Dragon Ball Super FT Trunks arc - Your thoughts?!

[Cipher]

All of that could be forgiven if it weren't for the ending, where when Zamasu get's too powerful, Omni-King just shows up and blows the whole Universe to smithereens. The whole point of the arc was about Trunks trying to protect his world, and when Zamasu becomes too much for them, they say, "Well this world is fucked, why don't we just go to some near-identical parallel timeline and just hang out there?" It would've been great that if they lead into the next story arc by having the good guys plan to use the Super Dragon Balls to restore Trunks' world. Maybe they would travel through both Universe 6 and 7, from planet to planet searching for them, allowing use to visit some of the U6 guys, like Cabba or Hit. Maybe they would hold another Multiversal Tournament and have the Super Dragon Balls be the prize, and Trunks would have to be a participant. Anything would be better that what we got, in my opinion.

I found this ending much more emotional. Just as Battle of Gods was an emotional added epilogue when it was about accepting limitations and failure.

Trunks failed to protect his world, but he has grown stronger, he can do better, and just as he gave Gohan, Goku and everyone else a second chance via their alternate selves in the main timeline, his world is worth a second chance, and worth staying in it to protect.

"To the future," per Mai's final words, isn't just about the timeline they're headed to, but about knowing they can do better, that they have to look forward and believe in their strength.

That said, I wouldn't object to Trunks getting a second shot in a future storyline. But I like where this one ended.

[DanielSSJ]

So again, this boils down to people being bothered by the fact that everything didn't get a nice happy ending? Trunks world doesn't have to be saved. They don't have to use the dragonball to restore everyone who died.

The ending of the saga is perfectly fine, people are just expecting some nice happy ending but that's not a flaw.

I found this ending much more emotional. Just as Battle of Gods was an emotional added epilogue when it was about accepting limitations and failure.

Trunks failed to protect his world, but he has grown stronger, he can do better, and just as he gave Gohan, Goku and everyone else a second chance via their alternate selves in the main timeline, his world is worth a second chance, and worth staying in it to protect.

"To the future," per Mai's final words, isn't just about the timeline they're headed to, but about knowing they can do come back from loss and do better. They've already proven they can.

It's really not the fact that Trunks' world gets destroyed that bugs me. It's the fact that they just settle to live in some cheap replacement.

[OLKv3]

The ending was depressing and the way Zamasu lost his body was lame. Also they didn't need 3 trips, could have cut it down to 2. Other than that, I enjoyed it. Black was a very good villain, better than he had any right of being. Zamasu and Gowasu made some awesome memes, we learned more about the gods, and we had some very cool battles. Villains fighting as a duo is something we never had in DB, so the team up fights were pretty damn great. Plus Vegetto appeared!

7.5/10

[Cipher]

It's really not the fact that Trunks' world gets destroyed that bugs me. It's the fact that they just settle to live in some cheap replacement.

But it's only as much a "cheap replacement" as the main timeline is. They know it won't be the same. But one way or another, the people they know get a chance to live the way they wanted.

And Trunks and Mai, so much stronger from their experiences with Zamasu than their counterparts in that timeline will be, get another chance to protect them.

[Faustus]

Like others here I tired quickly of the arc's meanderings and war-of-attrition story-structure -- plodding more than plotting -- but its first half's still DB's most absorbing attempt at a mystery by a mile, & a several standout episodes still shone through, namely: #47, #52, #60, #63, #64, #66*, & #67. It's an ok arc on the whole.

*Some may have to part company w/ me here, but I found it both thrilling & hilarious through & through; animation & direction are at their peak; bink-and-you'll-miss-him Vegetto's a perfect medium between Goku & Vegeta here, & brief as their time was together he & Merged Zamasu've got great chemistry; plus theatrically weeping Zamasu is win).

[precita]

This arc was only 21 episodes. I literally can't understand why people say its "drawn out" or "plodding" when its one of the shortest main story arcs in the franchises history. They took their time building up the mystery in the first half, showing Trunks interact with everyone in the present timeline, went into Zamasu's backstory, we had some fights where the heroes lost, then they came up with new ideas, tried again with some great fights and Vegito, and we got our ending.

