April 3, 2024 • 32 mins
Nicholas and DJ, two Southerners, delve into Japanese entertainment, covering anime, manga, and more. In a recent episode, they pay tribute to Akira Toriyama, discussing his passing, his monumental impact on the anime world through Dragon Ball, and his legacy's profound influence on both creatives and fans globally. They explore Toriyama's unique contributions, comparing his work to that of Stan Lee in the West, and discuss how Dragon Ball's storytelling, characters, and Toriyama's approach to creation have left an indelible mark on pop culture worldwide.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Howdy, it's the Southern Senpai Show.
Where small town Southerners explorebig time Japanese entertainment, anime,
manga, and everything in between.
Here's your hosts, Nicholas and DJ.
Hey
(00:24):
What's going on, y'all?
Southern Senpais here.
Two American guys from the South.
Yeah!
Yeah!
Who explore Japanese culture.
Hell yeah!
You're such a dick, dude.
Come on, man.
Let's do the episode.
It's the best I want to do.
I'm DJ!
(00:46):
I'm Nicholas.
What are we talking about today, Nicholas?
Today, we are talking about.
The man, the myth, thelegend, Akira Toriyama.
Akira Toriyama, today,so today is March 8th.
Even though he passed away a week ago onMarch 1st, his death has been confirmed.
(01:08):
I think yesterday actually,March 7th, and then we're
talking about today on March 8th.
So we're basically saying thatHe died from a heart attack, is
basically what they're saying.
They said a heart attack, and thenthere was another report saying that
he, something about a brain injury.
But either way, this personthis man, has passed away.
It has affected all of our lives.
It's no secret that anime was inAmerica prior to Dragon Ball Z.
(01:32):
Speed Racer, Astro BoyWas Yeah, that's about it.
Gundam Wing was, Gundam was here before.
Yeah, Gundam was in the 80s.
Yeah, but it wasn't aspopular as the previous two.
True.
It's just when you'reyoung watching Toonami.
Everyone remembers Dragon Ball Z.
Who remembers Big O?
Yeah, I remember Big O.
Yeah, but he's not as talked aboutas as Dragon Ball Z is, right?
(01:56):
So it's just a level of popularity.
To say that Dragon Ball Z Dragon BallZ, even GT and Super had an effect on
other creatives is an understatement.
A complete understatement.
He is like the Stan Lee of Japan.
Yeah.
He's Japan's Stan Lee, and it'shard to even compare him to that
(02:19):
because they're both such greatcreatives in their own ways.
I'm not going to continue sayingthat but just in perspective.
I do to get people's head around thefact of how impactful this man was.
This man's art, this man, so he DragonBall has been going on for so long, it's
been going on since before we were born.
And the crazy part is that yousee the character age from being a
(02:40):
literal baby, to a kid, to being ateenager, and marrying Chi, to then
being an adult, having his own kids.
You know going on and the show is stillgoing on strong, which is crazy It
even has something called dragon ballsuperheroes, which is not canon, but
it's apparently some and there's dragonball z kai the yeah, and they remade the
original dragon z make a dragon ball kai,the story is so great They just redo that
(03:03):
for the video game every day every year.
You're never gonna run outof Dragon Ball Z material.
You can just retell itand people won't care.
They're like, oh cool,they're retelling it?
Awesome.
My favorite story ever.
That's what happened with Kai, right?
They recut it to basicallycut out all the filler.
It's so incredible to see the effectthat one person can have on the world.
(03:26):
Like when Stan Lee passed, itwas like It rocked the earth and
then now with the Kira's passingit's another giant earthquake.
Yeah, John Yeah I think all of us, youknow who are around our ages, late 20s
early 30s You know remember tsunami right?
That was a lot of That was a lotof people's introduction to anime.
(03:47):
Yeah, if that or for kids TV,but usually it was Toonami.
It was Toonami, coming home fromschool, or like for me, it was,
coming home Staying up a littlelater than you probably should have.
Or, you were like I did aftercare, right?
Daycare, after school.
And then so you would go watch DragonBall Z one of the things I would ask you
(04:07):
this DJ because I mean What Dragon BallZ was I think Is a very interesting anime
because it was extremely violent, right?
It was accepted violence.
It was extremely violent, but, anda lot of parents didn't let their
(04:29):
kids watch Dragon Ball Z, right?
Because of the violence.
But I had a number of people especiallywhen I started to get a little older.
When a little older, Imean 15, 16, 17, right?
And, they would talk aboutHow influential Dragon Ball Z
was to their kids vocabulary.
(04:50):
Yeah, I didn't even know that you, Ididn't even know art books existed until
I started watching Dragon Ball Z as a kid.
I didn't know that I knew peopledrew them, duh, everyone knows
that, but it's I was like, Oh, okay.
I want to see if I don't like drawing, butthe first character I've ever Oh, let me
go find and you try drawing art, right?
They're my first kick at it.
Was dragon ball z I went I likeasked I was in walmart and asked
(05:12):
I still remember that's my my momwas hey You know I want this book.
I was like this is draw dragon ballz on it and I was like, yeah, she
goes You don't draw stuff And Iwas like, yeah I want to try it.
She goes Okay, it waslike Four or five dollars.
It was like super thin so she didn't careand I remember saying they're tracing
(05:32):
over goku Just couldn't a whole bunch,you know You I think, and then everyone's
tried to go Super Saiyan as a kid.
Yep.
Everyone's going in theroom and be like, Haaaaaa!
There's a very famous video of ablack kid trying to go Super Saiyan.
On the, on YouTube.
the famous One of the first bigYouTube memes was a black kid Trying
to go super saiyan at recess, right?
(05:54):
And no, he was at his house.
Oh, he was at his houseYeah, he's at his house.
He took his shirt off.
So he's going crazy And everyone every kidtried to do a kamehameha for no reason.
Yeah, It's just one of those thingsthat's just a it's not to say a cultural
icon is not accurate enough It's tosay just an icon of epic proportions.
Why do you think people's vocabularyincreased so much watching the anime?
(06:18):
Cause that's what a lot of whenever Iwas watching it, and whenever we had
people that would watch it, friends thatwould watch it, people coming up, and
parents would be like, Jack or John orwhoever, his vocabulary is is increasing,
is it's important to understand howthe human brain actually develops.
There has been a numerous amount ofstudies that have shown, and proven,
(06:43):
that if you can capture someone'sinterest, they learn a lot more.
There's a quite so there's a fewstudies I'd like to point out.
There was one done by not Cambridge,I think it was Harvard actually.
That looked at ADHD people and theirattention and retention, right?
In one video, they are showing thegroups of people with ADHD who were
(07:05):
not on the medicine at the time.
The meth.
They aren't on the meth.
They showed them a math lecture.
And you can see them twisting aroundand turning around in the chair.
It's a very popular video, you'veprobably seen it, but you're
not really paying attention.
Then they show the, then theyshow this person, and it was only
like, I think it was like threeminutes of the math lecture.
(07:25):
Then they played 60 minutes of A NewHope, Star Wars, and they're just sit
still, completely glued to the screen.
It's because it's actuallyinteresting and entertaining.
Now, most people know what they want to bebecause they find interest in that, right?
There's also, I'm then combining likethis knowledge with, there's also
(07:46):
proven studies that your child willhave learning deficiencies the way
you treat them when they're newborns.
Really?
All the way up to their Ithink to like their seven.
