At its core, why is Dragon Ball so loved?

[MasenkoHA]

The original run of Dragonball/DBZ is probably the pinnacle of anime storytelling. It's the "Citizen Kane" of anime.

#StopComparingEverythingToCitizenKaneEspeciallyWhenItsCompletelyUnwarranted2021Challenge

okay but we can all agree that Akira Toriyama is the Stanley Kubrick of anime drawing, right?

I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not. If it is I am so sorry. At the chance it’s not, no, Kubrick was an extreme perfectionist. Toriyama gave Super Saiyan’s blonde hair so he wouldn’t have to ink in their hair for Kami sake.

[JulieYBM]

#StopComparingEverythingToCitizenKaneEspeciallyWhenItsCompletelyUnwarranted2021Challenge

okay but we can all agree that Akira Toriyama is the Stanley Kubrick of anime drawing, right?

I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not. If it is I am so sorry. At the chance it’s not, no, Kubrick was an extreme perfectionist. Toriyama gave Super Saiyan’s blonde hair so he wouldn’t have to ink in their hair for Kami sake.

The inking would be done by his assistant, actually. Nevertheless, Toriyama is the same guy who drew the tank from Sand Land despite hating every moment of it.

Also, he didn't abuse women like Kubrick did, so that's one for him.

Then again, he also dodged taxes so fuck him anyway...

[Kunzait_83]

The original run of Dragonball/DBZ is probably the pinnacle of anime storytelling. It's the "Citizen Kane" of anime.

Note: While I'm quoting precita, this goes out to the whole Kanz community/readership as a broader whole, and is not targeting any one user in particular.

Its been my overwhelming experience these past 15+ years now that statements like this tend to usually be said largely by people who meet at least one of more of the following three criteria:

A) Have never even SEEN Citizen Kane.

B) Have no earthly idea why its considered so great and such an important/landmark piece of filmmaking.

C) Don't watch any anime, or media in general, outside of the the same small, tired little pool of mainstream Dragon Ball-like Shonen titles or childhood nerd properties.

Most people who mindlessly parrot things like this only do it for the following reasons:

- They know via pure cultural osmosis that Citizen Kane is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time in a VERY broad, generic sense, without knowing ANY real specifics beyond that (up to and including what the actual plot of the movie is even about).

- They have a very genuine and heartfelt, but incredibly narrow and myopic love for a specific nerd property that they grew up with, and thus want that property to be seen by the rest of the general public in as similarly esteemed a light as something like a Citizen Kane as some form of warped "validation" for themselves.

The problem with this line of thinking are myriad and obvious: these people have ZERO context as to what Citizen Kane as a movie actually is, represents, or why and how it became seen as such a milestone work of art. And furthermore, because of the incredibly narrow scope of their interests, they don't even have enough context to properly compare or gauge their favorite nerd property against other great works in a more broad, general sense, beyond just a direct (and in 99.9% of most cases, absurdly ludicrous) comparison against Kane.

A few pieces of very simple advice to remedy ridiculous and lazy talking points like this.

1) Try maybe actually WATCHING Citizen Kane sometime. No seriously, its AMAZNG how rarely it even OCCURS to so many people to actually just do something as basic as just maybe sitting down to actually WATCH the movie that they're thoughtlessly name dropping in the first place.

2) Do some incredibly basic (like, even just 10, 15 minutes worth of) reading about the context surrounding that movie's making as well as what most movies were like at that point in time. Seriously, it won't take NEARLY as much time and effort as you might think, given how much (in both volume and substance) has been written about movies like Citizen Kane over the decades/generations.

3) Watch and explore more anime and manga that meets at least two or more of the following criteria:

- Is not Shonen (or Shojo for that matter: i.e. it is made to play to a grown up/adult audience)
- Is not made in remotely the same mold as Dragon Ball
- Either wasn't played on Cartoon Network, or otherwise does not at all resemble something that WOULD'VE been played on CN
- Predates the 2000s
- Does not in any way conform to the same generic, tired visual style and beats as most other standard anime or manga (yes, there's a LOT of this out there if you actually take just a few minutes to look)

4) Watch and explore more media overall (movies, books, animation, etc) that is not a part of or in any way tied to something that is either made explicitly for children, or isn't in whatever way tied to some sort of "nerd-friendly" property. Stuff that maybe might've registered to you as "boring" or "not meant for me" when you were say, a small child: chances are, now that you're grown up, its probably going to register or land a great deal differently for you now as an adult.

