Torishima is against the Dragon Ball Theme park in Saudi Arabia

[Kunzait_83]

Freeza was inspired by opportunistic land speculators at the time of the Showa bubble era because he thought those people were the worst. That in itself isn't really a political stance.

Yes it is. This is literally almost the dictionary definition of a political stance.

Real estate is a supremely, hugely political topic (the current U.S. president literally made his bones originally in the real estate industry), and having an anti-land speculation stance in a work of fiction (even one aimed at children) is a decidedly political take. Like on the sheer obvious face of it.

I honestly think a bunch of you guys literally do not know the basic-most definition of the word "political". Like on a grammar school/pre-5th grade level. You seem to basically deem something "political" only when it makes you personally feel in any remote way uncomfortable, uneasy, or just generally annoyed. The word "political" doesn't mean "anything I don't like or don't want to think too deeply about".

Just about EVERY SINGLE piece of art or media in existence has a political message or point of view, whether its intentional on the part of the creator or not. It is literally *impossible* to create ANY kind of coherent narrative that is completely free of any kind of political message or perspective, even one that is totally unintentional.

Every single piece of art or work of media/fiction you've ever consumed in your entire life has had some sort of political message or point of view in it. Every single fucking one, no matter how innocuous. There's nothing the least bit "insidious" about this necessarily either: its just a fundamental fact of life.

Its impossible to escape, because politics is as inevitable to life and existing within a society as breathing air or being held down to the ground by gravity.

Wanting so desperately for any piece of art or media you consume to be 100% completely free of any kind of political view or message is not only an impossible goal for any work to ever achieve, it is also a completely senseless and idiotic desire for a person to have on its face. You're basically asking that a work be completely free of reflecting any hint or aspect of being alive and existing among other human beings.

You're basically asking for some kind of anti-art, as ALL art, by definition, reflects on SOME aspect of the human condition or existing among other human beings with differing perspectives: which is the basic-most definition or what politics is at its most fundamental core.

If you've EVER engaged with a piece of art or narrative that contains any hint of conflict, then guess what? That work has a political point of view of some kind definitionally, whether you realize it or not or even whether the creator realizes it or not.

If you do not understand this, then you simply do not understand the basic, dictionary definition of the word "politics". Or frankly, "art" either.



Again guys, I've said this many, many times before: you're supposed to have grasped basic, remedial shit like this in grade school. They teach you this in like 3rd grade Social Studies or earlier in most schools. School wasn't just solely supposed to be a place you went as a kid to eat crayons and trade Yu Gi Oh cards.

It's like saying Toriyama had a political stance against Torishima and Yu Kondo because he based villains on them.

Guess what? This too is a political point! Office Politics on Toriyama's end, but still a form of politics nonetheless. Parody and caricature are about as political a form of art as it gets.

Toriyama just liked military tech and fashion, there is no deeper thought to it.

Having a political stance or point of view does not in any way, shape or form require "deep thought". Something being "political" does not mean it is inherently "deep". This is a monumentally shallow misreading of the basic-definition of the word "politics".

You can put forth a whole vast number of political ideas or statements without having put a single ounce of thought or depth into any of it it. Countless millions of people do that every single day, and you yourself are doing it right here in this thread right now as we speak!

Even voicing the mere desire to be free of any kind of political message or point of view is, in and of itself, a political statement and point of view that you have and are speaking on.

Something being "political" does not automatically mean it has any hint of "depth" to it in any way. "Politics" is not synonymous with "deep thought". Politics is much like life itself: it simply just is. It can be deep and thoughtful or it can just as easily be not-so-deep and even totally fucking stupid. Or neither, or somewhere in between.

And in regards to Dragon Ball, Toriyama having an anti-land speculator message or caricaturizing his own editors in his work are both not at all very deep political messages... and no one ever claimed that they were in the first place. Because once again, "political" does not need to equal "deep". It just is what it is.

It's something called ''National Pride''.
Dragon Ball is a National Treasure.

