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Deep Space and Dragons
Episode 68: Magic of Akira Toriyama: A Karl and Richard Dragon Ball Deep Dive
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Ever found yourself grappling with the complexities of modern media while munching on a French onion burger from Wendy's? That's exactly where my week peaked before diving into a college assignment that's as unconventional as it gets—crafting a Telltale Games narrative. This week on Richard and Karl Presents Deep Space and Dragons, we share the quirky intersections of our daily lives, academia, and the media world, traversing from practical discussions about future jobs to our heartfelt tribute to Akira Toriyama's legendary contributions to anime.
Strap in as we navigate the cultural waves of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" and its nuanced take on toxic masculinity, before blasting off to the anime universe where the influence of Akira Toriyama reigns supreme. From dissecting Dragon Ball's storytelling evolution to exploring the lesser-known gems like Sand Land, we're unpacking what makes these works tick. Moreover, we're stirring up the pot with our thoughts on AI-generated art—does it truly honor the legacy of creators like Toriyama, or is it just a digital facade?
Our session wouldn't be complete without a deep character analysis, sizing up Dragon Ball's beloved cast. Can Goku's moral compass point us toward a better understanding of good versus desire? And who, among the stars of this intergalactic saga, can claim the title of the best person in their universe? Prepare for laughs, a few head scratches, and a cosmic journey through the realms of Dragon Ball as we share our insights, fan theories, and why characters like Lunch and Tien Shinhan deserve more love. Remember, it's not just about the power levels—it's the heart behind the Kamehameha that counts.
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Words are hard, and welcome to Richard and Karl Presents Deep Space and Dragons. I'm Richard, struggling with words.
Karl:And I am Karl. You can tell that Richard struggles with words because our title is not alphabetical, you know what's really funny.
Richard:I really hope one of our viewers is tracking how often we complain about the title sorting, because I think that joke is like Simpsons couch gag level of frequent. That joke is like simpsons couch gag level of frequent, like we have definitely, definitely pointed this out a truly comical numbers of times and I mean we're not gonna change it to and deep dragon space.
Richard:So like we're not gonna go, and richard, I mean, and Karl Richard present. So maybe Alphabet's are overrated, huh, ever think of that? Maybe we need, like, some sort of Dewey Decimal sorting.
Karl:Dewey Decimal sorting system for our episode title.
Richard:I mean, if Nintendo wasn't famously litigious, our title being like unknown characters, like literally the Pokemon unknown and just having them dance around would be pretty majestic.
Karl:That would be pretty majestic.
Richard:I mean, I'm not here to pick a fight with Nintendo today.
Karl:Did anything majestic happen to you this week, Richard?
Richard:Is it bad? I'm about to talk about how I went to Wendy's today and had a French onion Whopper I mean a French onion burger and that's the most majestic thing that happened in a week of your life today and had a French onion whopper.
Karl:I mean a French onion burger. That's the most majestic thing that happened in a week of your life.
Richard:So I'm a university well, college student let's not get pedantic here and I have three weeks left in the semester at the time of this recording, which means I have a lot of schoolwork to do. One of my assignments was actually to play through a telltale games, choose your own adventure novel, kind of thing okay, okay so like the most interesting thing I've done this week is play through the walking dead telltale adventure, but that was technically homework.
Karl:Somehow my life's pretty great oh, yeah, okay, I mean, admittedly, if you're using the adjective majestic, the, the onion burger from wendy's fits that much more adequately than uh, because like I will literally give this really boring explanation of what my wake's been.
Richard:I kid you not, because you have brought this on yourself. So since we last spoke, I had an eight in the morning class on contracts. I proceeded to then talk with some co-workers about co-op and internship options. I then proceeded to have a class on two-genre workshopping of stories. Then I played cyberpunk with my friend, slept the weekend away and, because of how the long weekend works out, I have like a seven day weekend and I've spent it doing schoolwork wow.
Karl:So what way to utilize your week off to its fullest?
Richard:right. So monday I had class and then yesterday I was mostly a deadbeat but played through adventure games which are technically homework. And then today I'm not gonna lie most of today was spent walking to wendy's walking to wendy's and marinating my idea because I decide what I'm doing for my novel and I have like a rough outline done.
Richard:But I'm a weird person who'll spend like a week to do a thousand word outline and then write three thousand words an hour and spend like 12 hours tomorrow putting out this entire full-length game wait, your your novel?
Karl:uh, like what you have. You have a lot of writing projects on the go. Yes, uh is. Is this the last part of your trilogy? Or is this a schoolwork thing?
Richard:Oh no, this is a schoolwork thing where I'm trying to make a full-length script for a Telltale game which did things like the Walking Dead, choose your Own Adventure novel, the Expanse, choose your Own Adventure novel. So it's a company that makes video games that are basically story games that release episodically and my assignment is to make a mock script for one of those.
Karl:That brand specifically, or is it actually like a genre?
Richard:So I'm doing that brand specifically because my professor has contacts who worked at Telltale Games specifically.
Karl:So I want to do something that if I were to apply there later I could be, could be like look, I did this script that matches your formatting and style because I'm cool, we should you should like hire me because I write these things and then you hopefully have a good recommendation from the professor as well exactly so then I'd have a playable version of it that's just text, a script and like some experience and contact.
Richard:So out of my four big school projects, that's the one I care the most about, although the other one I'm doing is a research paper on the D&D OGL scandal, which is funny that that was relevant for my life.
Karl:Yeah, okay, because it's like on Canadian book copywriting laws.
Richard:I'm like, oh, like that time that D&D tried to say they owned your fictional characters if you made them on their website.
Karl:That is pretty amusing, though that's actually both relevant to you specifically and then also relevant to courses that you ended up taking.
Richard:Right. So it's like you can write a paper on contract law. So I'm like to my professor does this count? He's like, yeah, I'm familiar with it.
Richard:I'm like you just got so much cooler because it's like either you're so far into the book publishing industry that you care about the ogl, or the far more likely reason is you or someone you know cares about tabletop gaming and dnd. Because I just feel like you don't just stumble onto that one like the amount of explaining I have to do. To explain the OGL controversy, first I have to explain what an OGL is Like. That's step one, Then all the other steps, and then I have to explain what a tabletop RPG is and then I say the game they played in Stranger Things. At that point I've already died inside.
Karl:The game they sort of played in Stranger Things.
Richard:Exactly. And then, yeah, like every one of my classes has a big project, so it's the research paper, the choose-your-own-adventure novel, a nonfiction interview I did and a story I wrote where someone rips off their wedding sash and wraps it around a cultist and uses them as a flail to smash someone to death.
Karl:Okay, step it back here. No, the non-fictional interview you did, yeah, like, is there such a thing as a fictional interview you've done.
Richard:So the class is called non-fiction. So I think I over-explained to the point of you wondering if there is a fictional interview versus nonfiction. No, it's called nonfiction. This is me sorting right the interview for nonfiction class or the nonfiction interview. For the record though, interview of a vampire exists, which is, in fact, a fictional interview.
Karl:Well, I mean, yeah, arguably Arrested Development is a fictional interview. I just I can't like have you. Hmm, can you actually do a fictional interview? I mean, you can write a fictional interview, but yeah, we call it fraud. Okay, okay.
Richard:Like there's no reason you can't. Like there's nothing stopping me from writing my interview with I don't know Bruce Lee and putting it on the internet. It's just a lie. And then someone can sue me for slander. And if I write a fictional interview with a fictional character, then like it's like if I were to post my interview of Son Goku and I'm protected by fair use, because no sensible person thinks I actually interviewed the character Goku. However, toei can be like hey, you're trying to profit off our intellectual property, which is Son Goku. Therefore, your fictional interview is some nonsense.
Karl:However, I think I have a bright future interviewing fictional characters and writing up fake interviews.
Richard:Like I think he would be amused if I wrote an interview and it was with the character son goku and I wrote his point of view completely in character and just had a full like cnn interview with goku. That would actually be kind of amusing, but that's kind of the entire like how the muppets can exist. So what's new with karl now that I've given, it's like I never know if my stories are actually boring because I'm having the best time here, but like also want to hear about my research paper.
