#dragon ball super super hero is a movie that exists and I had to go for it thanks

[azuhrasims]

31 Days of Simblreen

Day 22: Superheros(s) - Gohan & Piccolo

After the superhero movie came out, this is a pun that needed to be made.

#maadhalloween challenge by @maadsimming

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Movie 2: Super Hero (3/5)

"What are any of us doing here? We're not even in this movie!"

So the Red Ribbon Army is trying to stage a comeback with a fresh crop of new androids, and Goku isn't around to stop them, because he's on Beerus' planet training with Vegeta and Broly. While Piccolo figures out what to do without them, the movie just goes ahead and shows us what Goku is up to. For about ten minutes.

I'm pretty sure this part of the movie is a concession to Goku's fans. Let's face it, the people love Goku, and to do a Dragon Ball movie with no Goku at all would be a risky proposition, no matter how good that movie is. Looking back at the old DBZ films, Movies 9, 10, and 11 were mostly Goku-free, but he still put in a brief appearance in each one. But those are also regarded as some of the worst entries in the series, and I don't think that's a coincidence.

Now, I'm a fan of Dragon Ball in general, so the idea of a Piccolo and Gohan movie is not only appealing to me, but I'd say it's long overdue. I'd take a Yamcha/Tien movie any day. Or a Launch standalone film. I sat through GT, so it'd take a lot to keep me out of the theater. But Toei's trying to run a business here, and they can't just depend on die-hards like me to bring in the ticket revenue. So I'm sure the decision to focus on Piccolo was a controversial one in the home office. But they probably reached a compromise by giving Goku a decent chunk of screentime as a make-good.

One thing that makes this movie so good is that they don't just toss out a character for the sake of having them in the movie. They actually take a moment to show what that character is doing these days, even if it doesn't affect the plot that much. That's important, because it lets the viewer come away feeling like they got something out of the cameo they just saw. For example, we've seen Goku and Vegeta on Beerus' planet before. This is nothing new, but this time Goku's trying to help Broly control his power. And Vegeta's trying to meditate so he can learn how to imitate Jiren's power. Goku doesn't really understand his approach, which goes to show that Vegeta's trying to push beyond the scope of the training they've done on Beerus's planet before now. Gohan is studying ants, Videl has her combat sports class, Piccolo's a homeowner, etc.

Compare this to Battle of Gods, for example. Now BoG's a good movie, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the characters who appear in the film are utterly wasted. Tien shows up but he looks and acts exactly the same as he did the last several times we've seen him. Then he shows up in Resurrection F and nothing's changed either. He says he left Chiaotzu and Yamcha behind for the big fight, but would it matter either way? If they showed up, they wouldn't do anything new with those guys either.

The trick is to not just put Ox King in your movie, but to have him mention something that he's gotten up to lately, something Ox King fans can mull over later. "Oh, hey, remember how Ox King said he was going back to school to get a sociology degree?" You can sink your teeth into that, even if that's the only thing that you find out about from him. It's a lot better than "It's Bulma's birthday, and one of the guests is Ox King, a character who certainly exists."

Let's talk about Vegeta's revelation in this movie, since it caused some commotion among the fans. Goku complains that Vegeta had just been sitting still lately, which he thinks is a waste of time. Vegeta explains that he's been studying the way Jiren fought during the Tournament of Power. While he dominated Goku and Vegeta--sometimes both at once-- Vegeta is certain that Jiren isn't that much stronger than they are. What made Jiren so tough to deal with was that he was completely relaxed until the very moment he chose to strike, which allowed him to put all of his power into those brief offensive moments. But since Vegeta can't do that himself, he's trying to train his mind to conceptualize it before he tries to make his body learn how.

So a lot of fans saw this and concluded that the studio hates Goku, or they think Goku's an idiot, or that the studio is stupid for failing to remember that Goku has meditated before in the past. There has always been a subset of the fanbase that tries to turn everything into a Manichean conflict between Goku and Vegeta. In this case, if Vegeta figures something out before Goku does, then it means that Toei or Shueisha or Akira Toriyama himself must hate Goku.

This is stupid on the face of it, because Akira Toriyama literally created the character and he's credited with the screenplay for this movie. If he truly despised Goku, why would he even have Goku in the movie at all? He could have killed him off a long time ago. Why even make a Dragon Ball movie when he could have been working on some Dr. Slump project instead?

All this scene is... and I promise you, it's nothing more to it..., is a exploration of what the boys are doing on Beerus' planet. They train here, of course. We've seen that before, but why are they training here? Well, they need to receive instructions and guidance from Whis, and this is where Whis lives. Okay, and why is Whis so important to the process? Why can't they just stay on Earth and spar like they used to do? Because that only gets them so far. They need to learn new ways of thinking in order to surpass the level they're already at.

And what does that mean exactly? Well, they can't just do a million pushups. It doesn't work that way. There's other things they have to figure out, and that requires them to think of things they hadn't thought of before. And Whis is already beyond them in terms of power, so he knows things that they're still struggling to grasp. But Whis can't just spell it out for them. He can describe what they need to do, but it's still up to Goku and Vegeta to understand and internalize it.

And that's what they're doing here. They're basically brainstorming ways to get stronger. This time, Vegeta had an idea, and he's following it to see where it leads. Whis approves, so he seems to be on the right track. Tomorrow, maybe Goku will have another good idea, and so on.

But it's not always going to be one or the other who has the breakthrough. And it would be stupid for them both to have the same idea at the same time, just so the partisan fans won't feel slighted. Goku seems to think he can get a lot out of working with Broly, but that hasn't paid off just yet. It might prove more productive than what Vegeta is working on at the moment, but there's only one way to find out.

As far as Goku failing to recognize the value of meditation, well, he's had to re-learn that lesson several times. People will point to the time he meditated in Otherworld, or the time he meditated during his training with Mr. Popo, but they forget that this sort of focus and concentration was part of his training with Master Roshi as well. Whis scolded both Goku and Vegeta on this point when they first trained with him in Resurrection F. We can draw one of two conclusions here.

Goku's quest for greater strength is a flat circle. He just keeps re-discovering the same fundamentals, making a big gain in power, and then forgetting how he achieved that improvement.

Akira Toriyama is recycling the same martial arts hokum over and over again, because he only needs to show the characters working for greater strength. He does not need to design a genuine and internally consistent system for fantasy martial arts, any more than the writers of Star Trek need to explain how dilithium crystals make the ship go.

Anyway, Whis proposes a Goku/Broly/Vegeta three-way match, but no one wants Broly to fight in case he flips out and wrecks the entire planet. Then Beerus wakes up and finds out he has new houseguests. Goku explains that this is a good place to hide Broly from Frieza, and before Beerus can object, he meets Lemo and samples his cooking. It's good, so Beerus decides he can stay. Then Cheelai walks by with a bag full of loot she stole from Beerus' home. But Beerus decides he likes Cheelai's looks, so he agrees to let her stay too. So that's decided.

I've also seen some fans gripe about how Cheelai didn't spend much time with Broly in this movie, and Beerus' crush on Cheelai muddies the waters further. Look, none of these characters got a lot of screen time in this movie. This scene could be cut entirely and you wouldn't miss a thing. Half of it is Goku sparring with Vegeta, so of course Broly and Cheelai weren't going to have a whirlwind romance in this thing.

All I know for certain is that Cheelai walked by Broly and went out of her way to say he was "looking good", which is a lot more than she complimented anyone else on this planet. I mean, she's stealing Beerus' stuff, which ought to tell you how much she's into his lanky purple ass.

Moving on, Whis still wants to do that sparring match, if only so Broly can learn to appreciate a high-level battle with the fighters maintaining control of their powers. But Goku wants to eat first and so they stop for lunch.

And yeah, then this movie up and decides to give us Goku/Vegeta III, just like that. I don't want to oversell it, but it's an excellent fight. Whis sets the ground rules to that transformations and ki blasts are forbidden, so in a lot of ways this looks a lot like the kind of battle they might have had at the 25th Budokai before Babidi's henchmen got involved. We only get to see a few minutes of it, but they're so evenly matched that the fight takes a really long time to settle, so maybe it's just as well.

Beerus notes that Vegeta's moves have changed in an almost imperceptible way, due to his recent meditation training. Still, he loses interest in the fight and decides to get ice cream while the boys slug it out. I'm pretty sure Cheelai never cared in the first place, but Broly is enthralled with this action. He's getting to watch two of the greatest Saiyans ever put on a clinic, and he's soaking it up like a sponge.

But the important thing, at least as far as this movie goes, is that Beerus tosses an empty ice cream carton onto Whis' staff, so no one notice it flashing when Bulma tries to call him.

Which means Piccolo's on his own, at least for the time being. He gets the news from Bulma while he's picking up some senzu beans from Korin. The situation looks pretty bad, since Piccolo estimates that the Gammas' power is roughly on par with Goku and Vegeta's. And Dr. Hedo might know 17 and 18's weak spots, so they might not be able to help either. There is Majin Buu, though...

.... ha ha ha! No, did you think this one was going to be any different? Buu's sleeping through this crisis too. Seriously, why did they keep him alive at the end of the Buu Saga if no one had any plans to use him for anything?

So what about Gohan? That's what Korin asks, but Piccolo just says they can't count on Gohan right now, which... ouch.

But Piccolo does have one other idea, and so he flies up to see Dende on the Lookout and asks him to draw out his hidden power. See, the Kami of Planet Namek, Grand Elder Guru, was able to power up Krillin and Gohan way back in the day. Now, Dende is the Kami of Earth, so Piccolo figures Dende could do the same for him.

Only, no, it doesn't work that way. Turns out a Dragon-Type Namekian has to reach a certain age before they can use that sort of ability, and Dende's too young. On the other hand, Dende suggests using the Dragon Balls to solve the problem. They could simply wish away the Red Ribbon Army, but Piccolo doesn't care for that idea. Okay, well what about using Shenron to draw out Piccolo's hidden power? Can Shenron do that? Dende's like "gimme a minute."

So Dende wheels out the cart with the model of Shenron on it, and he powers a flask of water on the model. This makes it glow, and somehow upgrades Shenron so that he can grant a wish to draw out a person's hidden powers. Piccolo remarks that he had no idea any of this was possible when he was Kami. To be fair, when Piccolo was Kami, he didn't even know he was a Namekian, so there's a lot of stuff he was out of the loop for.

Now all Piccolo needs is the Dragon Balls, but Dende tells him that Bulma probably has them already. Ever since Frieza came back, Bulma's been gathering up the Dragon Balls every year, using the wishes up so that they'll be inactive in case any bad guys try to use them. Piccolo calls to ask her and yes, she has the whole set. In the dub, he asks her how many she has and she's like "Oh, uh.... All of them?!" I can't be sure, but I think that's a reference to the "All of them?" line from the dub of Dragon Ball, when Piccolo tried to zap Goku, but he missed all his vital organs. Anyway, Piccolo tells her to hang on to the balls until he gets there.

So they summon Shenron and it works. Piccolo gets stronger, and the Dragon promises that he threw in "a little extra".

That still leaves two wishes to use, so Bulma asks for a nicer ass and slightly longer eyelashes. Then she realizes -- too late-- that they could have wished to bring Goku and Vegeta back to Earth. Whoops.

"Shenron, I wish for you to bring Goku and Vegeta to Earth, so that they might bear witness to all this junk within my trunk."

So Piccolo returns to the Red Ribbon base and just walks right back to the line of soldiers there in Magenta's command room. They're still talking, and Piccolo tells the other soldiers he had to go potty. No one suspects a thing.

Magenta's trying to figure out what to do next. He'd like to target Goku and Vegeta, but no one knows where they are. Mr. Satan is too risky, since no one seems to know what his powers are, exactly. Then Carmine suggests Gohan be the next target. His intel says that it was Gohan who defeated Cell, and he has lots of spy footage of Piccolo going to his house to visit, which suggests that Gohan is a "shadow boss" in Bulma's organization. Magenta likes the idea of taking Gohan out, but he doesn't want Red Ribbon guys operating in the city, since it's too soon to reveal their presence to the wider public.

But if they could kidnap Gohan's daughter and lure him to the Red Ribbon base, then they could fight him on their own turf. Carmine finds that to be a good idea, as it would improve troop morale. Magenta orders a two-man team go to fetch Pan, and Piccolo volunteers, saying that he lives in the same neighborhood and knows Pan's face, because she's the granddaughter of Mr. Satan.

Dr. Hedo objects to the kidnapping angle, but Magenta tells him to mind his own business. Hmmm...

So Piccolo will be picking up Pan from preschool after all, just a bit later than planned. I don't know why Pan can't just run home by herself. She made it all the way here from Piccolo's house, didn't she?

One thing I like about this scene is how there's one other kid here who gets picked up, and that kid's mom apologizes for being late, so it's pretty clear that it's well after 1pm. Pan's been here a while. Her teacher assures here that someone will show up soon, but Pan's still kind of disappointed.

The other Red Ribbon soldier sent to do the kidnapping thinks this will be easy, so he just walks right up to Pan and tells her his mom sent him, but she demolishes him with a single blow.

