The holy triumvirate that is John Cena (the wrestler, the celebrity, and the meme) is responsible for many things. He is responsible for giving many wrestlers the push they needed to make it big. He is responsible for many a slimings at Kids Choice Awards. And he was responsible for a slew of memes unlike any other celebrity is responsible for. “You can’t see him” jokes and Unexpected John Cena memes are categories of their own.
Now John Cena is reponsible for another great feat: getting me to finally try Manga.
Before we get into that, let me pivot to another cultural phenomenon: Dragon Ball Z.
The Strange, Strange World of Dragon Ball Z
via Beastwithaddittude DeviantArt
The Dragon Ball Z franchise has been around for longer than I’ve been alive. Yet even after my entire lifetime of chances to get into the series, I have carefully stayed on the sidelines. Part of that has to do with the franchise’s reputation of being the most neck-beardy of neck beard things. Those weird, wet-smelling stores in the malls with all the glass cases of swords and battle posed figurines always seemed to have Dragon Ball Z tapestries. The strangest kids in school always made it known that they were into Dragon Ball Z. Honestly, it was just too easy to avoid and so I just turned to Star Wars to satisfy my Middle School-era need for escapism.
The franchise’s prevalence was not completely avoided though. Some of my friends, ironically, got really into a Dragon Ball fighting game on the PlayStation 2 called Dragon Ball Z: Budokai. We knew nothing about who the characters were, but we really liked the flow of the combat system and blasting each other to smithereens was always fun. I still remember Kahmehameha, the laser (?) ball attack that I would spam while my friends tried more elaborate combo moves. Even with their enthusiasm for the game, I still was not sold on it.
Anime and manga was too weird for me. Pokemon had been the only anime I was able to stomach at the time, and Dragon Ball Z just seemed way too weird for my liking. Too many characters looked alike, had the same-ish names (Goku, Gohan, Goten, etc.), and everyone was always screaming and shooting lights everywhere while they floated in the air like a mega-hyper Cirque du Solei show. I was more than happy to avoid it all and stick with my familiar, and more distinguishable, pocket monsters.
And His Name is Super Saiyan Cena
In recent months I’ve fallen into the habit of reading comics before I fall asleep. I discovered the ComiXology app and the (essential) sales section where full volumes are regularly 50-60%+ off. So for the price of one or two physical comics, I’m getting somewhere between 5 and 8 digital comics, saved forever to my Amazon account (Amazon bought ComiXology). The app stores all of my digital purchases in a nice, sortable library, and the vibrant art look wonderful on my iPad Mini 2. It’s really a great app.
Anyway, as I was heading to bed one night last week, while on Twitter I came across the extremely well-done gif of John Cena pumping himself up during a wrestling match, and someone edited it to resemble a Dragon Ball Z character powering up. You don’t have to like wrestling or Dragon Ball Z to appreciate the quality of that gif. It’s awesome.
Seeing that gif made me remember that the Dragon Ball Z series was on sale on ComiXology. I decided to investigate. A few moments later I was watching volume 1 of the Dragon Ball Z manga series, the first manga series I’ve ever intentionally checked out, download onto my iPad. I was eager to delve into the weird, mysterious world of flying, glowing, clone-like men, and learn about the laws of the Dragon Ball Z land.
Z for Zero Understanding
One of the first things I realized about Dragon Ball Z is that it’s not actually the beginning of the story. Apparently it all starts with Dragon Ball, and Dragon Ball Z is the second part of the story. Then I realized that the main characters have monkey tails, but just the human looking characters who aren’t really human. The human-humans have no tails. The retro-looking alien guy didn’t have a tail, but the alien guy who looked human did. None of this is explained, I just had to figure it out and accept it as I read.
Volume 1 of Dragon Ball Z ends and Goku gets Son Gohan back, who is actually the great-grandson of Gohan and the son of Goku. Goku’s long lost brother comes down from outer space, tells Goku he’s forgotten about a secret mission, and then they fight. An alien that Goku used to fight, before Dragon Ball Z began, shows up and he and Goku team up against Goku’s brother when the guy kidnaps Goku’s son, Son Gohan. Come on, keep up, this all just makes too much sense.
Trying to follow along with the characters was difficult, and reading through it — backwards, because that’s how you read Manga — was a bit of a chore. I kept reading panels out of order, out of habit, so I’d often have to go back and re-read a page because I misinterpreted something. Also, the English translations were not great. Some of the stuff the characters said made no sense. Considering this manga has been out in English for around two decades, and the fact that it has such a strong following, it made no sense to me that no one had bothered to edit the text.
There’s just a lot about all this I don’t understand. The Dragon Ball universe is deeper than I realized (I used to think the backstory was just an excuse to make flashy battle scenes for the TV show), but I learned more from reading Wikipedia than I did from reading the actual manga. I feel like to really understand what is happening I’d have to read volumes and volumes of this series, and that’s dollars and dollars I just don’t feel like spending on Dragon Ball Z.
Maybe I’ll try to watch the show. I’ve come to enjoy some anime series over the years (Attack on Titan and Full Metal Alchemist have been favorites), though I still have little interest in investigating Dragon Ball any further. Maybe in another twenty years I’ll feel like giving it another chance.
