Advertise on The Dao of Dragon Ball
Looking to reach an audience of hardcore, dedicated anime fans?
You’re in luck, because over 50,000 of them visit The Dao of Dragon Ball every month, and the site now supports advertising.
Read the advertising page to learn about your advertising options and the going rates.
For starters, we’re talking about a 91% focused demographic of young men in their late teens and 20′s that are interested in anime, martial arts, philosophy, culture, and Japanese entertainment.
Secondly, they are heavy internet users and hardcore Dragon Ball fans, having been fans of the series on average for more than 10 years.
Thirdly… well, just go and read the advertising page already, why don’t ya?
Please Take My 2012 Reader Survey
I want to make my blog and book more relevant to your needs and interests. To do that, I need to know more about YOU. As a result, I have created my 2012 Reader Survey.
Can you take 1 minute to fill out the survey? By doing so you’re ultimately helping yourself, because you will be helping me make my posts and content even more interesting and relevant to you.
Is there a topic you’d like to know more about? Anything about Goku, Dragon Ball or East Asian culture you’d love to explore deeper? How do you think I can make the site better? Now is your chance to be heard.
Your input is important to me and the survey is easy to fill out. Only 10 simple questions that will take less than 1 minute. The results are completely anonymous.
To say thank you, if you take the survey and then leave a comment or share this link on Facebook or Twitter and let me know about it (@derekpadula), I will pick 7 people at random to receive a FREE copy of my ebook, “Over 9,000 Explained!” A $1.99 value.
Thanks in advance for your help.
UPDATE – FEB 11, 2012: I’m still looking for more survey entries! If you want to win the Over 9,000 ebook, please take the survey and leave your name in the comments or tweet me! Do so before the deadline, Feb 28, 2012. Thank you!!
Dragon Ball Kai FUNimation QA at AX
During the Anime Expo 2011 I dropped by the FUNimation booth for an impromptu Q & A with Lance Heiskell, FUNimation’s marketing director.
The questions were completely spontaneous, and so were his replies; very casual and unofficial.
“How is Dragon Ball Kai doing so far on American TV?”
According to Lance, “Ratings have done very well, and new episodes will resume in fall 2011.” Reruns are currently airing on Nicktoons.
“How about the censoring of the show? This is a sensitive issue for a lot of Dragon Ball fans.”
Lance said, “It has to be edited on TV because it’s a commercial network.” He said shows have to appeal to marketing standards and demographics, otherwise advertisers won’t buy ads. Referring to the 4Kids channel version of Kai, he added that, “4Kids is even more edited.”
“What is FUNimation planning to do about the Kenji Yamamoto music scandal?”
Lance said he is fully aware of the scandal; however, “It’s a sensitive issue. I can’t comment.”
For those who do not know, Kenji Yamamoto was the composer for Dragon Ball Kai, and he got in trouble for creating music that was too similar to other musicians and film composers. His music was pulled from the Japanese version’s last few episodes and replaced with the original DBZ score, and American fans waited to see how FUNimation would respond.
When pressed further, Lance went on to say that he knows how FUNimation is going to handle the situation, but making comments would be disrespectful to the license holders involved, which include Toei in Japan.
Then we talked about The Dao of Dragon Ball book and how he may be able to help.
That’s it! Short and sweet.
Work In Progress
2011 has been a year of changes.
In spiritual cultivation communities, the master’s teach that understanding and improvement comes through conflict, either with ourselves, with others, or with our environments. This year I’ve experienced all three, continuously.
At the end of 2010 and start of 2011 I had a high paying job at an internet startup. I thought it would be great, but unfortunately I wasn’t happy and the job consumed every aspect of my life. I decided that I wasn’t happy there, and chose to quit.
This decision had a lot of ramifications. A few negative, but mostly positive, such as figuring out what I really want to be doing with my life.
Also, I started dating, and on May 1 I proposed to Deborah Yun.
Deborah’s a really great person who is always striving to be better in life. She has taught me a lot, and helped fill in the gaps and missing pieces on the road to fulfilling my potential. Plus she’s cute and funny.
You can see her photography at www.deborahyun.com.
But very quickly we both found out that living the freelance life (me a website developer and her a photographer) in Los Angeles can be very difficult and tiring.
We decided to move in together for a lot of reasons, including saving money and being closer to one another.
Dragon Ball Book Progress Update 3
Son Goku Statue
Hi there. A reader requested an update on The Dao of Dragon Ball book’s progress, so here it is.
Most of the book is done in rough draft form. However, new information keeps appearing, new rabbit holes to go down, and I feel like it’s all essential to the book’s content.
For example, right now I’m studying the world’s largest martial arts tournament that took place in China in 2004. I’m reading about the history of Qi Gong and how it exploded in popularity. And I’m learning more about the VHS fansubbers of Dragon Ball in America. There’s tons of stuff.
I’m also completely editing the “… To the World” chapter. It’s currently 48 pages, so I’m going to break it down into smaller chapters with more focused content so that readers have an easier time understanding the global history and overall story of Dragon Ball in the world today.
Then I will continue editing the rest of the Dragon Ball book, which includes finishing the final martial arts chapter on Divine Combat. It’s tough because I’m basically trying to explain how the supernormal abilities depicted in Dragon Ball are actually possible without falling into pseudo-science. Meanwhile, it has to tell a story at the same time.
I work on the book everyday and am making steady progress.
Here I’ll quote the Venerable Master, Lao Tzu. I saw this on a Facebook fan’s page (be sure to friend me on Facebook, by the way!):
The soft overcomes the hard.
The slow overcomes the fast.
Let your workings remain a mystery.
Just show people the results.
-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Hopefully the results will speak for themselves.
Refocused
Goku Meditates
Hey everybody. Quick update.
I recently quit my web development job as a UX Engineer in an attempt to refocus my life.
My goal is to spend more time working on the Dragon Ball book and to publish it as quickly as possible. I’ll be living on savings and occasional freelance gigs while I dedicate my time to the book and some other endeavors. Overall I am working on simplifying my life through the power of “less is more.”
It was a big decision for me as I realized that web development is not what I want to do with my life. Definitely a good skill to have, but not what I’m passionate about.
Progress update on the DBZ book: The editors are working on their draft now and I’ll take their notes and apply it during my next wave of edits. In the mean time, I’m cleaning things up and getting ready. I’m also working on trying to get the book to be officially approved by TOEI in Japan. This would have huge ramifications for both the book and the entire Dragon Ball community!
Editors Chosen
Mr. Shu. Gohan's Tutor
Hey everybody. I made a decision that will take the book one step closer to completion. I hired a pair of professional editors.
The first is Marta Tanrikulu at TanMar Editorial Services, as the developmental editor. It’s her job to help shape and focus the book, restructure it accordingly, and cut whatever gets in the way of the primary message. Which, by the way, is this:
The message of The Dao of Dragon Ball is to convey the true history of the Dragon Ball series, its connections to ancient Indian, Chinese and Japanese cultures, Hollywood pop culture, futuristic science fiction, and the underlying meaning of life discovered through spiritual cultivation via the martial arts.
The second editor is Elissa Rabellino at StyleInSites, and she is the copy editor. After I finalize the content with Marta’s guidance, Elissa will help refine the prose and deftly say more with less.
Both editors are from the San Francisco Bay Area. They each had an interest in anime or manga as well as a ton of experience in their craft. I imagine that their expertise will enable the book to reach the next level.
It required several weeks of interviews and a lot of soul searching to make the final decisions, so here’s hoping for the best!
Sponsors
