Dragon Ball Super FT Trunks arc - Your thoughts?!

[FireFly]

It was an alright arc, better than anything I could've expected from Super. I didn't like the "Evil Goku" idea and felt Toriyama was low on creativity like when he made that Golden Freeza nonsense, but it was surprisingly good until the Mafuba reintroduction and people constantly traveling back and forth between timelines and Black and Zamasu being infected by PIS every time they needed a hasty retreat. Still it was better than most things we'd seen previously until the stupid scythe and cloning thing that came out of nowhere, and the Potara nerf, asspull sword and what have you were terrible. Still the best arc we've seen in Super, and the earlier parts of it were at least the best content Toei and modern Toriyama had cranked out in forever - Goku Black was a cool antagonist and for all the bad that brought this arc down near the end, I think there was still good earlier on despite some contrivances. A mixed bag, but not terrible.

[Nano]

I enjoyed it more than everything in GT. It was hands down the best arc in Super by fucking miles. If it was fleshed out and we had competent writers and animators on staff, it really wouldn't have taken much to shape this into the best saga in the franchise with what Toriyama provided, imo.

That said, it's still does not hold a single candle to anything in DBZ. In fact, comparing it to DBZ makes me flat out hate it.

Also, everything in the last phase of the arc was terrible, including the ending.

Basically saying, it had potential. At the end of the day tho it still sucked.

I'm only watching because I want to believe it will get better. I haven't watched an episode since Zeno destroyed Zamasu. Just been watching or reading reviews.

[SaiyanZ]

2nd worst arc in the series' canon, arguably as bad as the horrible Revival of 'F' arc. Terribly written and contradictory villains, dumb and aggravating retcons like the Potara 1 hr time limit thing, the absolute shitting on of Trunks's character by having Zeno blow up what he worked so hard for to save in the Androids arc, and some aggravating moments here and there like Vegeta smiling proudly for some reason when Trunks slices up fodder missiles or Mai shooting her gun in vain at Zamasu thinking its going to work or 24/7 dialog about superior kami and inferior ningen. I have never felt so heartbroken and disrespected by something I love, especially because this is my favorite series in fiction ever.

[Infamous T]

I give it a 7. Like others have said the first half is excellent. It's the second half where it goes down hill. I knew the immortal villain thing was gonna be the downfall of this arc and damn if it wasn't. That along with "Trunks super-prodigy" and the craptastic ending...just damn. They could've just used the Mafuba...

[Patrolman Jaco]

Zamasu was a terrible villain, the universe is beautiful, but you mortals keep ruining it with your fighting and killing, so I'm going to save it by fighting and killing a fuck ton of mortals and by killing the gods too because they wouldn't agree with me.
Hypocritical nonsense and it's never really strongly called out or explored at all. What makes this even worse is that with the Super Dragon Balls he had the chance to shape the universe how he wanted without killing mortals and just changing their nature, but he instead opts to wish for something to improve his combat abilities both times, which really calls into question his claims about wanting to better the universe. He apparently thinks he's the just one in this conflict, yet his behavior throughout the arc was that of a typical villain, causing destruction to the same planets he criticized mortals for destroying, expressing delight in the suffering of mortals, taunting Goku with the death of his family etc

We're never given any explanation as to what comes after the Zero Mortal Plan, say if Black and Zamasu succeeded and wiped out all living beings apart from themselves and Zeno, then what? Did they plan on leaving the multiverse as a desolate wasteland or did they want to recreate the multiverse from the ground up? Also in the Battle of Gods movie, King Kai said that both creation and destruction are necessary to maintain the balance of the universe, yet Zamasu completely fucks over that yet we don't see any negative repercussions of this at all. The other part of his motivation seems to stem from him losing a sparring match against Goku, not only does this make him look really petty, but also dumps him in with the many other villains whose motivations are founded on their hatred of Goku.
Despite his constantly preaching about his lofty goals he didn't appear very driven, with previous villains we see them slowly working towards their goals as the arc progresses, Freeza gathering the Namekian Dragon Balls, Cell absorbing the Androids but with Zamasu for like 95% of the arc he is no closer to achieving his goal than where he started off in episode 47.
The only progress we see towards his goal is during flashbacks. Zamasu felt more like a roadblock just lounging around on Future Earth waiting for the main characters to come and defeat him, rather than an actual character actively seeking to achieve his goal.
It feels like the writers wanted to make a character that was morally ambiguous/well intentioned, but half arsed it by giving him a flimsy motivation and making him act just as villainous as any other villain.

