Ki Mechanics

[Kunzait_83]

Any good sources you could point me to on ki/chi?

Ki/Chi/Qi's conceptual and cultural roots lie in both ancient Taoist and Buddhist spiritual beliefs and philosophical ideas. Ergo, the most direct, ground zero places to look in order to see for oneself how these concepts originally developed and evolved can be found in ancient foundational Taoist writings, of which there are two - technically three - in particular that are easily some of the most essentially important.

One is of course Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, which has been translated in numerous revisions throughout the decades (one of the best being Gia-fu Feng and Jane English's seminal translation from the 1970s, who's most recent and updated incarnation can be found here). Going along with that there's also Tao Te Ching's companion "Inner Chapters" which can be found here. There's also an annotated version of the core Tao Te Ching writings here which is certainly helpful for a layperson to navigate it. And the other core essential Taoist philosophical work is the writing of Zhuangzi, a translation of which in its entirety can be found here.

While the true origins of Taoism as a set of principals and concepts obviously go back a bit further, Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi's writings are generally considered by most scholars and academics to be some of the most key and crucial early works (that we know of/have access to at this point anyway and haven't been lost to time) of Taoist philosophy from which a vast, vast bulk of what followed both culturally and historically can trace its roots back to.

Furthermore, while Taoism as a broader set of spiritual beliefs and philosophical concepts obviously extend MUCH more deeper than simply just the mystical components of Ki/Chi/Qi (and thus, Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi's writings are certainly far, far, FAR more in-depth and deeper reaching than just that one single facet of it), nonetheless there are obviously whole passages and swathes of their work that do of course touch on those concepts and ideas at their root core fundamentals, and thus lay the groundwork for how those concepts were even further evolved over the ensuing centuries.

For something that's maybe bit less dense and more broadly skimming of some of the overall basics, there's a quick & dirty (if a bit dry, and certainly nowhere near as poetic or artful) rundown in the Journal of Chinese Medicine of the history of Ki/Chi/Qi - including touching on its mythical/supernatural/religious components and its history with martial arts training and practices - that can be downloaded from here as a PDF file.

While obviously FAR infinitely more secular and science based in its modern day present form, Chinese Medicine still to this day retains a great deal of its core root concepts from ancient Taoist philosophies regarding Ki/Chi/Qi and the Meridian pathways of the human body, and thus a basic/broad understanding of both Ki/Chi/Qi itself and its historical roots in ancient Taoist teachings are things that are still commonly taught to Chinese doctors in Chinese medical schools in the modern age.

I'm a bit pressed for time at the moment, but there's obviously a TON more reading and academic literature on the history of Taoist spiritualism and its significant/foundational overlap with ancient Chinese martial arts teachings that's been published throughout the years, and a TON of fascinating debates on some of the historical context and chronology of its earliest foundations: as many of these beliefs and concepts are SO ancient, many of them long predate proper Chinese historical records and concise written works, making the establishing of an accurate historical chronology and authorships of various concepts and writings INCREDIBLY difficult and muddy to properly establish.

Academic/Historian debates on the true authorship of the Yijin Jing and Xi Sui Jing training manuals for example - two of the single most significant writings that form the very initial origins of Shaolin Kung Fu training disciplines and their overlap with Taoist Ki/Chi/Qi principals, which for decades and decades were generally thought to have been written by the Bodhidharma himself sometime in the 5th century, but semi-recent historical research indicates it very well may likely NOT have been him who originally wrote the manuals after all and their true origins may well be even OLDER - is in itself a beyond fascinating rabbit hole for anyone who is a martial arts uber nerd.

I mentioned this once or twice quite some time ago now, but I've been wanting to post a "Wuxia Thread 2.0" - or "Wuxia Thread Kai" if you will - where I not only review and re-summarize stuff I went over in the original thread, but also build off it more and go into a bit MORE detail on the origins, myths, histories etc. of both Wuxia as a genre and the Eastern spiritual beliefs and martial arts concepts and philosophies that are at the core of it: more details that I didn't have the chance or opportunity to go into last time around.

I made a fair decent bit of headway on it maybe about a year ago now, but my real life has just gotten INSANELY busy and hectic within that timespan, and I just haven't had the time to spend on here that I did way back when. I'd still LOVE to finish that and post it, but as things currently stand I'm just not sure when that'll ultimately happen.

I get that, but one of the big problems with the franchise is that there's an enormous gulf between the original version of the show and the dubs, so there are two fanbases with completely different levels of understanding the work. Isn't that half the reason why this site exists??

Yeah, sadly that's pretty much where we've generally been at with North American - and more broadly Western/English-speaking - Dragon Ball fandom since around the late 90s or so. It sucks and its INCREDIBLY dumb, frustrating, and senseless that its still like this: but unfortunately the way that the series was "officially" brought over and marketed on these shores just did a LOT of structural damage to the building of a healthy mainstream English-language fanbase for it at a baseline foundational level.

The audience that it was sold to and that it cultivated here was that of fans of Saturday Morning Superheroic Action Cartoon Shows rather than Kung Fu fiction/fantasy nerds, and that discrepancy and distinction - along with the fact that this status quo was kept in place as the series' official Western marketing paradigm for well over a decade+... and really it still is its paradigm here to one degree or another to this very day - is exceedingly crucial and important in getting at the heart of why the mainstream English language fanbase for this particular series is the bizarre, dysfunctional creature that it is today and has been for roughly 20 years now.

