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

Post by kemuri07 » Thu Sep 30, 2021 8:57 am

batistabus wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 11:45 am So this has probably been the longest, and maybe best, conversation-based fight in DBS. We've had 5 chapters (about 210 pages??) of this. The clash of personalities is the nugget at the center, but this is Dragon Ball, so building a fight around it was probably the way to go. Sure, the choreography, abilities, and transformations have all been fun, but the conversation, especially between Vegeta and Granolla, really stands out for me. Compare this to Moro's fights, which were about showing off cool abilities, or Broly, which was an over-the-top spectacle. Aside from the ToP, which was a mashup of dozens of interactions, the Future Trunks arc had a bit of this (Vegeta talking to Black about defiling Saiyan cells, or Goku trying to convince Zamasu that Black was manipulating him), but not to this extent or quality (although I love SSB Goku vs Merged Zamasu).
I think Super needed a bit of time to fully position itself away from the anime. Moro was a test drive--but the Granolah stuff shows the potential of what DB could in a modern age "could be."

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

Post by Mr Baggins » Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:53 pm

batistabus wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 1:27 am Even so, it doesn't feel like Goku and Moro are having a conversation the way Vegeta and Granolah are.
Oh, agreed for sure. Unlike Granolah, Moro's conflict with the protagonists isn't personal - the closest he ever comes to this is his grudge against Dai Kaioshin, but it doesn't amount to much - and as you noted, he isn't nearly as layered as a character. I just meant that, structurally, the bulk of all this is concentrated within a chapter or two while the rest is mostly straightforward action and quips. The manga's ToP is more evenly paced with its character dynamics, I think.

While I don't know if I'd call it the "best" conversational conflict in Super, it's certainly one of the more directly motivational ones; Granolah represents Vegeta's regret (on behalf of his people) and Vegeta represents Granolah's resentment, even though they've never actually met before. It's a solid step in the right direction compared to the previous story arc, despite my grievances with the way these moments are distributed throughout the fight.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by TKA » Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:12 am

What sets the Saiyan arc apart from any of this is how cleanly and clearly the story of the battle with Nappa and Vegeta was told. You could read through that arc with no text and fully understand what's happening, what the character dynamics are and how dire the situation is. That's how good and how well-structured the fight is.

This is a far cry from that kind of master-level storytelling. It's Zack Snyder-esque, in how the picture tells the story. But I can appreciate what Toyotaro did this chapter. It's by far the best chapter he's put out since the end of the Tournament of Power.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by Miracles » Sun Oct 03, 2021 2:40 pm

Unlike Granolah, Moro is pure evil. So he wouldn't and shouldn't have inner clashing with the protag's.

Granolah feels his cause is righteous enough to sacrifice his life for. Which strikes at Vegeta's personal struggle of letting go of his past sins.

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

Post by Hellspawn28 » Thu Oct 07, 2021 11:03 pm

Do you think Freeza will die during this arc? I doubt it because they like to keep him alive from the looks of it.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by JulieYBM » Fri Oct 08, 2021 12:07 am

Hellspawn28 wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 11:03 pm Do you think Freeza will die during this arc? I doubt it because they like to keep him alive from the looks of it.
Hope not. I'm hoping the arc will end with the defeat of the Heeters and Granola making friends with the Saiyans.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by OLKv3 » Fri Oct 08, 2021 6:23 am

Miracles wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 2:40 pm Unlike Granolah, Moro is pure evil. So he wouldn't and shouldn't have inner clashing with the protag's.

Granolah feels his cause is righteous enough to sacrifice his life for. Which strikes at Vegeta's personal struggle of letting go of his past sins.
Granolah is a better written Zamasu than Zamasu himself

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

Post by SupremeKai25 » Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:15 am

Zamasu's clash was with Gowasu, not the Saiyans. The Saiyans would never understand a God so it makes sense that Zamasu's clash instead was with his old mentor Gowasu, another Supreme Kai. And he won that philosophical clash by the way, since he killed Gowasu and refused to listen to him.

