Time for a throwdown! Go Scott Cera go!

Immediately after finishing the first volume of Scott Pilgrim, I came to the conclusion that I’d really like to see it in some sort of live action context. I used to produce short segments for my university’s variety program, so I figured, “Hey, maybe I should do this?” Then I looked up a big more on Scot Pilgrim and saw that someone else had already beaten me to it (Edgar Wright) and cast Michael Cera in the titular role of an epically awesome-looking movie. I mean, just check at that first trailer, or any trailer really, and it’ll be hard to have any sort of patience waiting to see the real movie.

I was happy the instant the movie started. The usual previews rolled by, and Kyle and I turned to each other to give our five-second reviews of the trailers like, “Oh yes, that looks pretty cool,” or “Why are they making this crap?” Then suddenly the Universal logo came on all digitized with chiptunes sound and I knew the movie was starting right. The very next thing that happened was the intro music from Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past playing to introduce us to Scott’s little slice of Toronto. If this doesn’t let you know that everyone involved in the project “got” the graphic novel, you probably meant to go watch Eat, Pray, Love instead.

The movie plays out, more or less, as a Cliffnotes version of the six books. I was completely fine with this for a few reasons. First, I realized that six books worth of material wasn’t going to be able to make it onto screen, particularly things that just don’t translate well when jumping from a comic to a movie, such as a long interlude in the books where Scott goes on a nature sabbatical and has a bunch of introspection with Kim. Secondly, I knew that the movie just wanted to be its own thing anyway, and while it stays relatively close to the book’s plot, it changes a few things around as it sees fit.

I really want Edgar Wright to do a Drgaonball movie by the way.

The biggest change from the books to the film is undoubtedly the resolution, as I’m aware pretty much every other review is pointing out. The ultimate ending is still the same, but the final sequence changes fairly radically compared to how the book plays out. I’m okay with the change, but I’ll get into whether I preferred the book or the movie in just a little bit, so hold on.

In terms of matching the characters to actors, they nailed this one almost as closely as they could. Everyone acts and looks like his or her respective character, though my initial hesitation of Michael Cera as Scott carried through even till the end of the movie. I just couldn’t like him as much as the comic version. He did his usual Michael Cera character, a character I still like well enough, and it worked about as well as it needed to, but he didn’t feel like Scott Pilgrim; He felt like Michael Cera in a Scott Pilgrim movie.

The best casting choice would have to be Kieran Culkin as Wallace. Every time Culkin is on camera, you’re guaranteed a laugh. Alison Pill also hit Kim Pine pretty closely, to my surprise. I’d list off all the good casting choices, but I’d just end up listing off the whole cast. My two favorites were Culkin and Pill whereas my least favorites were Cera and to some extent Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers. She did just fine, but her hair was bugging me the whole time, so maybe that wasn’t really her fault.

Seriously, how did they do this good with the cast?

Okay, action sequences. Holy cow, the action sequences were awesome. They’re even better than I could have hoped. Edgar Wright took his directing duties to the max and it shows here with gusto. Even if you can’t connect to the plot or the main characters, there’s always something cool to look at. It’s about as close as you’ll get to watching a comic happen in real life.

So did I like the movie better than the comic? I don’t want to feel like a snob, but I preferred the ending of the comic over the movie’s final act, just because of how overly epic the book gets. This isn’t to say I didn’t think the movie was freaking excellent, though, because the movie is freaking excellent. Even the little nit-picky things I brought up like Cera cast as Cera is just me searching for things to whine about. Scott Pilgrim vs The World is the best movie adaptation anyone could ever hope to make from the source material, and it’s one of the best movies currently playing now or overall for this year. Go see this movie. Scott Pilgrim wins movie. Game Over.

Want more movie reviews? Check these out:

-The Last Airbender

-Toy Story 3

-Dragonball: Evolution

How about more Scott Pilgrim? We’ve got that, too:

-Comic Book Club: Scott Pilgrim Books 1-5

-Scott Pilgrim, Where Are You?

-Comic Book Club: Scott Pilgrim Book 6

Hold on guys, I still love you, I just love arguing more.

Note: This article has been marked as Gus-bait and as such, will result (understandably) with sharp counter-counter responses in the comments. This means that usually the full story will take place down there as well, so be careful to read everything.

Okay, now are we ready to start?

10. You watch Avatar? Isn’t that show for kids? (AKA: Avatar is for children):

This image does not inspire "hardcore" feelings.

We start with a legit criticism from both sides here by saying that Avatar, a show on Nickelodeon, is a childish show for younger audiences. If you’ve watched and enjoyed the series and you happen to be over ten-years-old, there is nothing wrong with that. However, any show that adds musical cues for pratfall humor is aimed intensely at children. Furthermore, a lack of blood does bring things down slightly in terms of seriousness. I know that no character will be exploded, decapitated, or bleed profusely. The biggest indicator of the kid-targeted-audience is the decision to resolve the plot without a single person dying on either side. Amazingly, there is no negative consequence for anyone, making the ending very child-friendly. But remember, Doug, Rugrats, and Hey Arnold were all made for children, too, and still remain awesome shows to this day. No shame there, but yeah, Avatar is a show for kids.

9. But I hate anime. (AKA: Avatar is an anime):

I've seen something like this before, and it was from a show with a Z in it...

To field this question I’m going to ask a question:. If you have dough and you put tomato sauce and cheese and pepperoni on it, what the heck do you call that thing? Avatar, while being made in the United States by US citizens, is still an anime in terms of everything else. It is the perfect mixing of the Japanese anime style with American cartoon sensibility, meaning we get serialized stories about martial arts and mystical hoo-ha without a lack of art or voice acting quality. The elements of an anime are still overpoweringly present here: Young protagonists in an adult world (also an indicator of #10), martial arts, a world that is somehow small enough to travel around instantly when convenient for the plot, one-dimensionally evil villains (seriously, why did the Fire Lord want power? Or Azula?), and of course a Super Saiyan transformation. If you can argue to me that the final battle between Aang and Fire Lord Ozai DIDN’T look like it was from DBZ, I owe you a coke.

8. But… still… doesn’t Aang look like Naruto? (AKA: Aang and Naruto are the same character):

I think this is a better comparison, personally.

I’m in a similar boat here in that I haven’t watched any significant amount of Naruto. I have seen a few episodes, and I have friends that are completely up-to-date with the series, but I’m no Naruto expert. Still, here are the connections: Aang and Naruto both wear orange and blue as the predominant colors on their outfits, Aang and Naruto are both inhabited by mystical spirits that they must learn to control, Aang and Naruto are silly, childish, and generally simple-minded, Aang and Naruto can both do crazy physics-defying maneuvers. So are they the same person? No. Are they the same archetype? Yes. Joseph Campbell argued way before our time that every hero ever is the same character, and in this case, Aang and Naruto share many, many similarities outside of simple coincidence. Take note, I essentially described Goku/Gohan from DBZ as well (more fuel for #9).

7. So, is it just another manly action show for men? (AKA: Avatar is another “guy” show):

Note the feminine charm in this final confrontation.

Avatar does a great job of giving us more characters than just the standard “dudes that punch hard,” and does an even better job of giving weaker characters (the Krillins of the show) the chance to show they don’t really suck. But the final, most important battle is fought and won between Aang, a boy, and Fire Lord Ozai, a man, throwing pew-pew energy blasts at each other. While Zuko fights with his sister Azula, a female, Azula is portrayed as banana-pants crazy at this point. Katara steps in and fights Azula in Zuko’s place, but the only reason she had to was because she was standing right behind Zuko during an Agni-Kai, a very STUPID place to be standing considering that Azula can fire LIGHTNING and doesn’t care who she injures. Because of Katara’s utter stupidity, Zuko has to leap in the way and save her. The main argument I got from Gus was, and I quote: “How many guys can say they were in a college lounge, the only dude in the room, watching Dragon Ball Z with five girls?” My counter is, “I’ve watched DBZ with girls, and my wife usually left the room when I watched Avatar.” Therefore, it’s totally case-sensitive, but is Avatar aimed at boys? Absolutely. Aang deals with the death of his MALE caretakers, Sokka constantly looks to find his FATHER, Zuko tries desperately to please his FATHER and is given wisdom from his UNCLE. The predominant drives of the story are guy-based in nature. Even Toph, one of the strongest females of the show, openly acts like a boy character. Case closed.

6. So what, do the characters know magic? (AKA: Bending is magic):

By the way, apparently juggling is part of Kung Fu now.

You’ll hear over and over again that bending the elements in Avatar is based off real Kung Fu styles. Katara even says in the first episode that bending isn’t magic. To the characters in Avatar, sure, bending isn’t magic. We live in the real world here where a person really can perform Tai Chi, but he’ll never make the water around him move like an octopus just because of his stance. This is where the otherworldly “magical” element takes over. And once more, there’s nothing wrong with that. But you can’t use the “Kung Fu” excuse here since, well, I don’t remember a Kung-Fu move that involves moving your face and having rocks shoot precisely where you want them to. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Check out King Bumi’s escape late in the series. Kung Fu or not, that looked like magic to me, even in the realm of the series.

5. Whatever nation you are born in, that’s the element you can bend? (AKA: Avatar is incredibly simple to understand):

Seriously, why can't anyone just study these dragons and figure out how to Fire Bend?

There’s not a whole lot to say here, so I’ve got to make this a little bit more of a critique of the series than just a straight argument. Leading into the “aimed at children” mindset of global simplification, all the Firebenders come from the Fire Nation, the Air Nomads can Airbend because they were born into it, etc. The series never really explored the possibility of why anyone could bend their respective element. You don’t just learn bending by having parents that can bend, or vice versa. Characters mention how all bending can be traced back to the original benders learning from the bending animal guides such as dragons, badgermoles, and flying bison (side question, are there non-flying bison? Do they call birds “flying birds?”). Therefore, can’t anyone really just pick up bending by studying the Kung Fu associated with the bending type and studying the animals for the proper inspiration? Bending has an origin, and it seems silly to think that there isn’t more to the story than “People born in the Earth Kingdom have a better chance of being Earth Benders.” Oh well.

4. What about duo benders for inter-racial families? (AKA: Avatar doesn’t deal with race on an adult level):

And then they fused into Zukaang and transformed into the Super Avatar 3 state.

Remember, Avatar is still primarily a kid’s show, and while there isn’t much to say here either in terms of why something’s wrong with thinking there can be benders of two separate elements if you have a mother who’s a Fire Bender and a father who’s an Earth Bender, but that is a question the series never explicitly addressed during the series, and as I’ve said before, “If it isn’t in the writing, it didn’t happen.” There would be inter-racial families in the world of the Avatar. There just would be. We don’t deal with these couples because the show is aimed at kids and talking about race in a marital sense is too complicated a topic to deal with. This continues my question about the origin of bending. I want to know why a Fire Nation child couldn’t study from the dragons, then study from the bagermoles and learn Earth Bending as well. Just saying that the Avatar is the only one capable of learning all bending styles is way too simplistic for me.

3. How come there is no Book 4: Air? (AKA: What are you, stupid?):

Seriously? You people make me sad.

Yeah, there’s pretty much nothing there. That’s just a stupid thing to assume.

2. Why is there no Heart Nation so they can form Captain Planet? (AKA: There are more than four styles of bending):

Shown: Utter destruction of an argument.

As silly as the joke is that there is a Heart Bending style, there is definitely a fifth style of bending: Soul Bending. This is the deus ex machina that allows Aang to resolve the plot without bloodshed. In the final battle against Fire Lord Ozai, Aang bends what appears to be his soul or at the very least some sort of radical energy. This was learned from the deus ex animal during the finale episodes because this is A: A kid’s show, and B: How anime-style works. I don’t even need to go on any more; Soul Bending, or Heart Bending if you want to refer to it like that, is absolutely real, Captain Planet or not.

1. Avatar? Isn’t that the movie on the planet with the Blue People? (AKA: James Cameron made a more successful entity than Nick’s Avatar):

Congrats guys, you blue people officially win the movie title "Avatar."

Yes, this is going to cause the most flaming hate-filled comments of anything I say, but when it comes right down to it, James Cameron beat Nick’s Avatar in terms of a name for a MOVIE. Take note there that I said MOVIE, not TV SHOW. I don’t care which came first, both use the word “Avatar” in perfectly decent ways. Nick’s Avatar uses it to represent a vessel for a godly character to inhabit whereas Cameron’s Avatar uses it in the computer sense of a representation of your virtual self, much like the Xbox 360 has Avatars for gamers to use in games and on the dashboard. While the two intellectual properties don’t have anything to do with one another, it’s not fair for us Nick Avatar fans to be angry when something else comes along and finds success with a similar name.

Getting ugly, boring kids to say ugly, boring things doesn't usually help your cause much.

Oh I’m not done yet. Animated Avatar fans, here’s a question you’ve got to humble yourself with right now: Which Avatar franchise is more well-known in the world right now? I don’t care what you believe, I can ask any single one of my relatives, be they my mom, my grandma, or an obscure uncle, and I have something close to a 100% chance that they know what Cameron’s Avatar is and just as close of a chance that they’ve seen it. Try the experiment right now. Go ask ten people at random if they’ve seen Avatar and then ask them to clarify which one they’re talking about. You know the results. Even more bottom line: Cameron’s Avatar beat The Last Airbender into the ground in the field of movies because, not gonna lie, The Last Airbender was the worst movie I’ve ever seen. And don’t use the “But Nick’s Avatar was first” defense. Cameron had been planning his movie for years, way before Nick had an animated show of the same name, so your argument doesn’t hold up.

Besides, why do you care so much anyway? The majority of people that have seen Nick’s Avatar all the way through love it. A hefty portion of people who have seen Cameron’s Avatar think it’s overrated, myself included. Take pride in your fandom. Take pride that your thing is also quieter than the louder thing. Cult status is much cooler than mainstream, so stop trying to compete in a world you don’t want your franchise to go.

Phew, alright, I’m done now. But don’t worry, I think I’ve got at least one more Avatar-related article in me. The good Avatar, not the crappy Cameron movie I hated so much. Be on the lookout for that in the next month. As for now, I’m tired, so I’m gonna go rest for a hundred years or something. Pranger out.

Every character has his signature attacks, but which ones work best?

As a huge DBZ fan, I’ve come to considered myself an expert on every aspect of the show. I’ve mentioned a few plotholes I found unacceptable (because this is very serious business), as well as some filler plots that bugged me. But I was careful to give ten excellent points where the show was awesome. I’ve been rolling some ideas around in my head and thought maybe I could do a top ten list for DBZ moves, but I thought, nah, too complicated. Therefore, I’m going to give a rundown of all the moves I can think of including their effectiveness within the show and beyond, plus my choices should I be in the show. We better start with the big ones, so let’s begin.

Kamehameha:

Simplicity at its finest.

Most characters on the show know how to fire this all-important beam. Goku made it most popular, but Gohan, Krillin, Yamucha, Goten, Cell, and Buu know how to create it as well, making it essentially the standard attack for everyone to know. And what’s not to love? It’s bigger than a basic energy blast, it has a decent follow-through, and it allows for the flexibility of it being a small attack or a finishing move. But how effective is it really? According to the battle count of the series, it’s only managed to end one fight by itself, that being Gohan vs Cell. Otherwise Goku has used it against Vegeta, Frieza, and Buu, and none of those times it has finished the fight. However, it does act as a great combo technique and becomes vastly important. It’s too tough to quantify this one with numbers, but I give it an A+ for usefulness.

