The hills we choose to die on and the fights we battle for when it comes to Dragon Ball

[VegettoEX]

Respectfully disagree. Seems like a fairly substantive point to me.

What point? That there's nothing in Dragon Ball to learn from, take to heart, to consider? That it's artistically empty and devoid of any meaning?

Not following, especially from you!

[Mister_Popo]

In most cases things feels so utterly performance driven, while DB should be a fun topic to talk about.
We are still a bunch of people discussing their favorite entertainment at the end. There is no deeper morality or right or wrong.
There is enough of that stuff to deal with in real life btw.

If you're not interested in having the deeper conversations, you can simply choose to not participate in them.

This strikes me as similar to the total non-story that is Torishima's "there is no meaning to / nothing to learn from Dragon Ball" shtick (I say "non-story" because Toriyama himself has echoed the same bullshit rhetoric for years, himself); there's deeper meaning in everything, creators are influenced by things and have views and express them in their works whether they admit to it or not, and we're all free to discuss it if we want.

I guess that's one of my hills to die on? Doesn't seem like much of a hill, though.

That was not what i meant. Of course, otherwise this board would have no meaning of existence.
I was not referring to the things that cannot be discussed, more the manner and the extend in which a certain opinion is expressed sometimes.
We exchange what we think, but sometimes you have to know when to engage, when to react, when to make a stand, but also when to let go for a sec and when to say 'maybe you see things differently, but that's ok'. There is the ego that wants to make a stand about something, which is a normal reaction, and there is the community feeling, ideally there is a balance between those two factors.

[VegettoEX]

That was not what i meant. Of course, otherwise this board would have no meaning of existence.
I was not referring to the things that cannot be discussed, more the manner and the extend in which a certain opinion is expressed sometimes.
We exchange what we think, but sometimes you have to know when to engage, when to react, when to make a stand, but also when to let go for a sec and when to say 'maybe you see things differently, but that's ok'. There is the ego that wants to make a stand about something, which is a normal reaction, and there is the community feeling, ideally there is a balance between those two factors.

Mmm, gotcha. I do agree to an extent! Thanks for clarifying. There are certainly things these days that I just toss my hands up and don't respond to anymore, because I just don't have it in me anymore! Definitely choose more of my battles, but for at least me personally, I also think that's because I have my hands in more projects than simply "basic website + forum"; there are a million other things I could be doing, and I try to make better choices about that time management!

[Adamant]

The idea of Shonen being its own genre with its own tropes is and has always been 100% a total fabricated invention of much, much latter day fans of DB and similar-such anime & manga titles circa the turn of the millennium: particularly in Western territories outside of Japan and Southeast Asia. This misconception/fabrication is predicated almost entirely around a total lack of basic historical awareness of wider anime and manga industry/artistic history beyond or outside of a certain and VERY narrow set of mega-popular Shonen titles of the last 25 to 30 years or so.: particularly those made in the wake of Dragon Ball attempting to copy/emulate it and cash in on its popularity.

A LOT of this has to do with the fact that non-Japanese audiences tend to consume these properties via either their anime adaptations or through the manga presented as a separate product (either in trade format or online presentations of chapters of that series and nothing else). They're not familar with what other series are published in the same magazine as their favorite series, usually have no idea which magazine the series IS published in, and for the most part can't even name a single manga magazine other than Weekly Shonen Jump (which they tend to call "Shonen Jump", being entirely unaware it has a sister magazine that used to be called Monthly Shonen Jump). And that's how you get so many people assuming Fairy Tail is a Weekly Shonen Jump series because it's basically One Piece With Magicians, while having no clue Death Note ran there. Poor marketing leads them to assume "shonen" is a genre about dudes that punch other dudes and grow stronger through the power of friendship, and that "Shonen Jump" is this here magazine that publishes every series in this genre and nothing else. Ask your average western Ranma fan which magazine the Ranma manga was published in, and chances are they have no clue. Same with Death Note fans. But Dragonball fans, One Piece fans and Naruto fans all tend to know where their series came from.

