#episode of bardock

[gorillageek27]

Jia: *signing* here you are kong, i have brought you more food that you detest.

Kong: Seriously, kid, if you don't start bringing me meat, I'm literally going to shit bricks.

Jia: *drops a stone*

Kong: THAT IS A ROCK!

[tyote]

[duhragonball]

Episode of Bardock (2011)

In 2011, Naho Oishi published a three-chapter manga entitled Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock.  Later that same year, it was adapted into an anime short which was premiered at the Jump Festa convention.  A year later, it was released as a bonus feature in the video game Dragon Ball Z: For Kinect.  But I’m pretty sure everyone just watched it on YouTube instead, because that game sucked. 

As I recall, the purpose of Episode of Bardock was to help promote a toy line that included, among other things, a Super Saiyan Bardock figure.  Between 1997 and 2013, there wasn’t a lot of new Dragon Ball content to be found, and even though 2008 saw the premiere of Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!, it was generally understood that this was just a nostalgia one-shot, and not a comeback for the franchise.  So around 2007-2012, there seemed to be a lot more indulgence for “what if” content.  Vegeta and Broly got Super Saiyan 3 forms in the Raging Blast games. The Dragon Ball Heroes CCG game started up around this time, and it played with a lot of what-if scenarios and forms.  And Dragon Ball Online introduced a ton of new lore set 200 years after the end of DBZ, including Trunks’ service in the Time Patrol.

So an official Super Saiyan Bardock toy probably wasn’t a big surprise at the time, although it would have been pretty surreal to see in, say, 2004.  Fans would make what-if art like that all the time, but now Toei was doing it.  That may be why they wanted an official manga and anime story to tie into the product, so that fans wouldn’t assume this was some sort of bootleg thing. 

The trick is, how do you make Super Saiyan Bardock a thing?  Everyone remembers him from his classic TV Special, but he dies at the end of it.  He certainly couldn’t have turned Super Saiyan before that, or otherwise he would have changed the course of history.  So what do you do?  Naho Oishi’s answer was simple: Time Travel.

The special opens with the climactic scene from Father of Goku.  Bardock’s confronting Frieza in the upper atmosphere of Planet Vegeta, and Frieza explains that he’s begun to find the Saiyans too bothersome to keep around, so he’s going to wipe them all out.  Oh, and also, he wouldn’t want to have to deal with that pesky Super Saiyan legend. 

So the planet explodes, and Bardock dies in the blast... and then he wakes up in bed?!  What the hell? 

Bardock is confused, but his benefactors have no answers for him.  Ipana (left) is the village healer, and he uses a secret ointment to heal Bardock’s injuries.  His son, Berry (right) was the one who found Bardock at the edge of the woods, and brought him back to the village for treatment.  According to Ipana, they’re on the Planet Plant.

So Bardock quickly deduces that he somehow went back in time.  He’s never seen these aliens before, but he knows that Planet Vegeta used to be called “Plant” before the Saiyans conquered it from the Tuffles.  And the scenery looks just like Planet Vegeta.  On top of that, Ipana’s “secret” ointment is identical to the fluid used in the Medical Machines by Frieza’s organization.  As impossible as it sounds, Bardock has been flung into the distant past, before the Medical Machines, before the Saiyans came to this planet, before even the Tuffles arrived on this planet.

This raises several important questions, which never get answered.

1) How did Bardock go back in time? It’s implied that Frieza’s blast did it somehow, except that’s ridiculous.  Frieza destroyed all sorts of things, including everyone else on Planet Vegeta that day.  Are we saying they all went back in time too?

2) What happened to the Plantians?  Bardock has never even heard of them before, indicating that they were long gone by the time the Saiyans settled on this planet.  I always liked this little detail, because it implies that the Tuffles wiped out the Plantians at some point, much as the Saiyans destroyed the Tuffles later on.  This neatly wraps up the moral ambiguity that surrounds Tuffle lore.  Sometimes the Tuffles are presented as innocent victims of the Saiyans, and other times they’re shown to be remorseless conquerors.  Episode of Bardock suggests that there’s an uncomfortable truth somewhere in the middle.

