My Greatest Concern Regarding DBS (the REAL issue)

[Simere]

I don't know these people you're talking about that say it's not Toei's fault. When people say DBS's production planning was done badly, are you hearing that as someone else's fault other than Toei?

It's not a particularly compelling point to say Toei is responsible, and if that's all you're agreeing with then I don't think you're agreeing with much. That was the smallest thing he said in his video.

[Boo Machine]

I don't understand why people keep posting as if we're all uneducated plebians that are bitching about something we know nothing about while we make fools of ourselves. I've read the threads, I've seen the videos, and they literally all say the exact same shit I've been saying here, so why does it seem like myself and others are getting accused of being uninformed?

It's because despite everyone telling you the issues and you even reading about them yourself, for some reason you keep brushing off the actual, true, explanations as excuses. You keep asking the same question ,So people keep giving you the same answers. The correct answers aren't going to change because you keep asking.

People say it's deeper than just production issues, deeper than just TOEI. Yet every video and thread I've seen pins TOEI for the problems. Hell, like I said before, who else could you even blame? Which goes back to the OP video in which he blames TOEI (although I believe he also mentions something about hiring half-ass lazy animators or something which he's totally wrong about, but pinning the blame on TOEI for Super's problems is accurate). The video which multiple people here are shitting on for being uninformed, despite the fact that it reaches some of the exact same conclusions that you all do.

The blame isn't ALL on Toei because Toei isn't the only company that holds the rights to Dragonball. They aren't the main decision makers. Like I've said to someone else, Toei isn't blameless but there is no reason for Toei to want to put themselves in a shitty situation that puts a strain on their staff and fucks over the whole product. They've been doing this for a good while now, despite some of us treating Toei like it's this big scary boogie man that is only interested in destroying our childhoods for money, they're probably well aware how fucked of a situation they were going to be in, but it isn't just as easy, as "Don't put it on T.V. and take a break." That dude may reach the same conclusion, but that doesn't mean all his information is accurate and his reasoning behind it is sound.

People hailing this as a discussion that needs to end and never be brought up again is exactly the problem here. It's not so much of a problem anymore with this arc, but before you'd just have people apologizing and making excuses for it non-stop.

People say this discussion should end because the issues are already obvious to everyone and bringing them up constantly as the topic of a new thread does nothing. The only ones that don't know are the ones who just aren't that interested the the behind the scenes and the few who refuse to take the explanations given and brush them off as "Excuses".

Again, we did not care for the excuses, we did not care for the explanations. We simply wanted a good product that there was already precedence for in Z. It's not just the fact that Super looked bad, it was the fact that Super looked bad and a show 20 years ago that predated it looked far superior.

Well we didn't get that. We got this. So you get explanations for why this is.

So people can make all the excuses they want as to why Super started so horribly, but I've still yet to hear from anybody why we only got a consistent jump in art and quality in this arc and not any of the others.

It's been discussed before. Each arc may not be miles better than the last, but they are still better. Because it's gradual not instant. This arc got a bigger jump in quality because all that gradual improvement is adding up, especially with the larger amount of buffer episodes to make the more important episodes look better.

But I don't care about why they made these mistakes in the first place, I care about why they continued to make these mistakes for so long. People say these mistakes only lasted until the Champa arc or the FT arc, but that's just dead wrong. There were some nice looking episodes in those arcs, but also some really, really shitty looking ones. Just like that OP video says, people should not be getting excited about a good looking episode every now and then as if that's somehow justification that things were good back then.

Again, the fixes aren't instant. They aren't "continuing" to make the same mistakes like they're incompetent or just don't care. Just because they've have good looking episodes doesn't mean they're all going to look good. That's true for any long running anime and even more so for Super. So in the gradual progression to make everything better, some episodes are going to look like shit. It isn't just a decision to flip the "try harder" switch and then they decided to flip it back down for a few episodes because of laziness or whatever. It needs work. Work takes time. It's slow. You don't like it. I don't like it. I wish animation were easier. It's not.

Though I won't claim to be the most knowledgeable about all this. (in fact if I missed or got something wrong, someone please correct me.) If you have a specific question, just ask the animation thread. You'll get an answer in minutes from someone who knows this shit backwards and forwards.

[Asura]

I don't know these people you're talking about that say it's not Toei's fault. When people say DBS's production planning was done badly, are you hearing that as someone else's fault other than Toei?

See:

Horrible production issues and corner cutting are hardly exclusive to Toei or even long-running anime.

The post from Ajay really should have been the open and shut case for this topic. Dragon Ball Super is certainly a show with deep issues on a production scale, but the cause of these problems are much more complex than people really think.

- Toei fucked up Dragon Ball!

Well... sort of, but not realy. You can hear more about that here. Thanks to Cipher for already linking it.

(This video does nothing except blame TOEI by the way so...?)

It's like people want to put the blame on TOEI, but then immediately start making excuses for them.

[Simere]

See:

It's like people want to put the blame on TOEI, but then immediately start making excuses for them.

