MistareFusion's Dragon Ball Dissection! (Updated 4/21/25!)

[FoolsGil]

Didn't Toriyama himself say Krillin was the strongest?

I don't think Toriyama is the best person to talk to or take quotes from, on his own series.

[Gaffer Tape]

(Every) Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans - Dragon Ball Dissection

Whew. This one was very difficult to create because I had far less prior knowledge of this than with most things I've covered on DBD. I even had less knowledge going into it than I thought it did. It was definitely a learning experience for me. And I wouldn't have been able to without the help of the people you'll see in the description and end credits. I hope you guys learn as much as I did!

[Gray Riders]

There was so much conflicting information on this in the early days I'm glad you dug deep and cleared the whole thing up.

Oddly, I'm sort of a mirror of your experience here; I've never seen any of the animations based off this, but I own the Famicom RPG (and all the other Z card rpgs from that era) so I played this one for a bit (I...was not a fan, even as someone who liked most of the others despite their flaws).

"For some reason this was a big deal despite him being a completely boring blank slate."
I get the impression there's a bit of a nostalgic following in Japan for the old DBZ card RPGs (there's actually several references to them in Xenoverse 2, for instance); that might have given his inclusion in a new game a bit of attention.

[Matches Malone]

I give the staff at Toei major credit for being able to do all they did with DB back in the day. In 1993, they worked on a weekly series, 2 movies, a TV special, and this 2 part guide. That's just DB, that's not counting everything else they worked on.

[Damian0358]

"When the question arises of how many versions of Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans the world needs, it seems the only correct answer is more."
When you said that, my mind immediately remembered the mobile game Dokkan Battle, and the fact that it not only has several story event adapting the events of the manga/anime and most of the movies, but it also has a loose narrative in two of its non-story-based events involving Dr. Lychee and Hatchiyack, including a fight with Super Hatchiyack from presumably the Playdia version?

It ultimately made me wonder whether or not we might ironically find a Dokkan version of Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans that combines all the versions mentioned in the video in the near future, one that, while lacking the cutscenes, loosely adapts the material present throughout, especially from the original Famicom version.

"For some reason this was a big deal despite him being a completely boring blank slate."
I get the impression there's a bit of a nostalgic following in Japan for the old DBZ card RPGs (there's actually several references to them in Xenoverse 2, for instance); that might have given his inclusion in a new game a bit of attention.

I suspect too that the reason it was such a big deal was because Dragon Ball as a franchise was still going through a dry period; before 2013's Battle of Gods, there was hardly anything new going on. Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! only came out in 2008, and Raging Blast 2 came out in 2010 (the same year Dragon Ball Online came out and presented a Toriyama-approved timeline, designs and story, and Dragon Ball Heroes debuted, being effectively just a game aimed to maintain whatever presence Dragon Ball still had; come 2013, DBO's servers are shutdown, 2014 has Xenoverse revealed, and 2015 sees not only its release, but Dragon Ball Heroes draw from the same lore DBO introduced as Xenoverse is, through the God Mission expansion).

All other Dragon Ball material coming out during this period was just rehashed material, from what I recall, so Hatchiyack's inclusion is exciting, in a way. It was something that could freshen one's palate, for at least a bit. Though honestly, it is probably also nostalgia, with Hatchiyack's inclusion in Raging Blast 2 parallelable to Majin Ozotto's inclusion in Super Dragon Ball Heroes.

[WittyUsername]

Back in the day, I assumed the one hour animated special/OVA was supposed to be a lost movie or something. When I learned it was based on a video game, I was told/led to believe that it was just the cutscenes of the game meshed together into a movie. There’s such a convoluted history behind this entire product that it’s nice to finally have a video that clears things up.

Also, did anyone else ever find it weird how this story uses movie villains, and references Broly, but Broly himself doesn’t appear?

[Planetnamek]

Back in the day, I assumed the one hour animated special/OVA was supposed to be a lost movie or something. When I learned it was based on a video game, I was told/led to believe that it was just the cutscenes of the game meshed together into a movie. There’s such a convoluted history behind this entire product that it’s nice to finally have a video that clears things up.

Also, did anyone else ever find it weird how this story uses movie villains, and references Broly, but Broly himself doesn’t appear?

