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well then using canon goku...
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Dragon Ball Super Discussion Thread 100
- Thread starter Warren_Valion
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They are also using Xeno/CC Goku, but they didn't say that in the preview
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they showed movie stuff, as fair as i heard, they are compositing for both chars
Hasty12345
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I think Luffy actually makes a compelling argument for Zeno. The universe 9 erasure when Whis is looking into his staff shows the same white starry looking void that we see when Zeno erased Zamasu.
Killerdrone123
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Are you doing this just because of fear that db would be downgraded from tier 1
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why does mean literally anything?
Killerdrone123
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The same space was shown in manga to when a timeline got erased I told this before I am telling it now to they wouldn't show destruction of timeline in manga if they didn't mean it anime cause anime came first before manga
Hasty12345
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Well someone mentioned something about if the macrocosms were destroyed individually, we’d see neutral space. That is not inherently true, and U9s erasure shows us it’s definitely not true.
Hasty12345
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That’s not an argument.
Killerdrone123
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The big plot points are literally taken from anime zeno destroying trunks timeline is one of the big plot points
Hasty12345
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We know the two mediums aren’t 1:1.
I have no interest in continuing to debate this, I was just making the comment Luffy’s position isn’t as unfounded as you guys made out.
Killerdrone123
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Doesn't change the fact that there measure events are same
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the events of the manga and anime diverge way too much from one another to anyone to remotely use one to prove anything for the other
Killerdrone123
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The idea of the entire timeline getting destroyed is literally one of the measure plot points of the arc I have literally said it they won't give a proper explanation in manga for destruction of timeline if only u7 got erased in anime there was no need to be extra in manga where there was not even merged zamsu in manga so they could have just shown destruction of u7 in manga to
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this doesn't change what i said at all
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It's a nostalgia thing at this point. As a child I thought it was peak fiction but then I grew up and realized Dragon Ball has always been mid af. I mean some people underrate it, it DOES have some depth and complexity not everyone notices, but the writing has always been rather lazy and sometimes forced. I don't think it's that good.
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Yeah no, 23rd Budokai to Frieza is the strongest stretch of shounen I've ever read. Most series would be lucky to have something as good as the Cell and Buu Saga.
Dragon Ball has held up extremely well as I grew up and studied literature.
Dragon Ball has held up extremely well as I grew up and studied literature.
Hasty12345
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DB up to the end of Z is really good, anyone who says otherwise is straight up lying.
DBS on the other hand...
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Why in particular? Most of the series is just dumb fun. I'm not saying it's all dumb fun, don't generalize me with that crowd, but it is generally not a story that tries to be complex, and a lot of the character development is rather generic and predictable with the exception of Piccolo.
Saying the Buu Saga is top quality even by the standards of "most series" I find very disagreeable. Controversial topic but, imo, Buu Saga is probably the weakest Z arc by far, for many reasons. I think the Cell Saga was one of the best though.
I mean it's probably an opinion thing. If you care mostly about action and fun adventures and everything in that category, then sure I can understand that. I'm more of a story guy and I focus on more subtle, complex stories with a lot of depth and detail to both the plot and characters. A story like Arcane.
But as far as shonen anime goes, HXH, to me, is like a better version of what Dragon Ball wanted to be as a franchise.
Also, while I agree with you on how the 23rd Budokai to Frieza Saga is the peak of the series, the Red Ribbon Army Arc was mid af, Tao was the best part by a mile but he got ruined later in the series.
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Or maybe their tastes just aren't the same as yours. A lot of people prefer different kinds of stories. Which is why a lot of non Dragon Ball fans will often refer to it as just nothing but hype power-ups and fights with no coherence or consistency. Which is wrong, but, it says a lot about their perspectives and preferences.
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Base? Eh, idk. But he'll definitely be WAY stronger.
Hasty12345
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This might be controversial, but I think what is "good" isn't the same as "what I like/enjoy".
I can say DB is good but also say "I don't like it."
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This right here is something I agree with immensely. There's a reason why there are groups of people who prefer the Z era of Dragon Ball, GT, Super, or anything else in between while simultaneously also having a dislike for certain aspects of the franchise.
