Is it fair to say that Dragon Ball is no longer marketed to kids in North America?

[GreatSaiyaJeff]

I feel 2013 was the last year it was truly marketed to kids. It left both Nick and CW kids Vortex thing around that time. It was back on CN/Adult Swim the following year. Showing the Kai series unaltered which was nice not to see the monstrosity of Blue Popo any more.

[Danfun64]

the Dragon Ball anime's often gotten off lightly from the BBFC; the first 74 episodes of DBZ (up until Ginyu's defeat) are only PGs, as is DBS Broly and most of Super (which was later heavily redubbed and edited for TV).

What do your mean, "heavily" redubbed? I was under the impression that the changes in dialogue in edited Funi Super were on par with the changes in dialogue in Nicktoons Kai vs uncut Funi Kai (meaning anything considered objectionable is changed, possibly some other things for no reason, but most of it is the same)

[LostTimeLord]

What do your mean, "heavily" redubbed? I was under the impression that the changes in dialogue in edited Funi Super were on par with the changes in dialogue in Nicktoons Kai vs uncut Funi Kai

I'm speaking about DBS in comparison to other kid's shows moreso than Dragon Ball in general. Pretty much every episode has been censored in some way for broadcast, which you wouldn't normally expect from an already PG-rated show being picked up by kid's TV.

[Kunzait_83]

Death Note just seems to be completely lacking in nearly all the qualities that you would associate with a shonen series. It’s not about friendship, adventure or overcoming adversity. It’s a story about a narcissistic psychopath with a God complex who uses a book to give people heart attacks. Does simply having fantasy elements make something kid friendly by default in Japan?

First of all, the idea that elements like friendship and adventure are Shonen-specific or defining characteristics is, in and of itself, a 100% false premise. This idea is absolutely rooted in the wave of post-Dragon Ball Shonen of the late 90s onward, which while they've been farily prevalent for most of the last 20 years, are in no way historically indicative of Shonen as a broader category.

The Drifting Classroom for example was a classic Shonen horror manga about a school classroom that is timewarped outside of our reality and is left stranded in another dimension, whereupon the students are forced to learn survival and fend for themselves as their teachers & adult guardians are driven slowly insane by their new surroundings.

Rather than syrupy themes of friendship and bubbly adventure hijinks, It is a starkly dread-fueled horror manga fraught with feverish paranoia and an almost quasi-Lord of the Flies-like tone, and in NO way resembles what most would today think of as Shonen. And yet, its still one of the hallmark classic/iconic Shonen manga of the 1970s and indeed was mainly written and marketed to very young kids in its day.

And its not hard to see why: the main protagonists are all schoolchildren who have to learn self-reliance after the adults charged to look after them are rendered totally useless, and in some cases outright hostile to the kids. The children are portrayed as strong and resilient while the adults are weak and easily corrupted: its very much in some ways a child's power fantasy at its core, regardless of the much darker tone and subject matter.

Death Note is in a similar tradition, being about a teenage schoolkid who comes upon a notebook that gives him godlike powers that corrupts him morally as he abuses it. While it certainly delves into weightier themes than more fluffy Shonen along the lines of Naruto and One Piece, Death Note is still very much "baby's first murder thriller". An actual Seinen version of Death Note would likely be FAR more steeped in ethical complexity, and Light likely wouldn't be such a clear-cut, obvious sociopath right out the gate, and the reader would probably be asked MUCH more difficult and challenging moral questions every step of the way.

Once again, and I know I'm a broken record about this, but I think its long been beyond clear and fair to say that most of this forum as a broader collective has mostly ZERO clue how to engage with or judge a work that ISN'T made for children in any way, and most of this community simply doesn't fundamentally understand what really separates something that's written down to a child's level versus something written for an actual mature adult audience.

And no, its not because most folks in this community are somehow stupid or unintelligent. Not at all. Rather its simply due to many, many, many years of a continued lack of significant cumulative experience and time spent really delving all that deep into exploring and immersing yourselves in a great deal of more challenging adult media that's out there, and too much time overall spent wallowing and marinating in children's entertainment.