Then Piccolo reveals himself and Pan recognizes him by his ki and calms down. The teacher already knows Piccolo, so she's cool with him, and Piccolo explains that this was all a security drill arranged by Mr. Satan. Now, in the dub, Piccolo addresses the teacher as "Janet", implying that he knows her as well as she knows him, and I think this is what led to the genesis of the Piccolo/Janet ship. I don't have a lot to say about it that hasn't already been said, but I'm all for Piccolo and Janet getting together. Janet's a fine foxy lady, and Piccolo's reputation speaks for itself.

Of course, Piccolo now has to fly the Red Ribbon airship back to base. He's a pretty crappy pilot, but he manages. I like to think Janet is still impressed, though. "Wow," she thinks as he flies away, crashing into a billboard. "Is there anything he can't do?"

Piccolo's plan is pretty simple. He explains the situation to Pan, and convinces her to play along with the kidnapping. When Gohan shows up to rescue her, he'll kick everyone's ass and that'll take care of everything. Actually, that sounds a little half-baked to me. Piccolo got a power up from Shenron, but is that enough? Anyway, they bring Pan to the base and take a video of her acting scared, then Magenta sends Piccolo and the other guy back to the city to show it to Gohan. Wait, why is that Namekian chair back there? What's that about.

Well, it doesn't matter because Pan sees some cookies and she's like "Don't mind if I do!" but then...

Carmine takes the plate away! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

You suck, Carmine!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Pan would probably attack him right there, except Piccolo's behind him trying to calm her down.

So Piccolo and 15 go to Gohan's house, and Piccolo takes him to the window since he knows Gohan won't answer the door. Notably, Gohan doesn't recognize Piccolo through his disguise, even though Pan saw through it immediately. Also, Gohan hasn't bothered to change out of the clothes Piccolo put him in this morning. Those must be fascinating ants he's working on.

15 shows Gohan the video of Pan and RIP the windowsill.

He turns Super Saiyan and scares the shit out of 15, who promises Pan will be fine if he just returns with him to the base. Gohan gets so mad he makes a crater in the ground...

... and the house starts to list down into the hole. But Piccolo doesn't mind because his plan is working. Gohan's back in a fighting mood and he can clobber the Gammas!

Or can he...?

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PRELIMINARY ROUND - THE LEGEND OF ZELDA - ZELDA

PROPAGANDA

Tetra (The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker)

1.) Wind Waker actually has a point with its misogyny and kinda condemns the misogyny. We first see Tetra as a helpless girl in the clutches of a giant bird monster. A pirate ship catapults a boulder at the bird, which drops Tetra on the hero's home island. We find out that young Tetra is the rough-and-tumble captain of an entire pirate crew, and the brains of the outfit. We later learn that bird monster has been kidnapping a bunch of girls to find the reincarnation of the legendary Princess Zelda. It is revealed that Tetra is the next Princess Zelda. Because she is Zelda, she transforms from a tanned pirate captain into a pale princess in a dress, and her role requires her to wait in a castle for the hero to finish his quest. Which is what she does. And the point of the story is that this is wrong! The villain is wrong, and the hero's mentor is wrong—they're both hurting children and forcing them to reenact old roles in an old story, in their selfish quest to resurrect their long-dead kingdoms. Then breaking tradition, (I believe) Wind Waker Zelda is the first Zelda to wield the sacred Light Arrows and to take up an active combat role in the final battle. The happy ending is that Zelda turns back into Tetra, and she and Link set out to forge their own future. BUT THEN. The cheap sequel Phantom Hourglass (the equivalent of a direct-to-DVD Disney movie sequel tbh) pretty much opens with Tetra being turned into a stone statue. And she's a stone statue for the ENTIRE GAME until the hero rescures her. Clear-cut sidelining of a compelling female character, smells like misogyny to me. At least Tetra's identical granddaughter was a playable co-protagonist in the next sequel, but arguably Tetra founding a new monarchal country named the same as the ancient one and then actively continuing the tradition of making Princesses Zelda undermines the conclusion of Wind Waker. Tetra possibly has the most personality and most meaningful role out of all the Zeldas, and she's far from the biggest victim of misogyny here—but still, let's remember that even Tetra deserved better than she got.

2.) Was built up as a super-cool pirate leader antihero who helped out Link. Then, as soon as it's revealed that she's that era's incarnation of Zelda, she gets magically put in the standard Princess Zelda dress (which also makes her skin lighter for Some Reason), and she ends up being sequestered in a basement for her safety until the finale, where she actually gets to do something again.

3.) Idk if anyones talked about windwakers sequel game, phantom hourglass yet so i will. Dont go into ph expecting a lot of cool pirate zelda action because shes a statue for like most of it. Shes a statue and you have to go save her.

Zelda (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of

1.) Oh my god. Oh my goooooooood. She was like. Ok in botw (I don't know). But then in totk, they COULD have had her take a more active role, especially with her whole sage of time thing and the era she was in not having a "hero", but NO. She barely did anything, and then in the end she ended up sacrificing herself (at least turning into a dragon is new. Like I don't really have a problem with the dragon thing but man they dropped the fucking ball with everything else). Like one of the creators literally stated that Zelda HAD to be the damsel in distress (rescue her from a crystal, a castle, whatever) and yeah, they definitely continued that in totk. Please just give a mainline Zelda a sword or an active (fighting) role in the game I am BEGGING YOU. Damsels in distress aren't cool, especially when you hype them up to be super powerful!!! She fucking deleted the Calamity from existence in botw you could have done SOMETHING

2.) WHY CANT I EVER HAVE A MAINLINE ZELDA GAME AAAA

I hope someone else gives good propogands but this is specifically about Tears of the Kingdom. So before it came out, I tried to avoid anything and everything about the game so I could go in 100% blind but I did see a few images of course because internet people don’t tag or algorithms lol but the point it looked like Zelda was the protagonist or at least a swap where they’re both playable choices and you can swap between them because she and link looked so alike and I was so happy to play her and was like as much as I like link free my girl from never ending Princess saving needing and it was happening!!

It did not happen and she was again lost and felt like a repeat of the last game where I need to save her (not exactly the same but COMEON)

3.) forced to be a magic sealing princess when she wants to do science and build robots

[greatwyrmgold]

Watched Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero on a whim the other night. Things I liked:

Pan. She had so much fun whenever she was with Papa or Grandpa Piccolo! Not so much when they were both busy fighting the giant monster, but hey.

The movie focuses on Piccolo, Gohan, and Pan instead of Goku and Vegeta.

Magenta's rant about how Capsule Corp is clearly just a front for a coalition of alien invaders working to control the Earth. It's 90% recognizable conspiratorial nonsense (minus the antisemitism and unpleasant context) and 10% weird sh*t that's just canon.

Despite the Red Ribbon Army's advanced intelligence-gathering tech, they still consider Mr. Satan to be a threat on par with Goku or Vegeta.

Piccolo has a house now!

Super Sai-ants.

Gamma 1's occasional moments of genre savvy. The first thing he says is "You say you killed King Piccolo? Did you look for the body?"

The Gammas in general, really. Especially the background squabbling-siblings moments.

All the new characters have such delightful, quirky personalities. Dragon Ball is at its best when it's a comedy series spiced with action.

Piccolo doing that thing Frieza did in the Broly movie where he hurt Paragus to make Broly get a rage-induced power-up, just without actually hurting Pan.

I can't talk much about Max Cell without ruining the positive tone I'm aiming for here, but I like the way he serves as a fulcrum of conflict between Magenta and Dr. Hedo, and that his design makes Semi-Perfect Cell look intimidating. (And not just by virtue of being kaiju-sized.)

One storyboard artist really liked the idea of the Z-fighters jumping off of high things in skydiving poses before activating their flight, and the higher-ups were right to let them do it twice.

Namekian stretchy-arms and gigantification return! Piccolo even uses both at the same time! More Dragon Ball fight scenes should use weird little abilities like that; stretchy arms aren't gonna win a fight Piccolo would lose otherwise, but they make a fight scene more unique and interesting.

The animation is good, the haters just noticed that it's CG.

Pan. She's adorable.

Things I didn't like:

Enough "Ha ha, Dr. Hedo/Gotenks is fat" jokes to stand out as a Thing.

Act 3 is basically just one overstuffed fight scene.

Cell Max is fine as a plot point and setpiece, I guess, but also not interesting.

There is no way Goten and Trunks haven't been fusing for fun enough to remember how it works. If they messed up because they were rushing or because of a disruption from the active action scene or something, that would be one thing, but suggesting that they're just rusty is...kinda dumb.

Gohan's new transformation feels like that form Future Trunks got in the Goku Black arc, in that it's an unexplained power-up he randomly got that I assume is meant to justify him fighting god-tier foes, but they didn't want to give him Super Saiyan God or Blue because reasons. My feelings about Orange Piccolo are similar, but with more understanding about why they didn't give him an existing Super Saiyan form and less irritation about being an obvious retread of the Super Saiyan 2 transformation bit in the Cell arc.

Also, Gohan's new transformation's hair. On one hand, it's among the most obvious ways that said transformation is calling back to the SSJ2 transformation against Cell, which is irritating. On the other hand, it also looks absurd. It's just...scale up Gohan's preteen hairstyle by 250% and make it gray. Why gray? And why make it that big? If it had gone full SSJ3 I might have liked it, but it doesn't go far enough, and the hair stays too stiff, like it doesn't realize it's three feet long and should be pulled down by gravity.

Basically every scene on Beerus's planet, and not just because Goku and Vegeta were there. It's good to establish why they're not coming in to save the day, but they didn't need to spend so much time on it! And they definitely didn't have to use that time on a pointless fight scene and Beerus flirting with Cheelai!

Gohan getting more focus? Getting to be a character who's important to the plot? I like that! The interpretation of that idea as "Gohan needs to focus on training instead of studying all the time"? Not so much. At least it was mixed in with a dash of "You're so focused on the academic stuff that you're neglecting your family, too," which is a less frustrating point.

[turboacek-blog]

Dragon Ball Super, potential arcs

If the anime ever comes back, people already assume they would cover the manga arcs of Moro and Granolah

And probably adapt the movies Broly and Super Hero

But that’s two main arcs and two smaller arcs (the movies wouldn’t be that long even when broken into episodes and the anime fleshing out certain moments)

And don’t know if that would be enough for a return imo

So I’m going to brainstorm ideas to help justify a return as well as just have fun

Android 21 arc

Yeah adapting the Dragon Ball FighterZ story

Mostly the Android 18 version

I don’t think the reviving of the villains will go over as well but the general premise can work

Android 21 makes this wave ray thing that nullifies most of the energy in the world making Goku and co nearly powerless

And without doing the player's soul thing maybe Bulma makes a device like a bracelet that allows them to use some of their ki but it takes a while to make each one so they do need to solve the problem

Along the way the team consists of all the z fighters

Android 21 has a similar story with 18, 17, and a new 16 then her body splits into the good half and bad half and goes from there

Can be a fun arc to level the playing field as now Yamcha could hypothetically beat Vegeta now

Plus depending on how they handle the ending Android 21 could join the Z fighters as she is a fan favorite

Edit: watched DBS: Super Hero

Since she is now officially the wife of Gero and 16 would be her son and Hedo her great? Grandson

Could have some connection with Hedo and Gamma 1 depending on the placement of this arc as before 21 could meet Hedo her grandson

After Hedo can help against 21

Xenoverse arc

This can be handled in a lot of ways

But I’m mainly focusing on the Trunks, SKOT (Supreme Kai of Time), and Fuu aspect from Xenoverse 2 bonus content

In my ideal version, this would be the Trunks that left to join the duplicate of him and Mai in their timeline and through time shenanigans the timelines are fine and Trunks can ask Goku and co to help against Fuu

Can be the repeat of the Future Trunks/Zamasu/Goku Black arc as it’s incorporating Trunks again but this time has a god/Kai approval

Don’t know the details as it would need to be altered a bit to fit the anime as they didn’t do the multiverse stuff the games do

Maybe incorporate the other universes like Jirens 11 or the unknown ones like 1

Edit: realized this is a lot of the Heroes plot so maybe just find a way to connect them somewhat officially

Dragon Ball Online stuff

I don’t know too much about the game but I know it had a lot of stuff that Toriyama helped add that could make its way into canon in some version

Like Tien already has his dojo which was the idea that was first in the game

Some ideas I had without going into detail as these can be one episode “fillers”

Krillin’s dojo, has a dojo similar to Tien for the new turtle and crane schools to exist

Ms. Buu, Buu wants a companion and creates his wife Ms. Buu so can see that happening as even in Xenoverse he just creates kids so some form of Buu having a Major family can work

Gohans book, Gohan writes a book about Ki control that spreads and has many people learn about ki including Mr. Satan, probably more of a post-Z time but can at least get started here plus it ties into his Scholar profession and how he taught Videl in Z

Goten and Trunk different paths, Trunk takes up the sword and is a swords master and Goten with martial arts so they grow in those aspects, in Online they eventually teach so maybe build that idea for the future

