User blog:TCalderon/TCalderon's Anime Ramble - Episode 1: Dragon Ball Super: Broly



Despite the episode one, I dunno if this'll actually be a regular thing. Just wanted to gush about this movie.

Ah, Dragon Ball. What started out as a simple and cute adventure story about a young boy traversing the world to find the seven Dragon Balls has evolved into a pop cultural phenomenon about that same young boy growing up to battle godlike aliens, monsters, ferocious beasts, and actual gods whilst screaming his lungs out until he explodes. It's a classic that many young boys grew up on, and something I'm only just now getting caught up on. Though, these days, with your Fairy Tails, your Bleaches, your One Pieces, your Narutos, and your My Hero Academias, there are plenty of Shonen anime that surpass Dragon Ball in terms of quality story telling and character development, but there's no denying that Dragon Ball is still a forced to be reckoned with and will probably continue to be (that is, until Akira Toriyama runs out of ways to color Goku's hair). And what better way to celebrate it's continuing legacy than by taking a look at the franchise's latest big screen offering; Dragon Ball Super: Broly! A movie that brings with it a new take on the Saiyan's origins, plenty of energy beams and aerial combat to make an adrenaline junkie lose their mind, and integrates fan favorite character, Broly, into the actual canon, finally giving justification for his appearances in the video games.

Yeah, I was never too big on Broly, myself. He appeared in one movie where he was dubbed "The Legendary Super Saiyan", and looked intimidating as hell, at least when you ignore that his motivation for hating Goku was that our spiky headed monkey king cried a lot as a baby. He offered our heroes a challenge, didn't really speak much, personality, he's like the Incredible Hulk if he could fly, and then Goku sucker-punches him and he explodes. The second Broly movie was completely forgettable aside from the last beam struggle with Gohan, Goten, and Goku working together. Then there's Bio Broly. Dragon Ball fans do not like Bio Broly. Dragon Ball Evolution gets brought up a lot more in fan discussions than Bio Broly does. Dragon Ball GT is considered more canon than Bio Broly ever was.

So yeah, I wasn't a big fan of the muscle bounded broccoli man, but this movie gave a bigger appreciation of the character by making one simple change: giving him a decent backstory. In this new continuity, Broly was considered a super-powered freak by King Vegeta and was sent to a deserted planet where he grew up like a wild animal. Broly's father, Paragus, eventually reaches him and treats him like a slave because of his enormous power. It isn't until Broly and Paragus are recruited for the Frieza Force when the muscle bounded Saiyan has some actual friends in the form of Cheelai and Lemo (and eventually Goku). Instead of just having him around to be this giant beast for our heroes to fight, this actually makes Broly sympathetic, and it's hard not to feel bad for the guy. Though, he still is a giant beast that Goku and Vegeta have to take on, but that's more because Frieza himself starts calling the shots.

And uh... that's basically it for story. After all the backstory, and actually getting everyone gathered up to where the Dragon Balls are (a snowy mountain), a large portion of the movie is spent watching Goku and Vegeta battling against Broly. Plenty of punches and kicks are thrown, energy beams are launched, and it's revealed that this new Broly can go toe-to-toe with Super Saiyan Blue Goku in his base form whereas that original wuss gets his ass beat by a Super Saiyan one. Piccolo teaches Goku and Vegeta the Fusion Dance to bring in Gogeta, after the fight, Broly goes back to the planet he grew up on with Cheelai and Lemo, Goku gives them a Capsule house in exchange for yet another sparring partner (and actually refers to himself as Kakarot!), and... yeah, that's basically it.

That's not too much of a bad thing, though; Dragon Ball was never really the series you go to for really compelling drama and complex stories. It's very much a "what you see is what you get" kinda show, and it's rare-to-never that something within it is more than it actually is. The true strength of the series (to me at least) lies within some really solid character moments (Vegeta's redemption arc, anyone?) and some mindless over-the-top action scenes between superhuman beings who can destroy planets! The action (and by extension, the animation itself) mostly speaks for itself, in how gorgeous it is. No other Dragon Ball fight scene looks like how this movie does, not even the two theatrical movies that proceeded this one! Broly himself is more intimidating than ever, energy blasts are more awesome than they've ever been, and Super Saiyan Blue actually looks kinda cool for once whereas before I always kinda thought it looked really stupid.

True, there are one or two moments where the characters look kinda awkward, and some obvious CG is used making the movie look like a FigherZ cutscene on occasion, but those are few and far between. The animation is so good that it leaves me a tad worried about the rest of the series. There's apparently another season of Super on the way after this movie, and while the later seasons do up the ante after the embarrassing first two sagas (which were just Battle of Gods and Resurrection F but with worse animation and fight choreography), this movie is basically the new golden standard of Dragon Ball animation, and I hope the series can take a few notes (that is, unless they do this movie again but with worse animation and fight choreography (I'm not really a big fan of Dragon Ball Super, if you can't tell)).

Yeah, that's basically it. This movie's bad-ass. If you're a Dragon Ball fan, I highly recommend it. If not... well, that's a toughie. These anime movies are kinda weird like that, where they serve as nice little treats for fans of the shows, whereas most moviegoers probably wouldn't "get it", so to speak. I remember watching the One Piece Gold movie two years ago, and while it was a fun ride, and could serve as a neat introduction to the series, I had not watched any of One Piece at that time, and still felt like I was missing out on key details (I kinda put the animated Tranformers movie and the Equestria Girls series of movies under this "category" as well). But still, an easy recommendation for fans.

Also, Jiren has been confirmed as FighterZ DLC... cool, I guess? I dunno, I don't like Jiren that much.