#akira toriyama's manga theater

[miss-couch-potato]

Man, I can't even process this.

The legend, Akira Toriyama has passed away.

He made so many things that I enjoy and love and knowing that he's gone just hurts so much. This man created apart of our childhood.

R.I.P

Thank you.

[anotherfandom]

I can't believe Akira Toriyama is dead. He was only 68. I really thought he had another ten years at least. I know the man's work is world renown and beloved but I never talk about it here so please, if you haven't read anything by him, please check it out. It isn't just Dragonball Z and bombastic fights (though he was incredible with his fight choreography and paneling). He also worked on Dr. Slump, which is absolutely hilarious. His one-shots are full of charm. Even Dragonball runs the gamut of genres and tones.

I'm gonna post a teeny little short by him called Escape.

[lumranmayasha]

Original cover artwork made for our Manga Mavericks podcasts in 2022! 

[mangamavericks]

Original cover artwork made for Manga Mavericks podcasts in 2022! 

[adriancorn]

A spontaneous inking practice from Akira Toriyama's short comic Mr. Ho. His work is very expressive and playful plus he created Dragon Ball! This story is in his book Manga Theater and I highly recommend it 👍

The pen and ink were a gift from my brother and his wife that they got at their local pen shop Butler Pen and Ink in Columbia,TN.

Glad to really test it out and to do some ol' fashioned inking after so long.

[genericruleroftheflies]

I’m very saddened to hear about Akira Toriyama’s passing. I’m a big fan of his work. Rest in peace.

[edsonjnovaes]

Thank you, Toriyama Sensei! 1.3

AS DESPEDIDAS AO MESTRE AKIRA TORIYAMA! TODAS AS HOMENAGENS – Ei Nerd. 09 mar 2024 Se você ainda tem dúvidas do quão impactante foi o trabalho do Akira Toriyama no mundo todo, vem comigo que eu vou te mostrar onde sua influência chegou, quantos milhões de pessoas ele marcou para toda uma vida! Vem comigo se despedir mais uma vez do nosso mestre Akira Toriyama! O ser humano é do tamanho da pegada…

[homefryboy]

idk if there’s some kinda term for this, but I like when writers give real props to adaptations of their work:

-akira Toriyama admitted the bardock father of goku TV special made him cry, he said it told a great story in a way he would’ve never come up with. This led to him giving the special a direct nod in the manga

-dav pilkey loved the captain underpants movie and saw it in theaters multiple times. He said he appreciated the movie giving Principal Krupp a softer side, saying he kinda wishes he’d done the same in the books

-dunno if this counts but some bits from western sonic media (such as Sonic’s love of chili dogs) were worked into Japanese works/stuff SEGA made

-above all, Gary K. Wolf thought the who framed Roger rabbit film was so much better than his book (who censored roger rabbit), that he retconned the original story into being a bad dream Jessica had and the rest of the book series is based on the movie instead

feel free to add any more pls

[audgreenart]

I just found out that Akira Toriyama passed away. I can think of few things in my life that had as much of a profound effect on my life as Dragonball is for me. All of the humor and joy it brought to me at a dark time. The countless hours I slowly destroyed my VHS recording, pausing and redrawing the frames for practice. Friends I made through joint DBZ interest (You can still have Trunks Monica!). My grandpa and I laughing about the early Ebay bidding war we got into over DBZ cards. Seeing Battle of Gods in theater with David: DBZ, in American theaters? I had to see it! This is just a small fraction of the good! I wanted to draw manga styles because of Toriyama.

The first episode I ever saw was because I was bored. It was the one with Goku burying Vegeta after Frieza killed him.

"I think I understand you now. You weren't grieving over your own death, or because our home planet was destroyed. "

"You were grieving because he turned you into what he wanted you to be. You never had a chance to be anything else. Well, I still respect you. I know you made a lot of mistakes, but now I see that it wasn't all your fault."

I had never seen anything like that in my cartoons or books at that point--villains were villains, heroes were heroes, and it was all black and white. But here was the hero, burying an apparent enemy, with nothing but respect and sincere empathy. I was forever hooked.

Farewell to one of the first manga creators I ever followed and respected. Who knew something and someone from across the globe could be so intertwined to my journey for art this way! I'm sad to see him go.

[mr-not-null]

I love ur art and love how silly and cute ur Tien and Yamcha art!

Btw who are the characters in the first and second panel in ur recent art post. Bcs it made me search what Cashman is bcs it was first time hearing that Toriyama's manga and I am not familiar with the characters.

Theyre characters from other toriyama's work

They are from mangas you can read all by looking up "akira toriyama manga theater"

Mr.Ho is from Mr.Ho and its a short one-shot and he doesnt have any other content apart from that (that i know of)

And Chapat is is from Saving Soldier Cashman and its a three part manga that apart from that he has an ova you can watch on youtube!

And random official-ish art i like

[generositygullet]

A letter to Akira Toriyama

Dear Akira Toriyama,

I first interacted with dragonball when I was in 6th grade or so, when I started playing dragon ball fusions for the 3ds since the trailer looked cool. Kind of a weird start right? But I was getting really into anime at the time, and wanted to check out one of the most popular ones. I had NO idea who the characters were, and had NO clue what the story was about. But for some reason against all the odds, as soon as I saw the title screen boot up with that soaring music I was hooked. The game was super fun, no doubt about it. But what REALLY kept me going when playing it, was the world of dragon ball itself.

Again I had no clue who any of these people were. But seeing these characters interact with each other, seeing these different setpieces made, seeing all of these powers and personalities, it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It channeled the raw kid desire in me to see two buff dudes duking it out, and god I adored every bit of it.

I didn't dig any deeper than that initially, and like all my other hyperfixations it died down. But again in 7th grade I started playing fighterz, and I was hooked again. But this time I dug deeper in preparation for the release of the new GT dlc, and so the first dragon ball media I actually watched? Was GT. Which is hilarious in hindsight, but I still adored every second of it.

In 8th grade things were not going so well for me, I was losing friends due to being an asshole, and I had to change myself to be worthy of the people around me. I was pretty depressed, and everything seemed sad and hopeless (I know it's pretty dramatic for a literal like 13 year old but bear with me lmao). It's around that time when I decided to watch Dragon Ball Super. And again, I was hooked. I binged it so fast, all 130 something episodes. I could talk big about the characters and everything, but honestly it was just so plain cool. It made me feel excited and happy, it made me feel like everything was ok. And those positive feelings made that much of a difference in me.