Namek on earth, for whatever reason namekians are on earth in DB online and they’re not just descendants of Piccolo and Dende

This could work as Namekians are friendly with the Z fighters and they just need water to live but don’t know what impact it would have

So that was the adaption stuff

Now for my original off-the-wall ideas

Android 8 upgrade, somehow Android 8 gets an upgrade and can compete against the z fighters but is used for evil or something, if Hedo can make androids capable to fight Gohan and Piccolo then anything is possible lol

Adapting some Z movie villains:

Turles and the tree of might, another Saiyan that survived kinda like Tarble but his fruit of the tree of light gives him a power boost capable of actually fighting the Z fighters

Lord Slug, evil namekian can be old yet super powerful like Moro and gets his youth back

Cool Cooler, instead of just Freiza again, I think Cooler could be what Frost was acting as but being a good guy but he has a villain he needs help defeating or something

Janemba is just a pretty strong alien with a good power set, Janemba could take a lot of hits in the bigger form and had the teleport portal blade attacks in his more iconic form

Lastly, the one people are mixed on but for the most part, want

Redo GT

This would have to be after the Z of Dragon ball so it's not likely but if they do go past the end of Z

Black star dragon balls

Just needs fine-tuning, as its main problem was that it was too long leaving it to have a lot of bad episodes,

Plus it can give Universe 7 more world building

Baby saga

Can mostly be the same but obviously more modernized and fix the issues it had

The body-snatching idea was good alone and then adding the backstory was solid on its own

Super Android 17

This would need the most workaround as maybe it isn’t 17 this time but Gamma 1 and someone rebuilt Gamma 2 and they do the fused idea people thought Super Hero would have before release

Shenron/Dragon saga

This can again be mostly the same just modernized

Having there be a drawback for all the wishes they have made is good

The dragons would need some work as outside of Nova Eis and Shin the others can be changed

And the ending can be virtually the same again

And I’m not writing it out but this is again the opportunity to not make GT Goku time

[gainaxvel3o]

I feel that rewrites get a bit of a bad rap, at least in the idea that deviating from canon inherently taints it. A lot of my favorite stories and franchises thrive on constant reinvention and rewriting of the source material to fit the interests of the creative staff, even when they run contrary to what came before. Is Rise of the TMNT a bad show because of its shake ups to the traditional team dynamics? Is FMA 2003 a bad show because it decided to switch gears midway and tackle different themes than the manga? Are any of the Sonic cartoons bad because they don’t follow the games canon? I don’t see too many people mad that Starship Troopers The Movie was the total thematic opposite of its original book, so I don’t think rewriting an existing media is the issue here, exactly.

In my opinion, the problem with bad rewrites is the same problem that bad fanfiction runs into, in that both are largely reactionary pieces to an existinting source material. These aren’t your characters, this isn’t your story, your playing with toys and what you do with them says a lot about your priorities as a writer, whether keeping to canon or throwing it out when its convenient. Fanfics and rewrites hit a ceiling when its a writer trying to “fix the flaws” of the source material to their liking, because its all too easy to make it not about bulding a strong narrative, but airing out your grievances without poetry. Does focusing on this one character actually help the story? Maybe there’s a reason why this element was cut? What does it say, for example, that you feel the need to have these characters reconcile when the original story had them broken up for a reason? At best, you get a dry retelling with extra fluff but no personality, and at worst you make a 7/10 series look like a 10/10 with your fixing attempts.

To use an official example, I think a lot about the Dragon Ball Super manga that ran in tandem with the anime. Both followed a set of guidelines from Toriyama about how events would play out. Toyotaro would often introduce his own ideas into the story. That in it of itself was never the problem.

His ideas, however, were either ignored later or were needlessly convoluted.

Toyotaro introduced a stamina weakness to Super Saiyan Blue, that when you use it multiple times in a row it decreases its power by 10%. This was used to explain Vegeta losing to Hit during their U6 Tournament fight. The weakness does not sound like a bad idea in it of itself, until later events in the series ended up having Goku and Vegeta use Super Saiyan Blue repeatedly. The weakness never came up again.

Okay, but that was a minor plot hole in the grand scheme. A much bigger problem is when Toyotaro decided to forgo the anime’s ending, where Zamasu became an evil spirit that destroyed the universe (somehow), we have an ending where Merged Zamasu is repeatedly split and multiplied across ever slice by the heroes. That sounds much more logical then? Not quite, because Toyotaro still keeps the ending where Future Zeno erases the universe due to Merged Zamasu’s influence. In the anime, Future Zeno was getting rid of a cancer afflicting the entire universe. In the manga, Future Zeno comes across as more of an asshole, because all he had to do was erase the Zamasu clones instead of wiping out the entire timeline. Sometimes, what sounds like a logical fix may in fact make your story worse, especially without thought put into making it work in context. 

A good rewrite can come from spiteful places, but they can’t grow from there. Even as you’re tearing down something, you have to offer something in return, or else the rewrite becomes boring. If you’re going to rewrite canon, tell a story, even if it goes against the original! Ask yourself, what is this rewrite trying to do, how can I make what I want happen in a way that’s narratively satisfying? If the original isn’t finished, then all the more reason to deviate and plan out your own ending.

Tl;dr, if you’re going to rewrite canon, make sure you write something good out of it.

[emmacornell]

Dragon Ball Z Ask Game!!!

all the numbers.

all of them.

GO!!!

@sonikkuruzu i've combined your ask with the anon it's @beegl isn't it you're the only person i could think of that would tell me to do all of them 😹that asked for literally all the questions lmao

Which series is your favorite (Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super, etc.)?

Aight if I have to pick one it's probably Z just cause that's the one I remember rewatching the most (mostly cause thats what tv liked to replay the most back then), but OGDB is very close to my heart and GT is great in both good and bad ways. Super exists i guess idunno

Who is your favorite character?

Oh wow hm I gotta think about that I wonder who could my favorite character possiblRaditz i love Raditz I love him so much y'all don't even know I love Raditz so much don't get me started I won't shut up about it

List your top five favorite characters in order of how much you like them.

Okay Top 5 gotta make me actually think lets go

Raditz

Yamcha

S. Broly

Gogeta (specifically SSJ4 but Z is also fantastic)

Cooler

Who is your least favorite character?

Everything related to Buu. I can't stand Buu.

Who is your favorite villain?

OOOHOHOHO I had to think about this one cause I honestly love a LOT of DB villains. I guess if I had to pick one I'd pick Cell! I've always thought he was a super fun and terrifying villain and I love his design all forms of him.

Which saga is your favorite?

Namek Saga my beloooved

Which saga is your least favorite?

Buu arc.

Do you have a favorite episode from the anime/chapter from the manga?

Aside from the Driving episode because that episode is *chefs kiss* my favorite is that like one or two episodes that take place between Goku and Gohan getting out the HTC and the Cell Games where Goku is just spending time with his friends and family. Those moments are so damn sweet and wholesome and make me cry because Goku is such a good man and a good father for choosing to spend what he'd figure to be his last moments on earth with his loved ones.

Also that bit with Krillin full force chucking a rock at Goku makes me wheeze.

What is your favorite fight?

Can I say every bit of fighting from DBS Broly cause that movie means a lot to me.

The Dragon Ball series isn’t exactly known for being consistent with its story, its characters, and various other things. Which inconsistency irritates you the most?

The completely out of nowhere character assassination of Yamcha at the beginning of Z. I'm supposed to believe this man who couldn't be in the same room with a woman without straight up dying turned into a homewrecking womanizer after having a solid relationship with ONE woman?????

Have you seen any of the films? If so, which one is your favorite?

Yes almost all of them (I haven’t seen Super Hero yet I’m waiting till after finals) and DBS Broly hands down zero hesitation no questions

How long have you been watching/reading the Dragon Ball series?

Since I was like 4 so almost 22 years ayooo

Have you played any of the games?

I have played so many DB games the Tenkaichi games and Budokai Tenkaichi games are my childhood also please if anyone plays DBXV2 on PS4 or DBFZ on PS4/Switch hmu play with me I also play Dokkan and DBLegends and I do my best not to whale too hard I swear. Also yes I will be playing Breakers.

Do you own any merch?

SHFigs and FRS kits are my life. (NYCC exclusive S Broly SHFig i am CRYING i need you in my life to add to the Broly Shrine)

Do you have any favorite ships (canon or otherwise)?

I don't ship things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just like seeing art of characters I like being happy together

Which anime opening is your favorite?

I love so many bruh I can't pick ONE. Makafushigi Adventure, Cha La Head Cha La, Dragon Soul, Rock the Dragon, Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku, Welcome to the Grand Tour, Chouzetsu Dynamic they all slap

Which anime ending is your favorite?

Again so many of them SLAP. Romantic Ageru Yo, Zenkai Power, We Were Angels

What is your opinion of GT?

GT is good it's just really dumb and slow. I know that doesn't make any sense but GT isn't god awful just because it's stupid. There's a ton of good bits in GT and SSJ4 is absolutely incredible.

What is your opinion of Super?

I have mixed emotions about Super. A good amount of it is not bad! There's parts I can enjoy. But the character assassination of Goku is just bruh why c'mon it's so painful that is not my boy

If you could hang out with one character, who would it be?

You're expecting me to say Raditz aren't you?

Well you are correct.

Which Bulma hairstyle is your favorite?

THAT CUTE AF POST NAMEK FRO SHE HAD THAT LOOK WAS SO CUTE

Do you prefer the sub or the dub?

I love the sub for OGDB but for everything else I have to do dub

What is your favorite technique?

Alright this one might be controversial but Mafuba is a great technique I would put all of my enemies in jars if I could.

If you could write your own episode, what would it be about?

Ok hear me out we bring back Raditz and-

What would you wish for with the dragon balls?

If we're talking post Dende-ification of the balls then I get three wishes lets go.

Shenron give me top surgery so I can finally be free of my tits

I want a 2 bedroom 1.5 bath Capsule home

Gimme $1 mil

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

dragon ball super superhero spoilers woo

I don’t remember if I mentioned that I’d bought a ticket to go see this or that a whole 2 days before it screened I managed to accidentally recruit a friend to come watch it with me, but hey I just got home from the cinema after watching Dragon Ball Super: Superhero! Dubbed! And it was pretty solid!

Definitely think choosing to strongly focus on Piccolo and Gohan was a great choice, it’s nice seeing other characters take a strong spotlight position again instead of just Goku and Vegeta as the stars of everything modern Dragon Ball is up to. Helps that I think Gohan and Piccolo each work very endearingly as lead characters. Piccolo doesn’t really have much of a character journey here, he’s mostly just there as a vehicle to experience the story, but he’s definitely a fun one for that and like hey he gets a new form, sure. Gohan does have some development here, and it’s well executed at that - although it is literally just him having to remember the importance of training so he can defend the earth - which is an arc he’s largely had before and which I’m expecting once again won’t really matter in future super content. They can once again just have him lose access to that new form he got (kinda don’t like its design btw, and it was disappointing that it only really saw a few minutes of usage anyway, also disappointing was that it was treated as a rage form and like, come on dude) through not training then just repeat that arc. But that’s cynical of me and not relevent to this movie, so for now I’m happy to say I like how Gohan was done here.

Side characters don’t really bear as much mention here. Goku and Vegeta are largely just training, Vegeta beats Goku in said training because sure, got it. Krillin is largely a laughing stock which is like, whatever. Pan is really cute and really fun and I enjoyed her screentime a lot. Surprisingly enough they make Goten and Trunks fail the fusion dance but then have Fat Gotenks still help out quite a lot in the fight, I actually really enjoyed that. They made Beerus develop a crush on Cheelai which, hey it’s a new Beerus joke I’ll take it. I don’t think I have anything else to comment on here.

Probs the stars in terms of having well-executed character arcs here were actually the villains, specifically the Androids Gamma 1 and 2. Their characterisation and arcs are truest to the Superhero title in the movie’s name, basically just dudes programmed to act like costume superheroes, but they’re doing evil shit right now because they’re misinformed, and then they manage to assess the situation, reevaluate what they’re doing, and then actually play heroes and shit. This also all happens during the fight by the way, which I really like - Dragon Ball movies can be prone to X minutes of plot before Y minutes of huge fight, but this one was way more of an actual mixture of both, which we like a lot.

Certainly have mixed feelings on the eventual main antagonist though. Cell Max. He’s not Cell - in terms of character he’s really just a giant screaming kaiju - but he’s designed to look like Cell. Thing is they give pretty much the best possible justification for this to be the case imaginable, he’s literally designed off of Cell because the Red Ribbon Army dudes saw how strong Cell was and still have Gero’s notes after all, and was then built by Gero’s grandson Dr Hedo since hey he’d be able to do what his granddad did easy. In-universe it’s really believable that he’d be a thing that existed. Where it gets easier for me to be negative is, he’s designed like Cell for nostalgia lol. Super loves redoing what it knows we liked before, so we get a villain that looks like Cell and is called Cell, because Gohan’s biggest moment was against Cell so now Gohan can fight Cell but again. The justification works and feels natural but it’s hard not to be upset by that meta of Super just kinda doing old stuff again. Also lowkey kinda wish he got like, a smaller form at the end, just because giant characters don’t make for as fun fight choreography.

