"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[Matches Malone]

God, I miss the days when I was sad that the civilians or the TOP fighters were killed.

No one's more generic and forgettable than the fighters in that tournament, yet you felt sorry for them over Merus ? This honestly doesn't make sense to me.

[Kanassa]

God, I miss the days when I was sad that the civilians or the TOP fighters were killed.

No one's more generic and forgettable than the fighters in that tournament, yet you felt sorry for them over Merus ? This honestly doesn't make sense to me.

How? They had entertaining personalities despite being fodder, episodes built around their tricks that helped build more prescence, they didn't overstay their welcome and the anime took the effort to give the universes different reactions to their erasure. They were simple, but they were good at being simple. They also had the bennefit of not being the author's hyper compotent OC who die while being wanked to death. Meerus is just bland and forgettable.

[The Undying]

Merus has appeared in almost every chapter of the arc, with nearly every one of those chapters showing him worrying about Moro's schemes, other characters wondering why it seems like he's holding back, and then - when Whis pulls him away and explains why he can't fight at full strength - him having to place his bets on Goku while experiencing strife over whether he'd need to intervene if the plan falls through.

The claim that his sendoff was given no build-up or narrative foundation is asinine.

[Michsi]

Okay, I'm going to be honest here.

The emotional beat ...kinda worked for me.

I was not invested in Meerus at all, but his send off was, IMO, pretty well handled. And Goku's reaction is appropriate. I've missed seeing him get emotional so I'm a little stumped when I see people complain that this is out of character. He was never a sentimental person and some of his reactions, even in the original came across as a little too blase, but that doesn't mean he is unfeeling. Seeing him get heartbroken after witnessing someone he has presumable grown somewhat close to die is....good.

[Kanassa]

Merus has appeared in almost every chapter of the arc, with nearly every one of those chapters showing him worrying about Moro's schemes, other characters wondering why it seems like he's holding back, and then - when Whis eventually explains why he can't fight at full strength - him having to place his bets on Goku while experiencing strife over whether he'd need to intervene if the plan falls through.

The claim that his sendoff was given no build-up or narrative foundation is asinine.

I said not enough build up. Stating that he's obviously going to sacrifice himself is the bare minimum a narrative can do, it doesn't however do anything to make me give a shit about said death or make the death mean anything. They foreshadowed Superman's death in BvS and that death was still shit and unearned.

[DestructoDisc]

Meerus is kinda hot.

Whis is 10 times hotter. Merus is too scrawny looking and has a cringe haircut that reminds me of Zac Efron's in the High School Musical movies.

[theherodjl]

I'd like nothing more than to see Moro wiped out next chapter, but it's unlikely. I think Moro will somehow slip away AGAIN before Goku can finish him off, resulting in Vegeta separating him and 7-3 in the following chapter.

If Moro somehow slips away with Beerus & Whis present then I will be done with Toyotaro's writing. I can buy that Moro could slip past a mortal being with Godly power but a Hakaishin & Angel to boot? That would be a new low in how incompetent DB's deities are and it would just be sickeningly-stupid.
Here's hoping to Toyotaro to not shit on all of the characters in this arc just so he can keep it going past it's expiration date.

[HeroR]

Okay, I'm going to be honest here.

The emotional beat ...kinda worked for me.

I was not invested in Meerus at all, but his send off was, IMO, pretty well handled. And Goku's reaction is appropriate. I've missed seeing him get emotional so I'm a little stumped when I see people complain that this is out of character. He was never a sentimental person and some of his reactions, even in the original came across as a little too blase, but that doesn't mean he is unfeeling. Seeing him get heartbroken after witnessing someone he has presumable grown somewhat close to die is....good.

That's the problem. We don't see enough of Goku and Merus bonding to believe that Goku should be that emotional about him dying. It isn't like Goku and 17 despite only knowing each other for less than two days building a bond over the course of the TOP so when Goku thought 17 died it felt genuine. This on the other hand feels force because that kind of relationship never formed.

In fact, Merus' death is less 17, and more Android 16. Namely, 16 had no real connection to Gohan, but Gohan's reaction to his death made sense since Gohan was already highly emotional and he saw someone he could have saved get literally stepped on.

[Kanassa]

In fact, Merus' death is less 17, and more Android 16. Namely, 16 had no real connection to Gohan, but Gohan's reaction to his death made sense since Gohan was already highly emotional and he saw someone he could have saved get literally stepped on.

Plus 16 and Cell did spechify about how Gohan's inaction was only causing more suffering.

Meerus is kinda hot.

Whis is 10 times hotter. Merus is too scrawny looking and has a cringe haircut that reminds me of Zac Efron's in the High School Musical movies.