Yeah, it's a huge, as most peopleknow, it's a huge learning time.
They're learning their firstlanguage, they learn what
a circle is, this and that.
There, a lot of times, you'llsee two types of parents.
(08:10):
You'll see some parentsthat go, Come here Joshua.
No, put that down Joshua.
This is not, you'll see peoplego, and you'll see other parents
that go, I want that, got that.
They make that littlesound, Oh, come here baby.
Oh, how's something.
For some reason, when you speakarticulately, not for some
reason, but when you speak morearticulately to a young child,
(08:32):
They just start to learn faster.
Because, you have tothink about it like this.
If you're giving them baby talk, thatbaby talk, that's what they're learning.
And then, it's slowingdown their development.
Because they don't have anyknowledge to base it off of.
They're kids, right?
They don't have enough experienceto have their own knowledge
to base it off of, right?
They're learning baby talk, and they'relearning real talk, and having to discern
(08:55):
what is real and what is fake, comparedto just learning all the real stuff.
And, just growing up that way.
It's quite interesting.
We have ADHD because ourparents talk baby talk to us?
No, those are just an example.
Like, when things areinteresting, people learn faster.
When they're giving real content.
So when they're interested in something.
Okay, when you're a kid, You're going tofind Dragon Ball Z and anime interesting
(09:18):
because of the colors and whatever.
But also, you're learning fasterbecause you're not hearing
people give you that small babytreatment because you're a child.
And it's oh, okay, cool.
It's low key making them mature faster.
Just cause it's, and plus it startedoff as just regular tournament
fights and stuff like that beforeit escalated to the violence it is.
(09:39):
I think it was And it also taughtyou so much obviously anime teaches
you so much, just in general.
And whenever, it's almost hidingthe dog's medicine in the dog
food type of type of deal.
You get what I'm saying by that?
So it's basically it's the same thinganime is doing is teaching you about life
love happiness all that kind of stuffWith the creative genius that is, anime
(10:03):
Akira that's so dragon ball z Wasn't theonly dragon ball wasn't the only thing
that akira did but akira He is just soinfluential Goku anyone wearing orange in
general even if they're like the orangewith the blue combo like Even people who
don't know or who can't read Japanese.
They're just so recognizable, right?
(10:24):
It's right It's like showing someonea picture of spider man or the Hulk
or showing someone a picture ofBatman and being like, oh Who is this?
They're like, oh, I know who that is.
That's you know, Batman's man.
It's my man, right?
So it's not a picture Superman.
It's the same way.
What is the always the biggestdebate in all the fiction?
It's out of action fictionis oh, who's super strong?
Superman or Goku, right?
(10:45):
There have been That like that into itselfis like a genre of YouTube videos, right?
The entire genre is based offof these two characters fighting
and and unlike a lot of Westernculture Heroes Goku working out.
You never seen Superman benching.
(11:05):
Oh, sorry.
I can't work I can't go to I gottawork out to defeat this enemy.
You don't see him doing that He should bein Superman Batman works out but like he
does it like In the background, you neverreally see, there's never really scenes
of seeing them training like that, right?
Until more recently.
Yeah, and I think that I think honestly,As far as even the rest of anime
(11:26):
goes, and the rest of fiction, The onemoment that Akira made that every other
fiction writer is chasing, Is Gokugoing Super Saiyan for the first time.
Yeah.
There's just isn't any feeling like it.
There's just no emotion like it.
I remember seeing it for thefirst time We were just like
and you're like, what is this?
What is going on?
And the crazy part is he only did thatbecause they he needed to use less
(11:49):
black ink Apparently is that the reason?
Yeah, he needed to use less black ink.
And you know It's black and white whenit's in manga go his hair is black, right?
They need to use less black ink Sohe's okay this character design I'm
gonna just, in the original manga,his hair is white, but they make it
gold and the yellowness in the anime.
Yeah, that's crazy.
(12:09):
Also I was looking at some ofToriyama's early stuff, and he
did not have immediate success.
So he was basically saying that hefaced rejection from publishers before
finding his breakthrough with Dr.
Slump, which debuted in 1980.
So just like everybody else, hefaced his fair share of people not
(12:36):
believing in him, people, not people.
It's almost I remember somebody telling medon't wait for permission, be undeniable.
And something that's really great about.
Akira is like I said, like DragonBall is his most famous thing.
He did things outside of it.
And there are there are Certain aspectsof Akira that's quite interesting.
(12:57):
Like for example, he didn't likeVegeta he created that character
and Vegeta's like some people'sfavorite character is like Vegeta.
Yeah like when you think ofthe Dragon Ball duo All right,
you're like, oh my gosh.
This is you can't no one can meetGoku Can this person be Goku?
Okay.
But then it's there's Goku and Vegeta.
Alright, whoever they'regoing against loses.
(13:19):
That's the end of the story.
You know what's also crazy isthe height of these characters.
Vegeta's 5'2 Yeah, I think so.
Vegeta's 5'2 and I think Goku'slike 5'10 Something like that.
He's like 5'10 5'8 Aren't you5'10 how come you haven't gone
Super Saiyan yet, Nicholas?
Apparently my white powers,haven't reached their zenith yet.
(13:40):
You haven't kicked in, huh?
But also, the crazy part about, do youthink that Toyama I guess what I'm saying
is Toyama, even though he's reachedliterally God status, Super Saiyan God.
I'd say among writers, likeSuper Saiyan God status, right?
He Lives a relatively modest lifestyle.
He doesn't live crazy.
(14:01):
I think that's part of thejapanese culture I was just about
to ask you do you think that is?
Do you think that is attributedto akira or do you think that's
attributed to his japanese culture?
I'm, pretty sure it's to the culture, buti'm not japanese enough to answer that.
I personally think that But i'mpretty sure it's just really
more about the the culture.
(14:22):
I mean you look at You I mean Japan'scome out with some, it's not a
secret that Japan has come out witha lot of media that Americans enjoy.
Oh, yeah, it's not a secret.
And yet a lot of them don't livethe lavish diet lifestyles that you
see a lot of American creators make.
So I think it's justmore of a cultural thing.
Although to be fair it ispossible that it is also their
(14:42):
status is treated differently.
Japan's, obviously they're amuch smaller country than we are.
They're a group of islands and Japan,I believe is Relatively the size of
one of our states depending on whichstate you're talking about and one of
our smaller states like I don't know.
And then because he's sorevered and he's so famous.
(15:05):
He's just He can't go anywhereYeah, especially in japan.
I bet you it's really hard to Ithink he's like the michael jackson
He lives in a rural area of japan,right probably Very modest out
of necessity chillin it's crazy.
This is, and this is one of the thingsthat really cemented like his legacy.
(15:25):
Okay, so Stan Lee passed away, right?
Who came after Stan Lee?
Do you know?
No.
That's because there is no one.
Stan Lee, in America, you createsomething great, And corporations steal
it from you to make more money off youand then you as a creative They shove
you into the back until you perish andthen they don't really care about you
It's not a secret that stan lee probablymight have still even been alive.
(15:48):
There wasn't so much elderabuse to stan lee this is stan
lee elder abuse with stan lee.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is now what no yet There wasa bunch of elder abuse to Stan Lee's
part of the reason why his possiblywhy his wife passed away, too Really?
Yeah, I didn't know that.
Yes, but that's a conversationfor another time But yeah, it's
(16:09):
a whole bunch of elder abuse.
In fact, it went to court.
It was that serious.
