Yu-Gi-Oh! Forum

Kashif1 : What do you think of the way character's powers level up between seasons?  Like how in DRAGON BALL Z, Freeza was a galactic conqueror one season and then beaten in 1 episode (a record for DBZ) in the next.

I don’t think I’m going to be shocking anybody if I say that the worlds of anime and gaming are tightly intertwined...

Actually, here's a personal anecdote. I got a haircut last Saturday, early in the morning, and some kids were watching YU-GI-OH there on a block of cartoons. I suppose you could point the same finger at all the shows I grew up on (*COUGH* POWER RANGERS *COUGH*) but, good lord, that toon was one big advertisement for the card game. They'd literally stop to show a new card and explain precisely how many points of damage it inflicted. There might as well have been a phone number or URL on the lower third with ordering info. 

Back on point (and, perhaps, on a less cynical note) isn’t powering up the most sensible course for the storyline, anyway? You wouldn’t expect the heroes to get progressively weaker as a show progress, would you? Part of the fun is seeing them evolve and grow from where they were at the beginning... and, yes, that includes leveling up.

DBZ does get ludicrous with how much those Saiyans power up but, seriously, the entire show is about powering up. Close your eyes, think of DBZ and what do you see? Probably Goku crouching and flexing, the veins throbbing on his forehead, as he's summoning his chi. That being said, all this does make the times when these invincible characters do have to get thwarted feel a little harder to swallow. It's hard to believe Goku can get punked by some random new alien when he just threw a planet of energy at some bad guy.

I’ve seen some of this in the shows I’ve been watching. Ed and Al’s progress has been charted on an almost step-by-step basis, with them slowly beating or stallmating foes who trounced them on their first encounter. GURREN LAGANN’s knuckleheads always seemed like they were a constant stream of "leveling up" until they’re basically kicking the universe’s ass in the finale.  

In the spirit of this, I'd say I've just reached level three of trivia while Kashif1 gets +500 honorary XP points for asking a good question. If you find some valued honorary XP points yourself, send me a question for this column PM. I will answer it.

Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of    HYBRID BASTARDS!  &   UNIMAGINABLE . Order them on Amazon   here   &     here .

I'm watching Amagami SS right now, and I have to say it feels extremely video-gamey at parts.  Like you can pick out places in the episode and say "ooh, he triggered an event there" or "he took the wrong dialogue path there."
 
Magic Knight Rayearth has the character talk explicitly about how the whole world seems like a video game to them...and later about how it is all too real.
 
Higurashi did a good job of being based on a game but not seeming like it at all.  
 
Also, now that I think of it, you could actually write an *awesome* story about a hero who gets progressively weaker.  You could go with a tragedy about a real world degenerative disease crippling a superhero, or a comedy about a once-powerful character with delusions of grandeur, or a middle path where a character's superpowers are slipping away and they have to become more and more resourceful to deal with their enemies.

There is always arcade gamer fubuki...but don't watch that one its terrible...about the time the dinosaur shows up and starts playing an arcade game you start wanting your life back.
 
Oh and are these exp we get here for various stuff worth anything...can I DO anything with them?  I mean its fun to collect them and all but I don't see an area to level up anywhere and I could do with increasing my intelligence stat some...

I don't watch it any more, but honestly, I can't follow Pokemon these days.  What bugs me about that show is how all the older pokemon just disappeared when they added the new pokemon to the roster because of a new game release.  I mean, I turn on a show these days and I wonder why no one had Charizards or Bulbasuars anymore.  Obviously Pikachu is still around, but with Misty gone back to the gym, it's nothing but new pokemon.  On top of that, half the new ones look like old ones with a small change.  
 
I like some evolution, though.  When Digimon moved from season 1 to season 2 and the gang from season 1 were now older and not really the central characters anymore, I loved that bit of storytelling.  It created the sense that this was a larger world and time had passed for everyone.  Then they changed everything in season 3 (I think seasons 1 & 2 were considered TV shows within the show) and I didn't bother with season 4.  
 
Another example was the time separation between the original Naruto and Shippuuden.  Honestly, I expected him to be more powerful when he first returned to Konoha (leaf).  On the other hand, I was overjoyed at how improved Sakura had become.  Then there was the progress that Gara had made in Sunagakure (sand).  Three years seemed way to short for that absolute a change in every character involved there.   It's important to build on what was hinted at in previous episodes or seasons.

Yakitate!! Japan was probably the last tournament story I saw and one of the teammates actually got dumber the farther the show progressed.  Still, it was fun seeing the main character "train" to meet his next challenger.  Because it's a show about baking rather than fighting, training consisted of coming up with new recipes or devising creative ways to bake a standard bread.   How a show approaches the process of training/getting better can make the result more acceptable.
 
Good games progress at a reasonable rate and so good anime should do the same.  When a show jumps too much or too far it becomes a different show and some of what made it entertaining may have been left behind.  Dragon Ball Z went way too far and so they took a step back with GT but that didn't work out at all.  Superman has kryptonite (of which there are about 9000 varieties now) because no one wants to see gods who can do anything do everything for too long.  It removes any sense of danger from the story and so you need bigger baddies each time until they lose their connection to the viewer.  I can't identify with a super being who can destroy a planet on a whim, but I can with a guy who discovers he has some gift and now needs to figure out how to use it and still live a normal life. 

@lurkero said:

" I can appreciate both kinds of anime. I like DBZ and Gurren Lagann where the heroes always have to get stronger to face the next opponent, but I also like anime like Full Metal Alchemist and Ruroni Kenshin where the hero has to be smarter than the opponent in every battle. "

Kenshin, Sanosuke and Yahiko level up in Shishio Arc and in Enish Arc, but it's a mix between training and mental strenght

So I figured out the real aim of Dragon Ball Z... getting men to start bodybuilding. xD

Look, One Piece is very well written compared to Bleach (not that I don't enjoy Bleach), but that doesn't mean One Piece doesn't have its characters steadily improving in combat ability. 
 
That isn't what this blog post was about though.  Characters becoming more competent doesn't always have to be "video gamey."  Now, if there were a bunch of mooks followed by a boss with three forms at the end, then it's video gamey.    The point here is to look for tropes or conceits in anime that seem borrowed from games, or vice versa.  Just "getting stronger" isn't unique to any one storytelling medium.
 
I wanted to add here that I love how One Piece's bounty numbers are basically DBZ power levels in terms of the storytelling function they serve.