IANCE
: You know... I find it funny that you say that. Because not too long ago on the FF thread we were talking about how much Nomura gets screwed by Square. Particularly involving anything about Final Fantasy 15.
wehrmacht
: If memory serves me correctly, that's something he brought up on one of those Author comments/omakes for Dr Slump.
I am not sure if it reflects how he dealt with Dragon Ball though.
"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!I wouldn't call them "trying too hard", it's just that his taste and ideas for character designs is sorta out-of-norm. Kinda like the guy who wrote Bakemonogatari now that I think of it
While we are in the topic of movies... I have to ask: How bad is Bio-Broly? I have been meaning to watch it since it gives some spotlight to Android 18, but the our page on it saying most people consider it the worst DBZ movie isn't giving me much confidence.
edited 23rd Aug '15 5:28:54 AM by SaintDeltora
"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!Well, Masako Nozawa voices both, just how she has been since the 80's, and will do so until the day she dies.
So if you don't like her Son family voice, probably not.
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To be honest, I myself am just waiting for the Latin dub. Unless you seriously can't wait, I'd tell you to wait. If you don't instantly like them, the Son family's voices will drive you nuts and only get worse the more you listen to them.
No, his point of view is followed alongside Goku's. Goku, however, continued the trend he established against Piccolo Daimao of excusing himself from the plot so that he can arrive in the nick of time and save the day.
Yes. And, at the same time, Goku's journey is establishing the afterlife system of the setting and introducing a valuable new character: Kaio-sama. Not just learning to become more powerful, Goku spends this downtime the same way he spent it in Piccolo Daimao's arc: fleshing out the cosmology and meeting important new characters.
Gohan barely had any idea what was even happening. He transformed because Goku told him to look at the sky, then he won the fight by falling on Vegeta after the latter severed his tail. The "final blow" was literally Vegeta being crushed by the collapse of the final foe he defeated.
Prior to that was the entire fight against Goku, Yajirobe landing two good hits (one game-changing), Krillin and Gohan hitting him with the Genki-Dama, etc. The physical battle against Nappa and Vegeta weren't about anyone. It was the cast's opportunity to get together for a final hurrah. Everyone had a chance to play, even Yajirobe.
Piccolo's redemption was about Piccolo, not Gohan. Gohan had no agency in that; Piccolo chose to train him, Piccolo became close to him, Piccolo realized that bringing Gohan to fight was a mistake, and Piccolo took a bullet for him while Gohan stood paralyzed with fear.
In the same battle, Tien and Chiaotzu had a similar moment each sacrificing themselves for the other, establishing the extent of their bond. Gohan stepped up to fight Vegeta but so did Krillin and Yajirobe. The point is, the Saiyan battle wasn't about Gohan, it was about everyone.
No, it's not. Vegeta's view of the events is followed closely. Gohan and Krillin spend almost all of Namek flying around trying not to get killed, and Krillin gets the bulk of that.
- When Gohan enrages Dodoria and saves Dende, it's Krillin who keeps them from getting killed by the brute.
- Both Gohan and Krillin find a Dragon Ball apart from each other, but Gohan's journey involves one brief, tense encounter with Vegeta and nothing more. Krillin meets Grand Elder Guru, is the first to get his power unlocked, witnesses Vegeta kill Zarbon, then has a tense negotiation with Vegeta over what he thinks is the final Dragon Ball.
- Against the Ginyus, Gohan and Krillin are glued together at the hip. They fight Guldo together. They get their shit stomped by Recoome together. They fight Ginyu-Goku together.
- Once Frieza appears, both Gohan and Krillin get a brief moment of awesome against his Second Form. Gohan's Hidden Power lets him deal some damage before Frieza dusts himself off and goes to murder him, and Gohan only survives as a consequence of Piccolo's intervention. Krillin, meanwhile, cuts off Frieza's tail then manages to outmaneuver him long enough to regroup with the team.
- When his Third Form comes up, Gohan's role is relegated to supporting Piccolo while Krillin and Vegeta are enacting a plan to power up Vegeta by abusing his zenkai.
- You are correct that Gohan was the only person to witness Goku become a Super Saiyan, but Krillin was the catalyst for it.
Like the Saiyan Saga, nobody was the "main character" of Namek. There were a lot of plot threads running side by side. Goku excused himself from the plot once more, this time actually living up to your callous dismissal of him in the Saiyan Saga as just training and not contributing anything to the central narrative. Vegeta and Krillin carried the central narratives while Gohan bounced from being Krillin's sidekick to Piccolo's.
Once he returns, he immediately facilitates a power up for Vegeta and Trunks, then sits right beside Gohan as Gohan reacts more to the events than he does. He briefly exits in order to retrieve Tenshinhan after his big moment, and then it's off to training alongside Gohan. This training focuses mostly on Gohan, between helping him achieve Super Saiyan and watching as he develops. The most focus he gets is when he achieves Grade 2 and 3... which are used to provide exposition on Trunks' fight. Then he gets a power up that Gohan also gets.
After that he has a brief fight with Cell before Gohan takes over. So it'd be pretty ridiculous to call it Goku's story at this point.
