The Anatomy of the Art of Dragonball: Storytelling through Acting Continued

Visual storytelling and “Good Acting” Continued

We’ll continue here with the next segment of Chapter 30. Please read the previous entries in this series if you haven’t already. (You can find them all in order on the Effort Posts by Series page in the header.)

Roshi: Halt! Good morning!
Roshi: I’m kame-senin, the one who called yesterday.
Bull: Oh, yes, right, right! Thanks so much!
Bull: Here’s a map of the delivery route
Roshi: Uh-huh…uh-huh…I see…
Roshi: All right, boys. Pick up one crate each…We’re going to deliver some milk.
Krillin: What?! Deliver MILK…?!
Roshi: Yup. It’ll be good exercise.
Bull: Wait!! Don’t tell me you’re planning to do it on foot!! You’re not going to use the helicopter?!
Roshi: Don’t be silly. If we did that, it wouldn’t be training!
Roshi: O-kay now! After me! We’ll do the two kilometers to the first house…skipping!!
Roshi: Skip, skip, tra-la-la…
Roshi: Come on, skip, skip! Skip, skip!
Roshi: All right…you’ve got all the empties? Now, for the next kilometer…
Roshi: This tree-lined path!
Roshi: Zig-zag, zig-zag!! One-two, one-two!!
Roshi: Krillin, you’re lagging! Take too long and the milk will go sour!
Roshi: Nexi up, we’re climbing these stairs! But, well, I suppose you don’t really have to do this at a run…
Krillin: Phew!
Krillin: Arrrrrgh!!

This part marks a shift in the boy’s understanding of their training, so there’s a break in beats and an actor or artist might assign a new action. (A new action should be assigned if a character gets a new goal.) What’s literally happening is Roshi is leading the boys on a long run and the boys are following their teacher on a long run, but again, leaving it at that would get you some boring drawings/flat acting.

Roshi

If you’re the artist, what you’ll choose as Roshi’s essential action based on this script alone depends on the choice you want to make about Roshi’s experience and personality — is Roshi going to be a hardass drill sergeant, a kindly guide showing the way, a mischievous trickster who wants to manipulate his students? There are elements of all three. His essential action might be: “force some arrogant youngsters to learn some humility” or “give my students a taste of the difficult concepts they must master.”

Now let’s have a look at the expressions Toriyama chose. Roshi’s facial expressions are difficult to interpret due to his facial hair; consequently his eyebrows and body language do the heavy lifting.

Remember what we discussed before about balanced elements vs. unbalanced ones? Here Roshi is symmetrical and his body is perfectly vertical. He may be running but he is in control and not at all taxed.

“Halt!” Roshi’s staff is an extension of himself for the purpose of emoting. Notice that as he tells the boys to stop he doesn’t bother to look at them.

Here Roshi is greeting the milkman (who happens to be a bull). Interesting. Let’s look at this and the last one side-by-side

then

It’s a subtle way of showing that Roshi is a guy who wears many faces and keeps his “true self” close to the vest, something that comes into play multiple times in the series.

Talking to the milkman.

Talking to the boys.

Skipping along. Interestingly, while his pose isn’t perfectly symmetrical, the staff creates visual balance since otherwise the eye would be pulled too far toward his back leg as a black shape has a stronger “pull” on the eye than white shape of the same size.

Then later in the same chapter we see this:

The staff is being used for the opposite effect. Roshi’s torso is still straight up and down but the staff has the effect of making him seem skewed to the side from which he is running.

Exaggerated for effect, but homeboy is bookin’ it — effortlessly. The full panel is one of chaos (it’s the sweeping pan discussed earlier) so this gives the reader the impression that Roshi’s speed has increased without causing him to lose his poise.

We see two other instances here of Roshi talking to the boys without facing them.

Is Roshi aware that is training is both weird and extremely physically taxing or is he oblivious to how nuts it might seem to an outsider? Since Roshi’s personal backstory is not particularly important to telling Goku’s story in this arc, (the premise of which was explored in the last effort post) this is an opportunity to tell more of his story without weighing down the main narrative with irrelevant details.

The closest western archetype we have to Roshi is that of the wise fool. He intentionally acts harmless and exaggerates his own foolishness in order to draw out the foolishness of others. Near the very end of the story arc, Roshi does explicitly say something along the lines of “I want to foster a love of learning in these boys; for that reason I want to hide from the boys just how amazing they are because I don’t want them to become so arrogant that they think they have nothing left to learn.” The strongest man in the world says that being the strongest is not valuable in itself – what Roshi considers intrinsically valuable is self-improvement and challenging oneself. (hey this might become a recurring idea!) But Roshi only says this on his own terms to someone he respects, someone in whom he has made an emotional connection that warrants allowing them to become his confidante. Coming back to Chapter 30’s milk delivery, the only person Roshi might say this to would be Turtle, but Turtle is not the jogging type.

