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duhragonball · 6 days

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Requiem for a Bio-Broly

So I looked at the new Sparking Zero lineup, and it's currently at 184 characters, if you count the three DLC guys. And once again, Bio-Broly did not make the cut.

I'm not really surprised, but it is kind of interesting that this guy has never made it into any of these fighting games. He's in Dragon Ball Heroes and Dokkan stuff, and I'm pretty sure that's because those card-based style of games need as much variety as possible, which is why they do all those what-if characters and scenarios.

It only really surprised me when Budokai Tenkaichi 3 skipped him, because that game had a ginormous roster, to the point where it was tough to even guess how they'd fill all the slots. And unsurprisingly, often-overlooked movie villains like Garlic Junior and Dr. Wheelo were on the roster. But not Bio-Broly. I think that's when I first got intrigued about his exclusion from these games, because BT3 was the first game to get all of the other Z movie villains in it, and that made Bio-Broly conspicuous by his absence.

The later games had smaller rosters, but they also seemed eager to add some special attraction, usually a character who hadn't been used before. Raging Blast 2 had Hatchiyack, but also Androids 13 and 14. Battle of Z really touted Beerus and Whis, since I'm pretty sure that was their video game debut. And Xenoverse 2 has been adding DLC characters for the better part of a decade now. You'd think one of them might toss in Bio-Broly, if only for the novelty of it, but no.

I don't want to sound like some kind of Bio-Broly fan. The character sucks, and so does his movie. But he was still a movie villain. Like, that's kind of a special status in these games. They get used as bonus stage bosses or special unlockable guys, or whatever. GT is pretty awful too, but it's still fun to see Omega Shenron and Baby in these games. I would argue the games are the only time GT characters are really handled properly. I'm sure someone could come up with a cool story mode segment involving Bio-Broly. The quality of his movie is irrelevant.

So with this game, Sparking Zero, I figured he was probably going to finally get his spot, if only because there were so many spots to fill, and why not toss him in there, if only to get a complete set of movie baddies? But it looks like he got shafted again. I mean, they could still put him in as DLC, and I would think they'd just about have to. I mean, they probably want to do lots of DLC characters like with Xenoverse 2, but they already put so many characters in the base game, so who's left? They could do Cell Max, and some Daima characters, toss in some OG Dragon Ball and more Tournament of Power guys, but it's weird that we're even talking about this when there's a Z-Movie guy they've never used.

Like, imagine if Metal Cooler never got to be in any of these games. Everybody else, but for some reason Metal Cooler just never shows up. Movie 5 Cooler's there, and so is his final form, but no Metal Cooler, no explanation given. That'd be weird, right? After a while you'd wonder why that is. I mean, Cooler's henchmen have made it into some of the games. There's room for Metal Cooler, so why wouldn't they use it?

I think it's widely understood that Movie 11 is one of the worst, if not the worst of the DBZ movies. But I've never really seen anyone actively hating on it. It's more forgettable than offensive, and yet, Bio-Broly's exclusion from the games makes me wonder if that movie did more damage to the brand than I've ever known. Like, maybe it performed very poorly, or there's a lot of hard feelings over that production, so everyone at Toei just keeps the character as obscure as possible. I mean, they put him in the Dokkan and DBH games, but you never see like ads for that. Maybe they're worried that putting Bio-Broly in one of these roster reveal trailers would be so offensive to fans that it would hurt the sales? That seems pretty far-fetched, but that's where my mind goes on this.

Most likely, they just don't put him in because there's so little interest in the character, and there's always someone else they can stick in the game instead. I think there's a very real case to be made for adding in more Tournament of Power characters. If they put the whole Universe 10 team in a DLC pack before Bio-Broly, I'd be like "Yeah, that makes sense."

I just wonder where the bottom is. How big does the roster have to get before Bio-Broly becomes the next best choice for a new addition? 184 isn't the answer, but what about 200? 250? 300? When does it just get down to Bio-Broly and like... Shu wearing his fake Goku disguise?

I mean, obviously Fake Goku should be added before Bio-Broly. Look at this guy. He's great.

#dragon ball #sparking zero #bio-broly #fake goku

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instaquarius · 22 days

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100 DBZ OC ART CHALLENGE

1.) Introduction. 2.) Flight. 3.) Hero. 4.) Full Moon. 5.) Transformation. 6.) Rage. 7.) Fusion (potara, Namekian, or finger fusion) 8.) Great Ape. 9.) Master and Student. 10.) Tournament. (Worlds Strongest Under the Heavens, the afterlife one from that one filler episode/arc, universes 6 v. 7 tournament, or the Tournament of Power) 11.) Fighting. 12.) Destruction. 13.) Ki control 14.) Aura. 15.) Blasts. 16.) Rivals. 17.) Quest. 18.) Family. 19.) Danger Zone. 20.) As a baby. 21.) With the Z sword (or training with the Z Sword) 22.) Victory. 23.) Death. 24.) Loss. 25.) Crisis. 26.) In other world. 27.) Snake way. 28.) Playing Baseball. 29.) At Kaio Samas' place. (In heaven?) 30.) In hell with HFIL ogres. 31.) Kaioshins' planet. 32.) Lovers. 33.) Doing Ginyu Force poses (or actually IN the Ginyu Force if you want XD) 34.) Saiyaman/Saiyagirl poses. 35.) 1st form, 2nd,3rd, 4th, (Golden or 5th form) 36.) Training in Gravity room 37.) Weighted Gi 38.) Wearing Earth clothes; casual 39.) in Dragonball art style (Like, before Z, Super etc.) 40.) Protection. 41.) Powering up. 42.) Fighting Frieza, Cell or Buu (or a movie villain) 43.) Universal Tournament. 44.) In the future. 45.) Immortality. 46.) Clones 47.) Finding the Dragonballs 48.) Meditating 49.) Fighting a God of Destruction 50.) Ritual 51.) Fighting the Legendary Super Saiyan 52.) Fighting in the Tuffle War 53.) Mind Control (by baby, Babidi, Towa/Mira etc.) 54.) As a Time Breaker 55.) As a Time Patroller 56.) Fighting the Z warriors. 57.) On Planet Vegeta. 58.) Getting absorbed (by a Majin?) 59.) False SSJ 60.) Getting turned into candy 61.) Inside the healing tank (like on Friezas spaceship) 62.) In the Hyperbolic Time Chamber (or Room of Spirit and Time) 63.) Eating. 64.) Revenge. 65.) Pride 66.) Sacrifice. 67.) Bloodied. 68.) Fear. 69.) Heart Virus. 70.) Meeting Arale (from Dr. Slump) 71.) Using the Kaioken. 72.) Climbing Korin Tower (like in original dragonball before flight was a thing) 73.) Wearing a Turtle Shell. 74.) Determined. 75.) Getting Married. 76.) Best Friends. 77.) Screams. 78.) Rescued. 79.) Mafuba. 80.) Killing. 81.) Defeat. 82.) Sadness. 83.) Happiness. 84.) In a Saiyan spacepod. 85.) Hatred. 86.) Crushed. 87.) Beam Struggle. 88.) Genki Dama (Spirit Bomb) 89.) Showering 90.) Wearing the pink Badman shirt 91.) Scheming. 92.) Fighting Merged Zamasu (or Regular Zamasu) 93.) Fighting a Black version of your OC (hint: Goku Black) 94.) Unlocked Potential. 95.) Confused. 96.) In highschool. 97.) Tears. 98.) Act of kindness 99.) Tag team 100.) With you (The creator of OC/artist) saying they survived the Challenge

