Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

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Son Gara
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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by Son Gara » Thu Jan 17, 2019 9:17 pm

Most of the time when I hear someone say that "Z is darker in tone" I just assume that they are still blinded by the old dub with the Faulconer score. As if that made it more "hardcore".
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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by NewKakarot » Thu Jan 17, 2019 9:20 pm

Z had an episode with Goku and Piccolo in casual outfits going to get driving lessons, so yeah, I don't see why it would be labelled as "dark" lol

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by MyVisionity » Thu Jan 17, 2019 9:45 pm

MasenkoHA wrote:How was Piccolo Daimao portrayed any more silly than Freeza or Buu? There was nothing about him that was portrayed in a explicitly silly manner. The electric rice cooker and Piccolon day was a bit camp and farcical but so is naming your warriors after vegetables and a androgynous alien with a noblewoman’s laugh and a clan of demons named after the magic spell in Disney’s Cinderella and etc etc

The actual tone and stakes of the arc was treated about as serious and dire as anything in Z
The rice cooker, the gags in the airship with Pilaf & Co., his campy personality, etc. etc. make him sillier than Freeza. Even Boo is treated more seriously in his later forms. I personally find Piccolo Daimao to be hilarious, but can't say the same for Vegeta, Freeza, or Cell.

I disagree about the tone though. It's just not as heavy as what comes afterwards. Even Bobbidi and Majin Boo's antics feel darker and heavier than anything in the Daimao saga.
Also arcs in Z has high levels of silly in them too

Ginyu Force
Ginyu the Frog
Fat clown and old geezer
Mr. Satan
All of the Buu saga
Like I said before, silly parts within a more serious whole.
Son Gara wrote:Most of the time when I hear someone say that "Z is darker in tone" I just assume that they are still blinded by the old dub with the Faulconer score. As if that made it more "hardcore".
DBZ was plenty "dark" in tone without the dub and Faulconer score. If anything, the dub made it less serious and more campy. Although to be fair, the Faulconer music did give the series a bit of an "edge" and attitude that wasn't there before.

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by ABED » Thu Jan 17, 2019 9:53 pm

The rice cooker, the gags in the airship with Pilaf & Co., his campy personality, etc. etc. make him sillier than Freeza. Even Boo is treated more seriously in his later forms. I personally find Piccolo Daimao to be hilarious, but can't say the same for Vegeta, Freeza, or Cell.
How is he campy? I fail to see the camp in murdering people left and right, including Kuririn at the very beginning. There's an air of dread that hangs over the entire arc. Pilaf and company were lackies whom he discarded when they were no longer of use to him and there weren't gags on the airship. And even in Buu's later forms, he's still often silly. What was light about the tone of the Piccolo Daimao arc?
Like I said before, silly parts within a more serious whole.
The same could be said for your list of the Daimao arc.
If anything, the dub made it less serious and more campy
What? We clearly don't see things the same way. Freeza's dub personality is the essence of camp.
Even Bobbidi and Majin Boo's antics feel darker and heavier than anything in the Daimao saga.
Because killing the protagonist's best friend and master isn't heavy.

Wow, this is way off track and should be its own thread. Um... pedophilia is bad. Discuss.
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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by NewKakarot » Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:05 pm

Yeah, as I said before, I don't think Kid Trunks x Mai is supposed to be serious. The Pilaf Gang is just sticking around for their own convenience (besides, without any extraordinary abilities, they'll just be dismissed as kids, so they don't really have anything else to do)

But if the pairing is meant to be serious, well damn. That's creepy.

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by ABED » Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:07 pm

Are they meant to be serious? In BoG it's played as a gag.
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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by NewKakarot » Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:12 pm

I think the Future Trunks arc tries to make it a thing (with Future Trunks also being in a relationship with Future Mai), but it really doesn't go anywhere.

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by Gaffer Tape » Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:15 pm

I seem to recall in BoG at least that the crush was completely one-sided in favor of Trunks. Mai being attracted to a pubescent boy, which, I don't care what the context or level of realism is, is disgusting and criminal. Trunks chasing after her I find completely fine and ripe for comedic potential. But like most everything Super did, it did not bother to think this through in the slightest. First off, I cannot believe that Super started three and a half years ago, and they have never, ever, ever, EVER bothered to even explain why these characters are kids. Never. They just are, with no explanation. Every single scene they had in the entire series just irritated me because this ridiculous question was left hanging in the air. And don't tell me it's explained in Battle of Gods. I know it is. That's completely irrelevant. Dragon Ball Super's interpretation is an entirely different, standalone product. If I have to watch another version of the same material in order to understand a major plot point, then you've failed at making an adaptation. And I can forgive them simply forgetting to put it in at the same time as Battle of Gods. Mistakes happen. But they could have thrown in a token explanation at any other time once they'd realized. But they didn't. Because there is no thought in this series. I would not be the least bit surprised if the writers just up and forgot that these characters have been artificially de-aged at all and just assumed they were naturally this way.