Guess what? National Pride aka Nationalism? A hugely, HUGELY political topic in and of itself. You see? You cannot possibly escape from politics. Nor does it really make sense why you'd even want to, unless you are just super anti-social (which if so, is in itself is a political point of view that you would or might have).

But even with this one comment right here, you just made Dragon Ball an object of Nationalism and therefore a political point or topic. And you did so without even realizing you did or without putting any hint of "deep thought" into it. Because politics is like air or water or life or existing: it just is and is inescapable.

Getting annoyed at people discussing a political point present in a piece of art (whether it was put there knowingly or unknowingly by the artist, and whether there was any depth of thought put into it or not) is akin to getting annoyed at people for drinking water or going grocery shopping or for just breathing or sleeping.

Engaging in ANY kind of political thought, even the most bare-bones basic kind, is an incredibly essential, rudimentary function of living and existing in a society of any kind among other human beings. To get mad or annoyed by that is not only stupid and incoherent, it is completely and utterly futile: because it will always continue to happen all around you no matter what, whether you like it or not, or whether you even realize its happening or not.

Again, if the mere act of engaging with even the most basic, slimmest, most threadbare and rudimentary hint of political thought gets you irritated (cause god knows not a single person here in this thread was going much further with it than that), then you might as well also get annoyed that people think, speak, eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, or breathe.

[Koitsukai]

Even if one does not intend to make a political statement, politics is still embedded in all of us, whether we like it or not. One might not be aware as to where something is coming from, but it still comes from our interactions with society, one that is absolutely influenced by politics.

Saying there are no politics in something is, in itself, a political statement. One that the person uttering the sentences, probably, doesn't even mean to make, but it still is. Ironic.

[Kunzait_83]

Even if one does not intend to make a political statement, politics is still embedded in all of us, whether we like it or not. One might not be aware as to where something is coming from, but it still comes from our interactions with society, one that is absolutely influenced by politics.

Saying there are no politics in something is, in itself, a political statement. One that the person uttering the sentences, probably, doesn't even mean to make, but it still is. Ironic.

Word for word my point exactly. Politics is like gravity: it will exist and be ever-present in our day to day, moment to moment existence, whether anyone likes it or not and whether anyone even realizes it or not.

And because it is so intrinsic to human societal existence, it will continue to be thought about and discussed on some level (deep, not so deep, or otherwise) whether anyone likes it and realizes it or not. Getting mad about it is no different than getting mad that water exists and that humans must drink it in order to survive.

Politics is a fundamental and unavoidable part of human beings living side by side in groups of more than one or two, and thinking about it and discussing it on SOME level (which again, doesn't have to be and often isn't very deep) is an unavoidable and necessary part of surviving and existing among other humans. You cannot ever get away from it: and even the mere desire of wanting to get away from it is in and of itself a political view and statement (albeit a very silly and dumb one I would argue).

The whole "no politics!" thing is, at the end of the day, fundamentally anti-social: because in order to truly have anything remotely approximating "no politics" (to the extent that such a thing is even possible, which it isn't really) you basically have to live completely alone and isolated from any hint of another single human being on a totally deserted island all by yourself, Castaway-style. And even then in that extreme scenario, you're still not going to ever be completely 100% free of it.

The desire for "no politics invading my pet interests (i.e. my safe spaces)!" thing is ultimately rooted in a desire for a completely frictionless, discomfort-free existence inside of an isolating vacuum or bubble in which all history and societal context is null and void: and thus it is a desire which stems from feelings that are silly, immature, impossible, thin-skinned, infantile, and ultimately as I said, anti-social.

[JulieYBM]

Politics is an inherent part of being in a fandom, too. Like, putting aside that a forum is just a mini-community, there's politics specific to being in a fandom in general, and more politics to being on a forum...a place where people with different experiences share those experiences and interpretations of art.

Also, if you're on the internet talking about cartoons you're a faggot lefty cuck in the eyes of weirdo conservatives anyway, might as well enjoy it.

[MCDaveG]

I guess that discussions on democrats, republicans, right, left, whatever have no place in this forum...
But I have no problem to call out country, that beheads it's own princess in the parking lot for nonsensical reasons, kidnaps and kills journalists and in general goes all medieval on anything that goes out of the norm, from believe systems to freedom of speech.
Wouldn't go there if there were 20 Dragon Ball parks.

