#ask duhragonball

[duhragonball]

Hey, random ssj4 boi here!, check out this huge fuckin' rock I found!

Yeah, it's pretty big. I guess.

#ask duhragonball #vegeta #cell #perfect cell #rocks

[cozymochi]

🌻

Sometimes I wish I didn’t give up learning how to sew. Cuz, for a while in high school I actually learned how to do it pretty decently??

But no. I just had to have my self esteem utterly crushed by random classroom bullies for absolutely no reason on that final day of school.

I don’t know wtf their beef was about me making a throw pillow using leftover scraps from the closet and had nothing to DO with their projects at all.

but evidently it was enough to convince me out of continuing it further. Maybe I’ll pick it up again later idk... I still have my notes after all. It’s been a while though, I’d have to relearn everything. I don’t even remember if I liked sewing because of what happened in there. It’s hard to remember the good parts when I remember the asshole peers and the asshole teacher (who eventually quit mid-semester and we got a nice sub afterwards for the rest of the year.)

The sewing thing would’ve been useful in sculpture when I made that Miss Piggy bust years later. (Which, idek what happened to that. I think it was falling apart anyway. It may have been thrown out by now.)

P.S. getting real sick of random classmates doing this shit. Yknow. Having beef just because. Now I’m convinced the only reason I haven’t stopped doing art is because I sunk way too much time into it now 😂😂

#cozy ask #duhragonball #Yo i been so busy i forgot i still had asks from days ago

[sodiumlamp]

when you die where you go?

I’m a Christian, so you’re getting a pretty stock answer from me: You either go to heaven or hell, depending on whether you believe in Jesus.  

I don’t like to get super-religious on the internet, mainly because there’s no shortage of people who do, and they usually wind up getting in the way of their own message. 

For example, does anyone remember the John 3:16 Sign Guy?   His real name was Rollen Stewart, and he was this dude who wore a rainbow-colored wig and held up “John 3:16″ signs at major sporting events.  This was about 30-40 years ago.

[”Huh.  Seems legit.”]

Curiously, I can only find pictures of him wearing his message on shirts instead of signs, but whatever.  The point is that I always kind of liked his idea, because I found it to be attention-grabbing and reasonably non-intrusive.   He’s not hijacking the show or preaching for four hours, he just bought a ticket and condensed his message into eight characters.   You notice him on TV, read his sign, and then you move on with your life.  

Of course, I found him to be ‘subtle’ because I’m a wrestling fan, so I’m used to seeing much rowdier audience behavior.  I’m pretty sure sports fans in the late 70′s and early 80′s found him to be a total horse’s ass, but if he had gone to a WWF event in 1998 he wouldn’t have gotten a second look.  Actually, he probably deserves a lot of credit for the signs and costumes that wrestling fans wear to live shows. 

The point is that he later moved on to stink bombs, and then he got arrested for kidnapping in 1992.  I don’t know why he was trying to kidnap people, but his Wikipedia article implies that he thought the Rapture was going to happen soon, so he must have decided he could afford to break the law.  He’s still in prison to this day.  So maybe he’s not the role model I originally took him for. 

I live in Indiana, which is littered with evangelical billboards.  I’ve seen people on tumblr discuss these with fascination, because I guess in other parts of the world they don’t have “HELL IS REAL” billboards with the ‘H’ colored red for no apparent reason.  I find it funny because the people who pay for those billboards think they’re witnessing to lost souls in search of divine guidance, but they’re dumb.   Either you’ve never seen the sign before and you find it absurd, or you see them every day like I do, and they no longer have any shock value. 

[”Yeah, yeah, got it.  Look, I just want to know if the next exit has a White Castle or not.”]

Even the less-threatening billboards are kind of pointless.  They promote Jesus as if no one had ever heard of him before.   No kidding, one time I was in Nashville and I saw this billboard for Islam, and I was fascinated by it, just because I’d never seen a billboard for another religion.  Although, it didn’t really tell me anything; it was more like “Hey, maybe you oughta give this Islam thing a try.”  And I never did, so maybe that sign wasn’t very effective either. 

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that no one’s ever joined a religion after seeing a billboard.  I really think it’s more about the people who pay for the billboards than the message they want to send.  “Oh look at us, aren’t we being pious by spending all this money.”  I could be wrong, though.

I think a lot of Christians spend too much time obsessing over hell and how to keep people out of it.  The theological problem is that an axe murderer can repent and go to heaven, while your best friend might go to hell because they never took it seriously.  Worse, your best friend might just be kind of private about their beliefs, so now you don’t know one way or the other.  Ultimately, it’s a personal matter, but a lot of Christians can’t leave it at that, and this is where you get billboards and forced conversions and Spanish Inquisitions and so forth.  The underlying idea is that you have to do whatever you can to secure as many people under the Christianity tent as possible, because anyone outside the tent at the wrong moment is doomed.  The trouble with that mindset is that it can be used to justify almost anything.  I think that’s how Rollen Stewart went from trolling football games to serving three life sentences in prison.  

The better approach, I think, is to focus on improving you own relationship with God rather than fretting over everyone else’s.  I’m not saying you have to hide your light under a bushel, but you don’t need to shove it in people’s faces for fear that they can’t see it.  Some people can see it just fine, only they don’t want to look, and others will come around when they’re good and ready, whether you know about it or not.  Trying to control other people’s fates is just an exercise in futility.

