Dragon Ball Magazine Article Reviews
Introduction
Over the years, Dragon Ball has been covered occasionally by fanzines
across the globe. But, commercial magazines along the lines of
Animerica and Mangazine have given DB short shrift -- printing only a
brief bit about the series as a blow-off.
However, with the growing popularity of the series on U.S. TV, Animerica
has been forced to finally admit that DBZ exists. Mangazine has never
been quite so down on the show, however, and had come out with a feature
piece on DBZ months before Animerica did. But, given that Mangazine has
a fraction of Animerica's print run, it probably doesn't matter. Plus,
since most fans of the series don't read EITHER of these two mags, the
odds are that you haven't seen much of what has appeared in commercial
print about DBZ. Then again, once an issue goes out of print, you can
not access the information in it in the future.
To rectify this situation, I will address/summarize/rip-to-shreds the
articles that I have seen to date. (As of Dec. 30, 1996.)
Note that this file is copyrighted by Curtis H. Hoffmann. It may be
copied freely, as long as it remains unchanged. This article MAY NOT
appear in any commercial magazine or fan zine without prior permission
from me. Note also that all other copyrights and trademarks remain the
sole property of their respective holders.
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Revision History
12/30/96: Created this file
People who helped me on these files:
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Mangazine. Antarctic Press. Number 43, Feb. 1996
DB cover by Robert DeJesus and Bryant Velez.
Article written by Phil Lipari -- "Gotta Have that Dragon Ball"
Over all, this "review" of Dragon Ball is nothing more than a brief
reprint of the DB/DBZ timeline. Admittedly, Lipari does an admirable
job of encompassing ALL of DB, from the beginning of the manga all the
way up to the end, in only four pages. And even then, he leaves room
for a sidebar, and 21 pictures of the various characters. Most of the
pictures are from the manga, and are competently laid-out.
The sidebar lists some of the voice actor credits, and the TV staff
credits. (I have not had time to check the voice list for accuracy.
Note that the Seiyuu List maintained by Hitoshi Doi is far more
complete and comprehensive. My version of the
DB/DBZ voice actor list
is derived from Hitoshi's list.
Lipari's English versions of the character names are more or less the
same as those commonly used by western DB fandom. Referring to the
Saiya-jin as "Saiyamen" is a bit lame, though. Using the alternative
"Saiyan" would have been a better choice.
Personally, I do not have a copy of the staff credits available anywhere
else on my web site, so I will add it here (it looks like the credits
are for DBZ. The credits for DB may be slightly different.)
Creator: Akira Toriyama/Fuji TV
Producer: Kenji Shimizu
Series Director: Daisuke Nishio
Chief Animator: Minoru Maeda
Chief Designer: Yuuji Ikeda
Music: Shunsuke Kikuchi
Dragon Ball Z opening themes sung by Hironobu Kageyama
"Cha La Head Cha La" DBZ episodes 1-199 and "We Gotta Power" (200-291).
(NOTE: There is a comment in the sidebar that Mangazine will print a
full chronology of DB/DBZ in a later issue. I asked them if this had
happened yet, and the answer was "no", by Feb. 1997.)
Essentially, the "Gotta Have that Dragon Ball" issue of Mangazine is not
worth the $2.95. All of the information on the series can easily be
found on the Internet. And, there are many more, and better, pictures
of the characters on the Net as well. Even the DeJesus cover looks
amateurish and is not worth collecting. (The Mangazine chronology issue
may be a better buy.)
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Animerica. Viz Communications, Inc. Vol. 4, No. 11, Nov. 1996
Gokuu cover from the TV series.
Articles written by the Viz editorial staff, with an intro by James Teal.
I have to start out stating that I already have a bias against
Animerica. I dislike Trish Ledoux for several reasons, and in the past
Animerica has been little more than a mouthpiece for Viz -- over-hyping
Viz's products while slamming everything else. So, when I heard about
Animerica's feature article concerning DB/DBZ, I had no interest in
wasting time on finding a copy. Later, when someone mentioned that the
article contained a more complete listing of name puns than the one I
had compiled, I responded with "of course you know, this means war!" It
was really hard to find this issue, since every comic shop I visited
(both in Dallas and L.A.) either doesn't carry Animerica, or had sold
out of the few copies that they'd had. I eventually did find a copy.
(Which gives me the opportunity to slam Viz for it's lack of customers
in both Dallas and L.A.)
I am surprised at the amount of information in this issue. Trish has
apparently realized that a LOT of people like DBZ, and has finally
succumbed to the pressure to pander to us. Naturally, when you take a
magazine staff that has previously been hostile to a series, and tell
them to write a bunch of good stuff about it, there will be omissions
and things to complain about in the end. So, even though Trish has
produced a good feature piece on DB/DBZ, with lots of background detail,
I still have room to bitch. ;)
The only truly good thing about the DB feature in Animerica is that the
staff takes time to mention their source material. They do describe
the
Dragon Ball Complete Illustrations (CI) books
, and recommend the CI books to anyone that wants to know more about the
series. All of the artwork in this issue comes from the CI
books.
James Teal starts out by introducing the series to anyone that doesn't
already know about it. At first, he sounds like a copy of my Dragon
Ball Primer file. Then, he disappears into parallels between Gokuu and
Superman. I guess that Teal needed to give his readers something that
they could relate to, but some of his examples are stretched a bit (i.e.
-- claiming that Gokuu had been fired off into space to save him from
the coming explosion, just like Superman had. This situation is twisted
a bit, since Gokuu was being treated as a warrior-in-training, and had
simply managed to be one of the last Saiya-jin to leave Planet Vejiita
before Freeza destroyed it. Also, Gokuu's origins had nothing to do
with the original story, unlike Superman, who from the very beginning
tried to save Earth because it was his adopted planet.) But, on the
whole, Teal's intro isn't too bad.
The accompanying sidebar on Dr. Slump -- "That Other Toriyama Series" --
is nowhere near as good. The sidebar is unattributed. Whoever the
author was did an acceptable job in describing Dr. Slump, but kept on
misreading the series. In one case, there is "Perhaps as a harbinger of
things to come, Dragon Ball's Gokuu makes a guest appearance in Dr.
Slump, coming for a visit to Penguin Village where Dr. Norimaki and
Arare-chan and the others live". First, it was the other way around,
with Penguin Village making a cameo appearance in Dragon Ball. Gokuu's
arriving in the Village simply gave Toriyama a chance to revive the older
series. Second, an alert reader will notice that "Arale-chan" was
misspelled. Later, the writer claims that Arale-chan's primary interest
is to make friends. This is DEAD WRONG. Arale does make friends, but
her sole guiding intent is to play with shit, and to fight anyone that
seems to be worth attacking. Over all, this sidebar is misleading, and
is not worth using as a reference to the Dr. Slump series.
"Take Ten With Funimation" is a little better. It is an interview with
the founders of Funimation -- Gen Fukunaga and his wife Cindy Brennan
Fukunaga -- owners of the North American rights to DB. Most of the
interview is pure fluff, about why Funimation is censoring the scenes
that they have, and how the founders like the series themselves. The
important points are:
- Funimation claims that DB was slow in coming to America because
Toriyama and Toei were waiting for someone to promise to treat the
series with the respect that it deserves.
- The big gap between DB and DBZ is a result of Funimation's desire to
get to the fighting sequences -- which appeal more to western audiences
than the gags did.
- Funimation planned on making 26 episodes for the first season, and
plan on doing at least 26 more episodes. The series is being
distributed through Saban TV. If the series becomes popular enough,
Saban will get it a better timeslot, and perhaps more episodes will be
produced for the third season.
- Funimation is proud of the theme music it created, and will not use
the original Japanese music.
- Funimation plans on licensing lots of DB products if the demand is
there. Currently, the target marketing audience are boys between 6
and 11 years old, while the story actually appeals to men up to their
mid-20's. This means that when the toys show up, they won't appeal to
the fans that have the most money.
"Dragon Ball Then and Now" is a complete waste of ink, aimed at
American fans that only know the series via the N.A. dub. It is an
overly cute exchange between a young Namek, and a Namek Elder. The
young Namek doesn't understand what happened during the gap between the
end of the N.A. Dragon Ball, and the beginning of Dragon Ball Z (from
when Oolong gets the panties, to when the adult Gokuu fights Radditz.)
Anyone that doesn't already know what happened would be better off
reading my summaries -- much less cutesy, and more filling.
"Merchandise Madness" attempts to describe the many products sold in
Japan related to Dragon Ball. Very incomplete, but possibly useful to
absolute beginners to anime fandom.
Next comes the name puns section "Dragon from Ball A to Z: Fun with
Puns". I can't help but think that the title is a misprint. Either
way, it's a bad sign. The article itself is VERY cutesy and
patronizing. Plus:
- A few of the names are arbitrarily re-spelled (Raditz; Freezer --
appears in the CI as Freeza; Jees; Bahta; Bippity, Boppity and Boo --
the CI specifically spells the names in English as Bibi-di,
Babi-di, and Buu. Shuu has been changed to Shao.)
- While there really is a lot of additional detail used to explain
most of the puns, there are serious omissions. Most obviously is
"Kuririn". When the pun guide states that Kuririn is a play on "chest
nut", that's not strictly true. "Kuri" is Japanese for "chestnut".
"Kuririn" is more evocative of something that is rolling, and refers to
a girl's curly hairstyle.
- Noticeably missing is any reference to Kushami -- Ranchi's (Lunch's)
other half -- which means "sneeze". And, the attempt to equate the
Namek names to references to snails is a bit contrived (but still
possible).
- The only thing worth adding to my own pun list is "Pu-Ehr", an
"earthy, semi-fermented variety of Chinese tea (Puaru).
Now, we get an interview with Scott McNeil. Scott is the voice actor
for Piccolo. He also does many other voices, and has appeared in
Highlander, Outer Limits, and the Commish. The interview is almost all
fluff, but it does contain the address for Scott's fan club: c/o Northern Exposure Talent Management Group, Suite 6, 1155 Melville
Street, Vancouver, B.C. Canada, V6E 4C4.
If you want to know more about Scott's other credits, visit my
Return to the U.S. DBZ voice actor's list.
There is a section by the manager of Manga no Mori -- a manga
bookstore chain in Japan. Takashi Oshiguchi wastes ink in telling us
the obvious -- that with the ending of the Dragon Ball manga, a large
number of people have stopped buying the magazine that has serialized
it: Shonen Jump. I'd commented on this happening back in the Fall of
1995.
Finally, there is a list of Dragon Ball/Z video games. A more
descriptive listing of the games is available on the Internet.
Overall, this issue of Animerica is worth buying only if you are a
collector of DB stuff. But as I say, there are huge gaps. There is no
mention of the music CD's, TV specials, or movies. There is no attempt
to give the staff credits for the Japanese TV series, or the voice
credits for the N.A. dub. In fact, this issue would be a good starting
point, if Animerica ever got its act together, and followed up with
continuing Dragon Ball feature articles in the near future.
But, will this happen? What do you think?
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You can contact me at: riemann96@yahoo.com
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