Anime Wednesday

I had to look up some of the other cartoons I watched as a kid to see if they were actually anime and it turns out they weren't. Transformers is American, and the Thundercats were based on a Japanese cartoon but adapted for American audiences.  Which is pretty close to the real thing.  But I would be an adult before I watched another anime series that stood out to me

Yes, it's weird that I would be attracted to this as an adult because it's very much a kid's show.  More so than Voltron or even Thundercats. But I think it's always the writing that goes into anime that draws me in.  Dragon Ball Z  (1989-1996)is a continuation of the original Dragon Ball series, which I didn't see, but know the basic history of.  In order to fight the various enemies of this universe they engage in magic combat aided by the 7 dragon balls which, when tracked down and combined together, grant three wishes, which helps to undo the damage of, say, character deaths and things like that.  Along the way there are many showdowns with adversaries, tournaments, and character development. The Dragon Ball saga is transitional in the way that Voltron was trying to be, but it worked better because they didn't abandon all the characters and change the venue for the second part, which is the Z series.  Instead the characters grew.

 Many of the characters began as children in the first Dragon Ball series and in Dragon Ball Z were young adults.  The main character, Goku, had a child of his own so that the connection to small children wouldn't be lost, but his own personality remained pretty much unchanged by adulthood and parental responsibilities so they never lost the main character either.  Even though the stories were extremely simplistic because the target audience was children, it gave the series depth.  They also assimilated antagonistic characters and turned them into good guys while introducing new villains and keeping it fresh. I think this is why the Z series is probably the most popular of the Dragon Ball Saga, which ended with Dragon Ball Super.When I was talking about Voltron, I compared the continuing storylines to that of a soap opera, and it was done a little better in this cartoon. The evolution of characters and stories were more gradual.

It also had the most popular antagonist created for the show, Vegeta, who eventually turned into a good guy, but one of those good guys that's still a jerk; still very flawed and hot tempered.  He had a layered personality that made him irresistible to watch. This character ended up appealing to boys and girls and I think was probably more popular than the main character of Goku, which is why they had to make him part of the team.

Character development is more appealing to women, but this also had a video game element to it that would have been appealing to men. As the series progressed they often referred to their power levels and how they were constantly rising after each new battle.  Much of the action progressed like this as well... battling weaker opponents on the way to the final battle with the primary antagonist. It would spend endless episodes on just fighting and I understand that... like I said, it was for children, not adults, but I have to admit, I was very interested in it anyway from an artistic standpoint.

They still hadn't figured out what to do with the female characters yet.  They wanted the girls to be powerful too, but without losing any of their girliness as children and adults. Goku's wife, Chi Chi was shifted to the back burner as just a nagging wife an mother in the Z series after fighting along side Goku in the original, although she needed a lot of help like Princess Allura in Voltron.  Bulma continued to be their tech person after Trunks was born, but she gradually became the stereotypical nagging woman as well.  Again, I just don't think anybody was ready for the complexities of a strong female character who could also be feminine without being a stereotype.  That and since this was geared towards children, that much maturity couldn't be expected.

Naturally, Mojo has a list for this.  But it's probably the best sampling of characters to give you an idea of the scope of the show. 
I liked Dragon Ball Z.