#Bikal Dragon Ball

[maxriderg]

Welp, hit it!

Since Today is Lauren Landa's 35th Birthday, I got this and welp, have a Happy 35th Birthday to the one and only, Lauren Anne Landa herself, Ladies and Gentlemen! ;)

[asmidge]

the tournament of power is truly the yuri saga

[pastel-kaleesh]

Dragon Ball has better representation than Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel.

Queer rep: gay, lesbian, aroace, nonbinary/agender, and polyamorous

We have disabled characters that aren't infantilized (Tommy, the blind boy that befriended Buu)

And after several years of donut lips on Black characters, we have accurately drawn and portrayed Black characters in DB (Uub, Janet, Sharpna, ect.)

Here are some awesome examples:

Piccolo: aroace and agender, also part of the main cast

Kakunsa and Bikal: confirmed and open lesbians in a relationship. Not fetishized or shown as queerbait.

Janet: Pan's preschool teacher and an accurately drawn and portrayed Black character, with a loveable design.

Caulifla and Kale: implied lesbians in a relationship. Not fetishized.

And we can't forget about our fat magical girl, Ribrianne. Not shown as a hated greedy glutton, and with an adorable and loveable design.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super 102

WULL IT’S TIME!

IT’S TIME!

IT’S!  RIBRIANNE!  TIME!

So if you’re like me-- and I know I am-- you’re probably watching this arc and wondering where the hell Universe 2′s team is during all of this.   We’ve been following U7 the whole time, and we just saw a bunch of stuff with U6 and U11 in the last few episodes.  U9 got erased, so they’re accounted for, and U3, U4, and U10 have provided a steady supply of jobbers for the main cast to whale on. 

But Universe 2 has been largely absent from this battle, except for a scene or two where their Yardratti fighter, Jimiz, tussled with Goku for a bit.  They’ve suffered zero eliminations so far, and while they also haven’t eliminated anyone else, that’s not the object of the game.  The team with the most members standing at the end is the winner, so as of this episode, Universe 2 was technically in the lead, even though they haven’t done anything.  If a team could make it through the entire Tournament of Power without fighting while the other teams whittled each other down, that would totally work. 

However, that is not Universe 2′s strategy.  In this episode, Brianne de Chateau, the team’s captain, basically calls out to everyone else on the stage to watch her perform her transformation.  I don’t know why she waited this long, or what her team was doing until now, but they clearly weren’t hiding from the competition for any strategic purpose.  She’s literally inviting everyone to watch her.

So the big gag here is that no one in this cartoon outside of Universe 2 understands any of this.  Pell, their Supreme Kai, starts marking the fuck out, and Helles the Destroyer provides a running commentary on every move her team makes, but none of it really makes any sense, and none of the other characters get it either.  I mean, I like Universe 2′s gimmicks, but I’d be lying if I said I understood any of this.  But I’ll try to explain it as well as I can. 

So for starters, Brianne is part of a trio called the Kamikaze Fireballs.  Or... Tokkou Hintotama.  Or... the Maiden Squadron.  The Dragon Ball Wiki can’t make up its mind.  We’re not off to a great start.  Geez, I could start a sideblog just trying to unpack Team Universe 2. 

All right, let’s soldier on.  Brianne’s the green-haired lady in pink, and that’s Sanka Coo on the left in blue, and Sousu Roas on the right in yellow.  I like her li’l hat, that’s adorable. 

I’m not totally dense here.  They’re clearly doing a Magical Girl/Pop Idol thing with this, although the rest of Team Universe 2 looks like a mishmash of completely unrelated genres.  From left to right, we have:

Bikal, a rejected Darkstalker character

Jimiz, an OC based on a single filler scene from an episode of DBZ (respect)

Rabanra a demon kid or something?  I don’t know

Zarbuto: Former star of the 1940′s sci-fi serial  Zap Astro’s Star Patrol.

Zirloin: A big blue dude in a Roman Soldier costume.

Also there’s a couple of snipers on the team, but we’ll get to them later.

