How to ease the pain of the upcoming hiatus

[Soppa Saia People]

One thing I would suggest some of you do is listen to more music, here's some music suggestions, listen to them, their good.
[spoiler]Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
Beatles - Revolver, Sgt Pepper
Beyonce - Self titled, Lemonade
Big L - Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous
Big Pun - Capital Punishment
Biggie - Ready To Die
Cam'Ron - Purple Haze
Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion
Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
Common - Be, Resurrection, Like Water For Chocolate
Curtis Mayfield - Superfly
D'Angelo - All his albums
David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
Dr Dre - 2001, The Chronic
Eric B. and Rakim - Paid In Full
Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE, Blonde
Freddie Gibbs - Pinata
Fugees - The Score
Gang Starr - Step In The Arena, Moment Of Truth
Ghostface Killah - Ironman, Supreme Clientele, Fishscale
GZA - Liquid Swords
Ice Cube - his first two albums
Issac Hayes - Hot Butterd Soul
J DIlla - Donuts
JAY-Z - Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint, The Black Album, American Gangster
Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced, Eletric Ladyland
Kanye West - College Dropout, Late Registration, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city, To Pimp a Butterfly
Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill
Lil Wayne - Tha Carter's 1-3
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
MF DOOM - Operation Doomsday, Madvillainy, MM..... FOOD
Micheal Jackson - Off The Wall, Thriller
Mobb Deep - The Infamous, Hell On Earth
Nas - Illmatic, It Was Written, The Lost Tapes
N.W.A - Straight Outta Compton
OutKast - Whole discography minus the last one
The Police - Discography
Prince - Dirtymind, 1999, Purple Rain, Sign O The Times
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation Of Millions to Hold Us Back
Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.... 1&2
Rage Against The Machine - Self titled
The Roots - Illadelph Halflife, Things Fall Apart, Undun
Scarface - The Diary, The Fix
Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle
Taylor Swift - 1989
Three Six Mafia - Mystic Stylez
Tribe Called Quest - First 3 albums
Ween - Chocolate and Cheese, The Mollusk, Quebec, White Pepper
Weezer - Weezer (Blue), Pinkerton
Wu Tang Clan - Enter The Wu Tang 36 Chambers
2Pac - Me Against The World[/spoiler]
Plus look out for some 2018 projects, Punken was great, new Jpegmafia prjoject was solid, and there's a new Migos album coming soon. 2016 and 2017 were both great for music, hoping for more of that this year.

[Hawk9211]

This is just to tag you.Can you recommend any wuxia anime and manga.I have watched fist of north star.But,the real question I want to ask you was that what is sea and mountain mythology and are universes of dragon ball based on it?I saw a wuxia expert on another forum saying that

My exams are coming so I won't be reading or watching anything new for a while.However,I will recommend to watch OG db seems like a lot of haven't still watched it.

[Kunzait_83]

Do you consider Disney's Mulan wuxia or incorporating elements of wuxia?

I have barely any tangible memory of Mulan whatsoever, so I can't really seriously answer that question. I wouldn't be especially surprised if it at least had some trace elements in there somewhere or other, but yeah I'm gonna have to pass on this one due to my general apathy for most things Disney. All I remember largely is Eddie Murphy voicing an irritating talking dragon, and everything else immediately goes blank from there.

And does anything that focuses heavily on martial arts automatically categorize it as wuxia? Wouldn't you say Chinese culture as a whole needs to be more present in order for it to constitute as wuxia and not just take some aesthetic cues from it?

There is DEFINITELY a distinction to be made between Wuxia specifically and broader Kung Fu/Martial Arts fiction. Dragon Ball, for the record, takes its fair share from both subsets a great deal.

Wuxia is generally categorized as a Martial Arts story that is HEAVILY axed on fantasy: specifically fantasy derived from Chinese myths and folklore (pertaining to both martial arts as well as general Eastern religious concepts), as well as of course core themes about fighting, growth through training, and what it means to be an honorable warrior and martial artist, etc. that are universal across genre subsets. Whereas a typical Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan movie is a grounded Martial Arts story (but not Wuxia), stuff like Jin Yong's entire body of work, King Hu's films, or a large amount of Jet Li's earlier output of martial arts roles, would almost across the board be classified as classical Wuxia.

