Final Forum: A Dragon Ball Podcast

The greatest filler episode in anime history PLUS: A very special surprise. WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED?!?!?!

Join Jelli and Bekinney as they continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball Z by looking at episodes 124 and 125:  "Z Warriors Prepare," and "Goku's Ordeal." As we take a look at perhaps the greatest filler episode in anime history.

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney are ready to leave again
• The best episode of DBZ. Periodt.
• Details about Japan's traffic and road history
• Statistics about car ownership in Japan
• The explosion of paved roadways in Japan from 1950 to 1965
• The commensurate explosion in traffic accidents and fatalities over this time period
• PSAs: what are they, and why were they a thing
• Our super special surprise!
• 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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What happens when the most evil man alive is revealed to just have Daddy issues? No, this episode isn't about Donald Trump; we're talking about Frieza and the revelations that he's a nepo-baby.

Join Jelli and Bekinney as they continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball Z by looking at episodes 118 through 123:  "Frieza' Counterattack," "The Mysterious Youth," "Another Super Saiyan?" "Welcome Back Goku," "Mystery Revealed, and "Goku's Special Technique." As we begin the Androids Saga. We discuss nepotism's history in Japan and get into cybernetic enhancements, such as they are in 2026.

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney are ...back?
• A very good-looking batch of episodes
• Bulma's underrated look
• Gohan's tutor and the meaning behind his name
• King Cold and what he represents
• Nepotism's history in Japan, with the imperial lineage tracing its way back 2600 years, lines of patriarchal succession in the Edo Period, and the continued heritage of "political families" in Japan even in the post-war era
• Toriyama's potential social commentary, but also his potential inspiration points such as Star Wars, the Six Million Dollar Man, and the kaiju film Gorgo
• Mecha-Frieza's possible design inspirations from DC's Cyborg and Marvel's Deathlok
• How this trope has influenced other storytellers moving forward, including, possibly, Star Wars
• A brief history of mecha and cyborgs in kaiju cinema including Gigan, Mechagodzilla, and Zone Fighter
• A discussion of cybernetic appendages and their use in the modern world
• A reminder that current-day cyborg technology is not as cool as it seems in fiction
• 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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What do true crime stories about pearls whose tale consists of hired murder, money laundering, and Osama Bin Laden have to do with Dragon Ball? You have to listen to this one to find out.

Join Jelli and Bekinney as they continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball Z by looking at episodes 112 through 117:  "Call for Restoration," "Suicidal Course," "Extreme Measures," "The World Awakens," "Brief Chance for Victory," and "Krillin's Proposal." As we finish The Garlic Jr Arc. We discuss humanity's fascination with giant pearls, discuss the use of mist and fog in legends and folklore and wax poetic about cryptids and mythology and what it means to believe in such things.

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney are going to force their way back
• We...liked these episodes
• We compare Garlic Jr to that lovable villain of the Simpsons franchise, Sideshow Bob
• Mermaid Tears, aka beach glass
• The Pearl of Lao Tzu, aka the Pearl of Muhammed aka the Pearl of Laozi
• A tale of death, murder, court trials, Ripley's Belive It or Not, and overvalued gems
• The Pearl of Puerto
• The use of mist and fog in storytelling including Irish feth fiada, a mist that ensures elvish supernatural beings known as Tuatha de Danann remain invisible to humans; Dutch Witte Wieven, mysterious figures of wise women; and the Norse Niflheim, which translates as World of Mist
• Japanese yokai including enenra, azuki abba, and yuki onna
• Stories of Lake Mashu, in Hokkaido
• Discussing the Terragen Mists of the Marvel universe and how important it is to the Inhumans and mutants/X-Men
• Stephen King stories including Wizard and Glass (and The Dark Tower), The Mist, Dr. Sleep and IT
• Bigfoot, for some reason, and we talk about Harry and the Hendersons, Sasquatch Sunset, the Asylum's Bigfoot featuring Alice Cooper
• Mermaids and we talk about gillmen and The Shape of Water and The Cabin in the Woods, the Polish movie The Lure, the film Blue My Mind and of course the Tom Hanks-Daryl Hanna film Splash
• 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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Spear fishing. Male boob windows. These are Dragon Ball things, right? They are now.

Join Jelli and Bekinney as they continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball Z by looking at episodes 108 through 112: "The Heavens Tremble," "Black Fog of Terror," "Battle in Kami's Lookout," "Fight with Piccolo," and "Call for Restoration." As we delve into a filler saga with The Garlic Jr Arc. We discuss the history of spear fishing and break down the Spice Boys who are a reference to what you think they are.