3) Who repaired Bardock’s uniform?  It was all shredded at the start of this short.  And then it completely disintegrated as Frieza’s attack hit him. 

But now it’s fine.  The Plantians might have fixed it, but how would they have even managed to find all the pieces?  I’m imagining Berry combing the area with a tweezers.

4) What happened to Bardock’s psychic powers?  These are never mentioned or referenced in this short, but it’s obviously a sequel to Father of Goku, where Bardock had psychic powers.

Now, I’m not necessarily complaining about any of these things.  There’s simply no way for Bardock to investigate any of these questions.  No one, past or present, knows how this happened to Bardock, so there’s no one to ask.  I have a lot of questions about the history that played out between this era and the destruction of Planer Vegeta, but Episode of Bardock isn’t long enough to answer them.  This is just A Thing That Happened, and Bardock has to deal with it.  And part of dealing with it means he has to accept that he may never understand it.  Life’s like that sometimes.

The loss of his psychic powers is kind of annoying, but then again, the way he got the psychic powers never made a lot of sense in the first place, so losing them without explanation isn’t exactly unusual here.  You can make up a bunch of timey-wimey nonsense to rationalize it.  For example, every flashback Bardock has to the events of Father of Goku is chronologically in the future, so technically he’s still having visions of things yet to come, even if they’re just his own memories now.  So maybe he still has the psychic foresight, but it’s no longer relevant.  But that’s just me spouting fan theories.  The source material is silent about this, so I’m just going to assume that Naho Oishi quietly dropped the psychic powers because he didn’t need them for his story and he didn’t think anyone would mind. 

Besides, Bardock doesn’t have time to investigate his predicament, because suddenly a pair of aliens show up in a spaceship that resembles Frieza’s.  They attack the village, claiming the entire planet for their leader, Chilled, the Space Pirate. 

Bardock kills them both with ease.  The Plantians hail him as their savior, but Bardock refuses their gratitude, telling them that he doesn’t care if they live or die.  Then he buggers off and takes shelter in a cave. 

But Berry tracks him down and brings him a basket of food.  Bardock gets angry over it, but he hasn’t eaten in like, negative 3000 years, so he’s too hungry to turn down free grub.

Over the next few days, Berry brings more food to Bardock, and gradually, Bardock warms up to the kid, eventually letting him get close enough to sit beside him, and Bardock even shares some of his food with him.  He even tells Berry his name, something Berry had asked about the day he woke up.

Meanwhile, Chilled hasn’t heard from his henchmen for ten days, so he decides to go to Planet Plant to investigate in person.

He and his crew arrive posing as the Space Police, and ask about two “evil men” that might have come to this planet.  The villagers explain that Bardock killed them already, so Chilled is very interested in “thanking” him.

But Berry suspects their intentions, and he goes to Bardock to warn him, and to ask him to save the villagers. 

Bardock tries to insist that this doesn’t concern him, but then he has flashbacks (flash-forwards?) to the time when he went to Planet Meat and found his whole crew dead at the hands of Dodoria.  And that seems to motivate him to get involved.

Sure enough, Berry was right, and Chilled starts attacking the village.  You’d think he would have waited until he found out where Bardock was, but I get the sense that Chilled is a lot more impulsive than Frieza.

So Bardock shows up to clean house, but when he sees Chilled he flips his shit and starts shouting “Frieza!” at him, because they basically look alike.  Chilled overpowers him, and says he has no idea what he’s babbling about.

And while Bardock is realizing that Chilled must be one of Frieza’s ancestors, Berry runs up to try to help, only for Chilled to blow him away with some big ki attack. 

And that’s the last straw.  It takes a full minute, but Bardock gets so frustrated over his failure to stop Frieza or Chilled, and his failure to save the Saiyans or Berry, that he flips his shit and turns Super Saiyan.

Meanwhile, Chilled has never seen or heard of this before, so he doesn’t think it means anything.  But I think we all know where this is going.