So to come back to your question, I personally expect to go to heaven, not because I deserve it, or because I’m a nice guy, or because I called the phone number on a billboard.  I’ll go because Christ died on the cross for me, and for no other reason.  

Unless Baal-worship turns out to the one true religion, in which case I have no idea. 

#/ #// #/// #//// #///// #ask duhragonball #look i know this is off topic but dammit anon actually asked me a coherent question for once #instead of making an oblique reference to something i wrote a week ago #or telling me how much he'd like to bounce quarters off of pucci's ass #the bar is pretty low with this blog and anons still manage to sink below it #so i'll take this guy at face value and answer him #i thought about doing a real smartass reply #but the internet is full of raptor jesus and kung fu action jesus and what have you #so the only ironic thing to do is a sincere answer #this is how monty python stopped being funny #*everyone* expects the spanish inquisition #because that clip is in every friggin commercial for their work #what people *don't* expect is eschatology on an anime blog #Anonymous

[semercury]

10, 16, 20 for the writer's ask thing. Or just one of the three, I just like to pick extras to avoid dupes.

no duplicates so far, and i like to babble, so i’ll answer them all!

10. Pick an author (or writing friend) to co-write a book with

i mean, i’m constantly wishing i had the mental capacity and focus to write something with mei and elizabeth. we keep bouncing ideas around and suggesting how we would go about writing something together, but we’re all busy lol! and as for any traditionally published authors... i feel very disillusioned with people in general at the moment. writing is highly personal for me, and i don’t trust any published author (or anyone outside of like maybe four people, two of whom i already mentioned) to allow myself to be vulnerable with them. and besides, they turn out to be shitty people anyway who just let you down, so why bother having my name attached to theirs?

16. Cover love/dream covers?

i think i took “don’t judge a book by its cover” as a command hghflds. i don’t think much about covers. i guess i tend to like minimalistic looking covers. give me a fancy font and some pretty colors and i’m good. maybe a tasteful picture of a running theme or symbol (for example, if i had fm(n) published if it were a real book, i would place a forget-me-not on the cover).

20. Any advice for young writers/advice you wish someone would have given you early on?

“don’t be afraid others will resent you if you’re happy or proud of yourself.” though, this doesn’t apply specifically to writing, but it is something i wish i had been told more. or at the very least, that i wasn’t made to feel the opposite was true, since that’s what’s currently stopping me from writing at the moment. other good pieces of advice are “rules are made to be broken” (this one applies only to writing, please don’t commit crimes) and “fuck people who give you pointless advice to try and seem smarter” (no, i’m not going to give my villain a shakespeare fetish to “make him more interesting” thomas, fuck off.)

#ask #sodiumlamp #duhragonball

[radmanraditz]

Another reason I hate the Saiyan “mating” headcanons is that they reduce their behaviors to that of animals without actually applying correct animal behaviors (like from the great apes and monkeys) and a lot of people also show a complete lack of understanding of the animals they are taking inspiration from by not even describing their physiological behaviors right. 

It makes me wanna bury people in a pile of ZooBooks and tell them to educate themselves. 

Again this isn’t me policing anyone, just expressing my unpopular opinions. 

#Raxceni Mun (OOC response) #More about Me (headcanons and characterization interpretation) #(but what really bothers me is the *dehumanization* of it all) #(you'd might as well be calling them monkeys alongside Frieza and Zarbon) #(while confusing them for cats) #(duhragonball's pretty much right a lot of this shit is taken from cat behaviors) #(and cats are not apes or monkeys) #(sorry someone sent me something that is making my eyes roll) #(tbh I'm surprised that last ask I made about this subject is getting around) #(but that's because of the reblog) #(that duhragonball did) #(so it feels nice to know I'm not the odd one out for hating those tropes)

[kai-keda]

What is Analysis?

Analysis should be about figuring out why you got a certain impression.

It’s not about “finding the true answer”, it’s about understanding yourself better.

That’s why my video is titled “Why I Don’t Think Goku is Selfish” because there are people who still read the story and without outside influence will think he’s selfish. I’ve just found that most people who think that way are simply projecting their past experiences with people onto the character (People do this to others in real life all the time) or are misinformed about the definition of selfish and what the difference is between a person who did one selfish action and a selfish-person. But that’s why I want discussion. I want people to explain to me why they think the way they do because, like how I have gotten some to understand that what they meant was “reckless” and not “selfish” it’s possible that you could bring more information to light for me to change my perception of the character.

I used to believe that the scene where Goku asks Krillin to let Vegeta go was undoubtedly a selfish action but Duhragonball brought to my attention the idea of an action still not being selfish while the intent is self-serving. No matter the character’s intention, he still showed mercy and while Goku’s intention was self-serving, the action itself is not selfish.

However, this doesn’t mean that everyone has to hold hands and forever agree to disagree because “oh this is just my personal analysis”. I will forever believe that Goku is not a selfish character and will continue to debate with people who think he is just as I’m sure a certain blogger on here will continue to believe Goku is selfish and refuse to engage me in a real debate. I don’t have to agree with your logic and you don’t have to agree with mine. That’s what “agree to disagree” should mean in this context, not “I don’t want to “fight” anymore so just leave me alone so I can forever think you’re wrong.”

I want to debate because I am well aware that I could be wrong and I want you to try to convince me why you think I am just as I want you to give me the same courtesy.

