Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

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VegettoEX
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Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by VegettoEX » Sun Oct 24, 2010 8:51 pm

Episode #0236 (download MP3) (rss feed)
76:14; 96 kbps, mono; 52.3 MB

Episode #0236! VegettoEX and Meri bring on a couple friends for a jam-packed episode. Marc talks international "Kai" dubbing and FUNimation's recent announcement that their Dragon Box sets are indeed "limited", while Josh joins us to talk about the concept of ki, how it is used in the franchise, as well as some general discussion about fighting styles. October and November releases, your e-mails, and a contest to win "Tenkaichi Tag Team" for the PSP rounds out the episode. Referenced sites:
Long, content-filled, excellent-discussion-filled episode. Enjoy!

w0rd.
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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by JulieYBM » Sun Oct 24, 2010 9:52 pm

Loved the ki discussion. Many shônen make use of ki as a storytelling element (more so post-Dragon Ball) but Dragon Ball seems to use it in a more subtle way (when it comes to the more 'realistic' depictions). One Piece, for example, has begun to make use of those 'realistic' depictions of ki by having characters use their haki to knock weaker beings out with a yell or even just a stare. It's interesting to see how even series' less visually-rooted in eastern concepts make use of these 'ki'.

Quick reminder, after finishing his training at 100G Gokû says he feels light as a feather. I have to wonder if that figures into ki, too...?


EDIT: Handwraps? You guys mean Panputto, not Chapa-ô. :p

EDIT 2: A lot of Toriyama's training seems influenced by what Jackie Chan's character did in Drunken Master. Over-the-top conditioning is pretty fun to watch. :p

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by VegettoEX » Sun Oct 24, 2010 10:23 pm

JulieYBM wrote:EDIT: Handwraps? You guys mean Panputto, not Chapa-ô. :p
Gah, dammit... thanks.
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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by Kendamu » Sun Oct 24, 2010 10:38 pm

Hey, everyone! I hope you enjoy the discussion Mike and I had. Unfortunately, work has taken me out of town this week so I'm not sure how much computer access I'll be having through Thursday night. I'll be able to listen to the podcast and make short replies to this thread on my phone.

Once I get back into town (provided I have no decent computer access all week) I'll give some more in-depth replies to anything that might've come up or anything I might've forgotten to mention.

Thanks!

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by Dark_Yamatoman » Mon Oct 25, 2010 7:15 am

I figured someone would've explained the Brazilian situation already, but since it doesn't seem like it, I guess I can do it, haha 8D

You see, in Brazil, Voice acting in paid by the hour, and not based on whether the VA is famous or not. So why is all these changes in cast happening, you ask? Well, Toei is the one who actually chose the studio where the show will be recorded, ''Studio BKS'', apparently because it's the cheapest studio in São Paulo (Where DB,DBZ and DBGT was originally recorded).
The reason why there's some voice changes going on it's because some VA's refuse to work on Studio BKS, no one says exactly why, but it apparently has to do with not paying the actors, disrespectful treatment, and just plain unprofessional-ism.

Ricardo Teles, the coordinator of the dub on BKS recently made a video http://www.jbox.com.br/2010/10/04/jbox- ... es-da-bks/ explaining te situation of the series, telling that it's being translated from the Japanese text, that the whole series is going to be dubbed there, and that they're making an effort to get every past VA back.

Also, here's the Brazilian Opening and Ending for Kai, for anyone interested, haha 8D http://www.jbox.com.br/2010/10/12/exclu ... de-db-kai/

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by Son Wukong » Mon Oct 25, 2010 12:48 pm

I certainly ''panicked' when I heard that the dragonboxes were limited. I'm still wondering whether I should buy each box as fast as possible or stick to my old plan; buy the entire set once it's finished.
By the way, awesome topic.

EDIT: There was one other thing Toriyama said once that I don't believe was brought up during this podcast. I think I saw it on Kanzentai that Toriyama said something like "one can only reach a limited level with physical muscle power, but once you search deep in your heart you can transcend the physical level and that's when you use Ki". Once again, I'm not sure I'm paraphrasing it correctly.
Last edited by Son Wukong on Mon Oct 25, 2010 1:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by SSJ2bardock » Mon Oct 25, 2010 12:59 pm

JulieYBM wrote:EDIT: Handwraps? You guys mean Panputto, not Chapa-ô. :p
Dammit, someone beat me to it. I knew it didn't sound right but I just couldn't think of his name.

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by Puto » Mon Oct 25, 2010 10:23 pm

The conversation about "feeling light when you're happy" and "feeling heavy when you're depressed" made me think about the "Shishi Hôkôdan" arc in Ranma 1/2. During the final battle, it's explained that the Shishi Hôkôdan works when you're depressed, since it makes use of your "heavy ki", whereas the Môko Takabisha works when you're feeling confident, making use of your "light ki". It made a quite interesting parallel with Kendamu's conversation about ki in this podcast.

