Your viewing journal

Dragon Ball Daima episode 3 Heavy air.

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II episode 4 Surprise.

The iDOLM@STER Shiny Colors 2nd Season episode 16 Halloween hopes.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day XXV: Guts of a Virgin, Guts of a Beauty, Rusted Body: Guts of a Virgin II (Films)

Urusei Yatsura episodes 167-174, OVA I, 175-181
 
Tsurikichi Sanpei eps 41-45
The Kabocha Wine eps 21-25

(non anime)

(re-watch) The Ghost of Yotsuya-The 1959 version directed by Nobuo Nakagawa,my fave of the many adaptions of the classic story and always gets a rewatch every year during the spooky season,the Kenji Misumi and the Keisuke Kinoshita adaptions are also essential viewing and Kinji Fukasakus 1994 film Crest of Betrayal must also get a mention as it combines the stories of the 47 Ronin and Yotsuya Kaidan.

Koto-The Lake of Tears (movie)
 
BrokenPhoenix said:
Dragon Ball Z - Episode 7 through 35 [Japanese][Re-watch][Major spoilers blurred]

I've started to keep some notes as I go through my Dragon Ball re-watch; simply things that stand out to me or certain thoughts that I had when re-watching.

What kept going through my mind as I progressed a bit further into the show is how much of the original Japanese soundtrack I adore. In the UK, we grew up with the Ocean dub and Ron Wasserman's score, before we transitioned to the Funimation dub and Bruce Faulconer's score, and then to the Westwood dub and score. While these soundtracks are nostalgic and have their moments, none get close to the original Japanese score by Shunsuke Kikuchi in my opinion. Kikuchi is Dragon Ball, and I feel he manages to bring out Toriyama's artistic intentions the best with his music.

Now, after the Raditz saga there are a handful of filler episodes. One which stood out to me on this re-watch is episode 9, where Gohan falls into a cave and meets the robot known as "C-6", who has been trapped in the cave for 80 years. Gohan attempts to free C-6, which I think is quite poignant despite the episode not being canon; Gohan shows deep empathy for something that is 'only' a robot, so much so he continues to try and save C-6 as the cave begins to collapse on them. I think this is really good filler as it relates to Gohan's character in the canon. For instance, much later, in the Cell saga, we see the death (or termination) of Android #16 by Cell as the catalyst for Gohan to tap into his locked potential and ascend beyond the level of a Super Saiyan. Gohan isn't addicted to fighting like his father, his character is much different (likely due to being half-Earthling), he greatly sympathises with all creatures, including those who might be mere robots or androids.

View attachment 36385While Toriyama did not sit down and approve every single character design or plot-point within these episodes, it has been noted Toriyama did contribute in some ways to the TV filler as well as the movies, such as designing Paikūhan or giving the anime production staff background information on the Saibamen. I think it's clear that those who worked on these filler episodes understood and appreciated Toriyama's characters and world.

Watching this set of episodes in Japanese, we are spared the infamous "it's over 9000!" line. In the original Japanese, the line is "It's higher than 8000!". This was changed in the original English dub as "9000" apparently matched the lip flaps better in English. DB Kai's English dub uses the original Japanese number though.

There's also something about watching the show again as a fully-fledged adult (I'm 30 now 😟), which I think is the case with a lot of media you go back to at a later stage of life. Some of the scenes definitely hit differently. As you grow, gain more life experience, and come to understand your own and other's mortality, you notice and comprehend things in the show you perhaps missed or did not quite fully understand when you were younger.

I sympathised with Chichi more when she learns of her husband's death and her son being "kidnapped" by Piccolo to go away and train. It's easy to see Chichi as simply a hot-headed, overbearing, crazy wife and mother. However, I now of course see, she is motivated by wanting to keep her family safe in the wake of a global threat. The deaths of Yamcha, Chiaotzu, Tienshinhan, and Piccolo weighed a lot more on me also. Piccolo's death especially, as it meant the Dragon Balls on Earth were gone; this filled me with an eerie sense of dread. For those surviving characters at that time, it meant they had no way of bringing their friends back to life. As far as they knew, they would not be seeing their friends alive again.

