User blog:Angel Emfrbl/Dragonball

I was going to post this after X-mas.... Hahahahahaha... no. Due to me taking a break I'm posting this now before the 1st.

The show "I don't get"
When I say I don't get it, I understand the plot and all... Its the hype.

I respect the early chapters as one of the most adventurous (be it boring) mangas. Its the era the anime called the "Z" and "GT" bits I don't care for. Okay, your forced to believe many things in the first half of Dragonball, but once it hits "Z" it becomes... Too much. It becomes too enclosed on being what its trying to be, a fighting manga.

Its not about the fillers really, but I enjoyed out of all the of the Z stage just the Androids. Well I got tired somewhat of the mangaka redesigning the SAME design of suit just slightly differently all the time. Look a Vegeta, look at Cell's 1st stage, tell me those shoulder pads aren't similar!

Out of the android, 17 and 18 are a breath of fresh air. 16 was another bad armor redesign but acceptable since his character personality was very different to the same shoulder pad guys before him. The androids rode a CAR in the anime (truthfully I know not if this happened in the manga) at one point. Would Frizer do the same thing? No, what I like is unlike the other villains in the "Z" stage was they were down to earth. They acted badass when they NEEDED to, and attempted normal lifestyles when not. Even in the future, 17 kills a cute guy 18 likes and she destroys things for it, but its still putting a little humanity into 18 to compensate for her actions over 17 killing that boy. They had little nice touches to them that separated them from the other villains.

And Trunks... Trunks was once again a fresh breath to the series, he was like an inexperienced and light-hearted Vegata. The best bit was seeing Vegeta reacting to him near the end, when he was hit. Vegeta is proud, but that same pride can do some very nice things to Vegeta every so often without loosing his character badassness. Again, seeing Vegeta and Trunks after Androids was a nice touch, Vegeta wanted Trunks to be better then Goten because of his competitive nature with Goku. But at the same time he doesn't loose his stern personality doing so, Trunks gets beaten when he shows his father he can turn Super Sayan for the first time which shows Vegeta can be harsh to his own son when he has to, but not end up just another jerk. The fact he and Bulma came together to make Trunks is a miracle in the show itself.

I liked Buu as well, though he was ruined by crappy storyline, he himself was also more human-like then most other villains. He was a child-like villain who destroyed because his mind wasn't old enough to know better. He showed he was capable of FEELING even if only for his dog, he showed he could be friends if only with Mr. Satan. As I said though, he was surrounded by the "Z" stage bad set ups, the fights without nothing but talking... Etc,etc,etc. Goku's dumbness just annoyed me. Goku didn't change at all throughout the series.

I don't mind good hearted characters, but Goku's lack of changing made me hate him.

I'll go to Beyblade and Kai, starts off a gang leader, turns to be a blader on the Bladebreakers... Travels with them, constantly giving the viewer a reason to be dead suspicious of him. He turns around and betrayed the group he has traveled with and ends up being evil for a while. Now whats different here is the main character is similar to Goku, but DOES change too. Takao starts off feeling low of Kai and by the end their just one short of best friends as rivals can be. He is also the one who helps Kai see what he is doing wrong and matures himself while helping Kai. Then the third season came along, Takao is fighting all his old teammates and forced to come up another betrayal on the team level. Pushed by another new character who joined their team who was like he was at the start of season 1, and Takao constantly was opening his eyes and realizing why he was making mistakes. He even has to deal with the "death" of Kai (which isn't so apparent even in the Japanese version) and finds strength in the loss of an old friend. These kind of character devlopements I love, and didn't see happening in Dragonball.

And let me say this, Beyblade was a show for kids, about spinning tops... Why did it end up being a better show then Dragonball for character development? I used to spend ages writing essays for Beyblade on the characters alone, but my only essays for Dragonballz end up displaying my disappointments in the show.

Ultimately I'm on the bench with those who don't like the "Z" stage because of those long talking. If I was them, while their talking I'd be in there fighting, screw their monologue moments. The other thing was, Gokuu was way too often too nice for his own good. He gave Freizer enough energy at one point in their match to escape the dying planet and he turned round and attacked him with it. Who didn't see THAT coming? And alas, the Freizer Vs. Goku fight was why I simply stopped with DBZ. I wanted it to end. Not only did it taunt us with long dialogues but it did the "forms" thing and we had 3 fights with the same character. Now I don't mind repeated charters fighting, if I did I wouldn't watch Batman Vs the Joker fights after seeing one, but the fights were too similar and too close to each other. Even Batman doesn't fight the Joker every issue, he has a ton of other villains to fight in between the Joker, sure the Joker is properly his most common enemy but his not the only one. Speaking of monologue when I was a Beyblade fan someone apparently same down and worked out if you remove all the talking you're left with a fight that only takes about 10 mins (roughly, I can't remember the exact time) and its done. So WHY the heck is there the need for all the talking?

And the BIG powerups that became almost godly. Trouble was, every time the characters got a little stronger, the mangaka had to find a stronger character to give them a tough challenge and theres only so many people you can invent to do the trick. With One Piece, sometimes even the weaker characters turn round and make the strong ones look weak. Mr. 3 versus Magellan. DBZ just doesn't do this very often, if at all. Well after a while what impresses you once soon unimpresses you 50 sightings of it later. I for one don't like the Saiyan powerups, all that shouting? Even Sonic, when they first use Chaos control it took near enough a good couple of minutes to get it working, but Sonic '06 it is almost instant.

So there you go... I just don't "get" this show at all. Why is there so much hype? Even on-line, the DBZ argument divides communities at times as some see it as classic but not for its faults and others see it as its faults. Its a nice experiment and a cult classic manga/anime, but I can think of shows that are better then it...


 * Blue Sub no.6.
 * Mysterious cities of Gold.
 * Outlaw Star.
 * The Girl who could Leap Through Time.
 * Hellsing
 * Dragon-half

All better shows then Dragonball and all classicm heck I've got more to add to the list but don't fancy going through the Otaku all time fav. list. If I hadn't only seen the two movies, Devilman might be here also. Beyblade I've not listed even though it had nice things going on, its still just a show that leads up to every episode, a beylade battle. Nor will I ever list Yugioh as one of the better animes/manga. In my opinion, Dragonball is actually better then Yugioh... But Yugioh can wait for another time. ¬_¬'