ekrolo2 reads Dragon Ball Super

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ekrolo2 reads Dragon Ball Super

Post by ekrolo2 » Mon Apr 23, 2018 6:47 am

Inspired by several threads on SpaceBattles where various users perform chapter by chapter read throughs of various comics, manga, and books, I've decided to do one for Dragon Ball! But since Mistare Fusion is already covering the original run in his Dissection series, I will instead focus on everyone's favorite lightning rod: the Dragon Ball Super Manga.

Written and drawn by former dojinshi artist Toyotaro (once known as Toyble), the Dragon Ball Super manga started out as a mere promotional item for the anime before slowly becoming a genuine product and alternate continuity of its own. Reception to it was warm at first with it offering fans glimpses into new content while the anime version languished in the movie retellings. As the anime caught up then blew past it, the manga has become a massive point of contention month to month, causing a massive uproar in the fan community as all battle to figure out which of the two is better.

As you'll hopefully see through this little project of mine, the discussion is far more nuanced than "manga rules anime drools" or vice versa. Without further adieu, let us begin with the first chapter!

Chapter 1 - "The God of Destruction's Premonition"

We begin with a pretty snazzy cover showcasing Beerus & Whis in the upper section in the background while a fairly intense trio of Goku, Vegeta and Gohan are positioned at the foreground and getting ready for battle. Beerus' intimidating grin and Whis' indifferent expression paint a good little picture of what follows.

However, I already have to ask, why is Gohan on this cover? Seriously, he does nothing but give Goku the energy necessary to attain SSGod, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even get dialogue until the ToP arc!

Moving on, we get to the actual content of the chapter which shows us a small recap of Kid Boo battle where Goku manages to finally kill him off using the Genki-Dama energy gathered thanks to Satan's- I mean Hercule's help. Yeah, the Viz translations use a dubism with Satan's name being Hercule and not, well, Satan. A major knock against the Viz translations, I myself am fairly indifferent to it.

What's really interesting is the fact they only call Boo, Boo. Another thing the Viz manga changed was calling Majin Boo Djinn Boo instead. I'm not sure why this is as the ma (魔) in Majin means several things such as demon, evil spirit or devil. Piccolo was even referred to as Ma Junior during the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, once again emphasizing the demonic origins. Purposefully skirting around a controversial alteration? Probably not, they kept Hercule around so the lack of Djinn probably doesn't mean anything.

Once Goku finishes Boo off, we jump ahead in time and get our first look at our hero, Son Goku!
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
Just in-case I haven't already killed the pacing of this read through enough, the "time had passed since then" box brings up another point of contention: the timeline. I will try to talk about this more but when Super was coming out, it seemed as though they moved up the Battle of Gods story-line to happening mere months after Kid Boo's defeat instead of the movies 4 years after.

This created some problems (and still does to this very day) over the timeline as Pan isn't supposed to be born until Age 779 but the months, not years after the Boo arc, would mean she would arrive MUCH earlier, a good four years sooner. The Dragon Ball wiki says the Battle of Gods arc of Super happens 4 years after Kid Boo was defeated but that place is a mess of misinformation and outright lies so take that with a massive grain of salt.

Back to the actual chapter, Goku yawns just to really sell us on how monumentally bored he is when Goten, still looking the same as his Boo arc self but sporting a new outfit arrives to give his hard-working dad some lunch.

Goku wonders if he left school early but Goten reminds him it's a Sunday. Being the hard worker that he is, Goku immediately tells his son to do his job instead of him so he can chow down then train for a bit.
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
Image training! A concept Toriyama just sort of drops into the story during Gohan, Krillin's and Bulma's trip to Namek and then will promptly forget it ever existed. I like it, ki, chi (Viz) or energy (FUNI) is established of being comprised of several elements such as revealed by Toriyama:

Genki (元気 lit. "Vigor")
Yūki (勇気 lit. "Courage")
Shōki (正気 lit. "Mind")

Since we know you can use ki to read minds and for telekinetic blasts, it makes sense someone could create a sort of imaginary plain to practice fighting in. This is also one of, if not THE only instance of image training being used solo and not with a partner.

