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Death of Akira Toriyama
Episode 3720th March 2024 • Film Center News • Derek Johnson II and Nicholas Killian
00:00:00 00:37:13

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Film Center honored the legendary Akira Toriyama, reflecting on his profound impact on the entertainment world, notably through his creation of "Dragon Ball".

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This is Film Center.

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Your number one show for real entertainment industry news.

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No fluff, all facts.

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Now, here are your anchors, Derek Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.

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I'm Derek Johnson II.

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I'm Nicholas Killian.

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And we're talking about today, Nicholas.

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Today, we are talking about The man, the myth, the legend, Akira Toriyama.

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Akira Toriyama, today, so today is March 8th.

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Even though he passed away a week ago on March 1st, his death has been confirmed.

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I think yesterday actually, March 7th, and then we're

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talking about today on March 8th.

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So we're basically saying that he died from a heart attack.

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Is basically what they're saying.

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They said a heart attack, and then there was another report saying

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something about a brain injury.

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But, either way, this person this man, has passed away.

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It has affected all of our lives.

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It's no secret that anime was in America prior to Dragon Ball Z.

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Speed Racer, Astro Boy Was Yeah, that's about it.

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Gundam Wing was, Gundam was here before.

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Yeah, Gundam was in the 80's.

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Yeah, but it wasn't as popular as As the previous two.

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True.

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It's just when you are young watching tsunami, right?

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Everyone remembers Dragon Wall's E who remembers Big O?

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Yeah, I remember Big O.

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Yeah.

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But it's not as talked about as Dragon Wall's e is.

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So it's just true.

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A level of popularity to say that Dragon Ball Z dragon Ball Z, even GT and Super.

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Had an effect on other creatives is an understatement.

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A complete understatement.

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He is like the Stan Lee of Japan.

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Yeah.

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He's Japan's Stan Lee and it's hard to even compare him to that because they're

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both such great creatives in their own ways I'm not gonna continue saying that

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but just in perspective I do to get people's head around the fact of how

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impactful this man was This man's art.

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This man.

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So he Dragon Ball has been going on for so long.

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It's been going on since before we were born.

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And the crazy part is that you see the character age from being a literal baby

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to a kid to being a teenager and marrying Chi to then being an adult having his

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own kids, going on and the show is still going on strong which is crazy.

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It even has something called Dragon Ball superheroes, which is not canon,

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but it's apparently some crazy Z Kai that yeah, and there they remade the

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original Dragon Ball Z, make it Dragon Ball Kai, the story is so great.

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They just redo that for the video game every day.

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Every year.

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Yeah.

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And yeah, it's you're never going to run out of Dragon Ball Z material.

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You just, you can just retell it and people won't care.

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Cool.

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Cool.

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They're retelling it.

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Awesome.

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Yeah.

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My favorite story ever.

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That's what happened with Kai, right?

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They recut it to basically, Cut out all the filler.

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It's so incredible to see the effect that one person can have on the world.

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Like, when Stanley passed, it was like, it rocked the earth.

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And then now with Akira's passing, it's another giant earthquake.

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Yeah, John I think all of us, who are around our ages, late 20s,

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early 30s, remember Toonami, right?

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That was a lot of.

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That was a lot of people's introduction to anime.

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Yeah, that or 4KidsTV, but usually it was Toonami.

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It was Toonami, coming home from school.

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Or for me, it was, coming home, Staying up a little later

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than you probably should have.

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Or, you were like I did aftercare, right?

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Daycare.

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After school.

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And then, so you would go watch Dragon Ball Z.

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One of the things I would ask you this DJ because Chala, we would chala

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what Dragon Balls Z was, I think.

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is a very interesting anime because it was extremely violent, right?

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It was accepted violence.

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It was extremely violent, but, and a lot of parents didn't let their

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kids watch Dragon Ball Z, right?

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Because of the violence, but I had a number of people especially when I

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started to get a little older, when a little older, 15, 16, 17, right?

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And, they would talk about, How influential Dragon Ball Z

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was to their kids' vocabulary.

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Yeah.

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I didn't even know that you could, I didn't even know art books existed until

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I started watching Dragon Ball Z as a kid.

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I didn't know that.

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I knew people drew them, duh.

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Everyone knows that.

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But it's I was like, oh, okay.

