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ducktoonsfanart · 4 months

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Birthday party for Donald, Daisy and Della Duck! - Happy Birthday Donald, Daisy and Della Duck - Ducktales 2017 - Duckverse June - Week 1 - My Version - Gift for my friends

I drew on June 7th. After a long time, I decided to draw again related to Ducktales 2017, even though I'm not a fan of that series, but as they say everyone deserves a second chance. Is not it? So I decided to draw related to the great jubilee that is being celebrated these days and of course the favorite modern series by many, so I decided to draw Donald Duck, Della Duck and Daisy Duck with their family in Ducktales 2017 format, of course in my style. Because I'm not a fan of Ducktales 2017 style which is really weird for me.

On June 7, 1940, Donald's classic short "Mr Duck Steps Out" was shown, featuring Daisy Duck for the first time. 9/6/1934 The Classic Short "The Wise Little Hen" was shown and Donald Duck appeared there for the first time. Donald Duck will become one of the main stars of not only Disney, but also cartoon films, comics and video games at all. Certainly there is no need to tell his history. Della Duck is first mentioned in the comic book Donald's Nephews, and then made her first appearance in the 1994 comic strip "The Empire Builder from Calisota" by Don Rosa, from The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. For the first time Della Duck appeared as a mother and adult woman and had a role in the Dutch comic "80 is Prachtig" from 2014, and she appears for the first time in animation in the Ducktales reboot. Also five years ago is the anniversary of the episode "What Ever Happened to Della Duck?!" where officially Della Duck got her role.

Well, since they are honored these days, and especially Donald Duck who is celebrating his 90th anniversary this year, I drew a birthday party where everyone celebrates their birthdays together. Donald, Daisy and Della Duck along with their family and their friends. Because what kind of birthday is it, without your closest ones. Yes, Donald is in the middle since he is definitely the main one, but he suffered a lot in that series so he definitely deserved the best. Finally, that Donald is happy after a long time and can finally rest. Yes, this is how I imagine the end of Ducktales 2017. And with him are his twin sister Della and his favorite love and girlfriend Daisy Duck. Yes, I also drew the characters as I like to imagine them in my Ducktales AU and Quack Pack reboot based on Ducktales 2017 as well as different outfits that would suit them quite well. Since I can't think of anything else, sorry, and I added Donald's nephews also wear caps and most of them wear jeans. Huey and Louie wear backwards hats. Yes, they are teenagers here too. :D And in front of Donald, of course, a birthday cake with cherries.

In addition to Donald, Daisy, and Della Duck, there are Donald's nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck, plus Phooey Duck and Kabooie or Kablooie Duck (Donald's fifth nephew, usually wearing brown clothing), Gosalyn Mallard (who is with Huey), Webby Vanderquack and Lena De Spell (Sabrewing, otherwise they are together), May and June Duck, Violet Sabrewing, Scrooge McDuck, Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera and Gandra Dee, Gladstone Gander, Fethry Duck, Drake Mallard, Launchpad McQuack, Gyro Gearloose (to draw alone how he smiles I didn't think I'd ever do this), Boyd Beaks-Gearloose and Bentina Beakley. And everyone together celebrates the important birthdays of the most important Ducktales characters. Adults and children together. Happy birthday to you Donald, Daisy and Della Duck!

If you are interested in more about these outfits, check out this drawing here: https://ducktoonsfanart.tumblr.com/post/742447670629744640/quack-pack-week-quack-pack-original-vs-quack

Also, check out other Donald, Daisy and Della Duck birthday parties (adults and kids): https://ducktoonsfanart.tumblr.com/post/751985132490113024/donald-duck-della-duck-daisy-duck-gus-goose-and https://ducktoonsfanart.tumblr.com/post/751983235321430016/huey-dewey-and-louie-ducks-plus-phooey

Feel free to like and reblog, if you like this drawing and this version of the Ducktales characters, please also don't use the same versions without mentioning me. Thank you! Happy Birthday Donald, Daisy and Della Duck once again!

I also did this related to Duckverse June, so I'm dedicating this drawing as a gift to @tokuvivor , @secret-tester and @queer-in-a-cornfield . I also dedicate my gift to my friend from Discord, for @puffyducks @puffywuffy8904 who celebrated his birthday a month ago, and I wish him a happy birthday and sorry for the delay! Also, this is a gift for my friend @boingodigitalart, as well as for all of you who are fans of Ducktales 2017.

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chronic-escapixt · 11 months

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His Rose ~ Details

(Kai Parker x Bennett OC fanfiction)

content warnings/tags ~ Dark fiction, dom/sub dynamics, abuse, murder, childhood trauma (mentioned). Minors DNI

I don't claim ownership of The Vampire Diaries or its characters. All credits go to the rightful owner(s). I only own my original character(s).

K.P. Masterlist

This fanfiction is born from my dissatisfaction with the way Kai was criminally underutilized in the TVDU. Honestly, I found him annoying at first, but he grew on me as season 6 went on. Thru Chris Wood's charming performance, Kai stole the show for me. I'll never forgive the showrunners for a lot of things, including underutilizing Chris Wood in this role & not allowing this broken king to have a real redemption arc.

On the topic of the showrunners, I'll never forgive them for how they did Bonnie Bennett or the Bennetts in general with how they were limited to magical plot devices for everyone else's use without any appreciative focus on their power & how it could really benefit them. Even though I love Bonnie & Kai, my otp endgame for her has always been Bonenzo, but I also adore Klonnie ❤️.

My AU changed and added plenty of lore around his coven & certain events. The plot follows the life of Bonnie's younger sister, Rosalina "Rose" Bennett-Ruiz. I go on to describe her below, but I'd like to state that she acts as Kai's antithesis as an innocent, fledgling witch. She's also Bonnie's support system. I always hated how the show often ignored that Bonnie lacked family around her that were unconditionally there for her. Bonnie's mom left when she was small, she lost her grams in season 1, and her father was a non-factor in her life until he returned... just to get killed off in front of her.

I wrote Rose & Bonnie's dynamic keeping in mind everything I hate about older sibling/younger sibling dynamics, like the one between Buffy and Dawn in BTVS. Bonnie deserves family that consistently supports her, encourages her to prioritize her well-being, and actually tries to lessen the existing load on her shoulders.

Another thing I kept in mind when adding Rose to my TVD AU is not to have her replace or take away Bonnie’s space in the plot. Now, I do give her Bonnie's plotline of being sent to the prison world in season 6, but this is essential to the story, and the way Bonnie was treated that season made me so sad that I have no problem taking traumatic experiences from her (of which she has more than enough) and giving them to Rose.

Okay... if you made it through my rant, congrats. I also want to offer my inbox as a place where anyone can offer up requests, scenarios, ask questions, even if you want to roast my cruddy writing... my inbox is open.

🌹Rosalina "Rose" Bennett-Ruiz:🌹

Born: March 18th, 1994 (18yrs)

Gender: Female | Height: 5’1” | Hair color: Brown | Eye color: Hazel

Race/ethnicity: Black and Latino/Hispanic

Species: witch (Bennett)

Titles: Rosy (Kai), littlest witch (by Kol), kid (by Damon)

Characteristics:

Rose is a gentle and kind-hearted person, always looking for the good in people and situations. She can be a people pleaser and overall naive when dealing with people, often seeing the best in everyone and believing in second chances

She highly values family, so bonding with Bonnie means a lot her. Due to her naivety and weakness, she can be easily manipulated and taken advantage of. Like Bonnie she’s compassionate and tends to selflessly help others. Struggles with powerful spells due to her insecurity in her magical abilities

She enjoys singing, gardening (honing her nature-based magic, making potions & studying herbology), sewing and cooking (she bakes when she’s anxious)

She has a strong aversion to blood & violence so spending time with vampires took a lot of getting used to

Trilingual: fluent in Spanish & Portuguese

Despite her demure demeanor and virginal innocence, with her stuffed animal collection, enduring love of cartoons and a lack of dating, she’s a hopeless romantic that harbors the hidden desire to submit herself to a powerful dominant

Background:

Family: Bonnie Bennett (half-sister), Jamie Ruiz (half-brother), Abby Bennett-Ruiz (mother), Matteo Ruiz (father 🕊️), Sheila Bennett (maternal gm🕊️)

Rose was raised in Summersville, North Carolina. She was a child model until 13 when her father tragically died. She was the captain of her high school majorette dance team. Her life drastically changed when Bonnie arrived on her doorstep.