From that point on I always was interested in Dragon Ball. my first and only hyperfixation to never really go away. I read the OG dragonball, and started REALLY noticing your artistic talent. From the way you drew Goku moving across the battlefield and the poses he struck. To the illustrations of the action and the punches thrown. It was all so dynamic and energetic. When I was reading it I was always engaged, excited to see the next panel. I wanted to channel the same energy in my own art somehow, to encapsulate the same excitement you instilled in me with your drawings.

I FINALLY got around to watching and reading Z a little later. And of course I loved it. I knew all the basic plot beats, and had a 3 in one Goku vs Vegeta volume collection that I would reread constantly. But seeing them play it is so different. I also started to admire your character design more and more. Trying to draw them in my free time, and getting a bit sad when I couldn't capture the same magic you could.

All of this, of course, was older material though. This was all before my time, I was never there to experience it when it initially happened. Not for super, not for the OG DB, and not for Z. I adored it all, but I always knew what was going to happen.

I remember the reaction on my face when the news of DBS Superhero dropped. I was so so SO excited. More than you could ever imagine. Something new, something I could see with my own eyes, and something about Piccolo and Gohan??? It was amazing. And seeing it in theaters a few years later? God I was on the edge of my seat the entire film. I even started reading the DBS manga, I think it's amazing so far.

When I heard that you were gone yesterday night, I was crushed.

I’m a junior now. And after a long time of thinking about it, being anxious, afraid, and scared of the future. I think I want to be an artist or filmmaker. I want to bring the same energy you did to the world. I'm still trying to figure out my artstyle, and how I want to draw. I’m not great at it, but no matter what, I want to keep going. Because I want to bring a character to life, like you brought Son Goku to life and so many others as well. I want to inspire so many others like you inspired me. With your messages, you brought me happiness. You told me that simplicity was ok with Son Goku. You told me that we need to fight for what we love with Son Gohan. You told me that we should aim to be better than our predecessors with Piccolo Junior. You told me that we shouldn't let our pride consume us with Vegeta. You’ve shown me and the entire world so so much. And I hope you were proud of it. I’m

I said the world of Dragon Ball earlier, but really, it was your world Akira Toriyama. And your world changed mine forever in the best way. Thank you, for letting me dream again.

[stillwill76]

Will’s Anime Watchlist for Fall 2024

Holy smokes, there’s a lot of great stuff coming out this season. Here’s my intial watchlist.

New shows for the season:

Uzumaki (Toonami/Max) (Been waiting on this one for a LONG time. About three or four years I think? First episode was pretty good. Excited to see the rest.)

DanDaDan (Crunchyroll/Hulu/Netflix) (Most anticipated show of the season. I saw the first three episodes in theaters. They were incredible. Anime of the year contender.)

Blue Box (Netflix) (Another highly anticipated show. Also potential anime of the year contender. It or DanDaDan could take best romance.)

Magilumiere (Amazon Prime Video) (I really like the source material but I’m a little worried the anime won’t be as good seeing as their hasn’t been a lot of ads for it, much like what happened with Red Cat Ramen/Ramen Akaneko. Will still watch it.)

Okay, now for returning series. There are a lot.

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 3: The Conflict (Hulu) (LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOO!!! Very excited because a) we’re about to see my favorite Bankai (Kyoraku’s) and b) the talks about additional scenes like an extension of Ichigo’s second fight with Yhwach as well new Ichihime and Renruki scenes has me pumped.)

Blue Lock Season 2 (Crunchyroll) (Hyped for this to come back. I’ve heard the next couple of arcs are pretty great. Still need to see Episode: Nagi.)

Shangri-La Frontier Season 2 (Crunchyroll) (I always love when there’s a video game anime that is just about people playing video games and there’s no life threating stakes. Might need to start the manga for this one.)

Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidded Deductions Season 2 (Crunchyroll) (Started reading the manga for this one partway into season one last year and am now caught up. Excited to see the anime’s take on the next couple of arcs.)

Beastars: Final Season Part 1 (Netflix) (It sucks that we’re getting this in parts and this part won’t be out till Christmas. But I’ll still enjoy it.)

Shows I might check out:

Toilet Bound Hanako-kun Season 2 (Crunchyroll) (Saw the first season when it came out and enjoyed it. I know a spin-off came out sonce then but I need to see if it’s required watching. May need to rewatch season one because I barely remember it.)

Dragon Ball Daima (Crunchyroll) (I’m not the biggest Dragon Ball fan but I do love the vibes of the OG series and this has a lot of those. Plus, Akira Toriyama was heavily involved before his untimely passing. May he rest in peace. Might also check out Sandland on Hulu.)

Dubs I’m rewatching: currently making my way through Undead Unluck. After that, either Frieren or Mashle.

Anyway, that’s it for my list! I’ll add more if I find any other shows that intrigue me. 😁

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball: Evolution (USA, 2009)

The Gaijin Live-Action Trilogy comes to a close with “Dragon Ball: Evolution”.  Regardless of which movie is your favorite, I think it’s fair to say that DBE was easily the most disappointing.  “Fight/Win” and “Magic Begins” were unofficial, low-budget movies from the early 1990′s, while “Evolution” was produced by 20th Century Fox.  They spent seven years and 30 million dollars on this turkey. And they had actually gone to the trouble to acquire the legal rights to make the movie.  And yet...

The movie ended up being a critical and commercial flop.  In the fandom, “Dragon Ball: Evolution” has become a byword for failure.  Even Akira Toriyama expressed disappointment with the film, which is pretty rare for him. 

For my part, I was kind of intrigued when the movie came out in 2009, and I had some hopes that it might lead to big things for the franchise.  And I remember it being okay when I saw it, but I was quick to notice that there weren’t many people in the theater that day. 

I didn’t really get mad about the movie until I saw the 2011 Thor movie, which proved that a big studio could have done a better job adapting a superhero fantasy world.  Believe it or not, there was a time when live-action adaptations of comic books were just expected to suck.   The studio would just change a bunch of shit for no good reason or to make the movie cheaper and easier to film, and if you didn’t like it then you just didn’t understand movies or something.  The idea that the movie people needed to understand the comic didn’t really gain traction until the first X-Men film came out in 2000, and even then, it was understood that the movies were under no obligation to get it right, or even try to get it right. 