Really?
Yes, and that's what we that'swhat Americans do to creatives
who change the face of humanhistory for forever Like Stan Lee.
Stan Lee is like a modernWilliam Shakespeare, basically.
Say people talk about oh You peopletalk about great writers who've
changed the face of human history,culture, Lord of the Rings or Tolkien.
(16:33):
Lord of the Rings is awesome.
I love Lord of the Rings.
I also love Star Wars, George Lucas.
Neither of them are evenclose to Stan Lee's power.
Not even close.
Not even close.
I love, the people can like thosefranchises more than they can like Marvel.
Because a lot of people do.
Oh, I just like Lord of theRings better than I like Marvel.
Or I like some people say, oh, I likeStar Wars more than I like Marvel.
(16:55):
But in terms of cultural impact.
In terms of world, global,human history impact.
It just doesn't, it's not even a candle.
It's a candle to it.
So here and that's what Americansdo to writers who are like that.
For Akira Toriyama I do believethat probably he didn't receive as
much money or I think it's more ofa respect thing over there, right?
They just respect the creators,but they don't pay them as much as
(17:17):
they, they would have been paid ifthey were Americans, me personally.
And that also could have attributedto their more modest lifestyle.
The the culture there is verymuch skewed and, or not skewed,
but it's very much revered.
The elders are very much respected.
It.
Right and no matter the age likeelder Respecting your elders
(17:40):
is not just about Older people.
It's just like respectingthe person above you, right?
So Stan Lee, we alreadysaid how big he is, right?
That guy has no successor.
That's why I said, do youknow who his successor is?
He doesn't have one because youshoved up to the side and then
disney stole and everything.
So Toriyama does have a successor.
(18:02):
That's how powerful this man's writingwas So the part where the corporation
came back to him and was like, okay,dude if you're gonna stop you have
to choose a successor who's gonnatake the keys to the kingdom, right?
That's crazy Where they he has to choosea successor to pass on his legacy and
the business people ask him for him todo That would never happen in America
(18:25):
They would just love to steal what youhave and tell you to die, basically.
That's what an Americancorporation would love to do.
But this man is treatedwith so much respect.
It's also it's also a fact, not anopinion, but a fact that when new
Dragon Ball Z and when new Dragon BallSuper episodes premiere, that there is
actually a drop, now we're Americans,we live here in Los Angeles, but there's
(18:47):
actually a drop in cartel activity.
Yes.
Yeah, that's a fact.
I saw on Instagram today therewas just an absolute mass of
cartel people, given respects.
Given respects.
And they're not Japanese to a curator.
Yeah.
In terms of Dragon Ball Z,and this wasn't in Japan.
(19:09):
This was.
And Mexico.
Yeah, and Mexico.
And yeah, Mexico and south, and thesouth part of the United States.
But, also, I don't, I hate todo this, but, who do you think
came up with better villains?
Who do you mean who?
Stan Lee or Akira Toriyama?
(19:30):
That's not really a fair question.
Just because, Akira Toriyama,he's really known for one villain.
Series and when that series took offhe focused on that series So he had to
come up with villains for that seriesso he didn't really have you couldn't
come up as many diverse villains asstanley could have that's a fair enough
(19:53):
question so stanley you have wolverine.
You have spider man youhave the hulk, right?
These are not to be fair jack.
Kirby came up with the webbing kindof thing But These characters are
so wildly different into themselveswhen you create villains for them.
Their other villains are just goingto be more diverse and more different,
giving you more opportunitiesto make more diverse villains.
(20:15):
To go more in depth.
So it's not really a fair question.
I will say though, that when itcomes to, because with comics,
you write a whole bunch of stuff.
If they, comics go wide.
Manga really goes deep where they doubledown on one of them instead of just
carrying a whole bunch of stuff, right?
There's not a lot of especially inbefore a lot of the corporations
(20:36):
like, apple and Disney got into marveland dc and sony and stuff like that.
There's a whole bunch of comiccrossovers You would see you know
wonder woman versus storm, right?
You would see the hulk versussuperman so so Americans love
doing crossovers with franchises.
It's not as popular in Japan, right?
(20:58):
No.
Who knows, I don't thinkit's a fair question.
However, I will say that when it comes,did he create some great villains?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Vegeta's Frieza's Frieza, I likethe earlier Frieza better than
I do like the modern Frieza.
I, earlier Frieza was, you're justsitting there as a kid and you're
just like, This dude is so cool.
(21:20):
Also And he was like, and eventhough he was like, gender
questionable, no one cared.
I was, I wouldn't evensay anything about it.
There was no like parents in the street.
Oh, he's played by a malevoice actor in the Japanese.
And the Japanese audio,but in the American English
audio played by a woman, but.
(21:42):
Again, it's an alien, so we don'teven know if you could have the male
or female debate in the first place.
But, regardless of which, you have,I think Frieza's great, but Vegeta's
one of the best lances, I would say.
Lance as in the archetypes of writing.
You have the hero, a lance, you havethe muscle, We have the brains, right?
(22:06):
Then you have the heartof the group, right?
And together they makeCaptain Planet, right?
But or the five Power Rangers, right?
Most D& Ds are like this.
D& D campaigns are like that.
Who was your favoritevillain from Dragon Z.
I think Broly is my favorite villain.
Broly is your favorite villain?
(22:27):
Vegeta he's really I'm a Vegeta fan mainlybecause like he, his motivation is crazy.
He just wants to be the best,this guy who always beats him.
It's been like 20 years.
He shouldn't give up, but hedoesn't because that's not
the type of person that he is.
He grows and evolves and becomes a betterperson, but he's still a jerk, right?
What I like about Broly.
The old Broly and then the newer Brolyis more like he's like crazy, right?
(22:50):
What I liked about the olderBroly, his reasoning for hating
Kakarot is really stupid.
What, he was crying as a baby?
You were also a baby.
What are you talking about?
Like, how do you remember this?
It doesn't make any sense.
But what I did like about himis that how evil he was and
how he was just whooping tail.
This guy is 10 feet tall.
With the frame of Shaquille O'Nealand dodging everyone's attacks.
(23:12):
What do you mean He's dodging this man?
This man is 8, 8, 600 pounds.
He has the hit box of arefrigerator and people are
missing, you know what I'm saying?
And he's fast.
And not only that, he's just so evil.
You know what I'm saying?
He's just oh, I'm justhere to destroy stuff.
I destroyed an entire galaxyand now I'm here to destroy you.
And he only, and he hadto lose to plot armor.
That's how you knowyou're a great villain.
(23:33):
They, you didn't lose legitimately,you lost a plot armor and then you came
back after you died two more times.
That's, you were so great thatyou were actually a just non-car,
non cannon character that theyhad to then make Cannon later on.
That's when we watched the Broley movie,which is just two and a half hours of
him just whooping their tails, right?
There are so many, and there are somany references to Dragon Mal and other.
(23:59):
Forms of media, especially Americanmedia, and his influence will be felt
throughout time, really I honestly,There are, I would say oh, are there
animes better than Dragon Ball Z?
I think that there are some I haveenjoyed more than then, but if I
would say that there's one thatI'm more attached to personally?
(24:19):
No.
I don't think there is one.
I don't think there is.
Because there's, I don't think if you'rein the age range of Emily, it can be.