Rules~~~~ 1.) Can go from any order you wish. It doesn't matter the order you do these in. 2.) Be creative. 3.) All writings/drawings must be related to DBZ in some way/the theme you choose to do. 4.) Link if you do do this? I'd love to see :3 5.) Also please leave a mention to this in your submissions~ 6.) You can use both OCs and cannon characters as long as its related to the series. 7.) Can be done whenever you feel like~ (No deadline or each theme has to be done once a day or anything) 8.) (Your also free to copy paste to a journal or something the themes to keep track of them as long as credits back to me) 9.) Have fun~

#100 dbz oc art challenge #100 theme challenge #dragonball #dragon ball #dragon ball z #dbs #dragonball ocs #dragonball challenge #100 theme drawing or writing challenge

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shannonsketches · 3 months

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Every time I talk to a DB fan who doesn't know or doesn't agree that the whole franchise is an adventure comedy first and an action series second I feel insane but then I find an old Toriyama interview,

You made some comedic scenes where you have minor villains Pilaf & co. appear; how did you come up with a balance between laughs and fierce battles? Do you pay attention to the difference between comedy and battle in making a work “entertaining”?

I believe that, when you combine comedy and serious battles, both of them might come alive even more. As for me personally, though, I much prefer drawing dumb jokes to battle scenes.

as a bonus, every time I'm like 'idk I didn't really like most of the DBZ movies prior to Yo Son Goku and Friends Return and BotG,' and get the 'whAAaaT they're so gOOD' (from my brother, tbh askdjs) but they all seemed really Action-Drama and About the Fight Scenes and I'm like 'meh kinda boring tbh' I get to gaze upon,

In the latest movie, Toriyama-san, you participated in the production from the scriptwriting stage for the first time. What is the reason for that? Was there anything you noticed in coming face-to-face with the work after so long?

I was told about a project for Dragon Ball in its first animated film in a long while, and I read the story outline; while the beings “Beerus, God of Destruction” and “Super Saiyan God” (which goes above Super Saiyan) were interesting, the themes were heavy, and I felt that the world was a bit different from Dragon Ball. Rather than telling them about this or that problematic spot, I thought it would be faster if I just wrote it out concretely, and while I had intended just to give them a model―”for example”―my hand wouldn’t stop, and ultimately, I ended up writing almost everything, including the dialogue. I am reflecting on the fact that I did something terribly rude to the scriptwriter.

Akira "It was bad so I fixed it, oops" Toriyama, Absolute Legend

#I saw someone on Reddit say Toyotarou's Super was “sloppy bad fanfiction” and “WHAt was Toriyama thinking” as if Toriyama didn't write #the outlines and personally approve reject and give notes to Toyotarou the entire time aklsjdaljk #Like baby tell me you've never read the manga without telling me kljsajdka #Tell me you've Never Read Toriyama's Writing Even One Time without telling me #god i can't imagine what the original botg was going to be if Beerus' name was Virus #Toriyama looked at a Goku Saves the Day script and went “What if Goku loses immediately and needs Everyone's Help in order to even compete”#“What if this movie was about Vegeta and how much he's grown actually. What if Dragon Ball was idk... like...fun and meaningful”#“What if Goku gets his ass beat right away and can't win this fight even WITH help What if the best he can do is just Be Entertaining”#I hope you are enjoying your afterlife mr t i love your choices so so so much #Like my ABSOLUTE respect to the directors and board artists and animators and actors and crew who do amazing work in those films #but 90% of toei's producers and staff writers can meet me in the pit tbqfh #like granted it's been a long time but I feel like I enjoyed the REALLY old ones like Tree of Might and Worlds Strongest??#But Broly was SUCH a huge turn off and the future trunks movie was kind of my last straw for caring about any of the EU stuff askldj #gen the only part of the anime I like at all anymore are some of the unhinged choices the dub cast makes because you can tell #that they're having fun when they're not spending six hours screaming into a mic and that is extremely valuable to me

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princess-of-the-corner · 8 months

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Miraculous Ladybug, but the Kwamis can talk inside the heroes' heads when they are transformed (like Nail and Kami with Piccolo in DBZ Abridged) (also like Nooroo in the movie during the villain song). So Tikki reminds Ladybug to catch the first Akuma and scolds her for wasting a Lucky Charm to break up Adrien and Chloé's dance as soon as she does it; Pollen offers assurances and positive reinforcement to Chloé while on the job; Kaalki warns Pennybug that Adrien is not on the train.

Season 5, the Kwamis sing Baby Shark in Monarch's head.

BEAUTIFUL

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timaeuslover001 · 2 months

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Why I HATE DBS Broly Film:

Other than the disjointed story telling ….

It dehumanized the tragedy of the saiyan life under Freiza.

The original had a lot or be desired too but at least he did love his son, but he ants cruel to him when he WAS controllable .

His son had two personalities and his carzy side was growing more and more uncomfortable as he got older.all of this was brother form Trauma.

Instead he just has anger burgers and has a shock collar to “control” him which makes his situation less empathetic and sadder than a man who has no clue what’s going on and has an alternate personality.

I wish instead of King VEGETA it was Frieza who ordered it because that seemed much more likely because Frieza already was threatened and hated The Saiyans.

Only logical reason King Vegeta may have ordered it if it came from Frieza! But I highly doubt he’d stomach to do that to the babies.

Cuz what sense would a King do that to his own peopel and have them NOT revolt?!? Cuz imagine if he was successful to Get rid of Frieza?! King Vegeta would be GONE.

Hence prob why Freiza picked the planets the babies they got sent to.

But villainizing the father complex is the type of disrespectful storytelling I hate, Paraguay wasn’t perfect but he didn’t have the heart to kill his own KID!

I’m sure none of them , even Goku would have an easy time doing that.

How I would do the movie:

paragus losing control of broly, Broly attacks ANOTHER planet and some rouge survivor lives and that begs for Goku and Vegeta Help.