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney are trying to get back home
• We...liked these episodes
• The Spice Boys. Yes, they are referencing the Spice Girls
• Groups that owe their success to the Spice Girls such as No Doubt, Britney Spears, All Saints, B*Witched, Atomic Kitten, Girl Thing, Girls@Play, Girls Aloud and more
• The Four Demonic Monarchs...or the Four Heavenly Kings
• Equating each Spice Boy to a Heavenly King
• How the manga staff picked up Toriyama's tendencies again
• A note about our Bansho Fan filler episode 
• Notes about Maron and her design as it potentially appears prior to this in Savings Soldier Cashman, a Toriyama manga that appeared in V Jump.
• Spearfishing, its history and how advances have led to regulation but also modern diving technology in general
• Math!
• We talk about Klein bottles, four dimensional space, and potential real-world applications for studying mathematically esoteric concepts
• The ab window as the male equivalent of a boob window
• We manage a reference to Evil Dead and Army of Darkness
• 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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It's the end of Frieza, forever, for real, with NO chance of him retur...he returns before the arc is even over? What? Anyway, how do we feel about the Frieza Arc having reached its conclusion?

Jelli and Bekinney continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball by jumping into comparing the Dragon Ball anime to the Dragon Ball manga. We finish discussing Frieza arc, and talk about pacing and intended endings. We also discuss six episodes of the anime, episodes 102-107, "Duel on a Vanishing Planet," "Pathos of Frieza," "Frieza Defeated!!" "Mighty Blast of Rage," "Namek's Explosion...Goku's End?" and "Goku's Alive!!"

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney prepare to return to their own universe
• We recap the story 
• We discuss whether the end of the Frieza Saga was the intended ending of Dragon Ball
• Animation difficulties, both with continuity and overall quality
• Toriyama's workload at this time
• A brief note on reading burning leaves to tell the future
• Wrapping up the arc with grades and comparing the manga to the anime
• 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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The Yellow Robed Demon King? Who is that? Does he remind us of Goku Black? Or Baby from Dragon Ball GT? OR Captain Ginyu? What makes the 1986 adaptation of Journey to the West so endearing?

In this episode, Jelli and Bekinney take another look at 1986 Chinese television event, Journey to the West. It began as part of our October viewing where we take a break from breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon and delve into times our franchise's creators have "put on a costume" and worked on other shows and movies. Now, it's extending into BONUS ROUNDS, where we'll occasionally look back at the show and see what else we can discuss.

 

In this episode:

• Catch-up time! Do we have any further news about Dragon Ball Age 1000 or the return of Dragon Ball Super? What plans do we have for the our show right now? Join us to find out!
• We discuss YOUR results from the poll YOU voted in!
• We discuss why we chose to look at Journey to the West
• The reception of the show and its legacy
• Plans to continue breaking down the show in the future
• ...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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Have you ever wondered why Goku can sometimes punch someone and it blows up a mountain nearby and other times blast someone with a full power Kamehameha and it barely ruffles anyone's hair?

Join Jelli and Bekinney as they continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball Z by looking at episodes 96 through 101: "Explosion of Anger," "Namek's Destruction?" "A Final Attack," "Approaching Destruction," Gohan Returns," and "The Last Wish." As we continue on into the Frieza Saga, we focus on Goku and Frieza's battle and talk about their ability to control their ki.

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney are face-to-face with....something new
• A slight step back up for the episodes, because despite the pacing still being slow, the plot has things happening
• Toriyama's Dragon World as spiritual, rather than religious
• Ki as a metaphysical energy
• Metaphysics. What is it? Why is it important? What is the difference between a spacetime relativist and a spacetime absolutist?
• The difference between energy, ki, and power
• Ki as a Daoist idea and the concept of the infinite, both outside ourselves and within
• The connotations of Ki
• How ki refinement can change one's aura
• How the ideas of ki control are built from Dragon Ball's foundations, and how this is important to understand for everything moving forward
• Goku's ability to control his ki vs Frieza's inability and how their external struggle is a manifestation of their own internal battles
• 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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Note: The audio is less than ideal for Jelli during the opening 3 minutes, but improves drastically during the topic-of-discussion.

It's one of anime's most iconic moments, but did you know it has its basis in Buddho-Daoist traditions and the yin-yang cycle of energy? Let's talk about SUPER SAIYANS in today's episode!