Yep. Once again Goku bows out of the plot, this time to become the victory condition for the story: if the Androids get to Goku, the heroes lose. Gohan's role isn't reduced, though. In the fight with the Androids, he's just a supporting fighter like he's always been, but outside combat, Gohan gets to discover Cell's time capsule with Bulma.
As Dragon Ball has since Piccolo Daimao, the Cell Saga juggles multiple narratives and spotlights several characters. Gohan remains just out of focus while everyone else's story is going on until Goku suddenly announces that Gohan is going to step up and be awesome and save the day. It's a powerful development because it's subversive; up to this moment, Gohan hasn't been The Load but he's never carried the plot on his shoulders, either.
It's effective because it plays on expectations. Goku is removed while plot happens, then comes back and saves the day. That's the formula, and having Gohan fight Cell instead of Goku messes with that formula.
A lot of things become obvious with hindsight in stories that may never have been intended in the first place. Good writing builds on what came before in such a way that the events that come seem organic and natural.
Buu's absorption ability was established when Evil Buu and Mr. Buu fought. It's also part of his backstory. Not an Ass Pull.
Potara is just a fresh method for Fusion since Fusion Reborn beat Toriyama to Gogeta. Not really an Ass Pull since it's just standing in for a plot device already firmly established. Suddenly defusing was an Ass Pull due to the build up of the Potara being permanent, granted, but it makes narrative sense since the method they were supposed to use wasn't.
"Special treatment?"
...you are seriously calling Buu's natural state an Ass Pull? I'm not even going to dignify that.
Raditz and Frieza also cast doubt on Goku's ability to save the day before it turned out that he would. Frieza moreso than any arc, spending so much time firmly establishing that Goku could not beat Frieza before having him unlock the Super Saiyan transformation and beat Frieza.
Even after Gohan stepped up, the Cell Games turned immediately to casting doubt on Goku's decision to have Gohan save the day, before it turned out Gohan could. Casting doubt on the protagonist's ability to win only to have the protagonist prevail anyway is standard writing practice.
Gohan's unique feature was the only reason he was able to be relevant in fights at all. It was Toriyama playing catch up. He does the same thing when he introduces Goten and Trunks by having them become Super Saiyans at a terribly early age, and when he introduces the Androids by claiming their mechanical features make them more powerful than Frieza.
Because of the nature of the story's Power Creep, Toriyama makes excuses to get a new character he wants to be part of the cast up to everyone else's level.
If you're insinuating that Gohan surpassing Goku was plotted at the RoSaT, I agree with you. But that's not the same as suggesting the same at Raditz.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I have no problem with Potara. It was just as much of an Ass Pull as Dance fusion, Namekian fusion, Super Saiyan having multiple levels to it, the Super God Water actually existing, and umpteen other powerups. It's just how Toriyama does his powerups.
edited 23rd Aug '15 9:26:54 AM by HamburgerTime
About this episode of Super:
Having to stretch out what in the movie took maybe five minutes to a full episode really kills the dynamism of the scene.
Not only Gotenks doesn't transform into a Super sayian 3, he doesn't even transform into a Super Sayian at all.
Gohan gets smacked with Buu and that's all she wrote. Hilarious.
Speaking of Buu, he's one resilient little bugger. Everyone else was pretty much done after Beerus hit them once, but he came back for more two times.
Beerus really is a dick in this version.
Vegeta looked like he was having a stroke after Bulma got hit.
Buu's shown he can take a lot of punishment in the anime.
I mean, he threw down with his pure self, and held his own in a way that only Super Saiyan 3 had managed to do before, despite clearly being the weaker of the two.
Which is funny considering how badly he got stomped against his evil skinny self.
I'm not surprised he could keep getting back up against even Beerus. We know that nothing less than a spirit bomb can actually made from the energy of the entire planet earth can destroy him, and since Beerus didn't just nuke earth right away, just punching him wouldn't do it.
edited 23rd Aug '15 12:16:24 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!@Tobias I'm at work so I'm not going to get into most of your post but there is a difference between how the doubts cast on Goku's chances of victory play out. Against Raditz when Goku says he can't win he's absolutely right. He has to team up with Piccolo to stand a chance and they both would have been killed if Gohan intervene. Raditz was about to give the finishing blow to Goku and neither he nor Piccolo were in any position to stop it.
As for the Freeza saga it's true they were casting doubts on Goku's ability to win but that's undermined by the constant insistence that a Super Saiyan would. And the implication that Goku was that Super saiyan.
edited 23rd Aug '15 2:12:01 PM by Manaic
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I think Buu's form, in that case, was dictated by the order of absorption. Basically, whichever Buu had absorbed the other would be the dominant one, which is why Bad Buu + Fat Buu = the tall, evil Buu. If Fat Buu had won, then the outcome would've likely been sillier, but similar in appearance.
Also, Buu seems to literally exist with no logic whatsoever.
edited 23rd Aug '15 4:48:57 PM by Reservoir

To be honest?
None of them. They're not really relevant, ever, to anything.
I guess Fusion Reborn's okay. I kinda liked Wrath of the Dragon, too. Also kinda liked Bojack Unbound...
edited 23rd Aug '15 5:14:01 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough
himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari