#dbza christmas

[darthmasterchief]

The Father

The Son

The Holy Spirit

[jacquelinemerritt]

Dragon Ball Z: Abridged – Plan to Eradicate Christmas Review

Originally posted... today!

Instead of the true meaning of Christmas, we see the true meaning of an abridged series.

Over the course of Dragon Ball Z: Abridged, Team Four Star has established a lot of minute details about its characters. We saw in Christmas Tree of Might that Goku is earth’s most ardent defender of Christmas. We also learned that across the universe, very few people got to celebrate Christmas, as it was replaced by Freeza Day on any planet he conquered. And we learned that even before Freeza conquered Planet Vegeta, Santa was never able to visit them to spread love and good cheer, because the Saiyans tried to shoot him down.

Every single one of those details is capitalized on here in Plan to Eradicate Christmas. Through snippets of character interaction, we learn that Goku has been itching to defend Christmas yet again. We see Freeza’s ego displayed as he commands the Villains of Christmas past to referthemselves as the Villains of Freeza Day Past, despite them having agreed upon Christmas. Even Santa’s inability to deliver presents to Planet Vegeta is called back to, as Vegeta nostalgically recalls his favorite Christmas pastime of shooting energy blasts at Santa’s sleigh.

If these callbacks rested solely on referring back to things we already know, it’s possible that they could fall flat, but every single one is rooted in the nature of these characters we’ve come to know and love. Of course the violent egomaniac Vegeta would try to shoot down Santa’s sleigh. Of course Freeza would refuse to bow to the demands of Cooler, Turles, and King Picc…Lord Slug, who he all views as his lesser. And of course, the battle hungry, ever optimistic Goku would be salivating over another opportunity to save Christmas, his most wonderful time of the year.

The specificity of these characters is also what makes Santa work so well as a villain here. After our heroes defeat the Villains of Christmas Past, they are confronted by Santa, who reveals that all have been naughty and fallen short of the glory of Santa. Vegeta is, well Vegeta, we know what he’s done. Goku’s lust for battle endangers the entire universe, brought to the forefront with a perfectly timed ad for Dragon Ball Super, and Piccolo is held to account for his and his father’s past attempts at world domination.

Even Trunks is at fault, having time traveled so recklessly as to endanger the space-time continuum, brilliantly highlighted with a cut to what I believe is Dragon Ball GT footage. Only Gohan is without naughtiness, and is granted a present by Santa, but like every Christmas before, Santa gives him what he likes, and he likes books.

The jokes in this Christmas special all land so well because they draw on our understanding of these characters, who we’ve gotten to know over the course of the last decade Dragon Ball Z: Abridged has been produced. It’s genuinely delightful to see Team Four Star tackle a Christmas special once more as well, as they manage to turn a story from an uninteresting OVA with a generic villain into a hilarious Christmas romp.

Plan to Eradicate Christmas is a great example of what abridged series can do at their best. They can take weak ideas and repurpose them, giving them new life and meaning with a comedic edge. Team Four Star really did go and give us a gift in Christmas 2018, and showed us what abridging is really all about.

Rating: 4.5/5

Stray Observations

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fantastic music Cliff Weinstein composed for this special. Christmas Eve-olution / Carol of the Hells is the standout track in particular. It is wonderfully ominous and builds perfectly to the final confrontation and group Kamehameha.

Thanks for reading! You can support her continued film criticism addiction on Patreon.

[greatwyrmgold]

I've been thinking about Team Four Star.

For reasons I'm not privy to, TFSdecided to end their flagship Dragon Ball Z Abridged series six years ago. On Christmas day, 2018, they uploaded the Cell Arc epilogue, and that was that. For a while there were plans to do the Bojack movie and the Buu Arc, but I guess they lost their passion or struggled over creative disagreements or just got sick of Shueisha's copyright claims.

So TFS pivoted to other creative projects, hoping to use the skills they developed over a decade of abridging anime and the audience they gathered to launch new projects. How did those go?