Karl:Internet, no weird well, I mean I absolutely love mundane stories and I would suggest that our audience also loves our mundane stories because I mean they tend to take up a bulk of the episode.
Richard:So something semi-related. One of our recent episodes where we just talked about tropes has like four times the downloads and I have no idea why. It's like we didn't even have a topic, like our episode of crinkle cookies has a quarter of the downloads as our episode where we just talked about tropes there's no system there's no rhyme or reason like.
Richard:I love looking at our episodes and being like what are some of our best hits? Dune, okay, that makes sense, and boruto, that makes sense, and then it'll just be something completely unhinged, like Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer did really well. Although I think our Dune episode did well, because I called it a spice opera.
Karl:It was the Dune.
Richard:Strikes Back. A spice opera is what we called the episode. I think it's just how clever my name puns are. Is the success of any given episode, maybe Like one that did really well? Was Naruto A ninja love story question mark? Hmm, which it was?
Karl:It definitely was.
Richard:I'm trying to be a ninja love story, but it didn't have the story, if Boruto had bothered to show, not tell, it'd be so good, right, the whole I am your?
Karl:something would just be, ah. And then he's trapped in a love triangle because the other crazy I don't even know what she is- Ukasuka, ukawuku, well I don't think she's one of those.
Richard:I think she's like artificial, she's like a derivative of one using Dippa Dippa.
Richard:But yeah, anyways, we've complained enough about Boruto to know that Boruto's biggest problem is it does show, not tell. I don't know how a manga has the show don't tell problem. Like I read a lot of scripts and a lot of writing and a lot of fiction right, and I'll often be like show don't tell, where some of the higher level students I work with will be like, oh, you showed and you tell, like you wrote a beautiful scene explaining it and then you explained it. I just don't know how Boruto, a visual medium, has this problem because he literally is like I'm your son, which is a part of the mechanic that's built into Mitsuki, because son is part of his emotional core. I'm like did you really write that out loud? Guy? Show him blushing, it's not that hard. You just drop four lines under each cheek does the same thing. Why it's less lines?
Karl:but barto is not. What's new with me? Um, what's new with me actually? I, I don't know, uh, why it popped into my head, but I I just randomly I started thinking about dr.
Richard:Horrible sing-along blog what do you mean? You don't know why.
Karl:Guys, tune into our previous week episode where we almost talk about it Okay, well, no, actually oddly enough that Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was not even on my list of musicals or topics concerning musicals that I wanted to talk about when I was thinking about talking about musicals, but maybe that is why it popped into my head.
Richard:Because I specifically said this is awesome. I don't know why. I feel like there's some plagiarism at work here. Like, hey, karl, this thing's awesome. And then you're like, yeah, I just watched this new manga no one ever told me about called Frieren, and then I watched Dr Horrible sing on my blog and I don't the record. I'm going to go meta for a second here. So before this recording I was talking about you to my roommate, slash brother sometimes goes by Panda I'm sure I've screwed up and said his name on stream before and we talked about how Karl would never knowingly betray me or disappoint me. He would betray me and disappoint me. Trusting Karl is dangerous, but not ever because of his intent, but because he's Karl. So I have complete faith You'll always try and do the right thing as friendship. I have complete faith that your intentions are pure and just, but you're also Karl.
Karl:Okay, but so my girlfriend had never seen it before. Oh, and so I I was like yeah, maybe we should watch it, but so my girlfriend had never seen it before. Oh nice. And so I was like, yeah, maybe we should watch it. It's only like 45 minutes. And then, like a couple days later, we actually watched it, but in the meantime I had searched for it on YouTube Because I don't know how else to get a hold of it.
Richard:I mean, it was a web series.
Karl:Well, yeah, but it turns out it is posted in full on YouTube.
Richard:I think it's supposed to be.
Karl:I mean, it definitely wasn't an official Dr Horrible sing-along blog channel, never mind that, but they seem to have a lot of Well. I mean, maybe there is an official channel, I don't know. The series came out in 2008,.
Richard:I think Can I give a little side tangent though. So I was trying to do a watch-along with a friend of mine about the Dragon Ball Z Battle of Gods movie because it was probably one of the best Dragon Ball Z movies. I wasn't able to legitimately found it but I found that someone had re-uploaded it but changed the soundtrack to the music scores. They'd used the Bruce Faulkner music scores from, like the North American Dragon Ball release. I just thought it was funny that there's people out there now that have only ever seen the questionably uploaded one that has the soundtrack switched out to like rock the dragon and things and it's like to this person that's the original because they never saw the other one. So they just assume that the soundtrack is that and it makes me happy because I like that soundtrack better. But it never made its way into Super.
Karl:They even snuck in some new soundtracks.
Richard:They put in the awesome Ultraman stick during the Beerus-Goku fight, not related but. I just find it funny when the original is like lost media but the fan edit makes it to survive.
Karl:It's just really funny to me that is pretty funny, um but um, the dr horrible sing-along blog. Uh, for anyone who doesn't know, it's about an aspiring supervillain. He wants to join the evil league of evil, but he's also in love with the girl that he sees at the laundromat every day, or every week, I guess.
Richard:Could you imagine daily laundromat trips? I kind of wish my life was chill enough that I could.
Karl:You know how little I'd have to have going on to just go wash a singular shirt but, um, now, in between, when I proposed watching this with my girlfriend, uh, and when I actually watched it, I searched for it on youtube. I found it, so I knew I'd be able to actually watch it. And then suddenly my YouTube feed has like 10 year old videos breaking down the dr, horrible themes and and the writing and whatnot. It's like huh. And the one video in particular I found really interesting was like like yeah you, it was made by Joss Whedon. He's the guy who made Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so he's made some very iconic and culturally significant creations.
Richard:I think he broke his arm at some point.
Karl:He's also somewhat like. Unfortunately, men in Hollywood have had unchecked power for like 30, 40 years and absolute power corrupts absolutely Don't tell me I'm enjoying watching you dance around it.
Richard:But yes, let's just go with for the purposes of our podcast today, we will not be diving into the ethics of Joss Whedon.
Karl:Well, but so this video I found it particularly interesting because it was, like you know, this is the video said that Dr Horrible's Sing Along blog is an interesting commentary on a certain type of toxic masculinity that's born out of nerd culture.
Richard:That's a take. That is an interesting take.
Karl:Well what they ultimately said was that it didn't go far enough to make it seem like it was a condemnation of that kind of toxic masculinity. But, like Dr Horrible himself, he doesn't even talk to this woman and then he gets mad at her for seeing someone else and stalks and then tries to kill her boyfriend.
Richard:Yeah, and then she dies and he ends up miserable and that's kind of like. I think the take that doesn't condemn it enough is just kind of lowballing your audience a bit too much there, because it's like they like to say. The director of Fight Club even said Fight Club's a good movie. Don't trust people who say it's their favorite movie, because that means they're probably thinking the villain was the hero.
Karl:Well, one of the other things they said is kind of interesting commentary on how people get radicalized on the internet too, and it's like the sense of isolation that they end up giving themselves because reality doesn't meet their expectations, even though their expectations are surprisingly naive.
Richard:So, like if it was up to me, I'm going to be real. I just ban social media for anyone under the age of 18. Like tomorrow, Every single study on Earth is like. This is just bad.
Karl:Yeah, pretty much.
Richard:Social media just kind of seems to be the worst, like there's no good argument as to why we should let teenagers post bikini photos of themselves on the internet, like there's no argument you can give for it what about creative expression?
Richard:yeah, creative express, use regular photos that don't exist forever. I'm fine with you buying yourself a camera and developing the film Go nuts, because at the least you can only like you don't have instant psychological manipulation algorithms trying to ruin you at that point. That's what kind of brings me about that topic. It's like no, they literally copyright and like, yeah, no, copyright, trademark. This is what we're doing. We own this targeted algorithm to make you feel bad about yourself yeah, like I said, I shouldn't laugh.
Karl:It is a very serious issue no, you should.