Well, Toei isn't the only company involved in production. That other parties also had a share of the blame is just a fact. I don't actually know who bears the lion's share of the responsibility for pushing things too fast. If it's not Toei, then yes, you should accordingly blame them less. What's wrong with that?

[Asura]

It's because despite everyone telling you the issues and you even reading about them yourself, for some reason you keep brushing off the actual, true, explanations as excuses. You keep asking the same question ,So people keep giving you the same answers. The correct answers aren't going to change because you keep asking.

Go ahead and show me where my question was answered. That's why I keep asking it. And they simply are excuses to some people. I just linked three people who tried to make excuses for TOEI's fuck-ups. Sometimes it's explanations, but sometimes it goes further than explanations to the point where people feel they need to defend TOEI for what they did. That's the part I'm upset with.

The blame isn't ALL on Toei because Toei isn't the only company that holds the rights to Dragonball. They aren't the main decision makers. Like I've said to someone else, Toei isn't blameless but there is no reason for Toei to want to put themselves in a shitty situation that puts a strain on their staff and fucks over the whole product. They've been doing this for a good while now, despite some of us treating Toei like it's this big scary boogie man that is only interested in destroying our childhoods for money, they're probably well aware how fucked of a situation they were going to be in, but it isn't just as easy, as "Don't put it on T.V. and take a break." That dude may reach the same conclusion, but that doesn't mean all his information is accurate and his reasoning behind it is sound.

TOEI is an animation company. They're the main company behind the show. If an animation company has a show with shit art and animation, then they are responsible for that. It's a business just like any other. If your competitors can do it and you can't, the problem is you, not someone else. I highly doubt that a majority of these issues were caused by someone like Bandai.

People say this discussion should end because the issues are already obvious to everyone and bringing them up constantly as the topic of a new thread does nothing. The only ones that don't know are the ones who just aren't that interested the the behind the scenes and the few who refuse to take the explanations given and brush them off as "Excuses".

The problem is not the fact that these issues are obvious to everyone, it's the fact that people keep making excuses about it. Not explanations, excuses. I don't think you're making excuses, but I believe that other people still are. It's hard to look past the problem when people still do not see it as a problem. No one seems to have standards anymore. Berserk 2016 taught me that heavily. The more that practices like these are defended and made excuses for, the more that companies stop trying to do their absolute best. And obviously I'm not implying TOEI reads these forums to take feedback or anything, but it's more of a broad, general statement that applies to any facet of business.

Well we didn't get that. We got this. So you get explanations for why this is.

Explanations AND excuses

It's been discussed before. Each arc may not be miles better than the last, but they are still better. Because it's gradual not instant. This arc got a bigger jump in quality because all that gradual improvement is adding up, especially with the larger amount of buffer episodes to make the more important episodes look better.

If the gradual improvement is adding up, then wouldn't it just keep going gradually? Why is the jump from the U6 arc to the FT arc a small one, but the FT arc to the Universal Survival arc a big one? Why couldn't we have had this kind of leap between the U6 to FT arcs, or even the RoF to U6 arc? What exactly made it take this long for them to figure out how to best schedule and plot their time accordingly to allow the animators the time they deserve? I don't really see any reason why this could only be done now and not a year ago. Which leads me to...

Again, the fixes aren't instant. They aren't "continuing" to make the same mistakes like they're incompetent or just don't care. Just because they've have good looking episodes doesn't mean they're all going to look good. That's true for any long running anime and even more so for Super. So in the gradual progression to make everything better, some episodes are going to look like shit. It isn't just a decision to flip the "try harder" switch and then they decided to flip it back down for a few episodes because of laziness or whatever. It needs work. Work takes time. It's slow. You don't like it. I don't like it. I wish animation were easier. It's not.

It's easy to wave it off and just say that these things take time, but can you tell me why? What about this big transition required over two years to finally get right? What precisely needed to take this amount of time? I don't think big changes in production happen over night, but I don't see why they would take this long either. Aside from fixing scheduling, assigning more supervisors and getting more key animators, what else did they change that required such a long amount of time?

I'm not attacking you or everyone in this thread saying you're all making excuses. I think you're making explanations, as are other people. But my problem is not with you, but with the people who are making excuses, not explanations. It's one thing to say "This is wrong and this is why it's wrong" but it's another thing to say "This is wrong, this is why it's wrong, but this is why it's not so bad as it seems" or "This is wrong, this is why it's wrong, but it's not really their fault" or "This is wrong, this is why it's wrong, but this is how it's always been with everyone else" (it hasn't)

[Boo Machine]

Go ahead and show me where my question was answered. That's why I keep asking it. And they simply are excuses to some people. I just linked three people who tried to make excuses for TOEI's fuck-ups. Sometimes it's explanations, but sometimes it goes further than explanations to the point where people feel they need to defend TOEI for what they did. That's the part I'm upset with.

