Jiren is a better character now

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Amir
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Jiren is a better character now

Post by Amir » Wed Mar 21, 2018 8:00 pm

After 127, he finally started to make sense.
All of his actions have legit reasoning behind them, they make sense. His backstory may be generic, but it works perfectly with his character and his anti-friendship complex. With every episode, his character becomes more and more clear and gets more details, expansion and development.
His backstory is generic, but Ironically that backstory created more complexity to his character as a whole - the reasoning behind his actions, what he is all about and what he wants. It's not too deep, but it's something for DB standards, far more interesting than the rest of the antagonists we've seen before (except for Zamasu).

The reason I'm making this thread is because I've seen so many comments saying Jiren is evil, which is nonsense and it just proves that people totally missed the point with him, either that or they're just too ignorant to understand his character.

So it goes like this:
Jiren is a good guy. He genuinely cares about other people and he hates seeing others get hurt. When his friends and family were killed, he tried to become stronger in order to prevent tragedies like that, he gained new comrads, and trusted them to fight with him, but they abounded him and left him alone because he was too weak and the enemy was too strong. That's when he came to his realization - trust and friendship mean nothing, only strength matters. Only strength can make a difference and provide the necessary results: winning, protecting others and getting new comrads which is justice to him. The interesting thing is that even though he thinks emotional attachments with people is a worthless aspect, he uses his strength to serve justice which includes protecting people, hence why is proud of his strength and calls it justice, and the reason he joined the pride troopers and works as a hero, and that makes perfect sense considering his past and realization. That characterization was constantly shown in episode 127, 128 and 129.
He kept saying that believing in the power of friendship would be denying everything he had been, which is true and legit. Goku bubbling on about power of friendship made Jiren angry, because that power never helped him at all so it makes sense that it frustrated him this much, which leads me to my next point. Jiren attacking the spectators was not an evil intent, he did it to prove his point about power of friendship, and given the stakes, his past and his frustration, it made sense. Was it a morally good thing to do? Of course not. It was a bad thing to do. Does that make him a bad character? Of course not - that would be taking things out of context in an absurd way.

You can complain about his backstory, his bad decisions and lack of a clear and definite character up until 127 all you want, and I agree with that, but Jiren as a character was handled perfectly in episode 130. So after paying attention to the narrative, I'd like to hear why some of you think episode 130 ruined him, because that's just beyond me.

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by Asura » Thu Mar 22, 2018 5:58 am

Too bad his character only finally gets interesting in the last 3 episodes out of a 55 episode arc.

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by Lord Beerus » Thu Mar 22, 2018 8:11 am

Asura wrote:Too bad his character only finally gets interesting in the last 3 episodes out of a 55 episode arc.
To play devil's advocate, Jiren only gained prominent screen-time once Episode 109 started... to only get benched after Episode 111, and then reappear in prominence again from Episode 122 and onwards.

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by sintzu » Thu Mar 22, 2018 9:59 am

He's gotten a lot better than he was, I'd even say he's a good character now. The problem I have is it took them sooooo long to do anything with him despite how long this arc is.
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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by Xeogran » Thu Mar 22, 2018 11:06 am

This fanbase seems to have low standards these days it seems.

We still don't know about his wish and the series is ending. His character is still bland and boring.

If it is something as simple as wishing his family back then he'll remain a disappointing character forever.

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by Kanious » Thu Mar 22, 2018 12:18 pm

I think it would have been better if Toppo never mentioned Jiren as his BEST FRIEND.

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by PFM18 » Thu Mar 22, 2018 12:19 pm

Xeogran wrote:This fanbase seems to have low standards these days it seems.

We still don't know about his wish and the series is ending. His character is still bland and boring.

If it is something as simple as wishing his family back then he'll remain a disappointing character forever.
So the simplicity of his wish makes him a worse character? If he got a convoluted overly complex wish plan in mind would that make him a good character?

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by Xeogran » Thu Mar 22, 2018 12:56 pm

PFM18 wrote:
Xeogran wrote:This fanbase seems to have low standards these days it seems.

We still don't know about his wish and the series is ending. His character is still bland and boring.

If it is something as simple as wishing his family back then he'll remain a disappointing character forever.
So the simplicity of his wish makes him a worse character? If he got a convoluted overly complex wish plan in mind would that make him a good character?
It would just be boring to keep as a secret for this long.

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by PFM18 » Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:42 pm

Xeogran wrote:
PFM18 wrote:
Xeogran wrote:This fanbase seems to have low standards these days it seems.

We still don't know about his wish and the series is ending. His character is still bland and boring.