But before we jump on Shueisha going greedy with Saudi princes, let's give a honorable mention to rainbow and black washing entertainment monopoly, that shot their live action remake of Mulan not far from concentration camps, that are part of systematic genocide against Uyghur people.

World is a beautiful place

[WittyUsername]

You could assume that Western children are simply less of a priority in Torishima’s eyes. Or perhaps his opposition really does have something to do with the Saudi government and he just doesn’t want to openly say it.

It's something called ''National Pride''.
Dragon Ball is a National Treasure.

I doubt he would be opposed to opening DB parks in other countries but Japan should get it first.

Think about it this way: Imagine if the first Disneyland was opened in China or Japan back in the 50s instead of being opened in the US.
Americans would be massively disappointed. Same thing here.

Also, believe it or not the Japanese generally do not care about global politics. They only care if it affects them in some way.

I do know Japan is a conservative country that values conformity and that the citizens generally keep to themselves. I would just assume there would have to be some people in Japan who would look at governments like Saudi Arabia and be appalled by it. I mean, just because Japanese society is very conservative and conformist surely doesn’t mean that the people who live there are all a hive-mind who are completely apathetic to what goes on in other parts of the world.

To be clear, I’m not claiming that Torishima cares about that stuff. I’m just saying that I don’t think you could completely rule it out.

[JulieYBM]

Yeah, Japan does have left-wing groups and individuals. The sort of framing of Japan as this paradise for conservative, monocultural, monoethnic isolationism is insane when you consider that queer people and black and brown people live in Japan.

[Kunzait_83]

Also, if you're on the internet talking about cartoons you're a faggot lefty cuck in the eyes of weirdo conservatives anyway, might as well enjoy it.

Oh please, look at how many of those very same conservative freaks are "anime waifu Kawaii-caust" Nazis from 4chan. Not to mention how many of them have in the past 10+ years been recruited and radicalized directly from anime and video game forums and communities to begin with.

Not to mention how so, so much conservative reactionary Youtube slop comes from the standpoint of "get politics out of our favorite nerd hobbies", which typically include comic books, video games, superhero movies, Disney/Pixar CGI movies, and yes, anime/manga and Western cartoons too.

Your typical groypers/chan-nazis have right along for the past decade and change been some of the biggest "faggot cucks obsessed with cartoons on the internet" of anyone else out there. Talk about the pot calling the kettle. They're throwing rocks from the glassiest of glass houses.

Also, believe it or not the Japanese generally do not care about global politics. They only care if it affects them in some way.

This is 1000% false and based on absolutely nothing. Just complete ignorance and nonsense. Japan has gotten involved in global affairs (including in instances that do not directly impact them) on plenty of occasions: historically, in the recent past, and still currently today.

I don't even know where to begin with this, its so wildly, comically, factually incorrect on just the face of it.

For starters, the Japanese government has given millions and millions of dollars to organizations that help provide humanitarian aid to displaced migrants all throughout the world and particularly in Southeast Asia, and billions of dollars to organizations dedicated to preventing the spread of diseases such as AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria across third world countries.

Compared to other world governments, Japan also spends significantly more of its foreign aid money on helping the development of infrastructure for other developing countries (transportation, comms, power and energy, etc.) than other countries tend to: more than 46% of the Japanese government's allocated funds for foreign aid went toward foreign infrastructure development in 2020.

While Japan has always been heavily involved in global/international aid since the aftermath of WWII to one extent or another, the degree to which they've contributed and gotten involved has only steadily and sharply increased in the last 15/20-ish years and the Japanese government has consistently placed well high up within the top ten of world governments who give the most generously to foreign aid worldwide within the past 5 years at least.

Japan's also been an active and vociferous member and participant within the UN since the mid-1950s, and they've been active participants in the UN Refugee Agency and the WHO (so sorry to break it to any anti-vax cranks out here, but the land of anime waifus and pocket monsters actively supports common sense global health measures).

