Hey, this is Steve Bloom, and you are listening
to the Geekcast Radio Network. and welcome to
the Cyber Dragon Ball. I'm your host, Steve,
or I should change my name for this show, Majin
Phillips, and joining me is... I would be Master
Birdman, because I'm the perverted older man
who will teach you the Kami Kami Ha or the Turtle
Dragon Wave, and that's how I roll. Hey, and
you wouldn't be that much different from Master
Roshi, so... Yep. It's only when you see porn.
So, I guess jumping into the gist of this show
is, this episode is going to be a light overview
of our experience with Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball
Z, and so on. Each episode will more or less
take a stance of, in the vein of our review shows,
we're going to be doing this in Saga. Because
we all know that it can take, you know, 20 episodes
to get to the end of a particular saga. Depending
on how much screaming they get through. So we're
going to go that route. So like the, you know,
the Raditz, you know, Saiyan saga and then the
Vegeta saga and so on. I have an official breakdown
on another. I just have to dig it out. Too lazy
to do it tonight. I mentioned to you off air
that I happen to have a Pojo Dragon Ball magazine.
1996. This particular issue I have, it's the
515 character bios. It is from May 15, 2001.
I still have this magazine. It's in pretty damn
good condition, which is actually funny. I've
had it in a notebook for years because I used
to write Dragon Ball Z fan fiction. You friggin'
nerd! Yeah. Well, what's funny is when I was
in middle school, my friend that I had during
that time used to write... In collaboration with
me, we'd write Dragon Ball Z Mega Man X crossover
fanfiction. Then we'd introduce slowly our own
characters into the mix. He at one point passed
the series on to me, and then I continued it.
I finished one of his fanfics, and then I continued
on beyond that. Then I had this whole mapped
out plan, and then I never executed it. So I
had this magazine as a reference guide. So what
are your experiences or how did you get into
the land of Dragon Ball? For me, it started back
in the 90s. I was in high school, probably about
grade 9 or 10. I remember hanging out with my
friends Brad and Ben. And at the time, my parents
had satellite, but they didn't have cable. I
know you could have one or the other. And I didn't
get a chance to see a lot of really cool cartoons.
So my friend Brad, I think it was, it was either
Brad or Ben, loaned me a VHS tape of Dragon Ball
Z. And it was something they recorded off of
a channel up here in Canada called YTV, which
would be equivalent to your Nickelodeon, more
or less. And I was like, holy shit, what the
hell is this? And it was so cool. So I started
boring. more and more tapes from ben at this
point and he loaned me all the tapes up until
just before goku goes super saiyan in frieza
and i never saw past that until years upon years
later and it wasn't until i went to an anime
convention uh anime north in 1998 i remember
this because i bought a bunch of cds off a guy
who had dragon ball z in these little 2x40 window
thumbnail clips that were real player format
and they were subtitled you couldn't yeah you
couldn't oh wow real player crap on these things
and i was like oh my god this is so cool and
then i saw like the majin buu stuff i saw all
that happen and then the final wouldn't call
it nail in the coffin experience with Dragon
Ball is there was an RPG company in the 90s,
Talosian or Talosian, I don't know. They're the
same people that make Cyberpunk 2020. They produced
a Dragon Ball Z RPG. An actual pen and paper
role -playing game. Which is the most unbalanced
thing you can possibly imagine. Like, you were
literally throwing attacks that could range in
the hundreds of dice and just The game mechanics
are complete garbage, but the fact that they
had it was amazing. And even back then, they
had the age -old question, could Goku beat Superman?
And there's actually one section in one of the
books where it says, in all technicality, Krillin
could hand Superman his booty in a super -powered
sack. And that's the exact quote from the book.
And I'm thinking, man, that's really weird. So,
yeah, that's mostly my experiences with early
Dragon Ball. However, though, as the years have
gone by through doing This Week in Geek, I've
actually become friends with a number of the
Dragon Ball Z voice cast. I'm friends with Sean
Schemmel, who plays Goku in the Funimation dub.
