Non-thread-worthy discussions

[Michelle91]

A live action Dragon Ball film would work if they hire people who worked on verious martial artist films. Sadly companies like Golden Harvest don't make movies anymore. In the 90s, having Jackie Chan as Goku and Jet Li as Vegeta in a film being directed by Lam Nai-choi would have been amazing.

I saw Godzilla Minus Zero today and definitely thought that if Japan were to make a live-action Dragon Ball series or film, I'd like to see the staff behind this film work on it.

Also, I find it funny that South Korea, Taiwan and the US have made live-action Dragon Ball films and not Japan.

Not sure if Takashi Yamazaki would be a good choice for Dragon Ball or not. 25 years ago, I would have suggested Ryuhei Kitamura for a DB movie after watching Versus, but he hasn't made a good movie since the early 00s (The Doorman sucked ass).

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

DB: Evolution really felt more like a generic mid/late 2000’s action movie with the Dragon Ball name slapped on, as it appeared as though they didn’t really have much in depth knowledge or familiarity of the series. Say what you will about other live anime adaptations over the years, i.e. 2008’s Speed Racer by the Wachowskis, the live action Space Battleship Yamato, GitS 2016 with Scarlett Johansson or the Attack on Titan films or even series like the recent One Piece adaptation on Netflix all show varying degrees of familiarity and accuracy with the original source material. For what little of recognizable Dragon Ball aspects were there in DBE, they didn’t feel like they fit really.

[JulieYBM]

I saw Godzilla Minus Zero today and definitely thought that if Japan were to make a live-action Dragon Ball series or film, I'd like to see the staff behind this film work on it.

Also, I find it funny that South Korea, Taiwan and the US have made live-action Dragon Ball films and not Japan.

Those explosions for Gojira's destruction beam are sooooooooooooooooo fucking cool. The explosions are animated with just the right timing to give them a real snap.

I say it a lot, but I'd really love to see a Dragon Ball live action series handled by the same pipelines that do Kamen Rider and Super Sentai at Toei. Those series are filmed extremely quickly but manage to still have really awesome directing and editing. The action choreography is also constantly top-notch, especially in the episodes directed by Koichi Sakamoto. I don't know how he choregraphs and shoots this stuff in just a single day lol

[SHINOBI-03]

I saw Godzilla Minus Zero today and definitely thought that if Japan were to make a live-action Dragon Ball series or film, I'd like to see the staff behind this film work on it.

Also, I find it funny that South Korea, Taiwan and the US have made live-action Dragon Ball films and not Japan.

Now that you mention it. I don't think they even made any Dragon Ball stage musicals which is crazy seeing how popular they are in Japan.

[JulieYBM]

I saw Godzilla Minus Zero today and definitely thought that if Japan were to make a live-action Dragon Ball series or film, I'd like to see the staff behind this film work on it.

Also, I find it funny that South Korea, Taiwan and the US have made live-action Dragon Ball films and not Japan.

Now that you mention it. I don't think they even made any Dragon Ball stage musicals which is crazy seeing how popular they are in Japan.

I'm not sure if the characters and fashion sense of Dragon Ball would really appeal to the style of person who likes stage musicals. I would love to see a Dragon Ball stage musical, though, especially if it meant adapting the material to be more fitting for the medium.

[dbgtFO]

Also, I find it funny that South Korea, Taiwan and the US have made live-action Dragon Ball films and not Japan.

Yes Japan is kinda curious with that
Street Fighter, Pokemon, Super Mario Bros, Tekken, One Piece and Dragon Ball got Hollywood live action films, but Attack on Titan got a japanese live action film franchise.

[Michelle91]

DB: Evolution really felt more like a generic mid/late 2000’s action movie with the Dragon Ball name slapped on, as it appeared as though they didn’t really have much in depth knowledge or familiarity of the series. Say what you will about other live anime adaptations over the years, i.e. 2008’s Speed Racer by the Wachowskis, the live action Space Battleship Yamato, GitS 2016 with Scarlett Johansson or the Attack on Titan films or even series like the recent One Piece adaptation on Netflix all show varying degrees of familiarity and accuracy with the original source material. For what little of recognizable Dragon Ball aspects were there in DBE, they didn’t feel like they fit really.

