#(Toei Wrote These Scripts Not Me)

[tobiasdrake]

Have you read the Dragon Ball Super manga? You've stated in the past that you're more of a fan of the original manga than the anime adaptation, so I was curious what your thoughts are on the current continuation of Toriyama's original manga, seeing as how the manga had some Toriyama supervision and was based on his notes.

While I do prefer the manga to the anime, I will say that both versions of Dragon Ball Super are hit-or-miss. There are basically three creatives at work with DBS.

Toriyama, up until his passing, would write story notes and some individual plot points down and pass them off to Toei and to Toyotaro. Lotta To- names floating around Dragon Ball.

...he said with no sense of self-awareness at all.

But this is Toriyama twenty or thirty years later, so he's not exactly the same creator that wrote the original manga. His memory of his own work has drifted; For instance, while writing Battle of Gods, he forgot that Super Saiyan 2 even existed and thought SSJ3 was SSJ2.

It had been a long time for him. He only got back into Dragon Ball because Dragon Ball: Evolution pissed him off. Explaining in the 30th Anniversary Super History Book:

"Dragon Ball once became a thing of the past to me, but after that, I got angry about the live action movie, re-wrote an entire movie script, and now I'm complaining about the quality of the new TV anime, so it seems that DB has grown on me much that I can't leave it alone."

The movie script he rewrote was, of course, Battle of Gods.

Famously, after seeing Evolution, Toriyama basically marched into Toei to see what they were making, ripped up the script for Battle of Gods, and rewrote the whole thing. He was just. So. Incensed. By Hollywood's butchering of his work.

So, in a twisted way, we have Dragon Ball: Evolution to thank for the resurrection of the Dragon Ball brand. I know, it's so weird.

This was Toriyama's formal return to the world of Dragon Ball after decades of just writing little story bits here and there or designing a character or two. Though just writing story bits here or there is more or less what he settled back into with Super. Toriyama would write notes about what he wanted to happen and deliver them to Toei and to Toyotaro, and the two would separately interpret those notes into their own vision.

You can tell what's from Toriyama versus what's from Toei or Toyotaro based on what plot points end up being hit by both versions versus what's unique to one interpretation or the other.

So, this:

Gohan facing down the fused Kefla and sacrificing himself in a double KO to take her off the field? That's Toyotaro.

Super Saiyan Blue Kaio-ken? That's Toei.

Goku has never kissed Chi-Chi in 20+ years of marriage because he's aroace and they're basically playing house for keeps? That's Toriyama.

Android 17 being the key factor in winning the Tournament of Power because his Android energy can't be sensed the way ki can, that's something that came down from Toriyama. 17 pretends to self-destruct using the bomb he doesn't have anymore; The one Krillin once used Shenron to remove from him.

But Toei has 17 emerge for the fight with Jiren, so he can briefly join Goku and Frieza in fending Jiren off - before they tell him to fuck off because he's not supposed to be in this scene.

While Toyotaro has him remain hidden under his cloak of ki-sensing invisibility for a last-second surprise.

But like I said before: Writing Dragon Ball again after twenty years away out of spite towards a bad American production, Toriyama isn't the same creative he was when this was all fresh and new and exciting. He was just as prone to characterization slip-ups and questionable decision-making as Toei and Toyotaro are.

I mean. That was even happening in the original manga. Remember that time when any part of the Android arc honestly? Good times. Nobody's perfect.

So, like I said, with Super, it's really hit or miss on both sides. Sometimes Toriyama's collaborations with Toei give us the heartwarming and beautiful friendship relationship between Broly and his new pals Cheelai and Leemo.

Or this. Especially this.

Nothing in Dragon Ball has ever, EVER been as funny as when Goku and Vegeta made Frieza hold the line against Broly, a nemesis Frieza brought to Earth to kill Goku and Vegeta. Taking advantage of his berserker rage in the most comical and beautifully karmic way possible to buy them time to work out the Fusion Dance.

And sometimes they give us yet another version of the Gotenks failed fusion joke they need to flog like a dead horse every single time a Fusion takes place in any piece of media they have ever produced.

DO YOU REMEMBER THAT TIME DO YOU REMEMBER DO YOU FUCKING REMEMBER THAT TIME IT WAS SO FUNNY DO YOU REMEMBER IT

That is Fusion Reborn, Yo Son Goku and Friends Return, DBS: Broly, and DBS: Super Hero in order.

And for his part, sometimes Toriyama's collaborations with Toyotaro gives us Goku lighting the fuck up like Spirit Korra.

And sometimes it gives us Vegeta learning how to teleport from the Yardratians but then immediately swearing off ever using it again because... I guess the move has Goku's cooties on it or something.

"Vegeta, you can teleport!"

"No, I cannot! I demand divergent character evolution from this manga so I will forever forego ever learning the cool and useful techniques that you use, Kakarot. What do you mean my dialogue sounds like a fourth-wall breaking author screed?"

This is honestly one of my "favorite" things that ever happens in Super. Vegeta refuses to learn Ultra Instinct, the ultimate martial art of the gods taught by Whis, and demands another path to the same kind of power that does not exist.

Then Beerus, a character who has long been established as vastly inferior to Whis, is like "Wanna learn this other thing that's just as good as Whis's thing I swear?" and helps Vegeta learn a new art where he... *checks notes* ...lets his opponent punch him in the face without defending himself until he dies.

This is where you end up when your mission statement is to not do the things that actually work for the intelligent martial artist and instead do the opposite out of spite. You end up with a fighting style that's built around losing fights on purpose.

Toyotaro somehow manages to shill the hell out of Vegeta and downplay Goku while also making Vegeta look like the most useless idiot ever. Ultra Ego is the worst transformation in the history of Dragon Ball and I'm convinced that Beerus helped Vegeta develop this as a prank.

He's up there right now laughing his ass off.

So. Yeah. There's a lot to like but also a lot to not like about both versions of Super. It's very different from what the original manga is, and it has very different pluses and minuses between the two versions. But there are some gems to be found here.

And the biggest gem is this guy.

[cynicalruins]

Changérion Bible - Toshiki Inoue interview

Translation by Windii, scans by me

-SPOILER ALERT FOR THE ENTIRE SHOW-

Scriptwriter: Inoue Toshiki

Inoue Toshiki, a scriptwriter who wrote all but two of the 39 episodes by himself, convinced everyone who knew of the work that Changéríon was of the Inoue World. How did he create this unique series that is unparalleled in the history of television?

―Was the birth of Changérion a request of the times?!

"I think the first time I met Shirakura was on location in Nagano for "Jetman". At that time, I only had the impression that we were just smiling and drinking whiskey together, and I had no idea that we would become such close friends (laughs). Later, there was the movie version of "Hakaider", but at that time, we were still finding out each other's real intentions and didn't trust each other. It was only with "Changéríon" that we came to a kind of mutual understanding."

―How did you come to work on the plot for "Changéríon"?

"At first, the idea was to do "Hakaider" for TV. So I was supposed to do the plot from the beginning. Then we decided to do something original instead of "Hakaider," and Shirakura and I came up with the idea of doing something like "Detective Tale'"."

―In your interview with "Uchusen," you mentioned that you had a project in which the main character was a fugitive.

"Yes, there was also an idea that it would be like "The Fugitive," a foreign drama. But both ideas disappeared during the course of our discussions, and we decided to make the main character a cram school teacher. But when I tried to make it into a script, it was boring, so I forced it back to a detective, and it got a lot of traction. We decided from the beginning to make it a comedy. Both Shirakura and I felt that the traditional handsome hero with a frown on his face, carrying his troubles on his back, was outdated and uncool. It was the demand of the times, or rather, something inevitable."

―Another characteristic of Changéríon is that it doesn't present any particular theme.

"It is annoying when a work is preachy or pushes a theme to the forefront. It is not good to start with a theme. It's the creator's complacency. It's just enough to look at the whole picture and see what's there and what's emerging. Writers have a bad habit of wanting to make a theme look like a work of art, but that's a big mistake. Everyone knows that love and friendship are wonderful, and viewers don't want to see that anymore."

―There is more slapstick than comedy in Changéríon, isn't there?

"To tell you the truth, when I wrote episodes 3 and 4, I knew that this is what Changérion was all about, and I wasn't sure about it at the time of episodes 1 and 2 (laughs). But after episodes 3 and 4, the staff was on board, and we decided to go with this route, and things just escalated. Slapstick works in animation, but I experimented to see how far I could take it in live action. It went surprisingly well. Director Konaka did a great job. For my part, I was surprised that Mr. Nagaishi found it interesting. I've known Mr. Nagaishi since "Supernova Flashman", and he was the first person to reject my scripts (laughs). I thought he was good at love, flowers, and other stinky stuff, and wasn't interested in comedy or slapstick, but that wasn't so at all. I thought he was a great guy."

―You have listed your challenging works, favorite works, and worst works in the "Changéríon Memorial" on Toei's website. Could you tell us about them in detail?

"The first one I had a hard time with was episode 10. I needed a lot of ideas, and slapstick is difficult to structure. And episode 14. I was kind of tired at the time (laughs). I wasn't a writer who worked that much at the time. I only wrote up to six episodes in a row for Jetman, and I heard that Mr. Suzuki (producer Takeyuki) told Shirakura that I was limited to a maximum of six episodes (laughs)."

―The inspired works are most interesting!

"My favorite works are episodes 10, 12, and 25. That's because they are interesting (laughs). Before I write a script, I write a structure chart, and in my case, I make it very carefully, as if the script is ready when the chart is finished (laughs). I think that's where episode 10 came from. When you make a chart and throw away the excess, you get inspired. The inspired works are most interesting. In episode 25, the exchange between the two disguised as old men in the last scene is great. I think it was inspired by something else… I wonder what it was."

―Which works left you dissatisfied?

"Episode 14 is well done, but in Changérion's world, it's trite. It's a story that could have been written by anyone but me, and I don't like that. For episode 13, I like the title, but it was a bit tawdry. Episode 11 had a diluted plot. The lack of length in the script made the pacing a little sluggish. They tacked on the lines after the fact, the stuff about Kuroiwa's profundity. It's like it came about by accident. I wrote Kuroiwa as a guy who is obsessed with things, but I didn't expect him to become such a man of extensive knowledge. Mr. Nagaishi was suspicious of the direction and added classical music, which was well received. I think the music was very important. The person who chose that music was great."

―Looking back on each of the characters, do you have any thoughts?

"Akira is representative of what everyone cares about. Like, you wish you could live like that. It's a man's dream, like James Bond in that sense. You don't want to be Kamen Rider #1, but you want to be Akira, right? (laughs)"

―Akemi and Rui were cast in contrasting ways, weren't they?