I'm friends with Kyle Hebert, who was the original
Dragon Ball Z announcer. He plays Gohan. Teen
Gohan. He was also Ox King in the Dragon Ball
Z Kai dub. I want to say he plays Pycon as well,
but I want to say that might be Chris Sabbath.
And randomly, Chuck Hubert. I did some work for
him way, way back. And you may know him as Garlic
Jr. or Android 17. So yeah, it's been really
weird. I've always had the peripheral of Dragon
Ball Z in my life. Best experience is when Goku
stole my mic. I was recording at a convention
back in 2007 or 2008, and I'm interviewing Sean,
and I have this device called a Morant, which
is like a digital field recorder. And he's like,
hey, you, Birdman, hold on a minute. I'll be
right back. And he literally takes my mic and
runs away for like 10 or 15 minutes. And it's
just him babbling in it as Arnold Schwarzenegger,
as Nicolas Cage, as Christopher Walken. He's
just... saying random shit for 15 minutes like
giving us like really weird like um audio promos
for our show he called me steve he called me
mike e honda dodd and steve a film negative sailor
and it was just very very very odd and uh sean
is a one -of -a -kind man let me tell you that
much um and yeah that's that's dragon ball in
me Okay, and for me, I remember watching back
when Ian James Perlite was Goku. I remember being
pissed off when it became Sean, and then going
back, I'm like, you know, Ian wasn't all that
good. Well, and I don't think it was even him.
Like, it was just, it was that dubbing studio
that did it. And he, I think he did well for
what it was, but you could tell it was him. like
i was like oh it's megaman and and cheetor and
and i was like oh okay it's he's playing goku
too and then when uh you know because all i think
as far as i got was like just the vegeta battle
like before namik um with with him playing goku
and then they changed it to sean shemel and i
was to begin with was a little peeved and wasn't
happy about it but then I can't imagine anybody
else besides Sean Schimmel playing Goku and Chris
Sabat playing Vegeta. I remember when they changed
the voice from Brian Drummond, who played Vegeta,
to Chris Sabat. I was like, man, that's really
weird. And then even looking back on that, I
can't picture anybody else playing him either.
But the meme, it's over 9 ,000, sounds way better
with Brian Drummond. I don't know why. It just
does. Oh, yeah. Well, I think it was the guttural,
It's over 9 ,000! Like, just... So, I mean, it
was just... It was crazy, but that's why it was
such a popular meme, was just because of the
strength and intensity that went into that voice.
I also remember when they changed Krillin's voice,
and I remember thinking, I don't know which one
I like better. They actually both sound kind
of totally appropriate for the character. But
I remember specifically when those voices all
changed. It was like halfway through Namek. And
you're like, hey, where'd Sheetor go? And all
this crap. And everybody's voice was so different.
Yet, consistently, I'm pretty sure the woman
who did Gohan did it all the way through Cell.
I'm pretty sure it was still her. Colleen something.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm... I... This show, like...
There was a point in time that when I watched,
I used to record the episodes on VHS because
most of the time I wouldn't catch them because
they would come on right around dinner time at
home. So I would always miss the episodes and
I'd get so mad if I missed one. And I was like,
I can't miss it, blah, blah, blah. Back in the
pre -DVR days for you people, you had to actually
program a VCR and hope that the tape recorded.
and hope that somebody didn't change the channel
on you. So I had that. And then in school, I
knew so much about it because, one, the internet
was kind of, you know, it was kind of getting
out there for the most part. I frequented so
many Dragon Ball Z sites and soaked up as much
information as I could on the show that I was
the go -to reference guy at school. for younger
and older students that wanted to know anything
about the series. So I was kind of that go -to.
And then I'd have to sit there and explain all
the differences in the sagas and their powers
and who has this and who does what and how some
of their names are after vegetables or after
musical instruments or just various factoids
like that. Definitely one of the highlights of
my childhood. And then I actually ran a Dragon
Ball Z website, which actually spawned from writing
the fanfiction. So to begin with, it was called
Majin Phillips and Baby Gojitos, or Bilby Kilburn's
Dragon Ball Z GT website, which later on got
renamed to the Cyber Dragon Ball. To shorten
it up. Hence the name of the show. And then I
changed it later again. To the Dark Dragon Ball.
