A ton of anime characters wear some sort of school or military uniform, but that doesn’t mean the shows’ art is always consistent.
Dragon Ball (Page 8)
These are the most powerful anime heroes as chosen by fans outside of Japan. Who will claim the top spot and does your favorite make the list?
Love it or hate, there’s no doubt that many Dragon Ball Z fans growing up in the United States and other English-speaking countries got their start by watching Funimation’s English dub of the series. Once a staple of Cartoon Network’s weekday Toonami programming lineup back in the early 2000s, hearing the English voices of Goku and Vegeta, played by Sean Schemmel and Christopher Sabat respectively, is sure to induce a wave of nostalgia for many present-day “kids” now approaching their 30s.
In fact, the two veteran voice actors were recently featured in reddit’s Ask Me Anything series of video interviews. Join us after the jump to hear the duo’s candid thoughts about a variety of topics, including being asked to sign babies’ diapers, texting in Vegeta’s persona, playing pranks with kazoos, and female Super Saiyans!
Japanese publisher Shueisha puts out a number of manga anthologies, but by far the jewel in the publisher’s crown, and really the entire Japanese comics industry, is Weekly Shonen Jump. For decades, the magazine has been home to the biggest manga hits, whose creators achieve legendary status in the hearts of legions of fans.
As a matter of fact, so many of Japan’s best-loved manga writers and artists achieved fame through Weekly Shonen Jump that Shueisha is getting self-referential with a new magazine set to launch soon, in which each issue highlights a different manga artist and comes bundled with a DVD of the creator at work and tracing paper so you can try to duplicate the results.
Many Japanese animation fans, after having their hopes dashed and their hearts broken one too many times, come to accept the truism that it’s just not possible to make a good live-action version of their favorite anime. Right now, it’s Attack on Titan’s turn in the hot seat, as its two recently released movies have been roundly roasted by fans of the original work and critics alike, and years ago Dragonball Evolution had far more people groaning than cheering as their left theaters.
But maybe it’s not so much that anime has to stay hand-drawn, but just that it can’t be replicated by human actors. We’ve seen Attack on Titan look cool in stop-motion and sheep sub for the cast of Dragon Ball. As a matter of fact, maybe you can even show part of a human actor, just not the whole person, like in this epic and funny battle between two of Dragon Ball’s mightiest martial artists…as played by a pair of finger puppets.
One of the great things about fiction, regardless of the genre or medium, is the way it lets us envision the way we want the world to be. Fiction can have a profound effect on us and even serve as an ideal to strive for. Which, now that we think about it, is kind of like what a good boss should be — a role model for their workers!
So, taking this thinking to its natural conclusion, we have to wonder: What fictional characters would make the best bosses? Jack Sparrow might be fun to watch, but we would hate to be in his crew! A recent online poll asked a group of Japanese businessmen in their thirties which manga character would be their favorite pick for their boss. A good question, indeed. Find out how they responded below!
Etsy has become the place for the geeky and talented to sell things to their geeky brethren. Every fandom is represented and you can buy creative and fun merchandise, such as accessories, t-shirts and those DIY items you haven’t found the time to make yourself. There are so many artistic and creative things to buy that it’s really hard to exit out of the page before you find something you really, really want.
This week, we found some gorgeous jewelry that’s perfect for an engagement, marriage, or just the otaku who needs some more bling. It might cost you a pretty penny, but according to thousands of satisfied customers, it’s worth the price.
For a lot of us, Dragon Ball Z was our after-school superhero show. Powered up aliens, defending the earth from destruction, huge battles, and fearsome stare downs-what more could you ask for?
How about fulfilling everyone’s childhood dream and becoming the superheroes we idolize? That’s where cosplay comes in. You don’t get any of the special powers, but you get to pretend for a day and look the part, and it just got easier than ever to cosplay as some of your favorite Dragon Ball Z characters thanks to some new life-like masks that will help turn you into Goku, Piccolo, or Frieza.
Considering it’s a fighting series that features the strongest warriors in the universe, Dragon Ball also has a deep sense of familial values that we non-Saiyans/mere mortals can really relate to. It’s no surprise that Goku’s family became so large, but who would have ever thought that Vegeta would find something on planet earth that would keep him around for years?
Like a “modern family” in the future with aliens, these lovable clans are assembled together in these family portraits and show us that sometimes the most important thing in life isn’t becoming the greatest fighter ever, but familial bonds.
Box Office Mojo reports that Funimation‘s limited theatrical run of the Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’ film earned US$1,967,626 on its opening night on Tuesday. That gives the film a per-screen average of US$2,198, the highest among the top 10 movies playing in the United States on August 4.
Last weekend, we headed out to Chiba Prefecture to attend Wonder Festival, the world’s largest model and garage kit-building convention. Along with all sorts of inanimate representations of animated characters, we also checked out all of the impressive cosplayers who’d gathered from all over Japan for the event.
We already shared our photos of the female costumers, but we remembered to save some room on our memory card for the guys as well, and so we proudly present the male cosplayers of this year’s Summer Wonder Festival.
Last weekend, it was once again time for Japan’s model and garage kit enthusiasts to gather for the summer iteration of Wonder Festival, held at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba Prefecture. But while the event’s primary goal is to showcase the talents of those recreating anime and video game characters in plastic and resin, you’ll also find plenty of fans bringing their favorite heroes and heroines to life in flesh and cloth, as Wonder Festival has also become a major draw for cosplayers.
But would the soaring temperature during this year’s Summer Wonder Festival keep cosplayers in their air-conditioned homes? Not at all, and we figured if they were going to brave the heat, we would too, so we grabbed our camera and headed for the convention.
Back in April, we brought to you the news that an all new Dragon Ball anime series was going to start airing on TV in July. Well, the day Dragon Ball fans have eagerly been waiting for finally arrived.
The very first episode of the new series, titled Dragon Ball Super, was broadcast last Sunday, and of course, we checked it out to witness the start of Goku’s new adventures. Dragon Ball fans, get ready for a brand new chapter in the timeless saga that has become a manga and anime classic around the world!
The first editor of the Dragon Ball manga has revealed that he thinks the franchise should have ended with the Frieza Arc. Kazuhiko Torishima, who worked closely with Akira Toriyama on the first half of the Dragon Ball manga, made the surprisingly frank comments in an interview that was recently broadcast on Japanese TV.
Even though spikey-haired Goku is undeniably the protagonist of classic (and soon to be new) anime Dragon Ball, we’re not sure it’s entirely accurate to call fellow Saiyajin Vegeta a “supporting character.” That’s because the widow’s peak-sporting martial artist would tell you that he’s actually the strongest fighter in the Dragon Ball universe, and his prideful insistence on doing things his way means that “supporting” others isn’t something he’s particularly amicable to doing.
Maybe that’s the reason that while Goku and the villainous Frieza are hawking cola, Vegeta is instead endorsing Cup Noodle’s new vegetable-packed variety of instant ramen, and starring in an action-packed, cabbage-crushing commercial while he’s at it.
Some hardcore anime fans try to spend as much of their lives as possible watching Japanese animation. But what if it’s not enough to eat, sleep, and breathe anime? What if you were going to die anime, too?
That’s the question Japanese website Charapedia posed when it asked “What anime do you want to be watching during the final moment of the last day of your life?” The results are in, and here are the 20 shows respondents consider the truly ultimate anime.
For a lot of us growing up, watching anime on Cartoon Network after school was our version of science fiction pulp stories from the mid-1900s. Given that pulp fiction and anime share some commonalities, it’s a bit odd that they haven’t been mashed-up more often. If the results turn out as good as this Dragon Ball Z x science fiction-style book covers, more artists should be looking to pair the two up.
If you’re reading this and were born after 1995, we strongly encourage you to make sure your diaper is firmly in place. What’s that? You say you outgrew diapers long ago? You might want to double-check anyway, because right now we’re not so sure we didn’t somehow slip back in time two decades or so.
After all, these days anime fans are being blessed with about as much new Dragon Ball content as they were during the previous peak of the martial arts franchise’s popularity in the mid ‘90s. This year has already seen the release of a new Dragon Ball Z movie, Resurrection ‘F’, which was followed by the announcement of a brand-new TV series, Dragon Ball Super.
Now, the franchise is going back to its roots by returning to the format where it all started: manga, with a new Dragon Ball serial starting in just a month!
Manga creator Akira Toriyama is a busy guy these days. First, there’s the recent announcement of an all-new anime continuation of his most beloved work in Dragon Ball Super. The Dragon Ball film franchise is also going through a revival, with Resurrection of F, its second movie in two years, having just had its theatrical premiere.
But apparently Toriyama’s creative juices are flowing strong, as publishers have announced a brand-new manga series coming from the Dragon Ball creator, who’s teaming up with another famous manga icon with a heavy nostalgia factor for the project.
With a new Dragon Ball show announced for July, now is just about the perfect time to take a quick refresher on the original series! While you could spend a couple of hours browsing through recaps of all the old episodes, or even try rewatching the whole series before July, we have an easier way to remind yourself of all the animated fun.
Check out this awesome animated YouTube video, complete with authentic music clips from the show!
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