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March 2023, and my first memory of watching DBZ
3 years ago
General
Another month and we're still here, and I'm writing another rambling journal entry. I thought I'd try something a little different though, and add something fun as well to this; plus I told this story to a couple of my coworkers and one of them said I should share it online somewhere, and I realized I could here. I won't guarantee I'll do this every month; this may end up being the only time, but I figured I'd try it. So after I do my usual monthly recap and explaining where I expect next month to go, I'll include at the bottom my story of the first time I ever watched Dragon Ball Z...
Alright, so how did this last month go for me? Though I didn't get the three stories I was kind of hoping for done, I did still upload two, as I expected. First was the Fifth Old Wager, which has done fairly well; I'm glad that people are continuing to enjoy the series, and it makes me more eager to finish it. Having already planned ahead a fair deal, I am starting to think that an epilogue for the Old Wager series may actually be likely after all. After that was Healing For A Master part two, making its unexpectedly early debut since it was not originally slated to be the next requested story in line. It hasn't done as well as the Fifth Old Wager has, but it's done alright... In fact, at the time of this writing, it has more views and more favorites than part one does; the favorites I can understand, if someone enjoyed the second part but didn't particularly enjoy the first part, then so be it, but I'm a bit confused about the view count being higher. It makes me wonder how that happened.
Anyway, as for how I expect this next month to go, it's a little hard to say but my personal guess is I'll have two stories done and be in the process of a third by the end of the month. This current week is a busy one for me, work wise, but I don't know if it's going to continue to be like that for the rest of the month, or if I'll be getting short hour weeks at work like I was last month. Of course, I noticed that even with less work, my writing output didn't really speed up that much; I have had more distractions of other forms going on lately, but I do still feel a bit disappointed in myself. Even more so from the fact that I'm not currently sure what I could do to speed back up again.
...
Okay, so my story of the first time I ever watched Dragon Ball Z. First, some context, I don't remember exactly what age I was, but I'm pretty sure I was at least 7, and no older than 10; which would put this in the late 1990s to early 2000s. I knew Dragon Ball Z existed; I'd heard the name being passed around, seen commercials for tie in toy lines and stuff, but I'd never actually had the chance to watch the show myself. I didn't even really know anything about what it was about; I just knew that everybody who ever mentioned it said it was really good. I was over at this birthday party of a boy I didn't really know that well, but we went to the same church and I ended up on the invite list somehow. We're doing normal birthday party stuff as a bunch of boys, then he says something like, "oh guys, I've got to show you this thing; it's the coolest ever!" He took us to what I think was his parents' bedroom; I remember there being a big bed, which we sat along the end of, and in front of the bed was a waist-high dresser against the wall with a large television on it. On which, he starts to play some Dragon Ball Z thing. I do not know if it was the show or one of the movies or what; I just know that he goes to the climactic scene at the end or something, and this is the way I remember it going down:
It's this scene of some area out in the middle of nowhere with some flat top plateaus as the only things around. Two guys are facing off against each other, though I didn't even realize at first that it was two different guys. See, the way I absorbed stuff back when I was little, especially animated things, meant that only certain aspects of characters stuck out to me as things to identify them with, in this case their hair and skin tone. The problem being that these two characters, who I would find out years later were Goku and Vegeta, have skin tones and hair so similar that to young me at the time, they might as well have been identical; I could not tell them apart whatsoever. One of the two (I still could not tell you which) goes into a monologue moment, maybe internal maybe out loud, and goes like this. "Ugh, he's too powerful. I'm going to have to take it to the NEXT... POWER LEVEL!" That was something that stuck out to me, the way they said it; they didn't just say, 'next power level' like any normal person, but instead got louder and had more emphasis as they said 'next', then paused for like an entire second, before yelling 'power level' with even more emphasis. Then, he starts going all, "HaaaAAAH!" and powering up, for what I'm pretty sure was at least thirty seconds, before firing off some kind of energy beam attack at the second guy. As far as I could tell, the second guy just stood there the entire time the first guy was charging up, and didn't do anything to try to avoid or protect himself from the attack, and just takes it right on the chin.