When I was running it solo. But I got bored.
And went on to Transformers by then. But I also
watched all of the Dragon Ball Z Saga. So there
was nothing left to watch. Because I don't acknowledge
GT. I think GT to a certain extent. Does get
kind of a bad rap. I do kind of like Pan. Actually.
I think that that and the Super Saiyan 4 were
about the only positive thing about the show.
Super Android 17 was kind of cool, but Baby was
stupid. Yeah, Baby was stupid, and I liked that
Trunks got to play kind of a front -running role
to kind of replace his dad, in a sense, and kind
of Gohan and some of those other guys. So it
was a nice dynamic. I wasn't happy about him
being a kid again. Yeah, I thought that was a
bit of a step backwards. But then again, I guess
I'm happy having Goku alive than be an angel
500 years in the future sort of thing. So I was
better. I was more happy with that. But I don't
know. I mean, it's funny. I never much cared
for the original Dragon Ball series. Like the
one that was all kind of cutesy. Yeah, I'm not
really a fan of that either. But the dice have
some pretty cool fights in it. In fact... One
of the things that really got me more into Dragon
Ball than anything else was the video games.
Almost all of them were done by Atari, I think.
The one that I liked, and I think it was the
best. I still think it's the best Dragon Ball
Z game, and I'm really sad that I sold it. It
was for the PS2, and it was called Dragon Ball
Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3. That had a... Yes, it
was. That was such an awesome game. You went
through the entirety. of every Dragon Ball fight.
You also went through several what -if scenarios.
And you get to do some of the GT. The only other
game that comes close would be Dragon Ball Z
Xenoverse, and that came out last year for the
next -gen consoles. And it's an amazing game
in its own right, too. I haven't... I haven't
had a chance to play it yet, although I do own
it. I bought that game actually used, so that
was kind of nice. And then I bought one before
that, and I can't remember for the life of me
what it was. It wasn't that, but it came out.
Raging Blast? Maybe? You'll probably recognize
it when I say it. It was one of the... I would
recognize it, but I can't. The last one that
was released for the PS2 was Dragon Ball Z Another
World. It was garbage and a half. Raging Blast
and Raging Burst... Sorry, Burst Limit and Raging
Blast both built upon similar mechanics. They
weren't bad games. They weren't great. It took
the series to go back to Xenoverse before it
got good. And let's not even talk about the Dragon
Ball Z Kinect game, which is so ridiculous. In
fact, I remember getting the press kit for that
game. You got a scouter with it, fake Goku hair,
and a headband. And I remember just looking at
this mail. The FedEx guy hands me this Dragon
Ball Z envelope. I'm thinking, what the hell
is this? Yeah, awkward day is awkward. I remember
sitting around my apartment at the time, because
I was still in college with this, looking at
my friends. And I'm like, all right, so who wants
to be the first asshole to try this? And everyone's
like, nope. I don't know if you remember any
of the imported emulators of the Super NES games.
I remember playing those in my high school cafeteria
because someone was too cool to have a laptop
running it in my high school cafeteria. We played
that during lunches. Yeah, I used to play some
of these games back when I was... Because I used
to run an emulator site, so I used to get those
all over the place too. They... There was one
with cards. You had to play with cards to decide
the moves that you did. And it goes all the way
through Super Saiyan and defeating Frieza and
then that's the end of the game. And then there
was a couple other fighting games that were on
the Sega Genesis that was like... It's almost
like a Hyper Dimension or something like that.
But it was such an awesome game, and that's where
I learned to button mash for the first time.