One major criticism of this special is that it just repeats the same old formula.  And to that I would respond: What did you expect?  There was a joke about “a Super Saiyan bargain sale” back in 1993.  In Dragon Ball Z.  Seriously, thirty years ago, Vegeta was griping that there were getting to be too many Super Saiyans in this show.  I mean, this is like watching an episode of Naruto and saying “They’d better not have any adolescent ninjas in this one, I’m so sick of that.”   Or turning on Spongebob and seriously getting annoyed to see the Chum Bucket.

Seriously, if you’re burned out on Super Saiyans, you need to find something else to watch.  I’ve seen too many embittered fans who think that any minute now this franchise is going to ditch the Saiyan characters and focus on Launch or Yamcha or whoever.  And I’d be up for that, honestly, but it’s not going to happen. 

I’ve also seen Bardock fans complain that this special (along with every other presentation of the character) somehow changes or diminishes Bardock.  In their eyes, the Father of Goku special got it right, and everything that folowed-- the dub of Father of Goku, Episode of Bardock, Dragon Ball Minus, and the Broly movie-- all of that made Bardock a little different, and therefore bad. 

Here’s the thing: That happens to every character who appears in more than one story.  I remember reading a fan-comic that spoofed Bardock by having all the different versions of him appear in the same space and talk to one another.  So you’d have Funimation dub Bardock talking about redemption and Minus Bardock being a loving father, etc.  And honestly, I had trouble keeping them all straight, because they’re more alike than different.  If someone made a comic like that about Batman, how many different versions of Batman do you think there would be?  Wait, I forgot, they already did one of those:

Superman: The Man of Steel #37 had tons and tons of different Batmen in it, each one based on the stylings of different writers and artists from the past.  And this comic came out in 1994.  There’s been at least seven or eight new variations of Batman since then.

And the same thing is happening with Bardock.  You don’t have to like every new Bardock story, but I think it’s kind of silly to clutch your pearls whenever they add new lore like “He loves his wife” or “He doesn’t hate everything.”

Where was I?  Oh, right.  So this special isn’t exactly doing anything novel, but I think it does make for a nice demonstration of what Super Saiyans are really all about.  The Saiyans define themselves as a warrior race, but without compassion for other, weaker beings, their pursuit of battle is hollow.  Bardock was doomed to fail in Father of Goku because he trusted that his enemies would always be weaker than himself, while Frieza would never betray him as long as he followed his orders.  Then he got “cursed” with the truth.  Frieza would betray the Saiyans in spite of their loyalty, and there was nothing Bardock could do to stop it.  In Episode of Bardock, history repeats itself, almost literally, and Bardock finally discovers that his passions can be applied to other people.  He can care about the Plantians and fight on their behalf, and by taking up their cause, he can discover new ways to rise to the occasion. 

A lot of that gets overlooked in DBZ, because for Goku, standing up for the oppressed is kind of second nature, so there’s no chance to dwell on it.  But in Episode of Bardock, we see a character who’s an anti-hero at best, and it doesn’t take much to push him into doing the right thing.  Because what else was he going to do?  Hide in that cave and wait for Chilled to leave?  To be Saiyan is to be constantly pushed toward compassion for the weak, and those who resist that push will only suffer for their resistance.  That’s the story of Bardock.

Anyway, Bardock defeats Chilled, who somehow survives long enough to escape and send a warning to his family.  “Beware of the Saiyans who turn golden.”

And that brings us full circle.  Frieza wiped out the Saiyans because of the ancient warning from his ancestor, Chilled, but by destroying the Saiyans, he accidentally sent Bardock back in time, which was what caused Chilled’s death in the first place.  So it’s a nice little predestination paradox we have here.

Back in the past, Berry looks like he’ll be okay...

... while Bardock wanders off into the sunset.  I’m not sure where he can possibly go, since I don’t think there’s any spaceships around.  Well, it’s a 20 minute special, so it’s not like they have to have all the answers.