The misguided ideology that states that analysis is finding the truth is why I don’t like the analysis videos that are questions in their titles. “Is Goku a Bad Husband?” implies that by the end of the video, there will be a definitive answer and attacking it as if you’re trying to find said answer to a question is what leads to so many people using faulty language and logic in their arguments. Asking questions is what the moderators in a debate do, not what the debaters themselves do.

Since I brought up Geekdom’s video already, I might as well use that as an example.

He should have titled his video “Why Amber Thinks Goku is a Bad Husband” because that’s what the video was. It was Geekdom asking questions and trying to get to the bottom of what Amber thought and why she thought the way she did. Which is perfectly fine but it’s still a bad video because throughout the whole thing they both used the faulty language and logic that I was talking about earlier because their goal was to find an answer, not to explain themselves.

So long as you believe that literary analysis of a piece of fiction will always be subjective, you must stop looking for answers on if a character is this or if the world is that and instead look for the answer to why you think a character is this or why you think the world is that.

#analysis #character analysis #long post #kairi yajuu makes a text post #kairi yajuu analysis #this isn't talking about criticisms so don't get it confused #critics are looking for the objective answers to why something is bad or is good #analysts are asking questions about the deeper meanings #is this good writing? #is a question for a critic #Why do people think Aslan is Jesus #is a question for analysis

[duhragonball]

I like to think that part of the appeal of Dragon Ball is the fact these random martial artists keep on taking on world-ending threats, because they are the only ones strong enough to do it. For that reason, do you think Dragon Ball would have gotten as good as it did if none of it's villains could blow up the world?

No, I don't think that would have affected the quality of Dragon Ball.

To be sure, blowing up the whole world is a cool way to raise the stakes. It's awesome how Vegeta tried to ragequit his invasion of Earth, and Goku had to stand his ground because the entire planet would have been destroyed if he didn't try to repel that world-ending Gallick Gun. It's also awesome that Frieza tried to destroy Namek because it was easier than fighting a Super Saiyan. It's awesome that Cell had a self-destruct feature, and the only way to foil it was to take him to a different planet with a smaller population. And of course, it's awesome that Majin Buu just went ahead and destroyed the Earth, and no one could stop him, and the story just kept on going anyway. Those are all big impressive story beats, and Dragon Ball might be poorer without them.

All that said, I don't think taking them out would make the story worse. The Red Ribbon Army arc was great, and the height of their power was that they could probably conquer the Earth with the right leadership and resources. The King Piccolo stuff was great, and the most he could do was to subjugate the Earth and perhaps wipe out its population.

I think it says a lot how the Piccolo Junior arc was such a classic, and yet the stakes were basically the same as the arc before it. Piccolo is back, and if Goku can't stop him then he'll just repeat what he did before. It works. The only real difference there is that Piccolo Junior was stronger and laser focused on eliminating Goku.

Radditz threatened to kill everyone on Earth and sell the empty planet to the highest bidder, which is cool because it goes beyond even what Piccolo had planned for it, which reinforced the notion of Piccolo and Goku teaming up to stop him.

Now you could stop right there, and continue the story with that same limit on "How bad could it get?" and things still work. Frieza planned to destroy Namek after making his wish, so that no one else could use the Dragon Balls, but he needn't have bothered, since killing Guru and the other Namekians would settle that just as easily. Cell's self-destruct could have just been some sort of biological agent that would kill everyone without damaging the planet itself. Kid Buu could have just fought Goku and Vegeta on Earth, though admittedly that's a tough call. You set this guy up as a planet-destroying monster, so it strains credibility that he's stuck on Earth for two days and never goes through with it.

Still, I think there's more to the story than just blowing up planets. Look at Super Hero, where all the major players are much, much stronger than the "planet busters" of Z, and yet it never comes up. Nobody in the story wants to destroy the Earth, so the fact that they can doesn't come into play. Cell Max seems to be nearly mindless, but he also knows how to fight pretty well, so he must have some rudimentary control over his power, which keeps him from wrecking the earth every time he goes berserk. I assume his self-destruct is designed the same way. It's contained to destroy whatever killed him, but it doesn't blow up the whole world because Dr. Hedo isn't as nihilistic as his grandfather was.

"The whole world might be destroyed!" is just a tool, one of many that Akira Toriyama had in his toolbox. The fact is, once he introduced that level of power, he couldn't really raise the stakes much higher. Villains like Buu or Zamasu could destroy every planet, but it basically amounts to the same thing, so Dragon Ball has been on that same level of stakes ever since Vegeta fought Goku for the first time 35 years ago. And if the stories have been all right over those past 35 years, then there really isn't a need to raise the stakes any higher, is there?

Likewise, if he had kept that notion off the table, and the worst Vegeta could do was to render the Earth uninhabitable or something, then we'd have 35 years of that being the worst anyone could do, and I don't think it would make that much of a difference.

To come at it from a different direction, I don't think "villains who can blow up the world" is what made Dragon Ball good. It was already good well before that came into play. And if Toriyama could tell a great story without that angle, then he's no worse off with or without it.

I was thinking the other day about how irritating it gets when fans argue over whether "O.G. Dragon Ball" is better or worse than "Z". They're the same story, after all. It's like arguing over which half of a movie is better. But it struck me that this is a big part of Toriyama's legacy. Dragon Ball is such a classic that fans talk about it like he made two classics and debate which one is the best. That's pretty damn impressive.