And then I started figuring out how to actually
play. Because I'd never played a fighting game
until Dragon Ball Z. And to this day, that is
the only game I will get that is a button mash
fighter game. Because I enjoy the tournaments
of it. Well, I should say that the only other
game that I would play is... smash brothers but
this is for an actual fighting game this is what
i go to and i did figure out what game i bought
that it was ultimate tenkaichi i'm trying to
remember if that one was good or not yeah it
was okay i the expectations for it that i had
were not as good as um because a lot of the the
fighting a lot of the the the stuff you had it
would either lock on aim or you would have that's
right i remember the fighting being incredibly
frustrating in that game and that was part of
the problem and then they had timed things so
like you had to hit the the like you know xyz
you know or or the certain colors or whatever
of the buttons uh or x y a b or something in
a random order and if you didn't it you'd get
smashed by a hit or you you would have like a
side scroller because you had to fight like hildegard
and you had to fight like the the uzar and you
had to fight um uh like stuff from the from the
movies in the game and i was kind of like and
then it wouldn't let you get to like gt characters
so you couldn't use or something like that super
saiyan 4 Yeah, something like that. I think you
could use... Maybe you could use Gogeta. I can't
remember, but it's been a while since I played
it. But I know you couldn't play the actual sagas
of some of the stuff. And so it kind of... It
didn't really mesh well with me. Whereas when
I played... Because I'd played sagas too at one
point, and that wasn't all that great. But I'd
played Budokai, Budokai 2, and Budokai 3. And
Budokai 3 was good back in the day. And then
all the Tenkaichis have been... Now, if you want
to check out something really good, go on YouTube.
There's a YouTuber known as ProJared. He's former
ScrewAttack. He does a lot of things now with
Dungeons and Dragons, I think. He's a really
good YouTuber. And he did a series when he was
working for ScrewAttack where he goes through
every Dragon Ball Z game up until, I want to
say, Ultimate Tenkaichi. and it's really, really
well in -depth. They talk about the car games,
they talk about the role -playing games. There
was a couple for the DS, actually. There was
one for the Nintendo Wii. There was Dragon Ball
Sagas, which was a role -playing game for the
PS2 and the Xbox. And he goes through each title.
He goes through even the Super Nintendo ones.
There was actually a Dragon Ball Z Tournament
Fighter, which actually played, I think, at Evo
for, like, a year or two. So that's how legit
Dragon Ball Z got for a while. So if your listeners
are really curious, I highly recommend you go
check out his series on YouTube. I think it's
five videos long, and I don't think they're any
less than half an hour each. Huh. Yeah, I'll
probably end up checking them out in my free
time. And I... I gotta check out Xenoverse since
I actually own it now. Because I haven't played
any of that game yet. I think I created a character
and I think it's about as far as I went. My experience
with Dragon Ball Z has been between the television
show and I think for a little bit there I did
collect the comics. Which I think was through
the Namek saga when I was collecting. I don't
think I had very much, but I had enough to go
through some of the first fights with Frieza,
and then I stopped collecting, unfortunately,
due to money issues. I remember the company that
produces the manga, Viz, they sent me this huge
omnibus, and it went through Raditz all the way
to the end of Vegeta. This thing was like a small
city's phone book. I couldn't believe how long
the manga was. I never did get around to reading
all of it. I think I got halfway through it.
I was like, man, okay, I might tap it out. Can't
do it anymore. And then, well, obviously we saw
how long the series was on TV. That's why I was
really glad when they did Dragon Ball Z Kai and
condensed the hell out of it. Yeah, I still have
yet to watch the actual Kai setup of it. I'm
one of the throwbacks to the original entire
long, drawn -out saga. I actually like how it
paces the first saga really, really, really well.
It cuts out so much filler in the Frieza saga,
too. It also takes out a good chunk of Cell as
well. I haven't kept up with it post -Cell, though.
Just because I haven't had a chance to contact
the company to send it to me. But I know it's
been out for like a year or two now. But I remember
Kai definitely being worth checking out, though.
Now, have you had a chance to check out Dragon
Ball Super yet? I'm... I've heard that the animation
is batshit terrible. Some episodes will look
great, some will look like shit. And I'm not
precisely sure why that is. The movies... See,
that's really unfortunate because that's the
first series post Resurrection of... Which I'm
glad they actually released those theatrically.
I was really surprised when they did that, when
they did... battle of gods and then did this
one although i do think it's kind of cheating
where they just oh now your hair is blue is that
all you got um but yeah super super saiyan god
super saiyan ridiculous and then it turns out
god's not as powerful as regular it's see that's
one thing akira toriyama basically said He's
like, don't ever pay attention to power levels
or anything. And it just got so confusing because
even during the original saga, they're like Super
Saiyan 1 is stronger than Super Saiyan 2, but
3 is the most powerful, but not as fast as 1,
and thus not as powerful. I'm like, what? If
I want to kick his ass, what do I got to do?