If it is something as simple as wishing his family back then he'll remain a disappointing character forever.
So the simplicity of his wish makes him a worse character? If he got a convoluted overly complex wish plan in mind would that make him a good character?
It would just be boring to keep as a secret for this long.
I think that it would just show that he is sentimental and is a good guy to some extent. If somebody like Freeza had access to a Super dragon balls wish he would wish for something very well mischevious. The fact that Jiren could literally have anything he could possibly imagine and he wishes to have his family back would show that he is a moral person

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by SuperCyan2 » Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:47 pm

Xeogran wrote:This fanbase seems to have low standards these days it seems.

We still don't know about his wish and the series is ending. His character is still bland and boring.

If it is something as simple as wishing his family back then he'll remain a disappointing character forever.
To me, Jiren is one of the worst looking Dragon Ball characters and that's not forgetting the fat pink chick, the bearded old guy, the robot, the nipple guy and the purple Piccolo. Toriyama has definitely lost some of his creativity and originality from his heydays. Ugh, don't even get me started on Dildo Freeza.

Making a female and fat version of Beerus and Whis was also so underwhelming and uninteresting.
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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by Bullza » Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:07 pm

Jiren didn't have a great character design admittedly but it ain't bad.

His face is sort of interesting looking. Maybe he could have had a more creative uniform though.

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by Koitsukai » Thu Mar 22, 2018 3:10 pm

I like his design, he is the grey alien from Roswell if his UFO crashed in Austria and grew up with Schwarzenegger.
I also enjoyed what happened in the stands, our universe kept cheering for Goku even at his worst, while his universe was quiet and only yelled at him orders like WIN or ATTACK or FINISHI IT ALREADY. Not even with that massive power he could get his teammates to believe in him.

Regarding his wish, I think he would wish to go back in time to when that evil doer was about to kill his family so he could stomp him just like he stomps everybody nowadays, keeping his great power and with it saving his family.

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by Amir » Thu Mar 22, 2018 4:38 pm

Asura wrote:Too bad his character only finally gets interesting in the last 3 episodes out of a 55 episode arc.
With that I agree. Though he barely had any screen time anyway.

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by majinwarman » Fri Mar 23, 2018 9:56 pm

Lord Beerus wrote:
Asura wrote:Too bad his character only finally gets interesting in the last 3 episodes out of a 55 episode arc.
To play devil's advocate, Jiren only gained prominent screen-time once Episode 109 started... to only get benched after Episode 111, and then reappear in prominence again from Episode 122 and onwards.
That's a good point.
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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by Sonofman » Fri Mar 23, 2018 10:33 pm

Agreed. I never thought of Jiren to be an evil character to begin with. I don't understand how others see him that way, but we still hardly know nothing about Jiren. We were able to see a little bit of his back story but ultimately that does not reveal how he was able to obtain God-like powers. I don't think the motivation of "being the strongest to protect _____ (insert)" made him that strong. It's just not possible to me. He had to have trained with a higher being. But, that's just me.
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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by GamerSkull » Sat Mar 24, 2018 1:22 am

He's improved slightly but he's still a boring and meh villain/character.
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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by Amir » Sat Mar 24, 2018 11:07 am

GamerSkull wrote:He's improved slightly but he's still a boring and meh villain/character.
He has more depth, complexity and originality than all the Z villains.

I find them way more boring. All they do is make evil smirks, laugh, be evil for the sake of it and become a complete bitch whenever they start losing due to their own stupidity (I guess the last one is something Jiren has too, but way less extreme imo).

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by PFM18 » Sat Mar 24, 2018 12:06 pm

Amir wrote:
GamerSkull wrote:He's improved slightly but he's still a boring and meh villain/character.
He has more depth, complexity and originality than all the Z villains.

I find them way more boring. All they do is make evil smirks, laugh, be evil for the sake of it and become a complete bitch whenever they start losing due to their own stupidity (I guess the last one is something Jiren has too, but way less extreme imo).
I agree. I love all the z villians but as far as complexity and motivations go they didn't have much. Jiren aa previously mentioned has now laid out for us what he believes in how it motivates him and the fact that he isn't evil.