And while we're all on this subject and I'm on this general train of thought... as much as this SHOULD go without saying, some fairly thick-headed folks on here seem to keep continually and repeatedly misconstruing what exactly it is that I'm saying here when I talk about this stuff, so I have to make extra sure that I clearly and consistently repeat and belabor this (what should be beyond stupidly obvious and self-evident) point:

No, all of what I'm saying here doesn't in any way mean that I think that its in any way, shape, or form even REMOTELY necessary for EVERY single individual casual Joe & Jane Average English language Dragon Ball fan to pick up a stack of academic textbooks on ancient Chinese philosophy, religious beliefs, and culture or to comb through the entirety of either Journey to the West or ALL of the Big Three classics of Wuxia literature in general, simply in order to grasp or understand what is still, end of the day, just a fucking silly-ass Japanese martial arts fantasy comic book/cartoon about a monkey-boy Wukong knockoff punching demons and space aliens that was written for 7 year olds.

Nor for that matter have I ever thought or insinuated that Toriyama himself had done ANY of those things himself at any point either before he first sat down to draw Oolong and Muten Roshi ogling & slobbering themselves over Bulma's 16 year old ass. I've NEVER held either of those views (or anything close to them) ever at ANY point in my (god help me once again) 27+ years of Dragon Ball fandom, nor in ANY of my postings on here over the 15+ years that Kanz's forums have been around, nor have I ever once even HINTED that I thought either of those ludicrous notions. In point of fact, right there in the original Wuxia thread itself even, I went on AT GREAT LENGTH to state the EXACT POLAR FUCKING OPPOSITE of this.

To comment on this particular issue a bit more: I think that "happenstance" is FAR too strong and misleading of a term that implies too much in the way of pure, random chance and accident. CLEARLY the parallels between Dragon Ball and Wuxia/Kung Fu fiction as a whole are WAY too stark and far too numerous and sepciffic to write the entire thing off (as a few people in the IRC chat have in previous months recently) as if literally this ENTIRE thing can simply be chalked up purely to one great big cosmic coincidence.

Its not. Not in the least bit. If someone genuinely thinks that the core-most narrative tenants and basics that Dragon Ball's entire framework hinges upon being so closely synonymous and parallel with Wuxia lore is all entirely just one big happy accident, then there's no other nice way to say this: that's just flagrantly, on-its-face idiotic and willfully ignorant.

Conversely however, I do agree, based on what we know of the guy, that Toriyama is in all likelihood probably not in the least bit some Rhodes Scholar on the topic of Wuxia lore and its wider cultural significance beyond the Japanese mainland. Its also just as likely (as Kei noted) that he very well may not know the word itself at all: something which I, once more perhaps mistakenly, took from the outset to be a given being that Wuxia is a Chinese word and all rather than Japanese. Though to be fair, Dragon Ball still contains an impressive amount of Chinese words and terminology for a Japanese work. So ultimately who knows, but I think there's enough evidence in the manga's cultural points of reference to show that its very possible that Toriyama might be at the very least a BIT more studied on the subject of martial arts fantasy storytelling lore from a more Chinese perspective than some of us might be tempted to give him credit for. That's a debatable point though ultimately.

I digress. The word I feel that probably best conveys the likely reality of this issue would certainly not at all be "happenstance" anymore than it'd be some sort of calculated, studied purposefulness: rather the word I'd use, as I've noted before, is "Osmosis". I think that when all's said and done, the impact of Wuxia is so strong and undeniable - even in the face of Toriyama's own silliness as an author - that the best and most likely reason for its presence is, to borrow an TVTropes term (much as I'm loathed to do so), "Pop Cultural Osmosis".

Again, unlike in much of mainstream North America, over in Asian territories the tropes and cliches of Wuxia fiction are a DEEPLY ingrained and indelible part of the broader popular culture. If you were born, raised in, and grew up in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, etc. then the odds are VERY likely, particularly if you are in ANY way media/pop culturally conscious (as we know for certain that Toriyama is) that SOME significant degree of the overall influence of Wuxia and Martial Arts storytelling narratives have likely seeped their way into your mind, if only from pure cultural osmosis.

As I've said, you don't have to be a scholarly expert on the academic history of Wuxia to write a reasonably competent and well executed Wuxia story if you're some random, nerdy person who lives in an Asian territory, anymore than you'd have to be, as an average Westerner, an expert or an academic on the histories of Marvel or DC Comics to write a reasonably assured and compelling superhero narrative.

These sorts of things are just that deeply baked into our various culture's collective pop cultural consciousnesses.

Kanzenshuu though isn't just some random "casual" DB forum: this is supposed to be THE place for Dragon Ball super-dorks. Getting eyeball-deep into the weeds of this kind of minutia is what this place is SUPPOSED to be all about and specifically what its FOR: hell, it pretty much advertises itself as such loudly and clearly right on the front entrance.

So NO, I don't think that Dragon Ball is, was, ever has been, was written or conceived to be, nor should even be MILDLY perceived by ANYONE as some dense, daunting work of academic and historical apocrypha requiring several degrees in Chinese cultural studies and history in order to properly understand. That notion is idiotic on its face, and plainly so.

But with that having been said: yes however, if EVER there was a place where if enough people somehow have ZERO fucking clue what Wuxia as a genre of Chinese martial arts fantasy even is, what Ki/Chi is as a Chinese/Asian cultural concept (and its accompanying myths and popular folklore), and how exactly these things even ever came to be, as well as what sort of broader cultural/societal context that something like Dragon Ball had come into existence within the parameters of that made it basically turn out the way that it did: THIS FORUM RIGHT HERE is the EXACT place for that level and degree of nerding out about something this patently silly and ridiculous.

Thus, here I am and here we are.

THAT ALL HAVING BEEN SAID though, and bringing this right back around the KBABZ's point above: yes however, I DO still think that its a significant and fandom-crippling issue when a series that, certainly within the context of being a foreign work taken from a foreign genre that isn't NEARLY as well known in other parts of the world and not at all baked into the culture there like it is in its native homeland, is haphazardly scrambled to shit in its translation and presented, 1000% context-free, to a specific type of audience (in this case, sugar-rushed 10 year old American children of the late 90s/early 2000s who are culturally primed for the next Power Rangers or Ninja Turtles rather than an animated Shaw Brothers movie) that is easily the single LEAST equipped or capable of ascertaining and putting together the key cultural context that's missing from the equation.