Dragon Ball Evolution feels like a movie made in 1997 that somehow got suck into a wormhole and released in 2009. It feels like a bad martial arts film that would have come out the time as Warriors of Virtue.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

DB: Evolution really felt more like a generic mid/late 2000’s action movie with the Dragon Ball name slapped on, as it appeared as though they didn’t really have much in depth knowledge or familiarity of the series. Say what you will about other live anime adaptations over the years, i.e. 2008’s Speed Racer by the Wachowskis, the live action Space Battleship Yamato, GitS 2016 with Scarlett Johansson or the Attack on Titan films or even series like the recent One Piece adaptation on Netflix all show varying degrees of familiarity and accuracy with the original source material. For what little of recognizable Dragon Ball aspects were there in DBE, they didn’t feel like they fit really.

Dragon Ball Evolution feels like a movie made in 1997 that somehow got suck into a wormhole and released in 2009. It feels like a bad martial arts film that would have come out the time as Warriors of Virtue.

So true, i got the vibe from the one time i watched DBE in full that it almost seemed like a cheap, lame martial arts film that was produced a decade or so earlier but for some reason not released until then.

[Scsigs]

Dragon Ball Evolution feels like a movie made in 1997 that somehow got suck into a wormhole and released in 2009. It feels like a bad martial arts film that would have come out the time as Warriors of Virtue.

Well, Fox got the rights to a live action DB movie in about 2002, iirc. Then the project floated in development Hell for 6 years until they actually managed to get a movie into production. I assume the execs at Fox legit had absolutely no idea what to do with it after they bought it & only bought the rights because they saw how well the merchandise did in sales & just wanted a slice of the pie, especially since they had just released X-Men, which did well in the box office, so they were at least confident in the viability in comic book-adapted movies even if they were probably just looking at the DB anime, but I assume they found out it was based on a manga. Then, they had these American (most likely just white) business people who don't actually care about the storytelling in their movies, as long as they made them money.

The influence from the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie definitely made sense, as they would've been looking for things to base their story & script on. Kinda like how the Eragon movie was heavily based on the first Star Wars movie (probably helped by the book also taking cues from Star Wars, iirc). Plus, the first Percy Jackson movie fucking up the influence of the old Greek myths Rick Riordan took influence from for the books & trying to convert certain things into a more generalized narrative that they thought US audiences were more familiar with. The original Dragon Ball isn't a conventional coming of age story. It has elements of one, but it's more an action adventure comedy that, funnily enough, they'd kinda covert the first Percy Jackson book into when adapting it to screen due to them converting the pearls that Percy got from Poseidon towards the end of the book into part of the adventure & they had to find them on their quest. It's really dumb the amount of bad book adaptations Fox had under their belts.

[Michelle91]

Fox saw how popular the show was on CN and was like "Let's make this into a movie!!". DBE is one of those movies from Fox in the 00s that were made to be a big franchise. Much like how Planet of the Apes (2001), Daredevil, LXG, Master and Commander, Eragon, Max Payne, Hitman, etc were from Fox.

[Kid Buu]

I never even thought about a Dragon Ball musical but I'd be down.

Toku could be good too. Adapt the Saiyaman storyline!

[JulieYBM]

I never even thought about a Dragon Ball musical but I'd be down.

Toku could be good too. Adapt the Saiyaman storyline!

There is, at least, an entire year-long series' premise that could be made out of the Saiyaman stuff. The premise of "The awkward kid in class is secretly a superhero" and then the archetypes that Videl and the other classmates fall into are ripe for a full, year-long series.

[Scsigs]

I never even thought about a Dragon Ball musical but I'd be down.

Toku could be good too. Adapt the Saiyaman storyline!

Saiyaman's literally a parody of Kamen Rider, specifically Riderman from V3 in terms of the costume. I don't really see how you make that a regular series considering how Toriyama wrote it in the manga & the Z anime had to literally rewrite almost everything about it to make it work.