I think Jiren is also a better character if you look at it within the context of being the final antagonist of the dragon ball series. Dragon ball is a series with giant muscles huge explosions and strength of the characters is an enormous plot point throughout the series. The series is all about power to some extent. So I like the idea that the final antagonist defines this concept. He is muscley and super strong. He is the epitome of strength itself, he defines himself by strength and he defines others by their strength. Saying things like "Strength is justice. Strength is absolute" kind of illustrates this obviously. It gives the series the opportunity to show the contrast in how and why the characters achieve their strength and what is the best way to do it. Goku's motivations to acquire his strength in this case is to protect his friends and family and his friends have helped him along the way throughout his entire life. Jiren did it solely so he doesnt have to deal with the loss he had to deal with losing his family. He felt betrayed by his friends so he resents the idea of that being a viable way of gaining power. So to me I like the idea of the final antagonist showing this contrast. He didnt really gain prominence until 122 and that is when they started building his character.

To me it is a 1000x better than the same boring generic villian who is "evil for the sake of being evil" with absolutely no motivations. Luckily we didnt get any of that in db super and that is part of the reason I love it so much.

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by Raphael_Z » Sat Mar 24, 2018 2:12 pm

I think that Jiren attacking the U7's spectators was a REALLY low thing to do. If anything, I'm surprised we didn't get reaction shots of his teammates disapproving of his actions (specially Toppo).

To me, Jiren represents the trope of the Arrogant Kung Fu Guy who SEEMS to be nice...until he starts loosing which is when his true despicable personality comes out. He's definitely having a mental breakdown.

Imagine a super nice guy superstar football player who looses his cool after being defeated by a "lesser team" and then brings a gun to shoot his rival's fans/friends in the audience. Definitely NOT COOL.

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Re: Jiren is a better character now

Post by TheMikado » Sat Mar 24, 2018 2:24 pm

Amir wrote:After 127, he finally started to make sense.
All of his actions have legit reasoning behind them, they make sense. His backstory may be generic, but it works perfectly with his character and his anti-friendship complex. With every episode, his character becomes more and more clear and gets more details, expansion and development.
His backstory is generic, but Ironically that backstory created more complexity to his character as a whole - the reasoning behind his actions, what he is all about and what he wants. It's not too deep, but it's something for DB standards, far more interesting than the rest of the antagonists we've seen before (except for Zamasu).

The reason I'm making this thread is because I've seen so many comments saying Jiren is evil, which is nonsense and it just proves that people totally missed the point with him, either that or they're just too ignorant to understand his character.

So it goes like this:
Jiren is a good guy. He genuinely cares about other people and he hates seeing others get hurt. When his friends and family were killed, he tried to become stronger in order to prevent tragedies like that, he gained new comrads, and trusted them to fight with him, but they abounded him and left him alone because he was too weak and the enemy was too strong. That's when he came to his realization - trust and friendship mean nothing, only strength matters. Only strength can make a difference and provide the necessary results: winning, protecting others and getting new comrads which is justice to him. The interesting thing is that even though he thinks emotional attachments with people is a worthless aspect, he uses his strength to serve justice which includes protecting people, hence why is proud of his strength and calls it justice, and the reason he joined the pride troopers and works as a hero, and that makes perfect sense considering his past and realization. That characterization was constantly shown in episode 127, 128 and 129.
He kept saying that believing in the power of friendship would be denying everything he had been, which is true and legit. Goku bubbling on about power of friendship made Jiren angry, because that power never helped him at all so it makes sense that it frustrated him this much, which leads me to my next point. Jiren attacking the spectators was not an evil intent, he did it to prove his point about power of friendship, and given the stakes, his past and his frustration, it made sense. Was it a morally good thing to do? Of course not. It was a bad thing to do. Does that make him a bad character? Of course not - that would be taking things out of context in an absurd way.

You can complain about his backstory, his bad decisions and lack of a clear and definite character up until 127 all you want, and I agree with that, but Jiren as a character was handled perfectly in episode 130. So after paying attention to the narrative, I'd like to hear why some of you think episode 130 ruined him, because that's just beyond me.
Ok so here’s the problem with Jiren, he’s basically Batman but not. He joins up with a group voluntarily but does not seem to gain anything from it and has a weird friendship complex despite joining up with and wearing matching outfits.

Batman by contrast retains his identity and for a long time worked alone in isolation however he always had friends even when he didn’t realize or want them. Alfred has been by his side, and Commissoner Gordon, later Robin, Batgirl, nightwing, the justice league, and Superman.

Batman may push people away but never has a bizarre hatred of friendship. What makes this weirder for Jiren is him being voluntarily a part of the Pride Troops. I think if you wanted to portray Jiren this way then he needed to be a loner like hit and not part of a larger group. His latest personality switch seems ill conceived as if they weren’t sure what to do with him to make him more interesting.

Personally I’d prefer a Jiren that was more of a nihilist where he doesn’t care if the universes survive as he feels it’s the natural order of things beyond his control and only agrees for some selfish reason kinda like 17.

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