Introducing the younger generation to DB

[Hades]

Sorry to be rude but I really hope you don't have kids, you're bound to REALLY psychologically f..k them up. And each arc may have the same "good guys vs bad guys" plot but there are other things like Gohan growing up and Piccolo's redemption to keep them different not to mention the villains are fairly different. And if you hate DB so much why are you even here?

It's not so much hating DB as looking at it from a different perspective. I didn't really buy Gohan and Piccolo's Character arcs since it just felt like generic Shonen "redemption" or "hard men making hard decisions". At least Vegeta's "HARD MEN" decisions come back to bite him. I found Captain Walker in Spec Ops: The Line more convincing than Gohan or Piccolo, as we see his "HARD MAN!" approach melt away to madness by the end of the game.

Again with that game. Not everyone reacts the same to trauma. You don't buy the redemption because you don't buy people becoming better, at least that's how it comes off.

Vegeta's decisions come back to bite him because he's immoral.

I didn't buy Piccolo's redemption arc because he behaves far worse than the gunnery sergeant in FMJ and is rewarded for it.

So, "HARD DECISIONS" are okay because someone's the designated hero? I guess we can trust Goku with White Phosphorous in Dubai then.

[ABED]

Never saw FMJ, so I can't compare, secondly he was a demon so it's understandable, and thirdly, how is what he does so bad?

We're not dealing with the real world! Gohan isn't some private, he's a kid with powers greater than Piccolo's. Stop trying to impose real world consequences on things that aren't in the least bit real. I remember that you thought Goku's training should have wrecked his body, which is ridiculous considering DB is a world filled with magic beans that heal one's ailments.

I guess we can trust Goku with White Phosphorous in Dubai then.

What?

[Hades]

FMJ's a great movie that also rips into the "TRAINING HARD!" meme, where abusive training doesn't make someone an unstoppable ubermensch, it makes them a mental wreck and a loose cannon. Piccolo was worse than the gunny, yet gohan is "SUPER STRONG!".

The "hero" in Spec Ops uses a white phosphorous mortar to clear out an enemy position. However, a lot of refugees were caught up in the attack and he is forced to watch their bodies burn away, unlike in Dragonball where Goku just fires a clean and neat kamehameha with zero casualties. It's a "nice" subversion of "the protagonist is always right".

[ABED]

FMJ's a great movie that also rips into the "TRAINING HARD!" meme, where abusive training doesn't make someone an unstoppable ubermensch, it makes them a mental wreck and a loose cannon. Piccolo was worse than the gunny, yet gohan is "SUPER STRONG!".

The "hero" in Spec Ops uses a white phosphorous mortar to clear out an enemy position. However, a lot of refugees were caught up in the attack and he is forced to watch their bodies burn away, unlike in Dragonball where Goku just fires a clean and neat kamehameha with zero casualties. It's a "nice" subversion of "the protagonist is always right".

Of course he's SUPER STRONG, we're dealing with a world where people can blow up mountains with beams from their body. Not everyone reacts the same. A lot of people had tough trainers in the military. Some cracked, but plenty are well adjusted.

Stop using Spec Ops as an example! I've never played the game, so don't talk to me like I have. You used the white phosophorus example, but what would lead you to believe I had ANY idea what you meant by it?

Goku has never had to destroy a city, and he never shot a kamehameha strong enough to destroy the planet or city AT the Earth. He realizes the amount of power he has and takes precautions. You can't apply real world physics and examples to something that's not real.

Escapism has it's place, and I'd have no reservations about showing a younger generation Dragon Ball.

[Big Momma]

I'd say it's better to tear fantasies apart than to entertain them.

I don't even know what to say to that.

At the risk of repeating what's been said, Dragon Ball not about the "grim nature of reality" (or whatever you think reality is). It's a light-hearted shounen. Simple as that. Nothing more, nothing less. I could be wrong, but I doubt Toriyama set out to teach Life Lessons, either. He wanted to make a funny series about a monkey boy with poop jokes and cool fights. If you're trying to get ambiguity and "realism" from that, you're setting yourself up for disappoint and I question whether or not it's best for you to even invest time in the series at all.