You mean Space Cop Troy Bolton isn't a universial fetish?! Put Whis in a Galactic Patrol Uniform and then I'll maybe agree.

[LoganForkHands73]

Meerus is kinda hot.

Whis is 10 times hotter. Merus is too scrawny looking and has a cringe haircut that reminds me of Zac Efron's in the High School Musical movies.

Yeah Merus's hair is pretty bad. Whis rocks that raised pompadour like a damn pro, though.

[Michsi]

Okay, I'm going to be honest here.

The emotional beat ...kinda worked for me.

I was not invested in Meerus at all, but his send off was, IMO, pretty well handled. And Goku's reaction is appropriate. I've missed seeing him get emotional so I'm a little stumped when I see people complain that this is out of character. He was never a sentimental person and some of his reactions, even in the original came across as a little too blase, but that doesn't mean he is unfeeling. Seeing him get heartbroken after witnessing someone he has presumable grown somewhat close to die is....good.

That's the problem. We don't see enough of Goku and Merus bonding to believe that Goku should be that emotional about him dying. It isn't like Goku and 17 despite only knowing each other for less than two days building a bond over the course of the TOP so when Goku thought 17 died it felt genuine. This on the other hand feels force because that kind of relationship never formed.

In fact, Merus' death is less 17, and more Android 16. Namely, 16 had no real connection to Gohan, but Gohan's reaction to his death made sense since Gohan was already highly emotional and he saw someone he could have saved get literally stepped on.

Well, I get we didn't actually see them growing close in order for the loss to feel personal, but I feel like it's simply natural for them to have done so. Also, as you said, it's not so much about Goku losing someone he cared about, but also simply seeing someone- especially someone who is good and kind - die before his eyes, which works too. He got really angry when those random soldiers died at Cell's hand, enough to start looking for ways to bring back the DBs for their sake All I'm saying is that Goku's reaction is appropriate.

[The Undying]

I said not enough build up. Stating that he's obviously going to sacrifice himself is the bare minimum a narrative can do, it doesn't however do anything to make me give a shit about said death or make the death mean anything. They foreshadowed Superman's death in BvS and that death was still shit and unearned.

Define "unearned". Whether you give a shit is your prerogative, but none of this actually addresses what I'm referring to.

When an entire character thread is almost strictly dedicated to a hypercompetent hero who was forced to suppress himself against his better nature only to consistently grapple with weighing his sense of justice against his sense of duty, and then having that turmoil obviously lead to the necessity of self-sacrifice, you're getting build-up out the wazoo. You don't have to feel any emotion from it, but it's not remotely a stretch to see where the appeal lies for a lot of readers when just about every chapter touched on it.

Whether you want to feel engaged with this character isn't a preference I can change, but to say that the manga didn't strive to set up that payoff is woefully inaccurate. I'd advise that people at least skim over previous chapters before posting takes like this.

[emperior]

Yeah the build up to this moment was always there from the beginning. In fact many of us knew that dropping this new lore about Angels disappearing when using their full power was a blatant Chekov gun.

I actually didn’t expect this to be the trigger for Goku to finally reach the true Ultra Instinct because I felt like this was heading towards a Vegeta win (he still could be the one winning) and because it also seemed like Toyotaro was trying to keep this arc as fillerish as possible and I thought they were saving the silver UI for a later story mostly written by Toriyama.

This had left me very pleasantly surprised, as I still feared this arc would have stayed a manga-only story for some reason and that would have been disappointing. While now there’s no doubt at all that this arc is very important in the grand scheme of things, even more than Future Trunks’ arc I would say.
They will surely have to animate this arc in the future.

[Jiren The Alpha]

Even if he masters MUI, this can't be the last arc right? Moro is such a trash, forgettable villain that I really hope he's not the "final boss" of Super.

We don't know. Jiren was worse and TOP was the last anime arc.

He really wasn't. Jiren was dry, but he wasn't a walking Dragon Ball villain checklist with new power as the plot demands.

We don't know. Jiren was worse and that was the last anime arc.

Jiren at least tied into the whole "Power of friendship" stuff, because he's the exact opposite of Goku. Moro is lame, he has no depth, nothing.

Jiren is really just Goku without Dragon Balls to fixed the tragedies that happened to him. He's also what Goku dreamed of being, an all powerful being who surpassed the gods by himself with only his hard work.

People also wanted to see Jiren lose because he was Dragon Ball Mike Tyson and Goku was Douglas Buster, Moro has nothing going for him, no cool factory and a boring character.

[Kanassa]

I said not enough build up. Stating that he's obviously going to sacrifice himself is the bare minimum a narrative can do, it doesn't however do anything to make me give a shit about said death or make the death mean anything. They foreshadowed Superman's death in BvS and that death was still shit and unearned.

