Born on April 5, 1955 in Kiyosu, Aichi, Akira Toriyama was your normal, everday child growing up, outside of his fondness for drawing, especially after seeing the 1961 Disney film 101 Dalmatians. Naturally, while in elementary school he was a fan of anime & manga, but once he moved on to middle school & beyond he actually stopped reading manga & watching anime, instead being more interested in live-action TV & film, especially tokusatsu productions like Ultraman & Gamera; this meant that he more or less missed out on experiencing the massive evolution manga was seeing throughout the late 60s & most of the 70s. While he would still draw his own manga while growing up, he eventually graduated & decided to enter the work force, despite his family wanting him to continue his education. Toriyama would work at an advertising agency for three years, designing posters, but eventually grew sick & tired of the job, especially things like the dress code & the need to come into work early in the morning, neither of which he was big on, as he preferred to dress more casually & wasn't a "morning person".
So, at age 23, Akira Toriyama decided to try his hand at submitting manga one-shots in an effort to make some money, and he found a consistent home over at Weekly Shonen Jump & its monthly Newcomer Award submissions. His initial one-shots didn't really find an audience, usually coming in near or dead last, but Toriyama's stubbornness made him want to keep trying, and he luckily had the encouragement of Kazuhiko Torishima, his editor at Jump. Eventually, it was decided that Toriyama should debut a proper serialization, which resulted in the 1980 gag manga Dr. Slump... and the rest is history. Akira Toriyama would become a household name in manga almost instantly after Dr. Slump's debut, and after he ended that he became an even bigger star with 1984's Dragon Ball, where he combined his love of comedy with action that was influenced by his fellow Jump mangaka at the time (he admitted to not reading manga again until he started submitting his own to Jump, so his contemporaries were his primary influences), creating one of the most influential, cherished, & beloved manga the world over. Following Dragon Ball's end in 1995 Akira Toriyama would only make the occasional short-run manga, content to mainly continue doing character design work for stuff like videos games (Dragon Quest, Tobal, Blue Dragon, etc.) & helping conceive of & produce later Dragon Ball content, to varying extents. Unfortunately, Akira Toriyama passed away on March 1, 2024 at the age of 68 of an acute subdermal hematoma, with information slowly coming out that Toriyama had been ill for the prior year, the long-term effect of how he took care of himself over the decades, by his own admission; for example, he was known to be a consistent smoker throughout his life.
To honor the legacy & memory of someone as incalculably influential as Akira Toriyama, while still staying true to what this blog's about, let's take a look at four OVAs that he either worked on in some fashion, or at least were based on his manga. Yeah, most of it's going to be related to Dragon Ball (though we'll be diving deep into the weeds, even for that franchise!), but our first entry for this volume of OM, OM, OVA! isn't.
First up is one of the few anime Akira Toriyama worked on that has nothing to do with either Dr. Slump, Dragon Ball, or even any of his short manga or video game credits. Rather, this looks to be the only time Akira Toriyama ever worked on something that was exclusively an anime! In 1988 Weekly Shonen Jump turned 20 years old, and to celebrate Shueisha held a screening event called the Jump Anime Carnival, similar to the Jump Special Anime Daikoushin in 1985 & the later Jump Super Anime Tour & Jump Festa screening events that would be held during the 90s, 00s, & early 10s. Where the JSAD three years prior was headlined by anime pilots for Kimagure Orange Road & Kochikame, though, the JAC had a single anime that was shown across 30 cities in Japan, before eventually getting a home video release on VHS; despite technically being screened in theaters, it's still considered an OVA, so it counts here. That anime was Kosuke-sama, Rikimaru-sama: Konpei-tou no Ryu/Kosuke and Rikimaru: The Dragon of Konpei Island, a ~50-minute special animated by J.C. Staff, scored by Shiro Sagisu (then known for Kimagure Orange Road & Megazone 23), & directed by the late Toyoo Ashida, of Fist of the North Star & Vampire Hunter D fame. As for Akira Toriyama's involvement he helped design the cast, alongside production company Studio Live's in-house Mandrill Club staff, while he & Ashida co-wrote the script. Being a "Jump Video" release, Kousuke-sama, Rikimaru-sama has never been re-released on anything better than VHS, since Shueisha itself produced the OVA, so let's see if Akira Toriyama's one & only anime-exclusive work deserves to be more well known.