Visuals of this movie were definitely a curious one. Early reactions obviously leaned negative because Dragon Ball found its best 2D anime style yet in Broly and then immediately for the next movie jumped to full 3D. And I don’t think the early trailers looked great. Come the final product though and honestly this looks super great lol, the fight in the rain especially. I can’t pretend I didn’t prefer how the 2D sequences in this very same movie looked - but the 3D fight animation was still very good and still felt very Dragon Ball in terms of choreography and spectacle and such. Flashy lights were very flashy.

Suppose all around like, yeah good time. It’s weird, in many ways it does feel like an improvement over, say, Battle of Gods and Broly - plot progressing during the fights instead of stopping just to have those fights, as well as obviously strong utilisation of the sidecast instead of just Goku and Vegeta exclusively - definitely on paper makes for a really good time. But at the same time I didn’t quite enjoy it as much as those movies. Weird. Oh well. 7/10, sure.

[imagine-your-love-story]

I totally relate to the "my F/O has a canon partner/wife and I'm a sad bean about it".

Two of my F/Os (who funnily enough share the same source) had two amazing girls. One F/O married with kid(s). Even if both their partners are deceased I often feel kind of.. idk. Unwanted? Like. Why would they choose me when they had the perfect partners. Are they even bi or pan?? I'm nothing like their previous partners and it's really nerve wrecking when I'm feeling down.

If anyone has advice I'm kissing y'all's feet fellow self shippers. The only thing that consoles me is that they'd like someone crafty and I am furiously clinging to that qjdjqjdnwkzka

Oh dearest darling anon, sending hugs your way!

There are several things to remember here:

1. Canon is only a suggestion.

Do you know how many of my f/os die repeatedly in canon???? I gotta shake things up if everyone is going to stay alive! XD Just because your f/o is [insert label here - gay, straight, married, single, etc.] in canon doesn't mean they stay that way in YOUR universe!

2. AUs are AWESOME

Alternate universes exist for a reason! If you can't imagine your canon f/o being bi or pan, then what about an AU f/o? ANYTHING can happen in an alternate universe! :D

3. It's okay to feel bad sometimes.

Sometimes, when you try to completely eliminate a feeling by telling yourself, "I shouldn't feel this way!" it makes you feel worse!

So let yourself feel bad for a little while.

But don't forget why you fell in love with you f/o in the first place. You were drawn to them for a reason. It doesn't matter if the doubts creep in and you think, "Oh, they'd never like me." But YOU liked them first! Something in their characterization spoke to you and made you feel safe and loved.

THOSE are the feelings you should always pay attention to!

4. It's fiction!

This is your playground! When we pick up books and settle in to watch a movie, we're seeking a story where anything is possible! Dragons! Masquerade balls! Super spy adventures! An epic shootout between the heroes and the bad guys where the heroes never get hit by a flying bullet ever!

When your brain says, "LOL fat chance", that's when you know it's time for, "I make the rules!" and you craft a story of your f/o that is so deliciously decadent and self-indulgent because you're here to have fun and enjoy yourself! ♥

[irarelypostanything]

Unnecessary Arguments - Invincible

*Spoilers*

Person #1: Have you finished that new superhero cartoon on Amazon Prime? It’s really, really good

Person #2: Did you watch it on Amazon Streaming using your Amazon Prime credit card?

Person #1: Yes…

Person #2: Amazon owns the nation’s products. Amazon owns our electronics, our communications network, our entertainment. Let me know when there’s a Church of Bezos

Person #1: Have you watched it or not?

Person #2: I have

Person #1: HA

Person #2: It was okay…

Person #1: What do you mean, it was okay?! It was BRILLIANT. Great acting, great animation, wonderful story telling. The best damn show on TV, and it didn’t achieve this by jamming left-wing politics down our throats

Person #2: Why do all our arguments end up getting political? Did you enjoy watching a super villain attempt to destroy Mount Rushmore and kill everyone in the vicinity?

Person #1: Before being put in his place? Yes

Person #2: I like the more comedic aspects of the show - that was one example - but I’m just tired of all the edginess. I liked old superhero stories because they were fun. Now I can’t get two minutes through without watching guts spilling

Person #1: That’s real war for you

Person #2: See, that’s the thing. It’s really not. Critics love to write papers about how these new TV shows are so nuanced and are such a brilliant take on morality and war, but do they actually know what war is like?

Person #1: Do you?

Person #2: Well….no...but sometimes I’ll see people make movies about actual war, with realistic depictions of what armed combat is actually like, and the psychological impact of doing morally questionable things, and no one will care, and then some comic book will get animated and everyone will act like it’s the best thing since sliced bread

Person #1: What don’t you like about this show?

Person #2: It’s just DC. They took DC and crossed it with Dragon Ball Z, hired a bunch of A-list actors, and then animated it

Person #1: Gorgeously animated it

Person #2: Sure, the animation is good. Not really my style, but I know talent when I see it. What’s with these characters without superpowers? Why date someone who thinks going to the soup kitchen is a big deal when you’re diverting an asteroid?

Person #1: That’s what makes the show so brilliant. It’s directly addressing the questions we would ask ourselves when watching generic superhero shows. Does serving 100 people food mean much if you have a superpower that lets you feed 10,000? Maybe. Maybe not. But if you get hung up on that, you’re little more than an overpowered character who sees the pursuits of “lesser people” as beneath you. It’s one of the two main themes of the show

Person #2: What’s the other?

Person #1: Love. Love transcending these disparities in power. The flashback that changed everything was a baseball game, of all things. This god, this monster, this entity who could throw a baseball into space or destroy an entire planet in a second was so affected by seeing his flesh and flood move a baseball and run. It’s really touching, and it reminds us that things matter. However small, we matter

Person #2: WHY ARE YOU CRYING?

Person #1: Oh. Well my dad, he…

Person #2: Oh, I’m so sorry

Person #1: I was going to say that he told me I sucked at baseball

Person #2: Oh. Anyway, so we have this superhero who’s actually a psychopath...yup...seen that already. High school superhero...why does this seem so familiar. It’s just every superhero story but with more character deaths

Person #1: So

Person #2: Well, I never see these kinds of shows explain WHY an all-powerful planet would be hellbent on conquest. Are there resources to be gained? Are they desperate?

Person #1: I am sure this will be explained in the next season

Person #2: Real war is complicated. People are usually fighting for resources. And the villains aren’t just blowing things up to blow things up, they’re charismatic political leaders with their own agendas, and moral compasses

Person #1: The villains in this show are FANTASTIC

Person #2: Are they? There are so many of them. That one guy from Teen Titans. Titan, right?

Person #1: Wut

Person #2: Clones...that’s actually a pretty interesting concept right there. Martian facehuggers. Emperor of the Fire Nation. Evil Panther. Aliens with decades to prepare technology and open portals but without the ability to realize a greater threat exists on the same planet

Person #1: How is that a plot hole

Person #2: What, does no one have wi-fi here? They had to spend a season traveling back to Earth to send a message, instead of just transmitting?

Person #1: That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. They’re going across galaxies. I can’t access my wifi router from some other solar system. And how would that even work? Think of the stupidity of what you’re saying

Person #2: Well...these are just tropes. And I never get these tropes. Some guy can remotely control robot superheroes but chooses to be inside one for some reason. We can basically cure every disease and our medical technology is a million times better but we don’t bio-enhcnace everyone. Why do people fly when they can teleport? Why does no one properly account for the technology they have?

Person #1: That’s how it would be like in real life. Keep the best technology under wraps

Person #2: Uh huh. Sure. Whatever. I’m glad I watched this show, it was fun, but come on. It was nothing earth shattering

Person #1: You have terrible taste. Go watch My Hero Academia

Person #2: I WILL, thank you very much

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Movie 2: Super Hero (5/5)

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA EXISTENCE IS TORMENT RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Okay, so we're now at the last leg of this movie, where everybody teams up to defeat Cell Max. Once Piccolo turned orange and convinced the Gammas that Magenta was evil, the Red Ribbon Army collapsed on the spot. Magenta went to activate Cell Max as a desperate counterattack, but he was killed by Dr. Hedo. However, Magenta still managed to get Cell Max started up before he died, and the first thing Cell Max does is smash up whatever's left of the Red Ribbon base.

It's not clear to me what happened to the rest of the bad guys in this movie. A lot of them probably fled when the battle turned against them, but it's a pretty big facility, and I doubt they all could have evacuated in time. Like, Carmine was knocked unconscious a few minutes ago, and I doubt anyone went to the trouble of getting him to safety before Cell Max showed up. I suppose he could have survived this, but it seems pretty unlikely.

So let's talk about Cell Max. Apparently when Dr. Gero came up with the idea of Cell, he forwarded all of his notes and design specifications to Magenta at Red Pharmaceutical Company. RPC tried to make use of the data after Gero's death, but they couldn't figure it out, probably because the real breakthroughs in Cell's creation were accomplished by Gero's computer in an alternate future. But Magenta knew the Original Cell could get the job done, so he wanted one of his own, and when he learned of Dr. Hedo he thought he finally had the man to make Cell Max a reality.

And Hedo delivered... mostly. Cell Max's body was completed first, but it was going to take a lot longer to develop his brain, and Hedo wasn't particularly eager to work on Cell Max because he liked the superheroic Gammas better. He warned Magenta not to use Cell Max, because he would just run wild and destroy the world Magenta wanted to conquer.

And you know, it's poetic that Magenta's last act was to release this mindless engine of destruction, because that's really all the Red Ribbon Army ever was. Magenta mocked Dr. Hedo's fixation on super heroes, but Magenta's fixation was on the Red Ribbon Army, a failed mercenary group brought down by its idiotic leader.

Red's story ended with his army destroyed, and then Black went on a lunatic rampage on what was left of the Red Ribbon base. Dr. Gero's story ended with his own androids turning on him, and then Cell activates and nearly destroys the world with little concern for Gero's agenda. And now Magenta lies dead in his own stronghold, while Cell Max goes on a rampage.

It always turns out the same way, but with Magenta, we shouldn't be too surprised, because he admired Red and Gero so much. He saw their spectacular failures and convinced himself that they almost won, and if he just gave it one more try, he could get it right this time. But instead, Magenta just wound up sharing their fate, because this is the only way it could ever end. The Red Ribbon Army isn't some noble cause. It's just a bunch of goons who push around innocent people. And the problem with the whole 'might-makes-right' philosophy is that sooner or later you run into someone mightier who pushes back. Commander Red ran into Goku. Dr. Gero ran into Vegeta and his own creations. Cell ran into Gohan.

And I guess Magenta's failure to understand that is what led him to idolize the original Cell so much. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous that he would have asked Dr. Hedo to make a new one. Hedo was a kid when Cell threatened to destroy the Earth, but Magenta ought to have remembered that broadcast. He must have understood that Cell wasn't loyal to the Red Ribbon cause. When he announced the Cell Games, he didn't say anything about sparing the RPC. But I think Magenta never considered any of this. He just knew that Cell was powerful and he wanted one. For men like Magenta, the power is the point. Whether or not you can control the power is a minor detail. It was probably more important to Magenta that he was the one who got to push the button, regardless of the consequences.

Okay, so I kind of got off-track. What is Cell Max, exactly? Well, Hedo's a much better scientist than Gero was, so he managed to take Gero's incomplete "recipe" and make a bigger, even more powerful version of Cell. The downside is that this version is dumb as a bag of hammers. He just stomps around and screams a lot. He seems to have a canny fighting skill behind all that bestial rage, but that's it. You won't find any of the smarmy taunting or mindgames that we used to see from the original Cell. This version might be more powerful, but it's not perfect.

To put it another way, Cell Max absolutely sucks, and I mean that as a compliment. This movie kind of needed a final boss to offset the morally conflicted Hedo and Gammas, and Cell Max makes a good choice for that role. We don't need a cunning, invincible super villain for the last 20 minutes of this movie. There just isn't time for that. What we need is a doomsday weapon unleashed by Magenta in a final act of spite. Magenta probably thought he was getting revenge with this last strike, but this is the good guys' chance to do the classic superhero bit where they have a misunderstanding, fight, and then team up to tackle the real threat.

Also, as a fan of Cell, I just like this novel way of bringing him back in the Dragon Ball Super era. We've already seen Frieza revived and Broly revamped for the canon. Bringing back Cell seemed like a very obvious play, except it's a really dumb idea. Cell was a failure. He took on the whole world and lost, dying alone in a barren waste. Most of the world had no idea who he was or where he came from, and he didn't have flunkies who would wish him back to life the way Sorbet brought back Frieza. It makes much, much more sense that a character like Magenta would rather build a new Cell than bother with the original. And this only emphasizes Cell's inhumanity. He's not a villain, he's a weapon, to be discarded and replaced when he becomes obsolete. Is the new model better? That all depends on how many targets it can hit.

