Dragon Ball (All Series)

[gunswordfist]

that's interesting. i assumed battle of gods would be the last dbz film for some years. frieza is easily the funniest dbz villain. hopefully toriyama makes him as funny as he was back then.

[Daikun]

Okay, I'm getting tired of this.

Is Toriyama really that desperate for work? Can't he work on something else?

This franchise ended nearly 20 years ago. Is zombifying this series really necessary?

It had its time in the sun. The story is over. We've moved on. Leave it be.

[gunswordfist]

you're joking? toriyama has barely done anything dbz related since the series ended. he has worked on a number of games and manga since then. plus i think he still makes money off of the db manga. he is neither desperate for money nor is dbz the only thing he does for work.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Okay, I'm getting tired of this.

Is Toriyama really that desperate for work? Can't he work on something else?

This franchise ended nearly 20 years ago. Is zombifying this series really necessary?

It had its time in the sun. The story is over. We've moved on. Leave it be.

Toriyama literally didn't have any involvement with the series for over a decade after it ended. After that, he helped with character designs for the 2008 special, wrote the script for Battle of Gods which came out last year, and for this upcoming movie next year. That's 3 DB projects in a span of 7 years, and over 12 years after it initially ended. That's not desperation for work, as it's not a long-term project to keep the series relevant over multiple more years, but just a tribute for fans to enjoy. If you want an actual example of someone desperate for work, look no further than Fujimaki Tadatoshi's shameless upcoming sequel to Kuroko no Basket, which literally just ended a couple of months ago, and the sequel is coming out in February because he's too lazy to come up with new ideas of his own.

I could understand your complaint if the series was being utterly milked, but there has hardly been that much new content in such a short amount of time to the point where it even comes close to qualifying as being zombyfied.

::EDIT::

Oh, and there's DB Minus, which is literally just a short chapter that barely takes a few minutes to read at most. I'd hardly count that, but I thought that I'd mention it.

[gunswordfist]

whoa, that's even less than i thought. i thought he worked on about 6 movies. also, i am surprised he is doing back to back movies at all since he was said to be sick of the series after the buu arc.

[LumRanmaYasha]

One thing I will say is that Freeza being revived does sound somewhat like a gimmick-y thing that you would sort of expect from a franchise being "milked." But to call Toriyama "desperate for work" is simply a total lie. Sure, he likes to come back to the series with some spin-offs like Neko Majin and Jaco the Galactic Patrol Man, but as his various one-shots and short series over the years have shown he is far from out of other ideas and could still be serialized in Shonen Jump if he really wanted to draw another manga, which he doesn't, which is why he retired. Besides, he has a ton of other design jobs he's done, for Dragon Quest, Blue Dragon, etc., and honestly, he doesn't even need more work in the first place because he gets tons of royalties from DB as it is. I think this movie is being made because Toriyama thought it would be a fun idea. As such, I'm very optimistic and curious about this. Toriyama has done zilch to sour my faith in his work over the years, so I have no reason not to have faith this will turn out to be a fun movie.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Well, time for a resurgence in these pictures.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

If they played Freeza up as a serious villain, then maybe you could consider it being milked (and even then, that's a serious stretch), but as a comedy? That's viewing the character from a different angle entirely. I mean, I know that even in the Namek arc he had his share of comedic scenes, but he was still played up as a legitimate threat. By the sounds of things, this movie is supposed to be far more comedy-oriented, though.

And as for stuff like Jaco, yes it takes place within the DB Universe, but if anyone were to call that a desperate attempt to revive the series or keep it relevant, they clearly don't know a thing about these spin-offs, since stylistically they couldn't be more different than what you'd expect from DB, and don't even use the same characters (even minor ones). That, and they are all one-off stories simply done for some entertainment value for fans.

Now, if you look at what Fujisawa did to GTO, that's an example of a guy milking his key franchise and who's probably desperate for work. He's done multiple spin-offs and sequels to the manga which quite frankly range from mediocre to downright embarrassing. Compared to that, Toriyama did a few one-shots which don't even use the same characters and explore different parts of the Universe, 1 TV special, and 2 movies, all in the near 20 years since DB has ended. So what?

[Daxdiv]

Yeah, if Toriyama wasn't a lazy ass, I'm pretty sure we would have had another long running manga series from him rather than all these one shots/one volume series like Jaco, Cowa, Kajika, Sand Land and even Neko Majin and Sachie-Chan, and with Sachie-Chan he was just the writer as his friend Masakazu Katsura was the artist.

As far as milking the franchise goes, I will say that I don't really count Kai as something Toriyama wanted. Kai feels more like something Toei and maybe Shueisha, wanted as a way to keep the series relevant.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, Kai was totally Toei's doing, and while its true that they love to milk our their franchises, what they've done with Dragon Ball isn't nearly as ad as what they've been doing with Sailor Moon.

Also, I don't really feel that Kai was that bad when it comes to milking, if only because it was the first truly major thing to be done with the property since the anime ended, outside of video games, and at that it was really just recut footage of the original anime with new voice-acting and music. It wasn't another GT debacle, or anything of that nature.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, TFS has been counting down their TP 24 most iconic DB moments.

Interestingly, all 3 have been from the Majin Buu arc so far, but I can pretty much agree with all of them. Personally I'm predicting that either Goku's first SSJ transformation scene or any part of his first fight with Vegeta will make the very top spot of the list.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Good choices so far. Their #23 choice in particular is actually one of my personal top 5 moments in the entire series.

[LumRanmaYasha]

New trailer for Fukkatsu no F.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Tomorrow, TFS will reveal their number one most iconic Dragon Ball moment, and I'm willing to bet above anything else that it's Goku turning Super Saiyan, as it's the only huge moment from the series that they still haven't listed yet.

Overall, I've pretty much agreed with most of this list. There are only 2 relatively minor things that I probably would've done differently if I ever made such a list:

-I would include Vegeta's first death scene over his scene in the Buu arc, personally, if only because I felt that it was more effective. I mean, he went out like a hero in that scene from the Huu arc, but I'd argue that it was more interesting to see some actual sense of emotion from him when he was still far from being a good guy, but had the balls to laugh at Frieza and look past his pride to encourage Goku to defeat him oce and for all. Also, Goku burying his body was a genuinely touching scene.

-I would've put Goku and Vegeta's first face-off in the top 3, myself, and maybe even at the top spot. Think about it. If we're talking about iconic moments, that moment is so iconic that even people who have never read or watched Dragon Ball in their lives can recognize it, and not in that silly way like you would recognize that "it's over 9,000" meme, but in a genuine way that you could associate with Dragon Ball at its core. Stuff like Goku and Vegeta staring each other down and that epic beam struggle are pretty much some of the first images that pop into my head whenever I hear someone even mention Dragon Ball or anything related to it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yep, I called it. And to be fair, that first SSJ transformation as a Suoer iconic scene deserving of the top spot. Even though the SSJs became pretty common in later arcs, it was a huge deal to see Goku transform that first time. I remmeber going ape-shit with excitement and anticipation during that scene back when I was first watching it on Toonami as a kid.