I think it proves that there's not some single "special ingredient" that makes the story work. Way back in the beginning, it was made clear that martial artists have a duty to use their special skills to help people, and that's been the through-line of Dragon Ball. Saving the entire planet from some world-busting menace is taking that idea to the extreme, but the idea still works, even if it's just Goku helping a sea turtle get back home, or tackling the Red Ribbon base to wish Upa's dad back to life.

#dragon ball #ask duhragonball

[duhragonball]

What’s your overall opinion on Jiren as a character and an antagonist?

I think a lot of Jiren critics miss the point with the guy. In particular, Team Four Star keeps trying to reduce Jiren to some cutting soundbyte. He's boring, he's like U11's Superman, he's an inversion of Goku, etc. You're never going to appreciate a character unless you're willing to meet the concept halfway.

In brief, he's the Man to Beat in the Tournament of Power. Unlike the other 69 opponents in the event, who resent Goku for getting them into this mess, Jiren finds Goku to be a nuisance, unworthy of his time or effort. Jiren can sweep the entire field by himself, and he knows it, but he's so bitter and depressed that he takes no satisfaction from any of it. This is just another job for him, one more chore in a long list of tasks that only he can do.

Jiren's sick of it. He suffered all this tragedy in his past, and now he's achieved seemingly ultimate strength, and it feels pointless to him. He wants to protect his universe and uphold justice. I think he's got that much in common with the Pride Troopers at least. But there's no joy in it for him. His victories are meaningless and hollow to him. Defeat is virtually impossible. Fighting the Tournament of Power is no better or worse for him than sitting alone in his room, staring at the wall.

I think that's what frustrates a lot of fans, because they want Jiren to be this exciting and charismatic figure, a cartoonish supervillain like Vegeta, or Frieza, or Cell, or a bizarre monster like Broly, or Buu, or Janemba. But Jiren flips the script by not giving a shit about Goku. He's not mad at Goku for causing the Tournament of Power to happen, he's not excited to fight Goku, he's not charmed by Goku's enthusiasm. He just wants to dominate the Tournament and leave. Not that Jiren has anything better to do with his time. He just wants to get it over with.

I think that's what makes the Vegeta vs. Jiren segments of the tournament so fun to watch. Look, I'm a big fan of Vegeta, but nobody thought he was going to be the one to take Jiren down. Vegeta's job was to try anyway, and get beat down to show just how tough things would be for Goku. And yet, we kept seeing Vegeta diving headlong into the fray anyway. He'd fight Jiren solo, he'd double-team him with Goku, he'd watch Goku fight Jiren and look for openings. Vegeta kept coming back for more, taking any action he could get, often with a big smile on his face.

Why is it so satisfying when Vegeta manages to get those small little victories against Jiren? He never came close to winning, but he still managed to find openings in his defenses, and he kept coming back for more, and in the end, he gained Jiren's respect. Why does this matter? Because Vegeta's loaded with passion, passion that Jiren lacks. He does take satisfaction from winning, and he does care deeply about the stakes, and even if this battle were just for funsies, he'd still give it his all because he enjoys combat for its own sake. That's what makes him so tenacious, even when he doesn't stand a chance.

And that's what stymies Jiren, because on several occasions he wonders why his opponents refuse to just roll over and accept defeat. That's what he'd do in their shoes, after all, because for him victory and defeat have lost all meaning. There's similar moments with 17, Frieza, and Goku, but I think the moments with Vegeta are especially prominent, just because Vegeta is so laser-focused on defeating Jiren personally, as opposed to merely winning the tournament or running down the clock.

Ultimately, what turns Jiren around is when Goku and the others manage to win him over with their fighting spirit. Once Goku surpasses him with Ultra Instinct and he starts to despair, his teammates cheer him on, and he forges ahead. He loses the battle and Goku praises him for his performance, and he finally understands what it is that drives the others. Then he confides in Toppo that he has no friends and Toppo's like "We're your friends, dummy." So Jiren still has a long way to go, but at least he's beginning to climb out of his rut.

And that's what makes the character interesting. For his opponents, he's this wall they have to break through, but for him, it's about rediscovering something through the course of the battle.

Is he a good villain? No, but he's not supposed to be a villain at all. He's an antagonist in a story without a bad guy. He's an opponent who lacks the passion that the main cast have, and that's a weak point he discovers as the story wears on. It's a very cool thing we see. I don't know how that will work for future Jiren stories, but that's a problem for another day, I guess.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #jiren #ask duhragonball

[duhragonball]

Hey launch is back

I mean, if you consider a few frames of animation in the credits of SDBH being "back".

#dragon ball #ask duhragonball #launch #tien #tien shinhan

[duhragonball]

If you were to pick a second best villain after Cell, who would you pick?

Vegeta.

Frieza gets too much credit for my taste. His arc was a major turning point, but much of what happened was because of Frieza's mere presence rather than direct actions he took. Most of the time he was lounging around in his stupid little cart, waiting for his lackeys to do the job for him.

Vegeta, on the other hand, isn't shy about getting his hands dirty. His fight with Goku was cooler and better paced, and he won, which is something F-boy can't say.

On top of everything, Vegeta is more versatile than Frieza. He can do an antihero thing for a while, he can have an (implied) romance with another character, he can be a rival-turned-ally, and he can turn around and become a villain all over again. What's Frieza done in the last 33 years? Change color? Vegeta's been doing that the whole time.

Of course, Frieza and Vegeta both leave a lot to be desired when it comes to awesome Dragon Ball villains. Fortunately, there's a perfect villain right there to lead the way...