Karl:It's also really dumb that it's a serious issue in any event, when I first watched Dr Oral oral sing-along blog, it was like in 2008 and I watched it with a bunch of my of my uh, male buddies and we just thought it was a fun, funny movie. Uh, that ended in tragedy and it's like you know this, it was a felt, like it was really I felt and I still do feel. Uh, that is, it was really I felt and I still do feel that it was really well written and really well produced, but then I didn't even realize that there were people who were analyzing it to this degree where it's like, wow, I mean, I mean, it's kind of funny. I did not get that much out of this short film.
Richard:So analyzing things is always so interesting to me because I'm so deep in a program where I literally had a course called Reading Like a Writer, where we analyze why the door is blue in fiction. The thing is, it's interesting because a lot of the time I'm like well, people can see whatever they want to see in a piece of media. But what's interesting is if you can figure out how something is doing something can then replicate it, notice it, patternify it, quantify it or incorporate into your own work.
Richard:So right I don't know if I fundamentally well I do I do agree that it's an interesting expression on toxic, toxic masculinity. I don't think it was written for that purpose, given who wrote it and why. But but also, it's less about whether or not it's actually a representation of it and more that, if people see it that way, then there's value in the argument, because if it can be used as an example of it, then you have the ability to write papers, analyze and replicate why it works as that works as that?
Richard:Because, yeah, I do not think Joss Whedon woke up one day, called Neil Patrick Harris and said we really need to take the patriarchy down a peg. It just doesn't really match with his life trajectory. I don't think that's what happened. I think it's ironic if someone toxically masculine wrote a self-insert fic and it turned out to be toxically masculine somehow.
Karl:Well, and then, like one of the commentaries that was also made, is the fact that Penny, aside from going out to get signatures for her homeless shelter, has zero agency in the show and ends up basically dying for sleeping with the wrong person.
Richard:Yeah Like the thing is, though, like and as you mentioned earlier, it's like they're like they didn't make it more explicit. I'm like no, it's a tragedy. That's the thing is, like sometimes people don't realize they're watching a tragedy.
Richard:And there's not a whole lot you can do. I'd rather people who think deeply about things be like oh yeah, I get it. It's a tragedy to try and somehow make people who don't catch it think that's a scam. I like art being art's sake and not being overly focus grouped. It's like earlier rant about Boruto where it's like yeah, no, you can tell there's a focus group, because they probably read the ref draftably like what does the sun thing mean? He's like fine, I'll have a character Explain it verbatim, because I don't trust our readers to have read that line at the start of Boruto, which literally defines the snake guy's entire character, and remember that it meant anything. So I should probably remind them like yeah, that's a focus group, not a person that thought that Because, like, I go through a lot of workshops it's like probably a quarter of my program.
Richard:So I will always have one or two people in my group be like I didn't understand this, and then you have to make that disjudgment call of is it fine that that person didn't understand it or did they get enough out of it? Sorry to go like all craft theory on you, but it's where my heart is.
Karl:Well, I mean, I handed that to you on a silver platter.
Richard:It's pretty great, but we did have a purpose this week.
Karl:Yeah, so I mean, besides that I just watched Ghostbusters, which also is not our purpose this week.
Richard:True, but we may do a Ghostbusters episode later, particularly because I kind of want to compare and contrast Ghostbusters to Supernatural, because it's just such a funny contrast to make.
Karl:So stay tuned for our eventual comparison between Ghostbusters and Supernatural.
Richard:Also, we have to like, at some point, acknowledge the fact that Supernatural did a crossover animated movie with Scooby-Doo and it's canon. So we're here to talk that Ghostbusters, that Supernatural did a crossover animated movie with Scooby-Doo and it's canon, but but um, so we're here to talk.
Karl:Yeah, our actual topic this week is something of a tribute to Akira Toriyama, because both of us are fans of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super. I don't know if you're a fan of Dragon Ball GT. I am Kind of.
Richard:So GT is an interesting one and we'll probably get there during this. So I'm going to open with something that I would have probably watched it anyway, but after the Akira Toriyama news, I decided to go through Sandland on Disney Plus to see like how they did it, because they did it like as like a weird anime, cgi kind of thing and I'm usually on the fence about those right and it's some of his best writing by like a lot it turns out.
Richard:But what's funny is they like we're setting up for a sequel where they're going to do like a forest land sequel to sand land. So the sand land anime last episode is setting up for like this adventure in forest land.
Richard:I'm like I don't think that was in the original at all I also don't think so because in the in this last episode, the anime one they introduced that's currently out anyway they introduced a character who's an angel, with like doofy little angel wings, to like a counterpart to beelzebub, and they go on an adventure to stop a war between forest land and xanland. Huh, and the main reason the Rao gets drafted in is he's not part of the military but also won't just die. So they sent him to negotiate. Yeah, okay, but yeah, like I think that, oh, go ahead.
Karl:Go ahead, oh, you go ahead.
Richard:I'm going to say I think the best way we can do this is, I think, if we gave a big, long explanation of Akira Toriyama and all his work, I don't think we're quite qualified to do a life and times in memoriam. So I think just like pointing at some of our favorite things we liked of his, and maybe some of the things that didn't quite like as much. But we're not sure who to hang on this fair game.
Richard:But I'm going to start with my favorite running joke about Akira Toriyama. I'm going to start slightly negative because it's going to turn into a positive piece Okay.
Richard:It is so funny to me when people are like he can only draw like six faces and they go to the character creator in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, and it's true, there's only like six faces. So how has he made a thousand characters successfully? Because he's willing to put the most wackadoodle things next to Oda or even greater than that. Like he's like, yeah, I would just put a tiger in here for no reason because I want to, and there's just something about like the rebel value in his work where I don't think he was the best action writer. I'm not sure he was the best action writer, I'm not sure he was the best comedian, but he was very, very good at having voice in his piece. Like you can tell very clearly that his voice is in stuff or something like Jujutsu Kaisen, for example. You wouldn't be able to instantly point out that author's other work very easily.
Karl:Right right.
Richard:But yeah, so where do you want to start? What work? Because we both, before this, went through his manga theater, masterpiece theater. What did he end up calling that?
Karl:It is manga theater. I have read it before. I just haven't actually read it recently and unfortunately I still haven't bothered to renew my Shonen Jump subscription because I was upset that they stopped accepting PayPal and doubled the price. It's still a reasonable price.
Richard:So if any Shonen Jump app executives are in our chat, we would love a sponsorship. You just have to give us the app for free and we'll talk good things about it.
Karl:It's that easy. Well, I mean, you do have the app for free. You just can only read the first three chapters of the last three chapters.
Richard:I am shocked they didn't put that specific one as a free download for the month, because obviously views are going to spike for that and I feel like the right thing to do would have been to make all his work free for a while, just a.
Karl:so let's start with Dr Slump then well, okay, actually I do love Dr Slump, but I actually have a completely different direction to take this and it'll be a little bit tangential. But there are two things I want to say first. The first is I think that AI has a lot of potential benefits for humanity, particularly in like sciences.
Richard:Oh great, Now I have to test if you're a robot. Hey, do you remember what my AI testing question was?
Karl:No, I don't.
Richard:All right. So I'm going to ask you a question. Only the real Karl could answer and an AI would get wrong.
Karl:Okay, okay.
Richard:You're bracing yourself, uh-huh. What is both my favorite and most annoyed by ability in Bleach?
Karl:Your favorite and most, oh, I know. Insert yourself into the backstory.
Richard:So now to test you for the AI. What about? It breaks me as a person.
Karl:Well, it just doesn't make sense.
Richard:Why doesn't it make sense? I need to get some emotional in here to make sure you're not a bot.
Karl:Oh okay, why? Because it breaks cause and effect. I actually don't. You've ranted about this like a million times and I know it really, really, really bugs you, but it's like. I don't really actually remember the specifics, just the fact that it's like it, just it breaks everything, it breaks reality and yet it just kind of doesn't it's that second law you got so close there.
Richard:The reason it breaks me is it's an ability that shows in the setting. Both time travel, reality, manipulation and that the time system doesn't create branching timelines but a weird ripple effect are all used in this one side character's tendential or relevant ability, like it doesn't matter.
Richard:No one in that series cares that a guy can rewrite history in such a way that causes a cascading ripple through reality but also somehow doesn't break everything Like no one cares. This guy could walk up to the imprisoned eyes and stab him and rewrite the show bleach no one cares. Like this doesn't blow anyone's minds. It's Tuesday, I guess.
