Dragonball Z: History of Trunks

[RobbyB1982]

I don't know why anyone thought requesting this episode as Chuck's first episode of Dragonball was a good idea.

A feature-length tv special about an alternate future to events that happen in the fourth season of the sequel series to a show that ran for 153 episodes. In a show which has magic powers, aliens, robots and talking animals. All of which appear in this special.

Like, even for fans of the show that had seen all of Dragonball and the first half of Z it would STILL be hard to follow without at least some context of the season it happened in.

Also, really old dub, ouch. I don't know if that was the version that was given or just the one Chuck found, but ouch.

Fun attempt at a review all the same but... couldn't whoever requested this at least have started with one of the more self contained original Dragonball movies, or at least one of the earlier Z movies so Chuck would have some kind of hope for a jump in point? I think he did decent all things considered.

And yes, Trunk's name is a pun. So is his mother's, Bulma's name is a rough japanese version of Bloomers. And her father, Dr. Briefs. And she eventually has a daughter named Bra. The series is full of pun names though, there's an entire villain team named after dairy products, another based on musical instruments...

and a species of Vegetable puns who have a prince named Vegeta who has a father named Vegeta who live on the planet Vegeta.

[Sir Will]

He probably shouldn't have agreed to do it. I hope the requester wasn't expecting anything too in depth. Chuck's just not equipped to do that as an outsider.

[ChrisTheLovableJerk]

Yeah, he really should have waited to do more of it. This point in DB's story is fairly complex and people unfamiliar with the franchise would be utterly lost. Then again most were exposed through DBZ first and didn't watch the original half, so maybe it wouldn't be that hard. Still, weird place to start.

[RobbyB1982]

He probably shouldn't have agreed to do it. I hope the requester wasn't expecting anything too in depth. Chuck's just not equipped to do that as an outsider.

Chuck probably assumed when he took the request that... since it had a standalone title, it would service as a standalone jump in point at least a little. And had it been one of the Dragonball movies, the anniversary movie Path to Power, or one of the early Z movies, it would have been a little bit better.

But who would guess that they were being requested to dropping into episode 367 of a series in an alternate timeline? The Trunks story is a good one but its just... a terrible choice from whoever picked it.

It'd be kind of like if he finally reviewed an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the first episode requested was the season six episode Normal Again, which takes place as an alternate reality story in a mental hospital. Or an episode of Xena and started with the Musical episode, which, on top of being a musical, was also the conclusion to multiple season's worth of plot threads and featured alternate reality singing versions of a lot of characters.

[tacomoney]

So I did a double take seeing this topic at the top as earlier this morning I was curious if there was a new review today and only saw the Babylon 5 one.

I thought oh maybe it someone talking about if it should be reviewed...nope in the interim of going from the main page to the forum to look up the Andromeda Strain stuff, this came up on the site .
...This will be interesting.

[Spider_John01]

The problem is that the only way to "get" Dragon Ball/DBZ/DBS is to watch or read a whole bunch of the series. This is a franchise where you learn as you go, where whatever your entry point is hopefully entertaining enough to keep the you watching more until it all just clicks. Suddenly all the senzu beans, pun names, and transformations make sense and you wonder why you ever thought this was confusing or complicated until you then try and explain it to somebody that doesn't know Dragon Ball. No one episode or movie is going to get Chuck there, only time and investment will. Best bet at this point would be to get him to watch a stretch of DBZ Kai episodes (Kai version would be best as it is a purer translation of Toriyama's vision and cuts the filler) and/or the DBS: Brolly movie and try and build from there. I love Dragon Ball, it is my favorite manga/anime franchise of all time and would love for Chuck to be able to cover more of it in detail, but unless somebody requests a whole bunch of episodes or he takes it upon himself to truly dive in I don't see it happening.

[RobbyB1982]

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.

[MithrandirOlorin]

For DBZ the old Dub is the only one I tolerate, the retroness is the entire appeal of the show.

[Gekired]

Blooming Heck. This was painful to watch.

Now obviously Chuck warned me in advance that it would be and he wasn't joking.

BUT! I fully understand why and do not blame Chuck what so ever. What the individual who decided to get Chuck to review the "History of Trunks" as his first DBZ review was thinking is beyond me. I mean by this point in the series... Their is just so much lore and history and characters and so on ya have to know to understand what the hell is going on. I mean why not choose one of the early DB/DBZ movies to review or maybe one of the early saga's or something where Chuck could be brought up to date by the show rather then dropping in the bleeding deep end

I give Chuck credit for managing to figure out what he did with no prior knowledge. Chuck did the best he could and he had some good points. Especially the bleeding bumpers being such a mood killer. and the Androids really needing to leave sound of us around or they'd probably go insane after a while.

I'd like to see Chuck review DBZ again but this time maybe an earlier part of it, so he's able to catch up and not left confused by Master Roshi hanging out with Turtle, Purr and Ulong, or the Senzu bean and the Super Sayien Transformation.

[Poipoi]

He might have better luck just reviewing the first few episodes of Dragon ball. But he is still going to get confused.


Ps I wish I requested it now lol
For me, his confusion was the best part of the review.