Now, if you're in the late age range, ifyou're in the age range of late twenties
to early thirties, there was no betterfeeling than coming home from school
and watching Toonami, getting somethingto drink, eating some Hot Pockets or
(24:41):
pizza rolls or something like that, andthen watching and then watching Spike.
Cuz he's the guy thatvoices the Toonami guy.
It's also part of the reasonwhy welcome back, everybody!
And then, brr!
Excuse my horrible impression.
I thought it was great, actually.
I thought it was pretty, pretty bent on.
I think that part of thatreason is the longevity of it.
(25:03):
It's still going on.
Like kids, with American stories,they usually have an ending,
unless there's like a Spider Mancomic, you know what I'm saying?
They have arcs, right?
But And a lot of mangas endtoo, you know what I'm saying?
A lot of mangas, a lot of French, alot of stories in general have endings.
The creator of One Piece saysit's going to end in 2025.
Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it.
(25:25):
It's been like One Piece and Dragon Ball,longevity wise, for our entire lives.
As of this recording, everything thatI know and could possibly process in
my brain, in my understanding of timeitself, has not existed longer than these
franchises and the people making them.
(25:45):
Also, when it comes to terms with makingmoney, They're going to keep it going.
Oh yeah.
If it's American, if it's American,whatever it is, They take a dead horse,
make it a zombie and keep it pushing.
And keep it pushing.
Now I'm not sure how they, ifthey would do that in Japan.
(26:07):
I think there's more, I thinkMore reverence for the material.
I don't know about thatmuch because Japan, Korea.
Business is still business.
That's what I'm saying.
There are some Money's still money.
Let's not act there haven't beena whole bunch of allegations about
the way they treat their animators.
Yeah, and then also And the way theyalso treat some of their other mangakas.
But, that just proves the power ofDragon Ball Z that he's like, Oh,
(26:30):
you're not gonna treat me like that.
I don't care what other people are doing.
I'm a curatorial.
Do you think So we'vetalked about this before.
We've talked about thecreator of Bleach, right?
And how he doesn't wantto do Bleach anymore.
He wants to start something different.
Okay?
And the only reason why he reallystarted doing Bleach again was because
(26:52):
Nobody wanted to see anything else.
Nobody was going to allowhim to do anything else.
Yeah, they didn't want, theydidn't want to back us up.
A lot of creators do that.
When you're a creative person, youdon't want to just want to work
on one project your whole life.
That One Piece guy is workingon a whole bunch of other stuff.
There's a ton, like Dragon Quest.
The art, Kiritoriyama did that.
If you look at the art forDragon Quest, it's Dragon Ball Z.
I honestly, when I first saw thevideo game Dragon Quest, I was
(27:14):
like, is this a Dragon Ball Z videogame that's called Dragon Quest?
That's crazy.
And then my friend was like, no,that's not Dragon Ball Z at all.
It's, yeah, it's by Akira, but it'scalled it's called Dragon Quest.
And I was like, oh it looksso much like Dragon Ball.
And I was like, I just,the style is so iconic.
You know what I'm saying?
So did he work on, did hework on a lot of other animes?
(27:35):
Yeah, he worked on a whole bunch ofstuff that, but he's just Dragon Ball Z.
It's the most popular, right?
So just like the creative Narutois trying to make a A manga
about samurais instead of ninjas.
Not trying to, he did, butit's not as popular, right?
You have this person whose legacyis Dragon Ball Z and also it's
a legacy that he doesn't hate.
You see a lot of creatives becausethey have a whole bunch of ideas.
(27:59):
People only like one.
I understand the sentiment.
And You guys should hear Rock Gorilla.
It is DJ's best work.
He's never even read that script.
He's never even read that script.
He's just making this jokebecause of a couple things.
Whatever.
I'm about to get into Rock Gorilla.
But, it's, he's most known for that.
(28:20):
And he has it's interesting, becauseit says he doesn't like certain
characters, but then he kept writingthem because other people liked them.
Now, I, one question I would ask youis, why do you think Akira Toriyama, out
of the many people who create things,and it becomes wildly popular, none
more popular than Dragon Ball Z, whydo you think it is that he never ended
(28:43):
up hating his creation I personally,once again, I do not know this,
obviously I don't know him personally.
Will say that he probably, he just,he just, just genuine love for it.
There are some things that youcreate that you're just like, I don't
really matter it's like having a kid.
I don't care what any parentsays, if you have more than
one kid, you have a favorite.
We, me and Nicholas both have siblings.
Alright?
Alright.
(29:04):
We know which parents likeus versus the other ones.
That's just how it is.
They, every parent has a favorite.
Every, any parent who says theydon't, they're lying to you.
If one of your parents said that toyou, I'm sorry that they lied to you.
If they might not tell you, right?
I think what would, I think whatwould be a more honest representation
of that is that they love them boththe same, but they like one better.
(29:28):
So in this case, it's likethe one that you like.
Ends up being the oneeveryone else also likes.
And you're like of course.
That's, damn that's kid number two.
I like that guy.
Out of the five of them, everyonelikes this one, and so do I.
Out of the vast difference betweenAkira Toriyama and the creator of
Bleach, Because the fact is I don'tknow who the creator of Bleach is, but
(29:49):
I know who Akira Toriyama is, right?
You know what?
That's another thing that's crazy.
A lot of people don't know the creatorsof other animes and mangas, but
everyone knows who Akira Toriyama is.
So why do you think, in your estimation,why was Akira, other than the obvious,
why do you think he was allowed to workon other animes and the creator wasn't?
(30:12):
Also, it's it's Kubo.
Kubo is the creator of Bleach.
But, I don't know if you, Idon't know the extent in which
you worked on other animes, man.
I have no idea.
It's not like you worked on a, Ipersonally, not an Akira expert.
I don't know, what do you think?
One of the reasons why I think isbecause while Bleach is iconic, it
(30:33):
just doesn't touch Dragon Ball Z.
There's some, I'll tell you whatit is right now, and it's very
hard for some people to discern.
And me personally, I'm onlyreally able to tell when a
project has the juice, I call it.
I think from working in development.
There's a lot of people who,like working in development.
(30:54):
It's your job to know that something'sgoing to pop off versus something else a
lot of people don't work in developmentand a lot of people can't really it's a
hard job to be good at It's one of thosejobs where you can do what you don't
I'll tell you what it uses right now Thelong part of the part of it is the story
engine Of the franchise itself goku thestory of dragon ball Is really like a
(31:16):
story engine Find the seven Dragon Balls.
Then Dragon Ball Z comes around and it'sabout defend the earth against Aliens.
Okay.
Against aliens.
Various aliens and various monsters.
Okay.
Bleach, it's the same thing Except it'soh all the monsters actually come from
or just ghosts So defend it againstghosts, but not just like random ghosts.
(31:38):
They're like more specific, right?
Dragon Ball Z and Bleach, you can't justhave Some ghosts come from Mars, come
down from the sky, and be like, Hey, I'ma Martian, hollow, and we gotta fight.
Doesn't make any sense, right?
It doesn't really work.
But what you can do is have, in DragonBall, be like, Hey, it's the reanimated
corpse of Gohan, his grandfather.
(32:00):
They gotta fight now.
That makes sense.
There's just way more to do there.
And when there's way more to do,there's way more to write about.
It just has the juice, hey, man.
R.
I.
P.
Akira Toriyama.
R.
I.
P.
Akira Toriyama.
Yeah.
I'm Derrick Johnson II.
I'm Nicholas Killian.
And we'll see you next time.
See ya.
