"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Discussion specifically regarding the "Dragon Ball Super" TV series premiering July 2015 in Japan, including individual threads for each episode.

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TKA
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by TKA » Sun Oct 31, 2021 5:27 am

BWri wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 12:00 pm He didn't decide, his editor decided. If Toriyama continued his original vision, we'd not have Dragon Ball in its current incarnation. There's a decent case to be made that we wouldn't have Dragon Ball at all past Pilaf's Castle if Torishima-san didn't step in with his recommendations. I'm not saying you're wrong, but he clearly is not the same level of visionary as someone like Kentaro Miura or George R.R. Martin. Dragon Ball is only so malleable because there's a certain level of disinterest Toriyama-san has for the series. He simply can't be bothered with certain aspects which is why Torishima, Toei, and Toyotaro (all those T's) can exert so much influence over the franchise.
Up until the Tenka’ichi Budōkai began, the series hadn’t been all that popular. That’s what Torishima-san had told me. “Your protagonist is rather plain. That’s why it’s not popular.”, he said. Personally, since I was doing a fighting story for this series, I had intentionally made the protagonist’s clothing excessively plain. So this annoyed me, but then I figured it out. “Well, let’s increase its popularity” I thought. When I had designed Goku’s character, the words that best represented him were “I want to become strong”. So I thought I’d bring that to the front. Even during “Dr. Slump”, the tournament-like events such as the Penguin Village Gran Prix or the Mini-Event had been amazingly popular. So I’d simply make the story into a tournament format. From there the Tenka’ichi Budōkai was born. I temporarily withdrew the other characters besides Goku, brought back Kame-Sen’nin, and added Kuririn as a new character. From there it got popular before I knew it.
I know what I said. Toriyama can be told the series isn't popular and then figure out how to make it popular while staying true to what he created. Look at all of Toei's attempts to make Dragonball without him, and you can see the absolute shit they put out, because they don't understand the work to the degree the man who dreamt it up does. Fuck, just look at anything Dragonball Heroes does, and it's indistinguishable from all the fanmade "Dragonball AF"-style Super Saiyan 5s, 6s, 7s etc that you see on youtube.

I don't buy into the narrative largely created by RedLetterMedia that creatives need people around them to tell them no. You don't. If you want to be a commercial success, you do, but if you want to make resonant art that means something, you don't. If George Lucas had people around to tell him no, the rich political and social commentary of the prequels would've likely been excised; the structure of those films being a mirror to the originals would likely be decried as "artsy fartsy nonsense" and taken out for more laser battles. Etc. I find the imperfections of individuals part of what makes them unique and a feature to what they create, not a bug.

Also, I find the claim that Toriyama isn't a visionary to be reductive. How can you say that about the man who invented the modern shonen? He is one of the best creatives in modern fiction. I would argue that you're doing a disservice to Toriyama by lumping the likes of RR Martin in with him, but this is all in the eyes of the beholder. Toriyama belongs in discussions with Tolkien, George Lucas, Lovecraft and other creators of whole genres. George RR Martin is more like a Togashi, who, within the genre, manages to paint something new. But I digress.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by SupremeKai25 » Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:17 am

Yeah I agree that Toriyama knows how to write Dragon Ball better than anyone else. Even just structurally and thematically, Super is so much better and more consistent than GT, you can really tell that Toriyama is planning it.

Although to be fair Dragon Ball Heroes is meant to be just a fun videogame where powerful characters from DB fight each other, it's not meant to have much of a story so it serves its purpose :think:

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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:57 am

TKA wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 5:27 am I know what I said. Toriyama can be told the series isn't popular and then figure out how to make it popular while staying true to what he created. Look at all of Toei's attempts to make Dragonball without him, and you can see the absolute shit they put out, because they don't understand the work to the degree the man who dreamt it up does. Fuck, just look at anything Dragonball Heroes does, and it's indistinguishable from all the fanmade "Dragonball AF"-style Super Saiyan 5s, 6s, 7s etc that you see on youtube.

I don't buy into the narrative largely created by RedLetterMedia that creatives need people around them to tell them no. You don't. If you want to be a commercial success, you do, but if you want to make resonant art that means something, you don't. If George Lucas had people around to tell him no, the rich political and social commentary of the prequels would've likely been excised; the structure of those films being a mirror to the originals would likely be decried as "artsy fartsy nonsense" and taken out for more laser battles. Etc. I find the imperfections of individuals part of what makes them unique and a feature to what they create, not a bug.

Also, I find the claim that Toriyama isn't a visionary to be reductive. How can you say that about the man who invented the modern shonen? He is one of the best creatives in modern fiction. I would argue that you're doing a disservice to Toriyama by lumping the likes of RR Martin in with him, but this is all in the eyes of the beholder. Toriyama belongs in discussions with Tolkien, George Lucas, Lovecraft and other creators of whole genres. George RR Martin is more like a Togashi, who, within the genre, manages to paint something new. But I digress.
Toriyama did not invent "modern shonen", not even close. Beyond the fact that it's not actually a genre, it had existed many decades beforehand. Most of the tropes in Dragon Ball are far more ancient.