The answers are in the animations thread and even better in Ajays Videos. I'm sure they're in other places as well, but those are the best places I've found them.

TOEI is an animation company. They're the main company behind the show. If an animation company has a show with shit art and animation, then they are responsible for that. It's a business just like any other. If your competitors can do it and you can't, the problem is you, not someone else. I highly doubt that a majority of these issues were caused by someone like Bandai.

They maybe the animation company, but lets say they needed to take a break to get everything in order. They wouldn't be able to do so just like that. I could be wrong about his one, but I believe Shueisha owns the whole franchise and makes the big decisions. That together with all the smaller companies that own little parts of it. Point is Toei doesn't get to have the last say.

If the gradual improvement is adding up, then wouldn't it just keep going gradually? Why is the jump from the U6 arc to the FT arc a small one, but the FT arc to the Universal Survival arc a big one? Why couldn't we have had this kind of leap between the U6 to FT arcs, or even the RoF to U6 arc? What exactly made it take this long for them to figure out how to best schedule and plot their time accordingly to allow the animators the time they deserve? I don't really see any reason why this could only be done now and not a year ago. Which leads me to...


It's easy to wave it off and just say that these things take time, but can you tell me why? What about this big transition required over two years to finally get right? What precisely needed to take this amount of time? I don't think big changes in production happen over night, but I don't see why they would take this long either. Aside from fixing scheduling, assigning more supervisors and getting more key animators, what else did they change that required such a long amount of time?

It takes a long time because Super isn't a seasonal anime where they get to take breaks and plan things out and get things ready for the next season. Like for example a show like "My hero academia". It's a continuing show that only takes breaks very rarely due to holidays and the like. So that means they still have to spend all their time producing the show with what they've got. And they've got little time to devote to actually fixing things. So they have to take advantage of "Filler" episodes and less important episodes to, and there is no better way to put this, to cut corners and not put their best work forward so they can use that extra time and effort for better episodes and the future of the show. Something that's already hard to do with the shit schedule they started with.

The reason you don't see a HUGE progression forward between the RoF arc and the U6 arc, is because the RoF was still in a really shitty place production wise, so the next arc probably isn't going to be much better. Same with the FT arc. They only had a few episodes in between and the U6 arc had very few episodes, so very few episodes to cut corners on before the next arc. There were plenty of Buffer episodes between the FT arc and the US arc, added in with the recruitment stuff that had a little breathing room, and added that with whatever small improvements they had made with the other arcs after RoF, and you have a much better looking current arc. We got to where we are because of the slow progression by taking advantage of whatever breathing room that could find.

Or a shorter version of all that- All the time is being used to make the show and there is very little time to actually fix everything because of lack of breaks.

I'm not attacking you or everyone in this thread saying you're all making excuses. I think you're making explanations, as are other people. But my problem is not with you, but with the people who are making excuses, not explanations. It's one thing to say "This is wrong and this is why it's wrong" but it's another thing to say "This is wrong, this is why it's wrong, but this is why it's not so bad as it seems" or "This is wrong, this is why it's wrong, but it's not really their fault" or "This is wrong, this is why it's wrong, but this is how it's always been with everyone else" (it hasn't)

Well if you know the answer then it doesn't really matter if other people are making excuses. That's on them. If you're interested in changing that, debate them, correct them, or if all else fails just ignore them. It's unfortunate, and I can see why it might be annoying but sometimes people just won't change their minds since, yes, some people will excuse anything for whatever reason. Even if it's just because they legit don't mind the problems.

[Ajay]

I don't understand why people keep posting as if we're all uneducated plebians that are bitching about something we know nothing about while we make fools of ourselves. I've read the threads, I've seen the videos, and they literally all say the exact same shit I've been saying here, so why does it seem like myself and others are getting accused of being uninformed?

Because based on the posts I'm seeing here, there's a demonstrable misunderstanding of Super's issues, who's at fault, and what lead to the current arc's improvements. If after all this time there are still people on this forum who don't get it, then maybe I'm not doing a good enough job. Let me break it down as simply as I can:

Some people can keep making excuses, or explanations, or whatever you want to call them, but here's why I have a problem with most of those excuses/explanations, they just don't make much sense when you compare them to Z. Let's pretend we're in 2015 or 2016 for a moment before this arc started and compared it to Z from the 90s. What has changed from Z to Super that has caused the quality to not only dip at the start, but only barely get better as the series has progressed? Z was on the same schedule correct? Episodes once a week, not a seasonal anime, so what gives?

Jumping into a longrunning series requires an immense amount of preparation and planning before things begin to ensure a smooth running series. Super, unfortunately wasn't granted this necessity.