#dragon ball #vegeta #ask duhragonball

[duhragonball]

Dang I had a completely different experience with the last two episodes of NGE. I liked how instead of trotting out a bunch of stuff to explain things, it zeroed in on what I saw as the core of the show, which is the emotional disconnect and desire for connection the characters hold and how this has all torn them apart. I much prefer that we got a finale focused on Shinji trying to reconcile his self hatred and fear of connection and his desperate desire for acceptance and love, all of which was made more confusing and intense by his age and circumstances. Resolving that was way more important to me than explaining a bunch of hard details

I totally get what you're saying, and I will concede that EoTV 25 and 26 were more effective at getting to the bottom of Shinji's problems. EoE 25' and 26' tried to go the other direction with the story, except Shinji's still got the same problem to resolve whether it gets addressed or not. I guess that cat photo must have done the trick.

"Well, Shinji, I think the most therapeutic thing you could be doing is putting more cat food in my bowl."

The problem is that the show may be centered around Shinji, but it isn't just about Shinji. It's about his father, it's about the other Eva pilots, it's about Misato and the ultimate fate of humanity.

Like, Asuka wandered off and turned up lying naked in a bathtub in Episode 24. She's in really bad shape, and EoTV just skips right past that to deal with Shinji's damage. Really? Because I think Asuka was in a much worse place than he was at that point. At least Shinji was still walking and talking. I get that he's the main character, but you can't introduce a supporting character like Asuka and put her in that position and then drop it like it never mattered.

The thing I can't get past is that this franchise had two separate chances to put a bow on the story and it whiffed it both times. The first time was supposedly due to limited time and budget cuts, and the second time was apparently because someone broke into the studio and replace a lot of footage with film of people in a movie theater.

"We're a plot point, apparently!"

And it's treated like this is some sort of zero-sum game, like NGE could either focus on Shinji's mental health issues or wrap up the plot threads from the series, but not both at once. The thing is, most storytellers know how to pull off this kind of trick. Most of the time, the events of the story are the therapy that the character needs. Locking Shinji inside his own head seems pointless. If that's what he needed then the show could have just been about him alone in his room, processing his issues by his lonesome.

What boggles my mind is that from the very beginning of the story, it's made clear that this is all about Shinji having it out with his absent father, and yet neither of the two endings bothers to include a scene of Shinji having it out with his father. There's your low-budget, satisfying finale to the TV series right there. Two episodes of Shinji just sitting in a room with his dad. He needs Shinji to pilot the Eva one last time to execute his Third Impact Plan, but Shinji won't cooperate, and he has no choice but to talk it out with him.

It'd just be two characters sitting in a room together talking it out, maybe with some flashback clips to keep the visuals interesting. And while they hash out their issues, they can provide exposition on Asuka's condition, and what Rei was supposed to be, and so on. Again, this is a way to focus on the core conflict of the show, while still addressing plotlines involving the supporting characters. And when it's over, Shinji leaves the room, feeling a lot better about himself than he did before. He's still got some things to sort out, but at least he's settled things with his dad, which was what he came to Tokyo-3 to do.

Or, just put in this photo of a soup can on a public bench, I guess.

#ask duhragonball #neon genesis evangelion #2024ngeliveblog

[duhragonball]

What do you think of the Saiyan's overall redesign in the DBS Broly Movie? Personally, I didn't like how they really stuck to that, "All Saiyans have black hair," thing. I thought the original King Vegeta and Saiyans surrounding him looked more interesting in DBZ. They even had a blonde guy when KV blew up those planets lmao (if only they knew)

I know the guy your talking about. He's from the flashback montage right before Vegeta dies.

Of course, his pal over there is rocking an SSJ4 Gingergeta look too, so this shot is pretty wild for a bunch of reasons. And then King Vegeta raises his hand and blows up three planets, including the one they're standing on, so I don't know what to make of that.

Anyway, as far as the hair color goes, the black-hair-only rule came from the scene where Vegeta disputes Trunks' claim to be a Saiyan, so the rule didn't exist back when DBZ Episode 86 was made. We can still interpret this in a few ways.

Vegeta was just stone cold wrong. I say this a lot, but it bears repeating: Most of what we know about Saiyans comes from Vegeta, but he's not an infallible source. There's bound to be things he doesn't know or couldn't know, and he probably still clings to a lot of propaganda fed to him in his youth.

The flashbacks aren't meant to be taken literally, and this could just be a coloring error in an otherwise consistent portrayal of the Saiyans.

The blonde guy could be a half-Saiyan like Trunks.

The blonde guy just likes to bleache his hair.

He's got some kind of medical condition that discolors his hair

Nonetheless, once Toriyama laid down the black hair rule, it appears to have been followed pretty closely, except...

Nion, one of the scientists in the nursery in DBS: Broly, has dark blue hair. Maybe indigo? You get the idea. I don't think this is a trick of the light, either, since King Vegeta's in this scene, and his hair looks black. Nion clearly has a different hair color.

At first, I wondered if this meant she wasn't a Saiyan. Nion doesn't appear to have a tail either, and her uniform is too form-fitting for her to stuff it inside her clothes like her robed co-workers. But by all accounts, she seems to be a Saiyan character, and it makes sense. She speaks rather hopefully of Broly possibly becoming the next Super Saiyan, and one of Frieza's bootlicks wouldn't be nearly so enthusiastic when speaking of such a thing.