Its not at all that different really from how Western Medieval Sword and Sandals epics are subdivided between grounded historical-based fiction and more straight up fantasy examples containing ancient Western mythology (Dragons, Wizards, etc). Basically just think of Wuxia as the Eastern/Chinese Kung Fu equivalent to Tolkien/Arthurian Western medieval high fantasy, while more standard and grounded in realism Kung Fu stories can be seen as more akin to either regular medieval historical dramas or even the Chinese version of American Westerns (even Wuxia's archetypal Youxia character-type shares many overt similarities with a wandering Old West gunslinger).

Chinese culture to SOME degree or another of course HAS to be present, because most of the Taoist and Buddhist myths about martial arts that in large part helps define Wuxia (not just the Chi powers and techniques and so forth, but also a lot of the kinds of mystical heavenly deities that govern the cosmos and beliefs about death and the afterlife, many of the other supernatural creatures and concepts, etc.) are almost entirely Chinese-rooted in nature. So its effectively impossible to have a Wuxia story without ANY shred of Chinese influence: the fundamental defining characteristics of the genre are deeply entrenched in ancient Chinese culture.

That DOESN'T mean though that one cannot sprinkle in OTHER influences into the mix from across cultures: the Wuxia genre has a fairly long history by now of doing just that. Having a Wuxia story where, say, the main martial artist characters travel to another world and fight monsters that aren't natively Chinese (European vampires for example) for instance may not necessarily override the story's Wuxia core, depending on how deeply it leans into those things (Wuxia after all has its own Chinese spin on vampires anyway, the Jiangshi/Chinese Hopping Vampire). No more so than it makes Hellraiser not primarily a straight up horror story, despite it containing a fairly decent influence from Western gothic fantasy.

You can mix elements from other genres into a main, primary genre and still have said primary genre be that which shines through the strongest of the lot. Or the balance can be WAY more evened out to where it muddies the waters and the lines are less distinct. Its the sort of thing you just have to take on case by case I would say.

Generally, the setting of the story being firmly in Jianghu - the genre's idealized/romanticized fantasy-fied ancient Chinese setting where Chinese/Taoist magic and mysticism are real and almost ALL of the genre's older, classical works are pretty much universally set: I've described it in the main Wuxia thread as "Chinese Kung Fu Middle Earth" - at one time decades back generally USED to be considered a key and principle element that defines the genre for countless hundreds, thousands of years.

But that part of the definition has been rendered a LOT more murky and less set in stone than it was prior to the late 1970s/early 1980s, as more and more post-modern, genre-mixing examples of the genre started coming about, which would still be solidly Wuxia stories containing Wuxia character archetypes and concepts... but with the setting shifted over to more modern or even futuristic backdrops, among other contemporary twists.

Dragon Ball though doesn't have that murky distinction to worry about as much, because its version of Earth is without a doubt unmistakably a Toriyama-ified/Dr. Slumpian rendition of classical Jianghu. There's dinosaurs and futuristic sci fi technology and cities intermingling along with the classical ancient Chinese architecture and culture that's still overwhelmingly present: but its still unquestionably Jianghu (albeit a very wacky and Toriyama-filtered take on it) all the same by most metrics. Or at the very least a hybridization of Jianghu with a smorgasbord of whatever random flights of fancy Toriyama felt like drawing at the time added into the mix.

Dragon Ball has the classic setting (or its own funky version of it), it has the character archetypes, it has the storylines, it has the style of supernatural Taoistic fighting, it has the core fighting themes, and it has beyond numerous concepts derived from ancient Chinese myths and folklore (about martial arts, spiritualism, Buddhism, etc).

Its also got its share of modern trappings mixed in... but again, most of the genre all across Asian territories was at that point in time going through a VERY widespread trend of mixing in modern ideas and non-Chinese genre elements throughout the lion's share of the 80s and 90s (Dragon Ball's very era of its run, not coincidentally), something which I delved into the deeper history of within the Wuxia thread (including how it spread out from China and across other Asian territories).

Basically, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... its overall just a fucking duck.

A LOT of things have taken Wuxia elements without being Wuxia themselves, just as much as Wuxia has taken a LOT of foreign/modern elements over the years while still being just as much still ultimately Wuxia at its core when all's said and done. Again, you just have to look at it case by case I'd say.

Dragon Ball of course has a TON of modern/Western influences and elements: time travel, cyborgs, robots, space aliens/planets, etc. But those elements are purely surface level window dressing that dolls up the core martial arts fantasy story underneath. Hence I would posit it as Wuxia: just one of a bunch of examples of the genre in the 80s and 90s doing a lot of experimentation/having a lot of fun with genre-blending odd foreign elements.