Sakurako Tanukikouji is a professor from Tokyo who has scheduled a personal investigation of Konpei Island, which is rumored to be the home of the last living dragon in the world. After being taken there by a small ship's captain named Sanpei, Sakurako meets Kosuke & his little brother Rikimaru, two young boys who act as the "guardians" of Konpei Island's dragons, or at least the one that remains after all the others left & died a few years back, during which many residents of Konpei Island also died, including the boys' parents; Kosuke & Rikimaru say that the lives of Konpei's residents are tied to the dragons' existence. Meanwhile, a man named Yamada is also on his way to Konpei Island via his giant airship, but his reasons are more selfish & dangerous, as all he wants is the gem located on the forehead of Pochi, the last remaining dragon (people wanting these gems are what led to the prior deaths of most dragons), and with the help of a hired hand named Michael Commando he might just be able to do so... if they're able to defeat Kosuke & Rikimaru first.
Watching Kosuke-sama, Rikimaru-sama: Konpei-tou no Ryu it's quick to see that "depth" isn't really something to expect from the story told here. The first half introduces our cast, establishes the culture clash between city girl Sakurako & the brothers who have learned to live off the land (Sakurako manages to convince them to take her to Pochi with chocolate & a promise to send them a bicycle later), and showcases the very Toriyama-esque way that Kosuke & Rikimaru make their way up the mountain to visit Pochi, with only small bits of worldbuilding here & there (mainly what I mentioned in the synopsis); also, Sanpei rivals Master Roshi in how blatantly perverted he is, though Sakurako is too innocent to realize it. Yamada, in comparison, is simply just there & mainly established as "evil" by his actions, greed, & the fact that he has a Hitler-esque toothbrush moustache, while Michael Commando is a generic black "foreigner" (i.e. he speaks only in short bursts of English) who unfortunately has the notably puffy lips that was still sometimes seen in anime & manga for black people, even in 1988, though at least his skin tone is admittedly very subdued compared to the usual "sambo" visual & helps reduce the potential offensiveness of the portrayal slightly; in other words, outside of the very puffy lips Michael actually looks fine. The second half of this OVA, then, is all about the reveal of Pochi (despite being shown very quickly during the intro), followed by Yamada, his mechanical forces (one of which is in the form of a giant sumo wrestler... because), & Michael fighting Kosuke & Rikimaru over the gem in Pochi's forehead.
Really, this is very obviously meant to be a fun little adventure for kids to watch, in the long run. Kosuke & Rikimaru are self-sufficient kids who can take care of themselves while also being experts with a spear & sword, respectively, and they do all the explanation of things regarding Konpei Island & the dragons to Sakurako. Yamada, in turn, is a greedy, arrogant, and evil adult who only cares about what he wants, though when left with no other means to offense is easily defeated by Rikimaru, who's the younger & less experienced of the brothers. Kosuke, in comparison, has an admittedly fun, multi-part fight with Michael, with a mixture of action & comedy that harkens back to the earlier days of Dragon Ball, and while Michael is naturally taken down to his boxers by the end of the fight he does hit Kosuke with some rather strong blows of his own, resulting in a surprisingly intense battle. To match these moments, plus the part where Kosuke & Rikimaru fight Yamada's robots, the animation gets impressively fast & kinetic, whereas the rest of the OVA is admittedly fine but otherwise kind of standard fare for the time; don't go expecting late 80s theatrical-level animation for this. Still, much like it'd later do with the Fuma no Kojirou OVAs, J.C. Staff managed to do a very good job at imitating the visual style that Toei was doing with Dragon Ball & Dragon Ball Z at the time, especially when you consider that Toyoo Ashida (who was also animation director for this OVA) never worked on a Dragon Ball anime production, though he did work on Dr. Slump -Arale-chan- earlier in the 80s. That being said, key animation was partially done by animators from Studio Live, which did work on various Dragon Ball anime over the decades. The more child-friendly tone is also emphasized by Shiro Sagisu's musical score, which focuses heavily on upbeat, almost country jamboree-style beats.
