The Dao of Dragon Ball Blog

New Dragon Ball Facebook Page

Dragon Ball ReunionHere’s a quick little update to let you know about The Dao of Dragon Ball Facebook page.

Win a FREE copy of The Dao of Dragon Ball book by Liking the Facebook page!

Or Follow me on Twitter to enter the contest!

Better yet. Do both! Your name will be entered twice!

I had to create this new page because the old group was being archived by Facebook, since it was part of their old format.

Please be sure to like the page and tell all of your friends about it as well. The website is becoming more popular, and I’d like to make sure that trend continues!

Dragon Ball Book Trailer Released

The Dao of Dragon Ball has an exciting new trailer!

Over the weekend I taught myself how to use Adobe After Effects, and with the help of a template and the creative inspiration of a new book cover, I crafted this video.

It’s a short teaser of what the book contains and why it might interest you, and I put a LOT of time into it (though the majority of that was spent with trial and error through After Effects and Flash), so I hope you guys dig it.

Feel free to check the trailer out on the home page or at YouTube for the full size version.

New Dragon Ball Book Cover

The Dao of Dragon Ball Book Cover

The new book cover

The theme for the book cover was to try and capture some of Goku’s personality in a simple and clean way. I borrowed the orange from the color of his dogi, the blue from his boots, belt and shirt, and the yellow from his Super Saiya-jin hair.

The logo consists of the orange star from Orange Star High School combined with a Daoist yin-yang in the colors already mentioned.

And I chose a simple but large font that was easy to read from far away as well as in the form of a tiny thumbnail, such as you might see on Amazon books.

The characters below the yin-yang are “Long Qiu Dao” (in Chinese) and translate as “Dragon Ball Dao,” or in other words, The Dao of Dragon Ball. This way it becomes clear at a glance that the book contains East Asian content, and perhaps that will fascinate someone long enough to open the book or read the back cover.

For comparisons sake, you can also check out another mockup I created for the cover in June of 2009.

continue …

Dragon Ball Book Progress Update

Goku Waits Patiently

Goku Waits Patiently

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for your support on the site and to those who have pre-ordered the book.  All of you are being very patient and I want to give you a progress update.

Right now I have two chapters left to finish before the rough draft of the book will be complete.

The first chapter is Immortal and Invincible.  It will discuss the history of eastern martial arts and the mind body cultivation practices of Daoism, along with a practitioner’s quest for physical and spiritual immortality.  It will also unveil how a body can, from an eastern paradigm, attain invincibility.

Both immortality and invincibility are themes in Dragon Ball, and I think this will be a very interesting chapter for fans of the series.

The second chapter is Divine Combat.  This chapter will reveal the history of combat and hand to hand battles in the myths and legends of various cultures around the world, and how martial arts has always played a role in our culture, including our modern society, right on up to DBZ, martial arts flicks, anime, the Matrix and beyond.  The connection between legendary battles in heaven, the deliverance of martial arts from gods to man, and the progress of martial arts in our civilization will be made very clear.

I’m sincerely trying to complete these chapters before the end of October, with an e-book release in November or December.

There are so many steps needed to complete a goal like this, and I’m becoming a better writer and person in the process, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to improve.

Of course I want this book out more than anyone and I would like to once again thank all of you for your patience and support.

5 Communist and Socialist Elements in Dragon Ball

Hitler Heil's Hello in DBZ Movie 12

Hitler Heil's Hello in DBZ Movie 12

There are many unique aspects to the Dragon Ball series and several may contain socialist and communist elements.  In this article I will introduce 5 of them.

They are the following:

  1. Red Army
  2. Stars
  3. Hitler
  4. Hooked Cross Z
  5. One World Government

The elements on this list are the results of watching the Dragon Ball series and seeing what is already there.  I am not making any of these up.

This article is not only here to reveal what was in front of us all along, but to also help explain how and why.

Red Star Hammer and Sickle

Red Star Hammer and Sickle

Please keep in mind that Dragon Ball is above all else a fun and lighthearted show with a heavy dose of silliness and martial arts antics.  These socialist and communist elements do not detract from the Dragon Ball experience in any way.

It’s possible you may disagree with some of the inherent meaning behind these elements within the series, and a lot has been said about one of them in particular, but that does not take away from the fact that they are there to begin with and left for us to explore and understand.

If you have any thoughts on their meaning and why the creator’s put them in, then please state your thoughts in the comments below.

Now let’s begin our adventure. continue …

DBZ Blog is Now Connected

The DBZ Blog is Live and Connected!

… That’s all I got so far.