My point of the martial art mentality is that Goku's character readily embraces his self-centered and selfish desire for challenges to the point he is being deemed as reckless. That was what I was referring to. It's not just about perfecting the art and self-improvement, it's about enjoying the thrill of battle for the sake of the thrill.

Right... and? None of that makes Goku LESS of a martial arts fantasy hero/protagonist. It makes him one with a distinctive quirk/character flaw. Wuxia is allowed such variation in its heroes and principal characters, just like any other genre.

For all of Goku's flaws - namely his selfish and imature lack of impulse control (which he still shares with several other Wuxia and general Kung Fu fiction characfters incidentally) - he's still ultimately a fighter who's never satisfied with his current skill and always striving to be better and seek new challenges. He's constantly adapting to new situations and techniques, always innovating new fighting skills, learning from and inevitably surpassing one master after another, and has the restless spirit of a wanderer who yearns to constantly travel to new places and seek new challenges, even well after he's "settled down". And for all his selfish indulgences, he DOES still have a firm sense of justice and code of honor of his own that he generally adheres to, despite his immaturity, and that gets brought out of him whenever shit gets seriously real.

He is, all said and done, a pretty all around example of a certain specific "type" of Wuxia protagonist: generally a more slovenly, down-home, rural sort, which became more popular and relateable among farmers and peasant villagers in relatively later periods of the genre's ancient days (long many centuries before the term Wuxia was invented to describe the genre, which wasn't until around the mid-1800s or so: in ancient Dynastic China it was more often just called "Youxia" after the archetype of martial arts hero that many characters embodied and most stories centered around), contrasted with the more stoic, aloof warriors of nobility that characterized the genre's earliest period of popularity among wealthy imperial elites, scholars, and noblemen.

Goku's certainly goofy (though these kinds of characters certainly can get fairly silly: Wuxia is not at all without its heavily slapstick, comedic side) and lacking in nuance to a great degree.

But again, and yes I know you take issue with this:

It's this distillation that I think needs to be taken more into account than just mere "Oh, it's just Toriyama being Toriyama, and it's for kids".

But yeah. This is indeed Akira "Dr. Slump, Cowa!, Go Go Ackman" Toriyama we're talking about here. And the audience is still Japanese grade schoolers. You ultimately HAVE to take that into consideration when comparing DB to the level of gravitas that much of the rest of Wuxia often contains (since its audience is generally MUCH older).

The broad beats of the character archetype are represented faithfully, but you're of course not going to find the same degree of depth and nuance that you'll find in a character like Zhang Wuji and the like. Which is why something like DB may be GREAT as a place for one to get started (especially as a kid), its hardly a substitute for seriously tackling the rest of the genre-proper.

This is what I mean when I keep insisting that children's media ultimately has built-in limits compared to adult-skewed media.

But lacking in the same degree of overall depth as similar such characters from older-skewing examples of the genre doesn't mean that DB isn't still an example of the genre (that's simply written down to a kid's level).

Likewise I say DB isn't really SF or a space opera just because it has wacky technology like capsules and time travel or that it introduces space later.

Agreed. Just like its still a martial arts fantasy series at its core despite containing those same things.

And Fist of the North Star was very visibly inspired by 80's american action heroes like basically pretty much every shonen manga of that era . The author said he wanted to make a MC like Bruce Lee, but I don't think that alone or the acupressure points techniques are enough to call it wuxia. He cited way more western works and artist as inspiration, not just Mad Max.

Yes. Yes of COURSE American action films were a huge source of inspiration for Fist of the North Star. I never denied that anywhere, and absolutely no one would or could ever argue otherwise. Its as slathered all over that series like its excess of grisly guts and gore.

Not only is Kenshiro a blend of Bruce Lee and Mad Max, the art for him in later volumes also adds a fair amount of late-80s Cobra-era Sylvester Stallone into his hair and facial features. Likewise a VAST majority of other supporting and minor characters have their physical appearances borrowed from all across Western/American pop culture. Everyone from Hulk Hogan to Freddie Mercury had their appearances lifted to craft the facial features of numerous HnK characters. Due to its realistic aesthetic, anything with a Gekiga art style would often steal from real life celebrity likenesses for its characters.