The more and the further you explore outside of your comfort zone, the more actual knowledge about a given medium of art that you accumulate, the better informed and the better able you are to both accurately assess and cogently express your views about it on a MUCH more broad and well rounded level, and the less prone you'll be to lapsing into exhausted fanboy cliches that don't even have any semblance of actual basis in the history or reality of the medium/works that you're trying to speak about in the first place.

I don't know how else I can put this more constructively and more politely/respectfully.

[MasenkoHA]

Also, he didn't abuse women like Kubrick did, so that's one for him.

...

Oh yeah it is fucked up the mental abuse Stanley Kubrick put Shelley Duvall through just to get a good performance out of her. Rubbing salt in the wound is Duvall’s performance being panned, including being nominated for a razzie which is crap because her performance is really good. I’d argue even better than Jack Nicholson.

[Lord Exor]

The original run of Dragonball/DBZ is probably the pinnacle of anime storytelling. It's the "Citizen Kane" of anime.

Note: While I'm quoting precita, this goes out to the whole Kanz community/readership as a broader whole, and is not targeting any one user in particular.

Its been my overwhelming experience these past 15+ years now that statements like this tend to usually be said largely by people who meet at least one of more of the following three criteria:

A) Have never even SEEN Citizen Kane.

B) Have no earthly idea why its considered so great and such an important/landmark piece of filmmaking.

C) Don't watch any anime, or media in general, outside of the the same small, tired little pool of mainstream Dragon Ball-like Shonen titles or childhood nerd properties.

Most people who mindlessly parrot things like this only do it for the following reasons:

- They know via pure cultural osmosis that Citizen Kane is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time in a VERY broad, generic sense, without knowing ANY real specifics beyond that (up to and including what the actual plot of the movie is even about).

- They have a very genuine and heartfelt, but incredibly narrow and myopic love for a specific nerd property that they grew up with, and thus want that property to be seen by the rest of the general public in as similarly esteemed a light as something like a Citizen Kane as some form of warped "validation" for themselves.

The problem with this line of thinking are myriad and obvious: these people have ZERO context as to what Citizen Kane as a movie actually is, represents, or why and how it became seen as such a milestone work of art. And furthermore, because of the incredibly narrow scope of their interests, they don't even have enough context to properly compare or gauge their favorite nerd property against other great works in a more broad, general sense, beyond just a direct (and in 99.9% of most cases, absurdly ludicrous) comparison against Kane.

A few pieces of very simple advice to remedy ridiculous and lazy talking points like this.

1) Try maybe actually WATCHING Citizen Kane sometime. No seriously, its AMAZNG how rarely it even OCCURS to so many people to actually just do something as basic as just maybe sitting down to actually WATCH the movie that they're thoughtlessly name dropping in the first place.

2) Do some incredibly basic (like, even just 10, 15 minutes worth of) reading about the context surrounding that movie's making as well as what most movies were like at that point in time. Seriously, it won't take NEARLY as much time and effort as you might think, given how much (in both volume and substance) has been written about movies like Citizen Kane over the decades/generations.

3) Watch and explore more anime and manga that meets at least two or more of the following criteria:

- Is not Shonen (or Shojo for that matter: i.e. it is made to play to a grown up/adult audience)
- Is not made in remotely the same mold as Dragon Ball
- Either wasn't played on Cartoon Network, or otherwise does not at all resemble something that WOULD'VE been played on CN
- Predates the 2000s
- Does not in any way conform to the same generic, tired visual style and beats as most other standard anime or manga (yes, there's a LOT of this out there if you actually take just a few minutes to look)

4) Watch and explore more media overall (movies, books, animation, etc) that is not a part of or in any way tied to something that is either made explicitly for children, or isn't in whatever way tied to some sort of "nerd-friendly" property. Stuff that maybe might've registered to you as "boring" or "not meant for me" when you were say, a small child: chances are, now that you're grown up, its probably going to register or land a great deal differently for you now as an adult.

The more and the further you explore outside of your comfort zone, the more actual knowledge about a given medium of art that you accumulate, the better informed and the better able you are to both accurately assess and cogently express your views about it on a MUCH more broad and well rounded level, and the less prone you'll be to lapsing into exhausted fanboy cliches that don't even have any semblance of actual basis in the history or reality of the medium/works that you're trying to speak about in the first place.

I don't know how else I can put this more constructively and more politely/respectfully.

Dang, you're right. Dragon Ball is actually the Dark Souls of anime storytelling.

