What happens when Akira Toriyama partakes in the time-honored tradition of the franchise crossover?
Jelli and Bekinney continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon by breaking down episodes 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 and 55, "The Trap is Sprung," "Beware of Robot," "The Pirate Treasure," "Blue Black and Blue," "Escape from Pirate Cave" and "Penguin Village." We continue discussing the Red Ribbon Army, the walking contradiction that is General Blue, talk about booby traps, and delve into the crossover with Dr. Slump and Goku meeting Arale.
In this episode:
- Your Jelli remains convinced he is having a nervous breakdown as Bekinney attempts to cross the planet
- We recap the episodes and discuss our favorite moments
- Raiders of the Lost Ark references found in these episodes, as well as a very brief Godzilla reference (as usual) this time to 1992's Godzilla vs. Mothra.
- We talk about how the Pirate Robot looks like a Xenomorph from the Alien franchise, and how that design is pulled in from the one-shot Dragon Boy.
- More of Toriyama pulling in work from elsewhere for repurposing, as there are some Dragon Quest designs being re-used.
- We talk about the octopus and it being a Toriyama reference to the films he grew up watching, notably King Kong vs. Godzilla and Frankentstein Conquers the World
- We discuss the octopus as a figure in Japanese pop culture dating back hundreds of years, and the origin of tentacle-based pornography with the netsuke art called The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, which features octopus erotica.
- We discuss the Legend of Princess Tamatori, a story about a pearl diver that must fight an army of octopuses
- We debate whether octopus, octopuses, octopi, or octopodes is the correct pluralization
- A brief connection to the show Mad Men
- A seemingly out-of-nowhere reference to Hinduism with a statue to Kali (or possibly Shiva) until you contextualize this as the Indiana Jones portion of the story and realize it is likely a reference to Kali Maa, from Temple of Doom
- Blue's supernatural ability appears
- We talk about the paralysis technique being similar to Kanashibari, a traditional folkloric Kung Fu power
- We discuss the idea of sleep paralysis and the film The Nightmare, a documentary about the phenomenon
- The idea of a crossover with Dr Slump
- And then we get into our main topic of the day and why Dragon Ball decided to cross over with Toriyama's other manga at this point, and how this crossover differs from the typical crossovers seen in media today
- 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.
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