Dragon Ball (Warning: Untagged Spoilers)

[DiamondX]

What episode is that? What number?

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

What episode is that? What number?

Episode 125.

[goku262002]

The only thing I wished was that DBZA went into more detail for that filler, shame it was grand comedy material.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Chi Chi is really fucking annoying me in the series. The only thing she does is whine and cry about Gohan's studies, and babying him every single chance she gets. Anytime something happens, she then blames Goku, and starts screaming about marrying a sayian despite the fact she basically pleasured Goku into it into the first place. 

[Komodin]

Hm, I distinctly remember hating how she was written in the post-Saiyan/pre-Namek Saga episodes. Even though Goku's body was literally broken to the point of him having to rest in a iron lung-type device, Chi-Chi treated him like refuse, opting to focus all of her attention on Gohan, who was injured in the head but otherwise relatively fine. It was such an odd and annoying thing to see--Goku came pretty damn close to losing his life to Vegeta, and this is how you treat your husband? 

[goku262002]

She makes up for it later down the line by training Goten into super saiyan status, probably because she felt guilt for blaming Goku for everything wrong over the years and Gohan still turning out into a scholar despite Goku's interference.

Post-Cell Chi Chi is okay in my book, but anything before makes her a raging bitch.

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

Chi Chi is really fucking annoying me in the series. The only thing she does is whine and cry about Gohan's studies, and babying him every single chance she gets. Anytime something happens, she then blames Goku, and starts screaming about marrying a sayian despite the fact she basically pleasured Goku into it into the first place. 

Dragon Ball sorta puts that into perspective. She was a very sheltered, fickle child and had a very narrow understanding of a lot things, parenting being one of them. She's incredibly harsh because she wants to raise her child to be a functioning member of society, and Goku is a negative influence in that context. Chi-Chi gets less harsh as the series goes on though. 

[goku262002]

Back to Super. I mean I really hope NeoGAF is right and this is some kind of set up for Gohan to redeem himself, but from the way the Freeza arc is going in Super for Gohan I can't just see him matching Goku and Vegeta in terms of strength anytime soon he is pre-perfect cell saga level strength now and dropping.

Also I love the fact that Vegeta finally got to have his showdown with Goku in even grounds wish we saw how that fight went down, probably both KO'd eachother. and I find it amazing that Vegeta spent 3 years with Goku alone, DBZ era Vegeta would've gone crazy in 2 hours in the HBTC.

[Ratcicle King]

Back to Super. I mean I really hope NeoGAF is right and this is some kind of set up for Gohan to redeem himself, but from the way the Freeza arc is going in Super for Gohan I can't just see him matching Goku and Vegeta in terms of strength anytime soon he is pre-perfect cell saga level strength now and dropping.

Also I love the fact that Vegeta finally got to have his showdown with Goku in even grounds wish we saw how that fight went down, probably both KO'd eachother. and I find it amazing that Vegeta spent 3 years with Goku alone, DBZ era Vegeta would've gone crazy in 2 hours in the HBTC.

I doubt it's a redemption set up, Gohan has literally nothing to redeem himself for. He's weak even though he could've been stronger? Ok, but thing is, Goku doesn't train to protect the planet, he trains because he LOVES training, same with Vegeta, Gohan is a pacifist, always was, that was the entire point of the Cell saga, to show that no, Gohan isn't like Goku, he might be strong, but he hates violence and only fought thus far because he had no options and always had threats incoming. Heck, at the end of that very arc, Goku pretty much told him ''Beat Cell and you can live your life without having to worry about fighting ever again'', which is what Gohan always wanted.

Not to mention, after the Cell saga, he had literally no reason to train, there were no warnings about new threats, for all he knew, peace was finally achieved, Buu didn't have any warning, Beerus didn't have any warning, Freeza sure as hell didn't have any warning, while the Saiyan arc they had a full year to train aware of what's to come, the Cell arc he knew of the Androids and trained for them, and once Cell appeared, he knew of Cell and trained to fight him, here there wasn't a situation where he could know of the threat and train for it, no, he'd have to train forever just in case something happens, wasting time he could be using with his new family, and he himself admits that Goku likes training, so better off him training and doing what he enjoys so he can be prepared for next attacks, than Gohan, who has a family to take care of and despises training.

