Top 20 Dragon Ball Abridged Moments #20

My friends, welcome to a spur of the moment project I’ve decided to take on. When I was very young, my favorite TV show as Dragon Ball Z, and to this day, it will always hold a very special place in the heart of this humble fan-boy. In recent years, my love of the series has been reignited and that is thanks in no small part to Team Four Star, the incredibly funny people behind Dragon Ball Abridged, a very entertaining parody/homage to the original series. Not only is the series hilarious, even to those who are by and large unfamiliar with Dragon Ball, but as a fan, it has helped to remind me why I loved the original series in the first place. So, what exactly are you doing here? Well, every December, the members of TFS get together and do something they call DBcember, in which they countdown certain aspects of the series, be it the top moments in the series, the top movies or this years countdown, the top villains. Upon seeing the first few entries in this year’s DBcember, I was struck with inspiration and decided to do a DBcember countdown of my own. To that end, throughout this month (and given how I’ve been dragging my feet on the other series’ I’ve been working on probably into January and February) I’ll be counting down my top 20 favorite moments in Dragonball the Abridged Series, starting with number 20.

20. Oh to hell with it… Special Beam Cannon!!!

To put this joke in context, the proper Japanese name for Piccolo’s signature attack is the Makankosappo, which literally means “Demonic Piercing Light Murder Gun.” It translates into something cool sounding, but for an English speaking audience it can be a tad hard to pronounce, hence the change to Special Beam Cannon in the English dub. For their version, Team Four Star chose to give an in-universe reason for the name change by making the name too hard for even Piccolo himself to pronounce, causing him to change the name at the last minute.

Admittedly, this joke would probably be unlikely to make other people’s lists as the joke is fairly basic. Personally, while I find the joke hilarious, that’s not why it makes the list. The summer I first discovered Dragon Ball Abridged, I showed it to my cousins, naturally starting from the beginning of the series, and I remember that this was the line that we quoted for most of that summer. I couldn’t even tell you why, we just got a kick out of it.

Anywho, that’ll do it for number 20, but we still have nineteen more to go, so stay tuned to the site. Also, if you haven’t seen Team Four Star’s work, definitely go check out their website as well and show them your support. And last but not least, pleas support the official release.