Episode #0141 (10 August 2008)

Post by **VegettoEX** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 9:01 pm

Episode #0141 (download MP3) (rss feed)
31:33; 64 kbps, mono; 14.4 MB

Episode #0141! VegettoEX and Meri were down at Otakon for the weekend, but recorded an episode ahead of time for your listening pleasure! We went over some brief news and discussed all of the various henchmen over the course of the series. While they started as comedy relief, their purpose drastically changed over the source of the series. Referenced sites:

Go ahead and grab it. Big thanks to godofchaos for hosting the kinda nice *one-hundred-forty-one* episodes, now.

Hey, look at that! An episode despite being out-of-town for four days! We're amazing!

w0rd.

Forgotten Hero · Post by **Forgotten Hero** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 2:00 am

How many people does it take to beat the playdia game? The world may never know! But apparently, it takes more than three people

Jk, I don't know

I'm excited for the Manga Review of Awesomeness!!!

Son Wukong · Post by **Son Wukong** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 12:05 pm

The henchmen in Muscle Tower were fun also during the Red Ribbon Army arch. What was there name...Metallica, Murasaki.
Murasaki was pure win ^_^

djkalteraphine · Post by **djkalteraphine** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 12:32 pm

Cui is my favorite minion.

Wasn't he also Vegeta's rival of sorts? He was a pretty powerful guy, if he was constantly competing with Vegeta! I really dig his personality, and I think he gets more of it developed, as this arrogant, snarky, makes-his-own-way kinda guy, than any of Freeza's other minions, excepting perhaps Zarbon. Also I've always loved, in the Anime, how Cui gets this strange foreshadowing as being one of Freeza's real bad ass minions. So yeah. I like Cui.

Personally, on the subject of minions, my biggest issue with the second major saga (Androids/Cell) is the lack of minions. I think when utilized the way Eiichiro Oda does (with One Piece), so that every character gets a battle to shine in nearly every major arc, is the true and best use of minions. Perhaps it gets predictable and contrived after awhile, but I'd rather have that (which, let's be honest, DBZ became because the opposite was true - one, ultimate bad ass who works alone and wants to kill everyone), than seeing all my favorite side characters slowly drop away.

For example, I've always thought Cell could have benefited from his Piccolo genetics and spat out some eggs, giving him Demon Cell children. This, in my opinion, would've made The Cell Games feel a lot more like a tournament. And it would've given characters like Kuririn and Tenshinhan more to do during the (in my opinion) boring snag in story, when Vegeta and Trunks just fight Cell for howevermanyfreakingepisodes.

As for Buu, since he's a rampaging monster, doesn't really work to have minions. But more focus on that beginning section with Babidi, and perhaps more minions of his own for more of the fighters to have to deal with, with different minions attacking different areas of the Earth for energy, would've made better use out of what was already infinitely better than the entire saga before it.

So in short, I love minions, because they're a great excuse for a side character to have an epic battle.

mAcChaos · Post by **mAcChaos** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:25 pm

I think when utilized the way Eiichiro Oda does (with One Piece), so that every character gets a battle to shine in nearly every major arc, is the true and best use of minions. Perhaps it gets predictable and contrived after awhile, but I'd rather have that (which, let's be honest, DBZ became because the opposite was true - one, ultimate bad ass who works alone and wants to kill everyone), than seeing all my favorite side characters slowly drop away.

I like minions, but, eh, that kind of stuff is what bores me in One Piece and Bleach and other stuff. Usually it's irrelevant to the actual outcome, I find myself skipping pages ahead and nothing's actually mattered that would required that I would've had to read. Usually they're random nobodies who don't really get developed that much and are just there to get beat, and since they always pair up like that I pretty much always know that they're going to lose, and it's always after they put up a token fight where both of them act like it's no big deal.

Which they do in DBZ sometimes too, but it feels more natural, I guess, whereas in One Piece and so on it feels like I'm just reading what ended up being a quota of pages that had to be filled.

The Time Traveller · Post by **The Time Traveller** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:47 pm

I thought Lord Slug's henchmen were pretty cool, even though they were pretty damn flamboyant and useless as hell.

Forgotten Hero · Post by **Forgotten Hero** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 4:10 pm

Tora, could be argued whether or not he is Bardock's henchman.
If not, Captain Ginyu is my favorite henchman.

Post by **Herms** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 4:37 pm

djkalteraphine wrote:For example, I've always thought Cell could have benefited from his Piccolo genetics and spat out some eggs, giving him Demon Cell children.

