Final Forum: A Dragon Ball Podcast

Akira Toriyama Revisited (Summer Convention Series) (S4E0)

It's Summer Convention Season! You think it's not, just because it's winter? Well, tune in to find out why it is! Jelli takes you into the world of our summer conventions by presenting one of the panels we held this year, at Colossalcon Texas in Austin, TX (well, technically Round Rock, TX) from Colossalcon. This panel was also presented at Anime Weekend Atlanta (AWA) in (obviously) Atlanta, GA and the Q&A portion of that event is retained here. 

In this episode:

• Jelli is on his own.

• We talk about Toriyama's childhood life
• We learn about Toriyama's early obsession with drawing and animation
• The influences of a young Toriyama are discussed, especially his enjoyment of Showa-era television and movie entertainment including Godzilla, Ultraman, Osamatsu-kun, Astro Boy, Iron Man Number 28, Doraemon and some early manga by creators such as Osamu Tezuka, and Fujiko Fujio despite not being a big reader of manga himself.
• Toriyama's realization that to be a popular anime, you should have a popular manga
• Discussion of how Toriyama writes and creates while watching TV and movies
• We discuss Toriyama's initial years out of college in a salaryman job and how his non-professional attitude caused him to seek out something more fulfilling
• Toriyama's passion for building models and how that allows him to get a 360-degree view of things in order to learn how to draw them
• Toriyama's well-known antisocial tendencies and his desire to live as near a hermit lifestyle as possible
• How a young, budding Toriyama got his first big shot from Kazuhiko Torishima, an editor with Shonen Jump
• The fusion of a manga-ka (Toriyama) who doesn't read manga, and an editor (Torishima) who also does not read much manga, and how that led the two of them to create a unique presentation
• Brief discussion of some of Toriyama's earliest publications in Shonen Jump including Wonder Island, Today's Highlight Island, Tomato Girl Detective, and ultimately, Dr. Slump
• How Arale-chan's glasses became part of her iconic look
• How Dr Mashirito, the villain, came to be designed after Torishima
• Discussion of Akira Toriyama's Crummy Manga Lab, a series of funny, short manga that were intended to semi-jokingly teach people how to be a manga-ka.
• How Toriyama creates Toribot, because of his desire to never be seen in pictures and avoid being recognized by people in public
• Toriyama falling in love, getting married, and how a snafu with press on his wedding day leads to his vow to never show his face in public
• How Torishima had to push Toriyama along the way to be productive and ultimately create Dragon Ball
• How Yoshimi Kato, Toriyama's wife, helped create Dragon Ball with an off-hand comment to Torishima about the manga-ka's work habits
• A very brief discussion of how Dragon Ball Super is crafted, as a collaboration between Toriyama and his chosen successor, Toyotarou
• Some more details on Akira Toriyama's unfortunate passing from subdermal hematoma
• and more, including some general pop culture and editorializing, as usual.

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise.

Daima Discussion 3 Episodes 11-15

What happens when Vegeta goes even further beyond? When will we find out why Piccolo is here? What's Daima's terrible behind-the-scenes secret?

Join Jelli and Bekinney as we continue looking at Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball franchise by tackling a discussion of Dragon Ball Daima, and its next five episodes: "Legend," "True Strength," "Surprise," "Taboo," and "Third Eye".

Why is Majin Kuu best boi?
Is his brother, Majin Duu also best boi?
Piccolo forgot how to speak Namekian? What is he DOING here?
Battles against Tamagami 1 and 2
Kaiju sized hamsters!
Who is the mysterious woman with the fun hat?
What's the deal with the Great Value Ginyu Force?
Join us for a pitch for a new show: The Saiyan Prince and Buu Heirs, and marvel at its potential storytelling heights such as Duu and Kuu asking Vegeta in a heartfelt way, "Why doesn't Arinsu want me?" (Yes this is a Fresh Prince spinoff sitcom...featuring VegeBull Hybis Duu and Kuu)
What else are Jelli and Bekinney up to? 
Jelli is re-reading The Dark Tower, talks about The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and gives thoughts on 2025's Wolf Man as well as 2024's Street Trash remake
Bekinney is playing Final Fantasy 7, and gives thoughts on the anime and manga series Hajime no Ippo
Wait, what?
Are we okay?
Join us for this more casual conversation as we dig through the world of Daima and continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise.

