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Tag Archives: anime

The Passing of a Legend

My introduction to the work of Akira Toriyama came in the form of Dragon Ball Z, specifically the Cell Saga, when I was visiting my cousins in Denver. We didn’t have cable at home, and so Cartoon Network was a rare enough treat, but the Toonami block was extra special. From Steve Blum voicing the host, Tom, to Kyle Hebert’s narration, I was almost immediately hooked. I had seen some depictions of the characters before (on pogs, of all things), but I had no idea who they were, or why one guy had black hair in one picture but blonde hair in another until my cousins showed me their new favorite show.

I was hooked almost immediately, and started learning everything I could about the characters. I watched every episode that aired during that visit. We played Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout on the PS1. We started to collect and play the Dragon Ball Z card game (my first starter decks were Cell Saga Gohan and Cell Saga Android 18). We played with the array of action figures they’d gotten from KB Toys. They started recording the show on VHS for me so that I could borrow the tapes from them when I wasn’t in Denver. We started a long-running game where we played as our favorite characters (I was Trunks, the time-traveling, sword-wielding badass in a cool jacket) and pretended to fight on their trampoline.

Over the next few years, I would expand my anime and manga horizons to new series by creators who talked about how much they were influenced by Dragon Ball as kids. I got to meet voice actors at conventions who launched their careers working on the dubs of DBZ (some Ocean Group, some Funimation). My earliest forays into manga-style drawing were fanart pieces of Dragon Ball characters. I sought out Toriyama’s non-Dragon Ball works as well, like Sandland (a brilliant single volume story). I started to recognize his hand in things like the Dragon Quest series and Chrono Trigger.

I found out in the middle of my workout last night that Toriyama-san had died. I regret that I never had the opportunity to meet him, but he was never one for public life. Regardless, I’m beyond grateful for his work, and for the impact that he had on the industry. He will be sorely missed.

Asteroid Blues

One of my fellow wordpress bloggers recently “liked” one of my posts on here, and so I decided to look at her blog to see what she had to say. I was fascinated when her blog contained this. You see, Joanna is a fan of my favorite anime series of all time, Cowboy Bebop. She also happens to be a writing blogger, and she has given me great inspiration. She’s working on a series of short fiction pieces based on the titles of the episodes that make up the series. Please note that this series will not attempt to directly reference Bebop or its universe in anything other than the titles. This isn’t supposed to turn into fan-fic. This is #1 in what will hopefully be a 25-26 piece series of original microfiction. Here I present “Asteroid Blues” for your reading pleasure.

Asteroid Blues:

You don’t expect the depression. It sneaks up on you in a place like this. You can do whatever you want to try to find a way around it, or a way to fight it. Doesn’t do you a damn bit of good. I’ve seen it a lot, so much so, in fact, that I didn’t recognize the symptoms in myself until after I’d seen to half of the crew being sent off. I just dismissed the signs, telling myself that it couldn’t happen to me. I was the strong one. I was in denial.

The Kuiper Belt is no place to make a living. The corporations set up the mining facilities and a few of the basic necessities, then they left. Now we’re here, sucking out ice to transport back to Earth. I’m sick of it. I’m tired of having nothing better to do when I’m done with work than going out and drinking. I’m tired of being so far away from my wife.

I know that I can get better. I just can’t shake the feeling that something big is about to go down. Something. My last memory of Earth was walking to my car, getting ready to leave for this job. It was the first real week of spring, and she was standing on the porch in a cotton dress, waving goodbye to me and whispering “I love you” in the breeze.

Why does that sit in the front of my mind, six months later? Because she’s gone…I got word today. The accident took her. Now there’s no reason to go back. Her funeral was a week ago, and I just found out. Guess I should leave the damn bar and go home, but I don’t really know what I’d be going back to. Maybe just one more beer…