Neither Toriyama or Torishima were under any illusion they were creating fine art. Weekly Shonen Jump was a business at the end of the day. Everyone involved knew the score going in: the mangaka does most of the heavylifting with writing and drawing, the editor approves and adjusts their ideas for the magazine. Neither could produce a manga alone without the other.

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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by Mr Baggins » Sun Oct 31, 2021 9:04 am

Lest we get ahead of ourselves, let's avoid conflating Dragon Ball as a long-running serialization with Dragon Ball's origins. They're two very different things. I think we're already putting the editors on too high of a pedestal, but that'd be going overboard.

For starters, it should be noted that DB's artistic intentions in the 80's are a far cry from what it would become in the 90's. There's a reason Toriyama has repeatedly mentioned that Torishima was his most bothersome editor. There's also a reason the original manga started to become a more serious, thematic work at some point following Torishima's departure. You can look outside of DB entirely and see the same development occur; the difference between Toriyama's early and later works is damn stark. His narratives would feel more structured. There were (clearly intended, given their reoccurrence) story motifs, but with comedic elements that his origins as a gag artist were known for. It's not coincidence.

His collaborators may have exerted a large degree of influence, but there should be no disputing that Toriyama was always the lead visionary. Without him, Dragon Ball is just marketing schlock that frequently misunderstands itself on a fundamental level. With him, it runs so much deeper than that, and I think it's absolutely fair to say that DB loses both its identity and its integrity when he's not involved.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by BWri » Sun Oct 31, 2021 9:11 am

TKA wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 5:27 am
Up until the Tenka’ichi Budōkai began, the series hadn’t been all that popular. That’s what Torishima-san had told me. “Your protagonist is rather plain. That’s why it’s not popular.”, he said. Personally, since I was doing a fighting story for this series, I had intentionally made the protagonist’s clothing excessively plain. So this annoyed me, but then I figured it out. “Well, let’s increase its popularity” I thought. When I had designed Goku’s character, the words that best represented him were “I want to become strong”. So I thought I’d bring that to the front. Even during “Dr. Slump”, the tournament-like events such as the Penguin Village Gran Prix or the Mini-Event had been amazingly popular. So I’d simply make the story into a tournament format. From there the Tenka’ichi Budōkai was born. I temporarily withdrew the other characters besides Goku, brought back Kame-Sen’nin, and added Kuririn as a new character. From there it got popular before I knew it.
Torishima-san describes a more collaborative effort from the concept of Dragon Ball and beyond. I don't have any reason to disbelieve him at this point. He and Toriyama-san would often have meetings to discuss where Dragon Ball currently was and where it was going.
“Originally, we started Dragon Ball as a kind of road movie based upon Journey to the West but the ranking started to gradually decline. So we discussed about why this type of story wasn't resonating with readers and why we aren't doing well in the rankings. The conclusion we came to was that Goku, the protagonist, was not strong enough. That he didn't resonate with the readers very well. From there, we discussed a great deal about what Goku should be like. The answer was that Goku wants to get stronger and stronger. In order to pursue that theme, we decided to forget all the previous characters except for Goku and Master Roshi. To strengthen this theme further we added a new character called Krillin. Mainly focusing on three characters we made new episodes based around the training of Goku. In addition, to show how Goku became stronger we had a big tournament in the story. After all this, the ranking shot back up to the top again.

“Even after the success of the first tournament in the story, we both thought at that point that Dragon Ball was not a strong manga. Something was missing. Again, we had lots of meetings and discussions. We then realized that we didn't have a good villain. Somebody really evil, which gives Goku the motivation to defeat him. As Dragon Ball had some legacy from Dr. Slump, the first part of the series was a bit comedic in tone. That meant even the villains were perhaps too cute or funny. So we needed strong villains to make Goku more attractive to readers." - Kazuhiko Torishima
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarde ... 475a9025e5
TKA wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 5:27 am I know what I said. Toriyama can be told the series isn't popular and then figure out how to make it popular while staying true to what he created. Look at all of Toei's attempts to make Dragonball without him, and you can see the absolute shit they put out, because they don't understand the work to the degree the man who dreamt it up does. Fuck, just look at anything Dragonball Heroes does, and it's indistinguishable from all the fanmade "Dragonball AF"-style Super Saiyan 5s, 6s, 7s etc that you see on youtube.
True but also overstated. Having a bad adaptation ... or three doesn't prove that no one but Toriyama-san understands or can properly iterate on Dragon Ball, it means that those were particularly bad "creatives". With most of Dragon Ball's poor adaptations, they are mostly fueled by profit motive and latch onto one or two aspects of the series rather than the whole.
I don't buy into the narrative largely created by RedLetterMedia that creatives need people around them to tell them no. You don't. If you want to be a commercial success, you do, but if you want to make resonant art that means something, you don't.