"I wasn't involved in the casting. Shirakura and I don't seem to have the same tastes, so he wouldn't invite me (laughs). Akemi is definitely better as a secretary. Akemi has her stuff together and can put the brakes on Akira. Rui is the type of person who is weird and presses the gas pedal together with Akemi, so the scheme is wrong, but when Akemi is gone and we need a new secretary, there's no point in having the same type of person. It was a desperate measure to create a more impactful character that would eclipse Akira."

―The verbal tics at the end of their lines are also memorable.

"I don't think that went over very well (laughs), but Akemi is a firm person, so it's not cute when a girl like that talks the way she does (laughs). I think it's just right for her to add "maybe" and make it sound lighthearted. For Rui's style of speech, she's the ultimate posh lady, so she's repressed and wants to be someone she's not. She has a bit of a split personality thing. As for Hayami, Aizawa's acting got better and better from the middle of the show, and it was great to see how serious Hayami became. Ichiyama, who played Munakata, was also interesting, but I didn't change Munakata's character to suit him. I was going to make him a strange old man from the beginning. Come to think of it, there is not a single decent guy in this show (laughs)."

―As for creating the character of Kuroiwa?

"I had a lot of trouble making that one, because he was going compete with Akira, so I was thinking about a guy who would set up a consulting office at DarkZide, who would have an office in the apartment across the street, and who would be enthusiastic about stuff, and that's how I ended up with that one. Ogawa was good at it, too. When he first appeared, he had a strong impact, but it was difficult to decide what to do with him after that, so I made him the governor of Tokyo. It's interesting, isn't it (laughs)? Kuroiwa was crazy about Eri until the end. He said he was going to conquer humans, but he really wanted to be a human. Sayoko is a character that was really created at the last minute because of the deadline. Shirakura told me that if I didn't write by tomorrow, we wouldn't be able to shoot."

―Not only Kuroiwa and Sayoko, but many of the DarkZide is very obsessive.

"They are all enthusiasts. You could call them single-minded or pure."

Which is reality in the last episode?

―What made you decide to make the last episode the way it was?

"It is often said that the "it was all a dream"-ending is a forbidden technique, but I have always wondered if it is really so. I thought it would be crazy if I did it for the whole series, but if I did it for one episode, it would be a mere "it was all a dream"-ending. I told Shirakura about it, and he was stupid enough to think that was the way to go (laughs)."

―It's often discussed which is more real, the world of the story you've been telling or the serious world.

"Well, that would be less interesting if the dream wasn't more beautiful. It is better that Akira in reality admires Akira in the dream."

―The world DarkZide is trying to destroy is the real one?!

"Of course it is. In the structure, the point where the story ends is reality. It means it was all a dream. That's why Changéríon is ephemeral."

―Looking back on the work that is Changéríon now, what do you think?

"Everyone was in a groove. It was strange that we were all going in one direction and no one was there to stop us (laughs). It is rare to see such a united group going in a different direction from what was expected, isn't it? The greatest asset for me was that I was able to meet the staff. I knew Shirakura and Nagaishi from before, but getting to know Kimura (YOMIKO Advertising) and Iwata (TV Tokyo) was a big deal."

―When looking at Changéríon, it feels like individual ideas and inspirations were highly respected, rather than a parliamentary system.

"Programs are more interesting when they are made that way. If one person says no, the initial fun will fade away. I think that not only dramas but also TV programs as a whole should be allowed to run amok. I think it's boring because everyone is satisfied with making a mediocre product."

―How was Changéríon able to run amok?

"Because my episodes were funny (laughs). No, seriously. Everyone was fooled. Iwata from TV Tokyo said he was fooled by me at the wrap party. But the deceiver wins."

(Here comes Kochihira Chika.)

Kochihira: I have known Mr. Inoue for 10 years.

Inoue: She was in the same office as Wakamatsu Toshihide, who played Gai in Jetman, and we have known each other since then. I have known Kochihira since she was 19 years old.

Kochihira: But Changéríon was a regular audition and I passed. I knew that it was your work, though.

Inoue: So when I heard about that after it was decided, I was surprised, too.

―What do you think of Kochihira from your point of view?

Inoue: Well, she has an attractive face and figure, and has been admired by everyone since she was a child…

Kochihira: You really think so? (laughs)

Inoue: It got interesting when your, or rather Eri's, feisty side came out in episode 3 (laughs).

Kochihira: After that, Eri got cuter and cuter, and in the end, she even became Elisa (laughs).

Inoue: It was fun, wasn't it?

And so the fun night continued. Unfortunately, we'll end it here for the sake of this issue of the magazine.

Inoue Toshiki: Born November 28, 1959 in Saitama. Made his debut in 1981 with Dr. Slump Arale. Since then, he has been active in both live-action and animation. His latest work, Masked Rider Ryuuki EPISODE FINAL, will be released on August 17.

Works: Supernova Flashman (86-87), Birdman Squad Jetman (91-92), Mechanical Violator Hakaider (95), Masked Rider Kuuga (00-01), Ironclad Machine Mikazuki (00-01), Masked Rider Agito (01-02), Masked Rider Ryuuki (02-on air)

[duhragonball]

Nothing in GT makes sense, but what seems to make the least sense to me is Goku losing his powers? Goten and Trunks could turn SSJ1 easily, and Gotenks could go SSJ3 fine (it just ate at the fusion faster), Gohan was Kid Goku's age when he went SSJ2 for the first time, and literal children are found to be using the techniques of an adult since old-school Dragonball. There is a lot of stuff that GT sucked at, but that seems like the most offensive. Do you think you could make that make sense?

Can I make it make sense? Probably not. I mean, fans call it "GT Logic" for a reason. It's a bizarre nonsense that defies interpretation. In GT Episode 29, he literally fought two Super Saiyans at once (Goten and Gohan) while still in base form. Maybe the boys weren't fighting him seriously, since they were waiting for Baby to show up? But then why did they turn Super Saiyan in the first place?

Like I said before, my go-to theory for explaining GT is that the showrunners' main priority is to pad out the episodes as much as possible. It's like they wrote a script for the Baby Saga, and set it to be a certain number of episodes, and then they story-boarded it and had to come up with ways to stretch each installment out to full-length.

So that might be all it is. They needed a little more time, so they had Gohan and Goten transform before attacking Goku, but they didn't need so much more time that they had to bother giving Goku a transformation scene of his own. Maybe someone thought SSJ Goku would have defeated them too easily, and that would make the episode too short. Maybe someone vetoed an SSJ transformation for Goku, since he was already getting an SSJ3 transformation later? I can speculate, but what's the use?

Ultimately, it comes down to Toei either not caring, or not understanding how the transformations work. I think this is best illustrated with Super Saiyan 4, which the GT showrunners came up with themselves, and they still couldn't get it right.

I'm not saying that Dragon Ball Super always got it right, but I was at least satisfied that DBS managed to ask the right questions. Like when SSJ Caulifla fights Base Goku. Champa actually questions how this can possibly make sense, and Whis explains it. His explanation might not satisfy everyone, but I respect the attempt. It's a show of good faith from the writers. They didn't just choose this scenario unthinkingly. They asked the questions and tried to come up with a decent rationale, and then they worked it into the script so the audience wouldn't be left in the dark.

GT just stubbornly refuses to do that, time after time. We never find out how King Kai knows the Black Star Dragon Balls will destroy the Earth. We never find out how the Elder Kai knew how to make Goku a Super Saiyan 4.

Some of these things are for plot reasons alone. In Episode 1, Goku claims that his new kid body is no worse than his middle-aged self. But then in Episode 4 he discovers he can't use Instant Transmission, which implies that he never bothered to try until that moment. Then in Episode 29, he finds out he can't sustain Super Saiyan 3 either.

This is dumb, because you would think he would test both of those things before going off on a dangerous space mission, but it takes longer if he learns the hard way, so GT had him learn the hard way. More importantly, these abilities had to get taken away from Goku in order to make the story work. If he could teleport, he could just zap himself to every planet with a Dragon Ball, and finish the Grand Tour in a matter of days. If he could maintain SSJ3, then there'd be less need for SSJ4.

But that's a dumb way to tell stories, because the whole conceit of Super Saiyan 4 is that it solves both of those problems, while simultaneously contradicting both problems. Like, okay, he can't teleport because his kid body can't handle it. But when he turns into a Super Saiyan 4, he can teleport. But wouldn't the transformation put an even greater strain on his body, making it even harder to teleport than before? Why is SSJ4 easier to do than SSJ3? Th implication is that it's much stronger, but a lot less strenuous. In fact, it might be even less strenuous for Goku than his base form, since he can teleport while he's using it. But that can't be right, because if he teleports too much, he powers down.

And this doesn't even get into the Shadow Dragons Saga, where Goku seems to use base and SSJ4 interchangeably, as if there's no difference. Toei just like having both character designs on the show.

If I had to try to come up with an in-universe explanation for GT Logic, I'd probably use the 15-year gap between the Kid Buu fight and GT. We never saw Goku use Super Saiyan in the DBZ finale, so one could argue that GT's canon uses a different set of rules than what we saw in Z. The characters got stronger, and learned new ways to use their Super Saiyan forms, and how to go without them. So when you get into the GT era, Goku only uses his transformations in short bursts, like he used to do with the Kaio-ken. That would get him killed in the DBZ days, but in GT he somehow manages to make it work.

So when he fights Baby in Episode 29, he might have considered using a quick SSJ attack, like he did against Ledgic or Rildo, but then he realized it wouldn't be enough, so he kept the same strategy, except with SSJ3 instead. Only it petered out on him before he could finish. His base form was still strong enough to keep fighting, but not enough to go on the offensive.

SSJ4, then, shifts the equation closer to what we knew in DBZ, where Goku's base form is still stronger than we knew, allowing him to fight Frieza and Cell at the same time, but he can also fight in a much higher gear for extended periods of time, using SSJ4 the way he used to use the older forms back in the day.

It's not perfect, but it's the best I can do. All I know is that ventilation fan is coming, and Goku will be powerless to stop it...

[meandmyechoes]

pre-36 lil essay.

oh boy. finally. waiting two weeks is kill me.

but not really. i've wanted a break since, everything and it's kinda nice to not have to fret for the thrill last sunday. there was an annual fair i go every year since I was a child so I looked forward to that.

However, the week after that (this week) was bad ToT. I have no motivation to do anything even though I'm well-rested and fed physically. I had so much (reports) to do and don't want to do anything at all. The wait to Friday 5pm has never been so hard especially since they released the "Finished" announcement early on Tuesday.

