#von recommends

[secretsofdbz]

That's a lie…!! There's not a single good thing about him…!! He didn't try to help either Mom or baby-me…!! He's really evil at heart…!!

He's as evil at heart as that shirt said!!

(ワルい男 - badman)

Dragon Ball SD is the best thing that happened to modern DB 🫡

(They're putting together all the individual chapters into longer videos for each arc: check it out: first arc, second arc and currently they've reached the Android saga)

[secretsofdbz]

Piccolo is known to have adopted (stolen) all the half-Saiyans. Only Future Trunks was spared (a true loss, solved in FreeFlow's fic thankfully), and... Bra.

-> Piccolo yoinks Bra.

-> Bra learns the Clothes Beam.

-> Capsule Corp redefines fast fashion.

[secretsofdbz]

Pfiou, so I promised a few people I'd do a post and give credit where credit is due because fandom can be amazing and wholesome and sometimes we need some badass women to remind us of it all ;)

A little while ago, @jorongbak did a few posts about the look and personality Vegeta's mother would have, and the fandom more or less collectively fell in love with Queen Jala (and wanted to be stepped on, for real lol).

Alternatively, I am in a few discord servers centered around Dragon Ball, and the one that we care about for today's post is the SmugSquad server (which is ran by SmugStick, ProfessorChimp and a few others; these are DBTubers who come up with great stories).

So being one of the only women around, I of course introduced them to other sides of the fandom, and sharing tumblr links was the first step ;) (no reposts, but share links to posts).

Needless to say, this helped some of them discover amazing artists, fanfics and more, all while keeping it PG (some of them are very young minors). Jorongbak helped many of them consider the KakaVege ship, drink up the amazing content of Good Geets, get all of the feels, and much more.

Now, Queen Jala was an instant hit, and a group of active users decided "Queen Jala basedium ultimate" was a winner, no diff, and began what DBtuber fans do: "what if?!" stories, with the rallying cry "epicness shall commence!".

The key players were Mocha, I demand you call me barbara, memes (fireflight), with contributions by myself ("Von" or "Princess Trunks mod" lol) and Rock.

Here's a sample of the energy :p

Anyway after a lot of talk and cheers and mutual "boys will be boys" encouragements, Mocha ended up making "Mocha's version" of the story of Queen Jala, and put it on ffnet. So you can read it here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14165665/1/Queen-Jala-The-Strongest-Saiyan-Queen

Mocha also commissioned two pieces of art to go along and give homage to Jorong's design for his stories, and I figured they deserved to be shared properly so here :)

By yogadanu:

By gusdibujando:

(both artists are on fiverr and twitter)

So I served mostly as a messenger (or evil mastermind lol) for this whole ordeal, "all according to keikaku".

Jorongbak drew this for us, and to be honest, we are the thankful ones ;) (me in particular, I'm just such a fan and can't wait to write a little piece of Jala in my own fics ^^)

[secretsofdbz]

So apart from Dragon Ball, what manga and anime do I like?

Here's a little list without any particular order, from very childish to very adult, so pick as you see.

- Samurai Champloo: hip hop in the Edo era, the story is amazing even if each episode can more or less be watched on its own. It's fun, the music is great, the character dynamics are top notch, the animation is bae, and the dub is decent for a change! The manga is just extra storyboard episodes, was made afterwards. Content warning for body injuries. A girl coerces two sword wielding guys to help her find a samurai who smells of sunflowers and they travel through the country trying to survive hunger, enemies, and themselves (as they’re at each others’ throats)

- Cowboy Bebop: if Samurai Champloo is hip hop in the Edo era, Cowboy is Jazz in Space. Same as above applies. Same director too. I’ve not seen a manga of cowboy?

- FLCL. 6 episodes of pure what the fuck. Made by Gainax (the guys who did Evangelion), but they were completely wasted when doing this, there's no other way. Robots coming out of a boy’s forehead, some alien girl with a bass, weird south park refs, the anime has manga scenes panel by panel sometimes, there’s 3D sections too, the music is amazing, the whys and how’s, the charisma of everyone… madness. Two extra seasons were made by toonami more recently, and they’re decent :) but OG is just oof. The manga which was produced later is more experimental.

- Azumanga Daioh. Slice of life of high school girls being high school girls; it's wholesome, cute, the teachers are stupid fun, there's cats and dogs, the comedic timing is excellent. Azumanga's manga form is a Yonkoma (four panel humor manga, same format as Garfield). Each of the girls are so interesting and the stories are both hilarious and moving to tears because it’s so god damn wholesome and cute. Lucky Star also falls in this category, it's good fun too. Azumanga Daioh’s manga is super cute and the anime more or less gives the same comedic “sketches” and story.

- The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. Basically caused the Anime boom of 2007 (alongside Lucky Star). Imo, one of the few good anime adaptation of a light novels. It's an acquired taste though!

- Death Note. I don't think it needs presenting. The anime is just that good, even with all of the memes it inspired. The anime and manga are virtually identical at the beginning but not for the second part and ending (the manga ending is far more pathetic while the anime is more martyr-like)

- Bakuman ; the manga is better than the anime (wish it was animated by the same guys as Death Note, because same manga authors), but it's decent. It's a manga about kids wanting to make manga and be published in Shonen Jump. shows a lot of inner workings of the manga publishing world. The manga tension and relations are interesting, the humor is key, and the paneling is refined and satisfying.