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by penguintruth » Tue Oct 26, 2010 12:25 am

I felt that, because I'm a member of this forum, that I really needed to be the one to send in those questions to the ANNCast. Especially because of all the hubub about Dragon Boxes being limited.

Wooh, mentioned in both of my favorite podcasts! Awesome. 8)

It made sense to me that the orange bricks would be doing the best. Less expensive and more advertising.

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by Kendamu » Tue Oct 26, 2010 7:19 am

Puto wrote:The conversation about "feeling light when you're happy" and "feeling heavy when you're depressed" made me think about the "Shishi Hôkôdan" arc in Ranma 1/2. During the final battle, it's explained that the Shishi Hôkôdan works when you're depressed, since it makes use of your "heavy ki", whereas the Môko Takabisha works when you're feeling confident, making use of your "light ki". It made a quite interesting parallel with Kendamu's conversation about ki in this podcast.
That was actually mentioned in some of my source material for the topic.

http://unofficial.ki-society.org/ki-usage.html

Toward the bottom of the page.

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by caejones » Tue Oct 26, 2010 9:23 am

On the one hand, things like Dragonball have given us the impression of ki as a sort of magical something that blows stuff up.
On the other hand, all the use of exaggerated realism makes it really fun and interesting to explore ki in Dragonball.

As a fictionwriter, I've used the more DBZ-esque version of ki for quite a while, until I got on major "time to make my stuff suck way less" kicks. Of course, the use of ki for DBZ-esque feats was pretty integral to my stories by then, so aside from kinda toning down the magnitude of it all, I've been kinda trying to weave in as much realism as possible so that the extraordinary feats require less suspension of disbelief. (I'm not entirely sure why I got on such a realism kick... Dragonball works just fine with only the occasional nods to reality. XD)

But oy, explaining qi to a mostly western audience is difficult, not only because we don't quite have an equivalent concept, but because most people already have a perception of DBZ-style "Power flows from my hand and kills you from ten feet away" qi. So I think the discussion on this podcast did a nice job of it. ^^

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by Kendamu » Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:44 pm

Thanks. I plan on taking it a bit further based on Toriyama's words about spiritual training being used to overcome physical limits. It'll be a little bit before I get anything written, though.

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by DerekPadula » Wed Oct 27, 2010 1:19 am

I really enjoyed this post. It covered the basics of Ki and introduced the general principles, as well as how the concepts are depicted in Dragon Ball.

Josh, your understanding of the martial arts is very broad. Congrats on being on the podcast.

You mentioned that Gong Fu was not your expertise. If anybody wants to learn more about the Chinese Gong Fu styles in Dragon Ball, then please feel free to ask me. I trained at the Shaolin Temple in China, and trained for several years in Jow Gar, San Sau, and Tai Ji Chuan. I also practice the spiritual meditation of Falun Gong, which has a lot to do with internal energy.

In regards to the "reverse order" of training, it's not actually reversed in traditional training. Like Josh said, conditioning came first. In traditional martial arts training, a student would be required to train for 10 years before they were taught the serious techniques. They would only learn 1 move of 1 technique at a time. It was only after they had proven their character that the genuine teachings would be disclosed. Watch the documentary "Needle Through Brick" for a great example of this belief.

Also, I should mention that I devote 5 chapters (over 100 pages) of The Dao of Dragon Ball to this subject, in case anybody would like to learn more about it.

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by Kendamu » Wed Oct 27, 2010 7:34 am

It's quite the opposite of modern competitive training. While there is nearly always conditioning at any good dojo or gym that goes alongside technique training, my experience has been technique being focused on first and conditioning being focused on second when preparing for something like MMA or full-contact Karate. You still do both during that time, but one just gets more attention than the other.

The thing that I should've clarified is that people who get to that point and do the "technique, then conditioning" training have already been at a dojo or gym long enough to be allowed to represent said dojo or gym in competition. Usually lazy people or people with bad character weed themselves out because the normal daily training clashes too much with their outlook on life too much that they can't stay dedicated to it.

Thanks for filling in the Gongfu gap for me. I know about Sanda/Sanshou and Qigong basics, but it ends there for me. My own training took me down the path of ki being "energy" in the sense of "spirit," or "who and what you are in every moment." Coming from that perspective, the training to strengthen ki is more related to the training of yi and shen in Qigong. It's more about perceiving, developing, and correctly using your inner feeling of being (or "Mind Power" as a lot of Japanese DBZ material translates it) in that Zen sort of way, only that "beingness" is treated like an actual thing; a "something or other" or "non-specific stuff" kind of extremely vague thing, but still a thing. Food, water, air, and exercise quality play into that in a much different way than it does in Qigong.