So the second guy gets knocked to the ground, looking kind of beat up, then starts getting up. Then he starts having a monologue moment, where he goes, "ugh, he's too powerful. I'm going to have to take it to the NEXT... POWER LEVEL!" Yes, I remember him saying pretty much the exact same thing, in the exact same way. Then of course he starts charging up, for like a bit longer than the first guy did, then fires a somewhat larger energy attack at the first guy. Who, as far as I could tell, just stood there the entire time and didn't do anything to try to avoid or protect himself from the attack, and just takes it right on the chin... And I remember it just going back and forth like that, slightly escalating the amount of charging up and the size of the energy attack, with the same exact monologue line happening, like five or six times, for at least thirty minutes!
And again, I have zero context of this while I'm watching it. I don't know who these characters are, why they're fighting, what the stakes are, who's good, who's bad, and who I should be rooting for. As a young boy I was easily amused by gratuitous and pointless action; I could amuse myself for hours on end wiping out enemies in video games in the exact same fashion over and over again. Yet even so, by the time we got to the end of it, I was so bored! The first time the first guy charged up and fired an energy attack, I was kind of intrigued in a like, 'oh that's neat I suppose' way, but once it started repeating the thought going through my head was, 'wait, they're really just doing the same thing over and over? Is this all this show is? Why does everybody think this is so good?' So for a long time afterward, that's what my impression of Dragon Ball Z was, and anytime anyone would talk about it I'd be thinking, 'the stupid power level show?' It took over a decade and a half for me to finally learn that the show actually had a plot and wasn't just that all the time.
I should also emphasize, that's just the way I remember it going down. I don't know if maybe I took a hit to the head that messed up my memory of it, or if I dreamed part of it later, or maybe the kid showing it was rewinding and replaying part of it and I didn't realize it at the time. When I first retold it to some friends who had actually watched all of Dragon Ball Z, they informed me that there wasn't any official material that went exactly how I described it. Still, that's the way I remember it, and I remember being bored at the time but in retrospect I find the memory incredibly hilarious, and I love retelling it. XD
To this day, I still haven't actually watched Dragon Ball Z. I did watch the Abridged version by Team Four Star on YouTube though, which I really enjoyed.
Alright, if you read through that entire thing, then thank you, and I hope you have a good March. Even if you didn't read it, I still wish you a good March anyway. =)
Alright, so how did this last month go for me? Though I didn't get the three stories I was kind of hoping for done, I did still upload two, as I expected. First was the Fifth Old Wager, which has done fairly well; I'm glad that people are continuing to enjoy the series, and it makes me more eager to finish it. Having already planned ahead a fair deal, I am starting to think that an epilogue for the Old Wager series may actually be likely after all. After that was Healing For A Master part two, making its unexpectedly early debut since it was not originally slated to be the next requested story in line. It hasn't done as well as the Fifth Old Wager has, but it's done alright... In fact, at the time of this writing, it has more views and more favorites than part one does; the favorites I can understand, if someone enjoyed the second part but didn't particularly enjoy the first part, then so be it, but I'm a bit confused about the view count being higher. It makes me wonder how that happened.
Anyway, as for how I expect this next month to go, it's a little hard to say but my personal guess is I'll have two stories done and be in the process of a third by the end of the month. This current week is a busy one for me, work wise, but I don't know if it's going to continue to be like that for the rest of the month, or if I'll be getting short hour weeks at work like I was last month. Of course, I noticed that even with less work, my writing output didn't really speed up that much; I have had more distractions of other forms going on lately, but I do still feel a bit disappointed in myself. Even more so from the fact that I'm not currently sure what I could do to speed back up again.
...
