Does the franchise/fandom pre-2013 (pre Beerus and Super) now feel like a distant memory?

[precita]

It's kind of funny because all the complaints people used to have about the Boo saga back then have now been replaced by Super, because now Super kicks up everything like new Super Saiyan transformations, new godly beings, new power level gaps, etc. up to eleven.

I mentioned this before, but if you told anyone 10 years ago that Freeza would come back, and he would become more powerful than Cell, Buu, Super Saiyan 3 Goku, Gotenks, Ultimate Gohan and even Super Saiyan Vegetto, people would have laughed and told you to stop reading crappy fanfiction. Nearly everything that has happened in Super would have sounded, "odd" or "fanfic-tier" if you told someone about it a decade ago.

[Bardo117]

Anyone younger than say...28-30, was obviously not around for the start of the online fandom.

Hell I'm 31, and even I know there are tons of people older than me around who have been there from the start...like around 1997/1998ish.

I have been a fan since about 1997, but have watched the show since I was younger because that's what all of my cousins had been watching, and collecting merchandise from. Not that fandom should count from such a young age, but I do recall watching the show from my earliest memories.

[Hellspawn28]

Anyone younger than say...28-30, was obviously not around for the start of the online fandom.

Hell I'm 31, and even I know there are tons of people older than me around who have been there from the start...like around 1997/1998ish.

You had people talking about the DB on the Internet for nearly 30 years now. The oldest post of Dragon Ball I found on the web is from 1989

https://groups.google.com/forum/?nomobi ... QTmzM8KxcJ

I say that the start of the dub online fandom was probably around 1997 because you had the Saban era dub airing on TV at the time. DBZ was starting to get be a bit more well-known with people who are not anime fans.

[sintzu]

Nearly everything that has happened in Super would have sounded, "odd" or "fanfic-tier" if you told someone about it a decade ago.

I think fan type ideas and relying on what the original did is holding Super back from truly reaching its potential. It also plays things a bit too safe.

[Forte224]

Anyone younger than say...28-30, was obviously not around for the start of the online fandom.

Hell I'm 31, and even I know there are tons of people older than me around who have been there from the start...like around 1997/1998ish.

You had people talking about the DB on the Internet for nearly 30 years now. The oldest post of Dragon Ball I found on the web is from 1989

https://groups.google.com/forum/?nomobi ... QTmzM8KxcJ

I say that the start of the dub online fandom was probably around 1997 because you had the Saban era dub airing on TV at the time and DBZ was starting to get be a bit more well known with people that are not anime fans.

I actively search for the oldest posts I can find Dragon Ball wise but that one takes the cake. I've found as far back as 1992 I believe. But December 1989, wow. I was but a 3 month long resident in my mother's belly at that point

[Zephyr]

Nearly everything that has happened in Super would have sounded, "odd" or "fanfic-tier" if you told someone about it a decade ago.

While I think that's likely true, I think that's largely because after Dragon Ball ended, fanfics did pretty much anything and everything you could think of to move the story forward. When the series was done for that long, of course just about every additional idea is going to be cooked up and implemented by fandom in some form.

[precita]

Most fanfics were generally set in the GT era, or maybe a little before in the EOZ era.

I don't think that many picked up right after the Boo saga like Super did.

[Bardo117]

Visually, Dragon Ball Super does NOT play like fanfic. No character has gone through any substantially drastic or different looks. All that changes is hair color....


In FanFIc, the most common thing you would see were some pretty amazing and incredible transformations. That's probably what I dislike the most about Super, is the lack of any effort on appearance.

[sintzu]

I think that's largely because after Dragon Ball ended, fanfics did pretty much anything and everything you could think of to move the story forward. When the series was done for that long, of course just about every additional idea is going to be cooked up and implemented by fandom in some form.

Female Broly, bringing back Freeza, alternate Saiyans, Namakians & Freeza, recolored Ssj forms, etc. are things that could've easily been avoided. From a story point of view, what would've changed if Frost didn't exist ?

Although Goku Black is an amazing addition to the franchise, an evil Future Gohan with the same personality would've been even better cause not only does he have a connection with Trunks but it's something that not even fans have done (at least that I know of).

