Bardock TV Special vs Dragon Ball Minus

[penguintruth]

Also, that would be horrible Penguintruth. Jesus, this isn't Berserk, this is Dragon Ball. .

I'm not saying they'd have to show it. It's a brutal, likely patriarchal, warrior race and culture. You do the math.

[B]

I don't really feel Bardock is that drastically different in Episode of Bardock and Minus than he is in the TV special, but at the same time, the special's more polished. Props to Mitsuo Hashimoto.

[dbzfan7]

I think he needs that harsh editor back.

[penguintruth]

Episode of Bardock

Never speak of such evil.

[Gonstead]

I prefer FoG. As others have said, I find the tragedy aspect of it to be one of the best things in it.

[Rocketman]

I'm not saying they'd have to show it. It's a brutal, likely patriarchal, warrior race and culture. You do the math. :P

Sparta didn't treat its women like that, though.

[Makaioshin]

I guess as an actual backstory I like DB- more. Stuff like the Saiyan not sending newborns to conquer planets and Freeza trying to gather the Saiyans in one spot just makes a bit more sense. But I like Final Solitary Battle more as a story. It is a great un-Toriyama DB story about one warrior's meaningless struggle. Dragon Ball Minus(much like the Trunks extra chapter) is so short that it doesn't actually feel like a story but an explanation of things that happened. It has as much life in it as all the guidebook tidbits that we read about.

But DB- isn't something that really stands on its own like the special. It is a bonus chapter of Jaco the Galactic Patrolman and it serves that story well as a sort of flashback to the events surrounding Jaco's mission.

[auspx]

Toei's Bardock never seem to care for anything other then himself. With DB-, you can see where Goku's good heart nature comes from.

It was supposed to be from his head injury and amnesia when he was a baby, and from being raised by good human beings (Grandpa Gohan and Master Roshi) That's how it was explained in the manga (Vol. 17) and in the anime. Until DB Minus we had no reason to believe otherwise.

Now after DB Minus we are supposed to accept that Goku became a hero instead of becoming a cowardly, sadistic, jerk like Raditz... because his mom was a gentle woman and because his father wasn't such a bad guy after all. Never mind the fact that Goku's brother has exactly the same parents... and Raditz turned out to be a real asshole.

The Bardock TV Special had one serious plot hole (baby Goku being very peaceful and friendly) and one minor plot hole (Bardock's vision of Goku facing 1st form Freeza) but other than that it was really well done.

[RandomGuy96]

Even though it's an inferior story, I think that Minus was more logical and thought out.

Aside from that... I mostly hate Minus because of how unnecessary it was. Why the hell do we need all this extra Saiyan backstory? We already had the special, and Bardock even got EOB. Enough already! Give us info on something new. Like Freeza's family history. Or how Ten became an assassin. Or what Daimao's first rampage was like. Or Babidi's history and how he obtained all of his fighters and resources. Or, if you absolutely have to focus on the Saiyans, how about something about King Vegeta?

Basically, I wouldn't have minded if Minus came first and there was no special. But since it came out over 20 years after we already had the special... I just see it as pointless.

[dbzfan7]

I'll also ask that if we had NO "Father of Goku"...would Minus be that bad standing on it's own. I think it may be because Father of Goku was just too good to just toss away is some peoples problem, it's definitely one of mine.

[garnetjester]

@auspx: Except Goku wasn't kind at all when he was a kid, until he whacked his head.

Gine not being a warrior doesn't necessarily make her a super duper loving sweet woman, and Bardock is still a mass murderer who works under Freeza, so I'm a little confused as to why his caring a bit for his son's wellbeing is character assassination for him.