Rose was 16 when she & Bonnie would finally meet. Bonnie and Elena came to Abby for help with a spell. Rose was shocked to find that she had an older sister as Abby never mentioned Bonnie or the life she left behind in Mystic Falls. She was even more surprised upon finding out about her magical bloodline and that supernatural creatures walked the earth. Unlike Grams, Abby never mentioned magic throughout Rose’s life and even went as far to suppress her magic with a binding spell

After Abby is turned by Damon, she decides to leave her family to learn control and find peace as a fledgling vampire. Rose moves to Mystic Falls with Bonnie where she learns magic from her.

Magic doesn’t come naturally to her. Admittedly having a 50% accuracy rate with her spells. She struggles with her confidence & focus when chanting and spells drain her much quicker even when she tries channeling the energy around her. Despite this, Rose is determined to improve, valuing her one-on-one time with Bonnie and spending late nights on her own practicing & memorizing spells. She is determined to use her magic for good, prove herself and lessen the load on Bonnie as the resident Bennett witch of the group.

Her role in the Mystic Falls gang is the “Bennett witch in training” or “the bringer of baked goods” (according to Damon), since she often supplies their gatherings with fresh pastries. Everyone underestimates her power, even Bonnie. She tries to keep Rose out of danger unless she can’t help it.

🔪Malachai "Kai" Parker:🔪

Born: May 9, 1972 (22yrs)

Gender: Male | Height: 6'0" | Hair color: Dark Brown | Eye color: Blue-gray

Race/ethnicity: white/non-Hispanic

Species: siphoner (Gemini Witch coven)

Titles: abomination, black sheep, the defective twin (his coven)

Characteristics:

Charismatic with a charming smile. Upon meeting him, his charisma operates as a façade to hide his lack of empathy and his sadistic tendencies

Can be hard to read but that’s because he struggles with expressing his emotions which stems from his abusive childhood. He’s cold and relatively unfeeling with people, but once he lets someone in, he’s fiercely loyal and protective.

He can be observant, calculating and manipulative to taking advantage of someone and get what he wants

He’s a sassy man, often comes back with quick quips and has a natural sense of humor (typically dark humor)

When he’s comfortable, he never shuts up, has no filter and sucks with certain social cues. After being alone for nearly his whole life, will talk anyone's ear off without realizing they are not willing to listen

Kai can siphon all of a witch’s magic without killing them. He controls how the process feels - at its worst, a fast searing burn to a slight tingle. Overtime, a witch will regenerate their magic

High libido!!- He’s starved for touch and affection (though he would never admit that he needs anyone). Sexual desires reflect his sadistic personality as he enjoys dominating another person through absolute control and pain infliction

He likes raunchy comedies and media with half-naked women such as Bay Watch and MTV videos. A major foodie with constant cravings for sweet and salty snacks. He prefers snacking throughout the day but when he does bother to cook, it’s really good

He is fluent in old Latin, often found in grimoires and other ancient texts. When he was young he’d get his hands on old grimoires and study them, all the time to himself allowing him to hone his knowledge of witchcraft and technique

Background:

The Parker family is the head of the Gemini coven. Its patriarch, Joshua Parker is the coven leader. Kai is the eldest child, being half an hour older than his fraternal twin, Josette. Unlike Jo, Kai was born without the ability to generate his own magic, instead siphoning magic from lingering spells, objects, or other witches. When he was young, he would naturally gravitate toward the magic of his sister, so Joshua quickly decided to physically isolate Kai from everyone for fear of his son's "defect" hurting others.

As fraternal twins born of the coven leader, Jo and Kai would be set to merge on their 22nd birthday, where the winner takes the other's magic and coven leadership and the loser dies and is absorbed into the other but with the risk of Kai's siphoning ability giving him an edge in the merge, Joshua and Viviane continued having kids until she birthed another set of twins that would merge instead.

Kai's upbringing was lonely, spending most of his time locked in his bedroom up in the attic. Following his father's lead, most of his family excluded and demonized him. As he grew, Kai learned to internalize the cruel labels they gave him. If they wanted a monster, they would get a monster and on his 22nd birthday, May 9th, 1994, he would finally act on his boiling rage and resentment toward his family, unleashing the hatred he accumulated through a lifetime of torment onto his siblings when Jo refused the merge. To protect the twins, she would relent to merge with him but the coven was waiting and with the help of Sheila Bennett they banished him to a prison world of complete isolation.

Each year that passed only added to his hunger for revenge, left with nothing to do but plan his escape and seizer of coven leadership. He grew to take pride in what he had done to his siblings and his status as a sociopath capable of killing anyone who gets in his way without remorse.

AU-Specific Lore:

Prison world Lore:

Prison worlds are created by Bennett blood sacrifice, meaning a Bennett must be bled to death so the gemini coven can channel her blood magic.

A prison world resets with the eclipse every 3 months.

Time works differently, so no one ages throughout their time there.

A prison world cannot create life so the only living inhabitants are those sent there or arrive via ascendant.

Kai is linked to his prison world so he can’t die. If something kills him, he’ll be out for a while depending on the damage but the magic will heal him back to life. Without Kai, the prison world falls apart so while he’s there, it sustains his life to sustain itself. Once he leaves, it ceases to exist.

The Ascendant - an ancient device created by the Gemini coven and a Bennett ancestor that only responds to a living Bennett’s blood magic. The ascendant is sensitive to magic in general, so even when the spell is done right, it will activate then fall apart. You only have one chance at the time of the eclipse to correctly do the spell, which Kai knows from experience because early on he tried collecting a vial of Bennett blood that he hunted down in a hospital and using Josette's magic he siphoned from a hidden dagger. Disappointment boiled over into rage when he did the spell beneath the eclipse, the ascendant disassembled, but he was not transported out.

The Gemini Coven Lair:

Exists as a interdimensional where the coven keeps ancient texts, grimoires, enchanted items (talismans, gems, ascendants, etc.), and materials for spells & potions

Infinite space that can be utilized by the coven leader: often includes a space for magic instruction, a library, spell casting, a gathering area for the coven, etc.

Accessed only by portal, which is summoned by a spell entrusted to high-ranking Gemini members

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wreckitremy · 5 months

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i would like to hear. about ur special interest

Hmm, well currently I'd say selkies are my special interest bc right now I feel like pulling an um actually about them.

Selkies are an irish/scottish mythological creature.

They are seals that can take off their skin/pelts (usually referred to as coats in their mythology) to be a human.

They cannot return to the sea without their coat. If you catch a selkies coat, the mythology says that they will fall in love with you. But if they find their coat, they will leave and never return.

Most of their stories involve teaching people about not controlling people, and letting them be themselves.

My sources of selkie stories are

The Secret of Roan Inish (1994 movie based on the 1957 scottish book Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry)

The Song of the Sea (2014 movie by Cartoon Saloon, an Irish animation studio)

Tales of the seal people: Scottish Folk Tales edited by Duncan Willamson

Basically, there's not a lot of accessible info out there about them. But there has been some things in some modern stories trying to include selkies, that don't quite get the vibes of selkies right.

It's not that they are getting the mythology, wrong necessarily. It's about to equivalent the variety of changes werewolves and vampires have had, just on a much smaller scale. However they bug me so I'm gonna rant about why.

Selkie mermaids

As a hybrid, or a version of a mermaid with a seal tail instead of a fish tail. It's a cool concept, and not really bad on its own.

The problem is when people think that a selkie mermaid IS a selkie. The whole point of a selkie is being able to take off their coat and look human. Having the selkie be both human and seal at the same time changes what their purpose is.

Rules about when they can take off their coat, that are similar to Davy Jones in pirates of the Caribbean

Selkies are like fae in that they are unpredictable, but they do not have rules that strict. Selkies represent humanity's relationship to the sea. They are the tides, the waves, & the currents.