Broadly speaking, Cell Max loos like Semiperfect Cell from DBZ. The same bulky proportions, the same fish lips, etc. The difference is that Cell Max still has wings, which were curiously absent from Semiperfect Cell. Also, Cell Max is unique for his naughty red color, and his tail comes out of his butt like Frieza's, instead of sticking out from between his shoulder blades. Oh, and his feet look like hiking boots.

Also, the end of his tail isn't a stinger. It's like this club-looking thing that can shoot hot pink lasers. I've seen fans draw Cell Max in a "perfect form", which mostly looks like the Original Cell with Cell Max's red and green colorations, and it's interesting to look at, but it kind of misses the point. Cell Max isn't designed to absorb something else and achieve a completed form. This is as good as it gets for Cell Max. I mean, Dr. Hedo seemed to think he would be smarter and easier to control with time, but we really have no way to be sure of that, do we?

All right, let me try to get on with the plot here. The Gammas immediately attack Cell Max, not only because of their heroic natures, but because they know how dangerous Cell Max is. Piccolo leads the Z-Fighters to help out, and the Gammas explain that they need to aim for Max's head, because Dr. Hedo added a weak spot there. If you blast through his cranium, it'll trigger an explosion powerful enough to destroy Max's cells, but even the "weak spot" is still pretty damn strong. Also Cell Max is quite the artful dodger, so it takes a while for anyone to land a blow. Piccolo manages to pull it off, but the attack isn't powerful enough to be effective.

"RAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH EVERYTHING HURTS SO MUCH! WHAT AM I? WHY AM I? AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

As Cell Max destroys more of the base, the ground starts to give way under Pan's feet, and she can't make it to the safety of Bulma's airship. Krillin tells her to fly, but we know she can't do that yet. But she tries really hard and finally learns to fly! I guess she just needed the right motivation. Piccolo reminded her of her Saiyan blood at the start of the movie, and he was trying to reassure her, but Saiyan power isn't just a blessing, it's something you earn through turmoil and hardship. Maybe Pan had to be in deadly peril for her to make this next leap forward. It's like how Gohan was when he clobbered Raditz.

Back at the fight, everyone realizes they need to attack with greater intensity to stop Cell Max, so Goten and Trunks do a Fusion. But they fuck it up and turn into Fat Gotenks. He can't even turn Super Saiyan, but Gotenks is no quitter, so he charges in anyway, and manages to headbutt Cell hard enough to crack his exoskeleton. I guess they're doing chip damage to his head? Like Piccolo hit him pretty damn hard earlier, and now this, so they must be making some progress, right? Anyway, Piccolo praises this moment as the first time a failed Fusion actually does something useful.

Speaking of this, remember how Goten and Trunks had two different opportunities to use Fusion in GT, and they just... didn't do it for no good reason, even though it would have been awesome and cool? Remember how GT had no idea what to do with Piccolo, so they just killed him off and made him live in Hell? Remember how GT fucking sucked, and this movie does the opposite of those things and it's hella rad? I don't know, I just thought I should point that out.

At this point, Gamma 2 decides to go for broke, and he asks everyone else to keep Cell busy while he readies a strike onto his noggin, basically what Gotenks did, only with more power behind it. Gamma 1 is upset about this, but 2 tells him he needs to protect Dr. Hedo, who's still alive in the rubble. "Now who's being sloppy?" 2 asks 1. Because he didn't check his sensors to make sure Hedo was okay, you see.

So they all fight, but then 18 almost gets hit, when...

Kienzan, motherfucker! First rule of being a Cell, dipshit, you're gonna have to go through Krillin.

Solar Flare! Oh! Ohhhhhhhh! Krillin is the MVP once again!

So this sets up Cell Max perfectly for Gamma 2's attack, and he comes straight down... into Max's left forearm, because he managed to block it just in time. But to 2's credit, he keeps pushing, and seems to smash through anyway...

But it's no good. Cell Max's left arm falls off, and it looks like much of his body has been turned to ash, but he's still alive. Enraged, he tries to stomp on Gamma 2, but Piccolo won't have it and he ORANGES UP. As he pushes back on Max's foot, Krillin shows up to help, and tells Piccolo to grow his body, just like he did when he fought Goku at the 23rd World Tournament. I love how Krillin doesn't just tell him this, he helps push back on Max's foot while he talks. Krillin's the real superhero here.

Piccolo's like "Oh yeah, I forgot I can do that," which annoyed some fans. I get it, it's kind of silly that he would forget a thing like this, but it was a long time ago, and it didn't work on Goku at all, so I can understand how he might have forgotten about this ability. Also, it's pretty sweet how Piccolo has so many cool powers that even he has trouble keeping them straight. He's forgotten more about being awesome than we'll ever know.

And while this does give him some much-needed leverage against Cell Max, getting big like this doesn't make him stronger, so they're not much better off than they were before. Piccolo still has plan though. he gives Gohan the senzu bean he brought with him and tells Gohan to eat it. He means to keep Cell Max busy and hopefully Gohan will get enough power built up to deliver a killing blow.

So for a while, they have a good old fashion Big Boy Wrassle, but the tide quickly shifts in favor of Cell Max. Gohan still isn't ready, so Krillin leads a desperate charge to distract Max and give Piccolo a chance. But they all get taken out, and it ends up being all in Piccolo's hands again. He refuses to quit, and does everything he can to hold Max down.

And when it looks like Piccolo is finally beaten, something snaps in Gohan, and we get....

Gohan Beast! Well, they don't call it that in this movie, but that's the name for it, apparently. I remember when the movie premiered in Japan, and I kept seeing trending tags on Twitter for "Orange Piccolo", "Cell Max" and "Gohan Blanco", and thinking "What the hell happens in this movie?"

So... Gohan Beast. Basically it's like the moment where he went SSJ2 for the first time, stacked on top of Mystic Gohan. At least, that's how I see it. Remember, Goku's plan at the Cell Games was to get Gohan as powerful as he could possibly get as a Super Saiyan, so that whenever Gohan tapped into his "hidden power", it would push him into some higher form. Back then, it was SSJ2, but now, he's at his current maximum level, then he sees a good friend in dire straights, and it's pushed him into some new level. And it looks a lot like his SSJ2 form from when he was a kid, but with white or silver hair this time, and red lightning, I guess. Anyway, some people hate this form, but I don't mind it one bit. If Gohan's snapping and kicking ass, I don't care what he looks like. If he turned into a rodeo clown in this scene, I'd still be marking out.

Cell Max punches Gohan and he's like "Naw. Naw." Then he kicks the shit out of Max and starts preparing his attack. Max does his own big energy move, but Gohan doesn't give a fuck because he's in his edgy mode now. Blast that Linkin Park music, because we're doin' it.

Of course, Gohan still needs to get a clear shot, but Piccolo's not out of this yet. He just remembered another cool power he has: Stretchy Arms! Get fucked, Cell Max!

And how will Gohan capitalize on this moment? Three words: Special Beam Cannon! Hell yeah! No wonder Gohan transformed. He had to build up a lot of power just to set up this technique, so seeing Piccolo get wrecked during the charge-up must have really put him over the edge.

And that's it. Cell Max explodes, everyone gets clear of the blast, and the good guys win. Piccolo asks Gohan how he learned to do the Special Beam Cannon, and Gohan explains that he trained on it in secret. A ha! You see, Piccolo? You thought Gohan was slacking off in his training, but he was actually working on things you didn't even know about!

And this sums up the Piccolo's character arc in this movie. Piccolo tries so hard to get someone else to take the lead in this film. When he can't raise Goku or Vegeta, he starts scheming to traumatize Gohan and make him fired up enough to become the big hero. And yet, in the end, Piccolo was the big hero of this movie. He was so busy trying to get someone else to handle things that he couldn't see it. But he was the one who infiltrated the enemy base, he was the one who got the cool new power up, he was the one who flipped the Gammas, and he came up with the plan to beat Cell Max. Sure, his plan was to get Gohan to fire the kill shot, but what was that kill shot? Piccolo's signature techique, which Gohan learned on his own, simply because Piccolo was such a great role model and mentor to him over all these years.

Unfortunately, Gamma 2 died in his attack on Cell Max. He used up all his energy in that move, which apparently causes his entire body to disintegrate. Piccolo consoles Hedo by observing that 2's stunt significantly weakened Cell Max's attacks, making it possible for the rest of them to finish what Gamma 2 started. "He was a real superhero", Piccolo says, which is probably as great an honor as Gamma 2 could have hoped for.

Hedo admits that he basically knew what Magenta was all about, but he played along anyway in order to get the money for his research. But with Gamma 2's death, he now realizes the error of his ways. Gamma 2 didn't do anything wrong, but he was the one who paid for Hedo's reckless alliance with the Red Ribbon. He offers to turn himself in to the authorities, but Krillin objects to this, saying the authorities can't handle someone like Hedo. Remember, this movie opened with him getting out of prison, and everyone was relieved to see him go.

Instead, Piccolo suggests they all overlook this incident, and Hedo asks Bulma if he can work for her now. She's impressed with his bulletproof skin treatment, and thinks she can find a place for him in their cosmetics business. And Gamma 1 can be some sort of security guard. Fair enough.

So that about wraps things up, except for one last bit of business. Pan pulls Piccolo aside to show off how she learned to fly during the battle. She swoops around and everything, and Piccolo proudly tells her that she'll begin the next phase of her training tomorrow. Hooray!

Then we get a post-credits scene where it turns out Goku and Vegeta have been fighting this entire time, and they're finally at the end of their evenly-matched bout. They're so exhausted that they can barely move, but Vegeta manages to kind of gently shove Goku with his fist, knocking him over and earning the victory. Then he falls over as he celebrates. Goku's fine with it because he's a class act, naturally.

As for the spectators, Beerus fell asleep during the fight, and Whis almost forgot he was supposed to be officiating. Cheelai sat through the whole thing, but she was bored the whole time. She looks to Broly for solidarity, but he and Lemo were moved to manly tears at this epic combat spectacle. "Men!" Cheelai says. Look, if you and Broly are gonna be a thing, Cheelai, you have to respect his interests. I'm just glad Broly has something like this to get passionate about. In the last movie he was so repressed and timid. It's great that Whis put on this no-transforming no-ki-blast fight specifically for Broly's benefit, and he seems to have gotten a lot out of it. And it's kind of cute how Cheelai couldn't care less, but she's way off the mark. This was great.

And that's it for Super Hero. I was worried I'd run out of image space for this post, but somehow I managed to get it all in under 30 images. Let me see how many I have left...

Yeah, this was a cool shot of Gohan Beast, or Beast Gohan, or whatever you want to call it.

Nice simultaneous punch with Cell Max and Piccolo. The eternal struggle between red and orange.

Yeah, I forgot to talk about 18's yoga pants and shorter haircut. Some people hate this look, but this is peak 18 in my book. Krillin's a lucky man, I tell you what.

D'awwwww...

"RAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH SOMEONE PLEASE LET ME DIE RAAAAAAAHHHHHHH--Oh! Oh, that's much better. Thank you. Well, I'd better start exploding then. Raaah."

Wow I had a lot of image space left, didn't I? I thought this was going to be a lot tougher than it was.

Well, anyway, this was a fantastic movie. It was so great that I was kind of stressing out about how to cover it properly, but now that it's over I feel pretty good about the whole thing. I don't know if they'll make another Dragon Ball movie. It makes sense, considering how much money this one made, but you never can tell. All I know is that I'm pretty excited for whatever they do next.

And yeah, that's all I've got for this movie, but we're not done with Super Hero just yet. No, now I need to cover the manga adaptation of this movie, and if my calculations are correct, that should be wrapping up next week, so that's some excellent timing there. I will see you then!

[cartoonsliveon]

Big Hero 6: Pokemon AU

So I’ve been wanting to do this for like forever, but I’ve been having the hardest time also figuring out what Pokemon all of them would have and Pokemon that would match their personalities, their “special” abilities, and such.

Baymax is still a robot in this universe, and his design still stays the same. Originally, I thought about him being shaped or designed to look more like a Chansey or Blissey. Chansey and Blissey are characteristically known as being healing Pokemon, they’re always in the Pokemon Center with Nurse Joy tending to their Pokemon patients. But Baymax was inspired by Tadashi’s Chansey. 

Tadashi used to have a Chansey as a child, which he’s had ever since it was a Happiny. Chansey was always taking care of him and Hiro, and their parents. He knew that Chansey wanted to help people and Pokemon, it was in the Pokemon’s nature. Chansey died in the car accident that killed Tadashi and Hiro’s parents, protecting the two children. Tadashi built Baymax in Chansey’s memory, wanting to fulfill his Pokemon’s dream of helping other. Chansey was the only Pokemon Tadashi ever owned, he never took another partner after Chansey. 

When Tadashi dies, however, Hiro doesn’t have a Pokemon. He never took an interest to being a Pokemon trainer or even having a Pokemon. Hiro’s reasoning was that, because Aunt Cass had Mochi (who’s a Meowth by the way), it never felt like he needed his own Pokemon. He’s also never come across a Pokemon that he felt particularly fond of or wanted as a partner. Especially since he could just build his own, realistic robot versions of Pokemon. 

