#like you know in manga how at the end (or middle) of it there'll be a quick comic strip of just a one-off gag | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

textfromthelookout · 3 months

Note

Did you hear of the news?

I have. :(

Everyone else has their tributes so, here, a summary of my experience with Dragon Ball.

I was in fourth grade art class. A kid had the February 2005 issue of Shonen Jump, back when Shonen Jump was still physically printed here. I recognized Atem on the front cover because the Blockbuster around the corner from our house had DVDs (I think they were DVDs and not VHSs then since I distinctly remember it having a menu and special features) of some of the later episodes of Duelist Kingdom and my brother and I watched them on repeat. So I was like oh, hey, what's this? They make books of that stuff? I don't remember the conversation but the kid ended up giving me that issue, and I took it home with me.

There were a LOT of significant, groundwork things happening in that issue, now that I think about it. We were just beginning to see Sanji truly in action against Pearl. The Dark Tournament was in it's early stages still with Roto fucking around and finding out against Kurama. Sakura shears off her hair in a move that rearranged sexualities the world over. The reason Atem was on the cover was because Yu-Gi-Oh Millennium World was just debuting its first and second chapter. Bleach wasn't even serialized yet. And Dragon Ball, of course, was also there, about a hundred and fifty chapters ahead of everybody else.

Keep in mind that this was my first experience with manga, period. So my very first experience with Dragon Ball opened on this:

and ended on this:

Yeah. Truth be told, at the time Yu Yu Hakusho piqued my interest more than Dragon Ball (a guy fighting with plants? how creative!) but I never did forget these chapters. I thought the art style was so different from the others.

At some point after this, probably between several months and a year and a half, the TV happened to be on one evening when Toonami was airing Dragon Ball Z. Oh hey, I said, I recognize that art, I know those characters. So I hung around and watched some of episode 281. Two things about watching that episode stick with absolute crystal clarity in my mind to this day. Firstly: Buu choking Vegeta out with his arm freaked me the FUCK out as a child. I could not tell you why I had a fear reaction to it but hey, there you go. The second is this:

Specifically I remember 'You died once. If anything happens to you now, you won't exist anymore. There'll be nothing I can do to bring you back.' Not precisely word for word over the years, but Schemmel's tone of voice on this particular lineread. If I had to guess I'd say it was because at that point in my life, uh, death was kinda permanent? So wait, what do you mean died ONCE. Doesn't that apply to everyone?

This still wasn't enough to get me super invested in it though, it just didn't seem like something that would appeal to me that much. So a couple years go by, I don't think about it all that much, and then of course, TFS hits the scene and drops DBZ Abridged. So you know. As a shithead middle schooler with a shithead sense of humor I thought it was the best damn thing since sliced bread. (My biggest character flaw is that I still think a lot of Season 1 is genuinely funny)

And that was really the extent of my interaction with the franchise for the next several years. Say what you will about DBZA but they did manage to put it all together such that someone who had a nonexistent concept of what the original context was could grok it with not a lot of effort. Some time in high school, I think I was around 15, I decided to bite the bullet and read all the manga, as much to increase the funny factor of DBZA as sheerly for the sake of being able to say I had. Stick it to the other weebs, y'know. Now they can't say I didn't know anything about good anime. This was unfortunately at a time when all that was available online were dirty poor-quality scans and questionable translations, but read it I did. I went 'yep, that sure is about what I expected', and proceeded to get on with my life. GT came and went, I looked up and saw Battle of Gods coming out and went 'oh hey that's still a thing huh', kinda was peripherally aware of all the divisiveness of Super as it was happening, didn't really pay it much attention, just stuck to DBZA and quite a lot of wiki-ing.

And then, this time of year about three years ago now, in the middle of conversation with @prophecydungeon, Dragon Ball somehow came up. Something to do with 'Even though I'm not hugely into DBZ's story or whatever Toriyama does have some great character designs' (yes I was referring to Vegeta and Future Trunks at the time, no i will not stop being predictable, yes i am a parody of myself). They eventually brought up the DBS Broly movie and said, and i quote: 'that was a solid 1.5h of unbelievably fun and wacky animation'. Having seen the Gogeta vs Broly part of it on twitter and been like 'damn that animation's kinda off the hook actually, good for them good for them', my response was to be like. Oh word? I've got a spare hour and a half to kill, sure, fuck it, why not, time to watch DBS Broly.

