Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Dragon Ball Anime
Dragon Ball is an anime that was produced in the late 1980s, being an adaptation of the the first sixteen volumes of the Dragon Ball Mangga written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama and published in Japan in the Weekly Shonen Jump Mangga anthology comic. Volumes seventeen through fourty-two of the manga series were adapted as Dragon Ball Z. The Dragon Ball anime is composed of 153 half-hour episodes and ran in Japan from February 26 , 1986 - April 12, 1989. It follows the early adventures of the child version of Son Goku as he and his friends search the world for the seven magic Dragon Balls.
Two early attempts at releasing Dragon Ball to American audiences failed. The first attempt was in the late 1980s by Harmony Gold. It featured strange name changes for nearly all the characters, such as changing Goku to Zero and Karin to Whiskers the Wonder Cat. It is not well-known, and has been referred to as "The Lost Dub" by fans. The second and more well known attempt was in 1995 with only the first 13 episodes translated and aired. This release was put out by KidMark and utilized Ocean Group for the dubbing. These original 13 episodes are still available on DVD as The Saga of Goku. After Dragon Ball Z became immensely popular on Cartoon Network, the entire series was translated by FUNimation and released in the same scheduling block as its successor on the network. The complete series ran in the US between August 20, 2001, and late 2003. Unlike the theme songs for Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT, FUNimation made English versions of the original Japanese opening (OP) and ending (ED) themes for these episodes and left in the original BGM, which was met with delight by most fans. However, some insert (IN) songs were removed or have dialogue dubbed over them.
Dragon Ball is known as being a much less serious anime than its successor, Dragon Ball Z , though later sagas blur the lines a bit.
Goku in his Super Saiyan form.
As a member of the Saiyan race, Goku has acquired the ability to transform by physical training. By transforming his body, Goku greatly enhances his abilities from the previous state. Goku is also the only Saiyan in the entire series to achieve all known Saiyan transformations. As a child, he was able to transform into the Saiyan were-monkey called Oozaru. However, he was not able to transform into the Oozaru at will via a required component of special radiant waves emitted by a full moon. As with the Saiyan, Goku was born with a tail which is a vital characteristic for transforming into an Oozaru. It is removed later in the original Dragon Ball series, however, is regrown in the third sub-series Dragon Ball GT , helping Goku to transform into a Golden Oozaru. In the series, Goku is the first Saiyan to achieve the legendary transformation of Super Saiyan in over a millennium . Goku achieved this transformation when he was overcome by rage from the murder of Kuririn by the hand of Freeza. He continues to train this form throughout the series, eventually gaining two advanced states of the regular Super Saiyan called the Super Saiyan 2nd Grade and Super Saiyan 3rd Grade. Eventually, he masters every aspect of the Super Saiyan in order to challenge Cell. Goku then transforms even further to Super Saiyan 2 which was first seen in the fight against Majin Vegeta, but had been achieved during his training in Other World. Super Saiyan 3 was also obtained during his training in the Other World, first appearing in his fight with Majin Buu. During the sequel series Dragon Ball GT, Goku achieves his last transformation called Super Saiyan 4.
About Son Goku Story
Goku was born as Kakarot , a member of an extraterrestrial warrior race called the Saiyans. Due to the Saiyans' methods of systematically conquering habitable planets, Goku was sent to Earth as an infant to conquer it and make it suitable for sale on the galactic market. Since Akira Toriyama does not consider what is to come in proceeding chapters of his stories, Goku's story develops into one that is not typical of other superheroes in media. Much of these reasons come from the simple fact that Dragon Ball was originally intended to be an adventure, and not a series that primarily focused on martial arts. Since Goku's character was originally inspired from a fictional monkey king named Sun Wukong ("Son Goku" in Japanese), he originally appeared in the series with traits that mimcked the character, like dark hair, a lean build, and a monkey tail. As the series developed, these physical traits are later explained to be typical of all Saiyans. As Dragon Ball departed its parody of Journey to the West, Goku's tail is removed permanently by kami.
Goku does not possess the typical behavioral traits of the race, such as extreme aggression and ruthless behavior, this is due to head trauma and amnesia that he recieved during his childhood on Earth. Because of his devotion toward Earth, he dresses in an Asian martial arts uniform instead of the traditional Saiyan battle armor. Goku's uniform consists of a red/orange-colored full-body outfit with a dark blue short-sleeved under shirt, belt, wristbands, and boots. He is also known to use the symbols of his training masters. The first symbol that Goku uses was the symbol of his first master Muten Rsohi's, which stood for Kame, meaning "turtle." Later he wears the symbol of his next master, North Kaio for "Kai" (meaning "world") while battling Nappa and Vegeta. After Goku recovers from his battle, North Kaio sends him another gi with the symbol for "Go" (meaning either " enlightenment" or wisdom") which also appears in his name's Japanese symbols. As the series progresses, he discards these symbols, becoming a master instead of a student by training his child Son Gohan, and later a pupil named Uub. Though Kakarot is Goku's original name, he prefers to be called by his Earth name "Goku". When Goku learns of his origins as an extraterrestrial, he rejects his heritage, but later accepts it during his battle with the galactic overlord named Freeza. Due to a unique trait in Saiyan genetics, Goku's physique almost perfectly mimics his father's. Another unique trait in Saiyan genetics is that they evolved to retain their youthfulness for combat, so as a result, Goku ages slowly when he reaches about age thirty, appearing very young even when he is middle-aged.
Goku's original name Kakarot (a pun on "carrot") fits in with the rest of his family; all the known members in his family are a pun on vegetables that are related to each other. For example, Goku's older brother's name is Raditz, a pun on "radish".