CommanderPonyShep

That was a Frozen reference, was it? But yeah, I'm obsessed and need to let it go.

Right. By now, two months had already passed since the Season Four finale. So, perhaps I do have to let it go. But you see where I'm coming from, right? As I said in the blog, I hated the Twilight/Tirek fight, but preferred the Twilight/Chrysalis fight, even though both hinged on the disempowerment and victimization of the Mane Five, in-exchange for the empowerment of Twilight Sparkle and her magic. And, it doesn't make a lot of sense, even for me, when you think about it.

Hey, thanks.

You know how I'm upset over the Twilight/Tirek fight scene, just because it displayed a power imbalance between Twilight Sparkle and her friends? And you know how I'm also upset at the fans for liking the fight scene so much, that they seem to have forgotten the show's core friendship themes, especially since they hated two of the key episodes, the Rainbow Power, and Rainbow Castle? Well, there was another fight scene with the same circumstances as the Twilight/Tirek fight I didn't mind. It was in the climax of the first comic book story-arc, the Return of Chrysalis arc. The final battle between Twilight and Queen Chrysalis was the same situation as the Twilight/Tirek fight: A big magic fight between Twilight and a villain, an external source powering up Twilight, and her friends being held hostage for her magic. Except in the comic's case, it was almost the reverse; where Tirek fought Twilight before holding her friends hostage for her magic, in Chrysalis' case it was almost the other way around. And, even though Twilight was a unicorn at the time of the final battle against Chrysalis, and therefore could not wield alicorn magic, her magic was being enhanced by an entirely different source: The Secretariat Comet. The outcome of the Twilight/Chrysalis battle was also different from the results of the Twilight/Tirek fight. With Tirek, Twilight could not fight him without ending the battle in a draw, so the giant centaur took the coward's way out and held her friends hostage for her alicorn magic. She surrenders it for her friends, and even though on the short term Tirek won, long term it earned Twilight her final key, which allowed her and her friends to unlock friendship-powered rainbow magic, which they apply to Tirek and restore everypony's magic, even build the girls a new castle to replace Twilight's library. But the Twilight/Chrysalis fight? It did not end with Twilight using friendship magic against Chrysalis, the same way she would with Tirek over a year later. Instead, her normal unicorn-at-the-time magic was enhanced by the Secretariat Comet so much, that she practically obliterated Queen Chrysalis. Granted, the changeling queen was still alive and was eventually tortured by Pinkie Pie's incessant singing and dancing. But even before she became an alicorn princess, Twilight still blew up her surrounding environment with her unicorn magic, instead of use the old friendship magic that saved her life and the lives of countless other ponies on a regular basis. That, and her friends were cheering for her by the sidelines, after spending three and a half issues escorting her to the final battle. Lastly, was the role her friends played in getting her to the two final battles. In both cases, Twilight's friends all led her to each of the two final battles, before she eventually had to fight these battles on her own. In the Return of Chrysalis arc, the Mane Five escorted Twilight to Queen Chrysalis' lair, surviving giant spiders and a cave troll, before eventually splitting up into three pairs as the result of an argument. Then, once they reunite and apologize, they continue on to the climactic showdown as if their argument never happened. It lasted three and a half short issues. As for the Twilight/Tirek fight, the build up was the Mane Five's key episodes, where each of the girls learn a valuable lesson about their Elements of Harmony, resulting in them getting a key. Granted, two of them were considered bad, including Rainbow Falls and It Ain't Easy Being Breezies, the third was average, Leap of Faith, and the last two were considered the best of the key episodes, including Rarity Takes Manehattan and Pinkie Pride. But much like the three and a half issues of build up where Twilight's friends escort her to Queen Chrysalis, it was still the Mane Five leading Twilight to the fight with Tirek and her final key. It took a Season Four premiere and five half-hour episodes to build up to that fight, with several slice-of-life stories in-between to extend the season's length. And yet, despite all of those similarities between the Twilight/Tirek fight and the Twilight/Chrysalis fight, I never seem to mind the latter as compared to the former. Why? I have no clue. I guess it has to do with the fact that the Twilight/Tirek fight became the most overrated thing on Earth, to the point that it overshadowed nearly every other aspect of the television show itself, just because of its resemblance to Dragon Ball Z. As for the Twilight/Chrysalis fight, no one seems to talk about that, either, because no one bothers reading the comics, either because they don't have the money or means to get them, or because they aren't canon. But other than that, perhaps I'm a hypocrite regarding my own tastes and the tastes of other people.