Overall, Kosuke-sama, Rikimaru-sama: Konpei-tou no Ryu is a fun little one-off OVA that really will only appeal to hardcore Akira Toriyama fans, & little kids, but at the same time isn't necessarily a must-watch by any means. If you have an hour to spare then I say check it out if you're curious about Akira Toriyama's one & only anime-original work. However, it is a bit of an odd pick as a 20th Anniversary production for Weekly Shonen Jump, since it really has nothing to do with the magazine, outside of Toriyama's involvement; you'd think Shueisha would have maybe tried adapting one of its earliest hit manga, or something.
With that out of the way we now move into the remainder of this volume of OM, OM, OVA!: Dragon Ball OVAs. However, despite there being over a dozen different movies, multiple TV specials, various TV anime, & all manner of animated sequences made for the various video games, there really aren't that many OVAs based on Akira Toriyama's most iconic work. In fact, one of the entries for this piece can be considered cheating, as it's only really an OVA by technicality, i.e. it's animation released straight to home video, but isn't actually an OVA by any traditional definition. That would be Dragon Ball Z: Atsumare! Goku World/Gather Together in Goku's World!, which was released in 1992 on VHS tape, but wasn't really meant to be viewed as your standard OVA. Instead, this is actually a video game, of sorts, as it was meant to be used in conjunction with the Terebikko, a VHS-based gaming device by Bandai that was on the market between 1989 & 1994; it was also released in North America as a then-modernized version of Mattel's See 'n Say, even getting included in the movie Toy Story. In short, the Terebikko would be hooked up to a TV's audio output jack & while watching a compatible VHS game the player would be asked to pick up the handset on the console to answer questions using the four large buttons on the console, with signals from the video that are normally inaudible by the player allowing for some basic interaction, namely in telling the player if they got a question right or wrong; digital rips of the VHS, though, make those signals perfectly audible now. However, these games were still plain old VHS tapes, similar to those released for the Action Max, so one can simply watch something like DBZ: Atsumare! Goku World without the Terebikko. I actually covered the Action Max's entire (five-game) catalog back in 2017 by watching all of them as just pure A/V experiences, so let's do the same for this one Terebikko title... because how else would I ever have an excuse to cover this thing?!
Goku & Gohan are meeting up with Krillin & Bulma at Kame House, because Trunks has decided to pay them a visit from the future via his time machine. In fact, all of them are taking a trip through time to revisit all sorts of events from their pasts, like Goku & Krillin training with Master Roshi when they were both kids, Goku fighting Jackie Chun in the final match of the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament, Roshi attempting to seal King Piccolo away using the Mafuuba, Goku fighting Vegeta for the first time, the battle with Frieza on Namek, & Trunks defeating Frieza & King Cold. Best of all, though, is that they've invited someone else to join them on their time travel journey: YOU!!! Yes, via the Terebikko you can join Goku & his friends on their trip, and every now & then they'll call you up via the Terebikko & ask questions, just to make sure you really know your stuff. However, upon returning from their trip everyone gets warned about a mysterious new foe appearing in West City...
 |
| Kid Gohan: "Trunks, Cell is literally right in front of us!" Future Trunks: "Wait a sec, I have to make a collect call first!" |
As one can surmise from the very concept of this "OVA", Atsumare! Goku World isn't really meant to be watched as you would a traditional anime. Yeah, there's a lot of watching to be done, but interspersed all throughout are moments where one of the DBZ cast "calls in" to the viewer in order to ask a four-choice question about the events currently happening. This results in rather basic questions that any fan of Dragon Ball should be able to answer with little to no trouble, like "What vehicle does Trunks time travel in?", "How did Master Roshi train Goku & Krillin to increase their strength?", "What did Roshi try to seal King Piccolo in with the Mafuuba?", "Who did Kami resemble?", "How many forms did Frieza have?", etc. There's 14 questions in total throughout the ~30 minute run time, though the last two are kind of silly in their inclusion, as the penultimate one has Trunks ask the viewer/player what Perfect Cell looks like right as he's about to start attacking our heroes (wow, talking really IS a free action!), and the final question has no right or wrong answer as it's Goku asking which of the four afterimages of Perfect Cell is the real one, and it doesn't really matter anyway as the "true" answer is never confirmed. Since this is essentially a quiz game with a small number of questions that never change in any way, there's really no replay value in Atsumare! Goku World as a Terebikko VHS game, because once you know the answers you've essentially "completed" it; at least Action Max VHS games were shooting galleries, so you could always get a different score when replaying.