Storytelling is a wonderful thing. And that's because there's so many different ways it can be done. It wouldn't be good if every story were super-positive and the "good guy always wins"...but if every story were also your "ideal" story, then that would just be on the opposite end of the spectrum and just as bad. And don't give me this BS about how Cinema and Fiction have "grown up". There have always been ambiguous stories, and one's with a blurred line between good and evil. The only reason there are more today, is just because there are more stories in general. More people are able to get out there and have their stories told to the masses, the things they've learned in life. Good stories, bad stories, happy stories, sad stories, they all exist. As they should. Not all of life is one big "grey" area. It's full of all kinds of colors and hues. There's some grey in there, yes, but it's only one part of the spectrum. The world a huge place, full of different experiences.

Stories and Movies/TV can be great teaching tools, but you can't expect them to do it 100%, either. When my kids watch this series in the future, of course I'll tell them it's not okay to be like Roshi, and you won't always defeat the "bad guys" in life like Goku&Co. do, but I'll also tell them things to keep from DB and series like it; Things like "not giving up", "Believing in yourself", etc. etc. Even when things don't go your way, which will happen a lot, and when there are people who don't life by a black/white sense of morals, which there will be a lot of, they need to stick to what they believe in. And keep fighting for their sense of justice.

I dunno, maybe I misread what you were saying and I just said something you already thought. And I sort of went off on a tangent, too. My fault. But you can't fault Dragon Ball because Roshi doesn't get jail-time for being perverse...or because Goku doesn't question his morals enough. That's not the story it's trying to tell. Again, looking for that here is just setting yourself up for disappointment.


...I guess I did know what to say...


EDIT: Man...so many replies now...

It's better to go into life with low expectations. That way, you'll be disappointed less. Besides, how much of your life will you enjoy when you are spending most of your life working late in a dead-end job for a boss that you despise as an alternative to homelessness.

Life is full of disappointments and pain...but I'd rather go into it with an already positive attitude, than to just have my already low expectations met. And not everyone ends up with a dead-end job they hate. Some, I would actually say a good amount of people actually do get to work in a job that they love.

Also, I love Cracked!, but not every article on that site should be applied to everyone. I read one of the newer ones about being introverted...and it didn't apply to me back when I was that way.

I didn't really buy Gohan and Piccolo's Character arcs since it just felt like generic Shonen "redemption" or "hard men making hard decisions".

Dragon Ball was the series that started a lot of those generic Shounen tropes.


Stop comparing DB to things like Spec-Ops and FMJ (Both which happen to be in the same genre of storytelling, yet a completely different genre than DB). Spec-Ops is a great game, and FMJ is an amazing movie. But the themes and tropes of those stories and that genre don't, and shouldn't, apply to all other genre's of storytelling. To think and judge as such is just being close-minded. The entire world isn't a war-zone (At least not until "they" make their move [/tinfoil]).

[ABED]

Well said Big Momma!

[Ringworm128]

And not everyone has a job they hate with a horrible boss, there are plenty of people who enjoy their jobs and have good lives. The whole world isn't just pain and suffering. edit: Looks like BM also beat me to it there as well.

[Kamiccolo9]

I guess that Dora the Explorer is a terrible show for not ever punishing Swiper, the Sneaky Fox. I'm sure that show has warped the minds of the kids who watched it.

Dragon Ball is a child's cartoon. It's not meant to show accurate portrayals of the psychological impact that extreme situations have on the minds of children. It's not meant to show a realistic shift from good to evil with Vegeta. It's not meant to make people think about the long term consequences of their actions. It's not meant to make people dwell upon their mistakes and drown in grief.

What you want IS NOT Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball IS NOT Spec Ops: The Line. Dragon Ball IS NOT Full Metal Jacket. Dragon Ball IS NOT Batman the Animated Series.

Blue's Clues has a talking mailbox for a character. His only purpose is to sit there and have people put mail in him. He lives what would be an enormously torturous and unsatisfying life for a person. Does that mean that Blue' Clues should discuss themes of grief, depression, self loathing, and suicide?