To be honest, I actually originally enjoyed DBZ, despite its problems. The problem was that by the time I read Carlos Ross' negative review of DBZ on ThemAnime.org, I was persuaded into hating that series. The reason is because I'm too dependent on other people's reviews to tell me if something is good or not. This is most especially true with video games. I don't purchase as many games as I want to, so instead I turn to Metacritic and GameRankings to figure out if I want that particular game or not. If it received an average or negative score, then I avoid it. However, if its score is at least 80/100 or higher, then I might want to consider getting that game. Unfortunately, I still don't bother, because of how expensive it is to purchase games, so I turn to video walkthroughs recorded by someone else on Youtube. And that's one of the problems with me. I don't think for myself, so I turn to others to tell me if something is okay or not. Hell, it's why I still live with my mother even at age 25! I'm afraid of making my own decisions without angering someone, so I satisfy people at the expense of my own freedom! This is why I keep hating on DBZ, because I was told by someone else to not like it because of its slow-to-a-crawl, repetitive fights and complete and total disregard for most of Goku's supporting cast. And, it's why I hate the Twilight/Tirek fight scene as well, because of the way it reminded me and everyone else of Dragon Ball Z, even though I'd consider it more interchangeable with the Twilight/Chrysalis fight in the MLP comics, most likely due to me disliking DBZ because, again, I've been told to.

Well, this whole "shared universe" mindset was what got me into disliking Dragon Ball Z. Again, when I first saw DBZ, I had that mindset that the Z-Warriors would be Goku's personal Justice League, and they weren't because DBZ wasn't a shared universe like DC Comics, and that the supporting cast were not main-characters of their own franchises. And, it's literally a true story! Also, what about the Twilight/Chrysalis fight in the comics? That can be as much comparable to the Twilight/Tirek fight as DBZ, due to sharing some of the same circumstances, like Twilight's friends reduced to states of helplessness, Twilight getting her magic enhanced by an external source, and a big magic fight. Not only that, but I literally had no problem with the Twilight/Chrysalis fight, yet had a bigger problem with that same scenario in the S4 finale! Why? I have no stinking clue, though it mostly attributes to the Twilight/Tirek fight being compared to DBZ but not the Twilight/Chrysalis fight.

Yeah, unlike the Avengers and the Justice League. Even though both teams have Captain America and Superman, respectively, as leaders, neither of them are main-protagonists of those two team-up books the same way they are in their own respective, individual storylines and franchises. DBZ, on the other hand, is not a shared universe the same way as Marvel and DC, which means none of Goku's friends were protagonists of their own franchises, so of course Goku would receive tons of focus. As a result, I need to stop looking at DBZ through a Marvel/DC-style shared universe perspective. Otherwise, I won't be satisfied with what I actually got, and at least appreciate it for some of its slimmers of goodness, from Vegeta's story-arc, to all of Earth's entire population powering up Goku's Spirit Bomb to destroy Buu, which was a team effort.

