"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[TheOtherDude]

I can’t be the only one who’s very annoyed at the fact that the exempt universes are sitting here being thankful and nervous at the fact that they weren’t involved in this tournament. This is something I think the anime did a much better job of.

In the anime, it was never stated that the exempt universes were ever nervous about the level of power they saw in the tournament. They were just impressed that these fighters could fight so well with such low mortal levels. One could argue that there was the sense that they’ve seen much more powerful fighters in their universes. Which would be good for the series.

Unfortunately, it seems like there may not be too many fighters that’ll rival Goku/Jiren Post Tournament... What a waste. So many storylines that could’ve been used, knowing that there were universes out there that offered a plethora of fighters Goku and friends couldn’t beat without advancing themselves. This is getting ridiculous.

[ToshioWrites]

I can’t be the only one who’s very annoyed at the fact that the exempt universes are sitting here being thankful and nervous at the fact that they weren’t involved in this tournament. This is something I think the anime did a much better job of.

In the anime, it was never stated that the exempt universes were ever nervous about the level of power they saw in the tournament. They were just impressed that these fighters could fight so well with such low mortal levels. One could argue that there was the sense that they’ve seen much more powerful fighters in their universes. Which would be good for the series.

Unfortunately, it seems like there may not be too many fighters that’ll rival Goku/Jiren Post Tournament... What a waste. So many storylines that could’ve been used, knowing that there were universes out there that offered a plethora of fighters Goku and friends couldn’t beat without advancing themselves. This is getting ridiculous.

Rewatch episode 108-109, the Kai from araks universe is happy they didn’t have to participate. Arak is surprised warriors like Goku and Jiren can be found in lower level universes

[TheOtherDude]

I can’t be the only one who’s very annoyed at the fact that the exempt universes are sitting here being thankful and nervous at the fact that they weren’t involved in this tournament. This is something I think the anime did a much better job of.

In the anime, it was never stated that the exempt universes were ever nervous about the level of power they saw in the tournament. They were just impressed that these fighters could fight so well with such low mortal levels. One could argue that there was the sense that they’ve seen much more powerful fighters in their universes. Which would be good for the series.

Unfortunately, it seems like there may not be too many fighters that’ll rival Goku/Jiren Post Tournament... What a waste. So many storylines that could’ve been used, knowing that there were universes out there that offered a plethora of fighters Goku and friends couldn’t beat without advancing themselves. This is getting ridiculous.

Rewatch episode 108-109, the Kai from araks universe is happy they didn’t have to participate. Arak is surprised warriors like Goku and Jiren can be found in lower level universes

There’s a difference between being glad you don’t have to deal with the stress of what the lower universes have to do, and being glad you don’t have to because of how strong the competition is. The anime portrayed the first statement. They gave out backhanded compliments but they maintained their calm and still had a condescending tone throughout. Nobody freaked out like they did in the manga at how strong the competition was.

Being surprised at Goku and Jirens strength does NOT equal “these guys are stronger than most of our fighters..”

[prince212]

I can’t be the only one who’s very annoyed at the fact that the exempt universes are sitting here being thankful and nervous at the fact that they weren’t involved in this tournament. This is something I think the anime did a much better job of.

In the anime, it was never stated that the exempt universes were ever nervous about the level of power they saw in the tournament. They were just impressed that these fighters could fight so well with such low mortal levels. One could argue that there was the sense that they’ve seen much more powerful fighters in their universes. Which would be good for the series.

Unfortunately, it seems like there may not be too many fighters that’ll rival Goku/Jiren Post Tournament... What a waste. So many storylines that could’ve been used, knowing that there were universes out there that offered a plethora of fighters Goku and friends couldn’t beat without advancing themselves. This is getting ridiculous.

Rewatch episode 108-109, the Kai from araks universe is happy they didn’t have to participate. Arak is surprised warriors like Goku and Jiren can be found in lower level universes

There’s a difference between being glad you don’t have to deal with the stress of what the lower universes have to do, and being glad you don’t have to because of how strong the competition is. The anime portrayed the first statement. They gave out backhanded compliments but they maintained their calm and still had a condescending tone throughout. Nobody freaked out like they did in the manga at how strong the competition was.