Goku dispatches Freeza and Perfect Cell fairly easily as a Super Saiyan, some people use this as proof of his power but I personally don't put much stock in it and readies to fight an image of Kid Boo when Goten almost drives off a cliff.

His dad saves him and scolds him for not paying attention, causing him concentration to break. Goten asks his dad if he was training and Goku confirms as much, he goes on to lament the fact he has to work or else Chi-Chi will murder him and what he'd really like to do is ditch the whole thing so he could go train at Kaio's place.

Then, Hercu- I mean Satan arrives in his flying car and wow, I think Viz is being cheeky here:
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
That can't be a coincidence given what I said about the name change. Also, they go out of their way to change the name on the side of the car to Hercule too. I'm sure someone is foaming at the mouth over this but honestly, I'm actually enjoying the fact Viz might be taking the piss here.

Someplace else in the universe we shall learn is actually the seventh in about 5 chapters, we see Beerus and Whis at an unnamed planet being bombarded with lots and lots food. Unlike the film, the anime and manga versions have the duo partake in some hijinks before going to Kaio's to find out who and what the Super Saiyan God is.

Beerus looks a bit dubious about the quality of the cuisine:
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
I don't blame him cause the fish he's poking has six fucking eyeballs total but he decides to partake anyway while Whis sort of stoically stands at his side. While he's chowing down, we see that the inhabitants of this planet have decided to put a little bit of good ol' fashioned poison in his meal to kill him before he destroys them.

That's actually not a bad idea but of course, Beerus' power is too mother fucking maximum for it to work so he blows the whole place up anyway. In the anime, he's only somewhat disappointed by the food and destroys half of the planet instead, they never try to poison him there. Just before the planet goes boom, one of the aliens tries to bribe Beerus with something called Soup D'Saian Gahd, which reminds Beerus of a dream he'll mention in a couple pages.

Also, now Universe Seven only has 28 planets with intelligent life on them (UUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! *dies*)

*Is revived by Porunga*

Anywho, Beerus says he couldn't let such a species live but says the planet blowing up reminds him of a dream he recently had.

We move back to Earth where Her- I mean Satan, reveals he wants to give Goku 100 million Zeni! Goku and Goten are expectantly shocked by this and question why. Satan (yes, I got it right!) explains that he got "The World Peace Prize" for destroying Majin Boo, however, Satan doesn't feel right just taking the money for himself and so he wants to give it to the people who actually did the did.

I really like this, it shows nicely how Satan has developed as a character which is bar none a shining aspect of the Boo arc.

Goku says other people were there too and that even Satan played a pivotal role, then he starts to count the amount:
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
Goku is totally useless when it comes to math, big shocker. This is a thing both the manga and the anime bring up a lot. The latter does have a seriously funny joke about this later on when Beerus tells Goku to do one hundred trillion sittups and Goku counts them as "One trillion, two trillion, three trillion,...". That was pretty hilarious.

Goku's mind is blown when Goten explains it to him just how much money that is which makes him extra hesitant not to take it. However, Goten does his dad a solid by explaining that if he takes the money, Chi-Chi will let him off the hook to go train. Needless to say, Goku says yes because any sane person would do that.

I mean really, if someone gave you the option of farming for a living or taking a shit load of cash, we'd aaaallll take the cash.

We return back to Beerus and Whis as they gaze at the formers latest handiwork as he explains his premonition about an ultimate warrior who would be able to endlessly entertain him:
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
Dun dun duuuunn! In retrospect, Super Saiyan God gets quite a lot of hype for essentially being a form that gets discarded and forgotten about once Blue shows up. Although, Toyotaro does admitedly give it some more panel time down the road, whether that's a good thing or not... We'll cross that bridge when the time comes.

Beerus says he doesn't remember the rest and the two head home to clear things up. Thus ending the story content of the chapter but we do get a nice little page to end this first entry off with:
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
Hi Vegeta! Once again, really cool to see Satan being a better guy and going to Vegeta too, even though he obviously doesn't need it since Bulma is loaded and Vegeta is nothing if not an effective freeloader.