Good concept, but really bad execution. I was intrigued when it was revealed that Future Zamasu was immortal something both Freeza and Vegeta sought after but in the end it was basically no different from Cell's and Buu's regeneration. The best part of Zamasu was the exceptional teamwork between Black and Future Zamasu, particularly their uses of Future Zamasu's immortal body.


Future Trunks was portrayed as weak willed, constantly needing people to motivate him to get off his ass and stop moping throughout the entire arc.
Future Mai during a flashback in episode 51, indirectly by Gohan episode 52, Vegeta in episode 54 and Present Trunks in episode 59. In the past Future Trunks was proactive he pleaded with Gohan to let him help fight against the android, even after Gohan's death with his mother advocating against fighting them, he persists and when Vegeta was willing to let Cell reaching his perfect form he attacked him.

The character development Gohan had during Toei's take on RoF is for some reason completely ignored in this arc, in the RoF arc after being powerless to protect his friends and family, he decides to return to training so next time he will be able to, yet in this arc it's stated he's not a martial artist anymore. He doesn't even ask why his time travelling friend is here in the present, despite his ragged clothing. I don't really understand why Toei added something that wasn't in Toriyama's version of RoF only to ignore it later on.

Most of the characters in this arc are mind numbingly incompetent, Goku could have possibly ended the arc during his first fight with Black in the present yet he doesn't even use SSB against him, even after RoF which was suppose to be a teachable moment for him and Vegeta. The flimsy explanation they gave is Goku was waiting for Black to reveal his true power, yet in the previous arc during his fight against Frost, Goku entered his Super Saiyan state which was far superior to even the power was Frost was hiding, to force Frost to reveal his true strength. In his repeated encounters with Black, Goku doesn't use Kaioken even after Black taunts him with the death of his family and on top of that Toei decided that Goku has Alzheimer's disease in this arc, he's constantly forgetting shit like the Senzu Beans, the urn and the seal which screws them over at each and every turn.

Despite losing pretty severely to Black and Zamasu, Goku and the other go to the future the second around without any plan in case Beerus was wrong about his Hakai affecting people across time, and surprisingly they lose to Black and Zamasu again.

When Goku, Beerus and Whis go to meet Zamasu, they don't do anything even though he has similar ki to Black, they don't ask him or Gowasu questions about his characters to see if he's similar to how Trunks described Black or use methods like the all knowing Zuno/the Time rings.
If Future Zamasu didn't appear before them in the future they probably would have never dealt with present Zamasu.

This not only reflects badly on the main characters it also makes the antagonists less threatening since they're only making it so far based on the incompetence of the main characters.

Gowasu after being told by his apprentice, that he believes mortals are despicable beings that aren't worth protecting, instead of doing something to dispel that line of thought or warning him about his own hubris. He instead brings him to a planet filled with morals that only strengthens Zamasu distaste for them, tells his apprentice to fight a mortal that's clearly annoying him, opens up a Godtube video featuring Goku the mortal his apprentice clearly despises and tells his irrational mortal hating apprentice about the wish granting Super Dragon Balls.
I kept thinking Gowasu had to have ulterior motives as everything he was doing seemed to be pushing Zamasu in the wrong path, but no it just turns out Gowasu is a retard.

Black was on future Earth for at least a year yet he failed to do something Super Buu did within seconds, his constant attempts at killing Trunks and the others are thwarted by regular humans getting the drop on him using mundane methods such as tear gas and flash grenades.
There were plenty of times where future Earth was left defenseless when the main characters retreated to the present, yet during this time Black doesn't even bother carrying out his goal of killing all mortals.


This arc also had lots of inconsistencies and various things that didn't make sense like in episode 49 Whis gives an explanation about time travel
except what he describes is the dynamic timeline theory. The problem is that it was established in the Artificial Human arc that this world
follows the multiverse theory of time travel.

