Dragon Ball: A 40-Year Retrospective

it's been 40 years since this series began legendary hero of Dragon Ball the street of manhatt Dragon Ball Z Dron Ball Z still trying to Super saian so I just want to know what does Dragon Ball mean to you it's about growth and overcoming adversity power Adventure mystery excitement multi-generational family epic fun companionship ship friendship Adventure like a shared connection between friends probably magic I would probably say strength feelings of hope uh growth I'm going to say Simplicity a revelation everything it's 1984 and a curator's hip manga doctor slump is about to end with such success the manga industry and his editor wanted to know what he would do next but he already gave them a hint in 1983 he made Dragon Boy a manga we think of as a prototype for what would be his next season series and it received a lot of positive feedback from readers moving away from the Western influences found in Dr slump and instead taking inspiration from Chinese Legends notably Journey to the West Was a big change from how he gained his popularity but change is often what worked best for Toriyama with new inspiration and a prototype to base his story on Toriyama began his new manga the same year Dr slump ended this was the year that Dragon Ball was born so do you like the PE off Arc I'm not going to get roasted right I I am not a big fan of the POF stuff it's a solid start it's fine but nah I feel like the POF Arc was the start of something potentially good it's just a shame that Goku was a bit of a blank cannabis despite how many fans including myself appreciate this Arc a lot in hindsight for giving the series a solid foundation the initial readers of the series didn't find it very compelling it's clear that the leftover gag manga elements from Dr slump were still too prominent for weekly shown jump readers by that time and perhaps Goku was just too plain a protagonist at this point in the story something that even toriyama's editor kazuhiko tashima pointed out to him at this point Toriyama himself didn't even think the series would last very long at the rate it was going so a change needed to happen and fast luckily Toriyama had experience with the successful manga that he could pull from he remembered that the competitive events in Dr slump were extremely well received so why not frame an entire story arc that way well that's what he did did you know you're going to have something good anxious oh [Music] excitement that's a cool action incredible is such an overused word but but incredible just a zany little time perseverance this is is when Dragon Ball started to become truly popular and it wasn't slowing down anytime soon the first tournament ended with the surprise that Goku actually lost allowing the format to be Revisited without feeling like a retread its ending LED straight to the Red Ribbon Army ARC which played out like a video game with different bosses and levels to help keep readers engaged it even ended with another tournament but more importantly two character defining moments for Goku his reunion with the adoptive grandfather he unwittingly killed and his selfless efforts to revive oa's father Bora Toriyama was clearly trying to fix the issues that readers had with the manga early on and with an anime that just started this series had a ceiling it wasn't even close to reaching yet another 10 kaichi bokai passes with Goku barely losing once again and it's followed up by a villain who would change Dragon Ball forever King Piccolo set the curve uh that totally changed Dragon Ball forever that really did set up what dragon ball is going to be in the future going into what we know as Dragon Ball Z I mean you've had T pipie in the past but he's more of just a boss along the way same with blue before him but but in terms of of a story arc being structured specifically around a final boss that needs to be defeated like Piccolo really set the stage for that I think it's perfect because it was like one of the first times where a series got really dark you have this big bad overwhelmingly strong you have Goku having to grow stronger to over come him maybe there's a preliminary battle and other characters have to job along the way yeah now King Piccolo basically set up everything moving forward many fans of the franchise will tell you that Dragon Ball Z is the moment that Dragon Ball as a series changed its course forever but on a rewatch or a reread I think you'll find it's actually The Demon King Piccolo Arc that lays the foundations for Dragon Ball Z style stories and the 23rd ten Kai chibok Kai is what solidifies them especially if we look at its final fight go versus Piccolo Jr like have you ever actually noticed how similar Goku versus Piccolo Jr and Goku versus Vegeta are just look at this after underestimating Goku both opponents decide to fly up and launch an attack that'll cause mass destruction below if Goku Dodges it that's right the iconic Sayan Saga beam struggle happens a whole Arc earlier with the main difference being the use of a super Kamehameha by Goku instead of a stronger kaio-ken after Goku's opponent survives the powered up Kamehameha he proceeds to use his giant form before being forced to return to normal by the end Goku has to stop a comrade from killing his opponent as they leave swearing Revenge before eventually joining the group as an ally the fact that most people don't even notice this shows that these superficial similarities aren't even close to the heart of these stories the characters and why they're fighting is far more important than any surface level comparisons of repeated beats in the main fights so what we really see is how the two stories with the two Piccolo were what set us up for the next chapter of dragon ball story what comes to mind when you hear Dragon Ball Z oh [Music] yeah Nostalgia sick it's rivalry [Music] [ __ ] big [Music] punch Peak fiction adrenaline I always just hear this uh echoing dvz I'm sure some of you are used to seeing Dragon Ball Z on manga covers depending on where you live but that's a localization change to match the extremely successful anime while Toriyama is the one who gave toi the name for Dragon Ball Z the whole manga from meeting Bulma to Goku leaving with UB is just called Dragon Ball Dragon Ball Z was born from to's desire to split the series and it probably couldn't have happened at a better time with a 5-year time Skip and Goku now being the strongest person under the heavens the translation of tenichi the series was ready to move beyond the Earth and explore the wider universe so how does it do it well it's one of the biggest plot twists in anime Goku was never an Earthling after all he's an alien and this man who just arrived to take over the planet is his brother it's pretty hard for us to imagine how crazy this really was since most of us watching the series started at Dragon Ball Z because we had no choice but just think how insane all this information would be to someone reading or watching the series as it came out it was a gamble for sure and somehow it paid off like I said earlier though Toriyama was no stranger to taking risks like this he insisted on having Goku grow up despite heavy push back and that worked sometimes the riskiest option for your story can be exactly what it needs to stay fresh and Dragon Ball Z definitely stayed fresh my favorite Arc in Dragon Ball Z is definitely the Saiyan Arc the Frieza arc when you saw like what happened to Krillin and Piccolo I'm like wow this show is intense the cell Saga yeah bet you never saw that one coming did you San no no question San Arc is the best Arc of SE out of the four it's probably easily the Frieza Saga probably sell Saga it just because it has that one clip of Vegeta in it cell then Goku says now's your chance that's my maybe my favorite clip of anything ever go with the Saiyan Arc favor Arc definitely Frieza 100% sell Saga by far my favorite story arc in in the Dragon Ball Z section of the story is the Canan Arc I think right now I definitely say the holic arc pretty easily sell Saga probably Frieza I find the ending to The friezer Arc really powerful I think it's probably the closest Dragon Ball got to being quite profound to me there's something for everyone in Dragon Ball Z and it changed up the adventure tournament cycle found in the original series with more Grand Story arcs that spanned for dozens of chapters just look at it this way the stories we consider Original Dragon Ball span over 194 chapters which are comprised of six story arcs while the Dragon Ball Z section of the story is 325 chapters and only has four story arcs fans have further subdivided Dragon Ball Z's stories into smaller arcs but the truth is the sayyan Saga Frieza Saga sell Saga and bu Saga are the four arcs of the story these vast and expansive stories became the most well-known aspects of Dragon Ball the Saiyan Saga introduced us to Gohan and Vegeta characters that are so synonymous to Dragon Ball now it's almost hard to believe they weren't there for the first third of the manga the Frieza Saga saw Dragon Ball try its hand at being a true Space Opera learning from the elements of the genre present in the Saiyan Saga and generally improving on them the arcs constantly went up themselves from threatening the planet to the solar system to the Galaxy and even the universe but there is only so far this formula could take Toyama and he was starting to get burned out with the series so a change needed to happen and luckily there was one in place since the very beginning of Dragon Ball Z like I said before Dragon Ball Z style story arc started around the time of King Piccolo so in hindsight I think most of Dragon Ball Z was really the story of Goku's First Son Gohan Gohan had a hidden power within him constantly showing itself off in dire situations but so hidden below the surface that Gohan didn't even realize he had it and even when he did he couldn't use it at will he isn't like Goku despite what people think Gohan wanted to be a scholar on his own and he doesn't like fighting the way his dad does often he only fights in fits of uncontrolled emotion rather than reason or choice so to keep Dragon Ball interesting for himself into the future Toriyama decided to set up a situation where Goku was no longer