So yeah, it sucks, but it's very much a fault of international marketing tossing a bunch of undefined terms at people and making them jump to the conclusion that "shonen" is short for "the kind of stuff that runs in Shonen Jump, ie One Piece and Naruto... and Fairy Tail since that's the same kind of series".

[VegettoEX]

< snip >

Oh for fucking SURE, right on here. From a news perspective, what grinds my gears (I realize this isn't that thread! ) is the "... scan from the latest issue of Jump" (where the item in question is a photo from a stolen magazine and exactly WHICH "Jump" is that?).

Anyway, basically just wanted to jump off your point and share this little gallery of awful photos I took the other day for a separate thread elsewhere, showing the wide range of stuff being published in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1983. Obviously this has changed significantly over the years (see specifically: Fist of the North Star's classification), but this is the atmosphere Dragon Ball was about to be published in.

[Kunzait_83]

What point? That there's nothing in Dragon Ball to learn from, take to heart, to consider? That it's artistically empty and devoid of any meaning?

Not following, especially from you!

You totally misunderstand. I was talking about what you said at the very end of that post, that your hill "wasn't much of a hill to die on". I disagree that it "isn't much of a hill to die on". I thought you made a totally sound, valid point - that there is meaning to many different kinds of works, whether artists intend for it or not, and that artists through their works end up revealing a lot about who they are and what they think about the world, whether they mean to or not - and that it was a more than worthy enough of a hill to die on.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

The Ocean cast shouldn't be written off because of their performances in the Westwood dub, and there's no reason to think their performances in the mythical Kai dub couldn't be as good, or even better than the Funi cast.

[Mister_Popo]

What point? That there's nothing in Dragon Ball to learn from, take to heart, to consider? That it's artistically empty and devoid of any meaning?

Not following, especially from you!

You totally misunderstand. I was talking about what you said at the very end of that post, that your hill "wasn't much of a hill to die on". I disagree that it "isn't much of a hill to die on". I thought you made a totally sound, valid point - that there is meaning to many different kinds of works, whether artists intend for it or not, and that artists through their works end up revealing a lot about who they are and what they think about the world, whether they mean to or not - and that it was a more than worthy enough of a hill to die on.

I still think, but you may disagree, DB has a lot of substance to its core, but it's not complex to understand if you really want.
Complexity to understand and the lesson one can apply from it are two different things at the end.
We all can understand how determined Goku or Vegeta are and analyze the extra value in real life of what determination, willpower and selfimprovement can potentially be.

The difficulty or challenge in this message is not to understand it purely intellectually. The difficulty is, let's face it, is because it's not always evident to implement it in real life for everybody due to variable circumstances. We are only human, no Saiyans.
That does not however mean self improvement as such couldn't be considered as a worthwile life lesson for us.

An yes there are other works to learn from purely intellectually that go beyond that, but DB is definitely not a stupid work in its message as such, it's only not complex or difficult to understand for a broader audience.

[ArmenianPepsi]

Gargoyles is certainly indeed a massive, massive central focal point for many of the folks that I'm talking about here and has been for a long, long time now. Similarly so is Batman: The Animated Series and the DCAU/Timmverse as a whole, which are likewise perfectly serviceable children's action shows that people have DRASTICALLY blown the fuck up into these be-all, end-all examplars of sophisticated adult storytelling and art... often without themselves in ANY WAY having done even a shred of time experiencing some actual for-real examples of sophisticated adult storytelling.

Anyways, this was all wonderfully, perfectly stated. Spot-on.

People will also try to do the same thing with Spongebob Squarepants of all things. Over-analyze and pointlessly deconstruct the hell out of episodes and whatnot to try to make it seem more grandiose than it actually is. They'll try to tell you with a straight face stuff along the lines of - -

"Spongebob is a 1000iq , deep, thoughtful, intellectual show that uses the disguise of a simple kid's show to present themes and messages about our reality, and the human condition..."