Just because you're a fan of a series doesn't mean you have to like every aspect of it, you know? Like how I personally like Z, the movies, games, and Heroes but I don't like Super all that much....and it's not because I don't like Dragon Ball, it just so happens that a part of the series just doesn't appeal to me. So, really, it just goes to show that there's nothing wrong with being a fan that doesn't like part of their favorite franchises. Everyone's entitled to their own perspective and, even if they say something you might disagree with, you got to learn that people have different tastes and don't let it impede your enjoyment.
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Stating something is dumb fun is not spectacular grounds for establishing an opinion on a series. A simple story isn't a bad story.
With character development being predictable thing, just, no. At best its Vegeta, who is still a great character, but everyone else, yeah no, neither predictable nor 'generic'.
Calling Dragon Ball generic is my litmus test for reading comprehension. It popularized nearly all of the biggest anime tropes, so calling it generic when it was one of the first ones to do it is wrong on all kinds of levels.
Buu Saga is the second litmus test, because beyond pacing, the strongest marks against the arc are just 'it didn't happen how I want it to happen therefore bad'. Buu Saga I think is a phenomenal capstone to the series.
For why I think Dragon Ball holds up? Well I could write an essay on that lol. It's got some phenomenal character work, the 23rd Budokai arc is about the most foundationally sound story I've seen in anime/manga, god tier fights obviously, fantastic villains, and while the plot is comparatively simple to other animes, beyond the first half of the cell Saga, the plot is pretty solid.
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From inherented wills with 23rd Budokai, to the good ole underdog hard work story line with the saiyan saga, to nature vs nurture with frieza saga, then the coming of age with future trunks and gohan in the cell saga, to the next generation and the pursuit of happiness with the buu saga, I think they all tell wonderful stories. Simple? Sometimes. But if you care enough to look past the already great surface level narrative, you'll find some even deeper things ingrained in it all, like goku's wish to bring uub back being what he actually wanted as a child.
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How you present and tell a story is just as important as the depth of its writing. Dragon Ball is a very good story told extremely, extremely well, sometimes on accident.
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This isn’t really a response to you rather I’m just using you as an example.
A lot of the times dragon ball fans claim they want the story of dragon ball to be one way or another, but a lot of the time stuff they ask for is what they already accuse dragon ball of being. Kakumei for example is seen by many to be better than super. Even though it’s literally what they accuse super of being, kakumei literally is just what if Toriyama answered all the fan theories. For example GoD Frieza (makes no sense) Gohan becaming a pride trouper (makes no sense) ssjG Goten and Trunks (makes no sense).
Earlier I saw another commenter state that DBS is just a hypefest which I vehemently disagree with. While I’m not denying that sup has its hype moments. Just like Z or OG-DB or LITERALLY ANY SHONEN EVER!!! It’s not what all hype there’s character moments but most people only ever remember the big hype scenes. We’re all entitled to our own opinions but I think it’s kinda disheartening that some individuals will simplify DBS story as nothing more than hype.
We ironically have a story that’s all fights and just hype and the character is ironically inspired by Son Wukong like Goku it’s called god of highschool and that story isn’t anywhere near as well written as DBS imo.
That’s all I’ll probably go back to being afk now lmao.
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Zen Buu carries
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More than half of buu saga criticism is just thing didn't happen that I wanted to happen which makes it automatically bad
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Although ssg goten and Trunks is kinda cool
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Thinking that something is good is inherently your opinion.
Sometimes bad things ARE bad and sometimes good things ARE good. When it comes to fictional stories tho, nah not really. I mean, for certain PARTS of a story you can say that, but just in terms of an overall rating, it will vary no matter what and it will be subjective cause some people have a strong preference for certain types of stories.
Hasty12345
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I don’t think that’s entirely true, but for the sake of discussion I’ll assume it is.
people can enjoy critically bad media, and people can dislike critically good media.
my initial statement was obviously hyperbolic, however, my point was that from a literary standpoint, Dragon Ball is well constructed. It wasn’t a statement meant to be read as or interpreted in such a way “everyone should enjoy dragon ball”.
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I didn't say anything like that. I just explained that I prefer more complex stories.
