Dragon Ball Kai (2009) vs. Dragon Ball Super

[ABED]

Those TV shows have showrunners who make sure the series is in their voice.

[ekrolo2]

And Super has series directors who're in charge of making sure things get done much like series showrunners do over in the west. But they can't because Toriyama hasn't made a good story since Namek and his "plans" for stuff are so vague and get shuffled around that's impossible for anyone to do anything with it.

Bringing in Toriyama himself to oversee the anime wouldn't fix anything since he is by his very nature not a planner and his ability to make things up then figure out how to make them work at the moment is a skill he lost decades ago. Toriyama being involved at all with Super is probably one of its most fundamental quality problems even if the fanboys will splooge over the fact "DUR ORIGINULZ CREAT0R R INV0LV3D!".

[Bullza]

The Android saga was a much better story than the Namek one.

None of the stories in Dragon Ball have ever been exceptional, it doesn't​ compare to the stories from Naruto or One Piece. It's always been mostly straight forward and simplistic with interesting world building which is the same as it's​ been doing now.

It's no better or worse.

[ekrolo2]

The Android saga was a much better story than the Namek one.

None of the stories in Dragon Ball have ever been exceptional, it doesn't compare to the stories from Naruto or One Piece. It's always been mostly straight forward and simplistic with interesting world building which is the same as it's​ been doing now.

It's no better or worse.

I never called Dragon Ball a masterpiece or anything, but Cell, Boo and almost all of Super aren't even good for Dragon Ball standards, they're broken at best or horrendous at worst. Hell, the only real concept Super has managed to pull off with anything resembling actual competence is Goku Black who was ironically the worst concept ever they could've done and it worked out to great effect.

[sintzu]

Toriyama being involved at all with Super is probably one of its most fundamental quality problems even if the fanboys will splooge over the fact "DUR ORIGINULZ CREAT0R R INV0LV3D!".

I agree that Toriyama's writing is nowhere near as good as it used to be but I believe once he's done people are going to miss him after they see what Bandai and the DB room do.

I don't think Toriyama is the only one who can make good DB content so this has nothing to do with "the author is the only one who can write his story" but rather that DB is a toy focused franchise so they'll get writers who can sell merchandise, not tell great stories.

I never called Dragon Ball a masterpiece or anything, but Cell and Boo aren't even good for Dragon Ball standards.

The Cell arc was the best one at using the secondary characters cause it basically took Goku out of the picture and left everything up to them, something we've never seen before or will see again. I think Cell's introduction was well handled with them trying to figure out who's killing everyone and his egg coming out of nowhere, it gave DB a mystery vibe to it for awhile which worked well. Seeing the main cast develop the way they did (especially Gohan, Goku & Piccolo) was really good. Enough can't be said about how good the Cell arc is.

The Buu arc is where you can see Toriyama getting tired (the anime made up for a lot of his shortcomings) so it was nice to see him also understand that and end his story (unlike other author's like Kubo who dragged their stories into the ground) but like the Cell arc, it still had a lot of good things to it. I liked it jumping 7 years cause it showed how life was for everyone without Goku, I liked the call back to Goku and Krillin's fight in goten and trunks, everything about Vegeta was great here, we got to see his rematch with Goku, him fnally fight for others and admit that he's not the best, we also for the first time got to see him and Goku team up, mr. Satan as a whole was a huge surprise and everything about him worked, Goten and Trunks taking thing into their own hands reminded me of Gohan against Cell, Piccolo training Goten and Trunks was a great call back to his days with Gohan, Everyone coming together to kill Buu felt like a fitting ending to the story, Gohan from start to finish was handled really well & everything about Buu was handled like a final villain should be, he put everyone into a corner and nothing they had worked on him, he was as fitting as a final villain could be.

[ekrolo2]

Toriyama being involved at all with Super is probably one of its most fundamental quality problems even if the fanboys will splooge over the fact "DUR ORIGINULZ CREAT0R R INV0LV3D!".

I agree that Toriyama's writing is nowhere near as good as it used to be but I believe once he's done people are going to miss him after they see what Bandai and the DB room do.