Its not merely Shonen manga of that era that borrowed from American action/horror/sci fi films: the ENTIRE anime and manga mediums, all across the demographical aisle throughout Japan, were a veritable buffet table pilfering from all corners of Western films, TV, music, and pop culture (particularly American/Hollywood of the time: 1970s/1980s/early 1990s). Look to the love letter to all things Blade Runner that is Bubblegum Crisis, the gigantic walking 80s metal/pop music reference that is JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, or the rampant pilfering of John Carpenter's The Thing across everything from Guyver to Urotsukidoji and just about every other 80s and 90s anime featuring creepy, slimy, body morphing, tentacled creatures and monsters, to name but just a few examples. Even Japanese video games got in on the act (Hideo Kojima was lifting from Hollywood films for Metal Gear well long before it added "Solid" to the title).

And obviously many of Fist of the North Star's other elements share their grimy, gritty tone with that of hard edged American action films of the time.

BUT... once again, just like DB's use of sci fi elements, these are once again all more minor aesthetics that dress up Fist's core martial arts fantasy innards. Obviously its tone is more gravely serious and without almost a shred of silly comedy (Wuxia can and has done both, to a large variance in shades and gradients): but Fist of the North Star contains WAY more Wuxia elements than simply acupuncture points to call it a piece of the genre (albeit again, heavily filtered through a Mad Max/Western action film lens).

The core meat of the story is centered around the soap operatic rivalries between various martial arts schools and orthodoxies, all of whom practice their own specialized and exotic (to say nothing of HIGHLY supernatural) forms of Kung Fu. All of the core plotlines revolve around the rivalries between these schools and fighting clans, their coveting of one another's secret techniques and status among Fist's version of "the martial arts world" i.e. the broader community of powerful martial arts masters who live on the outter edges of society (another core Wuxia component, one also shared by Dragon Ball). Fist also even includes the melodramatic love stories that DB lacks, another genre staple.

Kenshiro absolutely, unquestionably IS a classical Youxia protagonist in almost every sense of the word (of the VASTLY more classically stoically serious sort than Goku's rural bumpkin flavor): he fights to bring justice to war torn lands dominated by roving, marauding bandits and oppressive tyrannical despots (many of whom are powerful martial artists themselves with armies of skilled warriors acting as flunkies), as well as for the improving and betterment of his own skill as a fighter. He has warrior's rivalries and feuds with his brothers, former friends and allies, and other martial arts schools seeking stature and recognition in Fist's version of the Wulin world through Ken's defeat and usurping his mantle as the successor of his fighting style (another core Wuxia trope), which he is obligated to defend from all challengers. All the genre's various character archetypes (warrior monks, martial arts assassins, cult-like leaders, etc.) are all indeed largely present and accounted for, using all the kinds of exotic, outlandish, over the top supernaturally powerful fantasy martial arts techniques you'd expect them to use.

And there are LOADS more in the way of supernatural Taoist martial arts abilities beyond just Dim Mak pressure points: super speed, strength, reflexes, agility (including limited flight for some characters), even Ki blasts and Ki battle auras are all very much there and present, no different than in something like Dragon Ball or Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils or Fung Wan, or whatever else have you.

Fist's setting, while it may be a post-nuclear armageddon Road Warrior-like setting, uses that type of setting's "society has regressed and become more medieval and barbaric" themes to represent and embody its numerous similarities and reflections of a more traditional Jianghu-like setting. Its been reskinned, but most of the Jianghu concept's core elements are still recognizably there, with the Mad Max reskinning cleverly and creatively used to help further justify them, despite being set post-"199X".

Again: Fist came out in the early 80s, at the dawn of when this type of post-modernist genre-mixing of old and new, classically Eastern and modern day Western elements was just starting to become a thing throughout much of Asia. Its the beneficiary of the very same zeitgeist in the genre at that time that allowed Dragon Ball to likewise get away with doing half the wonky, crazy shit that it did.

That might also be another aspect of the equation among current fans: not only an unfamilliarity with Wuxia and general martial arts fiction as a whole, but also specifically with the weird phase of post-modernism and stylistic experimentalism that it went through (all across Asian fantasy martial arts media) throughout the bulk of the 80s and 90s (and that films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were in no small part a VERY stark counter against and a VIOLENT swinging away from back into rigid traditionalism after more than 20 years of ravenous excess into iconoclastic ripping up of genre traditions and conventions).