around and Gohan could take over the leading role and damn what an introduction he got oh my God Super Saiyan 2 Gohan is electric and emotional absolute Peak might I even say [Music] perfection chilling oh badass yeah Super Saiyan 2 is just this big emotional Cath [Applause] desperation definitely very raw but somehow still emotional at the same time finally there's an argument to be made that's probably the most impactful moment for like my generation watching the show but we know that Gohan becoming the main character didn't actually happen while many fans of the series including myself think it's possible to write him as the leading character Toriyama just couldn't come to grips with it so we were left with Dragon Ball Z's messiest Arc The Bu Saga most people still like the bu Saga even if they can acknowledge its flaws but it's still important for us to get a picture of the series at this point in time and if you read it the way it was written and released you'll definitely notice an uncertainty in toriyama's writing he gives Vegeta a very final death made even more so by Piccolo saying Vegeta would get reincarnated rather than having an Afterlife with the two sayings of the generation seemingly dead for good Gohan Goten and Trunks seem to be keeping up the theme of The Next Generation taking over but of course they're not the ones to defeat Buu either Vegeta is very conveniently spared from reincarnation by enma and is even given a new body Goku has an ancient elder god of creation give up his life to revive him and we're right back to the old generation taking over again you can feel how the trajectory of the story wasn't fully thought out and it makes sense since toyama's newest editor fuyu toak was the most hand off he's ever had making toriyama's off-the-cuff writing style more apparent than ever and even with the mess of the entire bus Saga hanging over him Toriyama managed to deliver one of the best endings in the entire series I reread these chapters re-watch these episodes all the time because they just hit the bu Saga ends in the only way it could after having the protagonist problem it struggled with for most of its runs the solution was simply never one person it was everyone coming together to overcome Buu Goku May throw the geny dama but it's a culmination of everyone that makes up the Dragon Ball Universe we've explored throughout the series then the final push to win the actual fight is only possible with a wish on the Dragon Balls leading to one of my favorite lines in the entire [Music] series but Toriyama wasn't going to end the series with that Goku wishes that Buu could have been a good person so he could have fought and defeated him on his own and luckily for Goku that wish Was Heard by enma in a pseudo epilogue to the series commonly called The End Of Z we see Buu's human reincarnation o at this point 10 years had passed Goku's kids are both basically adults and he's even a grandfather now having his wish fulfilled and his Good Deeds rewarded it's no surprise that he decides to go off and train U he's still going to visit his family of course but this is what he wants to do so he's going to do it it's an open ending that fits the themes of the Series where the adventure and your own capabilities have no limits if you keep pursuing them and so Dragon Ball ends the book closes but the show continues as toi try their hand with their own controversial series Dragon Ball GT GT for me is something I'm currently going through again um kind of really for the first time cuz this is the first time I've ever watched it in fully in Japanese so that's interesting I feel so bad about this good ideas done poorly it depends on the day of the week but generally I think it's a fun series with a lot of flaws it's still Dragon Ball so it's still up there in terms of all of fiction where I would rate it but in terms of Dragon Ball I rate it really low just cuz it was very slow I thought it was very slow but in brief moments there's still tons of iconic stuff to pull from overall disappointing but it has its moments it had some good ideas but overall not really my favorite piece of Dragon Ball media it lacks a lot of the oomph that made Dragon Ball Z so fun and exciting GT to me is basically a car driving through the desert lost it has no idea where it's going and it drives through every pothole breaks down a thousand times but finds every Oasis Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were extremely successful for toi so it's no surprise they wanted to continue the franchise in some way it's hard to imagine now but seway was putting out Dragon Ball Z weekly and two Dragon Ball Z movies every year from 1990 to 1995 The Hope was to continue that success with a new series and so Dragon Ball GT was born Dragon Ball GT had its initial story elements approved by and character designs made by a curator Yama himself but outside of that he wasn't really involved and that's for a good reason he wanted to move on from Dragon Ball so this was just his parting gift to the franchise Tor Alma was actually a big fan of Goku turning into to a kid again and actually jokes that it may have allowed him to continue the manga longer had he thought of it himself something that seems to be actually true considering recent announcements to accompany this return of a younger Goku the series also starts with a hunt for the Dragon Balls parking back to the very first story of the entire franchise but GT did something potentially even better than Toriyama did connecting the story arcs together if you watch GT it almost feels like one giant story because of the way all the arcs flow into one another despite being split into four story arcs a case for two or even just one is possible because of how tightly connected everything is baby is encountered during the hunt for the Black Star Dragon Balls which doesn't even conclude until after he's already taken over the entire Earth the overuse of the Dragon Balls is what initially destabilizes the barrier between Earth and the afterlife which of course leads to Super 17 and the shadow dragons appearing despite only being around for 64 episodes GT has its own identity and that really resonates with a certain section of the fandom it also had the hardest job yet how is toy going to end animated Dragon Ball in a satisfying way you see from Dragon Ball episode 1 to episode 64 of GT there was over 11 years of animated Dragon Ball basically weekly there's no gap between Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z the last episode of Dragon Ball Z has a preview for Dragon Ball GT episode 1 which came out the very next week toi didn't have to just wrap up some 64 episode long sequel series they had to wrap up a decade long animated Legacy and somehow they absolutely crushed it for that to be the finale for about 20 years that's really the best way you could have sent off the series it was an emotional episode for me when I watched it it was the last episode of something that I love dearly that was close to my heart it's one of the best episodes in the entire series out of everything ever created by human history that is one of the few things that really makes me uh choke up/ cry every time I watch it I thought the ending was kind of perfect to be honest cuz it just it made sense for ending Dragon Ball as a series it made sense just a really nice way to cap things off I mean that final montage and Goku just walking around the ten kaii budai Arena just it's a poignant moment final episode where he flies off I think it's yeah I think it's a nice way to cap the series I see episode 63 of GT as the final episode of GT itself while episode 64 is the last episode of animated Dragon Ball as a whole a tribute to the series that had done so much and I'd love to talk about it in depth but for the sake of this video I'd rather you just watch it if you watched it dub before give it a chance sub and just try to appreciate what they did and what they had to do a beautiful and artistic ending that still holds on to the heart of the series with it being relatively open-ended and optimistic for the future but that's it there's no manga and there's no anime it's time for other manga cut inspired by toriyama's work to go on and make their own names in history the year is 199 97 and Dragon Ball is over it would take a wish to bring it back after [Music] this if you think about it Dragon Ball never actually died the show was syndicated around the world in the early 2000s introducing the show to a whole new audience and becoming a bigger phenomenon In some cultures and regions than even Japan hand oh man I I've been watching Dragon Ball since I probably like I was 5 years old the first time I saw Dragon Ball was in tunami yeah so I'm old so it' be ocean dub on Cartoon Network I saw Dragon Ball on tunami I used to come home from school just watched it one day on TV and fell in love with it and then I wanted the games then I wanted some shirt then I wanted some toys and it just took off from there my life hasn't been the same since and I'm sure most people have a favorite Dragon Ball Game or game series from the drought too I guess the Budokai series the original Budokai stuff including Budokai 3 which is the greatest game ever made I got to go with Budokai first Budokai buok Kai 3 how how could it be anything but Budokai 3 I mean I guess you could be one of the ten kichi uh peeps you know if you like sparking then good on you Dragon Ball Z tin kaii 3 the best dragon ball game of all time period oh bodai Tanki but bodai was so good too though I remember staying off school all the time to play bodai 2 ooh this one is free game series I mean 201210 we just got to go with budai tenai I feel like it's too iconic you can really pick any of them though Dragon Ball Origins owning a Game Boy I was a huge fan of Legacy of Goku um Legacy of Goku 2 specifically Dragon Ball Bud hands down my personal favorite game what from that era and actually if you just ask me in general still is buai 3 I I hang on right there I have a collector's edition limited edition buai 3 right there Boom by the mid to late 2000s fans were craving new content for the series and fans were definitely not prepared for 2008 in 2008 Dragon Ball Multiverse which is probably the most popular fan