DBZA season 3 videos generally have 10-20 million views. The roughly contemporaneous Hellsing Ultimate Abridged and FF7 Machinabridged series have less; HUA hovers around ten million views an episode, FF7M about a million. TFS also have a few other anime-parody-ish projects, like the intermittent "X Minutes" series. "Demon Slayer in 6 Minutes!" has about six million views, but their other X Minutes (and similar videos with different branding) hover around a million views.

TFS tried tried all-original projects, too. They've made a few video essays; the best-performing by far is "Beastars is Beastars," with almost 800K views. The others have about an eighth to a quarter as many views.

More notable are the TFS Originals, which includes individual skits and whole series alike. Most of these do about as well as the video essays, with view counts between 60k and 140k. The pilots for Fist Master and Unabridged have almost half a million views each. Unabridged is by far the most popular of their series; I don't know if that's because more than two episodes were made, or if those episodes were made because it was more popular.

Good numbers by the standards of general YouTube. Not so good by the standards of channels with 4.3 million subscribers and a series which drew tens of millions of views for a decade.

And of course, TFS still does Dragon Ball stuff. There are the Dragon ShortZ, and the HFIL series. Both start with view counts above five million, with the most recent entries having around a million views. That's lower than any DBZA episode or movie, even the awkwardly-bifurcated Christmas Tree of Might, but it's better than anything else they've been uploading.

Well, until the Buu Bits came along. Little fragments of what DBZA Season 4 might have been, they were made for TotallyNotMark's Buu Arc retrospective. And people loved them. View counts for most individual shorts are above two million, and the full compilation video has six and a half million views at time of writing.

That's wildly better than basically anything TFS has done since Hellsing Ultimate Abridged. The Buu Bits compilation was even more popular than the last episodes of Dragon Ball Abridged Kai, a series only technically distinct from DBZA.

This is what their audience wants.

Team Four Star wants to move on. They started three original animated series between 2018 and 2021, for Kai's sake! But they only got 1-2 episodes each, probably because animation is hard. Team Four Star isn't just a bunch of peers and friends making silly internet videos any more; it's their job.

If TFS is going to spend all the time and effort and money needed to make more DieselDust, they need to be able to see some return on that investment. They can't pay everyone a living wage with less than a hundred thousand views of ad revenue, sponsorships aren't gonna pay much without more viewers, and good luck selling Kadence merch.

You know what does pay? More stuff that's DBZA-adjacent, but original enough that it doesn't trip YouTube's copyright bots. Team Four Star's fans will come back and watch Abridged!Cell and Abridged!Guru and the other villains tooling around in HFIL, and maybe some will buy an orange!Piccolo "DODGE" shirt or buy their sponsor's stuff while they're there.

That's sad. Team Four Star aren't master storytellers, but they shouldn't have to be to pursue their passion. They have so much more backing them up than 99.9% of artists; they have a platform and millions of fans and more than a decade of work proving their skills.

But that's not enough. They tried, and they failed, and they're returning to the old hits. Their original series aren't unsuccessful, but they're not successful enough to justify making more. TFS gets more eyeballs on their DBZA creator commentary videos than they do for original series.

TFS didn't want to make more DBZA (if they did, they would have), so they compromised. Most of their videos from the past couple years are Dragon-Ball-related in some way; HFIL skits, or Buu Bits, or Dragon ShortZ, or the aforementioned creator commentary. They wrapped up Unabridged last year; that was their most successful original series, and they haven't replaced it with anything.

I'm not sure how to wrap this up. I've followed TFS for about a decade, for most of DBZA season 3 and beyond. I wish I could say I've watched them grow creatively, but while they're clearly more skilled than they were when they made DBZA season 1, they've been stuck in a rut by their material circumstances and business needs. HFIL and Dragon ShortZ are basically DBZA, but freed from the limitations of editing DBZ footage and sticking to DBZ's story.