Instead, Roshi uses his irreverent dialog and body language to basically shut off all external signs of empathy with the boys. Not only does he not feel what they are feeling, from their point of view he is incapable of feeling what they are feeling. If he were to empathize with the boys, he would say something like, “I know this is hard, but if you stick with it it will pay off!” His apparent obliviousness to the boys’ struggle communicates to the boys “this is child’s play – the hell is wrong with you?”

Why not have him say all this in a thought bubble the way we see Krillin think “This doesn’t seem so bad?” Since Goku isn’t in any real danger at this point, this is one way to maintain some tension and therefore the reader’s interest. Is Roshi’s training actually training, or is he making them do pointless shit in order to amuse himself like when he made Goku fetch him pretty girls? Maybe he’s actually gone senile and this won’t be any help at all? These panels maintain tension by suggesting that it’s possible that Goku is having his time wasted by some asshole. You can see this reflected also in the boys’ expressions. They start looking really confused at this point.

Goku

Krillin

First, I want to point out:
->

This one is from the sweeping panel of chaos mentioned earlier. Look at Krillin’s legs – they’re blurs, like he’s scrambling to keep up. Contrast with Roshi’s pose in which Roshi is going fast but in a calm, even way.

(In case you missed it.)

And I also noted earlier that Krillin is unbalanced here (note how his torso leans forward.)

But I want to point out something a little more subtle here. If one was going line by line in the script, it would be tempting to decide each character’s expression on a panel by panel basis.

Roshi: All right, boys. Pick up one crate each…We’re going to deliver some milk.
Krillin: What?! Deliver MILK…?!

Krillin feels surprised. OK, I’ll draw him with a look of surprise.

Bull: Wait!! Don’t tell me you’re planning to do it on foot!! You’re not going to use the helicopter?!
Roshi: Don’t be silly. If we did that, it wouldn’t be training!

This is surprising. I’ll draw Goku and Krillin both with a look of surprise.

And yet what we see here doesn’t reflect that approach:

Why are Goku and Krillin’s “Surprise” faces drawn differently?

Let’s back up a little and look at what would happen if you DID use that approach.

We already saw this abortion of a comic:

Arousal, anger, blowjob. The Kubler-Ross model had several revisions before they settled on only five stages of grief.

The context, of course, is that Quicksilver is telling Tigra that her authoritarian ways make her similar to their enemy Magneto. Since she hasn’t been grappling with insecurity over any purported Magneto-like tendencies, that last panel, in which I’ll remind you all that she has no dialog, doesn’t seem true to her character.

But let’s look at one that’s less obviously egregious. We’re returning to Adventure Comics #3, where I asked you to look at the nonexpressions of those nonentity women. Now let’s look at who I think is Polar Boy. I’m not familiar with his book, but from what I get he’s a member of the DC version of Great Lakes Avengers (A series that was too good for this sinful earth.) In other words, he’s a member of a team of joke heroes.  Here are the full pages if you want to read them again yourself (for some reason.)

http://imgur.com/OxzxfuT
http://imgur.com/JeKUMc5
http://imgur.com/AIN3sn9

Sun Boy: (to two women at a bar) So girls, help me out. Explain to me how this guy could ever leave a planet as beautiful as Tharr, especially when there are girls here who look — and dress — like you.
Polar Boy: Well, the reason I left —

Oh hey these women have no names. I’ll just call them 18 and Bulma because why the fuck not.

18: You’re Brek Bannin. Everybody on Tharr knows why you left.
Bulma: You went to Earth to join The Legion. Except they rejected you.

Polar Boy: And then —
Bulma: You started The Legion of rejects, right?
Polar Boy: The Legion of Substitute Heroes.

18: So are you subbing for someone right now? Did phantom girl break her leg or something?

Polar Boy: I’m not in the Subs anymore! I became a member of the REAL Legion. No one knows THAT part? And eventually I became the LEADER of the real Legion of Super-Heroes! The boss! The man in charge!!
Sun Boy: Yes, he actually became the leader.

Polar Boy: Why “actually”?