They have patterns, but if you try to rein them in, you will only have yourself to blame.

Also these kinds of stories make land seem more enticing by doing this, which is not really selkie vibes. They are curious about land and people, but about as much as a cat is, bc selkies are autistic coded (i wrote a whole post about that already actually).

Giving selkies with the Soulmate AU treatment

While selkies stories are about relationships, their stories are not about "finding the one".

Most of the stories, selkies are not looking for a relationship at all. Their stories tend to have the message of "if you love them, let them go". They kind of follow the plot of things like the song The Willow Maid (but instead of fading into a flower, they disappear into the sea)

Granted, Song of the Sea, does lean a bit in this direction, but it still has the vibe there, if you know to look for it. There is love there, but love is lost in many different ways due to the need for control. It's giving up that control that allows that love to not disappear into the sea completely.

Anyway that's my opinion on selkies. I've been obsessed with them since before I can remember, and I thought I had run out of things to say about them after my post about them being autistic coded, but omg this got long

#selkies #remy replies #selkie #april 2024

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tarynisbunhead · 2 months

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I believe that half the time when people continue to say "this movie is trash/shit", they're just repeating the same stale statement that has followed the film for years. Sure there are those trolls who dunk on movies to start fights, and of course people just downright hate said movie (such as me with Titanic), but there are those movies that for some reason have such a negative reputation people continue to spout off how bad it is years later. Let me elaborate.

The film Speed Racer was constantly stated as a trash movie and the reason anime should never be made into live action, aside from the horrendous Dragonball Z film. Then about three years ago Speed Racer received an entirely new set of fans and people are asking "Why was this movie seen as trash? It has it's campy moments but it stayed true to the source material!"

The 1994 Flintstones film, I've never understood why it got such a negative reputation. John Goodman and Rick Moranis were perfect for the roles of Barney and Fred. Rosie O'Donnell did seem off as Betty but she nailed the laugh, plus at the time she was hired for a lot of films so take that into consideration. This film almost ended up not even a faint memory but now people are looking at it and saying "It's not that bad."

Several live actions like Popeye with Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall. It bombed in the theaters but in the last five years it has a new fanbase who even look at the classic cartoons and compare. Dick Tracy is another one that from the set and costume design, even down to make-up it stayed true to the classic comic strip. When it comes to The Lone Ranger, I grew up watching the classic TV show with my grandpa and while the movie was darker than the 1950s show, it pretty much stuck to the source - a masked man and his sidekick chase after bandits and save the town. I have a few of the radio episodes and it's the same thing, not exactly sure what people expected.

I think the funniest is with The Rocketeer, someone tried so hard to bash the film they went after Lothar, Timothy Dalton's goon in the film. They talked about how the make-up job was terrible and didn't even look human - that character is based off an actual person and fans of the movie called that person out. Maybe do research on what you're attacking first.

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talenlee · 4 months

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Story Pile: Pluto

This is a story.

This is a story of a story.

This is the story of a story about a story.

Pluto is a 2023 anime. Pluto is a 2003 manga. Pluto is a 1986 Astro Boy story. Pluto is a 1968 Astro Boy story. Pluto is a 1964 Astro Boy story.

Pluto is a return. Pluto is remix and a retelling and a reiteration. Pluto is how our story ends.

Pluto is our history.

Alright, backing up. Pluto is a 2023 anime based on the 2003 anime by Naoki Urasawa, which is a retelling of Osamu Tezuka’s story The World’s Strongest Robot or The Greatest Robot In The World. This story was originally told in a 1964 manga, then represented in a 1968 anime, and then re-represented in two episodes of the 1986 anime. As told in the manga, this story follows a giant robot named Pluto that’s been made to be the strongest robot in the world. It chases down the seven strongest Robots in a list under it (Montblanc, North #2, Brando, Astro Boy, Gerhardt, Hercules and Epsilon), which includes our hero Astro Boy, and kills them all. Wait, what was that about killing them all?

Don’t worry, Astro Boy gets better.

But then Astro Boy comes back to fight Pluto again, and gets distracted from the fight by an earthquake and wanting to save people and then a new other robot shows up, called Bora, and Pluto has to fight it to save the world, and in the process dies.

It’s a story where a villain is introduced and then shown doing a host of terrible things for a terrible reason, our hero has a rebirth moment, then our villain redeems themselves in their death to save the world from the unintended consequences of their own actions. It is also a story about a serial killer that graphically maims and kills a bunch of robots, for seven year olds. 1960s manga sure does hit different.

The story in Pluto delves deeper into things without ever actually needing to change any of the original story it’s laid atop. Things are detailed differently, there’s a whole plot about what gives us our emotional centres and about the difference between being honest and being true. Oh and whether emotional actions are emergent properties of parsing meaningful information!

It’s Tezuka work, and it’s probably (certainly thanks to Pluto) one of the most enduring Astro Boy stories around, though I’m sure people more familiar with Astro Boy as a franchise would be able to point to at least one story that’s more iconically important. This manga came out when Naoki Urasawa was four years old, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Tezuka’s work in general influenced Urasawa a lot. You can see the Tezuka influences in Urasawa’s 1994 manga series Monster, which is full of all sorts of references to Astro Boy, particularly in the idea of the power of children’s media to influence the future, and also how traumatising horror stories given to children absolutely ruled.

Pluto was not the next work from Urasawa but it was work done with the assistance of the Tezuka estate. Pluto is so specifically a retelling of Astro Boy’s story that Tezuka is credited as one of the story’s writers. Pluto, the manga, takes this short narrative of two episodes of a kid’s cartoon and expands it out into nine volumes of story from the perspective of the character with the best reason to treat the story as a mystery. It’s one of my favourite manga, one that lives in the bookshelf in my bedroom, along with, well, Monster and perhaps less impressively, a bunch of Robotech novels.

Pluto is a story about taking an existing story and considering the same literal sequence of events, more or less, in the same order, more or less, and then considers a different genre of world that still can include the same details. It’s great, it’s exactly my kind of thing, which is a reimagining without just being Darker and Edgier, because uh, I don’t know if you noticed or not, that original story was really dark and edgy to start with. Have you watched the original Astro Boy cartoons lately? Astro Boy kills a lot of robots. Someone dies in almost every episode of that cartoon!

Centering on the detective work of the Robot Detective – now renamed from Gerhardt to instead Gesicht – the story of Pluto presents a world that is full of undeniable Tezukan influences, with widespread roboticism, high tech urban life, automatic cars and public transmission interfaces. It is a world where the leading sport is watching robots the size of garbage trucks fist-fight in an arena, and where energy crises are averted through the use of massively powerful solar energy machines (that are robots). The rights of robots and their personhood is core to the way this world is shaped, along with parenthood, fatalism, and death.

Again, this is Tezuka stuff! This is just how the Astro Boy universe already was!

Anyway, Pluto rips. I loved this manga, and the anime almost seemed redundant to me. What could you do with the anime that the manga couldn’t do already?

Turns out there are three things that this anime brings to this story that the manga doesn’t deliver in the same way. The first is just ambient noise. There are spaces in Pluto where the music drops out and you hear nothing but the soft, ambient sounds of (say) a snowy field, or the sheeting sound of a rainstorm, or the quiet echoes of an unused road tunnel.

Another is making you wait. There is a point in the manga, set in the rain, of watching Atom holding a snail. You can look at that panel for as long as you like, but it can be easy to neglect how long that moment feels. In the anime, however, the director can make you inhabit that moment; those seconds of a child holding an animal in its hand, where you’re not sure what’s happening in that child’s mind, what could happen next, especially after you’ve heard about how dreadful the child’s mind can be, as a place.

(Tezuka and Urasawa love messed up kids.)

The third thing that Pluto brings as an anime is the form of it is challenging to rush. The manga is full of pacey mystery moments, full of tension that, in the context of reading a manga, drives me to read faster and flip through things because the answer is on the other side of these pages and – it’s very effective! It’s very good at making me want to get to the next bit.