Since two weeks have passed, I've read every theory without thinking too hard about it. I've learnt my lesson not to overthink King-Oh. One thing I want to point out though, it'd be a shame if Himeno isn't the co-star of her Retainers arc. The most convincing theory I've seen is the silver-hair guy is actually Himeno wearing Sebastian's real face. That would give Erica room to show off while keeping Himeno active in her story. Sebastian could stay by fake!Himeno/Kamejim side and corroborate with Himeno. The intersting part would be the flashback of how the two first met.

About Himeno's marriage contract. I'm not surprised she has one. I watched my fair share of court drama worldwide I know the first thing you graduate from being an heir is to produce an heir of your own. I know that's not within Nitiasa's jurisdiction but that's a very practical question! If not how they are going to do a Return V-cine! Haha but I hadn't expect them to really address it. For all we know, the Ikemen having a contract with Himeno is only his word. That would be further unreliable if it really was Himeno in speical makeup. I'm not too stressed about it. Toei will never make himerita canon but Takamina sure enjoys giving Rita girlfriends. The episode might just end on a typical girl's power move.

Just skimmed Rita's animage interview. phew 38 is confirmed to be Gokkan's Retainers arc. That means 37 is Kaguragi and KMH directing is simply the two might be more important. Maybe he's just filling in because YMG is on Rider now. Let's not scare ourselves.

FINE. 2 weeks? I can wait.

Ritamoru round though. Really scared. I have no loyalty to either ships I just eat whatever canon or not gives me. But I think fundamentally Himeno and Morfonia means different things to Rita. I like Himerita but I also voted for Ritamoru in the poll because I want to see Rita taking initiative. (If Rita-sama ends up one foot two boat "i pretend i do not see") I remember before 16 I was firm ritamoru lol.

What I meant is, OH MY GOD I'M SO SCARED WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO COOK UP FOR RITAMORU. BY GOD Kamihoriuchi. What did Takamina wrote in the script that made Yuzuki train like she can't feel her muscles anymore. Did they film that on Yuzuki's birthay.

I'm so scared because ep35 got me hard and I don't even ship wblue. I grew to like Yanma entirely because of how he is written and portrayed (i.e. it's more rational than falling for Rita at first sight and recgonition of the self). and bro… ep35 was so so good and that's JUST Katou directing in a very adaequate, typical way (positive).

I'm scared to even think about it. I had my ritamoru childhood rival origins way back that's been disproved by 16. They will answer Moru's question of why she is chosen unanswered in 16. I think ep38 is definitely going to be Rita trying to pass Moru the Ice Seal. (Guessing) but she ran away and Rita has to go find her, cue flashbacks.

(i wrote this 2am last night)

[tsuki-sennin]

Maaaaaaaaaaaan, Revice ended yesterday, and so all of a sudden, these Donbura Dorks decide they have to end their show too, huh? And here I thought we had something special :<

-Aww man, don't remind me.

-"Yes, that finale was pretty poggers and based. My compliments to Mr. Kinoshita and the crew. Now... we have no reason to continue with this charade!"

-Hooray, we all get to go home!

-Haruka can't see herself stopping the whole hero thing, huh?

-"Well, as long as there's a single human being left on Earth, I doubt that the desires that corrupt the Hitotsu-ki will ever disappear..."

-"THAT'S SO NOT TRAFFIC SAFE!"

-Donbrothers is over.

-Pick the MVP!

-Man, I'm gonna miss this absolute banger of an OP next week. ...who even are the new Ranger dudes, anyhow? Are they friends with Mr. Geats already? Is Cosmic Fury gonna air alongside Geats?

-Wait, is this a clip show!?

-Aw son of a bitch, Inoue tricked me!

-...did Inoue even write this episode?

-Hang on, lemme check...

-Saburo Yatsude... that's the pseudonym used by Toei itself. I believe they also wrote the scripts for the Den-O crossover specials and Zenkai Red last year.

-Checked and cross referenced some Wikipedia articles (very cursorily mind you). The only show among the Noto's inspirations to have a Saburo Yatsude "Created by" credit is The Kagestar. This makes me believe that some producer really likes Sonoza, and I can't blame them for that.

-Well, you have been through an awful lot for a teenager, Haruka. A lot of kids fantasize about superheroics, but rarely do they take full notice of the consequences, both social and physical. I'd know, I was one of those kids, writing self-inserts kept under lock and key. Hell, even now, as a 21 year old, I still think it'd be worth it just to have something else going on in my life.

-You're a bit different though. Even if you were basically dragged into Ranger work kicking and screaming, you perform your combat duties very admirably, and still strive for that normal life. Not to mention how far you've come as a person. The Haruka from 25 episodes ago absolutely wouldn't have gone out of her way to help out her teammates the way she's been lately. I'm proud of ya, kiddo.

-Shinichi, did you have to transform between cuts to make your point? Seems a bit extra. Ah who am I kidding, that's just who you are, I wouldn't have it any other way <3

-Let's see... you've definitely haven't changed as much as Haruka has, but there's so much about you that interests me all the same. All the small things you use your powers for to help others, the way you stick to your asceticism despite all the obvious personal risk to your safety, the way even slightly giving into your desires seems to burn you up so quick... remember in Episode 20 when you immediately started living up the hero image? Do you even use your Kibi-Points, I wonder?

-Tsuyoshiiiiii, my man!

-"I kinda am a total scrub... if only I were a cool guy... Heh, guess I kinda got my wish in a way!"

-...and yeah, that's very much like you :)

-Hmmm... who's Mr. InuBrother?

-"Wan..."

-Don't put words in the doggo's mouth!

-Oh shoot, hello Sononi!

-...er... I'm sure Condorman's a pretty cool hero! Kohan Kawauchi's responsible for the creation of Moonlight Mask, Japan's first ever tokusatsu TV superhero, so he evidently knew what he was doing. He also created Warrior of Love Rainbowman, which was an inspiration for Cutie Honey.

-He was also an Islamic convert, which led to the creation of this show called "Messenger of Allah", starring a young Sonny Chiba, of all actors! I was a big fan of him as a teenager, but I don't think I've ever heard of this. Which is crazy to me, because a show like Messenger of Allah is absolutely something that should be explored from top to bottom.

-Sorry, I should be focusing on Donbrothers right now, but... Huh... I keep wondering how shows like these get made.

-Uhhhh... Sononi! You're presenting your case for Tsubasa, right? Yeah, show me.

-Gotta save the love of your life, Tsubasa-san!

-"Who the fuck are these weirdos, this is bullshit"

-Oooooooooooh, Dog Man throwin' shade!

-I have to wonder... the actor playing Sayama, Ryoji Sugimoto... do you think he wonders exactly what he's supposed to be doing as a character?

-Damn, Crane Lady got kicks.

-Yeah, I think that's one of my nicknames for Natsumiho.

-Man, that Momoi Tarou.

-He's one of a kind madman.

-Yeah, guess he really speaks for himself, huh?

-Oh yeah, the Enya Rideon.

-Beeg AND Smol!

-Oh yeah, the headpat lmao

-"Wait, Don Onitaijin is five guys, burgers and fries?"

-I love that little plush doggie they use for Tsubasa, I hope they keep it around when he... maybe or maybe not joins with the rest full time.

-SONOI

-"Now, hold on a moment. ...there's another Don. ...technically two? Or perhaps not."

-"I'm gonna be the strongest hero! Waaaaaaaaah!"

-Dragon Punch! Shoryuken! Dragon! Dragon! Rock the Dragon!

-Tiger Cutter! Tiger Uppercut! Lions Tigers and Bears! Oh My!

-"But nah, my rival is Don Momotaro. And you can't have him."

-Oh shit, Donbrothers MVP time.

-And the winner is Don Kaito.

-YEP FUCKING CALLED IT LMAO

-"I win."

-Shut up Kaito kjlhklghvghjg

-"...why were you all rainbow-y in that stock footage?"

-Awwww, he wants to reward us :)

-"For you all :)"

-Free photobooks :)

-"I was born to be a hero. I've always been a hero. I am the hero."

-Heeeeeeeeeeeeeey, what're you lads doing here!?

-"Jesus Christ, it's been 26 episodes and this shit isn't over."

-"Next time, Sonoza... I will defeat Momoi Tarou! Then Sononi can deal with Inuzuka Tsubasa as she pleases and you can resume your manga browsing with Kito Haruka. Now... watch me blow some bubbles."

-Are we at a water park next episode? Epic.

[kingdomblade]

Digimon Kizuna thoughts

All spoilers will be under the cut!

Fresh off of Tri when Kizuna was announced, I wrote up some hopes I had for this movie. Without looking back at that list, I'm pretty sure this movie managed to not hit any of the things I wanted off of that list - but I'm still walking away completely satisfied. The characters, the story, the setting all feel like completely natural progression from how I remember them, it manages to tell a compelling story in a fairly short movie, the animation and designs are drop dead gorgeous. It's clearly a labor or love and I'm thankful for everyone who worked on it. In some ways it leaves me wanting more - I'd love one more entry with the 02 group as a focus, and I think there would be a lot of value in an entry that focuses more on Digimon intigrated with the human world rather than yet another story about kids discovering Digimon. But if this is the last time we see these twelve in this form, what a way to go. 

This is absolutely stream of consciousness writing while I’m on my second watch through of the day (In lieu of livetweeting - I’ll spare my followers that much lol). Is it rambling? Absolutely. It may or may not be of interest, but I thought it would be something fun to do regardless. If you decide to read, I hope you enjoy!

----

Tom Fahn’s Agumon is noticeably a bit lower pitched even compared to Tri, weather he can’t take his voice up as much or if it’s a different portrayal I’m not sure but it still fits him really well - Tentomon’s voice feel slightly different too. Funny enough Gabumon is somehow lighter and more childish than his original portrayal, but it also fits him well.

Both Tri and Kizuna have such a weird process to their casting - They got back actors that as far as I can tell haven’t done much if anything since their days on Digimon, they’ve gotten back actors for side characters with bit parts. They’ve hired new actors that seem to take the original voice into account and take their own spin on them, and then they hire actors with absolutely no regard for how the original sounded to the point that it just plain conflicts with the established character. It’s all over the place and it’s weird.

Johnny Yong Bosch's portrayal seems slightly different from Tri, maybe he's playing him slightly older, maybe it's the slightly different personality, maybe I'm imagining it. Something about it reminds me of Doug Erholtz's portrayal, which is an added bonus when JYB was already one of the best of the recasts. Minutes in and I'm completely sold on Nicholas Roye's Matt as well, it sounds like a natural progression from his Adventure voice.

In a vacuum Griffin Burns is a decent Davis, but he's one of the recasts that immersion breaking because not only does he sound nothing like Brian Donovan, but his take on Davis is higher pitch than Donovan's so it's impossible to hear him as older. The fact that Donovan was supposed to reprise his role is just salt on the wound. With the insane amount of delays that this dub got, they surely could have brought him back onboard... It's a  shame that 2 our of 3 roles I've heard of Burns have been a replacement of another actor, hope he can get more roles where he can shine more. On the other hand, Bryce Papenbrook as Cody is brilliant casting coming from his 02 voice for what little we get to hear of him.