manga for the series since the various versions of Dragon Ball AF had just released I personally don't care for Multiverse that much but you can't deny it held over certain fans and gave them the new content they'd been looking for 2008 was also the year that Dragon Ball Zia bridged began and I'm we all already know but it's one of the most successful fan projects in Dragon Ball history am I surprised by the success of Dragon Ball fan projects no not at all Dragon Ball is one of those things where everybody especially especially during the drought right because like after Z had come out after GT had come out after they finally released all of Dragon Ball people wanted more how could they not want more so of course you know fan projects were going to take off I was reading Multiverse at the time did fill that void of not having more Dragon Ball but like keeping it alive and I also read the Multiverse one as well I actually thought it was real for a long time because of the art I am not surprised I mean Dragon Ball fans are very very passionate extremely passionate so that is no surprise to me yes and no it's basically the quality of work is absolutely there and it's something that should be as popular as it is but at the same time I live in my own little bubble and I never million years thought would be a an era where the fan stories are getting as much love and and attention as they deserve I was seeing dragon ball flash animations all the way back when Dragon Ball was running in America it never stopped when people are are hungry for something they're you know they're going to eat you know what I mean but 2008 didn't stop there that's the year Dragon Ball actually had new content in the form of an OVA titled Yung Goku and his friends return this reunion special was extremely lighthearted and many haven't even seen it due to it never being localized or dubbed in English but it was a big part of dragon Ball's return especially since the script for the special was written by Akira Toriyama himself it even received a manga adaptation in the following year though Toriyama didn't draw that it was actually done by ad Doan artist by the name of naho Oishi who formerly went by the Alias gichi as for fan artists doing official work for the series this wouldn't be the last time after the reunion special there was a cut down version of Dragon Ball Z that aimed to be more manga the accurate which had a quicker localization as well and fresh dubs in every language allowing new fans to experience at least part of Dragon Ball this is of course Dragon Ball Kai or Dragon Ball Z Kai here in the west so while Dragon Ball Z a bridged was happening as a parody of the series we had an official Abridged version of the series being released around the same time so something else came out in 2009 oh wait no is this what I think it is what are your honest thoughts about Dragon Ball Evolution it was abysmal better than Resurrection F I remember seeing that movie in theaters and all I could think to myself was this is hilarious it's not good but it's fun I actually like Dragon Ball Evolution when I was a kid but As I Grew Older I definitely understand why it's awful like a piece of my childhood died forever that day of course the movie itself is not that great but it did do some things that were interesting at least Dragon Ball evolution is bad it misses everything that makes Dragon Ball Dragon Ball but it isn't a dragon ball in this analogy because of the movie itself but instead what it inspired in Toriyama unlike most manga Toriyama very openly criticized the movie saying things like the script had too little of a grasp on the world and its characteristics and on top of that it had a conventional content that I couldn't find interesting this kind of open criticism of an adaptation isn't common for any manga including Toriyama showing he really was passionately against what the movie was and more importantly he thought he could make something better saying I wanted to show some spine with a world and Story Only The Creator could draw so he did so how does Battle of Gods compare to Dragon Ball Evolution like quality wise I mean it's I mean Compares is a crazy way to put it because I don't think it Compares at all it's just a 100 times better how does World War II compared to you know Martin Luther King's speech there is no Goku sliding on the top of a car in Battle of Gods and that really hurts that movie for me Battle of Gods just it gave people hope that there was going to be brand new Dragon Ball content and it was good content as well beerus and whis were immediately accepted if Dragon Ball Evolution killed people's interests in Dragon Ball then Battle of Gods IGN ignited it and caused a fire of new content that lasted for over 10 years and doesn't seem to be stopping for a lot of fans including myself Battle of Gods was a breath of fresh air from Dragon Ball Evolution Toriyama had returned to do work on the script and character designs most of which were started by toi but were almost completely changed by Toriyama in the end this movie opened up the world of Dragon Ball again with a god that actually seemed truly competent in combat a new transformation a new typee of power and an entire Multiverse for us to potentially explore in the future it really seemed like Toriyama was ready to dive back into the world of Dragon Ball again at least for a while after a movie that expanded Dragon Ball's world so vastly and introduced characters that are so iconic they feel like they've always been there just like Dragon Ball Z did with Vegeta and Gohan the potential of a sequel to this movie was even more exciting did you think Resurrection F was good when it came out Vegeta beating the [ __ ] out of Frieza is an incredible moment that only works the first time around and every time you rewatch that film everything else just falls apart evolution is better than Resurrection F Resurrection f is all right one of my least viewed yes but it was definitely because of the drought period we were going through so that explains why my opinions changed Cinema a Ab absolute absolute Cinema when Resurrection F came out most fans liked it a lot new Dragon Ball was New Dragon Ball after all but over time it's become more and more disliked the animation is far from movie quality the storyboarding leaves a lot to be desired and the plot is too far the opposite of Battle of Gods we just learned about a ton of new and exciting things in the universe and Multiverse but instead the story takes place on Earth and the main fight is against a resurrected villain instead of meeting a new and interesting one we're also already on to the next transformation Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan remember it wasn't isn't called Super Saiyan blue yet it still had this stupid name again at the time new Dragon Ball content was just exciting to have so while most is like it in hindsight at least we can move past it into Dragon Ball's future because all seven Dragon Balls have been collected and it's time for a wish to be granted introducing the future of Dragon Ball a new series called Dragon Ball Super A series set after the events of the movies that could do everything we want in Dragon Ball hell maybe we'll even get some higher production quality and some new character designs oh thank you the show is 3 months after Resurrection F it's starting by recapping the last two movies it even has the same character designs oh no honestly did you like the early DBS anime pre Future Trunks mhm no no I I I did not uh just the the animation dip in quality the fact that it was regoing over movie stuff I never like that I do have to say I'm really really genuinely uh still to this day sort of disappointed with how toi handled that show not really it's very Hit or Miss no and I ignore it mostly nowadays and I tell people when they're watching Dragon Ball super just skip it watch Battle of Gods and Resurrection F instead the first two episodes yeah they were good but then it fell off and then it fell off even more I think Dragon Ball Super's early stuff feels very messy it's taking something that is supposed to be short and then dragging it out massively on a production timeline that was basically inhumane and visibly showed on screen some people look at Dragon Ball super episode 5 and just wonder what happened was it a budget issue for one of to's biggest properties no it was just time anime especially non-seasonal anime like Dragon Ball super need to have incredible pre-production and production scheduling to allow for consistent quality and an evenly distributed staff list Coming Out 3 months after Resurrection F assured DBS had almost none of the pre-production it needed and left the series scrambling for most of its run just to barely find its footing during the final Arc production aside the story strangely followed the formula of the two prior movies not only by literally retelling them as the first two arcs but how it would almost rubber band in terms of World building from beerus and the multi iers back down to Frieza and Earth back out to Universe 6 and its God of destruction shampa only to shrink into a familiar story of Future Trunks coming to the Past seeking help and ending with a multiversal tournament obviously everything here has a bit of a mix like the Future Trunks Arc utilizing a god from Universe 10 as its main antagonist but generally it felt like a pattern of something new to something familiar and I don't know if that was the right idea or if it was even really necessary it felt overly cautious with dragon balls and IP and unfortunately that's not just the case for the Dragon Ball super anime speaking of cautious Dragon Ball super has a manga that's drawn by toyotaro who used to go by the name toy bll when creating his own version of Dragon Ball AF once again a fan becomes a professional on the series this manga is interesting because it started out monthly as it is to this day but it used to be extremely short in terms of page count this manga basically acted as promotional material for the anime even skipping Resurrection f it seemed like there wasn't faith in manga as a medium and what do you think about the early DBS manga I feel like it just felt like it was almost it had to be an accessory I wasn't