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Dragon Ball Z Abridged

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TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#17526: Jan 25th 2016 at 11:13:16 AM

I love Frieza. Frieza's my favorite Dragon Ball villain. But there's no escaping the fact that Frieza is Goku's cheapest win. The Super Saiyan transformation is visually interesting and well-foreshadowed, but has little to do with Goku's character or effort, and everything to do with the need to give Goku another push so he can catch up to the ridiculously overpowered Frieza.

That Toriyama reserved the right for Goku to win by Authorial Fiat well in advance does not change the fact that Goku won by Authorial Fiat. Coming out of that fight, I can respect how someone who hasn't really watched or read the non-TFS version of Dragon Ball - I'm fairly certain this person has mentioned that they're not very versed in the franchise - could come away from that rolling their eyes and going, "God, it really is impossible for Goku to lose, isn't it?"

As ridiculously inflated as Frieza was, Goku should not have beaten him. Frieza was built up as the kind of foe you come back to later on when you've had a chance to improve some more. He was a Hopeless Boss Fight and he played that role perfectly.

edited 25th Jan '16 11:23:31 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
TheMageofFire Since: May, 2012
#17527: Jan 25th 2016 at 11:35:01 AM

28k to World's Strongest Abridged.

Medigo03 Since: Sep, 2013
#17528: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:28:53 PM

I dont know

I like the whole aspect of Frieza being so powerful it took literally a half year of episodes to take him down

unnoun Since: Jan, 2012
#17529: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:29:45 PM

The reviewer in question has seen all of DBZA but basically none of the original Dragon Ball or the manga.

All she knows is off of what she's been told and gathered.

It's a perspective that is perhaps distorted, but still interesting in its own right.

And, I mean, good media analysis is welcome irregardless.

Watching someone deconstruct and analyze DBZA as a work based on its own merits alone, without the context of the source material is. Refreshing. A unique perspective that I welcome.

edited 25th Jan '16 1:34:21 PM by unnoun

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#17531: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:34:03 PM

I enjoy getting opinions from people unfamiliar with the original. It's an interesting perspective.

One of my roommates avoided Dragon Ball like the plague until we got him to watch Abridged and now he's hooked on this version.

It starts off kind of abruptly with a lot of unanswered questions like, "Who the hell are these people and why do I care? Why is everyone startled that Goku has a kid? Why is that man green? Why does NOBODY CARE that he's green?" but so did the American release of Z so, y'know, it's appropriate.

edited 25th Jan '16 1:34:35 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
BaconManiac5000 Since: Nov, 2013 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
#17532: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:35:42 PM

It starts off kind of abruptly with a lot of unanswered questions like, "Who the hell are these people and why do I care? Why is everyone startled that Goku has a kid? Why is that man green? Why does NOBODY CARE that he's green?" but so did the American release of Z so, y'know, it's appropriate.

Yeah, that's what I thought when I first watched it.

what do you mean I didn't win, I ate more wet t-shirts than anyone else
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#17533: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:36:47 PM

Both the shocking reveal that Goku has a kid and the shocking reveal that Goku is an alien are significantly less shocking if this is the first goddamn time you've ever seen Goku. Then it just seems like the premise, which may have resulted in a lot of inaccurate attitudes about what Dragon Ball's supposed to be about.

EDIT: Oh, and Gohan has a tail for some reason. The explanation for where Goku's tail went happened at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, prior to Raditz, so without that explanation, Gohan just has a tail for some reason.

edited 25th Jan '16 1:39:12 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
BaconManiac5000 Since: Nov, 2013 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
#17534: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:39:09 PM

Yeah, that's probably why so many people in the West felt like the killing of Yamcha, Tien, Chiaozu, and Piccolo were They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character.

what do you mean I didn't win, I ate more wet t-shirts than anyone else
VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#17535: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:39:14 PM

I was a kid, so I never questioned any of these things.

edited 25th Jan '16 1:39:27 PM by VeryMelon

Lionheart0 Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: I'm just a hunk-a, hunk-a burnin' love
#17536: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:42:03 PM

I remember the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around were the movies being non-canon when I first watched the series.

WillKeaton from Alberta, Canada Since: Jun, 2010
#17537: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:45:50 PM

When I was a little kid I saw this show on YTV about this little boy with a tail and a girl with blue hair going on a quest to collect seven mystical balls. It went up until the end of the Pilaf saga, though I'm pretty sure I missed some episodes, including this one with a perverted turtle hermit. Years later I watched Dragonball Z and I was like, "this is familiar, where have I seen- Holy crap! This is that show I saw all those years ago! But what the hell happened? Goku is grown up, has a kid, and is missing his tail. And I don't know who a lot of these other characters are. Did I miss something?"

edited 25th Jan '16 1:46:33 PM by WillKeaton

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#17538: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:46:56 PM

The only thing I remember question from that sequence of events is Tenshinhan saying his arm is going to grow back.