So what's up with Nion? Well, it's probably the same story as that blonde guy from DBZ 86. She colors her hair, or she's got some alien ancestry, or maybe there's more to Saiyans than Vegeta knew. My guess is that the movie was trying to show that there's a particular fashion among Saiyan scientists. The men in this scene all had very short, more "conventional haircuts". They also wore long choir robes. Nion has a different look, but there's like nine other women in the nursery with the exact same style, suggesting that they all wear that look to signify their profession. So maybe the blue hair is part of that, or Nion picked it up while she was at space college or something.

So from a hair standpoint, I think they just kind of ended up back where they started. Pure-blooded Saiyans may all start with black hair, and most of them stay that way, but a few Saiyans seem to develop an interest in coloring their hair for cosmetic reasons.

No, the main change I noticed from the Broly movie was that most of the Saiyan uniforms we saw were black and/or blue, which is kind of a shame, because I liked the various colors used in DBZ. Bardock had his green and black armor, Fasha/Seripa had pink, Towa had Carolina Tarheel blue, and so on. The movie also did Paragus dirty, because Paragus looked like the fuckin' man in Movie 8, and his DBS looks were all a downgrade.

At least Gine got pink wristbands and sort of a dark teal outfit. That might be closer to green, but I can't tell. Anyway, I get it, they're uniforms. The whole point is that everyone looks the same. Still, I liked the idea that someone could requisition a hot pink and lime green armor and it was totally cool.

Ultimately, flashback scenes like these don't carry that much weight, since they're always susceptible to another retcon. One of these years, they'll do some "Andor"-style series about the Saiyan/Tuffle War, and we'll see a whole other depiction of Saiyans that will turn all of this on its ear, and I'll probably be coming up with some other rationale to make it all fit together.

Mostly, I'm just glad we got a peek into Saiyan culture beyond the front-line warriors in the DBZ flashbacks. Nion and her colleagues raise more questions than answers, but I'm still grateful for the questions. I think fans have postulated characters like Beetz and Gine for a long time, and the movie confirms that there was definitely more to Saiyan society than fighting.

#ask duhragonball #saiyans #gine #nion #bardock #vegeta #king vegeta #nappa

[duhragonball]

First off, I loved your commentary for Evangelion. Very entertaining! I always wished Ritsuko received more "character development" for lack of a better word. I feel like more insight on her relationship with her mother would've added to her character especially in regards to Ritsuko and Gendo's relationship. Personally it looks like grooming if I ever saw it. Like he was preparing Ritsuko to be able to take her mother's place long before she offed herself. And like maybe Naoko realized that and that's why when she strangles Rei she says she can be replaced just like her?? Idk...like I get it maybe they wanted the whole RitsGendo affair to have some shock value but Idk. Just adding some tiny flashbacks showing their past interactions that would later click with us when that bombshell dropped could've been nice. (The manga does it a little but still) Whatever; I probably just want that because she's my favorite character. Anyway, thank you for this commentary!!

Thanks for reading.

I also enjoyed Ritsuko, and wished they did more with her. Mostly, I just like her design, and the role she plays in NERV feels very reminiscent of Data from Star Trek, who can just tap a few buttons and somehow know everything that's happening on the ship.

I suppose I can see a case for Gendo lining up Ritsuko to succeed her own mother as his next lover. Although I would submit that the reverse could be true: Ritsuko saw them making out that night, and decided she wanted some of that for herself. So maybe she threw herself at Gendo later on, figuring she could succeed where her mom failed.

This whole situation also confuses me, because it seems like Gendo's sole objective in NGE is to reunite with his wife, so it seems strange that he would have all this casual sex in the years leading up to the culmination of his plan. Then again, Gendo has a lot of the same hangups with women that his son does, so maybe he only wants Yui back because he saw her as an external source of validation. He wants her back, but he's willing to switch to a different woman when one's available, much the same way Shinji shuffles between Misato, Rei, and Asuka depending on who's willing to hear him out.

#ask duhragonball #neon genesis evangelion #2024ngeliveblog #ritsuko #ritsuko akagi

[duhragonball]

So now that you've finished the Eva TV series, is there any character in the cast who you'd call a favorite?

Misato Katsuragi, easily.

It took me a while to realize it, but in a cast full of traumatized children, amoral scientists, and big-rigged mahoneys, she's the only one who really feels like a hero in an sci-fi adventure story. She supports her team, taking charge and boosting morale wherever she can. She never despairs in the face of danger. She takes responsibility for the kids when no one else will, and she doesn't just shrug and accept NERV's bullshit as a "necessary evil".

Oh, and she's constantly struggling to find out what the hell is going on in this show. She asks questions, gets answers, and follows up on Kaji's investigation after he dies. It's not clear that she was looking to betray NERV; she just wanted to know all the facts so that she could do the right thing as effectively as possible.

I think the only negative for the character is this fan theory I found on one of the wikis that suggests she was going to have sex with Shinji to console him after the apparent death of Rei in Episode 23, which I find ridiculous. The reasoning seems to be based on the way Misato is regarded as some sort of nymphomaniac, and so that's her default way of dealing with loneliness and grief, and... no, that's stupid.

Both endings of NGE seem determined to assert that Misato is some sort of sex addict, and that this is a terrible character flaw. Meanwhile, the only person we know she's had sex with is Kaji. They dated in 2007, and then they got back together over the course of the show. I despise Kaji and his punchable face, but I don't think having sex with him is some sort of crime. It's not like she was cheating on someone else while she was doing it.

