Thoughts about the recruitment 'arc'

[Basako]

They had about fourty hours for the recruitments and it seems they have already spent most of them. I have to say, I'm a bit dissapointed. How are they supposed to work as a team, if they haven't even trained together?

It's true in the last episode we had a bit of teamwork from Gohan and Piccolo, which makes sense because they have trained together. It also made sense Goku and Ten didn't, because they really haven't fought together ever, they couldn't have discussed tactics, even less practice them.

I thought the recruitment would take them a few hours or at most a day and that they could use the rest to train. Gohan really has an impossible mission as a team captain that isn't even a team. And now Freeza comes to the picture, who is the most anty teamwork member that they could have ever thought. We'll see how it works out.

[superfan2024]

If you want teamwork, then I suppose you should watch episode 91 coming out this week, because the team is supposed to have a group meeting before the tournament starts. You could even see Gohan talking to the Supreme Kai with a dry erase board that has pictures of all the members. Talk about strategy. [spoiler](All are included in the meeting except Vegeta and Buu, becasue... you know why).[/spoiler]

[Basako]

If you want teamwork, then I suppose you should watch episode 91 coming out this week, because the team is supposed to have a group meeting before the tournament starts. You could even see Gohan talking to the Supreme Kai with a dry erase board that has pictures of all the members. Talk about strategy. [spoiler](All are included in the meeting except Vegeta and Buu, becasue... you know why).[/spoiler]

Well, that's something, maybe I spoke too fast. But apart from theory, they could have had a bit of practice too. I don't think there is time for that now.

[Asura]

They started off strong and got progressively worse with Krillin being one of the best, and Tien/Roshi being easily the worst episode in this arc so far. I would have liked to see more time than just a few hours devoted to training as a team. Spending the majority of the 40 hours just recruiting people is a bit silly.

Overall it was handled alright. The fighting/training episodes we've seen so far (I guess specifically the Gohan ones since there are no other ones yet) have been spectacular, and hopefully that means we can expect some really good fights in the Tournament of Power, even if the story somehow falls flat and isn't up to par.

[precita]

I liked every episode except the second 17 one and the Roshi/Tien one. So overall I liked this stretch of episodes.

[JulieYBM]

All of the events here would make for much better flashbacks during the actual tournament itself. While there might be some good material here or there this doesn't actually make for good overall episodes. Scenes revealing the motivations for the characters to participate really should be used to strengthen the flow of the fighting during the tournament.

[Lord Beerus]

I've enjoyed it a lot for the most part. The only real duds sor part have been the Android 17/Space Poacher nonsense and Yurin's Revenge(!). As long as the episode provide more lore about the universes, I'm game for a few more episodes.

[perucho1990]

I feel the whole point of the recruitment episodes was to build up Gohan as a main character again, he has had the most focus in the arc.

And in the upcoming episode we will see how Gohan will do as the Captain of Universe 7, he will share his ideas about what strategies and tactics will U7 use in the ToP.

I wish we couldve seen more of the other Universes stuff, it couldve served as good stuff to fill in the episodes.

[incarnati0n]

Apart 87 and 89 it has been great. Of course, all this won't mean anything if they don't do the characters justice once the tournament starts but for now it has been great to see Goku interacting with everyone and Gohan being back in the fray as well. While for me personally I don't have a problem with this type of pacing, I think it needs to be recognized that with all this time and with the tournament still not going to start for another month, that we definitely should already know more about the other universes. With all this U7 being evil narrative they seemed to be going for it's really strange that they didn't capitilize on using 1 or 2 episodes for the audience to build a connection with the other teams.

[perucho1990]

The only character that deserves to be straight up stomped is Roshi, because he is past his prime ,and it wouldnt hurt his character if he gets trashed, his excuse is that he is old and everyone will be fine with it.

Tenshinhan on the other hand, if they plan to keep treating him like Yamcha, and get him eliminated along with Roshi.