So I graded DBE on a curve back then, and as the MCU Phase 1 movies started to premiere, I got more and more irritated at Fox for failing to recognize the moment.  And now, 14 years later, I’m watching DBE for the second time ever and wondering why I ever thought it was okay.  It’s a terrible movie, with only occasional flashes of appreciation for the source material.  In hindsight, I realize now that I only enjoyed DBE as much as I did because of wishful thinking.  I just really wanted to like it, and I so managed to convince myself that I didn’t hate it.

But now?   Yeah, I hate it.  This movie sucks ass.  Let’s dive in.

We open with exposition, which is generally a bad sign for movies like these.  For one thing, they go over this information several times throughout the movie, so there’s absolutely no reason to spell it out at the very beginning. 

So, like the Korean and Taiwanese live action films, this one also dares to retell the story of the first Dragon Ball hunt.  Goku meets Bulma and they search for the seven Dragon Balls, but this is 2009, and that trick has been done several times already.  A timeline...

1984-1985: Chapters 1-23 of the Dragon Ball manga.

1986: Episodes 1-13 of the Dragon Ball anime.

1986: Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies

1990: Dragon Ball: Fight, Son Goku! Win, Son Goku!

1991: Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins

1996: Dragon Ball: The Path to Power

2009: Dragon Ball: Evolution

Even if the audience wanted to see this again, it still would have been a bad idea, simply because of how many times it had been done before.  More importantly, this was an American movie, made primarily to attract business from American fans, most of whom were introduced to the franchise through Dragon Ball Z, not the Pilaf Saga.  Fans didn’t want to see Master Roshi and Mai, they wanted Vegeta and Frieza and Super Saiyans.  This is probably why Fox put Piccolo in the role of the lead villain.   Let’s face it, it just makes sense.  Korea and Taiwan stuck to Emperor Pilaf, but they ended up turning Pilaf into some overpowered badass.  You might as well swap him out for Piccolo, a villain who actually fills that role. 

And also, DBE was meant to serve as the first installment of a trilogy.  This was all the rage back in the late 2000′s, as movie studios deluded themselves into thinking they could turn any movie into three movies just by wishing for it really hard.   Terminator 4, 5, and 6 were each supposed to reboot the Terminator franchise, but none of them made enough money to pull it off, so they ended up becoming a trilogy of failed trilogies. 

So rather than having Piccolo and Vegeta fighting Frieza, like everyone probably wanted, this movie tries to take it slow, introducing Piccolo first, in order to set up Vegeta in the next movie.  Only there would be no next movie, so in hindsight they really would have been better off putting their best foot forward instead of holding back. 

Anyway, let’s get on with this.  So in this movie, Piccolo is basically the same as King Piccolo from the manga, except he tried to conquer the Earth 2000 years ago, instead of a few centuries ago.  He was defeated and sealed away by a powerful technique called the Mafuba, and in the events of this movie, he escapes and plots his revenge.  But he wasn’t alone back in the olden days...

And this right here is where the movie fucked up.  Piccolo’s sidekick villain is simply an ape-like creature named “Oozaru”.  So any fans watching this thing will immediately see the twist coming.  I suppose general audiences might not pick up on this, but come on. Oozaru is presented as Piccolo’s “disciple”, but he wasn’t captured like Piccolo was.  Instead he simply... “disappeared”.  This is undoubtedly meant to set up the Saiyans in the sequel, but there would never be a sequel.

So we move on to the present day, where Gohan is teaching is adoptive grandson Goku.  Goku looks like Frodo Baggins accidentally wandered into the wrong movie.  DBE Goku resembles a lot of other movie characters from around this period.  Frodo, Edward Cullen, Tobey McGuire Spider-Man.  I could probably keep going, but the one guy he really doesn’t resemble is Goku. 

Gohan defeats him in a sparring contest, and Goku is too frustrated with his social life to learn anything.  The kids at school bully him, and he can’t fight back because Gohan made him promise not to use his power.  Goku seems to understand this, but he’s also frustrated that he doesn’t know how to do anything else.  This movie tries to force Goku to fit into some sort of classic secret identity trope, where he has great power but he mustn’t reveal it.  In ‘09, I accepted this as a new take on the character.  In 2023, I’ve pretty much abandoned DC and Marvel superhero comics altogether, and I can see now how stupid this was.  It’s like doing a Bugs Bunny movie and making him act like Mickey Mouse.  It’s not going to impress Mickey Mouse fans.  All it does is expose your inability to understand the classic character you have. 

They wanted Goku to be Spider-Man so badly, or maybe Harry Potter.  And I’m like, fuck Spider-Man and Harry Potter.  Give us Goku, you cretins!

Or... yeah, the Twilight connection is really starting to seem more apparent to me.  Everything in this movie is blue or orange and it pisses me off. 

So Goku’s in high school and the teacher is explaining what a solar eclipse is, which reminds me way too much of Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four movie, where a college professor literally explains the cosmic MacGuffin that gives the FF their powers.  And Goku’s too busy crushing on his classmate, Chi-Chi.  He hallucinates her in a field of flowers, eating strawberries, which is kind of like... not exactly horny, but hornier than Goku needs to be, if that makes any sense.  Chi-Chi really doesn’t serve any purpose in this movie, except to be a love interest for Goku, which he doesn’t really need because there’s enough going on here as it is.  So Chi-Chi just sort of exists in the film, liking Goku for no particular reason and being this hot chick.  It’s dumb.

Then the teacher calls on Goku and asks him what their ancestors would say about a solar eclipse, and Goku stammers some crap about how the Earth was nearly conquered by the Namekians during an eclipse thousands of years ago.  Everyone laughs at him, but I don’t understand what the hell this movie is trying to establish here.  On the one hand, there’s all this secret lore about Piccolo and Oozaru nearly conquering the world, but on the other hand wouldn’t everyone kind of know about that?  I mean, there would be historical accounts of this terrible battle, right?  It would have altered the course of history, but these high school scenes make it look like the world is basically the same as our world. 

Later, Goku sees Chi-Chi struggling with the lock on her locker, and her homework assignment is trapped inside.  So Goku uses The Force his ki to open all the lockers.  This impresses Chi-Chi, who already knows about ki.  Meanwhile, I’m confused.  At the beginning of the movie, Gohan told Goku to use his ki, and he couldn’t do anything with it.  So why did he even try it here?  Maybe his boner for Chi-Chi unleashed his hidden potential?