And yeah, he has potential to be something way more powerful, but so does everyone else, but you don't see even Piccolo training anymore, because everyone settled down and just accepted that Goku and Vegeta will always save the day because training and fighting isn't a chore to them, it's fun.

[Shasonsil]

Okay so I've been wanting to read/watch Dragon Ball for a while now, but I'm worried it will just turn into another 'strong guy vs another strong guy' with no depth of characters and story. Is this true, or are the characters and story enjoyable?

Also, should I read the Manga or watch the three (now four) Animes?

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

Well, victory is always decided by the person with the bigger battle power, but the characters and story are certainly enjoyable. 

[Shasonsil]

I'll have to give the series a try.

 

Is it true that the series creator is so lazy that he actually forgot about a character?

[Adamis]

It's not really laziness, but you can't expect him to remember every character he created ever, especially since he's been in the manga industry for 30+ years. He created TONS of characters for Dragon Ball, Dr Slump and all the other mangas he drew. Can't really blame him.

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

1 hour ago, Shasonsil said:

I'll have to give the series a try.

 

Is it true that the series creator is so lazy that he actually forgot about a character?

I wouldn't say he's lazy per say, but he's definitely forgetful, and yeah, he forgot about one, but the one he forgot about didn't really add much, so it's easy to see why she was forgotten. 

[Zaysho]

Toriyama's laziness and forgetfulness is more something that he ascribes to himself rather than something that's necessarily true (though his laziness extends to the fact that he rarely planned anything and wrote by the seat of his pants on a weekly basis when the manga was running). For a guy so "forgetful," it's pretty amazing he pretty neatly tied the recent Jaco the Galactic Patrolman into the lore of a story he hadn't done a thing with for twenty years. He even remembered adding anime-only Bardock to his own story, and only rewrote the character's backstory in a way that fit his personal sensibilities (he's said he liked the original special, but he couldn't see himself writing a story similar to it).

If Toriyama forgets anything, it's typically stuff that originated in the anime, either due to his limited involvement (serialization scheduled) or just because he almost never incorporated said elements into his works. Lunch is kind of a special case, but she was there in the chapter before the time-skip, so it seems more than likely he ran out of things to do with her and quietly wrote her off (which is a bit of a shame).

At least, that's how I see it.

[Shasonsil]

Okay, thanks for explaining the creator. It seems like the fans hold the series too high for their own good so they get mad at the poor guy when he messes up.

 

So I've watched the first two episodes and this series is turning out to be very funny. I never would have guessed it was a comedy by the way the fans treat it. Bulma is awesome! I also gave the English dub a fair chance before switching to the Japanese dub and it wasn't terrible, but good god some of the dialogue changes were cringe worthy.

[goku262002]

Ugh, that Dragonball - special, don't remind me. if we adapt that backstory into canon it fucks everything Dragonball set up so it has to be ignored even if we get to see Goku's mom and a toriyama written Bardock.

What version are you watching? the original ocean dub, the original Funi dub, or the Z Kai dub?

[Shasonsil]

I'm watching the remastered Dragon Ball anime where Son Goku looks like a six year old (he says he's fourteen though).

I put on the Japanese subs to see how close the english dialogue was to the original script and there were just too many moments where the character would add dialogue or change the sentence. In the first episode Goku goes on about how he doesn't like to hurt people but the pterodactyl gave him no choice but the subs had Goku thinking that he didn't save Bulma from the fall. That's just one of the changes that bugged me.

[goku262002]

So your not even watching Z your watching Dragonball?

