DB30YEARS: Special Dragon Ball 30th Anniversary Magazine
Page 19
staffers over Dragon Ball trivia, and I even got three seconds of exposure on national TV in there. Not bad, all things considered.
Amidst all this, we had some unsavory encounters with a new beast in the age of social media: the realm of zero effort and zero scruples known as clickbait. Sites ostensibly run by other fans would repost translations verbatim, but the surrounding context would somehow be misreported in the process. I seriously considered taking my ball of translations and going home, just to spite them.
More puzzling, but no less vexing, was the variety I’ll call the “Toxic YouTuber.” With rumors flying left and right, these enterprising folks would take to videos that “CONFIRMED!” whatever the latest speculation was, no matter how it contradicted the previous round of hearsay. Golden Super Saiyan 4? Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta? Broli returns?! Sequel greenlighted before the movie even came out? Sure, why not?!
In the hands of such self-interested and self-serving “fans,” posts to DeviantArt became “official” overnight, and the fevered imaginations of 12-year-olds everywhere were entirely validated…all for the sake of views, of course. If you listened closely to the actual videos, they would mention (in passing) that the rumors were “not yet 100% confirmed,” not that they were ever close to being factual in the first place. One particular “channel” was so persistent that he actually posted up a “review” of the film based on such fan predictions, trying to cover up the fact that he hadn’t actually seen the thing. It was probably even believable to those who hadn’t been paying close attention to all the reveals we’d gotten in the lead-up to the film. The high comedy-to-action quotient took a lot of people by surprise, none more so than those who’d been living in the alternate reality supplied by the Toxic YouTuber.
Back in the real world, Kei17 (who was becoming something of a “fifth Kanzenshuu-er,” by this point) managed to finagle his way into two different preview screenings in Tokyo. Thanks to his amazing memory, we now had a full plot synopsis at our fingertips, which only needed to be posted on opening day. All we had left to do was to wait...
Finally, it was March 30th. Once again, I was up before dawn to get to the movie theater in Tennoji for the first showing. I was not alone. Adults, young couples, and parents with children were all waiting to be among the first to see the movie. We all congregated around the entrance, until finally we were let up to the doors to the auditorium proper. Bonus “Dragon Ballpoint pens” and Dragon Ball Heroes cards were handed out. One of the parents threw a minor tantrum because his precious snowflake was overlooked for said card. And then, at long last, we were let in, the screen lit up, and...bliss. While I had been spoiled about the plot, seeing it firsthand was a complete breath of fresh air. Whatever reservations I might have had about the animation or the plot were lost in the completely natural dialogue and comedic beats. It was classic Toriyama.
After that, things relaxed somewhat. It didn’t truly end; there were still new book releases, and then the home release, an extended version, and the eventual international premiere. And magazine articles. I’m still not done with those. And now we’re on the cusp of doing it all over again. But whatever the aggravation, the sleepless nights, the “donations” to clickbait sites making money off our work, I know that with my fellow Kanzenshuu-ers, we’ll get through it. And we’ll have fun the whole way.
Kanzenshuu Fun Fact
Kanzenshuu wasn’t supposed to debut until December 2012, complete with a wiki, when I jokingly suggested that we bring the date forward in order to pull a pretend April Fool’s prank. We all pulled long hours getting it ready in time, but in hindsight, it was more than worth it: we wouldn’t have survived the news onslaught without the pooled resources and modern backend the new site provided. And to think we were only prepared for the sake of a gag. Toriyama would be proud.
JULIAN (“SaiyaJedi”) is one of the translators for Kanzenshuu. He lives with his family in Japan.
U.S. Theatrics
The “Battle of Gods” North American Premiere
Josh covers the red carpet theatrical premiere of the film “Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods” in Los Angeles in July 2014.
By Josh Christopher
2014 was huge for Dragon Ball! A lot of stuff, both awesome and awful, happened this year in regards to our favorite space people. One of the biggest events of all was the red carpet premiere of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods in the US!
It wasn’t enough that Dragon Ball got its own limited theatrical run for the very first time in a long while, but this movie wasn’t just any ordinary Dragon Ball flick: this was the first original Dragon Ball feature film since the ‘90s and it’s the first made-for-theaters Dragon Ball Z release that was dubbed by FUNimation’s DBZ cast!
