Does Dragon Ball even feel like a story anymore?

[Nero<>Akira]

Yes it does. I feel progression. How anyone can't blows my mind. It actually feels more cohesive than the original manga did after the Freeza arc. That's not to nag on the original series. I love Dragon Ball and stuff happens in it. And despite some inconsistencies in characters or dialogue or whatever, the story still feels like a complete narrative focused on getting most of its characters to get better than the original DB did at some point. Does it do everything we want or how we would have done it? No. A story shouldn't go how we expect it and I am quite sure NOBODY expected how Super was gonna go except that Goku and Jiren would be the final fight in this arc and any villain they came across would die at the end of the arc. How things happened being good or bad is up for discussion. But again, it does feel like a story. Super is an amalgamation of early Dragon Ball and later Dragon Ball and what we end up with is more of a traditional fantasy martial arts story with some side adventures and occasional sci fi. That's what i love about the show. Resurrection F was pretty bare bones, but it's pretty much a martial arts movie that so many people like except it being a Dragon Ball version (the F arc was just straight bad though with early parts being good). Super is Goku's (& Vegeta) martial arts progression leading him into his ascension into another plane of of existence and interacting with angels and gods that was already spearheaded in the original manga; it's just continuing off of that; it's Toriyama continuing his version of the legend of Sun Wukong; notice how the gods and angels are definitely not "good" beings.

All of what comes after the first few sentences there is fine: I do feel that the ways in which Super's stories escalate, and even the specific ideas behind each arc, are perfectly coherent and fitting. It even, as you notrsd, maintains one of my favorites elements of the series in that you'd have to be some kind of savant to predict where each arc would end based on its beginnings. One of my biggest misgivings with Super has been the gap between its ideas and execution through Toei. Reduced to summary, it sounds fine.

But that's all plot and premise stuff. Character progression? Throughout the original run, we get to be continuously surprised by the new shades of Goku, revealed through unexpected actions: The revelation that he's still trying to win the tournament while fighting Piccolo, even after training with God; letting Piccolo and Vegeta go for their rivalries; coming to terms with his Saiyan side, and his entire series of interactions with Freeza; choosing to let the androids activate, expressing a mix of dread and desire when Cell shows up; every choice he makes as a bored dead guy in the Boo arc that culminates in his arc finishing off with Oob. At the same time, characters such as Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo, Kuririn, Tenshinhan—take your pick—also grow steadily each arc. The story offers glimpses into new eras of their lives with each news incident as well.

What in Super has been surprising? What's been new on a main character front, or a response to its events? The most I can think of is Goku's seeming complicity in the Tournament of Power flipping the script on Beerus—that was new and interesting, and had potential—but the series immediately backed away from it.

Goku and Vegeta in Super's final arc, power aside, are the same as they were when they walked in. Most of the cast is. Others, such as Gohan and Kuririn, have been given something to waffle over, but that doesn't feel sincere.

As a series of extra one offs, that's fine, and things build upon each other enough in terms of the plots to keep it engaging on that level. But as a long-running serial, one of the core components of narrative is missing, in a way it isn't in the original run.

Plot coherence is great and all (everything being a continuously rising set of stakes from interaction with these high gods), but it's a whole lot of nothing if the story beats aren't matched with surprising and interesting character ones.

Perhaps because of its placement as a miduel, perhaps because Toriyama isn't forcing himself to develop a narrative by scripting week to week—or some combination of the above—both versions of Super manage to offer up at least a little of every one of Dragon Ball's strengths except its sense of story and change.

Development isn't always necessary if there is characterization. But, I do think they have progressed both as fighters and people (the latter being mostly Vegeta). Goku is still a questionable person regarding ethics and he became much more of that in the TOP. It's not that the plot point was dropped or backed away from, but it's because his part in it has mostly been resolved; he gave the universes a fighting chance to survive, but of course they aren't going to win and most of the tournament has been amusement for Goku though we have seen that he doesn't like what's happening. But, what can he do? He can have mental goofs, but he isn't stupid enough to fight against a being he knows damn well he can't win against. He has a role to play and he knows that. We know Goku has had questionable actions before, but this arc focused much more on how far he would go just to get a good fight. He knew the risk and still took it. He even went to Hell and promised Freeza to revive him should he help in the tournament. Those are interesting developments in regards to Goku's character regardless if it makes him a better person or not. People wanna talk about Goku regressing, but I don't see that. This isn't a super hero story with super hero characters except Gohan and that's limited to when he feels like it. These are just flawed people in a grand story looking to improve, get good fights, and save the world if the situation calls for it. And not to mention Goku has gotten 2 god levels and the greatest martial arts skill in the verse now. That speaks for itself. But he isn't perfect nor is he being written to be.

