Hello all, and welcome to week 10 of the first Dragon Ball rewatch of the decade.
We're doing five episodes a week, and we're watching every single episode of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT, as well as all the movies and specials.
I encourage you all to watch in Japanese with subtitles, especially if you have never done so before, but watch along in whichever way brings you the most joy.
This week, the first movie!
Previous thread: Week 9 (DB 41-45)
Next thread: Week 11 (DB 46-50)
Anyway, without further ado...
Dragon Ball
"The Legend Of Shen Long"
Dub title: Curse Of The Blood Rubies
Originally released 20th of December 1986
Director: Daisuke Nishio
Animation supervisor: Minoru Maeda
Written by: Toshiki Inoue
The great King Gurumes is searching for the Dragon Balls in order to put a stop to his endless hunger. While his two minions are claiming to be loyal in their search for the Dragon Balls, they are actually using much of the power of Gurumes’ army to purge the land of precious “Rich Stones” for their own personal wealth. A young girl named Pansy, who lives in the village surrounding Gurumes’ castle, has had enough of the treachery and decides to seek Muten Rōshi for assistance.
Elsewhere, a young boy named Goku runs into a girl named Bulma, who is search of the Dragon Balls. The two head back to his home on Mount Paozu, only to discover that his Four-Star Ball has been stolen by Vongo and Pasta. Goku and Bulma pursue them, leading them on an insane chase that has them meet a shape-shifting pig, a desert bandit, and eventually, they all face off against King Gurumes himself.
"The Legend Of Shen Long"
Dub title: Curse Of The Blood Rubies
Originally released 20th of December 1986
Director: Daisuke Nishio
Animation supervisor: Minoru Maeda
Written by: Toshiki Inoue
The great King Gurumes is searching for the Dragon Balls in order to put a stop to his endless hunger. While his two minions are claiming to be loyal in their search for the Dragon Balls, they are actually using much of the power of Gurumes’ army to purge the land of precious “Rich Stones” for their own personal wealth. A young girl named Pansy, who lives in the village surrounding Gurumes’ castle, has had enough of the treachery and decides to seek Muten Rōshi for assistance.
Elsewhere, a young boy named Goku runs into a girl named Bulma, who is search of the Dragon Balls. The two head back to his home on Mount Paozu, only to discover that his Four-Star Ball has been stolen by Vongo and Pasta. Goku and Bulma pursue them, leading them on an insane chase that has them meet a shape-shifting pig, a desert bandit, and eventually, they all face off against King Gurumes himself.
Interesting trivia:
- The movie premiered in December 1986 as part of the Toei Cartoon Festival, alongside movies for GeGeGe no Kitaro and Kinnikuman. The Toei Cartoon Festival had been running since 1969 as a way to promote their children's series in theatres during the school holidays. This is likely why these movies tend to only run around 45 minutes.
- This movie was originally titled just "Dragon Ball" when it was released in theatres. "The Legend of Shen Long" was a tagline that was used in the opening titles, but it wasn't part of the full name until the film animation comic in 1995. This is somewhat comparable to the first DBZ movie, which never recieved an official subtitle at any point, despite a tagline, "Return My Gohan" being listed on some posters and home video, often mistaken as an official subtitle.
- Up until the Dragon Box DVDs in the early 2000s, the movies were the only parts of the anime to be released to home video in Japan.
- Daizenshuu 6 explicitly stated this movie to take place in an alternate timeline to the TV series and manga.
- The movies are generally unique in the way they're formatted in that the shots are usually composed to work in both full 4:3 and cropped to 1.85:1 (slightly wider than 16:9); the animation sheets generally have both of thse aspect ratios shown as guides for the animators. This is why so many releases of the movies are widescreen. Though there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that the first few movies (such as this one) were primarily formatted for 4:3, meanwhile Z movies 3, 8, and 9, as well as the 10th anniversary movie have minor animation errors that are only visible in the 4:3 framing area. It remains somewhat controversial among the hardcore fans which aspect ratio is best, with the preferred choice of some depending on the individual film in question, though the fact the nicest-looking masters of the movies (Toei's HD remasters, Funimation's HD versions of the Z movies) are widescreen does cause some to lean in that direction, even if they prefer seeing the full frame. However, ultimately, both aspect ratios are perfectly acceptable, as a rule of thumb.
- Gurumes is of course a pun on "Gourmet". Arguably a closer adaptation of his name would be something like Gourumes or Gourmeth. He's something of a parody of greed and gluttony. Minoru Maeda described designing him as follows: "I gave him this form based on the idea of gluttony. I think there was probably some influence from the gourmet boom at the time. The reptilian texture of his skin and such, I worked in consciously as “something Toriyama-sensei would be likely to draw”."
- The driver of Pasta's jeep is based on Kato from the 1966 Green Hornet show, the first acting role Bruce Lee took as an adult.
- Pasta's name pun is obvious, however Vongo's name is a pun on the italian dish "spaghetti alle vongole". The dubs tended to instead translate his name as Bongo, making him seem more like a dopey member of the Demon Clan.
- To date there has been no adaptation of Dragon Ball that has done Goku meeting Bulma 100% accurately to the manga. The anime doesn't use the "old book I found in an attic" explanation for how Bulma knows about the Dragon Balls, and she hits Goku instead of his fish, this movie has the Pasta/Vongo stuff, and SIGNIFICANTLY speeds things along, the 10th anniversary movie has them outside Gohan's hut rather than inside, and Evolution, I don't believe Bulma even shoots him.
