I might get around to Dragon Ball eventually. While I have no interest whatsoever in talking about the movie, I might say a few words about the anime adaptation, and the twice-removed U.S. version that people think is acceptable for whatever horrible reason.
I’m kind of on sabbatical for November. I’m spending most of my writing time on my novel, and school-related horseshit keeps intruding as well. Once December comes around, I’ll be ready to enrich your life again with my ramblings.
It’s been a while since I did an update about comics, so here it is: an entry about the Dark Knight Returns.
I didn’t realise you tried out NaNoWriMo 08.
Good going, even if you did stop. I know a few people that started and none of us got close to finishing within the limits NNWM set. The amount of dedication you have to put into it (on top of whatever else your life revolves around) is insane.
I laughed pretty hard when I saw you quoted me at the beginning of your entry, as though I were somebody important or something. That was good, bub, that was funny.
I enjoyed reading about why you love Dragon Ball. I wonder why we rarely see this semi-unpretentious side of you. One thing I am still curious about is what your opinion is between the manga and the anime; do you happen to prefer one over the other? What would you say the main differences between them are?
I must admit here that I’ve never watched a subbed episode of Dragon Ball. All I know are those silly English dubs. I sort of liked it way back when it first came out on American TV (when it was just plain “Dragon Ball” without the Z), and I probably did like DBZ when that first came out. I was younger then. Maybe about five or six years ago, I tried watching the show again (the dubbed version) and couldn’t believe I used to like it. I don’t like how long those fights drag out. Makes the stories so hard to get through. It still boggles my mind how you’ve been able to watch 'em all, but I think after reading your blog I can begin the healing process and start to move on with my life.
You definitely still retain all of your pretentious, elitist, indie cred… But I’d still like to see a picture of that box of fansub tapes.
Also, have you gotten a chance to look at any of the Swamp Thing comics yet?
If you were to twist my arm about it, I’d choose the manga. For one thing, Toriyama’s artwork is really terrific, and entrusting a team of animators to translate it into motion is obviously going to produce hit-or-miss results.
For another, one of the many disadvantages of adapting comics into film or television is that in comics, the pacing is under the shared control of the creator and the reader. On film, the audience is at the mercy of whoever’s producing and editing the program, and they can choose to do annoying things like pad it out. They can flesh out each panel to a much larger degree than is necessary or desirable, they can add their own inconsistent and unnecessary filler material, and so forth. And with a program like Dragon Ball, which was produced concurrently with the manga, that sort of padding became necessary so that the production of the episodes wouldn’t outpace the production of their source material.
But on the other hand, the show features some great performances. I will readily say that, in my mind, the characters’ personalities are as much a product of their voice work as they are as written in the comics. The music is also well-composed and lends a lot to the identities of the story and the characters.
That, of course, is with the condition that we’re talking about the original version of the show. To digress for a moment, I have a really hard time watching the Star Wars: Special Editions. The original versions of the movies work so well for me that I get knocked right out of the story anytime one of the Special Edition alterations comes along. It’s like getting stabbed in the back of the head with a fondue fork. There’s cognitive dissonance. I feel like there’s something wrong, even before I’ve consciously identified what’s different about it.
With the American adaptation of the Dragon Ball cartoon, I get that feeling constantly. It’s never right and all I want to do is pull the fondue fork out of my head.
Oh yeah, and I’ve been reading Swamp Thing off and on between school projects. I started the third volume last night.
“Cognitive dissonance…” Yeah, the ol’ goody is back.
I don’t watch Battlestar Galactica.
I rate this post INVALID out of 0.
BOOOOOOOOOO
I don’t either. It’s part of the fun.
Your blog or rather the topics and whatever explanation of yours they entail don’t seem to have much in common with each other besides the paper these fictional sources of your obvious interest are printed on. Is that how blogs work? I feel like my internal generation y instincts are failing me in the vein of an alcoholics liver because I’m not inherently familiar with how a blog is typically structured assuming of course it’s not absurd to want any sort of structure within the uninhibited confines of our mind spilled out electronically AKA teh intertubes.
I don’t know what your goal is beyond satisfaction of having an outlet for the myriad of thoughts coursing through those neurons but you get hella props for so eloquently conveying what would be otherwise incoherent ramblings.
Hmmm interesting that the inspiration from another SRK’er to start my own blog is no match for my lack of motivation to getting it started.
Star wars is art you big dumb jerk booooooooooooooo and no I WAS NOT saying boo urns:mad:
The blessing and the curse of a weblog is that it’s fuzzily defined in terms of the content it can deliver. A weblog can be about anything, and some people do make their weblogs about anything that pops into their heads. That’s not necessarily what I want mine to be, but that’s kind of how things fell into place anyway. It’s well on its way to its first anniversary and I’m still not sure of its identity.
One of these days, I’ll overhaul it and figure out exactly what I want to do with it, but for now, I’ll just keep throwing things at it and see what sticks.
COOKE would never write or draw a Watchmen sequel. He’s got too much common sense.
Yeah, I know. I was just referencing the way he took up and continued another old series that is indelibly associated with its original creator.
Now, the other guy I mentioned…