Like seriously? It's a show about a sponge who lives in a pineapple under water, going on zany misadventures with his friends, and works at a greasy spoon fast food joint for his stingy boss. This isn't Citizen Kane.

[Polyphase Avatron]

Gargoyles is certainly indeed a massive, massive central focal point for many of the folks that I'm talking about here and has been for a long, long time now. Similarly so is Batman: The Animated Series and the DCAU/Timmverse as a whole, which are likewise perfectly serviceable children's action shows that people have DRASTICALLY blown the fuck up into these be-all, end-all examplars of sophisticated adult storytelling and art... often without themselves in ANY WAY having done even a shred of time experiencing some actual for-real examples of sophisticated adult storytelling.

Anyways, this was all wonderfully, perfectly stated. Spot-on.

People will also try to do the same thing with Spongebob Squarepants of all things. Over-analyze and pointlessly deconstruct the hell out of episodes and whatnot to try to make it seem more grandiose than it actually is. They'll try to tell you with a straight face stuff along the lines of - -

"Spongebob is a 1000iq , deep, thoughtful, intellectual show that uses the disguise of a simple kid's show to present themes and messages about our reality, and the human condition..."

Like seriously? It's a show about a sponge who lives in a pineapple under water, going on zany misadventures with his friends, and works at a greasy spoon fast food joint for his stingy boss. This isn't Citizen Kane.

Although the first movie was actually a partial plot reference to The Odyssey, believe it or not.

[Robo4900]

In the past, I'd have probably gone into some diatribe about Funimation ruining Dragon Ball or something else silly and immature like that.

Realistically, while I wouldn't necessarily call it a hill to die on, I do think Funi's circa 1999 dubbing style, and their skipping of DB, did some damage to the brand, and it bugs me that the home video is so poor in visual quality, but I am glad Funi do good dubbing work from Kai onwards, and I'm glad their releases have consistently been uncut and contained Japanese subtitled tracks, since 1999.

So, I think the only hill to die on I really have is that you are wrong if you skip OG DB. I don't care which version you grew up on, it's just wrong to skip the entire first third of the story. It's 2020, not 1996; we should all know better.

[ABED]

In the past, I'd have probably gone into some diatribe about Funimation ruining Dragon Ball or something else silly and immature like that.

Realistically, while I wouldn't necessarily call it a hill to die on, I do think Funi's circa 1999 dubbing style, and their skipping of DB, did some damage to the brand, and it bugs me that the home video is so poor in visual quality, but I am glad Funi do good dubbing work from Kai onwards, and I'm glad their releases have consistently been uncut and contained Japanese subtitled tracks, since 1999.

So, I think the only hill to die on I really have is that you are wrong if you skip OG DB. I don't care which version you grew up on, it's just wrong to skip the entire first third of the story. It's 2020, not 1996; we should all know better.

One thing to add to this. While I agree that you shouldn't skip the first third of a story, in the 90s, DB wasn't readily available in the states. You would have to go out of your way to track it all down. Now for a minimal fee, you can easily start Dragon Ball from the beginning through streaming.

[VegettoEX]

One thing to add to this. While I agree that you shouldn't skip the first third of a story, in the 90s, DB wasn't readily available in the states. You would have to go out of your way to track it all down. Now for a minimal fee, you can easily start Dragon Ball from the beginning through streaming.

You're basically explaining back to them what they already said, adding details that aren't necessarily important to the point.

One of my hills to die on is don't do this!

[ABED]

One thing to add to this. While I agree that you shouldn't skip the first third of a story, in the 90s, DB wasn't readily available in the states. You would have to go out of your way to track it all down. Now for a minimal fee, you can easily start Dragon Ball from the beginning through streaming.

You're basically explaining back to them what they already said, adding details that aren't necessarily important to the point.

One of my hills to die on is don't do this!

