Non-thread-worthy discussions

[MathSSJ]

Does anyone have any big examples of SS1 having sparks/lightning in the manga? I know the anime shows, specials and TV shows tend to give it some but besides two in the Boo arc with Vegeta and Vegetto, I can't recall any.

I don't think there is any. You have some extra stuff like Neko Majin Z5 and some modern Toriyama promo art that has Super Saiyan Goku with lightning and that's kinda it.

[TheUltimateNinja]

Does anyone have any big examples of SS1 having sparks/lightning in the manga? I know the anime shows, specials and TV shows tend to give it some but besides two in the Boo arc with Vegeta and Vegetto, I can't recall any.

Toriyama was pretty consistent about the lightning in the original manga, I don't think there are any instances of a regular SSJ having lightning.

[ABED]

Have you ever watched the first episode of a show and noticed that the dialog is often very expositional and characters don't talk in a way like they've known each other for years or know the information they are conveying to each other just so they can tell it to the audience? Considering DBZ is the middle of the story and the audience had little issue getting up to speed, I think many writers need to rethink their approach. Perhaps it's the studios that force it on writers. Either way, I think people are capable of getting information organically than through expositional dialog.

[nickzambuto]

I love Roshi for many reasons. But one of his character traits that I feel people don't really consciously think about is the fact that he's one of the few, few, very few fighters in Dragon Ball who possesses absolutely zero pride. This is rare, perhaps more noteworthy due to its uniqueness in Dragon Ball, but I can't think of many warrior or master characters who truly have no pride at all like Roshi does. He is a true martial artist. Like he said to Goku and Kuririn in the beginning, martial arts are not about winning fights or impressing girls. They are about bettering oneself and protecting people when it's necessary.

[TheUltimateNinja]

I love Roshi for many reasons. But one of his character traits that I feel people don't really consciously think about is the fact that he's one of the few, few, very few fighters in Dragon Ball who possesses absolutely zero pride. This is rare, perhaps more noteworthy due to its uniqueness in Dragon Ball, but I can't think of many warrior or master characters who truly have no pride at all like Roshi does. He is a true martial artist. Like he said to Goku and Kuririn in the beginning, martial arts are not about winning fights or impressing girls. They are about bettering oneself and protecting people when it's necessary.

Yeah, he's a pretty cool guy.

[Nejishiki]

I think it's more accurate to say he's able to easily wane his pride instead. He placed pride in being Goku's superior enough to secretly reprise the Chun character. It was for Goku's benefit, yes. However, his internal dialogue revealed a secondary motive in not wanting to be upstaged by his students so easily (prior to his match with Tenshinhan).

[ABED]

I think we need to distinguish between pride and hubris.

[ekrolo2]

Does anyone wish Toriyama came up with a halfway consistent increase for Zenkai? The whole concept is that you get beaten down by someone stronger than you, heal, then get stronger so why not use that as a basis for an increase? I'll use Vegeta as an example of what I mean.

Monster Zarbon kicks his ass (let's put him at 28k) so when Vegeta heals, his body gives him a good edge over Zarbon so when next they meet he can beat him up. Let's say he increases to 30k or slightly over. Then when he heals from Recoome's beatdown (lets put him at 45k), he gets to 50-60k so he can school him.

Basically, the stronger the opponent who wrecks you, the more powerful you become to fight them better another day. It does kind of work like this for a bit but then the Freeza fight just makes it all go haywire.

[8000 Saiyan]

One thing that's always interested me: do Dragon Ball's voice actors get support from international home video releases? Do international/dubbing actors (English ones aside, of course) get anything from home video sales & TV airings? How does this work for secondhand dubs, which are not based on the original but a different version (in early English DB's case, the Mexican dub, & in Hindi dub's case, the FUNi dub)?

I do know that the Ocean dubs, despite all being union (Blue Water aside), didnt have this sort of payment in the contracts - meaning the sales didnt affect VAs - even for prelay jobs. FUNi's work is all non-union & I've said my stance on that - just curious as to how other countries treat this issue. Did (ex:) Mario Castañeda get anything for the FUNi dub airing? Were non-English dubs unionized projects? Did, even, Nozawa & co., make money on FUNi's dub-only releases? This is all interesting & I wonder if some folks are interested in this.

(I should probably ask the same about animators, though I have a sinking feeling they arent paid anything of the sort, especially overseas).

I don't know anything about this, sorry.

[nickzambuto]

I'm watching the 22ed tournament in Japanese, and when Goku was telling Tenshinhan about Ma Junior, I caught him using the word "senpai."

So Daimao is Piccolo's senpai.

...How appropriate.

[TheUltimateNinja]

Does anyone wish Toriyama came up with a halfway consistent increase for Zenkai? The whole concept is that you get beaten down by someone stronger than you, heal, then get stronger so why not use that as a basis for an increase? I'll use Vegeta as an example of what I mean.

Monster Zarbon kicks his ass (let's put him at 28k) so when Vegeta heals, his body gives him a good edge over Zarbon so when next they meet he can beat him up. Let's say he increases to 30k or slightly over. Then when he heals from Recoome's beatdown (lets put him at 45k), he gets to 50-60k so he can school him.

Basically, the stronger the opponent who wrecks you, the more powerful you become to fight them better another day. It does kind of work like this for a bit but then the Freeza fight just makes it all go haywire.

It could be that that's how it normally works but once a Saiyan gets close to becoming a Super Saiyan the increases from Zenkais increase several-fold.