What Pluto as an anime does in those moments is that it does not let you speed up. I mean obviously you can, but it creates a different experience in the storytelling that even when you think you know what’s happening, no, you have to ride the tension. You have to feel it grow and strain. And this is a story about vast heavy fights with enormous figures in a size difference, where a manga panel can jump from a face to a fist and realise those two things aren’t even vaguely the same size. The animation of Pluto does a really good job of clarifying these fights, and keeps them from flying past.

It’s funny too, when you consider how many of the fights in the manga are explicitly obscured by the things like incomplete memories or damaged transmissions of information. You’re supposed to be lost with some of them!

I knew I loved Pluto and I wasn’t expecting the manga to be anything less than excellent. Just the oddness of how it was formed – eight episodes instead of a standard thirteen, for example, the long episodes rather than the standard 20 minute ones. This isn’t something that gets to exist half-assed.

I’m glad it got to be something I like, again.

And now I’ve gone back and watched Astro Boy again.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Anime #Media #Story Pile

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maximumwobblerbanditdonut · 9 months

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Steamboat Willie's version of Mickey Mouse entered the public domain in 2024

Mickey entered the public domain on Monday (1st); Walt Disney's first short film featuring Mickey Mouse is available for public use in the United States.

Steamboat Willie is a 1928 animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Produced in black and white by Walt Disney Studios, the cartoon is considered the debut of both Mickey and Minnie Mouse, although both characters appeared in a test screening of Plane Crazy several months earlier.

For a long time, the image of Mickey Mouse has been associated with the Walt Disney Company brand, but now on the first day of 2024, Disney's copyright on "Steamer Willie" and the silent version of Plane Crazy -made in 1928- expired.

Plane Crazy is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The cartoon, released by the Walt Disney Studios, was the first apparition of Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend Minnie Mouse and was originally a silent film.

Steamboat Willie is especially notable for being one of the first cartoons with synchronised sound, as well as one of the first cartoons to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack, which distinguished it from earlier sound cartoons. Music for Steamboat Willie was arranged by Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis, and it included the songs “Steamboat Bill”, a composition popularised by baritone Arthur Collins during the 1910s, and “Turkey in the Straw”, a composition popularised within minstrelsy during the 19th century.

The film has received wide critical acclaim, not only for introducing one of the world’s most popular cartoon characters but also for its technical innovation. In 1994, members of the animation field voted *Steamboat Willie* 13th in the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, which listed the greatest cartoons of all time.

Nevertheless, the film has been the centre of a variety of controversies, notably regarding the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act passed in the United States. It was close to entering the public domain in the U.S. several times: each time, copyright protection was extended. It could have entered the public domain in four different years: first in 1955, renewed in 1986, then to 2003 by the Copyright Act of 1976, and then to 2023 by the Copyright Term Extension Act (also known pejoratively as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act”) of 1998.

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There are differences between the 1928 Mickey and the company mascot today. Mickey from "Steamboat Willie" does not have the gloves and big shoes of current Mickey, and his eyes are small black ovals with no pupils.

The decision is quite symbolic of the firm, and often contradictory, relationship that Disney has established with the issue of copyright. On the one hand, the studios played an important role in lobbying and pushing for the approval of the law that extended the term of copyright to 95 years.

However, Disney itself built an extensive and successful legacy by building on works that were in the public domain. This is the case of "Frozen", inspired by "The Snow Queen", by Hans Christian Andersen; "The Lion King", which is based on Shakespeare's "Hamlet".

Plus, Mickey isn't the only classic character to enter the public domain in recent years. On January 1, 2022, the copyright on AA Milne's original Winnie the Pooh character also expired.

One of E. H. Shepard's illustrations for the "A Pooh Party" chapter in A. A. Milne's 1926 "Winnie-the-Pooh", now in the Public Domain in the United States (copyright protection in Shepard's native United Kingdom will last until 2047).

Only the original versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse from 1928 will be free of copyright, so it is not possible to use the characters with copyrighted elements or their later versions; Anyone wishing to use the image needs to be careful not to confuse consumers into thinking the creation is produced or sponsored by Disney as a matter of trademark law.

Disney is not giving up on its famous mouse, they still maintain the copyright on more recent versions of Mickey, such as his version in “The Sorcerer's Apprentice” from Fantasia (1940), as well as trademarks that have the mouse as a brand identifier because of the company's trademark on later versions of Mickey Mouse, you also won't see Mickey serving as another company's mascot, Disney owns Mickey, "He cannot be used in this recognisable way for advertising."

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howardhawkshollywoodannex · 2 years

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What's Opera Doc premiered Jul 6, 1957, and was directed by Chuck Jones. The music is based on Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung. It was the first cartoon short recognized by the Library of Congress as part of the National Film Registry. In the 1994 book by Jerry Beck, The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals, it is ranked number one. It was NOT Oscar nominated.

#whats opera doc #elmer fudd #bugs bunny

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gallifriendly · 2 years

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With Goncharov (1973) reemerging into the public eye, I thought I’d talk about piece of Goncharov-related media that’s not well known outside Europe, but was formative to many children growing up in the 80s/90s: Goncharov and Friends! An animated children’s series produced in (what is now) Czechia in 1981, the 10-episode series was in part a direct retelling of the 1973 film and in part based on short stories by Jára Cimrman, on which the film’s story is said to be based.

Little is known about the original contents of Goncharov and Friends, as all original Czech copies of the episodes have been lost during an archive fire in 1995. Critics panned the series as lacking all of the nuance of the original 1973 film. For example, they noted how the iconic clock tower scene was now reduced to a lesson in teaching Goncharov (and the children watching) how to read clocks, or derided the inclusion of the bath time song sung during the sauna exchange. Children however were enamoured by Ice Pick Joe (now a clumsy cartoon flamingo), but put off by his horrific death in episode 9.

The series was initially translated into Italian in 1989, but was deemed so morally offensive that all copies were promptly destroyed by the television network. One newspaper article from the time makes reference to the infamous anchovy scene, where in making it suitable for younger audiences, instead invoked the rage of many Naples residents for the gratuitous inclusion of mussels instead of clams at a key juncture.

Surviving footage of Goncharov and Friends is mostly of the Dutch “translation” of the series. However, as the Dutch dubbing studio refused to pay the Czech animation studio for the original scripts or score, the Dutch localization team decided to make up their own dialogue as they went along. All references to Goncharov (1973) were removed and were replaced with improvised storytelling by an increasingly drunk cast of voice actors. This version was then translated into German, Danish, Swedish and Catalan. It proved a massive hit until it was pulled from television in 1994, when an innocent game of “pin the tail on Ice Pick Joe” resulted in the actual killing of 4 off-duty policemen dressed as mafia members.

#goncharov #unreality #goncharov 1973 #i went to a goncharov themed party when i was like 3 and we took turns pretending to be clocktowers #worst pasta i ever had though #cw: animal death

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the-rewatch-rewind · 1 year

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Sometimes our childhood favorites really are that good.

Script below the break

Hello and welcome back to The Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most rewatched movies in a 20-year period. Today I will be talking about number 25 on my list: Disney’s 1994 animated musical The Lion King, directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, written by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton, featuring the voice talents of Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons, and James Earl Jones.

Desperate for power, Scar (voiced by Jeremy Irons) murders his brother, King Mufasa (voiced by James Earl Jones), then blames and exiles his nephew Simba (voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas as a cub and by Matthew Broderick as an adult). Simba grows up in the wilderness with the help of a meerkat named Timon (voiced by Nathan Lane) and a warthog named Pumbaa (voiced by Ernie Sabella), whose motto is “Hakuna Matata” or “no worries.” But after Scar and his hyena henchmen destroy the pridelands, royal advisor mandrill Rafiki (Robert Guillaume), Simba’s childhood friend and adulthood lover Nala (voiced by Niketa Calame and Moira Kelly), and the ghost of Mufasa all remind Simba that he actually does have some worries, and convince him to return home to challenge his uncle.