When all of your formative and young adult years are spent growing up in an environment full of shitty, juvenile media advertised as "for adults" and your only juxtaposition against that are relatively more "sophisticated" children's shows, that kind of environment and set of experiences will instill in folks a totally misguided, skewed, and fucked up barometer for what's appropriate for children vs adults, and what's genuinely sophisticated versus merely presenting a narrow veneer of sophistication. When in reality there is certainly, and indeed HAS ALWAYS BEEN, a whole vast UNIVERSE full of other alternatives out there that has always existed beyond the stifling boundaries of crappy television animation.

The critical gauge for understanding these key distinctions has always been COMPLETELY and hopelessly broken within this community (and in many others like it), and its a topic that requires its own thread and its own deep dive and extended breakdown into really hashing out what these crucial distinctions are.

To put it in grossly simple terms though: Shonen is in NO WAY WHATSOEVER marked or defined by granular genre specifics (like "friendship" "adventure" and "lightheartedness"). Shonen is PURELY an age demographic denoting the target audience for the work, and nothing more: and the same goes of course for Shojo, Seinen, and Josei obviously.

And furthermore, works made for and written down to a child's level can VERY much still contain dark and mature subject matter and even more graphic content, while works for adults will often contain the same but pushed to a MUCH further extreme as well as given a much greater, substantial degree of closer examination and nuance by comparison. And the former in NO WAY lessens the fact that the work is still, when all's said and done, ultimately made for and written to the level of a child audience.

This of course is also to say that the extent and degrees of both these factors can vary WILDLY, especially when taking quality level and talent of the author/creator into consideration: i.e. a poorly conceived and executed work that was intended for adults can easily come across as grossly more simplistic and stupid than a well executed and thoughtful children's work. But that doesn't however therefore mean that on a more broad, wide-ranging level that adult works are therefore inherently more simplistic and less complex than children's works overall on a larger aggregate. Generally speaking, the reality is much more often quite the reverse.

[WittyUsername]

Death Note just seems to be completely lacking in nearly all the qualities that you would associate with a shonen series. It’s not about friendship, adventure or overcoming adversity. It’s a story about a narcissistic psychopath with a God complex who uses a book to give people heart attacks. Does simply having fantasy elements make something kid friendly by default in Japan?

First of all, the idea that elements like friendship and adventure are Shonen-specific or defining characteristics is, in and of itself, a 100% false premise. This idea is absolutely rooted in the wave of post-Dragon Ball Shonen of the late 90s onward, which while they've been farily prevalent for most of the last 20 years, are in no way historically indicative of Shonen as a broader category.

The Drifting Classroom for example was a classic Shonen horror manga about a school classroom that is timewarped outside of our reality and is left stranded in another dimension, whereupon the students are forced to learn survival and fend for themselves as their teachers & adult guardians are driven slowly insane by their new surroundings.

Rather than syrupy themes of friendship and bubbly adventure hijinks, It is a starkly dread-fueled horror manga fraught with feverish paranoia and an almost quasi-Lord of the Flies-like tone, and in NO way resembles what most would today think of as Shonen. And yet, its still one of the hallmark classic/iconic Shonen manga of the 1970s and indeed was mainly written and marketed to very young kids in its day.

And its not hard to see why: the main protagonists are all schoolchildren who have to learn self-reliance after the adults charged to look after them are rendered totally useless, and in some cases outright hostile to the kids. The children are portrayed as strong and resilient while the adults are weak and easily corrupted: its very much in some ways a child's power fantasy at its core, regardless of the much darker tone and subject matter.

Death Note is in a similar tradition, being about a teenage schoolkid who comes upon a notebook that gives him godlike powers that corrupts him morally as he abuses it. While it certainly delves into weightier themes than more fluffy Shonen along the lines of Naruto and One Piece, Death Note is still very much "baby's first murder thriller". An actual Seinen version of Death Note would likely be FAR more steeped in ethical complexity, and Light likely wouldn't be such a clear-cut, obvious sociopath right out the gate, and the reader would probably be asked MUCH more difficult and challenging moral questions every step of the way.