So yeah, I'll be the one with the unpopular opinion and say that I prefer DB-. For what is worth, I loved the special, it was really good. But even though when I read about the premise behind DB- I rolled my eyes so hard they were stuck on the back of my head for like a month, I think it was properly executed. Obviously it felt rushed, but I don't think it changes that much. Granted, I don't give a damn about Superman, so maybe that's why I'm not enraged by this turn of events, but wasn't Superman sent to Earth to be a guide or a savior or whatever? Goku was sent to save his life and if he destroyed the planet in the process his parents didn't care one bit, so I still see differences. (Why comparing him to Superman is so important eludes me completely, but I'm not into american comics so no idea)

The fact that Kakarotto spent all his years in Planet Vegeta unconscious inside of a giant tank, and he only briefly interacted with his parents while they were sending him off, makes it enough of an emotionally distant relationship for me to be ok with it. Gine was not such a good girl if she was a-ok with her husband being a murderer and her oldest son becoming one too. And like I said, Bardock is still a killer, he just happens to care about what happens to his kids (which is normal behavior for any mammal, preservation of the species and all).

[Gaffer Tape]

RE: dbzfan7

No, I'd say a lot of my problems with DB- is how badly it stands on its own (the other being the contradictions it creates to the manga, not the special). I've said before that I really don't care if it contradicts the special. But this is just bad. It's not a story. It's just a collection of backstory information, and that's not even done well. This is a big event, but there's no room for it, so everything just careens along without getting any chance to know any of the characters in any significant way. Vegeta and Raditz are shoved into a single panel. Freeza gets about three. I don't know who Gine is. I don't know who Bardock is. It all just happens so damned fast. If all you're going to do is provide me the Cliff Notes, then just dump that shit in a guidebook where it belongs. Don't pretend you're actually telling a story when you're not.

[Codarik]

I'll have to pick DBM, simply because Toriyama himself made it.

[auspx]

RE: Goku's mom, Gine.

She's a good looking woman as far as anime women go but that's about it. The way I see it, Goku's mom wasn't important enough to show or mention for the past 25+ years, why bother introducing her now? Why couldn't Akira Toriyama change the story of the Bardock TV Special just a little to make Seripa the mother of Goku and Raditz? Fans were speculating about this since the early 90's. You know it would have made a lot more sense for both of Goku's parents to be villians, who lived and died like villians, than making his mother a nice, gentle woman who failed miserably at being a saiyan warrior. This Gine character is basically a human being in a saiyan costume. And it makes no sense whatsoever that someone like Bardock would be interested in such a weak, useless woman let alone want to have children with her. Then again Bardock is now not such a bad person too.

I'm calling it now. Akira Toriyama created Gine to get her involved somehow in the next DBZ movie. She will probably be brought back to life and brought to Earth for a day (like Goku was in the Majin Buu saga) to participate in the next SSJ God ritual.

As far as I'm concerned this brutal space amazon will always be Goku's mom.

[dbzfan7]

RE: dbzfan7

No, I'd say a lot of my problems with DB- is how badly it stands on its own (the other being the contradictions it creates to the manga, not the special). I've said before that I really don't care if it contradicts the special. But this is just bad. It's not a story. It's just a collection of backstory information, and that's not even done well. This is a big event, but there's no room for it, so everything just careens along without getting any chance to know any of the characters in any significant way. Vegeta and Raditz are shoved into a single panel. Freeza gets about three. I don't know who Gine is. I don't know who Bardock is. It all just happens so damned fast. If all you're going to do is provide me the Cliff Notes, then just dump that shit in a guidebook where it belongs. Don't pretend you're actually telling a story when you're not.

Well then I hope you delve into it in Dragon Ball Dissection, maybe as the interlude to DBZ once you finish off the Daimao and 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai arc.

[garnetjester]

I'm calling it now. Akira Toriyama created Gine to get her involved somehow in the next DBZ movie. She will probably be brought back to life and brought to Earth for a day (like Goku was in the Majin Buu saga) to participate in the next SSJ God ritual.

If that happens I won't know if I should laugh or cry.

And about Seripa, it would be very difficult for even the strongest saiyan woman to give birth to a child and stand around fighting 5 minutes later, so I doubt she could be the one.

[Mewzard]

I've occasionally had a differing opinion than some people, but this may be the first topic where I was the only person to defend/like something, lol.

Edit: Didn't see that other post.

It was supposed to be from his head injury and amnesia when he was a baby, and from being raised by good human beings (Grandpa Gohan and Master Roshi) That's how it was explained in the manga (Vol. 17) and in the anime. Until DB Minus we had no reason to believe otherwise.