These types of series are governed by production committees, which include the top series rights holders like Shuiesha, the merchandisers like Bandai Namco, and the TV channels like Fuji TV. While Toei are on this committee too, they're at the behest of everyone involved. Due to the success of Resurrection 'F' and Kai coming to an end, there was not only a demand for more Dragon Ball, but a TV slot to be filled by July. This is ultimately what lead to the overwhelming pressure to create Dragon Ball Super then and there. Not only could the committee ride the wave of the incredibly popular movie, but they could grab Kai fans, and fling them right into a brand new series. While I'm sure everyone involved on the ground was screaming "Good god, this is an awful idea!", you have the business-driven folks like Mr. Kōzō Morishita thinking to themselves, "Well, it's not impossible if we retell the movies... A lot of the work is already done. I guess we can keep the committee happy." And so they tried it, and as we saw, it didn't exactly hold together.

This is a stark contrast to how Dragon Ball began. Dr Slump's anime had already been running from 1981 through to 1986. It had its own healthy pre-production, a solid schedule, and this simply continued into Dragon Ball and Z, only improving as supervisors were added, inbetweeners were promoted, etc, etc. That's not to say that those shows were at all perfect or consistent in how much time and/or talent was put into each episode, but it was at least a functionally sound production from the ground up. Like a proper longrunning series, the staff are supposed to be split up into teams who all have their own rotation times. Team A does episode 1, Team B does episode 2, Team C for 3, etc. When one team finishes their episode, they begin working on their next one which is many weeks ahead, while the other teams handle their own episodes in the mean time. It's a sound operation that allows these types of shows to run for years without collapsing. It does, however, require a good number of staff, or if that isn't possible, it requires a great deal of time and an adequate episode buffer to compensate.

Unfortunately, Dragon Ball Super didn't (and to an extent, still doesn't) have that type of production. When Super was announced, we had absolutely nothing to see until about a week before the show began. This was worrying at the time, but looking back, it should have been a horrifying alarm bell for everyone about what was about to come. Looking back at the PV they released, we can see about clips from episodes 1-4, alongside some tiny scenes animated exclusively for the preview. Four episodes at or nearing completion before a series like this begins is bad news. Not only is it woefully under a more reasonable buffer like 6 - 8 episodes, it doesn't provide any sort of safety net. What made things even worse was that despite the animation supervisors having regular rotation times, they didn't have exclusive teams of animators under them, working at the same schedule. Folks who worked on episode 1 popped up on episode 4. Even supervisors were doing work on episodes outside of their own. It was a total mess, and only got worse.

As we hit the main part of the Resurrection 'F' arc (around episode 22/23), Super hit its lowest point. We can actually see the specifics of the damage, too. A third party studio that Toei often use, Studio Wanpack, list their production details on their website. Episode 23 aired on December 13th, and began production in December, too. Their work on the second half of that episode had at most 11 days, but likely far less. It was absolutely catastrophic. The only reason it even managed to hit the air was because of the involvement of five other studios helping out. This is ultimately the theme for the next few episodes. In contrast, Fairy Tail, another longrunning show that uses Wanpack, had work for #276 that began in December, but didn't air until January 16th. Quite the difference!

So yes, while Dragon Ball Super runs in the same format as its predecessors, its production environment is totally incomparable.

Let's cover how the series recovered, then. One of the reasons why Toei were so up against it during those early arcs, aside from the aforementioned issues of time, was the lack of staff. Toei make a heck of a lot of shows, and Dragon Ball Super began airing during a very busy time for the company. One Piece had a special in the works, World Trigger was ramping up, PreCure was deep in production - the list goes on. The anime industry as a whole is sorely lacking in staff, too. Super couldn't immediately alleviate its issues by bringing in a load of staff - they just didn't exist at the time.

As the Universe 6 arc began, we saw drastic measures taken by the production manager to ensure this new content wouldn't totally fall to pieces. We managed to grab ourselves a new supervisor (Yuichi Karasawa), while also making use of Toei Animation Philippines' staff. A recap episode was produced to help further rotation times, and supervisors began doubling up (and sometimes more!) on episodes to help spread the workload, and ensure more even quality. They introduced 2nd key animators from other series, who would clean up the work of the regular animators, allowing a great number of cuts to be finished on time. Around the time the tournament began, World Trigger wrapped up production on its last episodes, and we saw a good number of animators - both in-house and freelance - make their way over to Super. All of these pieces combined to help drastically raise the quality of the show. Of course, it still wasn't perfect.

Throughout the Future Trunks arc, things only improved more. The series found itself with another two supervisors (Hiroyuki Itai and Koji Nashizawa), while supervisors who had only popped up here and there, became regulars (Shuuchiro Manabe). We gained another outsourced group, this one lead by Tsutomo Ono, who has now become a regular supervisor on the series. Some of the more talented animators (Futoshi Higashide) were seemingly asked to do a huge amount of work, with the catch being that someone else would clean it up. More critically, with this story not necessitating fight after fight, the arc could be constructed in a way that allowed for several conservative episodes at a time, only to hit a few big action-heavy ones in a row, before repeating. It's a rhythm used by every show like this, so it was nice to see Super adopt this model.