really a big fan of it up until uh the morar rolled around the Battle of God Stuff felt very much like toyot Tower was referencing the film a lot and even use some kind of like scenes that looked like they were taken from the movie or like panels that like they were taken from the movie which is totally fine um it's just like you know I kind of was hoping for a little bit more I wouldn't say that I hated the early Dragon Ball super manga stuff but I would say that it took a long while for it to actually feel like a standalone product by the time of the universe 6 tournament the chapter's page counts increased dramatically being able to fully tell the story through the medium of a manga the weird part is it's a different story the arcs are the same but the details and the story beats are different despite torama being involved in both projects he basically just gave the anime and toyotaro story notes so while certain moments remain consistent other are completely changed for the sake of telling the same story in a different way even more so than the original Dragon Ball Manga and to's adaptations of it in the past there are truly two different continuities and that gets confusing for casual fans again I think rushing into Dragon Ball super right after Resurrection F didn't allow anything to be fully thought out leading to a Messier Dragon Ball super than there needed to be with all that negative stuff aside Dragon Ball super is just kind of cool it's fun being a part of a community even when the show's bad you could go on to Twitter talk to your friends watch Theory videos and just be excited for something as a group it was a moment in time that I just never wanted to end and Dragon Ball super never felt more alive than during the tournament of power and especially the 1hour special episodes 109 and 110 these episodes shook the community and broke the internet literally by being so insanely popular the reveal of ultra Instinct and how that form became so iconic already that you can see someone Dodge anything and a random person will say they went Ultra Instinct was insane to see in real time it really was a moment in time that you just had to be there to experience unfortunately though it did eventually end were you surprised when you found out the DBS anime was ending yeah I was definitely surprised I thought it would if you would have told me back then that we would have gone so long without another dedicated anime series I wouldn't have believed it yeah I was but mostly because I would at that point I was thinking about things business-wise like I was trying to follow the money and it didn't really make sense to to me to like you know it was the most popular anime and money printer like you know that toi had at the time and I was like why did you stop yeah I thought they would just keep it going because the manga still went so and it's so popular so why wouldn't they just keep making it uh no just because um they they did it before like you know what I mean like we had a ball and it ended and then that was it with the anime finished you may be expecting another Dragon Ball drought but that really wasn't the case here the Dragon Ball super manga continued on eventually covering two arcs that don't even have anime adaptations and one of those arcs is almost universally praised as a return to form for the series do the moro and granola arcs make you optimistic for the future of dragon Ball's manga content yeah I enjoyed those quite a lot like they like people give criticisms for stuff that toyot tower has done but like they've also done criticisms and me notwithstanding for Stu that Toriyama has done um toyotaro is able is is fully capable of writing a good story I think definitely uh the mor arc's my favorite super Arc in general it's up there with some of the Z arcs for me and for as much hate as the grola arc gets I really did like that one too yes cuz I actually am a big fan of the mor Arc I I I think that's my favorite Arc in the longa period yeah seems like they're trying to expand the universe a little bit more and get into other things outside of planet Earth which is great cuz I don't think you can come up with another villain that has originated from Earth and make it make sense yes cuz toyotaro he has potential and those two arcs show that morrow more and more is becoming quite loved amongst the community there were also two movies so animated Dragon Ball continued as well just not as a series the first Dragon Ball super Broly came out in 2018 in Japan and 2019 globally Dragon Ball super Broly definitely did continue the rubber banding story Trend by returning to a known character and taking place on Earth but at least this was a new version of Broly not the one from the non-canon Dragon Ball Z movies more importantly it had a new art style with NaOH hero shintani taking over the role of character designer from series veteran tat Yoshi yamamuro whose style notably degraded over the decades with a new aesthetic a talented director and tatuya nagam and a script that Toyama seems to have actually tried with originally being 3 hours long and needing to be cut down to movie length it's a fun movie the movie has a lot of issues but it also has a lot of heart it just has a way of building up that childhood excitement in you the way that watching tunami after school would it's definitely more spectacle than substance towards the end but you have to give it some credit for being the fun ride it is and remaking what modern Dragon Ball looks like the movie was Then followed by Dragon Ball super superhero which was surprisingly animated in 3D you might think that this doesn't work but I'd say for most of the movie it's basically unnoticeable after you you adjust to it shintani once again did some character designs alongside one punch man character designer chikashi KUB I really do think this movie being animated entirely in CG was a staff issue rather than a sign of things to come but just seeing the improvements in the models and animations from Battle of Gods and Resurrection F makes me feel better about its supplemental use in the future when it's necessary more importantly superhero is a movie that focuses on Gohan and Piccolo like never before as a story it clearly relies on the past but in a fairly or ganic way outside of Gohan's transformation sequence which is way too one to one if we're being honest generally I like superhero more than Broly but both are fantastic and that's a great sign for the future if you ask me I think both of those movies show a bright a bright future um superhero in particular just really tickled me in a way I had not uh I I had not felt with dragon ball in a very long time like it made me very optimistic for the first time in a very long time oh yes animated dragon ball is going to be a spectacle a Wonder because every time that a film drops now I'm just I'm looking forward to the 3D stuff I'm looking forward to the visuals of the film and the voice over and everything it's just man I encourage more of it absolutely I think those movies have been fantastic and I'm really looking forward to Da from a visual standpoint yeah they are stunning even the CG that is a little inconsistent at times the core aesthetic the actual design philosophies behind both of those movies is just like such a step up from Super both of those stories have like a lot of heart but they kind of come from different areas I think people that came from Z will prefer uh dragon ball super Broly more those that like you know are more interested in like the more Slice of Life looking at looking to the Future sort of stuff would will prefer superhero they both show kind of like a a care for you know two different sides of the coin here so yeah absolutely I think both of those were phenomenal movies I'd be excited to see either one all over again it felt kind of adventurous in superheroes and I like that because it made me think of like older like ARs and Dragon Ball because I feel like super kind of got a little crazy where it was just like here's some like strong fights like let's go so in a sense it kind of felt a little like nostalgic and with that 40 Years of Dragon Ball is covered but Dragon Ball isn't done just yet Dragon Ball Super's manga is still going strong having recently hit its 100 Chapter Milestone and animated Dragon Ball is receiving a new series with the most direct Toriyama involvement any animated Dragon Ball series has ever had Dragon Ball daa not to mention sparking zero is going to release in the not so distant future so there's even something for the gaming community so even after 40 amazing years there's still a lot of Dragon Ball to look forward to but we can't ignore what's happened this ending was different when I wrote it 6 months ago in that time aurator AMA has tragically passed away at the age of 68 his ability to procrastinate and still make compelling work his ability to make things fit into place in retrospect despite nothing being planned and his incredible creative mind that allowed him to combine comedy drama and action all into one inspired me to be a creative it very very easy for me to sit here and say that my life would be different without the work of a curat Toyama because of my job but in spite of that my life would be very different he had an impact on it well before this job even was a thought in my head so all I can say is thank you Mr Tori thank you Akira Toriyama thank you Akira torama thank you Akira Toriyama thank you Akira Toriyama thank you so much Akira Toriyama thank you Akira Toriyama thank you Akira Toriyama thank you Toriyama thank you Toriyama thank you Toriyama Sensei Toriyama all I can say is thank you thank youir Toriyama thanks Toriyama thank you Toriyama sor thank you Akira torama thanks to everyone for 1 million subscribers and thank you so very much for watching