Japan was also one of the vast majority of UN aligned countries that voiced active opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and has imposed sanctions against Russia and provided aid to Ukraine.

And yeah we'll also go here: lots of Japan is also pretty ardently pro-Palestine and pro-BDS (like, very pro-BDS), and has been for a very, very long time now.

Honestly, we could spend pages upon pages upon pages of space here pouring over historical examples of Japan's participation in global politics, as this is only scratching the briefest surface of it, and even then only largely in recent years alone, much less prior decades.

Does all this mean that Japan is saintly, angelic, perfect, and some kind of ultra left wing progressive utopia? Of fucking course not. Japan has plenty of its own faults, flaws, and failings, like most any other country out there. Japan is a complex, nuanced country, with a complex, nuanced history. Its full of a lot of good, bad, and meh. Its a nation steeped in grays and mixed baggage, like many/most other nations.

The ultimate point here being: Japan is not fucking North Korea. Japan is not some weirdo isolationistic hermit state that keeps itself out of global/foreign affairs, and it never, ever has been at any point in its modern history. Certainly it hasn't been anything like that since the Meiji era anyway. Like we're fast creeping up on close to 200 years since Japan's Feudal-era officially ended for good. Its not like this is a particularly super-recent development or state of affairs here.

This statement here:

Also, believe it or not the Japanese generally do not care about global politics. They only care if it affects them in some way.

This has got to rank somewhere fairly high on a list of stupidest, most ahistorical, ignorant, and proudly illiterate things I've seen someone post on this site in a minute. And there's been some steep, STEEP competition in that department around here in the past. This is literally just dumb bullshit you either read on 4chan or are repeating from some other idiot who read it on 4chan.

Like I'm well aware that this sentiment/idea about Japan as some kind of "based" conservative/anti-woke isolationistic ethnostate didn't just spring up from a vacuum out of nowhere: that its a view that was very, VERY popular and oft-repeated and parroted within the past 5 or 10 years on 4chan/pol and other similar areas of the internet. And like so many other things from places like that, its largely a complete crock of shit that blithely ignores a whole TON of historical context and nuance.

Fuck's sake guys (and I'm now saying this part more broadly to whomever), reading is fucking fundamental. Put down the Shonen manga, close the Reddit or 4chan browser tabs, log off Youtube, definitely also close chatGPT or grok or whatever, and pick up an actual, for-real academic history book sometime soon, ASAP.

Stop blindly repeating bullshit you hear from some random shithead Youtuber influencer or Chan-Anon or AI chatbot or what have you, and take some time to actually sit the fuck down, open a fucking book (again, a real, actual book-book), and read REAL hard information from actual accredited historians and academics (i.e. people who spend their entire lives learning and studying actual hard data), and not just blindly listen to whatever slop you find on social media that conforms to your own pre-existing biases or prejudices.

Don't just settle for being a lazy, stupid, illiterate asshole who just blindly parrots bullshit heard from other lazy, stupid, illiterate assholes. Aim higher in life, if only just for your own self-esteem. Have some basic goddamn self-respect for your own intellectual capability and potential.

Because dumb shit like this:

Also, believe it or not the Japanese generally do not care about global politics. They only care if it affects them in some way.

is goddamned embarrassing. Shamefully embarrassing. Just lazy-ass, ignorant racial stereotyping without a hint or lick of having actually read or studied anything of substance. Literally everyone here can easily be better than this; this guy over here (damn) included.

With regards to this topic here (Japan's politics and involvement in global affairs), here's a wonderful place to start from.

And hell, here's two others as a bonus.

Seriously guys, I know I sound like an annoying dad or a broken fucking record here, but I cannot stress enough how utterly life-changing (in the best way possible) it will immediately be for so many people in places like this to just start regularly reading real, actual, substantive non-fiction books about the real world and real people.

Be a bookworm! Be the biggest fucking taped-glasses nerd you can be on this shit! Actually knowing about real things to a substantive degree is a point of pride, not shame!

