To be totally honest, I feel like Toyotaro is a HUGE Vegeta fanboy. Like, it legit always feels he goes out of his way to give Vegeta some serious shine whenever he can, which isn't BAD, but it feels like he PURPOSELY does all of this at Goku's expense, making him look like such a clown.ssj3kakarot wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 8:51 pmYou're right on the mark here. Well, that's how I see it anyways. Why is Goku, the character that was the prodigy, the one who was a low class warrior that surpassed all fighters, excelled at everything, was always 1 step ahead, always was a fighting genius, always picked up on the little things, is now always behind the 8-ball on everything. The only explanation is that they need to make him dumb in order to make others shine. Like you said, regress and stay regressed.OhHiRenan wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 6:52 pm This was a fun enough chapter, but Goku and Vegeta's relationships with fighting, training, and even themselves feels completely backwards. I just can't see Cell or Boo arc Goku acting the way he has throughout all of the Super Hero arc. It's doubly frustrating because Toyotaro keeps putting clear effort into growing Vegeta as a character, so to see Goku just suddenly regress and stay regressed is weird. Maybe I'm off-base here and making more of something that's not an issue, though. But Goku's characterization just feels off. Still eager to see what comes next!
Heck, even if the 'realm of the gods' is meant to be a whole new avenue for Goku to experience, Toyotaro makes Goku come off as TOO "rookie-like", making mistakes that he should have long since learned from, even before meeting Beerus and Whis, yet VEGETA suddenly becomes such a "star pupil"? No way there isn't SOME bias here.
For real though, has no one else ever noticed this?
Yet another reason why I feel like Toriyama had Gohan relinquish the lead role back to his dad. Unlike Goku, Gohan had a more 'clearly defined' end goal of sorts (becoming a scholar), and from there... well, given how DB is a battle manga, having someone who isn't all that big on the hobby probably WOULDN'T have worked out in the long run.JulieYBM wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2024 12:58 pm A big issue is that an editor's job is to keep the franchise going as long as possible. As a result, a lot of decisions that get made are super conservative. Stories and characters are a little less about doing something creatively exciting and a little more about doing something that will keep the money coming in. JUMP is especially big on this philosophy.
Meanwhile, Roshi's (and Beerus's) quote of "There's always going to be someone stronger than you" probably resonates beautifully with someone who LIVES for the thrill of combat (i.e. Goku and Vegeta).
TKA wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2024 4:56 pm Co-signed.
It's just not very Dragonball to have a wise, reasoned, good-natured character who infallibly acts in everyone else's interest.
There's a reason gods in Dragonball are just middle managers and businessmen. They're people, and they have all the flaws that that entails. The characters who are infallible and good are explicitly kept away from influencing events in the plot—the angels.
Goku is a bumbling idiot who is good at one thing: fighting. He is a fighting savant. The other characters are in the story to make sure his love of fighting and pushing himself ultimately works out in the end. There's a reason why every arc the side characters are the ones running around gathering dragonballs and coming up with plans in the background while Goku is the one doing the fighting.
The wizened elder who does things for the good of everyone just isn't this character. And that's fine.
Mr Baggins wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2024 4:46 pm Or when he straight lies to everyone about being unable to immediately stop Vegeta or Boo. Or when he threatens the Supreme Kai just to settle the score with Vegeta. Or when he ostensibly "passes the torch" only because being some messianic superhero was never among his personal priorities. Or when he literally offers up Videl and Bulma to Elder Kai for a bribe. Or when he fucks off with Oob and ditches his whole family to invest in his new trainee just because he found the idea of fighting him exciting.
Just about everything Goku does in the Boo arc is motivated by self-interest or severe social apathy, and I haven't even touched upon shit like the Cell arc. How is this even a debate? What, do you think the author also lies when he mentions Goku's toxicity in interviews?
More importantly, this wise, ultra mature version of the character the #NotMyGoku crowd keeps advocating for just doesn't sound all that fun or interesting to me. Firstly, these are often the same folks that took Goku's "mentor" front from the end of the manga at face value because they fundamentally misunderstood his reason for doing that to begin with. Secondly, Goku is a vastly more enjoyable character when he's falling backwards, yet somehow making it work out in the end; contrast that with Vegeta, who is always moving forward from a maturity standpoint and playing the straight man to his rival's goofball antics, and you have a pretty colorful dynamic going on.
Dragon Ball Super isn't just the story of Goku, it's the story of Goku and Vegeta. Obviously they're going to write him in a way that plays to their relationship while extending the 'poison' we see from his characterization in DB's latter half. That's totally fine. That's a better alternative to self-seriously turning Dragon Ball's tone into something it's definitely not.
The only point made here that I'm willing to concede on is the meditation stuff from Super Hero.
Ngl, all of this right here is part of why I think Toriyama dropped the idea of having Gohan as the lead going forward. Like, I'm pretty sure Toriyama's made it clear that he's not a fan of writing for "goody two-shoes" characters and the like, and... Gohan DOES kind of fits the bill. He probably thought it'd be far too jarring to write Gohan as the self-serving type (like his dad) out of nowhere too, so changing him so suddenly was definitely out of the question.Basaku wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 11:59 am True and characters like that most of the time work in supporting/mentor roles best anyway. But at the same time, is it very Dragonball to have a bumbling, mentally challenged cretin who never learns anything in the lead role? Because that's not the character we had in the franchise's original, main run.
We had a character who started as a naive, straightforward and not-worldy kid gradually growing physically AND also becoming a more rounded person too. It doesn't mean that he became infallible or that he lost all of his naive/reckless traits by the end of Z. But they were naturally diminished with time and experience through various events and battles he went through. Goku did grow and Toriyama wasn't even nuanced about this, he was straight out HAMMERING some of these points and lessons Goku went through to the audience. I mean, no wonder since a big part of the audience was kids instead of adults so obviously some points had to be stated more directly, this wasn't a primetime adult drama.
Saying that Super-Goku is fine and consistent with the franchise's past is rewriting history to me. Especially when the literal passage of time and character growth were big part of its original appeal, both with Goku and then Gohan. This "fixture'd", perpetual world-state we're in now, stuck in the same time period for a decade and with little-to-none character development is a modern incarnation of the franchise. Whether it's better or not is a different discussion, but there are significant differences between this and the way the franchise was developed originally.
Goku on the other hand? His self-serving attitude has actually gotten the ball rolling for the story. Frankly, this is all why I much prefer Goku being DB's lead, but that said? I definitely DON'T appreciate how Super's been treating him, especially with someone who's most likely a big Vegeta fan writing him to be some clown who looks like a total rookie over lessons he's long since learned.