I don't think Toriyama is the only one who can make good DB content so this has nothing to do with "the author is the only one who can write his story" but rather that DB is a toy focused franchise so they'll get writers who can sell merchandise, not tell great stories.

I don't see how it can get any worse then it is now besides becoming boring, it's not like Super is actually good so you can suffer any noticeable drop in quality so the only way it can go is up for me.

Hell, Super admiting to itself its a horrendous piece of shit and just going full on entertaining trash mode preferable to the current "We're a piece of shit but we don't actually wanna come out and admit it" state of things.

The Cell arc was the best one at using the secondary characters cause it basically took Goku out of the picture and left everything up to them, something we've never seen before or will see again. I think Cell's introduction was well handled with them trying to figure out who's killing everyone and his egg coming out of nowhere, it gave DB a mystery vibe to it for awhile which worked well. Seeing the main cast develop the way they did (especially Gohan, Goku & Piccolo) was really good. Enough can't be said about how good the Cell arc is.

I can't stand it really. Gohan apparently being a pacifist comes out of nowhere and the story expects me to make stuff up for it to work, the entire premise is "everything goes to shit without Goku there to help" and yet the ending expects a world without Goku to be the one that's good? Trunks' timeline flat out doesn't work on any logical level whatsoever and Piccolo just gets another power up that accomplishes fucking nothing much like his Nail fusion did. He had NO business coming back post the Saiyan arc.

The Buu arc is where you can see Toriyama getting tired (the anime made up for a lot of his shortcomings) so it was nice to see him also understand that and end his story (unlike other author's like Kubo who dragged their stories into the ground) but like the Cell arc, it still had a lot of good things to it. I liked it jumping 7 years cause it showed how life was for everyone without Goku, I liked the call back to Goku and Krillin's fight in goten and trunks, everything about Vegeta was great here, we got to see his rematch with Goku, him fnally fight for others and admit that he's not the best, we also for the first time got to see him and Goku team up, mr. Satan as a whole was a huge surprise and everything about him worked, Goten and Trunks taking thing into their own hands reminded me of Gohan against Cell, Piccolo training Goten and Trunks was a great call back to his days with Gohan, Everyone coming together to kill Buu felt like a fitting ending to the story, Gohan from start to finish was handled really well & everything about Buu was handled like a final villain should be, he put everyone into a corner and nothing they had worked on him, he was as fitting as a final villain could be.

Vegeta and Mister Satan are the only actually compelling parts of this arc. Gohan's Ultimate state doesn't work because Toriyama turns him into a shitty copy of Vegeta when he's "the main character", Goten and Trunks flip flop between potentially being compelling to total jokes who can't take anything seriously, Boo refuses to fuck off and stay there and besides his Fat counterpart he's about as compelling as a brick wall. Boohan might just be the most horrendously boring antagonist the franchise has ever produced.

[sintzu]

I don't see how it can get any worse then it is now besides becoming boring, it's not like Super is actually good so you can suffer any noticeable drop in quality so the only way it can go is up for me. Hell, Super admiting to itself its a horrendous piece of shit and just going full on entertaining trash mode preferable to the current "We're a piece of shit but we don't actually wanna come out and admit it" state of things.

Super has a story (not a great one but one none the less), what I think will happen later is we'll get a heroes type of story where some hole in time will rip open and we'll get everyone in every form so 5 vegetas, 7 gohans, etc.

[ekrolo2]

I don't see how it can get any worse then it is now besides becoming boring, it's not like Super is actually good so you can suffer any noticeable drop in quality so the only way it can go is up for me. Hell, Super admiting to itself its a horrendous piece of shit and just going full on entertaining trash mode preferable to the current "We're a piece of shit but we don't actually wanna come out and admit it" state of things.

Super has a story (not a great one but one none the less), what I think will happen later is we'll get a heroes type of story where some hole in time will rip open and we'll get everyone in every form so 5 vegetas, 7 gohans, etc.

At this point I'd rather take that over anything else. Dragon Ball's proved time and again it can't make sense of itself anymore so we might as well make "cool fight scenes: the series" a thing.