[ekrolo2]

Does anyone wish Toriyama came up with a halfway consistent increase for Zenkai? The whole concept is that you get beaten down by someone stronger than you, heal, then get stronger so why not use that as a basis for an increase? I'll use Vegeta as an example of what I mean.

Monster Zarbon kicks his ass (let's put him at 28k) so when Vegeta heals, his body gives him a good edge over Zarbon so when next they meet he can beat him up. Let's say he increases to 30k or slightly over. Then when he heals from Recoome's beatdown (lets put him at 45k), he gets to 50-60k so he can school him.

Basically, the stronger the opponent who wrecks you, the more powerful you become to fight them better another day. It does kind of work like this for a bit but then the Freeza fight just makes it all go haywire.

It could be that that's how it normally works but once a Saiyan gets close to becoming a Super Saiyan the increases from Zenkais increase several-fold.

I guess that's the intent but it's really inconsistent once the Freeza fight starts. Vegeta goes from 30k to 400-500k then to 2.5 million (going by the Daizenshuu numbers) and Goku goes from 90k to 3 million. It feels like there's a massive, missing middle ground in-between here.

[TheUltimateNinja]

I guess that's the intent but it's really inconsistent once the Freeza fight starts. Vegeta goes from 30k to 400-500k then to 2.5 million (going by the Daizenshuu numbers) and Goku goes from 90k to 3 million. It feels like there's a massive, missing middle ground in-between here.

I don't think the Daizenshuu lists a power level for that Vegeta, 2.5 million seems too high to me in comparison to Goku's 3 million.

Anyway, assuming that Zenkais respond to a need, it could be that Goku's body kept getting stronger and stronger over time in that healing pod since he could sense Freeza's power steadily increasing.

[nickzambuto]

There's no rationale for the near death boosts. It's a perfect example of PIS; Goku, Vegeta and Cell all became exactly as strong as they needed to be to service the story. No rhyme or reason. No explanation. No nothing. They just became exactly as strong as needed. This includes both receiving ludicrously large boosts in order to stand against a villain, as well as receiving comparatively minuscule boosts when the villain needs to win.

[Cipher]

I don't know what got me thinking about this today, but God is such a god-damn dick in this series.

He's apparently more than strong enough to stop Piccolo. So he manifests his evil into a horrible demon in order to become God, then chooses not to stop that demon from killing who knows how many innocent people because that's not what gods do.

Like, fuck you too, buddy. Maybe you could've just ... not become God?

[ABED]

I don't know what got me thinking about this today, but God is such a god-damn dick in this series.

He's apparently more than strong enough to stop Piccolo. So he manifests his evil into a horrible demon in order to become God, then chooses not to stop that demon from killing who knows how many innocent people because that's not what gods do.

Like, fuck you too, buddy. Maybe you could've just ... not become God?

We aren't given much information on Kami's history, but I always took the creation of Piccolo to be an accident. He figured out a way to cast out the evil from himself, but he probably didn't know it would physically manifest itself in Piccolo Daimao.

[LightBing]

I don't know what got me thinking about this today, but God is such a god-damn dick in this series.

He's apparently more than strong enough to stop Piccolo. So he meditates his evil into a horrible demon in order to become God, then chooses not to stop that demon from killing who knows how many innocents because that's not what gods do, and hey, that's what he is now.

Like, fuck you too, buddy. Maybe you could've just ... not become God?

Yes, thank you!
He's awful and his attempt to break the "rules" at 23rd TB makes it even worse, since Mutaito and who knows how many people died while he cowardly watched from above.
Plus he took over the body of an innocent man, without asking and risking his life. I even wrote a short story about it dramatizing the whole situation.

Creating the Dragon Balls also wasn't the smartest decision. Bulma said the last time they were used (at the start of DB) someone become King. Which kinda points towards the current King or it's predecessors becoming rulers of the World.

What really hurts is that he acknowledged his awfulness at the end of the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, yet Mr.Toriyama decided to undermine it by having Master Roshi give a speech how him creating the Dragon Balls made everybody meet and that was great, yadayadayada...

My least liked character in Dragon Ball by far.

[ABED]

Plus he took over the body of an innocent man, without asking and risking his life. I even wrote a short story about it dramatizing the whole situation.

Do we actually know the full circumstances behind him possessing that guy?

Creating the Dragon Balls also wasn't the smartest decision.

It's not a terrible decision either. As Muten Roshi pointed out, if Kami hadn't created them, Bulma never would've met Goku. And he was right. It's because of that that Piccolo was destroyed, his son became a hero, Freeza was stopped, etc.

[LightBing]

Do we actually know the full circumstances behind him possessing that guy?

We know the man didn't know how he ended up there. So Kami was given no consent.

It's not a terrible decision either. As Muten Roshi pointed out, if Kami hadn't created them, Bulma never would've met Goku. And he was right. It's because of that that Piccolo was destroyed, his son became a hero, Freeza was stopped, etc.

It also fomented evil and greed. Like the Red Ribbon army, that must have killed people in their search for the balls before Goku entered the fray and definitely caused suffering to many more.

I think it's redundant to discuss if they did more good than evil. It's something we can't measure.
The point is that after seeing that the Dragon Balls contributed to these actions, he still didn't destroy them. He even admitted himself that wasn't his intention. Sorry I don't remember when he said it, but I know it's in the manga.

[rereboy]

I don't know what got me thinking about this today, but God is such a god-damn dick in this series.

Seems pretty realistic.