Now after DB Minus we are supposed to accept that Goku became a hero instead of becoming a cowardly, sadistic, jerk like Raditz... because his mom was a gentle woman and because his father wasn't such a bad guy after all. Never mind the fact that Goku's brother has exactly the same parents... and Raditz turned out to be a real asshole.

The Bardock TV Special had one serious plot hole (baby Goku being very peaceful and friendly) and one minor plot hole (Bardock's vision of Goku facing 1st form Freeza) but other than that it was really well done.

But that's not why he's good. He's good because of his raising. Raditz having the same parents and turning out to be a bastard shows that (Vegeta could have rubbed off on him, but I doubt they were together as a family for long anyways) it was purely due to his upbringing and not nature, as his nature was also violent before the injury. Nothing is contradicted in that regard despite some thinking it is.

RE: dbzfan7

No, I'd say a lot of my problems with DB- is how badly it stands on its own (the other being the contradictions it creates to the manga, not the special). I've said before that I really don't care if it contradicts the special. But this is just bad. It's not a story. It's just a collection of backstory information, and that's not even done well. This is a big event, but there's no room for it, so everything just careens along without getting any chance to know any of the characters in any significant way. Vegeta and Raditz are shoved into a single panel. Freeza gets about three. I don't know who Gine is. I don't know who Bardock is. It all just happens so damned fast. If all you're going to do is provide me the Cliff Notes, then just dump that shit in a guidebook where it belongs. Don't pretend you're actually telling a story when you're not.

Technically, it doesn't stand on its own anyways, it's a part of Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, it sets up Jaco's reason for going to Earth.

This special is about how long Toriyama had for the Trunks Special. I think Toriyama just wanted one last go before finishing up on the drawing side of Dragon Ball. Doing Jaco seemed to be killing him for a bit, so I don't think he could have handled the longer special needed to go more in depth with the characters.

[TheGmGoken]

I'll have to pick DBM, simply because Toriyama himself made it.

If Toriyama made GT(Assuming you dislike GT) with the same plot then you will like it?

[auspx]

I'm calling it now. Akira Toriyama created Gine to get her involved somehow in the next DBZ movie. She will probably be brought back to life and brought to Earth for a day (like Goku was in the Majin Buu saga) to participate in the next SSJ God ritual.

If that happens I won't know if I should laugh or cry.

And about Seripa, it would be very difficult for even the strongest saiyan woman to give birth to a child and stand around fighting 5 minutes later, so I doubt she could be the one.

Istead of creating a ton of plot holes in DB Minus Toriyama could have changed literally one line of dialogue from that movie to make it work. Instead of "your son was born yesterday" to "our son was born a week ago" and it could work. It would make so much more sense than to have a barbarian like Bardock "fall in love" with a weak, useless woman like Gine and then have kids with her.

This is one thing that always annoyed me about the Bardock TV Special. Why didn't Toei just come out and say it openly "yes that woman in Bardock's squad was the mother of Goku and Raditz"? Why even have a woman in that team unless she was Bardock's wife or girlfriend? What was the point? To show that the saiyans don't discriminate by gender? And don't you find it a little strange that after Bardock returned to Planet Vegeta he went to a tavern to ask some drunks for help who laugh at him and don't believe him... but he didn't say goodbye to the mother of his children or at least asked her for help? It would make a lot of sense if she was already dead. And it would have been very tragic and dramatic if Goku's mother was a proud warrior-woman who died in battle.

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

"your son was born yesterday"

Wasn't that line only in the English dub, though?

EDIT: I just went and watched the special. Apparently he was born as Bardock and crew were having their way with the Kanassans. However, after the first eyecatch, and we see Bardock in the medical machine, one of the medics remarks "Bardock is as surprising as ever. It's only taken him several days to fully recover". Note: "several days". That's several days that Bardock was out cold, and several days Kakarrot has been alive. It may not be an exact amount of time, but for all we know, it could've been almost a week, or even more. Either way, Kakarrot certainly wasn't just a day old when he was sent out. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

To contribute to the topic though, I'd have to go with the special. The way DB- changes Goku's backstory and such from the way it was told by Raditz is, to me, on par with Tenshinhan being a descendant of aliens in terms of being a stupid and unnecessary addition to Dragon Ball.