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I wanna see if I don't like drawing, but the first character I've ever oh, let me

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go find a, you try drawing art, right?

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They're my first kick at it.

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Was Dragon Ball Z.

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I went, I like, asked, I was in Walmart and asked, I still remember, I asked my

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my mom, I was like, Hey, I want this book.

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And my mom was like, does this draw Dragon Ball Z on it?

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And I was like, yeah.

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She goes, you don't draw stuff.

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And I was like, yeah I want to try it.

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She goes, okay.

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It was like four or five dollars.

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It was like super thin, so she didn't care.

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And I remember saying they're tracing over Goku.

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Just like couldn't a whole bunch, I think and then everyone's tried to go super

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saiyan as a kid Yep, everyone's going in the room be like There's a very famous

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video of a black kid trying to go super saiyan on the on youtube It's one of the

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famous one of the first big youtube memes was a black kid Trying to go Super Saiyan.

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At recess.

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No, he was at his house.

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Oh, he was at his house?

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Yeah, he was at his house.

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He took his shirt off.

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He was going crazy.

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Every kid tried to do a Kamehameha for no reason.

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Yep.

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It's just one of those things that's just a It's not To say a cultural

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icon is not accurate enough.

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It's to say just an icon Of human history.

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Of epic proportions.

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Why do you think people's vocabulary increased so much watching the anime?

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Cause that's what a lot of whenever I was watching it, and whenever we had

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people that would watch it friends that would watch it, people coming up

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and parents would be like Jack or John or whoever, you know his vocabulary

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is like is increasing, is critical thinking, all this kind of stuff.

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It's important to understand how the human brain actually develops.

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There has been a numerous amount of studies that have shown, and proven,

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that if you can capture someone's interest, they learn a lot more.

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There's a quite so there's a few studies I'd like to point out.

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There was one done by Not Cambridge, I think it was Harvard actually,

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that looked at ADHD people and their attention and retention.

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In one video, they were showing the groups of people with ADHD, who were

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not on the medicine at the time.

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The meth.

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They aren't on the meth.

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They showed them a math lecture.

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And you can see them like twisting around and like turning around in the chair.

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It was a very popular video, you've been sure you've seen it, but

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you're not really paying attention.

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Then they show the, then they show this person, and it was only like, I think it

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was like 3 minutes of the math lecture.

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Then they played 60 minutes of A New Hope, Star Wars.

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And they're just sit still, completely glued to the screen, da.

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It's cause it's actually interesting and entertaining.

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Now, most people know what they want to be because they find interest in that, right?

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So There's also, I'm then combining like this knowledge with, there's also

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proven studies that your child will have learning deficiencies the way

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you treat them when they're newborns.

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Really?

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All the way up to their I think to like their seven.

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Yeah, it's a huge, as most people know, it's a huge learning time, right?

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They're learning their first language, they learn what

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a circle is, this and that.

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Yeah.

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There, a lot of times, you'll see two types of parents.

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See some parents, they go, Come here, Joshua.

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No, put that down, Joshua.

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This is that.

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People go, and you guys see other parents that go, Oh, what the guh duh?

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They make that little sound.

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Oh, come here, baby.

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Oh, how's it's up to something?

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For some reason, when you speak articulately, not for some

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reason, but when you speak more articulately to a young child,

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They just start to learn faster.

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Because, you have to think about it like this.

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If you're giving them baby talk, that baby talk, that's what they're learning.

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And then, it's slowing down their development.

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Because they don't have any knowledge to base it off of.

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They're kids, right?

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They don't have enough experience to have their own knowledge

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to base it off of, right?

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They're learning baby talk, and they're learning real talk, and having to discern

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what is real and what is fake, compared to just learning all the real stuff.

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And, just growing up that way.

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It's quite interesting.

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We have ADHD because our parents talk baby talk to us?

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No.

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Those are just an example.

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Like, when things are interesting, people learn faster.

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When they're giving real content.

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So when they're interested in something.

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Okay when you're a kid, you're gonna find Dragon Ball Z and anime interesting

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because of the colors and whatever.

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But also, you're learning faster because you're not hearing

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people give you that small baby treatment because you're a child.

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And it's oh, okay, cool.

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It's low key making them mature faster.