I got the point but saying that we had to start in the middle of the story back then for a number of reasons. It was understandable back then.

If Robo's last sentence assumes this, my apology.

And really, this is one of your hills to die on?

[Majin Buu]

My personal hills?

Funimation's dub of Dragon Ball Z and the original Japanese version of Dragon Ball Z are not the same show.

Funimation dub fans and Japanese DBZ fans are not fans of the same show.

Funimation's dub fractured the western fan base more than a faithful dub would have.

[Dbzfan94]

My personal hills

The whole Dub vs sub that exists to this day is insufferable to read in 2020.

the fans of either version (yes, both sides) who throw jabs at each other and/or their preferred version needs to stop.

[Robo4900]

My personal hills

The whole Dub vs sub that exists to this day is insufferable to read in 2020.

the fans of either version (yes, both sides) who throw jabs at each other and/or their preferred version needs to stop.

Agreed.

Whether you like Funi's dubs, Ocean's dubs, the Japanese version, the manga, the French dub, the Spanish dub, or whatever else, you need to just enjoy the show, and stop telling other people that their version is wrong. Furthermore, I think fans of one version should do themselves a favour and try giving the other versions a go.

I originally wrote this out in my sig, but I feel this is relevant to say here:
Constructive criticism and amateur analysis can be fun, but in this fandom, I've found it's all too common to hate on any version of the show that isn't your favourite. And frankly, that's ridiculous.
It's better to just enjoy the versions you enjoy, and accept that the other versions are widely-enjoyed for reasons just as valid as why you enjoy yours, and it's immature to hate on them just because you prefer another version. I've done this in the past, you probably have too, and it's an immature-as-hell attitude, an extension of the negativity culture on the internet, where you can't talk positively about one thing without talking negatively about another. You don't talk postively about GT without talking negatively about Super, or positively about the Star Wars prequels without shitting on the sequels... And vice versa, of course... It's ridiculous. You don't have to hate on one thing to praise another.
Scott McNeil will always be Piccolo to me. Does that make Toshio Furukawa or Chris Sabat somehow less valid in the role? Hell no. Both are talented actors and good dudes who've paid their dues and earned every bit of praise they get. Same goes for pretty much every creative/performer who's worked on the show, from the Team Faulconer composers to Norhito Sumitomo, to Toei's script team.
Dragon Ball is Dragon Ball, whatever flavour of it you prefer; American, Japanese, Canadian, French, or Spanish; DB+Z+GT, or DB+Kai+Super, or whatever else. So just enjoy it, and don't sweat the details.
But don't skip OG DB, or you're enjoying the show wrong.

-

Now, I do think there is some truth to the fanbase having been fractured by Funi changing the show so drastically back in the '90s, and those changes still persist to this day in one form or another, and I've been real salty about this kind of stuff, but... Well... Here's a thing I conveniently forgot to mention at various times when I bashed Funi's version: At various points in my life, I've watched the Japanese version, the Funi dubs (including probably every single episode of DB, Z, and GT), and the Ocean dubs (including Saban Z, Westwood Z, Blue Water DB, and Blue Water GT), and y'know what? I enjoyed all of them immensely, and I still hold a strong nostalgia for ALL of those versions. For a time, I got super gatekeepy about the Ocean dubs being better, and Funi being "evil" or some other shit like that, but y'know what, that was stupid. Getting cross about some unfortunate business decisions from over 20 years ago, and shitting on various actors who work their butts off for this show is just crazy, almost as crazy as telling someone they're wrong for watching their preferred version of the show instead of your preferred version.
Equally crazy is still giving Funimation shit for partaking the super-common practice at the time of just trying to make a bunch of episodes of kids TV in the '90s, rather than putting in the effort to give an accurate translation... Would I, right now, be happier if I could watch a version of Dragon Ball dubbed by Ocean in the style of the Pioneer dubs, with accurate translations, the original score, and covering all 508 episodes plus all 17 movies? Yes. Is it worth getting upset over this not being the case? Fuck no. There's still plenty of lovely ways to enjoy Dragon Ball, all with their own pros and cons, and all with their own different levels of nostalgia, so I have nothing to complain about (though I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a little sad that Ocean don't do any new Dragon Ball dubbing anymore).