This leads to a time loop plot device even though such a thing makes no sense in Dragon Ball going off of the established rules of time travel,
Hell by themselves time paradoxes don't make a whole lot of sense, Goku only meets with Zamasu because Future Trunks came back in time and tells him about Black, yet Black only exists because of Zamasu meeting with Goku, there's no clear origin point.

This arc even contradicts itself because in episode 60, Future Trunks reiterates what was establish about time travel in the Artificial Human arc,
going against what Whis said earlier in the arc.

Whis says time travel is forbidden even amongst the Gods, yet Zeno and Whis both break this rule during the end of the arc.

Future Zamasu making Black promise him that he's the one that gets to kill Goku when this version of Zamasu never even met Goku until episode 57.

Beerus implies that when a God destroys another God, that God will be destroyed in all timelines. Yet Black confirms that he killed all the Gods in Future Trunks' timeline, but Beerus and the other Gods aren't dead in the present timeline.
Same with Zeno erasing Zamasu at the end of the arc, only for Whis to say there's still a timeline with Zamasu there that needs to be sealed so Future Trunks and Mai don't have to repeat the same events.

In episode 59 Future Zamasu says if Black kills Goku, he won't able to become stronger, yet throughout the arc Black clearly states he gets stronger fighting
other characters like Vegeta and even says his body gets stronger any time it's hit.

In episode 61 Black calls his Saiyan body the ultimate blessing from the Gods in episode 66 he's calling it the personification of the God's failures.

It's funny because unlike the original Dragon Ball, Super has the benefit of Toriyama plotting out the entire arc, so presumably the writers
know how the entire arc plays out when writing these episodes, yet the writing is probably even more sloppier than when Toriyama was writing the story as he goes along.


The pacing was incredibly slow at times lots of padding, especially during the beginning

a few unless scenes that didn't really contribute anything to the plot imo

Present Trunks and Pialf's gang at school
The tedious amount of scenes dedicated to Mai's crush on Future Trunks
Hell pretty much any scene with Pilaf's gang
Bulma fixing the Time machine
Flashbacks of Black toying with Future Mai and the resistance
Black and Zamasu just sitting around drinking tea waiting for Goku and the others to come back
Future Mai trying to snipe Black
Chi Chi and Gohan taking up screen time during the later parts of the arc

or rehashing something we've already seen before.
History of Trunks flashback
Flashback of Vegeta and Trunks training in the Artificial Human arc
Future Trunks retelling the plot of the Artificial Human arc to Kid Trunks

Then there was that scene of Bulma explaining why she has Cell's time machine, I find it funny that they spent quite a lot of explaining this, which honestly wasn't necessary Bulma still having Cell's time machine isn't that out there, but they don't bother to explain the real absurd things in this arc.

It's kind of weird how most of the arc is them dragging their heels with slow as pacing and unnecessary scenes only to completely rush the ending. Also the fact that this arc is repetitive as hell doesn't help matters either pretty much a series of rematches between the Goku and the others against Black and Zamasu until Goku remembers Zeno's button.


The power scaling in this arc was all over the place
Trunks being able to get the better of Super Saiyan Rose Black in his regular Super Saiyan form in episode 57, hell I think he even did better against Black than both SSB Goku and Vegeta, what makes it even weirder is before this Black in base mode was tanking hits from SSB Vegeta.

Future Zamasu fighting on par with SSB Goku only then to keep getting rekt by SS2 Future Trunks.

Goku overpowering and damaging Merged Zamasu by himself, when Vegeta(who had one year of training over him) and Future Trunks working together couldn't do the same. They could have easily avoided this by having Goku use Kaioken to do it, I mean he does so right afterwards.

Merged Zamasu tanking a Final Kamehameha from SSB Vegetto only to be destroyed by Future Trunks(with the power of humanity)

The population of Earth, which through both the Androids and Zamasu catastrophes back to back most of which were living off cat and dog food, the planet which was covered in natural disasters during the fight with Merged Zamasu, Goku and Vegeta who used up most of their Ki with Vegetto's Final Kamehameha and weren't even able to transform into regular Super Saiyans.