My example with Kubo Tite was only there to prove that there was an active effort to mimic DB. Whether or not you agree with this practice of letting popular trends dictate art is besides the point , the result is in fact "tangible genre connections." Ironically, "corporate suits" had a huge role to play in DB's evolution, since Toriyama has always openly admitted to listening to suggestions from his editors and was always concerned with what was popular and what wasn't. There's no need to turn one's nose up at the editorial department, manga artists often relied on their input and were grateful for it.

Obviously I at no point ignore the fact that DB's popularity is what ultimately influenced its tropes becoming widespread (over)used across other Shonen works. I've acknowledged that blatant fact time and time again.

My argument isn't that DB's popularity somehow WASN'T behind things like vague similarities in character dynamics (rivals/enemies turned friends at every other turn for instance), or the emphasis on fighting/training (regardless on whether or not such martial arts-intrinsic elements suit the material or not): my argument is simply that in those works, these elements come across less as loving and fitting homages that enhance the stories they're in, and more like inorganic, awkwardly shoehorned-in "DB did this, we have to do it too by editorial mandate" with little rhyme or reason for whether or not it works with the story being told.

Yes, Toriyama cared about what was popular: the fact that DB ultimately conformed to a LOT of the popular trends in martial arts fantasy of the time throughout Asia is proof enough of that. But he still made those things actually WORK within the confines of the story he was telling. The space opera elements don't generally intrude on or detract away from the core martial arts genre themes, storylines, and character arcs that are present: they simply act as a neat aesthetic twist on the formula, made all the more fresh by Toriyama's incredible visual flair and distinct art style/visual language (you all but welcome virtually ANY excuse to see cool spaceships, alien creatures, robots, etc. lovingly rendered in Toriyama's unmistakable knack for awesome architecture and creature/vehicular designs, even as he's neck-deep into his big Kung Fu fantasy epic).

By contrast, there's NOTHING about the kind of swashbuckling, high seas pirate adventure that ultimately characterizes One Piece which makes the elements of "fight, train, fight" and "seek out stronger opponents" lifted directly from Dragon Ball feel like anything but invading foreign bodies that are awkwardly stapled onto something in which they clearly don't belong. A round peg, square hole effect if you will.

Regardless of the motivations for chasing popularity, Toriyama still made his crazy genre blending actually WORK and act seamlessly within the confines of the main narrative he's telling. You accept that this crazy, off the wall idiosyncratic take on Jianghu can also have futuristic time traveling cyborgs and genetically engineered mutants as well as extraterrestrial space men: because almost all of them ultimately are just reskinned versions of familiar martial arts fantasy archetypes that already fit just fine anyway.

One Piece or Toriko or FMA or whatever else have you... I mean, we're ultimately talking about shit like pirates and chefs here. You can get away with taking fantasy world martial artists inhabiting an insane martial arts fantasy world where Chinese dragons, gods, and demons exist, and pit them against robots and aliens. It doesn't work NEARLY as well the other way around in reverse, where you have everything from cooks, treasure hunting pirates, steampunk alchemists, card playing middle school children, etc. nearly ALL sharing and partaking in random Kung Fu/Wuxia fighting themes and storylines/action styles in the immediate wake and aftermath of Dragon Ball's end. Even when their worlds are similarly fantasyfied, it just comes across as RIDICULOUSLY forced and dripping with cynical "follow the leader" chasing after Dragon Ball's leftover dollars to the point where you cannot ignore it or forget that its there. The blend isn't NEARLY as elegant and just never gels or coalesces.

If you're not familiar with martial arts narratives, it can indeed be more than plenty easy to just casually overlook all this or otherwise not even realize that its even there. When you ARE more than well familiar with those types of stories though, its beyond grating to see those tropes used so awkwardly and clumsily by authors who clearly do not understand how and why they work within their proper context: in many cases because they've only or largely studied other Shonen manga that they grew up on for influence, like Dragon Ball, rather than a vast variety of all kinds of eclectic media across all kinds of cultural borders and boundaries (like Toriyama, and other authors of that time period generally did more often).

Again: Zephyr's post on this point (that I also quoted in my previous reply) sums this all up almost flawlessly:

Regarding the whole "battle shonen" thing, I think what has created this whole confusion is Dragon Ball itself, and its fans-turned-mangaka. Dragon Ball was an eastern action-comedy children's wuxia animated (or illustrated) series. Fans of the series who would go on to draw their own manga (Oda, Kishimoto, etc.) unconsciously took certain bits of Dragon Ball's wuxia themes and tropes and put them into all sorts of non-wuxia series, transforming the overall conventional landscape of the "eastern action-comedy children's animated (or illustrated) series" industry. "Battle shonen" would realistically denote this specific mutation. They took some of the more prolific ways Akira Toriyama spun one of its particular components, and divorced those spins from the genre they originated from. "Battle shonen" shares a lot of common thematic stuff with wuxia stories (because of Dragon Ball), but without the overall setting.