This has been SouthernSenpais on Comic Con Radio.
(32:22):
Check out our previousepisodes at Comic ConRadio.
com.
You can follow the showat Southern Senpais on all
major social media platforms.
Tune in next Wednesdayfor a fresh episode.
Y'all come back now.
Howdy, it's the Southern Senpai Show.
Where small town Southerners explorebig time Japanese entertainment, anime,
manga, and everything in between.
Here's your hosts, Nicholas and DJ.
Hey
(00:24):
What's going on, y'all?
Southern Senpais here.
Two American guys from the South.
Yeah!
Yeah!
Who explore Japanese culture.
Hell yeah!
You're such a dick, dude.
Come on, man.
Let's do the episode.
It's the best I want to do.
I'm DJ!
(00:46):
I'm Nicholas.
What are we talking about today, Nicholas?
Today, we are talking about.
The man, the myth, thelegend, Akira Toriyama.
Akira Toriyama, today,so today is March 8th.
Even though he passed away a week ago onMarch 1st, his death has been confirmed.
(01:08):
I think yesterday actually,March 7th, and then we're
talking about today on March 8th.
So we're basically saying thatHe died from a heart attack, is
basically what they're saying.
They said a heart attack, and thenthere was another report saying that
he, something about a brain injury.
But either way, this personthis man, has passed away.
It has affected all of our lives.
It's no secret that anime was inAmerica prior to Dragon Ball Z.
(01:32):
Speed Racer, Astro BoyWas Yeah, that's about it.
Gundam Wing was, Gundam was here before.
Yeah, Gundam was in the 80s.
Yeah, but it wasn't aspopular as the previous two.
True.
It's just when you'reyoung watching Toonami.
Everyone remembers Dragon Ball Z.
Who remembers Big O?
Yeah, I remember Big O.
Yeah, but he's not as talked aboutas as Dragon Ball Z is, right?
(01:56):
So it's just a level of popularity.
To say that Dragon Ball Z Dragon BallZ, even GT and Super had an effect on
other creatives is an understatement.
A complete understatement.
He is like the Stan Lee of Japan.
Yeah.
He's Japan's Stan Lee, and it'shard to even compare him to that
(02:19):
because they're both such greatcreatives in their own ways.
I'm not going to continue sayingthat but just in perspective.
I do to get people's head around thefact of how impactful this man was.
This man's art, this man, so he DragonBall has been going on for so long, it's
been going on since before we were born.
And the crazy part is that yousee the character age from being a
(02:40):
literal baby, to a kid, to being ateenager, and marrying Chi, to then
being an adult, having his own kids.
You know going on and the show is stillgoing on strong, which is crazy It
even has something called dragon ballsuperheroes, which is not canon, but
it's apparently some and there's dragonball z kai the yeah, and they remade the
original dragon z make a dragon ball kai,the story is so great They just redo that
(03:03):
for the video game every day every year.
You're never gonna run outof Dragon Ball Z material.
You can just retell itand people won't care.
They're like, oh cool,they're retelling it?
Awesome.
My favorite story ever.
That's what happened with Kai, right?
They recut it to basicallycut out all the filler.
It's so incredible to see the effectthat one person can have on the world.
(03:26):
Like when Stan Lee passed, itwas like It rocked the earth and
then now with the Kira's passingit's another giant earthquake.
Yeah, John Yeah I think all of us, youknow who are around our ages, late 20s
early 30s You know remember tsunami right?
That was a lot of That was a lotof people's introduction to anime.
(03:47):
Yeah, if that or for kids TV,but usually it was Toonami.
It was Toonami, coming home fromschool, or like for me, it was,
coming home Staying up a littlelater than you probably should have.
Or, you were like I did aftercare, right?
Daycare, after school.
And then so you would go watch DragonBall Z one of the things I would ask you
(04:07):
this DJ because I mean What Dragon BallZ was I think Is a very interesting anime
because it was extremely violent, right?
It was accepted violence.
It was extremely violent, but, anda lot of parents didn't let their
(04:29):
kids watch Dragon Ball Z, right?
Because of the violence.
But I had a number of people especiallywhen I started to get a little older.
When a little older, Imean 15, 16, 17, right?
And, they would talk aboutHow influential Dragon Ball Z
was to their kids vocabulary.
(04:50):
Yeah, I didn't even know that you, Ididn't even know art books existed until
I started watching Dragon Ball Z as a kid.
I didn't know that I knew peopledrew them, duh, everyone knows
that, but it's I was like, Oh, okay.
I want to see if I don't like drawing, butthe first character I've ever Oh, let me
go find and you try drawing art, right?
They're my first kick at it.
Was dragon ball z I went I likeasked I was in walmart and asked
(05:12):
I still remember that's my my momwas hey You know I want this book.
I was like this is draw dragon ballz on it and I was like, yeah, she
goes You don't draw stuff And Iwas like, yeah I want to try it.
She goes Okay, it waslike Four or five dollars.
It was like super thin so she didn't careand I remember saying they're tracing
(05:32):
over goku Just couldn't a whole bunch,you know You I think, and then everyone's
tried to go Super Saiyan as a kid.
Yep.
Everyone's going in theroom and be like, Haaaaaa!
There's a very famous video of ablack kid trying to go Super Saiyan.
On the, on YouTube.
the famous One of the first bigYouTube memes was a black kid Trying
to go super saiyan at recess, right?
(05:54):
And no, he was at his house.
Oh, he was at his houseYeah, he's at his house.
He took his shirt off.
So he's going crazy And everyone every kidtried to do a kamehameha for no reason.
Yeah, It's just one of those thingsthat's just a it's not to say a cultural
icon is not accurate enough It's tosay just an icon of epic proportions.
Why do you think people's vocabularyincreased so much watching the anime?
(06:18):
Cause that's what a lot of whenever Iwas watching it, and whenever we had
people that would watch it, friends thatwould watch it, people coming up, and
parents would be like, Jack or John orwhoever, his vocabulary is is increasing,
is it's important to understand howthe human brain actually develops.
There has been a numerous amount ofstudies that have shown, and proven,
(06:43):
that if you can capture someone'sinterest, they learn a lot more.
There's a quite so there's a fewstudies I'd like to point out.
There was one done by not Cambridge,I think it was Harvard actually.
That looked at ADHD people and theirattention and retention, right?
In one video, they are showing thegroups of people with ADHD who were
(07:05):
not on the medicine at the time.
The meth.
They aren't on the meth.
They showed them a math lecture.
And you can see them twisting aroundand turning around in the chair.
It's a very popular video, you'veprobably seen it, but you're
not really paying attention.
Then they show the, then theyshow this person, and it was only
like, I think it was like threeminutes of the math lecture.
(07:25):
Then they played 60 minutes of A NewHope, Star Wars, and they're just sit
still, completely glued to the screen.
It's because it's actuallyinteresting and entertaining.
Now, most people know what they want to bebecause they find interest in that, right?
There's also, I'm then combining likethis knowledge with, there's also
(07:46):
proven studies that your child willhave learning deficiencies the way
you treat them when they're newborns.
Really?
All the way up to their Ithink to like their seven.
Yeah, it's a huge, as most peopleknow, it's a huge learning time.
They're learning their firstlanguage, they learn what
a circle is, this and that.
There, a lot of times, you'llsee two types of parents.
(08:10):
You'll see some parentsthat go, Come here Joshua.
No, put that down Joshua.