Once again, and I know I'm a broken record about this, but I think its long been beyond clear and fair to say that most of this forum as a broader collective has mostly ZERO clue how to engage with or judge a work that ISN'T made for children in any way, and most of this community simply doesn't fundamentally understand what really separates something that's written down to a child's level versus something written for an actual mature adult audience.

And no, its not because most folks in this community are somehow stupid or unintelligent. Not at all. Rather its simply due to many, many, many years of a continued lack of significant cumulative experience and time spent really delving all that deep into exploring and immersing yourselves in a great deal of more challenging adult media that's out there, and too much time overall spent wallowing and marinating in children's entertainment.

When all of your formative and young adult years are spent growing up in an environment full of shitty, juvenile media advertised as "for adults" and your only juxtaposition against that are relatively more "sophisticated" children's shows, that kind of environment and set of experiences will instill in folks a totally misguided, skewed, and fucked up barometer for what's appropriate for children vs adults, and what's genuinely sophisticated versus merely presenting a narrow veneer of sophistication. When in reality there is certainly, and indeed HAS ALWAYS BEEN, a whole vast UNIVERSE full of other alternatives out there that has always existed beyond the stifling boundaries of crappy television animation.

The critical gauge for understanding these key distinctions has always been COMPLETELY and hopelessly broken within this community (and in many others like it), and its a topic that requires its own thread and its own deep dive and extended breakdown into really hashing out what these crucial distinctions are.

To put it in grossly simple terms though: Shonen is in NO WAY WHATSOEVER marked or defined by granular genre specifics (like "friendship" "adventure" and "lightheartedness"). Shonen is PURELY an age demographic denoting the target audience for the work, and nothing more: and the same goes of course for Shojo, Seinen, and Josei obviously.

And furthermore, works made for and written down to a child's level can VERY much still contain dark and mature subject matter and even more graphic content, while works for adults will often contain the same but pushed to a MUCH further extreme as well as given a much greater, substantial degree of closer examination and nuance by comparison. And the former in NO WAY lessens the fact that the work is still, when all's said and done, ultimately made for and written to the level of a child audience.

This of course is also to say that the extent and degrees of both these factors can vary WILDLY, especially when taking quality level and talent of the author/creator into consideration: i.e. a poorly conceived and executed work that was intended for adults can easily come across as grossly more simplistic and stupid than a well executed and thoughtful children's work. But that doesn't however therefore mean that on a more broad, wide-ranging level that adult works are therefore inherently more simplistic and less complex than children's works overall on a larger aggregate. Generally speaking, the reality is much more often quite the reverse.

Are these long rants really necessary? Assuming that I almost exclusively “consume” children’s entertainment is a pretty bizarre judgment to make about someone you don’t even know. I hardly even watch anime in general, shonen or otherwise, but I have watched a number of art house movies from studios like A24. In fact, one of the last movies I saw in theaters was Uncut Gems. As a matter of fact, I’m not even a fan of something like Death Note. In fact, I haven’t even watched that much of it. I just know what it’s about.

I guess it’s good to know that shonen can apparently comprise a wide variety of material, but since I’m not well versed in Japanese media in general, I hope it’s at least understandable why I wasn’t aware that there are no real requirements for what makes something a shonen series.

[Zestanor]

Once again, and I know I'm a broken record about this, but I think its long been beyond clear and fair to say that most of this forum as a broader collective has mostly ZERO clue how to engage with or judge a work that ISN'T made for children in any way, and most of this community simply doesn't fundamentally understand what really separates something that's written down to a child's level versus something written for an actual mature adult audience.

