Differing points of review
July 12th, 2009

Differing points of review

^ 13 Comments...

  1. FekketCantenel

    I for one thought it was an incredibly informative review and look forward to more in the future.

  2. Mithel

    The loose adaptions of characters in DB/DBZ are derrived from Journey to the West, a Chinese novel written in the 1590s. Duh.

  3. MrGBH

    That may have been what the original concept was based on, but the comparison ends after the first story arc. From then on, it was all new ideas.

  4. Minespatch

    I like Dragonball over Dragonball Z due to how DragonBall makes me think of Akira Toriyama’s real works. Full or action, comedy, and a linear plot of magic and martial arts. Titles that come to mind have to be Dr. Slump, Sandland, and Kowa. The eyes of childhood in Japan, in my opinion.

    With Dragonball Z, the fun is somewhat lost, but it entails about growth and the rise of character development with the characters of the first series. Then again, the Z is just to explain to the American audience about the time skip, yet Naruto didn’t get this treatment at all in the American translation. Makes me wonder why Viz and the dubbers of the animation adaptation didn’t just call it Dragonball without any confusion of having to make 1 series into two different entities?

  5. Imitorar

    The Z was added in 1989 by Toei Animation. Which was about three or four years before anyone in America had heard of Dragon Ball. And I’d hardly compare Toriyama’s usage of Journey to the West to Sandman or Fables, given that he got too lazy to sustain it about 5 chapters in. And if I remember correctly, he’s confessed to this. Toriyama is the first to tell you how much of a lazy bum he is. A lazy bum who created one of the greatest manga of all time, but a lazy bum nonetheless.

    Also, I think that DBZ gets a bum rap compared to DB. People have such horrible memories of the anime, and the original series is so unknown compared to DBZ that the cool thing to do has become to bash DBZ in favor of DB. But my favorite part of the whole franchise is the Namek saga. I maintain that it was Toriyama’s best work, story-wise, and it was the only time that the power scale was big enough to be really thrilling, but still small enough not to be completely ludicrous.

  6. Sean

    That’s a good way of describing the Namek Saga. The first time I saw a scouter overload and explode, it was awesome, and I even enjoyed the constant power-level bluffing characters did (at least in the beginning).

    But past that, the power levels weren’t the only thing to be dragged on to ludicrous proportions.

  7. jinglehopper

    Hehehe yes, I loved the actual Dragonball manga even though the DBZ show was sooooo wretched… especially the chopped up dub they show on American TV with all the good parts edited out!

    As a note, I love this comic. <3

  8. Dwain Schradle

    my God, i thought you were heading to chip in with some decisive insght at the finish there, not depart it
    with ‘we depart it to you to decide’.

  9. Sean

    Hm? It doesn’t ask anyone to decide anything.

  10. Maki P

    As member of the Latin American Generation who grew up with Dragon Ball I feel the obligation to explain that DB is awesome. I’ve glimpsed at what the US got, and I weep.
    The Latin American version was amazing, straight from Japan (I think); and it was the best thing on TV back in the Day (and we got it in order). Of course we mocked Namekusei’s “Final Five Minutes” and stuff like that; but we loved it. My entire generation was touched by Dragon Ball; so it makes me very sad the treatment it received in the States.

  11. Alex T

    I loved both DB and DBZ. I was surprised at the adult humor in DB. DBZ was my soundtrack to working out and boxing during college.

  12. Sean

    Speaking of soundtracks, I actually shelled out $60 for the 5-disc Japanese OST back in college (this was pre-Napster). Great music, but man, did I piss an awful lot of money away in those days.

  13. Otaku

    Obviously way late to be commenting but why not?

    My favorite reviews usually come from Geekvolution where they… you know… review stuff. I’ll go in spurts where I’ll really enjoy a sarcastic reviewer, but that approach has really worn thin over the years, and for me was more “miss” than “hit” even when this comic was new.

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