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Just cause it's, and plus it started off as just regular tournament

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fights and stuff like that before it escalated to the violence it is.

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I think it was And it also taught you so much obviously anime teaches

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you so much, just in general.

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And whenever, it's almost hiding the dog's medicine in the dog

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food type of type of deal.

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You get what I'm saying by that?

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It's basically, it's the same thing anime is doing.

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It's teaching you about life, love, happiness, all that kind of stuff.

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With the creative genius that is, anime.

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Okay.

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Akira this so Dragon Ball Z wasn't the only, Dragon Ball wasn't the

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only thing that Akira did, but Akira, he is just so influential.

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Goku, anyone wearing orange in general, even if they're like the orange with

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the blue combo Even people who don't know or who can't read Japanese.

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They're just so recognizable.

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It's like showing someone a picture of spider man or the Hulk or

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showing someone a picture of Batman and being like Oh, who is this?

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They're like, oh, I know who that is.

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That's you know, Batman Superman Spider man, right?

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Showing someone a picture of Superman.

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It's the same way.

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What is the always the biggest debate in all of fiction?

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It's out of action fiction.

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It's oh who's super strong Superman or Goku, right?

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There have been That like that into itself is like a genre of YouTube videos, right?

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The entire genre is based off of these two characters fighting

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and and unlike a lot of Western culture Heroes Goku working out.

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You never seen Superman benching.

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Oh, sorry.

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I can't work I can't go to I gotta work out to defeat this enemy.

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You don't see him doing that You should be in Superman Batman works out but like he

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does it like In the background, you never really see, there's never really scenes

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of seeing them training like that, right?

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Until more recently.

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Yeah, and I think that I think honestly, as far as even the rest of anime

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goes and the rest of fiction, the one moment that Akira made that every

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other fiction writer is chasing is Goku going Super Saiyan for the first time.

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Yeah.

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There's just isn't any feeling like it.

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There's just no emotion like it.

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I remember seeing it for the first time We were just like

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and you're like, what is this?

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What is going on?

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And the crazy part is he only did that because they He needed to use less

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black ink Apparently is that the reason?

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Yeah, he needed to use less black ink.

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And you know It's black and white when it's in manga go his hair is black, right?

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They need to use less black ink So he's okay this character design You I'm

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going to just, in the original manga, his hair is white, but they make it

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golden, the yellowness in the anime.

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Yeah, that's crazy.

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Also I was looking at some of Toriyama's early stuff, and he

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did not have immediate success.

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So he was basically saying that he faced rejection from publishers before

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finding his breakthrough with Dr.

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Slump, which debuted in 1980.

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Just like everybody else, he faced his fair share of people not believing in him.

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People not, people, it's almost I remember somebody telling

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me Don't wait for permission.

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Be undeniable.

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And something that's really great about Akira is, like I said Dragon

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Ball is his most famous thing.

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He did things outside of it.

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And there are Certain aspects of Akira that's quite interesting.

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Like for example, he didn't like Vegeta, you know He created that

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character and Vegeta's some people's favorite characters like Vegeta.

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Yeah, like when you think of the Dragon Ball duo All right,

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you're like, oh my gosh.

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This is you can't no one can meet Goku, right?

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That's oh, can this person be Goku?

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Okay But then he's there's Goku and Vegeta.

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All right.

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Whoever they're going against loses.

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That's the end of the story.

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What's also crazy is the height of these characters.

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Vegeta's 5'2 Yeah, I think so.

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Vegeta's 5'2 and I think Goku's like 5'10 Something like that.

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He's like 5'10 5'8 Aren't you 5'10 how come you haven't gone

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Super Saiyan yet, Nicholas?

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Apparently my white powers, haven't reached their zenith yet.

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You haven't kicked in, huh?

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But also, the crazy part about, do you think that Toyama I guess what I'm saying

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is Toyama, even though he's reached literally God status, Super Saiyan God.

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Especially among writers.

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Super Saiyan God status, right?

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He Lives a relatively modest lifestyle.

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He doesn't live crazy.

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I think that's part of the Japanese culture I was just about

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to ask you do you think that is?

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Do you think that is tributed to Akira?

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Or do you think that's attributed to his Japanese culture?

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I'm pretty sure it's to the culture, but I'm not Japanese enough to answer that.

