Discussion regarding the entirety of the franchise in a general (meta) sense, including such aspects as: production, trends, merchandise, fan culture, and more.
The other day I went out to eat with my dad and sister. I'll be turning 28 and he 52 next month. I rarely see him now because of my job. He's been working mostly at his home for the last year or so, so I asked jokingly if he had the chance to watch DBZ in the morning slot.
"YEAH! But the bastards only air until the Cell Saga and then repeat the whole thing!"
My mother also knows most of the DB/DBZ story. I could say that they at the very least enjoy it a lot. My mom's favorite characters were Goku and Bulma, and my dad's were Vegeta and Piccolo.
When my dad was mad at a client or a boss, he would tell us he wanted to blast them with a rain of destruction and proceeded to imitate Vegeta's rapid energy blasts.
It was hilarious.
That got me thinking... is my case too rare? How many of you have parents that also like Dragon Ball?
Check out Journey's End, a short story of Goku and Vegeta's final days. "Time is running out for the last two Saiyans"
I wouldn't call it 'rare', per say, but it's probably something to be thankful for at least. My mom likes Dragon Ball to some degree, but not really to the point that she wants to own it or would watch it on her own. She's seen a lot of it with me though, and when news comes out for the series, I mention it to her.
She has a slight crush on Vegeta, and an unhealthy fondness for Sabat, that's a little unnerving sometimes...but given my fanboy crush on Laura Bailey, I can't talk much I guess.
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When I was watching DBZ on Cartoon Network all those years ago, they just saw it as "that rubbish that he watches". Once when I was watching an episode from the Namek saga they were in the room and sort of trying to watch it with me, but they didn't get it at all. For some reason they couldn't tell the difference between Goku and Vegeta, which didn't help.
When I came to what DBGT, though, my mum actually got into that for a while, commenting that it was actually quite good and then consistently watching it with me for some time. I remember her once saying something about not wanting to "miss Dragon Ball GT", and another time her complaining that the episode titles give too much away (this particular case was "The two star dragon - the electric slime monster!", but that's all I remember, it was quite a while ago. I think she stopped watching before the end though. I've got my two younger brothers, who are 5 and 9 and still live with them, into Dragon Ball now, and since I have it on DVD, they watch it quite a lot. These my parents only seem to take the "what a load of nonsense" view, maybe they've forgot what wonderful television DBGT is. I know my mum watched a lot of the 21st Tenkaichi Boudoukai saga with them, she sent me a text saying it was funny how Master Roshi is such a pervert when it's a cartoon, and I heard her saying that she was disappointed when it looked like the fight between Goku and Roshi would end in a double knockout after she'd been watching it all day.
I think basically, Dragon Ball is too unusual for them, it's mind-rotting nonsense, but my mum thinks it's better than watching nothing. Maybe she'll like GT again when my brothers get that far.
Early this year when I got Kai Part 1 my mum sat down and watched it with me now we've watched through Kai eps.1-52 Z eps.106-295
GT eps.1-55 & all 13 movies. I've also watch Fullmetal Alchemist, Death Note, One Piece, Naruto. Next year were watching through all of Dragon Ball and all of Z cause it's ten year since I discovered DB.
"You should enjoy the little detours. To the fullest. Because that's where you'll find the things more important than what you want." -Ging Freecss
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My parents haven't really watched it, nor do I think they would want to. I just don't think they would ever get into a anime or manga series.
Cipher wrote:Dragon Ball is the story of a kind-hearted, excitable child who uses the power of friendship to improve those around him as he grows into a dangerous obsessive who sometimes accidentally saves the world.
Sometime during my family's first viewing of the Buu arc, my Dad had gotten into the habit of quietly sneaking into the room to watch with us before bed. Once we got to the fight between Goku and Vegeta one Sunday night, he wouldn't admit it, but we could tell that he was hooked. We were able to get through episode 230 before my brother and sister fell asleep, and at that point I was ready to throw in the towel. However, my Dad insisted that we keep going.
He enjoyed watching Buu's big reveal, and kept poking fun at how he was apparently wearing a diaper. After 3:00 A.M. rolled around, I started thinking to myself, "Don't you have to go to work or something?"
Why Dragon Ball Consistency in something such as power levels matter!
Spoiler:
Doctor. wrote:I've explained before, I'll just paraphrase myself.
Power levels establish tension and drama. People who care about them (well, people who care about them in a narrative) don't care about the big numbers or the fancy explosions. If you have character A who's so much above character B, who's the main character, you're gonna be left wondering how in the hell character B, the character we're supposed to care and root for, is going to escape the situation or overcome the odds. It makes us emotionally invested.