Karl:But now that I know you're not an AI, probably probably not.
Richard:Please continue Cyber
Karl:I think the AI is largely beneficial to humanity in a lot of ways, but it's benefits are not as clear when it comes to the creative arts alright, I'm following remember. I have a very vested interest against this, because I'm a writer the second thing I want to say is that I am not the authority on what it means to be a fan of anything, but in this case I consider myself a fan of Akira Toriyama's work.
Richard:like I love Dr Slump, I love Dragon Ball so one of my favorite Karl moments is you literally look someone dead in the eye and went out of everything in this world. Do not lie to me about Dragon Ball facts. I know original Dragon Ball with every fiber of my being.
Karl:Original Dragon Ball is so much better than Z.
Richard:I can get on that, although, weirdly enough, because of how poorly the first season of Dragon Ball aged for content warning related things, I'd probably start people like episode 10. I'd start with the meeting Master Roshi.
Karl:I don't know if it's even safe to start with the meeting, master Roshi, actually, counterpoint.
Richard:I think you start Dragon Ball with people, but you age rate it the same. You give Hasbin Hotel Like you give the trigger warning list.
Karl:Okay, but I am not the authority on what it means to be a fan of anything, especially like Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z and all of the Kirito-comics Don't worry, I am.
Richard:But, please continue.
Karl:But I was reading a blog post. I'm not going to tell you what website, because you don't need to know my search history, but it was a blog post about how, on Twitter, slash X. No no, no, no it's just Twitter.
Richard:He doesn't get the satisfaction. Take that slash out of there, or we can call it Twitter X. I'm fine with that, like Sonic X.
Karl:But so on Twitter X there have some purported fans of Dragon Ball have released have posted AI generated tributes to Akira Toriyamayama oh, this is a fun tangent, because I have lots of thoughts on this too um, and the, the one that I saw, uh, was just goku's back is to the, to the audience, and luffy is hugging him and crying.
Karl:It's like, okay, that's, that's pretty sweet, uh. But the second one I saw, the ai got goku's face wrong because it's goku and luffy standing next to next to each other looking at, looking at the viewer, but they both have luffy's face and like the face is so iconic.
Richard:like I have a how to draw Dragon Ball character, I, with my disability, can draw a Goku face.
Karl:But an AI thinks that he looks like. Luffy.
Richard:Goku face is like three diamonds in a circle.
Karl:Anyways, my question for you. Like I say, I don't want to say that these people are not dragon ball fans, um, or that they they had malintent or anything like that. Um, but me personally, uh, there's not much of themselves in that tribute, uh, and I just I.
Richard:Oh, I am happy to jump on this bandwagon. So I have three things to go over.
Karl:I'm mostly just curious whether or not you think that AI-generated art is an acceptable tribute to someone creative like Akira Toriyama.
Richard:So I'm going to open with this we need free education Because there's so many dumb people and they don't know they're dumb. They simply do not have the education they would need in this instance, because if your way of celebrating an artist who draws for a living is literally copyright infringement based on a computer that scans internet databases to steal their worth for the profit of open AI, it's not your fault because you didn't think about any of that. So, like anyone who knows better, like if you're in an art school or something, it's like yeah, no, that's tacky. That would be the equivalency of like oh man, that was going to be a real bad example. That was going to get me canceled. But like, let's go with mr rogers. If your tribute to mr rogers was the death battle video where mr rogers wins at the end, that kind of goes against what mr rogers stood for, right, like he shouldn't go down in history at his memoriam for beating up all of the characters in a fictional fight.
Richard:That's not what he was about. So these AI tributes, like most internet posting A isn't about a curatorial, it's to get attention because it's trending, let's be real. And B, they don't think that it's somehow tacky to take a comic artist and use a computer to do tributes. But C, and this is the most important part, oh man do. Those AI Dragon Ball pictures make me man as a fan of the series. So here's a weird pet peeve that gets me every time it will never put the right number of stars on the Dragon Balls. So, like, my feed's full of these, right, because I lurk around in artistic communities, that's where I live.
Richard:And I will see like eight Dragon Balls and each one will have four stars on them and I'll just get so bad Because I'm like you didn't like do enough iterations of your AI and like run it through, run it through, run it through, clean it program, keep some delete To create a nice enough tribute, because if you use the tools and made a really nice, accurate looking tribute to Akira Toriyama, spent like I don't know six hours regenerating, reiterating the image, because you can use those AI tools to do interesting art.
Richard:But when you just type akiratoriyamatrib tributegen and then post it, you're not editing. And I think ai art would bug me so much less if people edited. Because if you took that into photoshop and put goku's face on it, fixed up the dragon balls, made it actually akira toriyama, not jackie chan, on the poster and like took the time to like clean it up in Photoshop, I'd be so much less annoyed because, like, I think a lazy tribute is worse than no tribute, because you're like, oh, I spent 30 seconds to pay my respects is somehow worse, like if you come to my funeral for one minute and leave, don't go well, and the thing that makes me um, like the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z are obviously his most famous works, oh yeah, but he has a fairly large catalog of lesser-known works, including especially North America, like Dr Slump is.
Karl:I mean, it's even referenced in Dragon Ball and it's actually a very interesting comedy series. It's like I've never. I haven't actually read all of Dr Slump, but I did buy the first volumes while they were being translated, and so I gave up on buying them because I realized it would take too long for me to wait for them all to be translated. Maybe I'll buy them in bulk now, because it's probably finished being officially translated and imported to the americas. But it's just like to the like the only tributes they're paying are to like the, the big three. It's like, oh yeah, you know, if they had them standing there with with, uh, ichigo, luffy and dragon and well, it's an interesting thing, right?
Richard:Because, like, there's that theory that like, yeah, he inspired the next generation of Mangeka. It's like they've said this, they're putting out to it and, like I said, people contribute however they want. My main issue is with the lazy tribute, because if they just wrote a post that said, like he, inspired a generation. That's fair.
Karl:But then they're only drawing from his most famous work, even though he has many more works than that too. It just comes off lazy.
Richard:It's kind of funny. That's not the part that bugs me, but I see your point. So it's like yes, yes, he did other work.
Richard:But also there is a lot of people who like can say, unironically, I am now the world heavyweight champion because I watched dragon ball growing up, so it makes sense to me like I watched this work and it influenced me from his message of hard work, which is ironic because dragon ball's message was I don't think I have to quote accurate, but it was like we train, train hard, work hard, rest hard, eat hard and enjoy every aspect of life. That's the actual tournament way.
Karl:Right.
Richard:So it's like yeah, vegeta encouraged me to push my limits and be a boxer, so I wore a Vegeta outfit to my match today to honor Toriyama. That's fair, because that's what they emotionally resonated with. So, to follow up that one, a bit like a lot of the articles, though the clickbait articles I can't be bothered to talk about anything substantial. Those bug me Cause they'll be like want to talk about Akira Toriyama. Sure, he wrote Dragon Ball and like you can open Wikipedia, guy, like to throw a little thing on like what is that comic book resource or something where it's like top 10 Akira Toriyama characters and it's just Dragon Ball characters?
Karl:Well, I mean, like I say, those are the most famous and particularly in the Americas, those are the ones that are most recognized. Oh but like it is pretty funny that it's like uh. Firstly he reuses a lot of character models, but secondly it's like sand land, uh animated on disney plus but also a relatively short uh manga. I think it has 17 chapters. It's such a clean read it's. It's amusing to me. The main hero, uh is uh appears to be tabora's son well, what's kind of funny is like?
Richard:in his history they say that he submitted like 500 pages of tries to try and get something published at the start and like it's funny because in north america we got to know the already successful kira toriyama.
Richard:But also tohi had a lot of shaping on dragon ball z, right. Like, as someone who's read the manga and watched dragon ball, dragon ball in manga form has less pectoral muscles and more levity, because Dragon Ball Z is like we're going to film this like a John Woo film every episode, have them stand there, a breeze, a do-do-do-do-do-do-do, and then you read it and he's like no, that was like one page and it was supposed to be like six seconds, not a full six-minute stare-off, glare contest, nice try. Because, like, especially when you read early Dragon Ball or the Dragon Boy one-shot, he wasn't in it for super intense fights.