Aside from 1-2 episodes that felt like Freeza-era padding (when Goku Black let's out his clone copies and everyone is just standing around), it was pretty well paced.

[Faustus]

I say plodding because the incessant back-and-forth trips surely could've used a bit of streamlining, no? (Did Goku really have to learn the Mafuba?)

[Cipher]

This arc was only 21 episodes. I literally can't understand why people say its "drawn out" or "plodding" when its one of the shortest main story arcs in the franchises history. They took their time building up the mystery in the first half, showing Trunks interact with everyone in the present timeline, went into Zamasu's backstory, we had some fights where the heroes lost, then they came up with new ideas, tried again with some great fights and Vegito, and we got our ending.

People are talking about the repetitive structure more than the actual minute-by-minute pace.

I think it's a completely valid criticism. In previous "serious" arcs, we've had constant moves being made by both villains (with the main bad-guy often not arriving until well into the arc) and heroes until everyone is thrust into an unexpected climax. The bulk of this arc after, and even during, the opening mystery involves the heroes basically throwing themselves at the villains, who do nothing to advance their scheme, time and time again before escaping.

The Piccolo Daimao arc saw both him and the heroes racing to the Dragon Balls, pitting Goku against his minions with only one failed attempt against the big-bad before a rematch (with Tenshinhan planning to take Piccolo down independently).

The Saiyan arc, perhaps the only comparable one in the manga in terms of keeping one set of villains consistently foregrounded, was structured around training and one drag-out climax once Vegeta and Nappa show up.

The Namek arc is a three-way Dragon Ball hunt that pits the heroes against Freeza's army until they're forced into a corner, at which point twists continue to pile up.

The Cell arc shifts focal villains twice, with Cell scheming in the background for the middle of the arc.

The Boo arc shifts focus from the tournament to Bobbidi to Boo himself as a rogue entity, with multiple incredibly different, flamboyant techniques and potential saviors thrown at the villain until Goku, Vegeta, Mr. Satan and good Boo wind up forced to confront his final incarnation on the Kaioshin planet.

By comparison, Black and Zamasu hang out in the future doing the same thing they're doing at the start of the arc, through three subsequent fights without much ground being exchanged or status quo changing. Only in the third battle have the heroes even planned a new strategy. All compelling forward momentum in the first two-thirds of the arc revolves around unveiling the mystery of Black's identity. Nothing is really changing during that time, so even it a brisk twenty-one episodes, it can feel like it drags.

[Vegard Aune]

Well, for the longest time I really loved this arc. Sure, there were major inconsistencies, the power scaling was all over the place and over time they developed a nasty tendency to just pull random new powerups out of thin air every other minute, but it had a good atmosphere, the villains were engaging, the mystery was interesting and threw several curveballs at you, and it was just an overall interesting story...

Too bad it then culminated in what might just be the worst ending I have ever seen. I mean, my god, NOTHING was accomplished. Trunks could have literally dropped dead before he even made it to the time machine and the outcome for his world would have essentially been the same. No scratch that, that would have made the outcome better. Because the ultimate result of all his efforts was the complete and utter annihilation of every single thing that ever existed in his world. Everyone he ever knew except Mai? Dead. Everything he ever accomplished? Null and void. The world he wanted to preserve? No longer exists. They just brought Trunks back only to completely ruin what was left of his life!

What was even the point of all this? To teach Goku that he couldn't rely on the King of All to solve his problems for him? Well that hardly works as a message being that were it not for this arc, the very idea of the King of All as a potential ally would never even have come up. That was specifically introduced just to allow for this utter depressing mess of an ending. Which leaves me feeling like the only message to be gained from this is "You can be as selfless as you like, dedicate your entire life purely to helping others and just be an all-around saint, yet life will still find a way to completely and utterly screw you over in the end." And if there's any message in a story that I absolutely can't appreciate, it's that. Freaking Hideaki Anno wouldn't write something this cynical! End of Evangelion was more uplifting than this! And never mind that I would have hated this sort of ending even in a show that lent itself to it, this is Dragon Ball. That fun comedy/action-adventure manga about constantly trying to better yourself, where the creator himself stepped in and personally rewrote Battle of Gods because he felt the original premise was too grim. That same creator then went around and wrote this?!