Just enjoy whichever version of the show you prefer, and let everyone else do the same.

I'll also say that it's also pretty crazy to get super worked up about the subpar home video releases. It sucks that the video quality is poor and it's generally cropped to widescreen, and it sucks that Funi could do better if they were interested in doing so, and it's well worth criticising this stuff, but it's not something to get worked up over, as some of us (points at myself) can often end up doing.

-

... Not to totally hijack this thread with my own introspection on my conduct and outlook in this fandom.
... But man, that felt good to get off my chest.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Spoiler:

My personal hills

The whole Dub vs sub that exists to this day is insufferable to read in 2020.

the fans of either version (yes, both sides) who throw jabs at each other and/or their preferred version needs to stop.

Agreed.

Whether you like Funi's dubs, Ocean's dubs, the Japanese version, the manga, the French dub, the Spanish dub, or whatever else, you need to just enjoy the show, and stop telling other people that their version is wrong. Furthermore, I think fans of one version should do themselves a favour and try giving the other versions a go.

I originally wrote this out in my sig, but I feel this is relevant to say here:
Constructive criticism and amateur analysis can be fun, but in this fandom, I've found it's all too common to hate on any version of the show that isn't your favourite. And frankly, that's ridiculous.
It's better to just enjoy the versions you enjoy, and accept that the other versions are widely-enjoyed for reasons just as valid as why you enjoy yours, and it's immature to hate on them just because you prefer another version. I've done this in the past, you probably have too, and it's an immature-as-hell attitude, an extension of the negativity culture on the internet, where you can't talk positively about one thing without talking negatively about another. You don't talk postively about GT without talking negatively about Super, or positively about the Star Wars prequels without shitting on the sequels... And vice versa, of course... It's ridiculous. You don't have to hate on one thing to praise another.
Scott McNeil will always be Piccolo to me. Does that make Toshio Furukawa or Chris Sabat somehow less valid in the role? Hell no. Both are talented actors and good dudes who've paid their dues and earned every bit of praise they get. Same goes for pretty much every creative/performer who's worked on the show, from the Team Faulconer composers to Norhito Sumitomo, to Toei's script team.
Dragon Ball is Dragon Ball, whatever flavour of it you prefer; American, Japanese, Canadian, French, or Spanish; DB+Z+GT, or DB+Kai+Super, or whatever else. So just enjoy it, and don't sweat the details.
But don't skip OG DB, or you're enjoying the show wrong.

-

Now, I do think there is some truth to the fanbase having been fractured by Funi changing the show so drastically back in the '90s, and those changes still persist to this day in one form or another, and I've been real salty about this kind of stuff, but... Well... Here's a thing I conveniently forgot to mention at various times when I bashed Funi's version: At various points in my life, I've watched the Japanese version, the Funi dubs (including probably every single episode of DB, Z, and GT), and the Ocean dubs (including Saban Z, Westwood Z, Blue Water DB, and Blue Water GT), and y'know what? I enjoyed all of them immensely. For a time, I got super gatekeepy about the Ocean dubs being better, and Funi being "evil" or some other shit like that, but y'know what, that was stupid. Getting cross about some unfortunate business decisions from over 20 years ago, and shitting on various actors who work their butts off for this show is just crazy, almost as crazy as telling someone they're wrong for watching their preferred version of the show instead of your preferred version.
Equally crazy is still giving Funimation shit for partaking the super-common practice at the time of just trying to make a bunch of episodes of kids TV in the '90s, rather than putting in the effort to give an accurate translation... Would I, right now, be happier if I could watch a version of Dragon Ball dubbed by Ocean in the style of the Pioneer dubs, with accurate translations, the original score, and covering all 508 episodes plus all 17 movies? Yes. Is it worth getting upset over this not being the case? Fuck no.