Well, he didn, didn't he? Of course, rather than a chance to give everyone a chance to shine, it was used as a chance to show even more how much everyone sucked compared to Gohan.

djkalteraphine · Post by **djkalteraphine** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:02 pm

Herms wrote:
djkalteraphine wrote:For example, I've always thought Cell could have benefited from his Piccolo genetics and spat out some eggs, giving him Demon Cell children.
Well, he didn, didn't he? Of course, rather than a chance to give everyone a chance to shine, it was used as a chance to show even more how much everyone sucked compared to Gohan.

Not really. He shot them out of his tail, and they all had the same personality. Piccolo Daimao's minions were from eggs, and we're uniquely their own beings (with the hitch that they were born to do Piccolo's bidding).

Post by **SaiyaJedi** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:08 pm

Forgotten Hero wrote:Tora, could be argued whether or not he is Bardock's henchman.
If not, Captain Ginyu is my favorite henchman.

Well, Toma was the second-in-command of Bardock's team, which makes him a subordinate... I just don't know that "henchman" is entirely appropriate.

Post by **Herms** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:13 pm

djkalteraphine wrote:Not really. He shot them out of his tail, and they all had the same personality. Piccolo Daimao's minions were from eggs, and we're uniquely their own beings (with the hitch that they were born to do Piccolo's bidding).

I know it's not exactly the same as how Piccolo did it, but they're still children he birthed and they basically serve as his henchmen.

djkalteraphine · Post by **djkalteraphine** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:46 pm

Herms wrote:
djkalteraphine wrote:Not really. He shot them out of his tail, and they all had the same personality. Piccolo Daimao's minions were from eggs, and we're uniquely their own beings (with the hitch that they were born to do Piccolo's bidding).
I know it's not exactly the same as how Piccolo did it, but they're still children he birthed and they basically serve as his henchmen.

Sure, but they're less threatening and less interesting if they're clone/zombies.

Forgotten Hero · Post by **Forgotten Hero** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 11:36 pm

SaiyaJedi wrote:
Forgotten Hero wrote:Tora, could be argued whether or not he is Bardock's henchman.
If not, Captain Ginyu is my favorite henchman.
Well, Toma was the second-in-command of Bardock's team, which makes him a subordinate... I just don't know that "henchman" is entirely appropriate.

Yeah, like I said earlier: it can be argued.

Post by **Herms** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:57 pm

Finally got around to listening to the podcast, but the audio on my computer is all screwed up for some reason, so you both sounded like munchkins.

Anyway, if the Red Ribbon Army guys don't count as henchmen because they're part of an organization, shouldn't Freeza's guys not count as well? Sure they don't have ranks or anything, but they are an organization. For that matter, how exactly would you define a henchmen?

My favorite group of henchmen from the main story are Piccolo Daimao's demon spawn, and from the movies it's Garlic Jr.'s three underlings. I love the Garlic Jr. underlings' pulling swords out of themselves, and the fights they have with Goku and Piccolo were very well done.

DaemonCorps · Post by **DaemonCorps** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 12:07 am

Herms wrote:Anyway, if the Red Ribbon Army guys don't count as henchmen because they're part of an organization, shouldn't Freeza's guys not count as well? Sure they don't have ranks or anything, but they are an organization. For that matter, how exactly would you define a henchmen?

I was thinking this, too. It seemed you guys were pretty quick to say who wasn't a henchman (henchperson?). The way I see it, anyone who follows the rules of a superior who has a clear goal is a henchman regardless of whether it's their job or not. Then again, I guess you can just say that world/universe domination would be every bad guys' goal, so I guess really defining what a henchman is isn't all that clear, really

.

While the Red Ribbon Saga wasn't my favorite in the series, I really enjoyed Murasaki's shenanigans. I can never take ninjas seriously again. Piccolo's egg-minions were pretty cool, too, since unlike Freeza's men, each one was unique. Though I guess making henchmen unique is easier when there are fewer of them. I also thought Nappa, while not really my favorite character, was an interesting henchman, since he's been Vegeta's subordinate for so long.

In the end, though, all henchmen are merely warm-ups for the main character(s) before they reach the main bad guy. During the Buu Saga, the heroes even mention how they fighting each bad guy on each level before they reach Babidi and Buu was like a video game. I guess you can never take henchmen so seriously, no matter how powerful they may seem.

Post by **VegettoEX** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:50 pm

I guess I am pretty quick to dismiss Red Ribbon Army members as being henchmen. I'm not sure what it is about that particular organization that's so different from Freeza's personal army...

Maybe it's the galactic scale? That without Freeza there's nothing? We saw that once Red went away, there was someone to take over that role... even though that guy kinda initiated the transfer of power directly, himself...

So I guess I don't have a real answer or huge justification, but that's just how I see/saw it.