This approach to translating and marketing DB to Westerners, while it certainly hasn't much hurt the franchise's financial take on these shores, it has nonetheless CLEARLY had numerous and far-reaching negative repercussions in terms of it fanbase's basic-most grasp of what kind of story it is (on like a SERIOUSLY intrinsic level) as well as their general ability to process its basic themes and concepts and communicate them between one another.

Again, grown-ass 20/30+ year old, fully educated (broadly speaking at least) men and women not being able to intrinsically grasp some of the barebones basic themes and ideas of a fantasy martial arts comic/cartoon that was written for 1st grade children: that's KIND OF an abject critical fucking failure for DB's general/basic English language presentation by almost ANY reasonable metric, gaps in global cultural awareness & osmosis or not.

Wuxia, if not necessarily in that exact Chinese name other (non-Chinese) Southeast Asian regions, then CERTAINLY in its general concept and presentation, is a VERY mainstream, super well known, and innately understood pop fantasy genre (which is broad enough in the depth and scope of its history that it has BOTH high brow literary history and merit AND middle/low brow pulp crowd pleasing silliness for the masses, and not an either/or one or the other) in regions of the world like China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. Thus you can just present a given work in that genre to the Average Everyday Public (even small children in early grade school) in any of those regions without ANY added context necessarily, and there's no problem: people intuitively know exactly what it is that they're getting into on an innate level.

In Western regions like the U.S. though, that simply ISN'T the case. And while (contrary to what some folks here who've never heard of any of this stuff before recently might mistakenly think) there certainly IS still an audience for Wuxia/Kung Fu Fantasy over here (and long has been) that knows exactly what it is and is plenty familiar with it. Its just that its simply NOT on the same widespread, culturally baked-in level that it is in Southeast Asian regions. Here, that's much more of a specific niche audience than a general public one.

Thus, you either aim the Western licensed version at that smaller, specific audience right from the getgo (which is what likely would've happened had a company like Pioneer or any of the other straight to video anime licencors of the late 80s/early 90s had gotten hold of it from the beginning instead of FUNimation and Saban) OR if you're gonna bring it straight to a more general, broader foreign public that isn't very acquainted with this type of work up front, that's ALSO a perfectly fine road to go with it: hell, its a very awesome and admirable one even in terms of bringing something like this more cultural awareness and enrichment for others who otherwise wouldn't be exposed to it ever.

But the correct & proper way to go about it in THAT sense is to make sure to actually PROVIDE your hitherto clueless audience with the crucial context up front in at least some form or fashion (and no, that doesn't have to come in the form of a fucking college textbook packaged alongside each and every home video copy: again, this is still ultimately a comic book/cartoon written for 1st graders), rather than try your best to go WAY over the top in purposefully hiding it and give them instead a completely and hopelessly muddled and vague trainwreck that tries to pass itself off as something TOTALLY unrelated to what its clearly supposed to be... and continue to do so for years and years and years after.

What happened to Dragon Ball was one of the worst (though certainly still not THE absolute worst) possible scenarios that could've befallen it within that sense: the fact that it flourished and prospered anyhow IN SPITE OF all this senseless, unnecessary levels of cultural ignorance and cluelessly tone-deaf and short-sighted mismarketing is PURELY because its Dragon Ball, a once-in-a-generation, lightning-in-a-bottle caliber work in terms of its mass appeal and its distinctively striking craft/execution for what it is as a work of pop fantasy. Almost ANYTHING else getting handled in even half as idiotic and baffling a manner would've almost assuredly tanked and been a quickly forgotten relic of obscurity.

Simply put, Dragon Ball's mainstream Western marketing & handling was never at any point up front with its audience about its true fundamental nature as a story and was sold to them under false and misleading pretenses that were NEVER really corrected on or cleared up in any official/public manner. It was introduced and absorbed here from day one as the next Power Rangers-like children's toy fad with almost ALL of its core genre identity and cultural roots thoroughly stripped from it, and after having glommed onto it and eaten it up within that skewed and misframed context, its mainstream Western fanbase thus has permanently absorbed it into their cultural psyche and now looks back on it now as simply another Marvel/Star Wars-like Western superheroic sci fi franchise.

And the disconnect has simply stuck around and remained to this very day, resulting in both a hopelessly splintered, divided, and fractured fanbase, as well as a whole bevvy of ridiculous and asinine misconceptions and misunderstandings on a foundational level about what fundamentally is and should still be just a silly "Chi Kung Pow!" martial arts fantasy adventure for children.

Like, imagine if a movie like Kung Fu Hustle (or a similarly simple, silly, fun, lightweight, mainstream-appeal Wuxia film) was somehow re-edited and reimagined (or "reversioned" if you will) as something that's akin to an installment in the MCU or DCEU in its English language dubbing, editing, and marketing, and you'll get kind of a general idea of the ridiculous stupidity and pointlessly skewed and misaligned fan expectations & baggage that's more or less suffocating Dragon Ball's overall mainstream Western pop cultural status and perception as it exists both today and throughout the past 20 years that its been here in an "officially licensed" capacity.

In other words: the fault for all this dumb nonsensical lack of context and mass misinformation about the basic-most premise and genre identity of such an otherwise silly little children's series ultimately lies SQUARELY on the shoulders of FUNimation for their repeated and continued mishandling of simply translating and presenting - up front and with zero strings attached - a simple, simple fucking children's Kung Fu fantasy series as nothing more or less than a simple, simple fucking children's Kung Fu fantasy series rather than putting the series and its fans through the absurd, tortured hoops of re-purposing it into some kind of bizarre Japanese Animated Avengers/Justice League/Power Rangers that's dressed in what suspiciously looks an awful lot like like martial arts dogi.