[dreadsuitsamus]

Would it be in-character for Vegeta to tell Trunks and Bulla that Santa isn't real when they're kids because his pride wouldn't let a pigment of their imagination take credit for getting the presents and eating the cookies?

i choose to go with the belief that santa is real in the db universe and vegeta dreams of killing him 🤣 there's a dbza christmas special featuring this and i like going with that

but to give an actual answer, i don't think bulma would let him do that, since it's most definitely her getting the presents for the kids and wanting them to have a nice christmas. he's a tough father but he doesn't want his kids unhappy, so if he would maybe want to tell them santa isn't real, i don't think he would do it out of pride. but largely i don't see him caring all that much outside of maybe thinking believing in santa is silly

[tigirl-and-co]

DBZA + YGOtAS Christmas playlist :3c

[zeravmeta]

time to watch my favorite christmas movie

[azrael-the-lucifan]

Happy Frieza Day. Remember to celebrate by killing a planet. Just not the one we live on.

[snomfee-cup]

This one TFS clip perfectly describes my reaction to this post taking off

It's December so YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

[kalach-cha]

so i probably don’t have covid but i am still very sick :(

[rinka-fuka]

If you haven’t watched Plan to Eradicate Christmas then what the hell are you even doing

[fabuloustrash05]

Things that are canon in Dragon Ball Z Abridged but NOT in actual Dragon Ball Z (Part 2)

A lot of people have pointed out some other details in DBZA that I missed, so I put them all together in a second part. Enjoy!

Krillin, Gohan, and Vegeta formed a club called Team Three Star while on Namek.

Radtiz is sleeping with Dodoria.

Goku loves pineapple on pizza while Beerus hates it.

The jockstrap incident.

The Justice League exist. And so does the Star Wars movies.

King Cold calls Frieza his “Princess”.

Vegeta and Bulma refer to Baby and Future Trunks as their “baby boy”.

Zarbon is straight and has a girlfriend, but has a habit of making gay innuendoes on himself.

Sailor Moon exist and had an existential crisis after Piccolo blew up the moon. 

Yamcha killed himself in Future Trunk’s timeline after finding out Bulma is pregnant with Vegeta’s child. Also Puar shapeshifted into the rope Yamcha used to hang himself.

Mr Popo is banging the Pokémon Jynx.

Chichi fired a kamehameha when giving birth to Goten. Also Goten was born on Christmas and Gohan played the role of the midwife.

Guldo has a wife and it’s speculated that Recoome had an affair with her.

Cell has a vendetta against Tein for him spamming his kikoho attack.

EVERYONE is terrified of Mr Popo.

Lord Slug is the good half of Super Kami Guru.

Piccolo’s antennas help him connect to the internet and go on social media.

King Cold is the head of management in hell.

Imperfect Cell originally wanted to be called Jiren.

Vegeta, for unknown reasons, hates Santa Claus and wants to kill him.

Jaco has a burger joint.

Vegeta has an Official Saiyan Handbook he carries around and it was written/edited by Turles.

Android 13 punch Goku in the nuts so hard it erased Goten from existence.

Cell is one of the only people who like and actually respect Yamcha.

The frog in Captain Ginyu’s body is in hell and being treated like a pet by the Ginyu Force: collar, food bowl, dog house, etc.

Christmas is known as Frieza Day in outerspace.

Mr Popo stopped the Garlic Jr arc from happening single handedly.

Krillin’s ex girlfriend Maron is an undercover government agent who tracks down and arrest people who commit insurance fraud.

The Ginyu Force hosted game show called “Wheel of Death” and Frieza was a frequent watcher.

Vegeta killed his brother Tarble, shooting down his pod thinking it was Santa’s sleigh.

All the villains are apart of a rehabilitation program in hell called HFIL (Home For Infinite Losers) that is run by the ogres who, for some reason, have German accents.

Vegeta throws dog biscuits at his enemies (mainly Guldo and later Android 19 and 15)

Nappa babysits Baby Trunks and gives Vegeta good? bad? parenting advice.

Salza and Jeice are cousins and Jeice had a sister who was eaten by space dingos.

Cell’s bussy.

Check Out Part 1 And Part 3

[jacquelinemerritt]

Dragon Ball Z: Abridged Episode 42 Review

Originally posted April 1st, 2016

A reflection on my love for this series.

“Fear and Loathing in Ginger Town” is the episode that inspired me to review Dragonball Z: Abridged.

So naturally I think it’s pretty good.