Being surprised at Goku and Jirens strength does NOT equal “these guys are stronger than most of our fighters..”

You are jumping into conclusions that are so easy to dismantle, they can create huge powerful rivals anytime they want in any universe they want , including u7 , and they will , so don’t you worry , this is fiction

[ToshioWrites]

I can’t be the only one who’s very annoyed at the fact that the exempt universes are sitting here being thankful and nervous at the fact that they weren’t involved in this tournament. This is something I think the anime did a much better job of.

In the anime, it was never stated that the exempt universes were ever nervous about the level of power they saw in the tournament. They were just impressed that these fighters could fight so well with such low mortal levels. One could argue that there was the sense that they’ve seen much more powerful fighters in their universes. Which would be good for the series.

Unfortunately, it seems like there may not be too many fighters that’ll rival Goku/Jiren Post Tournament... What a waste. So many storylines that could’ve been used, knowing that there were universes out there that offered a plethora of fighters Goku and friends couldn’t beat without advancing themselves. This is getting ridiculous.

Rewatch episode 108-109, the Kai from araks universe is happy they didn’t have to participate. Arak is surprised warriors like Goku and Jiren can be found in lower level universes

There’s a difference between being glad you don’t have to deal with the stress of what the lower universes have to do, and being glad you don’t have to because of how strong the competition is. The anime portrayed the first statement. They gave out backhanded compliments but they maintained their calm and still had a condescending tone throughout. Nobody freaked out like they did in the manga at how strong the competition was.

Being surprised at Goku and Jirens strength does NOT equal “these guys are stronger than most of our fighters..”

They didn't freak out cause "power levels" in the manga either. They just were in shock cause u9 got nuked. they freaked out in the very start of the chapter before jiren really showed his power or goku even went blue.

[Omniboy]

Being surprised at Goku and Jirens strength does NOT equal “these guys are stronger than most of our fighters..”

Not to be nit picky considering I don't know the translations, but doesn't "stronger than most of our fighters" imply that there are a still select few that can still possibly "one-up" some of the other fighters.

Even then, can't the Gods of the universes not participating find other people in their own universes that have great potential and train them to get beyond their own scale of power in case another situation like this tournament happens. As this series has proven they can always find different ways to make stronger opponents than the last who were dubbed the Strongest being of "something"

King Kai called Frieza the strongest being in the universe and him being a god and all, I would figure that there is truth to the statement. However, after Frieza was defeated, instead of revealing that their was some far more powerful being who existed as the same time as Frieza (until later on in the series when Beerus and Supreme kai became a thing) it was revealed that Dr.Gero made an android, two cyborgs, and a bio-android ( or whatever you call Cell) who were fall more powerful than Frieza. So then it went from " Frieza is the strongest in the Universe" to "Frieza was the strongest in the universe during his time until these more powerful beings were created." A stronger warrior in the other universes can easlily be created, either by training or like the androids and cyborgs I just mentioned, artificially.

[majinwarman]

Oh god this is gonna be episode 100 all over again.

I think is a great idea that someone took care of the leakers since it can lead to terrible discussion when people jump the gun by one damn page so is better to wait for day 21.
While the Manga still have some problems, I definitely think this is Toyotaro Best arc so far, much better than the previous two arcs.

I agree. He is doing great this arc though I do have problems with his pacing. It's going a bit too fast for me.

I'll have to agree too. I've liked the anime version of everything better, but for the ToP I like Toyo's version as much as I like the anime's, with the minor bit of him treating Krillin and Tenshinhan worse than the anime did.

I agree. I'm one of those people who like both versions of the story.