Join Jelli and Bekinney as they continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball Z by looking at episodes 91 through 95: "Embodiment of Fire," "Trump Card," "Keep the Chance Alive!" "Power of the Spirit," and "Transformed at Last." As we continue on into the Frieza Saga, we focus on Goku's transformation into a Super Saiyan and the importance of the moment.

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney CAN escape...but SHOULD they?
• A slight step down for episodes, as the pacing really hurts some of what's happening here
• Focusing this discussion on Goku and Vegeta for reasons that will become clear
• Dragon Ball as a story about growth, even if that growth is incremental
• Why Dragon Ball's spectacle is not empty and how having something underneath spectacle makes the fireworks all the more satisfying
• The key conflict of the Frieza Arc
• A narrow mind vs an open mind
• How Goku brings these two ideas together and how that helps him transform
• Goku's philosophy of pushing himself to his limits and beyond and how Frieza's ruthlessness gives Goku no other choice but to transform
• A discussion of yin and yang and the taijitu
• How older Daoist texts refer not to black and white, but to red and blue
• Blue and red make...gold?
• Sudden enlightenment in Buddhism, satori, and how that influences the Super Saiyan transformation
• Attempting to rank the three biggest/most memorable Super Saiyan transformations against one another
• 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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You may know Frieza is based on real estate agents, but do you know why? Do his design quirks point to a deeper cultural connection to Japan's history with relating to outsiders (aka foreigners aka 'aliens')?

Join Jelli and Bekinney as they continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball Z by looking at episodes 86 through 90: "The End of Vegeta," "The Ultimate Battle," "Clash of the Super Powers," "Frieza's Boast," and "Bold and Fearless." As we dig into the Frieza Saga, we focus-in on the man himself and dive deep on discussing Lord Frieza.

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney are trying to plan an escape from the swirling dimensional vortex
• An overall solid batch of episodes, and we discuss why they seem more tolerable at the pace we've been going than they have in the past
• A reminder about Demon King Piccolo and how his children were born in the past
• Toriyama's decision to draw Frieza as purely evil in his first appearance and how that influenced his style of speech
• Frieza being partially modeled after Yu Kondo, and a promise to cover Toriyama's second editor in a future episode
• A discussion of oni, largely because Frieza has horns, but also because he can transform, and is alien
• How oni folklore in Japan has its roots in a fear of the unknown and outsiders
• A brief mention about The Devil, aka Satan, aka Lucifer from Christianity but not much discussion: we trust our listeners to pick up on the obvious symbolism there
• Frieza's basis in Japanese culture as a real estate developer/land prospector
• The Japanese Bubble Economy, its history, how it happened, how it burst, and the fallout
• Nui Onoue, Japan's Bernie Madoff, who wound up billions of yen in debt due to bad investments
• Shusuke Kaneko's (director of the Heisei Gamera trilogy, as well as Godzilla: GMK) own Bubble Economy movie: Linking Love
• The Godzilla movie that reflected the Bubble Economy: Godzilla vs King Ghidorah from 1991
• Frieza's transformations
• Frieza's biggest comparison point in American comics, in our opinion, Mr. Sinister from the X-Men franchise
• 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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Is Piccolo his own person or a re-incarnation of Demon King Piccolo? If he's his son why does he have his memories and his connection to Kami? If he's a reincarnation why does he become good and speak of himself as if he's a different person?

Join Jelli and Bekinney as they continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball Z by looking at episodes 81 through 85: "Deja Vu," "Frieza's Second Transformation," "Another Transformation?" "Dende's Demise," and "The Renewed Goku." We begin the Frieza Saga, and focus on the person who has had their context changed most by these adventures on Namek: Piccolo.

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney are still alive
• A decent batch of episodes, but some pacing issues to be sure
• A reminder about Demon King Piccolo and how his children were born in the past
• Piccolo Jr as contextualized by the Shinto concept of a bunshin
• How Bunshin compare to Buddhist reincarnation cycles
• How reincarnation cycles lead to the concept of a mindstream, which is akin to the Olympic torch, but for one's thoughts and soul
• What concepts from Daoism influenced Piccolo giving birth to Piccolo Jr by spitting up an egg
• Some symbolism with Goku destroying the Demon part of Demon King Piccolo
• The way this relates to Namekians, the Namekian concept of fusion, and Nail and Piccolo's fusion
• Namekians, their name puns, their physiology, and how that may all be influenced by the decision to name them after slugs
• Guru's (or Grand Elder) unlocked potential ability
• 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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