Bulma: How about you, Sun Boy? (note, she’s not teasing him, that’s actually his name.) Did you ever become the “man in charge”?
Sun Boy: That was never something I wanted. I’m more of a “do-my-own-thing” kind of guy.
Bulma: So, they asked you and you turned it down?
Polar Boy: Not “actually.”
Bulma: What’s your big fancy power?

Sun Boy: I make it…hot.
Bulma: On purpose?

(Bulma and 18 walk away)
Polar Boy: Wow! Shot down!
Sun Boy: That ALWAYS works.
Polar Boy: I’ve never seen you sweat.
Sun Boy: I’m sweating because your stupid planet is so damn hot.

Polar Boy: You’re the only other legionnaire that could take this heat.
Sun Boy: And THAT’S why you asked me to come?
Polar Boy: That and this guy is supposed to be dangerous. Speaking of which, can we get down to Legion Business now?

This whole dialog is a bit bizarre, but let’s pretend we’re the artist. We can’t change the script now. OK, just going by the script, let’s think of some essential actions.

Sun Boy’s essential action is easy. It could be “charm a beautiful woman into opening the possibility of intimate contact” or “Make my arrogant colleague feel humiliated.” (Most likely the former.)

Polar Boy…”show my partner that I’m not in the mood for shenanigans” or “guide my friend away from frivolous pursuits so that we can get to the important business.”

We see that this whole business of being in the “Subs” must be something about which Polar Boy feels insecure, otherwise he wouldn’t have a bit of a freak out over it. He really seems to get worked up. If I were just reading the script, I’d assume that this bit put him in a sour mood and that he’d probably be sulking the rest of the time. After all, he’s not here on a pleasure trip, he’s come to this place on ~Legion Business~. So given his probable essential action here of wanting to get Sun Boy to stop trying to get his dick wet and start doing his job, I’d probably do his expressions like this:

Polar Boy: I’m not in the Subs anymore! I became a member of the REAL Legion. No one knows THAT part? And eventually I became the LEADER of the real Legion of Super-Heroes! The boss! The man in charge!! (Angry face.)
Sun Boy: Yes, he actually became the leader.

Polar Boy: Why “actually”? (Muttered to himself under his breath.)

Bulma: How about you, Sun Boy? Did you ever become the “man in charge”?
Sun Boy: That was never something I wanted. I’m more of a “do-my-own-thing” kind of guy.
Bulma: So, they asked you and you turned it down?
Polar Boy: Not “actually.” (deadpan monotone.)
Bulma: What’s your big fancy power?

Sun Boy: I make it…hot.
Bulma: On purpose?

Polar Boy: Wow! Shot down! (pissed off, rolling eyes)
Sun Boy: That ALWAYS works.
Polar Boy: I’ve never seen you sweat. (ugh, can we do Legion Business now?  Gawd.)
Sun Boy: I’m sweating because your stupid planet is so damn hot.

But we end up getting:

So we start out OK – a pissed off guy who doesn’t want to be there, then we get ARGHH MY INSECURITIES!! Then an actual “fuck you” glare at Sun Boy and then…sneering at him? Pleased to see Sun Boy get mocked by these weirdly critical random women? And then he’s fucking joyful! And then calm, cool, collected, as he tells Sun Boy that he brought him here on purpose basically because he respects him.

This guy had his insecurities blown wide open by a bunch of strangers who are contemptuous of the main characters yet willing to blather exposition to them, then he’s totally cool immediately after (whereas it would be more natural to disengage emotionally, maybe sulk) and willing to sneer at his pal then he collects himself and actually looks quite comfortable and sound. The fuck is goin’ on here?

I can only guess that the artist evaluated each chunk of dialog on a panel by panel basis. “Here he’s a place he doesn’t want to be, if I were here I’d be bored, so I’ll draw him looking bored. Oh here he’s being insulted, that would make me angry, so he’s MAD. Here is a guy getting made fun of by hot women. If that happened in front of me, I’d think it served him right, so I’ll draw a mocking expression. Here he is next to his friend who is usually a ladies man but just got rejected. If that happened to me it’d be funny to see some king of PUA get knocked down a peg, so I’d laugh. Here he is telling a friend that he trusts him when the shit gets real…” Etc.

If the artist had kept his eye on the prize (OK, if I had a job to do but my partner was wasting time, how would I react to him getting insulted by some asshole chicks he was trying to pick up…?) then these expressions would have worked together as a cohesive whole. As it stands now, they are a series of unrelated vignettes. I’d say perhaps the artist is saying this guy is fucking unhinged on purpose, but in that last pic in the sequence he seems rather composed. Now if he had been grinning manically, THAT would be characterization!