Yolei didn't sound to great in her video message, but by the time we see her in person her VA has gotten into the role and captures her really well. Hawkmon sounds fine enough, but I'm way more upset than I should be about Armadillomon's voice considering he doesn't have many lines. A recast was mandatory here, and 'medium-deep southern accent' should honestly be pretty easy to replicate but what we got was horrific. What casting director knew enough about the characters to know that Hawkmon had a British accent but not enough to know what an armadillo sounds like??

Mimi is just straight up Sakura now! I actually thought Kate Higgens would have made a great Yolei, kinda funny to see her here as Mimi now.

Not only did Agumon's "Polly want a cracker?" line slay me, but there's something about Tom Fahn's portrayal that really hits me, even though he's not even my favorite Digimon. It hasn't even been a long time since I've heard it - Tri wasn't that long ago, and I just rewatched Adventure/02 within the past few weeks, but hearing him made me a bit emotional, ha. Same thing happened with his first appearance in Tri, and that was after having seen it in Japanese and knowing what was going to happen!

The opening battle is like a complete screw-you to Tai's arc in Tri with Greymon smashing into buildings and Tai completely unfazed. I'm here for it, lol.

The remastered Digivolution sequences are nice but in true nostalgia fashion I kinda prefer the originals, haha.

Izzy's computer is counting down a 'time rimit'.

Agumon says something to the effect of “Aren’t I always hungry?“ and I don't feel like it’s a reference/jab at Tri, but it got a chuckle out of me anyway.

Tai's classmate is blatantly voiced by JYB too, ha.

Matt gives his location as 'inside the restaurant' when calling an ambulance which seems... not helpful. Love that Tai's reaction to a girl collapsing is a confused "Is she drunk?"

An article on Tai's phone is written in perfect English and he gets message from the name Izzy specifically so I'd assume this is a change for the US release. Subtitles would have been perfectly fine but it's a nice effort to keep immersion.

"The ol' Izz-master" I’m so, so glad they got Jeff Nimoy to write this script, bless Toei.

Only 4 of the Digidestined participating in the battle against the Digidestined is kinda disappointing until I realized that it was a throwback to Our War Game - TK and Izzy get to participate more this time around! As per usual Tentomon (Kabuterimon) manages to sneak in a hilarious line here.

'Lime Magazine' just doesn't have the same ring to it...

TAI'S MAGAZINES...

Tai calling Agumon 'little buddy' is the second scene to hit me right in the feels.

Matt is the only one to reach out to the 02 kids during the movie, I wonder if he felt guilty about what went down in Tri and kept in touch with them a bit more since.

Seeing Kari and TK tied up in a dark room like that is actually one of the more shocking scenes in the movie. That could have ended very differently if this was a different movie...

Meiko shows up for literally one scene with Meicoomon which has... interesting implications. This movie retroactively makes her more tragic as well, as even if she didn't sacrifice Meicoomon there's a chance their partnership would have dissolved anyway - almost a complete lose-lose, there was no way for them to be happy together.

Himekawa is also retroactively more tragic as it's possible she would have been able to see Tapirmon again here - one shows up in the crowd shot!

Honestly this is the movie Himekawa deserved - she was a really interesting character that got wasted and underused in Tri, and while Menoa parallels her in a lot of ways her stoicism just isn't as interesting and Hime's decent into madness was.

L'il Joe has black hair now?

I'm pretty sure Menoa doesn't say "Oh shit" but honestly I'm gonna pretend she does.

I mentioned on Twitter how Leomon doesn't die in this one because he never showed up, but there's one fighting an Eosmon in what I think is Osaka and he doesn't die, and GOOD ON HIM, HE BROKE THE CYCLE!

Omnimon having limbs sliced off got an audible gasp from me.

Matt ACTUALLY got to curse in this movie, character development!!

"Just one thing: Meow" I had to pause the movie, I lost it

Story wise, theme wise, character wise I get it, but mad Sora got screwed over in this movie. Would have been nice if 'To Sora' was included inside of the movie at least.

I still don't like Agu and Gabu's new evolutions, but they did feel really earned and a natural extension of the plot. What better way to spark an evolution than such a huge sacrifice? Izzy's perfectly timed 'prodigious' was the icing on the cake, coming at such a fitting emotional moment and possibly being the last time we'll hear it from Izzy.

When the Eosmon start disappearing all over the world there's a shot of an exhausted lone Numemon who had clearly held off the Eosmon with all the poop that is strewn about. THAT is the next story I want to see.

Unfortunately this movie is in the Tri School of Only Using Champion Level. It's actually pretty inexcusable that we we don't see WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon one more time, but even the other characters should have gone up to Ultimate if not Mega for one final sendoff. I wish we could have seen them truely fight as a team once more, even just for fanservice.

My strongest complaint with the movie itself is that it just kinda... ends. The ending is super emotional, but it just skips ahead afterwards and says 'things are going to be ok!' and ends. I would have liked to see the rest of the kids once more, seeing how they handle the fallout or how they might support Tai and Matt - or maybe a little about what Tai and Matt have taken away from this whole things. Just felt like we needed an extra couple of minutes.

Will we see these particular versions of these characters again? From what I can tell this movie did well in Japan and it’s trending pretty well on Amazon, so who knows. I hope if we do, it’s because the writers come up with an idea they really believe in and not just for the sake of a sequel. But if not, I’m definately greatful for what we have.

[fivzen]

Went from Kamen Rider Saber giving me the content I love to... Man.

Look, I made that fuck Inoue post earlier, but it cannot be understated how much that post was not a joke. I present my blog as a family friendly, if pg-14 at times, web space because I genuinely think that that is what works best for my mental health, as well as a way I can help others calm down and have a good time. And I do that because shows like Rider inspire me to do what I can to provide aid to people. But specials like Zi-O vs Decade/Decade vs Zi-O go against everything rider stands for, and make me genuinely upset that Toei allows these scripts and filmings to take place, and in fact pay for it to happen. Yeah, at the end of the day, it's all to sell toys, but have some goddamn integrity with the works and world's you create, and don't go against the words you wrote, simply because you want to appeal to a more "mature audience".

Fuck.

[sol1056]

Okay so i'm really confused. Who pitched the idea for the Voltron reboot? Did they write the original story or was that someone else? Who's writing the story now? Like i get that there is more than one person working on the story but like to take someone's vision of their story and to just throw it in the trash is just kinda fucked up ya know? I wouldn't want to work with a network if they're gonna screw over something I came up with.

It’s not a simple picture since there’s a lot of history. There’s three parts, behind the cut: who wrote the original story (vs the original-original), who pitched the idea for a voltron reboot, who’s writing the story now, and the issue of revisions. 

I must have at least three pages of asks that talk about Hedrick’s story and how the EPs butchered it… and I recently stumbled over something that made a few pieces click together. So, if you sent me an ask about Hedrick’s story and what he’d planned, you might want to read, ‘cause this answers a lot of your questions.

who created voltron

Back in the early 80s, the Koplar brothers purchased a license from Toei’s back catalog, and adapted/cut/rearranged the original GoLion into an American-only version called Voltron. GoLion hadn’t been much of a hit in Japan; it was kinda behind the curve. When the Koplars adapted it, Voltron was a huge enough hit in the US to warrant a second season, requiring new footage from scratch (mixed in with re-used stuff from the original season). 

The sequel (using a completely different anime from Toei’s back catalog) didn’t do anywhere as well. The planned third part was never made. Since then, there’s been reboots, comic books, idk what else. 

who pitched the idea

Long story short, Universal purchased a bundled archive of licenses. These are collected existing properties they could redevelop – anything from some no-name, one-season, failed cartoons to ones that were popular once and since forgotten. Voltron was one of those properties.

I doubt anyone pitched the idea, formally. More like, the execs saw Voltron in the pack and chose it for a reboot/remake. All they needed was staff to do it, so they interviewed potential showrunners. Around that time, JDS had pitched his idea for a Streetfighter cartoon. DW TV passed on JDS’ pitch, and instead offered him the position as EP of what would become the VLD reboot. 

(An aside: JDS and LM both talk up how much they loved Voltron as kids, but in early interviews they admit neither could remember for certain who Voltron’s ‘real’ leader was — Keith or Sven — all the way up to starting their interview with the execs.) 

who wrote the version we have now 

I’ve been operating under the assumption that as the story editor, Hedrick had a major influence on the story. I’ve also noted in several different posts that S1/S2 feels like a completely different story, in more ways than one:

As the story moved into the split-seasons, it’s clear that whomever lent that guiding hand in S1/S2 was no longer present. Someone else’s fingerprints are on S3, and my guess is it’s mostly Hedrick, at least on the script-level. The word choices change, the cadences change, the beats change. From S3 on, VLD has all the hallmarks of a muddy vision. 

A few days ago, I was researching for another ask and came across this:

On-screen, a “producer” credit for a TV series will generally be given to each member of the writing staff who made a demonstrable contribution to the final script. The actual producer of the show (in the traditional sense) is listed under the credit “produced by”.

According to IMDB, these are VLD’s  executive producers:

Joaquim Dos Santos  (63 episodes, 2016-2018)Lauren Montgomery (63 episodes, 2016-2018)Jae-Myung Yoo (24 episodes, 2016-2017)Robert Koplar (23 episodes, 2016-2017)Ted Koplar (23 episodes, 2016-2017)

We’ve been assuming Hedrick steered a large part of the story. If that were so, though, Hedrick should also have EP credits. He doesn’t. The Koplars have EP credit ‘cause they created the original Voltron. JDS and LM are on there, as showrunners. 

And then there’s this guy Jae-Myung Yoo. He’s done key animation, directing, and storyboards. He has a handful of executive producer credits, mostly for single episodes. Yoo left VLD in 2016, and joined Big Fish & Begonia as a co-producer. 

I think we just found the voice that steered the first two seasons, and whose departure left the story without a clear vision. 

Yoo doesn’t have any writing credentials, but his resume goes all the way back to Gargoyles in 1995. He doesn’t have to be a writer to be a storyteller, after all; there are different ways and methods of telling stories. My guess is Yoo’s a respected directorial voice around Studio Mir, understands how a story flows, and most importantly was probably a trusted voice after working with Ryu, JDS, and LM on AtLA and LoK. 