Unless they can get Warren Ellis to do DB, that'd be a pretty good excuse to try at stuff again.

[Doctor.]

As much as I dislike Toriyama's ideas nowadays, I don't think anyone would handle the series properly. I mean, anyone they could realistically get. Toyotaro is creatively bankrupt and leaving Dragon Ball to Toei would be horrendous, even if they can still produce some good ideas here and there, it'd still be another GT.

Get Lee to draw a sequel to Super and have Toei adapt it properly.

[Super_Divine_Genki]

even if the fanboys will splooge over the fact "DUR ORIGINULZ CREAT0R R INV0LV3D!".

To be fair to Toriyama, he is undeniably passed his prime, but there are so many other outside hands all over Super's direction that the fingers shouldn't be pointing at him. The Dragon Ball brand has become an entity incomparable to its heydays of the late 80's-mid 90's, and one that generates massive profits on an international scale. I blame corporate meddling and the shareholders that come with it, the parasites that they are.

Gohan apparently being a pacifist comes out of nowhere

It doesn't come out of nowhere. Gohan hadn't been on the frontlines since the Namek/Freeza arc -- five years had passed. Even one as young, but disciplined, as Gohan can develop their own mentality given the time and space. "Why does it have to be this way, when it can be that way?". It's easier to be level-headed in assessing a situation when you're confident in your own ability, and the threat is not a threat to you.

[ekrolo2]

even if the fanboys will splooge over the fact "DUR ORIGINULZ CREAT0R R INV0LV3D!".

To be fair to Toriyama, he is undeniably passed his prime, but there are so many other outside hands all over Super's direction that I'm not going to point any fingers at him. The Dragon Ball brand has become an entity incomparable to its heydays of the late 80's-mid 90's, and one that generates massive profits on an international scale. I blame corporate meddling and the shareholders that come with it, the parasites that they are.

Super's not entirely Toriyama's fault, I think that with a good production and consistent series direction, the various people working on Super probably could've managed to take Toriyama's ideas and connect the dots better but the fact remains: he's not a planner. Even ignoring the various other issues at place here, within the same year Toriyama up and decides that Goku & Vegeta aren't far from beating Beerus to them being vastly inferior to him for the foreseeable future with no good in-universe reasoning provided from him to explain this.

It doesn't come out of nowhere. Gohan hadn't been on the frontlines since the Namek/Freeza arc -- five years had passed. Even one as young, but disciplined, as Gohan can develop their own mentality given the time and space. "Why does it have to be this way, when it can be that way?". It's easier to be level-headed in assessing a situation when you're confident in your own ability, and the threat is not a threat to you.

Except nothing implies anything what you're saying. Gohan is such a massive load of fucking nothing after he's teleported off of Namek that the story never shows or does anything to even remotely hint at him looking back at his insane youth and realizing that it's all a bit fucked up.

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense, I'm saying the story gets him from A to Z and I'm expected to sit down and make up the Bs, Cs, Ds,.... to cover for Toriyama? Fuck no, I hate it when stories do that kind of stuff specifically with characters.

[ABED]

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense, I'm saying the story gets him from A to Z and I'm expected to sit down and make up the Bs, Cs, Ds,.... to cover for Toriyama? Fuck no, I hate it when stories do that kind of stuff specifically with characters.

That's a good way of putting it.

[Super_Divine_Genki]

Even ignoring the various other issues at place here, within the same year Toriyama up and decides that Goku & Vegeta aren't far from beating Beerus to them being vastly inferior to him for the foreseeable future with no good in-universe reasoning provided from him to explain this.

I have this image in my head of various outside parties having poor Toriyama locked up in an empty room at gunpoint: "Write us some DB stories! We need you to make us lots of money, old man!!

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense, I'm saying the story gets him from A to Z and I'm expected to sit down and make up the Bs, Cs, Ds,.... to cover for Toriyama? Fuck no, I hate it when stories do that kind of stuff specifically with characters.