Sort of thing. And I always hated that. Sometimes
Dragon Ball, for as simple as it should be, They
overcomplicated the crap out of it sometimes.
Uh -huh. Yeah, I... It was one thing that I kind
of thought was stupid with since that movie came
out was they were like, oh, it's Super Saiyan
God, Super Saiyan. And then everybody can do
it now. Yeah, I just... mind -boggling to me,
but I did enjoy that film, despite the fact that
it had kind of a really phony cop -out way of...
Hey, Whis! I was... Yeah, they're like, Whis,
fix it! It's just... I don't know. I wanted to
choke somebody at the end of that film, but...
Yeah, it was great. I mean, I really enjoyed
it, but then it had that, and I was like, eh.
They pulled a Dragon Ball Z Eternal Dragon move
without using the dragon. Because they used it
at the beginning. So yeah, I mean, it was pretty
good, though. With the duration of this podcast,
obviously going to cover the sagas, but I thought
we'd cover each film as well. That's the plan.
Things may not turn out that way, but that's
the plan. And just because I'd like to actually
sit down and converse about some of the films
as well because I acquired them all over the
last year and I've watched all of them numerous
times. And besides the fact that the animation
is inconsistent with the film. I love the dubbed
soundtracks. Randomly they have like Finger Eleven
and Disturbed in some of them. And it makes no
sense. Although as a child that very much did
influence some of my musical taste as a kid.
One of my favorite musical bits of Dragon Ball
Z was the starting that they had while it was
on Toonami. That's the best one. I don't like
the theme song at all, but Rock the Dragon, that's
awesome. Bring that shit back. I mean, that instantly,
like, I can associate with it, and it's so catchy.
You know what's weird, though? They actually
released a special edition box set a couple years
ago where they purposely restored just that.
The intro is different. Every other thing was
the same, except that. I'm like, wow, that's
kind of a cash grab. That's a smart cash grab,
but it's a cash grab. I want to say it was also,
yeah, it may have been the original Ocean dub
too, yeah, up until things changed, and it was
Rock the Dragon as the theme song. I always thought
that was the superior theme song then, as opposed
to the random Japanese guy singing. Yeah, Dragon,
Dragon. It sounds... Like it's saying something
bad when you play it on QuickTime in slow motion.
But it's so badass. I know. It's such a great,
great theme. So being that this is just a overview
of all of our memories and thoughts and everything,
is there anything that you'd like to bring up
that we may have missed in our gushing of the
series? I will bring out my Dragon Ball Z role
-playing books because one of them, is incredibly
rare and i picked it up for five bucks on ebay
on amazon i've seen it going for four or five
hundred dollars and one of the authors of dragon
ball oh wow rpg actually wrote an unofficial
book he had the manuscript done but he couldn't
publish it because the company had lost the rights
to it so he published the um end of the cell
saga and the beginning of majin buu saga in a
book he called magical wishing dreaming spheres
and it was the rules that would be compatible
with the dragon ball z rpg i think i still have
it but i was so happy that someone actually completed
the series quote unquote in this but uh Yeah,
to talk about character creation, some of the
unique things the book would give you, I think
it'd just be a fun trip down memory lane about
a piece of memorabilia almost nobody talks about.
Yeah, that'd be interesting. And then, like I
said, I had this old Pojo magazine with some
of their bios in there. Even though it references
some sites that aren't around anymore. Like Planet
Namek and some of those type sites. So yeah,
I'll probably reference some of the characters
in there at some point since it's got the entire
bios. It's even got this interesting thing that
it's their English to Japanese names. and their
dub names, and their alternate spellings. Yeah,
I think I'll be really kind of looking forward
to actually kind of hearing about this more.
Because, like, for instance, Vegeta, like the
Japanese name is Vegeta. And the English dub
translated name is Vegeta, like vegetable. Vegetable.