We’re left with one of two options: Hedrick stuck to the Yoo-created outline, rewriting and rearranging as the EPs shifted tracks, and the majority of the story’s direction since S2 has been from JDS and LM. Or Hedrick did have a substantial impact from S3 on, and JDS/LM refused to grant Hedrick the proper credit for that level of contribution.  

the issue of revisions

Television’s a wacky environment. It’s somewhere between collaboration and sheer hell, especially if you don’t come with major credentials (ie, your name is not Guillermo del Toro). 

Here’s how it starts: the showrunners, any other EPs, the writers, the senior writer/head editor/story editor (title depends on seniority), production assistants, writing assistants, and other producers will gather and brainstorm the story, and come up with a synopsis for the story’s outline. When the execs approve the synopsis (after probably a round or two of feedback), the expands the synopsis into a full outline of the entire story. 

The writers set about writing the script, which are sent to various execs for their feedback. The execs send their feedback — called ‘notes’ — to the showrunner. These are usually a jumble of responses (and a lot apparently tends to be personal taste, too), and also often contradictory. It’s the EP’s job to relay the exec response to the writers’ room, and make sure things get changed so the execs are happy. 

The EP (and the writers) must do a delicate balancing act, between budget, story, and sheer insanity like one exec demanding a scene be cut and another exec thinking the scene should not only stay, but be expanded. Or insisting on specific pairing endgames (or lack thereof). Or — as seems to have plagued VLD — saying the story is too dark and ‘needs more humor,’ which the EPs appear to have interpreted as ‘do more filler episodes that have no plot relevance.’ 

The first thing to remember is that most execs are not intentionally malicious. They will ask for too much, and they often have their own agendas, but their goal is a hit, not wasting a bazillion dollars for no gain. If you look at the credentials for decision-level execs at Dreamworks, every single one came up through the ranks: they’ve directed, produced, some were also animators, and at least one did either acting or voice acting. They’ve been doing this for awhile. My advice to any wannabe-EPs (or writers) would be that when an exec says, “kids are going to be bored stiff with this scene,” listen. I’m not saying automatically change it, just give it a fair listen. 

Collaboration is hard. It takes patience and good listening skills and empathy for the people on the other side of the table. It takes a willingness to bargain and enough strength to be vulnerable, and a whole lot of honesty about your own reasonings for wanting one thing or another. 

Stories created in the high-pressure hot-house environment of a collaborative group are a very different critter than one-author novels: no one person owns the story. Not everyone wants to sign up for sharing that creative process, and that’s fine, too. We do need books with good stories as much as we need shows and movies with good stories. 

Just color me seriously unimpressed when someone in a collaborative storytelling process constantly snarks about exec meddling. I have no sympathy: they signed up for this. If their creativity is so fragile it’s threatened by feedback, they need to find a different medium, ‘cause the collaborative world of television production is probably not the best fit.  

[tubbotums]

((What do you think warrants a retelling of RWBY? Is it just a fun world, or is the story actually misguided?))

Oh boy, grab your popcorn and get ready to listen for a while. Gonna put this under a cut so people who don’t feel like reading it can skip.

Do I love RWBY? Yes, I 100%. This show has done so much to change my life and has quite literally changed me as a person. It’s put me on the career path of wanting to make my own animated show, tell stories etc. It’s allowed me to meet new friends, and had it not been for the show I wouldn’t even be here typing this. When the new episodes are coming out, every Saturday I wake up at like 10:50 in the morning and wait on both my laptop and phone app so I can watch the episode at exactly 11 when it drops. Most of the time I have to wait, but regardless you see the point. My drawer has RWBY merch, my desks have figures and plushes, hell even my backpack is a RWBY one and I wear a sweatshirt that’s RWBY related basically everyday.

However, in my opinion, the show is heavily flawed from a production standpoint.

RWBY is a very inventive show, I’ll give it that. It tries to do so much with so little, and I applaud it for that. What Rooster Teeth has created is a unique world with lovable characters that have inspired so many. It’s hard to believe that this company that made this show were making Halo parodies in 2007 and still are. RWBY is probably at this point their most popular show, and the most popular web series as of now (discounting live action stuff like Content Cop or whatever). Hell, Warner Bros. Japan went to RT wanting to dub it  and air it there so people could experience it in Japanese. It’s wonderful to see this show blossom and grow. But it has one thing holding it back from truly being great in my opinion.

It’s being produced by Rooster Teeth.

Like I said before, I applaud Rooster Teeth for doing what they’ve done with this show and for all the hard work they’ve done with it. I love their content and the people responsible for bringing the show to life. But for what it wants to do, Rooster Teeth is far too small of a company to produce it and don’t have the necessary people to make it what it can truly be. It’s a show that has so much untapped potential, and I keep waiting for it to tap into it and show me what it can really be. But I get nothing, and waiting every episode after every episode gets tiresome.

RWBY likes to take from a lot of different things for inspiration, but I feel like it’s too scattered and all over the place from it’s inspiration to make logical sense. I hear Final Fantasy (which I see in the character designs, weapons and dust as a concept), but then I see Game of Thrones, Gurren Lagann, and other things that don’t even remotely cover the genre that RWBY is in. I’ve brought this up to people before and have been told that it’s “Monty’s true vision” and that “I just don’t understand it and shouldn’t question it”. God bless Monty Oum, he was a great animator and a wonderful man who I would love to meet and pick apart at his brain. But the man couldn’t tell a story, which was why he brought on Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross, the lead writers of the show.

But before I get into M&K (who I both met and are lovely people), I want to touch up on the show’s inspiration. Monty wanted to create a show that revolved around his fight scenes, you know the stuff that you saw in Dead Fantasy or Red vs Blue Seasons 8-10. He didn’t care about the story and wanted to show off his fights and creative, lovable characters. If that’s what the show was going to be, I wouldn’t watch and I wouldn’t care as much as I do to write this. In my unpopular opinion, the show needs to stray away from Monty’s original ideas and gather more from outside sources that are doing the genre right. Shows like Hunter X Hunter, My Hero Academia, Fullmetal Alchemist, Sailor Moon and more that I can’t even list off the top of my head. These shows tackles themes present in RWBY and do it leaps and bounds better than what the show does. It’s frustrating to watch Gon Freeces or Izuku Midoriya get character development and progression that changes them and the path of the story but see Ruby Rose become a side character with no development since the beginning of the show. I’ll also add this in, if you want to take out My Hero from this list you can since RWBY started airing before MHA first published, and it has it beat by a few months I think? But I think the point still stands.

Now for Miles and Kerry, who I both love so much, there’s a lot of controversy around them. A lot of people, especially on this site, hate them and want different writers for the show. I’ve heard names like Lindsay Jones (voice actress for Ruby) and Mica Burton (a RT employee) as people who “should” be writing the show. Here’s the big issue with that:

Neither one has produced a show before and has written a script. Know who has? Miles Luna, who wrote three seasons of Red vs Blue. 

Yes, both are still amateurs and not professionals. They’ve been doing this for about a little more than half a decade, which isn’t a lot of time in the content production world. But this leads to another problem: Amateurs are writing this show. I don’t doubt the effort both of them put into making this show. They have A LOT to deal with, considering what happened with Monty, the show’s sudden boom in popularity, and much much more. But the fact that more experienced script writers aren’t writing a show this big is an issue, and you see it all the time in the show. They like to go with this “tell don’t show” approach, which doesn’t allow us to see the world and make it feel alive. We have to trust everything the characters say instead of actually getting to see it ourselves. We don’t see the racism Blake talks about except for a sign in a background shot that shows up on screen for two seconds. TWO SECONDS of seeing this one “No Faunus” sign is more signs of racism than we ever got from 4 and a half volumes and almost 20 minutes of exposition on it. There’s also just some really bad characters in the show as well, just really poorly written. I think my best examples are almost every villain, especially Adam and Cinder. I think both are just really shitty in every aspect and don’t add anything unique? If Adam wasn’t abusive and crazy, his cause would be more sympathetic and the White Fang would feel more like a Civil Rights group like they should be instead of a terrorist group like they’re portrayed to be. Cinder’s whole deal is just “I want power”, and the big question is why. We have no explanation as to why she sides with Salem and what her motives are. She’s just a puppet for the big baddie and that’s not right considering Cinder was the main antagonist for three volumes and will have just as big of a role going forth. A backstory can really help with this, but until we get one she’s a mediocre, borderline shitty villain in my books.

If the show was handled by, lets say Studio Madhouse, or Studio Bones, and if those don’t really sound familiar lets even throw in Toei, the show would be a lot better handled. Shows like My Hero, Hunter X Hunter, One Punch Man Season 1, Fullmetal Alchemist, Miraculous Ladybug and more have come from them and have done phenomenal. The writing, worlds, characters, all written in this just amazing way that I can see RWBY being written in. I can see RWBY having this expansive, almost unexplored world that we the viewers and the characters are going to explore together. But Rooster Teeth can’t provide that simply because they don’t have the money to. That’s no knock against them either, it’s just a fact. A RWBY fight will never look as good as Midoriya vs Todoroki or Meruem vs Netero, and that’s because the budget and time isn’t there. I just want to see this show thrive and become something special like these other shows, because I know it can be that. I know it can be tightly written with a power system that makes sense and a world that’s rich and vast, with different people having different motives that makes us really question who is right and who is wrong.

Aside from all that, what do I think the show does write? It creates really likable characters that almost everyone can relate to. All of Team RWBY is really likable, same with JNPR. The cast as a whole is colorful, and they’re the main reason I come back to watch the show week after week. The music is also pretty good? But tbh I wish there was more variety in the soundtrack as well. But aside from the characters and music I can’t think of much else.

So, with all that being said, I want to rewrite RWBY to fix these issues and tell my own version of the story, the version I’d like to see. A lot of people in this fandom might not agree with me on the ideas I have and my opinions, but quite frankly I’ve gotten tired of hearing people tell me that my ideas about the show are lesser because it doesn’t align with their views or Monty’s views (which are basically the same thing). I’m doing this because of my immense love for the show and because I want to see it be better. Please don’t take these words as anything harmful and as an endorsement to not watch the show. If you haven’t, I’m actually begging you to go watch RWBY. It’s a fun adventure, but it’s just very flawed and something I as an objective viewer who pays Rooster Teeth for early access to episodes cannot overlook. I’ve done it for far too long thanks to people and I’m sick of it. This retelling also is going to help me as a writer in making a long running story, and while most of the outline is made thanks to the show, there are still going to be a lot of differences from the canon counterpart. 

So please, go watch RWBY if you haven’t so you can see what I’m talking about, and to also let yourself be immersed into a wonderful world with wonderful characters. I love this show with a passion, and this retelling is being done because I want to see it do better is all, like I know it’s capable of.

[kuuderekun]

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/tv-anime-writers-and-directors.html

As I've said I want to start talking on this blog about how I think Directors often get too much credit and we should maybe start paying more attention to the writers.

