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marezablr · 2 hours

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Lisa Lisa lighting study

#jjba

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marezablr · 5 hours

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milf of the century

#jjba #she truly is

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marezablr · 8 hours

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im never not thinking of them

#these are all so sweet and i love the animation in the motion #db

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marezablr · 11 hours

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Incidentally, we can't really talk about pragmatism without talking about Future Trunks.

Krillin is a devious and underhanded martial artist, but still a martial artist. Trunks is an assassin. He goes straight for the throat at every opportunity. He's not here to fight; He's here to kill.

Much like his father, Trunks is not a martial artist. Every bit Vegeta's son, he's naturally gifted and has already become a Super Saiyan by both of his first appearances - in the story, when he fights Frieza on Earth, and also chronologically in Trunks the Story: A Lone Warrior.

I can't really say he's untrained. He was trained in the basics by Gohan. But Gohan is also not a martial artist; He's had one year and six months of proper martial arts training. One year from Piccolo and six months from Krillin.

Gohan's a fighter, guided by emotion moreso than technique. So there's a limit to how much Trunks can learn from him. Even Gohan admits that he's a poor substitute for his dad.

This, I should note, is a meaningful admission from Gohan because this chapter was published at the very beginning of the Cell Games. Gohan outright saying "I wanted to follow in my dad's footsteps but the clothes aren't enough" sets up an important contrast to the Gohan of the present time who has had that time with Goku and is ready to take his place.

But his concession of inadequacy is important for how we interpret Trunks as well. Trunks knows the stuff. He can perform Bukujutsu. Throw ki blasts. Power up into a Super Saiyan. But he's not Goku or Krillin or Yamcha or Tenshinhan; Like Gohan and Vegeta, he is a fighter, not a martial artist.

His heart is in the right place, but he's reckless and foolhardy. Chomping at the bit for a piece of vengeance.

This recklessness carries into his journey to the past. He never quite learns from his brief offscreen shitstomp by the Twins. He returns to a point in history just after Goku's return from space. Historically, this was a key moment in history where Goku showed up in the nick of time to save Earth from Frieza and his father King Cold. Which should technically be Great King Cold as it's Cold-Daio but he's far from the first king to have his Greatness dropped in translation, eh Piccolo?

But when Goku's late to the party, Trunks starts to worry and decides to step in himself.

Look at him. The spitting image of his father, full of piss and vinegar.

It's here that we get to see Trunks as a fighter for the very first time. Even chronologically; In Trunks the Story, they skip most of the action; It's very brief.

I mean. It's an absolutely hilarious joke that we see Trunks flying off half-cocked to go get revenge and then he's waking up from a coma on the very next page. Amazing cutaway gag.

But we're here to talk about Trunks's DNA as a fighter, so Frieza offers us the first material we have to work with. And Trunks? He does not fuck around.

Your soldiers are dead. Who's next?

You're dead. Who's next?

Your father's dead. We done here?

Trunks gives zero shits. In the span of two chapters, he massacres Frieza, Cold, and all of their soldiers without an ounce of hesitation. He is not playing.

He was even paying attention to the part where Frieza can survive grievous amounts of harm and come back. He takes great care to thoroughly and utterly annihilate every last bit of Frieza. Taking no chances.

Trunks isn't here to fight. He's here to kill. He is not interested in a protracted martial arts bout.

This fight, incidentally, also gives us a moment to talk about Trunks's sword. Cold-Dumbass thinks Trunks's sword is the key to his power.

He's an idiot. There's a reason he only exists for like three chapters and one page of a fourth. This man doesn't even understand how weapons work in anime.

Japan and the West have very different relationships with weapons. When Westerners think of weapons, we think of guns. Even when we write medieval weapons, we treat them like guns. Guns are disposable tools that bestow killing power upon their wielder. Any average Joe with a gun suddenly becomes a lethal warrior.

But Japan has a rich history and philosophy baked into their culture surrounding weapons and their role in martial arts. In anime, a weapon does not grant power; It manifests power. The weapon is an extension of its wielder. It's a means by which the wielder expresses their own strength.

In Trunks's hands, that sword can cut through Frieza. Because Trunks is powerful, and his might outshines Frieza's.

In Cold's hands, however, that sword is harmless. Because Cold is weak and cowardly. (Uh, relative to Trunks.) He has no power to express.

But Goku is strong. Goku knows power intimately, far beyond Trunks's understanding. And so Trunk's sword, his expression of power, is useless against Goku.

This is what Trunks's sword means, to him and to the story. It's an extension of his character and his strength; The means by which he delivers his killing force. Which is precisely what makes this moment so devastating.

When 18 breaks Trunks's sword, she breaks Trunks. The damage to his blade is honestly not that severe. It could probably be reforged. But the damage to Trunks's self-image, to his psyche, is unshakable.

Trunks never uses his sword again. He leaves it on the plane here.

And then we never see it again. Instead, Trunks decides to pursue greater martial arts training alongside his father, following in Vegeta's footsteps.

But he never quite loses his assassin streak. Though he begins to develop his abilities as a fighter from this point forward, Trunks is goal-oriented. He wants to kill the Twins. He doesn't care how that happens.

In the original version of these events, before Cell further altered the timeline, those blueprints were the key to Trunks's victory against the Twins of his timeline.

Though Cell has no idea how Trunks pulled off this victory despite being too weak to defend himself from Cell himself, the discovery of Gero's lab offers us a possible explanation.

The Twins have shutdown switches built into their systems. Though 17 destroyed the remote Gero built, Bulma is able to use these blueprints to build a new one.

So there's a solid implication that the weaker Trunks of Cell's timeline took Bulma's remote home with him and disabled the Twins that way. Again: He's not here to fight. He's here to kill. It doesn't matter how he does it.

...well, I guess it does matter 'cause that Trunks got wasted by Cell five minutes later.

Point is, Trunks wears his goal-oriented ruthlessness on his sleeve. He's not driven by pride of by love of the art. He has a job he's here to do.

However that single-minded focus, that determination to get it done, also holds him back. Trunks has never had proper martial training. He's been taught by Future Gohan, who is not a martial artist. And he's... taught himself near Vegeta. His developed his abilities and increased his strength, but he doesn't know fighting the way Goku or Krillin or Yamcha or Ten do. Nor does he have Vegeta's natural brilliance and general understanding.

Trunks, for all his strength and all his determination and all his killing instinct, is an amateur. We all know what happened to him in the last fight he ever fought here in the present.

Vegeta breaks the limits of the Super Saiyan and realizes that this power is good but comes at a cost, so he should only do it sparingly.

Goku breaks the limits of the Super Saiyan and realizes this form sucks and is stupid, and decides to go a different route entirely.

But Trunks breaks the limits of the Super Saiyan and goes "AWWW YEAH THIS IS THE SHIT GIMME THAT POWER" because he doesn't know. He has a killer's instinct, not a martial artist's. He's never been trained in technique.

We see, over the course of this series, both Trunks's strengths and his weaknesses as a fighter. In every altercation, he goes straight for the throat. Which is brutally effective when he has the power to back it up but Trunks, more than anyone, is vulnerable to a crushing defeat if he doesn't have the Power Level to back it up. He has nothing else.

Still, he gets to go out on a high note. His final chapter sees him return to the future, not with the remote but with the great strength he gained in the Room of Spirit and Time. And he gets to clean house his way - slaughtering the Twins efficiently and thoroughly, in true Trunks fashion.

And also getting Cell for good measure.

Godspeed, killer. You were the best your world had left to offer but you rose to the occasion, and that's the most that could be asked of anyone.

#so true. he's a good kid doing his best in a series that is not going to reward him for #being under-trained (i love you fgohan but you did not know how to train & therefore how to fight) and ruthless #db

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marezablr · 14 hours

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Fun Fact: Goku fights smarter. Vegeta fights harder.

As a martial artist, Goku's developed and cultivated his skills over the course of his life, mastering a variety of creative techniques and, more importantly, honing his mind. A quick-thinking and analytical counter-fighter, Goku prides himself on a creative and clever dismantling of his adversary's capabilities.

This is where Goku excels as a fighter. He's a formidable martial artist in his own right but when pressured, he falls back on a generally high understanding of violence and a creative mind for opening solutions. He reads his opponent's style and abilities, finds its weaknesses, and exploits them.

This, incidentally, is part of what what made Majin Buu such an insurmountable hurdle for him.

Majin Buu is a taffy monster made of magic who defies even this universe's conventional physics. He has no fighting style; He just does things, and his infinitely regenerative body and supreme liquid flexibility leaves no weaknesses to exploit.

He cannot be fought the way Goku fights.

For his own style, Goku has one particular signature technique and a couple other moves he's picked up from others. His mainstay is the Kamehameha. But he's innovated a wide variety of ways in which the Kamehameha can be used, based on the needs of his situation.

Goku's used the technique in a variety of ways, such as using it for propulsion instead of as an attack.

Bending it around the opponent's defense for a surprise attack.

Making stationary torpedos that he can fire at will to startle and disorient his adversary.

The coolest attack in Dragon Ball history YES I SAID IT. Learning to teleport? Cool. Kamehameha? Cool. Teleporting in while charging the Kamehameha in order to throw it directly under your opponent's guard before he even has an instant to react? Top-tier.

Point is, this is who Goku is as a fighter. Brilliant and innovative, bringing a great deal of cleverness and creativity to his fights. He breaks down his opponent's technique and adapts himself to the needs of the situation at hand.

Vegeta is also highly observant and analytical. Do not mistake me for calling him stupid. He makes plans of his own, and his greatest asset is his ability to follow everything happening on the field at once. It is next to impossible to get the drop on this man.

Vegeta pays attention.

Vegeta is always paying attention. He splits his focus incredibly well and quickly interprets what he's seeing and hearing with a critical eye. He misses nothing.

He is. Always. Paying attention. The one time someone actually managed to get the drop on him - and I cannot stress this enough - it was a person Vegeta did not know existed because he had not been a part of this battle up to this point.

Am I saying that Yajirobe's cowardice saved the world by not revealing his presence to Vegeta until this fateful moment? Yes. Yes, I am saying that. We literally have a counter-example from someone Vegeta did know and account for to contrast it with.

Vegeta is always paying attention. Unless he doesn't know you exist.

So. Yeah. Vegeta is incredibly brilliant and observant. But what he's not is a martial artist. Vegeta, instead, is a soldier. He's comfortable in the realm that overwhelming power creates.

Vegeta hits hard.

He hits very hard.

He hits very, very, VERY hard.

In fact, Vegeta hits harder than Goku does. That's not to say that Vegeta is stronger than Goku; Vegeta and Goku go back and forth on who's stronger in the given moment over the course of the series. But Vegeta's attacks are stronger than Goku's.

To understand what that means, you need to understand that certain kinds of ki attacks have a multiplying effects on their user's strength. Attacks such as the Kamehameha or the Makankosappo, which concentrate ki before firing it, produce a much greater level of ki than their user's standard power output.

When charging a Kamehameha, Goku's battle power reading on the Scouter rises dramatically. This is the secret of techniques like the Kamehameha: they concentrate ki into a point before releasing it all at once, like pulling the pin on a grenade.

As concentration moves go, the Kamehameha isn't actually that great. The versatility and creativity that Goku brings to it is what makes it so formidable. Pound for pound, it kinda sucks. Piccolo's Makankosappo here makes the Kamehameha look like noob shit.

This kind of ability is non-standard among ki attacks, which are typically like throwing long-range punches. In fact, it's super-rare among the Planet Trade to be able to do this. Raditz had never even heard of a move like this.

Vegeta had. He knew of exactly one.

I am so sorry to do this to you but we're going to have to talk about battle power numbers here for a moment. Vegeta's clocked at 18,000 BP as of his battle with Goku on Earth; it's brought up a few times in the Namek arc.

Goku, iconically, is OVER 9000 8000!!!

At the moment Vegeta and Goku's attacks meet, Goku is channeling the Kaio-ken x3 which is exactly what it sounds like. He's inflated the ki inside his body to 300% capacity. The drawback is that his body is now an overinflated balloon ready to pop at any moment from all this swelled and bloated ki inside of him. But the gain is that he's outputting 300% power.

At this point in time, Vegeta has a battle power of 18,000. Goku, formerly >8,000 is now >>>24,000. Goku, further, is using the Super Kamehameha rather than the regular one he used against Raditz, which brings with it a higher level of power multiplication.

Nonetheless, the Galick Gun is winning against the Super Kamehameha. Goku is forced to resort to a x4 Kaio-ken - which does leave his body utterly destroyed and incapable of continuing the fight - in order to have enough power to overcome a superior magnification from a weaker opponent.