But before I get into why I think it’s the best episode of theirs I’ve reviewed to date, I want to talk about how it inspired me to think critically about this series. Before I saw this episode, I was an invested, but ultimately passive, viewer of the show. I liked the show for two reasons: it was genuinely funny, and it helped me get through an incredibly dark time in my life. I got introduced to Dragonball Z: Abridged by a friend1 when I was coming out of the destruction of my closest friendship (which was entirely my fault), and he showed me The Christmas Tree of Might and sold me on the series.

I was hooked from the get-go (to the point where I didn’t even really notice season 1’s flaws), and DBZA served as one of the few sources of relief I had from the pain I was experiencing. I could watch episodes of the show and get a much needed laugh, all in a show that wasn’t afraid to be funny in the face of death, destruction, and melodrama. To say that the show saved me would be a bit of an overstatement, but it helped me to survive, to cope long enough to work my way into a better place.2

That is the reason that I love this show, but what inspired me to review it was the depth of Piccolo’s confrontation with Kami. It was at this point that the show first impacted me emotionally, as these two Namekians clash and Kami is forced to come to terms with his own mortality. He sees a world on the brink as an old man and questions his place above it, his place as an ineffectual guardian whose only remaining purpose is to surrender his body to his “son” so that he might have a chance at saving the world. When Kami grips his staff and says “I’m done anyway,” he is coming to a dark and somber recognition that the world he’s sworn to protect is better off without him, and that sacrificing his own agency is the only way he can do any good for anyone anymore.

That depth showed me that there was something more to Team Four Star’s storytelling; that this show was not just a series of clever jokes, but an exploration of the themes of heroism and power in its own right. From there, I began thinking about the way this show inverted tropes and did its best to inject good representation of women and members of the queer community, even if it stumbled occasionally (see: Dodoria).

I also began to think about how the show investigated the questions left open by the original, and how it made much more explicit the subtext and relationships between the characters (such as Gohan’s horrible relationship with his father). The depth in their conversation inspired the lines of questioning that have led to every single review in this series,3 and I probably would have never taken up this line of criticism if they hadn’t done such a damn good job with it.

The rest of the episode is naturally excellent as well. Unlike the last two episodes, where everything was essentially character-driven shuffling of characters, this episode actually sees our characters more directly advancing the story. Gohan and Trunks embark on an investigation of an abandoned time machine, and Gohan gets to be an adorably effective detective, solving mysteries and searching for clues.

Krillin spends most of his time at Kame House expounding on his love for Android 18, proving himself to be equally adorable and refreshingly respectful (especially when contrasted with the delightful douchebaggery of Master Roshi). And then there’s the very end of the episode, and its introduction of Cell, who enters singing “Mr. Sandman” and calling Piccolo his friend. His introduction is beautifully sinister, and Takahata101 makes it absolutely clear that this guy is not only the creepiest motherfucker alive, but the most fearsome villain we’ve seen yet in the series.

Rating: 5/5

If you enjoyed this review, consider supporting me on Patreon.

Stray Observations

1It’s probably worth noting that the friend who introduced me to DBZA was actually affected by the fallout, and would’ve been within their rights to not spend time with me. They were far more gracious than I deserved, and to this day I’m still really thankful for that.

2The show also helped me through a number of different hard times after that, and it was, for a while, the show I’d binge as a pick-me-up whenever I was feeling particularly down.

3Originally, the idea was to attempt to coalesce all of these ideas about the changes made by Team Four Star into an academic paper that’d critically explore the value of their revisions. But you can’t say “hella” in an academic paper, and reviewing these individually has honestly been much more rewarding in the long run.

“You blonde bimbo, you get back here this instant!” *Car backs up* “Oh no, n-no, n-n-n-no!”

Trunks: “Well, I suppose you take a lot after your father.” Gohan: “In what regard?” Trunks: “You’re the strongest, bravest warrior on the planet.” Gohan: “Okay good.”

Gohan: “Ooh, a mystery! I never get to solve mysteries, like Sherlock Homes or Batman! Usually we’re just fighting people. Like Bruce Lee. Or Batman!”