Masenko:

I could chop you in the side right now. Would you like that?

The Masenko is more or less the Kamehameha’s little brother, used only by Piccolo and Gohan. Is it really special? No, not really. It just looks like another energy blast. It’s primary color is yellow, and while Gohan tries really hard to use it a ton (certainly more than Piccolo), he eventually gives it up and sticks with the Kamehameha. However, the Masenko had a moment to shine when Gohan fought with Frieza. He even came close to injuring Frieza really bad, but ultimately this attack just never measured up. Stick with the Kamehameha if you need a signature energy attack.

Special Beam Cannon:

And then it stopped working altogether.

Initially, the Special Beam Cannon (forget you, I’m not looking up the Japanese term) looked awesome and for all we knew it was going to become the standard finisher move. The first two times it was fired it blew up a mountain and killed Goku and Raditz in one shot. But then it never found a use again. Piccolo was the only character to learn this one, which is probably best since originally it took way too long to charge. Eventually Piccolo figured out how to fire these without any real charge time, but every time I saw it fired at someone, it was like they had trained in the use of the Standard Special Beam Cannon Defensive Chop. Seriously, look back through and every person that has a SBC fired at them chops it away like it’s nothing. Too low of a success rate, retired from the roster.

Destructo Disk:

Get that out of Krillin's hands and into someone that knows how to use it.

Quick, name all the characters that have used a Destructo Disk or something similar. You got Krillin, and Frieza, correct. And Cell. But who else? Well, both Goku and Vegeta showed they knew how to throw these at some point. Of all those characters, who uses it the most? Krillin. And what’s its major weakness? Krillin has to yell “Destructo Disk” right before he throws it. Why? We may never know. This attack has the capability to be the single best move available as a one-hit-kill finisher. Put in the right hands, like Goku’s, this should end every fight. But time to look at the scoreboard. Krillin tried it against Nappa. Nappa dodged. Krillin tried it against Vegeta. Vegeta dodged. Krillin tried it against Frieza. Frieza dodged, although he lost his tail for a few episodes. Krillin used it against Cell. It didn’t do anything to Cell because Krillin was way too weak. Now look at the other characters. Vegeta used it on Gohan’s tail, but then got crushed by Gohan. Frieza used it against Goku, but then accidentally cut himself in half with his own attack. Cell used it against Goku but Goku dodged. And finally, Goku used it against Buu, but Buu regenerated. So in all, the Destructo Disk has a negative score for times it’s been effective. If you have to use it, at least just throw it and don’t bother trying to control it, but still, this one’s a pitiful excuse for an attack.

Hellzone Grenade:

Boy Piccolo, have you ever been effective in this series? Really?

Does anyone remember who used this attack and when? Piccolo used it against Android 17 in the middle of the Cell Saga. While their fight is actually pretty cool, Piccolo’s “genius” mind seemed to underestimate the difficulty of fighting a machine. Eventually, Piccolo began firing small energy blasts in the “Scatter Shot” formation, a tactic that places value on quantity over quality (side note: this tactic never works), before pausing for a moment to allow Android 17 the chance to look around and see himself surrounded by energy blasts. Piccolo yelled the attack’s name and all the energy blasts converged on Android 17, causing a huge explosion. And it was completely ineffective. Piccolo never used it again, a shame since it really did seem like a good strategy. But, a 0% success rate makes this one a failure.

Gallick/Garlic Gun:

"Kameh- I mean Gallick Gun!"

Depending on what you want to call Vegeta’s original signature attack, the Gallick Gun looked more or less like a purple Kamehameha. And good for Vegeta since anything related to Goku’s fighting style is a serious no-no in his family lineage. As far as usefulness goes, well, it’s just another energy blast. If you prefer not to use the Kamehameha, this is a pretty decent second choice.

Final Flash:

Protip: Anger doesn't always make your attacks any more effective.

Vegeta has his own finisher as well, the Final Flash, used sparingly throughout the series. We see this while Vegeta fights Recoome of the Ginyu Force, but it doesn’t work. He uses it once more against Cell much later in the series and even manages to rip off half of Cell’s torso…but then Cell regenerated so it didn’t work. He uses it one more time against a Cell Junior and still, it doesn’t work, meaning that while it certainly looks cool, it hasn’t proven to be effective against anyone.

Big Bang Attack:

"Five minutes." No wait, that's something else.

Not content to have just one finisher, Vegeta has two. The Big Bang Attack debuted and retired essentially at the same time as the Fatality used against Android 19. Vegeta had the android on the ropes the whole fight and finished him off with a pretty excellent explosion, but was it necessary? Vegeta had ripped off the android’s hands and beaten it up pretty good up until this point. Android 19 couldn’t really fight back anymore, so any attack that anyone fired would have destroyed it, including a Special Beam Cannon (since it couldn’t use the SBC Defensive Chop). A cool finishing move, but if you’re looking for fighting efficiency, just use a Kamehameha since you have both a regular energy beam and a finisher in the same move.

Tribeam:

Damn son, where'd THAT technique come from?

Tien doesn’t get mentioned very often anymore. That’s too bad since he’s got a lot of pretty good moves at his disposal. One of which is his Tribeam, a move that somehow placed him in a position way above his power level when fighting Cell’s second form. In essence, the Tribeam is a super-focused concussive attack, capable of precise accuracy and able to cut through solid rock without any real trouble. The thump this attack can generate is enough to keep even the strongest enemies down for a little while, plus it can be kept up for quite a long time. Sadly, Tien hardly has a chance or reason to use this attack. Placed in a stronger character, most likely Goku, this attack could be extremely useful. As it exists in the show it only really seems helpful to stall people.

Death Ball:

If your enemy hands you your Death Ball back, you did it wrong.

A favorite of the Big Bads of the series, Frieza was the first to create one in order to destroy Namek. While it didn’t immediately destroy Namek, it did seem powerful enough to rip a huge plothole through the series. Death Balls can range from the size of a basketball to the size of what appear to be small moons. Attacks of this nature are purely to display dominance and rarely succeed in being more powerful than even a basic attack. Frieza even throws a Death Ball and lands it right on Trunks’ head, ultimately having Trunks hand it back without any trouble. The Death Ball has succeeded twice in the series. Once in destroying planet Vegeta, and once in destroying Planet Earth. It gets half credit for destroying Planet Namek. This is a desperation technique only, meaning you should have no reason to use this if you’re fighting smart.

Body Switch:

Man that was stupid.

Burning Attack:

If you look like you're having a spazz attack, your technique may be stupid.

Trunks used this one against Frieza as what appeared to be a distraction tactic. It worked, forcing Frieza to leap into the air where Trunks hacked him to pieces with a sword. (Note: Weapons are dangerous in DBZ battles as they can easily be turned against you. I don’t advise using them). So while the Burning Attack looked cool, what with all the hand flailing, is it really effective? Since it’s only used once, there’s no way to tell, but I would vote against it’s use since you have to flail your hands around like a goober for a few seconds before firing. The Kamehameha can be fired as fast as you can yell the attack. Keep these flashy moves in check.

Super Ghost Kamikaze Attack:

Kids today. What will they think of next?

Dang, they got a lot of usage out of this one technique for a while in the Buu Saga. Gotenks invented it as a super special move and demonstrated it was pretty darn powerful, and then Buu stole it and used it against Gohan and Vegitto later on, even tweaking it to allow for the ghosts to fire energy blasts on their own. That’s smart planning, but still, this move ultimately didn’t result in any successes, perhaps because it was developed by a 7/8-year-old.

Spirit Bomb:

"Kaboom! I really hope it works this time!"

Goku’s Spirit Bomb is regarded as one of the strongest moves in the series, yet you need to look at its overall track record. It’s been used three times, once against Vegeta, once against Frieza, and once against Kid Buu. It eventually killed Kid Buu after a lengthy battle. That makes its success rate 33%, a failure as a technique. The move requires you to gather energy from things other than yourself, a task that takes more time than you’ll have on the battlefield, plus if no one is around to gather energy from, you’re screwed. This is a total waste of a technique, so skip it.

Multi Form:

Four more of a sucky character doesn't mean much. It just means you suck four times more.

Tien started the trend of characters randomly knowing how to split into multiple copies of themselves, usually three or four, but no one seemed to figure out how to use it well. I’ve seen Piccolo fight himself for the heck of it, Krillin feign usefulness, and Cell waste time fighting Goku, but I’ve yet to see anyone pull this one out and do some damage. The major drawback is that your power gets split every time you create a double, so if you’ve got four of you flying around, you’re all still pitifully weak. Stick to something more effective next time.

Kaio Ken:

Also, while your enemy thinks you're on fire, they'll be totally distracted for your next move.

The Kaio Ken is a great ability to know. It’s a good combination technique to use with something like the Kamehameha or any finisher since it adds an extra oomph. Plus, there really is no limit to its use. Goku pushed himself to Kaio Ken times 20 when fighting Frieza, and later did something called a “Super Kaio Ken,” although I have no idea how powerful that is. It can offer a huge speed and power boost well above your max level, but the risk is that your body won’t be able to handle the strain. Train for this eventuality if you use this as your power-raising technique.

Super Saiyan:

Excellent for battles that take place in the dark.

Wouldn’t we all like to be able to use this transformation? Of course we would, but not all of us have Saiyan blood, a prerequisite for anyone wishing to be a Super Saiyan. As far as humans go, there is no comparable Super Human or something, meaning that we’d all be SOL for Super Saiyans. Plus, as with all Super Saiyan transformations, there’s always one more level to achieve, just after the one you already hit, making this feel like a futile achievement. As cool as it’d be to transform into a Super Saiyan, and however useful the constant speed and power boost it provides, the Kaio Ken is more effective as a surprise. Plus, if you’ve already trained your body enough, what’s to stop you from hitting a Kaio Ken times 100 or something? Who knows how strong that is?

Fusion:

Oh you silly kids.

The Fusion Dance looks silly, but it does offer a massive power burst should you have an ally that knows the dance and is your double in power and mental concentration. Problem is, you’re not very likely to find that on the battlefield. If you’re fighting someone with your buddy and he gets killed, your tactic of fusion is blown. Plus, if done wrong, you fuse into a worthless body for half an hour. Furthermore, you only get a half hour of this fusion, and while you can apparently conduct the majority of a saga in five minutes, you better be ready for battles that last longer than a half hour.

Instant Transmission:

Piccolo was so close to a better technique, wasn't he?

Teleporting instantly to any spot either near or far is incredibly useful. Goku used this in conjunction with most other techniques and found it to be incredibly effective, such as the Instant Transmission Kamehameha, the single greatest tactic ever used in the series…except it was used against an enemy that could regenerate. This is a must-know technique, making it questionable why Goku never taught it to anyone else in the entire series. How sad.

Solar Flare:

My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

Now we come to the final and best technique you can learn in DBZ: The Solar Flare. No, you will not be able to finish someone off with a Solar Flare, or even inflict any damage at all. But you will have a near 100% success rate for this technique. It’s been used throughout the series, usually against characters vastly stronger than the user, and always provided a means to quickly escape or make space between your attacker and you. It’s been used against Vegeta, Dodoria, Frieza, and a handful of other characters throughout the Cell Saga, each time working 100% of the time. In fact, the only time throughout either Dragonball or Dragonball Z that a Solar Flare failed was in the World Martial Arts Tournament fight between Goku and Tien, and only then it failed because Goku snagged Master Roshi’s sunglasses. As long as you can make sure your enemy isn’t wearing sunglasses, this will work every time.

My Three Techniques:

Shown: Martial Arts, apparently.

Given only three techniques, I’d take the Kamehameha due to its range as both a functional energy beam and a workable finisher movie, Instant Transmission thanks to its versatility to allow transport around any situation, and the Solar Flare since it always hits. My usual combo would be something like a Solar Flare to mess with your perception, an Instant Transmission away from the battle entirely while I charged a Kamehameha to max power, then a quick Instant Transmission back to the battle as I unload everything on my enemy at once. If done correctly, they’ll still be so disoriented by my Solar flare that they won’t have any notion if I’m there or not, so when I reappear they’ll be completely off guard and unprepared for a full-powered finisher. But of course, that’s just me.

Wow, that’s over five whole pages devoted to Dragonball Z techniques, and I didn’t even cover them all. Did I miss any that you’re a huge fan of? Or do you think I didn’t do proper justice to anything here? Time to leave a comment and let me know. Just expect me to Instant Transmission away if your argument gets too complex for me to handle.

What more fan love? Check out these articles:

-The Top Ten Best Zelda Items

-Kyle’s Top Ten Most Unattainable Toys

-Chris’ Top Ten Pokemon-Related Achievements

The fires of critics have declared blasphemy. But some believe there is still hope.

A week ago, I may have unnecessarily shot off more that I can stomach when I ended a previous article [this one] by stating the upcoming live action film adaptation of Avatar the Last Airbender as a possible candidate for the beginning of what could become the next Harry Potter, or even Star Wars.

Well now I’m back, and after sticking three or four toes in my mouth, I am left to salvage what ashes are left after a fleet of critics and die hard fans have swept through this film and burned it to the ground.

Now, I myself have been a fan of this series since the very beginning. I was in the theatre Thursday evening where half the movie goers were people I had a personal hand in introducing to the show. Unlike a lot of them, I had a long time to massage the fact that this movie could very easily miss it’s mark. I told myself, ‘no matter. I’ll just be the optimistic one, laugh it off, and quote Sokka’s final line at the end of ep.317.’ Low and behold… that was more or less exactly what happened.’

Okay, I’ve done my fair share of bashing. I’ve devastated Transformers for it’s pointless unlikable human characters and making the robots the C story of their own movies. I’m appalled by even the thought of Twilight and the negative messages it sends to its young female demographic (including my own sister), not to mention obliterating anything and everything that was once cool or scary about vampires and werewolves. And as for all the complaints 20th Century Fox has got for destroying so many popular Marvel characters: Galactus, the Phoenix, Deadpool (or should I say ‘Barakapool’)? Completely legit.

But this… I feel like I’m getting Spiderman 3 vibes all over again. By that I mean, was the movie disappointing? Yes. Were there things that frustrated the crap out of me as a fan? Of course there were. Did I think these things justified the sheer amount of scorn and trash talking this movie has received to put it at the same level of travesty as the crap I’ve listed above? Absolutely not.

Yeah, surprisingly enough, I didn’t completely hate The Last Airbender. And I’m going to tell you why.

Katara: Aang, no one said this was going to be easy.

Aang: Well, it’s not even going to be possible.

To start, I believe it is necessary to bring up just how ridiculous of a task M. Night Shyamalan was presented. Not only is he dealing with a genre that he has never once touched on in his entire career, he has the pressure of condensing this source material into less than two hours. This isn’t like other shows with dozens of filler and irrelevant loose ends. Nearly each episode of Book 1 shares some way in furthering the progression of the plot, the world, and it’s signature characters (yeah, even The Great Divide). I almost feel like anyone attempting this might as well be given a thirty-foot diameter arch-reactor and told to condense it to fit in the grip of someones hand.

“I’m sorry. I’m not Tony Stark. But for the love of Aang, I’m going to try anyway.”

“Thanks positive attitude.”

