"What's Wrong with Dragon Ball Z"

Stan1992 · Post by **Stan1992** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 3:35 pm

What's wrong ?
Well, it's over !

Post by **desirecampbell** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 6:38 pm

Anyone else read the 'part two'?

http://anime.ign.com/articles/866/866063p1.html

Artificial Human #887 · Post by **Artificial Human #887** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 6:51 pm

After reading the second part of the article... meh. It felt really forced, like they had to scrounge for things to criticize. While I do understand a chunk of that, I don't think it was prevalent enough to garner an entire article. Focus on males, really? It's a show geared towards boys! While it is loved by male and female alike, there's no question that Z was a show about action and brute strength. If I wanted a show about female protagonists, I'd watch one.

The obsessive fanboys thing made me laugh. Just because fanboyism/fangirlism exists in every fandom, be it music, anime, video games, etc. That's just how it is. I know they said it wasn't DBZ-specific... but since it exists in every fandim, it really didn't need a spot in this article.

jjgp1112 · Post by **jjgp1112** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 6:55 pm

desirecampbell wrote:Anyone else read the 'part two'?

http://anime.ign.com/articles/866/866063p1.html

Okay, the second part is ridiculous. He didn't really do much to defend the claim that Goku and the villians are one-dimensional. He just described the characteristics and that's it. And the racism and sexism claims were ridiculous and more of personal thing for him.

Raki · Post by **Raki** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 6:55 pm

Was there really any difference with parts 2 and 1? Decent article, but we have all heard what the author is saying.

ect5150 · Post by **ect5150** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:31 pm

jjgp1112 wrote:The flashbas were annoying during the Freeza saga. There were 3 particular scenes that they did about a billion flashbacks for during that saga: Freeza destroying Planet Vegeta, Piccolo merging with Nail, and Goku going SSJ.

Interestingly enough, I kind of love the flashbacks. But that love was basically built from having to initially watch the series from the old AnimeLabs copies. Back then, before FUNI brought it over to the US, there just weren't that many ways to get ahold of lots of episodes, so I came to appreciate them as they gave insight to a previous part of the story I couldn't really attain at the time.

Kendamu · Post by **Kendamu** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:36 pm

Rocketman wrote:Everything wrong with Dragonball can be traced back to one word - filler.

I agree. I know they were talking about the anime, but most of the arguments made I countered in my head as, "Not if you read the manga." The other ones were, "Blame the Japanese fanbase," and, "It's Shonen."

Calcaneus · Post by **Calcaneus** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:46 pm

That was awesome, sometimes I need to read something like that about something I really like, mostly to keep my grounded.

I was thinking about the "Boys > Girls" point before I read part II, it definitely would have been interesting to see a female hero/villian that can seriously keep up with the guys that wasn't #18.

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:02 pm

Calcaneus wrote:I was thinking about the "Boys > Girls" point before I read part II, it definitely would have been interesting to see a female hero/villian that can seriously keep up with the guys that wasn't #18.

"They should've had a woman who could keep up except the one that did."

Post by **desirecampbell** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:05 pm

Rocketman wrote:
Calcaneus wrote:I was thinking about the "Boys > Girls" point before I read part II, it definitely would have been interesting to see a female hero/villian that can seriously keep up with the guys that wasn't #18.
"They should've had a woman who could keep up except the one that did."

My thoughts exactly. #18 was a strong female character, for a time at least. And dropping out of the show because she's not as powerful as others is simply just what happens for 90% of DBZ characters.

Onikage725 · Post by **Onikage725** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:56 pm

desirecampbell wrote:
Rocketman wrote:
Calcaneus wrote:I was thinking about the "Boys > Girls" point before I read part II, it definitely would have been interesting to see a female hero/villian that can seriously keep up with the guys that wasn't #18.
"They should've had a woman who could keep up except the one that did."

My thoughts exactly. #18 was a strong female character, for a time at least. And dropping out of the show because she's not as powerful as others is simply just what happens for 90% of DBZ characters.

Meaning, people not of Saiyan blood. And eventually, people not named Goku or Vegeta.

Calcaneus · Post by **Calcaneus** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:35 pm

Rocketman wrote:
"They should've had a woman who could keep up except the one that did."

Yeah, my wording was terrible. I was trying to comment on how in this huge epic series, there was only really one female who wasn't useless in battle.

tarrin4ever · Post by **tarrin4ever** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:30 pm

Well that article was pretty pointless.

I see where Mike is coming from in that IGN is probably writing this stuff for the casual anime fan who would otherwise be disinterested in hearing about DB. Though I don't see why anyone without an invested interest in Dragonball would give a crap to begin with. I don't need someone to tell me why a show I don't like is crappy.

Not to mention the show has been out over nearly 15 years now. You'd think one would critique the show with this in mind.

I don't agree though that this article was a labour of love from some DB fan on the IGN pay roll. It just seems like another article to grab attention from the anime fans who otherwise could care less what IGN has to say about anime.

