Dragon Ball Z: Patience

SPOILER WARNING

So I'm still only at the beginning of Buu's badassery, but some recent developments have brought up the value of patience, something that is often quite difficult for children.

So Buu is not patient, plain and simple. This is looked down upon because it doesn't allow for Gotenks to get ready and Piccolo points this out quite tactfully. Buu tries to wait, but can't, yells and screams, and gets his way because he is super powerful. I don't think that this is such a good example for our children, but truth be told if a greater-than-heaven powerful monster wanted something done immediately, I would probably hop to as soon as possible.

image credit: Funimation and Akira Toriyama

On the other hand we have Gohan, who's waiting for the oldest of Supreme Kais to power him up. He has to sit for upwards of 24 hours. This is well rewarded, but the rewards are not apparent along the way and the Supreme Kai is messing around all the while. This is quite frustrating but pays off in the end.

The portrayal of patience and impatience are done in parallel, with a lot of switching between Gohan waiting and Buu waiting, and then between Gohan waiting and Buu fighting. Since both sides are rewarded for their (im)patience, it seems to level itself out.

Dragonball Z: Friendship

SPOILER WARNING

So I started the last season of DBZ yesterday, and there has been a wonderful example of the relationship between how people are treated and how they treat others. Buu has become a joyful (if demanding) child with the help of Mr. Satan's friendship. As Dende noticed, all Buu needed was a friend. He only goes back to being bad when angered by "The Cruelty of Man" (how's that for a title of a cartoon episode, by the way).

DBZ has shown some very profound if simple things about the concept of friendship. There are things that one does to protect the bond of friendship. Gohan and Piccolo's friendship comes up quite a bit, and it's not often that you see close friendships between people of such drastic age differences. The concept of doing something for somebody because they are a friend is such a beautiful idea and I'm happy to see it in this show.

image credit: Akira Toryama and Funimation

GTA San Andreas: Carjacking

So when walking to class this morning I thought about hijacking a car. I don't believe that I ever would, my ethics and self-control (though not perfect) could not mesh with an action such as this. However, it got me thinking about people who used the excuse of "being influenced by video games" for their real life actions. I had always dismissed this as simply a sad excuse, but having the thought today made me question just how much of an excuse it is. I do not believe that it should excuse somebody of their actions, but might it also put some blame on GTA and Rockstar Games? I've never been one to blame companies for this type of thing, but I've also never had a thought like the one that I did today.

image credit: Rockstar Games

note: I googled "carjacking" and this came up... talk about pop culture

Well, that's not entirely true. Sometimes I think about what it would feel like to be hit by a car. Not for the purposes of suicide or anything of that sort, but just to see what it would feel like.

Playing GTA recently: CJ got hit by an 18 wheeler on the highway, and simply fell over with damage that could be fixed by eating a slice of pizza. What the hell?

GTA San Andreas: Characters

So I never played GTA until this week. It's all that the media said about it, all that the overwhelmingly positive reviews said about it, and more in a melting pot of fantasy life. The main characters are wonderfully fleshed out, rounded, full of character and life, believable, and unique.

This is not the case for the people on the street. At the beginning of the game, Sweet talks about how messed up it is that several of your homies have been killed. Of course then you procede to kill hundreds if not thousands of other people throughout just the early stages of the game. Are these deaths not just as messed up? The people that you kill are not shown to have connections except their one-track status as a member of the eses or another gang. Officer Tenpenny and his henchmen (so to speak) show the only reaction to your killing people, except that he's nonchalant about it (e.g. "Oh Carl, try not to kill any more respected police officers. Please?").

image credit: Rockstar Games and IGN

So it's all about you and your homies. Everybody else amounts to jack shit on the emotional scale.

That's the most disturbing thing. I find myself not caring about killing people in this game. Death should cary weight, particularly in a game as socially oriented as this.

Dragonball Z: Action vs. Reaction

So the characters in DBZ face a wonderful little decision several times every episode. Do I make an audible reaction to what's going on such as a gasp, exclamation, or comment, or do I actually do something productive (e.g. dodge the attack or save the innocent person at risk)?

Unfortunately... they all too often choose the former. There is almost never time for both, and they get punished for their choices. Basically, action and thought take up too much time. Act on reflex is a sort of lesson here, though it really isn't enforced strongly enough for me to consider it an actual reflex.

image credit: copyright Akira Toriyama and Funimation

Dragonball Z: Status of Women

All of the women in Dragonball Z are insanely annoying. They don't wait for a response before asking for one repeatedly (e.g. Bulma asking Piccolo to hear about Trunks' battle because she can't sense the fight). Chi Chi henpecks Goku to no end, won't let Gohan save the world (because apparently saving the world is less important than homework), and will not yield (except on a few occasions).

image credit: MajinPlatypus26

Is the goal of this show to get people to disregard anything said by a woman? Because it's done a pretty good job. Actually, in the later seasons (7 onward), with the addition of Number 18 and Videl to the gang and the re-imagining of Chi Chi and Bulma, the women are much more reasonable and listening to what they have to say is no-longer painful. Plus Number 18 is kick-ass.

Also, the characters also often completely disregard what women say. Bulma had the brilliant idea of destroying Dr. Gero's lab before the Androids are completed but Nooo, the only way to defeat them would be to let them be free and then fight them.

Of course then there's Master Roshi's take on women, which is to ogle like a dirty old man at every opportunity, grabbing boobs as often as possible, and looking at nudie magazines all day.

Although, the status as a mother is quite important. Gohan listens to his mother, Trunks and Goten listen later on, and "mother knows best" comes in fairly often. Listen to your parents. This is a good message, I think (especially when compared to the others).

So yeah, from the perspective of a youth watching Dragonball Z, women suck.

Dragonball Z: Anger = Power

So I started watching Dragonball Z with my housemate since coming to McGill. I'm now in the last season so this is sort of a catch-up post.

One thing that I've noticed is that the more angry you are, the more powerful you are. Powering up is done by screaming, going Super Saiyan and beyond is achieved through rage and screaming. (e.g. Goku vs. Vegeta, Gohan vs. Cell, and every other character vs. somebody at some point)

image credit: copyright Akira Toriyama and Funimation

Even in non-fighting situations, anger trumps the voice of reason. Whoever screams the loudest and is the least lenient in their argument wins (e.g. Bulma raving at just about anybody other than Vegeta).