Gohan: “Whatever shot the canopy, came from the inside!” Trunks: “So what does that tell us?” Gohan: “That the blast came from the inside…”

Bulma: “As the daughter of the world’s leading class scientist with doctorates in both bioengineering and evolutionary biology, I can only deduce that this is a mutant coconut!”

Trunks: “Well at least one of use is having fun with this.” *Bulma makes Pac-Man noises with the egg* Trunks: “Two of us.”

Roshi: “So there’s a hot one now?” Krillin: “Oh yeah, like you wouldn’t believe. Her eyes are this beautiful piercing blue, her confidence is stunning, and she does this adorable little thing with her hair where she brushes it out of the way-“ Roshi: “Fantastic! How’s the rack? What are we talking here, apples, oranges, melons?” Krillin: “Is that really important?” Roshi: “Yes!”

Gohan: “I think I found a clue! Either that or a record setting cicada. I’m okay with both actually.”

Trunks: “Long shot, but you wouldn’t happen to carry hand sanitizer on you, would you?” Gohan: “Do, do you not?”

I swear, that reporter sounds just like Futurama’s Richard Nixon.

“I can’t say for certain how they disappeared, however, recreational marijuana use was recently legalized in the region, so I believe we can all come to the same conclusion.”

Krillin: “Oh hey, Gohan, do you like mysteries?” Gohan: “Do I!?”

Piccolo: “Goku doesn’t even look after his own kid! I look after his kid more than he does!”

Kami: “I’m sure you’re familiar with the technique. Now, lower.” Piccolo: “Yeah, not falling for that.” Kami: “I didn’t think so.”

Korin: “Well I know someone who’s not getting invited to Sunday Brunch. Oh, who am I kidding, we like him.”

“Now the libs are surely gonna shout ‘racism’ over this one, but this is just what happens when you elect a dog as king!”

[gorillageek27]

(I know it’s spooky season and not Christmas, but I was watching DBZA...again and I had to do this.)

Weiss: “Ruby you need to act like a good leader or Santa won’t give you any presents.”

Ruby (mumbling): “He’s just going to give me books again.”

Weiss: “He brings you what you like and what do you like!!?”

Ruby: “I like books.”

Weiss: “See, he brings you what you like.”

Jaune: “Well what am I getting for Christmas?”

Weiss: “The same thing as last year.”

Jaune: “Oh so that thing you do with your mouth?”

Weiss: jaune! Not in fromt of ruby!

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

Charas christmas list

- Primary Shareholder position of Nestle

- The souls of the innocent

- a Pony

- The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

- TFS to continue doing DBZA

- another pony

[dragonsballsz]

cannot stop thinking about whis having undetermined (not malicious) motives for wanting goku and vegeta to work together. if dbs 2 happens i would love them to have whis revisit this in the story. "thought it was about time to have you two train together" like. What Is He Planning

the only thing i can think of is that he wanted to get rid of beerus. having the last two saiyans kill the guy who ordered their extinction is pretty karmically satisfying, and it doesn’t hurt that they’re both op as hell (so it beerus tho).

it kind of looked like that was a potential twist later on, but i think the creators got too attached to beerus (which is just. why? why tho?). or it’s just bad writing.

not that dragon ball has ever been known for its in-depth examinations of the psyche (which isn’t a problem; the point is friendship and punching things), but super is a lot more cavalier about certain things (read: genocide) than any of its predecessors.

it’s possible that there was an idea to have goku become the new god of destruction, but (hopefully) that idea would’ve been shattered pretty quickly, since it’s not the first time goku has been offered godhood, and the last offer was a lot better. it’s also possible that they planned to have vegeta do that but then realized that that would kinda fuck over his whole character arc of becoming marginally less homicidal.

the issue i have with whis is that while he’s got a fun and genuinely likeable personality, his function in the story is a lot closer to a plot device than an actual character. this isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it doesn’t work quite as well in this case bc the beginning of super really did appear to be setting him up as a full-fledged active character - a dragon with an agenda, if you will, to beerus’s big bad of the first arc. that also wouldn’t be a problem, except that beeurs no longer appears to be acting as an antagonist.

