May 9th, Age 753: the very first Piccolo Day ends in tragedy as the newly appointed World King is assassinated by a disgruntled youth before his visionary social policies can be fully implemented. Fortunately the king has an heir lined up... #HistoryofEver
Yes, Piccolo is dead. Long live Piccolo! His son/reincarnation/doppelgänger/whatever hatches safely, thus carrying on the mystic link between Piccolo Senior and Kami. God only knows how this stuff works, but it does. Apparently.
(In the manga Piccolo hatches alone. The anime version is a parody of the Japanese fairy tale of Momotaro, who hatches from a giant peach found by an elderly couple) en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momotarō
Despite being within earshot of Piccolo’s lengthy speech to his son, Goku doesn’t notice any of this. Instead, his concern is to revive everyone killed by Piccolo and co. But to do that, he’ll have to get Shenlong fixed first, and that means going right to the top.
After a brief case of mistaken identity, Goku and Kami work out a deal: Kami restores Shenlong at once, in exchange for Goku staying up in cloud city so he can train with Kami/Popo in order to beat Piccolo Mach 2 at the next tournament.
(Why don’t they just go take care of Piccolo Junior now, especially since Kami’s eventual plan is to seal him away without any help from Goku? I guess lil’ Piccolo is just too darn cute to lock up in a rice cooker)
Shenlong comes back and revives Piccolo and co’s victims (an encore performance after granting a wish the day before). And with that, everyone vows to train real hard for the next three years so they can reunite at another one of those darn tournaments.
This is it: May 9th. An actual date stated in the series! The joke here is that May 9th=5 9=Go Ku according to the versatile rules of Japanese number punning, which is why this date is also designated as Goku Day, thus leading to a rather overcrowded holiday for fans.
This is also the same number pun logic behind Goku’s jacket having a 59 on it, and DB quiz books containing 590 questions. And before anyone asks: yes, 9 in Japanese is typically read as kyū, but it’s kū for number pun purposes. Trust me, number puns get way crazier than this.
The upshot to this is that Piccolo Junior’s birthday is May 9th, thus making him the only character to have a birthday specified in the series itself. Well, him and Drum. And the Cell Juniors, I guess (though the date of the Cell Games is variable, as we’ll see)
Only three specific days of the month are ever stated in the original manga, and they’re almost or entirely all in May (depending on which edition you read). From these, the Daizenshuu timeline calculates specific dates for most onscreen events. Because someone had to.
May 9th in particular does the lion’s share of the work. It’s two days after the 22nd TB, meaning the tournament must’ve been May 7th. By assuming the TB is always May 7th, the daizenshuu derives dates for every story arc up to the 23rd TB, plus the Buu arc to boot. Quite a coup!
Yet despite this supreme significance of May 9th, the Funi dub changes Piccolo Day to May 13th, presumably to play off the superstition of unlucky 13. Oh well, I suppose that sort of numerology might be the closest you can get in English to a number pun.
Tomorrow: time chamber time!
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Dragon Ball Daima, ep.20: it’s the end, but the moment has been prepared for. The fight with Gomah is samey but looks amazing and is over soon enough for Kuu to ascend the Iron Throne, plus other fun wrap-up stuff. Thanks for everything Toriyama, and farewell. #DAIMA #ep20
Since Daima airs at 11:40 PM in Japan, the final episode on February 28th ended right as the date ticked over into March 1st, marking the one year anniversary of Toriyama’s death. So far there’s no word on if this was intentional on the part of the production team, though.
The title ゼンカイ/Zenkai comes from 全開, meaning “full power”, hence the translation “Maximun” (see also the DBZ ending theme ZENKAI Power). I’ll give it another week, but if there’s no further clues on the red letters, I’ll assume it was just about using all 20 dakuten letters
Executive producer Akio Iyoku discusses Daima’s origin: 6 years ago during DBS: Super Hero’s production, they decided to do a new TV series. At first Toriyama’s involvement was going to be minimal, but he really got into it, creating most of it in the end. mantan-web.jp/article/202502…
Iyoku says Daima was intended as a show that parents could watch with their children, so it was made to appeal both to kids and adults in their 30s who were kids back when DBGT first aired. So yes, making Goku and co kids was specifically done to appeal to the GT generation.
While making Goku a kid was seen as making the series accessible to a wider audience, it was Toriyama’s idea to turn the entire main cast into kids too. Toriyama was also concerned many people wouldn’t know DB’s story, hence the general overview at the start of each Daima episode
It’s already November 20th in Japan, which means Dragon Ball has officially reached its 40th anniversary. In case you weren’t paying attention and/or born at the time, here are some highlights from the first 40 years of DB history… #DragonBall40th
1984: gag manga superstar Akira Toriyama concludes megahit Dr. Slump, and in November debuts its follow-up in Weekly Jump. This Journey to the West-inspired kung-fu adventure kicks off as inventor girl Bulma recruits monkey boy Goku to track down the titular dragon balls.
1985: after last year’s tail-end teaser, things begin in earnest. The initial “quest for the dragon balls” arc wraps up in May, and Toriyama shifts gears to a tournament arc (always a fan favorite in his Dr. Slump days) with the lecherous Roshi and Goku’s new cueball-esque BFF.
According to Bunshun Online, Dragon Room head honcho Akio Iyoku has stepped down from Shueisha and established his own company, Capsule Corporation Tokyo. Supposedly he wants Shueisha to keep DB’s manga publishing rights but for CC Tokyo to handle DB games/anime/etc.
As you might imagine, Shueisha is reluctant to part with DB to any extent, and negotiations are still ongoing. According to this article, anyway. Shueisha has apparently confirmed that Iyoku is stepping down, but not confirmed any of the particulars so far.
Bunshun Online reached out to Toriyama and asked if he would be working with Iyoku in future, but Toriyama said he couldn’t comment publicly, only through Shueisha. He also said the company name “Capsule Corporation Tokyo” was Iyoku’s idea, not his own.
Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai ep.41: Pissed Myst’s great and the logistics of Dai’s sword are interesting, while the castle’s just there to be knocked down. But it knocks down well. 4/5 #DragonQuest#ep41
Rewatching the DBS panel, there’s a few things I want to note about the subtitles. They’re fine overall but there’s a few things I think are oversimplified or left out. Going through roughly in order of importance…
When discussing the artwork for New Character 1 and 2, in Japanese Hayashida says how it’s Toriyama’s original artwork, unlike the Piccolo/Pan/etc images that have been developed into full-fledged anime designs. The subtitles instead say it was made before movie production began
Now, it might indeed be true that Toriyama would’ve made the initial artwork before movie production began, but that’s not really what Hayashida is talking about. He’s contrasting this image with the earlier ones shown of Piccolo and co, which weren’t Toriyama’s original artwork