- The movie has several mildly interesting commonalities with the TV anime:
- The shot of Yamcha bouncing off the rock at a sharp angle was also done in the anime, and is an adaptation of a gag in the manga where Yamcha bounces off the top of the manga panel, breaking it and slamming straight into the ground.
- The kettle sound when Yamcha steams up after seeing Bulma is the exact same sound used for the same moment in the anime (although the anime used the sound of a breaking down old-timey car as well).
- The boat used to reach Roshi's island is the same one used at the start of Episode 5 of the anime, where Bulma gives Oolong the Piggy Pill while they're on the river.
- The ownership of the double decker camper isn't explained in the film. It's more likely that Bulma actually owns it in lieu of her normal Capsule House, which doesn't appear in the movie.
- The classic Kamehameha visual of a ball of light forming in the user's hands before they shout "HAAAAA!!" is purely an anime thing: it has never been depicted in the manga itself.
- This movie would, of course, be the source of brand new music for the show itself; for each of the 1989-1995 Dragon Ball movies, Shunsuke Kikuchi would compose a new package of music specifically for the movie, and naturally, all those pieces would come into use for the show afterwards. The first time a movie cue would be used in the TV anime was Episode 53: the music from when Bulma throws the Dragon Balls into Gurumes' mouth was reused for the end of the episode where Goku dashes down the hallway escaping the collapsing Pirate Cave.
- The music cue for the end of this film with the victorious trumpets would be used for the end of the 23rd TB in the anime, as well as for the final episode of the original anime. Very appropriate!
- Later on, the music Kikuchi composed for the movies would become a lot more important; while the first Dragon Ball series had roughly five sessions of TV music recording, Z only had one or two, done right at the beginning. Because they were doing two movies a year for most of Z's run, and they had a full suite of music for each movie, they entirely stopped doing sessions for just the TV show, instead just taking new music from the movies (while also reusing tracks from all the previous sessions wherever appropriate).
- The very first cue in this movie, playing while the narrator explains the Dragon Balls, is cut up and looped a bit to cover the full length of the animation. The editing is actually pretty bad, if you listen for it.
- About 40 minutes into the movie, it seems a cue composed for the movie was cut, and replaced with a second usage of a cue used about 20 minutes in. This cue may have later been used in DBZ episode 19, when Goku chases Bubbles, though this is just speculation on the part of Kenisu, based off the fact it seems to use the leitmotif of Gurumes' army.
- While we're on the subject, it's also of interest that the very first DB session was partially in stereo, as was the first/only Z TV session; all other sessions until about the third Z movie were entirely in mono. (Then all sessions from about Z movie 3 onwards were stereo) This is why the CD releases of Dragon Ball's music tend to be in stereo. For some reason, when Toei came to use Kikuchi's music to re-score Dragon Ball Kai, they decided they would ONLY use stereo music, so almost no pieces Kikuchi composed between the first DB session and the third(?) Z movie session could be used in Kai.
- This film appears to be influenced by the Hayao Miyazaki-directed Studio Ghibli film Laputa: Castle in the Sky, including costume and scenery designs as well as a lot of aerial action around Gurumes' castle. Castle in the Sky debuted four months before the release of this movie, Shindo Productions did key and in-between animation on both works, and Toei distributed both as well.
- This movie is Daisuke Nishio's debut as a feature film director, having previously only worked in TV and as an assistant director on the Dr. Slump movies.
- This movie has been dubbed into English several times; first, there was a version created as an in-flight movie for Japanese airlines in the late '80s, then Harmony Gold did a dub in 1989, then Funimation did one with BLT in Vancouver in 1994 (with two versions produced; one with names closer to Harmony Gold's localised names, one with a lot of these names changed to resemble the original Japanese names), AB Groupe/Bridge Entertainment did a somewhat infamous dub of this around 2001/2002 (known as the "Big Green" dub), Funimation did an in-house dub in 2009 (mostly just reusing the script from the 1994 dub), and at an unknown time, Speedy Video did an infamous bootleg dub of the film.
- In the initial 1994 BLT dub of this movie, Maggie Blue O'Hara was cast as Bulma. For unknown reasons, she did not return to reprise the role when Funimation and BLT moved forward to dub the first 13 episodes of the series, instead being replaced with Lalainia Lindbjerg, who continued to play the character in the 53 episodes and three movies of Z that were dubbed under Funimation with Saban and Pioneer in the late '90s. However, it seems Linbjerg was then unable to return to the role when Westwood Media brought the Vancouver cast back to do the alternate dub of Z episodes 123-291 (108-276 in TV numbering) that aired in the UK and Canada, so O'Hara got the role back for most of the Westwood Z dub (though she would end up dropping out in the end, replaced with France Peras for the last few episodes of the show).
- Gary Chalk was also in the 1994 BLT dub cast, playing King Gurumes, as was Teryl Rothery, as Pasta (she would then go on to play Mai, Lunch, and Raven in the Vancouver dubs of the TV shows). Some people will probably find that pretty neat (I certainly did).
- When the movie first debuted, the manga had just started the fight between Goku and the mysterious fifth fighter at Baba's palace.
