Dragon Ball Z - the phases of fandom

[timepiececlock]

I was chatting with pepperlandgirl4 about anime, and she asked me why I had issues with Dragon Ball Z. So I compiled this list for her, to explain my fan experience:

The 7 Phases of DBZ Fandom

1. disbelief: You want me to watch that? You've got to be kidding. I mean look at it.

2. trial: Ok, this isn't so bad. I've watched a few eps and I'm kind of curious.

3. acceptance: Yeah, I watch it fairly regulary now in the afternoons. It's kinda cool. I like the fighting.

4. addiction: OMG I LOVE THIS SHOW! I LOVE VEGITA! No, I LOVE GOKU! No, I LOVE GOHAN! No, wait-- I LOVE TRUNKS! Nope, nevermind, definitely love Vegita. Fanfic, fanfic, here I come!

5. minor disillusionment: Hey, man, didn't we do this last season? It's kinda the same villain with different art design. And I thought we already beat the strongest guy in the universe? I thought Goku WAS the strongest guy in the universe? Or was it Gohan? Why won't Vegita just marry Bulma already and call it a day?

6. major disillusionment: Fuck , this show is SOOOOOO boring. All they do is fight, talk, fight, talk. Too much standing around posing. Every plot is the same and it takes forever to get through anything. And teenage Gohan the superhero is so stupid. I'm only watching this shit for Vegita loyalty.

7. apathy: What, DBZ? Yeah, it was ok. I used to watch it, until I realized that it just repeated itself over and over and they never won and barely changed. Vegita was cool. I wouldn't spend a lot of money on it if I were you, unless it's on the side-story specials. I can't believe I used to write B/V fic. Sad, ne? At least I've outgrown that by now.

Comments

[leslina.livejournal.com]

Ahh "Draggin'" Ball Z. Those were the days. Nothing wrong with Bulma/Vegeta fic. Lots of good stuff out there. It's worth sitting through all 291 eps and movies 6 through 13 just to watch Vegeta's evolution. It's bloody brilliant.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I was only making fun at the end there. I actually still like my own B/V fics, and I read one occaisionally.

It's worth sitting through all 291 eps and movies 6 through 13 just to watch Vegeta's evolution. It's bloody brilliant.

If I ever got to watch them with any regularity-- like if someone handed me the whole 40-tape boxed set of the series from DBZ through GT and said "Here, watch Vegita," I'd do it. But I can't afford them at 3 episodes a tape, and it's never on at a good time for me to record it. Not to mention, I'd be all out-of-synch if I started right now.

The last episode I saw... had something to do with Gohan and the Sword In The Stone on the Kai-planet. A concept which irrtated me, btw. I thought the Supreme Kai was a cool character when they introduced him (I loved his character design and his mohawk and his jewelry), being all-powerful of the all-powerful. But then suddenly he *wasn't* all-powerful, because he got beaten up. And that disappointed me. I'd rather have had him be all-powerful but aloof and unwilling to directly interfere. OR willing to directly interfere, but when it happens that's the wheere the buck stops, because that's what "all powerful" means, ya know? But it wasn't.

Not only was it disappointing, but it pointed out to me one of the things that really came to irritate me as the show progressed--- there were no definites or absolutes in the DBZ universe. You would get to the top, and then there was always someone stronger. Or you're always able to be strogner. The ultimate isn't so ultimate-- what the point of calling it the ultimate then? The only one that didn't annoy me in this way was, actually, Cell. Because Cell was made up of parts of the strongest warriors of the Galaxy, it's believable that he'd then surpass them. But Buu? Just another version of "You think you're the strongest, but you really weren't because you haven't heard about THIS guy yet..." The villians need to be different for them to work. You can't just have the newest "unbeatable foe" that Goku has to beat. Cell was a logical follow-up to Goku having beaten Freeza, who was before Goku the strongest warrior anywhere, because Cell was made from Goku and the others. Even the other androids, to an etxent, because they were custom-built to oppose Goku. But then the Buu thing came along, and the storyline began to annoy me. I loved Vegita choosing to be Majin's pawn-- that was cool. But I stopped watching not long after that because it was more of the same. I even missed Vegita's death episodes, though I caught a few after it.

You see what I'm sayign about the villians, though? What worked with Buffy was that the villains were extremely different each season--- it wasn't a new stronger-than-the-slayer person each time, it was different villains with completely different goals beyond "destroy the world." The master didn't want to destory the world, he wanted to take over. Glory didn't care about the world at all. Willow did, but only at the very end, and the First Evil was personally after Buffy and the Slayers rather than all of Earth.


Wow. That was longer than I meant. I'm just trying to clarify, ya know?

But I agree with you about Vegita's storyline being good. He was always (in my opinion) the most interesting character on the show and often the only one I cared about amongst the lot. Some people really love Goku. Goku never did anything for me. He was so good/straight-man/pure that he was boring. Gohan was cool as a little kid, especially when he'd get all vindictive and we saw shades of grey in the hero. But then he grew up and turned into a boring Goku immitation. I like my heros to have faults, and to sometimes do deliberately the wrong thing, like Buffy and Spike and Vegita. Trunks, especially Mirai Trunks, also stood out as being a little more in the grey area, a little more ruthless, but that, again, goes back to Vegita's character.

[vrya.livejournal.com]

and the Sword In The Stone on the Kai-planet. A concept which irrtated me, btw. I thought the Supreme Kai was a cool character when...

Supreme Kai was *so* lame. How "supreme" can he be and be all surprised at how strong the Saiyans are? The Sword -in-a-Stone thing was actually not so bad. Turns out, it wasn't a mystical weapon in the Scythe sense, so much as it was just so damn heavy that by training with it, you made yourself strong. It actually broke when Gohan and Goku were fooling around with it, so they never even used it in battle. I thought that was a nice little twist on the mystical weapon trope...

no definites or absolutes in the DBZ universe

I can shrug this off with an, eh, "kid's show" and so the tremendous never ending cycle of power inflation didn't bother me so very much. I expect a certain continuity world-building laxness in something so clearly geared towards "fun" rather than "art". Though going back and watching earlier episodes before the advent of super-saiyan was frustrating, because I'd start my traditional "super saiyan! super saiyan!" chant in anticipation of the transformation, and nothing would happen. Bummer.

Re:

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Though going back and watching earlier episodes before the advent of super-saiyan was frustrating, because I'd start my traditional "super saiyan! super saiyan!" chant in anticipation of the transformation, and nothing would happen.

But actually, the earlier part of the series didn't annoy me with the constant power-inflation so much, because then Goku (and the others by proxy) were just getting stronger and moving through the ranks of the enemy with Supersayain as the ultimate goal. It's when they They reach the ultimate goal, and then have to up it for lack of better plot ideas, that irritated me.