zarmack wrote:
If fusion was so boring it wouldn't be so popular and on demand (logic-101).
That is terrible,
terrible logic. That "haha it's so obvious" attitude can
fuck off, you can justify
literally anything with that. Don't like how the Black arc ended? Well Dragon Ball Super made a ton of money so it's an objectively good ending. Think Dragon Ball Minus sucks? Well the Broly movie is making a fuckton of money so it's objectively more interesting than The Bardock special. Oh, you think Resurrection F was a visual bore? Well it was super popular and made a ton of money so you're getting Yamamuro until the sun blows up oh wait. Or hey, it goes both ways. Okami didn't sell that much? Well, guess it must have been total shit. Iron Giant bombed at the box office originally? Well, obviously that means the production team just wasn't trying hard enough.
No. That's stupid and you know it.
Even if something is popular or successful, that doesn't make it good, nor does it preclude them from improving upon it. After all, Super's animation was
shite for like the first quarter of the show despite it's popularity, but they still worked to fix things up by Black arc. Even then the character designs still sucked, but that didn't stop them from getting Shintani to make these new ones.
zarmack wrote:Many folks wanna see overpowered badasses dominate over others and look cool while doing it (this is a fighting franchise after all).
And that's somehow supposed to excuse them from being interesting? Vegeta still had a character arc while also continuing to be one of the most active fighters in the series. So did plenty of other characters. If fusions are supposed to get a pass just because they only exist within the fights then they don't have a right to exist in the form they do at all. It's the same as all that power level nonsense. When the laws of how your story's physics operate are
that detrimental to telling a good story, you need to change what the rules are, or get rid of it.
zarmack wrote:That's why Vegito vs Buuhan & Gogeta vs Janemba are iconic moments in the franchise.
Besides the fact that those are neither the most iconic nor are they really "moments", many more popular moments people like about the series are:
-Goku transforming into Super Saiyan as an explosive burst of rage.
-Vegeta's suicide attempt against Buu, accepting his status as a protector of his family and his planet.
-Trunks bawling over the death of his mentor, prompting his initial transformation.
-Piccolo dying to save Gohan, showing that he was truly changed from a tyrannical monster to someone who cares about his pupil and friend.
-Gohan himself going SSJ2 against Cell, signifying an end of childhood, and the culmination of all of his moments of rage and pain up to that point.
You'll notice none of these actually involve
fighting anyone, they're either before or herald a dip during the fight. Because fighting is just a piece of what Dragon Ball is. If you're claiming anything otherwise you might as well just look up
fighting clips on sakugabooru instead of actually watching the show. Without it's character moments, Dragon Ball would be nothing but a series of isolated battles between people nobody has any reason to care about. The main series would be no different than soulless crap like Heroes, and nobody would
like the show because they don't have any memorable personalities to latch on to.
zarmack wrote:And its already made clear since Gotenks' debut that fusions see themselves as their own person, so there's no need for any pseudo-deep introspection from them.
Those two things don't correlate at all. There's plenty to be said about what a fusion is and how their components feel about it, both when fused and not, regardless of whether they're considered separate people. After all, if we're really supposed to see Gogeta and Vegetto as standalone from Goku and Vegeta, then they become even
weaker because what we know about Goku and Vegeta doesn't matter, and the fusions are barely characterized. I'm not asking for "pseudo-deep introspection", I'm asking for them to be anywhere close to as developed as any other characters in the series. Even some lesser randos in the tournaments feel more realized than your typical fusion.