Evangelion seems determined to demonize Misato for being too sexy, which is pretty rich considering she seems pretty monogamous and professional throughout. Meanwhile, the rest of Evangelion seems obsessed with the idea of putting teenagers in suggestive poses and minimal clothing.

For a time, I considered using this ask to make a whole list of characters I liked, but no, Misato is too far ahead of the others to bother with runners-up. I can appreciate Shinji, Asuka, and Rei as protagonists, but they're so friggin' childish that it gets on my nerves. You can't even get that mad at them, because they're children.

I liked Ritsuko, but her character arc is almost nonexistent. She mostly typed a lot and ran tests, and then she finally got pushed too far and turned on Gendo and... it didn't really affect anything.

Gendo Ikari is pretty fascinating, and I suspect he may be the model of this trend I've seen in American comic books, where fans and writers act like Batman, Professor X, and Mister Fantastic are actually ruthless, manipulative monsters instead of well-meaning hero types. Blame it on pop culture's intolerance for nuance, but I suspect that Evangelion came along and people started to try to fit their favorite characters into Gendo-shaped holes. It's refreshing to see the real thing, though. But he's still kind of a dick.

The unseen gunman who murdered Kaji is pretty cool, I suppose.

#ask duhragonball #neon genesis evangelion #2024ngeliveblog #misato katsuragi

[duhragonball]

Do you have any further opinions on Gendo and Shinji having some potentially not healthy views on women?

I'll see what I can come up with.

Gendo uses multiple women throughout the story, but I'm not sure that indicates an unhealthy attitude toward women in particular. He exploits men, including his own son, just as readily.

I find his affairs with the Akagis hard to explain, because he seemed so laser-focused on his objectives, and so averse to forming any close relationships with anyone. Even if his relationships with the Akagis were purely physical for him, it still seems like the sort of thing he wouldn't indulge in... unless he thought it would bring him closer to what he actually wants.

I guess my personal theory is that he didn't seduce the Akagis, but they threw themselves at him, and he played along because he needed their talents too badly to risk pushing them away. Naoko was practically rooting for Yui to die in that accident, so it seems likely that she fell in love with Gendo while they worked together and made her move after Yui was out of the picture. Gendo might have rejected her, but he needed the Magi supercomputer that she was building.

Only after the Magi were completed did he turn against her, calling her a "useless old hag". I think he was counting on Rei to hear him saying it, and used her to provoke Naoko into doing something drastic. Although, considering how important Rei was to his plans, it seems odd that he'd put Rei in such a risky position.

In any event, Ritsuko watched the tail end of Naoko's relationship with Gendo and immediately decided she wanted next. This seems really foolish, considering Naoko's fate, but I get the impression that Gendo is this charismatic enigma, the sort who attracts people to his cause, in spite of his cold and repulsive personality. Maybe Ritsuko thought she could fix him, or she just found him fascinating and wanted a closer look. And so Gendo found himself in the same position all over again, playing along with a new lover to ensure her cooperation with his plans.

That doesn't make him blameless, of course. He saw these women offering themselves to him, and he used their infatuation to his advantage. I guess what I'm saying is that he didn't get entangled in those relationships because he was lonely or horny, or desperate to feel powerful. He just played along with them for as long as they were useful, and then discarded them when they ceased to be useful.

I'd say that probably explains his apparent closeness to Rei as well. They only get along well because he needs her for his plans, and she's willing to go along with literally anything he wants her to do.

But, again, I don't know that this has anything to do with their gender. If Rei were a boy, I don't think it would change much for him. If the Akagis were men, he'd probably still use their attraction to him to his advantage.

Regarding Shinji... man, I don't know.

Yesterday I watched a couple of old Folding Ideas videos about End of Evangelion. Dan Olson was talking about how the movie served as Hideaki Anno's "revenge" against obsessive fans who hated the original ending in Episodes 25 and 26. I think the "revenge" theory of EoE is still open to debate, but I still need to do more research into that. Anyway, Olson was pretty confident about it, since it explains how different Shinji is portrayed in each ending.

In EoTV, Anno used Shinji as a medium to explore his own psychological problems, and the ending is more positive. But in EoE, Anno uses Shinji to represent the emotionally stunted otaku he was so mad at. So in the movie, Shinji never "does anything" or "learns anything". He wallows in self-pity, demands Asuka's sympathy, and strangles her when he doesn't get it. He's a petulant child throughout the whole film, and the misogyny is on full display.

Olson explains that Shinji is useful for this sort of thing because he started out as the standard anime protagonist: a blank slate that the audience could project their own identities upon. By the end of the TV series, Anno could easily turn Shinji into his alter ego, and use him to express his own anxieties and fears. And when the otaku rejected this, it was like they wanted Shinji back the way he was so he could be their avatar instead, Anno granted their wish, making EoE-Shinji a representation of all of their worst qualities.

And that's an interesting interpretation, but what frustrates me is that it basically leaves no room for Shinji to be a character in his own right. He's just a vessel for whatever Hideaki Anno wants him to represent. If Anno is feeling introspective, he'll make Shinji in his own image. If he's mad at the otaku, he'll turn Shinji into a straw man.