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Season Three Finale - Final Forum vs A Planet (S3E30)

Jelli and Bekinney have no time to continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime Dragon Ball.

In this episode:

• The climactic battle!

Join us and find out if we will ever continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise, and unspool what we all love so much about Goku, the Dragon Ball franchise, the Dragon Ball anime, Dragon Ball manga, and more.

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Super Secret Movie Commentary (S3E29)

Jelli and Bekinney are still on a break from Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon (don't worry, it's still Dragon Ball related this time) by pivoting slightly and taking a look at the 1990 film: Dragon Ball: Fight Son Goku, Win Son Goku, aka Dragon Ball: Zero.

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney are closing in on the power reading
• We reveal our title and instruct listeners where to find this one
• We discuss some of the production facts about the film, its 1990 release, and the production team working on the film
• Discussing the history of mockbuster movies
• The Asylum, their philosophy, and their movies such as HG Wells' War of the Worlds, King of the Lost World, The Da Vinci Treasure, Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers, I Am Omega, and Atlantic Rim (obviously cashing-in on Spielberg's War of the Worlds, Peter Jackson's 2005 King Kong, The Da Vinci Code, Snakes on a Plane, Transformers, I Am Legend/The Omega Man, and Pacific Rim)
• The Asylums "original" movies such as King of the Ants, 3-Headed Shark Attack, 5-Headed Shark Attack, the Sharknado series, the Mega Shark series, Lavalantula and of course, bad cinema classic: Air Collision.
• A mention of Monster Island, Ape vs Mecha Ape and Ape vs Mecha Ape New World Order (meant to cash in on the MonsterVerse movies Godzilla King of the Monsters, Godzilla vs Kong and Godzilla x Kong the New Empire)
• The "rich history" of trash cinema naming things in ways that would trick audiences best, such as how the German film industry crammed the name Frankenstein into the titles for movies such as Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster, Ebirah Horror of the Deep, and Son of Godzilla due to the success of Frankenstein Conquers the World and War of the Gargantuas, and how they went on to cram Kong into the titles of the two Mechagodzilla movies due to the upcoming Dino DeLaurentiis Kong movie in 1976
• Italian cinema's history of ripoffs including Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2, an unofficial sequel to George Romer's Dawn of the Dead (released in Italy as Zombi, despite being a sequel itself to Night of the Living Dead)
• A very brief history of the Video Nasties
• Korean genre cinema, such as Space Monster Wangmagwi, War of the God Monsters, and Yongary, and how these movies are being released and preserved in the 2020s
• Director Ryong Wang (aka Mike Wang) and his career including appearances as the character Beggar So, time spent with Godfrey Ho, and turns at directing Korean adaptations of Fist of the North Star, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Street Fighter
• Hyung-rae Shim, who plays Master Roshi, and his career from his time as Esperman in the Korean sentai (Power Rangers/Jetman) ripoff Thunderhawk to his long-time portrayal of the character, Young-gu, an Ernest or Madea of Korean comedy fame
• Young-gu's many appearances alongside the likes of Dracula, Wolf-man, Rambo, The Three Musketeers, Master Thief Lupin, Goden Bat, and even in a movie called Power King that got the Power Rangers treatment when exported internationally.
• Learning about Korean mockbuster cinema and their riffs on jiangshi, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, Gremlins, ET, Gatchaman, Wonder Woman, King Kong, Street Fighter, Robocop and more
• How Bong-joon Ho's movies Okja and The Host changed the attitude towards Korean genre cinema
• A history of this film's attempts at preservation and translation here and on the internet
• Bekinney's live reactions as he was told to come into this movie blind
• and more, including some general pop culture, trivia, and editorializing, as usual as we react to this wickedly fast-paced film

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise.

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Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater (S3E28)

Jelli and Bekinney take a break from Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon (are we ever getting back to that?) by breaking down some early manga from the man himself. We're talking about Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater....welll...most of it

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney have landed
• A note on some very different formatting because notes were hard to come by
• Contextualizing these stories and their reasons for existence, as best we can
• Digging into the likes of Wonder Island, Wonder Island 2, Cutesy Tomato Gumshoe (aka Tomato Girl Detective), Pola & Roid, Mad Matic, Chobit, Chobit 2, Today's Highlight Island, Escape, Pink the Rain Jack, Dragon Boy, The Adventure of Tongpoo, Mr. Ho, The Elder (aka Sanchoh), Little Mamejiro, and Karamaru and the Perfect Day
• We have notes about Godzilla, Ultraman, name puns, Mad Max, Dragon Ball, and more and a heap of confusion around opaque humor and social commentary
• and more, including some general pop culture, trivia, and editorializing, as usual 

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise.