Uh, not a whole lot of characters have much development if at all as far as I can remember. The only character who I'd say has really good development is Piccolo tbh. And yeah very generic, but not generic for its time I guess? Examples please.
That much is true. It is basic but it was the first to do what it was best at.
Buu Saga? Let's see. SSJ3 was forced af and served no purpose. Gohan was shafted entirely two times in the arc effectively rendering the point of the Cell Saga moot. The arc felt very drawn out with a lot of unnecessary additions and conflicts to the plot. Well over half of the cast were irrelevant in the arc up until like, literally the ending of the series. I could go on. There isn't a lot of good things about the Buu arc in my opinion but I'd love it if you mentioned some that I might not have seen?
"phenomenal character work"
Vast majority of the characters we are introduced to early in the franchise become non-factors in Z pretty early on and are only really brought up for the sake of nostalgia or to show how Goku has grown or something. Actually this is pretty much a trend. 90% of the characters we are introduced to in the franchise lose their importance depending on how the writers feel, the Saiyan's are the only exceptions. Toriyama introduced Goten and Trunks decades ago and hyped them up massively and they've done virtually nothing besides a decent battle involving Gotenks. Tien was literally the main antagonist of an arc and one of the main characters in OG Dragon Ball. Now he is about as relevant as a microbe. I'll give you a lot of these points but on no planet does Dragon Ball have phenomenal character work. I'm not saying there AREN'T good characters, but there are only a very small few imo.
The 23rd Budokai is one of the best parts of the series, what about it?
"god tier fights" Mm, they're not as good as they used to be by new standards, but they hold up pretty well and WERE god tier for their time, only a good handful of the fights I would really put on that pedestal, like Goku Vs. Cell.
"fantastic villains"
Sure. Though a lot of them are very one-dimensional and there are extremely few villains who have a desire other than "destroy everything" "rule everything" etc. and it gets tiring. I am not saying that makes a villain bad, a villain doesn't have to be relatable or have some kind of particular goal or anything else. Aizen is one of my favorite anime villains ever and he's not exactly complex or deep. Frieza is an amazing villain and there's a REASON why he's iconic. Just saying that it'd be nice if Dragon Ball had more VARIETY instead of like, 99% of the villains just being "I'm gonna kill everyone!!!" over and over again. And if we get into the Super manga...Jesus Christ.
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You see though, the thing I'm saying isn't just about the plot, but that it has very little complexity or emotionally compelling narrative story telling, and that I PREFER series' like that, like Arcane, or Attack on Titan, or the Chimera Ant Arc in HXH, and so on. Dragon Ball has almost none of that to speak of.
What I would say is, for what DRAGON BALL IS, I'd give it a 6-10/10 depending on the arc, but for my OVERALL preferences, Dragon Ball peaks at an 8/10 even at its best, because while it is entertaining, nostalgic, iconic, genre-defining, and has some emotionally compelling moments and characters, it just lacks a certain depth to it that I find more appealing in a story, which is what stops it from ever getting higher than an 8/10 in my book.
Also, might be a hot take, I've always thought Dragon Ball's humor was extremely lacking even though it tries to be funny very often. There are some good jokes here and there but a lot of it is toilet humor, a character falling over because someone did or said something "wacky", or "SEXUAL HARASSMENT XD" which is a trope I despise in anime overall.
Killerdrone123
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In my opinion dragon balls simple writting is what makes me enjoy it no complex bull shit or anything followed by some simple foreshadowing people say that they pull ui out of ass but it was foreshadowed from resurrection f which makes t.o.p even more solid in my eyes
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You know that scene where Beerus and Champa are fighting and then Whis and Vados say that if two gods of destruction fight they could destroy both universes? When they were fighting, the area of effect was the power of destruction, wasn't it? Couldn't this mean that the power of destruction could erase universes? Which would probably result in non-existent erasure due to subspace. It was something I suddenly thought of to see what anyone thinks.
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Alright let's go through all this bit by bit since there is a lot wrong here.