Apparently the first movie I ever saw in a theater was a re-release of Pinocchio, but the first movie I actually remember seeing in a theater is The Lion King. My aunt took me to see it first, and while I don’t have many specific memories of that experience (I was four), I do remember being overwhelmed with awe. I loved the characters, I loved the gorgeous animation, I loved the music, I loved the intense emotions – everything about it spoke to me. Later that year, I visited Disneyland for the first time, and the main things I remember from that trip are watching a Lion King themed parade and visiting a gift shop at the end of the day to get a Simba stuffed animal, which I still have. After we got back home, my mom took my sister and me to see the movie at a second-run theater, and I was very excited to be able to bring my Simba to see it with me. My sister also brought a stuffed animal of her own. I have a very distinct memory of being in the bathroom of that particular theater after watching this movie and saying, “Simba was very brave,” and when my sister commented that her stuffed animal was brave too, I said, “No, I mean in the MOVIE!” Why that has stuck with me for almost three decades I have no idea, but that exchange is indicative of how much I wanted to talk about this movie for my entire childhood.

As I mentioned in the Sound of Music episode, to my friend Christina’s shock, despite growing up in the 90s, I did not have a VCR until I was about 10 or 11 years old, which was around when most people started replacing their VCRs with DVD players. But my grandparents, who lived about a thousand miles away, had one, so I got to watch videos whenever we went to visit them, which was usually for several weeks once or twice a year. My grandma is not much of a movie person, and she only very rarely watches something more than once, so she has always been baffled and slightly amused by my penchant for rewatching. Before The Lion King, my favorite thing to watch over and over at their house was a video of four old cartoon shorts, two of which featured Humpty Dumpty, but after The Lion King was available for home viewing, that was what I wanted to watch the most. Whenever I put it on, my grandma would teasingly inquire, “How many times have you watched it now, Jane?” and for a while I could answer precisely, but I lost track somewhere around 10, 11, or 12 views, and that’s part of what eventually led me to start keeping track of my movie watching in 2003. So if this podcast was based on total rewatches throughout my life, The Lion King would be much higher in this ranking.

Eventually we did get a VCR and a DVD player, and we got a special edition DVD of The Lion King around 2004. We also got The Lion King 1 ½, which I very much enjoyed for a time, but haven’t revisited since 2005. I remember watching The Lion King II a few times, but apparently they were all before 2003, so I don’t remember much about it. But as far as the original Lion King, since keeping track, I saw it three times in 2003, twice each in 2004, 2005, and 2006, once each in 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018, and 2019, twice in 2020, and once in 2022. When my brother and I watched through all the theatrically released animated Disney films and ranked them in 2020, we knew we would be biased toward our childhood favorites, but I think we were both unprepared for just how clear it would be why the Disney Renaissance is so named. The striking, exponential increase in quality over the films immediately preceding this era cannot be overstated. But while the early Renaissance masterpieces The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast are incredible, we noticed that some of the animation sequences left something to be desired. Aladdin was much improved in that sense, with some breath-taking scenes – seriously, re-watch Aladdin’s attempted escape from the collapsing Cave of Wonders. And then The Lion King. Nearly 30 years after it came out, The Lion King is still one of the most gorgeous movies I’ve ever seen. I knew going into that project that it would probably end up pretty high on the list, but even I was kind of shocked to find that, at least based on the specific criteria we were looking at, there was no contest. The Lion King was number one. We definitely had differences of opinion throughout the project, but on that we were in complete agreement.

One thing that I particularly noticed while we were doing that project is that The Lion King’s voice cast was one of if not the most racially diverse of all animated Disney movies up to that point, which shows just how incredibly low the bar was, since most of the main cast is white. Robert Guillaume was put in a similar position as Samuel E. Wright in The Little Mermaid in having to adopt a rather stereotypical accent, but despite that, his is an excellent performance. The main hyenas were at one point going to be voiced by Cheech and Chong, and Cheech does voice one of them, but Chong had to drop out and was ultimately replaced by Whoopi Goldberg, which worked perfectly because hyenas are matriarchal, and because there really needed to be more female characters in this movie. Sarabi, Simba’s mother, was voiced by Madge Sinclair, in her final feature film, and definitely deserved a bigger role. Nala is really the only other female character who is at all important, and for some reason while young Nala is voiced by black actress Niketa Calame, adult Nala is voiced by white actress Moira Kelly. Not that she does a bad job or anything, I just don’t understand why they couldn’t have cast another black actress. But at least they cast James Earl Jones as Mufasa. His voice and acting were so perfect that he played Mufasa again in the 2019 remake – which, despite having an iconic and much less white cast, I will never voluntarily watch because the few clips I’ve seen look like they were made by a group of internet trolls as a bad joke, but I digress. All of the voice acting in this movie is fabulous, but James Earl Jones’s performance is unquestionably in the top two, along with Jeremy Irons’s portrayal of Scar.

I absolutely love Disney villains, and Scar has always been one of my favorites. I remember once when I was fairly young trying to articulate to my parents how much it delighted me that when he tells Simba that Mufasa’s death is Simba’s fault, his exact wording of “If it weren’t for you, he’d still be alive” was technically true on multiple levels, because not only did Mufasa die trying to rescue Simba, but it was also Simba’s birth that made Scar desperate to kill both of them, since before Simba was born he was first in line for the throne. But Scar was neglecting to mention that he was the one who had arranged the stampede. And I thought that was SO CLEVER and it blew my child mind. In more recent years, it has occurred to me that part of why I’m so drawn to villains is because they rarely have romantic partners. Sometimes that’s because of the painful stereotype that the hero wins romance and the villain is punished with singleness, but often the villain shows no interest in romance, and that is the case with Scar – or at least, the version of him that ended up in the movie. At one point he was going to hit on Nala and prompt her to leave the Pridelands, which is a storyline that was added back in for the Broadway musical. I appreciate that the creators of the musical wanted to expand the female characters, but I feel like there were better ways of doing that than showing Nala being sexually harassed. Anyway, movie Scar, like many if not most animated Disney villains, is very queer-coded and could potentially be aroace, and even though he is very evil, I’ll take any representation I can get. The way his ultimate downfall is that he betrayed his friends emphasizes the importance of maintaining trust in non-romantic relationships at a level that most stories wouldn’t dare approach.

Speaking of queerness, Timon and Pumbaa are the closest a Disney animated feature has come to showing a gay couple raising a child together. Personally I like to think of their partnership as a QPR, or queer-platonic relationship, which is a committed intimate relationship that is not romantic but is also different from a friendship, but that is entirely the aromantic in me projecting. To anyone out there who reads them as being in romantic love, that is a 100% valid interpretation. As is the interpretation that they’re friends. Their relationship is ambiguous, and I kind of love that. I wish that the movie hadn’t forced Simba and Nala into a friends-to-lovers path. Their friendship as kids makes me so happy, and their romance as adults has always confused me. For a long time I assumed that it was normal to eventually fall in love with a friend of the opposite sex, and that there was something wrong with me for not doing that. But it got to the point where now I’m just annoyed at that part. Not that Can You Feel the Love Tonight? isn’t an excellent song – it is! I just…don’t really think it belongs in this movie. And I get that they wanted the story to end as it began with a baby lion to emphasize the Circle of Life theme, but still. It would have been nice to have ONE Disney Renaissance film that wasn’t steeped in romance (besides The Rescuers Down Under, which doesn’t really count).

So yeah, there are things about this movie I don’t love, but they are so overshadowed by the aspects I do love that I don’t usually dwell on them. Even after all these rewatches, there are still scenes that give me chills. That opening, when the sun and Lebo M’s voice break through at the exact same moment, and all the animals are heading to Pride Rock through the fog and the intro to Circle of Life – ugh, it’s so beautiful! And the wildebeest stampede! Apparently it took over two years just to animate that two-and-a-half-minute stampede scene, using and innovating new computer programs and systems, and man, did that work pay off! As with the opening, the score and choir greatly enhance the stampede scene as well. Even if I didn’t love the story and the characters – which I do – the gorgeous animation and music would be enough to convince me to keep rewatching this movie. Which is particularly interesting given that most of Disney’s top animators at the time, along with Disney Renaissance music superstar Alan Menken, were working on Pocahontas instead because the studio wasn’t really taking this lion movie seriously. So the visuals were created by relatively inexperienced animators, and the score was by Hans Zimmer, who had never worked on an animated film before. The story itself went through a staggering number of concept changes and rewrites. Three people are officially credited as screenwriters, but then there are 17 people credited with contributing to the story, an additional eight people credited under “additional story material,” plus a story supervisor. At one point it was going to be a story about lions vs baboons, and the original title was King of the Jungle before somebody realized that lions don’t actually live in the jungle. Eventually the pitch became “Bambi in Africa meets Hamlet” and everyone just ran with that. Somehow, seemingly by accident, exactly the right people with exactly the right talent and dedication managed to create a masterpiece out of what by all logic should have been a disaster, and learning all of this over the years has made me appreciate it even more.