Let’s talk about what was good about the movie, because contrary to popular belief, The Last Airbender had plenty of redeeming qualities. I could tell right from the start that the creators did their homework when it came to creating the universe. The set pieces were crafted brilliantly. It almost felt uncanny how well these locals translated into live action. All the costumes resonated well. The crafting of the Fire Nation ships and other machines were spot on. For a movie with such a huge focus on special effects, the crew did an amazing job with all the finer details.

Here was one of my favorite locations. Spirit oasis = gorgeous!

Speaking of effects, they were better than decent. I don’t think I could be happier with how they turned out. The bending did just what it needed to do and definitely made me go “oh snap!” at points. Appa and Momo both turned out a lot better than I was initially expecting. Their scenes were few and far between, and I can understand if they were skeptical about putting them in too much. But hey, if your only complaint about something is that you wish there were more of it, that’s a pretty good sign.

Couple both of those with a downright heart pounding music score by James N. Howard. Huge expectations were set for him by Track Team, and he definitely rose to the challenge. This has got to be one of the most epic original movie themes since the Harry Potter movies started.

So, for all elements that were done really really really well, I’m giving the movie one redemption point.

Now for the cast. Before you ask, I’m not going to address any of the race issues in the movie, because, quite frankly, I’m sick and tired of the whole freaking argument. For starters I liked that very few of these people were big names, so I’m not sitting in my seat thinking “That’s just [such and such actor] saying [such and such character’s] lines.” Pelts, while she doesn’t look like Katara, I felt nailed the personality, after toning down a lot of her whining and hope speeches. I have a friend who’s a huge Tai Chi practitioner, and from what he’s told me, her motions were pretty spot on. Patel acquit himself quite competently as Zuko. While his performance was simple and strait forward, I didn’t think Zuko became that complicated of a character until Book 2 anyway. He did great with his fight scenes though. Aasif Mandvi was a definite surprise as Zhao. Shychelle Gabriel’s Yue was a huge improvement from what I’ve seen her in the past. (‘cough’ The Spirit) To confess, I got more teary-eyed in her final scene than when (SPOILER ALERT!) Dumbledore died at the end of The Half-Blood Prince.

If anyone was under used, it was Jackson Rathbone and Shaun Toub, which sucks because both play probably the most dynamic characters on the show. It just felt like they were given nothing to work with. I understand that when Night toned down the overall mood, it took away from their character’s sense of fun and intrigue. Still, it’s nice to see a former one-dimensional wannabe vampire with a constant look of pain on his face attempt a character with a little more meat to him.

Ha! Get it? Sokka? Meat?

“You are The Last Airbender, Noah. The fate of the movie lies in your hands.” And people wonder why he looks so nervous.

I haven’t seen all of Shyamalan’s movies, but the one’s I have seen (Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs.), I’ve always been impressed with his kid actors. Now I’ve thought and thought about this, and honest to Roku, I can’t see anyone else playing Aang’s part better than Noah Ringer. In my opinion, he was perfect. Very few people share this opinion, and in fact, many thought his performance was appalling.

Here’s a scenario: You are a 16 year-old-boy. You are soft spoken with a good heart. You have no professional experience in acting whatsoever. What you DO have experience and a passion in is a wave of medieval folklore tools. You are an amazing swordsman, an impressive archer, and even skilled with a grappling hook. One day, some big producer or director comes up to you and says “You’re a talented kid. I want you to play Link in a Legend of Zelda movie.” You’d probably pee your pants. And then you’d do it.

That’s basically what’s happened to Noah here. For everyone saying that he looked nervous, self-conscious, didn’t smile enough, whatever, I’m saying, “Well gee! Aren’t those the emotions you would expect of a twelve year old boy given the task of being the world’s only hope of defeating the baddest man on the planet and ending a hundred year war?”

That’s what made the performance so perfect for me. The pressure put on Noah to perform in this film was an amazing parallel to the pressure placed on Aang as the Avatar. Also, I know this might sound hypocritical coming from an English-Writing major, but I’m a strong believer that actions speak louder than words, and what Noah DID in the movie was nothing short of phenomenal.

Clearly, Shyamalan has never seen this special puppetbender video about Name-Identification-Terrible-Pronunciation-Ignorance-Control-Keys. He might want to look into it.

Now for the problems, and boy were there some doozies. To start, ‘Awng’ ‘So-ca’ and ‘Eero’ all had their names butchered. It’s astounding how something as little as pronouncing a character’s names incorrectly can utterly destroy the entire mood of a scene. But you know what’s worse? It’s not even right to call them mispronunciations; They were repronunciations. Shyamalan and everyone else in the production made a conscious decision to change the syntax of these names. Obvious reason: they wanted the names to sound more authentic to the culture they were trying to create, and not sound too cartoony. Okay, I can understand the reasoning behind that. They made a decision and they did it for the right reasons. But it didn’t work. It just made us fans cringe and killed the mood every time we heard it. Therefore I’m docking one point from the movie’s overall score.

Oops! What went wrong there?

With what little screen time the Earth Kingdom was able to get, you could imagine my disappointment when Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors never showed up. It’s not so much the shock that characters were cut by any means, but more the fact that they were openly advertised as being in the movie. There was photos of them in production. The statue of Avatar Kyoshi was in the movie, and I’m pretty sure I knew at what point their scene was suppose to come. So this must have been some last-minute-development. I actually feel worse for Jessica Andres and the other girls that must have put quite some time and effort into their performance. I’d like to hope they will be in deleted scenes or an uncut version of the movie on DVD, but for now, this is an instance of false advertising. So there goes another point.

I’m taking a third point away for the writing. While there were maybe a few bits of dialogue that I felt were presented really well, overall, it was pretty dang bad. Major reason is that 90% of it was forced to be exposition to progress the plot. While that was unavoidable, it left very little room for the characters to actually stretch their vocal cords and express themselves.

All other liberties and qualms other people had, I was able to swallow pretty well. Rookie firebenders needing a source of fire: while unnecessary, they made it work. Sozin’s comet coming in three years as opposed to three seasons: for continuity sake, they would need time to make the sequels. The Dragon in the spirit world: I saw it as Roku speaking though his animal guide Fang, so it worked for me.

The Blue Spirit mask having hair: I thought it was kinda cool looking actually.

At this point, I have to wonder. Am I just trying to be like Aang? Approaching the movie from a different angle? Looking at how bad it could have been, rather than what I think should have happened? In all seriousness, it was nowhere near as god awful as Dragonball Evolution (sorry Mr. Pranger) (Pranger’s Note: Gus, I reviewed DB Evolution last year and said it was terrible, so…), but yes, I would have much more appreciated it if it was at the level of quality as the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which after 20 years, is STILL the greatest cartoon-to-movie live action adaptation ever made.) (Pranger’s Note: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, while at the time experiencing popularity as a cartoon of the same name, was a movie with a plot based off the original comics). As it turns out, I’ve accepted that it’s somewhere in between.

“But I’m ready to do so much more!”

As it stands, I won’t be surprised if Shyamalan and the rest of the cast and crew are forced to drop camp and call it quits. I think that’s a real shame, because they obviously worked really hard and enjoyed themselves without any idea what they were getting into. After all the criticism, they know exactly what they need to improve on. Like our good old Uncle said in Book 2 ep.12 “I believe people can change their lives if they want to. I believe in second chances.”

Plus I gotta admit, Summer Bishil’s interpretation of a certain Fire Nation Princess is already creeping me out.

Final census: The Last Airbender, while undoubtedly flawed, is extremely underrated.

My final score is… let’s see? 5 minus 3, plus the one redemption point…

A 3 out of 5.

P.S. Anyone who’s been spouting that Shyamalan has “destroyed the series,” or “ruined my childhood,” take a deep breath and listen to yourself. Or better yet, open your eyes. He has destroyed nothing. The TV series still exists in its entirely, and guess what? It is still awesome. Nothing’s changed apart from your skewed perspective. Relax.

Want more movie reviews? Check these out:

-Dragonball Evolution: A Fan’s Dreams Are Shattered

-Forget-Them-Not: Toy Story 3

I leaped like a hogmonkey after the 9-month hiatus between seasons 2 and 3.

For the last five years, there has been one show that has captured my imagination like nothing before it. Avatar The Last Airbender, is a Nickelodeon Animated series about a twelve year old boy freed from an iceberg, only to discover he’s been frozen for a hundred years, the world is engulfed in war, and his entire people have been wiped out. I believe it would be very safe to say it’s my Dragon Ball Z. Since it’s release, it has won numerous awards for it’s compelling characters, tight writing, and superb animation, including Annie Awards three years in a row, a Genesis Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Peabody Award for “Unusually complex characters and healthy respect for the consequences of warfare.”

You can find the three seasons for purchase here, here, and here, though they are all available on Netflix Instant Play.

As critically acclaimed as it may be, I feel it is also one of the most misunderstood shows in recent history, and why it has flown so low under the radar. To quote the Uncle Iroh, “See, [Mr. Pranger], like most people, underestimate it’s value.” Just give me ten chances to correct some of the most common misconceptions from the show. Hopefully you may feel enlightened, and I can get on with my life.

(Note from Pranger: “I have the three seasons on Netflix Instant Play but haven’t had the chance to watch them yet. I’ll see Avatar The Last Airbender when I have time to appreciate it without feeling obligated, so there.”)

10.) You watch Avatar? Isn’t that show for kids?

Hey, it’s hard when you share a network with this guy.

I cannot tell you how many people I met who won’t even give Avatar a try simply because it’s on Nickelodeon. To be clear, Avatar is rated Y7, yet it is a show about War, Politics, Loss, Love, Honor, and has humor that is actually clever and doesn’t rely on pop culture references. In all honesty, it is one of the few shows made on Nickelodeon now that reaches out to a demographic far greater than the ages of 6-11, and the fact that it’s able to go to the places it does without shedding a single drop of blood I think is spectacular.

Although I should confess, if you have only seen the first two episodes, than the show is going to seem very juvenile. That’s only because the characters themselves start off very young and naïve. Stick with it and I guarantee you will be surprised at how far these characters mature and develop in less than a year of their life.

9.) But I hate anime.

The next time you think about grouping Avatar with these guys… don’t.

Then there’s another group of people who immediately assume Avatar, because of its art style and how it’s set in a fictional world greatly influenced by East Asian cultures, is made in Eat Asia as well. Let me correct that now. Avatar is NOT anime. It was made by two American martial arts geeks named Mike D. Martino and Bryan Konietzko. Their writing team’s from America, their music’s done in America, all the voice acting and sound design is done in America. Yes, the animation is done in South Korea, but what show isn’t these days? At first glance, it may look Japanese, but watching it is a completely new experience. You will quickly notice a huge difference in the dialogue and overall tone. For one, there’s not nearly as much sprite moments, and when they actually do it, it’s usually to poke fun at anime.

8.) But… still… doesn’t Aang look like Naruto?

Both have Orange, Yellow, and Blue color pallets. Roughly same age. Both combine special powers with martial art. Fine I’ll let that fly. But not anymore.

This puts me in an uncomfortable situation, as I have never watched Naruto, and never plan to, so it is very unfair for me to make any assumptions about his character. But this is what I have been able to pick up from the general synopsis. Naruto is characterized as rash, impulsive, and aggressive. He purposefully looks for a fight and runs into an obstacle headfirst. Aang, on the other hand, is witty and tactful. He tries to solve his problems by being quick and clever, and only uses fighting for necessary defense. Naruto goes to school where they teach him to fight and kill like a ninja. Aang was raised by monks who taught him that all life is sacred and to detach himself from the world so his spirit could live in peace. Naruto possesses the spirit of a demon fox inside him whose sole purpose is destruction. Aang is the resurrection of a long line of Avatars, the bridge between the real world and the spirit world, and whose duty is to master all bending disciplines and keep peace and balance among the four nations of the world.

In other words, Naruto is Sith, and Aang is Jedi. Believe it!

7.) So, is it just another manly action show for men?

What? Women? No way, they have cooties. Just shut up and watch us flex.

Just so you all know, I’m not a hater. I’m a huge fan of Dragon Ball Z. It’s undoubtedly one of the most iconic shows of my generation, and without it, Avatar might not even exist as I know it. But it is because of DBZ and other shows like it that even the toy manufacturer Mattel is guilty of #7 here. In their toy line-up, they made action figures of Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and even minor characters like Jet, the Blue Spirit, and King Bumi. But Katara, arguably the most important character to the plot next to Aang, was never made. Why? Because they thought the show would only appeal to guys. Let’s just say this ended up being the stupidest decision Mattel ever made.

Yes, Avatar The Last Airbender was made by two guys. And yes, the main protagonist and antagonist respectively are both male, but how many guys can say they were in a college lounge, the only dude in the room, watching Dragon Ball Z with five girls? I can say that about Avatar. There could be many reasons to why Avatar’s demographic is so diverse, but I think it more than likely has to do with the fact that the show and it’s creators did their darndest to show they were not ignoring an entire half of the global population. The girls in Avatar are just as relevant to the plot as the guys, they fight as much as the guys, and kick just as many butts, if not more. Most importantly, they look like actual women, with real breast sizes and practical clothing. I dare anyone to find another show that treats both genders with equal amount of respect as well as Avatar does.

What is this? Female fighters who equal the guys in muscle and numbers, and are beautiful and talented without having to be complete sluts. This is madness!

6.) So what, do the characters know magic?

“You think learning to say ‘Expecto Patronum’ while thinking of a happy memory was hard? I had to go though weeks of physical strain to get this form down.”

Aang doesn’t flick his wrist and BAM, create a tornado. Toph doesn’t move stones with her mind. Bending the elements is a very physical process, and within the conventions created by the world, it requires no suspension of disbelief. That’s why all fight sequences were physically choreographed and recorded on tape by a martial arts consultant. Each of the four elements coincides with a different form of classic Chinese martial arts. Waterbending is Tai-Chi, Earthbending is Hungar, Firebending is Northern Zhaolin, and Airbending is Ba-Gua. Benders also have to be aware of their environment and weather conditions. Waterbenders rise with the moon. Firebenders rise with the sun. Each of the four seasons also coincides with one of the elements, and respectively each bender will be more powerful on their respective season: Water and Winter, Earth and Spring, Fire and Summer, Air and Fall. The Avatar has several additional powers that may seem more magical, but those come from his connection with the spirit world, which is basically part of the world’s religion, all the out-of-the-ordinary events are usually connected directly to the Avatar.

5.) Whatever nation you are born in, that’s the element you can bend?

Master Piandao, the son of two firebender prodigies who disowned him for not being born a bender. If they only knew.

To be clear, not everyone in the Avatar universe can bend an element. There are a wide range of conventional weapons that other fighters use, and end up being just as formidable. While your heritage does decide what element you would bend if you were born with the ability, it’s not passed down genetically. It’s more spiritual in origin. The air nomads were the only exception to the rule. Every air nomad is born an airbender.

4.) What about duo benders for inter-racial families?

While there haven’t been any interracial families on the show thus far, it has been stated by the creators that only the Avatar can bend more than one element. Under the circumstances, if say someone from the Earth Kingdom had kids with someone from the Water Tribe, then their children could turn out an earthbender, a waterbender, or neither.

“Please tell me we’re having airbenders.”

3.) How come there is no Book 4: Air?

All three seasons of Avatar are named after the element of which season it was in the show. It was also the same element that Aang was learning to master in that particular season. There was no Air season planned, because Aang was already a master airbender from the beginning. Plus, the story just plain ends at the end of Book 3.

There is the fan vid. “Book 4 Forbidden Love,” but only shippers will find that funny.

