During my travels this morning I ran into something that left me shaking my head. It was an empty can of Dragonball Z Spirit Bomb energy drink. It has a nice picture on it of Goku about to throw a Spirit Bomb. It's certainly one of the odder tie in products I've seen in a while.
But it is culturally appropriate. The Japanese have been drinking what we'd recognise as energy drinks, there called eiyō dorinku, nutritional drinks, since at least the early '60s. I would imagine someplace in Dragonball Z someone is portrayed as drinking what would be obvious to the original Japanese audience as an energy drink.
I'm sure someone would be upset at the idea of using a cartoon character to promote energy drinks, which are generally not recommended for kids. But the North American audience for DBZ isn't really kids. Most fans today may have been kids when the show first appeared here, but that was more than 20 years ago.
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