The big change, as you note, came after the Future Trunks arc, and in particular, for this arc. This was achieved by 10 weeks of 'filler', where almost every single episode was outsourced in some way or another. This meant that Toei's in-house staff actually had some breathing room, for once. Those 10 weeks have essentially served as a minor 'reset' for the series. This arc, though still not to ideal levels - we're still seeing last minute changes - has had pre-production to levels that no other arc in this series has had before. We've gained yet another supervisor (Hirotaka Nii), and more and more staff are joining the series, or showing interest in becoming regulars (Hideki Yamazaki). We just got another production manager to help out! We're at a real turning point for Super, and while it's still not perfect, I'm interested to see where it'll go. These things take time, but they're slowly paying off.

I hope that adequately explains the difference between Super and the previous shows, and how the arc has made such substantial gains over the past 25+ weeks.

To clarify this point before I wrap this post up:

- Toei fucked up Dragon Ball!
Well... sort of, but not realy. You can hear more about that here. Thanks to Cipher for already linking it.

(This video does nothing except blame TOEI by the way so...?)
It's like people want to put the blame on TOEI, but then immediately start making excuses for them.

I don't think my video puts all the blame on Toei, so if it comes across like that, then I've failed. Frankly, I have no qualms with blaming Toei's upper management, to an extent, but they're not solely at fault, here. In my eyes, if you're going to direct your frustrations at someone, then it needs to be at the collective group who forced this series into production, and not just the company who mistakenly bent the knee, and have spent two years amending that mistake. By all means complain about Toei if you want to, but I expect just as much whining about Shueisha, Bandai Namco, and Fuji TV for getting greedy, and not using sense when looking to launch a new product. It made sense from a business perspective on paper, but the reality bit them in the ass.

I'm not interested in excusing that mistake, but I am interested in explaining why it happened, and how that's been turned around, and continues to be turned around. I'm not the least bit interested in blind hyperbole, aimless comparisons, and strawmans. If I sound like I'm making excuses for a company by explaining away misinformation or providing context and additional details, then that outlook needs to change. I absolutely don't come to same conclusions as the video linked in the OP. I don't think Toei are a bad animation studio, or lazy, or incompetent. I've seen plenty of fantastic productions from them. Even One Piece, a show that is bullied for its visuals (something I find ludicrous) has had an upgrade lately, thanks to promotion of Keiichi Ichikawa. Toei's mistake with Super is no different from the mistake that WIT Studio made with Attack on Titan's first season. These things happen, and it fucking sucks, but that doesn't speak to the competency of a studio.

I really hope that makes things clear. I have no stake in any studio (except for maybe KyoAni ). I care about the animators, the staff, and good information. That's all I'm trying to push here. When people understand things, they're much less angry, and that's much easier to engage with. Nobody has to be okay with what's happened, but it'd be nice if we were all on the same level. I love Dragon Ball, I want it to the be best it can be; it's super frustrating that it had such a faltering start, but I'm anxious to watch it grow.

[neolux]

Also, adding up a little bit to that, DBZ had a source material (manga) to create the storyboards (I guess) as to DBS doesn't rely on any source material. I guess that is a factor we should keep in mind when comparing the production of Z to Super.

[HeroR]

Does it really matter? The first two arcs do look terrible in Super, but at least we have the two movies to watch to see those stories in good animation. Some of the early/mid fillers or slice of life episodes also don't look too bad since there wasn't much action in them.

The Champa tournament had terrible animation at the start with Botamo/Goku and all the Frost fights, but picked up around Vegeta/Magnetta, Vegeta/Cabba, and Goku/Hit. Most of the Zamasu arc looked fine and whatever off model shots it had were mostly during the scenes where the characters were just standing around talking.

People are talking as if Super still looks like the Return of F episodes or something. It's NEVER looked that bad again since that arc ended.

You know, I've been watching the Super dub and to be honest, the BOG arc, outside of some parts of Episode 5, is actually quite solid in the art and animation department. Episodes 2, 4, 11, 13, and 14 in particular look really good from start to finish. Hell, even some of the ROF arc episodes look alright. It's just from Episodes 22 to 26 that shit goes south visually. But even then, Episode 26 gave us some spectacular cuts of animation from Tate in the first half of that episode that really rival what we get in the movie.

My feelings as well. Battle of Gods and Resurrection 'F' actually have some nice scenes, but their lows were really low and that is all people tend to remember. Like you can't talk about Battle of Gods without Episode 5 and you can't mentioned Resurrection 'F' without Episodes 25-26.

[ArchedThunder]

-Wall of text-

This is a great post! I might even bookmark this so I can use it in the future.

