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Dragon Ball has a wealth of cultural context and inspiration that’s often overlooked because the fights are cool. Though not averse to fawning over animation and allowing for the Rule of Cool, Jelli and Bekinney delve into the world of Akira Toriyama, and discuss lesser-known facts about the worldwide manga and anime phenomenon that is one of the most well-known and popular Japanese pop culture exports of all-time. Want to learn about the cultural importance of moments, literary inspirations behind scenes and characters, production facts, and more? Whether you‘re a fan of Goku, Vegeta, or any of the cast of characters including Piccolo, Gohan, Frieza, or even Broly, there should be something for you to enjoy as we cover all things Dragon Ball, including DBZ, GT, Super, Daima, and more! We‘ll have discussions, guests, interviews, reviews, and commentaries so grab a senzu bean, power up your fan level to Super Saiyan, and get ready to learn about Kakarot and his friends; and of course, thank you for helping us achieve our FINAL FORUM...We hear it‘s over 9000.
Episodes
Tuesday Nov 18, 2025
Tuesday Nov 18, 2025
How do we manage to turn a discussion of zenkai boosts into yet another of our disturbing moments of talking about carnality? Why does Goku do 10,000 reps of his training moves? Where does The Wizard of Oz figure into this? We'll present the information, you tell us if the answer is "anything at all"
Join Jelli and Bekinney as they continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon Dragon Ball Z by looking at episodes 56 through 60: "Zarbon's Mission," "Gohan, the Hunted," "Unknown Enemies," "Destination Guru," and "Bulma's Big Day." We continue discussing the Namek Saga and take a look at Vegeta's assertion that Saiyans gain a power boost after facing death.
In this episode:
- Jelli and Bekinney are looking out the window
- A discussion of how some of the filler here kills the pacing, differently than filler in the past
- Going back to the Pilaf Arc for a cleanup discussion
- Comparing Yamcha and Bulma to characters from The Wizard of Oz
- How the Wizard of Oz utilizes the "it was in you all along" trope and how that was influenced by the bluebird of happiness trope
- How the bluebird of happiness trope came from the Quran and what influence Journey to the West may have had in bringing in elements of this into Dragon Ball
- A discussion of Xi Wangmu, the Chinese deity known as the Queen Mother of the West
- Zenkai boosts
- A Vegeta impression!?
- Why zenkai are no longer used, featuring both an in-universe explanation and some head canon that re-defines a certain practice that was most (in)famously utilized by David Carradine (of Kill Bill fame)
- A Bruce Lee quote concerning the number 10,000
- The infamous 10,000 Hours Rule made famous by Malcom Gladwell in his book Outliers
- What Anders Ericsson, whose research formed the basis for this rule had to say about Gladwell's interpretations
- A bunch of discussion about practice creating greatness
- 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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