Vegeta has just shown more of the qualities that make him a decent human being. The boo arc may have jump started that, but do you really ever see it that much? That answer, quite frankly, is no. The more Super progressed, the more we see being more open showing love and care for his family and even taking time off from training willingly. yes, by the end of the original manga, Vegeta does take action to save people and the want to atone for what he's done. And yes, he does admit Goku is better. But we don't see the follow ups to these developments until Super which I have just described. Vegeta develops a friendship with Goku and a friendly rivalry that we never saw in the original manga. Vegeta has no ill will, conflict, or anger towards Goku. He respects him more than he ever has and knows he needs him to become an even better fighter (touched upon in F). When Goku surpassed him in Super, he got irritated, but he harbored no ill will and continued to improve and get stronger. It even got to the point where in the TOP, he never even lost his cool after seeing everything Goku could do. He still wants to be the best and be better than Goku, but he isn't losing sleep when isn't. Vegeta also goes to levels never before to swallow pride when need be; he also doesn't wanna be just like Goku and do everything he does. And then there's the latest episode too. All of that? That's development. And damn good development.

Gohan got developement as well. Much needed development. In the boo arc, Gohan trained because there was no other option. In Super, he ends up training because he knows he will need the power when Goku or Vegeta isn't there; even if it's peaceful, he'll train; he wants to protect his wife and daughter more than anything. That didn't even happen after Cell was killed. So that was good. Hopefully it continues.

Piccolo has become more comic relief, but i appreciated the time the writers took in order to have him teach Gohan his flaws as a fighter and push Gohan to become even better. Hell, they made him not slack off either. He gained a good boost.

Krillin got great development and characterization after the FT arc. Refreshing.

Roshi got some development too and much appreciated.

Tien just got opened a dojo. He isn't any different, but that was cool to see.

Freeza may still be an evil person, but damn did he get a makeover. He's the best he's ever been.

[Cipher]

*snipped for space*

I want to clarify that I have no expectation Goku develop morally. I've written before that he's possibly the one character to become a progressively worse person as the manga goes on, and that's one of my favorite things about him. Toiryama's modus operandi is actually not to have main characters develop morally, but to basically present selfish weirdos who slowly gain allies and do some kind of accidental good through their drive alone, usually with some other shifting character element to track.

Super nearly managed to add a new wrinkle to the dangerous sense of ennui that informs his character progression through the end of the Boo arc, in his cavalier attitude toward Zeno and the tournament, but—yes, that was backed away from. Not in terms of the actual actions of his character, but in terms of it being any kind of focal point for the story. Really, it's just undermined by the introduction of the idea that he secretly saved everyone as a sort of, "Well, this was a bad choice, but it was ultimately a fortunate one." Character conflicts are given, character conflicts are swiftly taken away. We don't even get any "Are you scared or excited? Both," or "Well, I could have beaten Boo, but I wanted to see what the younger generation could do" wrinkles as the story goes on.

For Vegeta, you're describing things we get to see in Super, but you haven't described what changes he's actually going through over the course of the series itself. He isn't responding to the events of these stories. I'll grant that he may steadily grow closer to Goku. But nearly all of what we see, and what you're discussing, are simply illustrations of the character change the final arc of the manga gives us. Development halted; we just get an extended look at the place where it stopped. (And that's fair enough, because his arc was complete; but then it's all the more reason to not position Super as a serial midquel, and to point out that it reads much less as a strong narrative than anything to come previously.)

Kuririn and Gohan? They're evidently tertiary characters in the whatever the outline for the series was, and in the manga, but the anime had to invent waffling arcs for them to provide the illusion of change. They lose and regain and lose and regain their fighting spirits. Gohan was positioned at the end of the manga as having grown into a role of protector independent of needing to rely on his anger. Kuririn never struggled with any large scale self-doubt. It's invented problems for them so it could solve them within the span of one-offs or two-parters. Kurirn went through the same cycle three times. Gohan was fortunate enough to have an arc that feels just slightly more coherent.

