I just started "Dragon Ball Super"

[Dubbag]

I know I'm like 5 years behind but I never had time to watch it. Now I do and I gotta say, it's not perfect but I still like it. I have heard alot of fans don't like it. Any DBZ fans on here that can weigh in? I think Beerus and Whis are pretty cool. But honestly when Goku turned into Super Sayin God, and his hair turned red, It looked like some 12 year olds OC with a Deviant art page that says "OC, do not steal." lol

[Sunnyfruit]

It's not the worst thing ever, but:

Goku has terminal brain cancer.

The SSGSS form looks bad and ruins the Super Saiyan iconic color scheme.

Power levels don't make any sense anymore.

The new sagas don't feel organic and everything just seem to be filler upon filler.

 

As for the manga, the page composition is so bad it's more or less unreadable, and looking at the chapter spoilers I don't think I'm losing anything of value. The Hyourinjutsu sprites animations reusing Super characters and villains are a hundred times more exciting and this is a sad thing to say. IMHO Super had potential but in the end is just corporate junk food.

 

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Death never mattered in DBZ. Doesn't Goku spend a large portion dead or injured lmao. Same for all those cons. 

[Doomkid]

Honestly, as a massive Dragonball / Z fan, I really like Super and most of it's flaws are just as apparent in Z, the only meaningful difference if that Super is much later so the story has been dragged out even more than it already was in Z.

 

Nostalgia blinds most DB fans to the fact that this has always been a glorified "animated soap opera" that has always relied on overly played-out tropes, the only meaningful difference that it's animated and targeted towards adolescent boys. Even in Z, they had repeated the "crazy strong alien/android/etc villain shows up!! We got our asses kicked first time around!! We gotta train and get stronger!!" thing like a million times by the end. Super is just that same old thing yet again - but it's still entertaining if you were a fan of OG DB / Z who is willing to admit even they were rife with flaws.

 

There's funny humorous moments and it should just be enjoyed while not being taken too seriously, or with the expectation of Shakespearean writing. The old MST3000 joke "repeat to yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax" is all I can think of when I see DB fans tearing Super apart constantly. The expectation of fantastic storylines seems odd since that's never been the DB franchise's strong point.

 

Super Sayajins has always been really silly even since partway through Z. When Goku's hair just kept get huger and golder.. I knew to expect it to just keeping getting more absurd, and Super did not disappoint. Super Sayajin God Red, God Blue, Ultra Instinct, Ascended Ultra Instinct.. It's just new colors and new names for the same old "leveling up" that Super Sayajins have always done.

 

Super does have some questionable moments in it's animation though, putting storyline and such totally aside. Everyone looks way too skinny and underfed.. Z had it's fair share of crap animation moments too, especially Vegeta's head/face constantly changing sizes throughout the Namek part of the storyline, but overall the characters looked less emaciated in Z which was better imo. On the other side of the argument, Super is a lot more vibrant and colorful than Z, and when it's at it's best looks fantastic.

 

Anyway, long story short, if you're a DB fan who is just looking for a light-hearted continuation that's fun to sit and watch here and there, you won't be disappointed. Also this is one of the few internationally produced shows where I'd actually recommend the English dub over the original dialog. Usually with films or TV shows I'll watch them subtitled, but the Funimation VAs clearly had a good time making this and it shines through.

[leodoom85]

@DoomkidI agree with you in all those points.

 

Honestly, DBS should be looked with both sides, despite that the storytelling and other bad moments like the animation at some episodes (like in ep.5), the show stays strong even after it's over. Same goes with the manga.

Also, it's not ideal to hype that much for both anime and manga and try to see/read it with an open mind.

 

Still, I can say that you watch the show in its entirety but, I recommend to not watch the retelling of both Battle of Gods and Resurrection of F. Watch the movie versions instead.

[leodoom85]

10 hours ago, Pegg said:

Death never mattered in DBZ. Doesn't Goku spend a large portion dead or injured lmao. Same for all those cons. 

Death mattered in DBZ until the Freeza saga, not to mention that the death of one of the characters lead to one of the most iconic scenes of the entire franchise and everything was at stake. The rest of the sagas, I can agree with you definitely.

[Dubbag]

@Doomkid I agree fully. I think that if you just sit there and enjoy it for what it is instead of expecting alot you will enjoy it. I think that the fight between Goku and Beerus was one of the most entertaining fights I've seen in a while in a cartoon. I did not however like "Golden Frieza" I think giving him a completely new form was cool and all but they really copped out with that one lol. I hope one day to see some sort of return for Cell.

[leodoom85]

20 minutes ago, Dubbagdarrel said:

I hope one day to see some sort of return for Cell

Sucks that Cell has much less impact than Freeza overall....that's probably why it has less chances of seen him resurrecting or some shit.....