Instead of bot fighting, Hiro participates in underground, sketchy battle tournaments where trainers not only risked big bucks but also their Pokemon is their opponents liked what they were up against. Hiro has a tiny, robot replica of a Joltik that he uses in his battling. Everyone already underestimates the pokemon because they think its a bug type and it’s so tiny. When Joltik is “defeated” against Yama the first time, it was just Hiro hussling Yama. It isn’t until after Yama loses does everyone realize Hiro had a robot instead of an actual Joltik. Which is good, but not good enough to take on more than one or two Pokemon at a time. And he has a hell of a lot of Houndour and Mightyena chasing him and Tadashi.

It isn’t until after Hiro defeats Callaghan, does he actually get his first Pokemon. A Magnemite. The reasoning behind this is mainly connected to the cartoon more than the movie, as a major part of Hiro’s “abilities” other than his super genius is his use of magnetization to solve problems. And Magnemite are drawn to electric fields. Hiro still has the robot Joltik, but its mainly used as a toy or for recon that might be too worried for the others or any of their Pokemon. Baymax is very pleased that Hiro has found a Pokemon that he wants to raise and get stronger alongside. 

Although Hiro only has one Pokemon, his Magnemite, Gogo, Honey Lemon, Fred, and Wasabi have a small team of their own Pokemon.

Honey Lemon has a Buneary, a Wigglytuff, a Duosion, and Beautifly. She has a pretty diverse team consisting of a Normal Type, a Normal-Fairy Type, a Psychic Type, and a Bug-Flying Type. Buneary and Wigglytuff are really cute Pokemon, and match Honey Lemon’s adoration for all things super cute and adorable. Plus, Wigglytuff is bouncy and Honey Lemon uses her chem-balls to bounce or soften the landing of falling objects. Duosion also follows this logic of just how she uses her chem-balls. She makes herself that bunny, gelatinous armor to protect herself. Beautifly is mainly a reference to Honey Lemon’s “butterfly parties” but is also a very pretty and cute Pokemon.

Gogo has a Pachirisu, a Luxio, and Hitmonchan. Electric Types are the closest to Electromagnetic Suspension as you can get with Pokemon. Electric types are also the fastest of all the other Pokemon types. And considering Gogo loves going fast, it’s pretty obvious. That’s why she has Luxio and Pachirisu. Luxio is an intimidating looking Pokemon, who doesn’t look like the type of Pokemon to mess with (just like how Gogo doesn’t look like the type of person you want to mess with). Hitmonchan was decided upon because Gogo practices boxing as a form of work out (this is mainly revealed in the cartoon). Hitmonchan is designed as a boxer and all of its moves typically involve punching something. Why give someone who practices boxing, even if its just for exercise and not sport, a Fighting type that wasn’t designed around boxing when it exists?

Furthermore, anyone who has seen the Pokemon anime and watched the first episode Pachirisu was featured in knows how fast they can be. The only annoying thing is that Gogo’s Pachirisu is constantly being mistaken as Honey Lemon’s because of it’s adorable, cute appearance. Everyone assumes that only Honey Lemon would have the adorable Pokemon and all of Gogo’s pokemon would be scary or intimidating. Nope. Pachirisu hates this judgement way more than Gogo, and will go out of its way to ignore anyone who makes that mistake or glare daggers at them (especially if the person refuses to correct their mistake). Pachirisu will go so far as to refuse to listen to anyone who isn’t Gogo, just to drive the point home.

With the exception of his Slakoth, Fred’s Pokemon consists mainly of Dragon Types. Why wouldn’t it, considering how much the guy loves monsters and kaijus? Dragon types fit that aesthetic the most out of any other Pokemon type. Fred has a Zweilous, Fraxure, and Gible alongside his Slakoth. Slakoth is actually the first Pokemon Fred has ever had and the oldest companion he’s had. Although his Zweilous was technically suppose to be his starter (back when it was a Dino), 

Fred found Slakoth back when he was around Hiro’s age, abandoned by its trainer because it was so slow and difficult to train and injured from a previous battle it had lost. When Fred returned home, carrying Slakoth, neither of his parents made much of a fuss. Sure, Mrs. Frederickson was worried about what her rich, socialite friends would say about Fred having a Slakoth instead of a Dratini or Growlithe. But she didn’t dare make a scene or fight with Fred when she saw how much he cared over Slakoth and loved him. If anything, Mr. and Mrs. Frederickson saw it as an opportunity to see if Fred was truly ready for the responsibility to have a Pokemon. Fred doesn’t battle with Slakoth, because Slakoth doesn’t want to battle (and won’t unless Fred is in danger) and Fred respects that. Slakoth was mainly picked because I think many people who don’t know would assume that Fred was lazy or slow just based on his appearance. But in actuality, Fred is super hyper and energetic. Slakoth’s more relaxed and slower nature balances out Fred’s energy and often forces him to slow down and relax a bit. Mr. and Mrs. Frederickson were so impressed with how attentive Fred was to Slakoth’s feelings and needs, that they would later give him the Dino meant to be his starter originally.

Probably the hardest character to decide Pokemon for was Wasabi. Mainly because I wasn’t sure what type of Pokemon would best suit his character. There isn’t exactly any Pokemon (as far as I know) that specialize in lazers. And other than Minccino, there aren’t any Pokemon (to my knowledge or memory) that tend to clean. Now, sort of obviously now that I’ve pointed it out, Wasabi has a Minccino. How can he not have a Pokemon who enjoys cleaning and is as diligent as he is about it?

Wasabi’s Pokemon team also consists of a Medicham, an Umbreon, and a Bayleef. Medicham is due to Wasabi’s interest in meditation (a hobby expressed in Big Hero 6 the series and cartoon shorts). Medicham’s powers come from meditating and meditation is how Wasabi centers himself and relaxes. Bayleef is due to Wasabi’s interest in sustainable garden, being a grass type. And Umbreon is due to Wasabi’s dislike/fear of the dark. The rings on Umbreon’s fur light up and glow in the dark, so I imagine Wasabi would find a lot of comfort from this Pokemon. 

And, for those of you who also watch the cartoon and are curious, I’ve also got some thoughts on what kind of Pokemon Karmi and Megan would have.

Karmi, much to Hiro’s frustration and anger in the beginning, has a Happiny. Hiro’s anger towards Karmi having a Happiny has less to do with their rivalry and how she treated him in the beginning and more to do with comparing her to Tadashi. He can’t stand how such a mean, intolerable person could have such a sweet, caring Pokemon. Most of what he knows about the Happiny evolutionary line comes from Tadashi and story’s about Tadashi’s Chansey. And Hiro has always thought highly of Tadashi. 

But Karmi also has a Nidorina and a Roselia. Roselia because the Pokemon reminds me of that rose Karmi had, that was a blend of robotics and biology. I just remember how really cool the rose was, how important a moment it was connected to for her and I think just an incredible blend of both Karmi and Hiro’s specialties/passions. The main reason Karmi has Nidorina is because of the Poison Typing. Karmi specializes in pathology, and the closest to pathology with Pokemon is Poison Types in a way. However, most scientist type trainers in the Pokemon games only carry around Grimer/Muk and Koffing/Weezing. Neither of those Pokemon seemed like they suited a biologist, or a pathologist to be even more specific. 

Hiro and Karmi continue to compete academically, but Karmi will also claim that she’s a superior trainer to Hiro, because she has three amazing Pokemon, and Hiro is still learning how to train Magnemite.

Megan has a Whismur. Out of all of Hiro’s friends, she is the only other person who also only has one Pokemon. As an aspiring reporter/detective, Whismur felt like the logical choice because of how focused and centralized it is around sound. Whismur, and the Whismur evolution line, is also used by the reporter/interviewer in the Gen III Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald GBA Pokemon games. Despite Whismur’s size though, it shouldn’t be underestimate and has taken on many opponents much larger than it and won. 

Despite only having one Pokemon, Megan has had a lot of experience with taking care of them because her father is a police officer. Chief Cruz has an Arcanine himself, and Megan often helped take care of the station’s Growlithes and the young inexperienced Growlithe they were training. Originally, her father wanted to give her a Growlithe or Houndour as her first Pokemon, but she instead came home with her Whismur one day. She had convinced a classmate to lend her their Pokemon so that she could capture Whismur. And the rest was history. He still plans to one day get Megan a Growlithe or Houndour for her birthday or a special occassion, but is not sure when. Nor does he want Megan or Whismur to take it the wrong way and assume that he doesn’t think they can take care of themselves.

[galladerocksgamer]

I saw several other blogs passing this around and it looked fun so I decided I’d give it a shot and see if I can’t spread it around to some others to do too!

Pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions!  Don’t look at them first. Then tag some people.

Gravity Falls

BoJack Horseman

My Hero Academia

Trollhunters

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Who is your favorite character in 2?

Wow I’ve never really stopped to consider this one that hard before.  My gut reaction is to say Todd because he is simply wonderful.  But Diane is definitely up there too, she’s a character that I really connected to in ways I didn’t expect.  Princess Carolyn is in the running too, her series-long character arc was one of the most heartbreaking and heartwarming.  I’m not sure I can pick one fave, I just love the development of these three.

Who is your least favorite character in 1? 

Uh geez I’m not sure I really have a LEAST favorite, I can’t think of anyone that I particularly dislike.  I mean sure there are characters that I dislike because they’re jerks, like Filbrick or Preston or (duh) Bill, but in terms of like disliking them as a character?  I’m probably gonna say Priscilla Northwest, she’s as much of a rich jerk as her husband but is a lot less entertaining.  Or maybe Gabe Bensen, he’s the least amusing of Mabel’s various love interests to me.

What is your favorite episode of 4? 

A House Divided.  Just ... no contest, it’s A House Divided.  Haven’t seen much else that just stops my dang heart like the ending of that episode.  It just HURTS OKAY.  In all the best ways.  Jimhunters and Unbecoming are very close seconds.

What is your favorite season of 5? 

Overall I think it’s gotta be Season 3.  There’s a lot that I love in Season 2 especially, but on the whole Season 3 just has so much going for it.  There’s some fantastic character development and new moral issues explored within the Fire Nation itself.  There’s the invasion, Zuko joining the Gaang and having various life-changing adventures, the Boiling Rock, the freaking Ember Island Players, and of course one of the absolute best series finales in television. So yeah, it’s gotta be Season 3.

Who is your favorite couple in 3? 

Tbh I don’t really have that many ships for MHA (probably in the minority on that one).  There’s really only two couples I’m particularly into, and that’s Mirio/Amajiki and Yaoyorozu/Jiro.  Mirio is just so supportive of Amajiki and they’re just cute and GAH they’re fantastic.  And Yaoyorozu and Jiro, I think it was the first movie that got me attached to them, they’re just super cute too.  They’re both just pure adorable pairs, I love them.

What is your favorite episode of 1? 

Once again, no contest, because Not What He Seems is just, like, my favorite episode of literally anything ever.  It’s just SO GOOD.  The culmination of so much story and theory, the animation, the music, the tension of the climax, the ending reveal.  It’s just.  The best.  Gosh.  Weirdmageddon 3 is definitely close, the best finale in animation imo, but just absolutely nothing beats Not What He Seems.

What is your favorite episode of 5? 

Okay now this one is actually tough.  I’m probably gonna say Zuko Alone, it’s just brimming with heartwarming and heartbreaking material, between Zuko’s childhood flashbacks and his touching - and tragic - present story.  The Tales of Ba Sing Se is the other top candidate, of course it has the tearjerker Iroh story that is probably my favorite thing in the whole series, but I also love, well, the whole thing.  The Katara/Toph and Zuko stories are so sweet and pure, the Sokka story is hilarious, and the Momo story is also dang sad.  The Blind Bandit, Sokka’s Master, and The Southern Raiders are also personal favorites.

what is your favorite season of 2? 

I am surprised I have a definitive answer for this because the whole series is so transcendentally great, but I do in fact have an answer, and it is Season 4.  It’s my favorite story arc of the series, with BoJack for once not having a special project to center his life on, still reeling from what happened to Sarah Lynn, and having Hollyhock and Beatrice rather suddenly entering his daily life.  It’s about the closest we ever see to BoJack having some semblance of a family life.  The whole storyline of Hollyhock and Beatrice is just fantastic, and it’s the start of the real meat of Todd and Princess Carolyn’s character arcs too - and ends with the setup for Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter finally breaking their destructive cycle.  Plus it’s got my two favorite episodes of the entire series - The Old Sugarman Place and Stupid Piece of Sh*t.  Also Time’s Arrow is definitely top 10, maybe even top 5.  Also also love Hooray! Todd Episode!  And Thoughts and Prayers.  And Ruthie.  Yeah seriously no contest it is my favorite season.

How long have you watched 1? 

I started watching Gravity Falls really near the beginning.  The first episode I watched was The Inconveniencing, the fifth episode overall, and after that I was immediately intrigued and went back and watched the first four.  After that, I watched the whole series as it went.