[Scsigs]

Separate from what I just typed, there's a discussion currently going on on Twitter because someone got mad at TotallyNotMark. That being Mark's words about how TeamFour Star kept intrigue inn the franchise going when there wasn't anything new coming out at the time DBZA started. Reactions have ranged from "TFS did't do shit" to "TFS DID help keep interest in the franchise going," mainly seeming to be between people who hate TFS & people who like them.

My personal thing is...Mark's a clear fanboy of TFS. He constantly glazes them at every turn whenever he has a chance & you can see this in his videos, especially from several years ago, especially inn the videos he made directly on DBZA. To the point where TFS took notice of his videos, produced a documentary series with him after he pitched it to them when they announced the end of DBZA, & invited him on for their last DB-Cember. Then he asked them to be a part of his Dragon Ball Z retrospective of the Buu Arc which got us highlights of what would've been season 4 if they kept going. As such, I think Mark has both his timeline confused as well as overestimates how much influence TFS has had on the franchise, as well as their popularity at the time.

The most influence that TFS has had on the main franchise, I think, is probably some of the ways the dubs have been produced since Chris Sabat is a fan of DBZA (as well as had a few cameos in it), which also lead to him trying to give them cameos in Kai: TFC. What I think Sabat took notice of was how they incorporated things from the Japanese version of Z in their scripts & overall kept more true to the original spirit of Z & the manga than the old Z dub did & that influenced how he did the dub of Kai. Though, there's also that 1 sus image of Popo's eyes from Super that perfectly imitates what TFS did with him early on in DBZA. As for TFS' popularity, I don't think they reached peak popularity until after Battle of Gods came out in 2013 during production of DBZA season 3. Before then, they were mainly popular with DB fans who browsed the internet & watched abridged series.

As for the timeline, DBZA started in 2008. This was during the drought of new DB content, as Evolution & Kai wouldn't be out until 2009 with Evolution being a bad fused adaptation of 2 different OG DB arcs & Kai just being a cutdown re-edit of Z. The last DB content to be dubbed were the last few movies that they didn't cover during Z's runn as well as, I think, the redubbing of the first 67 Z episodes to go with the rest of the dub, which were in the mid-2000s a few years before DBZA started. Now, Mark specifically worded his statement as new DB content, but I'd argue Kai was still new, even if it was just a recut of Z. Outside of these, though, there were the video games being released at the time, but that's about it.

I'll also just briefly talk about my own experiences watching TFS. I got into DBZA in 2012 after season 2 ended & just before season 3 started. I found them when I was just getting into abridged series & theirs were the first one I dove into. I then also got the DBZ Budokai HD Collection because it was coming out at the time & I never really played 3 because it didn't release on GameCube for some reason. Then, I started looking into the home releases & discovered Kai was a thing, so I got that series on DVD & watched it. I then got the most recent home releases of most of the stuff minus Z, where I got the last 3 Dragon Boxes because I wasn't aware of them until the last few were already out & I knew that the Orange Brick were terrible (I think I got them in 2011, but still). I then rediscovered my love of anime as a whole & started watching more shows & movies outside of DB. Without TFS, that may not have happened, at least when it did, & I do owe them that.
However, I don't think that DBZA is perfect. I have major problems with the last episode having Gohan act out of character, even for DBZA, & I have problems with 16's speech to him. I also DO agree that TFS changed the wider discourse around Goku & how he acts ass a father to Gohan, as they didn't invent the jokes around that, but the way that they more often than not leaned into them actively made people think he's a bad father, even though he's really not if you actually watch & pay attention to the damn show, which they slowly made up for in DBZA season 3. He clearly cares about his wife & kids, he's just not a stereotypical father we typically think of in the West. So, I don't think it's great to overly glaze TFS, but I think that the backlash to DBZA is overblown because most people know DBZA is a parody. However, with the Super anime making Goku & Vegeta more like their Abridged counterparts, I think that also caused some backlash. Which also brings in the hypocrisy angle of the argument that DBZA wasn't bigger in the fandom than some people think. These are the same people who'll shit on TFS for ruining the fandom with how many "Goku's a bad dad jokes" they had that influenced some people to think he's actually a bad dad, but then say that TFS had no impact on the fandom, which is just ridiculous.