Define "unearned". Whether you give a shit is your prerogative, but none of this actually addresses what I'm referring to.

When an entire character thread is almost strictly dedicated to a hypercompetent hero who was forced to suppress himself against his better nature only to consistently grapple with weighing his sense of justice against his sense of duty, and then having that turmoil obviously lead to the necessity of self-sacrifice, you're getting build-up out the wazoo. You don't have to feel any emotion from it, but it's not remotely a stretch to understand why other readers did.

Whether you want to feel engaged with this character isn't a preference I can change, but to say that the manga didn't strive to set up that payoff is woefully inaccurate. I'd advise people to at least skim over previous chapters before posting takes like this.

Unearned, as in Toyo did the bare minimum in do anything to build this moment. And it does adress the point you made, you say that we got a lot of build up simply because the narrative went "Hey audience, he's gonna sacrifice himself", that's not a lot of build up, that's a bland and repetetive statment because very little is done outside of establishing the scene. Meerus's 'grappling' as you put it, is nothing more than minor quibles. He doesn't have turmoil of debating between his duty and justice, he doesn't have character insight or scenes developing this point of contention for him. It is established, he makes it clear he's going to sacrifice himself and he's just fine with that and the story pretends that's full scale buildup. If a story introduces a rock, then tells you that it will die if it is curshed and then crushes it, that doesn't mean this supposedly highly emotional and dramatic moment was successfully built up. Or again with the Superman example.

And I never said I couldn't understand why others find it emotional? I stated that I saw the payoff as cheap, lazy, annoying and mostly relying on elements that Toyo didn't bother to develop further than establishment. Funnily enough, I can disagree with people while still understanding why they see things differently. Yes, it's build up (you know, like I said before), but it's not 'build up out the wazoo'. Repeating build up isn't additional buildup.

[GodVegetto91]

Alternatively, you could simply just call them Demons indeed. Since that’s literally what “Evil Angels” are. Have these demons of the dark demon realm be the official counterparts of the original Angels! There are at least 12, and Goku, Vegeta and Broly would have to advance through the stages to get what they want (whatever it is, create a reason) much like what happened on Babidi’s spaceship back in the early Buu Arc! I LOVED that. Showing of their newfound strength beating fodder and impressing the highest God of the Universe freakin Supreme Kai! Ofcourse this time, the enemies certainly won’t be fodder at all! They’re the evil counterparts of the freakin Angels! The strongest and most capable entities of the whole Multiverse! But before that happens, Goku and Vegeta will need to train for the next 10 years (aswell as Broly!) Vegeta will go to Planet Yardrat and meditate up there to MASSIVELY increase his level of Spirit Control. While Goku trains under Whis, and masters his Ultra Instinct to the same level that he did with SSJ back in the Perfect Cell Arc! Where he can now maintain Ultra Instinct all day long! And more! To completely get rid of the strain of simply maintaining the form! This will become his new Base!

Demons! The evil counterparts of the Angels!

These demons will not be immortal like the original Angels, but they ARE allowed to go all out and use their full power without being erased! Naturally, they also have full control of Ultra Instinct! They are Demons, and one rules over 1 Makai Realm. There are 12 of them in total! So 12 Demons in total for Goku, Vegeta and Broly to face!

And ofcourse, Evil Shadow Dragons is another option for the future! It was the perfect concept.

[Skar]

How? They had entertaining personalities despite being fodder, episodes built around their tricks that helped build more prescence, they didn't overstay their welcome and the anime took the effort to give the universes different reactions to their erasure. They were simple, but they were good at being simple. They also had the bennefit of not being the author's hyper compotent OC who die while being wanked to death. Meerus is just bland and forgettable.

Different strokes for different folks I guess. I was sad for the other universe contestants and the oblivious civilians of their universes that were being erased but the only contestants I remember caring about individually were Bergamo and the final U10 guy. I didn't think I was supposed to care or remember many of them and I thought it was enough that they were there to protect their universe. I felt bad for Meerus more since he was focused on throughout the saga and also because he might not be brought back to life. He reminded of #16 because he was created for a specific purpose and sacrificed himself when he went against it. I don't think it's any groundbreaking but hos story was enough for me to care about him.

I'm not sure why someone can't like both and there's always a competition between the manga and anime. Toei and Toyotaro are on the same team. If we're being fair, neither version ranks highly among other series in their format. The DBS anime compared to modern anime and the manga compared to other monthly mangas. I liked certain moments in each but a lot of these discussions try to make one sound far superior to the other when both are pretty average when compared to anything else that isn't the other version of DBS.