The 'oh i understand that simple isn't bad but villains are bad because they are simple' really wasn't a great start. As for why calling Dragon Ball generic is ridiculous? It fostered a majority of shounen anime's most popular tropes, and even back in the 1980's Dragon Ball still had its own unique and wacky identity.
While side characters not being relevant is a fair knock, the only fair knock you make, the story as a whole was about the pursuit of happiness, and these characters found their happiness in several ways. Krillin got married and had a child and eventually got back into martial arts, Yamcha got a baller baseball career, Tien is now teaching his own school, I mean they moved on with their lives. I would like to see them get relevance again, most fans would.
Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Trunks, Piccolo, they all have a vast array of development, Vegeta and Piccolo explore redemption and forgiveness, Trunks has his hope storyline, and Gohan and Goku both have nature vs nurture stories. Besides, a character doesn't exactly need to have development to be good, take King Kai or Beerus or Whis.
Now, Buu Saga. SSJ3 was a plot device that wasn't meant to actually do anything because the time of one person saving everyone was long gone, no one person was gonna defeat Buu. Goku wanted a successor and threw Gotenks and Gohan at Buu, only for Buu to throw his sucessors back at him. Gohan didn't get shafted, the entire point of the Cell Saga was that he hates fighting because he's been traumatized as a child and these outbursts of anger are the defensive mechanic-isms of a scared child. Goku told Gohan to beat Cell, then go be a scholar.
So like, there isn't a whole lot of ground for Gohan got shafted in the arc when his failure came down to already established flaws he had as a fighter. The most you got was Toriyama going back to Goku as a protagonist, which I think told a much better story due to him realizing it wasn't about one person but everyone working together, ya know, that why he used the spirit bomb, why he needed energy from earth and from those irrelevant characters.
If you have any critics of the Buu Saga with actual narrative grounds I'd like to hear them, because so far they seem to just stem from misunderstanding the story.
Things like Goten and Trunks are points I agree with, just about everyone wants them do something but beyond that I don't see any meat to the rest of those statements. Dragon Ball is the story of Goku, characters come and go throughout the story. And there is no 'writers', mostly just Toriyama and sometimes an editor.
Villains?
Uh, Vegeta was a saiyan elite looking to establish himself as the strongest while secretly vying for the dragon balls to wish for immortality to overthrow Frieza, Frieza is a galatic ruler who acts one part tryant one part buisnessman, Cell wants the perfect fight because of the saiyan cells within him as well as the fact his creator and everything related to that have been destroyed leaving him with literally no other purpose than the want a perfect fight. Buu is really the only 'ounga bounga blow up shit' villian, and even then he constantly switches from naive to sadistic to cunning to black air force. There aren't a ton of villains in Super, just opponents like Beerus, Hit, and Jiren. Zamasu loved the universe and wanted to cull the mortals from it so they'd stop ruining it. Moro literally feeds off planets to sustain himself, he's evil yeah, he is also the encapsulation of nearly every past villain, so he was written like that on purpose. Granolah wasn't a villain but he wanted to take revenge upon the saiyans and whatnot, and the heaters wanted to do the same, plus get rid of Frieza too, which is why that arc was about the cycle of violence and pride and how it manifests.
So uhh, if you have a point here beyond reductive framing, that'd be nice.
So far, your reason for thinking Dragon Ball lacks depth comes from not understanding the story it was trying to tell. From the line of examples you've given, you seem to prefer shows that are upfront about their complexity and depth, which is all well and good, but to say Dragon Ball has none of that after misunderstanding several core narrative threads from the shows later arcs like Cell and Buu just isn't a strong argument for Dragon Ball to not have any of the 'depth' you look for. Dragon Ball's depth isn't in your face, which if anything is more subtly than just about any of the shows you mentioned, not to saw they aren't all fantastic pieces of ficton.
The other stuff about the humor and the fights and the rating you'd give it are personal opinions, you are entitled to them, but everything else just isn't an accurate representation of Dragon Ball's story.
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Just because Dragon Ball doesn't go 'ooh look at how complex and multi-layered I am, look at my mature thematic story telling' doesn't mean it doesn't have complexity or depth. Different interpretations of a story is all well and good until that interpretation is as reductive as possible.
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I could've summarized my points more concisely but it's 5am.
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