Dragon Ball Z Abridged

Wait, when were Tien, Yamcha, and Krillin swatted away?

They weren't but it was made clear that they would be. Which is one of the reasons they didn't get involved with the fight, the other one being Goku didn't want them to.

It's the principle of the thing.

Only the preliminary rounds have time limits...

In regards to the Videl vs. Spopovich thing, I would be fine with the depiction of that being offscreen assuming the joke was something along the lines of

That would work.

There's also very little the announcers could do with Videl refusing to give up.

They could send her to therapy afterwards...

After physical recovery of course...

This would work especially well if the joke was then repeated right after (by Videl, no less) when Yamu and Spopovich penetrate Gohan.

edited 29th Mar '17 2:51:12 AM by KnownUnknown

I just realized something.

In Yu Yu Hakusho, there's a tournament arc in which one of the protagonists, Kurama, has to fight three successive fights against enemies. The first one inflicts him with a paralyzing effect that slowly nerfs his ability to fight and move throughout each of his matches. He still manages to win his second, but by the third, he's basically rendered helpless.

The opponent for his third match begins thoroughly torturing him. The guy is brutally wailing on him while keeping him on his feet so that the match can't end. It's sick and horrifying, and he's finally encouraged to just toss Kurama out of the ring when one of his allies points out that series protagonist Yusuke is beside himself with rage and about to break the rules, jump in, and kill him to make this stop.

The 25th Tenkaichi Budokai scene with Spopovich, Videl, and Gohan is basically this exact same scene, but more awkwardly done and with less impact.

I'd been thinking that Yu Yu did a great job of lifting this scene from Dragon Ball and making it much more engaging, but I've been looking at manga release dates, and I just realized Yu Yu actually did it first. Their version came out two years before Dragon Ball's.

EDIT: Wait, I'm an idiot. I'm looking at release dates of the collections, not the original Shonen Jump chapters.

edited 29th Mar '17 8:35:18 AM by TobiasDrake

Oh yeah.

I remember that one. And unlike Gohan, Yusuke did get a chance to actually get the dude who hurt his friend too. I watched the anime version of that scene. It was great. I'm pretty sure the dude cried at one point.

I think what helps is that, unlike with Videl, where that was her only fight in the entire franchise, we'd seen more of what Kurama could do before hand, and knew how bad ass he was, so this is just one loss out of how many wins. Plus, he'd been worn down before.

I have some other thoughts but it's hard to put them into words really.

The fights are handled differently because they're supposed to illustrate different things.

Kurama's situation was just one of many examples of the tournament committee and audience being totally and completely against our guys. The situation with Videl was to illustrate how Babidi's magic works, even though by all rights Spopovich should have normally lost that fight hard.

edited 29th Mar '17 10:55:13 AM by LSBK

That's true.

That being said, it would have been nice to see a little bit more out of Videl. I mean, she's in one fight, gets utterly wrecked, and then never fights again.

There's something really uncomfortable that. I'm hoping it's just me exaggerating.

It's uncomfortable that she never fights again...

Is fine though.

Is not fine

I mean, I not going to pretend there's nothing problematic about the situation but saying "Yu Yu Hakusho did it better" is ignoring the fact that Yu Yu Hakusho didn't actually do the same thing. They're only vaguely similar situations.

edited 29th Mar '17 1:02:08 PM by LSBK

The two shows' uses of it are distinct, though I'd agree there are things in YYH's scene that make it more interesting than DBZ's.

Kurama's beatdown by Bakken is part of an ongoing struggle. He doesn't just step up to fight and get beaten - it's at the tail end of a grueling gauntlet in which Kurama gives his all despite having the deck stacked against him. Kurama's a character we know, and have known and seen fight and sacrifice for a long time - the complete unfairness and sadism of the entire situation is what the scene is really emphasizing, until the point Bakken is forced to stop because Yusuke is about to snap and screw the rules entirely.

Spopovich beating Videl is more of a "wake up call." Before that point, this was a leisurely storyline about getting the band back together and seeing Goku again, etc. Videl, for her part, was something of a plot device to reintroduce things through: her plot with Gohan is the catalyst through which the audience learns what's different now. Unlike Kurama, Videl isn't really a character we latch behind - at least not in the same way. She's a newcomer, without any ties to the audience. She gets something of a supporting character arc to Gohan's main protagonist: we him teach her how learn to use ki, how to fly, and in knowing him get to be a slightly better person, etc... and then Spopovich shows up. Suddenly, she gets the final nail in the coffin about her belief that her world holds a candle to the one the protagonists are in, and the plot puts a stopper on her supporting role almost entirely.

Even in the moment, Videl's scene is more about Gohan and the suffering he's going through by not being able to protect her than it is about her. It's basically the first Cerebus moment for the arc, and the point where the protagonists kick into action. So... yeah, two different things.

But that said, that doesn't mean there aren't things YYH does that make it's version of the setup more engaging overall. While both Bakken and Spopovich are only seen for a short amount of time, Bakken gets a lot of personality in that time - being slimy, a braggart, but also a coward who is despised by his more honorable teammates, while neither Spopovich and Yamu get any. Going back to how we latch onto Kurama but not so much Videl since in comparison he's the long time hero who's suffered whereas she just kind of the new, weak addition who didn't get to do much, Spopovich and Videl ends up being a fight between a character we haven't gotten much of a chance to care about and an antagonist whose success or defeat we aren't invested in - it doesn't feel that important overall, only that it makes Gohan furious.

Gohan doesn't even get to get revenge on Spopovich, and he doesn't really need to. He's just a Mook, after all, and he gets taken out like one. Whereas the combination of Bakken's personality and his actions, and the fact that we've come to really attach to Kurama and care about what happens to him and whether he might die, make it really satisfying when Yusuke gets payback (at which point the tone of the arc resets with Jin).

edited 29th Mar '17 8:59:45 PM by KnownUnknown

Probably one of the most cathartic beatings in the show.

Happy Anniversery Kaiser!

I didn't know he was married.

I believe it came up here once back when the Broly special was released.

They mentioned it in a podcast awhile ago. It also came up when he mentioned that he and his husband where moving to Texas and a bunch of people started going "Gay people shouldn't move to Texas!", as if they didn't already know about where they were moving to.

edited 30th Mar '17 10:39:37 AM by LSBK

I didn't know he was gay, either.

Married to his husband for four years. Good on him. Wish them the best of luck.

(6) The Yu Yu Hakusho in general I'd say did everything Dragonball did but a little better, or with a little more nuance. Animation, fight sequences, opening and ending music, character development - trade-off being that nearly every fight ended with a main character trying some suicidal tactic, Keiko being useless after the first few arcs, and the massive genre shift after those same arcs.

edited 30th Mar '17 11:46:24 AM by Soble

i do wonder what it would've been like for the story to continue the "spirit detective" angle.