it&#39;s been 40 years since this series began legendary hero of Dragon Ball the street of manhatt Dragon Ball Z Dron Ball Z still trying to Super saian so I just want to know what does Dragon Ball mean to you it&#39;s about growth and overcoming adversity power Adventure mystery excitement multi-generational family epic fun companionship ship friendship Adventure like a shared connection between friends probably magic I would probably say strength feelings of hope uh growth I&#39;m going to say Simplicity a revelation everything it&#39;s 1984 and a curator&#39;s hip manga doctor slump is about to end with such success the manga industry and his editor wanted to know what he would do next but he already gave them a hint in 1983 he made Dragon Boy a manga we think of as a prototype for what would be his next season series and it received a lot of positive feedback from readers moving away from the Western influences found in Dr slump and instead taking inspiration from Chinese Legends notably Journey to the West Was a big change from how he gained his popularity but change is often what worked best for Toriyama with new inspiration and a prototype to base his story on Toriyama began his new manga the same year Dr slump ended this was the year that Dragon Ball was born so do you like the PE off Arc I&#39;m not going to get roasted right I I am not a big fan of the POF stuff it&#39;s a solid start it&#39;s fine but nah I feel like the POF Arc was the start of something potentially good it&#39;s just a shame that Goku was a bit of a blank cannabis despite how many fans including myself appreciate this Arc a lot in hindsight for giving the series a solid foundation the initial readers of the series didn&#39;t find it very compelling it&#39;s clear that the leftover gag manga elements from Dr slump were still too prominent for weekly shown jump readers by that time and perhaps Goku was just too plain a protagonist at this point in the story something that even toriyama&#39;s editor kazuhiko tashima pointed out to him at this point Toriyama himself didn&#39;t even think the series would last very long at the rate it was going so a change needed to happen and fast luckily Toriyama had experience with the successful manga that he could pull from he remembered that the competitive events in Dr slump were extremely well received so why not frame an entire story arc that way well that&#39;s what he did did you know you&#39;re going to have something good anxious oh [Music] excitement that&#39;s a cool action incredible is such an overused word but but incredible just a zany little time perseverance this is is when Dragon Ball started to become truly popular and it wasn&#39;t slowing down anytime soon the first tournament ended with the surprise that Goku actually lost allowing the format to be Revisited without feeling like a retread its ending LED straight to the Red Ribbon Army ARC which played out like a video game with different bosses and levels to help keep readers engaged it even ended with another tournament but more importantly two character defining moments for Goku his reunion with the adoptive grandfather he unwittingly killed and his selfless efforts to revive oa&#39;s father Bora Toriyama was clearly trying to fix the issues that readers had with the manga early on and with an anime that just started this series had a ceiling it wasn&#39;t even close to reaching yet another 10 kaichi bokai passes with Goku barely losing once again and it&#39;s followed up by a villain who would change Dragon Ball forever King Piccolo set the curve uh that totally changed Dragon Ball forever that really did set up what dragon ball is going to be in the future going into what we know as Dragon Ball Z I mean you&#39;ve had T pipie in the past but he&#39;s more of just a boss along the way same with blue before him but but in terms of of a story arc being structured specifically around a final boss that needs to be defeated like Piccolo really set the stage for that I think it&#39;s perfect because it was like one of the first times where a series got really dark you have this big bad overwhelmingly strong you have Goku having to grow stronger to over come him maybe there&#39;s a preliminary battle and other characters have to job along the way yeah now King Piccolo basically set up everything moving forward many fans of the franchise will tell you that Dragon Ball Z is the moment that Dragon Ball as a series changed its course forever but on a rewatch or a reread I think you&#39;ll find it&#39;s actually The Demon King Piccolo Arc that lays the foundations for Dragon Ball Z style stories and the 23rd ten Kai chibok Kai is what solidifies them especially if we look at its final fight go versus Piccolo Jr like have you ever actually noticed how similar Goku versus Piccolo Jr and Goku versus Vegeta are just look at this after underestimating Goku both opponents decide to fly up and launch an attack that&#39;ll cause mass destruction below if Goku Dodges it that&#39;s right the iconic Sayan Saga beam struggle happens a whole Arc earlier with the main difference being the use of a super Kamehameha by Goku instead of a stronger kaio-ken after Goku&#39;s opponent survives the powered up Kamehameha he proceeds to use his giant form before being forced to return to normal by the end Goku has to stop a comrade from killing his opponent as they leave swearing Revenge before eventually joining the group as an ally the fact that most people don&#39;t even notice this shows that these superficial similarities aren&#39;t even close to the heart of these stories the characters and why they&#39;re fighting is far more important than any surface level comparisons of repeated beats in the main fights so what we really see is how the two stories with the two Piccolo were what set us up for the next chapter of dragon ball story what comes to mind when you hear Dragon Ball Z oh [Music] yeah Nostalgia sick it&#39;s rivalry [Music] [ __ ] big [Music] punch Peak fiction adrenaline I always just hear this uh echoing dvz I&#39;m sure some of you are used to seeing Dragon Ball Z on manga covers depending on where you live but that&#39;s a localization change to match the extremely successful anime while Toriyama is the one who gave toi the name for Dragon Ball Z the whole manga from meeting Bulma to Goku leaving with UB is just called Dragon Ball Dragon Ball Z was born from to&#39;s desire to split the series and it probably couldn&#39;t have happened at a better time with a 5-year time Skip and Goku now being the strongest person under the heavens the translation of tenichi the series was ready to move beyond the Earth and explore the wider universe so how does it do it well it&#39;s one of the biggest plot twists in anime Goku was never an Earthling after all he&#39;s an alien and this man who just arrived to take over the planet is his brother it&#39;s pretty hard for us to imagine how crazy this really was since most of us watching the series started at Dragon Ball Z because we had no choice but just think how insane all this information would be to someone reading or watching the series as it came out it was a gamble for sure and somehow it paid off like I said earlier though Toriyama was no stranger to taking risks like this he insisted on having Goku grow up despite heavy push back and that worked sometimes the riskiest option for your story can be exactly what it needs to stay fresh and Dragon Ball Z definitely stayed fresh my favorite Arc in Dragon Ball Z is definitely the Saiyan Arc the Frieza arc when you saw like what happened to Krillin and Piccolo I&#39;m like wow this show is intense the cell Saga yeah bet you never saw that one coming did you San no no question San Arc is the best Arc of SE out of the four it&#39;s probably easily the Frieza Saga probably sell Saga it just because it has that one clip of Vegeta in it cell then Goku says now&#39;s your chance that&#39;s my maybe my favorite clip of anything ever go with the Saiyan Arc favor Arc definitely Frieza 100% sell Saga by far my favorite story arc in in the Dragon Ball Z section of the story is the Canan Arc I think right now I definitely say the holic arc pretty easily sell Saga probably Frieza I find the ending to The friezer Arc really powerful I think it&#39;s probably the closest Dragon Ball got to being quite profound to me there&#39;s something for everyone in Dragon Ball Z and it changed up the adventure tournament cycle found in the original series with more Grand Story arcs that spanned for dozens of chapters just look at it this way the stories we consider Original Dragon Ball span over 194 chapters which are comprised of six story arcs while the Dragon Ball Z section of the story is 325 chapters and only has four story arcs fans have further subdivided Dragon Ball Z&#39;s stories into smaller arcs but the truth is the sayyan Saga Frieza Saga sell Saga and bu Saga are the four arcs of the story these vast and expansive stories became the most well-known aspects of Dragon Ball the Saiyan Saga introduced us to Gohan and Vegeta characters that are so synonymous to Dragon Ball now it&#39;s almost hard to believe they weren&#39;t there for the first third of the manga the Frieza Saga saw Dragon Ball try its hand at being a true Space Opera learning from the elements of the genre present in the Saiyan Saga and generally improving on them the arcs constantly went up themselves from threatening the planet to the solar system to the Galaxy and even the universe but there is only so far this formula could take Toyama and he was starting to get burned out with the series so a change needed to happen and luckily there was one in place since the very beginning of Dragon Ball Z like I said before Dragon Ball Z style story arc started around the time of King Piccolo so in hindsight I think most of Dragon Ball Z was really the story of Goku&#39;s First Son Gohan Gohan had a hidden power within him constantly showing itself off in dire situations but so hidden below the surface that Gohan didn&#39;t even realize he had it and even when he did he couldn&#39;t use it at will he isn&#39;t like Goku despite what people think Gohan wanted to be a scholar on his own and he doesn&#39;t like fighting the way his dad does often he only fights in fits of uncontrolled emotion rather than reason or choice so to keep Dragon Ball interesting for himself into the future Toriyama decided to set up a situation where Goku was no longer around and Gohan could take over the leading role and damn what an introduction he got oh my God Super Saiyan 2 Gohan is electric and emotional absolute Peak might I even say [Music] perfection chilling oh badass yeah Super Saiyan 2 is just this big emotional Cath [Applause] desperation definitely very raw but somehow still emotional at the same time finally there&#39;s an argument to be made that&#39;s probably the most impactful moment for like my generation watching the show but we know that Gohan becoming the main character didn&#39;t actually happen while many fans of the series including myself think it&#39;s possible to write him as the leading character Toriyama just couldn&#39;t come to grips with it so we were left with Dragon Ball Z&#39;s messiest Arc The Bu Saga most people still like the bu Saga even if they can acknowledge its flaws but it&#39;s still important for us to get a picture of the series at this point in time and if you read it the way it was written and released you&#39;ll definitely notice an uncertainty in toriyama&#39;s writing he gives Vegeta a very final death made even more so by Piccolo saying Vegeta would get reincarnated rather than having an Afterlife with the two sayings of the generation seemingly dead for good Gohan Goten and Trunks seem to be keeping up the theme of The Next Generation taking over but of course they&#39;re not the ones to defeat Buu either Vegeta is very conveniently spared from reincarnation by enma and is even given a new body Goku has an ancient elder god of creation give up his life to revive him and we&#39;re right back to the old generation taking over again you can feel how the trajectory of the story wasn&#39;t fully thought out and it makes sense since toyama&#39;s newest editor fuyu toak was the most hand off he&#39;s ever had making toriyama&#39;s off-the-cuff writing style more apparent than ever and even with the mess of the entire bus Saga hanging over him Toriyama managed to deliver one of the best endings in the entire series I reread these chapters re-watch these episodes all the time because they just hit the bu Saga ends in the only way it could after having the protagonist problem it struggled with for most of its runs the solution was simply never one person it was everyone coming together to overcome Buu Goku May throw the geny dama but it&#39;s a culmination of everyone that makes up the Dragon Ball Universe we&#39;ve explored throughout the series then the final push to win the actual fight is only possible with a wish on the Dragon Balls leading to one of my favorite lines in the entire [Music] series but Toriyama wasn&#39;t going to end the series with that Goku wishes that Buu could have been a good person so he could have fought and defeated him on his own and luckily for Goku that wish Was Heard by enma in a pseudo epilogue to the series commonly called The End Of Z we see Buu&#39;s human reincarnation o at this point 10 years had passed Goku&#39;s kids are both basically adults and he&#39;s even a grandfather now having his wish fulfilled and his Good Deeds rewarded it&#39;s no surprise that he decides to go off and train U he&#39;s still going to visit his family of course but this is what he wants to do so he&#39;s going to do it it&#39;s an open ending that fits the themes of the Series where the adventure and your own capabilities have no limits if you keep pursuing them and so Dragon Ball ends the book closes but the show continues as toi try their hand with their own controversial series Dragon Ball GT GT for me is something I&#39;m currently going through again um kind of really for the first time cuz this is the first time I&#39;ve ever watched it in fully in Japanese so that&#39;s interesting I feel so bad about this good ideas done poorly it depends on the day of the week but generally I think it&#39;s a fun series with a lot of flaws it&#39;s still Dragon Ball so it&#39;s still up there in terms of all of fiction where I would rate it but in terms of Dragon Ball I rate it really low just cuz it was very slow I thought it was very slow but in brief moments there&#39;s still tons of iconic stuff to pull from overall disappointing but it has its moments it had some good ideas but overall not really my favorite piece of Dragon Ball media it lacks a lot of the oomph that made Dragon Ball Z so fun and exciting GT to me is basically a car driving through the desert lost it has no idea where it&#39;s going and it drives through every pothole breaks down a thousand times but finds every Oasis Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were extremely successful for toi so it&#39;s no surprise they wanted to continue the franchise in some way it&#39;s hard to imagine now but seway was putting out Dragon Ball Z weekly and two Dragon Ball Z movies every year from 1990 to 1995 The Hope was to continue that success with a new series and so Dragon Ball GT was born Dragon Ball GT had its initial story elements approved by and character designs made by a curator Yama himself but outside of that he wasn&#39;t really involved and that&#39;s for a good reason he wanted to move on from Dragon Ball so this was just his parting gift to the franchise Tor Alma was actually a big fan of Goku turning into to a kid again and actually jokes that it may have allowed him to continue the manga longer had he thought of it himself something that seems to be actually true considering recent announcements to accompany this return of a younger Goku the series also starts with a hunt for the Dragon Balls parking back to the very first story of the entire franchise but GT did something potentially even better than Toriyama did connecting the story arcs together if you watch GT it almost feels like one giant story because of the way all the arcs flow into one another despite being split into four story arcs a case for two or even just one is possible because of how tightly connected everything is baby is encountered during the hunt for the Black Star Dragon Balls which doesn&#39;t even conclude until after he&#39;s already taken over the entire Earth the overuse of the Dragon Balls is what initially destabilizes the barrier between Earth and the afterlife which of course leads to Super 17 and the shadow dragons appearing despite only being around for 64 episodes GT has its own identity and that really resonates with a certain section of the fandom it also had the hardest job yet how is toy going to end animated Dragon Ball in a satisfying way you see from Dragon Ball episode 1 to episode 64 of GT there was over 11 years of animated Dragon Ball basically weekly there&#39;s no gap between Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z the last episode of Dragon Ball Z has a preview for Dragon Ball GT episode 1 which came out the very next week toi didn&#39;t have to just wrap up some 64 episode long sequel series they had to wrap up a decade long animated Legacy and somehow they absolutely crushed it for that to be the finale for about 20 years that&#39;s really the best way you could have sent off the series it was an emotional episode for me when I watched it it was the last episode of something that I love dearly that was close to my heart it&#39;s one of the best episodes in the entire series out of everything ever created by human history that is one of the few things that really makes me uh choke up/ cry every time I watch it I thought the ending was kind of perfect to be honest cuz it just it made sense for ending Dragon Ball as a series it made sense just a really nice way to cap things off I mean that final montage and Goku just walking around the ten kaii budai Arena just it&#39;s a poignant moment final episode where he flies off I think it&#39;s yeah I think it&#39;s a nice way to cap the series I see episode 63 of GT as the final episode of GT itself while episode 64 is the last episode of animated Dragon Ball as a whole a tribute to the series that had done so much and I&#39;d love to talk about it in depth but for the sake of this video I&#39;d rather you just watch it if you watched it dub before give it a chance sub and just try to appreciate what they did and what they had to do a beautiful and artistic ending that still holds on to the heart of the series with it being relatively open-ended and optimistic for the future but that&#39;s it there&#39;s no manga and there&#39;s no anime it&#39;s time for other manga cut inspired by toriyama&#39;s work to go on and make their own names in history the year is 199 97 and Dragon Ball is over it would take a wish to bring it back after [Music] this if you think about it Dragon Ball never actually died the show was syndicated around the world in the early 2000s introducing the show to a whole new audience and becoming a bigger phenomenon In some cultures and regions than even Japan hand oh man I I&#39;ve been watching Dragon Ball since I probably like I was 5 years old the first time I saw Dragon Ball was in tunami yeah so I&#39;m old so it&#39; be ocean dub on Cartoon Network I saw Dragon Ball on tunami I used to come home from school just watched it one day on TV and fell in love with it and then I wanted the games then I wanted some shirt then I wanted some toys and it just took off from there my life hasn&#39;t been the same since and I&#39;m sure most people have a favorite Dragon Ball Game or game series from the drought too I guess the Budokai series the original Budokai stuff including Budokai 3 which is the greatest game ever made I got to go with Budokai first Budokai buok Kai 3 how how could it be anything but Budokai 3 I mean I guess you could be one of the ten kichi uh peeps you know if you like sparking then good on you Dragon Ball Z tin kaii 3 the best dragon ball game of all time period oh bodai Tanki but bodai was so good too though I remember staying off school all the time to play bodai 2 ooh this one is free game series I mean 201210 we just got to go with budai tenai I feel like it&#39;s too iconic you can really pick any of them though Dragon Ball Origins owning a Game Boy I was a huge fan of Legacy of Goku um Legacy of Goku 2 specifically Dragon Ball Bud hands down my personal favorite game what from that era and actually if you just ask me in general still is buai 3 I I hang on right there I have a collector&#39;s edition limited edition buai 3 right there Boom by the mid to late 2000s fans were craving new content for the series and fans were definitely not prepared for 2008 in 2008 Dragon Ball Multiverse which is probably the most popular fan manga for the series since the