You know what’s fun to do
on a Saturday night? Taking a trip down Memory Lane! No, not the bad part of Memory
Lane, with bullies punching and cute girls who friendzone you. Not today. I’m taking you
to the good part of Memory Lane, with TV shows, video games, and orthodontic
headgear. Today, we’re going to one of my favorite spots: Dragon Ball Z
For those of you that
didn’t grow up in the 90’s, Dragon Ball Z started off as an anime inspired by
the old Journey to the West and ended with muscular monkey men with glowing,
golden hair that just keeps growing, destroying solar systems with their fists.
Seriously.
But the one constant
throughout the show was the Dragon Balls. They were 7 mystical spheres, once
gathered, would grant the user one wish. After the wish, the Dragon Balls would
scatter throughout the world, turn into stone for a year. Once a year passed,
people could find the dragon balls again.
I have a very unique
relationship with Dragon Ball Z. It’s an anime, meaning that it airs in Japan
way before it airs in the US. Hungry for what would happen next, I explored the
Internet, back when it was populated by Geocities, and you didn’t know what
information was true or false. I soon discovered websites where I could download
entire episodes! Sure, they were in Japanese, but they had English subtitles,
they confirmed what was true and what was fan-fiction, and it was awesome. By
the time the US was only on episode 80, I was on episode 260, and soon, I had
finished the series AND the 13 movies.
Around the point they
aired episode 90, they started releasing DVDs of the episodes before they
aired. And the DVDs were unedited, meaning we got all the good
violent/sexy/swearing sections they cut for broadcast. So I saw the episodes in
Japanese with Japanese music and English subtitles on my computer, then I saw
the uncut episodes in English, with the cheesy awesome American synth music on
DVD, and then I saw the cut American versions with the American music on the TV.
On one hand, it was
nostalgia, because I would reminisce fondly watching the episodes, as I had
already seen them. On the other hand, it was Déjà Vu because I was re-watching
them. The memories were far away enough to be nostalgia, yet it was recent
enough to be Déjà Vu. Using my super power of making up words in the English
language (which is an oddly specific super power that only works in very rare
situations), watching Dragon Ball Z, for me, is what I would call “Nostalgià
Vu”. With my rose tinted glasses off, it’s time to look back and judge Dragon
Ball Z.
It’s like a Basset Hound.
Stupid. So freaking stupid, and yet so lovable.
Here’s the basic outline
of every dozen episodes or so of DBZ:
·
A super
powered villain appears
·
The heroes
gawk at how powerful he is
·
The villain
beats the crap out of the heroes
·
The heroes
escape
·
One/a few of
the heroes become more powerful very quickly with a new transformation
·
Rest of heroes
and villain gawk at the new super powered hero(es)
·
He/They beat
the crap out of the villain
·
The villain
begs for time to become more powerful
·
Vegeta (the
most arrogant character in all of fiction) allows the villain to become more
powerful
·
Go back to
step one and repeat until the villain can’t transform anymore and is killed
That’s pretty much the
basic story structure of DBZ. Hell, there are whole episodes (WHOLE. GODDAMN.
EPISODES!) of characters powering up and staring at each other. Dragon Ball Z
exemplifies every anime trope that has ever existed. Bleach, Naruto, One Piece,
Yu Yu Hakusho are all clearly inspired by Dragon Ball Z’s storytelling.
Storytelling isn’t even Dragon Ball Z’s biggest issue. Like that character you
loathe in RPG you frequently play, it’s ridiculously overpowered.
First, we have characters’
power levels that never peak. They just get more and more powerful until there
are seven-year-olds who are strong enough to blow up a planet with energy and
high schoolers that are more powerful than the deity that rules over the
universe and the afterlife. I’m not exaggerating. What I just wrote literally
happens.
And then we have the Dragon
Balls:
People die? Wish them back
to life with the Dragon Balls
Planets are destroyed?
Wish them back with the Dragon Balls
Out of women’s panties to wear
on your head? Wish for a pair with…the Dragon…Balls?
At one point, an ancient
monster shows up, kills nearly every human on Earth within the span of 5
minutes, and then turns the remaining dozen humans into candy with his antenna
energy beam. Is there any danger? Not really, not only do I know that good guys
will win, but that they’ll just revive everyone who died and reverse all the
damage with the Dragon Balls. But did it still freak me out as a kid? Oh god
yes! For all its stupidity, Dragon Ball Z is surprisingly good.
It’s unique. You can’t
out-Dragon-Ball-Z Dragon Ball Z. It is what it is, and anything that attempts
to copy it just ends up looking like the imitator it is. Dragon Ball Z had pink
monsters that can turn people into candy, dances that fuse two beings into one
for 30 minutes, and characters whose hair changes to blond and their eyes
become green when they power up. It’s like that one kid you knew in high school
that wore an umbrella hat when it was sunny: he has his own style, and he
doesn’t care what you think.
There’s something called
Dragon Ball Kai, which is Dragon Ball Z, except it’s redone in HD and there’s
no filler; only action. Watching Dragon Ball Z with my nephews, who only knew
of Dragon Ball Kai, did not complain about the video resolution, but rather
that it took three episodes for a single fight, half of that was spent powering
up and commenting on how unreal some character’s power level was. There needs
to be quieter periods in the battle to make the exciting parts more energetic
by comparison. And once the main characters are strong enough to destroy
planets (that happens around episode 80), we need the other characters to talk
about how powerful they are because we, the viewer, cannot tell who is more
powerful when both characters can destroy a goddamn planet.
There are certainly
problems with the series, but even without the rose tinted glasses, I’m still
loving Dragon Ball Z today.
Oh, and Dragon Ball
Evolution didn’t happen. OK? I’m not pretending that it was cancelled after the
first trailer, or that it was a fan film.
It just didn’t happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment