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#holy shit that's the hardest I've laughed in years #I'm literally crying #my sides are in agony #I can't stop

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My thought was always that 16 was a holdover from the original plan with 19 and 20, considering his resemblance to the Terminator and the plot similarities between the two.

I was thinking that 19 and 20 were going to be the main villains for a while, until they lost and had to retreat and activate 16 (who might not have been number 16 in the original, maybe he was going to be 18 or 21). And 16 wasn't in Trunks' future, because he wasn't needed. 16 was then going to be an unstoppable killing machine and the true final boss of the arc.

Toriyama's plan with the 17 and 18 retcon was probably to stick to that schedule and have 16 be the ultimate final boss once 17 and 18 were defeated, until he had to change again and introduce Cell.

Genuinely curious what the original plan for Android 16 was.

It's widely known that the plot of the Android arc changed multiple times over the course of the series. 19 and 20 were originally intended to be the arc's true villains. In fact, Trunks calls them out by serial number when he's first giving the infodump about his future.

This isn't a Viz-ism, either. He says "19 and 20" specifically in the original Japanese.

Those two Androids, not 17 and 18, are the ones ravaging his future. However, as is commonly known, Toriyama's editor former editor and currently a trusted friend Kazuhiko Torishima was unimpressed by the Androids' design.

The funny thing is, this isn't the only glaring plot hole that the abrupt shift in plot created. It's easy to pin down 20's flight to his lab as the moment Toriyama switched gears, because he's forced to bring in Bulma to rerail it onto the new story - creating another massive plot hole in the process regarding what Bulma knows.

See. In addition to Trunks clearly identifying 19 and 20 as the Androids, this scene three years in the past had another moment that becomes an issue later on. It's when Bulma says this:

See, Trunks has explained that Dr. Gero is creating the Androids as we speak and will set them upon everyone in three years' time. Bulma suggests having Shenron reveal the location of Gero's lab, and then they can all run off and gank him.

She gets voted down because Goku, Vegeta, and Tenshinhan are all super interested in fighting these Androids.

Goku tries to spin some guff about a moral reservation but he adds that in as an afterthought. His kneejerk is that he wants to fight. It's Krillin who ultimately succeeds in talking Bulma down, via some 4-D chess maneuvers against Vegeta.

Krillin's planning on using the Androids as a common cause to trick Vegeta into becoming one of the gang.

Which. Y'know. Goes off without a hitch, honestly. Krillin is a tactical genius and all-a y'all owe him respect. He manipulated Vegeta straight into that redemption arc.

In any case, this is where Trunks's warning leaves us: In three years' time, Dr. Gero will unleash 19 and 20 who will kill us all. If we knew where he was, we could do something about it, but the will to actually do that isn't there.

So.

Three years later, during the fight with 20, he uses Bulma as a distraction to make his escape. Upon rescuing her, Bulma's able to positively ID 20 as the doctor himself.

More than that, she knows exactly where he lives because he's a famous celebrity whose personal information gets talked about in the scientific community.

She just never brought it up before because no one ever said Dr. Gero was involved in any of this.

This is an even bigger HOOOOOOLY SHIT than the clear identification of the Androids' serial numbers. What Bulma knows flipped between these chapters.

So we make our way to Gero's lab to meet the arc's Actual Villains For Realsies, 17 and 18.

As a sidenote, not to be outdone in jankiness by Goku dropping the Senzu into a pocket dimension earlier, Toei has Dr. Gero's broken-off right hand occasionally regenerate by magic in this scene.

This arc is rough for everyone.

In any case, this brings us to the awakening of 16.

At this point in time, the retcon has finished taking effect; 17 and 18 are now retroactively the Androids from Trunks's future, but 16 is something different. Another Android that Trunks has never heard of before.

Dr. Gero practically pisses himself with terror when the prospect of 16 being awakened comes up.

In the same breath that Toriyama rewrites 17 and 18 to be the True Actual Villains For Realsies of the arc, he also introduces the enigmatic 16. All we know of him is that Gero believed he was a malfunctioning, uncontrollable failure whose awakening would threaten the whole planet.

The Twins question 16 about the true threat he represents.

But all he has to offer in response is this... eerie smile, as if he knows something he isn't sharing.

Answering "Are you going to kill us all" with a smug grin is fucking ominous. Shortly after, we learn that whatever 16's malfunction is, it scared Gero so much that he never made another of the same kind of thing that 16 is again.

What went so horribly wrong that it spooked Gero into trying out human base models and? It's worth noting that while Gero did go back to the mechanical design for 19, he considered the subsequent failures of 17 and 18 following whatever happened with 16 to be sufficient reason to can the Infinite Energy design entirely.

Android 16 is the most formidable design Gero ever created to kill Goku with. And he refused to ever make another like him again.

Current Dragon Ball lore, per interviews with Toriyama, say that he didn't want 16 released because 16 has sentimental value to him. But that doesn't explain why he didn't make other Androids like 16, and these panels themselves are telling a very different story. They're hyping up the mystery of 16 to be the true ultimate threat of this arc - At least, once he finally gets a chance to meet his one true adversary.

However, this doesn't last. Torishima didn't like the Twins as villains either so Cell was created instead. It was later revealed that 16 was very strong and also has a bomb in his chest that would wipe out a small portion of the countryside.

But the nature of this terrifying and enigmatic threat to the planet sure to unfold if 16 awakens, something so terrible that Gero was afraid of ever making an Android like 16 again, would be lost to the cutting room floor.

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Do you know this Jewish character?

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the idea that restrooms, locker rooms, etc need to be single-sex spaces in order for women to be safe is patriarchy's way of signalling to men & boys that society doesn't expect them to behave themselves around women. it is directly antifeminist. it would be antifeminist even if trans people did not exist. a feminist society would demand that women should be safe in all spaces even when there are men there.

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#I voted Kill #dying was the best thing Ace contributed to the story #Ace is a better character as a dead guy lots of people loved than he was as a living guy #Ace also had the worst Cover Story #dead Ace > living Ace

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anybody else in the club feeling this one

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Do you like Yu Yu Hakusho?

Do you specifically like the anime version, and haven't read the manga? Do you know what the anime version changed?

One major thing was removing Atsuko (Yusuke's mom) from the Dark Tournament. In the manga, she's there, part of the gal squad, cheering Yusuke on the whole time, but the anime cut her entirely.

Here are my favorite moments of Atsuko in the Dark Tournament that the anime cut:

During Kuwabara vs Rinku:

During Yusuke vs Chu:

Between Rounds:

Hiei vs Bui:

And then she REALLY turns it up for Yusuke vs Toguro:

Post-Tournament:

She's so awesome, I hate that the anime cut her, I think she's my favorite of the Gal Squad.

#yu yu hakusho #atsuko urameshi

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You know. I have to give Viz Media credit for not taking the easy route and just lazily copy/pasting iconic scenes directly into their manga. They did their own translation, their own way. But sometimes, man. Sometimes shit gets wild with their version.

I need. I need. You all to understand. There are two generally acceptable ways to describe Goku's position on the social hierarchy of Saiyans. Sometimes he's "low-class" and sometimes he's "third-rate". There are two sides to this coin.

But every coin has an edge.

I swear to Beerus that this is not edited.

I need you to understand that Goku is a bottom-tier boy now. This is canon. There's no going back.

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I promise this is not a blog dedicated to Macaron lol, but they are fun to draw.

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FUN FACT: Did you know that Vegeta wasn't blowing smoke on Namek when he claimed to have become a Super Saiyan?

Well. Not entirely, anyway.

And also the process of becoming a Super Saiyan is kind of complicated, and Goku is an enlightened martial arts master.

The process of becoming a Super Saiyan is complicated. The English dub got a bit confused on this point while they were frantically erasing as much spirituality and also martial arts and general power levels talk as they could from the series.

The dub was bad. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone. It was a 90's anime dub. It scrubbed the source material of a lot of stuff.

But specifically here, the dub confused matters when it said that to become a Super Saiyan, you have to be pure of heart. This confused matters, because being purehearted is a thing in Dragon Ball. You have to be purehearted to ride the Nimbus.

This concept of pureheartedness exists in Dragon Ball. But it has nothing to do with the Super Saiyan.

This isn't the same as that. To become a Super Saiyan, you need something else. Notably, the Viz manga also translates this idea as "pure of heart"....

But the idea being translated here is more along the lines of tranquility than innocent goodness.

Becoming a Super Saiyan is a bit of a process. To understand the Super Saiyan, we need to talk about limit-breaking. This is a concept that's expressed repeatedly throughout Dragon Ball. In order to become Dragon Ball Powerful, you have to break your limits. You hit a ceiling and that's as far as you can go, until you find some new way to push through and break that ceiling. The series is big on this idea.

As an example, Mr. Satan is an incredibly formidable martial artist. He is peak. Top-tier fighter. ...within human limits. But he doesn't hold a candle to Krillin because Krillin broke the human limit in childhood.

Mr. Satan is basically Panput from the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai.

Saiyans are in a different league from humans, and they have different set limits. Different norms, different standards, and different potentials. But, like humans, there's a ceiling. The first step to becoming a Super Saiyan is breaking the Saiyan limit.

Goku, as a low-class Saiyan trained on Earth in martial arts, was able to break through the Saiyan limit during his gravity training in space. This wasn't the goal of his training, mind; Goku had a particular goal in mind. He was subjecting himself to intense gravity so that he could acclimate his body to withstanding higher levels of Kaioken.

Not even realizing that was what he was doing, Goku was the first to shatter his Saiyan boundary and take the first step to becoming a Super Saiyan.

That Goku has transcended Saiyan abilities isn't lost on either Vegeta or Captain Ginyu, both of whom peg him as a Super Saiyan... before walking it back because Goku lacks the overwhelming bloodthirst and battle hunger that characterizes the legend.

Poor Goku has no idea what any of these people are on about. He might as well be listening to Game of Thrones fans infodump about the Lannisters.

But he wasn't alone. During his fight with Jeice following his third Zenkai of the arc, Vegeta finds himself trashing Jeice. Vegeta's as surprised as Jeice is, to be honest. Even with a Zenkai, he should not be doing this well.

Vegeta's last Zenkai wasn't just a Zenkai. It pushed him through the Saiyan limit.

You see, something happens to a Saiyan as they cross that boundary. Their ki begins to swell astronomically in preparation for becoming a Super Saiyan. Both Goku and Vegeta at this point have entered a sort of proto-Super Saiyan state. Their powers are passively being inflated.

Goku, too, eventually realizes that his power is growing at an astronomical rate that cannot be explained by his training or his Zenkai boosts or any phenomenon he's aware of. He's just. Swelling with power for reasons he can't fathom.

Neither of them are Super Saiyans yet. They still need the right spark to ignite it - and, despite knowing more about the Super Saiyan legend than Goku, Vegeta has no idea what that spark is. But they're both inflating like balloons in preparation for ignition.

Vegeta brings up the proto-Super Saiyan again in his first showdown with Frieza.

He recognizes that he is not yet the Super Saiyan. But he is a proto-Super Saiyan. He still feels it, still feels his power inflating within himself. He just. Needs. That. Spark.

But he won't find it. He said it himself: He doesn't think Goku and his "soft heart" can become the Super Saiyan. The Super Saiyan is supposed to be filled with rage and battle hunger.

But breaking the Saiyan limit isn't enough. You need the spark: A tranquil heart awakened by rage.

There are two pieces to that. The first is a tranquil heart. What does that mean? It means tranquility. Stillness. Peace. Becoming one with yourself and the cosmic universe.

During his training in space, with nothing to concern himself with and no distractions, Goku found tranquility. Alone in the void of space with only his beloved art, he achieved a measure of serenity and peace that he's never known before.

When Goku steps off that ship, he's different. He's entirely focused on the task at hand. He doesn't even want to fight the Ginyus, which is a stark departure for his character. He has no interest in the joy of battle; Only in doing what he came for and going home.

Goku asks the Ginyu Force multiple times to just go away. He does not care about this. He is thoroughly disinterested in fighting.

He's not even mad. They beat up his son and his best friend, and Goku does not care. Also, he can read minds now. Because he is the Heavenly Buddha, I guess.

This is a super weird moment, but its main purpose is to demonstrate that Goku has become... something else. He's not just "Goku but stronger"; he's changed on a fundamental level.

Goku is no longer a rash, impulsive student. He has become a master of his art. Do you see that kanji on his back? Kaio presented Goku with this new dogi after he got out of the hospital... uh... somehow.

You. Uh. You gonna elaborate on where the fuck that came from, Goku? No? Okay, man. You do you.

In any case, Goku's new dogi is distinctive because it erases the sigils of both the Kame school and Kaio. Originally, he would wear the Kame sigils on both front and back to reflect his status as a student of Kame-senryu.

Even if he did only technically study Kame-senryu for less than a year. It's fine; the Muten-Roshi filled him with a lot of philosophy that's guided him over the years so it still counts.

After he trained under Kaio, the sigil on his back was replaced with Kaio's sigil, to reflect that he is Kaio's student now as much as he is the Muten-Roshi's. Though he left the Kame-senryu sigil on Goku's front, because he is a student of both.

But from the moment Goku steps off that ship, both Kaio and the Kame sigils have been replaced by this new one.

This new sigil serves two purposes. First is that it's the first kanji of Goku's name. Both of his masters are now gone from Goku's expression, replaced by Goku himself; This symbolizes that Goku has, himself, become the master. His art is now fully his own.

Goku is at the peak of his journey. There is nothing more for him to learn. It falls to him now to cultivate, develop, and evolve his art for himself, using the knowledge and mastery he's acquired. And, as we'll see in the next arc, to ultimately pass it on to the next generation to come.

But, bringing this back to the tranquil heart thing: The kanji for 'Go' also represents enlightenment. Goku has found peace with himself and his place in the cosmic universe. That is why he, and not Vegeta, is ready to have his spark ignited.

He's broken the Saiyan limit. He has a tranquil heart. All he needs now is to snap, and have his tranquil heart awakened by rage.

But Vegeta still has a ways to go. Because his heart is far from tranquil.

The best he can come up with is "I Zenkai'd into this, I can Zenkai out of it!" Vegeta is very fettered, especially in conflict with Frieza. He is not one with the cosmic universe. He is a nervous wreck of emotions and wants and distractions. He was so close, but he could never have ignited here. Not under these circumstances.

No, Vegeta would only find his tranquility after becoming stranded on Earth. (No, anime, Vegeta did not have a spare spaceship on hand to leave immediately.)

Three years, living at Capsule Corp until he moved out and got his own place. Free from the yoke of Frieza and able to pursue nothing more than his own self-improvement. Driven by a desire to surpass Goku but in a low-stress environment...

...and apparently hanging out with Bulma in his downtime.

That's where Vegeta found his tranquility. And the spark of rage that ignited his tranquil heart? His own inadequacies, of course.

Never change, Vegeta. XD

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Okay I've been dunking on the anime and dub a lot so in the interest of fair play, here's a fun one:

FUN FACT: Did you know that the reason Goku left the Senzu with Bulma during the Android attack on South City is because Toriyama fucking forgot mid-chapter that Goku even had them?

"Bulma, take the Senzu; They'll only weigh us down!" ~TeamFourStar

What is this. Goku, you are flying into battle. Why would you leave the Senzu with a noncombatant on a mountaintop far away from where the fighting is going to take place? What possible reason could there be for this?

Well, this actually isn't the anime's fault. There's a lot of jankiness in the Android arcs. Everyone knows the big stuff: 19 and 20 were supposed to be the final bosses but then Toriyama's ex-editor pal complained so he made 17 and 18 but then complaints so he made Cell but then complains so he skipped Semi-Perfect Cell. Yadda yadda.

But this arc is janky even at the small scale, and this moment is no exception. The tale of that Senzu bag begins when Yajirobe arrives to drop it off.

Goku takes the bag and, for the next couple pages, grips it firmly in his right hand.

But THEN.

Disaster strikes. The Androids blow up Yajirobe's ship.

Goku is so startled by this explosion that I guess he drops the Senzu off the fucking cliff because that bag is GONE next time we see his right hand.

He never recovers it. By next chapter, his hands remain bagless.

The Dragon Team descends into the city to fight, and the missing Senzu are never seen again.

...until a couple chapters later when they're needed and Toriyama suddenly realizes that Goku fucking dropped the bag.

Thanks, Goku.

#Reminds me of the nonsense that happened with the Dragon Radar in the Pirate Cave

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Ohhh my God, the current VA for Foghorn Leghorn actually dubbed it.

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Just 'cause it's on my mind, one of my big naive hopes for The One Piece is that they actually put effort into fixing Sanji's moveset. Oda is actually shockingly consistent on what motions Sanji does for what moves, and the Toei anime constantly changes and alters his fight choreography.

When Oda's writing Sanji, every single time Sanji does Collier Shoot, it's a backflip front kick to the neck. Every time Sanji does Flanchet Shoot, it's a stomping back kick to the stomach. Every time Sanji does Joue Shoot, it's a side kick to the cheek, then Sanji swings his leg further to launch them away. Every time Sanji does Mouton Shot, it's a rapid-fire barrage of back kicks.

Based on that choreography, you can also see which moves are meant to be super versions of other moves. Crosse Strike is a super version of Collier Shoot. Bien Cuit Grill Shot is a super version of Flanchet Shoot. Rotisserie Strike is a super version of Joue Shoot. Boeuf Burst is a super version of Mouton Shot.

And if we get into Sanji's basic moveset, not his stronger moves (including the regular Collier, Flanchet, and Joue, those are separate moves from their Shoot variations), you see that all of them are named after whichever part of the body he's targeting, so you'd think it wouldn't be that hard for the anime to get the clue and keep it consistent, right?

This is the combo Sanji used to beat Kuroobi:

Simple, right? It's a side kick to the throat, a stomp on the shoulder, two hook kicks to the back, a stomp on the chest, and then a kick to the knee to stun him to set up for the final blow, a barrage. Toei messed up this sequence twice:

The first version is fine until Cotolette and Selle are a bit different, then Poitrene is completely different and Gigot isn't even vaguely close to the same move. And then they screw up Mouton Shot by making it a single hit instead of a barrage.

The second version gets Mouton Shot right, but screws up the combo even worse by moving Gigot earlier, removing the form from Cotolette and Selle, and adding some random bits of clashing that break up the combo.

Another example of Toei messing up Sanji's choreography is when he uses Anti-Manner Kick Course to knock Oars down. Anti-Manner Kick Course is a stomping kick straight up, that's always been how Oda has presented it. But the anime turned it into a big flying side kick for some reason.

And Toei screwed up Boeuf Burst, too, in the same way they screwed up Mouton Shot, by making it a single hit instead of a barrage.

There are countless more examples I could point to of this, but generally, my point is just that I hope The One Piece doesn't make Toei's mistake in assuming that all of Sanji's moves are interchangeable kicks with no meaningful differences between them.

#one piece #sanji #Youtube

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Fun Fact: Did you know that the thing holding Yamcha back as a martial artist is specifically that, despite expanding his skills and abilities, he refuses to refine his technique?

From the get-go, Yamcha is a surprisingly talented and knowledgeable martial artist. During the Tenkaichi Budokai tournaments, Yamcha is the exposition guy; He knows everybody who is anybody in the martial arts world and provides useful infodumps about the various contenders.

But despite a clear passion for the art, Yamcha has never once made it past the first round.

This is not for lack of ability. Yamcha may not learn as fast as Goku, but he's creative, innovative, and dedicated to his training.

It took him three more years to break out a Kamehameha than it did for Goku.

But that's still 47 years short of the Muten-Roshi's estimate.

Yamcha's fighting style is predicated on hyper-aggression. He believes that the best defense is a strong offense. His signature technique, the Rogafufuken or Wolf Fang Fist, is an unrelenting assault of infinity strikes.

As his talents improved, he would devise a similar technique using a remotely manipulated ki bullet. An attack so ferocious it caught God himself offguard.

And yet. Every single time.

The key problem with Yamcha's style is that his hyper-aggression leaves him open to counterattack. His defense is awful. This is because Yamcha spends his time working on new, more aggro techniques without refining himself in other areas.

He's ferocious. But sloppy. And we know for a fact that he's failing to polish his technique because we've seen his failures to learn.

At the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai, the Muten-Roshi warned Yamcha about his wasting excess movement.

Ferocious as he is, his moves were sloppy and easy to read. He had only intensity and aggression to carry him; He's battle-forged, not honed by discipline and martial technique. As a desert bandit who hadn't yet had a chance to study under a master, Yamcha was more of a wild animal than a martial artist.

After six years of proper martial arts training, Yamcha met God in the first round of the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai. At which point God had this to say to him.

Six years later and Yamcha's still having a hard time connecting because he still fights like a wild animal. He's gotten stronger and built up his offense. But he hasn't put in the work for the rest of his technique.

Yamcha's critical weakness is that he always leaves himself open.

A weakness that would ultimately haunt him in the worst way.

Y'know he actually wins that fight? Look at that thing trying to get away. Isn't that precious? Nobody runs from Yamcha; He will run your ass down.

He just.

Can't guard to save his life.

Yamcha.

Yamcha.

DOOOOOOOOOOOODGE

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Dragonball has a couple interesting redemptions to talk about. Like Piccolo Jr., where depending on how you interpret his character changes both whether he has any significant crimes to be redeemed of, and the exact moment where this redemption begins. If you hold the Jr. is a seperate individual from Piccolo Daimao, then the only crimes he ever really committed are Attempted Murder (Of Goku) and mass property damage. And if you hold that Piccolo Jr. Was born a demon and lost that demonic status through positive character development, then his redemption technically occurs before he spends any time with Gohan, because he can't have been a demon when he killed Goku and Raditz (As Dragonball establishes that those killed by demons don't go to the afterlife). That scenario really makes you remember that Piccolo Jr. was only 3 years old when he fought Goku. And that's just one possible reading of his character

Piccolo is a complicated entity. There are basically three, arguably four versions of the character - but they are ultimately different facets of the same guy.

There's the original Piccolo-Daimao/Great Demon King Piccolo, of course. What's interesting about Daimao is that he seemingly lacks moral agency.

Piccolo isn't a demon because of how evil he is. He's a demon because, metaphysically, he is a demon. This is not a turn of phrase. It is not a title. It is not a fanciful status you can attain by kicking enough puppies. It is a mythological being.

When the Nameless Namekian ascended to become God, he purged all corruption and wickedness from his heart, and that wickedness became the demon Piccolo. As a demon, Piccolo is literally evil incarnate. He can only know evil. He can only be evil. He is incapable of anything else.

This man has no true goals, desires, or ambitions. He's just evil. Because he is composed entirely of evil and can know nothing but evil. By circumstances of his existences, he's not even really a person; He is just evil.

Even his idea of world domination is just genocide in slow motion.

He wants to kill everything for maximum evilness. He has a 43-year plan for disseminating fear, anarchy, and violence around society before he finishes killing all life on this planet. This is not a three-dimensional human being. This is what you get when you put an abstract concept into a body. He is not physically capable of making moral choices.

The moment everything changes is, of course, when Goku presents a very compelling argument that he should get his shit together.

This is the moment that people often point to as evidence that the two Piccolos are different characters.

Moments before he spontaneously explodes for... honestly, no clear reason at all... Piccolo speaks to the egg he's reincarnating himself into. It's a weird thing for him to do if the egg contains his own soul or essence or what have you.

But. Well. Contain it, the egg does. Piccolo hatches from his own egg with full continuity of consciousness from his past self. He remembers his identity, he remembers Goku, he remembers God and their relationship, he even remembers the language of his home planet from long before he and God ever divided.

His identity, his personality, every scrap of knowledge he ever knew, is all intact in this new body. Piccolo identifies himself as the Piccolo-Daimao reborn.

Which God independently corroborates.

Piccolo never died; If he had, God would have died as well. God cannot exist if Piccolo-Daimao does not. This is how the metaphysics work.

An argument could be made that a reincarnation is not entirely the same being. It is nonetheless a new life, a new being. Avatar: The Last Airbender goes to great lengths to show how very different the reincarnations of a single person can be, as each incarnation is born as a blank slate.

But. Uh. Piccolo Jr. wasn't born as a blank slate. He was born with Piccolo's memories, identity, personality, ambitions, etc. fully intact. So trying to label him as a brand new person untethered from the old is ultimately splitting hairs.

However.

What he wasn't reborn as, is a demon. And that's where things get interesting.

Piccolo reincarnated himself into a new body, but that new body was a new body. In terms of personality and memory and identity, he woke up the same Daimao as before - but metaphysically, he woke up as a fully three-dimensional being, suddenly capable of choice and complexity and moral agency.

He hatched himself into a new Namekian being, rather than a demon spawn.

This new form of Piccolo still wanted to take over the world. Because that's what he wanted when he was a demon. Piccolo is a ball in motion from the time he hatches, continuing to pursue the agenda he had in place before his reincarnation gambit.

But. It's. Complicated now, because he can't just do evil for evil's sake. His goals have to make sense now. They have to be a thing that a person would want. Before he even meets Gohan, he's already softened up from Pure Evil Incarnate.

The Demon Lord of old didn't really want to rule the world. It was just a pretense for a slow and cruel genocide. But in this new state, suddenly he cares about his prospective empire. He's concerned now about the wellbeing of the people he would govern.

Eight years ago his "plans for this world" were for everyone to die. But here he is like "How dare this asshole try to kill my planet when I intend to rule it!?" He's getting confused about his own motivation because his original motivation was just "Do Evil".

In this form, Piccolo is self-aware now. And he's not happy about his place in the universe.

Before, he was acting on just... raw evilness. But now he's emotional. He's bitter. Cynical. Resentful of God. He can feel things now. And with the arrival of the Saiyans bearing down on him, Piccolo's thoughts have turned to his legacy.

People fixate on The Moment but it's the capstone of a point that had been hammered in and hammered in: That Piccolo is changing, that he's been changing since the moment he hatched from that egg. That he is even capable of change because he ceased to be a demon on that fateful day years ago.

It's on the shoulders of all of this groundwork that the fateful moment everyone remembers takes place.

From this point forward, Piccolo is unquestionably 100% a protagonist, though he's still a bit of an asshole.

The debatable transformation in his character comes from his assimilation of Nail.

While Piccolo and Nail's merger does have some fairly explicit effects on his character....

It's not super clear whether his developing sense of empathy for others is a result of it, or a consequence of the growth he's already undergone up to this point.

In either case, Piccolo's development ultimately brings him to his final transformation:

This last transformation is... unusual. In a sense, it devalues the redemptive journey Piccolo's been on up to this point. Despite Piccolo repeatedly insisting "I'M DRIVING, You're just going to be FOOD FOR ME," the new being that results from their joining is at once both Piccolo and God, and neither all the same.

He still answers to the name Piccolo for convenience's sake.

But he's different now. He's humble. Wise. A spiritual leader who offers reverence to the divine and guidance to the uncertain.

This is not the same man who gleefully spat in the face of God.

Look at him there, offering spiritual clarity. Piccolo would never.

This new version of Piccolo is effectively a brand new character, bearing some traits from both Piccolo and God. This is not a product of character development, but because they waved a magic wand and fused into a single guy. So it feels kinda cheap.

But at the same time, it's not. Because Piccolo's growth and development wasn't wasted. Indeed, it's that growth and development that brought him to this point; That made it possible for Piccolo and God to rejoin one another in the first place.

This final transformation is Piccolo's redemption; The culmination of a long journey that he's been on, from Pure Evil Incarnate to a three-dimensional man standing at the altar of God in his Temple in Heaven, seeking the ability to protect the people he loves.

The prodigal son finding his way home, to become himself again.

[pushovermediacritic]

"posts that have 10k to me" is like placing a curse on op

[pushovermediacritic]

Also, Appule is the one who called the Ginyu Force!

FUN FACT: Did you know Frieza had a finite amount of soldiers on Namek? (And he doesn't kill his troops.)

Also Appule is kind of important and there's a clearly marked place where Goku's six-day space journey happens in the timeline?

I have a laundry list of grievances with the Dragon Ball and DBZ animes. We're here to talk about one of those right now! The Z anime gives Frieza infinitely respawning soldiers that just seem to pour out of his ship whenever he needs them.

This interferes with a key plot point of Frieza's portion of the Namekian Dragon Ball hunt: That Frieza, for all his power, is rendered helpless when his attack on Moori's village goes south.

See these guys?

These guys ruin Frieza's entire goddamn week.

Get his ass, my Namekian thembruhs.

A consistent weakness of Frieza's forces is that they fight blind. By this point in the series, characters on Earth have been taught advanced fantasy martial arts involving manipulation of ki or chi. They can concentrate ki into attacks more powerful than the wielder, sense ki in other beings and feel incoming attacks without having to see them, suppress ki to become invisible to ki detection, etc. etc.

The Earthlings are goddamn amazing at ki manipulation, and the Namekians are just as good.

But Frieza's Planet Trade Organization represents the uncaring hand of capitalism. There is no artistry in their methods. There is no true discipline or understanding. They're a bunch of paid thugs with guns, looking to gentrify planets for their boss: a real estate mogul. So they rely on fallible technology that fails time and time again when put up against experienced martial artists.

The battle at Muri's village is no exception, as Frieza's forces get slaughtered by the "harmless" interlopers.

With only the elites vaguely understanding, from second-hand accounts, what they're seeing here.