The Lion King is also full of difficult lessons that I still find relevant as an adult. Hakuna Matata is a good motto to apply to things you truly have no control over, but should never be used as an excuse not to work on problems you can do something about. Often it’s hard to tell which is which, and that’s why we all need friends and mentors like Nala and Rafiki to help. This movie also provides a deep and profound portrayal of grief through the eyes of a child, and how it stays with him through adulthood. Many other Disney protagonists have deceased or absent parents, but there’s no other moment in the Disney canon anywhere near as devastating as Mufasa’s death. It’s not exactly the same situation, but my aunt who first took me to see this movie died of cancer when I was 11. That was the first real loss of my life, and I think the fact that I will always associate The Lion King with her has significantly deepened my appreciation for this movie. My first viewing in 2020, before my brother and I embarked on our Disney project, was in honor of the 18th anniversary of her death, and I sobbed through most of the movie. It was very cathartic. I know that The Lion King is widely beloved and acclaimed – it’s the highest grossing 2D animated film of all time, it won two Oscars, it has 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s currently ranked #37 on IMDb’s top 250 movies – but it still feels incredibly personal to me. It was the first movie that I ever fell truly, deeply in love with, so it will always be one of my favorites.

Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most frequently rewatched movies. Stay tuned for next week, when I will be talking about another Disney film that I’ve seen 19 times. As always, I will leave you with a quote from that next movie: “Darling. Could you, like, chill for a sec?”

#the lion king #lion king #disney #the rewatch rewind

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juniaships · 1 year

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Okay oc lore time

Jonny Quest the real adventures and the direct to video scooby movies takes place in the same universe. Myra is friends with the Quest Kids and Jessie Bannon.

Reboot (the cgi cartoon from 1994) also takes place in the same universe; Mainframe can access QuestWorld. Race Bannon flirted with Hexidecimal much to the horror of everyone else.

Swat Kats take place on another planet (nearly canonized in a scrapped ending for one of the episodes). I have a SK OC who works as the Kats' mission control/backup member.

Beau is a government agent who got cursed by the evil werecats; after their defeat died he was cured but had to send all his findings to the Quests so they can help the victims' families find closure. He then goes on to be an informant for various super teams.

Skysurfers also exists because that show was made by the same creators of Scooby Doo; Jack Hollister's father used to be lab partners with Dr. Quest.

Acceleracers takes place in the same universe due to being made by the same folks who made Reboot (being Canadian productions irl).

Mainframe and Cyberspace (of Cyberchase fame) may be linked, technically considers Mainframe a Site.

Gen 13 (mix of comics & the animated film) is set in the same verse. Unlike the movies Matthew Callahan doesn't die but remains under the custody of John Lynch; also he doesn't rejoin Ivana as he did in the comics. Also, unlike the comics Gen 13 actually has 13 members. They rotate time from time. Matthew is forced to be a part to undo the damage he caused working as Ivana's underling. Caitlyn is not his sister, his siblings are Sarah and Nicole as in the comics. Cait and Roxy are half sibs.

Im not sure if I want TFA in the same verse but for the sake of it yes; the year is current but still with the theme of Detroit rebuilding, to go along with Animated's theme of redemption

Jackie Chan Adventures are set in same verse as the 2006 legion of superheroes, the 03 Teen Titans, Xiaolin Showdown, and 2004 Batman.

GI Joe Sigma Six is set in the same verse as TFA.

GI Joe Renegades and Transformers Prime are set in the same verse detached from Sigma Six and TFA.

Universal's Monster Force is set in same verse as JQTRA and Scooby Doo

The 2000s Mummy and Tintin take place in the past; 1930s at the earliest. Bayformers and the live action Joes take place in that timeline's future.

Mummies Alive take place in San Fran and likely set in the future of the Mummy cartoon. It also takes place in the same verse as the 90s King Kong & Godzilla cartoons.

My Descendants rewrite takes place in a world where the heroes never agreed to send villains on the Isle. Instead the isle is simply a mysterious place said to harbor riches beyond legend.

Gargoyles, Atlantis, The Mighty Ducks cartoon, BLOSC, and OUAT takes place in the same verse. BLOSC is set in space and has a ranger from the same planet the Swat Kats come from

Osmosis Jones is in its own solar system based on organic body parts. Its "star" pulses like a heart beat. Sorry but I hate Bill Murray.

Loonatics Unleashed takes place in the same time period of the regular looney tunes; instead of being descendants theyre distant cousins. Acmetropolis is a mega city using Sumdac Tech

Zadavia comes from a planet English translaters describe as Freleng. The common export is energy crystals and its rocky deserts is a haven for geologists and unlucky miners everywhere

The civil war was sparked by General Deuce and Optimatus's betrayal

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leo-fie · 1 year

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Ok, so there's this 1994 movie Felidae. Falls into the category of mature animation like Watership Down. These movies are singular, not part of a trend. They appear once every blue moon and are usually very interesting.

This movie though...

Ok, so it's based on a novel of the same name by turkish-german author Akif Pirinçci. Who is an alt-right speaker and has been to court several times for Volksverhetzung (kinda like sedition). A really serious charge, so presumably he's not a grifter. Even though the turkish minority is one of the prime targets of the German right.

But how's the movie? It's 30 years old, the novel is from 1989. People change, the author to right wing shithole pipeline is a thing.

The movie is kinda yikes. It's pretty homophobic for startes. I don't know how homophobic the time was, but considering it's a movie about talking cats, it's a feat it's homophobic at all. Castrated male cats are gay apparently. The villain is a eugenicist serial killer. How is it handled? Not much. The animation is saturday morning cartoon level of quality, cheap, weird angles and perspectives, unimaginative character design. The German voice acting is pretty good, because they got some pretty big names for the time somehow.

I don't know what I should think. I don't like it, but I also don't want to waste my time analysing why.

#felidae 1994 #german movie #akif pirincci

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dorothydalmati1 · 1 year

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Obscure Animation Subject #61: 8 Man

Originally posted on April 21, 2023.

Also known as 8th Man in the US, this anime was produced by TCJ (now Eiken) and aired on TBS from November 7, 1963 to December 31, 1964 for 56 episodes. Its based on the manga by Kazumasa Hirai with illustrations by Jiro Kuwata.

Detective Yokoda is murdered by criminals and his body is retrieved by Professor Tani. Tani takes the body to his laboratory where he attempts to transfer Yokoda's life force into an android body, an experiment that has already failed seven times. Yokoda is reborn as an android.

Renamed to 8 Man, he is able to dash at impossible speeds as well as shape-shift into other people. He takes on his former body, this time taking on the name "Hachiro Azuma." He keeps this identity a secret, known only to Tani and his police boss, Chief Tanaka.

Even his girlfriend Sachiko and his friend Ichiro are not aware that he is an android. As 8-Man, Hachiro fights crime–eventually avenging his own murder. To rejuvenate his powers, he smokes "energy" cigarettes that he carries in a case. 8 Man is Japan's earliest cyborg superhero.

8 Man was so popular for its significance, the franchise spawned two live-action films, along with a 4-episode OVA series 8 Man After, produced by J.C.Staff. The series was released from August 21 to November 22, 1993, and was later adapted in manga form in 1994.