I agree with this. I just find Dragon Ball to be more of a commercial product than resonant art. Resonant art is essentially anything, as long as someone resonates with it and finds meaning in it. There's no way in hell that DB was made with that as its primary focus. And according to Torishima-san, Dragon Ball was a collaborative effort from the beginning with the intent to appeal to a lot of people.
“During these 2 days we started to work on the new project. We talked a lot and had many meetings on what it should be. When we started, I thought because I was a successful manga editor and Toriyama was a brilliant manga author that coming up with something new would be easy. However, we came up with lots of ideas but it was clear that none of them would be successful." - Kazuhiko Torishima
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarde ... 475a9025e5
If George Lucas had people around to tell him no, the rich political and social commentary of the prequels would've likely been excised; the structure of those films being a mirror to the originals would likely be decried as "artsy fartsy nonsense" and taken out for more laser battles. Etc. I find the imperfections of individuals part of what makes them unique and a feature to what they create, not a bug.
You got me there. I love the prequels! Though the movies are kinda shyte and could have used a guiding hand, I still love them. The lore alone from this era is worth 3 bad movies, not to mention the extended universe. I don't agree with the last part though. Imperfections are one thing, but the prequels aren't good movies even if you or I like them. I get the feeling that even George Lucas would want to redo them.
Also, I find the claim that Toriyama isn't a visionary to be reductive. How can you say that about the man who invented the modern shonen?

That's not really what I said. I said he's not the same level of visionary as someone like Kentaro Miura or George R.R. Martin. From what I see, there is a clear gulf in passion and scope of vision, though feel free to disagree. And while I do think Toriyama-san has influenced the modern battle shonen scene to a great degree, saying he invented it gives far too much credit, especially when Torishima-san openly admits that he looked to Saint Seiya and Hokuto no Ken for ideas on how to improve Dragon Ball. HNK predates DB.
M: Even so, how did you come up with the ideas behind organizing the story?

T: I studied Fist of the North Star.[2]

M: Oh! Fist of the North Star?! That’s surprising.

T: It was because the popularity of Dragon Ball had declined, so I had no choice but to study it. The most overwhelmingly popular series at the time was Fist of the North Star.
Source - https://thedaoofdragonball.com/blog/int ... agon-ball/
He is one of the best creatives in modern fiction.

I used to think so until reading his modern works and also his works outside of DB and Slump. Now I think he's a really fun and irreverent creator with phenomenal skill when it comes to visual storytelling (especially MARTIAL ARTS SCENES BAHGAWD!!!), but his stories oftentimes feel aimless even when I like the characters. Over the years, I've realized that it was collaboration that made his works shine as much as they did, in particular Torishima-san's own creative and authoritative voice backing him and guiding him.
I would argue that you're doing a disservice to Toriyama by lumping the likes of RR Martin in with him, but this is all in the eyes of the beholder. Toriyama belongs in discussions with Tolkien, George Lucas, Lovecraft and other creators of whole genres. George RR Martin is more like a Togashi, who, within the genre, manages to paint something new. But I digress.
That's an interesting take. I don't think I buy into what you're saying here but if I did, I'd argue that GRRM and Togashi-san are just like Toriyama-san. Yes, they subvert a genre, but who's to say that won't lead to another genre altogether. With all the A Song of Ice and Fire clones already published post Game of Thrones, I'd argue that GRRM is already a bigger genre creator than most everyone on the list aside from Tolkien.
Big fan of the characters of Dragon Ball, all of them, especially formerly prominent sub-characters. -__-

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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by Mr Baggins » Sun Oct 31, 2021 10:32 am

And to underline my point, man oh man do I thoroughly disagree with takes like this:
BWri wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 9:11 am I used to think so until reading his modern works and also his works outside of DB and Slump.
It was Toriyama's modern works (by "modern" I mean from the 90's onward, including Dragon Ball's latter half) that convinced me the man is an absolute boon to storytelling. Stuff like Sand Land, Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, and even one-shots like Kintoki have a hell of a lot more to say than Dr. Slump.

One of those linked sources has Torishima flat-out admitting he was actively against Toriyama incorporating resonant themes into his manga and that he wanted to ensure it was "a work without substance". For his tenure as editor, mass appeal was the name of the game, and his influence predominantly shaped everything Toriyama did at that time. I don't buy for a second that he wasn't a lot more unshackled in his creative output afterwards, despite the influence of subsequent editors -- especially given Toriyama's comments on their working relationship.

I digress, I suppose.
BWri wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 9:11 am but the prequels aren't good movies even if you or I like them
As far as I'm concerned, Revenge of the Sith is the best Star Wars film ever made.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by TKA » Sun Oct 31, 2021 12:55 pm

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:57 am Toriyama did not invent "modern shonen", not even close. Beyond the fact that it's not actually a genre, it had existed many decades beforehand. Most of the tropes in Dragon Ball are far more ancient.
Don't be a pedant. It's unbecoming and a distraction.

Dragonball has codified all the tenants of the modern shonen genre. All the tropes associated with shonen battle manga got their start or got popularized by Dragonball. In that sense, it is the ur-example of what a shonen manga is.