Which, in turn, gives Muri the opening he needs to cripple Frieza's campaign by destroying the Scouters they're using to track down Namekian villages.

This is Muri's checkmate. Muri destroys the Scouters, the technology Frieza relies on to find Namekian villages on this planet and take their Dragon Balls. Meanwhile, his reinforcements wipe out Frieza's army.

That guy right is the only survivor of the massacre.

This is Appule. If you've ever wondered why Appule was so important that he got to be his own distinct character in Tenkaichi 3, this is why. Appule is the last grunt left standing.

Though Dodoria makes short work of the Namekian warriors, the damage is done. Frieza's lost his Scouters and he's out of manpower. He's going to have to fan his men out to search the planet, a planet larger than Earth, by looking around with their eyes. And the only men he has left to do that are Zarbon, Appule, and Dodo--

...are Zarbon and Appule.

So. Y'know. Frieza is two deaths short at this point of being completely and utterly fucked sideways.

As his two remaining men set out to search, Zarbon takes great care to tell Appule not to do anything that might get him killed.

It is absolutely pivotal for Frieza's campaign that these two live. There is no one else on this planet who can do the job. It's Appule who ultimately succeeds in finding the last Namekian village.

For some reason, in their eagerness to rewrite the story so that there are far more soldiers on Namek for some reason, the anime makes this Appule's vampire cousin?

Uh. Okay, man. Sure. In any case, it's Appule who finds the village and Appule who reports its destruction to Frieza. He's not a significant character by any stretch, but you can see why he warrants a bit more name recognition than Frieza Soldier #72. He has more impact on the plot that Cui does, that's for damn sure.

Too bad about Vegeta though.

It's a lot easier for Vegeta to get away with this gambit in the manga than it is in the anime. In the anime, somehow the infinitely respawning Frieza soldiers (who he regularly kills for funsies) flooding the halls don't give away the fact that Vegeta's still here.

But with Appule dead, Zarbon and Frieza are the only people left alive in the ship. It's a lot easier to distract two people for a minute than a limitless garrison.

In the manga, this is the closest Frieza ever gets to team-killing one of his own soldiers. Once he realizes Vegeta has stolen all five of his Dragon Balls, has a sixth Dragon Ball stashed away, and is now just one Dragon Ball away from immortality while Frieza's blind and understaffed? All because Zarbon fucked up?

He says some shit.

So. Yeah. He's not above killing his men when they fuck up so bad that they cost him immortality and give his most dangerous archnemesis the means to topple his empire and end him.

But that's a much higher bar to clear than shooting down his infinitely respawning dudes because, uh....

*checks notes* With the Ginyu Force on their way, Frieza can afford to kill his own guys because the Ginyus are better than them anyway. So he keeps them all in the ship and murders them for no reason despite the fact that Vegeta is actively making off with his Dragon Balls right this second and he has no idea to where.

Yeah. That's. Uh. That's a pretty significant story difference. In any case, Frieza's campaign grinds to a screeching halt when....

That's it. That is the very last one. Frieza's campaign is sunk. Until the Ginyu Force arrives, Frieza has no forces and no resources left. He is an unbelievably powerful man, the most powerful in the universe, and the only way he could ever hope to catch up to Vegeta is by flying aimlessly around a colossal planet and looking for Vegeta with his eyes.

I've often heard people express confusion about where Goku's six-day transit is supposed to fit into the Namekian timeline. This, right here? This is it. At this moment, it's over for Frieza. For the next five days, he is soundly defeated. He's out of the race for the Dragon Balls entirely.

And the only reason Vegeta hasn't won the race is because of that one Ball Gohan smuggled away from him.

So Frieza, defeated, is forced to sit in his broken ship with his thumb up his ass and wait for reinforcement.

Vegeta, with six Dragon Balls, is forced to sit on his balls with his thumb up his ass hoping the talented martial artist Earthlings currently suppressing their ki signatures get stupid and give him something to detect - knowing that if he leaves for a second, those little shits with the Dragon Radar might scoop 'em up from under him.

While Gohan and Krillin, with ki signatures suppressed, make the five-day trek at minimum power to Saichoro/Guru.

It's here. Right here. Where everything stops for five days to pass, and for Goku to approach the planet. All because Frieza ran dry on resources and manpower to keep up the hunt.