I think that movie was precision crafted to hit me in the hyperfixation, if we're being honest. Opening on a solid 20 minutes of Lore and Worldbuilding and then having most of the rest of the runtime being mindless slobberknocker fun by way of some of the hardest animation flexes ever? I was done for.

In summation. I have been aware of Dragon Ball for a lot of my life, in that its presence was pervasive and enduring as I grew up. I may have been late to the game of actually wholeheartedly enjoying it, but enjoy it I do. Dragon Ball is the roots of a vast tree of anime, and in reading it I began to understand why that is. I respect it for that, and I love it for that. My current fixation may have shifted, but as far as time devoted to one individual thing goes... it took me a year and a half to watch my way through all of the anime and read all of the manga. ALL of it. So there's something good in there, I'd say.

#rip to a legend #text from the mod #tangentially related: i am not actually dead #it's just that between school and my job and the pirate brainrot #(the previous four months of which was feverishly consumed with a 16k word project)#i have had neither time nor impetus to make dragon ball funnies #there is also the fact that my stupid autism brain is still fuming over the website changes #that have fucked up the Aesthetique of the text posts and made them much more annoying to get in a usable form #thus adding steps to what was a simple and comfortable process #and aforementioned idiot dumb brain has not stopped pitching a bitch fit over the inconvenience.#i know it's a stupid hangup. believe me i am fully aware. but there is so little i can do about it #so i am sorry about my long absence. i really truly am.#especially to the asks that have been chillin in my inbox for all this time now #it's just that they're interesting questions that deserve me giving 100% of my brainpower to them ya feel #i want to devote appropriate attention to these little funnies and not phone it in or half ass it LOL

30 notes · View notes

popcultureoverdosed · 1 year

Text

Jojolands Chapter 1 Review- The Mechanism

If someone had told me a few months ago that part 9 would be GTA with stands, I'm not sure if I would laugh or just dance with joy. Probably both. Jojolands is already off to a strong start with probably the best first chapter out of any part. Readers quickly get introduced to Jodio and their sibling Dragona getting accosted by police that then delves into sexual assault. Jodio doesn't tolerate this at all and he breaks out his stand to wreck some havoc. November Rain is the name of the stand and it appears that he can manipulate water to create crushing raindrops. That's a cool ability but seems way too cut and dry for a protagonist stand. It's probably just an application of its true ability.

Jodio is without a doubt the most amoral Joestar thus far. He has no issue with severely beating cops(potentially killing them), stealing cars, and selling drugs to teens. All of this establishes him as a weird alternate universe counterpart to Giorno. Jodio's ruthlessness will take some getting used to so I'm hoping he eventually gets character development that makes him more noble. He's a cool guy but very punchable at the same time. Kinda like how Johnny was at the beginning of part 7. He also seems to be very hedonistic since he wants to get rich simply for the sake of it. He's a true gangster at heart. I also want to talk about Dragona who's easily the biggest highlight of the chapter. Despite their feminine appearance, Jodio calls them his brother. Jodio monologues how Dragona has always been into women's fashion and even got injections to expand their breaststroke. This implies Dragona could possibly be trans or nonbinary. The original Japanese version doesn't even use gendered pronouns to address them but all three translations( you know a manga is hyper when three different people translate it) uses male pronouns. I feel that using gender neutral pronouns for now is the wisest decision. I'm curious to see where Dragona's gender identity will lead but then again, Araki is infamous for never elaborating on important plot points. Here's to hoping he doesn't screw them over.

Near the middle to end of the chapter we are introduced to the primary objective: stealing a 24 carat blue diamond from a Japanese tourist. To assist in this mission they are joined by Paco, a kleptomaniac with some seriously sticky fingers and an unnamed character in a wetsuit who buys drugs from Jodio. Yeah, this part has a lot going on for it. It fills me with excitement just imagining how this heist will play out. The narration implies things will go horribly wrong and piques my interest even more. It's important to not that all the stands seen thus far are non-humanoid and only Jodio was one suited for combat. This makes me believe there'll be an even lesser focus on battles than in Jojolion and will focus more on tactical espionage. It's a fun change of pace but I'm seriously missing the powerhouse stand battles we used to get. Overall, Jojolands is destined to be a captivating new installment of JoJo.

#jojo no kimyou na bouken #jojo's bizarre adventure #hirohiko araki #Jojolands #jodio joestar #dragona joestar #Ultra jump #Shueiesha #Manga #Review #Blog #Seinen #crime fiction #november rain

7 notes · View notes