And no, its not because most folks in this community are somehow stupid or unintelligent. Not at all. Rather its simply due to many, many, many years of a continued lack of significant cumulative experience and time spent really delving all that deep into exploring and immersing yourselves in a great deal of more challenging adult media that's out there, and too much time overall spent wallowing and marinating in children's entertainment.

Not because they're unintelligent but because I'm more cultured than they are. Most adults just watch sports and porn and the occasional action movie you know. If people want to make a hobby out of analyzing a medium not in those categories, regardless of how shitty it is, that's cool, no? And media "for adults" is just as shitty and uncultured as children's media. If your thesis is that honing in exclusively on shonen anime from one's childhood, or media with similar themes, makes you less civilized, cool, but who cares.

[Adamant]

An actual Seinen version of Death Note would likely be FAR more steeped in ethical complexity, and Light likely wouldn't be such a clear-cut, obvious sociopath right out the gate, and the reader would probably be asked MUCH more difficult and challenging moral questions every step of the way.

Yep. In fact, Ohba himself has mentioned that the reason Death Note was written for a shonen magazine was because he just wanted to write a detective thriller and not delve into the kind of thematics about ethics and morality he would have been very much expected to explore had he written for a more adult audience.

[Kunzait_83]

Are these long rants really necessary? Assuming that I almost exclusively “consume” children’s entertainment is a pretty bizarre judgment to make about someone you don’t even know.

Yet again: my comments regarding the media habits of the broader community at large weren't singling you out specifically, or any one specific individual. My comments on the community as a whole were about exactly that: the community as a broader whole. If I wanted to single you out, I would have called you out by name and made it 1000% crystal clear that I was in fact directing my comments about media diets specifically at you, WittyUsername.

Regardless, my apologies for not making that part of what I said more clear.

[WittyUsername]

Are these long rants really necessary? Assuming that I almost exclusively “consume” children’s entertainment is a pretty bizarre judgment to make about someone you don’t even know.

Yet again: my comments regarding the media habits of the broader community at large weren't singling you out specifically, or any one specific individual. My comments on the community as a whole were about exactly that: the community as a broader whole. If I wanted to single you out, I would have called you out by name and made it 1000% crystal clear that I was in fact directing my comments about media diets specifically at you, WittyUsername.

I believe you, but in my defense, your comment did directly quote one of my posts, and this is a thread that I started, so hopefully my confusion can at least be seen as somewhat understandable.

[Kunzait_83]

I believe you, but in my defense, your comment did directly quote one of my posts, and this is a thread that I started, so hopefully my confusion can at least be seen as somewhat understandable.

That's totally fair. Once more, I apologize for not making that distinction more clear in my original post.

[JulieYBM]

To speak generally, I do feel like there's a loud of vocal users who don't really learn about the world outside of their geek hobbies that use the forum. Yeah, I'm sure some of them are just kids--well, compare to my age--are probably just kids but that's still a noticeable drag on having well-rounded conversations backed up by personal life experiences and knowledge outside of a couple of cartoons.

[WittyUsername]

On another note, one thing I forgot to mention is that when I saw Broly in theaters, I seem to recall that the audience pretty much exclusively consisted of adults, or at least older teens. Keep in mind that the movie was only rated PG, just like pretty much every animated movie nowadays.

[Kunzait_83]

Not because they're unintelligent but because I'm more cultured than they are.

...what?

Most adults just watch sports and porn and the occasional action movie you know.

Everything about this is both totally untrue and exceedingly reductive. Obviously sports, porn, and action movies remain insanely popular (and there's nothing that's in any way inherently wrong with any of those things for that matter), but those hardly come close to encompassing the full breadth and spectrum of adult-aimed media that's out there. Not by a long shot.

If people want to make a hobby out of analyzing a medium not in those categories, regardless of how shitty it is, that's cool, no?

Again: "adult media" encompasses VASTLY more than those three categories (sports, porn, and action movies). There's drama, there's horror, there's social commentary, there's documentaries, there's dark comedy, there's noir: and those are just a few simple, broad categories, which are applicable to any number of mediums from film to literature. And yes, also animation and comic books as well.