How did you become interested in 3? 

I don’t tend to watch a lot of anime, and my experience with shounen before MHA was touch-and-go.  Like I’m a big fan of Fairy Tail and to a lesser extent Dragon Ball but I’m still heavily critical of both and would have a hard time recommending them without a heavy disclaimer.  So it was something I’d considered before but never really took the plunge into watching until, funnily enough, my anime-adverse girlfriend decided to check it out.  She’s significantly less anime-invested than me (well, she used to be at least) but lo and behold, we both wound up obsessed with it.  Color me surprised that this series wasn’t being overhyped and didn’t come with the glaring flaws of every other shounen I’ve watched.  So now this is definitely my big interest of the moment, and I am grateful to have it.

Who is your favorite actor in 4? 

Anton Yelchin, he just brought so much heart and emotion to Jim.  He’s a big part of the reason that Unbecoming just snaps my heart in two, my gosh.  As for comedic delivery, Kelsey Grammer absolutely kills it as Blinky, not that I’d expect any less from him.  He just has so many lines that completely crack me up and that’s largely because of his delightfully hammy delivery.

Which do you prefer: 1, 2, or 5? 

Oh my gosh they are literally my three favorite pieces of media in existence.  But it’s Gravity Falls.  Like I would just roll over and die without any of these three but it’s not debatable, the absolute #1 in my heart is Gravity Falls.

If you could be anyone from 4, who would it be? 

Probably Toby?  I think I’d be good in the “well-meaning dorky disaster-prone best friend” role.

Would a crossover between 3 and 4 work? 

Theoretically, maybe?  Magical troll warriors team up with superheroes to fight a wizard supervillian.  It could happen.

Pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple?

Hmm, not sure I have a good answer to this one.  I’ll just say Manly Dan and Tyler.  It’s not exactly an ODD pick because we see them together quite a few times and honestly they always look like a dang couple, but we never really see what their INTERACTION is like, so it’s kinda difficult to judge exactly how that relationship does/would work.  But I think it’s a nice one to think about.

Overall, which show has the best storyline: 3 or 5?

Oof.  Probably gonna have to say AtLA on this one, if only because MHA isn’t exactly that focused on a super-condensed story at this point?  Its progress tends to come through more world-building and character development than major plot beats, though it certainly has that too.  So yeah I’ll say AtLA.

Which has better theme music: 2 or 4? 

Oh absolutely BoJack, it’s one of my favorite theme songs.

Okay, I’m only gonna actually tag @immaplatypus for this, but if you see this and want to do it then absolutely go right ahead and do it!  I’ve had fun seeing some other people doing these and would love to see even more going forward.

[yv-sketches]

I JUST SAW HTTYD 3 TODAY

Un. Follow. Me now, this is going to be the only thing I post about for weeks.

Please, please do not read this if you haven’t been a lucky bastard of an Australian. Do not click read more on pc, go back to your blog and block the tag httyd 3 spoilers on mobile, unfollow me if you want to.

There was no assigned seat system so I sat in front of the door to go in first and get a good one, but two guys (as in, fandom age) beat me. I wonder if they have tumblr...

Things I loved (prepare for a long list):

THAT OPENING SCENE

Hiccup boards a ship to free dragons and swordfights this guard dude. Guard knocks over a lamp, setting the deck on fire and Hiccup and a blue glowing Toothless deadass walk through it. Boi that was awesome

This is Berk.

Lots of action scenes in general. Hiccup with a sword is my new aesthetic. I did not pay a lot of attention, but I think he fought left handed.

The visuals.

Hot.

Damn.

Thought httyd 2 Berk was impressive? I think not.

THAT NEW BERK ISLAND

THE CAMP

THE WATERFALL

THE CLOUDS

SNOWY NEW BERK ISLAND

THE SAND

Oh boy the sand. Because there are no places like that waterfall or new Berk island it is obviously fake, but the clouds and sand... If you took a screenshot and said it was a photo I’m pretty sure 99% of the people would believe you.

All the decors. Dreamworks made So. Many. Environments. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an animated movie with this level and amount of sets and details. This beats Finding Dory, Big Hero 6, httyd 2 by far. Maybe Zootopia and Moana reached this level, but never on this scale.

The composition. Whoever did the cinematography, kudos to you. The fight scenes were awesome, actually, most of the shots were.

The music. John Powell amirite??? When Hiccup sits there with his map. When they introduce Grimmel’s fort. When they go into the waterfall. Test flight when Light Fury saves Hiccup...

Drago’s fleet was cool, but Grimmel has a freaking aircraft/helicopter thing. Who does this guy think he is? Norbert the Nutjob?

Speaking of Grimmel HE SAID IT HE SAID IT WHEN HE BROKE INTO HICCUP’S HOUSE

“You wish for a world where humans and dragons live as equals? That will be the end of civilization.” Or something like that. Can you hear my book fandom heart beating faster? There was even a faintly recognizable ‘history repeats itself’.

The entirety of Berk on the move. Dragons carrying bags, entire ships with stuff and lots and lots of citizens. I don’t know when Hiccup acquired all this power to make people listen to him immediately, but he’s owning it.

The gang, minus Snotlout, had an actual part in the plot, unlike httyd 1 and 2 where they were mainly background characters. Gobber had a running gag with funny round dragons. I LOVE THEM OK they are so round.

TINY HICCUP IN THE FLASHBACKS Stoick was so sweet on him, and the way he speaks about Valka.... Take notes Disney, that’s a declaration of love.

No hate on Light Fury. She was the amazing ball of feral sass that I hoped she would be. She noped out when Toothless tried to flirt and yeeted Hiccup off his back. You go girl.

Toothless being a Skrill.

Toothless being da king. I got chills. Toothless my baby you are so amazing

That scene where Grimmel symbolically rips off Hiccup’s dragon-y wings, night fury pauldron and leg... Cressida Cowell would be proud of that.

“The world if not ready for dragons. Yet”

HICCUP TRULY SAID IT CAN I GET ALL BOOK FANS TO SAY IT WITH ME?

At the last hand thing where Hiccup slowly takes his hand off Toothless, I swear I heard someone cry softly. I don’t blame them.

Have I mentioned the visuals yet?

Things that I thought were very good, but not True Perfection My Life Is Complete 10/10 level good:

The ending was kind of sudden. Grimmel is defeated and then Hiccup decides to let Toothless go free? And then the entirety of Berk unsaddles their dragons to let them go? Yes, I understand, but I thought it would have taken an ENTIRE movie for him to do that. It WAS there throughout the movie, but it was never the main focus (the way Tadashi’s death was in BH6). The attention was always on either Grimmel or the Light Fury.

This in general. The emotions were the subplots instead of the main ones.

The whole “What is Hiccup without Toothless?” was a most perfect plot that kind of.... was resolved far easier than I hoped. It was still good, just not “hero the hard way���-level good.

“Hiccup makes Toothless a self-flying tail fin while that was a major point of their soulmate-ness” was missing some emotional weight. Hiccup was clearly super distressed, it was just not addressed a lot.

The Hiccstrid wedding plot was nice and I suspect lots of shippers will have their funerals in theatre, however, I think that too was not “companions of the Dragonmark”-level good. BUT THEY ARE SO CUTE! THEY ARE SUCH A REALISTIC AND GOOD COUPLE LIKE THEY WERE IN HTTYD 2. No mushy romance, just two badass Vikings who are so comfortable around each other it can only be true love.

Random stuff:

Eret might be gay for Gobber.

Snotlout might have slapped Hiccup’s butt.

Valka beat Spitelout (voiced by David Tennant despite not having any real lines) in arm wrestling.

Ruffnut annoying Grimmel the way only she can.

Valka has bits of grey in her hair, but her face still looks super young.

The whole gang has flight suits

Things I did not like:

Toothless fell in love too fast. He ditched Hiccup’s flirting tactics and made her a drawing. Cool. He got mad when she stepped on the lines. Cool. But then she got mad as well and Toothless just.... left it at that. Apparently he was so lovestruck he let Light Fury trample his art. No.

Things I hated with every inch of my being (that is not a lot of inches by the way):

Snotlout flirting with a Valka.

Gods... He is younger than Hiccup. Valka is Hiccup’s mom. Blergh.

Things I understand and fit the movie verse but annoyed me because it killed the entire meaning of Cressida Cowell’s conclusion (yes this is very specific):

The ending.

The dragons leave. Hiccup smiles through his tears because he knows this is the best thing to do. Toothless becomes king of the dragon world. Light Fury is his queen. Hiccup and Astrid marry and have cute children. Hiccup grows a beard. So far so good. Very good ending.

But then. Then Toothless reappears and meets Hiccup’s son and daughter. -_-

I don’t know about you, but wasn’t the whole point that dragons went into the hidden world to hide from humans? Wasn’t the whole point that ‘great things are only made out of love and pain’ and that doing the good thing also meant letting Toothless go? I wanted a heartbreaking ending. The bittersweet one from book 12. And this just felt like a fairytale that was too good to be true.

Yet at the same time, I like this ending. Toothless has his own life. Hiccup is his own person without Toothless. He’s a good chief and everyone is generally happy. The world does not believe dragons exist. Except for Berk.

Berk is this special place that dragons sometimes visit before returning back to the hidden world because Berlin’s do love dragons.

And come on. Kids and parents would riot if Hiccup and Toothless did separate for good.

Things that whacked me in the face like

"There were dragons when I was a boy"

BUT HE DID NOT ONLY SAY THAT HE SAID THE ENTIRE THING

THE ENTIRE THING from ‘There were dragons when I was a boy’ TO ‘leaving not a bone, not a fang, in the earth for the men of the future to remember them by.’

I died.

[firstpuffin]

Dealing with overpowered antagonists:

-Note: haha- whoops. I meant to add an image but forgot, leaving only the note reminding me to do so.

Always triple proof-read your stuff to save yourself from embarrassment! 

If you enjoy any kind of fantastic action story, whether it be peacekeepers in space, superheroes in New York or Vampires on a flat-earth atop the backs of four elephants, it is likely that at some point you will come across an overpowered antagonist. This enemy may be the man in the high tower pulling all of the strings or just a henchman too dumb to make plans; he can’t be hurt and he has greater raw power than the hero, but somehow he needs to be defeated (by the way, I’m using the old fashioned “he” rather than mess around with confusing specific gender-neutral pronouns; it’s just practical).

  An example of this and the one that inspired this piece is Doomsday from the recent “Death of Superman” cartoon movie and is my bad example of how to write an overpowered villain. A reasonably comparable- erm, comparison in world, power levels and characters is from Japan; the recently finished (or on hiatus) series Dragon Ball Super did an overpowered antagonist reasonably well. Keep in mind I’m not saying Japan does this better, it’s just a coincidence.

  I’m sure everybody knows Superman but I’ll briefly cover Dragon Ball to give non-nerds context. Like Superman, Dragon Ball started off as a comic book series (manga to those who get pissy about terminology) that has also been animated; the latest series is called Dragon Ball Super. The hero, Son Goku, is an alien sent from a dying planet and who gains godlike powers. I’ll point out that while Goku’s powers are innate, unlike Superman he has accessed them through rigorous training rather than convenient exposure to the sun and he is in no way a hero of justice. He’s already very strong but he transforms his body to get stronger and, through what’s become a gag in the fandom, he has about six transformations; he actually has more depending on what you count but six is the minimum. You may have seen the meme “this isn’t even my final form”: you can thank Dragon Ball for that.

  Goku and Supes have been compared again and again and fans frequently (and kind of pathetically) fight over which is stronger; I’m not going to get involved in that as I know Goku really well, but Superman barely at all. I bring all of this up because the similarities and comparisons allow for a really interesting analysis of their antagonists.

 First of all, let’s look at Doomsday. I mean, I’d rather not as he’s ugly as sin. Now that the bad joke’s over let’s actually say something of value: Doomsday is this huge grey-skinned, red-eyed (real original guys) and white-boned monstrosity. I say white boned because he has what appear to be pointed bones sticking out from all over him. From what I can grasp he is some sort of mutant Kryptonian without a mind or intelligence and that just destroys. There’s not much else to say besides that he appears to be a stronger version of Superman, minus intelligence.

  The antagonist in Dragon Ball Super is called Jiren the Grey and he is- well he’s grey-skinned. Don’t ask me, naming-schemes might be different in Japan. Anyway, Jiren is an alien with grey-skin, big black-eyes and no hair. It’s never stated what species he is or how innately strong they are, but the dude is huge, like absolute unit huge. He is intelligent but appears lacking in the personality department, generally being quiet. Like Goku, his strength has been achieved through training although he doesn’t transform.

 Let’s return to Doomsday and the subject at hand. Doomsday wanders around destroying everything until he meets Supes who is almost his match. The two fight for a long time with Superman losing ground until it is clear that he is being overwhelmed. Superman’s punches don’t do enough while Doomsday’s punches hurt. Supes tries everything he can, flight, heat vision, punching harder. But it reaches the point where the Hall of Justice is ruined and a broken Superman is being thrashed; Lois decides to yeet a stone at Doomsday who seems as fresh as a wild daisy and if I know the character well enough then it’s probably stronger than when the fight started. Seeing Lois in danger, Superman- kills Doomsday. Just like that. He fly-punches Doomsday’s head in a 180.