If character B doesn't escape the situation in a believable way that's consistent with previous events, then that emotional investment is gone. It was pointless tension, pointless drama made just to suck in the viewer. It has no critical value whatsoever. The audience is left believing that the author can just create whatever scenarios he wants and what happens to the characters is decided by whatever the author wants to happen, regardless of the events that happened in the story. Which, in fairness, is what happens, but the audience wants to be fooled. The audience wants to know that the world they're following has rules. That the world they're invested in isn't going to bend to external factors that are irrelevant to them.
An author can do whatever he wants with the characters, that's not false. But the author should also have the responsibility to make sure it fits in cohesively with the other events in the narrative he has created.
I don't recall my mother ever mentioning the series or acknowledging she knows it exists. My dad has made two comments in my memory. One time he saw that one vertical longways SSJ group pic and noted he couldn't tell the difference between any of them. The second comment was when he saw a screensaver of mine that had Vegeta with his tail. He said something along the lines of "Wow, that's phallic"
If I ever have kids, it'll be a different story. I'll get them started on Faulconer tracks in the womb and condition them to enjoy the remastered quality once they're born
Just the other night, I just finished watching DBZ with my dad. After he took up studying Japanese a while back, I convinced him to watch DB with me from the very beginning. We watched Kai in place of the respective Z arcs it covers and switched to DBZ for Buu. We've just started on GT now.
As for mum, she doesn't get it at all. However she did watch the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel with me a few years back, which she enjoyed.
I still remember the first time when I started watching back in ... um ... 1999 I guess? (I can't remember exactly). He saw my brother and I watching and asked me one day: "Can we watch that show where that guy is on that strange little planet?", Of course he meant when Goku was training at Kaio's planet.
Since that day we have watched together every episode, TV special and movie. You could talk to him about any character or arc etc. He says he likes Perfect Cell the best as he likes his design, and thinks Vegeta is sometimes an asshole.
The only problem is that he hates when the show drags on too long. Jokingly, he coined the term, 'Drag-on Ball Z' and 'Dragging Balls'
He will be 77 in January ...
If only my wife had as much interest in it as my father ...
"If I tried to re-create the original voice I think I would run the risk of hitting a note so high that I may not be able to have children in future life." - Peter Kelamis
I doubt my parents ever would've heard of Dragon Ball if I wasn't such a fan. So they never watched it with me nor do I have some kind of bonding moment. At least one of my brothers watched it for a few years.
My dad never really watched it himself, but for several years we only had one TV, and the computer was maybe 5 feet away from it, so he was exposed to it whenever I watched the show, the movies, or played the games. He never became a fan, but he got it, and it didn't take long before he was recognizing characters, moves, and so on.
Avys ~ DA account ~ Fanfiction ~ Chat Quotes <Kaboom> I'm just glad that he now sounds more like Invader Zim than Rita Repulsa
<Xyex> Original Freeza never sounded like a chick to me.
<Kaboom> Neither does Rita
<Xyex> Good point.
Xagani wrote:The only problem is that he hates when the show drags on too long. Jokingly, he coined the term, 'Drag-on Ball Z' and 'Dragging Balls'
Best terms ever....of all time.
Why Dragon Ball Consistency in something such as power levels matter!
Spoiler:
Doctor. wrote:I've explained before, I'll just paraphrase myself.
Power levels establish tension and drama. People who care about them (well, people who care about them in a narrative) don't care about the big numbers or the fancy explosions. If you have character A who's so much above character B, who's the main character, you're gonna be left wondering how in the hell character B, the character we're supposed to care and root for, is going to escape the situation or overcome the odds. It makes us emotionally invested.
If character B doesn't escape the situation in a believable way that's consistent with previous events, then that emotional investment is gone. It was pointless tension, pointless drama made just to suck in the viewer. It has no critical value whatsoever. The audience is left believing that the author can just create whatever scenarios he wants and what happens to the characters is decided by whatever the author wants to happen, regardless of the events that happened in the story. Which, in fairness, is what happens, but the audience wants to be fooled. The audience wants to know that the world they're following has rules. That the world they're invested in isn't going to bend to external factors that are irrelevant to them.
An author can do whatever he wants with the characters, that's not false. But the author should also have the responsibility to make sure it fits in cohesively with the other events in the narrative he has created.
Xagani wrote:'Drag-on Ball Z' and 'Dragging Balls'
I am definitely going to use those. I have previously used a "Frieza minute" as a unit of time. A Frieza minute can be roughly a few hours ("see you in a Frieza minute"), an extremely long time ("I'll get around to doing that in a Frieza minute"), or it can be used when something took much longer than it should have ("I set aside thirty minutes to do the homework. They turned out to be Frieza minutes").
