Dragon Ball Q&A: Dragon Boxes, Super vs Z and Goku's farewell

In this Q&A I answered fan questions about Dragon Ball: the scenes that mean the most to me, whether Dragon Ball and GT will ever get Dragon Boxes outside Japan, where the franchise was heading, and why King Kai had vanished from the story. My short version: Dragon Ball Super has great moments, but it doesn't hold up against Dragon Ball and Z.

Along the way I also covered the Funimation dub, how I discovered the series, my top wrestling matches, and Granolah.

The Dragon Ball scenes that carry special meaning for me

The first question asked which scene in all of Dragon Ball has a special meaning for me. The fan's own pick was Goku sacrificing himself and saying goodbye to Gohan, which aired the week their dad passed. That is a powerful answer. After my own dad passed away, that scene took on a strong meaning for me too, without question.

Another is the moment Goku sees Grandpa Gohan again, similar to the reunion at Baba's Palace in the original Dragon Ball. I think it's one of the most powerful scenes in the history of the series. I watched it with an ex who wasn't even a hardcore fan. It was her first watch of Dragon Ball from start to finish, and she started crying. When an anime makes someone cry, especially someone who isn't an anime fan, that tells you something.

There are so many others. Goku popping up out of the water against Frieza and doing the Kaioken times 20 is one, whether you watch the original Japanese Z or the Kai dub, where Sean Schemmel is excellent and I love the speech he gives. And in Battle of Gods, when Gohan finds out Videl is pregnant, the way his face lights up made it "the most human moment in Dragon Ball for me." We go all the way back to Gohan as a kid and Goku as a dad, so seeing Gohan become a father is a beautiful moment.

Will Dragon Ball and GT ever get Dragon Boxes outside Japan?

I can't predict the future. Dragon Ball and GT have Japanese Dragon Boxes, but they were never brought over here in that form. I have no idea why they weren't released outside Japan, even as a limited run. If you want the Japanese sets, you can get them cheap on eBay, but there are no subtitles, so you either need to know the series well or speak Japanese.

As for finishing the full color manga, that's up to Shueisha, not Viz. I've talked to Viz about it, and their answer was: "Hey, it's Shueisha's call. They give it to us arc by arc." So I don't know if it will ever be finished. I own all the full color volumes Viz put out, and it's weird to have only seven or eight of them and that's it.

Dragon Ball Super doesn't hold a candle to Dragon Ball and Z

Asked whether the franchise would evolve in a Moro arc anime, I said I don't know. At the time, I thought Dragon Ball was in a weird place because it was manga only until the anime returned. When it did return, I expected it would probably adapt what we'd seen in the manga, which would make it like most other shows, since most of them adapt manga anyway.

I thought it was heading in a good direction with new people involved. Toyotaro is a fan who is now working on it. I'm not a huge fan of his, but I don't hate him either. I think he's effective, but not as good as other writers would be. So I think it's evolving and changing.

Will it ever be as good as the old material? No. "Dragon Ball Super does not hold a candle to Dragon Ball and Z." There are great moments, and I love covering it, but compared to the original from a writing, directing, acting and choreography perspective, it doesn't hold up, outside of maybe three or four big fights and big moments.

My MCU fan service wish: Thanos as a good guy, and Onslaught

If I could have one piece of pure fan service in the MCU, it would be Thanos coming back as a good guy and working with the Avengers against a bigger threat. Something close to that which I would like to see is Onslaught. Since Marvel has bought the Fox rights and can incorporate the Fox X-Men, I want an Onslaught storyline. If they build it up for several years, Onslaught could be as big as Endgame, if you ask me.

Why Dragon Ball and anime feel so addictive

One fan new to anime asked why they felt a strange urge to keep watching after finishing the show. Dragon Ball is addicting. Beyond that, many popular anime are serialized rather than episodic, so you have to keep going: next episode, next episode. Back with the original dub, every week, and sometimes every day, it was "stay tuned for scenes from the next episode of Dragon Ball Z," and you'd wonder what would happen next. That is a beautiful way to tell a story, because it hooks you.

The Funimation dub never beat the Japanese, but Kai sometimes did

A fan asked for three moments where the original Funimation English dub of Dragon Ball Z matched or outdid the Japanese, and three it botched. There are way more than three that botched it, and I'm not going to sugarcoat that. As for moments better than the Japanese: none. There are some that are as good, some musical moments with the old Faulconer score that are good, and some that give you a different feeling, but none are better. I'm sorry if that bothers your nostalgia. It's my opinion, and I've watched this series in multiple languages for 25 years.

Kai is different. There are a number of moments in Kai that I think surpass the Japanese, because they tried harder on the vocal performances and the scripting is relatively good. Schemmel doing the Kaioken times 20 against Frieza is as good as Nozawa, if not a little better. The Gohan and Cell material is good in Kai, and I thought Majin Vegeta was a little better in Kai.

