This weekend I went to a band trip with my 12 year old as a chaperone. It started with band performances, ended with them (and me) at an amusement park all day.
I met a bunch of Middle Schoolers who were friends / acquaintances with my daughter. They referred to me as "cool," "legendary," "icon," and one said I was "an icon on par with Madonna." But...but why?
I think about that day and all I can think is that I'm an adult, a parent who was willing to engage with these kids. I talked with them about music, their hobbies, anime, video games, whatever they wanted to talk about. I listened and interacted. Apparently, that's enough to make me an icon.
It feels very basic. But, the fact that just this level of interaction felt out of the norm for them from their friend's parents that it made them call me an icon, I feel that says more about the other adults in their lives than it does about my awesomeness.
Every so often an old Wall Street Journal article from 90s on anime makes rounds online again and gets dunked on, yet again. Oldtakus @twwk & @KhakiBlueSocks re-read the article and wrote a joint retrospective piece on it and 90s anime entitled, "Mechanized Monsters, Poké-Pulp Fiction, and Advancing Attitudes About Anime."
It's hard to understate how much of an impact #AkiraToriyama had on the world. But one pale measure of it is that there are tens of millions of people who you can ask "what episode of #DragonBallZ aired on 9/11?" that can answer with "Water Fight".
There was a mix up in Toonami's programming so September 10th 6:30 premiere episode, Water Fight, was mistakenly re-aired in the 6:00 slot unrelated to the events of the day. But we didn't know that at the time, we all remembered sitting down to try to comfort ourselves with something that made sense and turned to Dragon Ball Z. I don't think any other non-news broadcast on that day is as burned into the memories of so many people.
The adventure continues even after death. You will be missed, Toriyama-sensei.
I didn't grow up with Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z. I stopped having cable at home in the early 90s. So, my first real experience with Dragon Ball Z was in college. I had a roommate who would watch subtitled episodes late at night really loud, which annoyed me. I avoided the franchise for that reason for a long while.
In 2019, I picked up a copy of Dragon Ball FighterZ because of how highly it was rated. I fell in love with it immediately. Such an amazing fighting game. In December, Viz's Shonen Jump service dropped and allowed you access to their full archive of manga for certain series. Dragon Ball was among them. I decided to read the manga to get the backstory of these characters. I became enthralled and within three months had read all of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball Super.
Since then, I have plowed through so much manga from Akira Toriyama. From Cowa to Sandland to a ton of stuff in between. His influence on the anime and manga industry will be felt for generations to come.
Here's a picture of a few of the Bandai model kits I have of Goku and Vegeta in their Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan forms.
Rest in Peace, Toriyama. Thank you for all you have given us over the years. May your family and fans be comforted following your passing.
But the legacy of his work is alive and well all over entertainment. After filmmaker #HayaoMiyazaki, Toriyama is likely the most influential Japanese artist of modern times. #Manga#Anime#DragonBallZ#Shonen
A huge improvement over the first. In-fight transformations, 5-character teams, more accurate attacks - this game almost has it all. Main bugbear is the overly long story mode that tries to cram in every fight and winds up a bit draining.
I just woke up from the most pleasing but crazy #dream that some other musicians started playing this #song as a warm up and I was #vocals for it, always been a huge fan of #KoRn since I was 12.
I just woke up from the most pleasing but crazy #dream that some other musicians started playing this #song as a warm up and I was #vocals for it, always been a huge fan of #KoRn since I was 12.