Mind you once again: none of this means that Dragon Ball is thus somehow on the same level - or even just the same general ZIPCODE - of literary complexity and denseness as something like Water Margin, like, AT ALL: just that because of typical, garden-variety corporate greed, nepotism, and general ineptitude going back more than 20 years now, even something as fundamentally simple and fun as a kids' martial arts fairy tale comic book/cartoon has to have several layers of needlessly dumb shit for dedicated/diehard fans to have to sift through up front that it shouldn't have ever had dumped on it in the first place.

[KBABZ]

I get that, but one of the big problems with the franchise is that there's an enormous gulf between the original version of the show and the dubs, so there are two fanbases with completely different levels of understanding the work. Isn't that half the reason why this site exists??

Yeah, sadly that's pretty much where we've generally been at with North American - and more broadly Western/English-speaking - Dragon Ball fandom since around the late 90s or so. It sucks and its INCREDIBLY dumb, frustrating, and senseless that its still like this: but unfortunately the way that the series was "officially" brought over and marketed on these shores just did a LOT of structural damage to the building of a healthy mainstream English-language fanbase for it at a baseline foundational level.

What's your stance regarding the idea that the dub(s) should have had a scene somewhere to just sit up and explain ki for westerners with no concept for it? Obviously Z isn't the place (or from another perspective, it badly needed one when it was skipped to), but it would have been a great scene added to go over just what it is, beyond a vague statement from Yamcha that it "draws out your latent energy and releases it all at once"? (ignore of course that there really is no scene that could even be modified to explain this stuff)

Side-question: how well do you think the scene with Videl explains ki for those unfamiliar?

[Kunzait_83]

What's your stance regarding the idea that the dub(s) should have had a scene somewhere to just sit up and explain ki for westerners with no concept for it? Obviously Z isn't the place (or from another perspective, it badly needed one when it was skipped to), but it would have been a great scene added to go over just what it is, beyond a vague statement from Yamcha that it "draws out your latent energy and releases it all at once"? (ignore of course that there really is no scene that could even be modified to explain this stuff)

I mean... who says you even have to add this information into the meat of any given episode necessarily?

Like ok... lets think this through here beat by beat. We have ourselves a Japanese Wuxia-themed cartoon for small kids. The goal here is to retain its identity and stay faithful to the narrative itself (which was made for an audience already culturally aware of these concepts) while also at the same time taking into account and addressing the vast gulf of cultural differences/lack of awareness and understanding of these concepts among a Western audience.

Even looking at other children's anime at the time (circa the 1990s) that were themselves badly edited, altered, rewritten/reworked, and hacked to hell for all kinds of various silly and in no way altogether necessary reasons... outside of the actual episode's contents, there would also be in some cases additional original segments surrounding the episode itself (either just before the start, or more often usually just after the end). Usually they'd be like PSA type of nonsense (I think Sailor Moon and a few others did stuff like that) using actual stock footage from the anime itself and the dub voice actors speaking new dialogue over them in-character.

Or in Dragon Ball's case, where FUNimation originally skipped over the first dozen or so episodes of GT, and instead cut together their very own "original" first opening GT episode as a "clip show summary" of the first bulk of the search for the Black Star Dragon Balls.

Stuff like that would be done for a LOT of these kinds of hatchet-job edited & over-localized kids' anime for mainstream American network TV. So here's a POSSIBLE thought: instead of doing something like that in order to needlessly change or alter the content of the original work, what about doing something like this in order to ADD TO or SUPPLEMENT the otherwise accurate and faithfully presented content of that work for its new foreign audience?

Again this is just ONE POSSIBLE solution that COULD have been attempted in a hypothetical/alternate universe where DB received a properly accurate/faithful dub while also still being aired on mainstream kids' TV and aimed at regular American kids. You could still go about this a NUMBER of other different ways: but what if for maybe lets say... the first handful of episodes or so for original DB (like during the Pilaf or Jackie Chun arcs or whatnot) you were to put together little "bumper" segments just before or just after the main meat of the episode - using various edited-together footage from wherever in the series and featuring the voice actors speaking in-character - where they discuss and explain and simplify some of these foreign/Eastern concepts and ideas for the benefit of the American children watching this translated foreign/Eastern show?

You could possibly have them talking straight to the audience through the 4th wall in true PSA-like fashion: but that's a fairly cheesy and hamfisted way of going about it. Instead, as a possible and more creative alternative to that, you could maybe have these bumper segments take place more "in-universe" and have them take the form of a "martial arts lesson" between Muten Roshi and Goku & Kuririn where Goku and Kuririn ask Muten Roshi the kinds of basic questions about Ki and whatnot that most American kids might ask when suddenly confronted with this "new" and foreign kind of supernatural power, and Muten Roshi gives them (and thus the audience) a fairly simple, but funny/entertaining explanation and summary. Again, in-universe as part of their martial arts training & lessons.

They can be brief, punchy, and bite-sized little one scene short segments (like a minute or two) that act as little self-contained in-universe one-shot "asides" set apart from the episode's contents itself where the characters discuss among themselves some of the finer details about these fantasy/mythical martial arts concepts that yeah, every kid in China or Japan or Taiwan already knows well enough on an intrinsic level, but that American/Western kids wouldn't generally know at all. Something along those lines.

You wouldn't even have to do this throughout the ENTIRETY of the series even: maybe just at the very beginning, around the first arc or two, before retiring the segments once the audience has gotten the basic idea. And while they'd air alongside/adjacent to the actual episodes on TV, (like maybe sandwiched after the end of the episode either just before or right after the next episode preview, and before the end credits, or whatever) they could be included on the DVD/home releases as extras (maybe with a branching option of including them as an optional part of the episode similar to how they aired on TV, if you wanted to get super fancy/dorky/fan servicey about it).

