Academic writing?

[zDBZ]

Odd request, but - does anyone know if there are any academic papers, by professors or even graduate students, written about DB/Z/GT/S and available for easy access? I'm writing one myself for a master's program, and the supervisor has been stressing the need to cite previous writings as academic sources. Shocking though this may be, the university library has exactly zero materials related to Dragon Ball, and I haven't found anything anywhere else thus far.

The topic is the "hero's journey" monomyth applied to the Saiyan, Freeza, and Buu sagas, so anything even tangentially related would be helpful.

[Ajay]

Derek Padula's books are pretty much the only sources I can think of. They cover a wide range of topics -- both academic and casual.

EDIT: As Wezenheim says, you could also reference MistareFusion's Dragon Ball Dissection series - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRZamDg ... 58&index=6

[Wezenheim]

I'd hate for you to spend money in order to write a paper, but might I recommend Derek Padula's book series? I haven't read them yet (I intend to eventually!) but I have been told that they are very well done and full of interesting information. Padula is also a Dragon Ball scholar, so he'll be about the best person you can cite for a college paper.

Google Scholar is a good place to be if you are looking for citations in general. If you type in "Dragon Ball", you'll find some articles. I do have to say that choices seem to be limited there as well, but perhaps you can find something worth mentioning.

Even though they aren't "writings" per se, I'm not sure you could go wrong with citing our own Gaffer Tape's Dragon Ball Dissection series. It is an extremely informative and fascinating series that I'd recommend any Dragon Ball fan to watch if you haven't already. You might be able to cite them, but I'd recommend asking your professor first if you can. Hope that helps!

Ajay beat me to the Padula books it seems. He's right though, there aren't many proper academic writings for Dragon Ball out there.

[Kamiccolo9]

I don't know Derek's credentials, so I can't speak as to whether he'd be considered an academically valid source. Not to discount his work (which I have not read) but there is a big difference in citing an academic work and citing a work made for popular consumption. Unless it was written as a scholarly dissertation or similar work, it's probably not what you are looking for. Neither would Gaffer's channel.

Your best option would be to find scholarly work on the heroes journey, and detail your own thought process on how it relates to Dragon Ball. While you should be able to easily find enough stuff on the heroes journey, you will probably have difficulty finding enough viable sources for Dragon Ball, depending on how strict and selective the people reviewing this are.

You might be better off expanding this topic to "the heroes journey in anime" or something else that's more broad than your initial topic. I had to do something similar with my "religious symbolism in Final Fantasy" paper I wrote for my under grad in religious studies.

Not to discourage your topic, but you're simply not going to be finding academic works to suit the Dragon Ball side of your topic. I'm sure some stuff probably exists, but it'll be obscure grad student articles, stuff like that. Not exactly the kind of sources that leap out and grab professors.

[Wezenheim]

I don't know Derek's credentials, so I can't speak as to whether he'd be considered an academically valid source. Not to discount his work (which I have not read) but there is a big difference in citing an academic work and citing a work made for popular consumption. Unless it was written as a scholarly dissertation or similar work, it's probably not what you are looking for. Neither would Gaffer's channel.

Your best option would be to find scholarly work on the heroes journey, and detail your own thought process on how it relates to Dragon Ball. While you should be able to easily find enough stuff on the heroes journey, you will probably have difficulty finding enough viable sources for Dragon Ball, depending on how strict and selective the people reviewing this are.

You might be better off expanding this topic to "the heroes journey in anime" or something else that's more broad than your initial topic. I had to do something similar with my "religious symbolism in Final Fantasy" paper I wrote for my under grad in religious studies.

Not to discourage your topic, but you're simply not going to be finding academic works to suit the Dragon Ball side of your topic. I'm sure some stuff probably exists, but it'll be obscure grad student articles, stuff like that. Not exactly the kind of sources that leap out and grab professors.

Yeah, you make a lot of good points. It probably would be a bit better to find papers about "the hero's journey" itself and relate it to Dragon Ball, as there really isn't much to go off of in proper academia. I wrote a Dragon Ball essay myself once, I've looked! Unfortunately the paper I wrote doesn't pertain to the OP's topic at all, but even if it did I don't think I'd count as a good source either.

I have a question though, since you know much more about this kind of thing than I do. Would Padula's books be acceptable for citation if they take a more scholarly approach despite being available to and in many ways intended for the general public? Where is the line drawn for things like that typically? Does the source need to be intended as almost entirely academic?

[CashmanX]

There's some essays written by in the "Akira Toriyama exhibition" book: http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... 1&p=223062

Not sure if that's all of them though.

[zDBZ]

Thanks for all the suggestions, folks.

Looking over my OP - I did make it sound like I was restricted to academia only, didn't I? We are allowed to cite popular books, articles, and video essays. Frankly, they seem to grade the bibliography on quantity as much as (sometimes more than) quality. I've just been asked in the past to include more academic writing in my sources, so that's why I asked after that.

But the links so far are great. That video essay series is quite a find.

[MozillaVulpix]

If you're just talking about the monomyth, it's probably alright if you only cite Campbell's book and perhaps other articles that relate it to more contemporary topics. As long as you have good translations of what happens in the original story, I think it's fine to come up with your own conclusions without having to base it on other articles. I wonder if you could insert the actual Japanese text alongside an english translation. It'd definitely give it more authenticity.

Although...actually...as someone who has seriously read and thought about this topic...is it 100% applicable? Dragon Ball really doesn't have "The Return" part of the journey. The hero doesn't use what he obtains to help his community. Goku becomes a Super Saiyan, but it's for a purely selfish reason, and once he returns, he doesn't try to use his power to help the general population of his planet. But I guess you could always come up with your own conclusion based on what the story does exclude.

[zDBZ]

Although...actually...as someone who has seriously read and thought about this topic...is it 100% applicable? Dragon Ball really doesn't have "The Return" part of the journey. The hero doesn't use what he obtains to help his community. Goku becomes a Super Saiyan, but it's for a purely selfish reason, and once he returns, he doesn't try to use his power to help the general population of his planet. But I guess you could always come up with your own conclusion based on what the story does exclude.

I hadn't thought of that; fair point. I'm actually writing about how the Hero's Journey doesn't end up panning out (in the Buu saga at least).