Dragon Ball

[LavarosVA]

Figured this'd be the place to put this. I'm honestly kinda surprised that with the amount of anime Chuck has covered this series hasn't been put on the list. I wouldn't of expected the series itself certainly, but one of the movies or specials wouldn't be surprising.

[Madner Kami]

I don't really see a reason to subject Chuck to wasting 90% of the time when watching that series. 18 of the 20 minutes of each episode are repetition, stills and combat screaming with literally nothing new happening on the screen. The comics? Sure, but the series? A literal waste of time.

[SuccubusYuri]

Chuck also likes to know his series before even giving a pilot a review. It took what...six years? For him to finally approach Stargate and take it off the blacklist, as time alotted him to slowly gain ground on the seasons so that, when he started doing the early episodes, he at least could comment on them as someone with a vague idea of where they'd go.

The anime that does exist falls under the umbrella of "short enough to marathon" so even if the episodes themselves are not on the site, he could probably still comment on their progression.

As for a movie, that would fall under his pattern (like the Evangelion stuff) but, which one would you do? The Super movies are "in too deep", I'd wager, for casual viewing. It would be 20minutes of "and then the one guy turns red and the other is gold, but the other isnt gold now and I don't know wtf". You could maybe go back to a special? World's Strongest comes to mind as actually having a goddamn story that isn't all that engrossed in the mythos. Maybe Lord Slug, too. It would even have the benefit of not looking like a shameless ripoff of the King Piccolo arc to an outside observer. But there's still a lot of background needed to understand the craziness going on even in those early early ones. And the Dragonball proper specials are just, compressions of the series itself and....not that great anyway.

That all said, I am enjoying Super myself, the pacing is a bit better with modern sensibilities.We can only hope Toriyama sees the obvious payoffs and doesn't wander off as usual....who am I kidding though. xD

[LavarosVA]

I think the four things that could be done are Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, Bardock the Father of Goku and the History of Trunks. Res F might have too much in terms of back story to cover given that it has to get through all the Freeza stuff, but then Battle Of Gods too. But Battle of Gods gives all the necessary information needed to watch without all the baggage from Z.

Bardock and Trunks work because they're side stories in the Dragon Ball universe, and don't really require the viewer to know much beyond the basics either.

[SuccubusYuri]

I dunno, maybe Bardock could work. But Trunks?

Like there is a whole lot of background material that goes into a DBZ-styled story. Not even plot points, just world building. Understanding Dragon World, what the fuck Ki attacks are, how they track energy, why they fly, how power is weighted and scales, tech like the capsules and, at least in Trunks, "seriously, what the fuck is Namek?" will crop up from conversation. Bardock could maybe be extrapolated, since that era uses scouters and since they use them for tracking it takes away some of that unspoken lore, but even then, its steep, leaving aside the plot elements like "Why are they turning into giant monkeys now? Why can't he just do that to the Freezer guy?"

[LavarosVA]

You don't really need to know how they fly to know they can, or specifically what Ki is to know what it can do. Besides it's not just me saying "hey why hasn't he reviewed it." I'm surprised that no one has requested it yet when something like Kannazuki no Miko has. In my head it's kinda like this: Imagine if after all this time, Chuck had never even talked about Best of Both Worlds, no one had requested Best of Both Worlds, and no one was even remotely interested in him covering that material. It's this weird hole in the wall.

[yamiangie]

One one hand I want to point out that most anime fans my age game into the story already in progress when DBZ started, on the other hand it's not a very deep show and I'd rather see his energizes pointed at some other anime. I'd rather subject him to One Piece and that show brakes my should be sci fi rule but at least it's a good story.

[SabreMau]

It does have some sci-fi elements, it does have some fantasy elements, but from a reviewer's standpoint, Dragonball doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would have a story you could get that much analysis out of. At least not without covering and comparing entire arcs.

[SuccubusYuri]

That is the other thing; Dragonall's depth comes from the religious angle, not really the sci-fi one. It's less an introspective tale than a moralizing one. And contradicting ones at that xD The series starts in Mahayana Buddhism and Super is, if you ascribe to MasakoX's compelling evidence, strongly Theravada Buddhist. Sure it's a transition over 1,000 episodes, but, yeah that kinda just makes the point more. xD

[yamiangie]

I do always forget it's an off the rails version of journey to the west...... I guess Indian mthyology would explain why every time we turn around there's another god over the the last god introduced. Though I do like looking at Zen oh sama and thinking "bunny cat's a dick".