Top Gun

Oh shit, he was Dan Turpin in the Superman animated series.

But here's the thing though: every time DBZ tries to create serious dramatic stakes, it falls flat on its face, because it's literally impossible to do so inside the Dragon Ball universe. Like, the whole franchise is literally titled after one of the most powerful deus ex machina in all of fiction. None of the characters ever feel like they're in legitimate danger, because even if they did die, someone will just hit the magic reset button again. When everyone starts to run up against the limits of the original Dragon Balls, poof, here come the more powerful Namekian variety to remove that in turn. In the Kai episode that just aired when Vegeta sacrifices himself attempting to kill Buu, it was admittedly a bit interesting seeing him act out-of-character, but I was just laughing at everyone (even the narrator!) acting all shocked, because it's like none of them remember the fact that they can magic him back at any time they want. Even the 12-year-old target audience would have figured things out by that point. Hell, even when the characters are actually dead for an extended period, we see them palling around in the afterlife with King Kai, so there's absolutely no sense of loss there. Goku chose to stay dead for 7 years just for the hell of it because he knew he could get called back into action any time he chose to. An object like the Dragon Balls works just fine in the early lighthearted portion of the franchise, when characters were making wishes for panties of all things, but the moment DBZ started trying to push these near-apocalyptic situations on the story, it just didn't work. And yes I'm well-aware that almost no shounen series out there ever kills off its main cast members, but most of them are still able to maintain a decent amount of dramatic tension during dangerous situations, because it's clear that someone could possibly die. Then when a significant character does actually get killed off for good, the rarity of it winds up making it all the more impactful. Tell me, when you step back for a bit, is there even a single instance of a character death in DBZ that winds up leaving any sort of lasting impact, at least if you're old enough to understand the series' underlying mechanisms? I can't think of any myself. Honestly, one of Super's highest points in my book is that it isn't afraid to poke fun at itself and hang a lampshade on some of the franchise's more absurd trends.

I guess I'm the only that thinks that Super's quality (or lack thereof) is pretty commensurate with the original DBZ as a whole. I mean the Final Chapters section of Kai has largely been flat-out dire.

Who's picking a fight? If I'm dead wrong about something, and someone who knows what they're talking about corrects me, you can bet I'm going to listen to them. It just boggles my mind that you won't do the same. And being ignorant of things like this is why FXX shows some shitty zoomed-in version of classic Simpsons episodes instead of showing them in their proper original aspect ratio. It's like those terrible "fullscreen" versions of movies in the early days of DVD.

I was amazed that the ambient light was noticeably dimmer even at 75% of totality. It felt like the level of light you'd normally see around 7PM or so.

Fine, don't listen to people who actually know what the hell they're talking about and continue to sound completely ignorant.

It's. Not. SD. Did you not read anything Naraku wrote?

Or you could not be a cheap fuck, crazy idea there.

No, air the content as it was originally created and don't arbitrarily cut shit out of the scene. It still blows my mind that literally everyone over the age of 20 grew up in a world of 4:3 aspect-ratio TV, and yet get completely butthurt when they see things properly presented like that.

2017 still has a few months left, we can totally make that happen!

How do people still not understand aspect ratios in the year 2017

Sneaking? It's an [as] event, they'll probably have 20 booths giving it out.

Yeah, ours looked pretty similar. Kind of a cool yellow-ish cast on everything after the storms rolled through.

No, he passed away.

If the alternative is being a living breathing episode of Maury, I think I'm doing just fine for myself.

I'm immensely entertained by you of all people attempting to comment on healthy interpersonal relationships.

You had to stop, and that's what's bothering you?

What a deal!

Never even dated, so nope.

I used to play baseball around that age, and it's cool watching kids who could play it way better than I ever could then. Plus it's nice watching people legit having fun with the game and not being overpaid prima donnas.

Neither. Though cats shit in a far more convenient manner, so they have that going for them.

Grab some Dogfish Head.

naraku and I were talking about it in who knows what other thread, but the consensus is generally that the 1999 adaptation handles the first part of the series, especially the Hunter exam, better than the 2011 version. It's sort of like FMA vs. Brotherhood in that the former spends more time covering the same material and is able to pace it better and flesh it out more. In particular there was a great little mini-arc between two of the Exam stages that was technically filler but fit in really well and let you spend more time with a lot of the other candidates. There was also a crucial little piece of backstory and Gon character development right at the beginning of the series that the 2011 series skips over in favor of chucking it in as a flashback somewhere down the line. The 1999 version probably does the Zoldycks and Heaven's Arena better as well, but I'd call Yorknew City much more of a toss-up, since I really enjoyed how the 2011 version handled it too. As far as structure goes, the 1999 series concluded Yorknew via OVA (it was literally just the last 8 episodes of the arc), then covered Greed Island via a couple more OVAs, and that's where it left off. Greed Island is the only part of the 1999 series I never saw, so I can't speak personally as to how good it was.

Luuv sent me a link to this place in the last days of the NodeBB disaster, and I remember being really happy that he was opening up his pet project to this group of people that [as] no longer gave a shit about. I didn't always agree with his moderation philosophy, and there were probably a few times I was a snarky asshole to him for no good reason, but God, it was crystal-clear how much he had invested in this community. He put up with our shit for almost 15 years, and yet he never stopped trying to make this a fun and engaging place to log in and hang out every day. More than anything else, that's what I'll remember about him. Thank you so much for everything you did for us. We'll text-flood the hell out of this place in your memory.

I feel like I was temped...once maybe? Or maybe not even. If I was it was banal enough that I don't even remember it. I do fondly remember getting warned for spamming the hell out of the reviews folder with a few other people the night [as] fucked up and skipped an episode of a show rerun.