Something like that wouldn't even necessarily take THAT much effort ultimately to throw together for the first few episodes, in the grand scheme of things: certainly it'd be WAY less time, money, and production effort to just do the series more or less straight-on faithfully and cobble one of these little short minute-long bits together for the first handful of episodes or so to help fill in the bits of missing cultural context for Westerners than it ultimately was to like... hire writers, musicians, and digital artists to rewrite, rescore, and re-edit the WHOLE entire series, and even to redraw/reanimate other various scenes (some I definitely get doing so: others were VERY much unnecessary), and basically do almost everything shy of making your own original series from scratch/wholecloth yourself.

Again, that's just ONE possible way of going about tackling this problem. There's any number of possible avenues that a prospective Western licensor/production company could've gone down and tried... if one cared enough to simply present this kind of material to a foreign audience in a way that's totally up front and straight with them about what exactly it is that they're getting into here.

Because yeah, DB is both a very simple, straightforward and SUPER mainstream-appeal pop fantasy martial arts series AND at the same time something that was (at one time at least, and to some extent still is kind of) part of something TOTALLY new and unfamiliar to an audience of Western children, and could've easily benefited a great, great deal from simply taking an extra second or two around the margins of a couple of early episodes maybe to give them some crucial bits of additional context (in any number of possible creative and non-invasive ways) without having to go through the ridiculous extremes of basically rethinking the whole core direction and tone of the show from scratch and reinvent the fucking thing yourself (wasn't this already supposed to have been a worldwide global smash hit all on its own merits long before you, American licencor guy, ever stepped into the picture?).

This whole discussion now is reminding me of one of my favorite ever quotes from Stan Lee from WAY back when decades and decades ago: he was asked by some interviewer - who was clearly approaching him from the standpoint that superhero comic books were inherently, intrinsically, and fundamentally dumb, braindamaged bullshit for rotting a small kids' mind, so you can get a rough idea of how long ago this was - and I'm paraphrasing here, "Why would you write these children's stories using words in the dialogue that are sometimes high school or college-level vocabulary words? Wouldn't it all just go over the heads of the kids reading?"

Mind you, this from a guy who moments before spent the whole interview going on and on about how superhero comics are seen as controversial among some parental/moral watchdog groups for basically being stupid drivel that's making kids dumber, lazier, and filling their heads with nonsense. All of a sudden now, they're written in too high brow and intellectual a manner for kids to understand. Which one is it again, and which extreme is supposed to be the bad/negative one exactly?

But Stan Lee's answer to that absurd and patronizing question was absolutely fucking FLAWLESS in its smart, pat simplicity:

"It never hurt a kid to pick up a dictionary."

That sentiment right there is basically EXACTLY, to the letter, where I stand when it comes to this whole root dichotomy of DB being both part of a Chinese/Asian martial arts fantasy genre for small kids (centered on distinctly Eastern/Asian concepts that aren't necessarily nearly as well known outside of their native lands) and having its Western/U.S. representation totally embrace that, keeping it faithful up front as exactly what it is even for an audience of Western kids who've never heard of this stuff before, and NOT looking at it as some sort of a "problem" or "fault" with the series that needs to somehow be "corrected". This fundamental unfamiliarity and cultural divide doesn't HAVE to necessarily be a bug with the series... it could actually be a FEATURE (potentially even a defining and celebrated one), depending on how you (metaphorically, as a hypothetical licencor/distributor) choose to approach it from the getgo.

Your audience are kids who've never heard of any of these Eastern/Chinese concepts before? Then its supposed to be YOUR job, as the person/entity responsible for translating and bringing it over to them, to help them to UNDERSTAND what this stuff is and if need be to INTRODUCE it to them.

Its not exactly like simply presenting this type of Eastern folklore to kids as-is in any way hurt the popularity and goodwill of another children's manga/anime like brought over to our shores, like say... Naruto for example, which is chock to the gills full of detailed, in-depth minutia regarding "chakra", and other similarly Daoist/Buddhist concepts not a great deal at all removed from - and in fact VERY closely tied in to - Ki/Chi. Millions of American kids watched & read Naruto by the truckloads with these concepts presented perfectly as-is: none of their heads suddenly exploded, Scanners-style, as a result. And Naruto went on to sell like hotcakes and be generally well-liked and well received by a great many Western children.

Nor for that matter did supernatural Eastern/Taoist martial arts concepts at the root of a story's core premise hurt the popularity of another mainstream American children's cartoon show by the name of Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sister series The Legend of Korra: both of which are basically American-made Wuxia cartoons that aired on that bastion of all things that are much too subversive and intellectually daunting for kids known as Nickelodeon, and both of which seem downright BELOVED by their audience of small kids (and uh... kidults) who were in no way intellectually intimidated or put off by their Eastern flavor or concepts.

To say nothing of ANOTHER little known, obscure little film franchise no one's ever heard of with a core concept heavily rooted in Eastern Taoist mysticism by the name of Star Wars and its concept of this thing called The Force (which of course is NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM basically just the Taoist concept of Ki/Chi as its presented in Wuxia fiction with the serial numbers filed off, nor were the Jedi certainly not in any way just a mixture of Japanese Jidaigeki Samurai with Chinese Wulin Martial Arts Masters from Wuxia lore given a Flash Gordon makeover ). I know, who the fuck ever heard of Star Wars and The Force right? That shit just totally went sailing right over the heads of most American children and lost their interest in droves lemme tell ya.

Dragon Ball didn't have to be ANY different than any of these other examples I just listed from day one more than 20 years ago: there's absolutely NOTHING about American kids in 1996 or 1998 that made them less prepared or less suited to learn about something like Ki/Chi from a show like Dragon Ball than an American kid in 2005/2006 who learned what Chakra was from Naruto.

This fear and hesitance from some American children's TV executives & studios to tackle these kinds of foreign concepts in mainstream American/Western children's media is, and always has been from the beginning, completely and utterly stupid, pointless, and rooted in the innate assumption that American/Western children are somehow innately and fundamentally complete and utter morons with minds and sensibilities made of the most fragile china glass imaginable that can break at a moment's notice from the SLIGHTEST unfamiliar stimuli.