I get why they make the choices they make, it's to make as much $ as possible but I think they would've made even more had they gone full original ideas with everything instead.

[Zephyr]

Female Broly, bringing back Freeza, alternate Saiyans, Namakians & Freeza, recolored Ssj forms, etc. are things that could've easily been avoided.

I won't argue any of that was necessary, so yeah that stuff could easily have been avoided; but the idea that many of the remaining alternatives would be seen as the epitome of creativity is a dubious notion to me. I mean, hell, I'm more used to seeing actual Broly coming back, rather than an alternate-universe female one, and yet the one I'm less accustomed to seeing is being lumped in with the rest of this stuff regardless!

Any "this formerly good character is evil now!" would likely be called "fan-fic-y", likewise with any older bad character coming back and turning good. People cite the minimalist transformations as "fan-fic-y", but would more over-designed ones be received any differently? The obvious answer is that the best route would be somewhere in the middle, but one person's middle is going to be another person's extreme, so the derision wouldn't be nullified. If it's not enough like Dragon Ball because of its ambitions, it'd be lambasted for being alien. If it was trying too hard to copy Dragon Ball, it would be chided for a lack of originality. Forgetting certain bits of lore for future stories would draw comparisons to bad fanfiction, and a meticulous respect for the lore would instead meet comments like "the author is obviously a fan, and they're winking at us with all of these details and references".

I just think with a fandom like this, letting it stay dead for so long only to revive it for the foreseeable future, all but invites these kinds of sporadic jabs. The jabs don't bother me, but their all-but guaranteed existence regardless of what Toriyama, Toyotaro, and Toei end up doing does amuse me.

[ABED]

Remaining alternatives?

The difference between something that just sounds fan-fic-y and fanfiction is quality of execution. With DB, there's 1 to a handful of writers and millions of fans. Of course almost every single idea is going to be done or thought of, the difference is in execution because ideas are easy, but actual writing is hard.

[WittyUsername]

I wasn’t a member of this website prior to late 2013, but I did use to lurk around this website back in the day, along with other Dragon Ball related discussion boards, and things have definitely changed. It’s somewhat akin to what the Star Wars franchise(which is of course massive as all hell) was like prior to Disney buying the franchise. While Dragon Ball remained iconic and well loved, it seemed like yesterday’s manga/anime series, but now it’s back and as popular as it’s ever been.

It’s almost nostalgic looking back at the days when no one imagined there ever being a new Dragon Ball movie (not counting the abysmal Dragon Ball: Evolution), much less a new anime and manga series that’s currently ongoing and has Toroyama’s involvement.

[Asura]

Sort of? It's a bit tough to remember a time when we had SSJ5s and SSJ6s and SSJ10 Oozaru Evil Goku etc. as the main source for "new" content, all of which being fanmade obviously.

Now instead of that we have Super Saiyan highlighter rainbow colors, and this time it's not fanmade.

So in a sense, nothing has changed with the franchise. We now have an official continuation of ridiculousness instead of a fanmade continuation. It feels like the same memory, only slightly changed now.

In terms of the fandom it's definitely changed, but I'd chalk that up to the expansion of the internet and the ability to look things up and research them instead of starting baseless rumors on the school playground. Those days of rumor spreading and the general unknown about the real series instead of the funi dub are most definitely distant memories.

[KBABZ]

Anyone younger than say...28-30, was obviously not around for the start of the online fandom.

Hell I'm 31, and even I know there are tons of people older than me around who have been there from the start...like around 1997/1998ish.

You had people talking about the DB on the Internet for nearly 30 years now. The oldest post of Dragon Ball I found on the web is from 1989

https://groups.google.com/forum/?nomobi ... QTmzM8KxcJ

I say that the start of the dub online fandom was probably around 1997 because you had the Saban era dub airing on TV at the time and DBZ was starting to get be a bit more well known with people that are not anime fans.

I actively search for the oldest posts I can find Dragon Ball wise but that one takes the cake. I've found as far back as 1992 I believe. But December 1989, wow. I was but a 3 month long resident in my mother's belly at that point

Isn't that around about the time the Harmony Gold dub of Dragon Ball aired?