Lots of weird powerups or asspulls

Like Super Saiyan Rage, apparently seeing the human race on the verge of extinction, his mother and his love interest(seemingly) die wasn't enough to set him over the edge, but Zamasu calling him a name was enough to let him reach a new form. A form which went unnamed and unexplained for the entire arc.

The Genki Dama Blade, Trunks is somehow able to unknowingly use a technique that he has never even seen before and appropriate the life-force out of non-consenting people to fuel his attack. Probably the biggest asspull in the franchise and again you have to wonder why this didn't happen during the entire year he fought Black before the Future Trunks arc.

Future Trunks getting the Mafuba right on the first try while Goku a martial arts prodigy took an entire day to learn it.

Super Saiyan Blue stated to be a Super Saiyan transformation which requires a calm mind.
Toriyama even says on Goku, he made his hair light blue to express how “by overcoming a certain limit he has become both strong and tranquil, able to keep his composure in a fight”
Yet Goku, Vegeta and Black all gets all rage boosts while in this transformation.

Black's "Zenkai" being nothing like Zenkai was in the original manga. One instance Black says the more he learn about Goku the stronger he'll get (but he should know all Goku about since he asked Zuno before he switched bodies) and other instances he says he gets stronger every time he's hit. Which leads to him using Goku's body better than him, which doesn't make much sense according to the Ginyu fight, they even tried to give Vegeta a cool moment where he's beating Black and telling him that he isn't able to bring out the potential of Goku's body which is ridiculous since Black was kicking Goku ass for most of the arc along with Vegeta and Trunks. Next episode Black simply stabs himself becoming strong enough to corner both Goku and Vegeta at the same time, completely making Vegeta's training pointless and shitting all over his previous speech even more.

Universe Zamasu, Merged Zamasu after his body was destroyed somehow he didn't die and gain the power to fuse with the universe out of nowhere, yeah, this is kind of on par with The Genki Dama Blade in terms of absurdity.

I didn't mind the Potara retcon since it explains why Goku and Vegeta defused inside of Buu, but it kind of makes the fusion dance worthless since the Potara's
aren't held down by that permanent rule anymore, they are now far superior to the fusion dance, longer time limit and no convoluted dance needed (where if you mess up the quality of the fusion is affected). Not a fan of how the fusion ended before the time limit, with Gotenks it was established that SS3 was
a very draining form before hand with Goku and how it leeched on his remaining time, but SSB in the anime isn't taxing at all, so I'm not sure why it
had the same effect.

The tone of the arc was really inconsistent

After the first visit to the future, a horrified Bulma finds Goku and the others grievously injured after they lost against Black and Zamasu then this is followed by a scene of Bulma shouting at Goku for forgetting the Senzu Beans in the toilet.

After the second visit to the future where Future Trunks is left behind, Bulma is livid with Beerus because they went to the future
with the hope of his words being true and because they weren't Trunks is now in a compromising situation. The next time we Future Trunks he miraculously escaped from Black and Zamasu without an explanation, he shown dreaming about Future Mai feeding him a Senzu bean only to wake up to Future Yajirobe's face, "hilarity" ensues.

Bulma flirting with Zamasu gag followed by Future Trunks having PTSD flashbacks of Future Bulma's death.

Episode 65 during the battle with Merged Zamaus after one of the humans gets killed from the sheer pressure of Zamasu's aura the next scene is
gag between the resistance and Future Yajirobe even though they just witnessed this sight.

First Future Trunks manages to defeat Merged Zamasu through the power of friendship complete with all the humans shouting "ganbatte!" and then somehow Zamasu gains the power to merge with the Universe and then kills everyone. Just weird mood whiplash not to mention the back to back asspulls.


Though the mystery of Black was initially intriguing when Black appeared in episode 47, as the arc continued the real identity of Black became incredibly obvious. Both Black and Zamasu have "the Mortals are violent, so I must kill them" flimsy ass motivation, Black has similar Ki to Zamasu, Black makes several references to the fact that this isn't his original body, Black wears a Time ring and Zamasu is in the proximity of Time Rings because of his relation to Gowasu, both fighters use Ki blades and Zamasu clearly had an obsession with Goku.
On top of that Zamasu was the only candidate they were no other opinions given in the series, hence why the other major theory of Black's identity was really absurd. Goten, someone the series didn't hint towards at all and doesn't make sense in the context of the story.
It was also obvious how he obtained Goku's body, with the Dragon Balls and there is no real mystery in their use. So both the culprit and the method are obvious and simple, not much of a mystery. So when it was eventually revealed it wasn't really satisfying at all, the characters didn't even find out themselves, Black just told them.