Anyway, despite the aesthetic clash, the whole team is into Brianne’s love act, so they cheer her on as she and her partners to their big Magical Girl transformation.  Everyone watches, transfixed by confusion, resentment, or curiosity. 

Except for 17, who shoots hand lasers at them.

Everyone bawls out 17 for this.  In his defense, the Fireball Angels or whatever they’re called were wide open, and he already spared the last two girl opponents they ran into.  They’re here to win this thing, aren’t they?  But Goku wanted to see how much stronger the Kamikaze Maidens got, and he’s no stranger to long transformation sequences.  Also, Top buts into this argument, since he’s a big proponent of theatrics and elaborate poses in battle.  So 17′s like “Sheesh, fine.”  And the Fireball Squadron goes back to start over. 

Okay, so let’s be clear about this.  Lot’s of smartalecks out there love to poke fun at this stuff, and say things like “Why don’t they just shoot the hero during the long transformation sequence!”  This episode answers that question.

1) 17 just tried it.

2) It doesn’t work.  The ladies aren’t even hurt.

3) Everyone yelled at him for being impolite.

4) They’re just gonna start over again, so you might as well lay out and let them finish their spot. 

5) They don’t fly the ring to Mt. Doom because Sauron has flying monsters who would intercept those eagles you’re thinking of.  You’re not clever.

So yeah, we’re starting over.  That’s fine by me, I could watch this stuff all day.  KISS COSTUME CHANGE, ACTIVATE

  LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOO-VE GUN!

People try to tell me GT wasn’t that bad or the Zamasu Saga wasn’t that bad.  All I know is that I really dreaded sitting through all those shitty epiosdes, and this one is a breeze.  Everything’s so colorful and I like how the tournament stage looks like a Road Runner cartoon now, and nothing hurts.  Anyway, Brianne turns into Ribrianne, which has always confused me because it’s just her first name with two more letters in front of it.  

Sanka Coo becomes Kankusa, which.... they just rearranged her name for that, didn’t they?   Also she’s another cat lady, so if you missed the one from Universe 9, we’ve gotcha covered.

Sousu Roas becomes Rosie.  Well... that’s just a regular ass name.  That’d be like if Billy Batson said “Shazam” and turned into a guy named John.

Fuck yeah!  Fireball Ballfires Squadron in full effect! 

So first off, Ribrianne starts shooting pink hearts and pink smoke everywhere.  It’s not really clear what this is or how it works or what it does.  Helles just keeps talking about how it’s “love” and “beauty”, but that doesn’t actually convey any information.  At best, it just raises further questions. 

Top refuses to inhale the stuff...

But Goku takes a sniff, because why not?   It doesn’t seem to hurt him or anything. 

The Team U7 guys are unaffected, which they seem to consider a sign of their discipline, and they point out Roshi isn’t bothered, even though he would be the most at-risk.  He credits Puar for helping him overcome his uncontrollable horniness, so is that what this is?  Did Ribrianne shoot pheromones into the arena?  Is she trying to make everyone too horny to fight back?

I mean, part of the gag here is that the trio is supposed to start out pretty and then get super-extra beautiful when they transform, but Krillin thinks their transforms are kind of a step backwards, while Universe 10′s guys all seem blown away by how hot the girls are now.  So whether Ribrianne is beautiful is a subjective matter, which... I mean, that’s an interesting approach to a character, but it also gets kind of confusing.  I don’t think Ribrianne would be Roshi’s type, and yet he acts like he’s achieved something by resisting her charms.  The U10 guys are seduced by her, but it doesn’t matter because most of them are already eliminated.  And then you’ve got Vegeta, who seems to find her so revolting that he can barely stomach fighting her. Then again, Vegeta acts disgusted by everyone. 

So finally, these two go at it, and it’s my favorite pairing from this tournament, even though it doesn’t really amount to much.  They put a quick sequence of Vegeta fighting this big pink clown lady in the opening credits, and I was blown away by how awesome it looked, and so I was looking forward to Ribrianne ever since.  In this episode, they finally throw down, and the same cool fight sequence gets recycled here, with a little more thrown in for good measure.

