It's wonderful to read such a detailed explanation of how consciousness develops from childhood. It almost (but not quite) makes me want to watch these things. My formative consciousness builder was a French children's book written in the 1950's, Tistou of the Green Thumbs, by Maurice Druon. If you can find a copy, I highly recommend it.
I don't agree! I really liked the Funimation dubs that aired on Cartoon Network. An unpopular view I hold is Bruce Faulconer's score was superior to the Japanese score. The Japanese win on the intros - I love all the Japanese intro themes - but Funimation did a good job and I like all the American voice actors.
I'm not saying the funimation dubs are BAD (although the Canadian "Ocean" dubs, where they truncated episodes and ran out of funding mid ginyu saga were better dubs. The old Vegeta "its over 9000" meme was from those Canadian dubs FYI) I think not only do the Dubs often change the character. The goku of the japanese version is a totally different person than the American dub. He doesn't have the nuanced cocktail of a care-free, family loving, yet lover of fighting that the Japaense voice performer captures. I don't totally disagree with you on the score...the Japanese score was often over the top, but has its moments.
One thing that isn't discussed enough is the narrative ambition of Japanese storytellers. It's truly incredibly how they can architect these multi-decade stories and maintain narrative momentum and coherence.
it is impressive. even prestige American TV, at its peak, didn't carry storylines for this long or think in terms of such arcs. American cartoons never did. almost always one-offs.
I'm sure you don't get the same level of engagement on posts like these as you do about Biden or the DSA or the W-word, but every second of Otaku Ross we get is a treasure. Dragon Ball has always been a blind spot for me - I'm a bit younger than you, so most of my exposure to DBZ took the form of memes about its melodrama (over 9000!!) - so it's really sweet to see someone express so eloquently what makes the storytelling so genuinely epic. A great loss, to be sure. (And you didn't even touch on the influence of Dragon Quest!)
One quibble, though:
"Almost all anime, manga, and martial arts tropes, in one form or another, sprung from Dragon Ball; after Hayao Miyazaki, Toriyama was the most influential Japanese artist who ever lived."
Surely Osamu Tezuka trumps Toriyama in terms of influence, right? (Arguably he even trumps Miyazaki!!)
Maybe. I'd say most of the martial arts stuff you saw subsequently - energy blasts, flying characters, even the hair - derived from Toriyama because Dragon Ball proved so popular.
I would've liked to have touched on more Toriyama, even Dr. Slump. But only so much time. I remember when the 9000 meme got big. It was funny to me because most people didn't really know where it came from or the context. For me, it was old news - of course Goku had a high power level, of course Vegeta was freaked out. DBZ would eventually do away with power levels. It was a very Saiyan Saga and Namek Saga era thing.
I think part of the difficulty of ascertaining Tezuka's influence is that he worked in so many genres that it's hard to really point to one specific thing he did as the model for everything that came afterwards (beyond I guess popularizing "anime eyes"). DBZ has a palpable influence on pretty much every shonen afterwards; a bit trickier to point to even something like Astro Boy and say "yes, this seeded everything else." But I do think Tezuka is the bigger guy all things considered.
It would not be overstatement to say that DBZ was my childhood. Great piece Ross!
It's wonderful to read such a detailed explanation of how consciousness develops from childhood. It almost (but not quite) makes me want to watch these things. My formative consciousness builder was a French children's book written in the 1950's, Tistou of the Green Thumbs, by Maurice Druon. If you can find a copy, I highly recommend it.
thank you, yes, I will look for it
Thank you for this.
On thé upper east side an old place called game quest had all the Japanese language VHS tapes I bought. Makes me miss the late 90s of my early youth and the kind of brick and mortar than would
Never exist now . I found thé toonami English dubs unwatchable
I don't agree! I really liked the Funimation dubs that aired on Cartoon Network. An unpopular view I hold is Bruce Faulconer's score was superior to the Japanese score. The Japanese win on the intros - I love all the Japanese intro themes - but Funimation did a good job and I like all the American voice actors.
I'm not saying the funimation dubs are BAD (although the Canadian "Ocean" dubs, where they truncated episodes and ran out of funding mid ginyu saga were better dubs. The old Vegeta "its over 9000" meme was from those Canadian dubs FYI) I think not only do the Dubs often change the character. The goku of the japanese version is a totally different person than the American dub. He doesn't have the nuanced cocktail of a care-free, family loving, yet lover of fighting that the Japaense voice performer captures. I don't totally disagree with you on the score...the Japanese score was often over the top, but has its moments.
I see what you mean. I think it's true the dub neutered things, like initially taking out blood, the lewd jokes, and even some characterization.
One thing that isn't discussed enough is the narrative ambition of Japanese storytellers. It's truly incredibly how they can architect these multi-decade stories and maintain narrative momentum and coherence.
it is impressive. even prestige American TV, at its peak, didn't carry storylines for this long or think in terms of such arcs. American cartoons never did. almost always one-offs.
I'm sure you don't get the same level of engagement on posts like these as you do about Biden or the DSA or the W-word, but every second of Otaku Ross we get is a treasure. Dragon Ball has always been a blind spot for me - I'm a bit younger than you, so most of my exposure to DBZ took the form of memes about its melodrama (over 9000!!) - so it's really sweet to see someone express so eloquently what makes the storytelling so genuinely epic. A great loss, to be sure. (And you didn't even touch on the influence of Dragon Quest!)
One quibble, though:
"Almost all anime, manga, and martial arts tropes, in one form or another, sprung from Dragon Ball; after Hayao Miyazaki, Toriyama was the most influential Japanese artist who ever lived."
Surely Osamu Tezuka trumps Toriyama in terms of influence, right? (Arguably he even trumps Miyazaki!!)
Maybe. I'd say most of the martial arts stuff you saw subsequently - energy blasts, flying characters, even the hair - derived from Toriyama because Dragon Ball proved so popular.
I would've liked to have touched on more Toriyama, even Dr. Slump. But only so much time. I remember when the 9000 meme got big. It was funny to me because most people didn't really know where it came from or the context. For me, it was old news - of course Goku had a high power level, of course Vegeta was freaked out. DBZ would eventually do away with power levels. It was a very Saiyan Saga and Namek Saga era thing.
I think part of the difficulty of ascertaining Tezuka's influence is that he worked in so many genres that it's hard to really point to one specific thing he did as the model for everything that came afterwards (beyond I guess popularizing "anime eyes"). DBZ has a palpable influence on pretty much every shonen afterwards; a bit trickier to point to even something like Astro Boy and say "yes, this seeded everything else." But I do think Tezuka is the bigger guy all things considered.