  It comes out of nowhere and there is no reason for it. Yes, watching a man who can fly and shoot lasers requires the suspension of disbelief, but that only goes so far. Supes being able to outrun the sound of a speeding bullet is internally consistent within the world and we begin by accepting that. We know he is weak to kryptonite and being punched really, really hard, and that he gathers strength from the sun. And, in the name of being internally consistent, we see him being punched really, really hard at night when the sun is out and being unable to reciprocate. Even suspending our disbelief, just going by what we’ve seen in the movie so far, Superman should not have been able to beat Doomsday by just punching harder.

 So what about Dragon Ball? Some more background, there are twelve universes that exist and ten fighters from eight of these universes are having a battle royale in the “Tournament of Power” and it has been established that there is a character who even the gods can’t match: Jiren the Grey. From the moment we see him he is calm and strong. Throughout the tournament he rarely acts and when he does he pulls off amazing feats: he tosses a berserk character who Goku was struggling with off of the stage, he deflects attacks with a look and blows a fighter out of the ring with the air pressure from a punch.

  When he eventually fights Goku, who is the only person strong enough to actually put up a struggle, he overwhelms him. I’ll admit, the execution is trite and uninteresting (it’s boring and silly seeing someone block an attack with a finger; don’t do that), but it’s shown that Goku doesn’t stand a chance. Now Goku has been training under an angel in order to fight the gods (I know, sounds weird, right?) and he’s been training to do some martial arts thing where the body acts before the mind can think, and during the fight this training begins to manifest. This is shown before the tournament, as is the fact Goku’s species, known as Saiyans, are born fighters and will become more skilled as they do so; this is all internally consistent and matches what the viewers have already accepted.

  Goku and Jiren fight three times and the only reason that Goku doesn’t lose the first time is because of Jiren’s arrogance. He gives Goku time to rest (twice) and to get a hang on the skills that had started to manifest during their fight, skills which he perfects during the final fight. Now I’ll admit that things don’t totally make sense: Goku learns to let his body react intuitively, speeding up his movement, and yet this causes him to transform again? This seems a bit contrived, and yet it uses what we already know: the Saiyan race can transform.

  I can justify this by saying that it’s more than him reacting to attacks, his body as a whole is acting according to decades of training and transforming, and this manifests through the perfect transformation. I came up with this because it matches what the story has told us. Goku wins because of what they have told us for a long, long time. But you know what? Goku doesn’t win with this new power.

  Goku has worn down Jiren when the new transformation’s side effects kick in and he loses the power as the muscle strain nearly cripples him. He then has to fight alongside two of his teammates to defeat this weakened Jiren.

 The reason why Jiren’s defeat is so good is that it relies on things that we have known and has been established within the story; it’s internally consistent. Now I have to admit, Dragon Ball Super is a series that lasted a few years and is tagged on the end of another decades long series, and The Death of Superman is a couple hour long movie. This certainly gives Dragon Ball the advantage of time, but that doesn’t hugely matter.

  It’s more than possible to set up a weakness in the early minutes of a movie, or better yet throughout the movie. Show that Doomsday has a weak neck; maybe see his bone-protrusions pierce Superman’s skin but are fragile and break off. Supes can yank out a shard from his own stomach and stab Doomsday. Maybe being a Kryptonian monster he also has a weakness to Kryptonite. Maybe… anything. It doesn’t have to be hours of our hero training to get stronger, just don’t pull a stronger punch out of your arse.

[zerochanges]

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative - One Night Movie Premiere

If you told me ten years ago that I would be able to regularly watch anime movies on the big screen in theatres I would have surely not believed you. Besides maybe a few Pokemon movies or an occasional film in some mega franchise I don’t particularly care for such as Naruto, the prospect would probably seem alien to me even. So it’s funny how times have changed and how anime screenings in theatres is becoming increasingly more common in North America. Just last month I was able to watch the phenomenal Dragon Ball Super Broly film in a packed theatre with a ton of other nerds and it was a delightful experience. Before that I got to see the fun anime version of Die Hard known as My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, and before that a love letter to Go Nagai known as Mazinger Z Infinity! Now only a month after Broly I get to watch an honest-to-God Mobile Suit Gundam motion picture in a theatre too? I feel like the luckiest guy alive. 

If I am being honest, I actually hate going to the cinema most of the time, and spent many years avoiding doing just that. I was always the type of person that was happy enough to rent a movie once it released on DVD/BD and that was the extent I would need out of cinema at large. The only exception I started to make was when Disney purchased Star Wars, and that was more out of fear that ravenous fans online couldn't keep their mouths shut than it was about anything else. Over the years however I started to develop a greater appreciation towards movie theatres at large and a lot of that has to probably do with anime. As I began to become a serious collector of anime and made the transition from my old DVDs to crisper BDs I realized I was at the point where as a fan I wanted the most out of my all time favorite movies--because these were not just my favorite anime movies but my actual favorite movies, and that’s when I realized I truly wish I could have seen them the way they were meant to be; on the big screen, with an insanely powerful surround sound system, with fans all gathered around cheering at the best moments. I will probably never get this experience for Akira, or Galaxy Express 999, or the many other films that mean the world to me now, but I can get the experience for future movies, so I don’t want to miss out ever again.

Gundam is one of my favorite franchises from my childhood. As a young kid I fell in love with the amazing robot designs and was blown away at the prospect of an anime that just felt so different from DBZ, which besides Pokemon was probably my only real understanding of anime at that age. As a teen and young adult especially the franchise became increasingly important to me and left a lasting impression on my psyche. I can’t tell you my favorite Gundam series nowadays because the answer will probably be different every time. Maybe I’ll say the original Mobile Suit Gundam, warts and all, it’s everything I love about anime from the 1970’s and to this day I still love the original Ocean Group dub from Canada. This dub while wooden and showing its age terribly will forever be etched in my mind as the definitive voices for most of the Universal Century characters despite Shuichi Ikeda buttery smooth, ecstasy inducing voice in most of the Japanese series. Maybe I’ll say Zeta Gundam as Kamile was a character my younger self identified a lot with and the series as a whole left a very strong impression on me. Maybe I’ll say Turn A Gundam, a beautiful psychedelic series that displays some of the best writing from series creator Tomino. 

So yes, having a chance to see any Gundam film in theatres was something I couldn't miss. Even if said film ended up just okay it wouldn't matter, as not in my wildest dreams did I actually think I would get this opportunity. I figured the closest I would ever be to seeing Gundam on the big screen would be if I happened to be in Japan for some reason around the time a new Gundam OVA or film was being screened. When Gundam Narrative tickets went on sale for North America I bought them the day online orders were opened and was even the first person to buy a seat at the theatre (thanks to reserved seating I could see nobody else had bought a seat yet). It didn't matter to me that I had to drive 45 minutes to the cinema, nor did it matter to me that I honestly knew nothing about Gundam Narrative, I just wanted to experience Gundam this way at least once in my life. And so last night I made the trek across the city and finally got to see Gundam like I never have. Now I have decided I want to share some of my thoughts and impressions about it. This won’t be a formal review, nor is it meant to be, as more or less I’m just expositing some of my thoughts, off the cuff.

First a little background information. Sunrise’s current "UC NexT 0100" project that tackles the next century of Gundam’s UC (Universal Century) time-line as well as their ambitious promise to deliver a new theatrical Gundam film every 1-2 years from 2018 onward is something to behold, so it’s no big surprise to me that the first film to kick off both of these initiatives would be a sequel to the highly acclaimed Gundam Unicorn OVA series. Saying Sunrise is kind of on a Unicorn kick right now would be an understatement after all. I actually don’t mind this so much however like a lot of people seem to, as Unicorn deserves all the praise it got and there is no two-ways about it being a pivotal factor behind Sunrise’s returning commitment to the UC time-line again after releasing nothing major in it for nearly a decade. Gundam Narrative serving as a sequel to Gundam Unicorn is something I am totally neutral about. 

My greater concern going into the Gundam Narrative film was more that Gundam and films have a pretty rocky history. Honestly most Gundam movies tend to be more on the awful side. If I had to rate all the ones I've seen I would probably only say Gundam Thunderbolt: December Sky and Gundam Thunderbolt: Bandit Flower are fantastic, the original Mobile Suit Gundam film trilogy is an excellent compilation movie series and a good enough replacement for its own television version, the Zeta New Translation films are incredibly disappointing and omit too much, Char’s Counterattack is a hot mess that barely makes a lick of sense, Gundam F91 would have been a fantastic TV show but as a movie it makes me sad, A Wakening of the Trailblazer is okay but also undone by its own weirdness, Endless Waltz is what you would expect out of Wing, the Turn A compilation movies are pointless, and G-Savior sure was … a thing that exist.

Well I am happy to say Gundam Narrative is among the rare films for the franchise that I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish! A lot of this has to do with the scale being relatively small versus the usual scale in Gundam films that are way too big for their own good. Narrative’s laser focus on chasing after the missing Unit 03, the Golden Phoenix sibling to the two Unicorn and Banshee units we've seen in the previous Gundam Unicorn series allows it to tell a story largely separated from politics and the world at large--and let’s the characters become the main focal point of the film like any good movie should. 

This aspect alone is missing from so many other Gundam films and is partly why so many fail at being a good viewing experience. I’d say the few that do find that focus, mainly the Thunderbolt series of films and the original trilogy of movies made from the 1979 TV series are the best in the franchise’s filmography. A ton of other Gundam films tend to be bloated as well with rather boring middle sections, so the brisk fast pace of this 90 or so minute runtime for Narrative was a welcome relief. There are some awkward cuts to the film sure, but honestly I felt this beat sitting in the theatre for two and a half hours bored at the long winded middle section that goes nowhere like some previous Gundam films are especially guilty of. This was just enough time to tell a story of this scope properly. Of course the characters and scope of the story isn't enough to carry an entire film so the fantastic soundtrack from returning Unicorn composer Hiroyuki Sawano helped to sell a lot of scenes in the film as well.

The biggest factor that made Narrative for me however had to be the film’s focus on the more metaphysical aspects of Newtypes. Despite my disliking of a lot of Char’s Counterattack I still find the more psychedelic (so to say) aspects of it to be fascinating, just as I always have when such spiritual topics have shown up in prior Gundam works by Tomino and the many teams at Sunrise. While far from perfect I always enjoyed this kind of kooky spiritualism to the Gundam universe, a sort of new age 80’s science fiction interpretation of the soul would be the best way I can describe it but there’s no real way for me to do it justice nor to make it not sound ridiculous. Since Tomino has left a lot of Universal Century Gundam series have focused more on everyday soldiers instead and not so much on Newtypes, the future evolution of mankind, and the soul. In fact I always felt Sunrise somewhat shied away from a lot of these aspect to Gundam since then, so when we got to see this aspect return near the very end of Gundam Unicorn it was a nice treat to me personally. Having it permeate almost the entire runtime of Narrative’s story had me over the moon. A lot of people disagree, and more power to them, but I just can’t get enough out of the spiritual aspects seen in Narrative. 

Gundam Narrative being a modern UC time-line production means it of course has references and lore connections to a ton of other classic Gundam series and moments. I really enjoyed most them even if they were just silly fan service moments. I love that we got to see the famous Colony Drop drawn with modern day high budget animation and it wasn't just reused old footage. Getting to see clips of the Psycho Gundam ravage Hong Kong City was a joy on the big screen even if it lasted only about 10 seconds. I loved that we got to hear some of Char’s Dakar speech again in Narrative--this gave us an opportunity to hear Keith Silverstein, the modern English voice of Char since 2010 handle this legendary speech of his from Zeta Gundam. 

Speaking of the English dub my favorite performances were definitely Griffin Puatu’s portrayal of the protagonist Jona Basta that had to carry a lot of the emotional weight of the film and Stefan Martello’s portrayal of the off-the-walls insane Zoltan Akkanen who was just a pure fun villain that ate up every scene he was in. The Narrative Gundam itself being a reworked prototype of Amuro’s Nu Gundam from Char’s Counterattack four years ago was also a fun way to fit another Gundam into this time frame and I love it gave us such a classic looking Gundam in the Unicorn era of the franchise.

I had almost zero expectations for Gundam Narrative, and all I really wanted was the big screen experience for Gundam. As someone that loves the psychedelic spiritual aspect of Tomino’s old works, and someone with zero expectations that a Gundam movie can really be all that good anyways I walked away from that theatre last night loving what I saw. Gundam Narrative has me personally excited for the future of Gundam films, especially if it means we may see more theatrical screenings in North America for said films. This is probably not a film for everyone, and is definitely heavy on both your love of Gundam Unicorn and your love of some of the craziest stuff Tomino would whip out in his heyday of working on the franchise, but if you’re like me I think this one will be a lot of fun, even off the big screen.