[Yuji]

Dragon Ball is good.

In fact, Dragon Ball is great.

In fact, Dragon Ball is an artistic masterclass. It doesn't need to be compared to anything else for its own merits to be recognized.

PS: Citizen Kane is not even Orson Welles' best film.

[JulieYBM]

Also, he didn't abuse women like Kubrick did, so that's one for him.

...

Oh yeah it is fucked up the mental abuse Stanley Kubrick put Shelley Duvall through just to get a good performance out of her. Rubbing salt in the wound is Duvall’s performance being panned, including being nominated for a razzie which is crap because her performance is really good. I’d argue even better than Jack Nicholson.

Considering how it's basically just seeing an actually traumatized woman on screen I really don't feel comfortable talking about the creative side of things. There is zero reason to hurt your co-workers, most especially out of some sense of being a #THESPIAN.


Oh, anyway, Citizen Kane is meh. I like the backgrounds more than anything else in the film.

[Yuji]

The Shining gets my number one pick for most overrated film of all time, so it's not like the abuse Shelley Duvall had to suffer through even produced a good film (not that it would have been justified had it been one). Awful movie on all accounts.

[jjgp1112]

snip

I mean, precita made that comment hoping people would react negatively. And furthermore, who on the General forum are these posts even aimed at anymore? Because more often than not, every third thread on here nowadays gets derailed into arguments about stuff that couldn't be further from DB or anything adjacent to it. (and largely because we keep biting on silly driveby posts, probably just to hear ourselves talk [i know that's usually my case at least])

[WittyUsername]

If there is a Stanley Kubrick of anime, it’s not Akira Toriyama. He’s nowhere near as ambitious as Kubrick was, nor does he have anything resembling Kubrick’s attention to detail.

With that said, I’m not convinced that anyone here genuinely believes he’s anything like Kubrick either, unless they’ve never seen one of his movies.

[JulieYBM]

I've only seen Dr. Strangelove. Which, while a hilarious and biting film, is also not exactly unmatched.

[WittyUsername]

I've only seen Dr. Strangelove. Which, while a hilarious and biting film, is also not exactly unmatched.

I wouldn’t consider that to be the greatest movie of all time, or even the best Kubrick movie, but it has a lot more to say than pretty much anything Toriyama has written.

[ABED]

I've only seen Dr. Strangelove. Which, while a hilarious and biting film, is also not exactly unmatched.

I wouldn’t consider that to be the greatest movie of all time, or even the best Kubrick movie, but it has a lot more to say than pretty much anything Toriyama has written.

"Nuclear war" bad is not a whole hell of a lot. My issue with Kubrick is he confused having a message with telling a story. His best movies are the ones with stories and compelling characters.

I'll take DB over his entire body of work because at least it's entertaining. I find his work sterile, by and large. No wonder I don't feel much of anything when I watch Nolan's films - Kubrick was a huge influence.

[JulieYBM]

I've only seen Dr. Strangelove. Which, while a hilarious and biting film, is also not exactly unmatched.

I wouldn’t consider that to be the greatest movie of all time, or even the best Kubrick movie, but it has a lot more to say than pretty much anything Toriyama has written.

Oh, I wouldn't even bother comparing the two.

[MasenkoHA]

I've only seen Dr. Strangelove. Which, while a hilarious and biting film, is also not exactly unmatched.

I wouldn’t consider that to be the greatest movie of all time, or even the best Kubrick movie, but it has a lot more to say than pretty much anything Toriyama has written.

Oh, I wouldn't even bother comparing the two.

Yeah one’s a satire on nuclear war the other is a love letter to 70s Jackie Chan movies and Hollywood

[WittyUsername]

I've only seen Dr. Strangelove. Which, while a hilarious and biting film, is also not exactly unmatched.

I wouldn’t consider that to be the greatest movie of all time, or even the best Kubrick movie, but it has a lot more to say than pretty much anything Toriyama has written.

"Nuclear war" bad is not a whole hell of a lot. My issue with Kubrick is he confused having a message with telling a story. His best movies are the ones with stories and compelling characters.

I'll take DB over his entire body of work because at least it's entertaining. I find his work sterile, by and large. No wonder I don't feel much of anything when I watch Nolan's films - Kubrick was a huge influence.

If you want to simplify what the movie is trying to say as “nuclear war bad”, then you can do the same thing with a lot of other beloved movies. The movie is a satire on Cold War paranoia in general. You can even argue that it has some relevance to this day, since the entire plot is kickstarted by a paranoid conspiracy nut who’s insecure about his own impotence.