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Dragon Ball Movies: Good, Bad, or Ugly? (Summer Convention Series) (S3E27)

It's Summer Convention Season! You think it's not, just because it's winter? Well, tune in to find out why it is! Jelli takes you into the world of our summer conventions by presenting one of the panels we held this year, at Anime Texas 2024, in Spring, TX from Fandom Events. This panel was also presented at San Japan in San Antonio, TX but the audio got too blown-out sounding to put out the full episode...but the Q&A portion of that event is retained here. The panel was also presented at Fan Expo Denver, in (of course) Denver, CO from Fan Expo HQ, the audio from that was unfortunately entirely unusable.

In this episode:

• Jelli is on his own.
• We delve into the background behind the Toei Manga Matsuri – Toei Cartoon Festival and its inception in 1969 and other such festivals around the country such as Toho's Champion Festival
• Contextualizing the box office of the films
• Going through all of the original movies and looking for what interesting facts and value they possess
• Curse of the Blood Rubies - notes on censorship and references
• Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle - Ghastel and his relationship with Prince Nezha
• Mystical Adventure - Similarities to the movie The Last Emperor
• Dragon Ball Z Movies
• Dead Zone - The Phantom Zone and Garlic Jr's unique properties
• The World's Strongest - Hal 9000
• Tree of Might - A possible Tree of Life
• Lord Slug - Super Saiyan and Pseudo-Super Saiyan, or False Super Saiyan
• Cooler's Revenge - Predator
• Cooler Returns - The Death Star, the Big Gette Star, the Borg Cube, and Star Trek's Vger
• Super Android 13 - Don't Lecture Me with Your $30 Haircut
• Broly the Legendary Super Saiyan - Meme culture in Japan and Nostradamus
• Bojack Unbound - Stan the Lariat Hansen and WWF/WWE references
• Broly Second Coming - Toribot and Nata de Coco
• Bio Broly - Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
• Fusion Reborn - The Dictator, YIKES
• Wrath of the Dragon - Hirudegarn and kaiju
• Q&As
• and more, including some general pop culture, trivia, and editorializing, as usual 

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise.

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Daima Discussion Pt 2 (Eps 6-10) - BONUS EPISODE

There is new Dragon Ball for the first time in years and we felt it was important to share our thoughts and opinions. 

Join Jelli and Bekinney as we continue looking at Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball franchise by tackling a discussion of Dragon Ball Daima, and its next five episodes: "Lightning," "Collar," "Tamagami," "Thieves," and "Ocean".

Who is Glorio, and what are his motives? Have we learned anything new?
What does the recently-introduced Panzy bring to the table?
What of the minotaur who wants to eat everyone?
Are there any readily apparent cultural underpinnings with the revelation that Shin (Supreme Kai) has a real name, and it's Nahare?
What of the rest of the cast? Where do Bulma, Piccolo, Vegeta, Gohan and others fit in?
What's the potential significance of Majin Kuu, and the character Hybis?
Did we crack the code and realize that Daima is basically Toriyama's riff on Charlie's Angels?
Why isn't Drew Barrymore allowed on Final Forum?
What about Lucy Lui, Kristen Stewart, Elizabeth Banks and the other actors from those movies?
Wait, what?
Are we okay?
Why did we talk about the Hair Club for Men?
Join us for this more casual conversation as we dig through the world of Daima and continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise.

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Dale D. Kelly Interview [Ginyu, Narrator] (S3E26)

Was the original voice of Dragon Ball Z's narrator almost arrested before he ever got a chance to work on the show? To paraphrase his most famous saying: Find out [THIS] Time, on [Final Forum]!

Jelli and Bekinney are still on a break from format and Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball, and are interviewing one of the voices of our childhood, Dale D. Kelly, the original voice of The Narrator and Captain Ginyu, as well as Porunga. 