2.) Why is there no Heart Nation so they can form Captain Planet?

Ha ha. Very funny. I think we’ve beaten that dead ostrich-horse into the ground years ago.

Although you could say Sokka’s a heartbender…sort of.

I’m pretty sure the fans know what’s coming next. I really don’t want to do this, again, but here it goes…

1. Avatar? Isn’t that the movie on the planet with the Blue People?

Mind = Blown

For the seventeen-millionth time, James Cameron’s Avatar has absolutely nothing to do with the TV series, Avatar the Last Airbender! In fact M. Night Syamalan, director of the show’s live-action adaptation, was forced to cut the entire front title of his movie because Mr. Cameron was too busy redefining the term “Avatar” in the minds of the general public, thus titling our movie The Last Airbender.

Needless to say, legions of fans have been extremely irate about this subject. It has little to do with how good or bad JC’s Avatar is, but more about the fact that we are the ones that have to explain this to every single friend and family member we have. What’s also irritating is that our version of an Avatar, by the original definition, makes a hundred times more sense, yet we are the ones who had to change our title.

I hope that clears up a few things for you all. July 1st will see the release of The Last Airbender. Odds are you have seen at least one trailer or TV spot by now, but if you haven’t yet, definitely check it out at www.thelastairbendermovie.com. If this movie succeeds, (I know, that’s a big “IF”) it will be the dawn of a whole new epic trilogy for the next decade.

No Joke. This could be big. Harry Potter or Star Wars big.

Hey, for the next month, it’s either this or the new Twilight movie. Your choice.

Want to read the counter article? Then check it out here.

Want more articles like this? Check these out:

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So much to see, so little time in which to see it.

We don’t usually do movie reviews here at Toy-TMA, but the Toy Story series is different; these movies explain why a website like this one exists in the first place. We, as complicated beings, hold so much affection for our playthings, and these movies are big salutes to our reliable, inanimate friends.

So, how does Pixar’s first “threequel” stack up for general audiences?

Well, Pixar has never really made a bad movie. They have the best track record of any other animation studio, and Toy Story 3 is the best example of their formula: timeless humor, sincere emotion, and competent action that is necessary to the plot.

As we all saw in the trailers, Woody and Buzz and the gang have a big problem: Andy, their beloved owner, is now headed for college. While loyal Woody is positive that they will be lovingly stored in the attic, the rest are scared of being trashed. Instead, the most interesting direction is taken when they get mistakenly donated to a daycare center.

"No! Don't get in that box! You fools!"

Through the film, Andy’s toys are torn between their new life (and all the playtime that comes with it) and their devotion to Andy. They meet some new friends and enemies, and eventually embark on their biggest adventure yet. I refuse to give any more of the plot away, but I’ll just say that it is a tightly-written, easily segmented script.

It services long-time fans of the series and newcomers alike, and the screenwriters thankfully left out current pop-culture references in favor of well-crafted puns and sight gags. Sure, when Shrek and his pals had a Matrix parody in their first film, it was funny. Watch that movie again now, though, and it just seems so dated. Meanwhile, Toy Story 3 gives you the timeless gags that involve Spanish-speaking toys and my favorite, the tortilla. I won’t say anything more.

Ole, seniorita.

It is incredibly funny. But Pixar never stops there; this film is heartbreaking in spots. I’m glad I saw it in 3D, because I had glasses to obscure the girlish tears in my eyes. One scene in particular is more stirring and emotionally exhausting than the final act of Return of the King.

As far as visuals, this film is naturally beautiful. The colors are realistic for animation, but they also pop in the way Pixar always does. I’m always impressed with the character faces, as they are never rubber-faced like the animated characters that Dreamworks sometimes pawns off. These are solid physical beings, and they have specific dimensions and weight.

While I’m not convinced about the 3D comeback in Hollywood, it is used with restraint and professionalism for Toy Story 3. The glasses are always distracting, but the effect itself was mainly utilized to enhance depth and perspective, which only made the visuals more realistic.

My favorite aspect of Pixar films is always the inspired voice acting. Toy Story started that trend in 1995, and this one follows it up perfectly and consistently. Tom Hanks is perfectly charming as Woody, Tim Allen returns as his best character to date, et cetera. Of note is the improvement of Joan Cusack as Jesse the Yodeling Cowgirl. In the first sequel, I liked her despite her over-the-top enthusiasm. Here, she is much more nuanced and restrained. The newcomers include the legendary Ned Beatty as Lotso, and Michael Keaton as Barbie’s classy boy-toy Ken (be quiet…that was funny). Keaton is soft and soothing at times and amped up at others, which is perfect for Ken’s different personality traits that come out. Beatty is clearly enjoying himself as the stuffed bear patriarch. The remarkable thing about this huge cast is that their collective celebrity never distracts away from the characters they play. When Eddie Murphy plays Donkey, you never stop thinking of him as Eddie Murphy. Here, I didn’t even pick up on Don Rickles, Timothy Dalton, or Laurie Metcalf…and those are some distinct voices.

We've all been here. This is heart-wrenching.

So, why is this such a big deal? Because this movie is in a position to be the biggest film of the summer. Think about it: fifteen years worth of fans, audiences of all ages, the 3D option, and virtually no fresh competition for several weeks. This puppy could break records.

I hope it does, too. I loved this movie. I grew up with Andy, and I write for a toy website. This movie was made for me, because it reinforces the same idea behind the Forget-Me-Not articles on this site: your toys are an early part of what makes you a developed person. Don’t forget your toys, and don’t forget Andy’s. I give Toy Story 3 ten Mr. Potato Head body parts out of ten (count them up, that’s how many he has!).

These are some pretty high quality toys right here. Toy Story's still got it.

I don’t want to jinx this, but I’d really like to see Toy Story 3 receive a perfect 100% at Rotten Tomatoes, thus making the Toy Story series have a perfect score. While it’s most likely not going to happen since at least one reviewer will be jaded for no reason other than to cost it a perfect score, it’ll still be a hugely successful movie. And you know what that means? Merchandise! Toy Story has always had toys tying in, I know you’re shocked, and now that the new movie is a few days away I think we should talk about those, don’t you? So let’s go to infinity and…let’s, let’s just go.

The Shotgun Approach to Toys

Toy Story has a huge strength in merchandising that may also be it’s greatest weakness: The basic premise involves toys without any inherent theme. What this means is that the majority of the toys from the movie are independent to their genre, such as a space ranger, a cowboy, a Mr. Potato Head, or Barbie. This creates a shotgun effect in terms of a target market. While you’re sure to find at least one product that interests a kid, you generally won’t find one that’s interested in ALL the toy line and feels compelled to buy each and every item that has the Toy Story logo stamped somewhere.

Buzz Lightyear has wings. I'm happy. What more can I say?

Yes, there will be some kids that fall into that unlikely category of Toy Story brand loyalty, but generally you will find kids interested in one sort of toy and coming across a Toy Story-related toy in that area of interest. For instance, if you tend to love dinosaurs and collect dinosaur toys of all sorts, you’ll probably think the new Rex toy is awesome, but may not have any real interest in a Woody action figure.

However, it becomes apparent that the Toy Story brand realizes this weakness and decided to make sure that the various toys were excellent in their category. The Barbie and Ken pack is exactly what you’d think it is, and we all know that Barbie is pretty darn popular already. Jessie the cowgirl has a doll aimed specifically at girls, just as you’d expect the doll from the movie to be crafted.

Yup, that looks like Barbie and Ken alright. Very 90's. I like it.

Probably the big standout is the 12’’ Buzz Lightyear as it’s, well, Beyond Awesome. It comes in the spaceship box from the movies, has all the features the movie Buzz Lightyear has, and isn’t over $50. They’ve had these sort of Buzz Lightyear super toys out since the first movie, but they’re really stepping up their game to make them even closer to exact movie replicas this round, meaning your kid probably wants one for Christmas/birthday/Wednesday.

I want a few of these, just so I can see Buzz Lightyear fight with Buzz Lightyear because there can be only ONE!

The great equalizer may just be the LEGO sets. Since it’s LEGO, there’s no need to care about the specific genre. LEGO seems to just have one genre anyway and that genre is LEGO. The downside to the LEGO sets? The LEGO prices. No surprises, but still, good Lord LEGO, a little sympathy already. Haven’t we loved you enough over the years for a little price break?

For some reason this is more expensive than that ultimate Buzz Lightyear I just mentioned. How'd that happen?

I most suggest the action figure line if you’re looking for a solid gift for someone into Toy Story. Buzz, Woody, Jessie, and the rest are crafted rather well, as has been the case in the past. Woody will always look a bit out of place as a stiff plastic toy since he’s intended to be made of cloth, but the Buzz Lightyear action figures consistently deliver. Don’t forget my number one action figure rule: Toys that can “fly” are always cool. And look at that, Buzz Lightyear has wings. Sold. Despite this advice, I’m pretty sure the most popular Toy Story 3 product will be the Toy Story 3 Silly Bandz since those are also stupidly popular right now.

It really doesn’t matter if you mean to buy a Toy Story 3 product or not. If you have a child or have to buy a gift for anyone under the age of 10 this year, you’ll undoubtedly encounter something that says Toy Story on it somewhere. Thankfully you really can’t go wrong in terms of quality, so thank your lucky stars.

Prepare for STILL MORE nerd rage!

We all know I love Dragonball Z, and I’m pretty sure there’re a handful of you out there who still do, too. While I certainly made sure to show my love for DBZ, I also made not one but two lists of plotholes I deemed unacceptable. A lot of comments hit me like a Solar Flare, arguing that I hadn’t listed real plotholes but rather just instances of filler used to allow time for the manga to catch up to the anime. I still say those plotholes are unacceptable and I think Akira Toriyama agrees with me, hence why Dragonball Z Kai, Toriyama’s re-edit of the series from 291 episodes down to 100, is being released in the US this month. In fact, you can still preorder it through Amazon right now. So in celebration of yet another “definitive” edition of DBZ coming out, I figured I’d run down a list of the Top 10 Worst Instances of Filler in DBZ.

But first, what is filler? I’m going to define it as thus: An episode or plot, usually a side plot, that has little or no relevance to the main plot and only serves to A, stall for time, or B. extend the series for no good reason. And this is MY list, so don’t disagree until you get to the point where you can leave a comment at the bottom. So are we ready? The table is set, now let us begin!

10. Goku and Piccolo Learn to Drive:

I assure you, this image is infinitely more intersting than the ones I could have used.

Right after the episodes where the Z Fighters are training for the arrival of the Androids, but before the episode where they actually appear, Chi Chi decides that Goku needs to learn to drive. Why? Because she’s sick of having to walk to the store all the time. Even though she’s been shown multiple times driving a flying car. Regardless, she forces not just Goku but Piccolo to get their drivers licenses, mostly for the lulz. Nothing happens the entire episode other than “random wackiness,” though not the kind that I find all that entertaining. And in the end, neither pass the test. Still, Goku has his license in a later episode, just because.

9. Gohan Thinks He’s a Super Hero:

No, just, dang it, go back to being a Super Saiyan.

After Cell is defeated, there are seven years of peace on Earth, meaning Gohan finally goes to school like a regular kid. Except he decides to fight crime for the heck of it. Sure, why not? While not everything he does as the Great Saiyaman is dull, a lot of it has no point to anything else in the series. Gohan is never in any real danger, nor is anyone near him since, as we know, he can move faster than a gunshot. It becomes especially painful to sit through episodes where he’s saving a random dinosaur he knows. Get back to the real action already Gohan.

8. The Ginyu Force on King Kai’s Planet:

I think that about sums it up for me.

I’ve been over why the Ginyu Force’s appearance on King Kai’s planet messes up rationality completely, such as making it apparent that somehow Yamhca, Tien, and Chiaotzu aren’t completely worthless but still aren’t used again, but when you get right down to it, this whole plot is not only really stupid but distracts from the real good stuff happening between Frieza and everyone else. Why do I wanna see these pointless characters fight guys that Goku and Vegeta already beat? Pass.

7. Terror on Arlia:

Oh boy. Bugs. From a planet I've never heard of. I totally care.

This is one of the first chances we get to see Vegeta and Nappa in action way before they even show up on Earth (and Vegeta’s color scheme rapidly changes without explanation). The concept behind this entire episode probably began with a “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” introduction and then someone else yelled, “Oh! Giant ugly bug things!” I’m just surprised no one bothered to shut that guy up. All I know is this was just here to fill space while everyone trained on Earth, but in the process it showed Vegeta blowing up a planet (showing that everyone, including Yamcha and his bunch, would have that amount of power by the Freiza Saga), and somehow allowing Vegeta the ability to breath in space. Just because.

6. Hey, This Isn’t Namek:

Three unlikely space travelers going to a new world? I smell a sitcom!

After Vegeta’s defeat on Earth, Gohan, Krillin, and Bulma fly off to Namek to wish everyone back that just got killed. In the manga they go straight there. However, in the anime, they run into a band of planetless scrubs on a weird looking spaceship and have to help them survive. Just because. We get the usual message of “Don’t judge one another off first impressions” or “You never know where you’ll find a friend” or some randomness like that, but nothing significantly cool. Also, we see Gohan and Krillin putting out fires with Kamehameha waves. Energy blasts shouldn’t be able to put out fires when they can also cause them. That just doesn’t make sense. There’s another plothole right there.

5. Hey, This Still Isn’t Namek:

At this point, I'd just say Yamcha and the others aren't really worth it.

So now that our trio of not-so-successful space travelers has left the foreign spacecraft behind, do they make it to Namek? No, they land on someplace they think is Namek and spend a few episodes gathering pretend Dragon Balls with two aliens pretending to be Namekians just so they can steal the heroes’ space ship and leave. More pointless Dragon Ball hunting takes place, something we had moved past even before the end of Dragonball, but now it’s just happening to prolong the quest to Namek even further. The amount of joy I felt when they FINALLY arrived on the real Namek was overpowering.

4. Gohan and the Orphans:

I couldn't find an image even remotely interesting for this, so enjoy remembering Gohan for a time when he actually did something cool.

During that ill-fated year between Raditz’s arrival and Vegeta and Nappa making their way to Earth, everyone was busy doing something. Goku was constantly running on Snake Way, Krillin and the other Also-Rans were training with Kami, and Gohan was getting beaten and abused by Piccolo, supposedly to prepare him for the Saiyans’ arrival. While most of Gohan’s wilderness training is awful filler, it hits a peak of just plain bad when the orphans show up. Why? No real reason other than to waste a few episodes showing Gohan seeing some random kids without parents being tough on their own before a lesson is learned about Gohan needing to be tougher for the Saiyans or something that he already learned with one of the other filler training episodes. Sure, throw in some orphans. Just because.

3. Bulma Does Anything:

Bulma, you're just a big ol' bundle of walking filler, aren't you?

I could have broken this into a few different examples, such as Bulma chasing down a stray Dragon Ball on Namek that she herself manages to lose, or Bulma befriending the Ginyu frog and accidentally getting her body switched with him, but I realized that pretty much any time Bulma shows up for an extended episode she’s there just to fill time doing nothing important whatsoever. The whole Dragon Ball hunt? After the two episodes with her losing, finding, and almost losing the ball again, nothing’s different than when she started. The same goes with the Ginyu frog body switch. Somehow she’s even hurled all the way from the Frieza battleground back to whichever random island she was hiding on in the first place as if nothing happened. Bulma nearly lost all relevance to the plot, making her only real achievements of Dragonball Z being getting pregnant and then somehow not losing Trunks in the ocean on accident, just because.

