Cross stitch pattern of Krillin and Goku carrying milk in Dragon Ball. This was a special request from my Patron, Samantha Delgado. Want a custom pattern of your own? Become a patron today.

Grid Size: 100W x 95H
Design Area: 7.00″ x 6.64″ (98 x 93 stitches)
Colors: 18

My Patron, Samantha Delgado, is a lizardfolk monk traveling the land in search of lesser known martial arts. This time they’ve learned the dangerous art known as River Drop, when you jump from car to car on a freeway in order to catch your opponent. Didn’t work the first few times, but luckily lizardfolk are very resilient.

Going back to old anime is a weird experience. Dragon Ball is supposed to be this ultimate shounen battle anime, but episodes like Milk Delivery really drive home how little the show actually cares about fighting and how different it is from Dragon Ball Z. Yeah, everyone is training, but the episode has more in common with the themes and pacing of a moe anime than you would expect. Cute guys doing cute things within the context of a martial arts tournament. There’s even a bit where they skip around as they carry milk. It’s adorable.

With old anime, you can really see the limitations of the animation. You can tell that both Krillin and Goku are responding differently to the training, but I’m sure that those differences would come across stronger with more frames of animation and more details, especially in this kind of show where the physicality of movements is so important to the humor. More frames would help the pacing too. Dragon Ball seems very slow compared to modern anime, not because the pauses are unnecessary, but because the anticipation of Master Roshi going to touch Launch’s boob is like a single frame. Don’t get me wrong, I like dramatic pauses. There’s a part where Roshi tells Goku about his grandfather and he halts for a moment before continuing his training. This is awesome and gets me invested in Goku’s motivations. I just wish more animation happened during these times.

I wouldn’t say classic anime is better than modern anime, but I do stand behind the idea that we still have more to learn from these older shows. They bring something unique to the table and it’s fun to see the inspiration behind modern shows.