeal/crowd pleasing stuff, the Chinese equivalent of summer blockbusters.

I mean... is it REALLY that ridiculous to think that if you're REALLY deep into/infatuated with some given work, that you'd then want to check out as many things connected to it as possible? Last I recall, that was part and parcel with the textbook definition of "being a nerd".

What I'm essentially doing is recommending that more people check out a genre of stuff where at least half (if not more) of it is roughly as simple, silly, action packed, and ridiculously flighty as DB often is. And you're response of "I DON'T WANNA DO NO HOMEWORK!!!!" in that context is just absurdly laughable. That's not much different than exploding at someone who recommends you Raiders of the Lost Ark or Die Hard because "I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO FOCUS ON STUFF THAT'S TOO HARD!!! I JUST LIKE SIMPLE ACTION THINGS!!!" Stuff like Zu Warriors or Buddha's Palm aren't exactly brain surgery; just like DB ain't exactly rocket science either.

Plus, I don't know if you realize this.... but WE'RE ON A GODDAMN DRAGON BALL MESSAGE BOARD. THIS is the EXACT place and environment TO over-analyze and go into absurd depth about DB's artistic inner workings (such as they are). What, do you just go around from thread to thread around here and look out for anyone who tries posting a bit more in depth about diving deeper into what makes DB tick, only to just snap at them "STOP MAKING PEOPLE THINK TOO HARD! DRAGON BALL IS ONLY SUPPOSED TO BE A SILLY ACTION SHOW!!!"

Not a single thing about what you just said comes within lightyears of a rational response to anything I said. Yes, fuck me for trying to tell people about the entire GENRE'S worth of silly, action packed fun things that are so much like DB to go check out, and fuck me further for examining how DB's roots connect to said genre, on a fucking forum who's entire purpose is to analyze and dissect DB in depth.

Once again: you're demonstrably acting like someone who is LOOKING to pick a fight here and is just searching for reasons to be mad and outraged (by a guy whose big "offense" here is comparing the obvious similarities between silly fantasy kung fu films with a silly fantasy kung fu comic/cartoon).
DefinitiveDubs wrote:I don't even think you're necessarily wrong. But acting like an elitist douche isn't helping your case. Based on your logic, if I wanted to watch Star Wars, I'd first have to watch every 40s serial and spaghetti western it was inspired by in order to "get it". There's nothing wrong with most people deciding that they don't fucking care. Sometimes I just want to turn my brain off and watch a show about superpowered aliens flying at high speed and shooting energy beams. And if Kikuchi doesn't fit my "tainted and ignorant western" tastes of what fits with that, then whatever.
No one said you HAD to. I'm not saying people here HAVE to do anything. YOU'RE the one who's reading this absurd nonsense into my post. What I think is that IF more people did actually watch at least a SMALL, cursory amount of Wuxia, they'd come away with a very fresh and different perspective on why DB is the way it is. So much so that a LOT of common ideas about DB that people have long ago accepted as "fact" in discussions would actually be shown as kind of not true after all.

Because I mean Kanz isn't just any random DB forum. This is where the truly dedicated die hards generally come to. The kinds of people who really DO care about DB's cultural roots and creative influences. I thought that if you were here, odds were that you were a LOT more interested in DB than just a normal, casual degree. But if you're THAT incensed and deeply offended and intimidated/put off at the mere notion of *gasp* watching some over the top silly live action DB-like fantasy kung fu movies... I could give a flying fuck less. No one's putting a gun to your head, least of all me.

I just have to wonder what its like to be in the head of someone who is STAUNCHLY and confrontationally MILITANT that "Dragon Ball must NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES be seen as anything other than a generic action show to be watched with pizza and beer, and GODDAMN ANYBODY who even DARES to dig around and examine it to ANY remote degree!"
http://80s90sdragonballart.tumblr.com/

Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by Danfun64 » Fri Feb 10, 2017 12:57 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote:Image Image

Image Image
Again I ask where those gifs come from.
Robo4900 wrote:Mouse is BRILLIANT SCIENTIST dumb.
CAT LOVES FOOD dumb.
Jack is just kinda dumb.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Fri Feb 10, 2017 1:02 pm

Clockwise from the top left:

1) A Chinese Tall Story
2) Legend of Zu
3) 2014 Legend of the Ancient Sword TV series
4) 2008 Condor Heroes TV series
http://80s90sdragonballart.tumblr.com/

Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: Does DBZ's OST Feel Lackluster at Times?

