Jelli and Bekinney continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball by breaking down episodes 136, 137 and 138 : "Tien Shinhan vs Mercenary Tao," "Anonymous Proposal," and "THe Mysterious Hero." ...and the Jelli realizes he wanted to do one more, so we also cover episode 139, "Rematch." We continue discussing the Piccolo Jr. Saga, and talk about characters chasing Goku in his growth.
In this episode:
- Jelli and Bekinney make a final approach to a new planet
- We recap the episodes and discuss our favorite moments
- Why Tsuru Senin suddenly reappears now
- Theorizing on the training of Yamcha, Krillin, Tien Shinhan, and Chiaotzu
- A note about love angles in Dragon Ball and the push-pull between Toriyama and Torishima
- More about Tien's tenme
- Ties between Tao Pai Pai and Ultraman, Kamen Rider, and Enter the Dragon
- Briefly delving into Tien's lifelong scar received from this battle and whether we want to draw a correlation between Vegeta's now-infamous consistently injured left arm.
- Talking about the significance of Chi Chi withholding her name
- Ties between Piccolo and tokusatsu
- Jelli takes a totally unusual (sarcasm) side trek into kaiju fandom with a parallel between Shen (Kami's human vessel) and Ichiro Arishima's character Mr Tako from King Kong vs. Godzilla and Japan's salary man culture
- We talk about the sokidan
- An interesting corollary between the anime's use of the movie Zu, Warriors from the Magic Mountain, and Toriyama's own use of a motif from the film
- Talking about whether Piccolo's disguise is acceptable
- A brief discussion of the history of wolves in Japan, including a mention of Haiyao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, and its inspirations from the Emishi people and their conquest by the Yamato tribe, and how the movie draws on the Meiji restoration policy of slaughtering wolves in order to stem the spread of rabies throughout Japan
- A brief discussion of whether Yamcha, Krillin, Ten Shinhan, and Chiaotzu being stated as having trained with Korin and likely drinking the various divine waters undermines Goku's accomplishments in having done so.
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- and more, including some general pop culture, trivia, and editorializing, as usual
Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise, and unspool what we all love so much about Goku, the Dragon Ball franchise, the Dragon Ball anime, Dragon Ball manga, and more.
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