They help, realize how strong he is, they help but transport to another planet/moon/ with no people to avoid more damage.

Realize how strong he is , Paragus shows up and tries to control him but struggles because the head band isn’t working.

He even fights Goku and Vegeta when he sees them hitting his son. But they convince him that he needs to let him go and that Broly isn’t the same anymore.

They struggle some more and he even proves to be too run for them.

They do a lot of damage to the moon/planet thing .

Goku and Vegeta manage to knock Broly out and as the planet/moon self destructs and Paragus stays behind with his fallen son and they both die together , because all he wanted was peace for his son and now they can BOTH have it.

Cuz having him kill his son is too cruel and heartbreaking, but In a Tragic way they can both be together.

And mabey the spirit of broly can appear back to Goku at the end as a spirit as his normal self and whispers a soft spoken “Thank you”

Mabey Vegeta and Goku can even talk about it. Vegeta seemingly unsympathetic to Broly situation.

Goku goes home and gives a big bear hug to Gohan.

End.

I mean no one had to be the “villian”

They’re both victims of Freiza cruel Reign on his people.

And even in the DBZ film version Paragus wasn’t a “villian” yea he was seeking revenge and using him but his son was ALIVE and he kept him close to him he could have let him loose AGES ago and cause havoc on the cosmos alone but he didn’t, he wanted him to be close to him.

Broly can still be sweet and soft spoken and gentle when not crazy but don’t make his father be the cause of it. 🙄 Freiza is a terrible enough person to be the cause of anyone suffering.

I think Broly is way too OP anyway, but I love the tragedy a of the situation and how his trauma as a child made him what he is and have him this alternate personality.( in mo way do people with D.I.D. Have a nurderous personality trait that’s a possibility , that never happens in real life but for fantasy purposes I’ll allow it )

ngI don’t know how their going to keep his trauma childhood🤔 cuz Broly almost got killed at night time in the movie and planet Vegeta exploded RIGHT during the assasination attempt. Which contradicts the Bardock film when planet Vegeta exploded during the DAY.

Ugh….akira Toyinama🤦‍♀️ bad memory strikes again ….

not to mention diminishes Goku specialness of being a super saiyan.

And Living distant other than Goku and Vegeta is always nice to see too.

#dbs broly #DBZ broly #Broly #broly the legendary super saiyan #broly movie #DbZ #Dragon Ball Z #dragon ball super #Paragus #Dbz movie #dbs broly movie review

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tsuchinokoroyale · 4 months

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I’d love to hear more about your thoughts on JJK. Admittedly, I’m not well versed in shonen, so I never even considered that it was trying to subvert the genre.

P.S. Thank you for the consistently thoughtful takes and hot ass 😘

Ooooo boy I hope you’re ready for a whole ass essay 😎😎😎

Shonen as a genre has changed over time as any art form does, but it is still mired in tropes that can be traced back to the classics. The shonen genre is thus named bc its target demographic is boys to young men, for our discussion we’ll say teenage boys. While it obviously has big appeal for other demographics, it is mainly designed to both appeal AND communicate life lessons to that crowd of impressionable kids.

Because of this dual function you get this really odd genre full of super powerful special boys who love their friends but have no qualms about slaughtering their enemies. They typically espouse lessons about the merits of hard work, sticking to your beliefs ((so long as your beliefs are beneficial to society at large)), of goodness and friendship triumphing over evil. Look no further than DBZ and Naruto which can broadly be divided into Battle Arcs and Training Arcs, upping the ante for our special boy main protagonists until we literally have them fighting gods as the logical extreme of continuous escalation.

The Standard™ Shonen formula has a boy main protagonist who’s got some sort of motivation that is so ideologically pure that he’s basically impossible to defeat. Goku loves to fight, Naruto wants to be hokage, Tanjiro wants to cure his sister and slayer all the demons, etc. He forms/joins a band of merry outcasts with their own tragic backstories and sets out to defeat whatever villain appears for that arc. If they win, arc is over move onto training arc, if they lose, they train, fight and win, then train some more. The fun of the genre comes from the colorful side characters, and the little twists that come with each battle system, which brings us to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

At the time JJBA was being published, the big influence on manga was big beefy male led 80s action movies and Fist of the North Star, a manga about a beefy martial artist named Kenshiro going around beating baddies in a post apocalyptic world. Battle systems in Shonen were usually incredibly soft, most tied to physical combat enhanced by some poorly defined life force energy that could be called upon to even out fights and give big climactic finishes, like Ki from dragon ball and their iconic kamehamehas. Even JJBA starts off this way, with our beefy boys learning Hamon/Ripple and duking it out with vampires, til my man Hirohiko Araki was like “mmmm this is kind of limiting. Time to Change Everything~” and he came up with the concept of Stands, incredibly limited psychic/magic abilities that manifest as furries or sexy robots or a Lego version of the White House (?). You can see this idea really grow and expand within the part it’s introduced, going from “fire furry” and “robot knight with sword” to “guy whose stand turns into a ball that immediately erases anything it runs into but he can’t really see what he’s attacking since he has to be inside his stand in order for it to work also his name is Vanilla Ice and he’s a vampire in a thong.”

You can FEEL the impact this had even to this day. Stands became Jutsus in Naruto, quirks in MHA, Nen in HxH, Cursed Techniques in JJK. And part of what made it fun was that it added strategy to the mix! Str8 physical fights are hard to strategize bc it’s basically just a numbers game, right? Like bc his power level is over 9000, it’s going to be a tough time until some plot contrivance and/or training occurs to drive *my* power level over 9000. But now there is an additional layer of *how* these powers interact.

My ability is to blow bubbles and his ability is to turn a single person who comes into contact with bodily fluids into a mindless zombie? Create bubble shields so they can’t splash blood on you. My ability is to fold anything into origami and if you touch the origami you begin to see one object as something else and his ability is an automatic tracking stand that hunts me down by creating face shredding tornados when I breathe? Make a city bus look like my dad ((part 8 is fucking nuts)).

As you can tell, JJBA really burst open the dam on creativity, but as per the examples I’ve given they can often feel very… silly and contrived. The Serious Anime Fan™ will complain and say those fights are full of asspulls, which they are, but that’s very much part of the fun of the series. BUT because diversity is the spice of life, you also get artists who are less interested in adhering to the Rule of Cool and more interested in making things explicitly “logical” which is how we get Hunter x Hunter.