This is not, you'll see peoplego, and you'll see other parents
that go, I want that, got that.
They make that littlesound, Oh, come here baby.
Oh, how's something.
For some reason, when you speakarticulately, not for some
reason, but when you speak morearticulately to a young child,
(08:32):
They just start to learn faster.
Because, you have tothink about it like this.
If you're giving them baby talk, thatbaby talk, that's what they're learning.
And then, it's slowingdown their development.
Because they don't have anyknowledge to base it off of.
They're kids, right?
They don't have enough experienceto have their own knowledge
to base it off of, right?
They're learning baby talk, and they'relearning real talk, and having to discern
(08:55):
what is real and what is fake, comparedto just learning all the real stuff.
And, just growing up that way.
It's quite interesting.
We have ADHD because ourparents talk baby talk to us?
No, those are just an example.
Like, when things areinteresting, people learn faster.
When they're giving real content.
So when they're interested in something.
Okay, when you're a kid, You're going tofind Dragon Ball Z and anime interesting
(09:18):
because of the colors and whatever.
But also, you're learning fasterbecause you're not hearing
people give you that small babytreatment because you're a child.
And it's oh, okay, cool.
It's low key making them mature faster.
Just cause it's, and plus it startedoff as just regular tournament
fights and stuff like that beforeit escalated to the violence it is.
(09:39):
I think it was And it also taughtyou so much obviously anime teaches
you so much, just in general.
And whenever, it's almost hidingthe dog's medicine in the dog
food type of type of deal.
You get what I'm saying by that?
So it's basically it's the same thinganime is doing is teaching you about life
love happiness all that kind of stuffWith the creative genius that is, anime
(10:03):
Akira that's so dragon ball z Wasn't theonly dragon ball wasn't the only thing
that akira did but akira He is just soinfluential Goku anyone wearing orange in
general even if they're like the orangewith the blue combo like Even people who
don't know or who can't read Japanese.
They're just so recognizable, right?
(10:24):
It's right It's like showing someonea picture of spider man or the Hulk
or showing someone a picture ofBatman and being like, oh Who is this?
They're like, oh, I know who that is.
That's you know, Batman's man.
It's my man, right?
So it's not a picture Superman.
It's the same way.
What is the always the biggestdebate in all the fiction?
It's out of action fictionis oh, who's super strong?
Superman or Goku, right?
(10:45):
There have been That like that into itselfis like a genre of YouTube videos, right?
The entire genre is based offof these two characters fighting
and and unlike a lot of Westernculture Heroes Goku working out.
You never seen Superman benching.
(11:05):
Oh, sorry.
I can't work I can't go to I gottawork out to defeat this enemy.
You don't see him doing that He should bein Superman Batman works out but like he
does it like In the background, you neverreally see, there's never really scenes
of seeing them training like that, right?
Until more recently.
Yeah, and I think that I think honestly,As far as even the rest of anime
(11:26):
goes, and the rest of fiction, The onemoment that Akira made that every other
fiction writer is chasing, Is Gokugoing Super Saiyan for the first time.
Yeah.
There's just isn't any feeling like it.
There's just no emotion like it.
I remember seeing it for thefirst time We were just like
and you're like, what is this?
What is going on?
And the crazy part is he only did thatbecause they he needed to use less
(11:49):
black ink Apparently is that the reason?
Yeah, he needed to use less black ink.
And you know It's black and white whenit's in manga go his hair is black, right?
They need to use less black ink Sohe's okay this character design I'm
gonna just, in the original manga,his hair is white, but they make it
gold and the yellowness in the anime.
Yeah, that's crazy.
(12:09):
Also I was looking at some ofToriyama's early stuff, and he
did not have immediate success.
So he was basically saying that hefaced rejection from publishers before
finding his breakthrough with Dr.
Slump, which debuted in 1980.
So just like everybody else, hefaced his fair share of people not
(12:36):
believing in him, people, not people.
It's almost I remember somebody telling medon't wait for permission, be undeniable.
And something that's really great about.
Akira is like I said, like DragonBall is his most famous thing.
He did things outside of it.
And there are there are Certain aspectsof Akira that's quite interesting.
(12:57):
Like for example, he didn't likeVegeta he created that character
and Vegeta's like some people'sfavorite character is like Vegeta.
Yeah like when you think ofthe Dragon Ball duo All right,
you're like, oh my gosh.
This is you can't no one can meetGoku Can this person be Goku?
Okay.
But then it's there's Goku and Vegeta.
Alright, whoever they'regoing against loses.
(13:19):
That's the end of the story.
You know what's also crazy isthe height of these characters.
Vegeta's 5'2 Yeah, I think so.
Vegeta's 5'2 and I think Goku'slike 5'10 Something like that.
He's like 5'10 5'8 Aren't you5'10 how come you haven't gone
Super Saiyan yet, Nicholas?
Apparently my white powers,haven't reached their zenith yet.
(13:40):
You haven't kicked in, huh?
But also, the crazy part about, do youthink that Toyama I guess what I'm saying
is Toyama, even though he's reachedliterally God status, Super Saiyan God.
I'd say among writers, likeSuper Saiyan God status, right?
He Lives a relatively modest lifestyle.
He doesn't live crazy.
(14:01):
I think that's part of thejapanese culture I was just about
to ask you do you think that is?
Do you think that is attributedto akira or do you think that's
attributed to his japanese culture?
I'm, pretty sure it's to the culture, buti'm not japanese enough to answer that.
I personally think that But i'mpretty sure it's just really
more about the the culture.
(14:22):
I mean you look at You I mean Japan'scome out with some, it's not a
secret that Japan has come out witha lot of media that Americans enjoy.
Oh, yeah, it's not a secret.
And yet a lot of them don't livethe lavish diet lifestyles that you
see a lot of American creators make.
So I think it's justmore of a cultural thing.
Although to be fair it ispossible that it is also their
(14:42):
status is treated differently.
Japan's, obviously they're amuch smaller country than we are.
They're a group of islands and Japan,I believe is Relatively the size of
one of our states depending on whichstate you're talking about and one of
our smaller states like I don't know.
And then because he's sorevered and he's so famous.
(15:05):
He's just He can't go anywhereYeah, especially in japan.
I bet you it's really hard to Ithink he's like the michael jackson
He lives in a rural area of japan,right probably Very modest out
of necessity chillin it's crazy.
This is, and this is one of the thingsthat really cemented like his legacy.
(15:25):
Okay, so Stan Lee passed away, right?
Who came after Stan Lee?
Do you know?
No.
That's because there is no one.
Stan Lee, in America, you createsomething great, And corporations steal
it from you to make more money off youand then you as a creative They shove
you into the back until you perish andthen they don't really care about you
It's not a secret that stan lee probablymight have still even been alive.
(15:48):
There wasn't so much elderabuse to stan lee this is stan
lee elder abuse with stan lee.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is now what no yet There wasa bunch of elder abuse to Stan Lee's
part of the reason why his possiblywhy his wife passed away, too Really?
Yeah, I didn't know that.
Yes, but that's a conversationfor another time But yeah, it's
(16:09):
a whole bunch of elder abuse.
In fact, it went to court.
It was that serious.
Really?
Yes, and that's what we that'swhat Americans do to creatives
who change the face of humanhistory for forever Like Stan Lee.
Stan Lee is like a modernWilliam Shakespeare, basically.
Say people talk about oh You peopletalk about great writers who've
changed the face of human history,culture, Lord of the Rings or Tolkien.