Richard:He actually it's kind of funny because, like in current show-and-jump, I feel like the closest thing, the closest thing to like actually following dragon ball vibes and this isn't a very ironic statement it's probably that psychic detective chozo ro show so like all these, people who a series that declare they're super inspired by dragon ball.
Richard:We're more inspired by, like the dragon ball z syndication. I mean, I could be wrong. This is just subjective. These are my arbitrary ass opinions about it, but I feel like his comedy was always stronger than his seriousness, even though, like he's responsible for some of the most iconic anime, intense badass scenes of all time. I don't think they would have worked if a series wasn't lighthearted to begin with.
Karl:Yeah, well, dragon Ball Z takes itself far more seriously because, like you say, the editorial team, they wanted it to be a more serious story and honestly, I don't think Akira Toriyama actually like when you see how he closed out the Cell Saga and it's widely agreed that that's where he was intending to stop the story and then when they forced him to keep going, he's like all right, I'm going to do it on my terms, and then it's just crazy goofy, zany magic, turning people into food and stuff. Like that's where Akira Toriyama, his, his actual voice and style really really came out in the more goofy and zany stories, really, really came out in the more goofy and zany stories.
Richard:Well, it's like, for example, Sandland, which I've been loving, where it's like grumpy old man, chibi demon, old man, demon. One of the driving motivations is Beelzebub gets a PlayStation and then his dad's like you may go on this quest, but remember you can only play your PlayStation one hour a day. That made me happy, like there's a lot of moments in sandland. I'm like, wow, wait, this protagonist is just competent. What like they just like lift up the tank to shoot a plane out there. Like this is great. Like you can tell that one he got to do what he wanted yeah, or like when you read like one of his more recent works, which was Jacko, which is so funny because it's like this is canon.
Richard:It's just the doofiest thing.
Karl:Jacko is such a doofus. It's kind of weird that he at least in North America he never got his own animated series. I don't know if he didn't get one in Japan.
Richard:I'm shocked at that. Actually, I am shocked. I haven't seen the Jacko series. Like you're right, it hasn't come across my desk. I don't know if that exists, which is weird, because it mustn't exist, because if it did, I would know right.
Karl:Right, but it was kind of weird that he made such an appearance in the. Well, I guess he was only really in the Moro arc of Dragon Ball Super. It was just kind of like In the Frieza movie for fun.
Richard:Oh yeah, he was in the Frieza movie, he hung around a lot in the Super anime, less so in the manga. But it's also like Interesting side characters.
Richard:It was definitely, though, like he was only thrown in there almost for like a throwaway thing, almost, hmm, but like it's also funny too, like how iconic his character designs are. It's like, oh yeah, just Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger. I'm like, yeah, those aren't iconic at all. And like, apparently, for dragon ball, super like he did the concept story outlines, storyboards and dialogue, and I really enjoyed the part where it's like, wait, so was the anime team and the manga team just handed the same outline and they wrote different stories with it, because it's like the goku black saga being different in both those forms is actually kind of really fascinating to me, because it's like I'm pretty sure they were handed the same outline and that's just what they ended up with.
Karl:Right, but yeah, I mean that is definitely very bizarre, the differences between the Dragon Ball Super, the anime and the manga. I mean the manga does a lot of things very well, but then I mean the anime is the anime, it's like the.
Richard:The fact that it's animated gives it huge points oh for sure, and like I've read some of his one shots that were in his collection like his like wonder island, but like a lot of his one shots, you can see him like reusing concepts. It's gonna sound weird though.
Richard:Like he's so iconic for dragon ball but like him having characters run around with doofy looking tanks and guns throwing bombs at things are actually like some of my favorite moments of his. Like you watched him draw the red rig and rb stuff. I'm like some of his like just designs for things in that season were fascinating season were fascinating.
Karl:Hmm, yeah, that's definitely true. He had a lot of very interesting characters and designs and technologies. I don't even think I've actually seen anybody else replicate the Capsule Corp technology In pretty much any other medium. It's like no, it's always magic that you put stuff into little capsules, but the idea that it was technology and the way that it shaped their world.
Richard:Well, what's interesting, though, is that, like, just like the architecture side of it, like of how everything looked, was just so unique.
Richard:But then he also does things like Nekomajin, which is just like here's a cat that maybe or maybe not canonically hung along with the Dragon Ball thing, and it's like I haven't read all of his work. I went through a fair amount in the manga theater because it's fascinating. But it's like it's so interesting because you hear things from interviewers where it's like, yeah, I forgot which form of super saiyan this was, or it has blonde hair because that gave us an excuse to not color it in to hit the deadline. And the thing is he was a very flexible artist, which I find is interesting because, like Akira, toriyama would never talk about his artistic vision. You know what we were talking earlier this episode about people deep diving into Dr Horrible and being like what was the point?
Richard:Was it trying to be a study on toxic masculinity? Akira Toriyama was just in it for the bit, for the most part. Like he would write, you'd get stories like oh yeah, I added in four new characters because the editor said who, no one's gonna be afraid of an old man in a mime, make more interesting villains. And then I did and like, as a writer, I find it so inspiring to be like yeah, no, akira toriyama, if you threw a shot at him he would just counter spell you because he's like yeah the work wouldn't exist in its form, because when I got pushback, I then like misdirected them.
Richard:It's just very fascinating to me, because you don't hear about that, you don't actually get to hear about what the editors did or didn't do on Naruto and you don't really get to hear about One Piece having a battle with the editors, because I think that's almost like a product of the time. Yeah, I don't know.
Richard:I find it interesting the idea that if you put him in a room and like create, he can actually like respond and adapt right in such a good way like there's an interview I read a while back where he's like yeah, so I wasn't sure really how to ramp up the scale after goku was literally offered the god of earth. I'm like, what if goku was an alien? A clever bit of thinking on my part, and it's like it was, though, because he made that pivot so smoothly like no one caught him yeah, like I think about any other series pulling that and actually getting away with it, like naruto tried to pull that.
Richard:They didn't get away with it.
Karl:No one was buying that ninjas are space aliens we still push back on that barto is still going, so yeah, but maybe someone's buying it well, no, but no one liked that.
Richard:Like, no one accepted it as like oh, that's a cool plot twist. They're like oh, yeah, yeah like I said, drago got away with, dragon Ball got away with having a completely serious plot arc about time mishtravel, passing the torch from father to son, breaking through your limits to defeat your enemies, having to let yourself go in a moment where you just can't endure anymore. And then they went with two characters dance, and then they fuse and have vests. Like I don't know how you do that without breaking immersion. I really don't.
Karl:Well, like I say, I think that the Boo saga, despite being Well, I don't know how well it was received, I like to say it was less well received because the Cell saga was such a fitting end to the series.
Richard:It's hard to say so, like I have some complex thoughts on it. I think one of the biggest downsides to the Boo Saga was that there was only one villain in the Boo Saga, but they tried to make it as long as the Cell Saga Right. So I think the Boo Saga's biggest problem was it actually got stale because it was just one boss rush.
Karl:Yeah. Because, a lot of the ideas in it.
Richard:I really liked, and a lot of the fans obviously liked them. Dragon Ball Fusions wouldn't exist in a game if people weren't vibing in the Boo saga but there's like little things that fans got too invested in, like why was Mystic Gohan worthless? A fair question. I've given that rant before.
Karl:Well, he's still worthless because he achieved a new form before he even did anything in his mystic form.
Richard:So like yeah, we took a character, that's the protagonist and benched him. We had Goku give a full speech about letting the next generation come on and bench them and I'm like how much of that was him being? Like, yeah, I really wanted to hand over manga to the next generation. They dragged me back, so I guess I'm Goku.
Karl:Goku's, his self-insert character?
Richard:I doubt it, but like it's fascinating, right, like there are some interesting ideas that just you wouldn't get away with if you weren't him. And it blows my mind for how seriously people take Dragon Ball, because it's such a weird show, for that, because it's like, yeah, completely serious, post-apocalyptic androids killed my family. My sensei lost his arm, edgelord serious, and then Boo had a dog named Bee, so it was Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo Bee who was shot by a sniper for some reason. Let's take a moment that he had a sniper shoot a dog In the series where Krillin won a fight because he had no nose.