The problem is that it's detached, one step removed. It's like trying to learn how to draw human anatomy, by studying other drawings, rather than real life. You can't learn anatomy that way. Much in the same way, Dragon Ball was drawing more "from life". Toriyama was obviously watching all kinds of wuxia shit. If these guys want to tell a wuxia story, and the bits they copy from Dragon Ball indicate that they very much do, even if it's on an unconscious level, then their works would be better off if they likewise lifted the wuxia themes from more essential, prolific, and genre-defining wuxia works. Dragon Ball, while indeed itself wuxia, didn't codify anything, it just gave a unique spin on it (thanks to Toriyama's artistry and sense of humor). As it stands now, it exists in some uncanny valley.

As far as your gifs for Shonen Manga : like every trend, it evolves and changes over time, which is why I was careful to add 'by today's standard' when talking about Devilman Crybaby. The more violent and gore filled examples are both from a different era, when censorship was far more lax and creators had a lot more freedom. DB too has experienced this change. You won't be seeing Bulma's nipples on screen anymore, that's for sure.

Dude... this goes WAY beyond just "levels of violence and gore". It goes to core-most subject matter as well.

Shonen at one time encompassed a LOT more than just raw escapist fantasy. Again, Barefoot Gen, despite being written for children, is an utterly HARROWING account of survivors struggling amidst the fallout of the Hiroshima bombing, with an INCREDIBLE degree of sensitivity and compassion for the subject (but without flinching at all from the gruesome realities of what had occurred), and even no small amount of hope and optimism in the face of brutal, unimaginable horror (depicted as all too real).

Area 88 holds up marvelously as pure, raw, nerve-searing war drama, even to an adult's sensibilities: where you're genuinely made feel and are violently jolted with almost every character death that occurs, because they're almost all so well fleshed out and rendered as all too believable human beings that feel drawn from reality rather than other anime that the creators liked as kids (lacking any shred of the calculated "wacky" quirk that substitutes for "charm" in most Shonen of the last 20+ years), and the narrative so mercilessly random with their fates... much like an actual war is. Likewise, Rokudenashi Blues works simultaneously as sports drama, as wistful and humorous coming of age tale, and as a gritty slice of life among street hooligans of the time. Just to name but a few quick examples.

Shonen for a VERY long time wasn't NEARLY so constrained to just the Japanese equivalent of superhero or superhero-esque punch-a-thons. There's a TREMENDOUS level of creative diversity, not just in style or tone, but also in subject matter and in what is within bounds for being dramatized and depicted in the form of comics and animation for even small children. There's a level of trust in maturity for the (very young) audience there that's palpably amazing in many cases; particularly to this very day, where that trust has vastly eroded in favor of the higher ups "playing it safe" and sticking to a more limited palette that's inoffensive and takes few real risks.

Of course I agree: standards for Shonen manga/anime have become VASTLY more restrictive, corporatized, and commodified compared to decades past. That doesn't mean that these things should just be passively accepted (damn sure not cheered on) as "the new normal" by fans, nor does it mean that countless DECADES worth of incredible depth of storytelling and art should be just casually brushed aside as "irrelevant" or somehow invalidated to modern audiences' general enrichment and better degree of understanding for the full scope of what these mediums are capable of doing and have done; all purely because they aren't "current" and in line with modern day conventions, standards, and trends/norms.

My earlier points still stand, current (and I would gladly argue miserably shitty) conventions in the industry be damned: Shonen, when taken in the TOTALITY of its ENTIRE history, encompasses FAR more, so, SO much more, than just the warmed over, formula-driven, watered down blandness of escapist wankery and comfort food that has almost wholly dominated it for much of the last 20/25 years now.

True, you can argue that comfort food has its time and its place and shouldn't be discounted, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that either: but its MUCH harder to make that argument when comfort food is what the vast majority of the fanbase has largely been living off of almost consistently and exclusively for almost a quarter of a goddamned lifetime now.

At some point, sooner or later, you simply need to consume material of some remote shred of ACTUAL substance, not subsisting solely on nothing but your favorite childhood security blanket year after year, decade after decade.