I can’t explain it.  Maybe it’s the color scheme, or the fact that Vegeta is my second favorite DBZ character.  Ribrianne looks like his complete opposite, like they shouldn’t even be in the same cartoon.  She looks like an elementary school teacher who went a little overboard with her classroom’s Halloween party.  But she sees Vegeta coming at her and she’s like “Let’s go, jackass!”

I just love this image of a cutesie character just taking it to Vegeta, and he’s not gonna back down because he’s a Saiyan warrior who doesn’t run from a fight... except...

Rirbrianne comes at Vegeta with this rolling attack (Fireball of Me!) and Vegeta can’t bring himself to strike back.

He’s just too grossed out.  I don’t know if this is a fatphobic thing, or he can’t handle Ribrianne’s face looking like an old-timey TV screen, or maybe the rolling made him dizzy.  Or maybe the love smoke finally got to him.  Anyway, he backs off.

That suits Ribrianne just fine, as she hits another opponent instead and eliminates him.  Dyrasem, if you were wondering.  And yes, he’s a Universe 10 guy. 

So what about the other Jumping Bomb Angels?  Well, Rosie goes after Goku, and seems to do okay, although Goku’s been hustling fighters this whole Tournament, so “doing okay” against Goku is kind of a tricky thing to judge.  Still, you gotta hand it to these gals.  They jumped right in and went after the biggest cats in this tournament. 

Same with Kankasu, who’s determined to punish 17 for interrupting their transformation sequence earlier.  This is no place to hold a grudge, as Universe 9 already demonstrated.  But Kankasu is driven by animal passions or something, so she’s not exactly the level-headed one of the team.

She seems to have 17 on the ropes, just scratching, clawing, and biting him at will, but then he throws up his force field and shuts her down without any trouble.  He’s got infinite stamina, so it’s pretty easy for 17 to rope-a-dope someone.  I’m not clear on this spot, but I get the impression that Knakasu is somehow stuck?  Like, maybe she ‘s trapped within the forcefield instead of just clinging to the outside of it?

17 nearly eliminates Kankasu, but she’s saved by her teammate Bikal.  Good hustle, ladies.  Nice to see a team that watches each other’s backs.

Uh...

Okay.  Uh...

Yeah, I’m pretty sure Kankusa and Bikal are an item, you guys.

18′s like “Ha ha, those lesbians really wrecked your shit, 17.”  And 17′s like “Shut up, I was too distracted thinking about my cool park ranger job.” 

Now 17 means business.  To be fair, there’s dinosaurs at his job, so I can see how it would be hard to get in the right frame of mind for this event.  Anyway, he takes out Bikal first, so she won’t be able to save anyone else.

This enrages Kankusa, which also makes her fight sloppy.  17 gets the upper hand, and when Ribrianne tries to assist, Kankusa tells her to stay out of it.  Ribrianne respects her decision, which sort of exposes the team’s weakness.  The whole love thing is a great motivator and it keeps the team united, but also makes them a little too sentimental for their own good.  

Somehow she gets 17 up in the air and leaps after him, right into the path of the big light that shines down on the stage...

And this was 17′s plan.  He bounces off the surface of the light and launches himself back at her with an energy blast ready to go.  Is that even legal?  The Grand Zenos allow it,since it’s cool. 

17 congratulates Rosie for a battle well-fought, sort of like his muted appreciation to Piccolo when they fought in DBZ.  Then he blasts her out of the ring. 

Well, now they can hold hands on the bench, at least. 

So 17′s looking pretty great right now, but he’s also incurred the wrath of Ribrianne.  This looks like a pretty good cliffhanger, but I’m pretty sure the next episode has nothing to do with this at all.  I guess we’ll see.

[jasper-the-menace]

Kakunsa and Bikal: *actively in a relationship and are lesbians*

The fucking Dragon Ball Wiki:

Kakunsa and Bikal:

[dragonsballsz]

[dragonsballsz]

understandable ma’am have a nice day