2. Goku Helps a Family of Pterodactyls, Just Because:

Again, there are no cool images for this, so remember Goku's finest moments instead.

Buu has just been defeated and peace has been restored to the universe. Hooray! The next episode is devoted to showing things settling in for a time of peace with some fun bits where we get to see how the Z Fighters handle said peace. Hooray! Then there’s an episode where everyone gets together for a barbeque. Just because. But that’s not the bad part. The unforgivable filler content happens because Goku isn’t at the barbeque because, and here it comes, he’s helping a family of pterodactyls keep their nest safe for their eggs to hatch. Just. Because. He finally shows up at the end of the episode to make everyone get the food out again and stay longer just to hear him talk about the filler plot he just encountered. At least with three episodes left in the series things couldn’t get any worse.

1. The Three Final Episodes:

Hey sure, let's just add some new characters at the last second, why not.

Well dang it. The final three episodes of the series have to do with yet another Tenkaichi Budokai, throwing us another 10 years ahead to see how the characters are doing. And what do we find out? Everyone pretty much lost contact with one another because Goku doesn’t bother to stay in contact with anyone, a task that’s literally as simple as blinking an eye due to Instant Transmission. For some reason the tournament is of interest for the Z Fighters because Goku thinks there’s some super strong fighter appearing, someone who happens to be Buu reborn as a human named Uub (I see what they did there). And in these final three episodes we are shown that Gohan is a nerd, Videl is a housewife, Trunks is a chaunce, Goten looks like Yamcha, Yamcha is still worthless, Vegeta doesn’t have much to do anymore, Krillin has grown a mustache, and Goku is an incredibly horrible friend and family member since he decides to just pick up and fly away to train this random kid he just met because he thinks he has potential. Not Goten. Not even Pan, his granddaughter. Nope, just some kid he met for the first time here. And the saddest thing of all? Even though they insist on continuing the series with GT, we discover that Uub is 100% worthless, meaning Goku wasted all those years abandoning his family and friends yet again. How sad.

But the filler can’t all be bad, right? I’m not going to leave on such a sour note this time. Nope, I have two instances of where the filler wasn’t just acceptable; it was awesome.

This right here:

WHABAM!

And this as well:

Double WHABAM!

They somehow make the Season Seven DVD collection suck marginally less just by existing.

But that’s all the energy I can gather for bad uses of filler today. What about you? Did you enjoy these filler plots? Do you think they’re invaluable to the series as a whole? Or did I miss an example of filler that beats everything I just said here? Leave a comment and let me know.

Want more fanyboy articles? Check these out:

-The DBZ Technigue Guide

-The Top Ten Misconceptions of Avatar The Last Airbender

-Pranger’s Counter Argument to The Top Ten Avatar Misconceptions

Certainly a handsome devil, isn't he?

I got into comics when I was about thirteen or fourteen. While perusing the video store, I found this extremely detailed figure packaged with a reprint of classic Daredevil issue #167.

Being on a retro kick, I set up the character on its display stand in a pose that illustrated the eighteen points of articulation, and displayed it on top of my stereo speakers for my vinyl record player. It sat opposite my model kit of the De Lorean from “Back to the Future.” Both were backlit by a green lava lamp.

I remember this figure for being the first toy that I thought of as a display piece. It was my teenage witticism to treat it like a controversial piece of art from my personal collection.

Suddenly I started reading Toy Fare magazine, I had more merchandise to ogle at the comic book store, and I had more things to talk about during a video game marathon with Chris Pranger. In a way, this figure helped me write for this site.

There were two versions of this figure at the time. One was a brightly-colored, Saturday morning version of the comic book superhero. The other was based on the red leather and biker-booted suit that Ben Affleck pulled off in the 2003 film. I had the film version, because I liked how much more gritty it was.

The man of the hour, or rather, the Iron Man of the hour. See what I did there?

Tony Stark’s technological marvel is back with plenty of articulation, tons of oversized weapon attachments, and each with a personality of its own.

The figure series consists of a wide variety of Iron Man and War Machine suits, all lying out like a roll of schematics. It conjures a funny image of Tony Stark’s garage littered with Iron Man armor: white for snow, blue for underwater, black for stealth, etc.

Each different suit has a detailed, imaginative name, such as Iron Man Mark I, War Machine Tech Armor. Collectors will be gratified by the different color tones and the continuity of the suit evolution.

Kids (or just guys like me who like to take things apart for fun) will find the detachable missile launchers, guns and armor plating quite amusing.

A really great idea that Hasbro committed to for the movie tie-in is the variety of source material that the action figures come from. Figures based on the original comic books yield a trim, wiry Iron Man. Figures based on the first movie have a gritty, bulky detail. The figures for the new movie are sleek, and have most of the big attachable guns.

Something the figures lack is variety in characters. You can have Iron Man and War Machine seven times over, but there are no villains for them to fight with.

There’s a slightly odd addition to this toy line, in the form of Iron Racers. These are stationary figures attached to a pull-and-release vehicle. There’s the Armor Cycle, the Quantum Quad, the Turbo Racer, etc. Since this seems to be a trend for every superhero figure (the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, and Batman have all gotten pull-and-release quads and motorbikes), I would suggest avoiding these, and buying a Batman version from the bargain bin instead. It’s the same toy.

Essentially, these figures are exactly what an Iron Man fan would expect: it’s all about design concepts, color schemes, and attachable equipment. Great fun for the Howard Hughes in all of us, just like Tony Stark. Thankfully, you don’t have to have wallets as deep, though.

The different concepts are exciting, but don’t expect to find a good villain. Avoid the Iron Racers, stick with the individual figures. Kids and adults can find the cool fun in the different versions of a great superhero. I might just bring my Mark IV Iron Man to the IMAX showing of “Iron Man 2.”

I wish I had this as a kid. Doesn't that just scream "epic?"

It’s been a while since I’ve delved into the action figures of my past. It’s also been a while since I’ve mentioned Dragonball Z, hasn’t? Why not mix the two together then and tell you all about DBZ action figures? I think I’ll do just that. Here I go!

Only In Japan

DBZ really started to hit big when I was in 6th grade. I wasn’t yet into the series, but I was aware of it. I’d see toys and action figures popping up in stores whenever I’d go searching for something cool, but it wasn’t until 7th grade when I got hooked and needed my DBZ fix with action figures. Sadly, the only available toys at the time were really, really bad Japanese imports. How bad? We’re talking two points of articulation and then only at the shoulder. Not a pivot joint, just an up-down motion. I bought two originally: A Piccolo and a Super Saiyan Goku. Both had removable clothes (Goku his shirt and Piccolo his cape and turban) but not much going for them. Oh, actually, their feet could move from side to side, which was totally useless.

The two figures I mostly saw in stores were Kid Trunks and Krillin with hair. Kid Trunks hadn’t appeared in the series yet and Krillin wouldn’t wear the new outfit until that point in the series also. I found it incredibly strange that they came with guns that the characters couldn’t even hold. Their hands were fists, so the only way to use the accessory was to balance it on their arms. I choose not to buy any more stupid DBZ figures.

And Then Things Got Better

Oh, one of the "last figure hanging" figures of the line.

That’s why I was so happy to learn that Irwin Toys would be making new toys for the current US releases. I got pumped until I saw the first series. Radtiz? Okay, he’s gotta be there. Yajirobi? Oh…kay, sure, put him in. Master Roshi? I’m assuming Goku’s here somewhere, right? Nope, he wasn’t in the first series. Or the second series. In fact, it took them until the third series of action figures to include Goku, Vegeta, and Piccolo. Finally! But still, no Super Saiyans just yet.

Everything after that just got better. I was careful to watch for when the next series of action figures came out, ready to buy my favorite characters. Surprisingly, some of the best action figures in the Irwin line were of more obscure characters. Take for example Evil Buu, by which I mean the gray version that appeared for maybe half of an episode. They made an incredibly great figure for that character. Android 16 also got a great action figure that included a removable hand, just like the character could do in the show. Nice! My favorite Goku turned out to be the Super Saiyan Goku dressed in Saiyan armor, seen only for a few episodes while he was training. It was just great.

This was easily my favorite DBZ figure right here. Super Vegitto was perfect.

But there were some definite misses, too. Fat Buu, for example, was terrible. His legs couldn’t move due to them being stuck in the solid plastic of his pants. Piccolo could have his turban removed but not his cape, meaning a lack of moveability. Some of the biggest disappointments were Super Saiyan 3 Goku, who looked deformed and didn’t have much articulation, and Kid Buu, who looked entirely unimpressive for what should have been a great end to the line. Regardless, Vegitto didn’t disappoint.

Again, why wasn't this the Goku available to me when I was a kid?

After DBZ ended I sort of lost track and interest in the figures, though I saw that Jakks did a lot of great things, adding some awesome articulation. These days if you want good figures you’ll have to go looking online, sticking with the Bandai Hybrid Mega Articulated models, otherwise the only thing you’ll be able to find are action figures based off Dragonball: Evolution, i.e. really stupid toys.

I don't know why they even bothered.

I wish I could justify buying more DBZ action figures. I’d really like to, but I have no place to put them yet. Also, the thrill of the hunt for a really cool action figure is lessened somewhat when I have to just find it online. But I still have probably close to 50 DBZ action figures waiting in a box at home. What about you? Did you buy some really awesome DBZ action figures at some time? Let me know with a comment. In the meantime I’ll be searching for a way to travel back to my childhood.

Need more for a DBZ fix? Check out these articles:

-The DBZ Technigue Guide

-A Look Back on DBZ

-Ten Worst Instances of Filler in DBZ

Yoda throughout the years. One looks wise, the other looks crazy.

They were the coolest Star Wars figures. I spent the better part of my youth checking every single figure on every single peg, looking for light-sabers and brown robes. But how have these hardcore warrior-monks changed over the years? To be frank, they’ve gone from “okay” to absolutely thrilling playthings/collectibles. Recently, however, they’ve been released as mediocre and lifeless imitations, joining the ranks of has-been toy series like the WWE.

Scourage of the Empire Vadar, sporting a trench-coat and carrying a neon-pink shotgun.

The Golden Age of Jedi Action Figures

In the beginning, Kenner made three figures with the power of the Force: Obi-wan, Darth Vader, and Luke Skywalker. These figures would be considered primitive and useless to today’s market (if they weren’t worth $6,000 each), but at the time, they had some cool features.

Vader and Kenobi had removable vinyl cloaks, and all three had the strangest representation of a light-saber: a telescoping blade that collapsed into their hollow arm. The weapon was non-removable, broke easily, and was quickly abandoned in favor of a sturdy blade (making these figures even rarer). While not perfect at all, these original-run babies were a prophesy of the absolute coolness that would come later.

The Silver Age of Star Wars Figures

Things stayed the same for a long while, until Hasbro bought Kenner and started pumping out thousands of Star Wars figures in the 1990’s. The “Power of the Force” series could be considered a Silver Age of Star Wars figures, featuring better, more detailed light-sabers, actual cloth capes/cloaks, and they actually looked like the actors from the films (more or less).

Of note during this era was the use of characters outside the films, such as the Cloned Emperor from the comics. This gave kids like me the opportunity to stage more epic light-saber duels.

Note the differences in articulation.

But there were still problems with the series. Only five points of articulation meant a lack of variety in poses and play. My first Star Wars figure ever was Luke Skywalker, in his farm outfit. He had a pistol and his father’s blue lightsaber…his hand couldn’t grasp either, and he could barely stand upright. Things had gotten better, though, and they would continue to get better.

The New Golden Age: Prequel Figures of the 2000s

Finally we come to the apex of my childhood, and coincidentally the best era of Jedi figures: the prequel era. While Episodes I and II did not blow away fans, the toys were officially perfect.

Wrists and knees had articulation, lightsabers were beautiful and accurate-looking, and there was a veritable smorgasbord of Jedi and Sith characters to duke it out with. Other little features made these bad boys worth the price, including lightsaber blades that detached from the hilts, magnetic palms/hilts for that Force-pull-my-weapon-to-my-hand action, and my favorite: easily detaching and reattaching limbs for lightsaber dismemberment.

Violent for kids? A little, but nothing inappropriate. Choking hazards? Absolutely. A good rule of thumb for Star Wars action figures: if the kid can follow the plot of the original trilogy, they can handle these toys.

Look at all that detail and articulation. This is what it’s all about.

This ten-year-old’s nirvana was followed later by the Episode III series. Though I was in high school by then, this series fascinated me. Many a time did I skip lunch to go buy a new Jedi, as there were tons of different characters (even more than Episode II’s “Clone Wars” series) and even more necessary variants (Chancellor Palpatine vs. Emperor, Anakin vs. Vader, et cetera) to choose from.

I was particularly struck by how Hasbro took advantage of the film’s plot.  Since Anakin and Palpatine transform into evil bad guys, and the clones become stormtroopers, and the ships in Episode III evolved into Episode IV’s TIE fighters and X-wings, it became a theme for the toys. We got transforming figures with interchangeable parts and accessories, as well as “evolution” packs, wherein teen Anakin, war hero Anakin, and Darth Vader are packaged together. Sweet.

Four reasons to buy General Grievous: extra lightsabers for the REAL Jedi.

Things have stagnated since then. Occasionally, we get a cool comic book pack with a good Jedi, like Quinlan Vos or the Dark Lady, but these are expensive and hard-to-find.

The Empire Crumbles

Nowadays, kids are expected to go gaga over blocky, ugly little flat-faced characters that resemble Star Wars favorites. Otherwise, they can pick through five hundred “cantina alien” figures in order to find a re-packaged figure that their older siblings already bought eight years ago.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, what happened? These were the best figures in retail toy history until that blasted cartoon ruined everything. Now we have less articulation, lots of overblown matte colors (I’ve never seen so much orange and purple), and a deep sense that we’ve lost something special.

That’s it for Jedi figures, at least until Lucas finds yet another way to market his 33-year-old merchandise. I’m fortunate enough to have a drawer full of the best Jedi figures, which I plan to pass down to future generations. How about y’all?

Hey look, movie toys of Alice actually exist. They look boring, but they exist.

It’s been a long week of finals for me, and after all that I realized I had one last assignment to complete: Do a write-up for toys based off of Tim Burton’s new movie, Alice in Wonderland. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s not exactly a sequel to the classic Disney movie of the same name, nor is it quite a sequel to the Lewis Carroll books (which your kids really should read). It’s just another one of Tim Burton’s “I’m weird and here’s my movie” movies. I haven’t seen it either, so I have nothing to say about it one way or another, though the Rotten Tomatoes score could be a helpful guide…

Down the Rabbit Hole I Go…

Anyway, that’s not why I’m here today. As I stated, I needed to find toys based on the movie, so using my best judgment on the subject matter I promptly grabbed Other Chris and went to Hot Topic. To my vast surprise, I found very, very little in the way of Alice in Wonderland merchandise save for some shirts with the Mad Hatter on them, some blankets with the Mad Hatter on them, and a costume for a very “not-child-friendly” Alice that isn’t from any licensed version of the material. My journey wasn’t a complete loss though as I did manage to find a jewelry box with the Red Queen on it and yet more pictures of Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter. But a jewelry box a toy does not make.