i’ve gone into why i don’t like beerus (as an antagonist or as a character in general) on my personal blog a few times, but the issues with beerus also directly impact whis, and whis’ lack of any real importance outside of his job (i.e., his connection with beerus and the rest of the dragon ball pantheon) means that he’s pretty badly hurt by said issues.

dbs also has the issue of setting up some genuinely new and interesting ideas, but being afraid to deviate from the show’s status quo to properly execute them. this is becoming more and more common in anime, from what i’ve seen, and it ends up sacrificing character development, usually for comedic value. and not good comedic value either, just running gags that enough of the fans find amusing for the writers to just stick with that instead of having the characters grow and potentially lose the ability to keep the gag around.

think about fullmetal alchemist (the manga). one of the most famous running gags is ed’s height, but as the story progresses and gets more serious, those jokes begin to peter off and eventually stop more or less completely. this is in part bc ed himself has physically grown, but it’s also illustrative of how the story has progressed and the characters have progressed with it. it was a fun gag while it lasted, but it wasn’t permanent. it’s also important to note that ed’s lack of height was in part due to the weight of his prosthetic limbs, so the gag would have to be left behind eventually bc it wasn’t worth sacrificing so much of the story for. dbs and other newer shōnen don’t seem able to put the story before the jokes. and in light-hearted moments that can sometimes be okay, but when it’s consistent throughout the story (or worse, part of the story), it kind of ruins the feeling.

bouncing back to dbs, there are two examples of jokes illustrate this: mr. popo and goku. plenty of people know that the scene where popo warns vegeta not to break the hypertonic lion tamer (sorry) is a reference to tfs’s running gag of popo being absolutely terrifying. this works without knowledge of the abridged series bc it looks like an otherwise nice guy getting fed up with these assholes who keep breaking his shit, and it works with the reference bc pecking order. does it properly mesh with his kind, gentle, and extremely patient nature? no, not really. but it’s a little side joke that doesn’t really hurt anything.

compare that with goku. goku was never characterized as an intellectual genius, but the original incarnation of him in db and later in dbz wasn’t so much stupid as thoughtless, naive, and occasionally just uninformed (which makes perfect sense - he’s an amnesiac alien kid who spent the last few years alone with no one to teach him things). but he had a good heart and generally tried to do the right thing. if the world was in danger, making sure it was safe was his top priority. he was a smart and clever fighter who learned from his errors, and he frequently showed his own form of intelligence outside of battle by thinking ahead in ways that no one else had - such as realizing that the earth would still need protecting after he died for good, and choosing to stay dead after bulma pointed out that many of the recent threats to earth’s safety were there because of him. he doesn’t think the way most people do, but he certainly wasn’t a brainless idiot who didn’t care about anyone but himself. not perfect, but still.

in dbza, he becomes said brainless idiot bc it’s a parody series and that’s what’s funny (sort of like tenshinhan and chiaotzu randomly being jewish, or turles trying to steal christmas). but that characterization got popular, and super’s goku frequently leaned a lot more towards the abridged incarnation rather than the original goku. again, that would be fine if it was a one-off joke, but it often feels like the audience is getting bounced back and forth between canon!goku and abridged!goku all the time, which is.... frustrating. to say the least.

beerus and whis suffer from something similar, only instead of being related to comedy, it’s related to their roles in the story and how they affect the plot.

tldr: writing is hard, status quo is NOT the end all be all, and i apparently have a lot of unresolved feelings about this that i should probably bring up with my therapist bc wow

[toomanyf4ndoms7]

The real reason why Kronika didn’t bring back Shinnok.

Cetrion: We're here to make this day your final virtuous act of sacrifice!

Shinnok: (floating down) Seriously, it's always got to be about you, doesn't it?

Cetrion: Well, that is what mother said.

Shinnok: She also said she loved us both equally.

Cetrion: Well, you know how fond mother was of jokes.

Shinnok: And that's why you were created second, punchline!

(Kut to the group on Shang Tsung’s island ruins)

Nightwolf: This is really uncomfortable.

Fujin: That’s sibling rivalries for you.

(Later)

Kronika: So let me get this straight: instead of working together to get the crown you just argued and let each other get hurt?

Shinnok: Yes.

(Source: DBZA Plan To Eradicate Christmas.