Speaking of lacking in thought, while, thankfully, there is no significant creepy factor in Future Mai and Future Trunks being a thing, it's just even more troubling from a logistical standpoint and makes me further suspicious that everyone involved in the scenario just forgot that Trunks and Mai aren't naturally the same age. God, was I dying the entire time to get some kind of explanation as to how these two characters got together in this timeline. It's not logistically impossible, but it's such a stretch and so complicated and these characters are so integral to the plot that it deserves some kind of expounding upon. The Pilaf gang managed to get the Dragon Balls here too? What happened to Pilaf and Shuu? How in God's name did Mai transform from a bumbling criminal into a sharpshooting freedom fighter? How did this Mai even meet this Trunks? Does Trunks know that she's decades older than him? Again, these aren't necessarily plot holes, but they are extremely pertinent questions that I cannot honestly believe people weren't wondering when this stuff was on the air, and the story is far, far weaker for not addressing any of those points. Trunks's girlfriend could literally have been anybody because this character barely qualifies as Mai. You could easily do a find and replace for Mai with practically anybody, and it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. In fact, it would arguably improve the story as all of the above questions wouldn't be hanging around the story like a millstone around its neck. But again, there's a sign on the door of the writing room at Dragon Ball Super that states, "No Brain Usage Allowed." And so I'm sure the thought process was as follows: "Hey, Trunks and Mai have a little crush thing going on in the main storyline. It sure would be fun to see them as adults in a post-apocalyptic future." And that's as deeply as they thought about it. They never considered any of the implications or potential problems that would result in, and they did not take the slightest advantage of turning those problems into interesting characterization.

So, yeah, the creepy factor of Mai seemingly being interested in a young boy is problematic, especially given how prone the writers are to forgetting that salient detail. In Battle of Gods, it was fine. But like all the other problems caused by the Pilaf gang in Super (and, well, pretty much every problem in Super), what makes it a problem is how absolutely incompetently it's written. If the powers that be could have been bothered to step back from the never-ending cavalcade of hype and transformations and actually give the slightest bit of thought to their stories and characters, they could have avoided so many unpleasant pitfalls. Sigh, but I'm beginning to feel more and more that "hype and transformations" is all most Dragon Ball fans care about, so they're just intentionally playing to their base...
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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by NewKakarot » Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:19 pm

Holy crap, are you MistareFusion? Or do you just promote him in your signature?

If so, hi! Huge fan of Dragon Ball Dissection here (never thought I'd geek out in a forum. At least not like this)

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by Gaffer Tape » Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:30 pm

NewKakarot wrote:Holy crap, are you MistareFusion? Or do you just promote him in your signature?

If so, hi! Huge fan of Dragon Ball Dissection here (never thought I'd geek out in a forum. At least not like this)
Hi! Yes, I am MistareFusion. Thank you so much. It means a lot that you enjoy my videos. Glad to have you on the forums.
Do you follow the most comprehensive and entertaining Dragon Ball analysis series on YouTube? If you do, you're smart and awesome and fairly attractive. If not, see what all the fuss is about without even having to leave Kanzenshuu:

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by MasenkoHA » Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:55 pm

MyVisionity wrote:[

The rice cooker, the gags in the airship with Pilaf & Co., his campy personality, etc. etc. make him sillier than Freeza.
What about his personality was camp? How are the gags with Pilaf and co any different than the Ginyu Force?

The fact that he was trapped in an electric rice cooker and he and his clan is named after instruments is a bit silly/derpy but so is naming your warriors Radish, Apple, Vegetable, dairy products, and Freeza etc
Even Boo is treated more seriously in his later forms.
At which point?

When he turned the Z warriors into chocolate? Or when he threw a tantrum that he wouldn’t get to eat candy and ripped a hole in time and space by screaming for candy? Or when he got his ass kicked by a fighting coffee candy? Or when his true form was revealed as an evil kid?


. Even Bobbidi and Majin Boo's antics feel darker and heavier than anything in the Daimao saga.
How though? Goku is left for dead at one point. Kurilin and Roshi and Chiaotzu are dead and Sheneon gets obliterated and we have no reason to think anyone is coming back and this was before the heroes dying and coming back became a running gag.

There was an actual dread in Piccolo’s conquest.

Of course there was silly antics and elements in the Piccolo Daimou saga but other than the Android/Cell saga (which still had Mr.Satan!) that applies to all the saga

Like I said before, silly parts within a more serious whole.
Literally the Piccolo Daimou saga

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by KBABZ » Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:19 pm

MasenkoHA wrote:
Even Boo is treated more seriously in his later forms.
At which point?