And yes, I'm well aware that shonen just refers to a particular demographic. In online parlance, however, it's come to mean a very certain genre of fiction, such that people are surprised when they learn Death Note is one as well. Let's avoid the dumb pedantic stuff. It's insufferable.
it had existed many decades beforehand.
Star Wars wasn't the first space opera, yet it's the genre-defining one that is often imitated but never duplicated.
neither Toriyama or Torishima were under any illusion they were creating fine art.
I don't care.

Shakespeare didn't think he was making fine art either. This is an empty statement.

Toriyama will be the first to tell you that Dragonball has no deeper meaning. I would disagree with him on that, since there's so much to it. Whether he consciously put that in, or not is immaterial and irrelevant.
BWri wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 9:11 amImperfections are one thing, but the prequels aren't good movies even if you or I like them.
The entirety of your post is stuff that would result in circular discourse, so I'll not reply to any of that and pick this out.

I fucking hate the whole concept of "Is it a good movie/ book/whatever". "Good" isn't an attribute. "Good" isn't definable. It's nonsense. I would argue that all three of those films are good, and do exactly what the creator wanted them to do. They're not what people expected them to be, I'll very readily agree to that, but calling them bad because of that is silly to me. Episode 3 is George's magnum opus and the last compelling thing Star Wars has put out (okay, the Darth Plagueis novel is almost on equal footing with it, as is Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader).

This isn't a Star Wars board, so I won't get into it further than that. But if you're coming at this with a "this is good" or "this is bad" lens, then there's not much discussion to be had. I've been in enough of those (hey, I have Batman v Superman in my sig) to know they go nowhere.
Mr Baggins wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 10:32 am It was Toriyama's modern works (by "modern" I mean from the 90's onward, including Dragon Ball's latter half) that convinced me the man is an absolute boon to storytelling. Stuff like Sand Land, Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, and even one-shots like Kintoki have a hell of a lot more to say than Dr. Slump.
Kintoki is fucking rad. I originally wished there was more, but some things are better left to lay.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by capsulecorp » Sun Oct 31, 2021 1:52 pm

Imperfections are one thing, but the prequels aren't good movies even if you or I like them.
what is this, youtube? this sentence is clickbait.

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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by PurestEvil » Sun Oct 31, 2021 2:06 pm

TKA wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 12:55 pm
Mr Baggins wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 10:32 am It was Toriyama's modern works (by "modern" I mean from the 90's onward, including Dragon Ball's latter half) that convinced me the man is an absolute boon to storytelling. Stuff like Sand Land, Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, and even one-shots like Kintoki have a hell of a lot more to say than Dr. Slump.
Kintoki is fucking rad. I originally wished there was more, but some things are better left to lay.
I know I am not the first one to pick up on this, BUT...

Toki straight up looks like Granolah, scarf and all
Surely there was some sort of inspiration here
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:48 pm

TKA wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 12:55 pm
LoganForkHands73 wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:57 am Toriyama did not invent "modern shonen", not even close. Beyond the fact that it's not actually a genre, it had existed many decades beforehand. Most of the tropes in Dragon Ball are far more ancient.
Don't be a pedant. It's unbecoming and a distraction.

Dragonball has codified all the tenants of the modern shonen genre. All the tropes associated with shonen battle manga got their start or got popularized by Dragonball. In that sense, it is the ur-example of what a shonen manga is.

And yes, I'm well aware that shonen just refers to a particular demographic. In online parlance, however, it's come to mean a very certain genre of fiction, such that people are surprised when they learn Death Note is one as well. Let's avoid the dumb pedantic stuff. It's insufferable.
It's not pedantry. Saying "Toriyama created shonen" is about as absurd as saying "Tolkien created English literature", it's just plain wrong whichever way you slice it. There's no value in romantically deifying people this way and it's ironically more disrespectful to everyone that pioneered before.

Again, I don't disagree that Toriyama was super influential to later authors but there's no need to put authors you personally like on these towering pedestals. I just find it bizarre.
neither Toriyama or Torishima were under any illusion they were creating fine art.
I don't care.

Shakespeare didn't think he was making fine art either. This is an empty statement.

Toriyama will be the first to tell you that Dragonball has no deeper meaning. I would disagree with him on that, since there's so much to it. Whether he consciously put that in, or not is immaterial and irrelevant.
No. I was responding to this:
If you want to be a commercial success, you do, but if you want to make resonant art that means something, you don't.
Toriyama and Torishima's goal was to create a comic with mass appeal and commercial success, hence why they decided to take it in an action-oriented direction inspired by other popular manga trends. If Toriyama wanted his work published in Jump, he needed an editor to oversee him. That's the deal. It's as simple as that. If he didn't like it, he could've gone independent and self-published.

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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by Aizamasu » Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:17 am

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:48 pm
TKA wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 12:55 pm
LoganForkHands73 wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:57 am Toriyama did not invent "modern shonen", not even close. Beyond the fact that it's not actually a genre, it had existed many decades beforehand. Most of the tropes in Dragon Ball are far more ancient.
Don't be a pedant. It's unbecoming and a distraction.