While JJBA dabbles in using stands for characterization, HxH goes HARD into it. Nen abilities are ((usually)) manifestation of their user’s idea of power, creating a direct link between who that person is and what they can do as a result. This is balanced by people having innate Nen types which means the kinds of abilities they can use are limited, though there are rules restrictions and exceptions to this as well. We know all of this bc mangaka Togashi literally gives a college level lecture on Nen in the story, describing how it manifests, how it works, what it can and can’t do, and how individual rules can supersede the basic set of rules and the rules for doing that. I call this style Erudite Shonen, bc bitches be TALKING. In erudite Shonen, powers usually fall on the complex side, even Bungee Gum, which has the properties of both rubber and gum, can be used in insane ways like ricocheting bullets, gluing minors together, and/or cheesing a game of dodgeball and it’s all both shown AND told.

Now where does JJK fall into all this? Listifying the common Shonen tropes we have A Special Boy main protagonist with a pure motive, a crew, goodness triumphing over evil, prioritizing bonds and community over selfish gain, and the winning power of hard work.

Early JJK fits the mold pretty well. Yuji Itadori starts off the series special, with superhuman fitness before he ingests sukuna’s finger at which point he becomes a Naruto analog, where he is strong because he has a powerful spirit trapped inside him. He has the rather off kilter but still acceptable goal of “dying a proper death”. His squad of mentor Gojo, Fushiguro, and Kugisaki is established by episode 3. The villains are cursed spirits who want to eradicate humanity, the good guys are the jujutsu sorcerers who say “no u” to that. Yuji wants to gain power to protect others instead of just becoming powerful himself. And there’s a training arc! Sure, it happens after Yuji gets his heart ripped out, but he’s not even dead that long. Even the powers in early JJK present themselves as pretty simple, Fushiguro does shadow summoning, Kugisaki does hammer and nail resonance, panda, Inumaki does cursed speech.

It wears its darkness on its sleeve however, presenting Junpei as a potential future team member only to shockingly kill him. The whole star plasma vessel incident casts an unflattering light on Jujutsu society. But none of that COMPARES to the shitshow that happens in Shibuya, where JJK finally shows its real hand.

Over the course of the Shibuya arc, we watch our protagonist mount an offense against the villains that have been building themselves up over the course of the show, sacrificing so so much just to ultimately… lose. The Shibuya arc subverts not just idiosyncratic plot beats but story telling traditions as well. “The strongest” loses, multiple fan favorite characters are either taken out of commission or outright killed, the story progression slams the fast forward button as Yuji goes from having ingested 4 out of 20 fingers to 15/20 resulting in mass civilian casualties because his version of the 9 tailed fox is an actual monster, and ((meta-narratively)) worst of all, Yuji doesn’t even get to defeat his arch-rival, Mahito. Instead Mahito is unceremoniously absorbed by other big bad Geto/Kenjaku. It’s supremely unsatisfying and the weight of the tragedy is so immense you wonder how our heroes are gonna come back from this.

And thus begins the “deconstruction” phase of JJK. Cuz they just… don’t. As dark as Shibuya got, a standard Shonen would then go on to give the heroes a big fat W, some sort of come back after all that. But not JJK! Bc JJK is subversive 😏 this means the fact that the story is super unsatisfying is like, the point mannnn. This isn’t the worst thing that can happen. Chainsawman is also a story of major L’s and minor W’s and it’s my #1 favorite modern manga series. The difference is in intent, however. Chainsawman works as well as it does bc at its core, it loves Denji. He REALLY goes through the ringer, but it’s all in service of understanding what life is like for someone trapped on the hedonic treadmill and how one can ((attempt anyways)) to break out of it.

And then there’s JJK. It truly feels like the manga is designed to tear Yuji’s self sacrificial mindset to shreds for the sake of making him suffer and for the reader to feel bad for ever feeling like good has to triumph over evil. The real problem is, it feels as if the series is bending over backwards to make this shit happen.

Part of the change over is what was a previously simple-ish battle system goes full Erudite Shonen. There were hints that cursed energy could get more complicated, what with domain completion competition and guaranteed hits and simple domains and that one guys FPS ability I can’t explain. But we go FULL HxH level afterwards. All of a sudden oxygen delivery to the brain becomes important to cursed technique, there’s domain range and boundary fidelity and incomplete domain properties, disruption of somatic components becomes a factor, and… it honestly feels like utter nonsense at times.

Complexity isn’t bad, like I mentioned I LOVE HxH and could probably explain the chrollo-hisoka fight if you gave me a few hours to study, but I could not tell you all the new rules for cursed energy that seem just kind of invented on the spot in random chapters during this back half of JJK. Bc they involve concepts never really mentioned before, it feels like an asspull, like this was something made up to force the situation at hand. Thing is, more of those situations only benefit the villains. You get shit like a character winning a battle at the end of one chapter and then starting the next one to find they were killed off screen moments later, actually. It’s just like yeah it’s subversive, but the reason stories aren’t told like this is bc this shit sucks lmao. I think out of all the plans the heroes make like only a handful of them are actually successful, and even then they get so unwound by the next step in the plan that they may as well have not happened. It doesn’t help that the abilities are so complicated now you’ll get a chapter dedicated to explaining what one guy can do just to have him wiped off the face of the earth the next one.

So the crew is gone, our special boy is actually the most disempowered guy ever except for the fact that he can’t be killed for some reason, the good guys are NOT doing a great job standing up to evil since like 86% of their plans fail or have bad results, a gag character wins one of the most important fights in the story and it’s unironically the best thing JJK has done in a while, and it’s all just a very confusing slog to read. This is the danger of writing subversion for the sake of subversion with intent for contempt, kids 😮‍💨

Granted we aren’t at the end of the story yet so maybe I’ll be wrong and there’ll be like a reset button that fixes everything (( which would also suck )), but yeah. JJK wants what HxH did in the chimera ant arc but forgot that that story was possible bc it was fundamentally about humanity and love, not just the parts about how people suck and goodness can fail.

If you made it this far congratulations you’re entitled to one big kissy on ur forehead from me and barnaby 😚😚😚

#no one is allowed to tell me how many words this is I don’t want to know #0 note post here we fucking gooooooo #this one goes out to the girlies who don’t understand why I’m single I’ve got yer explanation right hereeeee 😅

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agendergorgon · 3 months

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More Black Order (Thanos henchmen squad) as DBZ villains, this time its Supergiant as Garlic Junior. Wanted the power effect to look like that gorgeous sky in the Dead Zone movie Garlic is from.

#dragon ball #marvel crisis protocol #marvel #painting

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comicaurora · 2 years

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Being a watcher of anime, I just wanted to say that you've done a fantastic job of handling power creep in your comic. Is that something you think about in writing your fight scenes? Like, are you consciously making sure your characters never get to late DBZ levels of bullshit?

Ho yea, definitely. Stay tuned for January, I've got a video on powerups cooking because this has 100% been on my mind.

