Anime Vice News Feed
DRAGON BALL Z #23 - - Watch & Learn
Like I’ve been saying the whole time, this whole extended DBZ revisit
has had a near (gasp!) academic interest because it’s giving me just
oodles of perspective on a franchise I basically grew up on.
See, going back
several years in history, a teenage Tommy P looked at this video below and
thought it was absolutely right on money in satirizing the formula I’d begrudgingly noticed,
even then…
Yeah. It still is pretty accurate. And it still is hella funny.
However, what’s maybe more amusing is that I know now that we’re seeing the
original arc being laid out here - - the fresh effort that was repeated endlessly over
the ensuing seasons. It’s almost like Yamcha’s death inspired some blood
sacrifice ritual that the Z-Fighters all had to subsequently volunteer for. And
again, as a grown up, there’s something unshakably… surreal about how all this
anguish is being played out, even when everybody knows they’ll be able to
reverse it, sooner or later.
(Also, Alex E-L rather pointedly observed that Vegeta looks even
more sinister in the long view when you realize that he’s more-or-less murdered
Yamcha to clear the way to hooking up with Bulma).
And then, I'm also seeing that DBZ played one of the most epic pranks on
shonen audiences ever. Again and again, Vegeta keeps pointing out how
Power Levels are meaningless in this universe, and that Raditz and Nappa are
two big schmucks for putting any stock in their scanner readings. Toriyama’s
all but popping out of the frame and blowing a raspberry at the Battle Thread
crowd.
Considering how this show more-or-less became the O.G. “leveling up”
show, you’ve got to figure that 95% of its audience just didn’t get the joke...
Watch this episode, “Saibamen Attack!" here and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the
previous episode here.
About the Author
 | Tom Pinchuk’s a writer and personality with a large number of comics, videos and features like this to his credit. Visit his website - - tompinchuk.com - - and follow his Twitter: @tompinchuk |
0 comments:
Post a Comment