Essential Action in action

Let’s have a look at the script of a page from Dragonball that is very similar but has some key differences.

(Goku helps Krillin get up – Krillin landed head first after jumping from his boat to the shore of Roshi’s island.)

Krillin: Hak hak…Thanks…

Krillin: You are The Muten-Roshi, The Invincible Old Master?!
Roshi: None other.

Krillin: I have traveled from the distant village of the East! I am called Krillin (Kuririn. Whatever. -西)
Krillin: My only wish is to train under you, August Muten-Roshi!!

Roshi: Well, well, isn’t that nice?
Roshi: Too bad I so rarely take disciples. Enjoy your trip home.

Krillin: Please take this token of my admiration. (He hands Roshi a porno mag.)
Roshi: Perhaps I’ve been too hasty…

Roshi: Ahem…yes…yes…hasty…
Krillin: Then it is to the master’s liking?

Krillin: And who are you? A disciple?
Goku: Uh-huh!! I’m Son Goku!!

Krillin: I see.
Krillin: Hmph. Well.
Krillin: You don’t look like you’d have the stomach for it.
Goku: Oh, I got plenty o’ stomach!

Krillin: Heh. An attempt at wit, is that what that was?
Goku: You’re funny! Your head looks like a pachinko ball!

Krillin: How dare you?! All who aspire to master the martial arts shave their heads in order to unfetter their “ki”!
Krillin: Take the venerable Muten-Roshi as your model!!

Roshi: Actually…I’m just bald.
Krillin: ….

We also have a character here who suddenly gets very angry when a nerve is touched. Superficially, this is the arrival of another enthusiastic kid who wants to learn from Roshi, much like Goku. At first blush it also appears that Krillin is sensitive about his bald head, like he’s upset that his head is bald and feels ashamed. But that is not so.

Krillin is very calm, not at all bothered, when Roshi tells him to turn around and go home. Furthermore, he isn’t surprised or overjoyed when Roshi changes his mind. Yet he flips his shit about a comment on his bald head. What’s actually going on is that Krillin is smart. He knows he’s smart. I’d wager that all this was planned since before he left Orin Temple even though we never ever see a flashback of his time there or hear him say “I planned for this.” Krillin knew that Roshi would turn him down at first. He knew that Roshi would cave if given some porn. He had a picture in his mind of what it would be like to train with the master. And Goku fucked it up.

Goku was not a factor in Krillin’s plans. But Krillin will deal with this hiccup, however grudgingly. Why would Krillin want to train with Roshi, so badly that he collects rumors about his personality and training? Remember, Roshi hasn’t accepted a new student in decades.  Krillin wants to train with Roshi because he’s smart enough to know Roshi is the best – and Krillin wants to be the best. So no matter if Roshi already has some other student. He’ll become Roshi’s BEST student.

So the first thing he does is put Goku down to establish that Krillin will be the top dog in the Turtle School. But not only does Goku not get put down by Krillin’s power play, Goku doesn’t even engage with his power play. Goku doesn’t see Krillin as a threat or a rival at all. And then Goku indicates total ignorance of the most basic of customs (even a dumb westerner knows that Buddhist monks shave their heads!) Krillin busted his ass to get here and this dipshit is going to be on equal footing with him?

So Krillin loses his shit. I’m not 100% convinced that Krillin actually believes that Roshi shaves his head. I think this is just a further power play by Krillin. Think all this is a stretch? Consider this: Krillin can’t be ashamed of his bald head – why would he be? His follicles are fine. He can (and does) grow his hair back whenever he wants. You think having a shaved head is easy? You gotta maintain that shit. Krillin is bald by choice. He is secure in his hairlessness.

Anyway, after Krillin loses his composure, another interesting thing happens.

Remember when I was talking about panels with foreground/background characters and that the focus characters are usually irrelevant to the mental state of non-focus characters?

Well the panel in which the shit flipping happens looks like this:

We’ve been primed to believe that Roshi is just there to establish the scene but is not an active participant in the foreground event. And yet…

Check this out. We get a change in view angle, but if you really think about it, just by changing our view there’s no actual way to get the characters aligned like this. But the placement is important. By not being in the center behind Krillin and Goku, Roshi enters the focus, becoming a participant in the proceedings. Roshi has effectively joined the foreground without actually moving. Furthermore, as our eyes sweep from right to left, we see Roshi (“Actually…I’m just bald.”) and then Krillin’s reaction to that. Rearranging Roshi’s placement allows Krillin’s expression to change AFTER Roshi’s dialog.