Completely different villain from Granolah, it's like comparing apples to oranges.

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

Post by Yuji » Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:25 am

SupremeKai25 wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:15 am Zamasu's clash was with Gowasu, not the Saiyans. The Saiyans would never understand a God so it makes sense that Zamasu's clash instead was with his old mentor Gowasu, another Supreme Kai. And he won that philosophical clash by the way, since he killed Gowasu and refused to listen to him.

Completely different villain from Granolah, it's like comparing apples to oranges.
"He won the philosophical clash through brute force."

That's a way of looking at it. I, too, wish more political, philosophical and cultural debates were solved with a boxing match instead.

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

Post by SupremeKai25 » Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:30 am

Yuji wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:25 am
SupremeKai25 wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:15 am Zamasu's clash was with Gowasu, not the Saiyans. The Saiyans would never understand a God so it makes sense that Zamasu's clash instead was with his old mentor Gowasu, another Supreme Kai. And he won that philosophical clash by the way, since he killed Gowasu and refused to listen to him.

Completely different villain from Granolah, it's like comparing apples to oranges.
"He won the philosophical clash through brute force."

That's a way of looking at it. I, too, wish more political, philosophical and cultural debates were solved with a boxing match instead.
Not what I said.

I said he won that philosophical clash by killing him AND refusing to listen to him.

Gowasu tried to influence Zamasu to change path and trust mortals; but because Zamasu's will was stronger, he refused to listen to Gowasu, and killed him. Twice and almost thrice. Thus, Zamasu won the clash. Gowasu could not dissuade him from his path, and Zamasu remained true to his ideals.

While Granolah might lose the clash once he realizes that Bardock the Saiyan saved his life, and lets go of his vengeance.

The bottom line here is that Granolah is not a better villain than Zamasu, he's simply a different villain, which naturally doesn't mean he's better 8) Since Zamasu was a God, and not a victim of a Saiyan invasion, it makes sense that he had a clash with the other Kais instead of the Saiyans.

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

Post by Koitsukai » Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:48 am

Lol that cracked me up. He proved he was right by stabbing him. You can't talk back to a ki blade, that's true.

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

Post by PurestEvil » Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:54 am

Granolah is nothing like Zamasu.
Zamasu’s fatal flaw was hubris, which was fueled by his beliefs that he acquired from merely observing the brutality of mortals.
Granolah’s fatal flaw is vengeance, as his childhood experience and trauma was what made him so hellbent on eradicating the Saiyans.

Zamasu was corrupted from within whereas Granolah was corrupted from the outside.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by SupremeKai25 » Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:46 am

Granolah is another villain with a traumatic backstory, while Zamasu did not have a traumatic backstory.

And that's fine, it doesn't mean Granolah is better-written than Zamasu, it just means that Zamasu is a different kind of villain. But sadly we're in an age where a lot of people think that if you didn't lose your parents, home, friends, dog at the age of 4, you're not a complex villain :think:

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

Post by PurestEvil » Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:50 am

SupremeKai25 wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:46 am Granolah is another villain with a traumatic backstory, while Zamasu did not have a traumatic backstory.
I believe that most villains/antagonists in media do not have traumatic backstories throughout history, it is mainly in the recent decades that the misconception of "sympathetic/traumatic villains are more complex" has spread among ignorant readers.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by SupremeKai25 » Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:54 am

PurestEvil wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:50 am
SupremeKai25 wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:46 am Granolah is another villain with a traumatic backstory, while Zamasu did not have a traumatic backstory.
I believe that most villains/antagonists in media do not have traumatic backstories throughout history, it is mainly in the recent decades that the misconception of "sympathetic/traumatic villains are more complex" has spread among ignorant readers.
Yep, I blame Naruto for that. That manga loves painting every major villain as a poor guy who wouldn't have turned into a villain if they didn't have a depressing childhood.

