MistareFusion's Dragon Ball Dissection! (Updated 4/1/24!)

[Akumaito Beam]

So....still totally eagerly awaiting the next update.

[Gaffer Tape]

So....still totally eagerly awaiting the next update.

DBD: The Red Ribbon Army Arc Part 1!

Ask and you shall receive! But like my mother always told me as a kid, "You have to wait until Christmas!"

[AgitoZ]

DBD: The Red Ribbon Army Arc Part 1!

Ask and you shall receive! But like my mother always told me as a kid, "You have to wait until Christmas!"

Did she always make you wait so late into the day?

[Insertclevername]

Ah, I was going to post earlier but you know, the holidays. That Wii U can't play it self you know!

I loved it and to be honest, I never knew about that plot hole with the Dragon Balls. I really appreciate your comments about story progression, like how limiting Gokuu adds more adventure to the story. I myself am trying to learn how to write stories and such (ones in the style of Dragon Ball, long running adventure tales), so your insight is not only entertaining but enlightening.

Basically, your dissection is awesome and you should feel awesome.

[Gaffer Tape]

DBD: The Red Ribbon Army Arc Part 1!

Ask and you shall receive! But like my mother always told me as a kid, "You have to wait until Christmas!"

Did she always make you wait so late into the day?

Well, technically I worked on the damned thing all night last night so I could get it online first thing this morning, which I did. I just had to go to work all day, so I didn't have time to really promote it until now. So it was a Christmas morning present. You just didn't look under the tree.

Ah, I was going to post earlier but you know, the holidays. That Wii U can't play it self you know!

I loved it and to be honest, I never knew about that plot hole with the Dragon Balls. I really appreciate your comments about story progression, like how limiting Gokuu adds more adventure to the story. I myself am trying to learn how to write stories and such (ones in the style of Dragon Ball, long running adventure tales), so your insight is not only entertaining but enlightening.

Basically, your dissection is awesome and you should feel awesome.

Thank you! Doing this has been helpful to me as well. While plenty of what I'm saying is stuff I've been dying to say for years, I'd say there's just as much I figure out while I'm doing it, now that I'm forcing myself to put such a scrutinizing eye on the series. And I'd say that that helps me on becoming a more discerning evaluator of storytelling too!

[JulieYBM]

Your videos are always so much fun, I'm saddened that it was so short! Although it's understandable all the same.

Now I can just link to this installment when the subject of the timeline comes up. Although, if we take it seriously, I suppose it confirms that Son Gokuu's birthday has to be between May 6 to September. Huh.

[Akumaito Beam]

So....still totally eagerly awaiting the next update.

DBD: The Red Ribbon Army Arc Part 1!

Ask and you shall receive! But like my mother always told me as a kid, "You have to wait until Christmas!"

Getting engaged a 3DS and now this? Best Xmas ever! Thanks, I always enjoy your work tons n tons. You're awesome!

[Gaffer Tape]

Wow. I just got listed alongside an engagement in helping make the best Christmas ever? That's probably the greatest compliment I've ever received.

[ThunderPX]

Maybe Goku got -really- lost between leaving Bulma and the others and arriving at Kame-sennin's. ;P

[Gaffer Tape]

So then, since I am at least toe-deep into the waters of The Red Ribbon Army Arc, is there anything anybody wants me to try to specifically address? Anything in particular that stands out about this arc, be it good, bad, ugly, memorable, plot-hole, heartwarming, significant for the series or anything else? I'm not saying I can necessarily include everything, but I am just one guy, and it's quite possible there's something I might forget to talk about. So I'm just throwing that out there if anyone is interested.

EDIT: Ooh, I feel that's a relatively significant 3,200th post!

[JulieYBM]

If this were the cartoon, there probably would be something I'd like to see discussed, but since this is the comic there's not much I can think of in the way of being interesting. I guess the best part is Blooma asking her wouldbe Red Ribbon gang-bangers if they want to play FamiCom instead...

[Gaffer Tape]

Just out of curiosity, what is this anime-related thing you're thinking of?

[JulieYBM]

Just out of curiosity, what is this anime-related thing you're thinking of?

Mainly the expansions to the Silver arcs and the beefing up of Yellow and Violet's roles. There's a lot of little stuff that Toei added that really made the arc more interesting (black Kinto'un!) but that'd require a lot more work that I couldn't ask out of a comic-related video series.

[matt0044]

Maybe Goku got -really- lost between leaving Bulma and the others and arriving at Kame-sennin's. ;P

A four month timeskip could've been said to have been occurred if Toriyama remembers more little details.

