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!"