I do know Japan is a conservative country that values conformity and that the citizens generally keep to themselves. I would just assume there would have to be some people in Japan who would look at governments like Saudi Arabia and be appalled by it. I mean, just because Japanese society is very conservative and conformist surely doesn’t mean that the people who live there are all a hive-mind who are completely apathetic to what goes on in other parts of the world.

I mean, this image of Japan as being hyper conformist and conservative does have real, tangible historical roots... but a LOT of it comes from WWII and pre-WWII. This hyper conformist image of Japan, while having SOME truth to it still today, was considered wildly exaggerated and long since out of date even back when I was a little kid in back in the 80s and 90s. Much less now today in the 2020s.

Japan hasn't stayed culturally frozen in amber since the 1940s. And thinking it has is just wildly ridiculous and absurd. Japan had its own Countercultural Revolution in the 60s and 70s, concurrent with ones like that of the U.S. at the same time, and it has had its own Feminist/Women's Lib movement and even gay and trans rights movements all throughout those same years and onward beyond. They've had gay pride parades since the mid 90s, and gender affirming care for trans citizens in Japan has been legal since the early-most 2000s.

Funeral Parade of Roses was made in goddamned 1969 guys, for fuck's sake! None of this shit is THAT recent or new!

And while the U.S. took until 1962 to even begin the process of laxing down on "sodomy laws" (which then dragged on state by state for literally decades after), Japan has had homosexual sex legalized/decriminalized since fucking 1882! Sodomy was only ever illegal in Japan for a relatively brief ten year period prior to that. If we're looking strictly at legality alone, Japan has been well to the left of the U.S. on various key aspects of gay rights for quite a very long time.

None of that means however that Japan didn't historically have, and doesn't still today have, its fair share of cultural issues with queer rights. Because they absolutely have and still do. The point is... its fucking complicated and nuanced!

Distilling Japan down to being largely "conservative" and/or "conformist/homogenous" is incredibly reductive, and even wildly inaccurate in a number of areas! Japan is conservative and homogenous in SOME ways, and very much NOT in others, and its been that way over there for much, much longer than just about anyone on this forum has been alive (myself included).

Japan also, as I noted earlier, is not - and hasn't been for at least the past 160+ years, at minimum - all that especially isolationist or hermetic politically. People in Japan DO in some measure clearly and decidedly give a shit about what goes on in the rest of the world outside its own lands, to one extent or another anyway, and both the country's government and many swathes of its own citizens have very often expressed and shown international solidarity regarding hardships faced by other countries in other far-away parts of the globe. Again, Japan is not synonymous with North Korea in this regard (i.e. self-isolated and cut off from the rest of the world).

Japan is, all said and done, a very much decidedly a modern Neoliberal Capitalist government and society through and through, much like most of the rest of the world has been/tends to be - with all the good and all the bad that that entails, and which most Westerners are all likewise well familiar with.

For all Japan's weird quirks and idiosyncrasies, they aren't at the end of the day all THAT much fundamentally different from us over here in the Western world. They lack some of our baggage in some areas, and have some of their own in others: but ultimately, they're still just regular-ass people struggling to get by in a dystopic, corporate-captured and dominated world, just the same as we are over here in many/most respects.

Or in Robocop terms: we have OCP, they have Kanemitsu. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

There's long been a tendency in Western anime fandom to overly exoticize Japanese people and culture as being far, far more "alien" from us than they actually are, and its a tendency that I've always found to be fairly gross, dehumanizing, and patronizingly paternalistic/chauvinistic, among other things.

[Hellspawn28]

Yeah, Japan does have left-wing groups and individuals. The sort of framing of Japan as this paradise for conservative, monocultural, monoethnic isolationism is insane when you consider that queer people and black and brown people live in Japan.

I hate that people treat Japan like it's some magical right wing bubble. There's people over there fighting the rights for LGBTQ+ and telling people to stop being racist. There's people in Japan want to stop racism towards people from China and Korea over there with different activist groups. It's no different how it is here. People need to actually talk to actual Japanese people and do research for once. Don't judge based on what you see in anime, manga, video games, etc.

Getting tired of you westerners shoving politics into everything.