And media "for adults" is just as shitty and uncultured as children's media.

Some of it is or can be, sure. Absolutely. But if you're coming from the (again, ridiculously absurd and frankly stupid) premise that adult media is largely defined by some dumb action movies or whatnot, then you haven't the foggiest clue as to what it is you're talking about to begin with.

Non-children's media encompasses a vast array of authors and creators from David Mamet to William Faulkner to John Steinbeck, Oscar Wilde, Emily Bronte, Harper Lee, Alice Walker, Shirley Jackson, Octavia E. Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, Jean Cocteau, Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Spike Lee, and on and on and on and on.

And while children's media has some genuinely great and impressive standout works to their credit... even the very finest children's book or film or TV show couldn't possibly be put in the same league or realm as the very best of what is made primarily to challenge an adult audience.

You're simply not going to find an equivalent to a TV show like The Wire, or a book like Sartre's Nausea, or a film like Parasite within the realm of even the very best children's media out there. The very nature of writing to a child's level is inherently self-limiting, by definition. The target audience has yet to fully mature or fully develop.

If your thesis is that honing in exclusively on shonen anime from one's childhood, or media with similar themes, makes you less civilized, cool, but who cares.

I have no idea what the fuck "civilized" is even supposed to mean in this context: but in either case, this is not at all remotely what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that honing in exclusively on children's media is innately self-crippling (to pretty severe extremes) to one's ability to judge or gauge the full spectrum of what is sophisticated storytelling, what constitutes deeper themes, or hell, even how to fully understand or comprehend basic historic context for most forms of media in general: up to and including the very forms of children's media that so many folks here put so much ridiculous emphasis on to begin with.

In other words, by not understanding the broader precedents set by adult media across a much wider spectrum, that in itself will innately and inherently limit one's ability to even properly analyze or critique children's media in their proper context. Even dumb, fluffy children's media like Dragon Ball.

To speak generally, I do feel like there's a loud of vocal users who don't really learn about the world outside of their geek hobbies that use the forum.

This is pretty much exactly what I've been talking about right along now whenever these sorts of topics come up. While these sorts of folks certainly don't encompass every last solitary individual person that posts here, they nonetheless have made up the overwhelming majority of this forum's userbase almost since the very beginning. I myself started picking up on this as early on as 2005/2006 or thereabouts.

Yeah, I'm sure some of them are just kids--well, compare to my age--are probably just kids

While some obviously are, you'd be plenty shocked and more than a bit disturbed at how many of them are actually fairly grown adults over the age of 20. I certainly was plenty stunned and taken aback by this way back when years and years ago when I started to get a much better sense at the depth of this issue and how severe it actually was (both around here and in plenty of other corners of the internet & anime fandom at large).

[JulieYBM]

To speak generally, I do feel like there's a loud of vocal users who don't really learn about the world outside of their geek hobbies that use the forum.

This is pretty much exactly what I've been talking about right along now whenever these sorts of topics come up. While these sorts of folks certainly don't encompass every last solitary individual person that posts here, they nonetheless have made up the overwhelming majority of this forum's userbase almost since the very beginning. I myself started picking up on this as early on as 2005/2006 or thereabouts.

Yeah, I'm sure some of them are just kids--well, compare to my age--are probably just kids

While some obviously are, you'd be plenty shocked and more than a bit disturbed at how many of them are actually fairly grown adults over the age of 20. I certainly was plenty stunned and taken aback by this way back when years and years ago when I started to get a much better sense at the depth of this issue and how severe it actually was (both around here and in plenty of other corners of the internet & anime fandom at large).

I would think so, but it's also hard to tell because so many of the users just...don't use their real-life experiences when discussing their views. I'm constantly left wondering why someone would say something that anyone who works a job and suffers through basic trials of life would not say. It makes me wonder if they have jobs or are just brainwashed not to connect the dots between their hobbies and their lives.