The thing that makes TV Anime a particularly interesting medium in this case is how there are usually less writers then directors.

The "Series Composition" credit seems to be the writing equivalent of being the Series Director, it's a job that in theory could be done by someone not writing individual episode scripts at all, but it generally isn't done that way.  Usually the writer with that credit also writes more episodes then anyone else and that includes the first and last episodes and a few other of the most definitely not filler episodes.  And there are usually only 4 or 5 writers in total, often only 3 who could be said to have written a significant amount.

However there are usually between 7-10 Episode Directors, and the first and last episodes usually don't have the same director.  And the series director probably actually episode directs less then he would have if he he weren't the series director.  And no director even comes close to directing as many episodes as the "Series Composition" person writes.

Some shows fail to give a Series Composition credit, at least on the main Database websites (MAL, ANN and AniDB), but it's easy to guess who was serving that function by looking at what and how many episodes the writers wrote.  Like Sukehiro Tomitia for the first season of Sailor Moon who I've already talked about.  He also seems to be this again for the Black Moon saga, but for the Doom Tree arc I would argue the most important writer was Shigeru Yanagawa.

For Sailor Moon S things are a bit different.  Tomita seems to no longer be obviously the most important writer, Megumi Sugihara wrote the most episodes for S, but still not as many as Tomita wrote for prior seasons, she wrote 10 episodes of S.  She had been around since season 1 but not quite from the start of it.  S had more writers total because of the newcomer, Youji Enokido who wrote 9 episodes.  Tomito did write the first and last episodes, but S is structured so different from season 1 that even that doesn't mean as much, the last episode of S is literally filler.  Tomita wrote 7 episodes total.

Three of Sailor Moon's writers including Tomita would leave after S to go work on other projects, to some extent I think they were writing less during S because they were doing the prep work for those projects.  The one I talked about in the Cutey Honey Flash post was the lead writer of Gundam Wing, if you've ever felt like Wing is the most Shoujo of all Gundam shows, that's because it was written by someone who spent most of the 90s writing Magical Girl shows.

Sailor Moon SuperS is the first season to actually have a Series Composition credit, which is given to Youji Enokido. Kind of surprising as he was the complete Newcomer for S, Megumi had seniority but I guess you can't have the lead writer of a show for girls actually be a girl.  Enokido also wrote the Screenplay for the SuperS movie, Black Dream Hole (the first two movies were written by Tomita).

Megumi and Enokido both left Sailor Moon after SuperS creating a situation where Sailor Stars the last season had no writing staff overlap with the first 3 seasons and two writers who had no prior Sailor Moon experience at all.  If you think Sailor Moon's quality went down hill it was definitely the writing staff that changed more then the directorial staff, the Series Director of Stars had been part of the Sailor Moon directorial team since Goldfish Warning!.  But I don't think the Stars writers are overall inferior writers, they were just at the time less experienced, some of them I know went on to write stuff that can compete with the early seasons of Sailor Moon.  When Sailor Moon started Toei hired some pretty experienced writers and directors because they knew this would be one of their most important shows.  But once those writers wanted to go on to other things they were replaced by relative newcomers.

The first 6 episodes of Sailor Stars I feel would work really well edited together into a 2 hour movie. What's interesting here is each one has a different director, but it was all written by two writers, the only two Stars writers who were veterans of SuperS, so ideally placed to write that season's epilogue.  Though they had no experience writing the Outer Senshi since Enokido did their episode of the Special, in which case they did surprisingly well.

Megumi doesn't seem to have done much after leaving Sailor Moon.  Enokido while doing SuperS wrote 4 episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, all of them from the first half of the show.  I at first thought the only reason he had writing credits in the Rebuild films is because the first two redo/remake stuff from his episodes.  But then he also has a credit in 3.33 which has no connection to any episode he wrote.  So either their credits by default list everyone who worked on the original or they did consult him on something.

The first thing Enokido did after he left Sailor Moon was being the head writer of Revolutionary Girl Utena.  Yes I'm applying my maybe we give directors to much credit to even the most revered work of one of Anime's most worshiped Auteur Directors.  Utena definitely looks the way it does chiefly because of Ikuhara, and the basic idea of it's story started with Ikuhara.

But there is a segment of the fanbase who thinks Utena is the only (completely original to him) Ikuhara show that's great and are not so infatuated with his over hyped 2010s stuff, like WhiningAboutYuri on Tumblr, and that could be largely because the 2010s shows had completely different writers.  I personally enjoy his 2010s stuff, and probably consider Penguindrum more rewatchable then Utena.  But Utena is the only Ikuhara show I'd ever really put on a favorites list.  And YuriKuma's final act frustrates me, on a list of 2010s Yuri shows it'll always fall below Citrus on my rankings.  Of course even with Penguindrum I'd have preferred a happier ending.

And also on Utena Ikuhara was never even an Episode Director.  So he was at the top of the pyramid but there was a lot of delegating.  It was a collaborative effort on every level.  It's almost like when that one comedian makes fun of Steve Jobs getting all the credit for the iPhone.  Enokido may well have done more writing then Ikuhara did directing.

Enokido wasn't Utena's only writer.  One I already made a post about due to my love of some of his other work.  But a lot of the other writers seem to have Utena as the only Anime they ever worked on.  Including the person who wrote most of the Nanami episodes, how is it that person hasn't gotten more work when they're obviously a comedic genius?

Enokido however had the Series Composition credit and wrote 20 episodes, just over half.  They include the first five, episode 7, and 9, the two not as filler as you think recap episodes and almost all of the final Apocalypse Arc.  And he wrote the Screenplay for the movie.

Enokido would have a lot of post Utena work.  Not always stuff that is still well known.  He wrote 5 episodes of RahXephon, a show often compared to Evangelion that in my opinion is far better.  Maybe that's partly because Enokido wrote more of it then he did Eva.  He also wrote Redline which seems to be a popular racing movie.

But perhaps the most notable thing Enokido has done in the last decade years is Stardriver.  I haven't seen Stardriver yet mainly because it lacks a dub, but at this point I doubt it ever will get one so I might as well just give in and watch it subbed.  It's been described as like if Eva and Utena had a baby who grew up to do musical theater.

Stardriver's director is the same director as Sailor Stars, who had been an episode director on Sailor Moon going back to season 1 and also worked on Cutey Honey Flash.  He then worked on Fun Fun Pharmacy and a number of the shows that proceeded Pretty Cure in it's time-slot, and did episode 8 of the first season of Pretty Cure.  His visual style is certainly an interesting one to combine with the writer of Utena.

Gen Urobuchi is a rare example of a writer who's name gets mentioned more then the directors of the popular shows he wrote.  But sometimes his association is with the source material rather then the Anime directly, it varies.  I find it interesting how many of his shows have Yuki Kajuria on the music even though nothing else connects them.  Maybe they just naturally go together.

All that is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are plenty more Anime where I think the writer is more why I like them then the director.  I'll likely make more posts on this subject in the future.

One detail I'd like to point out before ending this post is that the two most popular up and coming Female Anime directors of the last decade also had female writers on their most notable work, who also wrote plenty of stuff directed by men.

[iesorno]

Adam is the writer of the small press comic The Secret Protectors (we reviewed issues 1&2 here and read our interview with them here)

Like many of us, Adam balances a job and writing, looking to grow creatively and get his story out into the world. What appealed to me about The Secret Protectors particularly is that it’s a raw work, finding its voice and style and watching Adam and Ben Nunn (the artist on the series) grow is as much a part of the story as the actual comic.

They’re currently Kickstarting a collected edition of the first 4 issues of the series (you can sign up for the first two issues for free here and you can see art from the series throughout the article!!) You can back it here.

http://kck.st/2CKH9pP

You can find The Secret Protectors here

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Over to Adam

Secret Protectors

Can you tell us a bit about the first creator whose work you recognised?

Yeah of course, you know, I don’t think I realised it till I got a lot older, but the first creators who really left a lasting effect on me were Filmation (responsible for He-Man), Eastman & Laird who somehow thought up TMNT, along with Toei animation who created the Transformers cartoon. Perhaps even more important are husband and wife Eric & Julia Lewald, the two main creatives behind the X-Men animated series. That show, I can genuinely say, really taught me a lot and instilled in me morals I hold to this day. It was an absolutely great show! Crazy to credit that to a kids Saturday morning cartoon I know but I don’t think you can overestimate how important our younger years are in defining the adults we’ll grow in to.

  Which creators do you remember first copying?

I remember as a kid playing with my action figures and it was never enough to just have the good guys facing off against the bad guys for the sake of a cool battle. I can vividly remember trying to create the Secret Wars storyline with my figures. Instead of just Marvel characters though I’d have Turtles there as well, along with a bunch of other figures. I remember I couldn’t include Transformers or Thundercats though! They didn’t scale well! It would have been ludicrous to include them too! As for my adult years, I’ve tried to not outright copy anyone of course but at this point I’ve so many influences that play into my storytelling approach.

  Who was the creator that you first thought ‘I’m going to be as good as you!’?

Woah, tough one that! Creatively I’ve always wanted to try and have my own way. As a small press indie guy, I’m not sure its about trying to be better than someone else. I think it’s more about improving your craft, learning from your mistakes and growing as a person to improve your work!

  Which creator or creators do you currently find most inspiring?

There’s so many! If I had to narrow it down, I guess I’d have go with a top 5 format, so:

David Chase – The creator of, in my opinion, the best TV series ever – The Sopranos. It’s been labelled all kinds of superlatives, I’m not sure I can really add anything to the list. I’ve heard it described as an 86hr film, which is probably about right. It just never misses a beat and the storytelling is just so deep and rich. It’s the only series I’ve ever watched over from start to finish more than once. I’ll definitely been watching it a third time at some point in my life!

Spawn 300 by Todd McFarlane

David Simon – The man is responsible for a bunch of incredible TV series, such as The Wire, Show Me a Hero & The Deuce. I’m a pretty unemotional guy but Simon is phenomenal at drawing you in emotionally before then absolutely crushing you. Show Me a Hero in particular left me completely exhausted.

Christopher Nolan – He’s just never made a bad film, in fact, I’d argue literally all his work is top drawer stuff. Not only does he tell original, amazing stories, he does it in a way that is normally a way you’ve never been shown a story before.

Todd McFarlane – When Todd left Marvel and started up Image, he, along with the other founders of Image changed the industry forever. In Spawn, he has the longest running independent comic of all time and on a personal note, anytime I see an interview with him he just seems so humble and grounded. He worked his absolute arse off to get where he is and to improve himself. He’s gone from aspiring, struggling artist to a one-man empire! He makes comics, films and toys! The man must never sleep!