How I was introduced to Dragon Ball through a 1994 magazine ad

In an old magazine in 1994, there was an ad for Dragon Ball Z Super Butoden, though they messed up the translation of the name. It had a picture, I think by Nakatsuru, or it might have been that mysterious big eared artist from the '90s, of Goku with blonde hair, Super Saiyan Goku. I had no idea what that was, but I thought he looked cool and wondered what the show and the game were.

The backs of magazines back then sold figurines, and I saw Broly, Cell and Buu without a clue who they were. Buu came later, around '95 or '96, when I saw Fat Buu in the magazines. Then a friend showed me an early Bardock special, and I had no idea what I was watching. In '95 I started watching Dragon Ball in syndication, the old dub of the Pilaf arc. Then I saw Z, started collecting tapes, and watched it in Spanish, English and Japanese.

A villain who outsmarts Goku would be hard to pull off

I would love a villain who uses intelligence to keep Goku and company on the ropes instead of sheer power, but that's what Moro was doing, except he used magic as well. A Brainiac type of villain with no real powers who manipulates the good guys would be great. Babidi did that to a degree, but again, he's magic.

The issue is that the good side now has many smart characters. Piccolo is smart in general, even though, at the time, he hadn't been super smart in the latest manga chapters. Roshi is experienced, and of course there's Whis. It's very difficult to outsmart Goku and Vegeta when they have those people on their side.

The Super Android 13 moment I don't care for

Asked whether there are moments most people love that I dislike, my answer is mostly no. When someone loves a moment, I usually understand why. There is one, though: in Super Android 13, Dragon Ball Z movie 7, when Goku absorbs the Genki Dama. The punch is cool, but when they zoom in on his face, he has that awkward look with his teeth all out. I thought it looked weird and dumb. Conceptually it's a decent idea, but I didn't like it much. Beyond that, I can't think of anything, and even dub material I find amusing, though as I said above, the dub never matches the sub in my opinion.

My top wrestling matches, from WrestleMania 17 to Kobashi and Misawa

Off the top of my head: The Rock versus Steve Austin at WrestleMania 17, Steve Austin versus Triple H in Three Stages of Hell, and the Kenta Kobashi versus Mitsuharu Misawa match from, I think, '97. There's also a match from the Tokyo Dome that I attended live, but I can't really say that I love it, since I'm biased on that one because I was there.

There's also Bret Hart versus Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13 and Survivor Series 96, Bret Hart versus Owen Hart at WrestleMania 10, and Ric Flair versus Sting, all of them, even though they're all the same. I think I like Great American Bash 90 and Starrcade 89 a lot. Ric Flair versus Ricky Steamboat at Music City Showdown in May of 89 is another, and I love the 80s material from Tiger Mask and Dynamite Kid.

Granolah may get something new, but I'm done with new forms

Will Granolah get a new transformation or technique? He'll have something, since at that point we had only seen him for two chapters. It might not be a new technique or transformation, but it might be new to us as fans. Will he transform after gaining more power? Possibly. But we know nothing about the Cerealian race: whether they transform, grow, or shrink. All we know is that Frieza's empire, with the Saiyans doing the work, destroyed his home.

As for needing to become extremely strong to kill Frieza, you don't need a transformation to be strong. That's one thing I don't like about modern Dragon Ball: too much reliance on transformations, new form after new form. I've been saying this for two years, and I'm done with new forms. If he gets a transformation that fits him, that's fine, since Dragon Ball has had many transformations, especially from the Z era on. But I like it when characters get strong in their base form and can reach that strength whenever they want.

Why King Kai disappeared: respect for Joji Yanami

The last question asked whether King Kai was missing because he would return to train Goku. No. He was missing because Joji Yanami, who voices King Kai, was ill. He had been sick since about the Battle of Gods arc around Super, and if you noticed, he was replaced with a different narrator and a different actor. Out of respect for him, the Japanese side chose not to work King Kai into the story. He isn't necessary anyway now that there's Beerus, Whis, Zeno and the Grand Priest.

Yanami is a legend. He was the first voice ever heard in Dragon Ball, at the start of the first episode back in '86. With Hiromi Tsuru, the voice of Bulma, gone, and Yanami having died in December 2021, Nozawa is now the last of the original trio of voices from that first episode.

The fan also suggested King Kai could teach Goku the Dragon Fist to make it canon, the way Roshi taught him the Mafuba, or that Goku could tap into it himself and finally become the sensei who trains Uub. I don't think King Kai knows that move, or he would have taught it already, and I don't think Goku has to learn the Dragon Fist to become Uub's teacher.

Will King Kai ever have a prominent role again? Probably not. It's like Korin, who is still in Korin Tower with Yajirobe eating Senzu Beans, but isn't prominent. Roshi is a fan favorite who fought in Dragon Ball, a little in Z, in some movies, and again in Super, which was a treat, but I don't think people clamor for King Kai. With Joji Yanami gone, I think King Kai is probably going to be scaled back or not used at all, because he isn't necessary for the story at this point.