Perhaps the greatest scene in this stretch of episodes is when Piccolo sacrifices himself to save Gohan. As Piccolo says, Gohan is the only one who spoke kindly of him, which contributes towards Piccolo's actions to protect Gohan in that moment. Despite Son Goku being Piccolo's sworn enemy at this point, Piccolo sacrifices his own life to save his rival's son - which is a significant event in Piccolo's character development. Vegeta and Nappa also reveal to Piccolo that he is in fact not of this Earth and is actually from a planet called Namek. Much like Son Goku, Piccolo had no knowledge of his heritage or his true origins. It has been written on quite a bit, but this is seemingly a key factor as to why Dragon Ball Z, especially, took off within the Black-African American population when it came to the US. Being mixed-race myself and from a broken home, I can somewhat understand; being not quite sure of where you belong or where you are really from. Son Goku and Piccolo experience this on a inter-galactic scale, but it only serves to give them strength and more determination in their pursuits

The final scene in episode 35 is where we see an interesting diverge between how Son Goku is portrayed in the Japanese dub compared to the original English dub by Funimation. After being defeated and on the verge of death, Kuririn goes to finish off Vegeta with Yajirobē's sword. However, Kuririn is stopped by Son Goku. In the original Japanese version, Son Goku states that when he saw Vegeta almost dead he thought "what a waste...". We learn that Son Goku was excited to find there was fighter out there as strong as Vegeta. He essentially states he wants Vegeta to survive so that he can fight him again. Despite Vegeta and Nappa murdering his close friends, he asks Kuririn to grant him this "selfish request" to let Vegeta escape. Here, Son Goku's Saiyan heritage is showing - he wants to fight strong fighters and test his limits - even if by doing so he is putting the Earth and his friends at risk.

However, I also listened to the same scene with Funimation's original English dub. In this version, Goku's justification for allowing Vegeta to escape is that he wants to show Vegeta compassion and that the people of Earth are merciful; in the hope that Vegeta may one day turn good. To me, this was a straight up character assassination of the Japanese Goku on Funimation's part. We lose a big bit of Goku's original personality in this scene, as Funimation originally attempted to portray Goku as a merciful superman-type character. Son Goku's true character is about fighting strong fighters and training to his limits, more so than it is about wanting to be a principled superhero. This isn't the first and it will, unfortunately, not be the last time where there is a divergence like this between Japanese Son Goku and the original English Goku. Thankfully, however, DB Kai's revised English dub is a lot more faithful to the original Japanese translation.

The end of episode 35 brings us to the end of the Saiyan arc.

Up next, we have a bit of a break from the regular TV series:

Dragon Ball Z Movie 2: The World's Strongest (1990)
Dragon Ball Z Movie 3: The Tree of Might (1990)
Click to expand...

Dragon Ball Z Movie 2: The World's Strongest (1990) [Re-watch][Japanese]

I'm pretty sure a good handful of scenes in this film are used in one of the English dub openings to the regular TV series; the scene which caused me to make the link was where Son Goku uses his Kaio-ken technique to free himself from the ice. Which is interesting!

After a bit of digging, I think I'm right. Some scenes from this film are used in the "Rock the Dragon" opening:


I do like the fact that we get some more Kaio-ken transformations in this movie. I also liked the fact we see Muten Rōshi, Son-Goku, and Kuririn do a Kamehameha together; the students and the "master" kind of thing.

Other than that, there isn't too much special about this film in my opinion; pretty generic storyline of bad guys wanting to steal Son-Goku's body, who are eventually defeated by Son-Goku and his friends.

I will say though, the animation for these films is beautiful and Toei did a good job remastering them.

Dragon Ball Z Movie 3: The Tree of Might (1990) [Re-watch][Japanese]

This film also seems to have a few segments that were used in the above "Rock the Dragon" opening.

More interestingly however, the watch order I am following has the viewer watch this film before we meet Freeza on planet Namek. Which I think is quite good, as there is a group of over-confident aliens in this film, who mention that "Even Freeza will be easy to handle". If I didn't know who Freezawas, I'd be asking some questions about who the hell is that... it would perhaps provide a bit more mystery and allure to the wider universe.

Anyway, time to head back to the regular TV series for episodes 36 through 74!
 
Last edited:
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The
Conflict episode 396 Arrow.

Blue Exorcist -Beyond the Snow Saga- episode 4 Plan.

Blue Lock Vs. U-20 Japan episode 28 Trance.

Demon Lord Retry! R episode 5 Heading north.

Ooi! Tonbo 2nd Season episode 16 Straight for the sun.

Ranma 1/2 (2024) episode 4 Rivalry.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day XXVI: Day XXVI: Evil Dead Trap, Evil Dead Trap 2: Hideki, Evil Dead Trap 3: The Brutal Insanity of Love (Films)

Urusei Yatsura episodes 182-188
 
Nothing on the Anime front for me.
I did get up to episode 6 of The Brothers Sun. Michelle Yeoh is a joy to watch.

During the Darts on this weekend, I was tough on myself and boxed up loads of anime that I'll probably never continue.
Inbetween, I have rewatched My Isekai Life. The slimes are great fun. My favourite is the one with the eye patch.
 
Back
Top