SingleFringe&Sparks wrote:The most loathed part of it was them fusing. I'd rather they not use that because it just came off as cheap that they could fuse but Goku & Vegeta didn't against Jiren. If possible I'd rather Kefla be avoided. The most beneficial scenario I would prefer is if they used Goku to humble and re-inspire Caulifla. Say she already has Super Saiyan prior to the Tournament, (which was stated for her only in the manga), she could very well not know how to use it beyond transforming or she could be easily bating the weaklings and gets cocky thinking she's too good for the tournament, but then fights Goku and gets curb-stomped. Maybe not thrown out, but knocked out of her transformation and then realizes Goku using SS2 was much greater than her own power. Then she changes character. Something like Vegeta losing to 18 is what I want if we can give her any character development against the aspect of her people dislike and end the absurd headcanon claims about them having infinite, perpetual potential under bad Super scaling.
I still think her SS2 should be saved for a Sadal arc, where it can be earned, while Kale's legendary form should be triggered after Caulifla is defeated and she panics or runs to her aid but can't transform at will at all yet. Just not giving her "Ultra" SS and SS2 are my definitive expectations. It would just be easier to fix their characters if say they got SS easily but are beaten and overpowered with it despite having that because Goku, Vegeta & Gohan are so much farther ahead. That would then initiate their reason to struggle and get better having their humiliation go against Caulifla thinking they were weak just because she got SS easily.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of the ridiculous leaps in power given to the Universe 6 Saiyans either. If it were up to me, I would have them achieve their transformations through an arc of rigorous training or have them already capable of going Super Saiyan from the outset. I wouldn't have given the girls fusion either since it leapfrogs two new characters through around three or so arcs worth of developments that the main characters had to achieve the long way 'round. Something like that just doesn't sit right with me narratively and it's the main reason I'm not happy about them as characters in the anime.
That said, I have to make certain concessions for Dragon Ball Super's... tendencies. Cabba has demonstrated that the Saiyans of Universe 6 are an "advanced" breed of Saiyan and have an easier time acquiring transformations than their Universe 7 counterparts. It's not a point I'm particularly happy about since it feels very contrived, but it is what it is. At the very least, Cabba transformed into a Super Saiyan in the traditional method of stress and anger, so I could live with the idea of Universe 6 Saiyans having advanced biology. Since Caulifla achieved the form off-screen in the manga, there's no reason to assume that she got it in a way dissimilar to Cabba (no mention of focusing ki in certain places or back tingles like in the anime), so there's nothing particularly offensive there either. With that in mind, I can see Caulifla unlocking Super Saiyan 2 during the tournament if she's exposed to an adequate amount of adversity. If she is pushed to the brink and unlocks the form in a fit of frustration or rage, it wouldn't bother me nearly as much as her "accidentally" popping into the form on her first outing as a Super Saiyan like she did in the anime. It would at least feel "natural".
There are also a certain plot developments in the anime that are all but certain to happen in the manga as well. The odds are extremely high that Caulifla and Kale are going to fuse in the manga, so I factored it in to my prediction. To be honest, as long as it's handled tastefully in the manga, I'm not overly opposed to them fusing. It's not what I would have done with the story
personally, but the concept by itself is fine and can prove to be an entertaining fight. It's not like them fusing breaks any pre-established notions. The only sticking point is how convenient the Potara are for a plot relevant power jump and how that can make a tough battle feel more disposable/shallow than if it were built up to organically (which has been a long held criticism of fusion since its inception). My hope is that Toyotaro will make the Saiyan girls' abilities and power growth more palatable for me while still sticking to whatever outline he's been given. He's already avoided most of the problems I had with Caulifla's growth so far, so I'm hopeful.
Marlowe89 wrote:I see the "tension" angle getting thrown around quite frequently; from my perspective, that's a totally unfair critique to make. The manga really starts to come into its own with the Future Trunks arc, which has loads of tension. Honestly, it's downright disingenuous to suggest otherwise. The only difference is that I'd say the manga is generally much more thoughtful and careful in its execution of that tension, and it doesn't go completely off-the-rails in a rather shortsighted effort to "hype up" the viewer's perception of various conflicts through meaningless, often very poorly explained contrivances.
The manga uses all the same quandaries to increase its suspense as the anime, albeit in a more organized manner; Vegeta overpowers Black, then Black overpowers Vegeta, then Vegeta trains and returns to overpower Black once again, followed by Black fusing with Zamasu to overpower Vegeta and Goku at once. The two engage in fusion themselves to briefly overpower Fused Zamasu, but it doesn't last long enough to be effective. In this version, after Goku completes Super Saiyan Blue a relatively even battle ensues between Goku and Fused Zamasu which eventually culminates in the latter creating an impossible obstacle for the protagonists until Zeno comes into the scene.
That's a ton of pressure and uncertainty for the main heroes because they never quite obtain a complete advantage without an antagonistic trump card waiting around the corner -- the anime largely relies on the same back-and-forth struggles, it's just somewhat more bloated/drawn-out in its implementation of them and it only does so through repetitive, incredibly predictable rage-boosting sequences complete with nonsensical transformations, weird dimensional rifts and other strange gimmicks (Fused Zamasu's mutation power immediately comes to mind) that are never quite fully explained or allowed to breathe. In the manga, Goku and Vegeta improve themselves through the introduction of completely new techniques that correspond to universal rules and even play an active role in the series going forward, which is a much less haphazard, more organic approach and doesn't undermine or muddle that sense of progression through more ambiguous methods.
