July 18, 2023

[Four of] The Five Warriors (S2E13)

55 minutes

Is Dragon Ball in the Universal Monsters pantheon? Is this a crossover?

Jelli and Bekinney continue breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon by breaking down episodes 71, 72, and 73, "Deadl Battle," "Goku's Turn," and "The Devilmite Beam." We continue discussing the Fortune Teller Baba mini tournament and break down the identities of four of Baba's five champions.

In this episode:

Jelli and Bekinney arrive on a new planet

We recap the episodes and discuss our favorite moments

Fangs the Vampire's inspiration points, which are obviously Dracula and Vlad Tepes

How Fangs is a Muai Tai fighter and that is appropriate for his character

A discussion of how Japanese pop culture tends to utilize Western (specifically Christian) religious iconography when telling fictional tales

More Dracula discussion, as we did when we looked at Don Dracula

The Invisible Man and where his name came from, the prime time soap opera Water Door Earth Gate

The background of the song Baba sings to distract Yamcha during his fight with Sukesan

And discussion of the Invisible Man Universal films

Mummy Kun's obvious inspiration points front Boris Karloff's portrayal of Frankenstein and The Mummy

How Toriyama subverted expectations with his mummy by making him nimble

And discussion of mummies in movies, especially the Universal films of the 30s and 40s and the 1999 Brendan Fraser Mummy film which is called by your cohosts "perfect"

Devilman aka Akkuman and his name being derived from Akuma

Why Devilman's evil exploitation ray aka evil expansion beam does not work on Goku

If Goku is pure of heart or just dumb

And a discussion of Devilman, the anime series

We finish up with a discussion of how Toriyama subverts expectations by not using further Universal Monsters and ponder why we did not get a Gillman or possibly a Wolf Man.

and more, including some general pop culture, trivia, and editorializing, as usual

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise.

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By Final Forum Podcast

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