[ABED]

I don't know why anyone past a certain age wouldn't mix things up and stories aimed at adults. I like cartoons but I also like stories for adults. I fear some think the latter implies stuffy when that's simply not the case. There's so much great stuff out there that I'm sure there's something more mature that will suit their taste if they try something new and I think they'll be happier for it.

[Zestanor]

Yeah so at @Kunzait I disagree with your point of view almost down to the letter, and I’m not even that in to TV/media. I’m not much of a reader either, though I wish I were, so I’m not holding myself up on a pedestal or anything.

Here’s what you are doing, from my perspective. Because of your apparently extensive knowledge of media, high brow, low brow, everything in between, you are psychoanalyzing “the majority of the people here” which may or may not be valid... but it comes off as judging them as uncultured/uncivilized. Or at the very least, it comes off as you flexing on all us rubes.

I suppose there’s a valid point to be made somewhere in there, but you need to try harder to not make it sound like “I’m glad I’m not like thou simpletons” so that your point isn’t lost on us. You haven’t contributed here as much as you used to, so I can understand not feeling the social pressure to give critiques politely. For real though, your rant reads like a shitpost, so I’m blocked from even beginning to give it a sympathetic reading.

[Mister_Popo]

Here’s what you are doing, from my perspective. Because of your apparently extensive knowledge of media, high brow, low brow, everything in between, you are psychoanalyzing “the majority of the people here” which may or may not be valid... but it comes off as judging them as uncultured/uncivilized. Or at the very least, it comes off as you flexing on all us rubes.

I mean.
We are just a bunch of guys talking about DB, in my opinion it's very difficult to make exact psychological profiles based on DB-based discussions alone that are moreover by the internet. Someone can only be watching shounen in his free time without any 'descent mature content', but still be far more intellectual or mature superior than some other guys that are trying to read books they don't even understand.

DB is aimed at a pretty broad audience nowadays, the fact you aren't reading Sartre doesn't mean one cannot have a refined or substantial worldvision in general.

[JulieYBM]

It's plenty easy to make psychological judgments based off of the discussions we have on forums. It's why it's so frustrating for me, a queer gal, to post on a forum where people think the Ess-Jay-Dubyas are coming to ruin their shitty Japanese children's cartoon, where people think real experiences don't influence how we create and consume media and where people--in other threads--try to gaslight and mansplain women offering banally cited commentary on fandom.

[Locust]

Media creators are often told to consume media that's outside the genre they want to create for - so a horror creator might watch a lot of romance films, action, etc.
It keeps you from stagnating - in the same way I think that if you want to do a lot of media analysis, it's important to consume all sorts of media.

No you don't have to read Sartre, Kant or whatever - but the more you go outside your comfort zone, the more you learn, the more you begin to see different sorts of viewpoints - particularly with media that challenges your moral core. Your world gets just a little bit bigger.
You might even start to see new things in beloved franchises, due to exposure to new media.

But like, that's just my opinion. If all you want to do is read shonen manga, you do you - I ain't your parent, as long as you're not hurting yourself or others, then whatever. I don't get it, but everyone is different

[Zestanor]

It's plenty easy to make psychological judgments based off of the discussions we have on forums. It's why it's so frustrating for me, a queer gal, to post on a forum where people think the Ess-Jay-Dubyas are coming to ruin their shitty Japanese children's cartoon, where people think real experiences don't influence how we create and consume media and where people--in other threads--try to gaslight and mansplain women offering banally cited commentary on fandom.

I guess that last thing was directed at me lol. That’s me, manspreader-in-chief. I’ll do it again: you used “banally” wrong.

No but I suppose I agree with you that some of us are more inclined to express our political leanings on public forums like this, and such people can be more easily “psychoanalyzed” as you said, for their general worldviews. But that’s not really what the other poster or I meant by psychoanalyze. If you check out Kunzait’s long post, you’ll see he more or less determined that most of this community is incompetent to analyze “shonen” because of something or other. I don’t think the argument really deserves my reproducing it here so go take a look at it if you like.