A manga sequel, 8 Man Infinity, was released between 2005 and 2007. The show also spawned a public domain cartoon account to get its username and profile. Isn’t that cool or what?! While TCJ had bigger latter successes like Sazae-san, 8 Man was an important part of its history.

#8 Man #8th Man #obscure animation #anime #j.c. staff

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duhragonball · 2 years

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Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans (1993) OVA 1

Okay. This is one I’ve been wanting to cover for a long time. I had considered working it into the 2019 liveblog, but decided I had enough on my plate without trying to untangle this knot. The cartoon itself is pretty straightforward, but the production history is kind of convoluted.

In the fandom, the obscurity of Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans led to it being known as the “Lost Movie” of Dragon Ball Z. In truth, Plan never had a theatrical release like the actual DBZ films. Nor was it a TV special, like the Bardock and Trunks specials that aired during DBZ’s original run on television. Instead, Plan was a direct-to-video release, and in the anime industry, this is what’s known as an Original Animation Video (OAV) or Original Video Animation (OVA). So sometimes it gets referred to as the “Lost OVA” instead, but for a long time, it was the only OVA in the franchise, so calling it “lost” seems kind of unnecessary.

What makes it “lost”? Well, I always assumed it had to do with the fact that there was no dub or localization of this one. From 1998 to 2006, Funimation was releasing every scrap of Dragon Ball footage they could get, except for Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans. I remember attending a Funimation panel at a 2006 convention where some of the voice actors promoted the upcoming release of Wrath of the Dragon, and it was kind of a bittersweet moment for them, because it was (as far as anyone knew at the time) the last bit of Dragon Ball material that they would get to dub. Someone in the crowd mentioned Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans and I think Chris Sabat was like “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that one.” They discussed it for a little while, but there was no clear explanation for why it hadn’t been released in North America, or if it ever would be. Seventeen years later, and it still hasn’t happened. I’m not holding my breath.

So why did Toei make a movie-length Dragon Ball Z animation and sell it direct-to-video? Well, it’s because Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans began as a video game. Released on August 6, 1993 on the Nintendo Famicom (NES), the game was one of the “Gokuden” series of Dragon Ball RPG titles. The earlier entries in the series were based upon the various sagas of the anime. Plan, on the other hand, featured a completely original story.

Around the release of the game, Toei made the OVA, which was sold in two VHS cassettes as the “Official Visual Guide” for the Famicom game. I can’t find any information about these visual guides, but my understanding is that they serve as sort of a walk-through of how the story mode is supposed to go in the game. I’m not sure how helpful that would be to players, but I suspect that it was more of a cross-promotional tie-in than anything else. And maybe they made similar VHS tapes for the previous Gokuden titles, but those would have been based on the main Dragon Ball story, so they could have just edited together clips from the existing TV anime. Since Plan was an all-new story, it’s visual guide would need to be an all-new animation. And I suppose that’s why this one seems to be the only “Official Visual Guide” that matters to the Dragon Ball fandom.

So the OAV was released in two parts, one on July 23, 1993, and the second on August 25, 1993, before and after the game itself was released. I’ll be covering Part 1 here.

One last note before we get started: The OVA footage was used again for two games released on the Playdia console in 1994. And then Toei made a new version of the OVA that was included as bonus content in the 2010 game Raging Blast 2, on the Playstation 3. But for now, let’s focus on the ‘93 version of the story.

Okay, so we open with Dr. Raichi, or Dr. Lychee, depending on how you want to spell it. He rants and raves about revenge, then summons a bunch of demonic creatures and releases them from his spooky castle to carry out his dark bidding. Then we cut to Earth, where Gohan’s been gathering firewood for his family. Seems that all the trees are getting sick and dying, which is great for firewood collecting, but kind of terrible for everything else. As Goku wonders what to do about it, Mr. Popo shows up and tells them exactly what’s causing this. The new Kami, Dende, has learned that the Earth’s atmosphere is being polluted by a toxic substance called “Destron Gas”. Trees have already been affected, and even powerful life forms like Goku and Gohan will die in a matter of weeks unless something is done.

Gohan suggests that they consult with Bulma over at Capsule Corp., but there doesn’t seem to be much she can do about it. She has no data on Destron Gas, which... I mean, okay, but Dende already knows what it is. He knew its name and how long it would take to kill everyone. Why are we not asking him?

Oh, let’s be honest, they just included this scene because Bulma looks hot in that chair. Dende may be a good Kami, but he just doesn’t have the gams to pull off a shot like this one.

Dr. Brief is here too, with his signature black cat. But he’s just sort of zoning out for no reason. There’s a lot of vacant stares in this video, but this one is the best.

Okay, so they finally ask Mr. Popo what to do, and he explains that there are four generators pumping Destron gas into the atmosphere. You have to destroy them all and you’ll solve the problem. One is in “The Grand Apron”, southwest of East City. The second is near the pyramid in the desert west of North City. The third is on Poco Poco Island, home of an active volcano that’s been erupting for over a century. That’s in the Southern Sea. Finally, the fourth generator is in the Land of Ice in the far north.

Piccolo shows up and offers to join Goku and Gohan on their quest, but then a couple of monsters show up and attack them. Goku tries to defeat them quickly with a Kamehameha, but it fizzles out in his hands. The same thing happens when Piccolo tries the Special Beam Cannon, and when Gohan tries the Masenko. Popo explains that the effects of the Destron Gas are interfering with their ability to concentrate their ki energy, so the gang has to fight it out the old fashioned way.

Okay, so here’s my beef with the Destron Gas: It doesn’t make any fucking sense. It’s already killed some life forms, like the trees Gohan found. But it hasn’t killed every tree, so how does that work? Also, it seems to interfere with the Z-Fighters’ powers, but only enough to be mildly inconvenient. Also, why hasn’t the gas affected anyone else? Bulma seems to be just fine, at least for now. Shouldn’t she be coughing or something?

I guess it did take a toll on Dr. Brief, though. I just assumed his was high, but maybe the Destron Gas has left him catatonic.

So the gang split up, and Goku finds the first generator in the Great Apron. It’s surrounded by rock, which seems dumb, because how can it spew poison gas into the atmosphere when it’s completely sealed off? Anyway, Goku punches a hole in the wall, and beats up the one (1) monster assigned to guard the thing. He destroys the generator without any trouble at all. Shouldn’t he get weaker from standing so close to this thing? I mean, the Destron levels ought to be much higher here than back in West City?

In the desert, Gohan makes short work of the second generator, thanks in part to Goku having destroyed the first one. Now, Gohan can use ki blasts again, and this guy guarding the second generator is no match for him. So that’s two down.

Before we check in on Piccolo, I should point out that each of these scenes is prefaced with an 8-bit overworld map, showing each character traveling to their assignment. It’s corny and dumb, but I guess they had to include this so players would be able to figure out where to go in the game? I don’t know, it doesn’t seem that complicated to me. Then again, I’m watching the walkthrough, so this is like reading an answer key instead of taking the test.

The point I want to make here is that stuff like this makes it very apparent that this was never supposed to be a movie. It’s about an hour long, but a lot of the action is repetitive, and the minion characters are just the same two character models with different color schemes, and the plot is nonsensical, even by the standard of old Dragon Ball films. Why didn’t Dende say anything before these stupid Destron generators were installed?

So the third generator is on Poco Poco Island, and the monster guarding this one actually planned ahead. He planted land mines all over the island, so Piccolo can’t get anywhere near it.

And that... is really dumb, because Piccolo can fly. The monster tries to fly after him, except... the monster can’t fly? Which would be fine, except, why did he not know that? Like, he jumps after Piccolo, and then he’s shocked to find that he’s slowing down, and then falling back down.

And he lands right back down on his own land mines, setting them all off. Wotta maroon.

This shot of the goof has always stuck with me, because he looks so pitiful here, caught in his own trap. I guess he’s trying to fire an energy blast? All I know for sure is that it ends up hitting the generator instead, so Piccolo wins this battle without even touching the island.

Astonished, Piccolo compares this guy’s stupidity to that of Mr. Satan, which is kind of weird, because this OAV is set in that weird period with Movies 6, 7, and 8, where Dende is the new Kami, but the Cell Games probably haven’t happened yet. So should Piccolo even know who Mister Satan is at this point? Oh well.