All art has politics in it. It has been like since day one, and anyone who has never said otherwise has never studied art history ever. Go back to school for once.

Distilling Japan down to being largely "conservative" and/or "conformist/homogenous" is incredibly reductive, and even wildly inaccurate in a number of areas!

It also comes a bit racist too with the idea that people in the Eastern world is stuck in the past while the west is more advance and progressive.

[JulieYBM]

Also, if you're on the internet talking about cartoons you're a faggot lefty cuck in the eyes of weirdo conservatives anyway, might as well enjoy it.

Oh please, look at how many of those very same conservative freaks are "anime waifu Kawaii-caust" Nazis from 4chan. Not to mention how many of them have in the past 10+ years been recruited and radicalized directly from anime and video game forums and communities to begin with.

Not to mention how so, so much conservative reactionary Youtube slop comes from the standpoint of "get politics out of our favorite nerd hobbies", which typically include comic books, video games, superhero movies, Disney/Pixar CGI movies, and yes, anime/manga and Western cartoons too.

Your typical groypers/chan-nazis have right along for the past decade and change been some of the biggest "faggot cucks obsessed with cartoons on the internet" of anyone else out there. Talk about the pot calling the kettle. They're throwing rocks from the glassiest of glass houses.

Even faggy anime fags can be Nazis.

Leopards wouldn't eat MY face, et cetera, et cetera.

[Hellspawn28]

People who scream "stop being political" are people who are not very well-educated. Probably never pay attention in school and had parents never bother to actually teach things to them. American Eduction was bad before the 21st century and has gotten worse since the No Child Left Behind Act.

[Koitsukai]

Nothing more political than referring to a group of people as "you, westerns".

This child is not even aware how much into politics they actually are.

[Jord]

Also, let's say the park is build in Japan. Then you could argue that most Western children wouldn't be able to go there.

Japan is the main home for Dragon Ball. It would make sense to do a DB theme park in Japan.

It depends on what the intention for the park is. If you want to globalize the brand, I could see them building one in a more central location, like they're doing now. Perhaps in time also in other locations, such as Japan. Kinda like the Universal theme parks.

I do have to wonder though. When you build your DB theme park outside of America and Japan, as they are right now, what language will the characters speak in?

[Hellspawn28]

Freeza was inspired by opportunistic land speculators at the time of the Showa bubble era because he thought those people were the worst. That in itself isn't really a political stance.

What is political in your point of view?

[Kid Buu]

Also, let's say the park is build in Japan. Then you could argue that most Western children wouldn't be able to go there.

Japan is the main home for Dragon Ball. It would make sense to do a DB theme park in Japan.

It depends on what the intention for the park is. If you want to globalize the brand, I could see them building one in a more central location, like they're doing now. Perhaps in time also in other locations, such as Japan. Kinda like the Universal theme parks.

I do have to wonder though. When you build your DB theme park outside of America and Japan, as they are right now, what language will the characters speak in?

I'd assume this one would be in Arabic.

[Analytical Delusion]

Didn't know there was going to be a theme park, pretty exciting. Travel to the Middle East for work sometimes, so definitely will check it out when it's completed.

Something like this could never happen in NYC where I live given the high degree of crime from homeless/migrants/junkies, but maybe we can have one of these somewhere else in the US someday.

[JulieYBM]

Didn't know there was going to be a theme park, pretty exciting. Travel to the Middle East for work sometimes, so definitely will check it out when it's completed.

Something like this could never happen in NYC where I live given the high degree of crime from homeless/migrants/junkies, but maybe we can have one of these somewhere else in the US someday.

Crime in New York City is massively down, actually.

[Yellow Flower King]

Also I love how ominiously that "migrants" is put there. Its almost like... oh...

[JulieYBM]

Also I love how ominiously that "migrants" is put there. Its almost like... oh...

The whole homeless/migrants/junkies comment is a huge dogwhistle, for sure.

[Yellow Flower King]

Also I love how ominiously that "migrants" is put there. Its almost like... oh...

The whole homeless/migrants/junkies comment is a huge dogwhistle, for sure.

Nothing a cruel dose of gentrification cant fix!