(16:33):
Lord of the Rings is awesome.
I love Lord of the Rings.
I also love Star Wars, George Lucas.
Neither of them are evenclose to Stan Lee's power.
Not even close.
Not even close.
I love, the people can like thosefranchises more than they can like Marvel.
Because a lot of people do.
Oh, I just like Lord of theRings better than I like Marvel.
Or I like some people say, oh, I likeStar Wars more than I like Marvel.
(16:55):
But in terms of cultural impact.
In terms of world, global,human history impact.
It just doesn't, it's not even a candle.
It's a candle to it.
So here and that's what Americansdo to writers who are like that.
For Akira Toriyama I do believethat probably he didn't receive as
much money or I think it's more ofa respect thing over there, right?
They just respect the creators,but they don't pay them as much as
(17:17):
they, they would have been paid ifthey were Americans, me personally.
And that also could have attributedto their more modest lifestyle.
The the culture there is verymuch skewed and, or not skewed,
but it's very much revered.
The elders are very much respected.
It.
Right and no matter the age likeelder Respecting your elders
(17:40):
is not just about Older people.
It's just like respectingthe person above you, right?
So Stan Lee, we alreadysaid how big he is, right?
That guy has no successor.
That's why I said, do youknow who his successor is?
He doesn't have one because youshoved up to the side and then
disney stole and everything.
So Toriyama does have a successor.
(18:02):
That's how powerful this man's writingwas So the part where the corporation
came back to him and was like, okay,dude if you're gonna stop you have
to choose a successor who's gonnatake the keys to the kingdom, right?
That's crazy Where they he has to choosea successor to pass on his legacy and
the business people ask him for him todo That would never happen in America
(18:25):
They would just love to steal what youhave and tell you to die, basically.
That's what an Americancorporation would love to do.
But this man is treatedwith so much respect.
It's also it's also a fact, not anopinion, but a fact that when new
Dragon Ball Z and when new Dragon BallSuper episodes premiere, that there is
actually a drop, now we're Americans,we live here in Los Angeles, but there's
(18:47):
actually a drop in cartel activity.
Yes.
Yeah, that's a fact.
I saw on Instagram today therewas just an absolute mass of
cartel people, given respects.
Given respects.
And they're not Japanese to a curator.
Yeah.
In terms of Dragon Ball Z,and this wasn't in Japan.
(19:09):
This was.
And Mexico.
Yeah, and Mexico.
And yeah, Mexico and south, and thesouth part of the United States.
But, also, I don't, I hate todo this, but, who do you think
came up with better villains?
Who do you mean who?
Stan Lee or Akira Toriyama?
(19:30):
That's not really a fair question.
Just because, Akira Toriyama,he's really known for one villain.
Series and when that series took offhe focused on that series So he had to
come up with villains for that seriesso he didn't really have you couldn't
come up as many diverse villains asstanley could have that's a fair enough
(19:53):
question so stanley you have wolverine.
You have spider man youhave the hulk, right?
These are not to be fair jack.
Kirby came up with the webbing kindof thing But These characters are
so wildly different into themselveswhen you create villains for them.
Their other villains are just goingto be more diverse and more different,
giving you more opportunitiesto make more diverse villains.
(20:15):
To go more in depth.
So it's not really a fair question.
I will say though, that when itcomes to, because with comics,
you write a whole bunch of stuff.
If they, comics go wide.
Manga really goes deep where they doubledown on one of them instead of just
carrying a whole bunch of stuff, right?
There's not a lot of especially inbefore a lot of the corporations
(20:36):
like, apple and Disney got into marveland dc and sony and stuff like that.
There's a whole bunch of comiccrossovers You would see you know
wonder woman versus storm, right?
You would see the hulk versussuperman so so Americans love
doing crossovers with franchises.
It's not as popular in Japan, right?
(20:58):
No.
Who knows, I don't thinkit's a fair question.
However, I will say that when it comes,did he create some great villains?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Vegeta's Frieza's Frieza, I likethe earlier Frieza better than
I do like the modern Frieza.
I, earlier Frieza was, you're justsitting there as a kid and you're
just like, This dude is so cool.
(21:20):
Also And he was like, and eventhough he was like, gender
questionable, no one cared.
I was, I wouldn't evensay anything about it.
There was no like parents in the street.
Oh, he's played by a malevoice actor in the Japanese.
And the Japanese audio,but in the American English
audio played by a woman, but.
(21:42):
Again, it's an alien, so we don'teven know if you could have the male
or female debate in the first place.
But, regardless of which, you have,I think Frieza's great, but Vegeta's
one of the best lances, I would say.
Lance as in the archetypes of writing.
You have the hero, a lance, you havethe muscle, We have the brains, right?
(22:06):
Then you have the heartof the group, right?
And together they makeCaptain Planet, right?
But or the five Power Rangers, right?
Most D& Ds are like this.
D& D campaigns are like that.
Who was your favoritevillain from Dragon Z.
I think Broly is my favorite villain.
Broly is your favorite villain?
(22:27):
Vegeta he's really I'm a Vegeta fan mainlybecause like he, his motivation is crazy.
He just wants to be the best,this guy who always beats him.
It's been like 20 years.
He shouldn't give up, but hedoesn't because that's not
the type of person that he is.
He grows and evolves and becomes a betterperson, but he's still a jerk, right?
What I like about Broly.
The old Broly and then the newer Brolyis more like he's like crazy, right?
(22:50):
What I liked about the olderBroly, his reasoning for hating
Kakarot is really stupid.
What, he was crying as a baby?
You were also a baby.
What are you talking about?
Like, how do you remember this?
It doesn't make any sense.
But what I did like about himis that how evil he was and
how he was just whooping tail.
This guy is 10 feet tall.
With the frame of Shaquille O'Nealand dodging everyone's attacks.
(23:12):
What do you mean He's dodging this man?
This man is 8, 8, 600 pounds.
He has the hit box of arefrigerator and people are
missing, you know what I'm saying?
And he's fast.
And not only that, he's just so evil.
You know what I'm saying?
He's just oh, I'm justhere to destroy stuff.
I destroyed an entire galaxyand now I'm here to destroy you.
And he only, and he hadto lose to plot armor.
That's how you knowyou're a great villain.
(23:33):
They, you didn't lose legitimately,you lost a plot armor and then you came
back after you died two more times.
That's, you were so great thatyou were actually a just non-car,
non cannon character that theyhad to then make Cannon later on.
That's when we watched the Broley movie,which is just two and a half hours of
him just whooping their tails, right?
There are so many, and there are somany references to Dragon Mal and other.
(23:59):
Forms of media, especially Americanmedia, and his influence will be felt
throughout time, really I honestly,There are, I would say oh, are there
animes better than Dragon Ball Z?
I think that there are some I haveenjoyed more than then, but if I
would say that there's one thatI'm more attached to personally?
(24:19):
No.
I don't think there is one.
I don't think there is.
Because there's, I don't think if you'rein the age range of Emily, it can be.
Now, if you're in the late age range, ifyou're in the age range of late twenties
to early thirties, there was no betterfeeling than coming home from school
and watching Toonami, getting somethingto drink, eating some Hot Pockets or
(24:41):
pizza rolls or something like that, andthen watching and then watching Spike.
Cuz he's the guy thatvoices the Toonami guy.
It's also part of the reasonwhy welcome back, everybody!