...I have not been this angry at a piece of fiction since Madoka Magica: Rebellion. And even that mainly just suffered from the ending bringing up a whole ton of potentially interesting ideas only to flat-out stop before it actually did anything with them, which can potentially be rectified with another sequel. Here though? The ending is perfectly conclusive, in that literally the worst outcome that could possibly have happened, happened. There is literally no conceivable way to screw over Trunks any more than they have already done at this point. Everything he was fighting for is gone. Forever. All he can do now is try to pick up a new life in another world where that didn't happen, but it won't be his world anymore. THE END. COME BACK NEXT WEEK FOR SILLY ANTICS WHERE EVERYONE FIGHTS OVER WHO GETS TO HAVE A WISH GRANTED!

I would say something to that but I'm afraid my choice of words would potentially net me an infraction.

[Roronoa-pt]

Great Arc, with an awesome villian and a pretty interesting ending. Almost cried like Trunks when he realized that his mission ultimately failed. Great story, excellent characters ( Zamasu, Black and even Mai, Future Yajirobe & Gowasu). The soundtrack was awesome, some of the fighting animation was beautiful. Back in the day when the arc was announced, I didn't like the idea of an Evil Goku but damn, they did deliver. Who thought Black could be such a great antagonist ?

[Doctor.]

There is literally no conceivable way to screw over Trunks any more than they have already done at this point.

Sure there is.

Destroy the timeline he's going to right now and make him watch.
Kill Mai in front of him.
Kill Goku & co in the present timeline while you're at it.

[FortuneSSJ]

What amazing arc! By far the best arc of Super!

It's a improvement in every area:
- Interesting story;
- Amazing villain;
- A more serious tone;
- Better pacing;
- Better soundtracks;
- Better art and animation;
- Great character development (Zamasu, FT Trunks and Kid Trunks);
- Other characters besides Goku/Vegeta/Beerus/Whis play a key role such as FT Trunks, Bulma (both), FT Mai and FT Yajirobe.

Villain

Zamasu is a top notch good written villain who I find to be better than any other DB villain, besides Freeza.
It's the first time we see someone slowly developing and become the main villain. Unlike any other DB villain, Zamasu is not introduced as a bad guy right way. He is introduced as someone that wonders about the value of Humans existence and starts getting developed from there.

I have to say Toriyama/Toei did a fantastic job with his character.
He has good points and his motives are triggered when he loses to Goku and he see the Barbarians fighting each other. That's when his character development starts. He kills for the first time and the tea he serves to Gowasu starts having a different flavor. The rose petals falling when he talks foreshadow Super Saiyan Rosé.

We get to meet three versions of him:

Main timeline - The Zamasu that got beaten by SSJ2 Goku and killed by Beerus.
Future Timeline - The Immortal Zamasu.
New Timeline - The Zamasu that started all. Stole Goku body, killed his family, travelled to FT Trunks timeline and became known as Goku black.

All the three complement Zamasu's character, while each one not having exactly the same personality. The writing of this character is way above Dragon Ball standards.

Story

The story of this arc is really good. I was one of those persons that was not interested in FT Trunks return or an Evil Goku, because Kid Trunks is waiting to be developed and an Evil Goku just seems cliché and boring. Especially when he already had Turles. But I have to admit Toriyama/Toei did a fantastic job.

FT Trunks become of my favourite characters and makes up for the boring trash that Gohan become, who was my favourite character in DBZ.
I'm still pissed off about the blue hair, but that aside I loved everything and we finally know what happened with Buu in his timeline. Both his new outfits are his best ones, His new SSJ form looks great and he got an upgrade to his moveset. A much bigger than it should, I must say. Mafuba was indispensable...

As for Goku black, he's amazing and stole every scene where he appeared. He has cool lines, badass entrances, original attacks and an unique SSJ transformation.
Black Rose and Black Reaper are such perfect symbolic nicknames to this character. He destroys Turles in everything, who was never nothing more than a generic villain that looks like Goku.