Dragonball has codified all the tenants of the modern shonen genre. All the tropes associated with shonen battle manga got their start or got popularized by Dragonball. In that sense, it is the ur-example of what a shonen manga is.

And yes, I'm well aware that shonen just refers to a particular demographic. In online parlance, however, it's come to mean a very certain genre of fiction, such that people are surprised when they learn Death Note is one as well. Let's avoid the dumb pedantic stuff. It's insufferable.
It's not pedantry. Saying "Toriyama created shonen" is about as absurd as saying "Tolkien created English literature", it's just plain wrong whichever way you slice it. There's no value in romantically deifying people this way and it's ironically more disrespectful to everyone that pioneered before.

Again, I don't disagree that Toriyama was super influential to later authors but there's no need to put authors you personally like on these towering pedestals. I just find it bizarre.
I think you are thinking about this too literally. Of course Toriyama didn’t literally create the shonen genre but most of the shonen manga that came after Dragon ball were greatly influenced by it. So you could say that Toriyama was the ”father” of modern shonen just like you could say Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy. Neither of them created the genres but they created the most well known works in their genres that influenced and inspired the works that came after them.

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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Mon Nov 01, 2021 7:58 am

Aizamasu wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:17 am
LoganForkHands73 wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:48 pm It's not pedantry. Saying "Toriyama created shonen" is about as absurd as saying "Tolkien created English literature", it's just plain wrong whichever way you slice it. There's no value in romantically deifying people this way and it's ironically more disrespectful to everyone that pioneered before.

Again, I don't disagree that Toriyama was super influential to later authors but there's no need to put authors you personally like on these towering pedestals. I just find it bizarre.
I think you are thinking about this too literally. Of course Toriyama didn’t literally create the shonen genre but most of the shonen manga that came after Dragon ball were greatly influenced by it. So you could say that Toriyama was the ”father” of modern shonen just like you could say Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy. Neither of them created the genres but they created the most well known works in their genres that influenced and inspired the works that came after them.
Alright, ya know what, fair enough, I am getting a bit heated and do need to chill TF out. However, I still think it's a discussion worth having and I stand by what I've said.

Like you mentioned, it's worth saying that although Toriyama may be one of the most popular and influential shonen writers in our time, he didn't necessarily innovate a whole new genre, he just happened to be the most successful in mainstream pop culture. Nearly everything in Dragon Ball has roots in classic Chinese Wuxia literature and cinema, Hong Kong kung fu flicks, other popular manga, etc. The first two are particularly stark. The protagonist is literally named Sun Wukong. Taopaipai is literally Shang Kuan from Snake in Eagle's Shadow with the serial numbers filed off. The archetypes found in Dragon Ball can also be found in works hundreds if not thousands of years older. The gospel of users like Kunzait and Yuli Ban on this forum is very eye-opening in this regard and I'd encourage anyone to do more independent reading on Dragon Ball's genre roots -- although I was familiar with Wuxia and kung fu movies before, I really began to appreciate them.

For similar reasons, I would be uncomfortable with saying George Lucas is the "father of space opera", because nearly everything in Star Wars is far, far older, and everyone knows where the inspirations came from by now. That title can just be just as easily applied to Alex Raymond or Frank Herbert. Not unlike Dragon Ball, Star Wars just appealed most to mass audiences and reaped in the big bucks, causing other studios to piggyback off its success to no avail. With shonen manga, where do Tezuka, Yudetamago and Buronson/Hara come into the discussion if Toriyama is the specialest bestest boy ever? IDK, I just dislike over-the-top sobriquets, I find it juvenile and reductive to discussion because it boils down the often complex and collaborative processes of how artwork and genres are made down to "Artist X is the almighty singular god of Genre Y, they can literally do no wrong." That's my perspective.

Another thing is that even the "battle manga" umbrella is arguably too broad. Naturally, many mangaka were inspired by Toriyama as they read his work as children, but when you look at it, a lot of comics that are said to be part of this vague "Dragonball-lite" super-genre don't really have that much in common with Dragon Ball beyond some superficial homages and headlining the same magazine. Furthermore, many of the common dime-a-dozen tropes you see in action-adventure manga, such as sappy "power of friendship" themes and overwrought melodrama, were nowhere to be found in Dragon Ball as they developed after the fact. When you get down to it, Oda's One Piece isn't much like Dragon Ball at all; sure, it has a similar sense of humour, some similar-ish characters, similarly bombastic battle scenes, but it's a swashbuckling pirate adventure story with a totally different aesthetic feel and a much, much larger focus on worldbuilding and exploration than Toriyama was ever interested in. Luffy is inspired by Goku with his low IQ and big appetite, but you'd never in a million years see Goku loudly sobbing and spewing out the sort of sentimental drivel you see Luffy regularly engage in. Many other manga start off looking a bit like Toriyama to get their foot in the door but quickly diverge into something totally different. Factoring the rest of boys' manga, which is ridiculously more diverse in terms of actual genre, I'd argue that the number of manga that flat-out copy Dragon Ball wholehog is relatively low.