Chi-Chi invites him to a party at her house, and he ditches his grandfather’s humble birthday celebration to attend.  Oh, right, it’s Goku’s 18th birthday, by the way.  The bullies from school try to intimidate Goku, but he stands his ground and defeats them by dodging all their attacks and getting them to defeat themselves.  It’s actually pretty true to Goku’s style in mismatches like this, and I’d give it a little credit, except it’s too similar to gags used in the Spider-Man and Superman films.  One thing that bothers me here: the bullies are using like kicks and flips and shit.  They seem pretty skilled in martial arts themselves.  Not on Goku’s level, obviously, but they’re not just stock football players or whatever.  It’s another example of this world being sort of a half-inch removed from reality.  It can’t decide if it wants to be the real world or a fantasy world like the one in the source material. 

Meanwhile, Piccolo and Mai barge into Gohan’s house and kill him.  They came looking for his Dragon Ball, but don’t realize that Gohan gave it to Goku that morning as a birthday present.  Goku took it with him to the party, so it’s not here. 

Okay, so let’s talk about the bad guys.  Mai is basically Mai from the Pilaf gang, but she works for Piccolo here.  She has a hole in her costume, which... I mean I’m not complaining, but I’m starting to see that this movie really uses eye candy as a crutch.  Like, Rey’s pretty good looking in the Star Wars movies, but there’s so much other cool shit happening in those things that it’s not the main thing.  Here, just about all you have to occupy your attention in DBE is ogling Chi-Chi, Mai, and Bulma. 

Piccolo absolutely sucks.  James Marsters wanted this role because he was such a huge fan of the franchise, and I always felt kind of bad for him because he seemed really excited at the prospect of playing Piccolo in the sequels, only for this movie to turn into such a huge flop.  I guess there’s a non-zero chance he’s reading this, so I don’t want to be too hard on him, but there’s just nothing to this character.  He just glowers menacingly, destroys a place, then collects the Dragon Ball and leaves.  He pops up briefly throughout the movie just to remind us that he’s doing stuff, but most of what we know about him comes from other characters talking about him.  He’s mad about being sealed away for 2000 years, but we never learn how he got unsealed.  For that matter, we never learn why he wants the Dragon Balls.  He seems to want to wish for world conquest, but he was doing pretty well on that front 2000 years ago.

Also, we never learn how he knows where the Dragon Balls are.  It’s like how Baby from GT knew where to send his lackeys.  We see Piccolo destroy a Japanese village and then Mai goes down to fetch the Dragon Ball from some lady, and it’s like she knew exactly where to go.  But here, they show up looking for Gohan’s Ball, and it’s like they knew it used to be here, but they don’t know where it’s gone?

Back at Chi-Chi’s place, Goku’s Spider-Sense is tingling, so he runs back home to check on his grandfather and finds him buried under the house.  He pulls him out the wreckage, where Gohan tells him to find all the Dragon Balls to stop Piccolo, and reminds him to “have faith in who you are.”  That’s like the moral of this movie.  That and “the first rule is that there are no rules”.  Just hackey drivel presented like some profound wisdom.  Also, there’s a poem about the Dragon Balls, like the verses etched in the One Ring from Lord of the Rings.  Then Gohan dies of terminal cliche and Goku buries him in a shallow grave.

The next day, Bulma breaks into the house... Well, I guess that’s a relative term, since the house is already half-destroyed.  She accuses Goku of stealing her “promethium orb”, because she tracked it to this house.  Goku realizes she’s talking about the Dragon Balls, and when he shows her his Four-Star Ball, she understands that it’s not the same as the Five-Star one she lost.

Okay, so a couple of things.  First, if Bulma has a Dragon Radar in this story, why is she just now learning that there’s more than one of these things?  Second, after Goku tells her about the Dragon Balls, she just drops the whole “promethium orb” thing.  That seems kind of weird, since she had this whole thing planned where she was going to use them as an unlimited power source.  I can’t see her abandoning the name she came up with. 

Anyway, Bulma is easily the best character in this movie.  She’s not quite authentic to the original character, but she’s constantly pointing guns at people and growling thinly veiled threats.  It’s sort of a half-Bulma, with all the badass two-fisted scientist stuff, but none of the flirty, bratty stuff.

Also, I have to give her credit for the one (1) streak of blue hair, which is more than the other live-action Bulmas ever got.  Seriously though, this is like a symbol of the entire movie.  They wanted to put Bulma in this thing, but they stopped short of giving her all-blue hair.  Like, which is it? Do you want Bulma or not?  And if the answer is no, then why are you doing a Dragon Ball movie in the first place?

So before Gohan died, he told Goku to seek out Master Roshi at Paozu.  As it turns out, Paozu is a big city, and Roshi’s house is located on a weird little island in the middle of a lake in the middle of the city. 

Roshi is played by Chow Yun-fat, which was probably a big “get” for the studio.  He’s also the worst live-action Roshi I’ve seen, and I wasn’t very impressed by the others.  This is just Chow Yun-fat screwing around in a Dragon Ball movie.  He doesn’t have the turtle shell on his back, which isn’t much of a surprise, but he also lacks the beard, sunglasses, and bald head.  He has a waifu cartoon on his shirt, and Bulma finds a bikini magazine in his stuff, and that’s about as pervy as he ever gets.  Seriously, Goku is a bigger horndog in this movie than Roshi. 

And I’m not that fussed about this, since I’m not a big fan of Roshi’s to begin with, but it’s weird to me how all three live-action adaptations went out of their way to include Roshi, but refused to go all-in on the portrayal.  Like, if you don’t want a problematic sex-pest in your movie, I totally understand, but the solution is not to tone down the character.  Now you still have the character in your movie, but you’ve stripped away the only personality he had.

The solution should have been just to do a different story, one without Master Roshi.  Just have Chow Yun-fat play some other character, like the Supreme Kai or whatever else you want.  But if he’s not gonna ogle girls and wear sunglasses and have a bald head, what’s the point of calling it Roshi?

Anyway, Roshi also has a Dragon Ball, and he fills in the others on the whole deal with Piccolo and the eclipse, and whatever else.  There’s a lot of mysticism thrown around with this plot, where I can’t tell if Piccolo’s return was just a quirk of fate or some fufilment of an ancient prophecy or something.  Also, every time Goku touches a new Dragon Ball, he has visions of the future. 