By taking advantage of the fact that comic book art convention has conditioned us to think that background characters aren’t paying attention to foreground characters, Roshi’s intrusion is a surprise for the reader as well. This is similar to how in Japanese theatre assassinations would be done by a stagehand. The audience was conditioned to ignore stagehands as elements that were not part of the story, making it all the more shocking when one entered it. (That’s also why we think of someone dressed in all black when we think of a ninja. Historically ninjas wore whatever made them inconspicuous, like a farmer’s garb or a servant’s uniform. In fact the only non-ninja profession that doesn’t look weird when dressed in all black is…a stagehand.)

This line is also more than just Roshi idly correcting Krillin. First, if he was actually getting his jollies, particularly from THAT far away, he would not be listening to the conversation at hand. And he jumps in not when Krillin first insults Goku or even the second time he insults Goku. Roshi only jumps in when Krillin paints Krillin and Roshi as equals with Goku below them.

This is another example of how Roshi wears a mask to hide how competent he actually is. Of course he would want to see how Krillin acts when he’s not kissing ass. But more than that, the one thing Roshi will not abide is someone elevating themselves over others. But he would never say that out loud, so he makes putting Krillin back in his place seem like an accident.

Krillin has two beats here. First when his goal is to convince the greatest martial arts master in the world to take him on as a student, and second when his goal is to establish his superior place in a hierarchy between himself and Goku. He loses his shit because he fails at the second one.

And now let’s see how it all comes together.

So why are the expressions different already?

And so after all that, I want to come back around to Chapter 30 and why the boys’ expressions of surprise are different – and not just in chapter 30!

Krillin’s here to get THE BEST martial arts education, which he picked out because he’s so very clever. Goku’s here because Roshi invited him and well, he’s an orphan with nothing to do and he does want to get stronger after all, so it seemed like a good idea.

For Goku this training is just something he’s gonna do now unless he gets bored or something. For Krillin this is a deliberate step to take control of his destiny. And Krillin is worried that he made the wrong choice! He’s grappling with the scary idea that he might not be as clever as he thinks. We’ll come back to this in the next effort post, where we’ll wrap up Chapter 30.

Bloo bloo indeed. Cheer up buddy, you’ll be the strongest human on Earth some day!

Fractial: “Not going to lie, at first I was a bit annoyed with your extremely long posts.

The more I read them, the more I realize how little I know about art. The critical analysis you are committing to is very detailed; the many perspectives you explore in analyzing, in what I thought was a very simple comic book, is making me look closer at the art and try to see what the author conveys. Basically, I am finding a new appreciation of manga and art.

Thanks for the posts.”

Blaze Dragon: “Xibanya’s posts keep being great to read. They give me even more respect for a great series.

That said, wow, it’s hard to believe how much of a dick Krillin was at first. He might not have grown in height, but he definitely grew up as a person during the course of the series. Seeing this arrogant brat, no one would believe that he’d become Goku’s closest friend.”

Thank you! I’ve been having a blast writing all of these and maybe some day you all can pay it forward by pointing out cool art things about some other thing you like to someone else some day. I’m getting very close to the end of my planned series on DB’s art, so after that I’ll have to find something else to do with myself. (Probably standing on a street corner in a bathrobe downtown ranting to no one in particular about how Penguin Village is a metaphor for Shueisha Publishing Co.)

Astro Nut: “To add to the talk on focusing on characters and position and such – Toriyama’s choice of background usage is also pretty effective to help this along. To just use the pages Xibanya uploaded as an example – only three of the panels on those pages have a particularly detailed background. And one of those I’d count as just barely since Kame House only just edges into frame. Heck, one of those pages practically has no background at all in black and white, aside of a few lines to indicate the edges of grass and clouds. A lot of superhero comics do not like to do this. But I think that, aside of saving time for a man who apparently tried to cram in his work at the end of the week, it allows him to more regularly focus on character interactions. Might be also why he likes wastelands so much – way easier to let that sort of thing slip out of sight if its not that interesting to begin with.”

Reinanigans: “I’m just getting to the artificial humans in the manga and Kuririn makes such an awesome explanation for why they shouldn’t just kill off Gero before the cyborgs show up. He says that before, all the guys there (Yamcha, Tenshinhan and Chaozu, Piccolo, and even Kuririn himself) were enemies and it was only through having a common threat that they ever became friends. Piccolo might not try to conquer the world again, but what about Vegeta? Kuririn is a lot shrewder than he ever gets credit for.”