Ultimately, this chapter works really well a few years removed from the initial release. The arc is suitably charming, something you could argue the later stuff doesn't quite have and though the page count is limited here, we still get a fairly good idea of where the key characters for this arc are and teases for the future.
When someone tells you, "Don't present your opinion as fact," what they're actually saying is, "Don't present your opinion with any conviction. Because I don't like your opinion, and I want to be able to dismiss it as easily as possible." Don't fall for it.

How the Black Arc Should End (by Lightbing!):

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Re: ekrolo2 reads Dragon Ball Super

Post by JazzMazz » Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:22 am

Good OP.

Hope you continue this. :thumbup:

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Re: ekrolo2 reads Dragon Ball Super

Post by ekrolo2 » Mon Apr 23, 2018 10:59 am

JazzMazz wrote:Good OP.

Hope you continue this. :thumbup:
The next one for chapter 2 is almost complete ;)
When someone tells you, "Don't present your opinion as fact," what they're actually saying is, "Don't present your opinion with any conviction. Because I don't like your opinion, and I want to be able to dismiss it as easily as possible." Don't fall for it.

How the Black Arc Should End (by Lightbing!):

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Re: ekrolo2 reads Dragon Ball Super

Post by ekrolo2 » Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:46 pm

Chapter 2 - "Goku Defeated"

Chapter number two begins with Beerus and Whis, now back home, conversing with the Oracle Fish, a minor character introduced in the new material with prophetic powers but a forgetful personality (because Dragon Ball) about Beerus' dream. She confirms his dream will come to pass but Beerus' enthusiasm about being right is squashed pretty quickly by Whis telling him Freeza probably killed all the Saiyan's off by now. This leads the God of Destruction to reveal a certain tidbit to us in dismay:
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
That's pretty much my expression whenever I remember this is a thing now. So yeah, Freeza didn't destroy the Saiyan's entirely of his own volition but because they annoyed Beerus enough to sign off on their demise via Freeza. I get what Toriyama is trying to do, he wants to make stuff look cool by connecting the dots but what is even the point of this besides connecting for the sake of itself?

This never comes up in the story again, ever. Vegeta never finds out about it, Freeza never talks about it when he shows up in F or the ToP. Much like Freeza knowing what Super Saiyan God is, it's just inserting new facts into old ones to try and connect them but all it amounts to is just that: connecting some background info. If this lead to a story-line where Vegeta could discover this and it puts him at odds with Beerus, that would be one thing but I don't see that happening.

Some might say it not mattering makes my two paragraph complaining about it just as meaningless but if it doesn't matter, why exist in the first place?

Moving on, Whis reveals that a few Saiyan's did in-fact survive and have migrated to Earth. Beerus drops another tidbit about visiting the place a long time ago and killing the dinosaurs there for being rude to him. I don't know if Toriyama just forgot dinosaurs exist on DB Earth still or Beerus just screwed it up, both scenarios are pretty likely.

Whis' exposition isn't over quite yet as he also reveals to his boss/student that Freeza is dead and a Saiyan called Son Goku who's currently at North Kaio's was responsible for it. Beerus is pretty surprised at the idea of a Saiyan pulling this off which naturally leads him to assume Goku could be the SSGod he's after.

The chapter then moves on over to Kaio's place where is training by running around the place with a big ass chunk of Katchin tied to him. Considering how durable the substance is and that Merged Zamasu will use this as an actual attack, later on, that's pretty impressive. Kaio freaks out when he learns Beerus' is coming and in his panic, drops some exposition to Goku about him being the God of Destruction who's power is pretty mother fucking maximum and how they're all going to die now that he's on the loose.

Goku's response?
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
Not exactly an Empire Strikes Back level revelation, is it?

Just as Kaio screams some more about the absurdity of Goku even trying to fight him, Beerus and Whis suddenly appear behind the lower tier God who's control over the situation goes from bad to non-existent. He tries to prevent them coming to blows but since they both want to fight one another, Kaio's pleas fall on deaf ears.
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
He says while holding back two more forms. Yeah, so, unlike the film where all Goku fights Beerus with is SS3, the manga and anime stretch it out into him having proper battles using all three. This is ultimately pointless if you ask me since Beerus effortlessly defeating SS3 Goku gives as more then a clear enough idea of how strong he is, we don't need to see him dodge SS1 and SS2 a lot to get a sense for the gap between them.