Roshi’s plan is to train Goku to defeat Piccolo, and to track down the Dragon Balls before Piccolo can get them all.  To do that, he takes Goku to some “secret” training ground, but it turns out to be full of kids beating the shit out of each other as they prepare for a martial arts tournament.  Goku runs into Chi-Chi there, and she reveals to him that she’s a martial artist, but none of the others at home know. I don’t understand what the point is to any of this.

So the good guys move on to a different, more secluded training ground.  On the way, Bulma drives into a hole, and this turns out to be a trap laid by Yamcha.  He offers to help them out, but only in exchange for payment.  This seems like a really dumb trap now that I think about it.  I mean, how long did it take him to dig this hole?  And he just assumes someone will drive into it, and that they’ll be rich enough to make this worth the trouble he went to.  I mean, past a point, it’d be simpler to just get a job, right?  Or at least go rob people in a big city, like a regular criminal.

They sit in the hole well into the night, and Roshi tells the story of Piccolo and Oozaru.  He warns that the coming eclipse will bring forth Oozaru, which is why they have to stop Piccolo before that happens.  Why? Isn’t Piccolo strong enough on his own?  The implication is that Oozaru is like his trump card or something, but I don’t buy that.  He killed Gohan effortlessly, and no one else has displayed any greater ability. 

Yamcha thinks the story is dumb, but he has to sit here and wait for them to pay him before he can move on.  Then Roshi just jumps out of the hole and offers him a deal.   If he could do that the whole time, then why did he wait so long to do it? 

Meanwhile, Mai has been following the good guys, and she reports back to Piccolo that Roshi is training Goku to oppose him.  Piccolo then has blood drawn from his arms, which he uses to bring life to... whatever these things are.   They’re like the Putty Patrol from Power Rangers, only even shittier.

Goku just tosses their bodies in lava, and uses them as a bridge to reach the next Dragon Ball.  Don’t ask how we ended up in a lava floe.  Anyway, when he touches the next Ball, he has visions of Oozaru killing the others, so he resolves to defeat Oozaru, and Roshi starts to lose confidence in their plan.  They won’t have time to track down the remaining Dragon Balls before the eclipse, so he heads for Toisan to consult with someone else for Plan B.

That someone is Sifu Norris, played by Ernie Hudson from the Ghostbusters movies.  A lot of geek journalist sites said that Hudson would be playing Mutai-Itoh, the master who trained Roshi and developed the Mafuba technique that defeated Piccolo in the original manga.  But the character’s name in ths movie is Sifu Norris, and while Roshi bows to him in deference, it’s not clear that Norris was Roshi’s teacher.  And he couldn’t have invented the Mafuba in this world, not unless he’s 2000+ years old. 

Anyway, Roshi never took the poem about the Dragon Balls seriously until now, when the signs are finally starting to come true.  So he apologizes for his doubts, and asks Norris to help him prepare another vessel for the Mafuba.  Roshi plans to seal up Piccolo all over again, at the cost of his own life. 

See, here’s why this doesn’t work properly.  In the original story, Roshi told the other characters all about Piccolo’s original attack on the world, and how his old master sacrificed his own life to seal Piccolo away.  That was important, because you need that established up front.  That way, when Roshi begins planning to use the Mafuba himself later on, the audience knows exactly what it means, and how desperate the situation is.  The audience also understands how Roshi would know the technique, as he was one of the only living witnesses to have seen the technique used.

But in DBE, we don’t get that.  We’re only told that the Mafuba is a technique that sealed Piccolo away.  We don’t find out that it kills the user until this scene, when Roshi and Norris say so.  Roshi says he’s the only one who can do it, but we never find out why.  When would he have learned the Mafuba?  Why would he have learned it?  He was never worried about Piccolo until a few days ago.  He certainly never saw it used the first time around, because it was before his time.  And why can’t Sifu Norris use it instead?  He seems more experienced in this sort of thing. 

Meanwhile, Goku meets with Chi-Chi at the Toisan tournament, while Bulma and Yamcha commiserate over the upcoming end of the world.  There is zero chemistry between these two, and Bulma says she likes bad men, so she’s already preparing to dump him for Vegeta, and they haven’t even introduced him yet.

Roshi shows Goku how to do the Kamehameha, and Goku says that he’s heard of the technique, but Gohan never taught him because he wasn’t ready.  Roshi says that Goku still isn’t ready, but he has to learn it anyway because they’re almost out of time.   Well if he’s not ready, then what good does it do to teach him?  This movie really can’t make up it’s mind about Goku’s ability.  We’ve already seen him use ki powers, even when the movie insists that he has no aptitude for this. 

As he struggles to light torches with his ki, Chi-Chi shows up and basically offers to make out with him if he does a good job.  That’s the other weird thing about this movie, it keeps presenting this notion that romantic intimacy makes you better at fireball karate.  I mean, that sounds awesome, actually, but it’s not Dragon Ball.

Later, Bulma finds Chi-Chi in Goku’s room, and she thinks they’re having sex, except Goku’s not in there, and Chi-Chi’s doing exercises somewhere else.  Turns out Mai disguised herself as Chi-Chi.  At the Toisan tournament, she was in a match with Chi-Chi, and managed to get a drop of her blood, which she somehow used to shapeshift into her?  I mean, that’s fine, I can believe Piccolo has special magic that lets Mai do that sort of thing, but I feel like they should have explained it in greater detail.   Anyway, Goku finds the two Chi-Chi’s fighting, and he beats the wrong one, and Mai shoots him.

Goku has a near death experience where Gohan tells him to believe in himself or some shit, while Roshi uses a Kamehameha to revive him.  Uh, okay?

So the bad guys have all the Dragon Balls, which normally means they’ve already made their wish, but in this movie there’s still time, because you have to take the Balls to the Dragon Temple to summon Shenron.  So Yamcha drives the gang over there, and partway into the trip he just reveals that his truck can fly like the DeLorean in Back to the Future II.  So why didn’t he do that before?

The bad guys are already at the Temple, so I’m not sure what the point was of making this like a chase or anything.  Fortunately for the good guys, it seems to take a long time for Shenron to get summoned. Roshi tries to use the Mafuba, but Piccolo shoots a ki blast at him and destroys the magic pot?  Yeah, let’s go with that.

So all this wild shit is going on and Goku’s just been putting on his costume the whole time.  It looks like ass, but it’s a huge improvement over the street clothes he’s been wearing through 80% of this movie.  He goes to confront Piccolo and threatens to defeat him and Oozaru, but Piccolo calmly explains that Goku is Oozaru.  Or rather, he’ll become Oozaru when the eclipse happens.