When he turned the Z warriors into chocolate? Or when he threw a tantrum that he wouldn’t get to eat candy and ripped a hole in time and space by screaming for candy? Or when he got his ass kicked by a fighting coffee candy? Or when his true form was revealed as an evil kid?
Personally I think the contrast is what makes Buu truly terrifying in all of his forms. He destroys whole cities for a laugh, and turns people into sentient-but-unspeaking eggs before stepping on them in front of their own children. Him picking off the main cast at the Lookout one by one is practically a snuff movie, and he doesn't discriminate for Maron who has no conception of what's going on and why her own mother can't save her. It's horrifying stuff.

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:24 pm

Gaffer Tape wrote:
NewKakarot wrote:Holy crap, are you MistareFusion? Or do you just promote him in your signature?

If so, hi! Huge fan of Dragon Ball Dissection here (never thought I'd geek out in a forum. At least not like this)
Hi! Yes, I am MistareFusion. Thank you so much. It means a lot that you enjoy my videos. Glad to have you on the forums.
I have watched your DB Dissection vids a great deal too, awesome stuff bro. 8)
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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by Jackalope89 » Fri Jan 18, 2019 12:21 am

Dragon Ball's got NOTHING on UQ Holder (same creator as Negima). Main character has formed a harem of girls a couple years younger, all the way up to literally thousands of years older than he is. And the main character is about 16.

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by Bruma rabu » Fri Jan 18, 2019 1:57 am

My take on the whole Mai x trunks thing was either Toriyama or Toei not wanting to introduce a new character in the Black arch. I'm assuming their thought process was "well Trunks already has a crush on Mai lets just use that". I honestly think that's as far as the thought process went for that. They wanted a cheap way to make you care about Trunks plight. My guess is that they were trying to take into account that not everybody has seen Z and knows Future Trunks and aren't invested in him. So what do they do? They kill off his mom and then put his "girlfriend" in mortal danger to hook newer viewers with his character.
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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by Son Gara » Wed Feb 13, 2019 11:23 pm

MyVisionity wrote:the Faulconer music did give the series a bit of an "edge" and attitude that wasn't there before.
And wasn't needed in the first place.
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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by MasenkoHA » Thu Feb 14, 2019 10:52 am

Son Gara wrote:
MyVisionity wrote:the Faulconer music did give the series a bit of an "edge" and attitude that wasn't there before.
And wasn't needed in the first place.
At any rate all the music did was give the dub an illusion of having an edge. Loud intrusive techno rock doesn’t take away from

“That’s right boys....Mondo cool!”

“Your shoes came untied!” “Nice try I don’t even have shoe laces!”

“Ally to good! Nightmare to you!”

The Funi dub with Faulconer music is edgy the same way a 10-year old boy wearing a Slipknot t-shirt is edgy.

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by Gligarman » Thu Feb 14, 2019 8:24 pm

MasenkoHA wrote:
Son Gara wrote:
MyVisionity wrote:the Faulconer music did give the series a bit of an "edge" and attitude that wasn't there before.
And wasn't needed in the first place.
At any rate all the music did was give the dub an illusion of having an edge. Loud intrusive techno rock doesn’t take away from

“That’s right boys....Mondo cool!”

“Your shoes came untied!” “Nice try I don’t even have shoe laces!”

“Ally to good! Nightmare to you!”

The Funi dub with Faulconer music is edgy the same way a 10-year old boy wearing a Slipknot t-shirt is edgy.
I could not possibly agree more. Plus the Faulconer music never EVER stops! Just like how the talking never stopped. It was just constant noise with no dramatic silence whatsoever. Kikuchi's music was delightfully old school and expressed the 70's kung-fu movie vibe that inspired the manga. Plus he knew when to just let the scene speak for itself.

As for the topic in the headline, no. The underage stuff doesn't bother me in Dragon Ball because it's played for laughs and most importantly, it's not real.

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by Kokonoe » Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:16 am

MasenkoHA wrote:
Son Gara wrote:
MyVisionity wrote:the Faulconer music did give the series a bit of an "edge" and attitude that wasn't there before.
And wasn't needed in the first place.
At any rate all the music did was give the dub an illusion of having an edge. Loud intrusive techno rock doesn’t take away from

“That’s right boys....Mondo cool!”

“Your shoes came untied!” “Nice try I don’t even have shoe laces!”

“Ally to good! Nightmare to you!”

The Funi dub with Faulconer music is edgy the same way a 10-year old boy wearing a Slipknot t-shirt is edgy.
Really? At what point does Faulconer's synth music remind you of Slipknot or become "edgy"?

How bizarre. Like putting Disturbed on the Broly movie sure, but instrumental synth? Hardly.

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Re: Pedophilia in Dragon Ball

Post by MasenkoHA » Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:20 am

Kokonoe wrote: Really? At what point does Faulconer's synth music remind you of Slipknot or become "edgy"?

How bizarre. Like putting Disturbed on the Broly movie sure, but instrumental synth? Hardly.
“MasenkoHa” wrote:The Funi dub with Faulconer music is edgy the same way a 10-year old boy wearing a Slipknot t-shirt is edgy.

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