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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by Mr Baggins » Mon Nov 01, 2021 10:30 am

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 7:58 am Not unlike Dragon Ball, Star Wars just appealed most to mass audiences and reaped in the big bucks, causing other studios to piggyback off its success to no avail.
That is the point, though. Nobody's claiming it didn't take inspiration from other works or that it invented a whole demographic, but its status as the father of modern battle shonen is nigh indisputable. Your Narutos, One Pieces, Gintamas, etc. all have a wealth of tropes and character derivatives that started with Dragon Ball (not Journey to the West, but Dragon Ball specifically). While it's true that they did their own things, the archetypes are all there. When other works piggyback off its achievements, they're borrowing from a successful formula that Toriyama engendered.

Anyway, this discussion has always been less interesting to me because I find that Toriyama is a master of his craft, regardless of DB's success. I think it's pretty telling that it managed to be so influential, but I'm more invested in the reasons behind why it resonated with so many consumers and creators.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:50 am

Mr Baggins wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 10:30 am That is the point, though. Nobody's claiming it didn't take inspiration from other works or that it invented a whole demographic, but its status as the father of modern battle shonen is nigh indisputable. Your Narutos, One Pieces, Gintamas, etc. all have a wealth of tropes and character derivatives that started with Dragon Ball (not Journey of the West, but Dragon Ball specifically). While it's true that they did their own things, the archetypes are all there. When other works piggyback off its achievements, they're borrowing from a successful formula that Toriyama engendered.

Anyway, this discussion has always been less interesting to me because I find that Toriyama is a master of his craft, regardless of DB's success. I think it's pretty telling that it managed to be so influential, but I'm more invested in the reasons behind why it resonated with so many consumers and creators.
Maybe I have been taking it all too literally, but that was my impression of what's been said. My position is that Toriyama is an absolute master of his craft with a godlike work ethic, and I agree on that 100%, but why does he have to be bigged up as "the father" (edit: aight, this one I can at least tolerate somewhat) or "the inventor" (edit: this one, absolutely not) of anything? Can't he just be a Really Great Manga Guy and leave it at that? My argument was that many of the tropes and archetypes associated with "modern shonen" were never unique to Dragon Ball, almost all being far older and more universal, and in many cases diverge quite heavily from anything Toriyama actually wrote. Your young Odas, Kubos and Kishimotos wanted to emulate Toriyama's success, that's true, but their works are quite distinct from Toriyama's. Many of said authors also admit to taking inspiration from other revered masters like Tezuka, Kuramada (Saint Seiya) and Otomo (Akira). It's rarely just one person that singlehandedly inspires the next generation or changes the pop culture landscape, it's usually the work of many people.

Dragon Ball, at its heart, is a kung fu action-adventure story dripping with wuxia imagery (and some sci-fi bits taped on here and there). One Piece, Toriko, Gintama, etc aren't kung fu stories. They may have action and adventure, they have some outward trappings of Dragon Ball, but when you look at what these stories are about beyond that, there's little to compare. Goku's not a sea-sailing pirate or a gourmet hunter or a deadbeat sci-fi samurai dude. They're not the same genre.

Getting back to Luffy, on paper, he might look like a Goku clone. Always hungry, bit of a ditz, wants to be the very best at his craft, right? But on closer inspection, you see the stark divergences. Luffy's goals are very external (other contemporaries like Naruto and Toriko are the same in this regard). He wants to be the Pirate King, a specific title, and to accomplish that he needs to find the One Piece, a coveted physical artefact. Then he'll win life, I guess. Goku's goal is both more simply defined yet infinitely broader in scope: he wants to be the strongest. There's no ending clause, no A-B objective he has to complete. Every time someone stronger shows up, that's a new mountain to climb. Whereas Luffy and the rest of his ilk covet friendship above all things, Goku's great defining moment in Battle of Gods is expressing pure resentment for that kinda crap. Toriyama's work is never soppy and sentimental like that. That's partly why I love him, but the other manga writers that claim to want to be the Next Toriyama rarely seem to get that.

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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by Mr Baggins » Mon Nov 01, 2021 2:26 pm

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:50 am Maybe I have been taking it all too literally
For what it's worth, it's not just you. I've seen all too many internet users anguish over the particulars of what defines Dragon Ball's genre while sometimes missing the broader point being made. It's an easy trap to fall into, I think. It happens.

But let's be clear: I don't need to invoke the word "genre" to point out that almost every novel in the latter 20th century with dystopian themes is derivative of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I don't need to invoke it to say that The Odyssey became the template for virtually all modern epics. Inspiration is selective like that; the best stuff just carries over, irrespective of category.

Of course a lot of successful authors are going to take inspiration from a variety of works rather than one. It just so happens that, within shonen, Dragon Ball was the one that most of them had in common. Its influence pervaded the entire market and did so on a level that none of its predecessors (or successors, so far) have managed. There's a reason for that.

