DRAGON BALL SPECIALS

DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME ActionDragon Ball

REVIEWS

• 

  Kuropiko

  70/100
  Dragon Ball has a lot of cultural baggage behind it, not just from Japan, and not even just the West.

  Dragon Ball is an anime I have already written about at length. While my core opinions and feelings on the series remain bare, I find myself questioning if I really said everything I wanted to say, which, as it occurs, I did not.

  Dragon Ball as a property has a lot of cultural baggage, not just from Japan, hell, not even just in Japan and the West, but it seems like every country it was brought over to gives it even more piles of cultural baggage. From the often well regarded Spanish dub, to the notoriously odd script of the Portugeuese dub, and to the laughably odd French opening for the anime, this series has left its mark on many countries. It is a commendable thing for a creator’s work to have this much outsider appeal and influence, even all these years later.

  But, this reverence, this influence, this sheer popularity comes at the greater cost of missing the point. Not fully understanding the series, and while one may say “What is there to understand about Dragon Ball”, that itself merely leads into my greater point. Because of the cultural baggage the series has here in the West, how it is viewed has been remarkably skewed. We didn’t get the original Dragon Ball, at least not initially in its full 153 episodes, we didn’t get a select number of episodes of Dragon Ball Z, we didn’t get the first arc of Dragon Ball GT because Funimation didn’t think it would appeal to the West. Similarly, we didn’t get these weird little Dragon Ball PSAs, in fact, to my knowledge, nobody did, just Japan. An interesting little piece of history, now exclusive to Japan’s out of print Dragon Box DVD sets.

  These PSAs themselves are relatively harmless, just two specials dedicated to traffic and fire safety respectively, but both have little quirks that make them hard, or even pointless to bring over. From generally being directed at a Japanese audience, to the cover of Makafugishi Adventure (but instead describing the events of the PSA and what was learned), to even smaller things like the flow of traffic and the kind of fireworks being used. These are very much Japanese things that you can’t bring over without the awareness that this was meant for Japan.

  Now, you may be wondering where I’m going with this, and believe me, I don’t know either. What I can say though, is that these PSAs essentially exist in their own little Japanese bubble. When you view them, you put on a lens that changes your preconceived biases to “This is meant for Japanese children”. Similarly, when one watches Dragon Ball, they put on their own lens, one that gives them the cultural baggage of their own culture, and how that culture perceives Dragon Ball. What once was Tenshinhan becomes Tien Shinhan, Freeza becomes Frieza, every scene is expected to be punctuated by loud, out of place grunting noises from the VAs, “Ally to good, nightmare to you”. That is Dragon Ball in the West.

  Where I’m going with this is that, as I alluded to in my Dragon Ball review, I find that the best way to fully engage this series is to completely absolve yourself of these Western ideas. Not to go full weeaboo, I don’t expect people to start saying Kuririn and Kinto’un like me, but to simply attempt to view the series for what it is, rather than what you have conceived it as through either osmosis or stuff you saw as a child. To see it less so as a Saturday morning cartoon and moreso as Toriyama's landmark manga that had enough innate appeal to leave its mark all over the globe.

  I don't really know what I meant by a lot of this. I guess what I’m really saying is if you don’t watch Dragon Ball subbed you’re dead to me. The PSAs are alright by the way.

  
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