[Shasonsil]

Yep, just Dragon Ball (I'm skipping filler episodes) and then I'll watch Z or Kai (I'm not sure which one I should watch). Also, what's up with GT? I've seen fans hating on this show but I never cared enough to look into it until now.

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

2 hours ago, Shasonsil said:

I'm watching the remastered Dragon Ball anime where Son Goku looks like a six year old (he says he's fourteen though).

I put on the Japanese subs to see how close the english dialogue was to the original script and there were just too many moments where the character would add dialogue or change the sentence. In the first episode Goku goes on about how he doesn't like to hurt people but the pterodactyl gave him no choice but the subs had Goku thinking that he didn't save Bulma from the fall. That's just one of the changes that bugged me.

Dragon Ball in general is notoriously inaccurate in English. Even the English translation of the manga has it's fair share of hiccups. I'd definitely stick to the Japanese if you can handle Goku's seiyu remaining with him. A lot of people have a distaste for Nozawa as adult Goku. Personally, I feel she's the best. 

[Shasonsil]

24 minutes ago, ThePrinceOfSaiyajins said:

Dragon Ball in general is notoriously inaccurate in English. Even the English translation of the manga has it's fair share of hiccups. I'd definitely stick to the Japanese if you can handle Goku's seiyu remaining with him. A lot of people have a distaste for Nozawa as adult Goku. Personally, I feel she's the best. 

Isn't the 'It's over 9000' meme come from a Dragon Ball mistranslation? I'm not sure if I can take hearing such a cute little voice come out of a overly muscular grown man, I'll have to wait until I'm done with DB.

 

Enter the Perverts! Roshi and Oolong make modern anime pervs look almost innocent in comparison. 

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

15 minutes ago, Shasonsil said:

Isn't the 'It's over 9000' meme come from a Dragon Ball mistranslation? I'm not sure if I can take hearing such a cute little voice come out of a overly muscular grown man, I'll have to wait until I'm done with DB.

 

Enter the Perverts! Roshi and Oolong make modern anime pervs look almost innocent in comparison. 

Yes, for some reason, the script changed over 8,000 to over 9,000. Not entirely sure why. Maybe 9,000 just had more umph. 

[Shasonsil]

I'll never understand how bad some translations can be when the rest of the script is so spot on.

 

Pilaf and his henchmen giving off the Saturday morning villain vibes brings back a lot of memories.

[Zaysho]

17 hours ago, goku262002 said:

Ugh, that Dragonball - special, don't remind me. if we adapt that backstory into canon it fucks everything Dragonball set up so it has to be ignored even if we get to see Goku's mom and a toriyama written Bardock.

I personally headcanon a mixture of the Bardock special with Minus so I can have the best of the both worlds (or at least have Gine in the background and work in that Bardock's aloofness is why there's never any focus on her or even Raditz) and ignore Minus's "Goku is basically Superman" nonsense. I do think either version is interchangeable, so I'd say take all of Jaco and substitute the Minus chapter for the Bardock special timeline-wise.

1 hour ago, Shasonsil said:

Yep, just Dragon Ball (I'm skipping filler episodes) and then I'll watch Z or Kai (I'm not sure which one I should watch). Also, what's up with GT? I've seen fans hating on this show but I never cared enough to look into it until now.

With regards to GT, I think the big problem with it is that the show recycles a lot of material that Toei did before (the most original storyline is the Shadow Dragon saga) and that many of the characters are wasted or underutilized. Personally, I don't think GT is nearly as awful as people say it is, and I like the ideas in it, but it's so hard to ignore the stupid things it does. Given it was always a side-story that took place after the original series, you can take it or leave. Maybe check it out once you've seen everything else and see for yourself.

If you're looking for recommendations, I'd honestly recommend watching Z in full, and just enjoy it warts and all, especially if you're already watching the original series (JPN, because Z's dub is a lot more inconsistent than the original series'). If you want a better (and more accurate) dub and a quicker experience, Kai is the way to go, though as of right now, it's incomplete as FUNi hasn't gotten the chance to release the Final Chapters yet.