By that same token, there's NOTHING about Japanese or Chinese children that makes them in ANY WAY inherently or innately better able to intellectually comprehend or grasp the basic idea of what these Taoist/Buddhist myths and spiritual concepts are. These concepts are MUCH more baked into their culture than in ours, yes, which makes learning what they are a LOT more intuitive into their overall natural development within that culture & society: but if you sit an average American kid down who's NEVER heard of any of this stuff before and have a fun, cool looking cartoon show like Dragon Ball explain to them the basic idea of what Ki/Chi is as a mystical/supernatural martial arts power that the characters train to perfect and master... I mean, they're not brain damaged. They're just kids. They'll get it just fine. More often than not, kids are generally about as stupid or smart as they're treated and encouraged to be by the adults & society around them.

I mean... we're ultimately only talking about ancient Chinese myths and folklore about Kung Fu that are used in today's day partly to entertain and inspire small kids in most Eastern countries (like, by the MILLIONS generally) throughout fantasy media. This isn't a snuff film or the body of a dead hooker we're talking about here: there's nothing in any way inherently damaging or dangerous about any of these Chinese fairy tale myths about martial arts training that you have to HIDE from Western kids here for like, ANY reason at all.

No Chinese or Japanese or Korean kids anywhere (out of the tens if not hundreds of MILLIONS of them who consume Wuxia media on the regular throughout the past... lets just go with half-century or so for now) suddenly went homicidally insane or suffered a sudden, tragically fatal stroke on the spot as a direct result from simply watching a Chinese Ghost Story sequel late one night. But the way that some of these American/Western companies tend to fucking RUN TERRIFIED away from this stuff when it comes to marketing them to children on our shores, you'd almost think it was something worse than the Bubonic plague.

Heaven forbid: an American kid might actually LEARN something about a foreign culture that they never would've known or heard of before as a direct result of getting into your license of a foreign comic book/TV show. And maybe even actually ENJOY it, and want to learn even MORE! Oh the horror I know.

I mean, look at what these poor little kids in Taiwan are made to suffer through as a result of Wuxia being such a mainstream form of popular fantasy fiction over there:







Innocent Taiwanese children as young as 4, 5 years old seen here in the horrible situation of having to endure... oh god... having what looks like a super fun time dressing up for Halloween last year (or the year before: these were from Halloween of either 2017 or 2018) as various popular Wuxia characters from movies, TV, and *gasp* BOOKS even!

If THIS is the kind of unspeakable horrors that Wuxia fantasy stories, and their mainstream appeal/popularity abroad in East Asia, makes kids over in Taiwan go through on a regular basis... just imagine what it'll do to OUR precious American kids if we were to allow such poisonous filth to spread HERE and our kids are somehow exposed to it?

Oh god I don't even want to imagine it... OUR sons and daughters knowing who Ouyang Feng is and looking adorable dressing up as him for Halloween or and having an absolute blast pretending to be him flying around fighting Hong Qi on the playground at school? Or little American girls or their parents coming up with the hilariously awesome/badass idea of dressing up as the ass kicking Landlady fighter from Kung Fu Hustle like that adorable little Taiwanese girl in the picture above?

Why, our kids might even end up... *gulp*.... watching Zu Warriors! With subtitles even! And thinking its actually COOL and FUN and might want to keep RE-WATCHING it or, worst case scenario, maybe they might want to go look up one of the NOVELS its based on and maybe even actually READ IT!

Our kids! American kids! Reading!! BOOKS even!! FOREIGN BOOKS!!! BOOKS THAT WEREN'T ORIGINALLY IN ENGLISH!!!





Ahem. Anyway...

Side-question: how well do you think the scene with Videl explains ki for those unfamiliar?

I mean, I guess it does an alright enough job more or less of getting the VERY basic gist of the idea across (in Japanese/the original dialogue at least: the dub obviously just doesn't know what the fuck to do with shit like this and renders it almost incomprehensibly vague and muddled): but its CLEARLY just there for the character's (Videl's) benefit in-story/in-universe and less so the audience's.

I mean it comes at the beginning of the very last final arc of a 42 volume manga, and episode two hundred-something of the Z anime, and after we've already been through Muten Roshi's training, three Budokais, Tao Pai Pai, Tenshinhan, multiple incarnations of Piccolo, the Saiya-jin, Freeza, the Jinzoningen, Cell, etc: clearly we're by this time WAY BEYOND past the point of any of this being even CONCEIVABLY for the benefit of any kind of audience-introductory purposes.

In Japan - or in any other Asian territory where shit every bit as bonkers and steeped in Taoist mysticism as this goes on regularly in a bazillion other martial arts fantasy movies, books, comics and TV shows all the time - that's totally fine of course and just whatever: but this scene, at THAT later than late-ass point in the series, does diddly shit to help benefit a clueless American/Western audience of kids who've never heard of and don't know what the fuck Ki is supposed to be when they're first starting to get into this type of series at its very most beginnings, more than 300+ episodes worth of anime or 35+ volumes of manga's worth of insane Chi-infused Wuxia Kung Fu mayhem beforehand.

Its a nice scene of course, and it does exactly what its meant to do: give an outsider, non-martial arts mystic like Videl an "in" into the core group of characters and build up her relationship with Gohan, giving them a really sweet scene where he teaches her the fundamental basics of the kinds of martial arts fighting & training techniques that he and his whole family & friends have spent the past gazillion hours worth of anime and manga single-mindedly dedicated to exploring and mastering.

But its clearly here as just a cute, sweet little character/relationship-building scene, and not as a narratively critical universe-establishing, audience-expositing scene for properly introducing the basic concept of Ki to a first time reader/viewer who's never heard of it before: for Dragon Ball's purposes as a Japanese comic book/TV serial, it's already been assuming right along and including here (correctly in its cultural context) that EVERYONE reading & watching knows damn well what these powers and skills are and how they basically function.