Oh, I wouldn’t even bother comparing the two.

Of course. I was just pointing out how silly the idea of comparing Toriyama to Kubrick is. Again though, I doubt anyone here genuinely believes that.

[ABED]

I wouldn’t consider that to be the greatest movie of all time, or even the best Kubrick movie, but it has a lot more to say than pretty much anything Toriyama has written.

"Nuclear war" bad is not a whole hell of a lot. My issue with Kubrick is he confused having a message with telling a story. His best movies are the ones with stories and compelling characters.

I'll take DB over his entire body of work because at least it's entertaining. I find his work sterile, by and large. No wonder I don't feel much of anything when I watch Nolan's films - Kubrick was a huge influence.

If you want to simplify what the movie is trying to say as “nuclear war bad”, then you can do the same thing with a lot of other beloved movies. The movie is a satire on Cold War paranoia in general. You can even argue that it has some relevance to this day, since the entire plot is kickstarted by a paranoid conspiracy nut who’s insecure about his own impotence.

Oh, I wouldn’t even bother comparing the two.

Of course. I was just pointing out how silly the idea of comparing Toriyama to Kubrick is. Again though, I doubt anyone here genuinely believes that.

And? Of course you can do the same thing with a lot of other beloved movies. Saying it's a satire doesn't make it good or funny. I don't buy it when anyone says it's funny. What are they laughing at? The movie's message is simple and straightforward. That isn't my big issue. He has NOTHING of substance to say on the issue, and he doesn't do it in a compelling or entertaining way. Any story must first entertain otherwise it's the wrong medium. I get it, he took a true story and more or less didn't change things around and showed how absurd it is. My issue is he took that approach and it wasn't funny and therefor didn't prove his thesis.

You can compare anyone to anyone else. No one is beyond reproach and you can easily compare and contrast how successful at their respective goals two artists are even if they are vastly different. Toriyama wasn't out to make something deep and substantive, just entertaining so he could put food on the table. In that goal, he succeeded spectacularly.

[WittyUsername]

"Nuclear war" bad is not a whole hell of a lot. My issue with Kubrick is he confused having a message with telling a story. His best movies are the ones with stories and compelling characters.

I'll take DB over his entire body of work because at least it's entertaining. I find his work sterile, by and large. No wonder I don't feel much of anything when I watch Nolan's films - Kubrick was a huge influence.

If you want to simplify what the movie is trying to say as “nuclear war bad”, then you can do the same thing with a lot of other beloved movies. The movie is a satire on Cold War paranoia in general. You can even argue that it has some relevance to this day, since the entire plot is kickstarted by a paranoid conspiracy nut who’s insecure about his own impotence.

Oh, I wouldn’t even bother comparing the two.

Of course. I was just pointing out how silly the idea of comparing Toriyama to Kubrick is. Again though, I doubt anyone here genuinely believes that.

And? Of course you can do the same thing with a lot of other beloved movies. Saying it's a satire doesn't make it good or funny. I don't buy it when anyone says it's funny. What are they laughing at? The movie's message is simple and straightforward. That isn't my big issue. He has NOTHING of substance to say on the issue, and he doesn't do it in a compelling or entertaining way. Any story must first entertain otherwise it's the wrong medium.

You can compare anyone to anyone else. No one is beyond reproach and you can easily compare and contrast how successful at their respective goals two artists are even if they are vastly different.

The movie isn’t particularly funny, but I’m pretty sure that’s not why it’s regarded as a classic. It’s considered a dark comedy because of the absurdity of the situation, not because it has a bunch of funny gags.

People are free to compare anything they want. I was just saying that calling Toriyama the “Stanley Kubrick of anime” would be a ridiculous notion.

[ABED]

I know what a dark comedy is. But a good dark comedy should have SOME laughs otherwise it's just dark.

yeah, I think the comparison is silly for as much as I don't like most of Kubrick's work, he has a sense of integration and a meticulousness that's obvious, whereas Toriyama is clearly making it all up as he goes along.

[jjgp1112]

I know what a dark comedy is. But a good dark comedy should have SOME laughs otherwise it's just dark.

yeah, I think the comparison is silly for as much as I don't like most of Kubrick's work, he has a sense of integration and a meticulousness that's obvious, whereas Toriyama is clearly making it all up as he goes along.

Which is why I knew it was clearly intended as a joke and have no idea why it's produced such a discussion