Tag: Dragon Ball

When a Uniduck Princess gets a random idea: Dungeons & Dragon BallZ

Hear ye hear ye Princess Pinkie has returned with another Geeky Lifestyle post.

Salutations loyal subjects and sweet island guests.  At night when princess goes to bed it always takes her a long time to sleep!   Thoughts run trough her head like crazy.. maybe she is insane, who knows. It was last night, from when I write this that I was working on a grocery list, while also thinking about Aquaman when suddenly a thought popped in my head! It was briljant and amazing! This is something I would turn into a thing!  That though was D&D … Dungeons and Dragon BallZ. A potential new Tabletop ruleset/world I would create Juuuust for fun. I thought I’d share that idea with you.

The Setting

Let’s start to begin my world, first of all it is NOT actually the world of Dragon Ball. It’s a fantasy variant of that world. Instead of being set all across worlds it’s a singular world with all the Dragon Ball races living in this world in “relative” peace.   There will be characters from the actual Dragon Ball world and some species will be renamed to avoid some confusion. Saiyans and Namekians for example will be renamed because Namekians are named after their planet and the terms Saiyan came from the off world as well.  However all quirks will be shared with the Dragon Ball Mythos… just in a “what if  Dragon Ball was high fantasy setting” Along with a tabletop ruleset and system. 

The goal of any given game of Dungeons & Dragon Ball’s is to hunt down the seven mystic orbs. Whatever the story is the DM chooses the story “HAS” to involve the quest for the seven balls of legend. Story suggestions that are given would be “to revive a hero of old, who knows the secret to defeat the final evil”  or to prevent a disaster like “the moon crashing into the planet” or to take away the “immortality” from a tyrant who has used the power of the Dragon Balls in the past. There would be a few modules for starting adventures, to help the rookie DM on their way. 

One of Dragon Ball’s  greatest assets is the simplicity of it’s world building, which allows a DM to basically build there own world to make every game different.  There is stuff like “Canyon”  or “The Ice continent”  Yet there is also “less” of a climate, you can move from Icy villages to tropical archipelago’s. So for world building I imagine something like a Catan tile system. You design your own layout using water tiles and land tiles of various elements  and each tile shows if it has a town, a hideout or  objects of interest.  Each tile is numbered  and in a manual the beginning dm can find some example layouts for that tile.  This can greatly help travel sections and encounters. Flight powers will be limited during a game of course and you will face some classic D&D encounters such as crypts or packs of ferocious beasts while out exploring.  However instead of  wolves and bears you encounter creatures  like dinosaurs. 

Races will replace the classic D&D races. Humans would of course stay humans but elves would be replaced by namekians, or slug-folk as they are called in this world. The Saiyan’s replace the Orc race as many of their quirks are quite similar. They will be called Ape-Folk   Maijin will replace the dwarves.  While seemingly not all that similar, their hedonist lifestyle and slightly oafish ways make for a good counterpart.  Just rather than ale they like candies and pudding. Majijn could keep their name or be called Magi-folk by common and less educated people, who only know of the common language. The demon race would replace tieflings. Tieflings have demon blood, many dragon ball demons have blue skin, like one of the more common tiefling colours. They are fairly similar. To keep naming conventions intact these people are often referred to as Demon-Folk as it will allow a DM to  create more “full blood” demons as well (think entinities like Janemba for example).  The Frieza race, would be called “Cold-Folk” and devoid of any empathic abilities the best comparison to use for these would be the undead.  Undead is not really a state to use in Dragon Ball due how after life would work. There are plenty of other races that could be replaced but the final one I shall reveal to you for now is that the Goblins would be replaced by Saibaman.. or Pod People.

The Classes

Yet how do we use all these folks and would it all be about punching?!  No!  While transformations will be a thing that play a role.. people can be more or less all the  classic D&D archetypes… with a twist.  Dungeons and Dragon Balls would force you to cross class at least a bit.  Each person has to chose a physical class AND a magic class.  To mimic Dragon Ball’s  style of fighting the best.  Each races comes with it’s own perks.. but what is more special each race is limited in what classes they can pick, this is to prevent people form only ever playing humans. Each race has three classes at their disposal within the real of magic and three more within the realm of physical.

For an example a Saiyan could be

Physical Class:
-Fighter
-Monk
-Barbarian

Magical Class:
-Wizard
-Druid
-Blood Hunter

While humans could be

Physical Class:
-Monk
-Rogue
-Ranger

Magical Class:
-Wizard
-Summoner
-Bard

Depending on what class you combine it with you get access to new abilities. For example a Saiyan/Ape Folk  who builds as a Fighter Wizard, will act a lot like Trunks swinging a weapon while having some back up of blasts. Or the other way around, you can specialise in either magic or physical. (While leveling you can level up your specialty compared to your minor class with a 2 to 1 ration). Basically giving each race 18 playstyles/build types. 

A Druid Saiyan for example relies more on using their great ape form and can use techniques like the spirit bomb while a Wizard Monk focuses more on punching and deflecting.. while learning magical techniques such as the Kamehameha.The Blood hunter uses Ki/Magic to imbue their main weapon with magical properties and gets some neat tracking skills.

Humans can mimic the Saiyan’s most common build, the monk/wizard however they also often rely more on sneaky techniques and their agility and finesse. Thus they often are Rogues or rangers. The latter does not need to use sniping techniques but they can.  Humans often have animal companions as they are much more social than Saiyans and unlike Saiyans they often rely on the strength of others to fight with them.  Summoners have an archetype called Synthesis summoner, which basically allows them to fuse with what they summon, which is perfect for Tien’s extra arm technique but you can also think of a Rogue Summoner Yamcha, who is a bandit that can also summon a Ki based Wolf companion.  The possibilities are there to create some very interesting characters here.

The Ruleset


Normal D&D rules are quite complex with stats giving you bonuses to count many feats and other things. Dungeons and Dragon Balls will be a bit simpler. While there will be stats basically everyone starts at 0.  Every player gets 2 specialty points and humans get an extra one. These people can put on their stats which will most likely be something like. Melee, Ranged, Ki/Magic, Charisma,  Intelligence,  Mobility, Mental and Awareness or something.  Players also take a negative point in one department to gain another  specialty in another. 

The D20 dice will be replaced by 7 d6 and the goal is simple. You need to combine two dice to get the number 7. Per time you succeed you get one succes. (Easy tasks require only 1, medium tasks require 2 and hard tasks require 3 pairs). Say you are making a Melee check and roll 6, 6 , 6, ,5 , 4, 4, 1  You can naturally make one pair.  Yet depending on your speciality points you might get to reroll a dice.  Say your Melee is +1  you can reroll one dice of choice in the hope of getting a pair.  In this example you would reroll one of your sixes  or the double four because you can  turn it into a success by rolling either a 1, 2 or 3. Or you reroll that extra six so you can roll the same. However if you have a negative point in this stat the DM can let you reroll a dice, forcing you to reroll your 1 hoping it will turn into either a 6 5 or 4.  If you get 3 pairs in a single get a critical success and if you get 0 pairs in a single throw you get a critical fail.

In this ruleset the DM hardly ever rolls his dice. He decides beforehand if an enemy is either hard, normal or easy to hit. Damage will be a set number but is based on a number of factors that differ per attack.  Attacks like the player can be leveled up  and their level multiplies the damage.  This means you can go through the campaign leveling a single technique as your signature technique ..but if you are out uses you suddenly do no damage, or you choose a few techniques to give you a wider range of possibilities. Regular kicks and punches and weapon attacks  level up with the character level. 

As I said transformations would play a role in the game as well.  Each race .. and I mean every single one .. has transformation states.  Each working a slight bit different than the other.  Ape-Men might get a big damage boost, while Cold People will cause necrotic damage and negate damage reduction (necrotic damage will instantly kill you if a player hits 0 hp by it opposed to having a chance to be healed)  Humans transformed are allowed to reroll their entire dice pool once or  stuff like that.  However in a transformed state all spell uses consume double energy. At the beginning of each game all players will be given a destiny to fulfill.. a cryptic description of lines and if the story checks one of them off the player unlocks their transformation.. or the stage beyond. It will help the DM create stories for every character and make sure everyone has a spotlight in the campaign.

Dragon Ball Fantasy

It would be fun to build the world itself, as there is little to no technology there would not be a dragon radar nor a power scouter. Players would have to find tutors to teach them how to sense energies,  and discover rumors about the Dragon Ball’s locations. Each race in Dragon Ball would come with a number of roleplaying challenges as well.  The Cold-Race not having the ability to feel empathy for example could  make for some very interesting roleplay scenarios. Saiyans’ short temper would make them tricky to use and they transform during a full moon, losing control unless they are druids giving an interesting challenge with travel.  Though they can just prevent looking at the moon, it would allow for a whole lot of fun roleplay wise.

In the ruleset as well as abilities there would be a lot of focus on reducing your own difficulty or for the DM to give you negative dice. For example if you get attacked and the DM specifies targeting your arm you might lose a specialty in strength/melee while getting a death beam through the lung will hinder you from being mobile. In medieval times a broken arm is also not easily healed  so these negative dice can stack up later in dungeons.   There will be healing items like Senzu that heal you but how many penalties do you take before healing them all away?  You can not use them too early nor too late as damage output is relatively high and a character is fairly fragile.  A character needs to be finished off  which requires  a character to have the cruelty ability..or for the knocked out character being the only viable attack target in an area.  Yet overall there is a feeling of stamina… to this world.   Your attacks can run out, you can only take so many hits. Cloth will rip, armor will break.  

To mimic the style of Dragon Ball, armor and armored cloth is perishable. They have temporary hit points and  players can tap into them as a health reserve they can choose to  throw on their clothing.. but once gone the armor is destroyed. This makes resources more valuable.. players have to think .. I am in the wild.. I better take damage to myself rather than my armor because I might find healing items but there will not be armor around. In town armor and clothes will be cheaper than herbs and potions and the likes.  Slug-folks would often be healers but be a bit xenophobes, so while you’d find a namekian in big towns to help the people there, small towns often miss a healer like that. Maijin’s can heal as well but they would charge a larger amount due to their candy addictions. So the world would be quite interesting to flesh out. Demons would make for the best bard, their get a bonus in charisma and often take the more raunchy jobs like working with a brother.. or owning one. Saibamen are mischievous running around loving to blow stuff up.. fairly regularly blowing themselves up as well.

All in all I think it could be a fantastic setting for a D&D style adventure and I might flesh this whole roleplay set out a bit more!  What anime  would you love to see work as a tabletop setting?  Would you play a Dragon Ball tabletop adventure?  What race would you be ? Let me know in the comments! And after some Dragon Ball Zzzzz’s I will be back to answer as well!  Because remember, Friendship is Magic but dreams are even more wonderful. Oyasumi!

Cha-La Bad!! Cha-La : Pissy Princess Pinkie Watches Super Friends

Hear Ye Hear Ye! Princess Pinkie has written a new anime post!

Greetings loyal subjects and guests!   Today I am feeling a bit … pissy!  You see I discovered a new anime that I heard was just like Dragon Ball, and I LOVE Dragon Ball. This one was a Korean Anime.. or how do we call that? If Manga in Korean is Manga is this Animwe then? Not sure! Either way… I watched Super Kid.. or Super Childe or whatever it is called in Korean. It’s …not very good… and the biggest issue. It’s JUST like Dragon Ball. Really much like Dragon Ball! Just done a bit worse! Okay that’s a lie.. it actually does it a lot worse. So join me as I found a product, so forgotten and uncared for that it has been watchable on Youtube for almost 4 years now!

Confusing but Familiar

Not cropped this is actually full Screen

The movie follows a group of powerful warriors named the Super Kids. So already the title of the movie is kinda off because it’s about Super Kids.. with an s at the end… not a Super Kid. Now only half of the Super Kids ARE actually KIDS because there are three grown man  and a rock monster in there.. who also looks kind of adult so of the super kids only 50% is actually a kid.  So this is a movie called Super Kid, because it follows the Super Kids.. and it’s not even a group of Kids.  That’s hell of confusing. To make it EVEN more confusing.. the main character LOOKS like a Kid and he might be THE Super Kid… but he is 199 years old!  My head already hurts!

Gokdari kinda looks familiar

The story starts with a dapper young girl/kid/i dunno named Joo Eun-Joo a scientist.. I mean Journalist working for a big company/news station. When she hears about a scoop .. the Super Kids, are fighting a villain named Cacaruse (I think)  she takes her fancy little flying UFO car to cross path with the Super Kids.. including the young boy Gokdari, their leader. Gokdari is a young fighter of an Alien race, with Spikey hair that changes shape if he is angry! His weapon is a magical staff that has the power to extend…. and contain evil within. So .. it’s not a total copy.. of a similar character. Gokdari wears an orange or Red Gi, with a symbol on the middle, and he can shoot blue energy beams.. as well as grow giant and feral almost like a berserking gorilla…but still looking like himself.

He sure is a Big Boy!

His best friend is called Big Boy, a bald monk boy who isnt as skilled as Gokdari but tries to hang out with him a lot. Then there is Samachi, a slug looking alien, who is green and has the power to extend his limbs very stretchy like..but it is the one character that actually sounds like a kid. Then there is Chao, the desert bandit who wields a large scimitar, who tries to be intimidating but ends up largely being ignored by the group.  Then there is Saint TeolTeol..credited as Grand Priest Tul Tul  who is a bald old man that is like the mentor of the team. A master of sorts. They also have a Pilot because..sometimes they can travel through space on their own but sometimes they can not..so they fly in a giant mecha with golden eyebrows.  Not sure whats that doing in here.. but for a 1994 movie I can’t help but get a feeling I have seen these characters somewhere before?! Hmmm where could that be!

Plot

OC Please don’t steal

The movie ‘s first fight is against Cacaruse or whatever his name is! A space squid who fights alongside his pal Bazooka Joe, and no that is not a joke, the character is actually called Bazooka Joe! He wears shiny armor and a Jetpack and fires big yellow beams out of his bazooka. The group defeats these villains and we discover they aren’t actually heroes. They are Mercenaries. Gokdari won’t hand over the villains to the authorities until he is handed a cash reward. Having proven their worth the heroes are contacted by the police for an even bigger bounty.

Noot Noot Mofos!

The biggest criminal in the universe. Judowgi, a destroyer of planets who transforms! The strongest criminal in the universe. So of course half of the group gets left behind and Rockpile, The Slug Alien , Big Boy and Gokdari travel to the alien planet with the journalist girl on board as a stowaway. As they leave the sunglasses of the police officer shimmer ..so we know he is evil. It turns out he is also an evil space alien wanting the Super Kids to kill his rival… and because he has a rival, an ally of Judowgi .. the blinking warrior named Maoi fights at his side. giving Judowgi teleporting powers… so  they have to travel back to fight this new threat after losing to Judowgi once.

Kamehame-nah!

The fight this guy who has the ability to change his arms into metal weapons.. but once he shown his real form.. he completely loses this ability! The heroes get overpowered.. but win the fight when they discover this villain is afraid of ants. They pull his tendrills and bully him with ends until he loses the will to live and break his spirit.. allowing him to be captured by the magical staff..which seemingly can always suck up enemies but for some reason Gokdari only uses it once enemies are beaten..so I just assume that rule. They travel back through space again.. doing in minutes what originally took them 8 days and now that the rival is defeated.. the ally of Judogi sees the worth of the Super Kids as he beats up Judowgi and rips out the power source of Judowgi’s final form.. which doesn’t weaken him at all of course, but now causes the other form to be his stronger form. By working as a team the kids defeat the big bad and trap him in the staff. Then the group travels back to get their bounty which Gokdari donates to his old orphanage leaving the rest of the group in crippling debt and unpaid bills (not kidding).

Dragon Ball Zzzzzzzzzzz

This movie almost steals as much moves as Goku himself does!

This movie takes a lot of inspiration from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z and when I say a lot of inspiration I mean that it pretty much steals everything about it. While it shuffles some things up almost all elements are there. Blue Energy beams, multi forms, the Mafuba, Powerpole and to an extend even a Dragon Ball.. sure it doesn’t grant wishes but in this world there are orbs of infinite power that people took to be super strong.  The problem with this movie is it doesn’t do very much original things. And when I say not very much I mean… it doesnt do ANYTHING original.. well it does a few things differently.. but all those things , are wrong. For example they choose the “Ash Ketchum” way  of winning a lot of fights. 

Gokdari should team up with Bully McGuire

With the exception for the first fight.. all enemies are defeated by other forces. Like “Ants” or A celestial being intervening with the fight…. even in the first fight, Bazooka Joe gets defeated by his armor falling off  and that other thing loses to his teeth being knocked out!  Because this movie is aimed at kids… we never see a kill.. but we never see a  knockout either. All enemies just are punched until they cry..after which they are bullied more by Gokdari, not a great way to make us enjoy the main character. I am not kidding..every single villain cries before they are finished off, and Gokdari even fires an energy blast in the face of an innocent alien, just because they carried a prisoner .. while not knowing any context. It makes it quite hard to root for him. Which means I find myself uninvested.

No music! But this movie has magical orbs though! That’s original right?!

Now the worst crime this movie manages to pull off is having fight scenes …….without music! That’s right.. not a single not of music is played during any of the fights. Character often don’t even talk so it’s just swish, swoosh, thunk and grr rawwwrr… for minutes on end before characters say another line. I watched the English Dub.. and as you expect.. it’s no good!  When you look up this movie on IMDB you see it gets a 3.6 out of 10 and non of the voice actors have their picture on their imdb page. The good voice actors, such as the camera girl and Gokdari.. sound like bootleg Bulma and Goku.. imitating their english VA’s .. the bad voice acting is flat out annoying. The Piccolo clone thing, has this super squeaky voice that sounds like a carebear doing a Dragon Ball Z spoof.  Judowgi sounds like thatt growly voice a kid would give to their evil figurine.. but then a kid that smoked for 10.000 years.  The evil cop villain alien thing sounds like Janice from Friends.. or Fran Dresher, trying to voice StarScream from transformers. You know you are doing something wrong if I think squeaky voices aren’t cute! So basically this movie looks and sounds awful!

For Not so Super Kids

The Villain’s Final Form.. but also his weaker form..sometimes!

So , so far we have established this movie is confusing, unoriginal, poorly written, poorly animated and poorly voiced, on top of being poorly directed. So this movie is a bigger pile of stink than Unicorn DooDoo..which let me tell you, doesn’t smell of roses or cupcakes either. It doesn’t feel like a love letter to Dragon Ball either… it really feels like someone who doesn’t understand DragonBall… or anime tried to make money out of it.   It has everything kids think is cool right? So this gotta sell?!  They also planned for Super Kid to be a tv show but this movie did so poorly those plans were cancelled fast, and for good reason. There is no passion here… and even a bad product can be good if there is passion. Look at movies like “The Room” or one of those fan made Pokémon games I keep playing. That really lacked for me from this movie .. in everything.. . Even in Uwe Boll’s movies I see some passion…a passion for objectifying women , sure but still a passion. You can tell someone somewhere had fun!  Here.. I don’t think anyone had fun creating this.  I hope I am wrong.. but I can’t escape this feeling.. the fact that this movie has been on YouTube for three years without it being copyright stricken applifies this that no one cares.

Oh right she was there as well

It’s an inoffensive movie that doesn’t drop the ball as much as Uwe Boll did, but it also isn’t as fun to watch. Where the latter’s direction feels like the delusions of a madman here.. there really is nothing. Characters gain powers at random to suit their needs, Rockpile , while entertaining explodes like 20 times in this movie and thus is immortal.. having no consequences and that goes for the entire movie. Stuff just happens. A kid may not notice but even the action isn’t that satisfying.. the hits feel cushioned and soft and I don’t think anyone actually throws a punch in this movie.  So this movie is like a wet matchbook.  It is something that you can say you collected.. but it looks like a cheaper version of that one well known brand matchbook… and other than the collecting value it’s pretty darn useless… and kinda soggy! Maybe it’s fun for kids.. but if it is it certainly would not be for the smart kids.  Perhaps if your kid things your guinea pig or rabbit is a small dog, this might be entertaining.. but this movie certainly won’t entertain Super Kids. Or super many kids at that.

Normally I would ask.. have you seen Super Kid? But I am pretty sure no one has! So instead of sharing my Kofi down below (you can still support me on the side bar on my actual website) I will share with you.. the full Super Kid movie! Tell me how far you made it in before giving up in the comments and we can interact and be friends! First however I need to take a Supernap! Because Remember kids: Friendship is magic but dreaming is even more wonderful! Oyasumi

Pinkie Ponders: How Could Humans Transform in Dragon Ball

I have been pretty bedridden the last couple of days, which let me catch up with some games, tv series, anime and my thoughts… one of these thoughts went to Dragon Ball. I saw a bit about Krillin and wondered.. what would the next level of evolution look like for him. So I decided to let my brain come up with a way humans could transform.. and here is what I came up with.

Step 1: Pinkie’s Guideline for Transformation

So we won’t be doing this!

Now how do I tackle this problem?! Well first of all we need to make the transformation a functional one! Of course I am delving in the realm of fan fiction here but I would not want to turn humans into something they are not. So no giant form, or them suddenly becoming rubber or something. It would also need to do something. I can say humans get a 10x power boost and their hair turns purple and skin  turns pale.. but a 10x power boost will not make any difference and besides that there are possibilities to just use Kaioken for those levels of output. The tricky part here is that we can easily not actually provide a transformation for humans themselves. After all we could just say humans and saiyans are clearly compatible as they can interbreed, we may have the same forefathers and humans have a saiyan-like transformation as well. It would not even be that far fetched. 

No trash Gohan! Best of both worlds Gohan will rock!

This would not really allow humans to stand on their own though. Not only do Saiyans already have a faster base growth, there is also issues like Zenkai boosts, the power boost Saiyans get after they have been defeated. Humans don’t have that so just giving humans a golden form of their own.. would not feel right. Then there also would be the fact that humans getting blond hair and blue eyes and calling themselves a person which has transcended humanity is a bit iffy! Yet neither are the main reasons I opted out of this route! No .. the real reason is Gohan! Well him , Goten and Trunks to be exact. Hybrid Saiyans are made a big deal… However in my eyes the show does very little to establish humanity in Gohan, Goten and Trunks. It is merely reflected in their personality. If we give humans a transformation however.. I want it to be able to coexist with a Super-Saiyan transformation. This will mean that there will be big changes in the story and Goku and Vegeta might just take a back-seat towards the Hybrids later on.

We can’t mess (too much) with the iconic moments!

The third factor I am taking into consideration is that it has to keep humans relevant to the story. During the Saiyan Saga, humans were not relevant.. and only during the Namek Arc did Krillin have a few fights where he would be relevant. After that, it all goes down the drain fast. I do not say humans are weak but clearly they can not top the Saiyans in terms of sheer power. We must find a way to equal the playing ground at least a bit. Of course the series only started to be be transformation heavy on Namek, and I do not want to make the Super Saiyan moment less Iconic.. so transformations have to come after that. Yes.. most likely there will be gold! As golden Frieza is an ultimate form as well I might as well keep the theme up a bit. Either way… it does mean that this power is more or less stumbled upon.. as if a human had extra abilities people were aware off, it would have come up earlier. 

Transformation has to be show in Manga and sell toys!

The fourth and final factor I will need to take into consideration is that this transformation works both in Manga and in Anime, Dragon Ball is a Multi Media franchise after all. So stuff like an eye colour change, or the aura taking a faintly other shape will not be enough we have to make something up that  people can instantly see and go like “oh heck yeah Krillin is using his transformation”  Something that looks badass but also is unique to humans. That was quite a task..but I think I have come up with a great solution, that feels very in line with humans and martial arts alike.

Step 2:  Coming up with “type” of transformation

Clearly Humans would not use Transformations as restraint!

Now to make a unique transformation and keep humans relevant let’s take a look at all the other races that we know that do have transformations and how they work. First of all there are of course the Saiyans, who transform by anger/emotion. The power works as an enhancement. It boosts their power level by several factors, the amount of energy needed and wasted depends on what form they are in.  Then there is the Frieza race, who transforms based on mostly innate talent. The race has access to extreme raw power and the transformations are sealed as it were to keep one from being destroyed by their own power. The transformation works like a metamorphosis and is reached by unleashing power.

Our transformation has to be cooler than that!

The Namekian transformation is lesser known and it literally allows a Namekian to grow. As Namekian’s do “grow” as plants and are genderless this makes sense. It mirrors them well.  Then there are the androids, who in some cases transform.  Cell, Android 13 and Android 21 had access to transformations.. and while all work in slightly different ways, the concept of their transformation is Augmentation. The biggest asset of this transformation is to give them a higher reserve of power.. it is additive transformation. Meaning it is the sum of several parts not the multiplication of one. The Majin transformation basically is exactly the same as that of the Androids, one adds parts to gain that parts strength.

Our transformation ,should probably be less heavy on Trucker Hat!

Saiyans seem to be the allrounders,  that get better at what they already do. The Frieza Race gets more destructive as they transform and the androids, even Cell are slightly more defensively focussed. Android 17 is known for his barriers, but Cell uses these as well, 19 and Gero absorbed energy in a defensive capacity as well. Namekians trough the series from Z onwards mostly work as guides. Piccolo is more so a teacher and a Mentor rather than a fighter. Kami has always been a guide and Dende works as a healer. Majins are a bit of a mirror match fighter idea. While we later also see other transformations like magical girls nearly all of the transformations fall either in the “healer, Fighter or Tank”  archetypes. So with humans I wanted to go with the fourth option… support.  Clearly the show is about Goku, Gohan Vegeta and the likes and that will not change. So for humans to have a transformation it would need to  be one that can help the main characters.. but that also can turn Gohan into an absolute beast of a warrior.

Pokémon is always a good analogy!

How do we do this?! Well Saiyans are a race of Barbarians, a race of soldiers and warriors they grow through fighting. Namekians work like plants, they grow like plants.. so how do humans grow like earthlings? We evolve. We adapt. This adaptability is shown as the factor that keeps humans in the fight. Even in Dragon Ball Super this is shown. Roshi and Krillin perform fairly well as fighters in the tournament of power.. (as well as Tenshinhan)   because they fight smartly. So the human transformation will allow them to do that.. it will allow them to “evolve”. As such it will trigger in situations of near death.. Like a Zenkai boost.. but before the actual injury! If you are about to die or confronted with death you can “evolve” It can be explained as the reason why women can suddenly move steel beams when trying to save their baby from a burning home, and how people escape from near death situations by the sheer will to survive. Darwinism and the will to live triggers this transformation. So it might not be to much of a surprise that the first human we see transform in the series would be Yamcha.

Step 3: How does it Look, How does it work?!

My first Human Transformation!

The transformation will happen during the beginning of the Android Saga, when Dr Gero finds Yamcha and starts draining his life.  We flash back to how Yamcha was killed by  the Saibaman which now instead of a meme will act like a trigger. Yamcha, Grabbed by Gero finds himself in a fairly similar situation.  He is grabbed in a hold and can sense death is coming. However this time his body reacts instinctively. The Dr is draining his Ki but suddenly that Ki begins to take shape. It turns golden and rather than just being a field of energy it takes a shape much closer to Yamcha’s body.. as it forms two extra arms. Golden  translucent arms that Yamcha can move as his own.. and he can fire an energy blast with them?! Yamcha uses this ability to escape, damaging Dr Gero, who now is forced to retreat a bit earlier. Goku catches up sensing Yamcha’s Ki rise and the rest of the story would follow the normal trend for a while.. but a surprised Yamcha stands there with an evolved Ki Aura.

Bodhisattva, the deity of compassion

Humans adapt… and even in D&D or in most other fiction they are always depicted as a race that is good at fitting in.. at adapting to new environments to overcome new dangers.  So since the Ki of other races reacts to their state of being it makes sense that that of a human would be as well. Grounded in the concept of evolution, while it would not evolve the human itself, one skilled enough with Ki to create energy blasts can use their own live energy to evolve their life energy.. to adapt it. These transformations I will base on the Bodhisattva.. the goddess of compassion. The Saiyan transformation has some potential overlap to Chakra and I thought it would be fun to keep a eastern influence to the transformation as well, that works well with the schooling in the Dragon Ball world.  Being the voice of compassion and sympathy these transformations do not focus on raw power but allow a fighter to use his own strength to overcome and adapt.

Tien gets the more boring transformation but Japan doesn’t like Tien anyway!

Later forms could include a third eye, linking back to Tien’s history and his people never fully closing that off, that unlike Ultra Instinct would work more like Tsuna from Hitman’s Reborn Hyper Intuition allowing you to see when blinded, or allowing you to see enemy weaknesses. A third form could be a flaming aura that could punish an enemy from engaging in Melee too much, which once again seems to be a weakness of the humans. Divine Hands, Divine Eye and Divine Fury could later potentially lead into humans adapting it to god ki and potentially Ultra instinct as well.

Gohan using all three human transformations

Best off all.. this would all work on Gohan. When Cell broke his arm when Gohan saved Vegeta from perfect Cell, instead of just learning Super Saiyan 2, he could have learned Divine hands as well..showing Gohan is indeed.. not just like his father he is human as well.. wielding their transformation. Divine Eye he could awaken in his fight with Basil, in the Tournament of Power Exhibition Match. Divine Fury Gohan could learn either during the Buu Arc to shield himself from being absorbed by Majin Buu.. OR during the Tournament of Power when he fights Dyspo.. who mostly relies on Melee attacks.Unlike other transformations, humans can get theirs in random order. Krillin for example would probably Awaken Divine Wrath first, Tien Divine Eye and Yamcha like explained would be the perfect candidate for Divine hands!

Firing one beam and hitting your opponent with in the back with another seems powerful?!

Being able to shoot two beams might not seem very powerful, but Humans have the ability to bend their Ki beams, so shooting two could lead to a pincer attack. A Ki beam is always higher than the power level of the human wielding it as was revealed in several magazines.  A double Masenko fired at the same target might not do much.. but two bending Kamehameha’s striking from the front and back.. would have HUGe benefits.  Looking for a weak spot in an attacking would allow humans to use techniques like the destructo disc or Yamcha spirit ball to be way more precise and effective sealing punches away works great against henchman .. and let’s be honest here, the humans will still be fighting the henchman still!

The fights during the Moro Arc could be super interesting with transformations!

A lot of techniques would have implications during the Moro Arc as well, humans could use Divine Eye to work a bit more in an exposition fashion so Beerus and Whis could actually stick to their principals of not meddling. Divine Wrath can be used to shield against the new Android introduced in that arc and Divine hands can help Gohan use his new shield technique.. while also taking potshots at enemies from behind said shield!  It will keep humans relevant without changing the power levels to much! 

So how would you give humans transformations in Dragon Ball?!  Have you ever thought about it? What did you think about my idea? Let me know in the comments!  Now I am gonna see if I can develop Divine pillows, so I can take the best naps! Shine on my little lights! Oyasumi!

The Charisma of an Anime: Why Pinkie Doesn’t Always Need “Quality”

Why do we like certain Anime? Is it the quality of the animation?! The depth of the story, the characters? I have noticed that quite often I can’t follow the opinion of the crowd. I very much dislike anime like Sword Art Online, Code Geass, Attack on Titan, Death Note and am less enthralled by My Hero Academia and Re: Zero than most. I think all of them are good series in their own way, I also like a lot of anime the public doesn’t think is very good! Mostly childhood classics.. but is that just Nostalgia or is it something else?

<Disclaimer>
This is my personal opinion throughout, even if I decribe them as factual that is only because this is the truth in MY head for me as a person if you prefer to think of it another way, you are not wrong for doing so, nor am I for feeling this way. Multiple opinions can exist and for each and every one of us our opinion is true please respect each others opinions in the comments as well
<End of Disclaimer>

Charisma over Quality?!

If you have read my favourite anime A-Z challenge you know that I do not necessarily favor the BEST anime. I have always preferred the one that speaks to me the most. Sometimes it can be a really low quality anime. I prefer Cardfight Vanguard over Clannad or Code Geass. Now I dislike Geas so that is not saying much..but I still recognise the quality of the latter. It is a good show! It just has no appeal to me! I do think the writing style is pretty bad too.. but I can’t really say I think Cardfight does story better. However Vanguard feels much less pretentious to me. Where Geass aims high and in my opinion strikes out due to some plot events feeling incredibly forced. The card battle anime basically aims to be a commercial. Within their respective parameters I feel the trashier anime of the two exceeds my expectations of what a show like that should be, while Geass to me fumbles in being that high stakes political war game. It doesn’t fail badly but enough for me to be dissapointed.

Each time I tell this a picture of him crying shows up! Such a crybaby!

Compare it to two passengers on a plane. Code Geass is the hot woman sitting next to you and Cardfight Vanguard is a plain mousey looking woman with a baby. You expect the baby to cry and have a hell of a journey, but it is surprisingly quiet. Even though it is still a baby and doesn’t offer much in terms of conversation .. you still think… WOW that was such a sweet child.  Meanwhile the Hot woman next to you yawns and despite being nearly perfect in every way she has one blacked snaggletooth in her mouth. It’s just one tooth and you can probably get over it, yet you can not help but think about that one element that is wrong with it. It’s NOT that I would not date Rotten-Snaggletooth if the rest is good enough don’t get me wrong but as for a general impression one is much more likely to talk about that thing that was not in line with your expectations than the things that are. You could pretend to be the one that would not do that.. but as humans I think we are kind of rigged to spot that one off element.

Every anime has an innate charm. Which can be anything. Sometimes you see this really is a passion project of it’s makers. Like for example the sort of anime Oban Star Racer.  There is this effort in it to present itself well, people clearly wanted to make this, and even if it is not perfect that anime has an amazing vibe to me. You can see the intent to make something unique and something they cared about. Big companies never talk about that in their reviews its just visuals, story sound and usually some fourth metric.Lots of stuff in Dragon Ball isn’t that well written but there is a charm in the way Toriyama forgets things, in the way he cheats things. You see the humanity behind the creator in the series if you pay attention.  You see that through its flaws. 

I might be the Guilty Pleasure Random Girl of Anime?! Oban was Great though!

As such I find Dragon Ball  a much more human product than say My Hero Academia which to me feels much more “mechanically” constructed. It feels as if Dragon Ball really is a story Toriyama wanted to tell versus my MHA being a story that was made because people want to see it. The Mangaka’s most of us know by name aren’t know because of their amazing work.. They are often named with their quirks. Toriyama forgets, Araki has this weird thing with dogs, Miuara put some people on a boat for a few years to play with Idol-Girl-Games. It brings humanity to the manga and anime medium.  This also explains my draw towards the weirder shows it is a story  a person  really wanted to tell. Then take Geass again for example where Mecha’s were added to the story to make it cooler, while not a thing in the early manga and you can see that the anime is not a passion product of one person. It is that vision of a person of a person, shifted by a marketing department and maybe a think-tank on how to sell it to the public. While it has all it’s flaws polished out.. it lost a bit of personality or charisma if you will.

The Classics

It is no secret that I really like Dragon Ball and all it’s series. I love Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh and even Beyblade and Medabots. I like Zoids New Century, Yu Yu Hakusho, heck I had a lot of fun with Shaman King as well.  While plenty of us love at least one show in this list, much less would put them in their favourite list. They are too silly. they have too simple plotlines or haven’t aged well. Yet if we take a look over the internet.. millions of people are still talking about the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, analysing Dragon Ball or doing Sailor Moon fan content. Now there are a few newer big anime who get this too..but it’s still on a smaller scale. Re Zero and My Hero being the most noticeable exceptions. Yet there is a difference. My Hero is less quirky then those old shows.. no pun intended. Back in the early days there was much more ambiguity on how a power worked, less was explained about the world.

Plus Ultra! You don’t need Magazines to understand HIS power!

 Did you know for example that it took until Dragon Ball Z Kakarot to explain why the King of Central City is a dog?! Why do there live animal people?!  Techniques were forgotten, more loopholes to get around problems were needed.. and then the fans came together and tried to find explanations to it.  To this day people still try to polish the mistakes out of Dragon Ball with weird theories! We do that to certain games or western series as well. Is it all due to nostalgia?! No! That would blind us to a lot of their mistakes but we are aware of them! We just have grown to love them DESPITE these flaws. The modern modus operandi however seems to really nitpick the shows that we love and even go as far as drop them and shun them for having one character that portrays a gender or race in a less than adequate way.
It’s easier for me as well.. because I don’t feel like I am demeaning Horikoshi’s work when I say My Hero is something I think makes a few wrong choices… it’s more sterile. 

Modern anime have so many benefits that it makes them objectively better. They have the internet  to easily look up what happened before, they have fans point out a flaw so it can be retconned immediately. Yet because this happened in anime.. and media in general for that matter feels much more like a team effort. It does no longer feel like it came from the pen of a single man or woman. Teams are often very big and we get a joined effort that is always increasing in quality!  I really think anime is getting consistently better over time. At least objectively! Stories make more sense, animation has less and less flaws.. (at least in a situation where corporate doesn’t force people to use cheaper studios..but cheaping out is a whole other problem) but because of it. .that airplane is more and more filled with “generic” people. With a whole team monitoring who gets on board you get less weirdo’s. So no tranquil baby and no Snaggletooth woman. Maybe a woman with a slightly loose tooth and a baby that cries at a less annoying pitch..but they now fulfill much more their intended roles.. everything is as it should be .. but does it really have to be?!

While it might seem like a critique on big names only it is not.  Isekai Cheat Magician, Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two Hit Multi Target Attack and Uzaki Chan wants to hang out are for me deeply flawed products. But their main gripe is the same. They are boring and generic.  They lack a passion. They are made for the audience as such if they offer you what you seek they can still be a hit with people. Yet once they stop providing that they die out quickly.  Dragon Ball Z and One Piece might have tricks in them for cash and to sell more figurines but they are also MORE than just that. Märchen Mädchen that I watched recently was also more. It’s not just what fans one.. it’s a love letter to classic stories but also an awareness on how poorly they aged. The author was in there.. somewhere!

I don’t understand why this screenshot is so popular! But Welcome new viewers!

You will always remember your first kiss. You will always remember your first anime. What defines a classic to you is also up to your age. To some Naruto is a classic.To me.. it is a transition period. For everyone that golden point will shift. Too many people much younger than me Naruto may already be that cheesey flawed product that Dragon Ball was to me. Something they love despite what they see as flaws.. as Anime become objectively better and better and more mainstream accessible.. much more tools are being used, sales are being measured so precisely, polls on the internet, fan magazines whatever.. no matter when you start anime, in a few years that gateway of yours will show some cracks and you will learn to appreciate them I think. 

It creates a much stronger love for anime for me at least than a series that just is good. Would I use the visuals, music and story metrics to measure what I think about all the anime I watch? I would be much more positive about most anime At least if I compare it to the quality I need, not so much if I compare everything to the 10/10/10’s out there. Yet to me they often  lack the charisma Sailor Moon has. When I hear that poor quality transformation music I become genuinely happy. Even the quiet shrill sounding opening song bestows me with so much more emotions. Even though the Soundtrack of MHA is vastly superior to Moon’s.. the highs I can reach with Moon are much higher than with the more recent anime. I do love  You Say Run a lot and rock out to it, but I like it because it IS good. I am not sure if the Sailor Moon transformation song IS good..but I love it for it’s personality! That retro vibe, the over usage, I don’t like it because it is good. I like it because it is the Sailor Moon transformation theme. Somehow that love feels purer to me.Less earned maybe.. but that makes it more intoxicating.

Even as a Duth girl THIS is my drug!

It’s all relative

This is a weird kind of love, though as it has zero base in objectivity. There are people like me who love Dragon Ball.. but I can’t tell a random anime fan I love Dragon Ball and expect to be understood. When you love something despite of its flaws you really need someone who loves it as well to get that. Goku’s Japanese voice actor for example gets a lot of flack from the Dub loving people.  “He sounds like a kid that is so stupid”. No he does not sound LIKE anything, he sounds like Japanese Goku.. that is the voice of Goku. I find Japanese Goku to be more versatile than Sean Schemmel. Still, Sean Schemmel is also the voice of Goku. There is nothing wrong with him…well that might be pushing it.. there is nothing wrong with his voice acting. However, to explain why Goku works in Japanese..  you gotta like Goku in japanese ..because it is one of those things. My love for the Digimon universe is much the same. The new show really does show me how poorly the first run did on storytelling.. but it doesn’t make me love it less. It just makes me glad I now get a good story in addition to that and makes me enjoy both even more. Yet to understand that.. you really have to love Digimon like me. 

I can safely walk up to someone and say “You Go Run goes with everything” and a random animefan probably will go heck yeah! If I walk up to a random guy or gal at a convention and tell them I genuinely love Digimon, they have a much bigger chance to be weirded out. It is because all guides on blogging or journalism tell us to be objective. To write objective reviews. It made us believe anime can objectively be bad. It made us afraid to love something that isn’t well reviewed. It allows us to unify behind a single vision or at least with confidence step up to someone and say! Hey the visuals for this anime are stellar! Yet in the process we lose something.. the ineffable part of loving something. When I fall in love with a girl it is never because she has pretty eyes or a nice rack. It’s not because she has a great personality either because otherwise I would fall in love with all of my friends and most of you too! It’s not because of her voice or clothing choice either.. It is that hidden factor , something unspeakable, something that can not be put into words. It can only be stated. It can only be understood by peers who fell for that girl before.

Awww crabcakes! Okay bring forth the evil exes! *Cracks Knuckles*

Let’s say that girl I fall in love with is an anime… Let’s say she is also on the plane I used earlier, because why not! I see her much more in the past. If she is Digimon she might tell me some weird stories or maybe she is built a bit awkwardly.  If she is Dragon Ball , she might not be the prettiest and has a bit of a weird voice.The girl is out in the open though.. not hiding displaying her flaw for me to see and acknowledge.  If she is a modern anime…she is wearing the make-up that got the best rating.. We now know what tests best. She is a pretty smooth talker because she saw a youtube video on how to talk to strangers. As we now know so much more about properly fleshing out dialogue and there are bigger teams who proof read stuff. She wears the most popular clothes as found on review sites. All in all in her modern form the girl is a lot more marketable and she will find someone who will like her , heck it still could be me.  Yet I have to look much deeper to see her true self beyond that stuff everyone wants. I will like her faster because she is wearing a pretty as heck mask that I can deeply enjoy! However it would take me much longer to fall in love, because for that I have to see behind the mask. I am not saying it doesn’t happen but it will take me longer to fall in love.

 So my plane experience has shifted. From an uncomfy ride with one or two people who rock my world I now found myself in a plane full of pretty and acceptable people..I have a much more pleasant flight but by the time I take off next season I will have forgotten most of the pretty people… while that girl I saw 20 years ago is still haunting my  mind. She had her quirks.. but she wasn’t there for me.. she was there for her! That is a charisma I like to see in everything I love. If we only judge and measure objectively at one time that experience might fade away. For now it’s fine.. in general it’s as simple as switching over to a smaller airline and taking some risks. Just remember that if you review something it’s okay to look at quality.. but look at the charisma sometimes. It might not be as useful to the people reading your review but I do think it would be healthy in the long run!

Heck even in Airplanes they get THAT seat

I really hope I have not offended you guys or that you think I am super shallow now! In the end we all like what we like! If you came here for objective reviews , I might have shot myself in the foot! Because you will not be getting those! I am just a pink avatar, telling you what I personally like and what I don’t like! Speaking of what I like! I would really appreciate it if you support my Kofi by clicking on the link below! Or if you can’t spare or want to part with the money leave a comment below! I really appreciate you all in every way you support this blog! So while I might not approve of your favourite anime! I approve of all of you!

The Saiyan Rebels: What if Raditz Turned Good 5

Hello Island Guest and welcome back to my fifth part of this alternate reality story set inside the Dragon Ball Z universe. In this timeline we take inspiration from a Bardock who did not see Frieza’s decimation of the planet Vegeta through a vision but from common sense. Like the Bardock we saw in the Broly movie! This resulted in Raditz hating the galactic tyrant more and always doubting the story of the Meteor. More focussed on taking down the Tyrant Raditz was much more aware of the legend of Super Saiyan’s and seeing Gohan’s Potential turned him into a believer! Now he just wants to stop Frieza and his men and free the galaxy and return saiyan pride.

In the last Episode we saw the battles against Nappa and Vegeta unfold. While the Z-Fighters were much more potent.. since Gohan trained with Raditz and Goku at King Kai’s and Snake way.. Piccolo never softens up! When he downed Nappa in his fight, he wanted to kill.. going against the wishes of Raditz and Goku. Tien and Yamcha fought him off..but an unexpected Powerball from Vegeta caused the downed Nappa to turn into a Great Ape that totally lost control!  Killing Piccolo and Tien. Chiaotzu blew himself up to sever Nappa’s tail. In the fight against Vegeta, Goku pretended to lose to trigger Gohan’s power boost and he discovered False Super Saiyan. Vegeta lost the battle.. but his pride prevented him from joining the team. Only leaving the group with a regretful Nappa and No More Dragon Balls.

You can check Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 here.  This part will be a bit different. With a bit  more explanation on how the story would change rather than act it out.  Most what if’s I follow tend to go into the bigger lines and this way we can cover events more quickly.

Team Namek

In this version of events Goku is not as wounded as he was before. The most wounded person on the team was Gohan and Raditz thought he was the one to gain Super Saiyan. While Gohan did not learn Kaioken unlike his father and uncle Gohan did manage to dabble in the spirit bomb technique. Though in his case it would more be a shield as he lacks the strength to toss it around.  He can just put the energy of others in between him and his enemies. As a result though everyone is much more comfortable training Gohan a bit.
Him displaying signs of something near Super Saiyan god makes them believe the legends are true. As per usual the idea of going to Namek arises but since all the Saiyans want to travel with Gohan.. the Namekian ship is not used. Instead everyone will go on Goku’s ship but without the long recovery time.  So they are going to arrive on Namek early. 

The team that will be going is Raditz, Nappa, Goku and Gohan as for the Saiyans. Yamcha Krillin and Bulma will also come. Yamcha is still alive and saw his friends die trying to save him and Bulma is there in case something goes wrong with the Ship. Saiyans can be rough after all. This ship is much speedier than the Namekian one.. but everyone starts training immediately.  Except for Bulma who stays in an area with less gravity which she also designed. Yamcha and Krillin have issues with the gravity training as they are the only ones who haven’t trained at King Kai’s or are used to the heavier gravity. Surprisingly Nappa takes onto mentoring these two giving the others who are stronger than him a chance to move ahead. However since Nappa easily was the most wounded of them all, even on death’s door he actually caught up to Goku and Raditz. With a power level of 7000 before training starts. Gohan is also in that area now.. probably a little below.. but he already is close to unlocking Super Saiyan as he experienced False Super Saiyan. Which is a non canon form ..but here we use it as a non complete Super Saiyan. While Goku, Raditz and Gohan train and go all out.

Nappa whips the earthlings into shape. Sometimes even using some of his beloved Saibamen.Sometimes Raditz alternates with Nappa so Nappa can train with the main group as Raditz tries to teach the humans Kaioken. Probably a much better teacher than Goku would be if he actually manages to make Krillin and Yamcha learn Kaioken x2, it’s not much but it is a whole lot better than what they got before. Raditz, feeling he was not pure hearted enough skipped training with the Spirit Bomb at King Kai’s and focussed more on Kaioken so he is actually more proficient at it than Goku. He should be able to teach this at least a bit. Now the one who actually comes out ahead here is actually Gohan. Raditz is convinced that this Hybrid Saiyan is the actual person who shall become a Super Saiyan and  that means training is very focussed on making the young boy the most powerful. In the end this results in Gohan surpassing everyone, but also meaning that Goku arrives on Namek a fair bit weaker than in the original story. So here are our Power Levels

1. Gohan: 25.000 instead of 1500
2. Goku 22,000 instead of 90.000
3. Raditz 21.000 instead of 1200 at time of death
4. Nappa 15.000 instead of 4000 at time of death
5. Krillin at 10.000 instead of 1500
6. Yamcha at 8000 instead of 1480
Goku really missed out on his intense Zenkai and worked to pass on the torch to Gohan. Yet Combined  the group already is almost stronger than the group during the Ginyu bit of the arc.. and this time EVERYONE except for Gohan, even Nappa knows at least a bit of Kaioken. With that the group lands on Namek

Dodoria and Zarbon

The group ends up on Namek around the same time as they did in the original timeline. A little while earlier but not by much  It took Bulma a bit to finish the ship but it is much faster than the Namekian one so the group arrives only a smidge earlier. Which means Frieza’s forces have already begun to invade the planet. Yet there aren’t any Namekian Fatalities yet, the Frieza force is only just preparing.  The atmosphere is completely different though. Instead of fear for some intense power levels the only one that is TOO high for the group is actually Frieza. Nappa and Raditz tell them that Ki comes from Frieza but many of his troops are attacking villages. Everyone wants to help the villages so they all scatter about. But right before they do they detect Vegeta’s power as well. He is almost as strong as Gohan so he might be trouble. The group wants to lay low so their Ki can’t flare up to much! “Do NOT use Kaioken,” said  Raditz. His father’s tactical mindset always shines through in the man.  As the group goes to rescue the Namekians we get a few interesting matchups.

We get a fight between Raditz and Vegeta, because Raditz wants to convince the prince to join their side still, Nappa versus Dodoria and Gohan versus Zarbon. In the fight against Raditz versus Vegeta both fight on fairly equal ground. However it seems Vegeta’s heart isn’t fully in the fight.. when he was in that healing Pod.. he thought about that kid that overpowered him a lot. That change… could he truly be a Super Saiyan?!  Would his pride prevent him from defeating Frieza? Vegeta might be prideful but throughout the show he also has a few moments he realises he has been wrong.. and if the boy can achieve that form maybe he can learn it as well. He will eventually surpass them again.. after all he is the prince of all Saiyans. However Vegeta being Vegeta shows he is more powerful than Raditz. Not fully releasing Raditz has Kaioken he takes a cheap shot and blows a hole in Raditz… one he can recover from.. but  as punishment for talking down to him. 


Nappa has trouble taking down Dodoria without Kaioken. While he is at a respectable 15.000 Dodoria is at 22.000 and is still a bit much for him. As he is about to be beaten however behind him he hears the words “Wolf Fang Fist” and Dodoria who isn’t that aware of his Surroundings get Winded.  Together Nappa and Yamcha fight the pink brute and with Yamcha using his pesky Spirit Ball he is able to annoy Dodoria enough that Nappa can land a killing blow with his Bomber DX. The fight of Gohan against Zarbon however doesn’t go as planned. Obviously Gohan should be the one to go after their strongest fighter.. and Nappa and Raditz showed they had no idea about repressing Ki and so it is safe to assume all these fighters are at their maximum potential. Unfortunately for Gohan.. Zarbon had his second form and he was overwhelmed taking a serious beating. Zarbon’s Beautiful form is already at 24.000 so in his ugly form unfortunately he is strong enough to defeat Gohan. Sensing this Krillin and Goku rush over, having one their fights fairly easily.

Goku sees no other option as to go into Kaioken to save his son as fast as possible! Having bonded so much more with Gohan over this past year and a bit , unlike in the original timeline Goku’s love and understanding of his son has exponentially grown. This Gohan being allowed to be a fighter.. by Raditz bluntness silencing Chichi. This means the two actually are that much closer. Briefly while Goku flies over there his Red Kaioken aura flares up golden and his hair seems to shift colour.. not that golden brown Gohan got.. but a more golden tint.. however it briefly fades away. Using Kaioken x3 Goku is easily able to defeat Zarbon but Gohan is very injured. He might be fading. A Young Namekian steps up and says he might know someone who can help. He introduces himself as Dende and urges them to follow him to a man named Guru.

Potential Unlocked.. and an Early Wish?

Since the earth team now consists out of six fighters and everyone has won their fight.. they all have a Dragon Ball, Dende carrying the one Zarbon had.  Detecting the final Dragon Ball at Guru’s place the other earth fighters show up there as well. Including Vegeta. Vegeta says they should wish for immortality but is quickly shut down by Goku. The wish shall be used to bring back everyone on earth so the Dragon Balls return hopefully they can ask to not bring Piccolo back as he went evil. Vegeta scoffs but thinks two sets of Dragon Balls are better than one, the namekian of earth could always grant them a wish from a distance if need be.
At Guru’s place , Guru does offer them the final Dragon Ball..as a reward for saving all his people.. Guru is much healthier in this timeline. He also has a gift for those who came from Earth. Vegeta makes trouble for not being granted this reward but Guru tells him he is not worthy. While all the others fought to protect he fought to destroy. Guru promises Vegeta however that if he shows he can be pure of heart he will unlock his potential later. He does not seem like a lost cause. Vegeta reluctantly agrees.. but tells that if the old man dies he will blow the planet up. Guru simply says that this  shows why Vegeta is not ready yet.

Everyone else including Bulma and Dende have their potential unlocked. With Bulma becoming even more technical and smart than she already was and Dende unlocking his healing. Upon hearing this Vegeta gets an idea and checks out the powerful Namekian named  Nail asking him for all out spar. Lying that he fought Frieza before and that he might be able to tell if Nail can face the man. The Namekian humors him, aided by Vegeta explaining he might be able to get strength from this fight as well. Vegeta that is.

The boost the other fighters get is enormous. Their power completely skyrockets to incredible levels.  With both Gohan and Goku having tapped into new forms their potential is incredible and the boost received reflects that.  Gohan went from 1500 to 10.000 after his unlock before so that is an 8x modifier. This version of Gohan should even receive a bit more due his tapping into False Super Saiyan in my earlier part.  Thus him and Goku would now almost be around a power level of 200.000. Nappa gets the least potential boost of them all. Not having the purest heart and being a bit old he only gets a 4x multiplier. Making him the weakest on the team with a power level of 60.000  Krillin and Yamcha end up with a power level of around 70.000 ..frustrating Nappa immensely. Raditz would get the classic 8ish times multiplier and would end up at around 160.000 in terms of power level. Most of them are strong enough to even defeat Ginyu but still no match for Frieza.

But there is more , all the Dragon Balls are in place so the group now can make their wishes Guru says. “Wait Wishes?” Gohan would ask the man. He would indeed explain there are three of them. Two more than on earth! That is amazing!  Unfortunately it is soon revealed that they can only bring one person back at a time with this Dragon Ball. They ask if Kami can be restored without Piccolo. Porunga says he can not do that. The two are one, their lives are linked. This spells trouble for the group as there is no one left to defend earth. Then Nail gets an idea and he asks if the Dragon can fuse him with another Namekian if he mentions their name. This the Dragon CAN do. So he suggests to wish Kami and Piccolo back and for their second wish to fuse Piccolo into him. He will be able to help them fight Frieza better. The group thinks about this and it is a great way to seal Piccolo for good and it might even sever Kami from the life link.. or bound someone much stronger and pure hearted to him at the very least. So the group makes these two wishes. Piccolo is restored from HIFL but with a final scream his consciousness is absorbed into Nail. For the Final wish Vegeta coins immortality again, Raditz considers wishing for a way for Princess Snake to be able to walk on Earth.. the two hit it off earlier but then gets an idea. Maybe they can ask Porunga more about Super Saiyan.  On how to achieve it?!  But how do they phrase it.. maybe it’s not exactly like in the legend and using the wrong name will waste a wish. So he thinks for a moment then asks Porunga to tell them more about forms they can unlock to kill Frieza.


Porunga says that he sees three ways.  One is the single Namekian that is actually many, the other is the gold form of Saiyan Rage.. Super Saiyan..and if Five Pure Hearted Saiyans channel their power into a sixth they can defeat Frieza with the Power of Super Saiyan God!
After this the Dragon Balls Scatter across the planet and become inert. An enraged Frieza called the Ginyu Force and is heading towards the Namekian Village.  Everyone is dumbstruck. Super Saiyan God?!  But they are one Saiyan short.. it seems hopeless. However can they go into this rage and unlock Super Saiyan without losing anyone?! They do not want casualties. Darn it!

They feel Frieza’s power level drawing in closer and while Nail might be enough to face him now.. Dodoria told Nappa about his other forms during their fight. It all seems in vain. Everyone is frustrated! It’s not enough!  Frieza’s first form power level is 540.000, it will take their strongest three to even stand a chance against that form. Who knows how powerful his other forms are. Then Vegeta breaks the silence. “Kakarot.. can you communicate with the green dork on earth?’. Goku says he can not but he might be able to relay a message via King Kai.  “Tell him to gather Earth’s Dragon Balls, I got an idea”. Goku says they are NOT gonna wish for Immortality. Vegeta shakes his head. “No.. that ritual.. “ Gohan points out they are a saiyan short and they are the only Saiyans left alive and the Dragon Ball’s cant bring back Saiyans that have been long dead. Vegeta shakes his head again. “We might not be the last of the Saiyans… there just might be ONE more’

And that is where our story ends this time!  Since this group has been aiming for Super Saiyan since the beginning and gathered the Dragon Balls much easier due to how powerful they had become, they might have stumbled upon a form that was not made up yet during the time the saga originally ran. However with Raditz being cautious as his personality even was in the official series, it seems plausible the form would come up. Do you know what Saiyan Vegeta is talking about?!  What will happen next.. and how would Ginyu react to a body with its potential unlocked? Find out next time!

What if Raditz Turned Good Chapter 4

Last Time On Dragon Ball Pinkie! Raditz Goku and Gohan got ready to fight the evil Saiyans but  Piccolo faced Nappa instead!  Using Tien’s Multi Form Technique to defeat the brute-ish Saiyan.Hitting him with his Special Beam cannon! However Piccolo now out for blood wants to ends the Saiyans life..while Yamcha Tien and Chiaotzu stand in his way the namekian decided to finally take his revenge upon Goku by doing away his friends!  Meanwhile Goku and Vegeta are facing off against each other but by some strange reason Goku is unable activate his Kaioken! As Vegeta’s Galick Gun moves towards the man to finish him off cries of agony emerge from Gohan as suddenly his eyes go white and his hair takes on a brownish tint.. as his Ki swirls in rapidly in a slightly golden glow!

Welcome To What if Raditz Turned Good! The story where Raditz is based on his father as establish in the Broly Movie, not psychic but very aware of how Frieza is as person.. bestowing this feeling of mistrust on his eldest son, Gohan’s potential made him think.. this might be the legendary super Saiyan of old legends! Trying to convince the evil saiyans to join them in their fight against Frieza he hatched a plan to convince these Saiyans of their worth! But will it be enough now that Goku seems in Mortal Danger.. find out more in today’s episode!  The earlier episodes you can find at the end of the post!

‘LEAVE MY DADDY ALONE!’ shouts Gohan who in an instant is next to Vegeta.. pounding his head into his back in a very similar fashion that  he had tackled Raditz with. Vegeta not expecting this and trying to finish of Kakarot gets send to the ground his attack missing Goku, but blowing up the mountain the Saiyan was sent towards. Goku just smiles and slowly floats towards Krillin asking for a Senzu Bean.  Meanwhile Vegeta regains his senses as he straightened himself out just before he can hit the ground “what the” he asks before a kick to his jaw sends him flying up again.  Gohan moves up with him, staring at him with empty white eye .. slightly more standing up hair and a golden aura.. making his hair get a brown copperish blow as it reflect the golden light. With some trouble Vegeta activates his scouter.  The power level he sees reaches over 50.000 closer to 60.0000 nearly 3 times stronger than Vegeta is in his current form! A kick in the stomach then makes him cough violently as he crashes in the earth before he can even realise what happened. 

“This is it.. the kid is a Super Saiyan” says Raditz staring at Gohan who lands on the ground not saying anything. “What was that again” Goku asks. “You really are your mother’s son Kakarot’ Raditz scoffs. Gohan still stands there menacingly but seems to be more in control of himself now that he notices his father is safe. “D-..Dad”  he utters with some slurred speech. The sound of rocks disturbs the silence Vegeta gets up. “A Super Saiyan… the son of the son of a low class warrior.. and not even a full blooded saiyan.. stronger than me?! … The prince of all Saiyans? Don’t make me laugh Raditz’. ‘Vegeta you know what my father told me.. with this kid we stand a chance against Frieza’ . The prince looks at the boy and scoffs , then he looks at Raditz. “Your father was nothing but confused trash… would he really believe in the legend’ . Raditz  looks sternly at the prince and gestures to the boy to move closer to Vegeta. Gohan instantly is in vegeta’s face, his hands stretched in the position of a double sunday. Vegeta stands up and looks at the kid but ignores him.. seeing through the idle threat.

“This kid can barely take down the weakest member of the Ginyu force.. and he has much more technique than this kid” Vegeta does a feign attack allowing him to land a kick on Gohan. He then uses his power up state to move to Raditz.. who in this underpowered form got caught by surprise as Vegeta pulls his tail and fires a Ki Blast at it. ‘Still.. the Pauper.. I see’ says Vegeta while smirking and holding his hand in a certain position. Raditz recovering from the crippling pain freezes as he realises what is about to happen. He might have just doomed them all.How could he have been such a fool! Of course the prince would be this blinded by pride! He could not accept a kid as his superior! Raditz closes his eyes as he hears Vegeta usher the words “Burst open and Mix”

Meanwhile Piccolo cruely smiles as he dashes towards the trio of Yamcha , Chiaotzu and Tien.  He knows their weaknesses.  Now that they have chosen to deny his kill, and without Gohan turning him more on the path of good, he is without mercy. Without a second of doubt in his mind he fires an Evil Blast towards the little emperor , which  as he expected gets caught by Tien. Who immediately looks worse for wear. Yamcha is storming in.. but Piccolo knows the man is very focussed on Melee attacks, he simply stretches his legs and kicks Yamcha hard to the ground. Creating a crater upon impact. He dodges Chiaotzu Dodon Ray.  Tien looks at Chiaotzu and nods at him. “Buddy tag out of this fight.. me and Yamcha got this” . The little emperor objects but as she sees Piccolo grin menacingly he agrees.  “Please Don’t die Tien”  the little guy says before flying off.  Piccolo aims an attack at the little guy but gets  Solar Flared by Tien. The man’s famous and very copied blinding technique!

The Namekian takes a defensive position expecting a follow up attack from the triclops but instead behind him he hears the words Wolf Fang Fist. As he is violently launched towards Tien who then slams him down to the  ground by two interlocking fits and slamming on the Namekian as if it was a hammer. ‘We knew we could not trust you’  Tien says. ‘We were prepared that you would betray us.. I just did not think you would stoop as low as killing a harmless target or Goku’s friends’ The Namekian grins a bit ‘I might have trained you a bit to well, but if you think  I did not plan for a scenario like this you are sorely mistaken’.  The nameking vanishes appearing behind Tien twisting his arms all across him using him as a meat shield while holding his hand towards his head charging energy into his two fingers. Yamcha readies himself as suddenly Piccolo’s eyes go wide and look up and a giant shadow is cast over Yamcha.

“Burst open and Mix” with these words Vegeta’s attack creates a moon like ball in the heavens and he begins to transform into his great ape state.  He is not the only one though, False Super Saiyan God Kid Gohan transforms into a great Ape as well.. the Ki from that thing is immense.. though not nearly as immense as Raditz had expected. His power level would actually be lower barely higher than his False Super Saiyan God level.. now 150.000. Only an about 2x modifier compared to the boost to 180.000 that Vegeta got The incomplete super saiyan transformation being dispelled due to the great ape transformation instead.
“Hubris Raditz… you see.. Kakarot’s son.. is nothing compared to me now” says the great ape saiyan prince while Gohan just pounds his chest and fires a mouth blast.  ‘Brother.. use that technique King Kai thought you.., I shall keep the prince distracted, bald man give me one of those beans’  Raditz says while activating his Kaioken x4 and power up to full.  Krillin hands him a senzu bean somewhat reluctantly and sees the uncle dash towards his now rampaging nephew.. but he is not the only rampaging Saiyan.

Nappa while unconcious was still subject to the Great Ape transformation, however in his knocked out state, there is no way the bald saiyan would stay in control. Weakened by his wound the power level of this great ape is still around 20.000 more than enough to swat the measly 3000 of Tien and 4000 of Piccolo. Beginning to charge up a mouth blast Piccolo knows he  is in trouble. With his arms all tangled across Tien he has nowhere to go.  retracting his arm would take to long. Especially since his other arm is already has so much of his energy in the special beam cannon. He bitterly smirks as he wraps his legs more around Tien to prevent him from escaping. This would have to do, he aims his special beam cannon at Yamcha.. but Piccolo and Tien are evaporated before the attack is even fired.  Yamcha can only look in horror, barely even realising what just happened. When a shadow is cast over him and a giant foot is about to crush him.. he hears “look out Yamcha” as Chiaotzu comes flying in his face covered in tears.  ‘Chiaotzu… I am not sure if we are strong enough to survive this.. this may be it buddy’  Yamcha says to the little pale faced man.  Chiaotzu shakes his head! Keep the earth safe Yamcha! Chiaotzu says as the little guy flies directly towards the sluggish great up.. almost seeing to hug the tail.  The little man tells his final goodbyes and blows up.. managing to successfully sever the feral apes tail.  As Nappa reverts to his normal form and falls unconscious again  Yamcha looks at the smoking piles of earths..where his friends just stood a minute ago. 

Raditz at Kaioken x4 has a power level of around 24.000, nowhere near enough to seriously make a stand against Vegeta who was almost 9x as strong. but if he could draw the  great ape boy close enough to him.. they might have a chance. Using his speed to dodge the attacks of  feral ape Gohan he draws berserking animal closer  and closer to the sentient one.  Just before he is close to Vegeta though the man is snatched up by the great ape princes and smashed into the floor, as Raditz coughs up blood, a stomp is send his way. A stomp that gets blocked by a great ape Gohan tackling great Ape Vegeta. The Oozaru duke it out for a while but eventually Vegeta manages to grapple Gohan’s Tail and rip it off, hurling the kid into a mountain bringing him to the brink of death. Both Raditz and Gohan are down for the count when Vegeta suddenly notices a bright blue light behind him. Goku is there holding his spirit bomb tossing it at Vegeta.. having fully recovered due toone of Krillin’s Senzu beans this spirit bomb unlike the original does not miss. Knocking out the great Ape Prince.

“Hey Buddy would you mind helping out”  he says to Krillin who actually manages to finish the weakened Vegeta  by cutting his tail of with a destructo disk.  The wounded Vegeta tries to crawl back to his pod and Krillin tries to stop him. “Let him go little buddy’ Goku says to Krillin. ‘That one is not ready to join us yet.. but I have a feeling he will come around’. Krillin looks at Goku and says ‘But Goku surely he will inform his master this Frieza guy off us’. Goku shakes his head as Vegeta enters the pod ‘I don’t think he will.. he just has to led go of that pride before her can realise that himself’.  Goku nods. In Vegeta he sees much of himself.. if Master Roshi had not taught him humility all those years ago. Since he found out he was a Saiyan..he discovered more why he was the way he was himself. Based on this fight.. they had not defeated him yet.. he would never come around! He knew that! To win his loyalty they had to prove they were truly stronger. Maybe the other Saiyan Piccolo defeated earlier could…. Goku’s heart stopped a beat. He could not sense the power level of anyone but Yamcha! What happened there! He was sure he felt the saiyan’s power level go down before! It was then that Goku realised his brothers plan had a fatal mistake.

A few days later the survivors had gathered at Capsule Corp the mood was glum. Raditz blamed himself for not phatomming the level of Vegeta’s arrogance. While the prince was not stupid and does accept a higher power level if he is confronted with it.. although begrudgingly.. the fact that a six year old kid outpowered him was to much for the prince’s ego to handle.  His brain would find any way to deny this.. and rightfully so. Gohan’s battle techniques were sloppy and his mind weak. Vegeta.. being the great tactician he is exploited that weakness and as a result Tien Chiaotzu and the Dragon Balls were gone.  Nappa had been recovering in at Capsule Corp and now showed the first signs of awakening. He was no threat to them, a recovered Goku and Raditz now had a power level of around 8000 for Raditz and 10.000 for Goku respectively. Gohan having gained the biggest boost up until 3000.  With no Dragon Balls around, Raditz failsafe plan went up into smoke. When Picollo died Kami also faded away and so did the Dragon Balls.

The group would however find Nappa to be unexpectedly co-operative. Having seen the kid double in power level over just a fews day and having been abandoned by Vegeta the Saiyan does see reason in Raditz words. As a hencheman to the King and later the prince Nappa saw the tension between King Cold his son and their former King. Somewhere Nappa knows Vegeta always treated him like a minion and to an extend that was what he was. He never minded as long as he had to wreck stuff. In a way he had become a slave.. not once but twice over. To both Frieza and Vegeta.. that was not the Saiyan way.. however these guys.. this new Raditz.. want to treat him like an important ally. They healed him up, some of them gave their lives to keep him safe.. as they felt he was needed for the battles to come! He was important for once . Nappa was sick of being treated as the footwipe of so many people. Wanting to be stronger he says he will help them fight Frieza.. if they will help him get beat up that sad sack of a Vegeta who left him here all by himself. Raditz agrees and tells that they have to find another time to beat humility in Vegeta. He still recognised they needed all the help they could get against Frieza even that blasted prince. In an attempt on how to save their friends the group reaches the same conclusion as in the original. They can use the Namekian Dragon Balls to save everyone..except for Piccolo if possible. Once back on earth they could use the Earth Dragon Balls to find out more about the Super Saiyan.. as what Gohan displayed it earlier.. was not that thing described in legends.

Goku, Raditz Gohan, Nappa, Yamcha Krillin and Bulma all want to go on this trip. All for their own reasons! Nappa while not completely trusted either.. as he blew up the city earlier and he still doesn’t care about that is apologetic for killing “the Triclops and that funny little clown guy’ Had he killed them himself he would not have apologised but doing something like this in a feral great ape state felt.. dishonourable and unsaiyan like. That was not a proper win!  Surprisingly Yamcha is the one who turns out to be the most forgiving. He too started out on a bad path.. but Goku saw more in him and brought out the best in him. In Tien heck even Raditz who had now proven himself. Yamcha saw this the most of everyone. The Namekian spaceship of Kami was suggested as their means of transportation..but Goku asks Bulma to make an addition “I want to be able to train better it.. like on King Kai’s planet you know.. with the gravity’.

How shall the trip to Namek go?! How will the story change now that Piccolo will stay in HIFL. What will Vegeta do now that he found out about this super powerful Hybrid Saiyan and can Nappa really be trusted? Find out next time on Dragon Ball Pinkie!

Poké Ball Z?! Pinkie Reviews: Dragon Ball Z Team Training

My sweet Island guests! Hi how are you doing today?! Hope you are well! Two of the fandoms I am most active in is Pokémon and Dragon Ball, so when you get the chance to play a rom hack that combines these two things are bound to be good. Time to evolve to a Super Trainer and use Explosion on a wild Yamcha as we venture into Dragon Ball Z team training!

<Editting Pinkie Here! What Bad Luck I lost my own images! I posted them in a wrong place and now I can no longer acces them so while the images you see will not be of my journey! I can assure you I definitely finished the game!>

Dr Brief introduced my female trainer Pinkie to the wonderful world of Dragon Ball, in this world I have to train up powerful fighters and make my ways across gyms all across the land so I can prove my worth as a fighter trainer and eventually I can take on the four Kais. It’s a journey that will take you through locations such as Mount Paozu , Namek, The Red Ribbon Army Base and Makyo City.

Yet before I can venture out into this , slightly,  Dragon Ball themed world I have to pick my starter first.  We get the choice out of Goku, Vegeta and Adult Gohan. All can evolve multiple times. With Gohan being able to go Super Saiyan and Ultimate, Vegeta being able to go Super Saiyan and Majin Vegeta and Goku being able to go Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan 3.  However End game all can go beyond, with everyone learning super Saiyan God and even Super Saiyan Blue.. and Goku being able to go Ultra Instinct as well. Goku also is able to go Golden Oozaru and Super Saiyan 4 and if you pick Goku you can also catch a Vegeta later on and can fuse them together.  Goku gets a tiny bit more love than the other two ..but hey  that’s how the show does it as well!

I picked up Goku…as I really wanted to make him go Ultra Instinct.. mostly because I wanted to see how ridiculous his stats would be!  I did not give him a nickname because… well I kinda feel bad giving these characters nicknames as they have their own names so ..I decided to go nickname-less. If I had chosen to go nicknames I would have made silly ones…like naming Piccolo Eggplamber or something! Still I had a serious job..defeating the four Kais.  So I grabbed  hand full of capsules and began tossing them on Krillin and Piccolo  as I build myself a team of canonical good guys! Choosing that route proved to be a mistake. 

Dragon Ball Z has always been about transformations, stronger opponents and bigger challenges, this is reflected in the game as well.

Perfect Cell at level 30 has way higher stats than Lvl 30 Final Form Frieza. Lvl 20 Super Saiyan Goten is stronger than Lvl 20 Yamcha, by a fair margin. This makes the game get it’s unique feeling.. your team is always changing. Krillin is quite good to have until level 25 or so but after that he becomes utterly useless as even the wild encounters you meet will have better stats. My level 22 second form Frieza had better stats than my level 31 Krillin. Some characters are exceptions to this, for example Piccolo stays fairly relevant throughout the game in terms of power, he can match with the non legendary characters. Not being that much weaker than Perfect Cell or even Kid Buu. 

He does however..get in trouble later on because he does not learn any good new moves. The third gym lets you fight the androids (Cell is the fourth gym)  so around the low level 30’s Piccolo learns Hellzone Grenade and after that.. nothing really.  Capsule Moves  you find can help.. but overall .. Dragon Ball Z Team training focuses on advancing getting better stuff rather than making stuff work.. so it plays quite a bit different from regular pokemon. It’s a change I hated at first, but later came to appreciate. It is willing to move away from Pokémon to be more Dragon Ball, not the Dragon Ball Hero stuff either.. where suddenly characters all become hyper powerful.. no it follows the Z story..if a character stops being relevant in the story it kinda becomes less relevant as a game character as well. That does make this game a bit grind heavy though…and for the first time ever in a Pokémon game.. I had to use 3 legendaries plus two characters who have near Legendary stats in order to win against the Kais.  You always have to be aware of more powerful creates and you have to make that swap. (Well unless you like grinding into insanity.. but still your better of improving) 

This does mean the game is not as tactical, rather it’s a bit of a resource management like game. Finding fighters with good stats or move pools, searching for fusing items and good techniques and the best way to do this is to know stuff about Dragon Ball Z. You’ll want to pick fighters that evolve and how do you know people evolve? By having watched the series but also the extra content. Super Saiyan Bardock is a thing, but you can also transform him , Raditz or Nappa into an Oozaru using a Moonstone. You can catch a Trunks and Goten and fuse them together into a Gotenks and yes you can even make Gogeta or Vegito. If you do not know about these though, you’ll never guess the Fusion combinations because there are well over 100 fighters in the game. If you do not know Frieza is stronger than Aqua or if you don’t know Bunyon and Giran are just from Dragon Ball , you will struggle to know what is good on your team. So If you are a  just a Pokémon Fan, wanting to play a interesting Rom Hack this isn’t for you. If you are a Dragon Ball fan who knows nothing about Pokémon but just want more content..this game has a few quirks and issues as well. So this game is only for fans of both. It’s literally a fusion!

While on the surface combining these two ideas can still result in a rather interesting game, this Rom Hack doesn’t really pull it off for me.

Mostly due to its poor balancing. There are only a few types that really matter in the game, being Fire, Fighting, Steel and Dark.  Ice , Grass and Electric are in there as well as a few rock and Psychic type moves but it’s extremely sparingly.  Officially typing matchup should have remained the same.. but I don’t think quadruple damage is a thing..or maybe it’s only quadruple damage that is a thing.. I can’t figure this out. Hitting Frieza who is a Dark Ice type with a fighting  type move is super effective, while hitting him with a Kamehameha is effective normally. I can not just forget the old typing system and since it does still refer to the old typing system this is something I seem unable to master. Fire not super effective against Ice? I just don’t get it.. Electric still beats water, fighting beats dark. Who knows! 

As a result I just end up doing “something” spam powerful attacks, 90% of the moves are fire of fighting type moves anyway.  This feeling is enlarged by the fact that the game is mostly based on the Japanese version of Dragon Ball Z. What I mean by this is that we for example do not get Android 18 but instead C-18..as in the original they are referred to as cyborgs or just numbers. That isn’t a bad thing but it might leave you scratching your head if your a dub kid. What IS a problem for Dub-people is that all the techniques are phonetic Japanese as well. So  Special Beam Cannon is Makankosappo, Solar Flare is Taiyoken, After images is Zanzoken and the Spirit Bomb is the Genkidama. I love the sub and I know the techniques by those names but if you are one of those Dub is better folks, you’ll wonder what techniques are which.. and since half of the charm this game is recognisability of all the characters and such I can see that being an issues for you! There still is plenty there and once you get used to it , it will be fine but I can imagine how this would not feel as YOUR Dragon Ball… so  this is a a game for fans of both Dragon Ball and Pokémon but mostly catered to those that watch subs?! That’s a specific niche right there.

While that did not effect me I felt it did needed to be said, what did bother me however is how poor the artwork can be at times. While I do use techniques for my content very similar to these.. like using pre-existing assets wherever possible this game really uses a lot of different styles. Most character sprites come from games like Dragon Ball Z Super Sonic Warriors, but Bunyon’s sprite is from Dragon Ball Advanced Adventures, while some sprites like general Red are made by the team itself. As a result it can feel a bit hotchpotchy.  Goku base form for example is a very thick outlined sprite and when he evolves he goes into his Super Sonic Warrior Sprite, while Gohan and Vegeta  already use earlier sprites from the get go. It just takes a bit of consistency out and makes some evolutions feel REALLY disappointing.The same can be said for the order towns are laid out in, while we do progress throughout the story , Pewter City is Saiyan Saga, Into Cerulean being the Namek Saga, into  The Android saga.. we suddenly get Makyo town after that which is Garlic Jr’s story…which takes place before the Android saga.. I do not mind persé that stuff is out of order.. but I have a bit of trouble with doing  both in AND out or order it makes the game feel needlessly sloppy.

Since this game is a Romhack the map is exactly the same as it was in Kanto.. just buildings have replaced sprites , like Mount Paozu having capsule homes and Namek having green water and blue grass.

Yet in its core the game is still the exact same game as it was in Kanto, the official Pokémon game however explained way better where to go to next. If you do not know, this game can have you search a bit.  Some buildings and locations HAVE been replaced however, for example both “rocket hideouts” are  now in the same town. Capsule Corps and the Game Corner are both in Gingertown, While Satan City now has the developer building. The way to the Power Plant is also different. So since it is so familiar but randomly tosses stuff around , it can also be a bit confusing to fans. It’s a shame  the game choose for this half and half route as I like that some things are different but treading familiar ground for 90% of the adventure makes those 10% a bit frustrating. I actually do love to explore, but when something is so familiar with for like the majority of the game.. .Either I find myself disappointed they did not do more stuff like that.. or I search around aimlessly as they chose to change one trivial thing.

The game would also have been more fun if they chose a story slightly more Akin to fighters where not everyone can use their full abilities so the playing field could be more even. I at first struggled big time during the pokémon league. Everyone around their level 50’s  gets so little Power Point in moves that you burn out in no time and the level hike was quite large. I was seriously underleveled by the end.. but since every Kai had something like A Krillin or a Zarbon 2 in their team I just send out Shenron, let him boost up his attack  since weak characters can barely damage it, heal up and sweep a team. This also worked if I used Broly, or Frieza or whoever had a setup technique. Everyone has that one weak fighter that completely unbalanced any fight. It was nice that some technique was required for the final part.. but it felt more like an exploit and not that excited.

I was going to play the post game and get myself a Ultra Instinct Goku but the post game is locked behind having to have caught 60 fighters. Since most of them are so useless, I did not particularly bother with catching so I had just so many work left to do that I just gave up. Dragon Ball Z Team Training is not a bad game, it’s just a crazy little Dragon Ball experience but the system is to unbalanced and fighters are too useless to sell me on the collecting aspect. In the end these two franchises do not mix very well.  I had my fun exploring the world, I had an enjoyable time but I would have had a better time playing either pokémon OR Dragon Ball Super Sonic Warriors. In the end I’d compare it to a Peep Box.. it’s fun to stare at it for a while wondering where everything goes and discovering the scene but if you stare at it long you notice some things are cut out a bit iffy and there isn’t that much going on. Fun to experience  but in the end what you get is only paper thin. It’s fun to recognise things but not particularly fun to play.

The Verdict!

I had some good times time with this game but mostly in the first half the second half got quite frustrating having to substitute my entire time all the time, also I do not really know who this game is for.. it really asks some knowledge of Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon to play.. and in terms of Dragon Ball the sub specifically. Do you know of a Rom Hack or Fan Game I should play next? From now on once per 4 weeks I shall review a Pokémon fan game! You can help me determine what is next! Thank you for reading and if you like my content and would happen to have some funds you do not know what to do with..consider supporting me on Ko-Fi and join Camp Coconut!

Pinkie’s : What If Raditz Turned Good Part 3

Last Time on Dragon Ball Pinkie!

After seeing Gohan’s potential and see his power level go up several hundred times Raditz though he might be the one to set them free from their tyrant and switched sides to the Z-Fighter. Knowing he could not convince his Saiyan fellows who were coming to earth after his betrayal he Goku and Gohan travelled Snake Way to investigate rumors about a large power boosting technique called the Kaio-Ken. Finding a beautiful woman named Princess Snake, after a short scuffle Raditz swore to her to find a way for her to walk on earth! After which they proceeded to train with King Kai.. ..overcome by the sheer gravity Gohan kept getting rage boosts which scared King Kai away from teaching him his fabled technique! While Raditz and Goku mastered it.. they knew the evil saiyans were drawing ever closer.. would these new techniques be enough to deal with these monsters? Find out today! …Or check out part 1 or part 2 right here!

It is the day that Kami has told everyone the Saiyans will arrive, with everybody being much more powerful as in the original, all having better sparring partners, Yamcha Krillin  and Tien training under Piccolo, and Gohan training with his father and Uncle. Raditz plan to ask Bulma to gather the Dragon Balls is also well under way. In this version of the story we use the 2018 Broly movie version of Bardock.. and the man had passed his distrust of Frieza onto his son.  Raditz always had suspicions Frieza was behind the destruction of planet Vegeta and using the earth Dragon Balls he sought to proof this to Vegeta and Nappa should he fail to convince them Gohan is the “chosen one”… which was fairly likely because of Vegeta’s ego. Gohan however was much more powerful in this timeline! Much more like his father and his uncle. He’d be around the same power level he would be when he first set foot on Namek around 1500. Plan A was to convince Vegeta , Gohan might be the legendary Super Saiyan, Plan B was to use the Dragon Balls to convince Vegeta to join them to fight Frieza.

Call it a back up plan in case his original plan failed.. if that second plan failed he would beat Vegeta himself by force using his new Kaioken technique. Yet he had a riskier plan for today one that Goku and  most of the other Z-Fighters were aware off. They were skeptical but if that would lead the conflict to be resolved without bloodshed they would give it a try. In this timeline Raditz was not yet completely trusted and this plan but that trust on edge but he did offer them a lot of information that was confirmed by either Kami or King Kai. Besides Raditz was much more powerful than them…better not risk him turning on them again by shutting him out. The only one who seemed to disagree was Piccolo who seemed more eager to just kill these Saiyans and fight Frieza by themselves. His demeanor was a lot more cold and cruel than in the orginal timeline.

The landing of the Saiyans on earth happens about the same way as in the anime. Including Nappa destroying a fair chunk of a city using his Volcano Explosion. While the Z-Fighters would have the power to prevent such a tragedy now, they lack the ability to determine where the saiyans land, so the plan to gather all the strongest power levels in the wasteland was chosen. Then the saiyans meet up with the group in the wastelands to do battle, however this time around Vegeta is much less patient to have Nappa do his thing first.. because of the traitor now joining the Z-Fighters. “Well well well, leave it to the low class Warrior to abandon his prince and conspire against me with this filth” Vegeta spouts towards Raditz, while checking out everybody’s power level.”Heh! You haven’t improved at all… Nappa humiliate them with those stupid thing of yours” 

He prompts Nappa into using is Saibaman as Yamcha steps up he gets taken in a hold by a Saibaman who then glows white!  A bright white explosion covers the sight and Vegeta snickers “One down” ..however when the smoke clears.. Yamcha is standing there..unharmed.. Vegeta scans his power level again and reacts shocked. “Three..Three thousand?” “His Power level  wasn’t even half that a minute ago”.. Suddenly Vegeta’s scouter goes haywire as Krillin, Tien, Piccolo, Chiaotzu and even Gohan power up and the Saibaman quickly fall, in a style that is similar to how Gohan dispatched the Cell Juniors. Yamcha even disposes of an extra Saibaman for good measure when Nappa uses another one for him..thinking the first one might have been defective. Of course this green guy gets his own crater! Since.. we do love the Yamcha meme!

“Vegeta what the heck Happend.. these guys where nobodies right?”  The big bald Saiyan looks confused. “Shut up Nappa, they just tricked us.. these Power levels are nothing to fear still.. take care of them , I’ll take the traitor and his brother”. While Nappa prepares to fight the Z-Fighters Piccolo shoos them away telling them he will take care of this fighter alone. Not having trained with Gohan means he had not learned compassion so he is harsher, less friendly, he still plans to defeat Goku, who he unfortunately can not stop right now, he still wants to proof he is still relevant though and a force to be reckoned with so he decides to face Nappa by himself. He must get stronger to get his revenge. Having trainer with stronger allies though he is now about equal his level as Nappa.

While the bald saiyan and Piccolo begin to prepare for combat Raditz beckons Gohan over. Gohan I want you to pay close attention to this next fight okay? Your father is going to beat the prince of all saiyans it will be a historic moment in our people’s history. Vegeta pops a vein in anger telling Raditz he should not underestimate him and that he can take them both on Raditz just grins and tells Goku will be more than enough to stop Vegeta.  As they fly off he yells to Krillin.. Shrimp.. you should come with us. The man gulps and follows as they fly to the exact spot where Goku fought Vegeta before.  The clash between Nappa and Piccolo begins while they travel.

Vegeta’s bodyguard  talks down on the Namekian a lot as the latter circles around Nappa, trying to see if speed is enough to get past his defences. However, while Piccolo is a clever fighter, Nappa still has way more experience than the Namekian which puts them on an even more playing field. Any advantages Piccolo might have, like his stretching arms , his speed and various techniques are negated by Nappa knowing about Namekians and having fought people who were faster than him before. By stomping the ground he creates obstructions which Piccolo can’t pass.

Still the bald man begins to get slightly frustrated as while Piccolo can’t lay a proper strike on him.. neither can he on the Namekian. This Namekian isn’t playing for fun either.. his gaze is set with an intent to kill. Luckily Nappa knows a technique Raditz father developed, something that would allow him to blow the Namekian away completly.. yet the bald man wanted to try if he could beat the green guy like this. For a moment he considered firing a Mouth Blast at the little emperor the weakest of the group.. to see if the Namekian would save him…but then he stared into those cold eyes and he knew.. he had to win the fight on his terms.

Piccolo however still had that technique the one he planned to use on Goku. While it had a big downside.. Piccolo had since developed a way to deal with that downside.  Tien was an expert of the Multiform and After Image techniques. Plenty of Z-Fighters are actually quite adapt in the latter and he had also learned the Solar Flare. He would proceed to use the latter. Not Only Nappa would be blinded , every fighter would go blind for a moment and as Nappa cried out ina shout of pain and frustration he began to wildly shoot some blasts and bow around with his arms to keep his foe at a distance.  When he finally regained sight the Namekian would be standing a few meters away from him..touching his forhead. A bit of sweat appeared on his head..”Darn still not fast enough”. Nappa grinned and yelled I got you now! As his Bomber DX was hurled at Piccolo, the man locked into his technique was unable to dodge.. and suddenly Piccolo was gone nothing remaining but smoke! “

Yes I did it I beat the Namekian!” Hah.. Whose next Earthlings I’ll Kill you all.. I will start with the little make up sissy bo……….” Nappa’s words suddenly got interrupted as a pink, purple and yellow spirally beam pierced his chest. Piccolo stood behind him.. at about half his power level… his special Beam Cannon creating a big wound in the Saiyan.  Having used Tien’s copy technique to create a double.. to keep the Saiyan oaf distracted for long enough worked and now he had won. All he had to do know was finish his opponent. He readed his nails ready to tear out Nappa’s throat when Yamcha and Tien stood in his way. No Piccolo! Goku’s brother told us we needed these people in the fight against this emperor character, you won!  Piccolo pushes him away. “Shut up , we do not need these guys.. they can not be trusted.. let Goku and his brother do with their price what they want! I am going to kill mine and you shall not stop me! Yamcha stepped in as well did the little Emperor.

“We will not allow you to do this Piccolo” The namekian looked at them coldly.. “I know your techniques way better than you know mine… I can crush you all if I’d want to.. starting with the weakest one’ He stands at them looking menacing. ‘Our enemies should be exterminated.. Goku’s ways are weak.. one day he will be defeated and at this rate it will cost the earth.. I shall not allow it!’ Picollo takes a combat stance as the three Z-fighters get ready. Tien yells to Chiao Tzu ‘Get out of here, me and Yamcha can take him’. The little guy flies off and Piccolo allows him to do so. A cruel smirk appears on his face. ‘I wanted to kill Goku for revenge.. I guess destroying his friends will have to do for now’

Meanwhile Goku and Vegeta began to face off, but something seems very off. Goku while landing a few blows on Vegeta isn’t using Kaioken at all. He yelled the technique name once but seemed to realise nothing is happening. He managed to do it on King Kai’s planet so why could he not do it here?! Something was very very wrong. Raditz tries to turn on his Kaioken on but is unable to do so either. “Tsssk, that blue idiot , he gave us a no good technique’. Raditz wants to jump into the fight but gets dismissed by Goku. ‘No Brother keep Gohan safe, if he is the key to the future he is more important than I am right now…if things go wrong you can always use the Dragon Balls to bring me back!’ Vegeta gut punches him..causing Goku to cough up some blood. ‘When I am done with you there shall be nothing left to bring back’  the prince says hurling the saiyan man away.

Krillin wants to rush in too but gets stopped by Raditz. ‘Don’t be a fool! If you die we can’t bring you back!… We need to come up with a plan.. we need to figure out why we can’t use this technique.. Kakarot is the strongest of us.. so he is the only one that can buy  us time.’ Krillin stops.. reluctantly, he knows Raditz is right, as things are now he can not make a difference. If anyone can find a way around this situation it’s Goku.  Gohan, Raditz and Krillin stare in horror what happens next. Goku gets slammed into a mountain and Vegeta flies up. Goku seeming dazed or knocked out isn’t responsive and just stuck in the rock. Vegeta gets surrounded by a purplish pink white energy as he yells the world Galick.. the beginning of a devastating beam attack begins to form as Gohan yells in anguish.. Vegeta yells GUN and a huge wave of energy is sent towards Goku.

Why isn’t the Kaioken working? Can Goku be Saved?! Will the Z-Fighters be able to keep Nappa safe from the now hostile Piccolo? How will the fight go from now?! What is that mysterious aura Pinkie photoshopped around Gohan! Find out in the next episode of Dragon Ball Pinkie!

Pinkie’s “What If Raditz Turned Good” Chapter 1

It is no secret anymore that I am a huge Dragon Ball fan. I consume just about everything that is covered with those fish egg coloured wishing orbs. This includes the amazing Dragon Ball Z Abridged and the stories of that goku’s voice actor Masoko X. He made a great point telling us Goku’s brother Raditz was completely wasted in the show and wrote a story to keep him in the fold. It is an amazing story that has given me so much joy that I decided to give this scenario a retelling of my own.

The Power of Memories

The story of Dragon Ball Z would begin much like it would in the original. We would see the iconic farmer with the shotgun scene and Goku and Raditz first meeting at Kame house would also go exactly the same. Well… not exactly the same. There is one difference. In the recent Broly movie we see Raditz speaking about his little brother. While dismissive there is some sort of empathy there.. it’s not much.. a kindle at best but seeing the crying Gohan would briefly spark a memory in Raditz.. a memory of his crying brother with a power level of 2.

This memory on it’s own would not do much and Raditz doesn’t show this emotion towards the group but when he takes Gohan away and flies off into the distance he can be seen frowning. Remembering how his little brother was send off moments before his planet was  destroyed. He always had doubts about the meteor story since Bardock.. in the new cannon is shown to have his own doubts about Frieza. It is more than likely he would have shared these with his son. He can not prove it.. but he always felt there was more to this story. Seeing his race now live on in the form of this hybrids those doubts begin to gnaw at him once more. However since Frieza is such an insurmountable force, he quickly dismisses the thoughts as a figment of his imagination. Yet he is slightly less rough in the way he locks Gohan into his pod.

The Double Battle Against Raditz

Back at Kame House Goku and Piccolo unite to fight this high powered menace that has suddenly shown up. They would move forward towards his pods location and the fight would proceed as usual with Raditz dominating the fight. However everything would change when Gohan suddenly gets his rage boost.”Leave My Daddy alone” he would yell as his power skyrockets, headbutting Raditz and breaking his armor. In the original this would lead to Goku being able to grab his tail and Raditz into deceiving him.. this time the young boy has changed his mind.

“What was that” he asked cringing with his tale still held into a grapple”. Tricking Goku in the original by feigning compliance this time, this time Raditz actually calms down and grows cooperative. The power surge that just happend, could that perhaps solve his people’s bigger problems? Could this boy be the key to their freedom? Raditz never fully believed this story, in this timeline and we see actual proof in the main story. While Vegeta is shocked to learn the truth..he really deals with it within seconds.. as if somewhere he already knew. That alongside his hertigage makes me think such an action from Raditz has some merrit to it.

Lore and Legends

The older Saiyan would surrender to Goku, crushing his scouter before he begins to explain. That he and the other two and last remaining Saiyans work for a galactic tyrant named Frieza. While Piccolo is mistrusting of the man and wants to kill him he is stopped by Goku who takes interest in this tale. The idea of fighting someone that mighty.. that is stronger than anyone in this world facinates the man who’s motivations has always to be strong fighters. Raditz tells Piccolo that he could easily stop them with their power level.. if he wished. Saying his mistrust is foolish Namekian. We get some lore on the Saiyans and of the Namekians as well..but his story would mostly be about how terrible Frieza is how regardless of the outcome of this fight this man will eventually enslave everyone. Yet then he brings up.. a certain legend.

Raditz does believe that the Saiyans one day will take down Frieza, he spent a lot of time with Vegeta after all.. putting him in place as low class warrior. While initially Vegeta claims the legend of the Super Saiyan to be nothing but a legend, he is very familiar with i and connects it from basically nothing. Gohan displayed a surge of uncontrollable rage power right there. Having much more connection to the myth. As the son of Bardock.. a proud Saiyan who was very skilled at employing what is available to you and versed in Saiyan Lore.. Raditz should be able to connect the dots. This time he does. Explaining how the power of that young boy might be connected to Legendary Super Saiyan.

A plan for all Saiyans

Goku initially gets super excited about the idea of there being such strong fighters in the galaxy and how his son could be key to a new sort of power accesible to his “race” that he just discovered about. Piccolo snaps some sense into him telling Goku this man is asking Goku to put his son at a terrible risk. Goku gets scared and cries out “Chichi is gonna kill us”

Raditz frowns and asks “What is A Chichi, my scouter said you are the two highest power levels” Goku begins to explain and we see come cutaways how they met and got married. A small clipshow to make viewers aware there was a show before this. Raditz tells Goku he would blow anyone away who stands in the way of stopping Frieza. Goku simply says.. “no no.. we don’t do that around here… we might just need the Dragon Balls to convince her…. oh whoops”

Raditz learns about the Dragon Balls immediately recognizing their potential and has another request a wish that might be able to stop the Saiyans , who of course are still coming. His first plan is to show them Gohan’s potential.. or discover what technique he used to raise his power THAT much. iF they are not able to get strong enough these wishing orbs could proof that Frieza is behind the destruction of Planet Vegeta.. which could most likely convince Vegeta to fight against the tyrant. Who is about 10 times stronger than him. The Tyrant Frieza surpasses that guy by at least 50 times.

Convincing Chichi

Goku and his brother now have to convince Chichi to let Gohan train with them which goes about as well as expected. “What about his studies? Our boy should be a doctor, under no circumstances Gohan can go.. you are not putting our boy in danger”  While Goku gets all nervous at Chichi’s behaviour Raditz is much less intimidated. He is used to verbal abuse and people talking trash. He’ll have non of it.

He begins with telling her how Saiyans raise their kids.. explaining she can’t suppress his nature. She defends with how training is not something for a young boy to do. Raditz counters “My Brother just told me he met you while training, if you or he had not been fighters Gohan would not even haf existed’. This reminds Chichi of her “warrior” days and weakens her resolve.

Raditz tells about all the terrible things he has done in Frieza’s name.. not sparing any details. She can not let that happen to her Gohan. Raditz embalishes a bit.. saying that someone with as much potential as Gohan will never be save from a man like that.. if he doesn’t train this planet will most likely be destroyed. In truth .. he only suspects this to be remotely true but anything to further his cause. He also reluctantly tells her that the prince of their entire race would owe Gohan, giving it just enough prestige to make it more appealing to Chichi.

“He can train but only if you let him do his homework, he needs a proper job when he grows up’. “I bet Prince Vegeta will reward you so handsomely for your help you, your son or his son’s son would not have to worry about money ever again. Raditz smirks as he just screwed Vegeta over with such a propmiss. Somewhat reluctantly..but this time permanently Chichi accepts her sons heritage and grand future. While I get the over protective mother sentiment, the whole world of Dragon Ball resolves around fighting and she was raised into it to an extent. So it should be way easier to convince Chichi than Goku made it.. especially this early on. Raditz numerical approach would help greatly.

Training and new Techniques

Meanwhile Piccolo takes it upon himself to train up the other Z-Fighters In true Toriyama style they get relegated to the background , quite a bit faster this time though training under Piccolo will give them quite a level boost when it comes before the epic showdown. Piccolo would also get a lot stronger from his training with stronger fighters than Gohan. Yet it would also mean that Piccolo hasn’t fully abandoned his plan to kill Goku with the Special Beam Cannon yet.. if this Frieza is emperor of the galaxy and they could get strong enough to defeat him.. by killing the people who killed him he might be able to rule the galaxy himself. ..A thought reminiscent of his father.. that he now can not shake as well as before. Turning him into a rather merciless trainer.. only improving the Z-Fighters gains further.

Training at Kami like normally first Gohan keeps being very afraid of Raditz hindering their training when Kami has an idea. Using the same sort technique he once used on the Z-Fighters in a filler episode to let them fight against Saiyans of the past he uses this same strategy on Gohan, Goku and Raditz. Hoping that seeing the seriousness  of all will make Gohan get over his fear. Much like in the original the group the scenario is basically an unwinnable one. Unlike in the original this illusion is made   more in the vain of the Kobayashi Maru scenario from Star Trek where a captain has to  learn how to cope with that fear of certain defeat.

However this goes not as Kami and the others would have expected. While Raditz gets taken out first he does manage to seriously damage the fake historic saiyans. Gohan paralyzed with fear sees his father taken down while trying to protect Gohan he manages to take down Scarface . Shorty then cruelly  guns down a weakened Goku with a beam technique. This causes Gohan to snap again.. his power rising to new levels taking out the second saiyan. Breaking out the illusion Kami walks in surprised that they actually won. Raditz inquires about Gohan’s power boost  againg. Praticing Kii sense himself. Kami is unsure what Gohan’s rage boost is as well.. but as Raditz describes it as Gohan’s power level multiplying many times over the old Namekian says  he might know of a power like that.

Raditz scolds at the man for being so mysterious and that he should speak up. Kami ensures him that learning it would be quite impossible as they would have to travel to King Yemma and beyond which is normally only accesible if you are dead. “Goku blurts out that if Babba can cross people over from the dead to the world of the living the other way might be possible as well, they could ask this King Yemma to be there longer train. Kami sighs and says ‘Very well.. I shall tell you.. it is a technique called the Kaio-Ken’

And this is where  our story ends for now. A young boy with mysterious powers, recruits an ally stronger than ever before..but also might spell doom for the entire planet. Will Goku and his family be allowed to train in the after life? Will Raditz be able to convince the evil saiyans? What will become of Piccolo? FInd out the next time on :

Dragon Ball Pinkie!

Pinkie’s Guilty Movie “Pleasures”: Dragonball Evolution

What do you get when you combine Power Rangers, Avatar the Last Airbender, Karate Kid and a whole lot of “teenage” hormones? Well Dragon Ball of course! Not just any regular Dragon Ball either but.. their EVOLUTION!

Dragonball

Sometimes movies can be so bad they are good. This is not exactly one of THOSE movies.  This movie does something else, this movie is so aggressively unfaithful to its source material, this movie is such a trainwreck that it is just fascinating to watch. It’s like an enigma. How could things have gotten so wrong? It’s so bad they even spell Dragon Ball wrong. That’s two different words! Not one… even though spelling it as one word does make a lot more sense. It still is not correct. So when you are already misspelling the title you know you are in for a treat.

Within the first five minutes, which include still images like opening titles and production studio logos there are six major inconsistencies to mythos. Ozaaru is a demon, Piccolo’s backstory is different, using Ki is called airbending, Goku is seventeen, Goku has trouble with learning Ki… uhm I mean air bending the Mafubaa is now something completely unrelated to everything else.  Luckily this is Dragonball and not Dragon Ball.. so that is okay… right? 

Next we see Goku as your typical teen, that feels more akin to Sam Rami’s  take on Peter Parker than the character we know and love. Now obviously this movie can’t  be cast with a six year old kid or something as it would simply not work out. During the Piccolo arc, which obviously is not the first in the anime, thus timewise this makes no sense either,  Goku was a bit older… but sure I can forgive this choice from a logistical perspective.  Filming this with a child actor would be tedious and would not work nearly as well as it could in animated form. I wonder if Justin Chatwin was the right pick for an 18 year old boy because clearly he is much older…fine.  The whole whitewashing Goku thing is nonsensical because he is an alien, he could be about any ethnicity.. of course in this movie he is just hell spawn.. so I guess a white straight cisgender privileged male makes about as much sense as anything else in this movie.

Dawsons Creek

After our first fight which involves grandpa Gohan swallowing a fly to a cartoon sound effect we move onto Goku’s  highschool live. The girl he likes is with this Chad guy played by an actor named Texas Battle.. now that is a Badass name and sounds like an assistant to All Might. Yet no.. in this movie he is a guy who randomly picks on Goku because…looking like Justin Chatwin makes you a wimp? It is never explained.  Now in class we get an exposition scene about an eclipse happening in two weeks and in the most pedantic the teacher tries to teach the school what an eclipse is as the movie tries to force us backstory down the troat by having a half asleep Goku claims that his grandpa believes  it is the sign that the Nameks will use to destroy the world.

Now I know this movie is not Dragon Ball.. its Dragonball but in the original source material Piccolo Junior (the Piccolo we know in the series) and Kami do not find out they are aliens until Dragon Ball Z, which allows for a whole lot of mysticism. Now this might not seem to bad but this leads to a chain reaction. Since Oozaru , a demon spawned from the earth  serves Piccolo they already do not feel connected in this story.. why would demons and aliens work together. Is it because old Piccolo’s nickname is Demon King Piccolo?! That was a title he chose because he did not know who he was! Why make him King of Demon’s while he is an alien.. those two do not connect well.  It also kiled the concept of Super Saiyan from the get go… even before they knew this movie would not get sequals.. If Nameks are aliens they would know of Saiyans and not call them demons…. also a person from Namek is not called a Namek… it’s a Namekian! I am beginning to get angry! And we are just 12 minutes in!

To woo Chichi Goku uses his Ki…I mean airbending to open a locker, now he suddenly airbend while before it was established he can’t do it. So simply by being horney.. he gains power… and this is not the only time it happens.. it’s actually a driving force behind Goku’s power troughout the entire movie. His competence rises with his Libido. Goku is supposed to be about as Ace as I am.. sure he has kids so technically like me he would be grey sexual but the point is the whole character was once build around not caring for these things! So not only do they get his age wrong, potentially his ethnicity wrong, his demeanour wrong and his aptitude wrong.. also his motivations, knowledge and even his SPECIES are wrong. Instead we of Goku get a super powered Dawson Leery trying to woo a girl.

Uncle Ben is that you?

Chichi is the girl Goku likes obviously and because he blew up everyone’s lockers and cluttered the floor, she decides to invite him to a party..on his birthday, which without even considering his grandpa goes along with that. While his grandpa is cooking a feast for his birthday Goku decides to say nothing to him and he just takes off… just so the bullies want to beat him up for showing at a party.  Goku beats the bullies by dodging them, claiming it is okay because he did not fight…. these bullies meanwhile come at him with metal rods… what kind of bullies are these? This is not even good high school drama.The fight is sort of entertaining because of how stupid it is though. With some pretty bad effects, even for the time and some very odd choices of the bullies they soon bite the dust.. destroying Texas Battle’s characters car in the end. This of course pleases ChiChi very much because I would be thrilled if people started a fight that leaves a totalled car on my front porch as well.

ChiChi tries to come on to Goku but Piccolo shows up and Grandpa Gohan’s house and Darth Vader’s Hands Gohan into dying.. after which he force pulls the entire house down on the man… because I forgot to mention this.. but he is looking for the Dragonballs, which he gave to Goku earlier. Goku suddenly can sense this.. and runs back home.  To find the house less destroyed than it was before and his grandpa covered by two sheets of wood. Gohan tells Goku that he needs to find all the seven dragonballs and stop Piccolo becasue after being sealed by the Mafuba 2000 years ago he returned…. how he did that is never explained it just happend. At least when Rita Repulsa returned in Power Rangers we saw some astronauts open the dumpster that held  her.. Piccolo is just back.. and he has a servant named Mai because she was in the original series and we need an evil woman to fight Bulma.

Grandpa Gohan with his dying breath tells Goku that with great power comes great responsibility, using different words and Goku is upset for letting his grandpa down.  Who gifted him an orange Gi from beyond the grave, coincidentally in one of the rooms of the house that has not been destroyed. We see Goku bury his grandpa when Bulma invades his house. Her father’s Orb as stolen.. of which she knows nothing about.. but she managed to build a device that is attuned to it’s wavelength so she can locate it now that it is stolen. To her knowledge it was just a pretty thing though so why build that radar?

At least the original Bulma knew what they did so it makes sense she built a radar. They decide to join forces to find the Dragon Balls and Goku dubs the device  A Dragonball Energy meter.. to Which Bulma says DBE.. I like it.. NO! NO! That is not a good joke! Dragon Ball Z gets nicknamed DBZ.. so Dragon Ball Evolution of course would be DBE ..but you named it Dragonball not Dragon Ball! Yet now when it’s convenient it becomes two seperate words?! This movie is not even consistent with it’s own title!

Go Go Goku

By now we are only about 30 minutes in. There is an hour left, Goku goes to find Master Roshi as his grandpa commanded.. who now is way younger than Grandpa Gohan.. .like waaaaaay younger but he was his master. Which is fine if you say he is long lived because of his Ki or something but no one even bats an eye that a 50 year looking dude taught a 70 year old life time martial artist?! At least give it a mention!  Thank Arceus Bulma finds a dirty book  though and Roshi grabs her butt and she threatens him for it.. this sequence is the only thing that resembles Dragon Ball.

Yet they have to ruin it by making this movie dumb again. Roshi forgot where he put his Dragon Ball/Dragonball so they have to look.. suddenly the DBE meter doesn’t work.. and Goku can sense the Dragon Ball/Dragonball.. this is the only time this happens.. later they establish that the DBE  can detect these relics with pinpoint precision and when the device is not usable Goku can not sense it.. There are so many plot holes here that even the most avid Dragon Ball fan can’t find the crater with Yamcha anymore!

This movie only gets worse, the group gets trapped in a hole by Yamcha that Roshi can just jump out off yet they spend an entire night in that crater whining about how they are running out of time, which in itself is a plot hole. Piccolo must make his wish during some sort of special solar eclipse named the blood moon for some reason and no on realise.. hey we could just keep a dragon ball/dragonball  from him… no they have go gather them all…so they can wish for his defeat? But halfway down the movie they realise this will not work so they do decide on just keeping the balls away.. somewhere down the road and to use the Mafuba to seal away Piccolo again..bringing the Dragon Balls closer to him.

Let’s not forget that the entire world never notices that  Piccolo has a floating sky fortress… which  stops being a thing all together at one point.. he destroys cities and people in the world don’t seem to notice.  This is really really bad. At one point Piccolo can use his blood to create what can only be called Putty Patrollers. That’s right Power Ranger Putty Patrollers are in this movie.  One Dragon Ball/Dragonball is in a volcano but they can not cross the lava because they can not fly yet.. suddenly they are attacked by the putties and Goku and Roshi fight them off when Goku uses them to build a bridge. 

Sure they are monsters but clearly they are alive. Goku should not really be so murderous that he tosses these in lava to form platform but he does… also  without the bad guy’s intervention they would not have gotten to the Dragon Ball.. well that can happen right?! The bad guys might be trying to reach the same location at the same time and  thus the fight would enable the good guys in the end? No! Mai apparently was on the other side all along not touching the Dragon Ball/dragonballl for some reason until she can hold Goku at gunpoint. Why send in the putties when your enemy is in the wrong place… how did you even get there?!

Kamehamehorney 

Not a single scene makes any sense at all. After the Volcano the group decides they don’t have time to find the other Dragon Balls in time so they must learn the Mafuba.. or more like.. get it.. as it’s a spell you can like take along with you apparently. This leads to Goku reuniting with Chichi who participates in the world Tournament.. Goku doesn’t care about such a match because he does not care about fighting, or the tournament.. he does care about Chichi… I honestly do not know how they do it but that single situational descriptor of a simple situation is 100% wrong… like they could not even be more off had they actually set it out as their goal to make an Anti-Goku.

This leads to the worst scene of the entire movie.. Goku learning the Kamehameha. Which now has the power to gently light candles on fire as Roshi demonstrates… yet Goku can not mimic this straight away..invalidating possibly the most iconic scene of entire original series.. Goku doing this complex technique on his first try. Now this would be enough to insult any fans to the core..but they make it WAAAAY worse. Chichi shows up telling him.. that if Goku can use the Kamehameha to light all the candles ..he can stand next to her and they can “kiss” this prompts Goku to grasp the concept of this technique. The two kiss and we fade to black. And we pick up with a scene of Chichi sneaking out of his room.

Oppa Gangnam Style

However this is not Chichi this is Mai in disguise who earlier drew some blood form Chichi which allows her to transform into Chichi… Goku however was not in his room.. perhaps he was at Chichi’s room.. so she is found out. The technique already feels stupid and forced.. but hey guess what it gets worse. When Chichi fights my in ther tournament Mai had no way of knowing who Chichi actually is to Goku, nor does  it makes sense she knew the group would gave up pursuit of the dragon balls instead, nor that their alternative technique would be taught there.

If we consider “Piccolo must have sense the dragon balls/dragonballs they carry’ that is something the group would know as he found plenty already.  Why would  you leave the Dragonballs alone in your room when you know the enemy can detect them. Either way you look at this it doesn’t make sense and the only viable explanation is.. Goku got careless because he wanted to get it on with Chichi which is about the most un-dragon ball you can get for an explanation.

Oh No Za Ru

Mai kinda kills Goku with some kind of Gassy Energy Shot thing.. because in the doppelganger fight Goku decides and hits the wrong Chichi.. even though he learned how to sense energy and should have mastered it because Kamehameha is the highest form of Airbending.  Now dead.. in the same way Harry Potter died in that last movie, Goku sees his grandfather who tells him it is not his time yet, after which Master Roshi Fires a Kamehameha into Goku..which now has the power to revive and heal people as well.  He gets up, they leave Chichi unconscious on the floor which is the second closet actual dragon ball moment in this movie, and pursue Mai and Piccolo who now head to the Dragon Temple..which is the location where you need to use all the Dragon Balls.

Yamcha now has a hovercraft/ flying car hummer which promptly gets shot down and while they are crashing.. Goku decides to switch into his Gi… yes .. while they are crashing! While his friends lie in pain out of the car we see Goku posing in his new Gi for like half a minute.. not even looking if they are okay he decides to face king Piccolo. Swearing Piccolo he will defeat Oozaru. Piccolo reveals to Goku he is Oozaru  and the blood moon will turn him… yeesz.. a once in a lifetime solar eclipse turning you into a giant monkey? How unpratic… it’s not even gonna be a giant monkey is it?!

So Goku turns into a not so great..I’d even so slightly tinier than average Ape and kills Roshi… by the way that whole Mafuba plot line got discarded by the evil Namek blowing up the urn with ease.  His regret causes him to change back into Goku and the final fight begins. The final fight is about is massively lackluster and looks like a 1 on 1 match of  splatoon with some pretty harmless colourful projectiles flying about. Suddenly Goku is as strong as Piccolo so I guess he must really be horney after having been turned into a tiny gorilla. 

The fight feels very throwaway and not Dragon Ball at all. With one final Kamehameha.. which is also the first one.. the conflict is ended… the iconic technique is not done justice of course. Instead they combine with with a visual more akin to the Super Dragon Fist with Goku flying through Piccolo.. like in the classic.. but instead of the hole.. which would make no sense we just see a blue explosion. So it has neither the pleasing elements of the Dragon Fist nor the Kamehameha.. That takes some skill on it’s own to combine both and get non of the joy!

With the evil defeated, Goku magically learns the enchantment to summon Shenlong… because why would they get that name correct..and instead of wishing for the people  that got killed in this incident to be returned the group just wishes for Roshi back. A touching sentiment but given that they would be given one ABSOLUTE wish..a bit lackluster. Given how the Earth Dragon Balls are supposed to bring back multiple people.. they even got the dragon balls/dragonballs themselves wrong!

Gotta Heed to Call Skip on Dragonball

I haven’t even said anything about the bad acting, the sub par cgi and the lack of an interesting musical score. Not only does this movie not work as a Dragon Ball flick, it is written so bad that even with different flavor this plot would have made no sense , with huge logic leaps bad writing and the worst implementation of a franchise ever. Avatar the Last Airbender the movie is a masterpiece compared to this.. the Room had more structure in its writing and Troll 2 had better effects and payoffs. Yet there is something fascinating about this movie. I would not call it enjoyment.. I would not say I had fun .. but I stared in awe as this movie unfolded.  There wasn’t a single moment where I did not want to turn of this movie but I constantly kept wondering.. they can not mess it up more than this right? Just to see it progressively worsen as we go along. 

As a random movie this is a pile of digimon doodoo but as  Dragon Ball/Dragonball Product this is the single WORST movie I have ever seen.. and I have seen Rubber. Which is a movie about a car tire with mental capabilities to explode peoples head..with a meta subplot of cops killing an audience mixed in. DBE is not so bad it’s good.. it’s so bad it’s fascinating.

Also they forgot Krillin!