The CHARACTER Videl in-story doesn't know what the hell it is: the story itself is still CLEARLY up to this point treating the audience as if THEY, like Gohan, are already long-since in on it and are enjoying watching Videl's wonder and awe, as an outsider/non-martial arts mystic, at having it shown and explained to her for the first time.

[ABED]

I was introduced to it through the dub of DBZ, but it's a world with people flying on clouds, poles that expand at will, the afterlife, orbs that grant wishes, etc. Why would you assume the characters' ability to fly and shoot beams from their hands is anything but mystical?

Yes, things like the Kinto Cloud, Nyoibo, Next World, and Dragon Balls are mystical concepts. Flying and Ki attacks, in-universe, are not. They are portrayed within the story as being the result of intense martial arts training. There's no "magic" or "mystery" to it. Just hard work and dedication.

For me personally, when I was a kid and first witnessed Goku performing a Kamehameha, I didn't have much difficulty figuring out what was happening. I knew that he was a martial artist, I could see that he was doing some kind of physical movements with his arms and hands, combined with some kind of focused breathing. To me it was clear he was generating some kind of attack from within. I never questioned "how did he do such a thing??". Nor did I simply say "He must have magical powers!". To me it was all straightforward and simple enough, even if I didn't have all of the details. But I never just shrugged it off as cartoon fantasy.

How does the hard work and dedication negate that those aspects are mystical by nature? You were right, it's a cartoon FANTASY!

[Desassina]

MyVisionity, I suggest ignoring someone due to his contrarianism, or else you'll realize why the wrong way.

[ABED]

MyVisionity, I suggest ignoring someone due to his contrarianism, or else you'll realize why the wrong way.

What's contrarian about asking how those aren't inherently mystical? It is a more than fair question.

You can't touch or grab presence, but develop it with the things that you can manipulate, and Ki is an extension of all that training and conditioning. Just because it manifests itself in a series with animal people and magical spheres, doesn't mean that the concept itself is magic, but it has been portrayed in ways that we can see and they can touch.

Presence, or charisma in the real world aren't like ki. They are personality traits. In DB, ki is very much a physical concept. It can be touched (eg, ki blasts, Kamehameha). The sense I'm getting from you guys is that the physical aspect of the characters' training somehow negates the mystical aspect. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[MyVisionity]

How does the hard work and dedication negate that those aspects are mystical by nature?

I'm saying that it's not mystical by nature to begin with, not in the fictional world of Dragon Ball. The main characters are ordinary folks living in an extra-ordinary world, filled with magic and the supernatural. The way they choose to deal with it all is by using the natural ways of the martial arts, including Ki. There's no magic involved as far as the series is concerned. Just mind and body.

[ABED]

How does the hard work and dedication negate that those aspects are mystical by nature?

I'm saying that it's not mystical by nature to begin with, not in the fictional world of Dragon Ball. The main characters are ordinary folks living in an extra-ordinary world, filled with magic and the supernatural. The way they choose to deal with it all is by using the natural ways of the martial arts, including Ki. There's no magic involved as far as the series is concerned. Just mind and body.

The characters we follow are by and large not ordinary. One of the few ordinary characters in the cast is Bulma. I have to believe that she's there in part to act as contrast to Goku to establish that in DB's weird world, Goku and warriors like him are not ordinary.

When I say magic and mysticism, I don't mean it in the sense of Gandalf or Harry Potter. I mean in the sense of supernatural. To quote Kunzait one page back, I mean it in the sense of "general supernatural (i.e. non-reality based) abilities seen in ALL forms of fantasy fiction, in all its different cultures, sub-genres, and flavors worldwide."

Mind and body doesn't negate those aspects of DB being mystical in nature. I kinda get where you're coming from but I still think there's confusion on your end both in what I mean by mystical and the world of DB at large.

[MyVisionity]

The characters we follow are by and large not ordinary. One of the few ordinary characters in the cast is Bulma. I have to believe that she's there in part to act as contrast to Goku to establish that in DB's weird world, Goku and warriors like him are not ordinary.

Bulma's a different kind of "ordinary", in the sense that she's most like the average reader/viewer living in a modern society with the stereotypical lifestyle, etc. etc. I get that aspect. What I mean is that Goku and the others are not living any kind of exceptional existence. They're just studying the martial artists. Putting aside the ape/human hybrid aspect, Goku is simply living alone in the mountains practicing Kung-fu. Yamcha is a martial artist and bandit. Kuririn was in the priesthood. Again, nothing supernatural or strange about those things. It might seem strange to Bulma because she's not a martial artist, and so she's an outsider looking in.

It reminds me of the whole situation with Freeza and his soldiers not understanding the concept of Ki and relying on technology in combat. It's not because of some kind of mystical/supernatural force at play that they find themselves confused with the Earthling's abilities. It's because Freeza and company, like Bulma, are outsiders looking in. They don't understand the finer points of the martial arts, not having trained in the ancient Chinese ways like the Earthlings, and so they rely on Battle Power readings from the scouters. But computers have limits, and throw in something unexpected into a preconfigured equation, something like Ki, and you get malfunctions or erroneous results.

Doctor Gero made the same mistake in designing the Jinzoningen. Being a scientist, and not a martial artist, he was in the same boat. He thought he could rely on mathematics and computers to accurately estimate the Z-Team's power, but he was proven wrong. He even misidentified Ki as simply "energy" because he didn't know any better. It's telling that it was Cell, a purely organic creation, who was able to put up a serious challenge to the team in that saga.