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#17539: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:47:53 PM

I remember seeing some Dragon Ball before the Z anime aired on Toonami, but when Z aired I never connected it to the previous anime until many years later.

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#17540: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:49:51 PM

I remember watching Dragon Ball as a kid after Z and thinking "Wow, this music weird". I got used to it but it took me off guard.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#17541: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:51:25 PM

I remember the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around were the movies being non-canon when I first watched the series.

The series certainly didn't help with that either.

Glaring at you, Garlic Jr. Filler Saga.

Early Impressions

I saw some of Dragon Ball Z when I was a kid. All I remembered was a search for the Dragon Balls in which the characters had to sneak into a giant's castle and steal a Ball from his earring. When I rediscovered the series in high school, I was able to watch from pretty early on and was all excited for it to get to the high fantasy stuff I recalled.

...I was a bit disappointed when my only childhood memory of the show turned out to just be a pointless sojourn to a fake planet to buy time for the plot to return.

edited 25th Jan '16 1:52:04 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#17542: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:51:27 PM

I never watched it, but I remember thinking that if there was a Dragon Ball Z and a Dragon Ball GT, then there ought to be a Dragon Ball AF and a Dragon Ball UY.

[up] ...How many episodes was Fake Namek?

edited 25th Jan '16 1:53:09 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!
Lionheart0 Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: I'm just a hunk-a, hunk-a burnin' love
#17543: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:51:29 PM

Oh yeah, and when I first thoughts when I finally saw a picture of Bardock was "he doesn't look like scientist."

LOLypop1224 ...what am I even DOING here? Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
...what am I even DOING here?
#17544: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:55:22 PM

Yeah, even the first episode of DBZA doesn't do a good job of explaining things. Actually, it's terrible at explaining things. Probably because it's not trying to.

And yet it was my gateway into the series...

The *Legendary* Super Saiyan is motivated by a crying infant! He is a literal giant f***ing baby!
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#17545: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:58:24 PM

The first episode aired in Japan a week after the last episode of Dragon Ball, so explanation weren't really necessary to the audience at that time. When it got to America, they decided to only dub the Z portion for...whatever reason (why did they only go for the Z portion anyways?).

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#17546: Jan 25th 2016 at 1:59:37 PM

I mostly saw the anime versions of the Cell and early Buu sagas on Toonami as a kid, and also recall laughing at the tailend of the Frieza saga when I saw Frieza struggling as a torso and one arm.

I had (and have) a demented sense of humor.

Anyway, I dropped out some time during the Buu saga for some reason (I think after Buu killed Babidi but before he became Super Buu), then never really heard hide nor hair of the series again until my brother randomly picked up Raging Blast 2. I played it, enjoyed it, and started rewatching old fights and some of the movies on Youtube before coming here to watch the Abridged version around... a little after episode 30 got released, I believe. By the time I caught up, Cooler's movie came out.

edited 25th Jan '16 2:00:28 PM by Anomalocaris20

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Lionheart0 Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: I'm just a hunk-a, hunk-a burnin' love
#17547: Jan 25th 2016 at 2:04:59 PM

Funimation actually licensed Dragon Ball and released it a year before DBZ. The first 13 episodes got dubbed by Ocean Group, but apparently the ratings were poor and it got axed.

Fun fact, the original Ocean Dub also got cancelled under similar circumstances. When the show scored high ratings on Toonami and got revived, Funimation decided to do the dubbing in-house. It's because DBZ got so popular that Funimation eventually went back to dubbing Dragon Ball again.

edited 25th Jan '16 2:05:56 PM by Lionheart0

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#17548: Jan 25th 2016 at 2:07:41 PM

And apparently the Ocean Dub ended at around the point where Goku was finally getting down to fighting the Ginyu Force on Namek or something, right?

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Lionheart0 Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: I'm just a hunk-a, hunk-a burnin' love
#17549: Jan 25th 2016 at 2:09:41 PM

Yep, the last episode, at the time, was when Goku arrived on Namek and one-shotted Recoome. There was where the series was more or less "cancelled" in America.

So yeah, Toonami saved DBZ. tongue

Zelenal The Cat Knows Where It's At from Purrgatory Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
The Cat Knows Where It's At
#17550: Jan 25th 2016 at 2:10:41 PM

Actually, I'm pretty sure the Ocean Dub went all the way to the end of the series. It's just that episodes for that dub stopped airing at that point in the US.

Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!

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