Dragon Ball villains generally don't have tragic backstories, although in Super we have 3 antagonists who have a sad past: Jiren, Broly, and Granolah. But naturally we also have Zamasu and Moro who don't have a sad past, and they honestly feel more unique.

See Jiren, his backstory was so generic that it made me laugh, not cry. Oh wow, a monster killed his parents when he was a kid and that's why he's so cold, where have I seen that before :roll:

Though I'm not blaming Toriyama for giving Granolah a sad childhood, for the kind of story he wants to tell (a victim seeking vengeance against the Saiyans), he has to take that route.

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

Post by PurestEvil » Fri Oct 08, 2021 10:11 am

SupremeKai25 wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:54 am
PurestEvil wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:50 am
SupremeKai25 wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:46 am Granolah is another villain with a traumatic backstory, while Zamasu did not have a traumatic backstory.
I believe that most villains/antagonists in media do not have traumatic backstories throughout history, it is mainly in the recent decades that the misconception of "sympathetic/traumatic villains are more complex" has spread among ignorant readers.
Yep, I blame Naruto for that. That manga loves painting every major villain as a poor guy who wouldn't have turned into a villain if they didn't have a depressing childhood.
I am certain there are many other stories that involve villains with traumatic backstories written before Naruto.
Dragon Ball villains generally don't have tragic backstories, although in Super we have 3 antagonists who have a sad past: Jiren, Broly, and Granolah. But naturally we also have Zamasu and Moro who don't have a sad past, and they honestly feel more unique.

See Jiren, his backstory was so generic that it made me laugh, not cry. Oh wow, a monster killed his parents when he was a kid and that's why he's so cold, where have I seen that before :roll:
Agreed. The problem with Jiren's backstory was that it wasn't treated as a sad backstory, but rather as banal exposition to contextualize his behavior. Thus, the writers probably didn't want to put the effort into making Jiren sympathetic. At least the DBS Broly writers and Toyotarou seemed to give more of a damn about it...
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by TheSaiyanGod » Fri Oct 08, 2021 5:38 pm

I like Granolah, but I hope he dies at the end of this arc. It was his choice to sacrifice his entire life in exchange for power, so I hope he suffers the consequences in the end. A bittersweet ending would suit him. Somehow he would avenge his race by defeating the Heeters or Freeza (which were mainly responsible for what happened on his planet), but even so the choice he made at the beginning of the story would come back to haunt him. Merus being revived didn't bother me that much because he suffered some sort of consequence, but I don't see how it could work with Granolah if he stayed alive now.

We don't know if the other sets of Dragon Balls can undo Toronbo's conditions, but there are always the Super Dragon Balls that in theory are capable of accomplishing anything, so I wouldn't be surprised if they found a way to do that.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by Grimlock » Fri Oct 08, 2021 5:53 pm

Any chance those early sketches things already show something related to Bardock/the past so I can look forward to it? :shifty:

The wait for the next chapter is a pain, and I don't even read the manga... I can only hope Toyotaro doesn't drop the balls and provide me with some great content/information.
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Re: "Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Sun Oct 10, 2021 3:02 pm

Grimlock wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 5:53 pm Any chance those early sketches things already show something related to Bardock/the past so I can look forward to it? :shifty:

The wait for the next chapter is a pain, and I don't even read the manga... I can only hope Toyotaro doesn't drop the balls and provide me with some great content/information.
Why not just read it on Viz when it comes out?

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

Post by Miracles » Sun Oct 10, 2021 3:11 pm

OLKv3 wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 6:23 am
Miracles wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 2:40 pm Unlike Granolah, Moro is pure evil. So he wouldn't and shouldn't have inner clashing with the protag's.

Granolah feels his cause is righteous enough to sacrifice his life for. Which strikes at Vegeta's personal struggle of letting go of his past sins.
Granolah is a better written Zamasu than Zamasu himself
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