Still, that's not to say that there's absolutely nothing of value to be had here, though it's really only in the finer details. Aside from this being mostly original animation from Toei, aside from the bits of reused animation for the scenes from the past being shown, there are some amusing little bits that are exclusive to this production, like Goku nearly creating a time paradox when he starts patting his younger self on the back, Trunks remarking at how neat the World Martial Arts Tournament looks, Goku actually remarking at how he eventually learned that Jackie Chun was actually Master Roshi (which he never did back in the day), or everyone asking Gohan how it feels for him to finally see the origins of his beloved Namekian teacher/father figure via the stuff with King Piccolo. Also, while I can't verify the exact date in 1992 that this VHS game came out in Japan, it's entirely possible that Atsumare! Goku World actually marked the first time Perfect Cell was ever shown via animation, as the DBZ anime wouldn't get to Cell becoming "Perfect" until September 1992, and what we do get to see of Perfect Cell here is very limited & short, ending with Goku hitting him really hard before he retreats, swearing to come back; Cell's entire involvement with this "OVA" is literally just the last four minutes or so. I wouldn't be shocked if Atsumare! Goku World was sold entirely on the idea of "Hey kids! Want a sneak peek at Perfect Cell before he appears in Dragon Ball Z? Then buy this tape & play it with your Terebikko!", though like any VHS game the device it's meant to be played with isn't really needed in any way to simply watch the VHS tape itself.
Overall, there's really no wonder as to why Dragon Ball Z: Atsumare! Goku World has never seen release outside of Japan, as its entire existence is simply to help sell a "video game console" with highly limited gameplay as its main hook, and maybe also to act as a tease for Perfect Cell before he debuted proper in the DBZ anime itself. Still, if you're a hardcore fan of Dragon Ball it ain't exactly worthless, the handful of small moments that it can claim as its own are neat to see, and since most people in North America tend to get into the series without seeing the "pre-Z" parts of the story the quizzes might actually be worth it, at least for the first half or so.
Third in this volume of OM, OM, OVA! is one of the more well known entries, especially for hardcore Dragon Ball fans, as this one actually wound up getting some notoriety behind it, so much so that it was even reimagined nearly two decades later! However, just like our last entry, this may not be an OVA by a traditional definition, so allow me to explain. On August 6, 1993, Bandai released Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Saiyajin Zetsumetsu Keikaku/Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans for the Nintendo Famicom, which was an RPG developed by Tose which told an original story set in the DBZ timeline & battles were done by way cards, which encouraged players to find all of the available cards within the game. Despite the game getting a bit of a mixed reception, notably only receiving a total 22/40 over at Famitsu, it still sold over 300,000 copies, though the reason for that was likely due to how Bandai produced this game. Specifically, Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans was actually a multimedia project, as just two weeks prior to the game's release (July 23) the first episode of a two-part OVA "visual guide" based on the game came out on VHS, while the second episode came out roughly three weeks after the game's release (August 25). Therefore, fans would have bought (or, more likely, rented) the VHS tape for Episode 1 of the OVA, got hyped, & then bought the game in order to see how the story fully played out, before then checking out Episode 2 after having bought & played the game. Bandai would then repackage the OVA version of Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, complete with some new animation sequences, & re-release that as a two-part launch title for the CD-based Playdia console, coming out on September 23, 1994 as Dragon Ball Z: True Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans -Earth Chapter-, with a Space Chapter then coming out on December 16.