At the premiere event in Los Angeles, we got to see a lot of celebrities from both movies and television make their way across the red carpet on their way to go see (of all things) a new DBZ movie! Of course, for the Dragon Ball fans on hand, the real stars were guys like Sean Schemmel and the ever-friendly Chris Sabat, who never even dreamed that a day like this would come when they started recording Dragon Ball Z on the cheap back in the late 1990s at FUNimation HQ in Ft. Worth, Texas.
Fans were in the same boat as him, too, many of whom were cosplaying as their favorite characters, electrifying the theater with so much energy that it would destroy even a new model scouter! The event may have only been for one day, but time seemed to slow down for us as the movie finally started. You could’ve sworn that a year had passed inside the screening rooms.
After the event, fans and press alike were invited to a nearby bowling alley and tavern for a few drinks and to chat it up with each other or with cast, crew, and other FUNimation employees such as Justin Rojas, who was gracious enough to let Kanzenshuu send us as representatives to the event to capture everything for its readers, listeners, and forum members.
With an event like the Battle of Gods premiere in LA during the weekend of Anime Expo, 2014 is destined to go down in history as a huge year for Dragon Ball Z fans in the US!
JOSH (“Kendamu”) produces videos on YouTube, enjoys training in martial arts, and hangs out at Kanzenshuu. Check out some of his work, including video coverage from the Battle of Gods premiere, at: youtube.com/BGPawesome
Battle Review
How does “Battle of Gods” actually stack up for fans?
By Chris Niosi
The Dragon Ball franchise is one of those “special” cases in it that it has many different types of fans—with very different tastes—depending on how they grew up with the series and in what country. With that in mind, it’s safe to say that Battle of Gods is a product where all fans have a reason to be excited like never before. Through video games, merchandise, remastered home releases and even the presence of Kai there’s nothing that tops a full-length feature film…except maybe a feature film with direct involvement by Dragon Ball’s original manga artist and author, Akira Toriyama.
Battle of Gods takes place at a perfect period of time in the DBZ timeline: just after Majin Buu was defeated but before the final timeskip that leads to the finale of the story in the manga…and of course, before GT occurred. Seeing that the “Z” era was clearly the most successful piece of the franchise worldwide, Toei made a brilliant decision in where to chronologically place the events of this movie. This placement allowed Toriyama to treat the story of Battle of Gods as if it were continuing where the manga would have “left off” had he not ended the series in the mid-‘90s. The overall feel and theme of the movie retains that signature mix of being able to take itself just seriously enough, but not to the point where Toriyama’s expected sense of humor is lost.
The biggest piece of evidence on this is our new “enemy,” Beerus. He not only continues the tradition of Goku and his friends meeting progressively-stronger and more-challenging opponents; in this case Beerus is a God of Destruction, and Beerus being originally based on Toriyama’s housecat speaks volumes. He, along with his classy assistant Whis, fits right in with the
rest of the cast, yet still adds a fresh and interesting dynamic. Not to mention, some of their comedic moments are major highlights of the film. They’re not alone though; the regular cast of the series—the Z-Fighters included—get some amazing gags showing sides of our heroes we’ve never seen before…including Goku doing an impression of Vegeta and Vegeta himself singing a song about bingo to calm Beerus’ nerves to prevent Earth’s imminent erasure.
The most satisfying thing about the movie overall is the handling of Goku’s new “Super Saiyan God” transformation sequence. This concept, which, along with the God of Destruction, were the original ideas set in place for the movie’s creation, could have been easily done in all of the worst possible ways. In past DBZ movies produced by Toei we’ve had new “transformations” for various villain characters and the like…and with how DBZ’s fandom in America has grown in particular, it’d be easy to assume that this new form could be the closest thing to a stereotypical “Super Saiyan Insert Number Higher Than 4 Here” sort of thing. Quite the opposite occurred. Goku achieves this new form through a very clever (and cute!) method, and upon facing off against Beerus in the big fight scene the audience hypes themselves for the