I don't know. That was something that I read into myself, although I'm sure not on the first run-through from way back then. It's open to interpretation and can make sense if you see from Gohan's POV. I'm not necessarily saying that you should need to do that, but the option is there. I thought that it was great, and not having the finer details to lay it all out doesn't affect how I view it. I connected the dots, because I watched Gohan grow up from the time that he was introduced. There's enough there to piece it together, imo. That's only my view though, and anyone else is free to see it another way.

[ekrolo2]

Even ignoring the various other issues at place here, within the same year Toriyama up and decides that Goku & Vegeta aren't far from beating Beerus to them being vastly inferior to him for the foreseeable future with no good in-universe reasoning provided from him to explain this.

I have this image in my head of various outside parties having poor Toriyama locked up in an empty room at gunpoint: "Write us some DB stories! We need you to make us lots of money, old man!!

Which is entirely wrong since he's the one who chose to come back and to rewrite BoGs original script and keep being involved. They did approach him in 2009 about doing something new but he turned them down so Kai got made. Believe me, if Toei's corporate stuff affected anything, it's NOT Toriyama's involvement, if he wanted out, he'd leave no questions asked.

[Super_Divine_Genki]

Even ignoring the various other issues at place here, within the same year Toriyama up and decides that Goku & Vegeta aren't far from beating Beerus to them being vastly inferior to him for the foreseeable future with no good in-universe reasoning provided from him to explain this.

I have this image in my head of various outside parties having poor Toriyama locked up in an empty room at gunpoint: "Write us some DB stories! We need you to make us lots of money, old man!!

Which is entirely wrong since he's the one who chose to come back and to rewrite BoGs original script and keep being involved. They did approach him in 2009 about doing something new but he turned them down so Kai got made. Believe me, if Toei's corporate stuff affected anything, it's NOT Toriyama's involvement, if he wanted out, he'd leave no questions asked.

It was a joke. While Toriyama intended on reclaiming his property with Battle of Gods, being a self-contained story, I doubt that it was his idea to jump back into a long-running series by using BoG material as a lead in. A compromise must have been reached. It's all speculation.

[ABED]

I connected the dots, because I watched Gohan grow up from the time that he was introduced. There's enough there to piece it together, imo. That's only my view though, and anyone else is free to see it another way.

What dots? You have two dots, two dots form a line, not a pattern.

[ekrolo2]

I would like piecing together the dots if the stuff in-between existed in the narrative but it isn't, there's the beginning and the end and the middle hinges on my to ENTIRELY make it up for the writing and I can't stand doing it.

[ABED]

One of the worst examples I can think of is when fans claim he changed during his tenure in the Room of Spirit and Time. What changed in that period?

[sintzu]

One of the worst examples I can think of is when fans claim he changed during his tenure in the Room of Spirit and Time. What changed in that period?

Goku or Gohan ? either way, both of them are the same and when Gohan wouldn't finish Cell, Piccolo and others pointed out how he let his power take control of him so if that's the change then it was an intentional one cause everyone in-universe pointed it out.

[Super_Divine_Genki]

I connected the dots, because I watched Gohan grow up from the time that he was introduced. There's enough there to piece it together, imo. That's only my view though, and anyone else is free to see it another way.

What dots? You have two dots, two dots form a line, not a pattern.

Did I really need to put that in quotations?

Not literally speaking.Text is funny.

There's a noticeable divide about Gohan's role in the Cell arc. Some can see and make sense of it, and others don't... or refuse, because their view on a certain arc has been solidified. I'm not here to enlighten, or change someone's view. It's an interpretation.

Did the writing really need to walk someone through every beat? The narrative was betting on the audience to know Gohan by that point, and where he was coming from. Show, not tell. He didn't need to be actively present throughout the first half of that story -- we know that he exists in the DB world and what his potential is.That narrative was going all over the place with push/pull well before the Cell Games.

The year in isolation in a completely empty environment away from other influences, as well as maturing, can objectively be taken into consideration in Gohan's favor. That is a fact. A different perspective comes with new experiences. A deduction can be made.

But, I say, enjoy your own views. Enjoy DB.