Finally, in 2010, Bandai & Toei teamed up once again to produce Dragon Ball Z: Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans, an altered retelling of the original Famicom/Playdia-related OVA that originally came bundled with Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2 for the PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360, before eventually getting released on DVD in 2012 with Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock (which itself was originally bundled with Dragon Ball Z: For Kinect for the 360). While that reimagined OVA did see an official English release via Raging Blast 2, the original Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans OVA has remained without an official English release, despite its notoriety, so let's see how this "visual-guide"-for-a-Famicom-game-turned-Playdia-game fares on its own.
Goku & Gohan are warned one day by Mr. Popo, on order of Dende (the new "Kami" of Earth), about a mysterious new gas named "Destron Gas" that decomposes any & all organic life down to the cellular level, and it's so powerful that it can wipe out all of humanity on Earth in 70 days. Eventually they discover that the Destron Gas is the creation of Dr. Lychee, the sole survivor of the Tuffles race that originally lived on Planet Plant, the world the Saiyans took over & turned into Planet Vegeta, eradicating the Tuffles in the process. Despite the remaining Saiyans left in the universe all fighting for good, Dr. Lychee wants nothing more than the absolutely eradication of them, and has the Destron Gas emanate out of four locations on Earth: Grand Apolon in the highlands, a pyramid in the northern desert, Poco Poco volcano on the tropical islands, an eternal glacier on the Ice Continent, & later Tongari Tower in West City. That's just perfect for Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta, & Trunks to deal with all five Destron Gas locations, before needing to take out Dr. Lychee & his army of monsters... as well as the seemingly revived Frieza, Cooler, Turles, & Lord Slug, made possible by Hatchiyack, a living computer that's Dr. Lychee's greatest creation.
Despite calling itself a "visual guide", the Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans anime is really more of a traditional OVA, as it's essentially 100% brand new animation from Toei that tells a fully self-contained story that can be watched from start to finish with no problem whatsoever, with the only proof of its video game tie-in origin being the occasional sign of Famicom footage, namely in the title screen, ED sequence, & whenever you see a character go from one major location to another; the only way this can work as a guide is maybe by following the same order of locations as the OVA does. Well, OK, that really only applies to Episode 1, because Episode 2 literally skips over entire portions of the game's story, namely our heroes having to go to an island to acquire the space ship that can take them to "Dark Planet at the Edge of the Universe" where Dr. Lychee is hiding (this bit is literally explained during the recap narration at the start of Ep 2) & our heroes getting diverted to nearby planets before resuming their path back to the Dark Planet (this bit is introduced in Ep 2, only to then be skipped via a literal screen of text explaining the events); Ep 2 is focused solely on the fight with Dr. Lychee, followed by the final battle with Hatchiyack in its final form. The end result is that Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, in its OVA form, is a solid tale, but one where things are uneven across both episodes. Ep 1 starts off fine, and some of the fights to destroy the Destron Gas generators are neat (like Goku needing to fight using martial arts again, or Piccolo not needing to do anything because his opponent is a self-defeating fool), but the stuff with the revived villains is over way too soon (& requires a literal Deus ex machina from King Kai to explain how to kill them... only for nothing different to be done), and overall it feels merely "OK", at best. Meanwhile, Ep 2 has very good action, with the fight against Hatchiyack being pretty solid, and an utterly amazing & well done fake out ending, but it's literally skipping over entire swaths of the story in order to just go straight to the finale. What's even crazier is that the Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans OVA remake is just a single episode long, i.e. only half the length, so I imagine the plot is truncated even more there!
Overall, Dragon Ball Z: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans is equivalent to one of the more solid DBZ movies of the era (though nowhere near as good as the best ones), with a solid concept behind it (the Tuffles would later be utilized in both Dragon Ball GT, via Baby, & even Dragon Ball Super via the alternate universes), & some solid enough fights throughout, but each half of this two-episode OVA suffers from a storytelling perspective to really make it truly shine. That said, the music by Keiju Ishikawa (who also created DBZ OP2, "We Gotta Power", which debuted mere weeks after Episode 1 of this OVA came out) is completely different from Shunsuke Kikuchi's DBZ score, which helps make the OVA feel unique, as it really does sound like a Red Book audio score you'd hear in a CD-based video game of the era. Is it worthy of the notoriety it's gained over the decades, so much so that it was deemed worthy of remaking 17 years later? Yeah, to an extent, but it's still not something that I feel is necessary watching for general Dragon Ball fans who want more; this is still mainly for the more hardcore fans.