[Asura]

*snip*

A very well rounded, in-depth, and knowledgeable post. Thank you. Still though, I think most of the blame can be placed on TOEI. It's obviously debateable just how much of the blame TOEI shares for the beginning of Super, but I believe they are to blame for the very, very long, and very, very rough road to recovery that they had partaken in that has lead us to where we are today. They were dealt a shitty hand, but I think them not recovering from it soon enough is all on them. You mentioned that a lot of TOEI's animators were already tied up with other shows. The question is, why were some of these animators not moved over to Super instead? From a business perspective, the Dragon Ball franchise is absolutely massive, probably bigger than any other show they're working on (except for One Piece). And if there are so little animators that the other shows need all they can get and can't be sacrificed to Super, then what is the problem with getting more animators? Despite it being a soul-crushing job that is probably becoming less and less popular as a career choice, I'm sure it isn't hard to find people. Throughout the run of the show they've added animators in, but to my understanding they were all working at TOEI to begin with, just on another anime. Did they ever bring in brand new talent? And although I might not be using the word correctly since from what I hear no one understands how to use it, but is this not where budget actually becomes involved? A budget that would allow them to hire more people?

And in regards to the production of Z being different than Super due to Z having a much better start, does it really take this long to recover from a bad start? Doesn't this amount of time seem rather excessive to finally get everything in order? And like you pointed out it's not really completely in order too, as things are still being done last minute. Isn't it weird to be asking "When will Super ever fully reach the quality of Z?" when we're comparing shows that are at least 20 years apart, even when we factor in the rough start?

Also, I watched the video again and I still feel like it mostly blames TOEI for not being able to handle these issues and giving the show the proper attention it deserves. I don't hate TOEI like that guy in the video does, I don't hate them at all. I just believe that they could have done things a lot better, and can still continue to do things a lot better then they have been, and it's just frustrating going week to week not knowing if you're going to get a Z quality episode or something that looks like it was just pulled out of a garbage can. It's just sad to me that we're comparing a 20+ year old product to a new product and even after all this time the 20+ year old product manages to look better. Even with the problems at the start that caused this mess, it still feels like we've regressed from Z. It's getting better and better, but I wonder just how long we're going to have to wait to get something that rivals art and animation made in 1990. It's silly to even think about.

[JazzMazz]

*snip*

A very well rounded, in-depth, and knowledgeable post. Thank you. Still though, I think most of the blame can be placed on TOEI. It's obviously debateable just how much of the blame TOEI shares for the beginning of Super, but I believe they are to blame for the very, very long, and very, very rough road to recovery that they had partaken in that has lead us to where we are today. They were dealt a shitty hand, but I think them not recovering from it soon enough is all on them. You mentioned that a lot of TOEI's animators were already tied up with other shows. The question is, why were some of these animators not moved over to Super instead? From a business perspective, the Dragon Ball franchise is absolutely massive, probably bigger than any other show they're working on (except for One Piece). And if there are so little animators that the other shows need all they can get and can't be sacrificed to Super, then what is the problem with getting more animators? Despite it being a soul-crushing job that is probably becoming less and less popular as a career choice, I'm sure it isn't hard to find people. Throughout the run of the show they've added animators in, but to my understanding they were all working at TOEI to begin with, just on another anime. Did they ever bring in brand new talent? And although I might not be using the word correctly since from what I hear no one understands how to use it, but is this not where budget actually becomes involved? A budget that would allow them to hire more people?

And in regards to the production of Z being different than Super due to Z having a much better start, does it really take this long to recover from a bad start? Doesn't this amount of time seem rather excessive to finally get everything in order? And like you pointed out it's not really completely in order too, as things are still being done last minute. Isn't it weird to be asking "When will Super ever fully reach the quality of Z?" when we're comparing shows that are at least 20 years apart, even when we factor in the rough start?

Also, I watched the video again and I still feel like it mostly blames TOEI for not being able to handle these issues and giving the show the proper attention it deserves. I don't hate TOEI like that guy in the video does, I don't hate them at all. I just believe that they could have done things a lot better, and can still continue to do things a lot better then they have been, and it's just frustrating going week to week not knowing if you're going to get a Z quality episode or something that looks like it was just pulled out of a garbage can. It's just sad to me that we're comparing a 20+ year old product to a new product and even after all this time the 20+ year old product manages to look better. Even with the problems at the start that caused this mess, it still feels like we've regressed from Z. It's getting better and better, but I wonder just how long we're going to have to wait to get something that rivals art and animation made in 1990. It's silly to even think about.

Here's the reason he provided to why they couldn't get more animators.

Let's cover how the series recovered, then. One of the reasons why Toei were so up against it during those early arcs, aside from the aforementioned issues of time, was the lack of staff. Toei make a heck of a lot of shows, and Dragon Ball Super began airing during a very busy time for the company. One Piece had a special in the works, World Trigger was ramping up, PreCure was deep in production - the list goes on. The anime industry as a whole is sorely lacking in staff, too. Super couldn't immediately alleviate its issues by bringing in a load of staff - they just didn't exist at the time.

His also talked about animators being dissuaded from Super due to the character designer Tadayoshi Yamamuro somewhere else. Animators get to choose what shows they work on. This means that they tend to go to projects that have good character designs and have a strong schedule, Super has neither. This makes it kind of hard to persuade animators that would rather being working on other, necessary shows, to work on Super.

