New 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.
Rock, Paper, Scissor in DBZ’s Martial Arts
Goku preparing a Kamehameha
The martial arts in Dragonball Z are essential to the cultivation of the main cast. Goku’s style of martial arts begins with the Kame-Sennin (Turtle School) style of martial arts, as taught by Grandpa Gohan and Master Roshi. The turtle school emphasizes protection of others and oneself, and focuses on compassion.
In the martial arts there are two basic forms; soft, and hard. This can also be described as open and closed. An open hand or a closed hand signifies a great deal, as it is an expression of the artist who uses it. Many martial arts even use the closed fist as the symbol of their school. This is primarily done in the hard schools, such as Karate.
What is the main difference between open and closed? A soft martial art typically emphasizes morality and the building of character, or ‘heart-nature’. This is taught either specifically, or as it may be in the case of DBZ, through the process of physical training and enduring of hardships. continue …