No matter what the current industry practices and trends are, Shonen is NOT by ANY remote definition a singular "genre": it is a VERY broad category of target audience, one that has a long and rich history of incredible diversity of styles and subject matter, regardless of the relative lack or lessening of those things in more recent years. And further, it is of course not at all, nor has it ever been the ONLY such broad demographical category of Japanese anime/manga works of which there exists to explore.

Again, modern Western fans, ones who traditionally DON'T typically explore very much of broader anime and manga outside of what outlets like Crunchyroll, FUNimation, and Cartoon Network carefully cultivate, market, and spoonfeed to them, not being familiar with the existence of any of this doesn't somehow invalidate their existence nor their importance on the history of anime and manga as a whole.

"This is the status quo that we're used to and most familiar with" =/= "This is the universal lens that all things manga/anime-related should always be examined and discussed across all anime/manga discussions from here on out".

[ABED]

I would suggest rewatching stuff you haven't seen in a while. You might see things you haven't seen in a while, and just by virtue of being older and having different experiences, you'll experience things differently. Perhaps try watching something you didn't like when you were younger.

And for anyone who hasn't seen the original 153 episodes of DB, now's the time.

[ekrolo2]

Not very Dragon Ball-esque but if you're a fan of fantasy and like quick reads, the original Conan the Barbarian stories are available for free download on Google Play under the name "The Conan Master Stories".

Conan is pretty much required reading if you wanna dive into fantasy and I'd especially recommend it if you're sick and tired of the standard humans, orcs, elves,... setup that Tolkien set up and has been regurgitated a lot. I'd also cite their length as a plus if reading isn't you're thing since most of the stories are about 50-ish pages long and they're in an anthology format so you can jump into any of them without needing to bother about continuity.

[TheMikado]

I have to say I really feel bad for the fandom. I’ve been rewatching old DB so that’s helped quite a bit.

[DragonBallFoodie]

I can do DB stuff that doesn't involve too much DBS.

I just hope the hiatus isn't too long.

[sintzu]

I just hope the hiatus isn't too long.

If the movie is a big hit then I can see them announcing its return in December or January as they announced Super a month after RF was released.

[Michsi]

* snip*

Since it's already been brought to attention that the thread has been derailed I will try to keep this short-ish.

You believe Dragon Ball is wuxia at it's core, I say it's more than that, or at least it graduated from it long ago.

Martial artist are to DB what superheroes are to MHA, what ninjas are to Naruto, what pirates are to OP. They are a stylistic means to and end, which is to show the journey of a novice/underdog towards greatness.

Since MHA was the starting point of all of this, I will say that the superhero genre is also not MHA's core. It's about the struggle of an outcast trying to reach his dream and overcoming impossible odds through sheer willpower alone and forging bonds along the way. Sound familiar? That's because MHA isn't the only one telling this tale.

Also going back to your examples of fundamental wuxia themes. MHA has them too. In abundance.
The elaborate and insane training methods? - check (very similar to what Roshi had Goku and Krillin do, in fatc)
The fundamental nature and dynamics of the master/student relationships -check
Fighters' rivalries - check

How is it then wrong to point towards MHA when looking for Dragon Ball-like stories.

[Super_Divine_Genki]

Get outdoors and explore the vast wealth of things to do to, i don't know... liven up? Yeah. The scent of honeysuckle and berries await you... and perhaps a hint of pine depending on where you live. Be mindful of fire ants, or whatever else may be beneath your feet.

But seriously, just go with the hundred suggestions that have been mentioned here so far. For myself, I'm going to keep busy as usual. Or maybe try to sleep more. If/when another DB series pops up, I'll tune in for all of the crazy fun times.

[Kamiccolo9]

Read Don Quixote. One of the best introductions to older literature, and it's fun as hell.

George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" books deserve all the praise they get, and are miles better than the HBO show.

I've been trying to get people to read Matthew Stover's "Acts of Caine" series for years, but no one ever listens. Fantastic ultra-violent sci-fi/fantasy novels set in a dystopian future. Amazing books.

If anyone is interested in biographies or historical works, feel free to tag me and I'd be happy to list some off in the area you're interested in, if it's something I'm familiar with.

[DragonBallKing]

Read Don Quixote. One of the best introductions to older literature, and it's fun as hell.

George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" books deserve all the praise they get, and are miles better than the HBO show.