[JazzMazz]

In other words, the animators at Toei were given a bad start, and due to other factors like the popularity of the character designs/designer and the schedule, dissuaded potential animators intersts away from the show and onto other better projects which Toei wanted to focus on, like Tiger Mask W(which looks great).
(This is just a basic breakdown, there are other factors, like who the series director knows and so forth)

[coola]

Fortunately, since Future Trunks/Zamasu arc, Super finally starte d to lok decent, at first i thought maybe it would be better, if Super was 13 episode show, took season break, and have another 13 episodes, but then i remember Crystal, with, especially 1st season, look at times even worse than Super, even with 2/3 weeks break for new episode, problem is, Toei have way too many shows, and two of them are weekly shows with air nonstop for over a decade (One Piece, Precure) expecting that every episode will look be Madhouse or KyoAni level is just wishful thinking.

[Misirius]

what of those who died after being exposed to the reveal of dragon ball super? what if they died in sorrow because all they wanted to do before death was watch dragon ball super. imagine how they would feel knowing that the source of their sorrow, their last dying wish, was drawn like this?

Dude, wtf, if you feel like this is what's people's dying wish would be, you need to get a life.

[Asura]

*snip*

A very well rounded, in-depth, and knowledgeable post. Thank you. Still though, I think most of the blame can be placed on TOEI. It's obviously debateable just how much of the blame TOEI shares for the beginning of Super, but I believe they are to blame for the very, very long, and very, very rough road to recovery that they had partaken in that has lead us to where we are today. They were dealt a shitty hand, but I think them not recovering from it soon enough is all on them. You mentioned that a lot of TOEI's animators were already tied up with other shows. The question is, why were some of these animators not moved over to Super instead? From a business perspective, the Dragon Ball franchise is absolutely massive, probably bigger than any other show they're working on (except for One Piece). And if there are so little animators that the other shows need all they can get and can't be sacrificed to Super, then what is the problem with getting more animators? Despite it being a soul-crushing job that is probably becoming less and less popular as a career choice, I'm sure it isn't hard to find people. Throughout the run of the show they've added animators in, but to my understanding they were all working at TOEI to begin with, just on another anime. Did they ever bring in brand new talent? And although I might not be using the word correctly since from what I hear no one understands how to use it, but is this not where budget actually becomes involved? A budget that would allow them to hire more people?

And in regards to the production of Z being different than Super due to Z having a much better start, does it really take this long to recover from a bad start? Doesn't this amount of time seem rather excessive to finally get everything in order? And like you pointed out it's not really completely in order too, as things are still being done last minute. Isn't it weird to be asking "When will Super ever fully reach the quality of Z?" when we're comparing shows that are at least 20 years apart, even when we factor in the rough start?

Also, I watched the video again and I still feel like it mostly blames TOEI for not being able to handle these issues and giving the show the proper attention it deserves. I don't hate TOEI like that guy in the video does, I don't hate them at all. I just believe that they could have done things a lot better, and can still continue to do things a lot better then they have been, and it's just frustrating going week to week not knowing if you're going to get a Z quality episode or something that looks like it was just pulled out of a garbage can. It's just sad to me that we're comparing a 20+ year old product to a new product and even after all this time the 20+ year old product manages to look better. Even with the problems at the start that caused this mess, it still feels like we've regressed from Z. It's getting better and better, but I wonder just how long we're going to have to wait to get something that rivals art and animation made in 1990. It's silly to even think about.

Here's the reason he provided to why they couldn't get more animators.

Let's cover how the series recovered, then. One of the reasons why Toei were so up against it during those early arcs, aside from the aforementioned issues of time, was the lack of staff. Toei make a heck of a lot of shows, and Dragon Ball Super began airing during a very busy time for the company. One Piece had a special in the works, World Trigger was ramping up, PreCure was deep in production - the list goes on. The anime industry as a whole is sorely lacking in staff, too. Super couldn't immediately alleviate its issues by bringing in a load of staff - they just didn't exist at the time.

His also talked about animators being dissuaded from Super due to the character designer Tadayoshi Yamamuro somewhere else. Animators get to choose what shows they work on. This means that they tend to go to projects that have good character designs and have a strong schedule, Super has neither. This makes it kind of hard to persuade animators that would rather being working on other, necessary shows, to work on Super.

I still find it very hard to believe that in the booming industry of anime, animators are extremely rare to come by. I can't think of many industries that are booming with business that can't find any people to hire.

[Ajay]

I still find it very hard to believe that in the booming industry of anime, animators are extremely rare to come by. I can't think of many industries that are booming with business that can't find any people to hire.

It's unfortunately very true. Thomas Romain went on a big rant about it recently.

[omaro34]

I still find it very hard to believe that in the booming industry of anime, animators are extremely rare to come by. I can't think of many industries that are booming with business that can't find any people to hire.

It's unfortunately very true. Thomas Romain went on a big rant about it recently.

The anime industry is facing a shortage yet we have people believing that video that was posted ripping on Toei's apparent laziness in regards to animation.