Just enjoy whichever version of the show you prefer, and let everyone else do the same.

I'll also say that it's also pretty crazy to get super worked up about the subpar home video releases. It sucks that the video quality is poor and it's generally cropped to widescreen, and it sucks that Funi could do better if they were interested in doing so, and it's well worth criticising this stuff, but it's not something to get worked up over, as some of us (points at myself) can often end up doing.

-

... Not to totally hijack this thread with my own introspection on my conduct and outlook in this fandom.
... But man, that felt good to get off my chest.

I really don't get skipping over the original DB series to Z either like how FUNi did back in the '90s, because by doing that you're passing a large chunk of the manga's story and a lot of the things which are established here that are revealed later.

[Robo4900]

I really don't get skipping over the original DB series to Z either, because in doing that you're passing a large chunk of the manga's story and a lot of the things which are established here that are revealed later.

Agreed.

I think it's just that a lot of westerners just grew up on Z, and if they gave DB a try, they only watched material in the first 13 episodes, decided "nah this is stupid kids' shit" and never went further. And it's totally baffling to me... Would people skip Fellowship Of The Ring if The Hobbit was also contained within its first several chapters and Peter Jackson adapted Two Towers first, before then going back and doing Fellowship, then Return Of The King?

Would people skip the first third of Breaking Bad if they'd only seen the latter two thirds? Would they just gain the outlook that "Eh, it's not important enough for me to bother going through it."
Ditto for Game Of Thrones, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Mad Men, Community, Star Trek TNG, etc. etc.?

Every show has its startup time, and if you've only seen the show starting from the middle of its golden years onwards, it could be weird trying to go back to the very beginning, but consistently skipping the entire first... Well... I've said first third, but really it's closer to the first two fifths... By episode count, it's a third, but by the manga, and by actual progress through the story, it's two fifths.
Anyway, by skipping that much, you're reallu throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And if it's in the name of "Well, it's a lot of episodes to watch"... I've got news for them -- DBZ on its own is already a solid 300 episodes. I don't care how you look at it, throwing out the entire first two fifths of the story isn't a worthwhile way to shorten the story. If you really want to abbreviate it, you can watch from the beginning, then go from DB episode 153 to DBZ Kai episode 1. The episode count of this method of viewing is only about 20 more than if you watched Z on its own.
And if you still stand by the original Z, then I'll also add this -- you're gonna suffer through the super-slow parts of Namek, and the slow-as-fuck Garlic Jr. arc, for however many episodes those drag on for, but you're not going to give a try to the comparatively breezy run of OG DB? (Which doesn't really slow down to even Z's fastest pace until the very end, in the Piccolo arc)

Skipping DB is such a weird way to watch the show; almost as bad as that "Watch TNG in 40 hours" thing online, which I'm given to understand a lot of people are seriously using to watch it... If you really want to get to the end really quickly, maybe try watching a show that runs shorter. By skipping a huge portion of the show, you're not really watching the show. You're kinda missing the entire point of strapping in for a long-runner if you're gonna just skip huge portions of it... It's long. That's how it is. Just watch it over a longer period. Take breaks in viewing if you need...
And in Dragon Ball's case, it's even sillier, because you're cutting a 450-episode run down to 300. Good job; you've successfully cut out a lot of the show's best years, and managed to turn a super-long-runner into a super-long-runner. -_-

Again, it's 2020, not 1996, we should all know better than to skip 153 episodes/194 chapters all willy-nilly.

And Toei should have known better in 2009 as well, when they did Kai.

[Grimlock]

• Evolving, modernizing, daring •

For those hills I choose to die on, I find myself in a constant struggle against nostalgia, safe zone and old formulas. Three of the worst villains of the "primary" Dragon Ball.