Merged Zamasu is defeated in an amazing scene with something new, unpredictable but entertaining.
His timeline, his victory. I actually loved it. Zamasu was cut in half, just like that Barbarian he cut. His first kill foreshadowed how he would be defeated. Beautiful. A fitting end and the best way of avenging FT Bulma.

The ending of this arc is bittersweet and revolves around Hope, which is what FT Trunks character is all about.

Pacing

The pacing was great. Overall the story was handled much better, than any of the previous arcs. I would only change the last episodes. Personally I would make
SSB Vegetto vs Merged Zamasu last one entire episode and FT Trunks would defeat Merged Zamasu in the next one. I also think this part was a little rushed, but I can't blame Toei for them wanting to have the entire Super best manpower working in one episode and make it one of the best from Dragon Ball franchise. Mission accomplished.

Soundtracks

Sumitomo came up with some gems in this arc, but my favourite is easily Desperate Assault - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXHTJ-snUKQ
It was used in almost every epic moment. Whenever that soundtrack played, I knew I would love the scene that was about to unfold.

Cast performance

I can't ignore the awesome performances of Masako Nozawa as Goku Black, Shin-ichiro Miki as Zamasu and especially Takeshi Kusao as FT Trunks, who just stole the arc for me.
The guy didn't go 100%, but 200% everytime FT Trunks appeared. All his screams were powerful enough to make me hyped. So much energy!

Favourite fights:

1 - SSB Goku and SSJ FT Trunks vs SSR Goku Black and Zamasu (episode 57)
2 - SSB Vegetto vs Merged Zamasu
3 - New SSJ form FT Trunks vs Merged Zamasu (final round)

In all honesty I liked all the fights of this arc, expect SSJ2 Goku vs Goku Black and New SSJ form FT Trunks vs SSR Goku Black and Zamasu (episode 62).
Really disappointed about those two.

Top Episodes

Best episodes: 57, 61, 66
Worst episodes: 55, 58, 62

Things the manga did better:

- Buu arc recap of FT Trunks timeline.
- Explanation of FT Trunks SSJ2 power.

I also loved to see the Dragon Team playing a karts game. This is actually the best character interaction Dragon Ball got since it returned. But in the anime it wouldn't make sense doing this one, because they had a more realistic and different apporach with FT Trunks, making him depressed. I hope in the future the anime will do something like this though.

Things I didn't like:

- Too much Pilaf Gang. I know this was to be expected because of FT Mai being FT Trunks girlfriend, but they ruined the mood a couple of times. They are just a terribly uninteresting trio, who fails to be funny. FT Mai is a bit interesting though. Made me care for Mai's character for the first time in 20+ years.

- Since they bothered to have FT Yajirobe joining the resistance team, I really wanted FT Lunch too. It would fit her character since she loves guns. Well, her blond side does.

- Goku never kissed even though he has two sons. Not a funny gag. Just unnecessary.

- Too many trips back and forth. Two would be enough. In the second, Goku and Vegeta should already be prepared in case Zamasu/Goku Black were still alive.

- No explanation whatsoever about FT Trunks new Super Saiyan form, besides being "The Power of Rage" by Gowasu. That's what Super Saiyan is in a nutshell and explains nothing...

- FT Trunks learning the Mafuba. Goku trained the entire night, and then FT Trunks learnt it in minutes. At least he did it in his new SSJ form, but I still don't like it. He already had got a big upgrade to his moveset.

Anyway, this is still one of the best arcs of Dragon Ball franchise for me. That's for sure.

[sintzu]

Toriyama and Toei proved a lot of people (including myself) wrong.

We thought Toei wasn't going to improve the production that much from the past arcs but they went way beyond them.

We thought Toriyama was going to play it safe and have Goku beat the main villain and it end happy for everyone but instead everyone lost and it was a somewhat sad ending.

The bar has been set very high now so hopefully they can live up to it with the next arc.