So I think the implication here is that Bardock didn’t just get sent back to some random moment in history.  I think he wound up going back a thousand years, and becoming the same Legendary Super Saiyan that Vegeta grew up hearing about.  You know, this happy character:

Of course, Episode of Bardock was never more than a “what-if” story in the first place, so it’s not like it’s anything close to hard canon.  Hell, Father of Goku isn’t canon either, so how could Episode of Bardock be canon?   Still, I like the idea that Bardock didn’t just die with Planet Vegeta, and that he got flung back in time to become one of the heroes of Saiyan legend. 

Of course, I put a lot of time into making a Super Saiyan OC who fills that same role, so my personal canon is that Bardock went back to 3000 years before Planet Vegeta’s destruction, and he became the Legendary Super Saiyan of that millennium.  Basically, I adhere to a strict “once every thousand years” rule, and the Super Saiyan lineage goes like this:

3000 years ago: Bardock

2000 years ago: Chanisp

1000 years ago: Luffa

Present day: Goku. 

But that’s just my silly business.  The rest of you are free to interpret this special as you please.

It is also plausible that Bardock did not become a historical figure.  Maybe he lived and died in relative obscurity, and no one else heard about his adventure on Planet Plant.  I mean, Chilled asked his crew to warn his family, but we have no way of knowing if the word actually got out.  They might have turned renegade after Chilled’s death, or maybe their ship was destroyed in a space anomaly before they could contact anyone.  In this scenario, the Legendary Super Saiyans were their own thing, and Bardock was just a rando Super Saiyan who never got included into Saiyan folklore. It’s fun to think about. 

Anyway, that’s all we’ve got.  If you like Super Saiyan Bardock, it’s a fun little thing, but not much more than that. If you hate Super Saiyans and/or Bardock, you’re gonna have a bad time.

[roseunspindle]

What I Watched in May 2023

Good old days when Bardock was a genuinely evil Saiyan Warrior. 

It was fine, but Mewsette annoys the crap out of me.

a fun little anime, got the second volume now.

Good ‘ol team 4 star, did not even know this was a thing they’d done until I saw that they were reviewing it. Had to give it a watch. Bardock going Super over the stupidity of time travel was hilarious. 

[bardocks-tiddies]

yessssss

i don’t know if i’ve seen the fandub, ive only seen TFS’s episode of bardock. but still

teehee

[bliss-wily]

So take that as you will.

Side note: ignore the tags it’s just nonsensical ramble. I’ve been ill and when I’m ill well you’ve seen the results before if you’re looked at my page for more than a split second. My brain just doesn’t stop.

[tgoldwalker]

Death Battle the moment they come back from the dead:

[toxictac]

Soo i watched death battles new episode, was fun... but man outside of the vs debate stuff

Is it weird to say i dont like how bardock is characterise? like its not bad perse, i dont think he is quite out of character and i havent read minus or the dragon ball manga

But its weird to see him being a brute force fighter and not a more tacian fighter, i mean in his first battle againts the friza soldiers he uses tactics like incresing his power level or obscuring their vision to get the upper hand

Plus i dont like how they use the iconic pose and his signature attack, idk i think the whole idea of "trying to defy fate" is kinda lost on the animation

[nullen-void]

Raditz is such a ridiculous character.

This guy is Goku's brother. He is the last blood relation Goku has aside from his own son at that point, and he's evil. He's stronger than Goku was at the time, he's smarter than Goku, he's a link to their culture that Goku never had before and never had again, because Vegeta is a prince and has a skewed concept of Saiyan culture.

And then he dies and is never mentioned again. Not ever. He dies in his first encounter, and yeah he takes Goku with him, but they didn't even meet in the afterlife. Goku spends the next twenty episodes dead and jumping across Snake Way and we don't even get a glimpse of Raditz in HFIL below.

He could have been anyone. Raditz could have been the legendary Some Guy who's just here to do his job and--oh what's that? A wild child Saiyan? Weird, but whatever, let's kill him.