So the three of them meet up at the Land of Ice to take out the fourth generator, and this time there’s a bunch of monsters there guarding it. It’s enough to keep the good guys busy until Trunks and Vegeta show up to help.

Trunks cuts a bunch of them up with what looks like a sword, but it’s actually just a big icicle he must have found on the way here. The continuity on this thing is all screwy anyway, so I don’t see why they couldn’t just let him have his sword for this spot. Yeah, 18 broke it during the Androids Saga, but so what? Just have him get another sword from Menards or something.

So the fourth generator actually gets destroyed during the fight, so things turn out better than expected. Vegeta grumbles that he probably didn’t even need to show up for this one. See, earlier, Trunks tell the others that the monsters attacked Capsule Corp., presumably to stop Bulma from discovering an antidote to the Destron Gas. So Vegeta and Trunks saved her and that’s how they found out about all this. But now it’s over.................

.... or it would be, except Dende calls them to inform them about a fifth Destron generator that he must have missed somehow. This one is back in West City, mounted on Tongari Tower. Vegeta was right, he should have stayed home and he could have taken care of the next generator while the others headed back.

But, as it turns out, this fifth generator is protected by a force field. Well, why this one and none of the others? When they try to break through it, Frieza shows up and tells them it’s no use. Wait, Frieza?

Here’s a pretty cool shot of Trunks killing Frieza, courtesy of Trunks recalling this moment as he reacts to Frieza appearing before them.

So yeah, this OVA is yet another entry in the “what if we brought back LOWARD FUHREEZA SAMA?” stories. At least this one has Future Trunks in it, and I like how Frieza goes after him instead of Goku or Vegeta, since this was the guy who actually killed him. Also, I like how incredulous Trunks is, since he literally chopped this guy into pieces. How could Frieza possibly return? But he didn’t come along, because Frieza has a posse of movie villains.

For instance, Lord Slug is here, and he echoes Frieza’s call for the eradication of all Saiyans. He offers to spare Piccolo if he withdraws, but if Piccolo sides with them, then Slug will show no mercy.

Turles is kind of an odd-duck in this anti-Saiyan squad, but he points out that he was killed by a Saiyan, so his hatred of Saiyans is that much more profound. Uh, sure, I guess.

And Cooler is here too. He also hates the Saiyans, because he’s just a retread of Frieza, who hates the Saiyans.

So they all fight, except for Vegeta, who doesn’t have a dance partner for this. You’d think they would have brought in Garlic Junior or Super 13 to make it five on five, but oh well. Back in his evil lair, Dr. Raichi is pleased with how things are going. The good guys can overpower their foes, but....

Everytime they land a killing blow, their opponents just turn into foam and reform, good as new. This really starts to frustrate the Z-Fighters until Goku gets a call from King Kai.

All he really says is that they’re “Ghost Warriors”, and that they aren’t truly real, and this seems to be all Goku needs to know. He shouts this out to the others, like “Guys, I know what they are! They’re Ghost Warriors”, and Frieza’s team all get scared like “Oh shit, he figured it out!” Then the good guys just fight them exactly the same way they did before, only this time it actually works. It is incredibly stupid.

I will give some credit to this spot where Piccolo locks up with Slug, then extends his arms, allowing Gohan to slip in and whistle right in Slug’s face, softening him up for a ki blast from Piccolo to finish him off. That’s a cool double-team, but I’m not sure it was necessary. Piccolo was handling Slug just fine before. Apparently he only needed to hear that Slug was a ghost warrior to finish the job.

Seriously, a lot of this movie is just characters knowing things for no reason, and then telling the heroes whenever it happens to be convenient for the plot. And you can get away with that in a video game, where the player is mostly just happy to get more game to play, but when you do it in a movie it looks like you’re just padding out your runtime. And this isn’t a movie, but when I watch it thirty years later, it’s hard for me to think of it as anything else.

And really, this is probably why Funimation hasn’t dubbed this thing yet, and probably never will. It’s just not very good. I mean, it’s not offensively terrible or anything, but it’s a very weak production that was never meant to be anything more than an hour-long commercial for a thirty-year-old video game. If it weren’t for the “lost movie” mystique, this thing would be dismissed like all the Dragon Ball Heroes trailers, or the cutscenes in the Xenoverse games. If Toei thinks about this OVA at all, they probably don’t want to license it, and I don’t think Funimation is champing at the bit to localize it. It just sort of dilutes the brand.

Okay, so the ghost warriors are gone, but they still can’t destroy the fifth generator. Piccolo suggests that Goku just ask King Kai what they should do, and King Kai lays it all out for them. Again, why didn’t King Kai contact Goku from the start? He must have been following all of this action, so why did he wait around while Dende told Goku to destroy generators when that wouldn’t actually solve anything.

So this is where King Kai reveals the true mastermind behind the Destron Gas, a Tuffle named Dr. Raichi. I’m just going to go through his entire spiel, since this is key Tuffle Lore.

“A long time ago, Planet Vegeta was called Planet Plant and it was inhabited by highly scientifically advanced Tsufuru-jins. One day Saiya-jins arrived on the planet in a wrecked space ship and asked for help from the Tsufuru-jins. The Tsufuru-jins allowed the Saiya-jins to come down and settle on their planet, and the two races started to live together on the same planet.

“The Saiya-jin warrior race increased its number over the years, and one day, a man was born with an extraordinary brain which was as good as a Tsufuru-jin. The man, who was later called King Vegeta, led the Saiya-jins to rebel against the Tsufuru-jins. Ever since then, the planet was renamed Planet Vegeta, and Saiya-jins had become the rulers.”

Now, this part of the video is really the only interesting part, because it delves into the lore of the Tuffle-Saiyan War, which was introduced way back in Episode 20 of Dragon Ball Z. This time, some details have changed. The planet was originally called Plant before the Saiyans conquered it and named it after their king, and it’s firmly established that the Tuffles were there first, and they allowed Saiyan refugees to settle there.

One cool detail in all of this is how the flashback is mostly presented in a couple of still images that pan across the screen. In this one, we start with the Saiyan ship on the planet, and then a group of Tuffles and Saiyans shaking hands and being friendly, but as we go further down, the Saiyans become more numerous, and less friendly-looking, and the Tuffles look pretty queasy about the whole thing.

Then there’s a second one showing Tuffle soldiers looking frightened, and then Saiyans in oozaru mode, which I guess is meant to illustrate the turning point of their war.

One detail that’s clearly been jettisoned is the notion of Tuffles being only half the size of Saiyans. In this scene, we can see them side by side, of roughly the same height.

When King Kai finishes his tale, Goku acts like he’s never heard about any of this before, which is weird, because this is all based on the last time King Kai told him this same story. Vegeta, on the other hand, is unapologetic about the Saiyan conquest of Plant, and he insists that it was the Saiyans’ destiny to reach Plant and wipe out its inhabitants.

Trunks and Piccolo have nothing to say, but Gohan points out the real issue with all of this. Okay, so Dr. Raichi might have a legitimate greivance with the Saiyans, but the people of Earth have nothing to do with it, so why is he attacking them with his Destron Gas?

Goku agrees, and resolves to take the fight to Dr. Raichi. King Kai informs them that he’s supposed to be at the Dark Planet “at the end of the universe”.

And so the Z-Warriors plan a trip to the Dark Planet, but Raichi already knows they’re coming, and he’s anticipating their arrival. Ultimately, it seems that the Destron Gas was just a tactic to draw his enemies to him.

The thing is, if Dr. Raichi’s a Tuffle, like the ones we saw in the flashback, then what the hell happened to him? We’ll try to get some answers.... NEXT TIME, in part 2!

#dragon ball #tuffle lore #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #plan to eradicate the saiyans #dr raichi #dr lychee #goku #king kai #gohan #vegeta #trunks #piccolo #bulma #dr brief #mr popo #raichi's goons are supposed to have names but i'm not going to bother identifying them all #same goes for the ghost warriors #if they're not even real then i'm not going to bother tagging them

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