[Sunnyfruit]

3 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Nostalgia blinds most DB fans to the fact that this has always been a glorified "animated soap opera" that has always relied on overly played-out tropes, the only meaningful difference that it's animated and targeted towards adolescent boys. Even in Z, they had repeated the "crazy strong alien/android/etc villain shows up!! We got our asses kicked first time around!! We gotta train and get stronger!!" thing like a million times by the end. Super is just that same old thing yet again - but it's still entertaining if you were a fan of OG DB / Z who is willing to admit even they were rife with flaws.

 

I agree that the rot of Super is inherited from Z, but I'm not too sure about the nostalgia, I remember back in the late 90s and early 2000s that most kids agreed that the Buu saga was not necessary and that it would have been fine if DBZ ended after Cell. Which is probably why there were so many rumors about Toriyama being forced to continue after Frieza/Cell, because of how duct-taped the transitions felt. The power creep was already massive with Cell, but after it just became nonsense piled on nonsense. This is why Super could have been interesting with its mythological apparatus, with the whole God ki, a universe/metaverse built on balance where you can't just blast everything away, but it kept being ki blast after ki blast, transformations and ungodly bad humour.

But I don't find myself in any particular camp, as I disagree with the Youtube fanboys who keep asking from Toriyama a fight with the Gods, Saint Seiya-style, because the only thing about Super that I like is that you can't resolve everything with fights. Tournament of Power wasn't bad. But the writing after in the manga is still sooo lazy.

 

Also, as for the the Buu Saga, with its 2000 transformations, fusions, weird aliens and the like, it is probably why Dragon Ball turned into the cash cow it still is, so I'm pretty sure the Toei and the Shueisha are grateful for it.

Also the DBZ manga is way, way superior to the anime, if only because characters don't spend ten hours looking at each other.

[Dubbag]

4 hours ago, Sunnyfruit said:

I'm not too sure about the nostalgia.

My father watched the Frieza and Cell sagas with me when I was a child. That's where the nostalgia comes in for me. I never watched the Buu saga. So for me it does end after Cell.

[P41R47]

My answer:

Dragon Ball GT is my Dragon Ball Super.

 

Fuck cannonicity...

Ultra Oob is hands down the best character ever made.

 

And SSJ4 is for me the ULTIMATE state a Saiyan could achieve.

Fuck the God states.

 

[AinuTheTaken]

Akira T. was first hands off but eventually started helping out the team working on Dragon Ball Super, from what I've read. Knowing this might make some people like it better.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Reading this thread, I'm reminded of arguments between Berserk fans when the movies were releasee. The outcome usually came down to one thing: which version you watched/read first.

[FractalBeast]

Not much more to add since I pretty much agree with @Doomkid. I will say that DBS feels almost like DB inside DBZ, Toriyama allows far more humour and silly cosmic worldbuilding into it, and I love that. It does that mix far better than DBGT ever did. Probably because DBS actually expands on the universe AND history instead of just making the universe bigger. A deeper universe ^{(deeper by shonen manga/anime standards, hahahah)}, instead of just a bigger shallower universe. Makes the jokes involving cosmic characters land better. The story also twists and turns in more unexpected ways...

Spoiler

Zamasu's end was probably the simultaneous funniest and darkest end to a DB villain ever.

 

[Doomkid]

7 hours ago, Sunnyfruit said:

I agree that the rot of Super is inherited from Z, but I'm not too sure about the nostalgia, I remember back in the late 90s and early 2000s that most kids agreed that the Buu saga was not necessary and that it would have been fine if DBZ ended after Cell.\

I'm pretty much in full agreement with this from an artistic perspective. The very beginning of Dragonball all the way up through the Cell saga was enjoyable for me, and even though some story elements had already started repeating, it wasn't too played out at that point. Part of me wishes they had ended it there, but the greedy part of me who just wants some basic entertainment is glad I got a few new DB seasons in the late 2010s, so I'm honestly a bit torn on it. It was like an old friend returning to my screen for a while. I will say the Buu saga/Super allowed some characters to go through further development which in turn made them more likeable, particularly Vegeta and Mr. Satan, imo.

 

Overall there was definitely a quality drop, and they really should leave it cut off at the end of the Tournament of Power - anything else after this point is just going to be embarrassing (but probably very lucrative anyway.) It's getting into Simpsons levels of "just end it already" if they continue it from here on out. Then again, Dragonball has always specialized in being completely over the top, so I wouldn't be surprised if there is more content on the way.. I know there's that storyless Dragonball Heroes thing but iirc that's just promotional content that can be mostly forgotten about.

 

I did watch GT, but nothing about it really appealed to me. Even years before there was ever talk of Super, it always felt like inferior side content. Not awful, just not that good either.