The ending is complete shit, I don't mind the main characters failing, but this "sad" ending was just hamfisted out of nowhere. After Future Trunks destroys Merged Zamasu's body, he somehow comes back to life despite the main justification for Trunks beating him was his immortality being nullified because of the fusion with Black, then he fuses with the Universe (I don't know how) and kills everyone, utterly contrived. None of the characters grow or learns from this experience so it ends up being cheap shock value rather than trying to do anything meaningful. Speaking of which the ending pretty much makes all the fighting done in the arc completely meaningless. Didn't care for the scene of Future Trunks projecting Future Gohan on to present Gohan felt really forced to me, present Gohan is a completely different person from Future Gohan and I'm pretty sure Trunks overcame Gohan's death a long time ago.

People seem to be praising it because it doesn't use the Dragon Balls to fix the damage caused by the villain of the arc, but they basically do the same thing, but in a more convoluted and stupid way by having Whis create a timeline tailor made for Future Trunks and Mai, where all their friends are still alive.
Actually, why didn't anyone think of using the Super Dragon Ball which supposedly have no limits to fix this shit?

The arc as a whole just feels inconsequential, no major character developments for any of the characters which is surprising considering the nature of how the arc ended. The only notable change is having two Zenos but those two are so similar in personality that it's not really that different than have one. As for Future Trunks I guess he's stronger now, also there the whole living with doppelgangers of themselves.
What I don't understand is why they didn't just use Cell's timeline where Future Trunks was killed, leaving Bulma by herself, instead of creating a new one where Future Trunks and Mai have to live with doppelgangers of themselves.

The only real good parts of this arc in my opinion are some of the fight scenes (specifically the ones in episode 48 and episode 57) and the OST which really improved in this arc, Black's theme is probably one of my favorite anime soundtracks. Hats off to Norihito Sumitomo. It's better than the arcs of DBS that came before it, but that's not saying much, and it pretty much pales in comparison to most arcs in the original manga imo.

[LowRyder2005]

So this arc was really well-received, at least here and about a year ago. I share the general feelings of this latest wallpost, though: it had some vaguely interesting ideas and some interesting premises, other less clever ideas that borderlined some fanfictions bred to death by the Dragon Ball fanbase, disappointing animation, very, very poor execution. If it shined for some, I personally believe it for the most part a side effect of how this Super's act "felt" - slightly reminiscing of the older Z arcs - compared to the initial (and poorer) rehashes or the U6 arc.

It's... well, probably the best Super offered because everything else is either, again, a poorer rehash or filler-esque in nature, but the Black arc still feels absolutely subpar compared to anything else the older series offered. I would probably put it somewhere in-between the Super #17 arc and the Shadow Dragons Arc in GT, the other arcs in Super below it and everything in Z and the original Dragon Ball anime far above it.

[TheAldella]

Barring the mafuba, I'd say it's my favorite arc in the franchise. I'm not kidding.

[obiwan23s]

I still think the new hair color on adult Trunks in this arc kinda ruins it a bit for me. Just seems like it was done to sell more toys. Kid Trunks stayed the same and any scene they were in the same shot just made my brain hurt. I think the arc itself needed more time, it simply suffers from too much ambition for the amount of time it got.

[Torturephile]

I gave it a 9/10 originally as I was enjoying its darker tone, Black and the mystery surrounding him, the return of Future Trunks, the better soundtrack, animation and art, etc. Once we got to the late 50s episodes, power and even fact inconsistencies began to appear frquently and I took a point off my score. Then in the 60s episodes, everything became a writting mess, with the constant retreats, ass pulls, more-than-usual questionable decisions by characters, the little prominence of Vegetto despite the hype he got, paradoxical power scale, and decline of art and animation consistency made me drop another point from the score, so now it's at a 7/10.

If the saga didn't start out as strong at it did, then it would be a 5 or 6/10.