[incarnati0n]

The only character that deserves to be straight up stomped is Roshi, because he is past his prime ,and it wouldnt hurt his character if he gets trashed, his excuse is that he is old and everyone will be fine with it.

Tenshinhan on the other hand, if they plan to keep treating him like Yamcha, and get him eliminated along with Roshi.

I wouldn't mind Roshi being eliminated first from U7 or something but I would love if everyone focuses Goku at the start of the match and roshi just mafubas Goku out of all the confusion.

[Beyond]

Gohan as a leader is a golden opportunity for more character development. Gohan has already made a huge mistake by not telling everyone about the tourny, and he'll have to face the consequences for that action eventually. I can't imagine Gohan getting out of this situation without having to deal with Vegeta getting angry at him.

Another interesting thing is Gohan making strategies. It makes sense Gohan would have some aptitude for making strategies. Gohan probably works together with people everyday at whatever job he has, so thinking about things for a group probably comes more naturally to him. At least more so than any other member of the team, except maybe Krillin. Another important thing about being a leader is communication with the rest of the group. If Gohan is the only one saying anything, it'll feel unnatural. Others should add to what he say and give their input on what they think. Surely between Roshi, Piccolo, Krillin, Tien,Vegeta and the others. One of them will have to disagree or try to improve on something Gohan h says. I'm hoping Gohan isn't some prodigy leader. He can be good, but he should hit some bumps a long the way.

[omaro34]

I don't mind it. Tien's episode as well as the Space Poacher one weren't good at all. But outside of that, it's been pretty good. Super is milking as much revenue as it can with this; I've never seen Dragonball have such a swift change in pacing. The U6 arc was very fast while this arc is much slower. I guess the writers got the Memo to have more appetizers before jumping too quickly to the main dish.

[funrush]

The Gohan and U6/U11 stuff was cool, the 17 and Krillin stuff was cool but dragged out, everything else didn't really need to be shown. Ten's dojo could've been a fun thing to show for a minute or two, but it did not need an entire episode complete with a filler villain.

I think if this was going to take up 10 episodes, we probably should have been shown more of the other universes. There was never any question about whether or not these characters were going to say yes, given that they all appear in the OP. The time they spent on filler villains (the poachers, the girl at Ten's dojo) could've been spent on getting us more interested in the other universes, or actually developing the characters. 17's reason for not fighting is because it's fine if the animals and him die at the same time? But getting to fight alongside Goku makes him change his mind somehow? I just expect better than that. The Gohan stuff is a step in the right direction.

[Akyon]

For the most part, I'm pleased. The cast are what I like the most about Dragonball, so these episodes with spotlight on characters outside of Goku and Vegeta are a HUGE plus for me.

I may be bias, but Krillin's recruitment episode was pretty amazing, with the one small bug bear of the beam struggle, but considering it's obvious Goku was holding back, I didn't mind. Krillin is shown to be a competent fighter, and yet is still clearly below Android 18, Gohan and Goku in terms of actual strength. The idea of keeping up by fighting smarter was something I always wanted to see the humans do, and so I was overjoyed when "my boy" managed it. That fourth destructo disc to cut the floor was genius, and I felt convinced at his win over Gohan. I'm a bit disappointed 18 didn't get an episode dedicated specifically to her, but it is what it is.

Buu's training episode is now tainted due to the knowledge it's all for naught, but I felt this one was at least ok at the time. Nice to see Buu motivated for once.

17's return was pretty good too. He's very different from what I was imagining, but I can't lie that the spar with Goku didn't get me a little excited. The Poacher episode didn't bother me half as much as it seemed to the rest of the Kanzenshuu either.

Gohan and Piccolo's training may just be the best episodes in this whole thing. The fact they use the Buu fight, and use it to point out Gohan's weaknesses yet further was pretty impressive.