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I personally think that But I'm pretty sure it's just

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really more about the culture.

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I mean you look at Japan's come out with some, It's not a secret

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that Japan has come out with a lot of media that Americans enjoy.

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Oh yeah.

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It's not a secret.

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And yet a lot of them don't live the lavish diet lifestyles you see

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a lot of American creators make.

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So I think it's just more of a cultural thing.

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Although, to be fair, it is possible that it is also their

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status is treated differently.

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Japan's, obviously they're a much smaller country than we are.

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They're a group of islands.

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And, Japan, I believe is Relatively the size of one of our states depending on

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which state you're talking about and one of our smaller states like I don't know.

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And then because he's so revered and he's so famous.

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He's just He can't go anywhere Yeah, especially in japan.

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I bet you it's really hard to I think he's like the michael jackson

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He lives in a rural area of japan, right probably Very modest out

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of necessity chillin it's crazy.

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This is, and this is one of the things that really cemented like his legacy.

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Okay, so Stan Lee passed away, right?

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Who came after Stan Lee?

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Do you know?

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No.

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That's because there is no one.

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Stan Lee, in America, you create something great, And corporations steal it from

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you to make more money off you, and then you as a creative, they shove you

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into the back until you perish, and then they don't really care about you.

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It's not a secret that Stan Lee probably might have still even been alive if there

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wasn't so much elder abuse to Stan Lee.

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This is Stan Lee!

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Elder abuse with Stan Lee?

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Yeah, this, do you know that?

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No.

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Yeah, there was a bunch of elder abuse to Stan Lee.

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It's part of the reason why his, possibly why his wife passed away, too.

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A lot.

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Really?

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Yeah.

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I didn't know that.

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Yes, but that's a conversation for another time.

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But yeah, it's a whole bunch of elder abuse.

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In fact, it went to court.

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It was that serious.

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Really?

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Yes.

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That's what we, that's what Americans do to creatives who change the

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face of human history for forever.

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Like Stan Lee.

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Stan Lee is like a modern William Shakespeare, basically.

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Say, people talk about oh.

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People talk about great writers who've changed the face of human history,

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culture, Lord of the Rings or Tolkien.

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Lord of the Rings is awesome.

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I love Lord of the Rings.

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I also love Star Wars.

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George Lucas.

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Neither of them are even close to Stan Lee's power.

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Not even close.

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Not even close.

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I love, the people can like those franchises more than they can like Marvel.

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Because a lot of people do.

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Oh, I just like Lord of the Rings better than I like Marvel.

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Or I like some people say, oh, I like Star Wars more than I like Marvel.

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But in terms of cultural impact.

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In terms of world, global, human history impact.

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It just doesn't, it's not even a candle.

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That's a candle to it.

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So here and that's what Americans do to writers who are like that.

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For Akira Toriyama, right?

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I do believe that probably he didn't receive as much money or I think it's

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more of a respect thing over there, right?

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They just respect the creators, but they don't pay them as much as they would

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have been paid if they were Americans me personally and that also could have

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attributed to their more modest lifestyle.

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That The culture there is very much Skewed and or not skewed

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but it's very much revered.

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The elders are very much respected And no matter the age like elder, respecting your

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elders is not just about older people.

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It's just like respecting the person above you.

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So Stan Lee, we already said how big he is, right?

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That guy has no successor.

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That's why I said, do you know who his successor is?

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He doesn't have one.

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No, because he was shoved off to the side and then Disney stole and everything.

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Toriyama does have a successor.

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That's how powerful this man's writing was.

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To the part where the corporation came back to him and was like,

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okay, dude if you're going to stop, you have to choose a successor.

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Who's going to take the keys to the kingdom?

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That's crazy.

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Where they, he has to choose a successor to pass on his legacy.

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And the business people ask him for him to do that.

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That would never happen in America.

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No.

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Ever.

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They would just they would just love to steal what you

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have and then tell you to die.

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Basically.

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Basically.

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Yeah.

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That's what an American corporation would love to do.

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Yeah.

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But this man is treated with so much respect.

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It's also it's also a fact, not an opinion, but a fact that when new

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Dragon Ball Z and when new Dragon Ball Super episodes premiere, that there is

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actually a drop, now we're Americans, we live here in Los Angeles, but there's

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actually a drop in cartel activity.