[Hellspawn28]

Yes and people have watch DB before the HG dub aired. I remember that Hawaii had TV subs for the show in the 80's and some TV networks in the West coast did air Japanese TV raw. Not to mention VHS fan subs as well. People had ways to find things before the Internet became a major worldwide thing in the mid 90's.

[Cipher]

Re: "Feels like a fanfic":

I mean, okay, whatever. But the "feels like a fanfic" elements are among those I most enjoy, because they represent the series being as irreverent and unpredictable as the Boo arc hinted it could and would be had it continued. These aren't your schmaltzy fandom yearnings given narrative form, by and large. They're cheeky, they're weird. Evil Goku is used in a completely unexpected way. I could take things like "girl Broli" for days. Freeza has been one of the best parts of the new material by far, and I even seem to like Resurrection F (the movie; not the TV adaptation) more than the average Kanzenshuu fan.

We're shifting from the actual topic here into a question of the new material's quality at this point, but I'll go on record as saying that outside of the constant negative that it's positioned awkwardly as a midquel (with some key character arcs locked in by the ending presented in the Boo arc), most if not all of the concepts here are fitting and fun. It's the weekly execution that suffers.

Even if I reaaaaaaally liked all of it, though, I don't think it would change my previously expressed opinion that Dragon Ball is the series as presented during the original run, and everything after is something else.

[ABED]

Evil version of the protagonist isn't fan-fiction-y. It's a fictional trope.

most if not all of the concepts here are fitting and fun. It's the weekly execution that suffers.

Execution is all that matters.

I have no idea why the franchise pre-revival would feel like a distant memory.

[MajinMan]

Re: "Feels like a fanfic":

I mean, okay, whatever. But the "feels like a fanfic" elements are among those I most enjoy, because they represent the series being as irreverent and unpredictable as the Boo arc hinted it could and would be had it continued. These aren't your schmaltzy fandom yearnings given narrative form, by and large. They're cheeky, they're weird. Evil Goku is used in a completely unexpected way. I could take things like "girl Broli" for days. Freeza has been one of the best parts of the new material by far, and I even seem to like Resurrection F (the movie; not the TV adaptation) more than the average Kanzenshuu fan.

We're shifting from the actual topic here into a question of the new material's quality at this point, but I'll go on record as saying that outside of the constant negative that it's positioned awkwardly as a midquel (with some key character arcs locked in by the ending presented in the Boo arc), most if not all of the concepts here are fitting and fun. It's the weekly execution that suffers.

Even if I reaaaaaaally liked all of it, though, I don't think it would change my previously expressed opinion that Dragon Ball is the series as presented during the original run, and everything after is something else.

A lot of the people who keep mentioning the "Super is official fanfiction" stuff are the ones who come up with their own fanfiction ideas and get mad that Super didn't have a similar idea to their own.

[precita]

What's interesting to me is in the Boo arc people claimed power levels were getting out of control, that new Super Saiyan forms were coming out of nowhere, and that the characters were too strong it would shake the universe, given Boo's screaming does shatter universal walls at some points.

But then Super kicks everyones power up to 11, introduces characters with Godly power and yet everyone is fighting as if there's no difference than back in the Boo arc. We've gotten two, (or three?) new Super Saiyan forms, above the already insane power of the previous ones.

[Forte224]

What's interesting to me is in the Boo arc people claimed power levels were getting out of control, that new Super Saiyan forms were coming out of nowhere, and that the characters were too strong it would shake the universe, given Boo's screaming does shatter universal walls at some points.

But then Super kicks everyones power up to 11, introduces characters with Godly power and yet everyone is fighting as if there's no difference than back in the Boo arc. We've gotten two, (or three?) new Super Saiyan forms, above the already insane power of the previous ones.

You mean like, the fights don't look any different? That's kind of always how the series has been since Super Saiyan was introduced. Fights don't look different, they look the same but the characters go "Wow, so fast! He's on a whole new level!"

Or did you mean something different?