It is what it is.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:41 pm

Mr Baggins wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 2:26 pm For what it's worth, it's not just you. I've seen all too many internet users anguish over the particulars of what defines Dragon Ball's genre while sometimes missing the broader point being made. It's an easy trap to fall into, I think. It happens.

But let's be clear: I don't need to invoke the word "genre" to point out that almost every novel in the latter 20th century with dystopian themes is derivative of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I don't need to invoke it to say that The Odyssey became the template for virtually all modern epics. Inspiration is selective like that; the best stuff just carries over, irrespective of category.

Of course a lot of successful authors are going to take inspiration from a variety of works rather than one. It just so happens that, within shonen, Dragon Ball was the one that most of them had in common. Its influence pervaded the entire market and did so on a level that none of its predecessors (or successors, so far) have managed. There's a reason for that.

It is what it is.
Yeah... I think I'll nip it in the bud, it's been a good chat though. Still stand by a lot of things, but enough's enough.

As a last gasp, I'd say a lot of this is based on the formative ages of the consumers. Dragon Ball was such a phenomenon that it helped to inspire a new generation, but maybe in a generation's time, there will probably be another "father figure" revered as the god of shonen or whatever. Incidentally, I went back to the "Dragon Ball Children" column, it reaffirmed how influential Toriyama was to so many authors. Although I'm not a massive fan of One Piece, its incomparable runaway success has undoubtedly influenced other authors of a certain age even if it didn't innovate a great deal, we probably just won't hear any "One Piece Children" odes for a few years... though there probably are already some since the generation that have grown up with One Piece would be 20s-30s now. Jesus... I have already seen many people hail Oda as better than Toriyama (they're wrong but ya know :lol: )

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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by UpFromTheSkies » Mon Nov 01, 2021 7:07 pm

BWri wrote: There's a decent case to be made that we wouldn't have Dragon Ball at all past Pilaf's Castle if Torishima-san didn't step in with his recommendations. I'm not saying you're wrong, but he clearly is not the same level of visionary as someone like Kentaro Miura or George R.R. Martin.
A lot of big authors actually have teams of writers and creative consultants that they use to bounce ideas off of and help them come up with stories. This isn't always made public knowledge, but you'd be surprised how many stories were actually the result of a team and not a single person 😉

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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by Kunzait_83 » Tue Nov 02, 2021 7:53 am

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:50 amWhereas Luffy and the rest of his ilk covet friendship above all things, Goku's great defining moment in Battle of Gods is expressing pure resentment for that kinda crap. Toriyama's work is never soppy and sentimental like that. That's partly why I love him, but the other manga writers that claim to want to be the Next Toriyama rarely seem to get that.
Most of the Western fanbase for Dragon Ball (particularly Western fans of the original Japanese version no less) don't even seem to grasp this either.

Something I've long, LONG maintained for more than a decade now, but haven't had much space to really vocalize here publicly as much: I've long actually, on some level, have found a lot of Western sub fans' takes on the series (specifically since around the mid-aughts or so) to be sometimes more delusional and warped/askew from reality than that of even some of the most diehard FUNi loyalists.

By which I mean, at least the FUNimation version is an incarnation of Dragon Ball that actually EXISTS in some form or capacity in reality that can actively be consumed. It's godawful and cringe as all getout and its not even vaguely close to being in line with the original (or really, with almost ANY other translation of the series internationally: FUNimation have always been and remain an island unto themselves): but you can at the very least physically seek it out and consume it in objective reality.

When it comes to the warped "Battle Shonen Genre", One Piece-ified view of DB that so many Western fans of the subbed/Japanese version have embraced as "the true original" since around 2003/2004/2005-ish or so: its from top to bottom an almost ENTIRELY fictitious invention of the millennial Western anime fandom's collective consciousness in online/internet spaces.

SO MUCH of the stuff you've seen coming from the sub-centric areas of Western DB fandom as a means of "countering" the FUNimation/dub narrative - the "Shonen genre" thing, "One Piece is DB's spiritual successor", "DB is at its heart all about the Power of Friendship" etc. - is and has been almost ENTIRELY projected onto DB by Western millennial sub fans, based on literally nothing at all whatsoever. Pulled from seemingly thin fucking air, a shitload of confirmation bias, and deductive reasoning from a place of complete, abject ignorance. Just an absolute figment of the online community's collective imaginations for the past 17 someodd years or so now.

The dub and FUNimation's entire "reversioned" image for this series - for all the shit I've said about it over the years (and still stand by every last word of) - is at least rooted in WAY more material reality relative to the on its face absurd, almost Care Bears-esque imagined picture painted of DB in a lot of corners of Western/English language sub fandom.

And as I've also always maintained: my view of that whole "Dragon Ball is the Power of Friendship" nonsense garbage has always been that a LOT of it was always from day one originally rooted in a misguided reflexive knee-jerk rebelling against and away from FUNimation's "Hardcore Xtreme!" schtick, but without ANY real working historical knowledge or any real sense of direction of where exactly to go from there on the part of so much of Western fandom.