In this episode:

• We dive into Dale's career, beginning with his time in radio and his early years in entertainment.
• Dale tells us how he almost got arrested on his first night on the job
• Why he chose to answer an ad in a Dallas newspaper
• What made him initially turn down the opportunity
• His philosophy behind voice acting as well as music, as he became the composer for Episode of Bardock and The History of Trunks
• What led to his leaving Funimation
• His time after Funimation, including working with Rich Little and Tommy Lasorda, as well as a story about Johnny Carson
• and more, including some general pop culture, trivia, and editorializing, as usual 

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise, and unspool what we all love so much about Goku, the Dragon Ball franchise, the Dragon Ball anime, Dragon Ball manga, and more.

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Dragon Ball Video Games Part 2 (S3E25)

Jelli and Bekinney take a break from Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon (because we don't do enough of that, right?) by breaking down some early video games. We're talking about Dragon Ball 3: Goku Den, aka Dragon Ball: Goku's Story from the Famicom; Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure for the Gameboy Advance; Dragon Ball: Origins and Dragon Ball: Origins 2, for the Nintendo DS

In this episode:

• Bekinney is checking the ship for abnormalities
• Cleaning up some items about pre-console video games and talking briefly about Tiger Electronics handhelds
• A reminder about TOSE Software, the programming company behind Dragon Ball 3: Goku Den
• TOSE's credits, including Bases Loaded, Mappy-Land, Toxic Crusaders, Tetris 2, Yoshi's Cookie, Resident Evil Survivor, Resident Evil Zero, Scarlet Nexus, Dragon Quest, WWE and Metal Gear Solid
• Dragon Ball 3 Goku Den story recaps and how it goes through the end of Dragon Ball
• We discuss early Nintendo RTS (real time strategy) games
• The port of Goku Den to the Wonderswan color, and a brief discussion about that system, including a reference to the Nintendo Virtual Boy and Gunpei Yokoi
• Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure story elements and how the game goes from the beginning of the story through the Demon King Piccolo arc
• How Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure's gameplay works and the mind behind its creation
• A brief summary of the company Banpresto
• Getting into Dragon Ball Origins and Yoshiki Okamoto, best known for creating Gyruss, 1942, and Street Fighter II. He also helped created Rockstar’s Red Dead franchise, and was a supervisor on Resident Evil 2 and Dino Crisis
• Discussing the use of the stylus on the Nintendo DS
• How Origins 2 functioned as a last-time-out for Stephanie Nadolny as Kid Goku and Tiffany Volmer as Bulma
• SURPRISE! We mention the game Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo for the Nintendo Wii
• and more, including some general pop culture, trivia, and editorializing, as usual 

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise.

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Masako Nozawa (S3E24)

What does it take to be one of the most well-respected voice actors of all-time? Jelli and Bekinney have finished the "Dragon Ball" portion of Dragon Ball. That means it's time for Dragon Ball Z, right? Welllll....let's take a break from format and Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball by pivoting and talking about the life and personality and career of one of the most important figures in Dragon Ball, the voice of Goku himself: Masako Nozawa.

In this episode:

• Jelli has Bekinney prep for a spacewalk.
• We have already discussed the life and career of Akira Toriyama, Daisuke Nishio, Toshiki Inoue, Takao Koyama, Chiaki Imada, Jackie Chan, and Kazuhiko Torishima. Slowly chewing up "behind the camera" talents to discuss, we talk about one of the "faces" of Dragon Ball, Masako Nozawa.
• Nozawa's birth in Nippori Town and childhood in Numata, in Gunma Prefecture
• Her early career in child acting and theater acting
• Her father Ryoshu Nozawa, a moderately well-known painter, and her unique parentage
• Why Nozawa moved from Tokyo to Numata as a child (hint: in 1944)
• Her initial intentions to pursue stage acting and her first forays into voice acting, doing dubbing for Western films
• Her "big break" in anime voice acting, in an episode of Astroboy, considered by many to be the "first" anime series
• An interesting synergy with her husband, voice actor Masaaki Tsukada, and how they both have a character voiced in English by Sean Schemmel
• Her career with various talent agencies and her foray into establishing her own
• How missing out on a return to Gegege no Kitaro led to her landing the Dragon Ball gig
• Her philosophy when it comes to voice acting and her work process
• What Akira Toriyama said to her that makes her continue to portray Goku, even as she nears her 90s
• and more, including some general pop culture, trivia, and editorializing, as usual 

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise, and unspool what we all love so much about Goku, the Dragon Ball franchise, the Dragon Ball anime, Dragon Ball manga, and more.

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