It would have made no difference. It should have been Nappa showing up to wreck shit up and then Raditz is palling around with Vegeta. They could have had a epic, emotional character arc where Raditz is struggling between loyalty to his prince and his desire to protect his baby brother, but no.

Imagine, for an instant, if Supergirl was one of Zod's minions, and she appeared in exactly one comic as a herald for Zod's arrival before Lex Luthor kills her with Kryptonite after Superman manages to beat her once. And then she's never mentioned again. That's Raditz.

It's insane, really. He's the main character's brother and they don't do anything with it. Absolutely bonkers.

(I'm not a Dragonball superfan so I don't know, did Raditz even appear in any of the movies? I know there was one where Goku's dad was the main character and another that takes place partially in the past on planet Vegeta. Does Bardock even mention Raditz? His eldest son?

Totally insane.)

[mica-l0vesdb]

Does anyone else remember this silly guy from Episode of Bardock-??Oh well the dude is in a wheelchair now and is just happy that Db Daima is coming out(Same)😭I bet he is the type of grandpa who would complain alot and call his grandkids(Frieza and Cooler) disappointments...Yes i was too lazy to draw the wheelchair

[mooniemenace]

Akira Toriyama (1955-2024).

You have created the childhoods of many, including me and my brother.

When I was a little girl, I would see reruns of DBZ on the television. I was too young to understand what any of that was, that is until I reached 8 years old. My brother had gotten a copy of Budokai Tenkaichi 3 for the Wii, and I would watch him play. I was suddenly curious to check out the show because of the game, so I asked my brother about it. He sat me down in front of the computer, pulled the first episode up on YouTube, and my life changed forever.

I would have poorly drawn doodles of Goku and Bardock in a notebook- Hell, I’d even have Turles show up as a villain for a story I was writing in 3rd grade! I would imagine little scenarios where Goten and I would be friends. I would be on the computer for hours, reading the Dragon Ball wiki for fun.

As I grew up, I put Dragon Ball on the back burner for a bit because I branched out to other interests. However, I returned to the show in March 2023 for nostalgia’s sake. And… that spark returned. I ran through Tree of Might, got myself caught up by viewing the good ol’ wiki again, and watched clips and video essays on the show. All this made me want to do better with my work.

Upon hearing the news of his death, I was in total shock. As it settled in, I found myself crying in my room. 68 is too young. It just is. I understand that Toriyama and I don’t know each other personally, but it still hurt. He made something that taught us that we can be better people when we put in the effort, and perhaps we could change the world around us because of that.

So, thank you Toriyama. Thank you for your work. Condolences to his family and loved ones.

Thank you. Goodbye. 🕊️🐉

[tyote]

[creepercraftguy]

My Thoughts on OMNI-MAN VS BARDOCK

Death Battle made its triumphant return today, and I've decided I'm gonna start posting short reviews of each new episode that comes out.

This isn't gonna be a long-winded review, just me sharing my basic thoughts.

And I'll be putting all of my stuff under the cut so that I don't spoil it for anybody. Please, make sure, if you're interested, that you watch the episode first, and don't read on so that you don't get spoiled.

To start off with, the matchup itself did really interest me. I remember around the time that Omni-Man vs Homelander came out that people were trying to come up with ideas for who would be a better opponent for Nolan, because frankly, Homelander was an absolute piece of piss for him.

And everyone, including the companies that own both Invincible and The Boys, knew that going in. So it wasn't really a hyped episode for who would win or not, but more so what was actually going to happen during the fight itself. Creating a spectacle was more important than creating a fight.

Not that Omni-Man Vs Homelander was bad. It is actually one of my favourite DB's from its execution, but the fact was it was not a difficult fight for Omni-Man AT ALL.

So when people started to think of who would be a much fairer fight for him, and one that had a lot of connections, Bardock was a big one, and it wasn't hard to see why:

Both are powerful alien warriors who are known for...kind of being dicks. Nolan is a Viltrumite, a race of highly advanced, powerful beings who conquer and dominate other planets. His mission on Earth is initially hidden but later revealed to be part of this expansionist agenda. Bardock is a Saiyan warrior, a race known for their battle prowess and ability to get stronger after every fight. The Saiyans, under Frieza's rule, conquer planets, wiping out their inhabitants for Frieza’s empire.