Current scientific theories related to that perspective are even so much different than the current theories on qi. Instead, working with ki in science is more about trying to figure out the human conciousness more than it is working out the energies of the universe. While those things do sort of run together in that "become one with the universe" sort of way, it's like studying human qi compared to studying qi in general and eventually studying how those two connect.

The reason I stuck mostly with the qi perspective on the podcast was to stick to my initial Toriyama quote. However, there is a lot of evidence that should push me toward the ki perspective when it comes to English used on Japanese Dragonball products and in Japanese Dragonball books and some of the more recent quotes from Akira Toriyama about spiritual training supplementing physical training.

I wish I could've included both perspectives with an equal amount of attention in the episode, but that would've taken twice as long and twice as many instances of "y'know" coming from my mouth. :lol:

Like I said, I plan on going deeper into the ki perspective after I get back from traveling later this week. Until then, here's a few samples of one of the many things I'll be looking into for developing that perspective and how any Dragonball fan can apply it to their lives:

- http://www.daviddarling.info/works/ZenP ... _ch14.html
- http://www.synogenes.com/2008/03/how_do ... _work.html
- http://www.fightingarts.com/reading/article.php?id=158

When it actually gets written into something that can actually be followed rather than it just being a jumble of thoughts in my head and a bunch of shorthand scribbling on a notepad is another matter entirely. Hopefully sooner than later.

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by DerekPadula » Wed Oct 27, 2010 1:28 pm

You made some very good points.

The simplification of these concepts is primarily due (in my opinion) to the proliferation of the Chan / Zen Buddhism of Shaolin / Shorin. Their concepts of emptiness and "No Dharma" meant that they did not have a set of sutra based teachings, and they learned through experiential practice. In turn they humanized a lot of the principles to experiential, feeling based concepts, derived from human mind intent. These schools were then emulated by martial practices throughout China and Japan, along with the Wu Dang Dao School of Tai Ji and internal energy practices. Over time the deeper teachings of Qi, Gong, and energy techniques became simplified, ultimately to the point where they are now considered something secondary to the movements or even altogether superstitious (depending on the practice). The Buddhist styles became a bit shallower than the Daoist practices in this regard, and that is why we go to the Daoist practices in order to find more information on Qi.

I agree that it is a definite rabbit hole, and you can only explain so much in a given time, and it's always best to start at the beginning. In the book I currently sort of jump past all this stuff and delve directly into the traditional Daoist concepts, but now I think I should at least devote a few paragraphs to the material you mentioned, in order to provide a stepping stone into deeper philosophy and history. Because I'm so used to it I kind of forgot that they are completely foreign concepts. I include those quotes from Toriyama elsewhere, but I'll probably move them here now.

It's really fun for me to hear discussions like this coming from someone else. Sometimes I feel like I'm all alone out there. Thanks, Josh!

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by Kendamu » Wed Oct 27, 2010 6:53 pm

No problem. I feel just as alone sometimes. We're a very niche group who took Dragonball inspired hobbies and studies very literally. Hopefully in a few months I'll have a good camera and I can do my own Dragonball project similar to your book, but more from the angle of direct experience caught on film documentary style.

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by AgitoZ » Wed Oct 27, 2010 9:48 pm

Cool idea for a topic you guys. It was an interesting listen to a topic I've never personally delved into. It has actually made think more deeply about these elements in Dragon Ball.

Also VegettoEX I believe the cropped UUEs only went one more extra volume making the total number 10, not 11.

Extra also, come on after the ending music the podcast just ends. No extra minutes? Come on...

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by VegettoEX » Thu Oct 28, 2010 8:47 am

AgitoZ wrote:Also VegettoEX I believe the cropped UUEs only went one more extra volume making the total number 10, not 11.
Thanks. Knew it was right around there / just past it. Was it another case where we got another extra cover art that never actually made it out...?
AgitoZ wrote:Extra also, come on after the ending music the podcast just ends. No extra minutes? Come on...
What can I say? Professional peeps keepin' it serious and on-topic. Just the way I like it! :)
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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by Kendamu » Thu Oct 28, 2010 9:15 am

The extra minutes would've just been me saying "Y'know" a million times. :wink:

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Re: Episode #0236 (24 October 2010)

Post by desirecampbell » Thu Oct 28, 2010 7:26 pm

VegettoEX wrote:
AgitoZ wrote:Extra also, come on after the ending music the podcast just ends. No extra minutes? Come on...
What can I say? Professional peeps keepin' it serious and on-topic. Just the way I like it! :)
Dragon Ball is serious business. Serious business.

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