And then the alternate spellings is actually
the same as the Vegeta. except they replaced
the B with the V. And then there's three different
spellings for the Vegeta, like V -E -G -E -T
-A or V -E -J -I -T -A or V -E -G -I -T -A. So
it's like, there's a lot of, like Kame, Senen
is Master Roshi, obviously, or Mutant Roshi,
which those are, you know, everybody knows that.
Oh my God, Steve, you know what we have to do.
We have to do commentary for the Dragon Ball
Z, or sorry, Dragon Ball Evolution. I have a
theatrical one -sheet poster for that. Is that
the Dragon Ball movie? And James Marsden and
Ernie Hudson randomly. Oh, you're talking about
the live action movie. Oh, you will. I've never
watched that. I have it, but I've never watched
it. We are going to Mystery Science Theater the
shit out of that. Yeah, it's... I would be interested
in doing that, actually. Man, I'm almost tempted
to drive down to Michigan so we can literally
Mystery Science Theater 3000 this shit. My God.
Yeah, it's so, so bad. But it's so entertaining
at the same time. That's funny. I think it would
be really funny to actually go over that film.
I have an intimate knowledge of the making of.
I had to, in a not very proud moment of my career,
had to ask for a lot of press material related
to that movie. Like I said, I still have my theatrical
one -sheet poster around here somewhere. Were
you disappointed that you asked for so much on
it? This is going to be my Zardot. This is going
to be my Highlander 2, The Quickening. This is
my beautiful disaster. It just happens to star
Goku. Ish. Goku Light. Goku Ish. Goku Light.
Who's randomly a white kid now. And yet Yamcha
is the only Japanese guy outside of Chao Yan
Fat in the entire freaking movie. And Piccolo
does nothing. Which is kind of messed up. The
Ozaru as something. It gets so stupid. I remember
there was a time when people wanted Jason David
Frank to star as Vegeta. in if there was a sequel
like there was a really weird fan campaign around
it and i think he responded to it on like several
occasions but we'll get to that that just makes
me laugh oh man so with that uh anything else
you want to bring up look forward to us talking
about this it'd be nice to get back into some
anime type stuff and maybe talk about series
that are similar to dragon ball at some point
in terms of violence or content or even stuff
that's kind of dragged out and you know more
than i would introduce you to some rather new
stuff and hopefully you'll take a liking to some
of it so we'll wait and see this is my goal for
this podcast is to show steve some new and exciting
things i have seen some anime My knowledge of
anime is like anime light. I know like... I've
seen a little bit of... You know, like obviously...
I've seen Sailor Moon. I've seen like a little
bit of Outlaw Star. I've seen Cowboy Bebop. Basically
anything that had shown up on Toonami at one
point I've seen. My main knowledge ends with
Death Note back in 2008. But with series like...
Attack on Titan, Kill la Kill, Space Dandy. I'm
looking to get back into anime in a very large
way. So hopefully I'll be able to change some
hearts and minds with this because it's an art
form and a genre that I really used to love as
a kid. And maybe it's time now that I'm that
older adult, I can get back into it and see it
with a fresh set of eyes. I mean, right now I'm
just going through Avatar. the last Airbender
series, and hopefully going to move on to Legend
of Korra. And I'm looking forward to going through
that again. So hopefully, like I said, I will
be able to show you some crazy stuff like Fist
of the North Star, which is ridiculous yet amazing,
and really cool series like Attack on Titan.
So stay tuned, guys. Lots of fun stuff, but mostly
Dragon Ball and people screaming about power
levels for the next X many episodes. Yep. Power
level 9 ,000. Yeah, it's just priceless. So,
yeah. Thank you for listening to the Cyber Dragon
Ball and catch us next week as we... Soon! Maybe
not next week, but catch us soon. Yes, for the
next episode. Please find all my Cyber Dragon
Balls. Please. She's like, shut up. But I have
not ordered pizza as Goku, because if I did,
it'd probably be something like, yeah, I'd like
all the pizzas. Just send me all of them. How
many do you have left? A couple hundred? Yeah,
put everything on it, send all of it, and just,
you know, that'd be awesome. Okay, thanks!