The Red Ribbon arc is the same way. It's not a coincidence that it took calling in Tao Pai Pai, a seasoned martial artist, in order to pose the first real threat to Goku. They didn't understand the heroes either and thought that their superior technological and military advantage could overcome everyone. In the case of Piccolo and the Mazoku, they thought that the power of pure evil and demonic magic was enough to conquer the world. But it was mere mortal martial artists and their simple and natural practices that stood in opposition to them. Piccolo was terrified.

When I say magic and mysticism, I don't mean it in the sense of Gandalf or Harry Potter. I mean in the sense of supernatural. To quote Kunzait one page back, I mean it in the sense of "general supernatural (i.e. non-reality based) abilities seen in ALL forms of fantasy fiction, in all its different cultures, sub-genres, and flavors worldwide."

I understand, but I think that from an in-universe perspective, a distinction can be made between supernatual elements like Shen Long and the Next World etc., and an element like Ki. It seems that within the story, as long as you dedicate yourself to the martial arts and train hard enough, you are capable of eventually accessing Ki. Videl is a good example of this. She was able to do it with simply enough training from Gohan. Even without experience within the martial arts, people are portrayed as having Ki naturally flowing within them, such as in the Genki Dama plots. No one had to say a magic spell, or wish it up out of thin air. It was just there naturally. Of course in real life you can call all of this mysticism or paranormal and the like. I'm only stating that their are different types, levels, and degrees of "magic" and "fantasy". And that in the case of Dragon Ball, within the story itself there seems to be an even bigger distinction made than in real life, to the point that something like Ki is presented as very much non-mystical and reality based.

[Desassina]

When it comes to personality traits, states of mind or mood being one thing not related to Ki, I have to point out that Gohan was made angry for a reason, that Broly lost grip of reality to power up further as another, that calm bringing forth more power in Ultra Instincts and Super Saiyan Blue is a thing, and that courage or right mindedness can take a hit on its level. It's body and mind.

[ABED]

Again, nothing supernatural or strange about those things. It might seem strange to Bulma because she's not a martial artist, and so she's an outsider looking in.

I'm at a loss because how is that ordinary beyond them not yet tapping into their ki. I would contend that what many of them are doing is not ordinary even in DB world. What does ordinary mean in this context?

It reminds me of the whole situation with Freeza and his soldiers not understanding the concept of Ki and relying on technology in combat. It's not because of some kind of mystical/supernatural force at play that they find themselves confused with the Earthling's abilities. It's because Freeza and company, like Bulma, are outsiders looking in. They don't understand the finer points of the martial arts, not having trained in the ancient Chinese ways like the Earthlings, and so they rely on Battle Power readings from the scouters. But computers have limits, and throw in something unexpected into a preconfigured equation, something like Ki, and you get malfunctions or erroneous results.

This is an incomplete reading of the situation. They could utilize ki, but they didn't understand the finer points and mystical aspects of it. It was more a matter of using it for brute force. And of course the computers have limits. They can't properly read the mystical element of ki. Fighters with a fuller understanding of how it works can manipulate it in various ways.

You say outside, but outside of what?

It seems that within the story, as long as you dedicate yourself to the martial arts and train hard enough, you are capable of eventually accessing Ki.

What does training have to do with lack of mysticism on this issue? Take as an example, Doctor Strange. He had to train to become better at magic. Everyone in the Marvel Universe could possibly utilize magic to some degree, but much like real life, some have greater aptitude for it. I think this might be key to understanding your view on this issue. For it to be mysticism does it boil down to only a certain type of person being able to utilize it? For instance, in Harry Potter, Muggles can't use magic. You have to be born with the ability or at least potential. Would I be correct in saying that?

[MyVisionity]

And of course the computers have limits. They can't properly read the mystical element of ki.

The computers are limited not because of any mystical elements in Ki, but because they are designed by individuals that do not have any background in the martial arts, or who have only a limited experience with it compared to the more thorough training that the protagonists have. Whether it's Freeza and his organization, Red Ribbon/Gero or whomever, these villains lack the knowledge and familiarity of Ki.

Suppose Freeza's empire had sat down after the battle on Namek and tried to design a new Scouter based on their experiences with the Earthlings, it would be possible for them to create a computer that could properly read the qualities of Ki that they missed. They would just have to reconfigure the old system to include what they missed the first time. Of course, they might have to do more like study in the traditional martial arts systems of Earth, or consult some more experienced martial artists, but that's the general idea.

For it to be mysticism does it boil down to only a certain type of person being able to utilize it?

No, what I'm saying is that for it to be mysticism it would have to exist or be gained in some kind of supernatural fashion. In the world of DB, we see that Ki abilities are a natural part of martial arts training. It's clearly coming from out of the body and mind, just like how Ki is produced in the real world. But just like in the real world, it's not a magical process. Yes, the things they can do are fantastical because of the nature of the genre. But in-story it's presented as being a natural biological process resulting from martial arts training.

I would call their abilities "supernatural" or "magical" if they had been bestowed by a divine being, or if they had recited an incantation. Or maybe if they could do all of those things without utilizing Ki. As it is though, I only call the Ki abilities "extraordinary" or "exceptional". Maybe even "unusual".

[ABED]

But they aren't naturally a part of martial arts training. We saw plenty who couldn't utilize ki, most notably Mr. Satan. It coming from the body and the mind doesn't negate there being a supernatural aspect to it. It took Muten Roshi, the best martial artist in the world for decades, 50 years to create the Kamehameha, and even he couldn't fly. These abilities are shown to be utilized by only the most exceptional fighters.

Alright, I think we've said about all we can. I get your point, I just don't agree.

[MyVisionity]

I just thought of something about this topic that I overlooked before. I forgot about how the characters are able to sense a person's Ki with their minds. That's the one aspect that crosses the line into mysticism for me. I can't really figure out how it would work in any sort of "natural" sense.

It's possible that Toriyama wanted the series to have it both ways, simultaneously natural and supernatural, much like the real world concept of Ki. Injecting just enough mysticism into the story to keep things interesting.