This is really the closest Piccolo gets to any meaningful characterization.  He doesn’t develop his personality, and we learn nothing about him or his connection to Oozaru or Goku, but at least he gets to talk to another character besides Mai. 

So the eclipse happens and Goku transforms into... a slightly taller, hairier ape-man.  Why the hell did Piccolo need this to happen?  He explains that Goku was sent to Earth in a meteor to hid among humanity until his 18th birthday, when Piccolo would be ready to use him again.  So how long has Piccolo been planning all of this?  Again, we never learn how he got out of the seal from before, so we don’t know how long he’s been loose, or what arrangements he’s been making.  But apparently he had a space baby sent to Earth in preparation for this day. 

Also, what is the connection between Goku and the Oozaru from 2000 years ago?  The movie seems to imply that they’re the same character, but how does that work? They keep saying Goku’s 18, so is he the second Oozaru?  What happened to the first one?

I mean, you have this mysterious figure baked into the lore of this movie, directly connected with Goku, but separated by a vast gulf of time.  It’s almost like...

No. 

No. 

No, we’re not doing this. 

So anyway... Roshi tries the Mafuba and gets his ass kicked, and then Oozaru goes to choke Roshi out, but Roshi somehow gets through to Goku, who then... wills himself back to normal?  Piccolo can’t believe it, and Goku just repeats the line from the start of the movie, when Gohan told him “there are no rules”.  So I guess there’s no point in asking how Goku’s clothes were restored to normal, then.

So they fight, and it looks like crap, and Goku says some nonsense about how he has to be Goku and Oozaru and believe in himself, and I guess that was what had been holding him back.  All this time, he couldn’t properly focus his ki because he didn’t know his true nature, but now he understands what he is so he can do it?  Anyway he shoots a Kamehameha, and it’s dumb as hell.  The poses are all wrong, and then he leaps forward while he shoots it, like he wants to punch Piccolo as he shoots him. 

I mean, how did they manage to fuck up the Kamehameha?  They made it the climax of this movie, and it’s like no one involved in this production had ever seen the movie before.  Either that, or they studied the anime intensively, only to brainstorm ways to “improve” it. 

So Piccolo’s defeated, and Roshi’s dead.  Bulma says she wishes that it didn’t end this way, and Goku’s like “Oh yeah, that Dragon who grants wishes.” 

So they summon Shenron at the temple and holy shit this is bad.  This was the best dragon they could come up with?

So Roshi’s alive again, and Bulma says they have to re-collect the Dragon Balls, but Goku has one more piece of business to take care of.  He goes back to Toisan to meet Chi-Chi and apologize for beating her up before, and she says she let him hit her, so they decide they need to fight to see who’s really better at fighting, as this is the only way their relationship can move forward.  And that’s kind of cute, I guess, but it reminds me too much of the ending of Rocky III.  Also, “The Magic Begins” had a similar ending, but with Yamcha instead of Chi-Chi. 

And then there’s a mid-credits scene where some lady is nursing someone back to health and the guy rolls over and it’s Piccolo.  This was really stupid because they dragged out this reveal like it was some sort of shock.  Meanwhile, everyone knew Piccolo would survive, since he would have been needed in a sequel.  Also, they show him still in one-piece after Goku defeated him, so it’s not like this is a huge twist or anything.  

But, of course, there would be no sequel, so this was the last we saw of DBE Piccolo. 

This movie was a real garbage heap of a film, but there was one positive development that came from it.  Akira Toriyama really didn’t like how this movie turned out, and this probably had a lot to do with him getting involved with the production of Battle of Gods around 2012.  And that movie turned out to be a big success, in part because of Toriyama’s efforts, and this led to the Dragon Ball rennaissance we’re in today.  Dragon Ball Super has been a mixed bag in my opinion, but the movies have been great, and even the worst of Super is still miles ahead of “Dragon Ball: Evolution.”

And... yeah, that’s all I got.  So ends the Gaijin Live-Action Trilogy.  I’ll leave you with the highlight of the series: Puar smoking a cigarette.

[adair-trashart]

i dont know if anyone else did this but im doing it anyways a lot of it is pulled from his list of works wikipedia page but id figure i could at least make it easier to immediately see where to experience a lot of this stuff since a lot of it can be confusing to find super long post ahead

List of Akira Toriyama's stuff he did you can experience in some way:

(* means digital is the only option for people afraid of buckaneers and scallywags ** means the seven seas are the only (easily accessible to most) option ^ means it is (at least somewhat affordably) available physically or digitally, but not in English)

Manga

Dragon Ball related things:

Dragon Ball (the manga that Dragon Ball Z was adapted from is considered to be still a part of the original series. the manga relevant to that is/was sold over here as the Dragon Ball Z manga, but I'm not sure whats going on with that. can someone whos more of a dragon ball superfan help me figure that out a little???????? even the wiki articles are confusing me on this)

Dragon Ball Super (concepts, storyline, some storyboards and dialogue. It is mainly done by Toyotarou and was released at the same time as the anime before the manga got ahead of it)

Dragon Ball: The Return of Son Goku and Friends! (adaptation of the OVA. overseen storyboards and gave advice to Naho Ooishi. According to the intro he sees this as better than the special this was based off of)

Jaco the Galactic Patrolman

Neko Majin^

Kochira Namekku-sei Dragon Kōen-mae Hashutsujo** (a crossover chapter with KochiKame that apparently appears in Cho KochiKame)

Cross Epoch** (One Piece crossover one-shot)

Things you can experience through Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater:

Wonder Island/Wonder Island 2

Today's Highlight Island

Tomato the Cutesy Gumshoe

Pola & Roid

Escape

Mad Matic

Pink: The Rain Jack Story

Chobit/Chobit 2 (not to be confused with Chobits by CLAMP)

Dragon Boy

Mr. Ho

Lady Red

Young Master Ken'nosuke

The Elder

Little Mamejiro

Karamaru and the Perfect Day

Soldier of Savings Cashman

Dub & Peter 1

Go! Go! Ackman

Alien X-Peke

Sachie-shan Good!!

Jiya

Other manga:

Dr. Slump

Rocky** (Dr. Slump spinoff)

Dr. Mashirito – Abale-chan** (Dr. Slump spinoff)

Wolf** (accessible through the artbook Akira Toriyama: The World)

Hetappi Manga Kenkyūjo**

Tokimecha**

Majin Mura no Bubul** (prototype for Cowa!)