The characters who have been exciting for offering any substantial change or response to the events of the arcs have been the secondary and secondary ones: your Trunkses, your Freezas. Those are the ones who have been interesting to watch. But they're not the thrust of the story and thus do not a satisfying overall story make.

We're heading into the climax of the series and there is literally one character who I'm really anxious to follow, and he's a side player compared to the static big two. That's unfortunate. He's just the only one in the tournament with any kind of potential for unexpected development or change. Freeza's been great. But we used to have, to invoke him as a metaphor, four or five Freezas per arc.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

I think what hurts Super is that Toriyama isn't writing it week by week reacting to other people and his own impression of his work, so he doesn't write the arc outlines with the same intention of gripping the audience chapter by chapter like what would happen with a manga.

I definitely disagree with the idea that it's written like a toy commercial though. Look at the most of the ToP before we were left with just U3 and 11. There were barely any episodes focused on hyped new characters or transformations, just random monster of the week stuff aside from a couple of exceptions like the Kale/Kefla episodes or the tv special. That would never happen in a modern merchandising driven series. They'd want to hype their products - either showing powerful antagonists beating the heroes if they're getting merchandising or hyping villains just to highlight more the hero that's defeating them afterwards. Just compare the number of power ups introduced in 50 episodes by a Digimon or Kamen Rider series with what we get in 50 episodes of Super.

I'd say barely 10% of the ToP has been merch'd, SSGSS gets merch'd a lot like A LOT but that isn't really ToP related per se in the sense of new, other than that they fall back on the usual, Broly, GT and Z merch (mostly the old Z movies) under the DBS brand; for example a gashapon set for the ToP came out had Goku vs #17 from the recruitment episode then SSGSS Vegeta vs..... SS3 Broly. You couldn't make it up, we literally have Kale right there but they choice Broly instead...whut, the next set btw is UI Goku vs Jiren and Metal Cooler vs SS Goku... again we could have had Vegeta vs Toppo or something but nope.

But you hit the nail of the head re: antagonist. Jiren is probably the least marketable in terms of design yet the most marketed out of the new ToP fighters, why? Because he is important to the narrative. Pre DBS special in October, Jiren merch was not doing too well, a lot of his stuff was lying around cheap but then after the DBS special all of the sudden it is the opposite and Jiren related merch started to even get re-released!! Still waiting for Jiren to have a proper figure release though, yet we've got a proper SS4 Goku and Gogeta figure under the DBS brand...that isn't awkward in the slightest.

[HeroR]

The beginning of the Cell arc is directly connected to the end of the Freeza arc.

The plot struture is bad:

-The time travel concept had never been foreshadowed before.
-The SSJ Legend becomes a joke will all the living Saiyans get it, when in the arc before only a Saiyan in thousand years could become one.
- We are forced to believe there was a survivor scientist from Red Ribbon Army arc that has been spying Goku all this time and preparing his revenge, when he didn't even appeared once before.

If you want to say that the RF arc and Champa arc connect to BoG and each-other because, I assume, Vegeta and Goku are training with Whis, then you can't possibly argue against this.

I can, because in BOG arc Champa/Vados alre already gathering he Super Dragon Balls, which also connects to Champa arc. There's nothing happening in Saiyan/Freeca arcs that leads to Cell/Buu arcs happening.

What makes the Android stuff unbelievable is that a scientist in some cave built a series of androids whose weaker member could ass rape Freeza, the previous strongest in the universe that took a legend to beat.

I mean, eat your heart out Tony Stark.

[HeroR]

Transformation are only because the show is running purely on flash.I mean we have a game built around fusion.Broly is the most popular movie character.Dbs manga is often critisised for having less hype(flash).

Most of the criticism for the manga is it being rushed, having weird explainations, often having several characters saying the same thing ten different ways in the same chapter, and how it write some characters. It being ‘boring’ to some isn’t all because ‘it has no flash’.

[precita]

Goku got 4 new Super Saiyan forms in 3 years. And all of them are just color hair swaps. If that doesn't strike you as just being done for merch, I don't know what does.