Post by DefinitiveDubs » Fri Feb 10, 2017 1:44 pm

Kunzait_83 wrote: Calm. The. Motherfucking. Hell. Down.
You're the one who started drama. Not me.
Kunzait_83 wrote: In what plane of reality could I, at this stage in life, even POSSIBLY begin to care about being seen (by random internet strangers no less) as "the guy who gets DB better than other people"? That's a level of sad that defies description. I have vastly more real shit to be worried about than what the fuck a bunch of 13 to 20-something year olds on a forum think about my "Dragon Ball expertise".
Oh, I'm sorry. I can't believe I would've ever thought that said that you thought yourself better than other people in this thread. Except oh wait, you did:
Kunzait_83 wrote:There's a metric FUCKTON of blatant misconceptions and incorrect assertions, such as the main topic of this thread, that all stem primarily from not only general ignorance/inexperience with Wuxia
You literally called people ignorant for not having the "expertise" that you do. Don't even try to dance around like you didn't.
Kunzait_83 wrote:but the goal here is NOT for me to sneer and look down on anyone (something I couldn't be less interested in doing): I'm simply trying to say "Hey guys, there's a ton of AWESOME shit out there that you've been ignoring and glossing over for far too long now! Its great, come check it out!"
And you failed miserably. Your tone was not "Hey guys, check out this DB-like thing" it was "You fucking idiots, you know nothing about Wuxia, go educate yourself."
Kunzait_83 wrote:Its JUST a fucking anime/manga. Take a Xanax and lie down or something.
Then why are you calling OP ignorant for thinking Kikuchi didn't fit with the sci-fi elements of Z, enough to write two thesis-long posts about it? If it's just an anime, why are you getting so frustrated over simple opinions?
Kunzait_83 wrote: What I'm essentially doing is recommending that more people check out a genre of stuff where at least half (if not more) of it is roughly as simple, silly, action packed, and ridiculously flighty as DB often is. And you're response of "I DON'T WANNA DO NO HOMEWORK!!!!" in that context is just absurdly laughable.
That is not anywhere even remotely close to what I was saying, you assclown.

I was calling you out on you calling the OP and other people stupid for viewing Dragon Ball for what it is, from a westerner's perspective, instead of going "YOU BAKA GAIJIN, THE SCIFI STUFF IS JUST WUXIA, YOU IGNORANT BUFFOON, YOU JUST DON'T GET IT." And that literally what you were coming off as.
Kunzait_83 wrote:THIS is the EXACT place and environment TO over-analyze and go into absurd depth about DB's artistic inner workings (such as they are).
It is not, however, a place to SHIT on the more casual fans who don't care about any of that. Nowhere was I trying to dictate your point of view. I'm just trying to tell you to stop acting like a douche.
Kunzait_83 wrote:No one said you HAD to. I'm not saying people here HAVE to do anything.
Kunzait_83 wrote:So don't just keep taking my word for it and glazing over my rambling-ass posts: go check this shit out. Nothing's stopping you.
Really? Because it sure looks like that's exactly what you said.
Kunzait_83 wrote:Because I mean Kanz isn't just any random DB forum. This is where the truly dedicated die hards generally come to. The kinds of people who really DO care about DB's cultural roots and creative influences. I thought that if you were here, odds were that you were a LOT more interested in DB than just a normal, casual degree.
Oh wow. Now you're saying that being a casual fan is unwelcome here.

Just because this is where the hardcore manga-only fuck-the-dub fans go, doesn't mean it's a safe space from the casuals. I would think the biggest English Dragon Ball fansite on the web would welcome all fans, casual or not. That's why this thread exists in the first place.

And I do care about DB's cultural roots and creative influences. That's not what we're talking about right now though.
Kunzait_83 wrote:I just have to wonder what its like to be in the head of someone who is STAUNCHLY and confrontationally MILITANT that "Dragon Ball must NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES be seen as anything other than a generic action show to be watched with pizza and beer, and GODDAMN ANYBODY who even DARES to dig around and examine it to ANY remote degree!"
I have to wonder what it's like to be so thickheaded that you got that out of my posts.

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