Cowa!*

Kajika^

Mahimahi the Lungfish**

Hyowtam!**

Sand Land

Oishii Shima no Ū-sama** (an educational manga whose only PDF online is no longer accessible. images of it are on the Dragon Ball fandom wiki, but I can't navigate the websites linked very easily since I dont speak Japanese)

Kintoki**

Awawa World** and Mysterious Rain Jack** (unpublished early works)

Art books:

Akira Toriyama: The World** (vaguely more affordable on Amazon but I'd rather not give them money right now)

Akira Toriyama: The World Special** (I don't know what the difference is but it is way more expensive)

Dragon Ball Daizenshu: The Complete Illustrations**

Dragon Quest Monsters: Akira Toriyama Illustrations (the 30th anniversary version is fairly cheap by artbook standards)

Dragon Quest 25th Anniversary Monster Encyclopedia^

Dragon Ball: A Visual History (secondhand prices are decent on some websites)

Work he did on anime:

Crusher Joe* - MAX 310 space station (image found in the video linked at the bottom of this page)

Kosuke & Rikimaru: The Dragon of Konpei Island** (original concept, script, character designs)

Imagination Science World Gulliver Boy (mechanical designs. wikipedia is vague and the bottom of this link is the only thing i could find of specific concept art (mild buggish warning i guess))

Dragon Ball GT (yes, believe it or not he was mildly involved. he did character designs and made the name and logo)

Sand Land (the anime was supposed to come later this month, and he worked on some kind of new story for it. there is also a video game that's supposed to come out later this year and we will see by then if he had any further involvement in that)

Lumping the rest of the anime first Dragon Ball stuff here:

Dragon Ball: The Return of Son Goku and Friends!** (original and story concepts)

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods (original and story concepts, character designs)

Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' (original concept, screenplay, character designs, title)

Dragon Ball Super (original and story concepts, character designs, title, released at the same time as the manga before the manga overtook it)

Dragon Ball Super: Broly and Super Hero (original concept, screenplay, character designs)

Dragon Ball Daima (original concept, story, character designs, was supposed to come out this fall)

Anime adaptations (and adjacent things) of his stuff:

Dragon Ball stuff:

Dragon Ball tv series

Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies

Dragon Ball: Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle

Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure

Dragon Ball: The Path to Power

Goku's Traffic Safety and Goku's Fire Brigade** (theyre both PSAs, easily accessible through unofficial YouTube uploads)

Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins** (unlicensed Taiwanese live action remake of Curse of the Blood Rubies)

Dragon Ball: Fight Son Goku, Win Son Goku** (unlicensed Korean live action adaptation)

Dragonball Evolution (very loose western adaptation that somehow has a game on the PSP)

Dragon Ball Z stuff:

Dragon Ball Z tv series

All of the Dragon Ball Z movies (seriously there's so many and I even checked each movie individually if yarhargle is the only option. it is not but it's also $3.99 per movie so keep that in mind)

Dragon Ball Z: Bardock - The Father of Goku

Dragon Ball Z: Summer Vacation Special**

Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks

Looking Back at it All: The Dragon Ball Z Year-End Show!**

Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans**

The World of Dragon Ball Z (English dub exclusive OVA, uses both the BLT/Ocean dub and the in-house Funimation dub)

Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock (OVA adaptation of Naho Ooishi's manga)

Other stuff:

Dr. Slump Arale-chan(**?) (first adaptation, unsure if truly otherwise inaccessible since it has a very unsearchable name for search engines)

Dr. Slump 1997 tv series

Dr. Slump movies**

Pink: Water Bandit, Rain Bandit**

Go! Go! Ackman**

Work he did for video games:

Dragon Quest series (character designs)

Dragon Ball: Shenlong no Nazo** (character designs)

Famicom Jump II: Saikyō no Shichinin (designed Dark Raid)

Chrono Trigger* (character and setting designs, helped with animation for the 1999 PlayStation port)

Tobal No. 1 and Tobal 2** (character designs)

Blue Dragon* and Blue Dragon Plus** (character designs, there's also a Blue Dragon anime but I don't know how involved he was)

Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow** (character designs, voice of Toripo)

Chōsoku Henkei Gyrozetter** (designed Beeman 500SS)

Dragon Ball FighterZ (designed Android 21)

Dragon Ball Legends* (designed Shallot and Zahha)

Jump Force (several original character designs. I have no idea who Wikipedia meant by this)

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (designed Bonyū)

Fantasian* (designed a diorama used for a level)

Shueisha related stuff:

just assume theyre all highly unavailable and poorly archived online i can't even find archives of mainstream magazines from the us half the time

Weekly Shōnen Jump (designed Captain Gyao for the 20th anniversary, designed Kaizo-kun for the website. I cant navigate that website very well so can someone else find Kaizo-kun for me??????)

V Jump (designed V Dragon)

Weekly Jump F-1 Club (designed the mascot Wins-kun)

V-Net (designed the mascots Dr. Tobo and Happy 1)

Souvenirs entomologiques: Shueisha Bunko edition of the Japanese translation (cover illustrations, here is the link (super realistic big bugs warning)

Shueisha (designed Rīdon for the 25th anniversary of Shueisha Bunko)

Dragon Ball Damashii (logo design)

Jump Shop (designed Janta)

My Jump (designed Mai and Honbot)

Other things:

Fuel Album by George Tokoro (insert illustration)

Fire! Staff Tripper by Akira Sakuma (album cover, notably not mentioned on Wikipedia, possibly lost media, thanks to @/ToriyamasArt on Twitter for providing an English name)

Polkadot Magic by Mami Koyama (album cover, lyrics for "Crilla" and "Helicopter)

Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens (logo for the koala exhibit)

Fine Molds (packaging and instructions illustrations for the Lisa model, designed the mascot Goshikiken, designs packaging and instructions for seven World Fighter Collection models)

Dakara Bike Daisuki! by Haruka Takachiho (cover art)

Super Sense Story (character designs, it's a road safety brochure for Honda and I can't find images for it)

Bitch's Life Illustration File (illustration, I have no idea how many)

Toccio the Angel** (writer and illustrator, it's a children's book)

QVOLT (it's a car, he designed it)

Rule/Sparkle by Ayumi Hamasaki (art of Hamasaki dressed as Goku on the CD and DVD (image is accessible on the Dragon Ball fan wiki)

Ichigo Dōmei by Chiaki** (cover art)

Invade by jealkb (album art)

Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (promotional poster art)

Dr. Mashirito's Saikyō Manga Jutsu by Kazuhiko Torishima** (cover art)

Kiyosu (20th anniversary city logo)

Sources:

List of works by Akira Toriyama (a lot of it was also connected pages and me individually searching for different things listed)

Dragon Ball fan wiki

Dr. Slump fan wiki

this Kazenshuu forum post by Angelus about Akira Toriyama's earlier manga, including the unpublished stuff

the news section of the official Dragon Ball website

this page on the KochiKame fan wiki

this article for crusher joe and the video linked in it

various 🏴‍☠️ websites i wont list here specifically because loose lips sink ships (they're not hard to find if you care that much)

various IMDB pages (largely for finding ways to watch for people unable or unwilling to do the only other alternative)

this Hungarian website where I found the Dragon Ball Damashii image

jump shop (janta is fortunately plastered all over the place so i could find example images easily)

@/ToriyamasArt on Twitter for the bug covers in the Shueisha section and an English translation for the name Fire! Staff Tripper

This website (in Portugeuse) that has a lot of the art in the other things section

this archive of Toccio the Angel

anonymous Blogspot post covering QVOLT

jealkb Invade CD listing with the jpged image

allocine.fr is where i got the Journey to the West poster but it gave me some unavoidable pop up that's seemingly immune to Firefox's website translator and i already spent 5 hours on this post so screw that website

Kiyosu logo source (their image breaks on Tumblr so i screenshotted it)

[kyurilin]

So back in October I posted some of my old DBZ art for the first time, and now here it is March and Akira Toriyama has passed away.

So I'm back with more and a story about the adventure it took my brother to get me into DBZ in the first place and why it now holds a special place in my heart.

Back when we were growing up, we weren't allowed to watch anime. It was one of the weird rules my dad set that to this day still has no explanation. At some point in middle school or early high school my brother got introduced to DBZ Abridged, and spent a few years trying to get me into it (and failing). I knew very little about DBZ but just enough that when I attempted to watch Dragonball Evolution I knew it was fucked up (also it was boring WITHOUT knowing everything).

But we'd play video games together, and after years of playing Super Smash Bros together, my brother knew the one surefire way to get me invested in SOMETHING DBZ.

And that was DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2.

The first five characters I chose from that roster to fight him as ended up being my favorites (hint: most of the art that's colored in this post is a character I picked in 2010 to play).

From there he got me interested enough to buy low priced DBZ VHS movies from Amazon (the Bardock special was $1.01 with 99¢ shipping in 2010, btw) and watch them. And then threw a Pokemon reference in Abridged he got me into watching that.

For the longest time, I was hooked on the random pieces of DBZ I could absorb, which meant watching the ever growing collection of movies we had, each new episode release of Abridged, and occasionally even watching bits and pieces of DBZ Kai. I even started collecting the manga for both DBZ and OG Dragon Ball. I didn't get around to watching the actual DBZ series until 2018 (my first watched anime series is actually FMA: Brotherhood because of this).

But it was something I shared with my brother and we had so much fun playing Budokai Tenkaichi 2 and 3 with each other. We've always played fighting games with random options in such a way that every first few matches we would just hit the random character button and play out whatever happened from there before finally playing as the characters we cared about. We would spend hours, especially with Budokai Tenkaichi 3, making our own tournament brackets and then playing them through. Each match would be fought by us, 1v1, and if one of the two characters was one we were good at, that person would get to play them. For matches that neither of us had a character to play, we'd flip a coin. We'd come up with our own silly rules for these tournaments and it was a blast. Once my brother almost won an entire thing as Kid Chi-Chi because he was really fucking good as her and even Omega Shenron's health advantage couldn't stop her. My brother could beat the shit out of Broly as Videl because she was so tiny it was hard to see her next to Broly.

I still don't watch a lot of anime, but DBZ is one of the four I do hold closest to my heart. And it's for a lot of reasons, like laughing with my brother as we decided to turn on The Lion Sleeps Tonight as background music for DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2 instead of the game's music (starting a tradition where wheneber we play fighting games we use our own playlist of music for it instead). It's for reasons like watching Abridged with my brother whenever the new episodes would drop, and being there for the Livestream premiere of Episode 60 after finishing all of DBZ only weeks earlier. It's for reasons like seeing Dragon Ball Super: Broly in theaters twice, and being so hyped to see not only Broly on the big screen, but Bardock who's been my favorite since day one. It's for reasons like the collection of photos I have of my brother doing Ginyu Force poses on a beach in 2010, for us pretending to give Goku energy during the series' final Spirit Bomb, for being so excited to see Android 17 back in DB Super. It's one of the things that I never thought we'd care about, but that I've cared about enough from the beginning that I made all this art in 2010, during our yearly beach trip, after only being a fan for a few months (the coloring came years later though).

And yes. There is a collection of poorly written DBZ fanfics buried both on my external hard drive and box of physical stories, but they're buried forever. There is a DBZ and a Dragon Ball fanfic by me on ff.net however so if anyone wants to see if they can figure out my 11/12 year old account, this blog has enough context clues somewhere to figure it out (maybe the DBZ one will get cross posted to AO3 and backdated someday who knows).

If it werent for Akira Toriyama and Dragon Ball, my brother and I would have had one less thing to bond over, and honestly? Wouldn't trade it for the world.

[harley-michaels-main]

I am not a Dragon Ball fan. I first discovered the series when Dragon Ball Z Kai was airing on Toonami. I watched whenever Inuyasha or Naruto came on. I often used it as a bathroom break or a snack refill time.

I am not a big Dragon Ball fan. I didn't actively seek out watching the show. I wouldn't try to find the manga online like I did with Ouran High School or Gintama.

I was not a big Dragon Ball fan. I tagged along with my friend when the movies aired in theaters for anniversaries or the new movies came out.

I became a Dragon Ball fan due to those moments with my friend. It gave us a common interest. It let us grow closer together and learn more about each other.

I am a Dragon Ball fan and love seeing the little references and influence it has on other shows. I love rewatching the series and finally seeing what I was missing out on as a kid. I love finding a volume to add to my manga collection. I love finding new friends and sharing our love for it.

Dragon Ball was more than just a manga or show or piece of media. Dragon Ball shaped the way of media as we know it. Akira Toriyama is a legend and always will be.

Thank you for being a legend Toriyama-Sensei. The world will be duller without you in it. We send prayers to your family for their safety and health.