Episode #0516 (22 December 2024)

[VegettoEX]

Episode #0516 (download MP3) (rss feed) (subscribe in iTunes) (Spotify version) (YouTube version) (SoundCloud version)
1:30:18; 128 kbps, mono; 82.9 MB

Episode #0516! Mike and Randy chat about the North American Dragon Ball Daima Tour before turning their attention to the first half(?) of Dragon Ball Daima itself. How are we feeling about all the usual stuff like story, pacing, and production values? What hopes do we still have? Stick around for a short Dragon Quest III HD-2D wrap-up chat afterward!

REFERENCED SITES:

• EPISODE GUIDE: Dragon Ball Daima
• BLUESKY: Kanzenshuu
• BLUESKY: Mike
• BLUESKY: Randy
• SPOTIFY: We Gotta Podcast
• TWITCH: Mike
• PATREON: Kanzenshuu

Enjoy!

[kaialone]

Regarding Digimon Adventure tri., how it generally disappointed Digimon Adventure fans, and how Kakihara's involvement in that production might gives us clues about what might be going wrong with Daima right now- As a long time Digimon fan, I did just a little asking around since it came up in We Gotta Pod's discussions, consulting folks who know a bit more when it comes to production, etc.

From what I gather reading other folks' documentations, it seems unlikely that tri.'s failures could be blamed on her (and I've actually seen her highlighted as one of the notable good members of the series' staff), as tri. seemed to suffer from a general "too many cooks in the kitchen" kinda situation, and also had to have rewrites done after they unexpectedly ran out of budget. While it was Kakihara's job to keep everything in line writing-wise, a lot of the bigger issues fans had with the writing itself seem to come from the series' director instead.

FWIW here's also her comments regarding her work on tri., though obviously this includes a lotta story context, too: https://digi-lab.blog/digimon-adventure ... interview/

Obviously all of this doesn't mean she can't be doing a bad job with Daima currently, but it makes it less likely that consulting tri. would be as illuminating here.

[JulieYBM]

Regarding Digimon Adventure tri., how it generally disappointed Digimon Adventure fans, and how Kakihara's involvement in that production might gives us clues about what might be going wrong with Daima right now- As a long time Digimon fan, I did just a little asking around since it came up in We Gotta Pod's discussions, consulting folks who know a bit more when it comes to production, etc.

From what I gather reading other folks' documentations, it seems unlikely that tri.'s failures could be blamed on her (and I've actually seen her highlighted as one of the notable good members of the series' staff), as tri. seemed to suffer from a general "too many cooks in the kitchen" kinda situation, and also had to have rewrites done after they unexpectedly ran out of budget. While it was Kakihara's job to keep everything in line writing-wise, a lot of the bigger issues fans had with the writing itself seem to come from the series' director instead.

FWIW here's also her comments regarding her work on tri., though obviously this includes a lotta story context, too: https://digi-lab.blog/digimon-adventure ... interview/

Obviously all of this doesn't mean she can't be doing a bad job with Daima currently, but it makes it less likely that consulting tri. would be as illuminating here.

Just to add on to this with what Tomioka Atsuhiro described of his work doing the series composition for Digimon Adventure (2020), the role of a series composer is basically to take the marching orders from the series director and any producer with influence. I know that we often like to think of a writer as being a final authority figure, but these folks are really only making a small amount per script as freelancers, it isn't like they're doing to be left with the authority over what is ultimately a commercial product meant to sell toys like Dragon Ball is. We know that Toriyama was involved with Dragon Ball Daima relatively heavily, so I honestly really wouldn't be surprised if the plot's structure was an issue with any weird ways he wanted the plot to unfold—or heck, an issue at the producing level of somebody basically interferring with letting actual anime staff do their thing.

Dragon Ball Daima's structure isn't working, I think, in large part because it isn't leaning enough into a slightly more traditional format. Episode's have little structure and little in the way of story tension. There are far too many superfluoous fights where Gokuu crushes his enemies easily, and it's not quite clear what Gokuu's personal objective is, because he's just taking everything in stride and shows no vulnerability. These are issues that most people would bring up at a story meeting, and I find it odd that nobody among so many different main staff members wouldn't have brought them up unless there was someone who didn't know better, but was still capable of vetoing them.

[KBABZ]

Posting my thoughts here on the off-chance Vegetto reads this thread! (he mentioned he doesn't really get into online discussions, so I'm not too hopeful, yet I still feel the need to express this stuff!)

• I too thought I knew the direction of the story when Coo was revealed ("ooooh HERE'S the big bad after all!"), but I knew Dragon Ball enough to know that first impressions are NEVER how things turn out. I felt Coo's one vocalization was rather Frieza-like, so I thought maybe he could be that sort of character. His design is kinda small, so maybe a transformation will happen later (I'm not ruling out him and Doo fusing to form Majin Foo!). So I wasn't surprised to find out there was more to how it folded afterwards, haha.
• I agree on the number of plane malfunctions. It kinda reeks of having to explain every logistical thing, like why the planes can't fly so fast, and having to come up with a PIN code for Sir Warp. I did like that the Vegeta half of the party encountered the exact same issue Goku did at first, though!
• Me and Robo have noted as we've watched along that many episodes have very weird transitions. The latest episode as of this post, #12, has TWO fade to blacks! These feel like the natural end-points from when the story beats were longer and the episode runtimes more fluid, and I think this has affected the overall pacing. I suspect that new scenes have been invented (most likely the ones with a lot of lore in them) to help pad out the runtime to the requisite 23 minutes.
• The whole thing about watching it week to week is actually closer to how I experienced OG Dragon Ball, because that's how it aired here in New Zealand (not to mention Japan). I like it being weekly because that gives me time to ruminate on each episode and get excited for the next one, but I do agree that a faster pace in editing and story progression would have really benefited this experience overall. If my hunch is correct about it being padded to fit on a Fuji TV broadcast, I'd have much rather this series remained online-only so the runtimes can be more efficient and flexible.
• I legitimately don't mind if you guys repeat thoughts and discussion points from other podcasts. Kanzenshuu is the ONLY Dragon Ball podcast I listen to, so I'm not gonna learn about them otherwise!

[sangofe]

Episode #0516 (download MP3) (rss feed) (subscribe in iTunes) (Spotify version) (YouTube version) (SoundCloud version)
1:30:18; 128 kbps, mono; 82.9 MB

Episode #0516! Mike and Randy chat about the North American Dragon Ball Daima Tour before turning their attention to the first half(?) of Dragon Ball Daima itself. How are we feeling about all the usual stuff like story, pacing, and production values? What hopes do we still have? Stick around for a short Dragon Quest III HD-2D wrap-up chat afterward!

REFERENCED SITES:

• EPISODE GUIDE: Dragon Ball Daima
• BLUESKY: Kanzenshuu
• BLUESKY: Mike
• BLUESKY: Randy
• SPOTIFY: We Gotta Podcast
• TWITCH: Mike
• PATREON: Kanzenshuu

Enjoy!

Thanks for this podcast. So did Meri completely stop to watch Daima? There's been so many great things about Daima that she'd be really missing out in my opinion. But, even if I wasn't really bothered by it, I do agree that was too many plane malfunctions.