Spoilers for that, but my general theory is that power creep is a systemic problem that results from flattening the story's conflict struggle into a linear power vs power clash. This is most obvious in stories that are 100% strength-based with things like numerical metrics of "power level" where the thing that determines who wins the fight is who can get the highest number, but it also applies in stories where the starting premise of every new villain is "none of our tricks work on this guy!" Making the new bad guys too tough or otherwise too immune to the heroes' swiss-army skillsets makes everything feel floaty and pointless until the writer finally takes the limiters off and lets them wack 'em for real. It's frustrating because it's designed to be frustrating for both the characters and the audience, but it's also a trap. It locks the writer into an arms race with themself and also devalues all their increasingly cool ideas by virtue of inflation.

Hell, quick tangent, that's why I'll go to bat for one of the most hated mini-twists in the more recent Dragon Ball movies, when in Resurrection of F, Goku is severely injured by a regular laser pistol because it was a sneak attack in the back he wasn't ready for. Everyone got so mad, because of course he's like eight powerups past Super Saiyan at this point and it feels ludicrous that this could hurt him when Frieza death-beams couldn't, but it added a twist of actual stakes to these literal physical gods by recontextualizing their toughness as requiring awareness, preparedness and training. A sneak attack from a random minion could still take them out! Suddenly this conflict structure wasn't just power vs power, because stealth was a factor that could sidestep that power clash and render all those fancy new forms completely unhelpful.

Writing this story is already kind of a hard-mode thing, because I like making characters that are blatantly quite overpowered. There are things that every one of these protagonists are just too strong or tough or magical or socially powerful to (typically) worry about. Alinua is, frankly, basically never in danger of dying, and if she has time she can do feats of magic on a very large scale that basically can't be matched. Kendal and Falst are strong and tough enough to shrug off or push through physical injuries that could incapacitate or kill the others, and Kendal literally has multiple gods on his side, though that's not always a good or helpful thing. Tess is extremely hard to trap or slow down, and bladed/edged weapons have a lot of trouble with her. Erin is so versatile there are almost no situations where he's legitimately powerless, and he's very good at coming up with plans. Dainix has a one-two punch of a ton of combat training and a super-mode that pops out when he's in serious danger or overly stressed, which in writing-land is basically a get-out-of-danger-free card.

I think the trick is that all of these things are overpowered in specific directions, and they are not so overpowered that they can completely disregard other threats.

Kendal and Falst are not so strong and tough that they can just brute-force their way through, say, an entire city or an army of bad guys, and Tess isn't agile enough to completely run away from everybody, which is why they still need to be strategic when dealing with an enemy city, and why Tess's lack of tactical planning in Zuurith was starting to get her worn down by sheer numbers.

Erin and Alinua are ludicrously powerful, but on a much slower timescale than their teammates, so they're vulnerable to incapacitation by fast and agile opponents - and because of the way their magic works, if they're rendered unable to channel energy - like in the fight in Gleicann's forest - they're completely helpless. Because this is a weakness all mages have, everybody knows about it.

Erin has a high amount of social and political clout, but that means he has to play by a set of rules that basically nobody else does in order to retain that clout. He's dealing with a space of danger and complexities whenever they're dealing with other political powers, and he's doing it completely alone.

Dainix's regular non-Crucible form, despite being a highly trained and capable warrior, is just as vulnerable to physical threats as any normal non-mage human, making him the least prepared for a straight fight - and his Crucible form is barely understood and even harder to control, making it a tool that's very, very risky to rely on. He doesn't yet know what all his abilities are or what they cost him to use, and the first time it happened he was out of commission for weeks, so he knows there's risk attached.

There are always perpendicular threats or environmental factors that can hamper our heroes and feel totally logical in doing so, as long as their powerup is not just narrative shorthand for "okay they can win now." I steer clear of "the power of friendship has given me the boost I needed" because you can do that anywhere in any situation. I caveat'd the hell out of Vash's literal divine intervention in chapter 18 because "the literal physical god with perfect regeneration and supernova powers can show up at any time" is the kind of absolute stakes-killer I know better than to give free rein. There was an earlier draft where Vash could still heal Kendal (sort of retroactive spoiler alert, for a very long time there was a version of this fight where his enemy fully took off one of Kendal's arms and when Vash took him over he reformed it) but I had a dang good reason to not do that, so I didn't. Giving Kendal imperfect control over Vash's starfire abilities is narratively dangerous in the power-creep longterm forecast, but the fact is, even in the absolute best-case scenario where he gains perfect, effortless control over the raw fragment of a living star, I can still tie those powers to Kendal having access to the sword, and there are still lots of problems that cannot be solved by setting them on fire.

And even if a tool could be used to solve a problem, I think it's very important to focus on whether or not the character would be willing to do that. This is something I focused on a lot in the next couple chapters with how Dainix and Falst are gonna navigate the SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER. Kendal is, for the most part, totally unwilling to kill anything that isn't a chimera, severely limiting the practical applications of being able to crack rocks with his bare hands. Erin could theoretically solve most of his social conflicts through displays of raw magical power to intimidate or brute force his problems, but if he goes wild and stops being seen as a reasonable political player, he loses all of that oh-so-important social capital that makes people value him for more than just a talent for violence. Alinua knows full well the terrifying potential of her magic power, and all the horrible things it could do to anyone and everyone if she pushed her power past their limits, but spending ten years terrified of doing exactly that has left her completely unwilling to even consider that, even for people she hates.

So yea, it's a delicate balance I'm doing my level best to maintain, while still making sure our heroes get their wins and make progress. Reassuring to hear it's working out okay so far!

#asks #aurora #writing stuff

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shinigami-striker · 1 month

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Same Birthday: August 27 | Tuesday, 08.27.24

Same birthday, featuring:

Kristen McGuire

most prominent role(s): Hinano Kurahashi - Assassination Classroom (anime; English dub)

Vic Mignogna

most prominent role(s): Broly - Dragon Ball Z series (anime movies and video games; English dub) (replaced by Johnny Young Bosch since 2019 as the voice of Broly)

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todomitoukei · 2 months

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I don't usually dislike endings to things. I am very easy to please. Usually when I see a movie it's my favorite movie immediately until I watch another movie.

But like. It really hurts to see that every character I related to has been screwed over or killed in some way. I understand that it's my fault for being a villain fan, for relating to Dabi's and Tomura's and Himiko's backstories despite them having killed people and thinking that the series would extend them a modicum of kindness that it had been saying it could, that I am now hurt like this. I understand not all series are like DBZ in which they spare most of their villains like Vegeta or 18 or Majin Buu. Not every protagonist is Goku, not every antagonist is Frieza. I get it.

