Dragonball Z: History of Trunks

[drewder]

To be fair the requestor probably thought that this was his favorite episode and didn't really think about it from a never seen dragonball perspective. I do fault chuck for his pronunciation of names like gohan though. It's not like they're only written down and he didn't know the real pronunciation

[Poipoi]

No one episode or movie is going to get Chuck there, only time and investment will.

Path to Power, which is basically just a truncated retelling of the first two arcs, would have at least introduced the characters at the start of the story and not needed up front knowledge of anything. And most of the early movies are pretty straightforward "evil guy appears, beats up sidekicks, Goku fights them". Any of the Dragonball movies would have been fine, Blood Rubies, Devil's Castle, Mystical Adventure. For the Z era, Dead Zone and World's Strongest basically explain themselves. Like you might be confused as to the nuances of the rivalry Goku and Piccollo have, but you can at least jump in.

Tree of Might is just a mess of fighting with a ton of secondary characters, that'd be a lost cause, and everything from Lord Slug on kind of demands knowing the characters at least a little. As Chuck noted, the Super Saiyan power up is complete nonsense if you have zero context for it.

But History of Trunks is from the far end of the franchise, and an alternate reality time travel story to boot, that demands you already have attachments to Goku and Gohan. Its a really, REALLY bad starting point.

I love your idea. Path to Power would make great material to review. Maybe some of the fans can get together and group fund for it? Just be prepared for Chuck to still get confused.

[RobbyB1982]

To be fair the requestor probably thought that this was his favorite episode and didn't really think about it from a never seen dragonball perspective. I do fault chuck for his pronunciation of names like gohan though. It's not like they're only written down and he didn't know the real pronunciation

He pronounced Gohan correctly about half the time, then did with a harder A sounds part of the time. Not sure why that happened other than maybe separate recording sessions or doing one bit after watching footage and one bit just off the script.

I love your idea. Path to Power would make great material to review. Maybe some of the fans can get together and group fund for it? Just be prepared for Chuck to still get confused.

Eh. Given how long the queue is, it'll take him years to get to it... and even though its a pretty generous speed run of the first 80 episodes of the anime and would at least properly introduce most of the cast (but not help at all with Z) it might still be a case much like the Gundam movies... where its a great legit quick run for fans, but still too fast paced and cliffnotey to have a real effect on a first time watcher with it just jumping from unconnected scene to unconnected scene

Still would have been a MUCH better starting point than Trunk's story though which assumes you know all the characters and rules. It's kind of like when he was thrown into the super continuity heavy Bionicle 3 review.

Much as I'm a huge, huge Dragonball fan, if we were going to toss anime movies at Chuck, I'd rather get him on something like Galaxy Express 999 or Tank Police or Green Legend Ran or Akira or Lily Cat or Robot Carnival or the like.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Never heard of this show but looks interesting.

[MithrandirOlorin]

I generally recommend newcomers to just start with DBZ, the original Dragonball was after all skipped when this franchise was first introduced to Toonami audiences.

[clearspira]

What does not help is that Dragonball (without the Z) is a completely different show to everything that came after. The humour, the style, the look, the plot. Its only similarity is the names of the characters and nothing else.

What this means in practice is that legacy plot points from the days when talking shape-shifting pigs in Chinese uniforms, flying turtles, mafia rabbits who can turn you into a carrot, cities full of anthropomorphic animals and a level of fanservice that simply does not exist any more i.e. Bulma in a Playboy bunny outfit are now forced to mesh with a show that is now just a straight up battle manga/anime that is set on what is largely our Earth.

The anthropomorphic animals are the biggest difference to my mind. OCCASIONALLY you will see one nowadays, but in the background, as a bit of an Easter Egg. A far cry from when every other person Goku met was an inhuman creature.

In other words, TL;DR, that turtle is a relic. If Dragonball started with Z - and really, in many ways it kind of does - that turtle would never have been written into the plot. Or Oolong for that matter.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I generally recommend newcomers to just start with DBZ, the original Dragonball was after all skipped when this franchise was first introduced to Toonami audiences.

That nimbus cloud though.

Also Dragon Ball theme song >> DBZ theme song.

[RobbyB1982]

I generally recommend newcomers to just start with DBZ, the original Dragonball was after all skipped when this franchise was first introduced to Toonami audiences.

Except even American audiences got Dragonball first. Toonami wasn't the first place that aired it.

Toonami started with Z, but that was in no way the optimal or best way for it. Just starting in the middle of that completely muddies everything about the secondary characters like Yamcha and Tien and the threat that was Piccollo and why teaming up with him was a big deal... and makes all their deaths completely meaningless and lacking in feeling. And makes everything about Kami confusing. And makes even the dragonballs a weird mystery that they're not supposed to be at that point. Plus it makes Chichi into nothing but a angry bitch and misses out on every one of her good scenes from the first half of the series. Plus all the weird stuff like Oolong, Puar, and the flying cloud is just WEIRD.

It also means you completely miss out on the process of Goku growing up and just start with him as an adult and strongest guy in the world, and the SURPRISE TWIST of his origin that took five years and 154 episodes to arrive at originally, is just flat out given away in the first episode of Z, which misses a huge chunk of the process. Its no longer a twist at all, its just part of the origin story.

The fact that to this day most people don't realize the series already had its Z style tone during the Piccollo saga and never even bother seeing that story, and think that entire portion is poop gags, is a complete shame.

Yeah Z starts after a timeskip so it provides a jump on point, and thats how a lot of people started on it, but that doesn't make it in any way ideal now that the whole thing is readily available.

[Proman1398]

Part of me gets why this was chosen... but like... really? It's a great special, not sure what version of it he was watching where it was the old dub but... included the tv bumpers? I've never seen those bumpers in my life, they didn't even air over here.

Nor are they part of the DVD version of this that I own. So they were cool to see, even if they caused enough mood whiplash to snap Gwen Stacy's neck.

Certainly, History of Trunks is a tragic tale but most of the emotion comes from the context of the series prior. Like Gohan's death relies on you having watched this boy grow up, I think this aired near the end of the Cell Games in Japan but wasn't dubbed until after the Buu Saga elsewhere.

So that added to the feelings of his death to me. The mood of the death, the music, even the dub music... minus the fight music playing during the fight with the androids, was amazing. The artwork on display as well was fantastic. First time I watched it, I cried, and I still feel that emotion rewatching the scene.

It is powerful.

But saying that, it was a terrible first choice to review for this series. Path to Power, as others have said, would've ideal. Without context this is a very weak special. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was amused a fuck ton by Chuck's confusion.

also, minor dub flub, on part of the anime itself. Brief isn't his last name, only Goku's got a family name in dragonball. Brief is the personal name of his grandfather. It isn't the family name.

Also... also... grandmother, who isn't related to the grandfather by anywhere except for marriage, is named... Panty.

[Thebestoftherest]

I think he needs help from someone from teamfourstar.