This got longer than I thought it would, but I hope I was coherent with it.

[JulieYBM]

I never even thought about a Dragon Ball musical but I'd be down.

Toku could be good too. Adapt the Saiyaman storyline!

Saiyaman's literally a parody of Kamen Rider, specifically Riderman from V3 in terms of the costume. I don't really see how you make that a regular series considering how Toriyama wrote it in the manga & the Z anime had to literally rewrite almost everything about it to make it work.

18/23 minutes of each episode are character drama and slice-of-life scenes that follow Gohan's school life and the other three minutes are the Opening credits and fighting the antagonist. That's basically what Kamen Rider Faiz did.

The idea of such a series is to look at the broad strokes of the high school arc, and Gohan in general, and then combine them with the broad strokes and general premises of a Kamen Rider series. Writers should be able to do that pretty well. Hell, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z writer Inoue Toshiki has written plenty of Kamen Rider, including Kamen Rider Faiz, which he wrote all 50 episodes of.

The answer, as always, is creativity.

[Kid Buu]

Exactly anything is possible in storytelling with a pen and paper.

Those Godzilla beams could be a perfect Kamehameha!

[JulieYBM]

Exactly anything is possible in storytelling with a pen and paper.

Those Godzilla beams could be a perfect Kamehameha!

The size of the explosions and debris feels very reminiscent of the sort of explosions that we were seeing in Dragon Ball Z during the Namek arc, too. Obviously, the scaling would probably be different for a weekly series, but yeah. There's a lot of room for fun and unpredictability.

[Michelle91]

I never even thought about a Dragon Ball musical but I'd be down.

Toku could be good too. Adapt the Saiyaman storyline!

A live action DB film or TV series would be toku as toku means special effects in Japanese.

[ABED]

I've been a Dragon Ball fan for over 20 years and only today realized that Goku was wearing Kuririn's gi the entirety of the Piccolo Daimao arc. I knew of the scene where Kuririn gives Goku his gi after finals against Tenshinhan, but it just didn't fully register with me until now that a piece of Kuririn is with Goku the entire arc.

Also, I know people seem to dislike the episodic structure of the Evil Dragons arc in GT and feel like none of the Dragons are a threat until the last few but a few things to consider: 1) you can't start at a 10 and escalate, and 2) I don't like to use the term "plot armor", but of course he's going to beat the first few Dragons. I've always liked the first Dragon they fight. He's the weakest but the idea of spreading toxicity and the resulting stench draining power is a really nifty idea.

[JulieYBM]

I've been a Dragon Ball fan for over 20 years and only today realized that Goku was wearing Kuririn's gi the entirety of the Piccolo Daimao arc. I knew of the scene where Kuririn gives Goku his gi after finals against Tenshinhan, but it just didn't fully register with me until now that a piece of Kuririn is with Goku the entire arc.

JUMP really is the gayest fucking comic anthology to ever exist.

Also, I know people seem to dislike the episodic structure of the Evil Dragons arc in GT and feel like none of the Dragons are a threat until the last few but a few things to consider: 1) you can't start at a 10 and escalate, and 2) I don't like to use the term "plot armor", but of course he's going to beat the first few Dragons. I've always liked the first Dragon they fight. He's the weakest but the idea of spreading toxicity and the resulting stench draining power is a really nifty idea.

Yeah, I liked the toxic stuff, too. It's a good way to get around the typical "Who can fire off the strongest Kamehame-Ha" for fights. Tossing in another Evil Dragon that could fuck up the nervous system with electricity or whatever would have also been a good idea for a fight.

Basically allowing Goku to defeat all of the Evil Dragons was definitely the worst part of the storyline, though. That mandate for Goku to always be in every episode just really hurts the storytelling.