Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
Dragon Ball (Page 9)
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!
It’s well known that many anime fans, in the midst of watching a show, start to develop a crush on their favorite character (and sometimes that crush becomes a full–on obsession). But the admiration fans feel towards a 2-D character isn’t always tied to romantic rumblings. Sometimes, they see an anime icon and instead of “I wish that was my girlfriend/boyfriend,” they find themselves thinking “I wish that was my boss!”
Okay, folks! Remember what day this past April 18 was? Well, here in Japan, April 18 may be Invention Day, but this year, it was also the opening day of the movie Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’! Since we’d already reported a fair bit of information about the new Dragon Ball movie, we thought it was only appropriate that we go see it on opening day and give you our impressions.
This time, fortunately, we didn’t have to wait 17 years for a new Dragon Ball movie like we did for the previous film, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods. What’s more, we managed to get a ticket to a screening with special appearances by voice actors and idol group Momoiro Clover Z! Join us for our take on the movie and a report on all the excitement on opening day.
Last summer the Dragon Ball in Science exhibition hit Nagoya amid much fanfare and celebration. Participants were encouraged to immerse themselves in the world of Dragon Ball as reproduced by modern science and technology such as piloting a Flying Nimbus with their minds or communicating telepathically with Goku on King Kai’s planet.
It was a big success, but many complained that they couldn’t attend with it being held out in Nagoya. So now, Dragon Ball in Science is coming to the people of Tokyo during Fuji TV’s Spring Fest 2015 LIFE !S LIVE.
Japanese cuisine is filled with dishes that end in don, meaning “rice bowl.” One of the most descriptive is oyakodon, literally “parent and child bowl.”
Ordinarily, oyakodon is rice topped with chicken and egg. Some sushi restaurants, though, have their own variation which instead uses sliced raw salmon and ikura (salmon roe). And now, one clever anime fan has come up with yet another version, the Dragon Ball Z oyakodon rice bowl.
Dragon Ball’s über cool villain Frieza has been in the news quite a bit lately, owing to the upcoming release of the new Dragon Ball movie Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’, in which he plays the lead antagonist. But then, Frieza has always had a bit of a following with his quirky personality and ruthless yet polite ways, and we’re sure plenty of fans are thrilled that he will be making a huge come back in a feature-length film.
So, it wouldn’t really be surprising if popular idol group Momoiro Clover Z, who performs the theme song for Resurrection ‘F’, was involved in a promotional tie-in with the movie, and one with Frieza in particular. And that’s exactly what seems to have happened earlier this week when the group’s official site was filled with … images of the idols as Frieza!
It looks like they’ve really gone all out with their promotion. But wait, is that what really happened here? We’ll give you a hint — the Frieza collaboration image was released this past Wednesday.
Training to be the mightiest martial artist in the galaxy is thirsty work. But when you’re feeling parched after a hard day of kicking through solid rock and firing kamehameha energy blasts from your hands, doesn’t it seem just a bit below your station in life to drink from the same sort of glass as people who haven’t forged their bodies into a weapon on par with the finest blades of tempered steel?
The solution to that dilemma is one of these awesome wooden Dragon Ball mugs.
Previously on RocketNewsZ, tensions flared between our reporters Yuichiro Wasai and Mr. Sato after Wasai used Mr. Sato’s mankini and returned it without washing. The two were just beginning to levitate off the ground and fight when the chief editor told them to take it outside so as not to damage the office’s complete collection of sushi cat figurines.
Knowing who pays the bills around here, both complied and went down to Shibuya Parco in Tokyo where an event was being held inviting fighters such as these two to compete by hurling kamehameha energy blasts at each other. Will these two settle their differences before it’s too late? We’ll soon find out after they manage to flag down a cab.
Mexican clothing company Heredia Clothing has been promoting their line-up of Dragon Ball Z sneakers for a few months now, but fans heading to Expo TNT on January 31-February 1 in Guadalajara can also get their kicks autographed by the original Mexican voice actors for Goku and Vegeta, Mario Castañeda and Rene Garcia.
There are many urban legends of satanic verses hidden in popular music to subconsciously corrupt our children. While those claims may not always be true, there are definitely a lot of songs out there that feature backmasked messages (hidden messages revealed only when you play the piece backwards). So what could possibly be hiding behind the cutesy, bouncy Dragon Ball Z ending song?!
Comic book fan, cosplay aficionado, and 15-year veteran deputy sheriff Michael Wilson (@knightmage) brought cheer to countless families on December 18 when he strolled into his local Ohio TOYS R US dressed as Dragon Ball‘s Piccolo and paid off everyone’s layaways.
While the gigantic robots and gratuitous nudity were certainly eye-catching, when I first started watching Japanese animation, one of the things that surprised me the most was the fact that anime characters could, well, die. Sure, American cartoons from Tom and Jerry to G.I. Joe were filled with explosions and gunplay, but while the violence was abundant, injuries were conspicuously absent.
Anime tales, though, have no qualms about knocking off their players. As a matter of fact, characters shake off this mortal coil so frequently that a recent poll ranked the 20 most memorable anime deaths.
Heads up! While animation sometimes allows for the miracle of resurrection, be aware that since this is a list of deaths, it contains spoilers for the following series: Clannad, Code Geass, Death Note, Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star, Fullmetal Alchemist, Gintama, Hakuoki, Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure, Naruto, Neon Genesis Evangelion, One Piece, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, School Days, and Tengen Toppa Guren Lagan.
As one of the most popular manga and anime series ever created, Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball has undoubtedly inspired fan art of every style and form conceivable from across the world. Indeed, the Internet is full of countless images of such works by both professional and amateur artists alike. But every so often we come across pieces of work that are so impressive that they grab our attention with their quality and originality, as in the case of these drawings of famous villains from the series. Join us for a look at the familiar evil characters of Dragon Ball reinvented into exquisite yet chilling illustrations — we think you’ll be impressed too with the vivid, colorful details that seem to bring the images to life!
If you’re a gamer who’s too young to remember when Sega made consoles or having six buttons on a controller was a big deal, you might look back on 8-bit video game artwork and chuckle. With everything made out of blocky pixels, it’s impossible to create the sort of fine details that modern hardware easily renders to differentiate one character from another, isn’t it?
Maybe not, as one fan has put his old-school pixel art skills to use to recreate 50 different famous manga heroes, all in the style of the original Mega Man.
It’s hard to believe that Dragon Ball is nearly 30 years old considering the extensive fanbase Akira Toriyama still commands after three decades. But the lines of dedicated fans at the Dragon Ball 30th Anniversary / Akira Toriyama Tribute show in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo proved that Goku and the gang are still going strong to this day. Check out all the cosplay, art, and power-ups after the break!
In 2013, perhaps the most famous of anime’s many spikey-haired protagonists,
Dragon Ball Z’s Goku, returned after a 17-year hiatus. While the film, subtitled Battle of Gods, didn’t really stray from the pattern of wacky hijinks and super-powered martial arts battles Dragon Ball Z had already established in its hundreds of TV episodes and dozen-plus movies, fans in general were happy and satisfied just to be able to spend an hour and a half with a group of old animated friends.
They’ll have the chance to do so again soon, and an ad for next year’s Dragon Ball Z movie shows that rejoining the cast of familiar heroes will be one of their most memorable foes.
Given how many passionate manga fans Japan has, it’s kind of surprising that a lot of them don’t collect every issue of their favorite series. Most titles are published once a week as part of several-hundred-page anthologies printed on cheap, quickly deteriorating newsprint. On the other hand, higher-quality collected volumes lag months behind the weekly editions.
This creates a strange catch-22 where fans who want to be up to the minute on their heroes’ adventures buy the anthologies but later toss them out. Eventually, many cherry-pick which collected volumes to purchase in order to fill in the gaps where they missed one of the weeklies, or to have a permanent copy of their favorite scenes.
Of course, a lot of incomplete sets are also the result of fans getting burned out before reaching the end of some of Japan’s notoriously long-running series. Add in the fact that storage space is at a premium in Japanese homes, and it’s a testament to a title’s staying power and ability to captivate readers when they buy it from start to finish, like so many have with these 15 manga.
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