Disheartened, I went searching elsewhere, this time at Toys R’ Us, believing it to be the same wonderland (oh pun) I remembered from my childhood. I won’t get into the entirety of my exploits, but I had to ask where the Alice in Wonderland toys were, assuming any existed. I got a “no” answer which quickly turned in to a “Actually yes, come this way” answer with enough patience. Still, no real toys were found. I discovered yet another few items with Johnny Depp on them, but finally there was something with the titular character’s visage on the front: A hairbrush. Oh joy! It was meant to go along with the Mad Hatter mirror and the Red Queen compact, but hey! Still something with Alice on the front! And yet, no real toys, save for a couple plush characters from a “not-the-movie-version” of Alice. They did, however, look adorable.

See? Adorable!

My final stop was a long shot but still. There was a Barnes & Noble next door to the Toys R’ Us, so I gave it a try. Among the vast amount of books for Alice in Wonderland, including the original book, the novelized version of the new movie, and some other authors’ twisted versions of the story that make Burton look sane and American McGee’s Alice look fairly tame, I found an actual “toy” based on the movie: Yahtzee!

Hey, yeah, because I see the connection there...kind of?

Wait, what? After all that searching the best I could find at a major retailer was an Alice in Wonderland themed Yahtzee game? Okay, I’ll take what I can get I suppose. What made it special was the dice had pictures on each side relating to things from the world, such as a teacup, a hat, and a scroll. So really, there was nothing remotely special about it other than it said it was related to the movie.

This wouldn’t do. Oh no, not for me. I looked online for anything else I may have missed and sure enough, there are official movie toys. Be@rbricks has a line of figures based on the movie with Alice, Mad Hatter, and Cheshire Cat figures, but that’s about it. If you collect those, then these are certainly part of your collection now. Otherwise there are the ultra detailed figures like the one I posted at the top of the article, which surprisingly only cost a little over $20. It doesn’t look like you can do much with it except look with awe at your purchase, but hey, at least you aren’t breaking the bank. And at least there are options for characters other than the Mad Hatter.

They look just like all the other Be@rbricks figures, but this time they're painted like characters from the new Tim Burton movie. Wacky!

Thus ends my quest. I’m rather disappointed with this, since I expected a journey down the rabbit hole of sorts. Lucky for me, the mall did have the Easter Bunny sitting alone waiting for pictures, so my day wasn’t a complete white-rabbit-less loss.

Wait, I'm not just repeating articles, am I?

Everybody is going green these days. It’s rather trendy to say the least, so it’s no surprise that toys are following the trend and selling big when it comes to eco-friendly categories. If you’d very much like to give your kids something fun to play with that they’re guaranteed to enjoy plus is quite possibly better for the environment in the long run, then good news because here’s an article about the top selling eco-friendly toys right this second.

Still Going Green It Seems

Do you remember me talking about the company Green Toys a while ago? I’m not here to judge; it was after all quite some time since that article. The reason I’m bringing them up is because they’re selling one heck of a lot of their toys right now with the number one green toy of them all being the Green Toys Tea Set that I went on about in my article. Someone must have been listening to me when I wrote the positive review or something. Of course they aren’t just a one-trick pony since they also have a cookware and dining set, a dump truck, and a sand playset. You know, things every kid should already have. The best part of all that is that none of those toys are particularly expensive with only the full cookware and dining set being over $30.

Dang it, now I want to go play in the sand.

Green toys may have a lot in the bestseller category, but they aren’t alone. Another company called i Play is doing quite fine for themselves until Apple decides to sue them for using a lowercase I in their company name. Their top item is the Green Sprouts Stacking Cup Set, yet another incredibly simple toy that happens to be a toy every kid should own. Heck, I had a set of these when I was a kid, but I’m sure this set is a lot better for the environment.

My set had much manlier colors though, but otherwise they looked the same.

If you’d prefer something way more advanced, check out Elenco Electronics’ Frightened Grasshopper Solar Powered Bug. I swear to you I didn’t just invent that thing, and even better, this robo-bug is only $7. That’s a deal no matter who you are.

Alright, I'll allow a robo-grasshopper, but as soon as we get robo-hornets I say we've gone too far.

Sprig Toys have a handful of bestsellers when it comes to construction vehicle toys if you’d rather not buy everything from Green Toys. Let the girls have their tea sets, us boys got stuff to dig and construct and whatnot. Then after we’re done with that maybe some more tea.

Once more, all I want to do now is go play in the sand.

Rounding out the bestsellers is Plan Toys with a couple items. What’s their highest selling item right now? A solid wood drum. That’s it. Just a little drum with a little mallet. While I’m all for kids having a toy drum, I’m not everyone. Plan Toys also has a doll house nursery set for the less noisy children, though I’m somewhat surprised to find out that the toy drum is $21 and the doll house set is $18. I must be really out of touch with my green side.

Yup, that's one wooden drum there.

So there you have it folks, a multitude of great eco-friendly toys at affordable prices. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s once more time for tea.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of these people.

True Fact: I grew up in the United States of America. I’m not trying to brag or anything, it’s just simple stating of fact. Why this is important to The Simpsons has to do with what The Simpsons is to me: An American Institution. This in no way means that I believe The Simpsons is only for Americans. Oh heavens no, The Simpsons is a show for the entire world. It’s been aired all over, only managing to tick off Australia, Brazil, and a few other countries of the world that I can’t be bothered to remember. The real special aspect of the show is how unimaginable it is to think of a Sunday night at 8 without The Simpsons. It’s into its 21st season now, with the 20th season just released on DVD (and which I just finished watching). The show has been around for 20 years and here’s how I remember it.

It Can’t Just Be My Childhood I’m Remembering

It interests me that for the 20th anniversary of the longest running primetime cartoon in history, a 20th season DVD comes out with pretty much nothing special about it. Granted, I loved every episode more than I figured I would, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the only special feature included in the “Extras” portion of the DVD: A sneak preview of the 20th anniversary special that isn’t included on the special 20th anniversary 20th season DVD. That’s the sort of thing I’d expect to be parodied on The Simpsons. Otherwise seasons 1-12 are available with each having a bevy of special features and the like. I’m just sort of sad that there is an 8-year gap of seasons we have to slowly close.

I bet you had no clue who did it, did you?

My original concept for a Simpsons retrospective was going to be a top ten list of my favorite episodes, but I couldn’t easily identify those from the over 450 choices open to me. If I had to pick, the “Who Shot Mr. Burns” plotline may be my favorite, and any time Sideshow Bob appears I’m quite happy, but I couldn’t choose a conclusive top ten without turning it into a top 20, 30, or just a number one show listing.

Instead we have my ramblings about the series. As a kid my parents were skeptical about The Simpsons. They sat down with me a few times and watched some new episodes with me, laughing the whole time. After that they seemed completely fine with letting me watch, so I made sure to watch the series in syndication religiously. I tried to watch it at my grandparent’s house once, only to have my grandpa tell me he didn’t think it was a good show. “I don’t like how the son backtalks the father,” he says. “That’s disrespectful.” Then we watched an episode anyway and he laughed the whole time, making it welcome in his house as well.

This image was everywhere on merchandise, so much so that the actual show had to make jokes about it constantly.

I never saw Bart Simpson as a model for myself to follow. Rather, I understood he was exemplifying everything I really shouldn’t be, despite how much I’d have enjoyed it. I’m a lot older now and thankfully I never became a Bart Simpson. Now I’m a Homer Simpson and too gleefully S-M-R-T to know that I’m nowhere near my potential as an American.

When Burger King had a Simpsons promotion way, way back in the day, I managed to acquire all five family members in “plush” cuteness. And by “plush,” I mean that their bodies were soft but their plastic heads could crack a child’s skull with enough blunt force applied gradually over time (no I didn’t try this on anyway you know of). What was always weird was how Bart’s shirt was never red on any merchandise I could find. He’s always worn the same red shirt/blue shorts combo on the show for 20 years, but merchandise with his likeness frequently had him wearing a blue shirt. I had no clue why they did this but it always bugged me as a kid.

I actually prefer these little figurines over the main figure series.

By the time the collectable figures were coming out I was too busy playing with Ninja Turtles to spend any money collecting figures from a comedy program. I was still watching the show every single night, but I had no desire to collect the collectables. Regardless of my lack of participation, The Simpsons figurines are a collector’s dream with each new year getting a handful of wonderful additions. By now you’d have to plunk down some hearty cash to be caught up to the current series.

Why the heck hasn't this been turned into an HD remake already?

Instead of the figures, I was busy messing with the video games. The saddest part of all this is that in the 20 years the show has been on, only one Simspons video game has come out that’s been any good: The Simpsons Arcade Game. I played Bart vs The Space Mutants and Bart vs The World on the NES and hated them due to the extremely poor controls, but if you love the Angry Video Game Nerd you already knew that. Something about the arcade game was just magical. I played it into the ground, even managing to beat it, and let me tell you, that’s quite a feat. I still can’t figure out for the life of me why it hasn’t been ported over to Xbox Live by now.

Oh, and I also saw the movie twice in a day. Is that sad?

I keep hearing from people that The Simpsons should end already. I disagree on the basis that we need a Simpsons to exist, even if you don’t find it funny anymore. It’s like the evening news at this point. There’s just something comforting about knowing that every Sunday I’ll see the same family from my childhood waiting for me whenever I feel like visiting. Why would you really want to take that away?

I wish I'd been the one to think up this image first, but I'm not.

Happy Saturday everyone! February is ending in the next day or so and that means the beginning of the newest feature here at Toy-TMA: The Too Much Awesome Podcast!

It had been my hope to someday start doing a podcast here. The plan was for last month to be the first episode, but issues with cars (my car specifically) delayed production for a week. After some technical difficulties with the mic, the podcast was recorded and uploaded without any futher troubles (save for a cat scratching in the background).

The link for the podcast can be found here. Once you click the link, you’ll be taken to Mega Upload, a site for files too large to post anywhere else. Type in the code shown to download the file and then wait for it to be cued up for download. Once it’s ready, download the file and listen when and where ever you’d like!

The goal is to have at least one new episode a month, usually falling on the last weekend of the month. It ended up being over 90 minutes, but we’ve got a lot to talk about, so it works. We’ll do our best to improve the sound quality as right now you have to turn the sound up fairly high to hear us clearly, but for now, please enjoy the premiere episode of the Too Much Awesome Podcast!

I complained last time. Time for something a bit more awesome.

More than a month ago I spent some time really reefing on DBZ by coming up with 10 big plotholes. To follow this up I decided to dig up 10 more plotholes worth mentioning. And all this despite my noted love of the series. “Why all the hate?” I thought. The series made me so happy, but what was it that made me so happy? I decided I needed to make the easiest top 10 list yet: The Top 10 Most Awesome Moments In DBZ.

10. The Incredible Fighting Candy:

Candy for breakfast? Not candy, Vegitto in yo' face!

Late in the series, Buu had managed to fight and defeat every single fighter in the show. He was deemed unbeatable. The solution? Fuse Goku and Vegeta, creating Vegitto, the strongest character of the series. While the fight itself is pretty great, the moment where it goes from “great” to “completely awesome” happens when Buu transforms Vegitto into a piece of candy. This would be about the point that we’d think the fight’s over. And then the piece of candy beats the pink out of Buu, going so far as punching a hole through the back of his throat. Just to see this unbeatable fighter schooled by candy is fantastic.

9. Vegeta vs Android 19:

"Here, let me tear your hands off for a moment."

The introduction to the Androids was a big one for me. I was incredibly excited to hear about these super deadly enemies that had destroyed the future, so when I finally got the chance to see what they could do, I was expecting a lot. Seeing Goku get beaten by Android 19 was crazy to think about, so when Vegeta showed up and not only transformed into a Super Saiyan, but also tore its hands off, I was pretty psyched. Only Vegeta could demonstrate his awesomeness like that.

8. Super Saiyan 3 Transformation:

"I shall now be requiring you to just hand me your butt so that I may kick it."

I could never get enough segments of characters powering up to new levels, so when Goku started talkin’ ‘bout a third Super Saiyan transformation, I was intrigued. By the time everyone mentioned that he’d have to be crazy to even attempt something like that, I was sold, so when he began the extended period of powering up, a period that would have destroyed the planet anyway, I couldn’t be happier. Heck, they could sense Goku’s power all the way on the World of the Kais, the furthest possible point away from Earth. That’s power.

7. Gohan Beats the Tar Out of Super Buu:

You don't want to see this face staring at you in the middle of a fight.

Characters had taken some pretty good shots at Buu at his various stages, with Vegeta blowing him to bits and Gotenks messing with the Super Ghost Kamikaze Attack and whatnot, but no one gave Buu a run for his money. Enter Mystic Gohan and his line, “Fight you? No, I wanna kill you.” Ooh, chills. So the fight begins and Buu does zero damage to Gohan. Gohan, however, beats Buu stupid, stuffs a mouth blast back into Buu’s face, and hits him with an elbow before Buu even appears from his “vwing.” It’s really hard to top that, but we’re not even at the top 5.

6. Trunks Ends Frieza:

"No, I think I'll just slice you in half. That sounds good. K Thx Bye."

Frieza was a serious threat in the series, so when Goku managed to beat him down there was a great sense of accomplishment. But then Frieza reappears stronger than ever on Earth with his father and no Goku in sight. What chance does Earth have? You can’t beat Frieza unless you’re a Super Saiyan, so who’s gonna fight Frieza? Enter Trunks, a Super Saiyan from the future with a wicked sword and a Burning Attack. Frieza stalls the battle a bit, but by the time Trunks catches Frieza’s giant Death Ball and holds it over his head, you just knew it was all over. And then he hacked Frieza into pieces. Kudos to you Trunks.

5. Goku vs The Ginyu Force:

I think originally Goku was supposed to just kick them into the sun.

The entire battle with the Ginyu Force was a favorite of mine as Gohan, Krillin, and Vegeta had only managed to kill Guldo, the weakest member (and they did it with a cheap shot). Recoome managed to seriously waste Krillin and Vegeta, and then snapped Gohan’s neck with a kick. It was all over, ‘til Goku’s ship lands on Namek. The battle stops for a moment while Goku shows up, reads everyone’s minds, and decides to beat Recoome with one elbow to the gut. Jeice and Burter double-team Goku and manage to prove that Goku was forever going to be the only really important character from here on out. I still love the original American-dub line from Jeice: “Make a move!” *Goku punches him dead in the nose. That’s classic.

4. Super Saiyan Transformation:

Correction: This is the face you don't want looking in your direction in a fight.

I started watching DBZ right as Frieza hit his final form. I watched it every day after school and complained to my dad about how stupid the show was when he got home from work. A few weeks went by and I was nearly ready to stop watching. And then Goku transformed into a Super Saiyan. There was no going back; DBZ was now the greatest show of all time. The moments leading up to the change, with Piccolo’s sacrifice and Krillin’s death, just added to the whole scene. Watching Goku quivering with rage was eerie, so when he exploded into a Super Saiyan, oh boy was I pleased. The beating that ensued was worth the wait.

3. Goku vs Vegeta Energy Blast:

This is one of the most iconic images of the series for good reason.

You could argue that the quintessential fight of the series was Goku and Vegeta’s first encounter during the Saiyan Saga. The fight itself showed what a one-on-one fight would look like from then on in the series, but the moment that pushed things higher was Vegeta’s Galick Gun colliding with Goku’s Kamehameha. They were dead even, so Goku pushes harder by going to Kaioken times 2, 3, and eventually 4. I was freaking out as a kid from this thought since I knew that just a regular Kaioken had the potential to make Goku explode. Times 4?! Only Goku.