[Yomi]

Re-watching it, Black and Zamasu were the two diamonds in a pile of bland.
Trunks, when he was having character development or was doing something was really amazing as well.
The other like 40-60% of it? Nope, a total bore.

[Mazingerdestro]

Improved the super anime in every aspect.
Better animation
Better pacing
Better sound design
Better storytelling

Trunks was an experience and it was successful.
I hope the next Arc can be at least as good as this.

No negative comment for this arc beyond some needless back and forward travelling.
If Beerus Arc was a 5, Frieza Arc was 3, and Champa Arc was 7 the Trunks Arc is a 9.

[szopman]

In general, I like this Future Trunks Saga, the plot was quiet good.
There are only few things that I didn't like in this arc:
-Too much Pilaf Gang in the first episodes. It was just too much. And the gags wasn't really funny.
-Animation. It was better than in the previous saga, but still, there are so many bad animated moments ;o Could someone explain it to me, how is that even possible that DB from late 80s has better animation (We can even say that DB's animation is superior to the DBS') that show from 2015-16? Shouldn't it be totally opposite?
-Yeah, going 3 times to the future was a little too much.
-Gohan/Trunks episode. When I saw the title of this episode, I was hoping to see something really touching, nostalgic you know. Some kind of reconcile of Trunks and his former master. Especially that Gohan was Trunks' best friend. Instead we had some stupid filler with Pan, Mr Satan and idiotic Gohan who didn't even asked why Trunks visited them. I think the last scene with Gohan in ep.67 is 100x better than the whole episode.
-I like the 'Super Trunks' transformation, but it pisses me off that they didn't explain it. I hope that manga will explain the transformation (if it appears in the manga).
-And the last thing: F.Trunks and kid Trunks. They had few moments, yes. But I think they should have had some more interaction etc. + Trunks' best friend Goten met adult Trunks in the last episode, only to say him goodbye I guess ;/

[Ki Breaker]

There is one thing in this arc which bugs me most, it is the rosé transformation..
Zamasu used Goku's body and Saiyan biology dosen't support a rose colored transformation..

It's said zamasu took Goku's body as base and advanced in his own unique way.. that still doesn't change the fact Saiyan biology has no rosé transformation..

Or maybe it's possible to make your form any color you want? And freeza did the same with golden freeza because he is a badass genius..
Maybe it all comes down to which way you trained to attain that form..

If rosé indeed depends on the way you approach god ki, It would be gold if one of our half breeds transform's into rosé instead of blue..
I personally want Gohan to do it, just to keep him different the way ultimate does right now..

[Skar]

This is my mini-review of the saga . I thought it would be fun to judge it as if it were a fanfic.

[Kamen Rider Revolver]

This arc was only 21 episodes. I literally can't understand why people say its "drawn out" or "plodding" when its one of the shortest main story arcs in the franchises history. They took their time building up the mystery in the first half, showing Trunks interact with everyone in the present timeline, went into Zamasu's backstory, we had some fights where the heroes lost, then they came up with new ideas, tried again with some great fights and Vegito, and we got our ending.

Aside from 1-2 episodes that felt like Freeza-era padding (when Goku Black let's out his clone copies and everyone is just standing around), it was pretty well paced.

You say that as if 21 episodes can't be badly paced. Just because its shorter than normal. When most anime are 20 something episodes.

snip

This is why the arc feels pointless. Like what was the point in bringing Trunks back? Aside from Toei's point of view of it being a thing fanboys would get hyped for. Trunks had a perfectly fine ending the first time. He saved his world and fuflilled his promise to Gohan. Why bring him back just to make him suffer more?

[Ajay]

Zoomed through a rewatch of the arc in its entirety today and yesterday. Threw together some (mostly coherent) thoughts:

Episodes 47-61 are honestly some of the best Dragon Ball content I've had the pleasure of consuming since Battle of Gods. Evil Goku should not work. It just shouldn't. But it absolutely does, and does so in a way that feels natural within the world. I suppose we have Toriyama to thank for that, though of course we have no idea what Toei's editorial department's 'suggestion' entailed. I always assumed it was just "Hey, can you bring back Trunks?", but who knows! Anyway... Goku Black is a terrific villain.