We see another direct comparison between the two in the Cell arc. That killer Warp Kamehameha fired point-blank into Cell when he least suspects it, which hits him dead-on and unloads its absolute maximum power into him? It does this.

Brutal. If Cell didn't have both Frieza's ability to survive ludicrous levels of harm and Piccolo's regeneration, it would have been over right here. Meanwhile, a glancing blow from Vegeta's Final Flash left him looking like this.

Despite Vegeta being far less powerful than Goku was when he fired that move, the effect is about the same - With implication that if Vegeta hadn't pulled the Final Flash back at the last second to avoid destroying the Earth, he would have erased Cell completely.

Goku's shot hit Cell point-blank and full-on to do about as much damage, albeit with deadlier aim in terms of killing a humanoid being.

This is the distinction between Goku and Vegeta as fighters. Vegeta is very smart, and Goku is very strong. Neither of them is lacking in intelligence or power. But they are philosophically very different fighters.

Pound for pound, Vegeta's moves hit harder than Goku's. He is the unparalleled master in taking the power he has and channeling it into as much destructive force as humanly possible.

On the flipside of that coin, when backed into a corner, Vegeta falls back on outputting as much direct force as he can. Goku gets to thinking his way around the problem at hand and devising a creative answer.

Goku is a surgical scalpel. Vegeta is a warhammer.

#these analyses are so fun #db

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marezablr · 17 hours

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You previously anaylzed Yamcha's fighting style and the flaws he doesn't overcome. Do you have any thoughts on how Krillin fights?

Krillin's fighting style is one of my favorites, to be honest. He's a dedicated pragmatist, ready and willing to do whatever it takes to win. His techniques and strategies are deceptive and tricksy, always on the lookout for a way to circumvent the straight fight.

Krillin's fighting style is all about cutting the knot. It's just a shame that, Dragon Ball being what it is, his methods run counter to its central philosophies and so he is doomed to constant failure.

We get our first glimpse of the kind of fighter Krillin is going to be when he defeats Goku in the rock hunt on the first day of their training.

He first tries to win the competition by forging a counterfeit rock. But when the Muten-Roshi sees through that, he instead uses his counterfeit to fake out Goku and steal the real rock for himself.

He's narratively punished for this victory when his reward dinner poisons him via badly prepared pufferfish. But we see the foundations of what will become his martial style beginning to take root here.

Krillin is a tricky trickster. His goal is to be the guy still standing at the end of the fight. That's what he's here for. Though he does quickly soften up and become Goku's Male Bestie (opposited Bulma as Goku's Female Bestie), he carries this pragmatism with him as he begins to develop his skills.

Note that this is not to say Krillin isn't a capable fighter in his own right. As a pupil of Kame-senryu, he is a formidable martial artist. He begins to show the fruits of his martial training as early as the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai, where he crushes one of the monks that used to bully him in the preliminaries. He also pressures his own mentor, the Muten-Roshi, by raw skill alone.

Krillin's got the skills and he uses them. When I say he's underhanded and deceitful, I don't mean instead of fighting straight. It's a weapon in his toolbelt but not the only one. Nonetheless, it's a potent one, as he nearly defeats the Muten-Roshi via a special technique that only Krillin would devise.

Goddammit, Roshi.

He starts out using these kinds of underhanded tricks to compliment his martial arts. But as he grows as a martial artist, he begins to incorporate strategies like this into his art itself.

Aside from a brief and mostly offscreen bout with General Blue, his next significant fights are in the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai. His fight with Chiaotzu demonstrates the way Krillin's sneakiness and martial training complement one another, as a major spotlight of it is his ki exchange with Chiaotzu.

Chiaotzu, like Tenshinhan, is a trained wielder of the Dodonpa. A lethal technique first introduced by the assassin Taopaipai, designed to fire a thin ki bullet from one finger, straight through its target for a mortal blow.

To counter this, Krillin attempts to perform the Kamehameha for the very first time. Which. Is. Absolutely stupid and reckless, as the Muten-Roshi notes. Baby's First Kamehameha is a poor choice to defend himself from the Dodonpa.

Or it would be, if that were the plan.

This is Krillin's strength in action. He fakes out everyone with an in @ Me Bruh bluff and then skirts around the direct competition to blindside Chiaotzu when he isn't looking. This is what a tricky trickster martial artist looks like.