[Grand Marshal 1]

Alternatively, you could simply just call them Demons indeed. Since that’s literally what “Evil Angels” are. Have these demons of the dark demon realm be the official counterparts of the original Angels! There are at least 12, and Goku, Vegeta and Broly would have to advance through the stages to get what they want (whatever it is, create a reason) much like what happened on Babidi’s spaceship back in the early Buu Arc! I LOVED that. Showing of their newfound strength beating fodder and impressing the highest God of the Universe freakin Supreme Kai! Ofcourse this time, the enemies certainly won’t be fodder at all! They’re the evil counterparts of the freakin Angels! The strongest and most capable entities of the whole Multiverse! But before that happens, Goku and Vegeta will need to train for the next 10 years (aswell as Broly!) Vegeta will go to Planet Yardrat and meditate up there to MASSIVELY increase his level of Spirit Control. While Goku trains under Whis, and masters his Ultra Instinct to the same level that he did with SSJ back in the Perfect Cell Arc! Where he can now maintain Ultra Instinct all day long! And more! To completely get rid of the strain of simply maintaining the form! This will become his new Base!

Demons! The evil counterparts of the Angels!

These demons will not be immortal like the original Angels, but they ARE allowed to go all out and use their full power without being erased! Naturally, they also have full control of Ultra Instinct! They are Demons, and one rules over 1 Makai Realm. There are 12 of them in total! So 12 Demons in total for Goku, Vegeta and Broly to face!

And ofcourse, Evil Shadow Dragons is another option for the future! It was the perfect concept.

If not angels, at least Makaioshin. Mechikaboola is the perfect example of a super strong demon who has more going on that raw power. His actual, genuine magic.

Super Shadow Dragons are a concept that simply can't go to waste!

As for me, an additional idea is for Goku and Co. To protect the universe Merus was supposed to monitor until a destroyer and a grand Supreme Kai are chosen. One of the new ones revived with 17's wish. Seeing how the ToP arena needed time to be built, I can see the universes reaching their final stage of restoration only now. What a perfect opportunity for ancient erased individuals to go against the gods! Like Hearts! But with better motivation and Goku with Co. Taking them out for the sake of saving said universes.

Teams of enemies is now the way forward imo. Or else the scale will skyrocket and I don't know if anyone wants to see mortals rival Angels in power.

Like ok, above gods of destruction, but the gap with angels should still remain immense.

[HeroR]

Okay, I'm going to be honest here.

The emotional beat ...kinda worked for me.

I was not invested in Meerus at all, but his send off was, IMO, pretty well handled. And Goku's reaction is appropriate. I've missed seeing him get emotional so I'm a little stumped when I see people complain that this is out of character. He was never a sentimental person and some of his reactions, even in the original came across as a little too blase, but that doesn't mean he is unfeeling. Seeing him get heartbroken after witnessing someone he has presumable grown somewhat close to die is....good.

That's the problem. We don't see enough of Goku and Merus bonding to believe that Goku should be that emotional about him dying. It isn't like Goku and 17 despite only knowing each other for less than two days building a bond over the course of the TOP so when Goku thought 17 died it felt genuine. This on the other hand feels force because that kind of relationship never formed.

In fact, Merus' death is less 17, and more Android 16. Namely, 16 had no real connection to Gohan, but Gohan's reaction to his death made sense since Gohan was already highly emotional and he saw someone he could have saved get literally stepped on.

Well, I get we didn't actually see them growing close in order for the loss to feel personal, but I feel like it's simply natural for them to have done so. Also, as you said, it's not so much about Goku losing someone he cared about, but also simply seeing someone- especially someone who is good and kind - die before his eyes, which works too. He got really angry when those random soldiers died at Cell's hand, enough to start looking for ways to bring back the DBs for their sake All I'm saying is that Goku's reaction is appropriate.

Showing a few panels isn't a enough to make someone think 'yeah, they have a really closed bond'. If you're going to make something have an emotional payoff or make us believe that someone like Goku would get overly emotional about something, you better show it. Otherwise, people are not going believe what you're showing.

Goku got upset about the random soldiers dying because he made Cell promised that he wouldn't kill anyone until the Cell Games (Cell never promised anything, but Goku seemed to assumed that he wouldn't kill anyone after he told him not to).

The problem isn't Goku getting upset. It's the level that Toyo showed that he was upset that the final panel is similar to when Krillin died on Namek. That was a moment that happened because Krillin is quite literally Goku's best friend and Toyo had no business provoking that image for Merus, but nothing showed that they were anywhere near that level of closeness.

[Galan007]

This chapter made me wonder what would happen if Beerus ordered Whis to fully power up and fight him.

If Whis obliged, would he still be erased(even though he was just following the orders of his Destroyer), or is a Destroyer's order able to override the one law of the Angel Code?

...or would Whis just refuse the order all together?