- Magic Knight Rayeart. A CLAMP fantasy mecha anime, the world is just top notch. I still have a spot in my heart for some CLAMP stories (Chobits, Sakura, Kobato, Angelic Layer), but I recognize the absolute harm of some portrayals. The anime is more tame than the manga tho, the manga goes deeper.

- Escaflowne. A GOOD Isekai anime. Love triangle, fights, culture shocks, beautiful music, weird occult stuff.... it has similarities to Magic Knight Rayeart but this one is more adult if anything? More nuance. The manga is VERY different (not the same names, not the same story, just the general premise).

- Serial Experiments Lain. Ok, SEL is about the internet, artificial intelligences, online personas and social networks, but it aired in 1998. Lain, 14, shy, tech-illiterate, finds out one of her friends who committed suicide emailed her after her death, saying she joined the Wired (aka the internet). It's an anime all about philosophy and secret conspiracies, split personas, reverence, coming of age, and it’s.. well. It’s not an easy watch but it’s an absolute god tier anime.

- Rurouni Kenshin. Ok this one is hard to recommend because the author has issues that are a hard line for many, but it’s still respected and loved in Japan (up to and including a showing of blacksmith who reproduced the weapons of the manga). I prefer the manga, but the anime is decent. It however doesn’t cover the ending of the series, and has a lot of filler. The OAVs (4 for the past of the character, one for a recap of the TV series, one for the last arc of the manga) are stunning. The live actions are also fairly decent. I’m not a fan of the sequel though. Basically a history (Meiji era) battle shonen with politics as a background. Protag is a former assassin.

- Please Save My Earth. Also controversial because of age gaps and a hint of consent, but the manga and the OAVs don’t portray it as wholesome, nor in a positive light. PSME’s OAVs only cover about half the manga but later some music videos were released to “tell” the rest of the story. A bunch of teenagers and one kid start having dreams about their past selves and their relations, and it seems they were some sort of aliens/scientists living on the moon. Insert supernatural and occult mystery as they piece stuff together, and their own destinies being at odds with their past selves. Confusion and horror ensues. The music has Yoko Kanno who SANG, I can’t emphasize the goddess she is, and it’s STUNNING. The animation is beautiful. The manga has 21 tomes so the early drawings are a little rough (and it was a big transition for the author, she really became a better artist over time!). PSME inspired a lot of other Shojo artists (including Takeuchi, the author of Sailor moon)

[secretsofdbz]

So, a little preface info...

Recently-ish, I've been curious about updates to the fandom, because of Dragon Ball Super, and due to my students reading/watching, and me remembering how much I liked it back in the day, I just.. let the algorithm decide lol. So, after way too much DBZA, way too many manga chapters and spinoffs, and some sort of adult eyes, well. So I'm back into the fandom and discovering what the English speaking world has had to offer since 2004 lol. Things -have changed-, to say the least.

I've been a longtime Dragon Ball fan, ever since the mid 90s or so (Latin Americans and French speakers got widespread access to it far earlier than Anglosaxons), and like any girl into anime, I've been extremely original: Future Trunks has always been my fave.

Avatar comes from the Doujinshi Gracias, by Shin Minazuki (author in the circle PALS). If you ever find a way to contact them please let me know because their website and domain has been down for a decade :/

My hot takes, analysis and co will be tagged as "von rambles" :)

My recommendations would be under “Von recommends”

AO3 what if Future Trunks was a girl (and fixed a whole lot of minor plot holes) (also on FFNET) <- my fic, "a different baby". It's 12+ rated, has weird ass ships that may or may not sail, and has a time travel chart.

My Trunks, the tag I use for art or stuff involving my version of Trunks, for the fic :)

Don't hesitate to reach out for whatever!

Here are the rest of my links, including my "other blog" @dbfandom where I'm trying to explain how differrnt the fandoms are between English speakers and the West in general, and Japanese and Korean fandom (especially in terms of how people communicate)

Also when I mean it’s been a hot minute hiatus, you guys need to understand that I was in the thriving fandom from 98 to 2004. ICQ era. 56k to early ADSL era. Napster era. Geocities, forums and visitor books. You have no idea…

Here's a list of my hot takes and analysis and whatever (if the tags don't work, and I know they don't sometimes :/):

Self Pronouns in Z

Honorifics and "yous" in Z

Timelines in Z and DBS and why there's actually 7 of them in Z because of one cursed panel.

Trunks' SSJ transformation against Freeza is great.

Pink is a royal saiyan color (+ updates and more proof)

Vegeta's uses of pronouns and honorifics part 1

GT and nostalgia

Trunks isn't a good martial artist and that makes sense

Fixing the Goku Black arc (bullet points)

Trunks' hair color differences

Why Goku is the problem for DBS to work well

Some linguistics and localisation things

My Trunks, the tag I use for art or stuff involving my version of Trunks, for the fic :)

Did Goku meet baby Trunks before dying in the future Timeline? When did he die of the heart virus?

Dr Brief's cat, Tama (or Scratch) is immortal.

Gohan's confusing age.

Akira Toriyama's death and some reactions that I gathered over the following days of the announcement for posterity.

[secretsofdbz]

Found someone on reddit.

I figure they deserve some extra subscribers, views and comments, so here :)