 |
| It is a bit weird seeing the OG Dragon Ball logo, but with the Dragon Ball Z OP sequence animation. |
Finally, we end this quartet of OVAs to honor the legacy of Akira Toriyama with the one that jump started the entire modern-day revival of Dragon Ball, in general. Starting with the debut of Episode 1 of Dr. Slump -Arale-chan- on April 8, 1981, there was an anime based on an Akira Toriyama manga (just about) every single week for nearly 18.5 years, finally coming to an end when the final episode of Dr. Slump's 1997 anime reboot (which replaced Dragon Ball GT) aired in Japan on September 22, 1999, and this was all supplemented by a variety of TV specials, movies, OVAs, etc. However, once that run came to an end that was essentially it for Akira Toriyama anime, outside of the occasional video game-related animated sequence here & there. This dry spell would finally end after nine years on September 21, 2008, when Shueisha & Toei showcased Dragon Ball: Ossu! Kaette Kita Son Goku to Nakama-tachi!!/Yo! Son Goku & His Friends Return!!, a 35-minute OVA made as part of the Jump Super Anime Tour that year to celebrate Shonen Jump's 40th Anniversary; it was also released online for a period of time, as well, making it (I believe) the first Dragon Ball ONA/web anime. The first proper Dragon Ball anime production since the final episode of Dragon Ball GT aired on November 19, 1997, Yo! So Goku & His Friends Return!! would be followed up a few months later with the announcement of Dragon Ball Kai, a revised, recut, & remastered version of DBZ that would air on TV to celebrate that anime's 20th Anniversary & would run until 2011, covering from the Saiyan Saga up through the Cell Saga, before getting a second run from 2014 to 2015 that covered all of the Majin Buu Saga. In between those two Kai runs would be the 2013 movie Battle of Gods, which itself led to 2015's Resurrection 'F' movie & the Dragon Ball Super TV anime, and so on and so on. Despite Yo! Son Goku & His Friends Return!! remaining Japan-exclusive due to licensing reasons (it's yet another Shueisha-produced OVA), this is, arguably, one of the most important Dragon Ball anime productions ever made, so let's see how it all holds up, almost 16 years later.
It's been two years since Goku, Vegeta, & Mr. Satan managed to defeat Kid Buu once & for all, saving the Earth for what seemed to be the last time, though to the world it was Satan who did it all by himself. Mr. Satan's extravagant hotel has finally finished construction, so he's decided to invite Goku & all his friends for a giant banquet, reuniting everyone after they've since moved on & lived their own lives following Buu's defeat. During the festivities, though, two space pods crash land on Earth, instantly getting the more powerful fighters' attention. These pods hold within them Tarble, Vegeta's little brother who was sent to a remote planet due to his lack of fighting ability, & his alien wife Gure. Tarble has come to Earth for help, as two of Frieza's warriors, Abo & Kado, have created havoc on the planet Tarble was in command of, and the two have decided to follow Tarble to Earth. While they were initially part of the Ginyu Force, Tarble now says that Abo & Kado are both as strong as Frieza was, and they can even merge together into an even more powerful form, Aka. Seeing as everyone wants to try their hand at the incoming foes Goku decides to have everyone pull radishes from his field, with Trunks & Goten getting the biggest ones. And, hey, since Frieza was so long ago (&, in retrospect, really wasn't that strong compared to the likes of Cell & Buu), Abo & Kado should make for good practice for the boys!
Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku & His Friends Return!! is best taken as its very title indicates: A fun reunion where viewers can see their beloved Dragon Ball cast reunite for a fun romp. Hell, even Launch came to the banquet, marking (from what I can tell) her last official appearance in a Dragon Ball anime production, as of this piece. There really isn't any sort of truly dangerous threat to deal with, as while Abo & Kado are there to fight the only thing that's really damaged is Mr. Satan's hotel, which Videl says was punishment from on high for her father's pompousness, & by the end out villains are actually joining everyone in enjoying the banquet. There's also just an overall feeling a lightheartedness to the OVA across its run time, whether it's Goku complaining about working a field rather than fighting, Roshi perving on Chi-Chi (& getting beaten up for it, of course), Oolong offering snacks to everyone while Trunks & Goten start fighting Abo & Kado like it's a sporting event, Vegeta being instantly polite & respectful to Gure once he realizes she's his sister-in-law, or Goku literally pulling a "Hey, look over there!" to Vegeta to distract him so that Goku can handle the final saving moment of the fight, among many other things. This isn't quite as gloriously goofy & gag focused as Battle of Gods would be a few years later, but this OVA still knows that Dragon Ball is meant to be a mixture of goofy comedy & high-impact fighting, and it does a very good job at mixing the two together. In terms of canonicity, I guess Yo! Son Goku & His Friends Return!! is canon, as Battle of Gods takes place two years after this OVA & Tarble is referenced there (& a flashback in Dragon Ball Super: Broly also references Tarble), but it's not as though it's exactly a super relevant storyline, in the grand scheme of things.
Similarly, the staff behind this OVA was also a great big reunion from the past, with Yoshihiro Ueda (History of Trunks, Bojack Unbound) directing, Takao Koyama writing the script, Shunsuke Kikuchi's musical score being re-used, the iconic voice cast reuniting (including the late Daisuke Gouri's final performance as Mr. Satan, for an anime at least, before his unfortunate passing in 2010), and even the return of Hironobu Kageyama's "Cha-La Head Cha-La" as the OP theme, though the sequence itself is modified to feature later characters, with Goten & Trunks taking the place of young Gohan. There's also a unique ED theme only ever heard in this OVA, "Orange Hero" by jealkb, which is a very fun little song & seems to only exist in it's 1.5-minute ED form; interestingly enough, jealkb is also given "Special Thanks" in Resurrection 'F'. Compared to the other OVAs that I've covered in this edition of OM, OM, OVA! this really does come off as the odd one out, as you'd think that FUNimation would have been all over releasing Yo! Son Goku & His Friends Return!! officially in English, especially since it was the return of new Dragon Ball anime productions. However, just as with the various Jump anime pilots that have been made, that's the trick with these kinds of anime that Shueisha itself directly produces, as despite bringing in essentially all of the major names from Toei's iconic anime productions of the past, Toei itself has no actual rights to this OVA, with only Akira Toriyama's Bird Studio & Shueisha being listed in the copyright. That means that licensing this OVA would require specific licensing that would be unique to itself, and it's kind of applied to anything produced directly by Shueisha, as there have been very few of these that have received any sort of re-release since the 00s.
Who knows, maybe one day Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku & His Friends Return!! will finally be given a proper English release, complete with a dub that (likewise) once again reunites the iconic FUNimation cast. Until that actually happens, though, this isn't exactly an impossible OVA to hunt down on your own & it's well worth the effort, especially if you're simply looking for a fun time.
In the end, there's really no way for anyone to truly describe the impact Akira Toriyama has had on the world, not just for manga but for anyone, really. Artists the world over have been inspired by his works, storytellers of any ilk have dissected what made his stories so damn good & tried their best to replicate what Toriyama seemingly made look easy, and his legacy will live on forever. Me looking at four lesser known (to varying extents, at least) OVAs based on his drawings is barely even a drop in the bucket in comparison, but it was fun to remind myself, once again, why Akira Toriyama was so beloved & cherished.
Rest in Peace, Akira Toriyama
Kosuke-sama, Rikimaru-sama: Konpei-tou no Ryu © 1990 Bird Studio/Shueisha
Dragon Ball Z: Atsumare! Goku World © Bird Studio/Shueisha・Fuji TV・Toei Animation © Bandai 1992
Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans © Bird Studio/Shueisha・Fuji TV・Toei Animation © Bandai 1993
Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku & His Friends Return!! © Bird Studio/Shueisha
No comments:
Post a Comment