There is an early episode of the Kanzenshuu podcast that also goes into detail about the OVA, forgot exactly which one though.

[Kid Buu]

Dragon Ball: The Game : The Movie: The Game

Reminds me of how both 1994 Street Fighter movies got a video game adaptation.

Definitely prefer the older artstyle.

[FoolsGil]

I would love a supercut/walkthrough of some sort of the game and ova. Everything there is to offer in the Eradication series, in one succinct package. Don't care if its 10 hours long.

[Gaffer Tape]

Dragon Ball: The Game : The Movie: The Game

Reminds me of how both 1994 Street Fighter movies got a video game adaptation.

Haha, that's definitely what I was paying "tribute" to with that gag!

[Kid Buu]

Dragon Ball: The Game : The Movie: The Game

Reminds me of how both 1994 Street Fighter movies got a video game adaptation.

Haha, that's definitely what I was paying "tribute" to with that gag!

I was thinking that, but I've never seen you talk about SF before, so I thought maybe I was just nerding out.

[Gaffer Tape]

Videl and Violence in Dragon Ball - Dragon Ball Dissection: The Majin Boo Arc Part 7!

The match pairing Videl vs. Spopovitch is a topic that garners many passionate responses. The fact that it is made me want to dive deeper and figure out what elements of it are different. That in turn required me to look at how Dragon Ball handles violence in general. It was a difficult topic for me to cover. I hope I managed to explore every topic thoroughly.

I was thinking that, but I've never seen you talk about SF before, so I thought maybe I was just nerding out.

Well, I wouldn't call myself a fan of Street Fighter, but I know enough about pop culture that that's where my brain goes to.

[FoolsGil]

I've personally been neutral to Videl and Spopovitch as far back as the Toonami run. Is it brutal? Yeah. Any more brutal than Yamcha, Tenshinhan, Chaozu and Piccolo being wiped out in a single battle against Nappa and his Saibaman? No. .

In your video, you mentioned how the context and tone of Freeza killing Cargot and Recoome snapping Gohan's neck is different because Cargot is just a boy, while Gohan is a warrior, and I wonder that another reason why people don't like this scene is because of the same reasoning. Perhaps to some, Videl didn't sign up to fight Babidi's forces. She's a trained martial artist, who just wanted to get as far as she could in a tournament. The fight we see is more like Freeza killing Cargot then Recoome snapping Gohan's neck, because of it.

[WittyUsername]

I never really felt like Spopovich wailing on Videl was exceptionally brutal for Dragon Ball. I definitely get the impression that a major reason people have always reacted so strongly to it is because Videl is a girl.

[Soppa Saia People]

i think part of the issue, and i haven't had time to watch the video yet so sorry if gaffer covered this, is that yes despite it not being way more brutal then piccolo daimao almost killing goku, the vegeta fight, reacoom vs gohan, freeza killing vegeta, etc, is that the spopovich stuff doesn't really lead to anything or progress anyone's character. it doesn't really progress videl's character because she literally stops being relevant after it, it doesn't do anything for gohan because it's not like he's gonna be holding a huge grudge against spopovich or whatever, and yeah it's not like spopovich is a major villian, he's so minor and killed by the bad guys.

and it's such a whiplash in terms of tone, which isn't necessarily like a bad thing, brutal moments can set a tone for the story, but it's not like after this point the boo arc gets more serious. hell goku, vegeta, and freaking gohan, take nothing seriously afterwards until vegeta gets "possessed".

so you just have a unnecessarily brutal scene that doesn't serve the character, doesn't set the tone, and doesn't set up any villians. you could make the argument that say, gero exploding a guys head anf stabbing yamcha is also like that, but at least the cell arc has a pretty similar tone to that opening scene, and gero was initially gonna be a main villian, whereas, to my knowledge, spopovich was always gonna be a insanely minor villian.

[Matches Malone]

Videl was introduced as a strong character, and despite losing her match, she was able to carry that image with her into the ring. What I like about the fight is that she's treated like anyone else in the group, she isn't given some special treatment because she's a girl. Dragon Ball's characters get back up no matter how hard you push them down, which is exactly what Videl does. This is one of the best qualities about them. I think it would've been far more disrespectful to Videl's character if she gave up, or if someone had to save her.