I found the mystery a little underwhelming, to be perfectly honest. While it began strong enough, as soon as Zamasu was introduced, it became obvious. Even when they threw a curve ball at the audience, I never once felt like there was really any alternative suspect. I feel like you kinda need to present your audience with multiple possibilities for a mystery to actually work -- that, or just don't reveal anyone until you're ready to definitively state who's who. When the full reveal came about, I think the mystery balloon had long since deflated, leaving it to fall just a little bit flat.

Thankfully, I don't think the story actually hinges on the mystery, so even if it is underwhelming, the arc isn't spoilt. Zamasu is such a fascinating character, and his trouble digesting the culture of mortals was wonderful to watch. Seeing good descend into evil will never not be interesting, and Shinichiro Miki played the part perfectly. This is perhaps a little premature to say, but as of right now, I wholeheartedly believe Zamasu is one of the best villains in the franchise. I get the same feeling watching him as I did when first seeing Beerus. It just fits.

You've got the terrific opener in #47 and #48, Trunks/Vegeta bonding in #50 and #54, a cool SSJ transformation in #56, two on two battles in #57, and Sumitomo's really doing some good work in this arc. Things are just so strong throughout the first 3/4 or so of this story. Had it maintained this level of cohesion and care, it could have been Battle of Gods 2.0 (If you didn't notice, BoG is my standard for modern Dragon Ball content).

Unfortunately, the arc loses a lot of steam from episodes 62 to 64. The plot begins to meander when it should be streamrolling towards its finale. Trunks has his huge rage moment in #61, but it's hampered by an unnecessary return to the past to tackle the Mafuba -- a plot line that ultimately goes nowhere, and takes up time I wish were dedicated to, at the very least, acknowledging what happened to Trunks (the arc doesn't like explaining new stuff). When we return to the action in #63, as well-animated as it is, the action feels stilted by unnecessary scenes. There's a lot of recapping of events going on, and of course the tonally jarring Mafuba plot is still attempting to shoehorn its way into things. It's action for action's sake, so there's little to incentivise me to really engage with it. #64 has essentially no animation, introduces more things that go nowhere, and focuses on MaSnoozeba. It's the worst episode of the work, but at least it wraps up that plot line for good.

Episode 65 is great. I have no real qualms with it. It establishes Merged Zamasu's power nicely, and really sets up 66 as the heroes struggle to overpower him. I suppose my only real issue is that Trunks has yet _another_ rage moment (the third of the arc). It's totally cheapened by this point, and unsurprisingly falls flat.

Episode 66 is really well done. On a first watch, I felt like it moved far too quickly, but in this marathon viewing, it felt just about right. The new Potara rule never bothered me -- just throwing that out there since I know some fans were upset over it. Again, Trunks' GenkiSword bothered me a lot the first time around, but I was okay with it this time, even if it is pretty standard fare for Dragon Ball.

67's first half is horrible. Horribly animated, and just... yeah, horrible. The whole "Hey, I'm the universe!" didn't work for me, at all. I don't much mind the idea, but the way it was presented wasn't great. I blame 90's tiling wallpaper Zamasu for that. I still have mixed feelings on Zeno destroying the universe, since it steals the happy ending away from a character that deserves it, but eh, I don't know if that's necessarily a fair criticism just because it didn't go the way I wanted it to. Either way, I feel like Zeno meeting Zeno makes up for it. That was adorable.

As for the resolution: it's a dark one, and that's fine, but I think it's presented without quite tackling just how dark it really is. Whis' solution is kinda rushed through, and everything leading up to the farewell feels a tad too chirpy. Like, you lost the battle, you lost an entire world, you shouldn't be so cheery. That said, it's a powerful ending. Lovely final farewell between Trunks and Vegeta. Trunks' breakdown as he sees Gohan is 10/10; I would have loved to have seen more of it, though. Overall, I was okay with what we got. It JUST about works. JUST.

For reference, I gave the U6 Tournament a 6.5/10. I'd give this arc a 7.5/10. Good verging on great.