Thoughts on Dragon Ball Super Ep.80

The moment of truth has arrived: will Gohan redeem himself in the eyes of the fans or remain “Goku’s kind of mediocre son”?

The fight begins and Lavender the sociopath has the clear advantage after he blinds Gohan with a poison. But offered a sensu bean he refuses. Goku surmises that it will be good training since Gohan cannot see or sense Lavender’s alien energy. AS you might expect Gohan channels his fighting instincts—which work something like a McGuffin-- and manages to detect Lavender’s blows, easily dominating him. But Lavender has more tricks up his sleeve, attacking from a distance and forcing Gohan to transform. Using his energy like a radar he finds Lavender but begins to tire out from the strain. With the poison finally taking Gohan down Lavender begins beating him. Gohan, calling on his deepest reserves, powers up again but is knocked back. Now fully poisoned, he forces himself to grab onto Lavender and takes him down in a double knockout; or is it?

At the end of the fight we get a several huge reveals. Not only is Universe 7 the second weakest in average power level, but the four strongest universes are exempt from the tournament. Zen-oh is purging the weak from creation. 

While I am not happy with the result of this fight is was a good one. Even when I thought it would be cliché it pulled a few surprises and was very satisfying to watch.  It also seems like Gohan might get stronger based on his comments at the end of the fight so if you want to get your hopes up there’s your bait. The art was mostly on point, with a few weird drawing but its Toei so….  But if they keep it up it seems this arc is going to be an overall improvement in the quality of Dragon Ball Super.

-Gedaemon

Thoughts on Dragon Ball Super: Ep 79

The battle between Majin Buu and Basil the Bullet Shoot of the Trio de Dangers continues. Those might sound like lame names but don’t worry, it’s done ironically. As before Buu just takes the beating but is of course unfazed. This continues for too long until Goku tells Basil to step it up. He does and blasts a whole in Buu; which of course doesn’t affect him. But the aftermath of the blast hurts Mr. Satan which does piss Buu off. He knocks Basil out of the ring but apparently the only rule is the fight continues until Zen-oh is satisfied or the other guy can’t move. In fact it seems all the rules are just Zen-oh’s whims. The fight continues as Universe 9 uses some kind of magic fruit to power up Basil.

Well, we got a good fight this episode For the first time since his short fight with Beerus, Buu has been unleased, and this time with spectacular results. The episode featured good animation—for super anyway—and managed to be both action packed and light hearted at the same time. For once I don’t have much negative to say. This was good Dragon Ball 

Next up is Gohan and the sociopathic fox: Lavender.  Zen-oh’s question hangs in the air: is the son of Goku strong?

-Gedaemon

Some Comments On Crunchyroll Translations

I was watching Gabriel Dropout and I noticed the subtitles included a lot of puns that were not in the Japanese being spoken. 

Now I understand translation is more an art than a science and that they are on a strict schedule. Puns are hard to translate; in fact they are often impossible to translate. But here is the thing: there were no puns, they were just adding words like “Devil” and “hell” to the dialoged when there was no reason to.

Gabriel Dropout is a good show. We don’t need your lame puns to make it better. Have some artistic integrity for fuck's stake. If I opened a translation of the Aeneid I wouldn’t expect to find a bad Troy/Trojan Man pun in the middle of the second chapter.  Just translate what is said as accurately as you can with the necessary changes to make it into recognizable English. I understand somethings NEED to be changed, and I understand mistakes are sometimes made, But people shouldn’t have to learn actual Japanese understand what is actually being said.

Thoughts on Dragon Ball Super Ep.78

The Dragon Ball Universe turns out to be more fucked up we could have possibly imagined. 

As was already spoiled, it was revealed that the losers of the tournament of power would have their universe erased. Everyone is horrified by this except Goku cause that just means he has to win. (Screw the other universes) 

History’s greatest monster then goes to recruit two other people for an exhibition match before the main tournament. In a rare moment Gohan is actually horrified by what his father has done and agrees to fight, they also grab Majin Buu because comic relief. 

Finaly the group gets to Zen-oh’s Palace where it is announced Goku was behind the tournament. So if they didn’t hate him already they will hate him once they find out what the penalty for losing is. The exhibition match then begins with Buu vs. some wolf guy. 

There is a lot to unpack here. First off what was that filter they were using? It doesn’t look good. I mean they animated a great opening, why can’t they just do the whole show like that? Oh yeah, money. Can’t devote a budget to this small niche anime so let’s just put a filter over it that hides the piss poor digital art work.  They don’t even use the filter all the time. It just seems random.

The plot is finally picking up and I am genuinely excited, when I don’t think about how Goku just doomed quadrillions of sentient beings. But hey, Its Goku, he never knew how to behave around important people. It’s just a weird feeling, I like Goku but it’s a little much to overlook.

At least the fights are starting.

-Gedaemon

Deep Space 9 is the best Star Trek

When Star Trek first appeared in the sixties it sent a jolt through nerdom. Before man had even landed on the Moon it presented an idea of a united Earth with technology that still inspires writers and engineers today. But rewatching those episodes it plain to see that they were not about the future, they were about the times-- they were about sixties liberalism and secular humanism. The plots, sets and costumes were simple. The writers clearly had little understanding of science or engineering, even compared to most sci-fi writers who of course make stuff up.  They implied a ship could cross interstellar space at sub light speeds, and that a gram of antimatter was stronger than any nuclear weapon.  It is beloved by fans-- and for good reason-- but it’s dated in many ways. 

The first two seasons of Next Generation were horrible, but by the third season the writers and cast started to pull things together. What they produced was a produce that far surpassed the original in terms of design and sophistication. The writing was less heavy handed and more grounded in principles rather than hot button issues of the day. The acting and dialog was a notch above what came before.  It was, for my generation perhaps the definitive Star Trek. 

Later Star Trek entries like Voyager and Enterprise tried without much success to recapture the magic of these two groundbreaking series. They were not completely terrible, but to the general public they are failures. Recycled plots and subpar writing were the theme of the time. 

Sometimes the best parts of a franchise are when they are not simply trying to recapture old magic. Instead of trying to do another starship like The Next Generation, they put the crew on a space station at the cross roads between multiple interstellar nations and the frontier. That means conflict came to them, and not just conflict, but organic world building. We learned about Klingons Cardassians and Bajorians in little bits as story lines unfolded. Relationships and conflict developed organically. In the Next Generation the relationships between crew members were set early on and rarely changed. There was no conflict because Star Fleet officers do not let personal differences get in the way of the Job. But on DS9 there were more than Starfleet officers. There were Bajorian officers, Klingons, Cardassians, and Farengi. Conflict was the norm and the characters were forced to acclimate to ideas and policies that made the generously uncomfortable. The Bajorians had to deal with the completely secular and somewhat arrogant Federation; the Federation had to deal with the hyper religious Bajorans. The proud Cardassians had to their former enemies for help in a time of crisis.

The characters of Deep Space Nine feel more real than other entries in the Star Trek franchise. Captain Sysco wasn’t as consistent as Picard but he felt a lot more like a real person. He had flaws but he was also highly competent and got things done, often at great personal costs. The star fleet cast follows suite. Complementing them is a cast of characters from across the Star Trek universe. Not all the acting is great, but enough of it is. The characters have a complexity lacking in many Star Trek entries. 

The series has its problems to be sure, some overacting, a lot of weak episodes at the beginning, some questionable plot twists, Ezri Dax. But flaws plague any long term TV series, and we mustn’t let then overshadow what was achieved. 

Gene Roddenberry had a certain vision for Star Trek. Deep Space 9 through that out.  While his vision allowed star trek to grow into what it is now it also restrained the writers. By throwing out strict adherence to those rules the writers were able to expand the Star Trek universe, and while there were missteps, Deep Space 9 stands at the pinnacle of their creativity. While later series tried and failed to recapture past magic, Deep Space 9 was unique, yet fit into a previously established universe so well it’s hard for me to think of Star Trek without the world building DS9 introduced. It is the best Star Trek has to offer. 

-Gedaemon