Tien and Roshi's episode though...this was a let down. After all the groundwork Krillin had laid for the humans being tactical fighters, it was incredibly disappointing to see neither Tien nor Roshi be used in clever ways in their episode, instead Tien gets punked and Roshi is amazing because he's "secretly been training".

The latest episode with Goku Vs. Gohan was pretty great too, albeit disappointingly Tien once again doesn't get the chance to do anything vaguely tactical.

[GreatSaiyaJeff]

I enjoyed them for the most part, the poacher episode was meh, but other then that it has been fun. The Gohan vs Goku episode was great.

[Zephyr]

I think that they've been really pointless, overall.

We don't really need to see why these characters would help Goku out in a tournament. If they had to spend this long in the pre-tournament section of the arc, they should have spent more time having us know the other universes better. Make us sympathize with them more, so there's some tension and conflict of interest in rooting for our heroes to survive (because obviously, they're going to) at the possible expense of these other people we've recently gotten to know and love. As Cipher's pointed out before, the thought of having to cheer for Freeza to defeat these nice and good people is off the wall and creative and interesting. They could have done far more with it than they're still able to do, had they spent more time building up some empathy within the viewers for the other universes. There's no tension if we're only rooting for a group of people whose survival is pretty much the only foregone conclusion of the arc.

And, concessions where they're due, we have been shown some of the other universes, and some of the stuff that they've shown of Universe 7 has actually been interesting and was worth doing (catching up with #17, Gohan finally picking up from where he left off in the Buu arc, etc), but it's still been horribly disproportionate. Far too much needless U7 stuff overshadowing the far too sparse non-U7 stuff. The #17 stuff could have just been one episode. All of the Gohan stuff could have been one episode. The whole thing with Buu and Freeza could take one episode. Meanwhile, there are 7 other universes participating, and each one could have benefited from at least one fully-dedicated episode, rather than a few of them getting some bite-sized pieces of episodes.

[lancerman]

It's really good character building at the expense of plot in a series that is very famous for forwarding plot at the expense of character building to the point where several great characters were marginalized for years.

[Totamo]

Its filler in canon meaning it was just made to pad stuff and not actually be needed

[Freeza9000]

These recent episodes pertaining to the 'recruitment' arc were quite enjoyable to watch, though I have my fair share of criticisms.

Mainly the padding in these episodes such as Goku not telling the other fighters (except Gohan, Piccolo, 17) he's recruiting about the stakes of the tournament and what happens to the universe if the team representing it loses. Wouldn't telling the them the stakes make your job easier? It really wouldn't take as long and you wouldn't have to go through all the trouble lying. Not to mention, it would make your fighters more alert of the consequences and take this tournament more seriously instead of just viewing it as some random ass tournament. To make it all worse, they would know of the universal erasure rule anyways when they begin to enter the Tournament of Power with further reiteration of the rules by Daishinkan and more tirades from other universes about Universe 7 putting them at stake. It overall feels like unnecessary padding.

Other instances of padding are 17 originally refusing to enter the Tournament of Power with is then followed by pointless alien poacher bullshit and Yurin attacking Tenshinhan's dojo bullshit that adds nothing to the story. One would think that 17 would actually participate in the tournament after being told the consequences and knowing that he has the chance to protect his family and essentially nature (which he so cherishes) from being erased by participating.

I also don't appreciate Boo being shafted for the same lame goddamn excuse of him falling asleep. This has happened 3 or 4 fucking times now! Though bringing back Freeza may sound like a horrible concept, thinking about it, I am actually interested on how they are going to handle his character in the arc. I would've been less upset and frustrated if this wasn't at the expense of shafting Boo, one of the more interesting characters in the team. I wouldn't mind it if Roshi or Tenshinhan were replaced.

Cons aside, I do appreciate more showing of Krillin's strategy to overcome some opponents in the tournament and I'm convinced that it would be effective against a good amount of other fighters. Seeing how 17 starts to embrace nature more was also interesting and Piccolo training Gohan to acknowledge his flaw as a fighter was touching.