Richard:The same series a sniper shot a dog Like how do you manage that tone without breaking it? I'll never have that skill, because that's insane. I am like so impressed.
Karl:Well, like I I said, there was a pretty huge tonal shift between dragon ball and dragon ball z, and I'm pretty sure that dragon ball z was when the editors got more serious about being like hey, we wanted you to take this but he also slow rolled it too.
Richard:like we talk about the huge tone shift, like it was a sudden smacks you in the face and the reason we feel that way is. We finished Z and went back to Dragon Ball for the most part. But if you watch it in its intended order, somehow, through amnesia and the shockwave of forgetfulness, dragon Ball definitely slow rolls the tone towards Z Because the Piccolo Jr fight could have happened in Z and it would have fit the kid Goku training at Kami's Lookout to fight. Piccolo Jr would have fit in Z Even.
Richard:Goku versus King Piccolo would have somewhat fit in Z, but the further back you go, the less it fits together.
Karl:Right.
Richard:Because, yeah, like you could definitely imagine a scene in the scene where he fights King Pukalo and dragon fists him through the chest. That's a scene out of Dragon Ball Z, if you think about it. Like that would fit the tone. That's true, but after that was the Devil Might, devil Beam. No, devil Might, devil Beam was before that, never mind.
Richard:Yeah, I mean pretty much immediately after defeating Demon King, piccolo Goku goes up to Kami's lookout to train you know, one of my favorite filler arcs in all of fiction is still, though, the goku chichi's actually having a slow burn romance trying to fix the ceramic holes in fire mountain, because it added depth where there was definitely none well, I mean, then you know, kira toriyama is definitely not Romance, is not generally his strong suit.
Richard:Well, I actually have to like back up some of my stances on Kiritoriyama from some more recent work or older work I read of his. So in Dragon Ball it's easy to throw shade at the female characters in Dragon Ball.
Karl:Well, just kind of easy to throw shade at female characters in most of anime where their primary role is to make children.
Richard:But like if you go back to Dr Slump, though none of those problems are there.
Karl:Well, I mean, that's true.
Richard:And it came first and it had a female protagonist, but really it had a genderless protagonist, if we're being honest, yeah. And he once described Dr Slump as an American West Coast feel, whatever that means. Like I just think it's interesting because it's like I don't think he's particularly egregious for it. I think it's more like he gets the product of the time pass more than most, because I don't think there's anything other than it didn't occur to him that this is how his characters were playing out in his long-running series.
Karl:Right.
Richard:It's like it's almost a product of the show going too long that most of the female characters ended up in motherly roles.
Karl:Fair enough.
Richard:Time skips. What do you do with your characters then?
Karl:Yeah, that's true.
Richard:Because, like I don't think early Bulma counts for any of my normal complaints about female characters. Because, the story starts like most iconic tales with a young girl shooting a young boy in the face. Like it would have been great if she's kept up that energy as the dual antagonist the entire way through. But we mostly focused on Dragon Ball, ironically, despite being like other works. But like what are some of your akira toriyama works thoughts? Let's try and like, add some space back now that we're done being angry at ai art for now.
Karl:Well, that's a good question because it's like he, he did Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z for such a long time and Dr Slump is a very long running series but I'm most familiar with, like the first four volumes because I physically own those, which is correct support media. Which is correct, support media and it's like I definitely really appreciate the Well. I mean I always enjoy a much lighter tone in the series.
Richard:That's why like earlier, I mentioned that Dragon Ball Z Battle of Gods was my favorite Dragon Ball Z movie Because, weirdly enough, it was the doofiest one by like a lot.
Karl:It's very doofy, that's true, Like when he grabs Goten's arm and just smacks him for being a bad boy.
Richard:Like. There's just a lot that like or like, the main catalyst being Bulik the Pudding, like you feel his soul in that one, and then the freezer returns.
Karl:a little less though, but it's not high from that one well, you know I started earlier like, so correct me if I'm wrong, but Akira Toriyama was not part of the team for Dragon Ball GT um, so I did look this up before our episode today because apparently I actually can do research crazy and he wrote parts of it.
Richard:So he did character artwork and was involved in the concept of it, but he didn't write it yeah, he did character designs, the title, the logo. So ironically he might have done the kid Goku.
Karl:That could actually be on him well, see, I don't necessarily mind that. I think that that added an interesting way for Goku to interact with the new generation of characters. Like, honestly, I mean, Battle of Gods was a great Goku to interact with the new generation of characters. Like, honestly, I mean, Battle of Gods was a great return to form for the series. But after Battle of Gods it's like the Tournament of Power was really great, but the and I guess the Universe 7, Universe 6 tournament, like it's kind kind of the tournaments are always interesting to watch.
Richard:Oh yeah, but like then he rehashes time travel and he rehashes Frieza and it's like the thing is like it's interesting for Toriyama because, like I said, we don't know how much of what he wrote was his and how much was focus groups for super.
Karl:But super is fan service, gt isn't, so super yeah, well I feel like dragon ball gt was a as a better spiritual successor to the, to the, the spirit of the show and where you know it took itself seriously, as you know fate of the world stakes. But you know it took itself seriously, as you know fate of the world stakes. But it also had that levity and I I actually really liked Dragon Ball GT and I feel like a lot of Dragon Ball Super. The well has almost run dry when you get characters like Granola who wish that they're the strongest with two Dragon Balls and then so I know you're taunting within a short span.
Richard:My instinct, my instinct here, is to go into a tangent about the two dragon ball thing, but I'm a abstain because I have some thoughts about dragon ball super I need to express here okay so the dragon ball super anime.
Richard:If you compare the anime to the manga and look, what's the same. That was the things Kiryama logically came up with. Right, because they were made parallel. The manga, if you read it now that it's out and don't read it monthly, is pretty good. It has levity. It feels less dramatic at parts. The tournament of power in the manga is like 10 pages, like it's not a whole lot of there, and it's like the anime filled every rim time it could with references to itself. So every character uses every one of their signature moves in Dragon Ball Super, right, any new attack is an old attack with a twist to it self.
Karl:So every character uses every one of their signature moves in Dragon Ball Super Right.
Richard:Any new attack is an old attack with a twist to it. Vegeta doesn't self-destruct again.
Richard:So the Super anime they just filled it with references and callbacks. The Super manga, I think, is better and it feels like you can like, even from the artwork, especially when compared to boruto the triangle super manga. I'm not gonna throw in the garbage and light on fire. I'm gonna complain with way too much passion about some things about it, but like, yeah, granola was dumb, but they're like, oh, we're gonna give goku and vegeta different forms to represent their different personalities and I'm like you know, I don't hate, don't know how it took you 30 years, I don't hate it. But like GT, gt's problem was pacing and scaling and it's a weird problem to have the start of GT where they're just doofing around the cosmos is great. I actually like that saga. They shouldn't have given it a ticking clock though.
Richard:Because, like I was traveling through space to visit planets within a year and then the Earth blows up. It's like the studio didn't have. Like I would have loved to see if Akira Toriyama write GT and have him come up with what is on all these weird planets, because the concept of let's take a weaker Goku trunks and pan and explore the universe should not have been a 20 episode affair. Right, like that should have been the show.
Karl:Yeah.
Richard:And then like Baby as a villain was actually a really good idea of. Let's have now nerfed Goku fight people. He should have been able to beat before ganged up on him it's like, oh you're having Goku get beat up by the power of friendship.
Richard:That's actually pretty clever, because then it literally became the old generation versus the new generation. If this was done, well then, like Oob and Pan and Trunks and Goku teaming up against the old guard who are mind controlled, there was a lot of room where cool things could have happened there that didn't like. I would have loved Super Saiyan Pan beating the absolute heck out of Gohan. That would have been amazing, because Pan canonically, from just like their own internal logic, should have been beating the pan canonically should, from just like their own internal logic, should have been beating the living hell out of people and I would have lived for it but the suits weren't capable of writing that.