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Yes.

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Yeah, that's a fact.

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I saw on Instagram today there was just an absolute mass of cartel people.

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Giving respects.

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Giving respects.

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And they're not Japanese.

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To Akira Toriyama.

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Yeah.

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In terms of Dragon Ball Z.

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And this wasn't in Japan.

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This was in Japan.

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And Mexico.

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Yeah, and Mexico.

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And yeah, Mexico and South, and the South part of the United States.

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But, also, I don't, I hate to do this, but, who do you think

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came up with better villains?

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Who do you mean, who?

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Stan Lee or Akira Toriyama.

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That's not really a fair question, just because Akira Toriyama,

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he's really known for one thing.

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series and when that series took off he focused on that series so he had to

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come up with villains for that series you know so he didn't really have he

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couldn't come up as many diverse villains as stan lee could have that's a fair

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enough question you know so stan lee you have wolverine you have spider man you

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have the hulk right these are not to be fair jack kirby came up with the webbing

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kind of thing but These characters are so wildly different into themselves

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when you create villains for them.

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Their other villains are just going to be more diverse and more different,

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giving you more opportunities to make more diverse villains.

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To go more in depth.

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So it's not really a fair question.

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I will say though, that when it comes to Because, with comics,

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you write a whole bunch of stuff.

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If they, comics go wide.

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Manga really goes deep where they double down on one of them instead of just

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carrying a whole bunch of stuff, right?

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there's not a lot of especially in before a lot of the corporations

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like Apple and Disney got into Marvel and DC and Sony and stuff like that.

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There's a whole bunch of comic crossovers.

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You would see, Wonder Woman versus Storm, right?

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You would see the Hulk versus Superman, right?

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so Americans love doing crossovers with franchises.

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It's not as popular in Japan.

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No.

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Who knows, I don't think it's a fair question.

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However, I will say that, when it comes to, did he create some great villains?

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Yeah.

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Yeah, Frieza.

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Vegeta's, Frieza's Frieza, I like the earlier Frieza better than I do Frieza.

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Yes, I, earlier Frieza was, you're just sitting there as a kid and you're

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just like, This dude is so cool.

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Also And he was like, and even though he was like, gender

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questionable, no one cared.

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I was No one even said anything about it.

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There was no like, parents in the street like, oh, he's played by a

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male voice actor in the Japanese.

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And the Japanese audio, but in the American English audio played by a woman.

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But, again, it's an alien, so we don't even know if you could have the male

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or female debate in the first place.

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But, regardless of which, you have, I think Vidfreeze is great, but Vegeta

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is one of the best lances, I would say.

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Lance as in the archetypes of writing.

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You have the hero, a lance, you have the muscle.

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We have the brains then you have the hearts of the group and

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together they make Captain Planet.

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But or the five Power Rangers.

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Most D& Ds are like this.

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D& D campaigns are like that.

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Who was your favorite villain?

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From Dragon Ball Z.

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I think Broly is my favorite villain.

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Broly is your favorite villain?

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So Vegeta, like he's really I'm a Vegeta fan mainly because like

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he, his motivation is crazy.

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Like he just wants to be the best, this guy who always beats him.

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It's been like 20 years.

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He shouldn't give up, but he doesn't because that's that

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type of person that he is.

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He grows and evolves and becomes a better person, but he's still a jerk, right?

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What I like about Broly.

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The old Broly and then the newer Broly is more like he's like crazy, right?

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What I liked about the older Broly, his reasoning for hating

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Kakarot is really stupid.

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What, he was crying as a baby?

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You were also a baby.

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What are you talking about?

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Like, how do you remember this?

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It doesn't make any sense.

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But what I did like about him is that how evil he was and

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how he was just whooping tail.

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This guy is 10 feet tall, With the frame of Shaquille O'Neal

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in dodging everyone's attacks.

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What do you mean he's dodging?

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This man is 8'8 600 pounds.

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He has the hitbox of a refrigerator, and people are missing.

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You know what I'm saying?

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And he's fast and all that.

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He's just so evil.

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You know what I'm saying?

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He's just oh, I'm just here to destroy stuff.

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I destroyed an entire galaxy, and now I'm here to destroy you.

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And he only, and he had to lose to plot armor.

