Dragon Ball Super has a plothole.
It is a large plothole, and it cannot be fixed. I regret to inform you of this.
We all must live with the terrible burden of the knowledge I am about to deliver you.
Super's largest plothole is Mr. Satan's speech pattern.
"How could this be?" you might ask. Well buckle your seat belts because we're about to ride into foreign-language town and we aren't even stopping for snacks.
Late addition: (This is an actual thread about a small character-writing observation unique to Super, despite the jokey presentation.)
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Japanese offers speakers both a plain form and a polite form, dependent on verb conjugations.
In the original run, Mr. Satan consistently uses the plain form while when speaking to Goku and co., even in the epilogue, while in Super, he consistently uses the polite form.
There are actually several levels of politeness in Japanese, but for this thread we only need to focus on the basic distinction between using either plain or polite verb endings while speaking.
If you're immersed in internet anime fandom at all, 1) I'm sorry, and 2) You may be familiar with polite speech as the "desu/-masu" form. While using the polite form, verbs take the endings "-masu," ます (present- and future-tense), "-mashita" ました (past-tense), or "-mashou" ましょう (volitional), and sentences ending with nouns are appended with "desu" です, a Japanese verb equivalent to the English "to be." There are lots of other little nuances that make the language softer, but those are the main ones.
Mr. Satan, while talking to Goku and co. in the original run, never really uses the polite form. Instead, his verbs take on rough casual endings, and noun sentences either end with the casual "da" だ or other less formal mutations.
This is consistent all the way through the Boo arc, including scenes in the manga's epilogue, taking place ten years after the main story. He notably does use the polite form while speaking to Boo, a holdover from their interactions earlier in the arc:
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]But does not while speaking to Goku and co., even when he could. Here he is using the casual "da" だ sentence ending, as well as the casual imperative form. Nothing super rude, but he's not putting on any airs:
[spoiler]
[/spoiler](Granted, the last one is directed toward the younger Goten, but ...)
The closest he comes is using a truncated, extremely casual version of the polite ですか (desu ka) ending in this panel, reserved for superiors with whom the speaker shares a close relationship, but since he's trying to talk Goku down from the idea that anyone else could win the tournament, since that ending has a bit of a joking quality to it, and since he doesn't affect any polite speech in the first panel in which he responds to Goku, it reads more like putting on airs in the moment than being indicative of his general mode of conversation with them. At least as far as I can tell. If you're more versed in the language than I am (as several Kanzenshuu members are), feel free to be your own judge and offer corrections.
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]In Super, however, set between the main events of the Boo arc and the original run's epilogue, he consistently uses polite speech. Much more polite than the casual mode used in the panel above, even if that were indicative of his standard interactions with them.
Here's an example taken from episode 92, as he receives Goku and shows him the sleeping Majin Boo:
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]00:05:01,658 --> 00:05:05,658
（サタン）おっ！
悟空さん 待ってましたよ。
14
00:05:07,598 --> 00:05:09,600
ブウは？
15
00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:12,603
（ブウのいびき）
16
00:05:12,603 --> 00:05:14,605
ご覧のとおりなんです…。
17
00:05:14,605 --> 00:05:20,611
（いびき）
18
00:05:20,611 --> 00:05:24,615
よく寝てんなぁ…。
これ 起こせねえんか？
19
00:05:24,615 --> 00:05:28,619
私も 色々やったのですが…。
Whether you can read the full sentences or not, you can see the polite conjugations that end of each one. More than that, he actually dips a bit into the super-polite sonkeigo with the line "ご覧のとおりなんです…" (goran no toori nan desu/"as you can see"), which is far removed from anything we saw him do in the original run.
Counter 1. But does it just depend on the writer?
No.
The above example is from Super episode 92, written by Atsuhiro Tomioka, who consistently writes Mr. Satan's dialogue in the polite form.
But here's a snippet from episode 83, as they're planning their ten participants for the tournament, where writer Yoshifumi Fukushima has him doing the same thing:
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]133
00:11:51,618 --> 00:11:55,622
これで７人。
（サタン）あのう…。
134
00:11:55,622 --> 00:11:57,624
１８号さんは どうですか？
135
00:11:57,624 --> 00:12:00,627
おお～！ １８号か！
Counter 2. But that's only in the anime, right?
Sadly we're in no such luck. Even Toyotaro falls prey. Here's Mr. Satan asking Goku to accept the prize money and to keep their interaction secret:
[spoiler]
[/spoiler](Image not my own; thank you to user K E N on Discord.)
Note the polite "desu" (です) endings. (The "yokatta" (よかった!!) in the middle panel is an exclamation, so it gets a pass.)
Counter 3. Okay, well, he was just overly thankful after the events of the Boo arc and gradually became more relaxed with everyone to the point of slipping back into plain form.
Oh, you sweet summer child. In Z episode 288, which takes place roughly half a year after the events of the Boo arc, Mr. Satan has a few bits of dialogue, continuing to use the plain form with everyone. Even while speaking to Dende, a god.
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]108
00:10:47,104 --> 00:10:50,774
(ｻﾀﾝ)いいのか｡
神様が パーティーになんて出て｡
109
00:10:50,774 --> 00:10:53,777
(ﾃﾞﾝﾃﾞ)
いいじゃないですか たまには｡
So the question this leaves us with is:
What happened to the real Mr. Satan, and why is this one Zamasu?
EDIT -- By the way, Mr. Satan does not use the polite form in Battle of Gods outside of sucking up to Bulma's parents, though he also never speaks directly to Goku. I should also note that while this is a bit of a joke thread and it makes total sense for Mr. Satan to use the polite form while delivering the prize money, and even afterward, the difference is stark and somewhat at odds with his characterization in the epilogue and even in the film.
tl;dr: Mr. Satan more or less only ever used the plain form with the main cast in previous material, but consistently uses very polite Japanese forms with them in Super. It doesn't amount to much outside of goofy conclusions like the one presented here (hence the semi-serious tone), and the dialogue change completely makes sense given Mr. Satan's role in Super, but I thought it was somewhat interesting that it's a change completely unique to the series, as separate from Mr. Satan's post-Boo arc appearances in Z filler, the manga epilogue, or what we got in Battle of Gods. I'd never thought to check it before, and figured most other people wouldn't know either.
Further edits -- Super is perhaps picking up on something Kanzenshuu's own pronoun guide notes, which is that Mr. Satan switches from informal, masculine pronoun "ore" to the more subdued "watashi" by the time of the 28th Tenkaichi Budokai chapters. Super shows him making that pronoun switch, at least around Goku and co., just after the events of the Boo arc, though he still treats them with a level of reverence not found in other material or in his brief exchange with Goku in those chapters.