Should Little Bill cover the issue of racism?

In Space Jam, should the movie cover the negative effects of stretching one's arm out to the length that Michael Jordan did in that movie?

Should Beauty in the Beast focus on the theme of bestiality?

Should all of the various vampire movies be banned because they involve necrophilia?

In Pokemon, should the characters be racked with guilt for making animals fight each other and snatching them out of their homes in the wild?

The obvious answer to all of these is OF COURSE NOT! These themes have no place in these shows and movies, just like themes from Spec Ops have no place in Dragon Ball. And if you think that the lack of these things renders Dragon Ball an inferior or harmful product, then I must ask, why are you a fan?

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

I've actually wondered how Dragon Ball is going to adapt to its fanbase continuing to get older and the series international prime going farther and farther into the past; Kai and the endless modern video games have only helped, but I don't know if it's entirely on us as fans to maintain the franchise's momentum.

FMJ's a great movie that also rips into the "TRAINING HARD!" meme, where abusive training doesn't make someone an unstoppable ubermensch, it makes them a mental wreck and a loose cannon. Piccolo was worse than the gunny, yet gohan is "SUPER STRONG!".

Except Gohan's character didn't really change, he was nearly as scared going into the Sayain fight as when Piccolo first took him away- something I thought was a great realistic touch. Nor do I think were ever supposed to feel comfortable about Piccolo training Gohan in the first place- I don't I ever was- so much as Piccolo doing something he ultimately thought was necessary and having no one to seriously oppose him.

If you really want to attack Gohan for acting oddly for age, just about everything on Namek is more out of place than the Sayain arc.

[ABED]

If you really want to attack Gohan for acting oddly for age, just about everything on Namek is more out of place than the Sayain arc.

Could you elaborate?

[Ajay]

Kamiccolo9 pretty much hit the nail on the head. If you're going to analyse and compare, you need to look at their intentions and the products themselves and decide whether it makes sense to compare them. You would never compare The Tree of Life with Transformers because it doesn't make sense to. One looks at heavy religious themes and the other is a brainless action movie. That's not to say you couldn't analyse Transformers - you could write an entire essay on the portrayal or women in that film if you really wanted to but if you were to compare it with something, you'd need to find something with similar intentions e.g. Pacific Rim or Real Steel.

There's nothing wrong with looking at Dragon Ball with an intellectual eye so long as you do it with some intellect. You can't just adamantly say 'your children will be harmed by witnessing Roshi's advances! you're damaging children!' - there's no proof behind that and you end up sounding like those people who go on the news sprouting 'facts' about how video games cause violence.

You can pull a theme out of any piece of media and analyse it to the bone. It's at that point you really need to take a step back and consider the author's intentions. Is Akira Toriyama really trying to pass a comment on the objectification of women? Are the Saiyans meant to parallel the Nazis? I mean you could come up with anything but when it comes to Dragon Ball, the answer is generally going to be 'no'.

It's a shonen manga. There are no hints of an underlying theme in it - at least not on the level that you're trying trying to make it out to have. If you want to find underlying themes in this age range then look at Miyazaki and his obsession with preservation, youth and feminism - they're as clear as daylight. That level of thematics simply don't exist in Dragon Ball.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

If you really want to attack Gohan for acting oddly for age, just about everything on Namek is more out of place than the Sayain arc.

Could you elaborate?

Going by Hades more realistic, break-before-you-bend line of thought, the Sayain Arc should have broken Gohan for the rest of the series, nothing else you could put on a list of "Gohan's crappy life" would be necessary- no Recoome, no Freeza, no Cell, no nothing. He was beaten within an inch of his life, nearly saw his father crushed to death, had to go against his nature and charge an enemy with (as far as we can tell) intent to kill if he could, and transformed into an Oozaru, all in less than day.