2. Gohan Destroys 7 Cell Juniors Instantly:

Oops, you're totally dead sucka.

The Super Saiyan 2 transformation was okay, but it didn’t have the punch I was expecting. The previous episode was devoted to all the Z Fighters getting their butts handed to them by Cell Juniors, even Goku, Vegeta, and Trunks, while Gohan and Cell just watched. Finally, Gohan hits the breaking point and changes into a character worth respect with his first action as a Super Saiyan 2. Namely, he destroys all 7 Cell Juniors in a few minutes by punching and kicking them in half. He hits them so hard they explode. Holy something or other, that’s awesome.

1. Goku’s Instant Transmission Kamehameha:

G'nite, you're not getting up from this one. And then he does.

Okay, you can argue with me forever about this, but my favorite single fight of the series is Goku vs Cell, specifically the episode “No More Rules.” The high point of the episode, the saga, the series, and this list comes at the very end of the episode when Goku shoots into the air and begins charging a Kamehameha. Everyone looks at him like he’s crazy since firing a Kamehameha straight down at Cell would result in the Earth begging blown up. Cell laughs at Goku. Even Goku’s friends and family think he’s just joking. Then Goku keeps charging up, getting ready to fire. Suddenly everyone’s not laughing, they’re terrified, even pleading with him not to do it. The camera pulls back as Goku struggles with the energy before disappearing with Instant Transmission, reappearing directly in front of Cell. Cell looks down, completely unguarded and surprised, as Goku unleashes a full-powered Kamehameha at point-blank range to Cell’s torso, blowing Cell’s entire upper-half off. The series should have ended right there as it couldn’t top that moment of Beyond Awesome.

So there’s my list dedicated to my favorite show of all time. I left a lot of cool moments off the list, like Goku’s Spirit Bomb, Vegeta blowing himself up, Nappa owning everyone, Super Vegeta vs Imperfect Cell, or any number of perfectly acceptable entries for a top 10 list. So what were your favorites? I want to know. I got a great helping of responses to the plot holes, so what do you guys think were the best moments? Leave a comment and make this DBZ fan proud.

Want more DBZ? Check out these other articles:

-Ten Worst Instances of Filler in DBZ

-The DBZ Technique Guide

-Top Ten Misconceptions About Avatar The Last Airbender

These are a bit newer, but still cool.

We’ve been over how much I love Ninja Turtles at least twice. You may also remember a long while back I had a thing or two to say about the G.I. Joe toys based on the movie. But it’s taken me this long to realize that what I really need to do is talk about the real G.I. Joes and why they rival Ninja Turtles for Greatest Action Figure status. Ready? Oorah!

The Second Greatest Action figures of all Time

I have to come clean about this here: I didn’t own a ton of G.I. Joes when I was a kid. I had a few, such as a Lifeline I got from a mail-in cereal thing, and a high-ranking sort of guy whose name I can’t for the life of me remember or find on the internet. You want to know what figure from my G.I. Joe plotlines I used the most? A Lone Ranger action figure I swiped from my grandma. Yup, for some reason, I had the Lone Ranger fighting G.I. Joes on a regular basis. I had turned every G.I Joe into a villain (except for Lifeline, who was the Lone Ranger’s incompetent sidekick) despite the fact that they were branded as Real American Heroes. And they were still awesome.

I had this, minus the horse and guns. Yup, somehow made him lamer yet cooler.

I had a total of two official G. I. Joe figures for much of my childhood, plus two full-size dolls. I also had a few off-brand G. I. Joes that you wouldn’t be able to tell apart from the real thing, and that got me by just fine. Also, of course, I had a friend with dozens of the real thing, so any time we got together it was an hour of deciding who gets to play with which figure in which vehicle at which base with what weapons, giving us maybe a few minutes of playtime, tops. And once again, they were still awesome.

Tons of Variety, Only One Childhood

That’s one thing that appealed to me most about the Joes: The amount of variety in play. There were tons of vehicles and weapons to mix around and give to whomever you felt. While none of the Joes could really grip anything worth a darn, it was still cool to hand a sniper rifle to the medic and place him in a tank. All of my G.I. Joe-related stuff came from garage sales and things my grandma found in her day-to-day of finding awesome things for me to play with. Pretty sure that was her day job. At one point she gave me a G. I. Joe tank she found at a garage sale that somehow transformed into a fortress. It was broken and the pieces were just in a bag all willy-nilly, but that didn’t stop me from reassembling it and finding some use. Than again, what kid can’t figure out how to convert something into a tank? Honestly?

Heck, I made Lifeline seem cool. Behold the wonder of a child's imagination.

So what was my favorite thing about G. I. Joes? They have the perfect level of articulation. Seriously, those things are built with kids at heart. The midsection was the best part of this articulation since it gave such smooth move-ability as it used a rubber band to hold the torso and the legs together. The downside was that it used a rubber band to hold the torso and the legs together. One of my proudest moments came when I repaired a broken Chuck Norris-looking G. I. Joe with a standard rubber band I found. He went from being a standard evil character that couldn’t move to the strongest, most dangerous character in my plots.

I can’t really pinpoint what it is about G. I. Joes that everyone loves so much as my experience is limited to what I grew up with. Still, I want to know what other people did as kids, or even now. What was your favorite aspect about G. I Joes? Did you have a whole army or just a lone soldier? Or did you absolutely hate the Joes? Even if you don’t currently own a Joe, you could get one for under $10. When you have a memory to retell, leave a comment and let me know.

Also, I’m proud that I went a whole G. I. Joe article without using the phrase “Go Joe!” Oh wait…dang it.

Prepare for MORE nerd rage!

Not too long ago I wrote an article about the Ten Biggest Plot Holes in Dragonball Z. I tried to sleep the night afterward but I couldn’t. My mind kept racing to inform me of plot holes I missed. So after a week of restless nights I composed myself and plunked out another ten plot holes worth noting. I already covered the top ten, so here are Ten More Big Plot Holes in DBZ. And while you’re at it, you might as well be caught up with the series, so check out my favorite season, Season 6.

Some Animals Talk, Just Not All of Them:

Facist pigs. They're all the same.

There are talking animals in the world of Dragonball Z. There just are. I can’t explain that, nor do I feel like defending it. It’s just silly, so it works. You’ve got a shape-shifting pig, a dog that’s president of the world, and all manner of creatures that speak and walk around like it’s totally normal. But then there are other animals that, for some reason, don’t speak or act like humans at all. Some cats talk, other don’t. Some pterodactyls are mindless, others are martial arts champions. What’s the distinction? Meh, whenever the plot feels better one way or another. There’s just no getting around this one without saying, “Yeah, the show is goofy. Deal with it.”

I Don’t Need Air, Do I?:

"I don't need to breath while on this asteroid, right?"

Somehow the heroes of the show have found themselves fighting a number of enemies that can breath in space. That’s right, they can BREATH in SPACE. You know, that place with no air and absolutely nothing at all? They can breath there. Okay, they’re special creatures, but then we come to Goku and Vegeta and suddenly we blur the line of who can and can’t breath what. Within a few episodes of introducing Vegeta, he is seen blowing up a planet just because he feels like it. How does he blow the planet up? He opens his space pod and stands above the planet as he fires a beam. Don’t give me any explanation that “He was still within the planet’s atmosphere” or something because when that planet exploded, an action that was instant, it was obliterated. No way Vegeta’d survive that one. So can Vegeta just breath in space? No, he needs air, as we learn since Frieza nearly drowns him and strangles him, and later Kid Buu does the same. He needs air to live. Oops. The same goes with Goku on his trip to Namek. He gets his foot glued to the outside of his spaceship during flight, yet somehow gets back inside his ship after leaving the boot glued in place. That’s impossible due to the vacuum of space. He’d be dead, I don’t care what you say. “He held his breath” can only go so far.

Garlic Jr. and His Place In The Series:

"Huh? Oh, didn't expect to see you there. Yeah, I just came for the punch."

In between the Frieza Saga and the Trunks Saga, the anime decided to add a little filler saga called the Garlic Junior Saga in which the character of Garlic Junior returns from somewhere called the Dead Zone, takes over Kami’s Lookout, and vows revenge against Goku for pushing him into the Dead Zone in the first place. Some of you might not know but the first DBZ movie is called The Dead Zone and stars Garlic Junior as the villain who kidnaps Gohan and forces Goku and Piccolo to fight. This movie is one of the few cannon movies of the series. It has to be, otherwise Garlic Junior couldn’t show back up and allow it to make sense. But in The Dead Zone, Goku, Piccolo, and Krillin all see Gohan go ballistic and mess up Garlic Junior with some crazy power he’s just got hidden. Problem with this is that the beginning of the series proper has Goku introducing Gohan to Krillin and the others, to which they’re surprised to learn that Goku is a dad. Krillin already knew who Gohan was in The Dead Zone, and Goku and Piccolo already knew that Gohan was capable of ridiculous power when pushed even before Raditz took him and pushed him too far, so how does this all fit? It’s another one of those, “Yeah, we know we said one thing already, but could you just please forget that we did and believe the new story now? Thanks.” That doesn’t mean I’m happy with it, though.

Goku’s Ship Destroyed But Still Useable:

"Behold my Plot Hole Beam!"

Here’s an interesting one to deal with, and the problem comes from the original Japanese anime creating filler, not the US dubbing the show improperly. In the timeline, Goku comes to Earth as a baby in a Saiyan space pod, Raditz comes to Earth in a Saiyan space pod, Gohan destroys Raditz’s pod, Piccolo destroys Goku’s pod, Nappa and Vegeta arrive on Earth in their pods, Vegeta escapes in his, and Nappa’s is accidentally self-destructed. That’s the whole reason Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan had to use Kami’s old Namekian space ship to travel to Namek: Because the Saiyan space pods were all gone or destroyed. Yet when Goku goes to Namek he does so in a ship that Dr. Briefs makes from Goku’s Saiyan space pod. You know, the one that Piccolo obliterated with a Special Beam Cannon because it was projecting a hologram of the moon and causing Gohan to transform into a giant ape. There is no way to explain this one away other than “Big ol’ oops” since the plotline of Goku’s space pod creating a hologram was added as filler by the anime to allow the manga time to catch up, something that was common practice. Somehow they just never found a better way to resolve that little snafu, so they just said, “Ah heck with it, we already told them Garlic Junior somehow fits in the story, so why not this?” And then they blew Goku up on Namek and retconned that a few episodes later because they needed to lie to us just a little more. What next? Giant holes in the body aren’t fatal anymore?

Holes In The Body Ain’t Nothing Till They Are:

That's gonna be tender in the morning...maybe.

Oops. One of the most dramatic scenes from early in the series is when Piccolo launches the Special Beam Cannon and drills through Goku and Raditz, leaving both with a gaping hole in their chest and a definite “You’re dead sucka” on their foreheads (this is also the last time the special Beam Cannon is effective, save for blowing up Goku’s Saiyan space pod, thus actually making the attack so powerful it can rip through whole plots in a few seconds). Later on Namek people start getting treated as pincushions just because they can be. Krillin gets a horn through the stomach and lives. Vegeta gets Krillin to blow clean through his torso with an energy blast, but is healed by Dende a little bit later. Yamhca proves he’s useless by getting a hand through the stomach as well, but also doesn’t die because someone gives him a Senzu Bean. Sure the villains start getting holes in them, but they just regenerate, so there’s no problem there. However, along comes Future Trunks to take a blast to the chest from Cell, instantly killing him. Say wha? Trunks, this super powerful guy from the future, can be killed by a blast through the stomach? Was it because they didn’t get him medical help soon enough? Or just because it was more dramatic that way? I’m going with option B, because the show never seems to deal with how fatal having your spinal cord ELIMINATED actually is unless it makes for a good plot point.

Trunks and His Wacky Time Adventures:

"I wish I were Marty McFly. He would have known what to do."

Oh hey, speaking of Trunks, where is he from anyway? Well, there’s the Trunks of the present time that’s Bulma and Vegeta’s son, and then there’s the Trunks from the future timeline where the androids have killed everyone and everything with a big killing machine called “Their Fists.” So Trunks comes to our timeline (technically in a separate timeline since whatever he does in the present doesn’t effect his future), and saves Goku from dying from a heart virus. He also decides to stay a while and train with Vegeta to become way more powerful than he ever was so that when he returns to his own timeline he’ll be strong enough to destroy the androids that live there, which he does. As confusing as it is thinking about Cell and his role in the time travel, we have to try. Trunks comes here and helps us, but Cell comes to our timeline as well but from a future where he’s killed Trunks, which means Cell must be from a third timeline somewhere or something. I don’t know; it makes my head hurt a bit too much. But all of this is confounded by the knowledge that seven years after the whole debacle with Cell, Majin Buu shows up to muck with the world. So where was he in Trunk’s timeline? He should have popped up sometime around Trunks’ eighth birthday, but in The History of Trunks we know that Trunks is happily failing to be relevant yet until he’s roughly thirteen or something. Majin Buu would have annihilated Trunks’ world, even worse than the androids, with no hope of anyone stopping him as Trunks wasn’t stronger than Goku or Vegeta and both of them lost to Majin Buu a handful of times. Assuming the timeline really did get shifted due to the time travel (as Trunks speculates), the world would still be doomed as soon as Majin Buu showed up. Bleak world to think about. Just don’t get me started on how Trunks actually got that sword.

Anatomy Is Not Their Strong Point:

"Uh...you realize babies shouldn't have those, right?"

When Goku was a boy he had a tail. This was because Saiyans as a race had tails from birth that allowed them to transform into giant apes at the sight of a full moon. In Dragonball, Goku does just that, so his tail keeps getting removed in order to prevent the problem from reoccurring (since when he turned into a giant ape he went nuts and destroyed everything). Dragonball Z comes along and so does Gohan, tail and everything. He’s able to transform after seeing the moon or even a hologram of the moon, so Piccolo removes Gohan’s tail twice with Vegeta removing it a third time during their big fight at the end of the Saiyan Saga. After that, Gohan never grows his tail back. And that never seems strange to anyone, even after he grew it back a total of three times in a single year. Vegeta loses his tail as well but it doesn’t grow back. In fact, they seem to completely forgo the whole “Saiyans Have Tails” thing after the Saiyan Saga since neither Goten nor Trunks have tails at birth. No one questions this since, you know, it’d be pretty startling to discover that the Saiyans as a species are losing one of their more valuable features. Goku’s tail was permanently removed because of a deal he made with Kami, but the others? “Just c’mon, stop asking questions when we’ve got stories to tell, alright?” Fine fine.

Geography Is Not Their Strong Point Either:

So this is the world...no wonder they're confused about distance.

Question for DBZ fanboys: How long is Snake Way? Don’t remember? It’s 10,000 miles. That sure does sound like an impressive number, no? Okay then, geography fanboys: What is the circumference of the Earth, in miles? Give up? That number is roughly 24,901 miles and some change. Suddenly Snake Way doesn’t seem as bad, but it’s still ridiculously long, right? RIGHT? Well yeah, but it makes no sense the amount of importance they give to said way of snake. The bigger problem at stake here is that Goku has traversed the world multiple times without much difficulty, even swimming half way around the world in a day when he was 17. Suddenly, this journey doesn’t sound so bad. This is another one of those problems that came up in the anime but was correct in the manga, where Snake Way is 1 million kilometers (621,371 miles), a slightly more intimidating pathway. Still, the US dub never corrects this, even after all the “definitive remastered editions” keep supposedly “fixing” said problems. I call shenanigans on you Funimation! Anyway, this 10,000 mile mark causes the next statement to make no sense: Only Goku and King Yemma have ever made it to the end. Ah…huh. Either there’s a lot more to Snake Way than they show, or everyone else really sucks when they die. Assuming there is nothing better to do when you die, why haven’t more people made the trip? They’ve got nowhere else to go. It’s like Goku’s the only important character in the history of ever. Oh wait, maybe because…

Goku Is The Only Important Character of The Series:

One of these people is important. Can you guess which one?