It'd be fine if there were just us villain fans complaining into the void. Even if I were the only one upset, it'd be fine. I've had unpopular opinions before, I just wrote AU fanfiction for it then. I'm familiar with death to canon, I am in the FNAF and Danny Phantom fandoms, my favorite characters are William Afton and freaking Pariah Dark. What hurts most is the posts claiming that there's something wrong with my reading comprehension for not liking how things ended. That I should've known it was coming and agreed with them being killed off like that and that I'm stupid for expecting otherwise, that it was the only realistic option. Realistic, when there are characters who survived far worse, such as Nagant who exploded twice and Toshinori who had his intestines ripped out. Realistic when there's a boy who can literally explode his own sweat and a girl who is a frog.

Why do we immediately jump to question someone's reading comprehension and intelligence when they have a different opinion? And why is it my fault if I misunderstood a work, and not the author's for making things unclear? Isn't the point of reading to make your own understanding and discuss it with others, isn't that what's supposed to be fun about this? I'm hesitant to really talk about my opinions on MHA because of this, that's why I am sending this on anon and with a pseudonym. I don't like being called stupid, even if someone doesn't say it to my face. It makes me want to leave the fandom and go watch something else.

I hope I'm not just reading antagonism into people's posts, my family says I tend to read antagonism into people's actions where there isn't any. But it really feels like they are upset with us when I see it over and over again and see people saying "LOV stans DNI" and stuff.

Sorry for the huge wall of text, I guess I'm more upset about the fandom than the ending itself. I tried to format this in a way that is understandable, but it is very hard to type on mobile.

I hope you have a good day and thank you for your time. I appreciate the chance to vent anonymously. It's been eating at me since Shigaraki's end.

Feel free to delete this if you change your mind about hosting the vents, and if you start feeling badly do please take care of yourself. Don't forget to drink a water and eat a food.

- Doppio

First of all, no worries, your feelings are absolutely valid so don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

It's interesting people say us being upset about the villains' endings is due to a lack of reading comprehension when, like you said, it's inconsistent when taking into account the fact that the hero characters simply all get better off, surviving the craziest things while the villains die if someone just looks at them funny.

If I could be bothered and had the time or energy I could dissect the entire trainwreck that is this story and talk about how bad the writing is. This is not me being subjective, it's simply objectively not a well-written story. It's fine if people enjoy it and even like the ending, but objectively speaking, it is full of inconsistency, retconning and even if we take the technicalities out of it, the messages the story sends in the end are just awful.

The fact the story starts and ends by verbally telling us it's about reaching out to and helping people, only for anyone that is part of an oppressed group (queer people, physically and mentally disabled people, abuse victims etc) and is somehow different cannot and will not be saved, while the perpetrators, those in privileged positions of power, will continue to live life without any actual consequences is rather questionable.

If the story had always had that black and white tone, if it had always suggested to us that people that suffer and stand up for themselves will be left behind and rot in jail or die, fine. But the story suggested on multiple occasions that they could be saved and that they also had a point.

So don't let anyone tell you that you're wrong or don't have reading comprehension when the opposite is true. We have every right to feel frustrated when the ending doesn't line up with the messages it used to send and replaced them with the worst messages a hero story (or any story for that matter) could send.

Also, anyone that feels seen and represented by the lov, please know that you're valid and that you do deserve the best and that it's never too late for anyone to be saved and get better.

I wish the story and fandom understood that fiction is never completely separate from reality and that when we talk about certain topics or people we also indirectly talk about real people that relate to these topics or people (which is why removing Touya's scars in fanart or edits for example or making fun of his or Tenko's skin is highly problematic).

I hope you have a good day too despite everything!

#bnhavent #ask

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duhragonball · 1 year

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Dragon Ball Super Movie 2: Super Hero (2/5)

This line might just encapsulate the entire movie. "Yeah, sorry, folks. They made me the star of the movie this time, so it probably won't be as good. Why are you all cheering? Did Goku walk by or something?"

Last time, we set up the main villains of the story. Now, it's six months later, and we find Piccolo sparring with Pan near his house. Yeah, Piccolo has a house now. I remember when they revealed the house in an early promotion for the movie, and everyone was nuts about it. Piccolo has a house! What's inside? Look, he has a mailbox! What kind of mail does he get? What a time to be alive.

So Pan is three years old, according to this movie, so I think the idea here is that this is set just before the 25th Budokai and the finale of Dragon Ball Z. So Super Hero represents a turning point for the franchise. Up to now, every story told under the Dragon Ball Super brand has been set during the ten-year-gap between DBZ Episodes 288 and 289. But now we're at the end, which means the next movie, anime, or manga arc has to make a big decision:

A) Set the story after the 25th Budokai, and work around Goku's decision to train Uub at his home village.

B) Ignore the "End of Z" continuity altogether and just keep trucking along like it doesn't matter.

C) Just keep telling stories in the small time interval between Super Hero and the 25th Budokai and hope no one calls attention to it.

D) Jump back to the beginning of the ten-year-gap and tell stories out of chronological order.

I think A or B is the most likely option, since they wouldn't have jumped this far forward in time for Super Hero if they were worried about staying inside the ten-year-gap. I also suspect that they'll try to respect the "End of Z" lore, if only because they've mentioned Uub a few times in the DBS anime, and Uub actually had a cameo appearance in the manga.

But no matter what happens, Things Are Going To Be Very Different. In theory, Toei/Shueisha can do just about anything with the franchise now. They could kill Bulma, or give Majin Buu a whole new transformation. I guess they could try to steer the storyline towards the events depicted in Dragon Ball GT, but I'm pretty sure that ship sailed when they turned the Pilaf Gang into children. The point is that anything is on the table.

But back to the matter at hand. Pan's whole deal now is that she trains with Piccolo at his house every morning, then runs off to attend preschool until 1pm. Piccolo thinks she's showing great promise as a martial artist, even more than Gohan did when Piccolo first trained him, and Gohan was a year older back then. Pan thinks that qualifies her to learn how to shoot energy blasts like Goten and Trunks, but Piccolo says she has to master the fundamentals first, which means Pan has to learn how to fly, among other things.

This is Pan's character arc for the movie. She's not a major player in this story, but she still has an obstacle to overcome, and by the end of the movie, she succeeds. This is a big leap forward from the Pan we saw in GT, who remained static through the entire series. I guess she sort of learned a life lesson in the TV Special, but she was 110 in that story, so I think the implication is that GT Pan was a bossy twerp for a full century, which isn't exactly satisfying.

The weird thing is that we saw Pan fly all the time when she was a baby. In the DBS anime Baby Pan flew out into space, and she'd float around the house and such. I guess she forgot how to do it, or it got harder as she grew up and gained some weight.

Pan asks if it's true that her dad (Gohan) could be even stronger than her grandfather (Goku) if he tried. Piccolo says that used to be true but he isn't so sure anymore. Pan says she's never seen Gohan in action, and Piccolo explains that he hasn't had to fight, but if the need arises, Gohan will fight when necessary. Then he sends her off to preschool. A short time later, he gets a phone call from Pan's mom, Videl.