In his next match with Goku, we see Krillin's ruthless pragmatism on full display. He devises his own version of Tenshinhan's Taiyoken/Solar Flare.

And he nearly wins by a tail when he once again breaks out his weak, improvised Kamehameha.

This bluff is brilliant. He gets Goku's focus on the Kamehameha while his true goal is Goku's tail. Unfortunately for him, Goku - under advisement from both the Muten-Roshi and his Grandpa Gohan - has been training his body to rid himself of that critical flaw over the last three years. His tail no longer saps his energy when it's grabbed.

But if Goku were still the same fighter Krillin knew before, this bluff would have been game-ending for their semifinal match. Krillin's abilities both in martial arts and in knot-cutting have advanced substantially. It's just that Goku's have advanced as well.

Krillin only gets one fight in the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai. But he goes hard.

In the three years since last tournament, Krillin's devised bending ki blasts that home in on their target. Holy shit, what a stellar-

GOT YOU SUCKER THAT'S A FAKEOUT IT'S KRILLER TIME

Krillin's invented bending ki blasts that home in on their target as a distraction. Sadly for Krillin, characters at this point are beginning to distribute Bukujutsu, the Flying Technique, among themselves so surprise ringouts aren't an option anymore. Piccolo's been capable of performing Bukujutsu since his previous life.

Krillin loses the match, though he does force an admission from Piccolo that martial artists of his caliber will make the world difficult to conquer.

The next chance Krillin has to put his skills on display comes six years later when the Saiyans attack the Earth. Vegeta and Nappa grow their six Saibamen, forcing the Earthlings to entertain them by battling these veggie monsters. Tenshinhan and Yamcha handily defeat two of them, though Yamcha's killed by a surprise attack.

And then Krillin decides enough is enough and makes his move: Opening fire directly on Nappa and Vegeta with everything he's got.

A fool's attack guaranteed to fail against the insurmountable might of the Saiyan-no, wait, what's he doing?

Ha, fuck you, he was aiming for the Saibamen the whole time! Made ya look. Though he does also hit Nappa and Vegeta for good measure.

Krillin is technically the first Earthling to ever land a hit on either of these guys. Imagine that. It doesn't do shit to them, but still.

This fight also brings out Krillin's ultimate technique. The epitome of his skills, the final fruits of his labors, the be-all end-all of Krillin Techniques. You already know what I'm talking about.

This. This, right here. The Kienzan/Destructo Disc is peak Krillin. Literally a knife with which to cut the knot. Everyone else is throwing ki punches except those assassins shooting ki bullets. And Krillin stops to ask, "What if I sharpened my ki into a buzzsaw so I can slice open an opponent's flesh rather than trying to beat them at punching?"

Prior to Goku's arrival, this technique from one of the weakest fighters on this field is the closest the overconfident Nappa ever comes to defeat.

Nappa outright tries to take it like a punch. But for Vegeta paying the fuck attention, this would have taken his head clean off. Even Frieza can't resist it.

Because it's not something you resist. It's a buzzsaw. It doesn't hit, it cleaves. It's a technique that's so utterly Krillin in nature.

In fact, the entire Namek arc in general is peak Krillin. A three-way tug-of-war over the Dragon Balls between Frieza's ungodly might, Vegeta's rogue wildcard antics and deadly force, and Krillin being a tricky trickster gunning for any opportunity to scoop victory out from under them.

That Krillin wins.

This is the key to Krillin's longevity as a character. Like the rest of the cast, he eventually falls victim to inability to keep pace with Goku's advances, and becomes further and further de-emphasized from the big action pieces of Dragon Ball.

Krillin's tricky methods were rarely allowed to grant him much success in the ring due to the way they chafe against Dragon Ball's tone. This simply isn't a series where ruthless pragmatism and knot-cutting generally wins the fight. But those same methods also gave him staying power and an ability to continue influencing the plot of Dragon Ball long after he ceased to be relevant as a fighter.

Krillin's style is designed to punch above his weight class, and he's in general a tricky trickster outside of the ring too. The result of this is tremendous staying power as a weaker character brushing elbows with the titanic super gods of the cast. He may not be the clincher in a fight but there's almost always something for a pragmatist like him to do.

#this is so good #that's the guy! that's krillin!!!#when the Heart of the series is also your trickiest combatant #db

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marezablr · 23 hours

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