The Dao of Dragonball Blog

Hi!, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Vegetto Smashes Majin Buu with a Double Axe Handle

In this Dragon Ball explorative essay we’re going to focus on the martial arts technique known as the double axe handle. This iconic technique is found throughout the Dragon Ball series and has both a rich history and symbolism.

Dragon Ball is a comic book and anime filled with fighting and all kinds of different martial arts styles.  Yet many of them share similar techniques, and the double axe handle is one of the most identifiable.

These are the questions we will answer in this article:

• What is the double axe handle?
• What are its origins and history, and how does it relate to Dragon Ball?
• What are the histories of East Asian martial arts, Buddhism, and the Lightning Bolt Clasped Hands style of combat?
• How do eastern philosophies and this technique fit into the fights of DBZ?
• Why is the double axe handle used so often in Dragon Ball?
• Outside of Dragon Ball, where else can the double axe handle be seen?

Read on to find out! Read more…

SSJ4 Gohan

I recently started reading a book called The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time Management, by Hyrum Smith.  So far it has been very engaging and informative.

I’m only on the 4th chapter, but I’ve already learned (or re-learned) some of the reasons why I procrastinate on my writing for the DBZ book, or any of my other various projects.

The essential point I’ve understood is that if I don’t prioritize my life according to my own intrinsic values, and live according to those values in everything I do, that I’ll never make progress on my projects or find satisfaction in my work.  In a larger scope…  I won’t find happiness in life.  So determining what my core values are is really important. Read more…

Goku Smiles

How do you know what you know is the truth?  Because you believe it to be.

Those who cannot enlighten to higher truths believe that the truth at their level is the highest, and they believe in all that they can see at their level and below them, with the presumption, based on observable information and incite, that their current level is the highest.

If you don’t believe that there may be a higher truth than the one you currently know then you will forever be positioned at that level.

Saying “I do not know” opens the door for potential improvement. Read more…

The Dragon Ball Z Legend

The Dragon Ball Z Legend: The Quest Continues

The Dragonball Z Legend: The Quest Continues says right on the cover “An essential source for every anime fan”. To that, book cover, I say you are wrong. Entertaining perhaps, but certainly not essential, even for Dragonball nuts.

The books design is a series of Q & A. Fifty-Four (54) questions related to series’ trivia are posed and then answered in a couple of pages each. Unfortunately while the answers tend to be fairly on target, more hardcore fans will recognize numerous errors, and this gets frustrating after a while. Luckily the questions are varied and the answers are comical. Read more…

Dragonball Z Extreme

Dragonball Z Extreme

Dragonball Z Extreme is a fun and brain teasing activity book fit for young children and young adults, especially DBZ fans.

This book is licensed by FUNimation, the American owners of the DBZ anime brand, so it’s filled with images of characters from the series. This really pulls you into the Dragon World and makes all of the activities feel very engaging. Read more…

Pojo’s Unofficial Total Dragonball Z

Pojo's Unofficial Total Dragonball Z

At the time of its publication (2000) Pojo’s Unofficial Total Dragonball Z was the best DBZ book on the market. Even now, in 2007, it’s not so bad. It’s not quite a book so much as a glorified magazine, but it’s a worth a read if you need to read everything DBZ related. If not, I would recommend the newer version, Pojo’s Unofficial Absolute Dragonball Z, which came out three years later, simply because it’s the fresher fish in the market.

Aside from its own merits, this book serves as a walk down memory lane of the year 2000 in American anime and television based pop culture. It captures the influence that Dragonball had on the American telescape with its success on Cartoon Network’s Toonami and Adult Swim, the release of a Collectible Card Game, VHS and DVD obsessions, and video game imports all the rage. Read more…