[Zephyr]

The irony of a homosexual nazi couldn't hurt being addressed.

[coola]

Great video, i also didn`t know about 8 month gap, but, knowing Mr. Toriyama, I'm not surprised he simply forgot, really liked video games sequels bit. While Colonel Silver probably died in Manga, in anime, we see him beat up henchmen, that were suppose to execute him, and simply walks away. I wondered for sometime, if Red Ribbon army name was supposed to be similar to fearful Red Army, but, when RRA story arc begun, USSR was ruled by Gorbachev, so i doubt it.

[worldmonsters]

This thread only has 3 pages?! My god this man deserves more attention! Like Mike said, he's analyzing this in an incredibly interesting and witty way. I've read this part of the manga in Dutch and what always left me puzzled was the pirate cave. It seemingly comes out of nowhere and doesn't really go anywhere... it remains unexplained... or well... it feels so... I dunno, I'm missing SOMETHING, but I really don't know... But because I read it in Dutch might be that somewhere something wasn't translated or something. Just something about that part that bothers me, but I can't put my finger on it

Keep it up, it's a really awesome analysis and I'm glad to have seen a new part

[sangofe]

This is as awesome as the podcasts! Really should be linked at the main site here too

[jochickabee]

This looked quite interesting. Just tried to watching the 1st episode.

Unfortunately- the pronunciation of Bulma-->Blooma is too grating to my ears. More than it should be..

I understand completely the justification. Trunks is trunks - not torankusu.

If Toriyama had made the full name "Bloomers" there would be much less argument-- as there's more semblance to the original English word.

For the pro-Blooma people- how do you pronounce:
1. Raditz--> Raddish
2. Burdock (bardock)---> Burrdock (is he named in the manga?)
3. Kakarrot(o)--> Ca-carrot
4. Vegeta (more like vegetable than with the long "e")
I'm sure there are other similar dilemmas.

These are all English derived puns. Should they be kept in their English pronunciation?

On the flip-side:

Saiya is a pun on Yasai (vegetable) should be pronounced "Psi-ya"- are there people in that camp too? Psi-yan just doesn't sound is catchy. But to pronounce it otherwise loses the original intent.

Please redirect me if there is a thread for this.

[VegettoEX]

I don't remember Lance's original explanation, but I'm pretty sure it's... well, explained. But I'm gonna respond anyway .

The actual Japanese word for the pants is ブルマー. You'd romanize that as burumā (with an extended "a" sound on the end). The only difference between that word and the girl's name is that her name doesn't have the extended syllable at the end -- it's just ブルマ (buruma). The ā sound generally infers an "ar/er" sort of ending -- it's the same one in "Tarble" and "Zarbon". I won't pretend to know the ins-and-outs of how it's affected by the beginning part of the syllable (maa vs zaa vs taa), but there you go.

So it's not crazy to just shorter "Bloomer" to "Blooma". You're literally doing the exact same thing to the word that the Japanese are: you're killing off the extended syllable at the end, and otherwise keeping the exact same word.

It's actually pretty similar to the case with Raditz, which fully backs up the "Blooma" spelling if you're trying to be consistent. The katakana spelling for the fruit is ラディッシュ or radisshu. The character's name is ラディッツ or radditzu. Same with Bloomer/Blooma, the only difference is that trailing syllable at the end, which has its "shu" changed to a harder "tzu". Otherwise, the front part of the name is left as-is ("Raddi-").

This is what makes a name a pun as opposed to... well, just a word (a la "Trunks" or "Cell", where the characters' names are spelled in kana literally exactly the same as the regular words).

So no, we wouldn't call Raditz "Raddish" because it's his pun, because that's not his name -- it's his name's influence.

In terms of Bardock, quite a few people use the "Burdock" spelling for his name. I don't personally do so because I don't feel the need to bring the pun out any more than it already is (as opposed to "Tullece" which we felt very much needed its pun to be brought out through a creative transliteration).

Plenty of people have used "Cacarrot". I certainly wouldn't be opposed to switching to it. In a similar vein, some Japanese merchandise uses "Nameccian".

As for Vegeta, it's also a case where it's a pun and not just the word. If his name was fully ベジタブル instead of ベジータ (which you'll notice has an extra long syllable in there, which helps differentiate it as a pun and not just the word), yeah, I'd be up for pronouncing it with a shorter "eh" sound and not a long "ee" sound... but that's not what his name is.

And yes, plenty of people the world over pronounce "Saiyan" correctly a la the "yasai" pronunciation. We have on our podcast for years. Most dubs throughout the world do (or just use "Saiya-jin" unadapted).