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. That's how you know you're a great villain.

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They, you didn't lose legitimately, you lost a plot armor and then you came

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back after you died two more times.

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That's, you were so great that you were actually a just non-car,

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non cannon character that they had to then make Cannon later on.

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That's when we watched the Broley movie, which is just two and a half hours of

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him just whooping their tails, right?

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There are so many.

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And there are so many references to Dragon Ball Z in other forms of media, especially

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American media, and his influence would be felt throughout throughout time, really.

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I honestly, there are, people say oh, are there animes better than Dragon Ball Z?

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I think that there are some I have enjoyed more than them.

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But, if I would say that there's one that I'm more attached to personally,

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I think that there's one that I'm more attached to personally, No.

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I don't think there is one.

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I don't think there is because there's, I don't think if you're in the age

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range of late Emily, it can't be.

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Now, if you're in the late age range, if you're in the age range of late twenties

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to early thirties, there was no better feeling than coming home from school

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and watching Toonami, getting something to drink, eating some Hot Pockets or

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pizza rolls or something like that.

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And then watching and then watching Spike.

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Cuz he's the guy that voices the Toonami guy.

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It's also part of the reason why welcome back, everybody!

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And then, brr!

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Excuse my horrible impression.

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I thought it was great, actually.

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I thought it was pretty, pretty bad on.

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I think that part of that reason is the longevity of it.

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It's still going on.

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Like kids, with American stories, they usually have an ending.

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Unless there's like a Spider Man comic, you know what I'm saying?

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They have arcs, right?

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But And a lot of mangas end too.

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You know what I'm saying?

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A lot of mangas, a lot of French, a lot of stories in general have endings.

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The creator of One Piece says it's going to end in 2025.

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Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it.

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One, it's been like One Piece and Dragon Ball, longevity wise, for a while.

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Our entire lives As of this recording everything that I know And could

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possibly process in my brain in my understanding of time itself Has not

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existed longer than these franchises and all the people making them also

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when it comes to terms with making money They're going to keep it going.

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Oh yeah.

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If it's American, if it's American, whatever it is, they take a dead

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horse, make it a zombie and keep it pushing and keep it pushing.

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Now I'm not sure how they, if they would do that in Japan.

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I think there's more, I think more reverence for the material.

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I don't know about that much because Japan, Korea business is still business.

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That's what I'm saying.

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There are some money let's not act there haven't been a whole bunch of allegations

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about the way they treat their animators yeah, and then also they also treat some

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of their other mangaka's That just proves the power of Dragon Ball Z that he's

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oh, you're not gonna treat me like that I don't care what other people do it.

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I'm a curatorial Do you think so?

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We've talked about this before we've talked about the creator of bleach, right?

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And how he doesn't want to do Bleach anymore.

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He wants to start something different.

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Okay?

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And the only reason why he really started doing Bleach again was because

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nobody wanted to see anything else.

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Nobody was going to allow him to do anything else.

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Yeah, they didn't want to back it.

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A lot of creators do that.

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When you're a creative person, you don't want to just work on

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one project your whole life.

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That One Piece guy is working on a whole bunch of other stuff.

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There's a ton Dragon Quest, the art, Akira Toriyama did that, if you look

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at Dragon, the art for Dragon Quest.

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It's Dragon Ball Z.

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I honestly, when I first saw the video game, Dragon Quest, I was

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like, Is this a Dragon Ball Z video game that's called Dragon Quest?

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That's crazy.

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And then my friend was like, No, that's not Dragon Ball Z at all.

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It's, yeah, it's by Akira, but it's called it's called Dragon Quest.

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And I was like, Oh.

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It looks so much like Dragon Ball that I was like, I just, the style is so iconic.

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You know what I'm saying?

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So did he work on, did he work on a lot of other animes?

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Or was it mostly?

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Yeah, he was done a whole bunch of stuff.

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That, but he's just Dragon Ball Z is the most popular, right?

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So just like the creative Naruto is trying to make a a manga

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about Samurais instead of ninjas.

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Not trying to, he did, but it's not as popular, right?

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You have this person whose legacy is Dragon Ball Z, and also, it's

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a legacy that he doesn't hate.

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You see a lot of creatives because they have a whole bunch

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of ideas, people only like one.

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I understand the sentiment.

