As some of you might have noticed, between 10am on Friday the 13th of September and 4pm on Saturday the 14th of September I watched a hell of a lot of Dragon Ball to raise money for the homeless charity Crisis UK. And, I’m very happy to say that, as per the spoiler in the title, quite a lot of cash was donated. That is wonderful and has been celebrated extensively, but as I finally escape the jetlag of having done that I thought it warranted a bit more discussion and a look under the hood of what’s involved.

I promise I’ll try not to be too self-indulgent


One thing I would like to say is that doing something like this is not a case of “sit down, open twitch, watch the telly”. Beyond the social media thing (which includes trying to remember how Tik-Tok works when your body is yelling “sleep” and your soul is yelling “we hates Tik-Tok, but its gives us the reaches”) and brazen self-promo, there are things like getting your Twitch stream visuals made and working, getting applets to pop up new donations, sorting out lights, copying all the content from discs into a single playlist, and forcing Windows to do things with sound inputs and outputs the developers never thought of. So… 30 hours of viewing, 40 hours of technical worries. and I didn’t keep track of how much general admin is involved. Importantly: All Totally Worth It!

Which isn’t to say I was alone on this one, for I had Laura co-hosting, people wrangling and a bunch of people jumping into the stream so I could talk DragonBall and have them yell if I fell asleep. And; oh my! These people knew their stuff, being actual Dragon Ball enjoyers,  and in many cases were worrying fresh and rested. So it was a buzz every time they said “good point” to something I’d pulled out of the aether. So, big shout out to Rob Luckett, Dawn H, DeValmont, LJ Matthews / https://www.twitch.tv/ljmatthewsart, Lewie Kong, Will Blewitt, Denji, Brian, and Chris Trace https://www.youtube.com/@evafan84. Also Claire Copping for spontanious art! On top of that, there was the comments section. They didn’t stop, and then they turned up mob-handed to see me crawl through the final 2 hours: no finer pressure or encouragement than an audience that’s on your side. Just a constant stream of support, jokes, Kamehamehas, and general awesomeness

As for Dragon Ball itself, I can’t say that I’ve become any more of a non-fan than I was before. But I have developed an immense appreciation for why other people like it and for the craft involved in making it. It is an incredibly consistent series, in all aspects of storytelling, with some of the finest fight-based storytelling I have seen. The Tree Of Might was a prime example of this: the camera was spinning in every way imaginable whilst the two combatants flew around firing punches, kicks, and ray blasts at each other. At no point did I feel the makers didn’t know where any character was or what they were doing and it just added to the excitement. At the same time, something like Super Broley was hitting 2001: A Space Odyssey levels of visual imagination; moving the fight from the physical to the emotional plane to highlight the narrative tension. Admittedly, it was always the same story of “find problem, punch problem, punch problem really hard!” but they had the care to tell it differently without mucking around with the characters. On top of that, one of the movies had Hitler come back from the grave and then big killed which is always a timeless classic.

Overall, almost everything was enjoyable to watch. It has a good, although rather straightforward, set of moral messages, and a surprising amount of character development between films. There was also far more full frontal scenes of Goku pissing on things than I expected, and if the whole story was planned on the fly by Akira Toriyama looking at things around his appartment he was as talented a writer as he was an artist. The live action movies were of varying enjoyment, as they were made by three different teams on three drastically different budgets, with their own pros-and-cons. Son Goku Fights, Son Goku Wins is a no-budget kids show, unafraid to be silly and determined to be a good time senti film. The Magic Begins is a mid-tier mockbuster which worked surprisingly well, with probably the best acting of the three, and Dragon Ball Evolution was a half baked pile of crap.

What happens next is still in the planning stages, due to being overwhelmed by what’s been achieved this time and having to develop something better for the next. The most clear takeaway has been that people pay more to see me watch popular stuff than they do to see me tormented and, in this situation, I’m more than happy to follow the money. Especially as there are a ton of mainstream franchises that I’ve never held much interest in and that have the requisite hours of content required for a moviethon. I will also be looking to get more people involved sooner, because that shares the workload/pain and will hopefully get even more money in. So if anyone wants in as either tech support, promotional support, or to be on Twitch (for up to and including all of it) please do get in touch. The hours are long, the work is exhausting, and you will suffer mentally and physically as a result. But, and I cannot express this enough, when I was standing in my kitchen, chewing through a cob of corn like it was the finest meal of my life, the sense of accomplishment at what such a fundamentally daft endeavour can realy achieve was overwhelming.

So, with all that in mind, I just want to give one final thank you to the real MVPs of this situation: everyone who donated money, as that’s literally why this was done. The following people have helped make a real change to the lives of people dealing with homelessness and thus I give another salute for their generosity to Ellie, Nusha, Jessica Drozd, Ferret, Chloë “Dat Weeb” Walton, Robin, Rick Cowling, Anonymous, Sara Fennell, Kim and Richard, Emily Bastian, Nayyar, Nan, Ma n Pa, Anonymous, Matty Boo, Keith, Your Felf and Safety Possum, Martin French, Jeremy ‘Jeraffemy’ Graves, Anonymous, Grim, Rob Luckett, Laura WD , HJDoom, Peter Fullagar, Kim, W£ill & Marie, Halaku & Tyclari, Matt Rowley, Sarah&Mike&Ferdie, Lizy Humphreys, bunnycartoon, Paul and Vicky Humphreys, Tyclari, Jay, Anonymous, Milo Jimewbi, Niki Hunter, Darlo, Phil, Anonymous, Moofner (Monk), MJ, Charly, Devalmont, Harriett Greene, Anonymous, Grim, Guy Verona , The Dekker Dane, Anonymous, Felf the Art Goblin, Anonymous, LJ, Lewis, Anonymous, Anna Fitz, Anonymous, Bento Smile, Caroline Walton, Jackie Thompson , Jeremy ‘Jeraffemy’ Graves, Tessa , Claire Blackshaw, Vicki Dalton, Tom Parker, Eleanor Evans, Matt Kenny , Claire Toal, Matt Sweeney , Emi Vergels , Marta Camarero , Phil Scotney, Laura WD , Lord Ashram (Kev), Anonymous, Matthew Plested , Denise Tobin , David Scott , Janna Kal, Anonymous, Robin, LJ Matthews, Kev Pack, Gerry, Glosska, LB, Anonymous, and, the first donator this time around, Rude as HECK

See you next year! Normal intermittent service will now resume.

The Raggedyman