various versions of Dragon Ball AF had just released I personally don&#39;t care for Multiverse that much but you can&#39;t deny it held over certain fans and gave them the new content they&#39;d been looking for 2008 was also the year that Dragon Ball Zia bridged began and I&#39;m we all already know but it&#39;s one of the most successful fan projects in Dragon Ball history am I surprised by the success of Dragon Ball fan projects no not at all Dragon Ball is one of those things where everybody especially especially during the drought right because like after Z had come out after GT had come out after they finally released all of Dragon Ball people wanted more how could they not want more so of course you know fan projects were going to take off I was reading Multiverse at the time did fill that void of not having more Dragon Ball but like keeping it alive and I also read the Multiverse one as well I actually thought it was real for a long time because of the art I am not surprised I mean Dragon Ball fans are very very passionate extremely passionate so that is no surprise to me yes and no it&#39;s basically the quality of work is absolutely there and it&#39;s something that should be as popular as it is but at the same time I live in my own little bubble and I never million years thought would be a an era where the fan stories are getting as much love and and attention as they deserve I was seeing dragon ball flash animations all the way back when Dragon Ball was running in America it never stopped when people are are hungry for something they&#39;re you know they&#39;re going to eat you know what I mean but 2008 didn&#39;t stop there that&#39;s the year Dragon Ball actually had new content in the form of an OVA titled Yung Goku and his friends return this reunion special was extremely lighthearted and many haven&#39;t even seen it due to it never being localized or dubbed in English but it was a big part of dragon Ball&#39;s return especially since the script for the special was written by Akira Toriyama himself it even received a manga adaptation in the following year though Toriyama didn&#39;t draw that it was actually done by ad Doan artist by the name of naho Oishi who formerly went by the Alias gichi as for fan artists doing official work for the series this wouldn&#39;t be the last time after the reunion special there was a cut down version of Dragon Ball Z that aimed to be more manga the accurate which had a quicker localization as well and fresh dubs in every language allowing new fans to experience at least part of Dragon Ball this is of course Dragon Ball Kai or Dragon Ball Z Kai here in the west so while Dragon Ball Z a bridged was happening as a parody of the series we had an official Abridged version of the series being released around the same time so something else came out in 2009 oh wait no is this what I think it is what are your honest thoughts about Dragon Ball Evolution it was abysmal better than Resurrection F I remember seeing that movie in theaters and all I could think to myself was this is hilarious it&#39;s not good but it&#39;s fun I actually like Dragon Ball Evolution when I was a kid but As I Grew Older I definitely understand why it&#39;s awful like a piece of my childhood died forever that day of course the movie itself is not that great but it did do some things that were interesting at least Dragon Ball evolution is bad it misses everything that makes Dragon Ball Dragon Ball but it isn&#39;t a dragon ball in this analogy because of the movie itself but instead what it inspired in Toriyama unlike most manga Toriyama very openly criticized the movie saying things like the script had too little of a grasp on the world and its characteristics and on top of that it had a conventional content that I couldn&#39;t find interesting this kind of open criticism of an adaptation isn&#39;t common for any manga including Toriyama showing he really was passionately against what the movie was and more importantly he thought he could make something better saying I wanted to show some spine with a world and Story Only The Creator could draw so he did so how does Battle of Gods compare to Dragon Ball Evolution like quality wise I mean it&#39;s I mean Compares is a crazy way to put it because I don&#39;t think it Compares at all it&#39;s just a 100 times better how does World War II compared to you know Martin Luther King&#39;s speech there is no Goku sliding on the top of a car in Battle of Gods and that really hurts that movie for me Battle of Gods just it gave people hope that there was going to be brand new Dragon Ball content and it was good content as well beerus and whis were immediately accepted if Dragon Ball Evolution killed people&#39;s interests in Dragon Ball then Battle of Gods IGN ignited it and caused a fire of new content that lasted for over 10 years and doesn&#39;t seem to be stopping for a lot of fans including myself Battle of Gods was a breath of fresh air from Dragon Ball Evolution Toriyama had returned to do work on the script and character designs most of which were started by toi but were almost completely changed by Toriyama in the end this movie opened up the world of Dragon Ball again with a god that actually seemed truly competent in combat a new transformation a new typee of power and an entire Multiverse for us to potentially explore in the future it really seemed like Toriyama was ready to dive back into the world of Dragon Ball again at least for a while after a movie that expanded Dragon Ball&#39;s world so vastly and introduced characters that are so iconic they feel like they&#39;ve always been there just like Dragon Ball Z did with Vegeta and Gohan the potential of a sequel to this movie was even more exciting did you think Resurrection F was good when it came out Vegeta beating the [ __ ] out of Frieza is an incredible moment that only works the first time around and every time you rewatch that film everything else just falls apart evolution is better than Resurrection F Resurrection f is all right one of my least viewed yes but it was definitely because of the drought period we were going through so that explains why my opinions changed Cinema a Ab absolute absolute Cinema when Resurrection F came out most fans liked it a lot new Dragon Ball was New Dragon Ball after all but over time it&#39;s become more and more disliked the animation is far from movie quality the storyboarding leaves a lot to be desired and the plot is too far the opposite of Battle of Gods we just learned about a ton of new and exciting things in the universe and Multiverse but instead the story takes place on Earth and the main fight is against a resurrected villain instead of meeting a new and interesting one we&#39;re also already on to the next transformation Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan remember it wasn&#39;t isn&#39;t called Super Saiyan blue yet it still had this stupid name again at the time new Dragon Ball content was just exciting to have so while most is like it in hindsight at least we can move past it into Dragon Ball&#39;s future because all seven Dragon Balls have been collected and it&#39;s time for a wish to be granted introducing the future of Dragon Ball a new series called Dragon Ball Super A series set after the events of the movies that could do everything we want in Dragon Ball hell maybe we&#39;ll even get some higher production quality and some new character designs oh thank you the show is 3 months after Resurrection F it&#39;s starting by recapping the last two movies it even has the same character designs oh no honestly did you like the early DBS anime pre Future Trunks mhm no no I I I did not uh just the the animation dip in quality the fact that it was regoing over movie stuff I never like that I do have to say I&#39;m really really genuinely uh still to this day sort of disappointed with how toi handled that show not really it&#39;s very Hit or Miss no and I ignore it mostly nowadays and I tell people when they&#39;re watching Dragon Ball super just skip it watch Battle of Gods and Resurrection F instead the first two episodes yeah they were good but then it fell off and then it fell off even more I think Dragon Ball Super&#39;s early stuff feels very messy it&#39;s taking something that is supposed to be short and then dragging it out massively on a production timeline that was basically inhumane and visibly showed on screen some people look at Dragon Ball super episode 5 and just wonder what happened was it a budget issue for one of to&#39;s biggest properties no it was just time anime especially non-seasonal anime like Dragon Ball super need to have incredible pre-production and production scheduling to allow for consistent quality and an evenly distributed staff list Coming Out 3 months after Resurrection F assured DBS had almost none of the pre-production it needed and left the series scrambling for most of its run just to barely find its footing during the final Arc production aside the story strangely followed the formula of the two prior movies not only by literally retelling them as the first two arcs but how it would almost rubber band in terms of World building from beerus and the multi iers back down to Frieza and Earth back out to Universe 6 and its God of destruction shampa only to shrink into a familiar story of Future Trunks coming to the Past seeking help and ending with a multiversal tournament obviously everything here has a bit of a mix like the Future Trunks Arc utilizing a god from Universe 10 as its main antagonist but generally it felt like a pattern of something new to something familiar and I don&#39;t know if that was the right idea or if it was even really necessary it felt overly cautious with dragon balls and IP and unfortunately that&#39;s not just the case for the Dragon Ball super anime speaking of cautious Dragon Ball super has a manga that&#39;s drawn by toyotaro who used to go by the name toy bll when creating his own version of Dragon Ball AF once again a fan becomes a professional on the series this manga is interesting because it started out monthly as it is to this day but it used to be extremely short in terms of page count this manga basically acted as promotional material for the anime even skipping Resurrection f it seemed like there