Richard:They weren't capable of writing the characters they were handed. Then super 17 saga is just bad. It was the exact concept of the janiba movie that exact concept, but they used androids instead for some reason. Like if you thought that bringing frieza back was lazy oof, I got super android 17 saga for you I mean, that's fair.
Karl:GT wasn't perfect, but then like the final saga, where all their wishes come back to Dragon Balls and evil dragons came out.
Richard:Here's where they dropped the ball on that. It was so good, but they forgot one thing, one thing, one little tiny thing. Every other character, so they forgot to make the dragons strong and they had Goku and Pan fight each one, one at a time. Here's how I would rewrite that, and follow me here you listening.
Richard:The Z fighters the quote-unquote Z fighters are about 10 characters or so. Right, you have them branch off to each dragon, right? So you have Krillin Yamcha Tien fighting one dragon, Goku Pan fighting another, vegeta fighting another. Now it's good.
Karl:Fair.
Richard:And then each one that's a meeting powers up the main one at the end. That'd be great, but there was no logical reason for them to be wimpy or for Goku to 1v1 all of them. They forgot to explain that in any way. So, yeah, the concept was great. They just didn't have the chops to do it justice.
Karl:I will continue watching and reading Dragon Ball Super, if and when it comes back.
Richard:I don't hate where it ended, but like so, if it just ends where it ended, that's fine. I will say, though, dragon Ball Super is definitely the manga is hurt by focus groups cause they're like alright, you need to hype up the new movies, but also not write them all out. My biggest pet peeve on that manga is they couldn't be bothered to actually write out everything that happened, because they're like oh yeah, did you watch this movie? We're just going to skip it. I'm like no, no, no, no, no.
Karl:If you're going to make me reread the entire Heroes movie, put the entire Broly movie in here too, it's the inconsistency that irks me, that was some bullcrap.
Richard:Like, oh, I was so annoyed by that, like unreasonably so, that I can't just sit and read the entire Dragon Ball Super manga and have it make sense Because there's just chunks missing. But also it's not canon compliant with the show, so the chunks are still just missing. That's such petty nerd rage. I'm sorry listeners to hear that I'm mad that chunks of dragon ball super manga aren't canon compliant because they intend on you watching movies that they then retell the movie. It's not an actual complaint, but I hate it.
Karl:Well, the Dragon Ball Heroes arc was pretty like so much hype for going to watch the movie and then you sit down to like read the manga and it's like seriously, and this is how many chapters. Because the local gods and Resurrection F were like relatively short in the manga.
Richard:Right and, like I said, I wouldn't be mad if it was consistent. And they literally just skipped Broly in the manga. He's just a character now.
Karl:Yeah, they add him to the manga but they're like, oh, you don't need to see when he became a character here.
Richard:Also, manga is so funny to me For something that makes you millions of dollars, where they can only be bothered to have like four employees, Because it's like if you're going to have someone just draw out the movies that already exist, just outsource that part.
Richard:So you have him be writing the main stories and have some fans for minimum wage drawing out the movies, and then you just release the movie chapters to stall for time while he writes the good stuff. And continuous Dragon Ball can be achieved for like $100 an hour, for something that makes you millions with an M.
Karl:I don't it's like when.
Richard:Oda's like I'm gonna take three weeks off and I'm like do you really only have one person doing all the work on one piece? Don't you have like professional football teams doing showings to this? Like, hasn't this made billions with a B? Why is he using his hands and not just people like I get what manga was small scale, but you might want to scale up your operation a bit so that if one person has a cold, your multi-million dollar media property doesn't die. But with that, do we have anything else we'd like to talk about? Because I have a nice list of things he's done and it's like we got Sandland, which I've talked about. How much. It just makes me happy.
Richard:The chemistry between young demon kid who's actually older, between young demon kid trying to, who's actually older than the main character, trying to decide if humans are all right, and then rao, ex-soldier, just trying to make a small town better, with deep regrets, who actually treats the kids with respect. The moment I liked rao as a character was when the demon's like can I drive the car. He's like yeah, sure, I'll teach you to drive. I'm like I love this man.
Karl:Like he seems gruff, but like that's show, not tell right.
Richard:Like he did, like he's gruff of a heart of gold. They didn't say that he lit a cigarette, loaded his gun and the kid's like can I drive the car? He's like I don't see to have a monologue about being the son to another character, just had to like have him interact. But yeah, like we got Dragon Ball GT, dragon Ball Z, dragon Ball Super, like Dr Slump. Sandland for video game art we have like all of the Dragon Ball things, but also Dragon Quest, chrono, trigger, blue Dragon.
Karl:I would have liked to spend a little bit more time on the manga theater, but unfortunately, like I said, you know, shonen Jump doesn't sponsor us, even though we talk about their stuff at least once a week such a shame missed opportunity Shonen Jump.
Richard:Like do you really think that if you gave us permission to like talk about their stuff at least once a week? Such a shame Missed opportunity showing Joe. Like do you really think that if you gave us permission to like put like a cover of your magazine as our splash screen, we wouldn't Like?
Karl:That would be amazing.
Richard:It's actually like the running joke is how little people have to sponsor us to just make our entire lives. Like, hey, there's five bucks in my PayPal, I'm so happy. Proceeds to have French Undie Burger with profits Is so happy.
Karl:Well, I mean, apparently that was the most majestic thing that happened to you this week.
Richard:Indeed, but I'm going to mix up our random questions of the week a bit because it's the Curatorama special. Look for some Dragon Ball random questions. Oh, so our first random Dragon Ball question we have coming in is who would you fuse with with the fusion earrings?
Karl:With the fusion earrings.
Richard:What Dragon Ball character would you use the Potara earrings for using the Dragon Ball Super rules that they wear off if you're not a Kai?
Karl:Okay, I wanted to double check about the ruling there, because that's one of the things where it's like, hmm, why did they make this change? I mean I get why they made the change, but it's like, hmm, why? I mean I get why they made the change, but it's like, why? Anyways who would I?
Richard:want to fuse with, for a Dragon Ball character specifically, or any Akira Toriyama character, if you really want to be half retired veteran with a wonky? Knee, it's a you.
Karl:I'm happy to answer this one first. One of my favorite characters from original Dragon Ball was Yajirobe, especially when he cheap-shotted Vegeta and cut off Vegeta's tail.
Richard:Oh, that's so good.
Karl:I don't know why I think it'd be fun to fuse with Yajirobe. That's so good. I don't know why I think it'd be fun to fuse with the.
Richard:Androvi, that's fair. So, ironically, because of that rule that was just explained, I would absolutely fuse with one of the Kai's for pseudo-immortality, like I'd fuse with the. Supreme Kai so I can teleport, create things. He gets corrupted to his very core. It'd be great for me, but, like if I'm not cheating the system, I think I'd like to pal around and fuse with Piccolo for a day.
Karl:Oh, for some reason I thought you were going to say Yamcha, because we forgot about that. Did Yakira Toriyama actually write the manga?
Richard:Nah, Nah, he didn't. It was a great manga, but nah, okay, it was a surprisingly good manga. So we do have some more Dragon Ball random questions. Ooh, this one's a pretty good one. Who would you have as your sensei from Dragon Ball or any of Kikiraturi Yama's work? Um, I'll go first on this one. I can make King Kai laugh. I believe in my ability to make bad puns.
Karl:I think Tien, I like Tien.
Richard:You know what? That's fair. Also, I feel like Tien could actually teach someone about her skill level. Like I'm probably not good enough to be trained by King Kai, I'd probably just end up grilling there.
Karl:He would just be there telling King Kai bad puns.
Richard:Yep, this one's a great one. Which Dragon Ball villain do you think had the best motivation? Who was the most justified Dragon Ball villain?
Karl:The most justified.
Richard:Well, the question is, who do you think had the best motivation? But I decided to change it to who had the most? Just? Well, the question is, who do you think had the best motivation? But I decided to change it to who had the most justifiable motivation. So I'm going to say, though, the king from Sandland just monopolizing water for personal profit, I don't approve. But yeah, no, that's a very solid logic. Yeah, no, you're right, if you're in a desert and own the water, you're king. Now, cash is a surprisingly like valid motivation.