Goku is master of all the best attacks and techniques on the show. He knows the Kamehameha, the Spirit Bomb, Instant Transmission, the Kaio-Ken, the Solar Flare, and Super Saiyan 1-3. The Solar Flare was a technique he picked up from Tien, while the Kamehameha came from Master Roshi. The Super Saiyan thing was simple genetics. But even though Instant Transmission was arguably one of the most useful techniques in the show, he never bothered to teach anyone how to do it, even when he had three years to do it before the androids showed up. And the Kaio-Ken, a technique that he learned from King Kai along with the Spirit Bomb, did anyone get to learn those? It was a move that only King Kai was supposed to be able to teach, so that’d mean a character would need to train with King Kai for a long time such as when…Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu lived with King Kai and learned nothing. Ouch. It makes no sense, either, as they’re clearly strong enough to learn these abilities since they’re stronger than Vegeta was against the Ginyu Force. Say what?

Now can you figure out who's more important?

Okay, so Goku dies with a power level of roughly 400 when he travels Snake Way, trains with King Kai, and returns to Earth with the new skills and a power level over 9,000. The three in question die with power levels over 1,000 and reach King Kai, staying for a lot longer than Goku was able to as Goku had two months and these guys had four months and eight months (Tien and Chiaotzu had the latter). Goku fights the Ginyu Force on Namek with a power level at 180,000, though Vegeta couldn’t beat them with whatever power level he had. The Ginyu Force go to King Kai’s planet after they die since King Kai invited them and they all lose to Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu, meaning those guys have a power level well above Goku’s when he learned the Spirit Bomb and the Kaio Ken. So does King Kai teach them? Nope. Would they have wanted to learn? Tien was seriously into surpassing Goku someday, so you bet your sweet hinnie he’d want to know that. So why no love to the also rans? And beyond that, Krillin has the single deadliest move in the series with the Destructo Disk, a disk of energy that can slice through ANYTHING. It’s a one-hit-KO every time as long as it hits the person in the right place. Give this to someone with some real power and suddenly it’s hyper-deadly. But no, Krillin wasn’t important enough to bother with teaching this vital move. It’s not like these guys are martial arts masters or anything. Oh wait…

Epic Fights? Never Seen Those Before:

"This is SO going to be all over YouTube tomorrow!"

I don’t know how I missed this blaring plot hole in my last article since it rips the believability of the Dragonball world to shreds. In Dragonball, when Goku is a kid, he fights against Master Roshi, Tien, and Piccolo in three separate Tenkaichi Budokais (Strongest Under the Heavens Martial Arts Tournaments), each in increasingly epic battles that involve flight, explosions, hyper speed, and all manner of crazy things. But by Dragonball Z the whole world has forgotten that these guys exist and so they don’t bother to remember that it isn’t all that ridiculous to see people capable of these things when they show up again. The worst thing that happens is some guy named Hercule (originally Mr. Satan in the Japanese and uncut versions) convinces the world that everything that happens in the Cell Saga is all just an elaborate set of tricks since people aren’t capable of flight, super speed, or energy blasts. Even though the whole world has seen this happen on multiple occasions. Somehow they just believe, “Oh, yeah, that’s all just some explosives and jet packs and such.” To make matters worse, the military decides that every time a new threat shows up they should send in entire fleets to dispatch said threat. When Nappa and Vegeta show up, Nappa single-handedly wipes out all of Earth’s army, half the time just flying through the fighter jets and aircraft carriers. So when Cell shows up and manages to do the same thing, why does Earth’s military decide, “Hey yeah, I think we should go into certain death. That sounds like a good plan.” Naturally, Cell blows them all to HFIL and goes back to waiting for the important characters of the show (Goku) to come challenge him properly. Even if Hercule can convince everyone that Cell is just really good with tricks, that STILL makes him an unbelievable threat. Which would you be more afraid of? A guy that can fly around and shoot energy beams from his hands, or a guy with enough explosives to level entire cities and wipe out whole military factions? One of those is ridiculous, but the other? That’s Real World terrifying. We have people fighting a war right now because we THOUGHT that some guy had the means to pull off Cell-style tricks with explosives. After the first Tenkaichi Budokai when Goku and Master Roshi are exchanging Kamehamehas, everyone on the face of the planet would have rushed out to learn how to do this, especially the military. I guess it makes sense though. I mean, it’s not like everyone in the world is as important as Goku, right? Right.

So there you have it, another ten reasons why I have too much time on my hands. Am I still leaving some vital plot hole out? Or am I just looking for problems where there really isn’t any? Have you got an explanation for my gripes or a continuation of a gripe here? Comment time! Leave some comments and I’ll return the love. Even if you aren’t Goku.

You may also enjoy these other DBZ related articles:

-Ten Worst Instances of Filler in DBZ

-The DBZ Technique Guide

-Ten Most Awesome Moments of DBZ

As Toonami once said, "61 million fans can't be wrong."

No need to preface this one since you know all too well that I’m a DragonBall Z fiend. I’ve watched the whole series, read the whole series, played the whole series, and generally attempted to live my life as if any moment I could turn into a Super Saiyan and need to defend the Earth (and by all that I mean I’ve practiced how to scream real loud for extended periods of time). Just a few days ago I finished rewatching the end of the series since I bought all nine volumes of Z on DVD in their remastered and “definitive” forms.

Now, however, they’ve released yet another box set, this one called “The Dragon Box.” What is in it you may ask? I’ll get to that in due time. I thought there is no better time than now to go over the entire series and give my thoughts (since you wanted to know them). I’m only covering Z, the more popular of the two series (GT doesn’t count in my eyes because it sucked). Also, I’m not discussing the video games or the toys this time, though expect those articles another time. So let’s jump right in and get some backstory out of the way.

The Short Story of The Longest Series

For those unaware of what Dragonball Z is, you probably won’t care about the rest of this article. The story revolves around Goku, a boy in the series Dragonball and later an adult in Dragonball Z. He has powers that allow him to fly, shoot energy beams, and have super strength. Just about every character in the series can do all of these things with few exceptions, though we discover at the very beginning of Dragonball Z that Goku is an alien called a “Saiyan” and that’s why he’s so powerful. Typically the plot goes as follows: Villain shows up, heroes fight and lose against villain, heroes train or formulate plans to fight the villain, heroes fight villain again and lose, heroes attempt all plans and fail, one of the heroes becomes even more powerful and beats up villain, villain gets strongerer, main hero punches harderest. That’s basically everything in a nutshell.

Our hero and savior: A guy that can fly, blow stuff up with him mind, and eat ten times his weight JUST BECAUSE.

There are four main plot arcs in the series with the first being the Saiyan Saga where we learn about the last few Saiyans in the universe and get acquainted with all the main characters we’ll be following for a while. Goku inevitably fights with a guy named Vegeta in one of the quintessential fights of the series. After that there is the Frieza plot arc where the main characters go to planet Namek in order to wish everyone who died in the previous plot arc back to life. By the way, the whole reason the show is called “Dragonball” is because there are these things called “Dragonballs” that when collected together summon a dragon that grants any wish, though usually the wish is to “bring back everyone that just died.” Anyway, the second plot arc has Goku fight Frieza, the evil ruler of the universe. Once that’s done there is a bunch of filler before the Cell Saga where androids pop up and everything gets nuts. The series finally ends with the Buu Saga, a plot arc where no one accomplishes anything until the final few episodes of the series.

DVD’s and You: What To Know

Phew, that’s a lot of ground to cover. All together there are 291 episodes in the Z series spread over nine DVD volumes, though for some reason the volumes are called “seasons” despite the fact that the series didn’t air in the seasons it mentions. Maybe in Japan, but not in the States. Personally, I’d say you get the most for your money with volume one as it’s the only complete story from start to finish contained in the volumes. You get ripped off entirely with volume seven as nothing happens until the very last episode of the volume. And my personal favorite is volume six, because my favorite fight is Goku vs. Cell and my favorite episode is “No More Rules” in which Goku utterly owns Cell in the face with the single coolest moment in the entire series…that ultimately does nothing.

But this Dragon Box thing. What is it? It’s the series being released yet again but broken up into a slightly different grouping of episodes. The first volume has episodes 1-42 and retails at around $60, though you can find it cheaper on Amazon. However, I bought “Season One” of DBZ a few years back when they were releasing the remastered editions that had all the uncut episodes with original Japanese music and audio, and it had episodes 1-39 on it.

So what’s the big difference between the two box sets besides three episodes? Not a danged thing!

It really ticks me off that after all these years of loyal DBZ fanboyism and buying every box set, they release yet another box set and try and get me to buy it because it is supposedly remastered harder or something. Enough is enough with that. It’s up to you whether you want to buy the current sets in the orange boxes or buy the new Dragon Box in the yellow boxes. You get basically the same thing, but don’t buy both.

Those Saiyans Grow Up So Fast

I'm not even going to try and explain Super Saiayns to the layman here. Suffice to say, they're awesome.

What was it that really got me interested in the first place? After watching the series again now that I’m a bit older (not mentally, but I can grow facial hair now), I realize that it doesn’t come down to the story or the characters. Duh, it’s all about the action. Dragonball Z has been hailed as the “greatest action cartoon of all time” by someone I can’t remember who it was. And I’ll go ahead and say they’re right because the show was extremely good when it was good. But it was also extremely bad when it was bad. The characters are likable enough, but you’ll find that you either have to like Goku or Vegeta and stick with them since no other character is given enough respect by the end of the series as those two. And those characters aren’t entirely too deep to get either as Goku just enjoys challenging himself while Vegeta is driven by his pride as the Prince of all Saiyans (despite the fact that his father was killed before the series even began, so he really should be a king by now). Oh, and Vegeta wants to fight Goku again after their first fight, a rematch that doesn’t come for over 200 episodes later and then doesn’t really get any resolution because something more important happens.

And you know what? The fans don’t care. There are dozens of excellent fights between really cool characters and despite the flaws of the series, flaws mostly attributed to the English translation, it really is something worth being respected. Also, the more you look at the plot, the more you’ll find that there is actually a lot of more mature features than you’d expect. The show deals with race, heritage and birthright, death and the afterlife, unwritten or predestined future, marriage, illegitimate children, heart disease, and tyranny and oppression. Oh yeah, and it also has robots, demons, monsters, aliens, flying, explosions, clones, time travel, and all sorts of general nonsense with talking animals.

The US Botches Yet Another Japanese Thing

I'd be terrified too if I saw what the US was doing to me.

Here’s where the real problems came: The US has really strict rules about what can be shown to kids and what can’t. Dragonball Z came from Japan and they have a whole different set of rules. When the US got the show it had to be censored heavily just to pass snuff. That meant that blood and gore was cut out, violence towards children was removed, cursing was replaced with less impactful words, alcohol and references to other adult things were cut, the location in the afterlife designated Hell had to be renamed the “Home For Infinite Losers,” pants were digitally added to cover nudity of some characters (don’t freak out, we’re talking little kids losing their pants after turning into giant apes), and a whole mess of things that seem utterly baffling to look back on. Also, no reference to “death,” “dying,” “killing,” or “murder.”

All this in a show where the entire planet is eventually blown up, leaving only one character never killed in the entire series (save for a few in the “ten years later” episodes at the very end).

Due to these censorships, the show’s dialogue had to be entirely ripped to shreds. Characters are nearly ripped in half and they shout “Darn it!” Someone is killed and a character will yell “You hurt my friend!” And even worse, for sake of time a bunch of dialogue is entirely stripped away or dumbed down to a point that’s downright insulting. There’s a scene where a character is having a loving flashback of his best friend, a character that just killed himself in a failed attempt to stop one of the bad guys. The character has been pushing himself past his limits and even lost an arm at this point. After remembering all these moments between him and his lost friend, he decides to honor his friend with one final attack that ultimately kills himself in the process. It’s a touching scene. The US version, the one we originally got, is cut down to almost nothing and ends with the character saying, “Looks like this one-armed cowboy is going for one last ride.” What the heck is that? I think it’s worse to protect kids from emotion than just let them know that “That character is heartbroken and going to die because of it.”

Another example of things being just a bit too high on the stupid meter is anytime the villains destroy cities, helicopters, or anything where there’d be no way for anyone to survive. A line of dialogue will be written like, “Oh good, I see their parachutes,” or, “Looks like this part of town was just empty buildings.” Seconds before a character blows up a city we see civilians only a few feet away. There is NO WAY these people got out of an explosion that levels an ENTIRE CITY. There’s just no way. Don’t infect kids with stupid.

Some Slight Salvation

It really wasn't all bad, and Gohan's character arc can prove that (until he becomes an adult).

Luckily the DVD releases have most of the original dialogue intact instead of the sugarcoated mess from the televised stuff. And the first 56 episodes got redubbed with the voice actors that took over after the original US run when the localization company shifted from Pioneer to Funimation. This was great for me because I think that Goku has the perfect guy doing his voice (his name is Sean Schemmel). The same goes for Gohan, Krillin, and a handful of other characters. Oddly enough, in Japan, heroes are usually voiced by women since purity or innocence is important for these characters and women are the best way for the Japanese to convey this. I don’t prefer the Japanese voices of Goku, though Gohan is played by a woman in both versions. But then we in the US get Chris Sabat, the guy who voices Vegeta, Piccolo, Yamcha, the dragon, and just about every character in the series that they didn’t want to pay someone else to voice. And it entirely shows since Chris Sabat has an incredibly distinct voice. He can make perfectly normal sounding dialogue sound completely out of place coming from the characters and that’s a big ol’ oops in my book.

Something that was broken from the original Japanese are a few massive plotholes that, hey, you know what? I’ll do a top 10 list for the biggest DBZ plotholes next week. Stay tuned for that.

This scene will appear again in that article.

Anyway, despite the many, many flaws the series had, such as pacing (good Lord is it tough to slog through some of the filler episodes), the show is worth a watch if you’ve never seen it before. I’m not saying it’s for everyone, and a lot of people will seriously hate it, but consider that it ended its Japanese run in ’96 and it’s US run in ’03, but we’re still getting the DVD’s released over and over and more video games every year, plus action figures and a gob of other things. Oh, and did I mention that Japan decided to reedit the entire series from 291 episodes down to 100? Yeah, they’re currently doing that in an attempt to make the series even better than it ever was. That’s insane.

So in closing, I will never stop loving Dragonball Z. The first volume of the Dragon Box is out now so if you don’t have any episodes yet, you’ll get some of the best. However, if you already own the Season One DVD box set, like I said before, you don’t need the Dragon Box. Honestly though, I’d just wait until they released Dragon Ball Kai (the 100 perfect reedit), someday in a few years.

Need more DBZ articles? Check these out:

-Top Ten Biggest Plotholes of DBZ

-Ten More Big Plotholes From DBZ

-Ten Most Awesome Moments of DBZ