Both are the blood-related fathers of their series protagonists, Mark, AKA Invincible, and Kakarot, AKA Son Goku, respectively.

Both characters suffered conflict with their own people. Omni-Man's conflict comes from the fact that he is torn between his Viltrumite duties and the love he develops for his family and Earth, and eventually, he decides to defy the Viltrumite empire to some extent after being confronted by Mark’s humanity. Bardock becomes disillusioned with Frieza and attempts to fight back after learning about Frieza's plan to annihilate the Saiyan race. While his resistance is ultimately futile, he still stands against his ruler in an effort to protect his people.

Both characters are initially presented as being ruthless, unforgiving, and bloodthirsty, but this changes over time (across multiple iterations in Bardock's case) Initially, Omni-Man is ruthless in his mission, killing thousands to assert Viltrumite dominance, showing little regard for human life. However, as he develops a bond with his family, especially Mark, he begins to reconsider his values.And while Bardock begins as a battle-hardened warrior who cares little for the planets he conquers, he undergoes a transformation when he learns of Frieza’s betrayal and seeks to protect his home and his son.

And a few more on top of that, but I'm not sure I need to go through all the connections myself.

So, I start this off with the analysis portions of the episode, and I immediately noticed something when I went through Nolan's analysis.

I know this probably has to do with Death Battle trying to preserve their budget and keep their independence up, but unfortunately, it seems that we no longer have any cutaway scenes showing Wiz and Boomstick. They host the show as always, but we don't actually physically see them at all, not even during the post-analysis.

This is kind of a shame because, while yeah, the cutaways are normally hit or miss, the jokes they try to make land a lot better with them.

But on the other hand, it does make retaining the information a lot better. And to the credit, the analysis really made it clear where each characters strengths lay.

Going into this, I was under the impression that Bardock held an advantage, because I know the Dragon Ball scaling goes way above the scaling of Invincible. However, when I actually saw some of the feats Nolan achieves in the comics, compared to Bardock's...honestly kind of messy timeline, I started to change my tune.

I still held out for hope for Bardock, but when the fight ended and Omni-Man took the win...I understood why.

So yeah, the analysis and post-analysis were good because it really made me understand how the fight went the way it did.

With that being said, this was, to no one's surprise, a much harder fight for Nolan than Homelander was. Saiyan's just ARE stupid powerful aliens, and Omni-Man would actually have to put in the work for a win as opposed to completely stunting on the guy.

Okay, so now for the fight. If I had to rank it on a scale of 1 to 10, I think I'd give it a solid 7.

That's no fault of DevilArtimis, or Death Battle themselves though. Unfortunately, with the respective abilities these guys are known for, there's a severe limit to what you can have them do in the span of a 5 or so minute fight.

Besides Bardock's ki blasts, neither really have any powers of their own that don't just involve beating the shit out of people, tearing them apart, and just sheer brutality, so ultimately, what you are left with is a battle that just shows these two evil daddies pounding each other.

And no, I'm not taking back my phrasing there.

However, while that does limit my enjoyment of the fight, it doesn't do so severely. There's still a lot to love about the clash.

I always like to talk about my thoughts on the voice acting, and in this case, Omni-Man was reprised by Tom Schalk (also previously voicing Kool-Aid Man, Dio, Spongebob, and Megatron) and Bardock was voiced by Kamran Nikhad (previously having voiced Sephiroth, Mario, Boba Fett, Black Adam, and Martian Manhunter)

Schalk is one of the best voice actors that Death Battle have in their cast. He killed it as a sinister, condescending, and stern Omni-Man in Omni-Man Vs Homelander, and though he doesn't speak nearly as much in this one, he does equally well as a despaired, enraged, protective Omni-Man too. He killed it once again. As for Nikhad, he was fine, but definitely not the same sort of inflections that Sonny Strait gives Bardock that make his voice so iconic. Just a minor complaint.