We're blasting through new forms for Goku so fast that I can't even keep track of them anymore.

[UpFromTheSkies]

Despite Toriyama 'writing' it, it has no direction or vision. At this point it's more of an advertisement to sell toys and merchandise than anything else. Selling merch was always a byproduct of Dragon Ball's stories, now it seems to be its main objective.

The Future Trunks arc had a solid story and the rest has felt a bit like filler, but I've still enjoyed it.

Goku got 4 new Super Saiyan forms in 3 years. And all of them are just color hair swaps. If that doesn't strike you as just being done for merch, I don't know what does.

We're blasting through new forms for Goku so fast that I can't even keep track of them anymore.

I agree it's a bit much, it feels almost like self parody at this point, but it is still fun to watch and I'd keep watching even if there were 10 more transformations. They should just start inserting jokes into the show about the transformations and make it kind of tongue in cheek

[Lord Beerus]

Goku got 4 new Super Saiyan forms in 3 years. And all of them are just color hair swaps. If that doesn't strike you as just being done for merch, I don't know what does.

We're blasting through new forms for Goku so fast that I can't even keep track of them anymore.

Okay, a few things wrong there:

1. Goku got two new Super Saiyan forms. Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan Blue
2. The two new forms that Goku got were introduced in movies, NOT in Super. Battle of Gods (2013) Introduced Super Saiyan God and Resurrection F introduced (2015) introduced Super Saiyan Blue.
3. The new forms that Goku has obtained exclusively in Super are NOT Super Saiyan forms. Super Saiyan Blue stacked with Kaioken isn't a new form as it is more of a power up of a previous form. And Ultra Instinct is a self movement martial arts technique that can only be attained by users of God Ki. It isn't tied to Super Saiyan at all.

[UpFromTheSkies]

Goku got 4 new Super Saiyan forms in 3 years. And all of them are just color hair swaps. If that doesn't strike you as just being done for merch, I don't know what does.

We're blasting through new forms for Goku so fast that I can't even keep track of them anymore.

Okay, a few things wrong there:

1. Goku got two new Super Saiyan forms. Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan Blue
2. The two new forms that Goku got were introduced in movies, NOT in Super. Battle of Gods (2013) Introduced Super Saiyan God and Resurrection F introduced (2015) introduced Super Saiyan Blue.
3. The new forms that Goku has obtained exclusively in Super are NOT Super Saiyan forms. Super Saiyan Blue stacked with Kaioken isn't a new form as it is more of a power up of a previous form. And Ultra Instinct is a self movement martial arts technique that can only be attained by users of God Ki. It isn't tied to Super Saiyan at all.

But then there's also Super Saiyan Rage, or whatever that thing Trunks had, Vegeta's new SSB form, Kale's new form, and SSJ Rose. They should start making jokes about it in the show, then no one can complain.

[HeroR]

Goku got 4 new Super Saiyan forms in 3 years. And all of them are just color hair swaps. If that doesn't strike you as just being done for merch, I don't know what does.

We're blasting through new forms for Goku so fast that I can't even keep track of them anymore.

Okay, a few things wrong there:

1. Goku got two new Super Saiyan forms. Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan Blue
2. The two new forms that Goku got were introduced in movies, NOT in Super. Battle of Gods (2013) Introduced Super Saiyan God and Resurrection F introduced (2015) introduced Super Saiyan Blue.
3. The new forms that Goku has obtained exclusively in Super are NOT Super Saiyan forms. Super Saiyan Blue stacked with Kaioken isn't a new form as it is more of a power up of a previous form. And Ultra Instinct is a self movement martial arts technique that can only be attained by users of God Ki. It isn't tied to Super Saiyan at all.

But then there's also Super Saiyan Rage, or whatever that thing Trunks had, Vegeta's new SSB form, Kale's new form, and SSJ Rose. They should start making jokes about it in the show, then no one can complain.

The original poster was specifically talking about Goku.

[precita]

Goku got 4 new Super Saiyan forms in 3 years. And all of them are just color hair swaps. If that doesn't strike you as just being done for merch, I don't know what does.

We're blasting through new forms for Goku so fast that I can't even keep track of them anymore.