Okay, so let's unpack all of this. Piccolo has a cell phone, but he just leaves it in his house while he's training outside, because his Namekian hearing can pick up the ringtone from hundreds of yards away. Also, he holds it like a weirdo, dangling it from his fingers like he found it at a crime scene. Also, the case looks like a cartoon character. This is Penenko, an in-world fictional character that seems to be very popular. Its like a cross between a penguin and a cat, and it has a green tie like Yogi Bear, which I think is a classy touch.

As for Videl, she needs Piccolo to swing by the preschool this afternoon to pick up Pan. This is because Videl teaches a combat sports class, and they're having a tournament today, so she can't make it. As for Gohan, he's too busy working on a scientific presentation, and he hasn't come out of his study in days. Piccolo is annoyed with this, but he agrees to pick Pan up. Videl offers to buy him lunch, but he reminds her he doesn't eat food, so Videl considers buying him a Penenko plushie instead. Piccolo doesn't want one, though, because he already has a pile of them in his house. Presumably those plushies represent a whole bunch of past favors he's done for Gohan and Videl.

Okay, more importantly, let's talk about Videl. This is her only appearance in the movie, save for a still image in the closing credits where she comes home to find the house has been damaged. Still, this conversation tells us a lot about what Videl's been doing ever since she and Gohan got out of school. She's teaching a "combat sports class". This makes sense to me, as she must have given up the vigilante work around the time she was pregnant with Pan. But teaching students how to fight would be easier for her, since she could set her own schedule and arrange for the students to train independently when she's not available. It's the perfect career for the new mom with a talent for whippin' ass.

The thing is, Videl's not just any martial artist. She knows basic ki techniques, but besides that, she's the daughter of a world famous celebrity buttkicker, and she earned a reputation of her own as a crimefighter. So this can't just be any old "combat sports" class. I mean, they're participating in a tournament for goodness sakes.

So this is my Videl headcanon: She's teaching people to fight crime. And not just any crime, but the rocket-launcher-weilding maniacs she used to fight when she was in high school. Videl stepped away from that life to focus on her family, but she's still got one foot in that world. It started as a self-defense class for women, and then she decided she could show them more advanced techniques, until eventually she had a cool stable of badasses.

The tournament she's talking about isn't some fun little romp, although to her it would be, and it's barely beneath Piccolo's notice. But to everyone else, it's some kind of hardcore mixed-martial-arts event. Videl brings her students in and they're all wearing kick-ass uniforms to represent their school. What kind of uniforms? Here's a hint:

GTH. That's the name of Videl's dojo. The Go To Hell Combat Club, so-named because you have to go to hell to learn the combat style of Mr. Satan's daughter. Imagine going to some indy wrestling show and instead of wrestlers out comes a bunch of MMA guys all dressed like Pan from this movie. It probably looks cooler on grown adults, which is why Pan likes to wear it.

So what's Videl wearing when she leads her squad to the competition? Oh, we already know the answer to that question, because we saw her return home from the tournament.

I mean, it makes so much sense when you think about it. remember, we saw Videl wearing regular clothes when she called Piccolo. She must have changed into her Battle of Gods red-devil dress specifically for the tournament. She might have a different outfit for fighting, but this is what she wears when she's in the corner for her students. She's like a sexy ECW manager, which explains the red leather dress, black tights and white go-go boots. She's so over-the-top with this thing that it makes the Great Saiyawoman outfit look dull by comparison, because she's trying to get over this image of smash-mouth combat supremacy. It's the same reason Mr. Satan wears the cape.

This is a weird tangent, I know, but for so many years I've heard fans lament the way Videl was depicted in Dragon Ball Super, and they're absolutely right, but I'm a "yes and" kind of guy when it comes to this stuff. There's nothing wrong with having Videl be a housewife as long as it doesn't preclude some other, cooler lore from happening off-screen. And Super Hero seems to be holding out an olive branch to the fans. Yes, Videl has a life outside the home. She teaches martial arts, so she clearly hasn't given up fighting altogether. How and how much she fights is left to the viewers imagination, and I can imagine a lot.

Anyway, I need to commission some art of the GTH school looking cool. Videl's in the center of the group with a riding crop or something. Gohan's in the background with a snack tray. He made Chex Mix for the whole class because he's a sweetie.

Back to business, Piccolo decides to head for Gohan's house and confront him over this. He knows Gohan won't answer the door, so he just flies to the window of his study and scrapes the glass with his fingernail to get his attention. This fucking rules.

Gohan's working on a study of a newly discovered ant species that glows yellow when threatened, like a Super Saiyan. Piccolo isn't even a little impressed, but he agrees to pick Pan up from preschool anyway. He asks why Gohan never trains anymore, and Gohan gives the stock answer about how nothing bad will happen, and even if it does, Goku and Vegeta will surely deal with it. I mean, that is what happened in the last movie, but they cut it pretty close in Resurrection F. Piccolo uses his clothes-altering powers to make Gohan wear his old training outfit, but that's about all he does.

I don't really understand this constant back-and-forth about whether or not Gohan trains enough in DBS. Obviously, Gohan let himself go in Res F, and then Gohan asked Piccolo to train him again to get him back in fighting shape. Then they made it look like he'd slacked off again leading up to the Tournament of Power, except he did really, really well in that arc. And now it's like he's slacking off a third time.

I mean, there's time for that. We're talking about a five or six year period here. It just seems odd to me that no one mentions we've been through this cycle before. I think the disconnect is that Gohan trains, just not often enough to satisfy the likes of Piccolo or Vegeta. He'll stop training for months or years at a time, so that he can concentrate on his biology career, and then he whips himself into shape when he has the time. This movie pretty much confirms that pattern, but each time it comes up, the characters always act like we haven't been here before.

Gohan offers him another Penenko plushie as thanks for picking up Pan, and Piccolo insists that he never liked them. I think it is very likely that Gohan and Videl do this to him on purpose. I mean, Videl knew this tournament was coming up, and she could have made other arrangements, but this way Piccolo feels obligated to be involved with their family. If they just invited him over to things, he'd probably decline, but this way he feels like they need him and he can act all put-upon, but he still gets to spend more time with Pan and such. Also they might be trying to fix Piccolo up with Pan's teacher, but we'll get to that later.

So now Piccolo just has to get in as much training as he can until 1pm, right? Wrong, because as soon as he sits down to meditate, some new guy shows up and attacks him. He refuses to identify himself, but the Red Ribbon pack on his uniform pretty much gives it away. Plus, this guy has no ki signature, so he must be an android or cyborg like Gero's creations.

