Father isn't flawless, but it's rather good. And original. I like that in the end, Bardock doesn't really accomplish anything. He doesn't even really go down in a blaze of glory. It's a man who finds out about a great evil, gives it his best... and fails.
Minus meanwhile, is far more... derivative. It's every Superman origin story, with Bardock as Jor-El and Gine as Lara. Plus Gine reinforces the idea that is all too common in DBZ that married women (and mother) can't be badass by being just a Saiyan cook. Minus is not BAD, but it feels like the story doesn't really make the world of Dragonball much interesting. I will give it props for remembering Raditz exists.
Also, the psychic future thing happens in Minus too. Bardock's entire thing is based on some unexplained premonition!
edited 2nd May '17 4:05:12 PM by Ghilz
I would have liked Father of Goku more if that mob of warriors behind Bardock when he challenges Frieza were Saiyans coming to defend Planet Vegeta like everyone originally thought they were supposed to be from the anime's flashbacks.
The future sight element also never really did anything for me. I feel like it was just there so that Bardock could have a consolation prize.
edited 2nd May '17 4:32:40 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Father of Goku.
I mean, I can almost see the appeal of Minus (since it at least explains why Frieza would have believed all Saiyans were on the planet: he told them to go there, and Goku, Vegeta, etc being off world is due to people disobeying that order for one reason or another), but the stuff with Gine irks me far too much.
If you want her to be cook, I can deal with that. If you want her to be gentle (even if you think it's unnecessary) I can deal with that.
But using that as an excuse to make her a non-combatant in a race that has explicitly been said to be a warrior race (and with her being the first significant pure blooded female in that race at that) is really too much.
One Strip! One Strip!Yeah, Gine bothers me too.
That said, I don't feel that Frieza telling all the Saiyans to be on Planet Vegeta appropriately answers that question. Instead, just raises new ones.
Frieza was worried that the Saiyans, plural, would become powerful enough to one day rise up and overthrow him. He's cool with a handful of them existing and puts them to use. That makes sense. He doesn't feel he has anything to fear from four Saiyans. He just doesn't want there to be a planet of them.
But if he specifically intended their genocide to be total, then why would he tolerate Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz's continued existence?
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I mean, even with the current situations the Saiyans are basically waiting for extinction. When you think it's just three guys left, you don't really have to worry about any repopulating so might as well gets some use out of them.
Though you'd think with Vegeta being a prodigy who surpassed his father as a child, would stroke Frieza's paranoia more than anyone.
Eh, even as a prodigy, Vegeta only amounted to 0.015% of Frieza's power. He's not concerned about single warriors ever matching him.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Maybe he was more worried about Saiyans in the triple or quadruple digits, and he thought that them in the single digits were no threat? On Gine, I like her character design, and unless Unfortunate Implications are obvious and offensive enough that they should be called out from an in-universe perspective, I try not to judge a work more harshly because of them.
Gine was a warrior for a time, showing that that is an option for female Saiyans, and there is already a precedent for some Saiyans being more softhearted, with Tarble. She was also not a housewife in the kitchen, but a worker in the meat cutting industry.
The inherent sexism in housewives in the kitchen isn't because of any bias towards women as chefs, it's because 'housewife' isn't a paying career, and it accompanies the implication that women are only useful for raising children. Gine has a job, one where she chops meat for distribution, and jobs that deal with food, such as being a chef, cook, or food factory worker, are actually biased against women, not for.
Finally, Saiyans in Dragon Ball Minus are living in primative stone/clay domed houses, implying that they rely on Freeza for providing them with most of their gear, and Saiyans don't seem like they're much for entertainment, so it's possible that aside from going out to kill planets, working in the food industry is one of the only other jobs available.
edited 2nd May '17 6:54:25 PM by PushoverMediaCritic
For some reason I'm not as bothered by this since most stuff I've read or watched usually has someone like that.
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Tarble was a disgrace because he had that trait while being of royal blood, and rare mutations like that do tend to come up in more than one person. Even if it was only one in a hundred, that's still Saiyans numbering in the double digits, going by Minus' Saiyan population approximation.
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Literally just explained in two paragraphs why she's not a housewife.
Yes.
edited 2nd May '17 7:02:26 PM by PushoverMediaCritic
I've always defined "housewife" as "a wife who stays at home to take care of the house/children and has no paid job", which seems to be the definition of the word every time I've encountered it, but if you want to change it to mean whatever the hell you want then that's cool, too.
Form now on, a housewife is a wife who is literally a house. Not to be confused with your housewaifu who is usually that dream home you'll never be able to afford ever.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!Two things:
- Even a warrior society needs people to perform non-combat roles. An army's no good if everyone starves to death because nobody wanted to be a chef. Or dies of easily treatable injuries because everyone thought being a doctor is lame. You have to have non-combatants or it just doesn't work. These are usually made up of the people who are ill-suited to combat.
- That being said, having the first female Saiyan also be the first Saiyan non-combatant is grossly rife with Unfortunate Implications. Gine wouldn't be a problem if she was balanced by other female Saiyans who were violent, badass warriors like the male Saiyan characters. Problem is, Dragon Ball is heavily lopsided towards the male gender. As it is, she has to bear the burden of being 100% of all Saiyan women depicted in the series. That makes her depiction much more poignant than it needs to be.
Generally speaking, a character should not be a Unique and Special Snowflake in two different ways unless you want those ways to be connected.
edited 2nd May '17 7:22:37 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

Screw Father of Goku, psychic future sight doesn't even make sense as a story to tell with a Saiyan, of all species. Minus isn't perfect, and it's not as action-y as Father, but it's also not nearly as dumb.
edited 2nd May '17 3:54:02 PM by PushoverMediaCritic