Too many of IGN's anime articles feel like they were written by someone who really doesn't know what the heck they're talking about or perhaps had a vague understanding beforehand and thought they could pull off an article. They'd next hop over to wikipedia and message boards to fill in the blanks they need to fill 2-4 pages.

Their article on One Piece suddenly comes to mind.

While I don't particularly feel up to it, one could look at the articles paragraph by paragraph and more or less discredit a good percentage of what it's saying.

Maybe this article will tickle the fancy of some curious Naruto fan, or the frequent gamers visiting the site. But as a DB fan, I think it was pretty crappy.

EDIT:: Oh yeah. What's wrong with Dragonball Z? Filler.

Onikage725 · Post by **Onikage725** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:27 pm

I think the most spot on thing the article mentioned, outside of the poor dubbing standards, was the negative impacts on other shows. Most notably filler and the impact on Naruto. I was catching up on the more recent Shippuuden episodes recently, and in one episode they actually flashed back to a scene (and not a terribly pointless one) from like 10 minutes earlier in the same episode.
Such travesty is the bastard spawn of DBZ.

Velasa · Post by **Velasa** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:41 pm

The second one wasn't really as interesting as the first one. Most of the arguments apply to almost every shonen anime from the time. Are all the articles they're putting forward on different shows this time going to have the exact same arguments?

I've just gotta make a note about Popo though. Popo's badass. And he's styled like a djin (a genie, like with flying carpet and magic and stuff), and the personal confidant, defender, and closest friend of God himself. He's the only guy Goku fights who he never ends up getting the best of. So I really don't see him as a horrible stereotype. As for the occasional random ethnic characters who show up? Look at a crowd shot some time. Pretty much all of the background/random humans look ridiculous in Toriyama's work. Add in how old the show is, and it's no more stereotyped than any other cartoon from the 80's. It's only more recently that it's become a requirement in US cartoons to have a prominent ethnic character, and the stuff we grew up on had minorities deeply underrepresented.

I'll give him the note about the females, and Son being a typical male hero (though again, these pertain to all shonen shows). But the race issue doesn't have enough meat to warrant a special mention, and the fanboy note is just dumb because dbz doesn't have a madical seperate world when it comes to fans being protective of what they love. DBZ just had a large fanbase back in the day.

Kid Trunks · Post by **Kid Trunks** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 12:30 am

I never saw anything racist with regards to Popo. He's not even human after all.

Actually, the fact that Ernie Hudson is playing Popo will probably only play into this more.

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 4:32 am

Velasa wrote:I'll give him the note about the females

I won't, unless he goes and bitches about Sailor Moon not having enough guy characters.

Velasa · Post by **Velasa** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:07 am

Actually in Sailor Moon there's a lot of them. There's Diamond and his knight guys, there's the love interest main guy and some other high level male enemies. There's the Starlights if you're going by the manga. Can I recite all of the particulars of what they do? No, because I get this info from a friend who loves the show. But there are over a half dozen male characters who play important protagonist and antagonist roles consistently through the series, as opposed to DBZ where we’ve got 18, Chi Chi and Ranchi who fight. Note how quickly the list dissolves in involvement. Even if we dig through the movies that adds a total sum of Zangula. Does this keep me from enjoying the show? No, I love my boys. But I am aware of it, and as a girl it bothers me when I think about it too much.

Adamant · Post by **Adamant** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:08 am

If you count the villains, Sailor Moon has a much more equal guy:girl ratio, though. The first series had (counting cats and villains) 6 girls and 2 boys versus 1 woman and 4 men. Sailor Moon R had 7 girls and 2 boys versus 6 women and 5 men (and a tree).

But yeah, it's a shounen series. Unless it's in the harem genre, the guys will always be in the majority, since the series is aimed towards young boys, and it's easier for them to identify with the guys.

Rocketman · Post by **Rocketman** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:25 am

Velasa wrote:Actually in Sailor Moon there's a lot of them. There's Diamond and his knight guys, there's the love interest main guy and some other high level male enemies. There's the Starlights if you're going by the manga. Can I recite all of the particulars of what they do? No, because I get this into from a friend who loves the show. But there are a lot of male characters who play important protagonist and antagonist roles consistently through the series

Shows what happens when you don't pay attention to the plot, I guess.

(In my defense, those skirts are distractingly short.)

Fine then - Azumanga Daioh.

as opposed to DBZ where we’ve got 18, Chi Chi and Ranchi who fight. Note how quickly the list dissolves in involvement. Even if we dig through the movies that adds a total sum of Zangula.

Fasha and Videl too, and Pan if you feel like counting her.

Does this keep me from enjoying the show? No, I love my boys. But I am aware of it, and as a girl it bothers me when I think about it too much.

If it makes you feel better, Piccolo and the Nameks could be considered female since they lay eggs.