I'm actually reminded now (randomly) about an old story Mike/VegettoEX used to tell back in the day about how his spelling of Goku's name had evolved over the years. As he told it, he for a long time used to use the spelling "Gokou" for literally no other reason than simply because it wasn't the spelling that FUNimation had used, almost purely to spite them. Despite the fact of course that Gokou is in NO way a grammatically correct spelling (despite it appearing on any number of Japanese sources throughout the 80s and 90s).

To me, the whole notion that "DB is embodied by One Piece and the Power of Friendship" is and always has been pretty much directly comparable to that story about Mike spelling Goku's name wrong for years just purely to spite FUNimation: its a mass, invented narrative that the Western sub fandom largely embraced out of sheer, unbridled spite against the ridiculously terrible and cringe image that FUNimation had worked overtime in branding onto DB in the U.S. and English language mainstream.

Never mind that its a view of Dragon Ball that's in NO WAY remotely factually correct or based in any SHRED of not just historical evidence, but that's not even based in the actual content of the series that we can all see/hear in goddamned front of us. All it had to be to gain traction amongst the sub fanbase was "the antithesis of FUNimation": and it happened to line up just perfectly with what was then the current belle of the ball New Hotness in Shonen, whose creator was/is a slobberingly adoring Toriyama fanboy who wouldn't shut up about DB to boot.

That's really all it took in the end to create a completely fabricated historical narrative viewpoint of DB's creative DNA that has lasted well up to this very day, more than 15 years later. Well, that and a membrane of suburban whitebread cultural & media insulation so thick, a fucking hollow point couldn't penetrate it.

But yeah, stuff like that is why I've continued to maintain the untold damage that FUNimation's marketing has done/continues to do to this series: without FUNimation's insanely relentless marketing push to make Dragon Ball into exactly this type of shit, I sincerely don't even think we'd have gotten the whole "Power of Friendship" crap seemingly permanently embedded into the discourse surrounding the Japanese version, since its so plainly and objectively just not at all present in the series in just about ANY version of it.

Obviously things like One Piece blowing up (and Oda not shutting up about how much he loves DB) played a hugely vial role as well: but I think moreover the primary motivating reason that people within English language DB circles glommed so hard onto the One Piece Spiritual Successor narrative and basically willed friendshippy maudlin sap into being a permanent part of the broader Japanese DB discourse was first and foremost sheer spite against FUNi's "hardcore xtreme" brand, and wanting desperately for DB to be as FAR the exact opposite of something like that as anyone could conceivably get to: even if it was in no way at all reflective of the actual Japanese version's content anyhow.

Hence like I said: for all the shit that I give (and will continue to give) the dub, at least the dub's fanbase are rooted much closer to a version of DB that actually exists in reality (shitty and ridiculous as it is) than does so much of a broad swath of the sub fanbase of the past 15 years, who basically resorted to imagining and fabricating total fan fictionized version of DB inside their heads about what it is creatively/genre-wise and treated THAT like it was a thing, rather than bothering to just.... take a few minutes to do some actual reading/research and expanding their areas of focus/interest a bit beyond the safety and comfort of the kinds of stuff that they mainlined as grade school kids.
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Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by PurestEvil » Tue Nov 02, 2021 8:48 am

Kunzait_83 wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 7:53 am
Huh...I've always presumed that most people who claimed that DBZ had themes of friendship and the like were fans of the Funi dub, with all the dialogue changes that made Goku more righteous ("Ally to good! Nightmare to you!").
In any case, I have always found the term "battle shounen" to be weak as a genre category. Each "battle shounen" manga/anime could easily be grouped into more precise genres (e.g. superhero, martial arts [realistic or fantasy], sci-fi, magical), or be described as a blend of them. Dragon Ball is clearly different from many popular so-called "battle shounen" stories, being less about upholding some sense of morality--usually from a sophmoric perspective (they are for kids, after all)--and more about, to put it plainly, improving yourself and getting "stronger". In fact, most popular "battle shounen" stories are a LOT different from each other, stylistically and narratively speaking. Just compare JoJo's Bizarre Adventure with HunterXHunter, One Punch Man with One Piece, Naruto with Demon Slayer, fricking Fist of the North Star with My Hero Academia, etc. The only significant things these stories have in common is that they have some sort of magic, action, and characters saying このやろう a bajillion times.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by TKA » Tue Nov 02, 2021 9:00 am

I don’t care much for superficial character comparisons, so I’ll skip that. Oda and Kishimoto have repeatedly stated Dragonball as their main inspiration. Many other shonen battle mangaka do so as well.

Now with that out of the way, I took great umbrage with the super anime having Goku use the power of friendship because it showed the writers don’t understand the material. Dragonball has never been about the power of friendship. It’s a running gag that Goku will go years without ever contacting any of his weirdo friends, who themselves are so self-absorbed that they won’t check in on each other as well.

It’s one of the things I like most about Dragonball.
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