But it didn't, as evidenced by Gohan's feeling of obligation and debt to revive Piccolo overpowering whatever fears he would- and should- have going away Namek, which unlike training for Vegeta and Nappa, he wanted to do himself. There are two ways to take this. Either Gohan is Catch-22 insane, so far over the deep end that he appears normal because only folks in the looney bin would do what the Z-Fighters do, to begin with. Or, the series own implication, that the fight made him understand his abilities and himself in a way that made him more confident and overcome his fear due to a mix of actual combat and inheriting his father's superhuman mental resilience (Which, as I've said before, is Gohan's ultimate get-out-of-jail-free-card for any claims that he should be damaged), is true.

Or, more simply, it never sat well with me that Gohan was THAT eager to go to Namek. But then it's better than other people coercing him to do something life-threatening again.

[Dalesy]

Sorry to be rude but I really hope you don't have kids, you're bound to REALLY psychologically f..k them up. And each arc may have the same "good guys vs bad guys" plot but there are other things like Gohan growing up and Piccolo's redemption to keep them different not to mention the villains are fairly different. And if you hate DB so much why are you even here?

It's not so much hating DB as looking at it from a different perspective. I didn't really buy Gohan and Piccolo's Character arcs since it just felt like generic Shonen "redemption" or "hard men making hard decisions". At least Vegeta's "HARD MEN" decisions come back to bite him. I found Captain Walker in Spec Ops: The Line more convincing than Gohan or Piccolo, as we see his "HARD MAN!" approach melt away to madness by the end of the game.

Why are you so obsessed with this notion that everyone should be punished for doing what they think is right? It's a CHILDREN'S show. If we expect our kids to do good things in their life, we can't be presenting the idea that no matter how hard you try to do the right thing, you're causing untold harm and you will suffer the consequences. Not everything has to be a psychological drama.

And on the sexual harassment bit, I completely disagree. Muten Roshi is a fictional character. As long as the young person I'm watching it with understands that what Roshi is doing is completely unacceptable, then it's fine to get a gag out of it.

In Space Jam, should the movie cover the negative effects of stretching one's arm out to the length that Michael Jordan did in that movie?

Yes, I demand action on this.

[Kamiccolo9]

Or, more simply, it never sat well with me that Gohan was THAT eager to go to Namek. But then it's better than other people coercing him to do something life-threatening again.

To be fair, no one was expecting what happened on Namek. Gohan, Bulma, and Krillin were going on a Dragon Ball hunt, and didn't expect to be attacked by space pirate alien people.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Or, more simply, it never sat well with me that Gohan was THAT eager to go to Namek. But then it's better than other people coercing him to do something life-threatening again.

To be fair, no one was expecting what happened on Namek. Gohan, Bulma, and Krillin were going on a Dragon Ball hunt, and didn't expect to be attacked by space pirate alien people.

Oh, cha. Dragon Ball hunt on an oxygenated planet with a friendly, sentient species on refurbished space ship already confirmed to work because Earth wouldn't have had Dragon Balls in the first place if it hadn't!

[hulkty]

Make them watch the Orange Brick Uncut seasons...and nothing else.
No edited versions...it will ruin their childhood.
No original Japanese background music...only Bruce Falcunor...fits MUCH better and the kids will most likely be American anyway.
(don't care what you guys say...I've tried countless times, but the Japanese soundtrack doesn't fit with the actual showing of DB/Z/GT at all.....only the openings and closing fit sometimes.)

[Kamiccolo9]

Make them watch the Orange Brick Uncut seasons...and nothing else.
No edited versions...it will ruin their childhood.
No original Japanese background music...only Bruce Falcunor...fits MUCH better and the kids will most likely be American anyway.
(don't care what you guys say...I've tried countless times, but the Japanese soundtrack doesn't fit with the actual showing of DB/Z/GT at all.....only the openings and closing fit sometimes.)

If you don't care what anyone thinks, why bother posting in the first place?

[ABED]

Why does techno and synth music fit better for Dragon Ball?

[Kamiccolo9]

And why will they "most likely be American anyway?"
Dragon Ball is a Japanese show, and it's popular worldwide.

[ABED]

It's possible for American children to appreciate other cultures.