[LoganForkHands73]

Solid arguments all round in the video but, personally, it doesn't dissuade me from finding the fight incredibly uncomfortable. Beyond the fact that there's a huge visual power imbalance between this towering muscular brute and this young girl, I actually think that the context of the tournament setting only makes it more disturbing. We're used to seeing brutal maimings and bloody violence in Dragon Ball, true, but these were usually in life-or-death, no-holds-barred battles, or against random nameless civilians for brief shock value. Yamcha getting his leg broken was nowhere near as graphic and everyone reacted appropriately by chastising Tenshinhan and rushing to Yamcha's aid. I think the fact that Spopovitch sadistically tortures Videl in broad daylight in front of hundreds of spectators and witnesses, including all of the main cast who don't do anything to intervene, in a public location where all the historic funny martial arts fights happened, only makes it more jarring.

I do think certain touches added in the anime contribute to the overall divisive reputation of this fight. Seeing the violence static on page is one thing, but hearing Videl screaming and crying in pain, everyone hollering to just end the damn fight already, plus the scene of Spopo physically restraining Videl from leaving the arena as Fusion mentioned, all pile up.

Now, of course, intervention could only raise more negative implications about Videl being demeaned and restricted from winning her own battles. But she was bound to lose either way. Compared to previous instances of gratuitous violence, this one always comes across as particularly spiteful and unnecessary. I've observed a (totally unverified) phenomenon with comic artists to express their real worlds frustrations through random displays of violence against their characters -- I guess it applies to all artists, but it seems more common to comic artists due to stress from deadlines and the fact that they control a visual medium with no limitations on what they can depict. Considering Toriyama's visible burnout from writing the series for so long by the time of the Buu arc, it's no wonder that the story's tone is all over the place.

One thing that struck me in the video was... Fusion saying he's not a huge fan of violence in Dragon Ball? I have to admit, I didn't see that one coming. Not to be like the "Y u WAtCh DrAgiN BaLl foR pLoT" commenter example in the video but I'd like to hear more from his perspective on that, considering that it is a battle manga...

[Matches Malone]

Intervention could only raise more negative implications about Videl being demeaned and restricted from winning her own battles. But she was bound to lose either way.

I think having someone save her when things got tough would be far worse than her going down fighting. I agree that it was brutal, but she still stood up to him and fought to the very end. I think her fighting, despite knowing it was a lost cause, shows just how strong of a character she really was. She'd rather take the beating of her life on her own terms instead of running away.

[LoganForkHands73]

Intervention could only raise more negative implications about Videl being demeaned and restricted from winning her own battles. But she was bound to lose either way.

I think having someone save her when things got tough would be far worse than her going down fighting. I agree that it was brutal, but she still stood up to him and fought to the very end. I think her fighting, despite knowing it was a lost cause, shows just how strong of a character she really was. She'd rather take the beating of her life on her own terms instead of running away.

Considering that the narrative unceremoniously dumps her immediately afterwards anyway, I don't see it as being any worse for Gohan or someone to step in after Videl has already established her tenacious personality. MistareFusion points out that Videl should've been ten counted when Spopovitch was literally stepping on her skull but either the rules changed or the referee once again forgot he had the power to do that. She could receive a bit of a beating, sure, but does it have to be that brutal and sustained?

Don't get me wrong, the scene is effective. Toriyama succeeded in showing Videl's character and making a tense, hard-to-watch scene. But it doesn't feel in the usual spirit of Dragon Ball. You know how you see all those edgy rewrites by fanfic authors that include more unnecessary gore and angst into the preexisting stories, this feels like that. Moreover, the scene didn't make me hate Spopovitch like it's seemingly intended to. He's still a nothing character and if I didn't know better, I'd assume he was meant to be a bland author stand-in to take out his frustration against some girl who rejected him IRL or something.

[jcogginsa]

Thinking outside of Dragonball for a moment, a show of how far things have come can be found in the battle between Bakugo and Ochaco in My Hero Academia.

In both cases, it's a tournament fight wherein an aggressive male character fights a female character whom the audience is invested in. But whereas in Dragonball Spopovitch is called out for not holding back against women, in a way that indicates Gohan thinks that's what men should do, in My Hero Academia Bakugo not underestimating his female opponent and going all out against him is shown as a strength of his character, and the audience is called out for being patronizing.