Okay, a few things wrong there:

1. Goku got two new Super Saiyan forms. Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan Blue
2. The two new forms that Goku got were introduced in movies, NOT in Super. Battle of Gods (2013) Introduced Super Saiyan God and Resurrection F introduced (2015) introduced Super Saiyan Blue.
3. The new forms that Goku has obtained exclusively in Super are NOT Super Saiyan forms. Super Saiyan Blue stacked with Kaioken isn't a new form as it is more of a power up of a previous form. And Ultra Instinct is a self movement martial arts technique that can only be attained by users of God Ki. It isn't tied to Super Saiyan at all.

Why do people keep saying "it happened in the movies before Super, it doesn't count?"

This is all part of Dragonballs revival. Everything from the Beerus movie in 2013 till now is all part of the same thing. It doesn't matter that it happened 2 years before Super came out, it's all part of Dragonball's revival. Same reason Super adapted the two movies into episodes. People will always associate God and Blue forms with Super, it's long after DBZ concluded in 1995.

So even then, we still saw Goku go through 4 new transformations since DB's revival. God, Blue, Ultra Instinct, and now the new silver haired Ultra Instinct. And I'm being generous leaving out Blue Kaio-ken.

Then with Vegeta we now have a blue sparkle form that we have no idea what it is. We then got Super Saiyan Pink and Green hair colors made canon with Goku Black and Kale/Kefla.


We literally have different color Super Saiyan hair forms now. It's like something out of fanfiction in the early 2000's. Now characters can have red hair, blue hair, green hair, silver hair, pink hair, etc. If you told this to anyone back in 2010 they would laugh and fall out of their chair dying.

[Lord Beerus]

Why do people keep saying "it happened in the movies before Super, it doesn't count?"

Because... it's true?

I mean, why should we act as if Super is responsible for Goku gaining Super Saiyan God and Super Blue when it isn't? If Battle Of Gods and Resurrection F didn't exist, then those forms don't exist either.

[Neon Z]

This is all part of Dragonballs revival. Everything from the Beerus movie in 2013 till now is all part of the same thing. It doesn't matter that it happened 2 years before Super came out, it's all part of Dragonball's revival. Same reason Super adapted the two movies into episodes. People will always associate God and Blue forms with Super, it's long after DBZ concluded in 1995.

So even then, we still saw Goku go through 4 new transformations since DB's revival. God, Blue, Ultra Instinct, and now the new silver haired Ultra Instinct. And I'm being generous leaving out Blue Kaio-ken.

Then with Vegeta we now have a blue sparkle form that we have no idea what it is. We then got Super Saiyan Pink and Green hair colors made canon with Goku Black and Kale/Kefla.

I think there are clear differences between how the movies and Super handled things. They wanted new SSJ forms to make each movie stand out, so we got those two forms with barely any space between them (and Blue even debuted losing a battle). but Super went on for a long time before introducing a proper new form of its own since it wasn't restricted by that. Then the anime gave minor new forms to Trunks and now Vegeta to help highlight their roles, but they're mostly new auras with minor hair style changes. They don't even get named.

And really, once you're talking about the anime, which has referenced Z filler several times (while also ignoring plenty of it), the word "canon" has no meaning.

[MajinMan]

Why do people keep saying "it happened in the movies before Super, it doesn't count?"

Because... it's true?

I mean, why should we act as if Super is responsible for Goku gaining Super Saiyan God and Super Blue when it isn't? If Battle Of Gods and Resurrection F didn't exist, then those forms don't exist either.

This is a tough one because while it’s true Super didn’t actually introduce them, it acts like it introduces them. So my point is if you start watching Dragon Ball and after Z you move onto Super, it’s basically the introduction of those new forms. So in a way Super is acting like it owns created these forms, even though we know that’s not actually true.

[Lord Beerus]

Why do people keep saying "it happened in the movies before Super, it doesn't count?"

Because... it's true?

I mean, why should we act as if Super is responsible for Goku gaining Super Saiyan God and Super Blue when it isn't? If Battle Of Gods and Resurrection F didn't exist, then those forms don't exist either.

This is a tough one because while it’s true Super didn’t actually introduce them, it acts like it introduces them. So my point is if you start watching Dragon Ball and after Z you move onto Super, it’s basically the introduction of those new forms. So in a way Super is acting like it owns created these forms, even though we know that’s not actually true.