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And You guys should hear Rock Gorilla.

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It is DJ's best work.

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He's never even read that script.

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He's never even read that script.

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He's just making this joke because of a couple things.

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Whatever.

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I'm about to get into Rock Gorilla.

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But, it's, he's most known for that.

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And he has it's interesting because it says he doesn't like certain

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characters but then he kept writing them because other people liked them.

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Now, one question I would ask you is, why do you think Akira Toriyama,

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out of the many people who create things, and it becomes wildly popular,

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none more popular than Dragon Ball Z, why do you think it is that he

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never ended up hating his creation?

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In your estimation.

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I personally, once again, I do not know this, obviously

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I don't know him personally.

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I, th

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I will say that he probably, he just, he just, just genuine love for it.

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There are some things that you create that you're just like, I don't

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really matter it's like having a kid.

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I don't care what any parent says, if you have more than

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one kid, you have a favorite.

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Of course.

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We, me and Nicholas both have siblings, all right?

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We know which parents like us versus the other ones.

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That's just how it is.

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They, every parent has a favorite.

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Every, any parent who says they don't, they're lying to you.

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If one of your parents said that to you, I'm sorry that they lied to you.

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If they might not tell you, right?

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I think what would, I think what would be a more honest representation

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of that is that they love them both the same, but they like one better.

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So in this case, it's like the one that you like ends up being

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the one everyone else also likes.

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You're like of course.

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Damn that's kid number two.

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I like that guy.

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Out of the five of them, everyone likes this one, and so do I.

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Out of the vast difference between Akira Toriyama and the creator of

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Bleach, because the fact is, I don't know who the creator of Bleach is, but

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I know who Akira Toriyama is, right?

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You know what's, that's another thing that's crazy.

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A lot of people don't know the creators of other animes and mangas, but

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everyone knows who Akira Toriyama is.

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So why do you think, in your estimation, Why was Akira, other than the obvious,

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why do you think he was allowed to work on other animes and the creator wasn't?

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Also, it's it's Kubo.

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Kubo is the creator of Bleach.

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But I don't know if he, I don't know the extent in which he

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worked on other animes, man.

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I have no idea.

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It's not like he worked on a, I personally, not an Akira expert.

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I don't know.

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Why do you think?

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One of the reasons why I think is because while Bleach is iconic, it

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just doesn't touch Dragon Ball Z.

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There's some, I'll tell you what it is right now.

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It's very hard for some people to discern.

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And me personally, I'm only really able to tell when a

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project has the juice, I call it.

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I think from working in development.

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There's a lot of people who, like working in development.

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It's your job to know that something's going to pop off

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versus something else, right?

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A lot of people don't work in development and a lot of people can't really it's a

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hard job to be good at It's one of those jobs where you can do what you don't

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I'll tell you what it uses right now The long part of the part of it is the story

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engine Of the franchise itself goku the story of dragon ball Is really like I

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don't know Find the seven Dragon Balls.

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Then Dragon Ball Z comes around and it's about defend the earth against Aliens.

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Okay.

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Against various aliens and various monsters, okay?

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Bleach, it's the same thing Except it's oh all the monsters actually come from

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or just ghosts So defend it against ghosts, but not just like random ghosts.

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They're like more specific, right?

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Dragon Ball Z and Bleach you can't just have Some ghosts come from Mars, come

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down from the sky, and be like, Hey, I'm a Martian, hollow, and we gotta fight.

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Doesn't make any sense, right?

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It doesn't really work.

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But what you can do is have, in Dragon Ball, be like, Hey, it's the reanimated

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corpse of Gohan, his grandfather.

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They gotta fight now.

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That makes sense.

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There's just way more to do there.

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And when there's way more to do, there's way more to write about.

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It just has the juice, hey man.

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R.

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I.

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P.

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Akira Toriyama.

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R.

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I.

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P.

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Akira Toriyama.

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Yeah.

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I'm Derrick Johnson II.

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I'm Nicholas Killian.

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And we'll see you next time.

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See ya.

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This has been Film Center on Comic Con Radio.

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Check out our previous episodes at comicconradio.

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com.

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You can follow the show at Film Center News on all major social media platforms.

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Tune in next Wednesday for a fresh update.

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Until next time, this has been Film Center.

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