And then, brr!
Excuse my horrible impression.
I thought it was great, actually.
I thought it was pretty, pretty bent on.
I think that part of thatreason is the longevity of it.
(25:03):
It's still going on.
Like kids, with American stories,they usually have an ending,
unless there's like a Spider Mancomic, you know what I'm saying?
They have arcs, right?
But And a lot of mangas endtoo, you know what I'm saying?
A lot of mangas, a lot of French, alot of stories in general have endings.
The creator of One Piece saysit's going to end in 2025.
Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it.
(25:25):
It's been like One Piece and Dragon Ball,longevity wise, for our entire lives.
As of this recording, everything thatI know and could possibly process in
my brain, in my understanding of timeitself, has not existed longer than these
franchises and the people making them.
(25:45):
Also, when it comes to terms with makingmoney, They're going to keep it going.
Oh yeah.
If it's American, if it's American,whatever it is, They take a dead horse,
make it a zombie and keep it pushing.
And keep it pushing.
Now I'm not sure how they, ifthey would do that in Japan.
(26:07):
I think there's more, I thinkMore reverence for the material.
I don't know about thatmuch because Japan, Korea.
Business is still business.
That's what I'm saying.
There are some Money's still money.
Let's not act there haven't beena whole bunch of allegations about
the way they treat their animators.
Yeah, and then also And the way theyalso treat some of their other mangakas.
But, that just proves the power ofDragon Ball Z that he's like, Oh,
(26:30):
you're not gonna treat me like that.
I don't care what other people are doing.
I'm a curatorial.
Do you think So we'vetalked about this before.
We've talked about thecreator of Bleach, right?
And how he doesn't wantto do Bleach anymore.
He wants to start something different.
Okay?
And the only reason why he reallystarted doing Bleach again was because
(26:52):
Nobody wanted to see anything else.
Nobody was going to allowhim to do anything else.
Yeah, they didn't want, theydidn't want to back us up.
A lot of creators do that.
When you're a creative person, youdon't want to just want to work
on one project your whole life.
That One Piece guy is workingon a whole bunch of other stuff.
There's a ton, like Dragon Quest.
The art, Kiritoriyama did that.
If you look at the art forDragon Quest, it's Dragon Ball Z.
I honestly, when I first saw thevideo game Dragon Quest, I was
(27:14):
like, is this a Dragon Ball Z videogame that's called Dragon Quest?
That's crazy.
And then my friend was like, no,that's not Dragon Ball Z at all.
It's, yeah, it's by Akira, but it'scalled it's called Dragon Quest.
And I was like, oh it looksso much like Dragon Ball.
And I was like, I just,the style is so iconic.
You know what I'm saying?
So did he work on, did hework on a lot of other animes?
(27:35):
Yeah, he worked on a whole bunch ofstuff that, but he's just Dragon Ball Z.
It's the most popular, right?
So just like the creative Narutois trying to make a A manga
about samurais instead of ninjas.
Not trying to, he did, butit's not as popular, right?
You have this person whose legacyis Dragon Ball Z and also it's
a legacy that he doesn't hate.
You see a lot of creatives becausethey have a whole bunch of ideas.
(27:59):
People only like one.
I understand the sentiment.
And You guys should hear Rock Gorilla.
It is DJ's best work.
He's never even read that script.
He's never even read that script.
He's just making this jokebecause of a couple things.
Whatever.
I'm about to get into Rock Gorilla.
But, it's, he's most known for that.
(28:20):
And he has it's interesting, becauseit says he doesn't like certain
characters, but then he kept writingthem because other people liked them.
Now, I, one question I would ask youis, why do you think Akira Toriyama, out
of the many people who create things,and it becomes wildly popular, none
more popular than Dragon Ball Z, whydo you think it is that he never ended
(28:43):
up hating his creation I personally,once again, I do not know this,
obviously I don't know him personally.
Will say that he probably, he just,he just, just genuine love for it.
There are some things that youcreate that you're just like, I don't
really matter it's like having a kid.
I don't care what any parentsays, if you have more than
one kid, you have a favorite.
We, me and Nicholas both have siblings.
Alright?
Alright.
(29:04):
We know which parents likeus versus the other ones.
That's just how it is.
They, every parent has a favorite.
Every, any parent who says theydon't, they're lying to you.
If one of your parents said that toyou, I'm sorry that they lied to you.
If they might not tell you, right?
I think what would, I think whatwould be a more honest representation
of that is that they love them boththe same, but they like one better.
(29:28):
So in this case, it's likethe one that you like.
Ends up being the oneeveryone else also likes.
And you're like of course.
That's, damn that's kid number two.
I like that guy.
Out of the five of them, everyonelikes this one, and so do I.
Out of the vast difference betweenAkira Toriyama and the creator of
Bleach, Because the fact is I don'tknow who the creator of Bleach is, but
(29:49):
I know who Akira Toriyama is, right?
You know what?
That's another thing that's crazy.
A lot of people don't know the creatorsof other animes and mangas, but
everyone knows who Akira Toriyama is.
So why do you think, in your estimation,why was Akira, other than the obvious,
why do you think he was allowed to workon other animes and the creator wasn't?
(30:12):
Also, it's it's Kubo.
Kubo is the creator of Bleach.
But, I don't know if you, Idon't know the extent in which
you worked on other animes, man.
I have no idea.
It's not like you worked on a, Ipersonally, not an Akira expert.
I don't know, what do you think?
One of the reasons why I think isbecause while Bleach is iconic, it
(30:33):
just doesn't touch Dragon Ball Z.
There's some, I'll tell you whatit is right now, and it's very
hard for some people to discern.
And me personally, I'm onlyreally able to tell when a
project has the juice, I call it.
I think from working in development.
There's a lot of people who,like working in development.
(30:54):
It's your job to know that something'sgoing to pop off versus something else a
lot of people don't work in developmentand a lot of people can't really it's a
hard job to be good at It's one of thosejobs where you can do what you don't
I'll tell you what it uses right now Thelong part of the part of it is the story
engine Of the franchise itself goku thestory of dragon ball Is really like a
(31:16):
story engine Find the seven Dragon Balls.
Then Dragon Ball Z comes around and it'sabout defend the earth against Aliens.
Okay.
Against aliens.
Various aliens and various monsters.
Okay.
Bleach, it's the same thing Except it'soh all the monsters actually come from
or just ghosts So defend it againstghosts, but not just like random ghosts.
(31:38):
They're like more specific, right?
Dragon Ball Z and Bleach, you can't justhave Some ghosts come from Mars, come
down from the sky, and be like, Hey, I'ma Martian, hollow, and we gotta fight.
Doesn't make any sense, right?
It doesn't really work.
But what you can do is have, in DragonBall, be like, Hey, it's the reanimated
corpse of Gohan, his grandfather.
(32:00):
They gotta fight now.
That makes sense.
There's just way more to do there.
And when there's way more to do,there's way more to write about.
It just has the juice, hey, man.
R.
I.
P.
Akira Toriyama.
R.
I.
P.
Akira Toriyama.
Yeah.
I'm Derrick Johnson II.
I'm Nicholas Killian.
And we'll see you next time.
See ya.
This has been SouthernSenpais on Comic Con Radio.
(32:22):
Check out our previousepisodes at Comic ConRadio.
com.
You can follow the showat Southern Senpais on all
major social media platforms.
Tune in next Wednesdayfor a fresh episode.
Y'all come back now.
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