Satan

do you know what performance it's from?

You read that correctly folks. Akira Toriyamas beloved manga/anime/movie/giant freakin franchise is a work of brilliance, maybe his best and maybe not, but this isn't the place for that. Shall we begin this exploration then? It all starts with the series main character, Goku, He is a being from a race called "The "Saiyans"(we don't find this out until later) who lands on Earth after his home planet is destroyed. Now, we must delve deep into the culture that Goku inherits from this mother race. The Saiyans are a warrior race, somewhat intelligent as evidenced by their capacity to travel in space, but mostly brutes. Their society functions in a very Spartan manner. They fight, and to the victor go the spoils, and that goes for everything. Strength is the most important aspect. They are quick to violence and un-apologetic. My my, does this not bring to mind our own race? Can you not recall how many times in your life you have noticed fights that have been started because of mere words? As humans we get angry and one of the most basic emotions is to attack that which "hurts" us, right? Some people get mad and they assault things, basically. Does this behavior not coincide with the mentioned Saiyans? To go a step further, in our society it is a sign of masculinity to be the physically superior male. Many a person has been caught praising such behavior as necessary for proper development in males, just like the Saiyans. ^_^ Now Toriyamas lesson by using these characters is what I personally find to be the most important part. The Spartans are a conquering race,and they indeed do their job well.In the end though, they can be seen as overconfident pawns in a galactic game of Darwinism. As strong as they are, and they have no problem boasting of it, they are overshadowed by one of the series antagonists, Frieza. He and his band of ruffians have a stranglehold over the race by being the more advanced beings. And when their masters get tired of their puppets they decided to off them in a powerful explosion that destroyed Gokus father. ;_; Ok, so you might be asking "What's the damn lesson?". Well, there is an old saying, "No matter how big and bad you are, there's always someone bigger and badder". In this case the Saiyans had to deal with Frieza, who can be look at in my view as nature. Frieza is cold, and he does what he wants and attempts to steamroll anything that would stop him from doing otherwise. As humans we are(or should be) awed by the power of nature. From volcanoes that wipe out entire cities and leave us the ruins, like Pompeii, to scars left deep in our crust from galactic objects too fearsome and powerful for us to imagine, like the kind that eradicated the dinosaurs, nature can be a real bitch. Build levees and homes, but nature will make you feel like a pebble on a beach, or it does for me at least. Now I may seem like I'm rambling, but I'm getting there, so go take a drink and leave this little gem for when you're completely coherent. When I think of war from a human perspective, and of the last paragraph together, I magically begin to see this as all tied together as a adequate warning to us from the mind of a brilliant man. We as a species fight over so many petty things, like what country you were born in, or books written thousands of years, that while all of this is going on we may never stop and think of what could really happen to us from something that isn't human. AS humans we create terrible weapons and use them brutally, but we have at least tried to make war as least gruesome as it can be. Nature, like Frieza, is not gentle. But i'm out of my depth, so I'll direct you to one of ma fav homies for this little point. The Saiyans meet their end by a force they didn't see coming and didn't have the intelligence to care about. Frieza was unnoticed,and Bardoks words were unheeded. And they perished. Is it perfect metaphor for what will happen to us as a species if we continue to fight each other instead of worrying about what is really out there? Idk, you tell me. Now to my last point I will explore the character of Goku. A member of the Saiyan race, he falls to Earth, and after some initial tomfoolery and head trauma becomes a fun and loving boy(I gotta remember to try that, oh the things we learn from tv ) who becomes a figure of all that is good. He is a kind man, who always works hard and is thrilled by the prospect of life. He is the flower that escaped the patch of weeds. In my own way I think Toriyama was alluding to those spend their lives traveling and learning of other cultures. Goku enjoys traveling the land and is a respectful, inquisitive person,a s we all should be in such situations. He also can be seen as a figure who understand the importance of education, as he tells his own child to study hard. He is a figure of intelligence, fun, helpfullness, healthiness, and justice. I feel Toriyama is using the idea of only a handful of Saiyans surviving as a literary device to portray the idea that this fantasy of the human race surviving as a bleak chance. So many Saiyans stood idly by and fit in, and in the end were destroyed, while only a handful of them survived. We as a species never fail to amaze me at how cruel we can be. We fight wars over lies, and kill each other for things we don't understand, and fewer and fewer of us seem to caring. So many people know nothing of what goes on in the world. If a meteor hit tomorrow and we knew it would happen a day before, we as a society might not even get the word out in my opinion of course. We are a broken species who have failed to realize our place in the universe, and how fragile we are, and as I believe Toriyama was alluding to, we just may not notice that real "evil" out there. So who do you want to be, the Saiyans, or Gokus group? TLDR: Dragonball Z is totes awesome. :3 I love you all.