[Rebel Instinct]

Time lost because of a "planned" vacation isn't an excuse. Getting sick out of nowhere for 5 days would be. And this is a monthly manga without about 2x the pages of a normal chapter, so basically it would be the equivalent to a bi weakly regular manga, so he has 2x the time to make it already. Like I said, I don't have a problem with the art, but a guy going on vacation is absolutely not an excuse. That's like if your boss asked why you didn't do your work in an acceptable manner and you told him it was because you were on vacation so you rushed it. That doesn't fly. Obviously everyone is entitled to vacations, but if it is enough to hinder the work, then the release date should be moved back. Also that wouldn't necessarily be Toyotaro's fault. It could be the publishing company rushing him. But if you know when your deadline is, and if you plan your vacation ahead of time, it is the responsibility of the person and the company to try and not have a drop in quality.

It wasn't a vacation, it was a guest appearance for Manga Comic Convention 2018 in Germany where he did a meet and greet/signing event at the Leipzig Book Fair. He didn't just take off time and then lazily half-ass the chapter afterwards.

Being rushed isn't something he could help since drafting, storyboarding and inking a manga chapter isn't something you can just do quickly in bulk before going on a trip and then finish up when you get back. It's a process that takes a specific amount of time to accomplish and less time means something has to give in order to make the deadline on time. The amount of time it takes an artist to finish a chapter depends on several variables including the experience level of the artist, the detail of the artsyle and the number of assistants involved. Toyotaro doesn't have "2x the time" that other artists have to make a given chapter. Most monthly manga chapters span roughly 36-50 pages and Toyotaro's count is usually 45 pages. He needs all of the time he is given to get his job done properly and shortening it has an impact on the quality of his work. If you have any experience in art, you know that it isn't something that you can just "do faster" and expect to maintain the same quality.

I'm not sure why the manga wasn't either put on hiatus for that month or had the chapter length shortened by a few pages, but in Toyotaro's case the trip to Germany cut into the amount of time he had to produce a chapter and he was still expected to draw up a full month's worth of pages with one less week to do it. He was even stressing about it on Twitter, so there was apparently little time for hm to prepare in advance. Even with prep time, there's only so much he could do. Drafting, storyboarding and inking is a lengthy process and he also needs to get his drafts checked and corrected by Toriyama before moving forward. That's a lot to get done and expecting him to flesh out a full chapter in this situation without his art suffering a little isn't really fair. You can't just expect him to draw faster with the exact same quality as usual. You either do it at the pace it requires or the quality goes down, there's no two ways about it.

[jeffbr92]

You know I wouldn't mind it so much if it was Hit taking his entire outfit off cause they do shirtless stuff a lot in the series but just the bottom part?

It looks so empty. Also makes me think its only the bottom part because Toyotaro didn't want to draw the coat moving with Hit.

I mean that's not neccesarily a bad thing. We got SSJ as an inksaver, I think the coat coming is great as well. Even in DB manga, Toriyama would have the decorations and statues broken during the fight so he wouldn't have to draw them all the time.

(Or maybe the kilt/skirt limits his movement and he needs fight with more flexibility..?)

Yeah, maybe that could be a thing. I wonder if Hit's clone will be something in the manga...

[Exline]

No worries, you're far from the first person I've had this discussion with! I just like to make sure people are well informed on the subject. But yeah, saying that It's a tough job would be an understatement. To boot, most don't even make that much money off of their work unless they hit it big like Oda or Kishimoto. Here's a few links to some articles that talk about the life of a mangaka. Hopefully they're of interest to you.

https://www.thedailystar.net/the-rigour ... life-49952

https://soranews24.com/2015/10/09/one-p ... ly-insane/

https://honeysanime.com/the-insane-work ... a-artists/

As you can see, It's definitely no picnic. I hope none of this puts you off your ambitions of creating your own comic. I actually have very little knowledge about the western comic book industry, so it may be better over here. A lot of the strife Japanese artists go through is due in large part to the nature of Japanese work culture. Being an artist/author is a difficult job to be sure, but the cultural attitude towards work ethic in Japan puts that challenge under a magnifying glass. Without going into detail, there's a reason that suicide rates in Japan are so high...