So they fight, and it doesn't go well for Piccolo. At one point he asks why he can see words appear whenever he gets his. I thought this was a cute fourth-wall-breaking joke, but in fact this new guy has a holographic projector that makes the comic book sound effects appear behind him.

The mysterious attacker only refers to himself as a super hero, and after he blows up the butte Piccolo is on, he flies back to his base, thinking Piccolo is vaporized. But Piccolo escaped unseen, and he decides to trail this guy and find out who he's working for.

This leads Piccolo to a secret base inside what I believe is a crater. It looks like the crater is full of lakewater, but it's actually a holographic illusion. Piccolo finds a goon in his size and swipes his uniform.

Inside, he finds the bad guy command center, where the new android reports to Magenta and Hedo. Piccolo learns that his name is Gamma, and there's actually two of them. Hedo already watched Gamma 2's attack on Piccolo via a remote feed from 2's eyes, and his only feedback is that 2 should have done a cool pose after killing Piccolo. Gamma 1 is more concerned that Piccolo might have survived because 2 was too sloppy to check for a body.

Sure enough, 1 reviews the footage and discovers evidence that Piccolo escaped. And since Magenta insisted that the Gamma's wear RR patches on their costumes, there's a real risk that Gamma 2 tipped their hand to the enemy. Gamma 2 isn't worried, though, because he still overpowered Piccolo, and the end goal is to defeat Dragon Team, so if this escalates the conflict, then so much the better.

And that pretty much sums up the Gammas' characters. They both play the superhero role they were designed to resemble, but 1 is more cautious and responsible, while 2 is more carefree and funloving. Earlier in the film, we see pictures of Hedo at some sort of autograph signing, and there's a character who looks almost exactly like the Gammas there, so I assume he designed his androids to look just like that character. Hedo doesn't seem too concerned with originality.

Carmine agrees with Gamma 1's concern. Their enemies have the combined power of Goku, Vegeta and Majin Buu, not to mention Mr. Satan. Apparently, the Red Ribbon Army still isn't clear on how powerful he is. If they find out about the Red Ribbon too soon, it could jeopardize everything, no matter how powerful the Gammas might be.

Hedo disagrees. Once he collects enough combat data from 1 and 2, he can simply upgrade them and create even more Gammas until they have enough power to tip the scales.

Apparently, Hedo doesn't think it would take very long to get more Gamma's manufactured, which is why they have these two booths already set up. This makes me wonder if Gamma 3 and 4 are already in there, just waiting for Hedo to activate them.

As for Magenta, all he wants to talk about is Hedo's other project-- Cell Max. This leads to a heated discussion over the value of the project.

Basically, Magenta considers Cell to be Gero's greatest creation, and while the RPC has Gero's notes on how to make Cell, they were too complex for anyone to reproduce the experiement. This isn't much of a surprise, since Gero never finished Cell the first time. When Gero learned that it would take decades to complete the work, he turned it over to his computer and moved on to working on his other plans. That computer never finished, because Krillin and Trunks destroyed it and the embryonic Cell back in DBZ Episode 145. However Magenta got the data on Cell, it must have been sent to him before then, but it would have only represented the earliest stages of the project. No wonder his own scientists couldn't get very far with it.

The only reason Magenta even considers it worth pursuing is because a completed Cell showed up to menace the world. Magenta thinks that Gero must have pulled it off somehow. What he doesn't know is that this Cell came from an alternate future where Gero's computer had time to complete the project. So Magenta knows what the finished Cell is capable of, but he doesn't have a complete recipe to make a new one.

But Dr. Hedo is even smarter than Gero, which is why Magneta hired him. The Gammas are fine machines and all, but what Magenta was really hoping for was that Hedo could take the notes on Cell and figure out how to build a new and improved model. And to his credit, Hedo was able to do that, but not completely. He created Cell Max's body and made him far more powerful than the original Cell, but he's still not done because his brain takes a long time to develop. I don't know if this is like a programming thing or Cell Max needs time for his brain matter to grow complex enough to support his mission.

At any rate, Magenta just wants to turn Cell Max loose right now, because he's so high on the prospect of unleashing such a powerful weapon. But Hedo warns him that they won't be able to control Cell Max the way he is now. If they activate him now, Cell Max might easily run wild and destroy the world, which defeats the purpose of using him in the first place.

Hedo's argument is that they don't even need Cell Max, so instead of wasting time on him, they should focus on the Gammas, who are more than powerful enough to carry out Magenta's plans. They can defeat Dragon Team, then the rest of the world will fall to the Red Ribbon Army, and then Magenta can reveal Cell Max to show off his power to the world. Magneta seems to buy into that idea, at least for now.

The thing is, we really don't know how long it would take for Hedo to finish Cell Max. It took Gero's computer decades to finish the original Cell, so maybe most of that time was spent developing his brain, and yet that Cell never did follow his programming completely. So maybe Cell Max would be uncontrollable too, no matter how much Hedo tinkered with him.

Then again, Hedo built the Gammas in just six months, so he's demonstrably smarter than Gero ever was. It's possible that he could finish Cell Max's brain in a matter of weeks and make him fully obedient. He just doesn't want to spend the time because it's busy work and Max doesn't look like a super hero, so he's not very motivated to complete the project. It kind of makes you wonder what Hedo could have accomplished if he'd given it his full attention.

Needless to say, all of this freaks Piccolo out, so he excuses himself and finds a quiet spot to make a phone call to Bulma. She tells him Vegeta has been away for three weeks now, training on Beerus' planet. And Goku went along with him, so they're both unavailable. Piccolo asks her if she can use that device Whis gave her to call him, and she says she'll see if she can reach them that way.

I just want to pause here to admire Bulma's yellow jumpsuit. This is definitely one of her hottest looks, perhaps because it's so workmanlike and unsexy. She just makes it look cool because she's Bulma. She just got done welding a quantum computer to a ham radio or something.

In the meantime, Piccolo leaves the RR base to go to Korin's Tower and get some senzu beans. He's still in the mindset that Goku and Vegeta will be the ones to take care of things, but he has to do as much as he can in the meantime to improve their chances.

As he flies through the holographic lake, we get a nice exterior shot of the base. So yeah, it does look like a couple of craters, although I'm not sure what the use was in disguising the inside when you can see all this stuff built up around the outside. I guess they have some sort of phony mining operation set up if anyone snoops around.

And that'll about do it for now. I've still got a couple of image spots for this post, so let's show off the photos on Gohan's desk. Pretty cool.

And here's a cool shot of Cell, since he came up in conversation.

#dragon ball #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #dragon ball super #dragon ball super super hero #piccolo #pan #son pan #gohan #videl #magenta #carmine #dr hedo #gamma 1 #gamma 2 #gth 4-life

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