Chris Claremont – The man wrote X-Men for 25 years! The longevity and quality of his work is pretty much unparalleled. To quote the great late Stan Lee ‘Nuff said’.

There’s plenty more but this is a pretty good representation.

  Which creators do you most often think about?

I actually try not to really! I’d end up depressing myself by comparing myself to someone on top of the, figurative, mountain that I’d love to ascend! I kid, of course! That’s a tough one. I try to focus on being better personally. Just keeping my head down and doing ‘me’.

  Can you name the first three creative peers that come into your head and tell a little bit about why?

Sure, first up! Matt Stapleton – The mind behind What If? Stories. He’s such a great guy! He’s one of those people whose enthusiasm is just unrelenting! Some might find that jarring but it’s honestly infectious! In a good way! He’s so positive when taking on a challenge, like his recent Kickstarter for instance, he smashes it! If you’ve got a dream and want to make it happen, surround yourself with individuals like Matt. People who dream and believe!

Ben Nunn – 2000AD submission from sample script

Ben Nunn – The second half of The Secret Protectors duo. Ben’s great! We’ve been working together now on The Secret Protectors since 2017. We’ve both developed a lot since then but Ben’s improvement is remarkable. He’s never happy with his work and he’s constantly looking to do better. If I let him, he’d probably completely redo issue 1! Hahaha!

  Lastly. My wife! Kate Wheeler. Now, she’s not a typical creative. She is an actress but she’s not currently working. She had to get a real job to pay the bills unfortunately. But she is my muse. She’s the only reason I developed the belief needed to go out there and get my comic made in the first place! She is my number one confidant, partner, friend and consigliere! The Silvio to my Tony Soprano so to speak.

  Finally, can you tell us a bit about your recent work and yourself?

I’d love to shamelessly plug my Kickstarter which is Live right now! It’s for my comic book series The Secret Protectors! It’s Ben and mine’s take on the superhero genre. There’s sci-fi and fantasy aplenty but it’s more about the drama and tension between the characters themselves! It’s the story I feel I’m here to tell, essentially. There’s not a day that passes that I don’t think about it in some way, shape or form! It’s definitely my burden to carry! My curse!

(editor’s note — It’s here – remember!)

Merchandise available from their Kickstarter

I also recently wrote the short story ‘The Ville’ – download The ‘Ville – By Adam Wheeler. Completely different to anything comic related. To be honest, I just wanted to challenge myself to make something up new. Something that was a complete departure. Just to prove that I could, more than anything.

As for me, I’m Adam Wheeler a 35-year-old male. I’ve been creating & crafting stories since I can remember, not that anyone ever asked me too. I’m not so interesting. I’m just a working-class guy with aspirations. Cliché I know but it’s the best backstory I could come up with for myself.

  Thank you very much for taking the time to fill this out and let us into your mind.

all art copyright and trademark it’s respective owners.

content copyright iestyn pettigrew 2020

    Small (press) oaks – Adam Wheeler writer of The Secret Protectors talks influences and there a lot of 80's and 90's animation thrown about! Follow here @T_S_Protectors #comics #superheros #diversity #alternatereality Adam is the writer of the small press comic The Secret Protectors (we reviewed issues 1&2…

[meandmyechoes]

OOO 10th movie full spoilers ahead

IT WASN’T NECESSARY. I’m not even asking a question IT WASN’T NECESSARY. It honestly could be fixed just letting Ankh stay possessed with Eiji and mirrior the original’s ‘travel the world’ ending if they want nostalgic bait so bad.

OOO is open-ending, KR isn’t even a ‘strictly canon’ franchise. All we ask for is a happy ending and why do they feel like they need to go the most tragic way possible in a continuation made for the fans, and only got made because the cast fought for one?? like, both the plot and cinematography were calculated so to mirror the main series and finale, the choice to choose a less than hopeful ending feels like a deliberate U-turn to what the fans want. It feels like a fanfic because only a fanfic writer would dare to go this level of angst. Mouri wrote five episodes of the seres (20-21, 33-35) and the orgin novel, I expect a decent faithfulness from him and true, the characters is in-character enough for me, but the ending - without a bonus scene of hopeful message, feels so derailed from the orginial theming of the story. (I have never wanted a post-credits scene so bad where Ankh curse the idiot and possess his body anyway because is he going to stay possessing Shingo then??!!? without the message, the movie hasn’t even resolve that? which it raises in its own runtime???) Even Ryuki got a happy reset. I think Kobayashi not being involved is the major reason for story to diverge from her other tokusatsu/toei series. Eiji pretty much got the exact same death as Shinji???? (if i have a nickel meme) That moment I was connecting more out-universe than a viewer should even though it was an Eiji thing to do. 

(Ankh possessing Eiji as a final straw wouldn’t be ooc for him but it is against what Eiji wants (and the film has explicitly shown just a few seconds earlier) and Ankh respecting that shows his growth but I’m so angry ‘cos this is not STAR WARS, the lesson is not ‘letting go’!!! It’s learning to rely on others!! trusting others!!! And I think the ‘union’ could’ve been the culmination to it and flatter all the Ankh/Eiji fans out there!! They are like, the most two-in-one rider after the literal W. But this is me speaking as an outsider, imagine wearing the face of your loved one around like that... for who knows how long... never hearing anything... Seeing how disgusted he was by Goda imposing, I understand how that’d be the last thing he want. He has all Eiji’s memories and their time together now...But he gets to live forever without Eiji... I guess chronologically speaking, OOOxFourze is probably the last. Ankh coming back from the future just to see Eiji again, like Eiji coming back to life just to see Ankh once again.)

I just don’t understand why they have to pick the cruelest way to make an OOO sequel. I don’t think people are gonna complain if you just show us two hours of Eiji and Ankh watching ice freeze. That said, I do appreciate the parallels and seeing more of the developed/reformed Ankh. It kinds of surprised and warmed me that Ankh cares so much about Eiji, other examples like Ankh with Hina and Tajadol Eternity’s dual call I also like. I think the film could benefit from slowing down a bit with more dialogue scenes and showing us how the characters have been for the past ten years, or some more subtle differences before and after. I do think there’s an interesting parallel between Goda and Ankh but it was a bit underbaked on Goda’s side. I do enjoy Watanabe Shu and Miura Ryosuke’s acting. It was HEARTBREAKING to see them cry. When Ryon says, ‘Why did, you die?’ in just that broken-in-half four syllables I DIED.

I know writing an OOO sequel isn’t easy, given how ‘complete’ in narrative the original ending was. And given how much Shu is involved behind the scenes as well this time, I can better understand why the film is written this way. For an all-star reunion, they must’ve all read and approve of the script. This time Ankh is our pov character and I sense the theme of ‘passing on’ from Eiji to Ankh and I think that’s the direction to go. I think it’s nice for Eiji’s desire to give birth to new Ankh and his growth to be symbolic as Eiji’s legacy. In the later part of the film, when Ankh actually -- finally gets to meet Eiji, that feels authentic, and I’m really moved by the fact that Ankh helps Eiji finishes his wish instead of insisting on doing things the selfish way. Maybe it’s mutual understanding only two so intimate knows. You may also factor in Shu killing off his character Harrison Ford way (affectionate) to break out of the mould as speculation.

Even if you judge it as a toy commercial, it’s nowhere as exciting as HeiGen Final’s combo medley. So I’m gonna take that as my OOO epilogue. Maybe because HeiGenFin has already done what everyone wanted with the pair, this film feels there’s nowhere to go? It’s leaning so hard on parallelism it doesn’t even feel nostalgia bait anymore, it feels like it’s trying to copy the homework.

Plot-wise, 800-OOO is a perfectly sensible villain, but maybe the doomsday setting isn’t quite necessary? He could just come back and terrorize the city on a Tuesday. I mean they didn’t even explained how after all. Not only does it feels like a poor rehash of 555′s film, it was unnecessrily depressive. OOO was an intentionally light series to encourage people in the aftermath of 2011′s earthquake, and although we’ve ‘grown up’ now, that doesn’t equal dark and gritty.

I’m more confused than angry but mostly hurt, I feel more hurt after this or worse, having this replaced the orignial ending. I tend to push this outside my canon but I haven’t made up my mind yet but mostly I just can’t answer my own question of what does this add to the characters. Worse is I think that hurt comes more from my sympathy for the characters and I can feel them being played by this fourth dimension hand of the writer. Only in second place, do I feel hurt as an OOO fan. I did cried a little during several scens, but it felt more like a cognitive response to tear-jerking montage instead of heartfelt pain. I was found more shouting, Why. All in all, even if I haven’t already got the CSM on its initial release, this film is making me reconsider getting one. Because I don’t like the idea that I can’t imagine my faves being happy somewhere. I just don’t see the point in buying a overpriced toy to commeorate that then. Last thing, in the alternate universe where I flew over to Japan to see this, I’m sorry bestie... I would’ve flipped at the movie theater... At least I FINALLY get to meet ShuRyon in-person.

[duhragonball]

For the Ask Game: Son Goku

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: Goku is the main character in Dragon Ball Z, an anime that I have enjoyed tremendously for over 20 years.  He kicks aliens really fast and hard, and he eats wolves and bugs and clouds, and he’s very cool and good.   

That may sound kind of basic, maybe even borderline sarcastic, but I’m not sure how else to put it.    I’ve gotten so used to liking Goku that it’s hard to articulate why.   

Like, okay, you know that one episode during the Cell Games, where he’s gonna pick apples from his favorite apple tree?   And he does the special karate punch that makes the apples all fall out of the branches without really hurting the tree?    In the dub, he says to the tree “Ready for one more round, old timer?”  Or something like that, and then after he hits it, he’s like “See?  That didn’t hurt a bit.”  I’m not getting the lines right, but you get the idea.    That’s some choice Goku right there.    He’s friends with that tree!   

Why I don’t: hE gAvE mOrO a SeNzU bEaN-- ha ha just kidding, but can you imagine not liking Goku?   Because of something he did in some horseshit fancomic that doesn’t even count?

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of guff from people about Goku showing mercy to his enemies.   This is humorous to me, because I’d bet you dollars to donuts that they’re fans of Vegeta and/or Piccolo, and that only happened because Goku decided to have mercy on their stank asses.    “Well I like Vegeta because he kills people.”  He only gets to do that because Goku allowed him to live.    Best Green Dad doesn’t happen without Goku, period, end of sentence, new paragraph.   

I’m not a lore expert like that guy on Twitter who only watched DBZ Abridged, but here’s some cool trivia for you: Cell could have self-destructed and destroyed the Earth at any time.    It literally does not matter that Goku gave Cell a senzu bean before Gohan fought him, because Cell would have done the same thing no matter who beat him or how.     If Gohan had wiped him out quickly, that nucleus would have survived and regenerated, and he would come back even stronger.   The senzu bean just delayed the inevitable outcome, and not even by that much, because Cell wasn’t that worn out in the first place.   The whole thing with the senzu bean was Goku playing headgames with Cell and no one seems to understand that but me.   