And that makes it hard for me to really talk about Shinji's attitude towards women. Early in NGE, he basically behaved himself and seemed to prefer keeping his distance from girls, if only to avoid any awkwardness. Misato and Asuka kind of brought him out of his shell a bit, and then in EoTV he seems to rely on them to help him figure out his damage. In EoE he seems desperate for a woman-- any woman-- to make him feel happy, forever. If he can't have that, he'll either go limp or throw a fit.

I don't know what the throughline is with Shinji. If I understand commentators like Dan Olson correctly, there is no throughline with Shinji. He's just a placeholder for one psyche or another. Still, I suppose he's defined by the loss of his mother, and there's always this lingering temptation for him to think he can just retreat from his problems and take refuge in a woman's embrace. Early on, he's reluctant to accept Misato's hospitality and compassion, maybe because he can't believe it's genuine. Later, he starts to appreciate her more, and then he begins to take the women in his life for granted a bit. In EoTV, he pulls back from that mentality, but in EoE he sinks deeper into that false hope that a woman can make him safe and whole.

Am I making any sense here? I'm not sure.

#ask duhragonball #neon genesis evangelion #shinji ikar #gendo ikari #i think the main thing i've learned this month is that the value of evangelion lies less in the text and more in the interpretation of it #in the second folding ideas video dan olson is thanking his viewers for all of their insightful conversations in response to his first vide #and i found that very relatable because that's kind of like what i've been experiencing here these past few days #i'm not even sure i enjoyed more than a dozen episodes of nge but the experience has still been rewarding all the same #i feel a lot like picard at the end of 'darmok' where he finally learns enough tamarian memes to speak to them #sokath his eyes uncovered

[duhragonball]

Christ, I remember trying to watch NGE last year and falling off a few episodes in because nothing was happening and I found other stuff to binge that was more entertaining. I knew most of the infamous stuff happens in the latter half but how is this show 11 episodes in and still ass? At least now I know why Eva is mostly known for it's ending, there's virtually no beginning and thus far very little middle.

It's not a bad show, but yeah, it's kind of a letdown for me. I've been looking forward to this for a long time now, and it just doesn't seem to be measuring up. Maybe my expectations were unrealistic, but Evangelion always seemed to be this really cool, popular thing, and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

All that being said, let me dial back some of my negativity towards this show. It has its moments, often quiet, subtle touches that I can't really document with screenshots and a text synopsis. For example, when the kids are making their way through the base during the blackout, Asuka needles Shinji the whole time, then tries to do the same to Rei, and Rei completely no-sells it, just refuses to take the bait. She doesn't dispute Asuka's claims to leadership, but she doesn't recognize her authority either. And yet, when Asuka finally comes up with an actual plan to defeat their enemy, Rei agrees to follow her lead. It's not a question of respect or disrespect. She's just waiting for Asuka to cut out the bluster and be sensible.

This show reminds me of other anime TV series I've watched in the past. Noir. Excel Saga. Cowboy Bebop. Tenchi Universe. Tenchi in Tokyo. The Gonzo Hellsing series. Revolutionary Girl Utena. I feel like I'm forgetting something else, but the point is that they all sort of share a similar story structure, maybe because they're all TV series with similar lengths.

A few years back, I learned about cours, a term for a three month period in Japanese television. It's about thirteen weeks, which is why so many anime TV series are aired in multiples of 12 or 13 episodes. Jojo season 1 was 26 episodes, which was used to cover both Parts 1 and 2, which worked out, because Part 1 was a little too short for its own 3-month run, while Part 2 was a little too long. Part 3 was like forty-eight episodes, so that's four cours. Parts 4, 5, and maybe 6 were three cours apiece.

Of course, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is based on a serial manga, but I'm pretty sure shows like the ones I mentioned above were wholly original, or only loosely based on a manga or OAV. Those shows, including NGE are designed to be 13, 26, or 39 episodes long, and the story is plotted accordingly. And they kind of operate the same way, spending a certain number of episodes introducing the characters, then doing a bunch of routine adventures, and then towards the last seven or eight episodes things start to get serious and the really plot-driven stuff happens.

I wouldn't quite call it a formula, but it explains why I keep finding NGE's pacing so familiar, even though I really haven't seen another show like it. I think what everyone remembers so fondly is the heavy stuff, where a lot of the secrets and mysteries get revealed, and all of these characters and relationships that have built up over the series get pushed to their limits. But if I'm right, that probably won't get rolling until Episode 18 or 19.

And if it is a formula, then it clearly works, or they wouldn't keep doing it. I guess that's just the difference between Japanese TV and direct-to-video stuff. I've been spoiled by shows like Hellsing Ultimate, where the episodes were variable-length, and organized for maximum effect, because there were no broadcast schedules or logistical issues to get in the way. I suspect a lot of these shows have a few weak episodes where nothing happens just to fill out the cour. They wrote 18 epsiodes' worth of story, but it has to be padded out to 26.

How you experience a show like NGE probably matters too. If I had seen Evangelion back in 2000, on the Toonami lineup, I probably would have only caught bits and pieces of it, eventually getting curious enough to make a deliberate effort to watch it all the way through and figure out just what was going on. That's how I got into Tenchi. I can imagine some small group of anime nerds getting together to watch NGE three episodes at a time, and if they're still somewhat new to this genre, it would blow them away. Sentimental value counts for a lot, but it's not something I can recapture just by watching it myself. But it's the best I can manage, and whether the show is good or not, at least I'll have the satisfaction of finding out.

#neon genesis evangelion #2024ngeliveblog #ask duhragonball