Another minor complaint I have is Bardock's model looks a little weird, at least the mouth movements do, especially when shown from the side, and Nolan's model is kind of uncanny because it's weird seeing Omni-Man in 3D. Sure, he's 3D in Mortal Kombat, but that's also a realistic art style that would have clashed with Bardock, so I'm glad they didn't go that route. Still cool though.

And props to DevilArtemis for doing what he could to keep you engaged with this fight, and capturing both characters behavior, transformations, attacks, and inflections really well with the movements.

Considering, as I already mentioned, this fight would not go as easily as the fight with Homelander did, Omni-Man's attacks feel a lot more damaging, and ferocious than they did in his previous episode. My favourite part of the fight is when he grabs Bardock's tail, brutally tears it off, and then just whip slaps him with it. Definitely in line with the Viltrumites knack for tearing people to bloody chunks.

And for Bardock, considering he's an early Dragon Ball guy, it's really good to see some more recent recontextualization and coverage for classic feats. Also, for some reason, this is the first time we're ever seeing an Oozaru in Death Battle.

If I have any complaints for the fight, Bardock's Death was...kind of flat. It was brutal, but I didn't expect it, nor want it, to be so graceful. But that's all I really have to say about it. The sequence itself was really solid.

And in case I didn't make it clear, while I DO like Bardock more than Nolan as a character, the result did not dissatisfy me because, like I said, it was explained very thoroughly, and very well, in a way that made me understand.

Also, two little side notes, I want to address my take on a few arguments that I kept on seeing in the build up to this episode, and when the episode dropped. The first being whether or not Bardock should have been allowed Super Saiyan, and how it was kind of unfair for Bardock to be given a composite version of his character. To that, I say this.

First of all, if Bardock wasn't given all of his abilities across his iterations, this fight wouldn't have been nearly as cool. If you have the choice between seeing Bardock go Super Saiyan, or not seeing Bardock power up and go gold, why would you ever choose the latter? Death Battle tried to justify their decision, but for me at least, they didn't really need to.

What I wanted to know, in regards to Super Saiyan's conclusion, is this: Would Bardock having Super Saiyan be the edge he needs to win the fight? And would he lose if he didn't have it?

If the answer is yes, then I take issue. Because I don't like it when characters in this series win all because of one minor feat they have, especially if that feat is only semi-canon, like Super Saiyan Bardock is. However, in this case, the answer is no.

Super Saiyan definitely gave Bardock a boost that put Nolan on the ropes, but it wasn't enough to net him a win. So there's no real issue because having Super Saiyan ultimately didn't affect the results, so I'm fine with it.

The second argument I keep seeing is that Omni-Man wouldn't have been able to take down that giant planet without the 2 other characters that were with him. In the comics, he needed the assistance of those two, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to do it.

However, I want to note that the point that DB were trying to make was that Nolan, even if he was a third of the power required to take down that planet, is still VERY CAPABLE of wiping out entire planets on his own, and far more efficiently than Bardock would be. Bardock's own planet-busting feats weren't even his; he was scaled off of King Vegeta, so that's honestly more of a loose connection than Nolan smashing the planet.

And it's not as if that feat alone is what gave Nolan the edge in the fight. He still had all the other stuff like smart atoms on his side.

I will quickly remind everyone that this was not a stomp for Omni-Man. Death Battles usually aren't stomps, and they show off what both characters are capable of by pushing them to the brink. The aforementioned Omni-Man Vs Homelander is only one of few examples of unfair stomp fights.

And the last thing I want to talk about is the music track, though I don't have much to say on it. I know that Brandon kind of struggled with this track, but he did a great job, as he always does. With that being said, I still like Diabolical Invincible Me more than Solid State Invincible, not because SSI is a bad track, but because DIM is just...SOOO good, by a large margin. In fact, SSI even takes lyrics and beats from DIM.

So that's about it...A REALLY solid comeback for Death Battle. Not one of my top fights, but definitely a super strong opener.