 

EDIT: On the subject of the franchise's over the top nature, did anyone else crack up even back in the day at the end of the Namek section where Goku is facing off with Frieza? It keps saying "There's only has 5 minutes til Namek explodes!" and then at the end of the next episode it's like "There's only 4 minutes and 59 seconds until Namek explodes!"... For some reason how drawn out and ridiculous it was cracked me up, even though Goku fighting Frieza is really one of the more dramatic parts of the series.

 

The ToP does this same thing as well, but for some reason it felt more acceptable there, like we were essentially watching slow motion footage of the fights that stretched 2 minutes of battle out to half an hour. Just wanted to ramble about this since I never talk about DB with anyone and I'm sure I'm not the only one who found it funny.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Doomkid

[Cruduxy Pegg]

If you were watching episodes as they were released those 5 mins were what? 7 or 8 months of waiting the damn fight to end? Lol.

[ReaperAA]

6 hours ago, Doomkid said:

EDIT: On the subject of the franchise's over the top nature, did anyone else crack up even back in the day at the end of the Namek section where Goku is facing off with Frieza? It keps saying "There's only has 5 minutes til Namek explodes!" and then at the end of the next episode it's like "There's only 4 minutes and 59 seconds until Namek explodes!"... For some reason how drawn out and ridiculous it was cracked me up, even though Goku fighting Frieza is really one of the more dramatic parts of the series.

 

No DBZ fan can forget the infamous "Namek explodes in 5 minutes" episodes. I mean how many episodes were they exactly. 8 to 10 episodes?

 

Though from what I have read, the reason why the episodes were so dragged is because of the ambiguity whether DBZ should continue after the Frieza saga or not. Remember that after Frieza saga, there was that Garlic Jr. saga before the Cell Saga. A rather forgettable saga to serve as a filler.

[seed]

It feels rather awkward to see people wanting something you've considered watching yourself to end, ngl.

 

I've tried a few times to get into DB, but I always started with the original series, which as far as I understand had lots of filler and the pacing was atrociously slow. I can sure agree on the latter as it is what prevented me from watching any of it, it bored me to tears.

 

Some friends recommended me to start with Kai instead, seems like that one would be the right way to get into it.

[leodoom85]

24 minutes ago, seed said:

Some friends recommended me to start with Kai instead, seems like that one would be the right way to get into it.

Cuz Kai cuts all unnecessary fillers. Still, I rather watch the original japanese dub while skipping all fillers as much as possible.

[seed]

4 minutes ago, leodoom85 said:

Cuz Kai cuts all unnecessary fillers. Still, I rather watch the original japanese dub while skipping all fillers as much as possible.

 

Yes, and it's also HD, another plus.

 

But speaking of dub, it's probably the sole exception I'd watch in English. I just think the voices they chose for that version are spot on. But otherwise, I stick to Japanese all the way, it loses all its charm and defeats the point otherwise IMO.

[leodoom85]

Well, I'm not used to the english version for a simple reason. I'm a latin american guy, so naturally I'm used to listen our dub.

 

Fun fact and an honest opinion from me: Latin american dub of Kai is bad, because it was taken from the english dub. The original latin american dub from Z is taken from the japanese dub and it's much better.

[Sunnyfruit]

10 hours ago, Doomkid said:

EDIT: On the subject of the franchise's over the top nature, did anyone else crack up even back in the day at the end of the Namek section where Goku is facing off with Frieza? It keps saying "There's only has 5 minutes til Namek explodes!" and then at the end of the next episode it's like "There's only 4 minutes and 59 seconds until Namek explodes!"... For some reason how drawn out and ridiculous it was cracked me up, even though Goku fighting Frieza is really one of the more dramatic parts of the series.

 

The ToP does this same thing as well, but for some reason it felt more acceptable there, like we were essentially watching slow motion footage of the fights that stretched 2 minutes of battle out to half an hour. Just wanted to ramble about this since I never talk about DB with anyone and I'm sure I'm not the only one who found it funny.

 

It just reminded me that some charitable soul showed us the ToP in real time :)

 

 

 

[FractalBeast]

On 11/17/2020 at 3:37 AM, Doomkid said:

...Overall there was definitely a quality drop, and they really should leave it cut off at the end of the Tournament of Power - anything else after this point is just going to be embarrassing (but probably very lucrative anyway.)...

Mind you I haven't paid any attention to Toriyama's plans since DBS ended, but IIRC he was surprised at how popular DBS became (the dude seriously is too humble) and maybe a tad disappointed with the quality of the anime.

 

So from what I heard, he forced Toei to wait for the manga to have X chapters finished before they continue DBS. Remember, most of DBS is written like Game of Thrones, where the show outpaces the written/drawn original.

 

I am pretty interested in this DBS with a stronger Toriyama handprint. I hear the main villain is a space wizard whose magical abilities are kind of like King Piccolo in DB, as in martial arts and powerlevels don't really matter that much.