Nero<>Akira wrote: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.