Sorry if I made the idea sound daunting! Go for it if it's your passion! I wish you luck in getting into the industry if that's what you're aiming for. Definitely read up on the particulars of the job and make sure you're well informed. Hopefully, things pan out and the workload is better here than it is over there. If a professional position doesn't work out, you can always try working freelance or going the Patreon route. I just wanted to clarify the hardships of the popular mangaka. I'd love to have weekly Dragon ball too, but I want Toyotaro to stay in good health more.

Appreciate the links!! I'll definitely check them out.

Yeah I love writing man. I don't think I'm ever going to give up. That's why I said I'm not going to let it affect me too much haha.
I have confidence in my writing. My only problem is that I get so many ideas that I keep revising my drafts, but I think I've been able to fix that. Just been working really hard to make sure the first chapter is enjoyable and less flawed than most comic books tend to start off. First impressions are everything. It's why I sometimes tend to disregard certain series on my long list of shows to watch. If the first episode doesn't catch my interest, it's not worth my time is how I see it.


The sentence I bolded really makes me wonder how different and demanding the workforce culture in Japan is. It makes me surprised at how in a twitter post by Ajay pertaining to one of the animators explaining how Toei doesn't like to overwork their staff just to meet the required frames an episode needs. Even though their crappy production schedule doesn't help at all, it's great to hear that they're making an effort in making sure their employees don't work themselves to death.

[Rebel Instinct]

Appreciate the links!! I'll definitely check them out.

Yeah I love writing man. I don't think I'm ever going to give up. That's why I said I'm not going to let it affect me too much haha.
I have confidence in my writing. My only problem is that I get so many ideas that I keep revising my drafts, but I think I've been able to fix that. Just been working really hard to make sure the first chapter is enjoyable and less flawed than most comic books tend to start off. First impressions are everything. It's why I sometimes tend to disregard certain series on my long list of shows to watch. If the first episode doesn't catch my interest, it's not worth my time is how I see it.

Glad to help!

I've actually worked on a few writing projects before, so I totally get where you're coming from. It's hard work sometimes, but it's fun. Good luck in your future endeavors!

The sentence I bolded really makes me wonder how different and demanding the workforce culture in Japan is. It makes me surprised at how in a twitter post by Ajay pertaining to one of the animators explaining how Toei doesn't like to overwork their staff just to meet the required frames an episode needs. Even though their crappy production schedule doesn't help at all, it's great to hear that they're making an effort in making sure their employees don't work themselves to death.

I don't want to get too off-topic considering this is the manga discussion thread, so I'll keep this brief. Below is a link to a Wikipedia page on the concept of Karōshi, or "overwork death".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi

It's good to know that despite production issues, Toei is at least thinking of their employees' well-being. It's a tough industry and there are a lot of shitty companies out there that are slowly killing their employees. Toyotaro seems to be in good spirits and doing well with his current situation though, so that's a relief. I'm sure this last month was tough.

[prince212]

Toyotaro seems to be in good spirits and doing well with his current situation though, so that's a relief. I'm sure this last month was tough.

Yes , looks like he’s doing ok . We don’t know much about him , but I think he had some not too stressed twenties, and that helped in his mentality, it’s just a thought, just by the fact of his fashion dressing and some Twitter stuff . He’s suppose to be in the late thirties right ?
Toriyama or Oda really started so young with the killing weekly pace . Insane GOATs those two

[dragon boss z]

I don't really know if it was a vacation, or something that has to do with his work. If it's the former, then I see your point, but I just don't have it in me to critizise someone who does this kind of work: as an aspiring artist myself, I know how difficult it is to draw something, and draw it well when you're constantly under pressure. Maybe he made an error in judgement, thought he could get it done and go to his vacation (if it was a vacation, i don't know) but he didn't managed to do it in time. I kind of see his point of view as well, and I don't think it's a big deal, considering that he never delivered particularly bad art. I think it's normal to slip up every once in a while

Ya, I didn't really have a particular problem with the chapter either. I was just pointing out it was pretty much only Jiren that looked weird. Besides him I didn't really notice any problems.