Not to mention the film version also has Goku cockily ask Beerus if he should dial back to SS2 if 3 looks too much for him. This was an important part of the story that is sadly absent from the anime and manga versions: Goku has no arc in either, Beerus just shows up and they fight. The film had Goku grow a bit of an ego after defeating Kid Boo which served to give their battles some character relevancy and not just spectacle.

Sadly, the manga is in promotional item mode meaning it simply doesn't have the page count to do anything while the anime just sort of made every big beat from the movie longer while also removing all the pesky story elements that made those beats work.

Returning to the fight, Goku tries and fails to land a finger on Beerus with the God of Destruction commenting on Goku's hair being blonde and not the Saiyan standard black. Whis exposes about it being a new power the species discovered known as Super Saiyan with Goku confirming alongside a power up to Super Saiyan 2.

This exposition is delivered in a small panel where Whis is in focus while the remainder of the page is dedicated to the fighting itself. This is a technique that Toyotaro LOVES to use, I'm pretty sure it's his waifu. It's also something that he will start to use more and more frequently to the detriment of many of the fights pacing. We'll get to that later.

As Beerus blocks a flurry of blows sent his way, we get yet another controversial tidbit:
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]

For those of you who don't remember, Beerus delivers this line (sort of) to Goku in his Base form for the film and anime versions which sparked many a flame war over the idea that Base Goku was not stronger than 100% Freeza from the Namek arc. Quite a few people more qualified than myself have debated the validity of such a seeming retcon with good arguments for and against it. I'm personally more of a guy who likes to think power increases started slowing down once Zenkai and the like were abandoned so Goku getting from 3 million to say 100 million in Base across the Android & Boo arcs is perfectly fine to me.

Goku doesn't spend much time in SS2, powering up to SS3 which gets the attention of Old Kaioshin and Kibitoshin alongside two characters skulking around through space:
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
Hi Champa! Hi Vados! This is technically the first proper exposure we get to them as the anime doesn't have them roam across U7 until almost the end of the Resurrection F anime arc. Toyotaro gives them their own little subplot here which lets him insert some new content into whats essentially a rushed movie recap.

We don't spend much time with them as we cut back to SS3 Goku punching a hole through Kaio's planet and complaining to Beerus that if he doesn't fight back, he'll have no way of knowing how powerful he is. Beerus complies with his request and with a single finger flick, sends Goku skidding across the floor. It leaves him looking fairly battered and panting for air.

Beerus requests that Goku power up to Super Saiyan God already but Goku has no idea what that is, citing that SS3 is his final form with no others above it (HA). Beerus' enthusiasm is deflated and so he decides to cut his losses by ending the fight with a single tap on Goku's neck....
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
.... and promptly knocks him out of Super Saiyan 3. God. Damn.

While Kaio rushes to Goku's side, Beerus and Whis waste no time in heading immediately to Earth. Somewhere else, Vados and Champa continue their skulking but are glad to see that their counterparts haven't noticed them. The story of the chapter ends with Beerus grinning evilly as he sees Earth dead ahead.

We close off the chapter with another peek at what Vegeta's doing elsewhere:
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]
Ah yes, the bingo dance. Another thing that got people in a tizzy with the movie. I like it, I really, really like it. Rather than have Vegeta get some bombastic power up through anger or a desire to defend his nakama, him tossing away his pride and making an absolute ass of himself to save the Earth and everyone he cares about on it was easily one of the best parts of the BoG film for me. It's a real pity neither of the recaps keep it in.

Overall, I would say I liked the last chapter better. Several story choices here just annoy me period and I would've vastly preferred if Toyotaro simply had Goku fight exclusively in SS3 just so other, more worthwhile things from the BoG film could be kept in. The small page count really doesn't allow for much room and wasting essentially a whole chapter on a fight perfectly conveyed in about 3 minutes is a big issue.

On the bright side, it doesn't look anywhere near as broken as episode 5 did... So it's at least a miandering prettily?
When someone tells you, "Don't present your opinion as fact," what they're actually saying is, "Don't present your opinion with any conviction. Because I don't like your opinion, and I want to be able to dismiss it as easily as possible." Don't fall for it.

How the Black Arc Should End (by Lightbing!):

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