...

...Although I feel like I'm forgetting something...There was one other thing that I really liked but I can't quite remember-

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

[dbzebra]

Hey.

Hope you are doing well.

I'm a newbie who plans on watching DBZ.

Could you tell in what order should I watch it?

Asking you since I'm assuming that you are a DBZ fan.

Yes! I’m a very big DB fan lol.

watch original Dragon Ball first. People will say skip it but nooooo please watch it. It’s great

Then you can go to Z. Or Kai, it’s the same show just Kai took out majority of the filler so it’s way shorter.

Then I suggest watching the DB-Z movies. AndThey’re not a part of the main timeline but they’re fun little side stories!

Some will say “don’t bother it’s non canon” but they’re boring and annoying anyway don’t listen to that.

Also the history of trunks special and Bardock father of Goku special. Definitely watch those too

DBS and GT you can really choose which you want first.

Super is ‘canon’ but the modern continuity is kinda fucked, manga and anime happen very differently so it gets confusing. Takes place before the ending. You can watch the two modern Z movies (Battle of Gods and Resurrection F) in place of the first ~26 DBS episodes because the anime begins with retellings. After DBS watch the two super movies.

GT is anime-original after the manga ended, people hate in it but I feel it’s over hated I like it a lot.

[sapphire-weapon]

my first fictional crush was goku at age maybe 6.

the first fanfiction i ever wrote was FF7. the second one was DBZ. the third was a crossover between them both. i was like. 8 or 9.

in 5th grade, i got in trouble in school for passing handwritten DBZ fanfiction back and forth with the boy who sat front of me in class, and my mom refused to yell at me for it because she was glad that i was doing something creative.

DBZ was one of the things that my brother and i actually did together as kids. we were never close because he's 6 years older than me, but i have distinct memories of coming home from school and he'd be waiting with the next 3 or 4 DBZ episodes he'd downloaded from the internet, japanese fansubbed in english because the english dub hadn't released past the frieza saga yet. so i knew how the series went before any of my friends did. he would also go to chinatown in NYC and come home with bootleg fansubbed VHS tapes of DBZ movies. this was like circa 1999-2001. i still have them at my mom's house.

before i knew that cosplay was a thing that people actually did, i went as pan from DBGT for halloween when i was 12.

when i did find out what cosplay was, i was too afraid to do it properly, so when i went to my first convention at 17 with a boyfriend who did not want to go with me but i made him go anyway (it was AnimeNEXT 2007), i threw together a closet cosplay of a genderbent mirai trunks. and i actually found the fucking picture i took of it in the bathroom at my mom's house.

(that's the closest you're ever going to get to a proper face reveal btw lmao a 17 year old picture of me where you can see more of my tits than my face.)

i then went on to properly redo my pan cosplay, and i cosplayed chichi as well. took a picture at a con with a lil baby like 3 year old who was dressed up as goku. can't find it right now though.

in 2011, i went to anime boston with @feelboss and @theggning and drunkenly ran into sean schemmel (the english voice of goku) and somehow ended up on stage with him later that night, still wasted, at the hentai dubbing panel. faked an orgasm on stage for goku in front of about 200 people. my first fictional crush. probably the most iconic moment of my con-going days. i was 21.

the very first time i was able to use analysis of a character's arc to accurately predict their future portrayal in canon was mirai trunks. when his db super arc aired, i remember just being totally floored like, "i can't believe i actually called so much of this" -- especially considering the fact that DB never really had much of a reputation of being consistent.

i just have so many memories of staying up late with @godtier watching DB and shitposting and RPing bardock and raditz and trolling the fuck out of each other, and just

man DB was such a huge part of my life and just... felt like it was always there for me.

i don't normally mourn celebrity deaths, but i feel like i've spent the last 30 years of my life with akira toriyama. losing him hurts so much. it feels like the world has had a little bit of hope fade away from it. i have a headache from crying.

i know that i would always meme on you for forgetting your own characters, but... thank you, toriyama-san. for everything.