wasn&#39;t faith in manga as a medium and what do you think about the early DBS manga I feel like it just felt like it was almost it had to be an accessory I wasn&#39;t really a big fan of it up until uh the morar rolled around the Battle of God Stuff felt very much like toyot Tower was referencing the film a lot and even use some kind of like scenes that looked like they were taken from the movie or like panels that like they were taken from the movie which is totally fine um it&#39;s just like you know I kind of was hoping for a little bit more I wouldn&#39;t say that I hated the early Dragon Ball super manga stuff but I would say that it took a long while for it to actually feel like a standalone product by the time of the universe 6 tournament the chapter&#39;s page counts increased dramatically being able to fully tell the story through the medium of a manga the weird part is it&#39;s a different story the arcs are the same but the details and the story beats are different despite torama being involved in both projects he basically just gave the anime and toyotaro story notes so while certain moments remain consistent other are completely changed for the sake of telling the same story in a different way even more so than the original Dragon Ball Manga and to&#39;s adaptations of it in the past there are truly two different continuities and that gets confusing for casual fans again I think rushing into Dragon Ball super right after Resurrection F didn&#39;t allow anything to be fully thought out leading to a Messier Dragon Ball super than there needed to be with all that negative stuff aside Dragon Ball super is just kind of cool it&#39;s fun being a part of a community even when the show&#39;s bad you could go on to Twitter talk to your friends watch Theory videos and just be excited for something as a group it was a moment in time that I just never wanted to end and Dragon Ball super never felt more alive than during the tournament of power and especially the 1hour special episodes 109 and 110 these episodes shook the community and broke the internet literally by being so insanely popular the reveal of ultra Instinct and how that form became so iconic already that you can see someone Dodge anything and a random person will say they went Ultra Instinct was insane to see in real time it really was a moment in time that you just had to be there to experience unfortunately though it did eventually end were you surprised when you found out the DBS anime was ending yeah I was definitely surprised I thought it would if you would have told me back then that we would have gone so long without another dedicated anime series I wouldn&#39;t have believed it yeah I was but mostly because I would at that point I was thinking about things business-wise like I was trying to follow the money and it didn&#39;t really make sense to to me to like you know it was the most popular anime and money printer like you know that toi had at the time and I was like why did you stop yeah I thought they would just keep it going because the manga still went so and it&#39;s so popular so why wouldn&#39;t they just keep making it uh no just because um they they did it before like you know what I mean like we had a ball and it ended and then that was it with the anime finished you may be expecting another Dragon Ball drought but that really wasn&#39;t the case here the Dragon Ball super manga continued on eventually covering two arcs that don&#39;t even have anime adaptations and one of those arcs is almost universally praised as a return to form for the series do the moro and granola arcs make you optimistic for the future of dragon Ball&#39;s manga content yeah I enjoyed those quite a lot like they like people give criticisms for stuff that toyot tower has done but like they&#39;ve also done criticisms and me notwithstanding for Stu that Toriyama has done um toyotaro is able is is fully capable of writing a good story I think definitely uh the mor arc&#39;s my favorite super Arc in general it&#39;s up there with some of the Z arcs for me and for as much hate as the grola arc gets I really did like that one too yes cuz I actually am a big fan of the mor Arc I I I think that&#39;s my favorite Arc in the longa period yeah seems like they&#39;re trying to expand the universe a little bit more and get into other things outside of planet Earth which is great cuz I don&#39;t think you can come up with another villain that has originated from Earth and make it make sense yes cuz toyotaro he has potential and those two arcs show that morrow more and more is becoming quite loved amongst the community there were also two movies so animated Dragon Ball continued as well just not as a series the first Dragon Ball super Broly came out in 2018 in Japan and 2019 globally Dragon Ball super Broly definitely did continue the rubber banding story Trend by returning to a known character and taking place on Earth but at least this was a new version of Broly not the one from the non-canon Dragon Ball Z movies more importantly it had a new art style with NaOH hero shintani taking over the role of character designer from series veteran tat Yoshi yamamuro whose style notably degraded over the decades with a new aesthetic a talented director and tatuya nagam and a script that Toyama seems to have actually tried with originally being 3 hours long and needing to be cut down to movie length it&#39;s a fun movie the movie has a lot of issues but it also has a lot of heart it just has a way of building up that childhood excitement in you the way that watching tunami after school would it&#39;s definitely more spectacle than substance towards the end but you have to give it some credit for being the fun ride it is and remaking what modern Dragon Ball looks like the movie was Then followed by Dragon Ball super superhero which was surprisingly animated in 3D you might think that this doesn&#39;t work but I&#39;d say for most of the movie it&#39;s basically unnoticeable after you you adjust to it shintani once again did some character designs alongside one punch man character designer chikashi KUB I really do think this movie being animated entirely in CG was a staff issue rather than a sign of things to come but just seeing the improvements in the models and animations from Battle of Gods and Resurrection F makes me feel better about its supplemental use in the future when it&#39;s necessary more importantly superhero is a movie that focuses on Gohan and Piccolo like never before as a story it clearly relies on the past but in a fairly or ganic way outside of Gohan&#39;s transformation sequence which is way too one to one if we&#39;re being honest generally I like superhero more than Broly but both are fantastic and that&#39;s a great sign for the future if you ask me I think both of those movies show a bright a bright future um superhero in particular just really tickled me in a way I had not uh I I had not felt with dragon ball in a very long time like it made me very optimistic for the first time in a very long time oh yes animated dragon ball is going to be a spectacle a Wonder because every time that a film drops now I&#39;m just I&#39;m looking forward to the 3D stuff I&#39;m looking forward to the visuals of the film and the voice over and everything it&#39;s just man I encourage more of it absolutely I think those movies have been fantastic and I&#39;m really looking forward to Da from a visual standpoint yeah they are stunning even the CG that is a little inconsistent at times the core aesthetic the actual design philosophies behind both of those movies is just like such a step up from Super both of those stories have like a lot of heart but they kind of come from different areas I think people that came from Z will prefer uh dragon ball super Broly more those that like you know are more interested in like the more Slice of Life looking at looking to the Future sort of stuff would will prefer superhero they both show kind of like a a care for you know two different sides of the coin here so yeah absolutely I think both of those were phenomenal movies I&#39;d be excited to see either one all over again it felt kind of adventurous in superheroes and I like that because it made me think of like older like ARs and Dragon Ball because I feel like super kind of got a little crazy where it was just like here&#39;s some like strong fights like let&#39;s go so in a sense it kind of felt a little like nostalgic and with that 40 Years of Dragon Ball is covered but Dragon Ball isn&#39;t done just yet Dragon Ball Super&#39;s manga is still going strong having recently hit its 100 Chapter Milestone and animated Dragon Ball is receiving a new series with the most direct Toriyama involvement any animated Dragon Ball series has ever had Dragon Ball daa not to mention sparking zero is going to release in the not so distant future so there&#39;s even something for the gaming community so even after 40 amazing years there&#39;s still a lot of Dragon Ball to look forward to but we can&#39;t ignore what&#39;s happened this ending was different when I wrote it 6 months ago in that time aurator AMA has tragically passed away at the age of 68 his ability to procrastinate and still make compelling work his ability to make things fit into place in retrospect despite nothing being planned and his incredible creative mind that allowed him to combine comedy drama and action all into one inspired me to be a creative it very very easy for me to sit here and say that my life would be different without the work of a curat Toyama because of my job but in spite of that my life would be very different he had an impact on it well before this job even was a thought in my head so all I can say is thank you Mr Tori thank you Akira Toriyama thank you Akira torama thank you Akira Toriyama thank you Akira Toriyama thank you so much Akira Toriyama thank you Akira Toriyama thank you Akira Toriyama thank you Toriyama thank you Toriyama thank you Toriyama Sensei Toriyama all I can say is thank you thank youir Toriyama thanks Toriyama thank you Toriyama sor thank you Akira torama thanks to everyone for 1 million subscribers and thank you so very much for watching

Transcript for:Dragon Ball: A 40-Year Retrospective

Transcript for:
Dragon Ball: A 40-Year Retrospective