Back when I was a kid and first watched DBZ, I thought that if Goku was going to be Superman just because he shared the same powers and origin-story as him, then that would make the numerous Z-Warriors his personal Justice League. But, as I watched the first story-arc, and later story-arcs like it, I've been proven wrong time and again. Repeatedly, many of Goku's friends, even Vegeta, all get their butts handed to them just as an excuse to demonstrate each new main-villain's powers, as well as to tell the audiences that only Goku, and in some ways Gohan at the end of the Cell Games, were the only ones to stop them. As a result, I became upset that Goku's friends were being rendered obsolete and useless, even though Superman's Justice League friends don't end up getting left behind in-terms of character-development and relevancy to the story, if not power levels. But then I wrote a thread about it on some message boards, and numerous people told me that Dragon Ball Z was not the same as the DC Comics universe, even if their respective heroes shared the same backstory and powers. Technically, American comics are not written the same way as manga, and not just because the latter have endings while the former barely do. American comics like Marvel and DC are shared universes, which means they have no designated main-protagonist. Every superhero is the main-protagonist of their respective franchises, which means that when they cross over to form teams like the Justice League or the Avengers, there isn't going to be a main-protagonist because it's a crossover. Sure, there are designated leaders amongst those teams, like Superman for the Justice League, and Captain America and Iron Man for the Avengers. But even then, the leaders themselves are not main-protagonists of those two team-up stories, because every other member of those two teams are main-protagonists of their own storylines. Japanese manga, on the other hand, are not shared universes themselves. They are mostly self-contained, and as a result do have main-protagonists alongside a supporting cast. And usually, in manga, a supporting cast's job is to help the hero reach his goal, namely by fighting henchmen in one-on-one duels so that the hero could focus on the main-villain alone. Otherwise, if the hero fought those henchmen, they would have softened him up enough for their bad-guy leader to finish him off. Dragon Ball Z was no exception, despite it co-existing in the same universe as that other Akira Toriyama manga, Dr. Slump (they only crossed over once for a little while, and then never did it again). Even if Vegeta was the one supporting character who took up most of the spotlight, due to his story-arc of him trying to surpass Goku out of jealousy while being one of the good guys, he was still just that: A supporting character. That meant he and the other supporting characters handled the minions or other low-level bad-guys, while Goku himself fought the main-villain himself, without fear of being softened up by the henchmen. It's what also describes One Piece. To ensure that every member of the Straw Hat Pirate crew was useful, Eiichiro Oda usually pitted each individual crew member against a certain powerful henchman, so that he or she could clear a path for Luffy to reach the main villain. Luffy may have had a history of enduring enough punishment to kill an entire army, but he would have been softened up by the henchmen just enough for the main-villain of each story-arc to finish him off. Which was why he had his crew, to handle the henchmen so that they would not soften Luffy. And that's the problem with me right now. I've been approaching manga through an American comic shared universe perspective. I kept thinking that, because Japan has manga, that it means they do shared universes just as much as American comic publishers. The reason I kept getting upset over the uselessness of Goku's supporting cast was because of my American perspective, the idea that if Goku was Superman, then his friends were his Justice League, even though they actually weren't because (a) they were useless and killed off too often, and (b) they were not main-characters of their own franchises the same way American comic-book heroes were. And, it doesn't just apply to manga, as well. Live action, team-based tokusatsu shows like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers were not shared universes, in that each Power Ranger was not a main-character of his or her franchise. This is most especially true when you look at each Red Ranger, who was often designated the leader, and therefore would be considered the main-protagonist himself. Meanwhile, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may have originated as an American comic itself, but it was not part of any shared universe I know of, nor was it a shared universe in and of itself, despite it crossing over with that other series, Usagi Yojimbo. Not only that, but the TMNT also had their own leader, Leonardo, who would also be designated the main-protagonist as a result, with Donatello and Michelangelo as his "sidekicks", and Raphael as the "anti-hero". Therefore, Leonardo would most likely be the one to fight Shredder in a one-on-one duel, while Raph, Don, and Mikey handled the low-level henchmen. Toy based franchises with large ensemble casts, similar to My Little Pony, are also the same way. He-Man, Thundercats, G.I. Joe, and Transformers do not exist in any pre-existing shared universe, and are not shared universes themselves, despite He-Man branching off with a spin-off series starring his distaff counterpart, She-Ra. Not only that, but each of those franchises also designated their respective teams into main-protagonist (He-Man, Lion-O, Duke, and Optimus Prime) and supporting cast (Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, G.I. Joe, and Autobots). Which leads to one question: Why was I able to discern He-Man, Thundercats, G.I. Joe, Transformers, TMNT, and Power Rangers as separate, self-contained universes, but saw Dragon Ball Z through a DC Comics-style shared universe perspective? If I were to guess, it was probably the fact that Goku was technically Superman in-terms of origin story and powers, while He-Man, Lion-O (who ironically also shared the same origin story as Superman), Duke, Optimus Prime, Leonardo, and the average Red Ranger were not. But the answer just isn't definitive. So really, perhaps I should stop with the Dragon Ball Z rants. I need to wean myself off of that mindset that Dragon Ball Z was the same way as the DC Comics universe, even though neither of them were the same as each other except Superman and Goku's shared powers and origin-story. Hell, I may need to apply that to My Little Pony as well; Twilight's friends may have turned her into an alicorn princess and helped her unlock the blue box to receive Rainbow Power, but Twilight herself is and will always be the main-protagonist and leader. She isn't part of a shared universe, and her friends are not main-characters of their own respective franchises. It's one of the reasons why the Twilight/Tirek fight worked for most people, because it showed that even though Twilight was a smaller part of a much larger universe, as her friends constantly reinforced, she was still the main-character and main-focus of the entire My Little Pony series, and will always be, and that I need to get rid of that shared universe perspective to fully grasp this concept.