Karl:Not what I'm gonna answer for mine, though hmm, well, you know, I think Zamasu, I mean Kawasu, did the worst job ever proving his argument.
Richard:You know, I think Zamasu, zamasu, I mean he Gowasu did the worst job ever proving his argument. Yeah, like Gowasu was like the main villain of that plot arc Because like wait, you just failed to prove to this man that mortals had any redeeming qualities. How did you fail this? Why would you take him somewhere? Nice, you idiot, but fair. I'm going to go with Dr Gero when you know the backstory that his son got killed by Goku's Kamehameha and then he built him as an android that didn't work correctly and then his wife died and he lost most of his body. So he turned himself into an android for revenge.
Karl:Like yeah, I mean, dr Jero is just the idea that.
Richard:Goku accidentally killed his wife and son. It's just so funny to me because, like I was talking earlier about that, he's from space retcon. What a retcon, because there's no reason that couldn't have happened hmm, I think it's just one of you guys got caught. An interview is like why Goku? Why did he hate Goku? Oh yeah, his Kamehameha killed his son. What pause.
Richard:That's fair alright, and our last round of questions before we wrap it up. Who do you think was the most underrated character in Dragon Ball? I mean, you're probably going to say Yajirobe again.
Karl:No, no, no, I'm going to say Lunch or Launch, depending on the translation.
Richard:I think she's correctly rated.
Karl:So underrated she got forgotten.
Richard:So if it weren't for Dragon Ball Z Abridged, I'd say Mr Popo, from that time he just blocks two Super Saiyans. But Dragon Ball Z Aridged, I'd say Mr Popo, from that time he just blocks two Super Saiyans. But Dragon Ball Z abridged gave him all the recognition he needed.
Karl:Right right.
Richard:But like, oh man, if you go through up to the end of Cell Saga, ten Shinhan puts in the hours, mmm. Like yeah, that's true, he's pretty underrated, but ah, you know who's actually like got done way dirtier than they deserved. I'm going to say the most underrated character in Dragon Ball is probably Future Trunks, because he got to be really cool for five minutes. It's like, yeah, he's pretty correctly rated, but also like there's so much awesome that could have happened there that didn't.
Karl:Yeah, that's true, and I mean, like I guess that's also part of the reason that Dragon Ball GT didn't resonate with fans was because they used the future Trunks character model but didn't make him badass.
Richard:Yeah, I think no one would have complained if they brought Goten instead and he acted exactly like this version of Trunks, did you know? While we're talking GT, though, I think Baby as a villain is actually kind of underrated. There is a lot there like oh yeah, this is the other race the Saiyans killed and did this to get his victory. I'm like wow For justifiable motivation and for underrating. That was some good written stuff. The Baby arc was so much better than the rest of GT, like in execution.
Karl:Hmm.
Richard:Alright, and our final question which Dragon? Ball character's personality do you think most relates to me and I have to answer for you.
Karl:Oh, which character mostly relates to you.
Richard:Personality-wise.
Karl:Huh, wow, that's. That's a tough one, sheesh.
Richard:I mean, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but for you and I still can't believe I'm about to say it there's two contenders, and these two contenders are weas and son goku. I kid you not. The only reason you're not a super martial artist is no one shot you in the head when you were a kid. You didn't stumble across Master Roshi. Personality-wise, when put in the situation Goku's been in every time, I am confident you would do what Goku would do. That includes giving Cell a sense of being for her to be fair and letting your son fight him. That includes taking out an assassin on yourself to see if you can survive the assassination. That includes being so happy you solved a puzzle ring and completely forgetting Tao Pai Pai existed. That includes getting your driver's license when you can fly. These are all things you would do, without question.
Karl:Uh, yeah, that's probably true.
Richard:Even the part where you pull a beer out of the fridge, put it back and go. Yay, sports drink.
Karl:You have to clarify on the whiz option.
Richard:Oh, whis is just Goku with even less fucks Whis while the world's blowing up is out eating sushi and getting it to go. Whis is just karate chopping the main villain and walking away. And Whis is literally in this show to place petty bets and make fun of Beerus. Whis is Goku's final form and I think that's deliberate yeah, okay, okay, but that doesn't really help me.
Karl:Uh, hmm, okay, but that doesn't really help me. Uh, hmm, you know, I think, uh, you, um are best described by Bulma.
Richard:I'm gonna take that as like the massive compliment it is.
Karl:I am actually really happy with that, but please explain oh well, I mean the, the hyper intelligence, but like scatterbrain way of going about things and the pettiness that she uses in the Dragon Balls to wish herself to look younger. I don't know. I just I feel like the main reason that you're not a super scientist is because you were born with medically diagnosed stupid fingers.
Richard:It's funny because, like I'm really vibing on this answer, I really enjoy the implication that I'm the kind of person who someone would come murder most of my friends and I'd date them. There's so many little implications that are so good. I love the the implication that it extort a god of destruction and just leave my child in their care, because what are they going to do? Kill a baby?
Richard:you definitely would be the type to extort a god of destruction and with that, thank you everybody for tuning in and, honestly, go read some Dragon Ball and see if you can get your hands on Akira Toriyama's manga theater Manga theater. Yeah, I'm going to show Akira Toriyama stuff for the day, if there was ever a time to go watch Sandland or download the demo for the surprisingly entertaining game Sandland or download the demo for the surprisingly entertaining game Sandland the game.
Richard:Oh yeah, there's a Sandland game where you drive around in your little tank. It's like an RPG where you're sandlanding and it's awesome.
Karl:I'm not going to tell people to go do.
Richard:Dragon Ball Z things. They'll do them on their own.
Karl:But give.
Richard:Jocko, a read would be a great way use of your time yeah, jocko is pretty funny like. I don't know if I can recommend go read all of Dragon Ball or go read all of Dr Slump, but I can absolutely say you should sit down and read Jocko. That is a reasonable ask.
Karl:I mean, original Dragon Ball is not super, super long, it's only 16 volumes yeah, that's not terrible.
Richard:It's kind of crazy to think that Boruto's went longer than all of the Dragon Ball franchise.
Karl:Well, no, that's original Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball Z adds another like. Well, I think it only adds another like 16 more, doesn't it? I'm not sure how many.
Richard:I don't know, but I digress. Thank you everybody for tuning in, and I'm not going to lie, as much as I just dunked on AI art.
Karl:Please send me your AI-generated Karl pictures. Oh, yeah, yeah. See what the AI thinks of me. Based on my voice, Let me know how tall I am.
Richard:Like. I love the idea of someone going through all of our episodes specifically with the goal of getting any visual indication of what Karl looks like. I can, because I think I've described you in a way that they're probably picturing Afro Luffy specifically.
Karl:Probably.
Richard:It could be worse For my disembodied voice. They're probably picturing now Bulma from Dragon Ball, but somehow Frieza.
Karl:Frieza.
Richard:I'm happy you didn't give me Frieza. As much as I respect Frieza and Beerus immensely. I like to think I'm not that evil aligned, despite the fact I'd want to be. Actually what D&D alignment would you give Bulma? Because?
Karl:I think Bulma at the very start is actually chaotic evil.
Richard:She basically puts a Suicide Squad ship in Oolong. Yeah, no, she's definitely chaotic evil at the start and I think she goes, starts chaotic evil and ends up lawful good maybe.
Karl:Or like true neutral she might just be true neutral no, I'm pretty sure she was chaotic evil and slowly made the move to chaotic neutral and I think goku is actually a pure neutral character.
Richard:Yeah, I think so, like goku even goes as far as to say it in super, where he's like I don't actually care about saving the world, that's just a side effect of living my life like, he's definitely not good and he's definitely not like chaotic. Good maybe, but like I feel like he doesn't.
Karl:He's too pure to like actually put thought behind what he does yeah, he doesn't really like seem to truly care about a whole lot like if we're looking at Dragon Ball characters, for who's the most, who's like the best person?
Richard:it's Krillin or Piccolo, but yeah, I'm gonna stop recording now, those three people. Oh wow, we're still recording. So I probably shouldn't make the joke about the fact that it's literally God, the son of God and the Holy Spirit and that makes a piccolo. Yes, that made it into the stream. Bye, bye.