Dragon Ball Super does not own, nor did it create, Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan Blue. No matter how much the show, Toei, Bandai or other fans may say otherwise.

[lancerman]

Well let's see. The current and final arc of Super is pretty much the culmination of the entire series in a way NO other arc in Dragon Ball was. It was informed by

-the existence of god's of destruction and an angel hierarchy. BOG arc
-the existence of multiple universes. BOG arc
-the power of a god of destruction and god energy. BOG arc
-the existence of the U6 characters who played a massive rule. U6 Tournament arc.
-the decision of Omni King to have a massive tournament between the universes and his friendship with Goku. U6 Tournament arc.
-Omni King's ability to erase universes. Goku Black arc
-another return of Freeza and his golden form. ROF arc.
-Whis teachings on the concept of UI. ROF arc

Plus all the build up in the recruitment portion of the arc.

So yeah I'd actually argue this show feels more like a story.

[lancerman]

Because... it's true?

I mean, why should we act as if Super is responsible for Goku gaining Super Saiyan God and Super Blue when it isn't? If Battle Of Gods and Resurrection F didn't exist, then those forms don't exist either.

This is a tough one because while it’s true Super didn’t actually introduce them, it acts like it introduces them. So my point is if you start watching Dragon Ball and after Z you move onto Super, it’s basically the introduction of those new forms. So in a way Super is acting like it owns created these forms, even though we know that’s not actually true.

Dragon Ball Super does not own, nor did it create, Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan Blue. No matter how much the show, Toei, Bandai or other fans may say otherwise.

That's like saying that Super Saiyan is not owned or created by Dragon Ball Z because it first appeared in the Dragon Ball manga. They are adaptions of each other.

[HeroR]

This is a tough one because while it’s true Super didn’t actually introduce them, it acts like it introduces them. So my point is if you start watching Dragon Ball and after Z you move onto Super, it’s basically the introduction of those new forms. So in a way Super is acting like it owns created these forms, even though we know that’s not actually true.

Dragon Ball Super does not own, nor did it create, Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan Blue. No matter how much the show, Toei, Bandai or other fans may say otherwise.

That's like saying that Super Saiyan is not owned or created by Dragon Ball Z because it first appeared in the Dragon Ball manga. They are adaptions of each other.

Not really the same since the manga is the original source while Dragon Ball Z is just an adaptation. So, the movies would be the original source and Super would be the adaptation. Especially when you considered that there is a two year different between Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan since Battle of Gods came out in 2013 and Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan came out in 2015.

[precita]

This argument is bizarre. The Beerus movie started Dragonball's revival. God and Blue are part of the new revival of Dragonball along with Super. DBZ ended with the Buu arc where SSJ3 was the last known transformation.

So yes, even though the movie came out a little before, and hell the Freeza movie came out in 2015 the same exact year as Super, it counts. Super made Goku millions of times stronger than the Buu arc with color swap changes that than lost all meaning because power level scaling in Super is awful. So we have Blue losing to Super Saiyan 2-tier characters and so forth.

And now Ultra Instinct black barely lasts 5 episodes.

[HeroR]

This argument is bizarre. The Beerus movie started Dragonball's revival. God and Blue are part of the new revival of Dragonball along with Super. DBZ ended with the Buu arc where SSJ3 was the last known transformation.

So yes, even though the movie came out a little before, and hell the Freeza movie came out in 2015 the same exact year as Super, it counts. Super made Goku millions of times stronger than the Buu arc with color swap changes that than lost all meaning because power level scaling in Super is awful. So we have Blue losing to Super Saiyan 2-tier characters and so forth.

And now Ultra Instinct black barely lasts 5 episodes.

And as I pointed out, there is actual a two year different between Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan. And the movie Battle of Gods made Goku millions of times stronger, Super just took it from there. So why are blaming the movie Battle of Gods for Super's supposed scaling problems?

And we have this discussion on Reset why Blue never lost to "Super Saiyan 2-tier" characters since Future Zamasu nor Black were "Super Saiyan 2-tier", so please stop spreading this BS. And UI Omen was introduced in 110 and UI isn't until 129. That is 19 episodes, so where are you getting five from?