There were only a couple of instances where I felt that the anime genuinely had more tension than the manga, and Goku's battle against Hit is one of the few examples I'd be inclined to agree with. Otherwise, any proclaimed gaps in the anime's favor I would suspect primarily derives from the fact that one medium is far behind the other and more prone to predictive analysis. It can be difficult to feel any suspense if you already know what's going to happen, but that's not on the narrative itself.
This honestly sums up my feelings regarding "tension" in Dragon Ball Super. Well said.
I'll take organically established "give and take" tension over arbitrary episodic struggles and slapdash melodrama.
TKA wrote:I question if Toyotaro even remembers that quote.
How can you question if he remembers the major conceit of the climax of the first arc where he was allowed to tell an actual story? How can you question if he remembers that when Hit and Goku openly discuss that the first time they meet again? I have no idea why so many of you hold this guy in such low regard as a writer when he's consistently proven that he's telling a better, more coherent, more Dragonball-like story than the anime ever did.
This is an annoying trend I've noticed as well. It seems like when the time comes to start speculating on what will happen in the next chapter, people act like Toyotaro is some dingbat that has no idea what's going on in his own story. Even some of the more well-spoken users here will dole out a reasonable prediction or two and then turn right around and follow it up with something to the effect of "...but this is
Toyotaro we're talking about here." as if he habitually forgets his own plot points and can't keep a specific narrative going for more than one chapter. He's far from a flawless writer, but he
is still a human being capable of stringing together coherent thoughts.
Particularly doubting whether or not he remembers the no-killing rule after he
specifically had Goku mention it at the beginning of the Tournament is, frankly, insulting. Toyotaro made sure to remind the reader that the rule will be in effect regarding Hit's abilities, yet people think he'll just promptly forget about it? How little do you have to think of the man to assume something like that? The absurdly low amount of respect people have for Toyotaro is genuinely depressing. It feels like dissing Toyotaro's competency is just a meme of some kind that has been repeated so often that people are starting to actually believe it.
On that note:
Exline wrote:And about Hit's fight, I've stated in the Super's Anime vs Manga Thread that the fight between Goku and Hit doesn't really make Hit look like fodder compared to Goku. I feel that this fight is being heavily misinterpreted just because one of his techniques had been triumped over. Goku breaking Hit's time skip doesn't exactly mean that Hit has no way of stopping Goku. Hit even dodges a SSB Kamehameha and I think that proves just how formidable he is.
I feel as if most readers of the manga are really overexaggerating how Hit compares to Goku over just that fight. If Hit claims he's been getting much stronger, even when being able to deal with SSG and SSB on his own, then give him some consideration before immediately dismissing him as a weakling when he's already proven he isn't.
This. So very much this. I've made the same case for Hit's performance in the manga here once before. I'm still irritated by this community "consensus" that Hit was a "weakling" or "fodder" in the manga during the Universe 6 tournament. As far as I can tell, it appears to be one of the many other community memes that has gotten exaggerated over time and slowing accepted as actual fact. From what I've observed, repeating misinterpretations (whether incidentally or maliciuously deliberate) until they become understood as "fact", is a trend that has a startling rate of occurrence in the Dragon Ball fandom.
While it's true that the fight wasn't nearly as dead even as it was in the anime, all Goku managed to accomplish in the end was overcome Hit's timeskip a few times. Hit even tanked a blast from Super Saiyan God head-on with no real injuries. Goku even at his maximum power (at the time) still couldn't land a finishing blow on Hit. He still managed to dodge Goku's Kamehameha with only minor burns to one of his arms. After escaping the Kamehameha, Hit was still good to go and was ready to continue his fight with Goku. Knowing how short-lived the power of Super Saiyan Blue was at the time, there's no guarantee that his power would have lasted any longer than Hit's would have. If Goku hadn't realized that Hit was holding back (quote "That means you are much stronger than I've seen so far.") and forfeited the match, it realistically could have gone either way.
Since Super Saiyan Blue itself was the absolute pinnacle of Goku's strength in the manga at the time and plays the exact same role that Blue Kaio-ken does in the anime (with Super Saiyan God filling the role of Blue), any feats during the battle have to be looked at specifically through that lens. Disregarding Kaio-ken, what happened at the end of the fight in the manga was almost exactly what happened at the end of the fight in the anime. It took Goku's most powerful form to overcome Hit's improved timeskip to get off a Kamehameha that didn't even connect. Going by what the manga had established as Goku's uppermost limits, Hit's performance is just as impressive in the manga as it is in the anime - relatively speaking. There was no tier of power for Goku beyond Super Saiyan Blue at the time and Hit still dodged a final attack from it with minor injuries and was ready to keep fighting. Based on the manga's own scale, that is an impressive feat.
Just because Hit in the manga isn't physically as powerful as his anime self, it doesn't mean that he was weak. It just means that he is in the same ballpark as the manga's version of Super Saiyan Blue - a feat that's rather impressive by the standards set by the manga itself, especially considering that the only other individual opponent to exceed that level prior to Toppo was
Goku Black.
The post-Super fandom has ruined my love for Dragon Ball.