Okay, so my story of the first time I ever watched Dragon Ball Z. First, some context, I don't remember exactly what age I was, but I'm pretty sure I was at least 7, and no older than 10; which would put this in the late 1990s to early 2000s. I knew Dragon Ball Z existed; I'd heard the name being passed around, seen commercials for tie in toy lines and stuff, but I'd never actually had the chance to watch the show myself. I didn't even really know anything about what it was about; I just knew that everybody who ever mentioned it said it was really good. I was over at this birthday party of a boy I didn't really know that well, but we went to the same church and I ended up on the invite list somehow. We're doing normal birthday party stuff as a bunch of boys, then he says something like, "oh guys, I've got to show you this thing; it's the coolest ever!" He took us to what I think was his parents' bedroom; I remember there being a big bed, which we sat along the end of, and in front of the bed was a waist-high dresser against the wall with a large television on it. On which, he starts to play some Dragon Ball Z thing. I do not know if it was the show or one of the movies or what; I just know that he goes to the climactic scene at the end or something, and this is the way I remember it going down:
It's this scene of some area out in the middle of nowhere with some flat top plateaus as the only things around. Two guys are facing off against each other, though I didn't even realize at first that it was two different guys. See, the way I absorbed stuff back when I was little, especially animated things, meant that only certain aspects of characters stuck out to me as things to identify them with, in this case their hair and skin tone. The problem being that these two characters, who I would find out years later were Goku and Vegeta, have skin tones and hair so similar that to young me at the time, they might as well have been identical; I could not tell them apart whatsoever. One of the two (I still could not tell you which) goes into a monologue moment, maybe internal maybe out loud, and goes like this. "Ugh, he's too powerful. I'm going to have to take it to the NEXT... POWER LEVEL!" That was something that stuck out to me, the way they said it; they didn't just say, 'next power level' like any normal person, but instead got louder and had more emphasis as they said 'next', then paused for like an entire second, before yelling 'power level' with even more emphasis. Then, he starts going all, "HaaaAAAH!" and powering up, for what I'm pretty sure was at least thirty seconds, before firing off some kind of energy beam attack at the second guy. As far as I could tell, the second guy just stood there the entire time the first guy was charging up, and didn't do anything to try to avoid or protect himself from the attack, and just takes it right on the chin.
So the second guy gets knocked to the ground, looking kind of beat up, then starts getting up. Then he starts having a monologue moment, where he goes, "ugh, he's too powerful. I'm going to have to take it to the NEXT... POWER LEVEL!" Yes, I remember him saying pretty much the exact same thing, in the exact same way. Then of course he starts charging up, for like a bit longer than the first guy did, then fires a somewhat larger energy attack at the first guy. Who, as far as I could tell, just stood there the entire time and didn't do anything to try to avoid or protect himself from the attack, and just takes it right on the chin... And I remember it just going back and forth like that, slightly escalating the amount of charging up and the size of the energy attack, with the same exact monologue line happening, like five or six times, for at least thirty minutes!
And again, I have zero context of this while I'm watching it. I don't know who these characters are, why they're fighting, what the stakes are, who's good, who's bad, and who I should be rooting for. As a young boy I was easily amused by gratuitous and pointless action; I could amuse myself for hours on end wiping out enemies in video games in the exact same fashion over and over again. Yet even so, by the time we got to the end of it, I was so bored! The first time the first guy charged up and fired an energy attack, I was kind of intrigued in a like, 'oh that's neat I suppose' way, but once it started repeating the thought going through my head was, 'wait, they're really just doing the same thing over and over? Is this all this show is? Why does everybody think this is so good?' So for a long time afterward, that's what my impression of Dragon Ball Z was, and anytime anyone would talk about it I'd be thinking, 'the stupid power level show?' It took over a decade and a half for me to finally learn that the show actually had a plot and wasn't just that all the time.
I should also emphasize, that's just the way I remember it going down. I don't know if maybe I took a hit to the head that messed up my memory of it, or if I dreamed part of it later, or maybe the kid showing it was rewinding and replaying part of it and I didn't realize it at the time. When I first retold it to some friends who had actually watched all of Dragon Ball Z, they informed me that there wasn't any official material that went exactly how I described it. Still, that's the way I remember it, and I remember being bored at the time but in retrospect I find the memory incredibly hilarious, and I love retelling it. XD
To this day, I still haven't actually watched Dragon Ball Z. I did watch the Abridged version by Team Four Star on YouTube though, which I really enjoyed.
Alright, if you read through that entire thing, then thank you, and I hope you have a good March. Even if you didn't read it, I still wish you a good March anyway. =)