Most people know that you Ajay, are extremely knowledgeable when it comes to animation in Dragonball. Anybody making a video about animation without reaching out to you or someone with your caliber of knowledge on the subject shouldn't be taken seriously.

[Asura]

I still find it very hard to believe that in the booming industry of anime, animators are extremely rare to come by. I can't think of many industries that are booming with business that can't find any people to hire.

It's unfortunately very true. Thomas Romain went on a big rant about it recently.

But there's a difference between a shortage of animators, and what basically amounts to animators being extinct. It seems like some are treating this as if animators simply don't exist anymore, which is ridiculous. I have a very hard time believing TOEI was not even able to find ONE new animator despite this shortage. What I noticed about that link is that it never actually says that there is a decline of animators in the industry. I think this redditor sums up this article well



In a series that lasts 12 episodes there may not ever be time to recover from a very poor production start. In a series like Super though which is now close to 100 episodes, there's only so much sympathy you can have in terms of "Okay, you had a shit start, but when are you going to fully get it together?" The problem doesn't seem to be a decline in animators as much as it is too much workload on the current animators.

So I know from reading the animation threads before that you're incredibly knowledgeable on all of the animators that work on each episode of Super. My question to you is, has there ever been an animator you've absolutely never heard of that appears to be brand new? And if not, do you really think that's an issue with the industry or an issue with TOEI itself that they never thought to hire at least one new person to work on these projects that have too much of a workload? I'm not denying that there is very likely a decline in the amount of animators entering the industry, but I have a hard time believing they're so scarce that no one can even find one single new animator to hire.

[PeanutSaiyan]

The post from Ajay really should have been the open and shut case for this topic. Dragon Ball Super is certainly a show with deep issues on a production scale, but the cause of these problems are much more complex than people really think.

Again, that's just an..excuse?

This whole idea of defending Super to the death makes no sense to me. You can't criticize the animations because well, they got shortchanged by the committee. You can't criticize the subpar writing because..same reason I'm guessing? You can't say there's no effort being put into the show because there are tons of poor animators working realllly hard to deliver a weekly series..please. All of these are excuses as to why Super is one of the bottom of the barrel animes today.

I think people are right in saying you can't wholeheartedly point one finger and say "You. You're the reason this show sucks."

But let me REMIND you guys that one of the supervisors BLAMED THE FANS for not putting up with how piss poor the animation is. He literally implied we are all crazy and that it was "fine". And then you hear about the production schedule, the this and thats, etc. So in essence what Ajay is telling me is that the majority shareholders of the franchise decided to not give a FUCK about delivering a true successor to the Dragonball Z franchise and instead went straight for what they seemed was a maddeningly profitable cash grab due to the movies, and at the expense of who? Us. There's no fucking way around that. Why Super is garbage goes way beyond animation schedules. At it's essence it's just a huge middle finger that fans keep throwing money at no matter what, and why? Because they are desperate for new content. The scripts are poorly written, with very formulaic stories along with very formulaic "Oh, it's about time Vegeta says something along the lines of pride" or "Right about now is the time when Goku does something funny (stupid), etc. (Not to mention that AT seems to just scribble some nonsense on a napkin and lets Toei run with it) The art style was also very formulaic, taking away the uniqueness Z had (long wide shots, distinctly animated auras, short torsos and long legs which contributed to many iconic poses, etc) and replaced them with disgustingly bright color palettes and bloated faces that look like they shine all the time. I mean god, just look at the hair and auras even in the current arc. Gohan getting his mystic form was so goddamn painful, or the same garbage "Quickly Zoom back while somebody yells and transforms. (...Vegito BLUEEEEEE!)


The people who are calling the shots clearly are not fans of the source material! Attack on Titan season 2 took years to arrive, and it was because they already had four years of projects lined up. They didn't want to compromise the quality of the show just for a quick buck. Doesn't that tell you something?

And when people start saying "Vegito vs Zamasu! Wow!! Best animation ever!!!" it frustrates me because it's as if Toei and co. trained fans to have such low standards that when a decent 30 second cut arrives, people's expectations are blown away. And you know what - if the head honchos were actually fans of the show and it was written with that in mind and did not bastardize every single character, I could absolutely stand by the unbearable animation. But no, we have Super Saiyan God nonsense and more Trunks time travel nonsense and evil Gokus that seem to do nothing but sit around drinking tea (all the while having trouble exterminating humans), Super Saiyan Rose nonsense, Broly copy cats nonsense, people being dumb as rocks nonsense, some Kai watches god-tube and decide for no reason whatsoever that he hates humanity nonsense, ridiculous gags at the expense of the characters which fans seem to like calling "slife of life moments" nonsense, etc.

So when you tell me that the studio did not have enough time to schedule ahead so much that they could barely string 4 episodes together before airing - it doesn't mean shit. It's just another excuse as to why this is a lazy, half assed attempt at a massive cash grab. From top to bottom the whole thing smells like garbage.