I've been trying to get people to read Matthew Stover's "Acts of Caine" series for years, but no one ever listens. Fantastic ultra-violent sci-fi/fantasy novels set in a dystopian future. Amazing books.

If anyone is interested in biographies or historical works, feel free to tag me and I'd be happy to list some off in the area you're interested in, if it's something I'm familiar with.

Reading the first book now, haven't seen the show but I've heard a lot of praise for both.

For other fantasy novel's try the Witcher series and the games as well

[Cipher]

It's also OK to just... like... not consume anything Dragon Ball for a while! In fact, I'd argue it's actually healthy that you do (or rather don't do) so.

I'd personally prefer people expand their horizons with literally anything else at all, but if you're going to get stuck in the Toriyama World, I guess go back and live it up with Dr. Slump if you've never experienced it before. It's pretty essential to your understanding of Toriyama as an author, and even Dragon Ball as a series.

This is quite a good post—every part of it.

Unlike many here, outside of Toriyama's other works (which I absolutely recommend), I don't have much to offer as far as content that's similar to Drafon Ball. So i'll just say get out there and experience fiction that isn't similar to Dragon Ball at all. Even better if it's prose. Pick up a non-genre book. Look up "slipstream." Find some cool short stories. Randomly pick a foreign film. Go to town. Shonen serials will be here for you when you're done.

(If you want some affecting, genre-bending prose fiction, PM me. But just off the top of my head, I think George Saunders, Kelly Link and Yoko Ogawa are writers anyone here could enjoy. If you actually do want more zany, martial-arts-flavored comics, the original Ninja Turtles series is also something I don't think enough people have read to this day—like Dragon Ball, but weird and sad. Still zany though—sad and zany.)

[Dbzfan94]

I just hope the hiatus isn't too long.

If the movie is a big hit then I can see them announcing its return in December or January as they announced Super a month after RF was released.

And putting them right back where they started scheduling wise?

[ekrolo2]

I've been trying to get people to read Matthew Stover's "Acts of Caine" series for years, but no one ever listens. Fantastic ultra-violent sci-fi/fantasy novels set in a dystopian future. Amazing books.

I've been meaning to check that out too, I'm a big fan of Stover's Star Wars work and I heard Acts of Caine is crazy good.

[sintzu]

I just hope the hiatus isn't too long.

If the movie is a big hit then I can see them announcing its return in December or January as they announced Super a month after RF was released.

And putting them right back where they started scheduling wise?

The difference is that they know it'll be back and when so they have time to get everything in order.

[Michsi]

If it helps, apparently there will be some news regarding the movie in March. My guess is that talk and speculation about the movie will play a part in easing the pain.

[mecha3000]

I've already been planning this, but Super's ending makes it even more timely. One part of DB I still haven't properly seen is ALL OF Z (basically the filler), Z'S BUU SAGA, and the Japanese version of KAI'S BUU SAGA. I'm already going to start watching the latter soon because I prefer certain music placements and songs in the Japanese version more than the international and I'm interested to check out the pacing differences, although I here some of it's bad. As for DBZ, I'm going to start collecting it on Blu-ray I guess (because the Dragon Boxes are, y'know - expensive) and watch all the fillers I never really saw, including its own Buu Saga.

Also, in the time of DB's absence - I'm going to repurchase all of Dragon Ball and GT's Season Sets. I sold them in hopes of eventual Blu-ray releases, but that doesn't seem likely now - so I might as well go ahead and add them back to my collection. Then, there's the movies I still don't completely own. I might as well change that now because I also haven't seen all of The World's Strongest and Tree of Might. Oh, and haven't played DB Fusions because I lack a 3DS. I've gotten into Hunter x Hunter recently.

Basically, I'm going to expose myself to more Dragon Ball while getting into new things. Kai's original Buu Saga will be interesting because it will be the first time I'm deliberately watching Dragon Ball for the sub and not just to check out the latest in Super, so I'm looking forward to hearing more Masako Nozawa outside of Super.

[Lord Beerus]

I'd just watch other TV shows and movies, listen to some music and read other books and manga. I mean, I like Dragon Ball a lot, but it's not a hobby that I feel obliged to devote most of my free time to.

[Hellspawn28]

Like other people said, there is other things to enjoy in life besides Dragon Ball. Heck, you can read Journey to the West since that is the story that help to inspire Dragon Ball. It's a public domain story, you can download it for free or just go to your local library. You can even check out other anime inspire by Journey to the West like Saiyuki, Goku: Midnight Eye and StarZinger.