It wasn't a vacation, it was a guest appearance for Manga Comic Convention 2018 in Germany where he did a meet and greet/signing event at the Leipzig Book Fair. He didn't just take off time and then lazily half-ass the chapter afterwards.

Being rushed isn't something he could help since drafting, storyboarding and inking a manga chapter isn't something you can just do quickly in bulk before going on a trip and then finish up when you get back. It's a process that takes a specific amount of time to accomplish and less time means something has to give in order to make the deadline on time. The amount of time it takes an artist to finish a chapter depends on several variables including the experience level of the artist, the detail of the artsyle and the number of assistants involved. Toyotaro doesn't have "2x the time" that other artists have to make a given chapter. Most monthly manga chapters span roughly 36-50 pages and Toyotaro's count is usually 45 pages. He needs all of the time he is given to get his job done properly and shortening it has an impact on the quality of his work. If you have any experience in art, you know that it isn't something that you can just "do faster" and expect to maintain the same quality.

I'm not sure why the manga wasn't either put on hiatus for that month or had the chapter length shortened by a few pages, but in Toyotaro's case the trip to Germany cut into the amount of time he had to produce a chapter and he was still expected to draw up a full month's worth of pages with one less week to do it. He was even stressing about it on Twitter, so there was apparently little time for hm to prepare in advance. Even with prep time, there's only so much he could do. Drafting, storyboarding and inking is a lengthy process and he also needs to get his drafts checked and corrected by Toriyama before moving forward. That's a lot to get done and expecting him to flesh out a full chapter in this situation without his art suffering a little isn't really fair. You can't just expect him to draw faster with the exact same quality as usual. You either do it at the pace it requires or the quality goes down, there's no two ways about it.

Ok, then it sounds like it isn't his fault, not that I thought there was a big problem in the first place. Really it's the manga industries fault putting to much pressure and time restraints on the mangakas.

[Rebel Instinct]

Ok, then it sounds like it isn't his fault, not that I thought there was a big problem in the first place. Really it's the manga industries fault putting to much pressure and time restraints on the mangakas.

It's all good!

Toyotaro has his faults as an artist, but in this particular case he has a good reason for not being able to bring his A-game. I'm not sure who okayed his schedule and decided to do things this way without giving him a break, but he had to crunch to get this one out.

[Kenneth La Torre]

To the people arguing that the exempt universes are glad to not be participating, when was mortal level about power levels in the first place? The second highest from the universes participating (U2) were probably the second weakest in terms of power, only above 9.

Mortal level is about how advanced and civilized universes are.

They have every right to be nervous. Especially with jiren, who is above a hakaishin.

[batistabus]

Why are we even acknowledging the "this chapter looks like garbage" comments? People say this every month no matter what. This whole process of criticizing every detail of Toyotaro's work is absurd. This chapter doesn't look any better or worse than usual.

1) Toyotaro's trip to Germany was for a convention appearance, not a vacation. This is part Shueisha's promotion of Dragon Ball worldwide. You can bet that he was working this chapter during that trip as well.
2) Fans who criticize characters in small panels or characters in the far distance are no better than those who criticize the quality of in-between animation. Of course the detail is going to be minimal.
3) I have a problem with people who do re-draws of what panels/anatomy "should" look like outside of the context of a proper analysis. Young Jiji is famous for doing this, although he does it under the guise of fan appreciation. It's easy to criticize a weaker panel, but I'd like to see a majority of these criticizers pull off a monthly serial indefinitely. Half the time, the criticisms are invalid or overstated. That's not to say that Toyotaro's artistic capabilities shouldn't be analyzed, but when you're scrutinizing every single line on the paper, you may be going a bit overboard. Making a criticism is one thing, but drawing how it "should be done" as if you'd put out a better overall product is very arrogant and off-putting.