But what about Moro, you ask?   Hey, come here.  

Closer.    No, closer.   

Listen to me.   I love you, okay?    But the Dragon Ball Super manga isn’t canon.   Hating Goku over something he did in Super is like hating Superman for something he did in a Mad Magazine bit.      

“Blargle blargle he doesn’t kiss his wife bad father, tournament of power--” I super mega don’t care about any of these ice cold takes.      Every day I go on YouTube and it recommends me the dirt worst Star Wars commentary videos.   “Maybe the SITH were actually the GOOD GUYS and the JEDI were the BAD GUYS!  Huh?  Did I just BLOW your MIND?   Be sure to like and subscribe!”  Every dope with a keyboard seems to think they can flip the script and pretend they’re some kind of genius.    “Thanos was right!”  “Magneto was right!” “Dr. Doom was right!” “Antifa are the real fascists when you stop and think about it!”  “Masks and vaccines are bullshit, COVID-19 is a hoax, but if it were real, maybe it’s the good guy in this situation!”

I didn’t mean to go off on a rant here, but the whole point of Goku is that he’s a pretty cool guy, and the hero of his particular adventure, and you see all these people trying to outsmart that somehow, like it’s not the premise of the character.   It’s like all those fan theories about how every show is really one character having a coma dream in the hospital.    It’s fake-deep, like when Will Smith’s kid goes on the internet and says something like “Water isn’t wet when you stop and think about it.”  

I’m not saying everyone has to like Goku, but I don’t get the hate-boner people have for him.    I don’t like cole slaw, it’s soggy and insipid and I don’t understand it, but I don’t go around trying to convince people it’s not made out of cabbage.  

Anyway, Goku’s awesome. 

Favorite episode (scene if movie): It’s hard to choose, but DBZ #248 always fucks me up.   I looked it up in my liveblog archive to get the episode number right, and the first line of that post: This one always fucks me up.

Moving on.

Favorite season/movie: In Dragon Ball terms, I guess this refers to the sagas, so I’ll go with Cell Games.    Goku goes into the battle with this flawed, touch-and-go plan, and it works.    He defeats perfection with imperfection, and it’s glorious.  

Favorite line: “What I represent can never be destroyed,” is one of the most metal lines ever uttered, anywhere.   It’s a threat and a moral lesson all in one.   

Favorite outfit: Two answers for this one.  

Shu’s outfit in the Fortuneteller Baba Saga was awesome.    I used to wear yellow T-shirts to work, so when I put on my blue labcoat I would see myself in the restroom mirror and think: yeaaaaahhhhhh.

I’m also big into Goku’s look during the Cell Games, classic orange outfit, blue shirt, with the Super Saiyan form ready to go.    That may sound obvious, since this is kind of Goku’s default look, but it takes a while to get all of this together.  For me, it was a big deal to see Goku in action as a Super Saiyan in his standard fighting gear, because the whole time he was SSJ on Namek his shirt was ruined.   Against Gero and 19 he was sick, but starting with the Cell Games, we get him fresh as a daisy, and it’s worth the wait.   Harder to stealth cosplay, though.

OTP: Gochi.   Come on.    I don’t even care that much about ships, but they’re adorable on the show, and the internet backlash against Gochi only intensifies my defiance.   

Brotp: I wrote a fanfic with Goku and Yamcha just joyriding in the desert, and that seemed pretty awesome, so maybe we need more of that.   

I dunno, maybe I’m giving this to Bulma.   They don’t get a ton of screen time together after a certain point in the show, but the bond between them is this really sublime thing.    In the same fanfic, I wrote Bulma and Goku interacting, and that was just a pleasure to write.

Head Canon: I think Goku being an alien orphan matters more to him than he lets on.   Early on, he knew he had parents but he didn’t know why they left him in the woods.   Pretty much every interaction he has with the outside world is about him being different.   Then he finds out he’s a Saiyan and all the Saiyans hate him for being weak and sentimental and so on.   He can kick all their asses, but that doesn’t make him any less of an outcast.   

I think becoming a Super Saiyan is a bigger deal to him than he lets on.   That moment kind of serves as this unspoken proof that there’s more to being a “true” Saiyan than Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz ever knew.   That maybe, if his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granny could see him, she might approve.

Unpopular opinion:

Yukio Ebisawa is underrated. 

A wish: I always wanted to see Goku style on Broly ‘93.   It seemed unfair to me that they kept bringing Broly back, and even teased a rematch with Goku in Movie 11, only to not deliver on it.    I wanted Goku to turn Super Saiyan 2 and Broly’d be all “oh noes!” and Goku would look at him and be all “Yeah.   What now, bitch?    That green shit won’t cut it anymore.”

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I think my darkest fear about the Dragon Ball franchise is that it’ll get bastardized like Superman, where some giant multimedia corporation owns it, has no idea how to tell new stories with it, and refuses to let it lapse into the public domain.   I have no idea how public domain works in Japan, but “Disney Toei’s Dragon Ball KH” doesn’t sit well with me.    Hopefully I’ll be dead by the time that happens.  

Like, Rise of Skywalker wasn’t that bad.   But it did lead me to worry that they really have no idea how to make Star Wars work.    They got it right enough, but the part where Rose is going to stay and guard the base or whatever, it just made me realize they’re only guessing, and they just happen to guess right often enough to succeed.   And it’s not like you can jump over to some other studio and see how they handle a Star Wars movie.

5 words to best describe them: Ain’t nothin’ to fuck with.

My nickname for them: Geeko.    Ha ha, just kidding.  

[duhragonball]

Hey, Mike, first time, long time. What do you think of Cooler’s Revenge?

I wrote a thing in December of 2015 where I ranked all the DBZ movies, and I’m pretty sure Movie 5 was about midway on the list.

But lately, I’ve been rethinking that, because I’ll go on YouTube and look up the part where Goku turns Super Saiyan, heals a bird, then Kamehamehas Cooler into the sun. I really dig the song they played on the American dub as Cooler realizes he’s doomed. It’s “Revelation” by American Pearl, and when I found out it was on iTunes I bought it and put it on my Luffa playlist.

So I started to wonder what I thought was wrong with the movie, and it really comes down to a couple of trifling things:

1) It always irked me that Goku seemed unable or unwilling to transform, like he needed Cooler to provoke him the way Frieza did.

2) Cooler’s a pretty blatant retread of Frieza, and it’s a little ridiculous that he was co-ruling the universe all along and was never mentioned before.

I went back and looked up the release date on the movie, and it was June 20, 1991. As it turns out, the manga was still wrapping up the Goku/Frieza battle around that time, which explains a lot of the continuity issues in the movie. Hypothetically, it’s set after Goku returned to Earth, by which time he’d learned to control his Super Saiyan form, but no one at Toei knew about that when they made the movie. They just assumed Goku would beat Frieza and escape Namek somehow, and I guess they figured Krillin would get wished back since they put him in the movie.

That’s why no one mentions Trunks or Mecha Frieza or King Cold or the Androids, because none of that had happened yet in the comics. It’s probably also why Vegeta, Tien, and Yamcha aren’t in the movie, because Toei may not have known for sure that those characters were going to be on Earth.

In that perspective, Movie 5 is kind of noteworthy. I always thought Cooler was an extension of the idea of King Cold, but it’s apparently the other way around. Maybe Toei wanted to do Frieza’s dad for the movie, and Toriyama already had plans. Either way, Cooler is the first villain to face Goku after the Frieza saga, so it’s not too surprising that Toei wasn’t clear on whether Goku could control his transformation or not.

As for Cooler being a derivative concept, I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing for him, since he sort of embraces it in a way that other movie villains can’t. Turles is a lot like Vegeta, Lord Slug is a lot like Piccolo, but Cooler actually has a relationship with Frieza. He’s not just here to imitate things that Frieza did, he’s here to avenge Frieza’s defeat. It’s a nice touch, since it gives Cooler a much stronger background and motivation without dragging out the movie. The previous movie villains were just assholes, but Cooler’s mad because he didn’t like how events in the main story played out. And he’s conflicted. He never really liked Frieza, but he wants to avenge him anyway.

As for the movie itself, it’s got a nice plot structure, with Goku getting ambushed early, forcing Gohan and Krillin to fetch senzu beans to heal him before the bad guys can finish him off. It’s a good change of pace, since a lot of the other movies just sort of have Goku and the bad guy run into each other and start fighting. It also helps cover Cooler’s credibility as a threat. I doubt anyone gave Cooler much of a chance against Goku, considering how he dominated Frieza.

Mostly, though, I like the ending. I want to make some sort of Game of Thrones joke, but I can’t quite figure out how to put it together. All I know is there’s a little bird who didn’t do anything wrong, and Cooler keeps bragging about how he decides who lives or dies. I want to photoshop a beret and a Santa beard on him, but I don’t know how.

Anyway, Goku heals and protects the bird, because he’s more than just a beefcake, and then he no-sells a punch to the ribs and goes “Why won’t you wake up?! You’re hurting innocent people! What have they done to you?” Then he tells Cooler he “can’t let him take his unhappiness out on others any longer.” This is the dub by the way. Funimation haters can whine about the script turning Goku into a western-style superhero, but that’s a load of bull. Goku’s always been about this sort of thing. He’s not going to beat up Cooler for the sport of it, or because he’s consumed with rage. He’s going to punish Cooler because he’s a threat to innocent life. Schemmel’s lines reflect that panel from the comic where Goku thought he’d killed Frieza. He doesn’t *want* to crush these fools, but they leave him no choice.

And Cooler tries to spout all this strong-over-the-weak edgelord crap, and Goku’s like “Fine! We’ll play by *your* rules, Cooler!” and beats the crap out of him. I love that stuff. All these bad guys love their might-makes-right nonsense and then someone mightier comes along and eats their lunch. That’s what Super Saiyans are all about. You think you’re bad? Think again. Cooler tries that Supernova move that everyone spams in Xenoverse 2, but Goku just muscles it up and sends it back to him with interest.

As he falls into the sun, Cooler *finally* realizes he messed with the wrong dude, and then he remembers that this only happened because he allowed Goku to escape the destruction of planet Vegeta, repeating the same error that killed Frieza. It’s really good stuff. Again, you don’t really get that with Lord Slug or Super 13. When those guys lose, they just squeal and explode. Cooler’s defeat is complete, because his final thought is that he was foolish to oppose Goku in the first place.

So, I don’t know, maybe I should revise my movie rankings, but it is a pretty fun movie, regardless of how it compares to the others.