Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! OVA Review

Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! is the second Dragon Ball Z OVA and the latest Dragon Ball related animation in a decade (This OVA was released on September 21, 2008, a year before the release of Dragon Ball Kai).

Written by Akira Toriyama and screenplay by Takao Koyama, it talks about the events between Z and GT, a little battle happened two years after the Kid Buu Saga.

Goku’s family is living a quite life with Mr. Satan (or Hercule or what your dub likes to call him) supporting Goku’s family financially and them planting radishes (He, he). Videl invites Goku and co. to the grand opening of Mr. Satan’s Hotel, which was created to commemorate the defeat of Majin Buu in the hands of Mr. Satan. Because of food, Goku decides to go to the opening and on that day, a new enemy appears.

Vegeta’s younger brother, Tarble (probably a pun for table, you know, vegetable) and her cute wife Gure came to earth to ask Vegeta’s help to defeat Abo and Kado (another pun!) who followed them. These two are remnants of Frieza’s army and accordingly, as strong as Frieza. Will the Z Fighters defeat this new threat? That is for you to find out.

On to the review, this my friends, is what you call a good Dragon Ball OVA, a good Dragon Ball OVA. Why is it good? Because all the existing Z Fighters were given ample screen time, to highlight it, Trunks and Goten had most fights compared to the veteran Z Fighters. Plus, Yamcha’s Fist of the Wolf Fang is used by Gotenks along with Tienshinhan’s Volleyball Play! Even with the strong points, Goku as always, likes to hog the last scene. Oh well, this is Goku we are talking about!

One of the things that I loved about this film is the cameo appearance of most characters coming from the franchise starting from the not well-known characters such as Lunch (poor Lunch) and the well-known ones, like Goku and his family. My only disappointed is that even if Tienshinhan’s move appeared, he never actually made an appearance. At least the reason why he is MIA is reasonable.

In terms of plot, the plot is worth watching for hardcore DB fans. If you are just a regular anime viewer, you will find this plot as an average DB filler episode with or without Toriyama’s involvement. As for the new characters, Tarble, Gure, Abo and Kado, they feel too generic. Tarble is the generic younger brother who looks up to his older brother, Vegeta. To put is simply, he is Vegeta’s Mokuba. Gure doesn’t do a lot in this film while Abo and Kado… they are generic villains that were created for the sake of a certain video game to have a lot of fighters for its roster.

As for the older characters, most of them are the same less Vegeta. It seems that in this OVA, he “lightened up” a bit. How light? He likes having friendly matches with Goku (Whether sparring or in eating contest), he doesn’t act like a dick to much and most especially, he respect people! Seriously, he bowed when her sister-in-law bowed when she introduced herself!

Even if the new characters felt generic, the animation is something worth praising. Asides from the trademarked moves, the characters looked much cleaner in this OVA and the fights looked crisp in widescreen. Also, one of the things that is worth praising in terms of the animation is how they gave the Super Saiyan hair more glow! They gave the form a strong impact… that is also disappointing in some points because they retained the glow for long periods, making it a distraction in terms of viewing. Also, another thing that disappoints me with the animation is some inconsistencies with some character designs. In one scene, Yamcha has the turtle logo in his dogi and in another, he doesn’t have it! In addition, there are points in the film that the background went a little “cartoony.”

Aka, the fusion between Abo and Kado

As for the fights, considering that it was mentioned that the power level of Abo and Kado are at the same level with Frieza, it means and that Trunks and Goten are fighting them not in Super Saiyan form, it means that the two had a chance to defeat Frieza if they time travelled to the past! Put that aside, the fight is like an average DBZ fight, except that the animation for the fight is crispier. Unlike most fights we saw in DBZ which last for more than 2 episodes (add 1 or 2 more episodes if it involves a lot of talking), the fight lasted for only a few minutes.

Heck, the entire crew was just relaxed when they are seeing the fight! Seriously, they are just watching the fight like the two are just sparring some random guy! In addition, while watching it, they are eating sandwiches and drinking tea… with Oolong and Puar, both in maid outfits serving!

Overall, the OVA is fun to watch. If you are a long time Dragon Ball and you missed the show this much without watching DB Kai, this OVA is worth taking a good look. Asides from the revamped opening sequence (In which you can safely conclude that Cha La Head Cha La is the official Dragon Ball theme song) which will make you go nostalgic along with the show’s trademark fights, you will really love this OVA. The animation and the crisp artwork is just a bonus along with the cameos.

If you were a regular anime viewer, like I said earlier, you would find it as a filler DB episode that has more Trunks and Goten, less Goku and Vegeta and Abo and Kado are just forgettable villains, same goes with the roster of villains found in Dragon Ball GT. But hey, it is worth a look.

Taking 2012 a Notch Higher. Occult Academy Anime Review

Occult Academy is a thirteen-episode anime produced by A-1 Pictures (Fairy Tail) and Aniplex. This is the third series of the said producer’s Anime no Chikara project. Previous titles included in the series are So Ra No Wo To and Senkou no Night Raid. This title is another title that talks about the 2012 phenomenon, this time, a bumbling time agent was sent in the year 1999 to prevent the arrival of aliens in Waldstein Academy, also known as Occult Academy in promised day, July 21, 1999.