For example, I've seen this image making the rounds on Twitter:
[spoiler]
https://twitter.com/DetectiveX/status/9 ... 3752077312[/spoiler]
The anatomy in that image is sound for the most part. The biggest issues are that Goku's right arm is a bit far out, and that Toyotaro sometimes draws muscle curves that transition into clothing too drastically. The same thing can be seen with his character design for Gin (right peck). However, in the grand scheme of things, is this really worth complaining about with a snarky comment thrown in?

Something I will criticize is Toyotaro's reliance on this sort of panel:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
He uses it frequently, and it seems to be his way of saying "the battle continues". It's the equivalent of looping battle animation. Rather than draw this same scene over and over, I think he'd be better off emphasizing other panels more. We don't need to see generic high-speed punching to understand that a fight is intense. His fight choreography is very good overall; this sort of padding isn't necessary.

4) This brings me to my final point. No manga artist is perfect. If Toriyama's work were to be scrutinized to the same level as Toyotaro's, you'd find a plethora of issues as well. People often like to reference points made in this video in order to show just how far below Toriyama that Toyotaro is. While the video does a great job at describing why Toriyama is one of the best manga artists ever, this point has gotten out of hand. Toriyama doesn't use this technique in every fight scene. If a fight scene doesn't use this technique, that doesn't make it bad.

Toriyama is leagues above Toyotaro. In my opinion, Toriyama is far above many other professional manga artists; mangaka or not. Is Toyotaro at the level of other popular Jump artists? No matter how much I appreciate the guy, his career is based on imitation. He is an amateur. There are a lot of things he can work on to improve as an artist, and he understands that. That being said, he's continued to impress me with his DBS manga. His art is great most of the time, his creative contributions to the story have been very satisfying, and his work as a whole has kept me much happier as a DB fan than the anime has. Toriyama believes in him, so the least we can do is give him the benefit of the doubt.

[TKA]

People often like to reference points made in this video in order to show just how far below Toriyama that Toyotaro is.

I hate youtube video essays. Too many uninformed people trying to have authoritative opinions.

That aside, anyone who uses Toriyama's manga to criticize Toyotaro is, well, stating the goddamn obvious.No disrespect to Toyotaro, but Akira Toriyama is one of the greatest mangakas of all time. Comparing the two is like comparing a 3 year old's drawings to these. It's insane and an effort in the obvious. Toriyama is better than the VAST majority of artists that are alive today.

[Rebel Instinct]

-super snip-

Is it possible to hear a mic drop through text?

Seriously though, outside of a couple wibbly wobbly character models and some heavy use of those "flurry of blows" panels, this chapter looked great. Goku and Hit's fight with Jiren was dynamic as hell. Even the brief fight with Toppo and Dyspo had some nice perspective shots and choreography. The whole chapter made good use of angles to give the scenes a sense of motion and energy. If this is Toyotaro under a time crunch, color me impressed. Toriyama will always have one over on his successor, but Toyotaro is doing a fine job in the aesthetics department.

I think Toriyama himself said it best:

You might be the closest person to match my art style, even counting the animators.

You’re really good at composition! It looks so cool; these days there’s no way I could draw such energetic artwork! Whenever I supervise anime and whatnot, there’s always something that bugs me and that I’ll ask to have fixed. But when I look at your storyboards, I can just take it easy. I can give it the OK in no time flat; it really makes things convenient (laughs).

http://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations/ ... k-version/

[Kenneth La Torre]

Viz chapter is out. The first thing that caught ny attention was the hakaishin from the 12 universe saying that “the rumor was true” when talking about jirens/belmods universe. Am i to guess they are aware of the mortal above a hakaishin?

[TobyS]

Hated the way Goku wouldn't team up with hit once he used his special move. His universe is at stake. He teamed with Piccolo against Raditz with lower stakes.

Obviously we know things will turn out fine but in universe this makes Goku look like a total prick.

I preferred the manga the whole way through till the top.
Maybe I'm still bitter about it's treatment of Tenshinhan but I wanted to like this chapter.....

I think the manga being so far behind combined with already knowing the elimination order AND the mad long month wait is just too much to overcome...