Maya Kumashiro has just returned to Japan and attends his funeral, her purpose for her return aside from attending his funeral is to destroy the Academy that he build from within by being the principal of the said Academy. After his father “accidentally” summons a poltergeist, he meets a naked man who came from above. I am serious.

After some quite unusual encounter with the guy, she was able to pick a weird phone that has a camera on it (It is the 90’s people), in which when she took a picture of herself, she saw an image of the skull. On the next day, we are introduced to the man himself; his name is Abe Minoru, their new history teacher. Maya, still bothered with the guy, we learn much more about him in which I will summarize in the next paragraph since when he was first introduced, he lied in some details.

His real name is Fumiaki Uchida, who is the famous psychic spoon bender in TV who is also known as Bunmei. In the future, aliens conquered Earth and the event that happened in Waldstein Academy is the cause of their arrival. Since we have aliens, there are people who are fighting against them. After picking some of their technology, they were able to create a device for time travel.

Our protagonist, ladies and gentlemen!

After the agent before him, #5 was killed by a Moth Man, the adult Fumiaki was forced to travel back in time to prevent the aliens in arriving Earth, aside from the data gathered by the agents before him. He receives a cellphone in which once you took a picture and think about something that will happen in 2012, it will show a result of its fate in 2012.

With that cellphone, they can find an item called, Nostradamus Key in which is the cause of the arrival of the aliens in Walstein Academy. After Maya learns that the cause of his father’s death is he looking for the key, she decides to aide Fumiaki in his quest for looking of the key.

On to the review, to be honest, I haven’t watched the other two titles of Anime no Chikara, so I will not compare it to the said project, but instead, I might throw in references on other supernatural anime titles.

For starters, from all the supernatural related anime titles that I have watched, this is the most realistic. By realistic, no weird looking monsters (Well, we have but not those Hollows!), or shamans, or shinigamis but pure classic occult stuff; namely, aliens, monsters coming from folk lore such as the Chupacabra, Moth Man and the like. Sure, they went a little magical at the finale but still, the pure occult stuff is the meat of this series… along with its time travel bit, which I will talk about later.

For the time traveling bit and the ability to see the future with a cellphone camera, was igneous. Sure, it is not the fun time traveling thing that we saw in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, but the serious aspect of it. The use of the cellphone camera as a device to see the future is something I never thought of seeing in this show. It was probably, one of the best bits of this series.

If you are a fan of shows that is something to do with time traveling, you might see the ending of the series coming but because of the strong occult stuff that is happening for weeks, you will be surprised on how it ended (Yes, I was surprised about the ending). This is one of the strong parts of the series, how they were able to divert the viewers in the occult stuff and less on the time traveling aspect.

Even with the show having quite a strong theme of “the world has ended in 2012 and some random hobo was thrown in a time machine to save the earth,” it never fails to deliver some comedy to freshen up the series. Aside from the occult, the time travel, one of this series’ strong points is its comedy. To be honest, the second episode was one of the episodes that I seriously laughed aside that it extended the “shadow penis” incident back in the first episode but they gave poor Bunmei quite a hard time doing his job as a time agent properly!

Even in the most serious episodes, they never fail to make us laugh! Here’s a sample: on the episode in which they saved Maya’s friend, Ami from a horde of Chubacabra, all the male characters make strong speeches of backing her up just for her to save Ami. After all of them say their lines, Maya replied that those people who say those lines are the ones who died in the movies!

Character designs are gorgeous but there is one thing that bothered me in the designs, the eye bags in Maya’s eyes. But hey, the animation is one of the best that I have seen in the previous anime season! A-1 Pictures did a great job in terms of animation.

Fumiaki was one of my favorite characters in this series. Aside that he was a hobo coming from the future that lost his psychic powers, possibly due to his mother being quite abusive in some point in his life; he is one of the characters that continues to make me life aside from JK and Kozue. Even he is quite a comedic protagonist, he has some serious moments in this show. Aside that in one episode he volunteers to save the real Kozue in the other side, we saw much of him being awesome in the last three episodes of the series, especially the finale. Seeing his actions in the finale was one of the strong points in this series.

Maya is quite a good character, aside that she hides the fact that she still loves occult even if she declared that she hates it, her knowledge in occult makes this series interesting. She is a character that you will easily love at the start of the series. She is a good contrast to Bunmei’s bumbling-ness (If such a word exist), that even if Bunmei is the time agent, it seems that Maya is more eager to do the job compared to him.

Overall, if you are quite sick of those pre-apocalyptic films that talks about the end of the world at the year 2012, it is one of those best titles to watch that is related to 2012 but it is not how the world will end, but how to prevent it to end.

Animation wise, it is good and, the plot will keep you asking for more. From all the series is that I watched in the previous Summer Anime season, this is probably, one of the best titles that I have watched, and it is hard to think of saying something bad about this series!

Seeing this title, I think I should give the other titles of Anime no Chikara project a try; I might try Senkou no Night Raid first since this is the only title that has nothing to do with music since my PC has no audio!

Special thanks to xxxholic_wing for the images coming from her blog!