"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

Vegeta has not been trapped in the same character arc since the Cell arc. I am so so tired of people saying this. It’s complete nonsense.

Yeah Cell arc Vegeta where he didn’t care when his family almost died, punched Trunks so he wouldn’t stop the Androids from being born, and let Cell become Perfect for a Good Fight and didn’t care what happened to the Earth.


If you are going to try to tell me because god forbid Vegeta still wants to do the “evil thing” of surpassing Goku (which apparently means he is Cell arc Vegeta) This seems to be the biggest crime to some people and I don’t understand why. No where in the Buu saga did Vegeta even say he was going to stop wanting to surpass Goku.


In this arc we have Vegeta showing remorse for what he did to the Namekians, wanting to protect their world, and also going to Yadrat to find a new way to beat Moro (even though he prefers the Saiyan way) but apparently that is the same thing they did in the Cell and Buu arc.


I don’t think Vegeta is written perfectly at all times and I do get annoyed when they exaggerate him being a jerk (though the anime is worse at this) but I’m also tired of the fandom saying he is just like he was in the Cell arc which isn’t true at all.

Vegeta's story since Cell has been "I want to surpase Goku and I need to learn to let go of my old ruthlessness." He relearns the same lesson again and again and falls short of Goku's power about as often. If Vegeta weren't so popular none of you would be giving this a pass.

[Kinokima]

Vegeta's story since Cell has been "I want to surpase Goku and I need to learn to let go of my old ruthlessness." He relearns the same lesson again and again and falls short of Goku's power about as often. If Vegeta weren't so popular none of you would be giving this a pass.

Vegeta wanting to surpass Goku is not a character arc. It’s part of his character in the same way Goku wants to fight strong guys is. The difference is instead of letting it consume him in negative ways he mostly goes about it in a more positive fashion now. It doesn’t really matter if Vegeta never surpasses Goku that’s really not the point. Vegeta isn’t a character that gives up. Though I should say Vegeta wanting to surpass Goku is never as big of a deal as fans make it out to be. It’s usually a throw away line here and there and never the main focus of the story arc.


Next Vegeta needs to learn not to be ruthless. Maybe you should read or watch Super again because nowhere in the anime or manga has Vegeta needed to learn not to be ruthless. Vegeta may not always outwardly show he cares but it’s pretty obvious to everyone who knows him well (and the audience that is paying attention) that he does. There is never any doubt that Vegeta cares and fights for others now. What lesson did Vegeta need to learn about not being ruthless?

[TKA]

No they have not and Vegeta's been stuck in the same character arc since Cell.

When you make claims like these, you need to have actual substantial arguments follow them.

Just the tournament of power by itself forced Goku to confront whether he'd been doing things wrong since Raditz arrived on Earth. Just Super and we have Vegeta now "lowering" himself to being trained by people weaker than him.

Both characters have developed and changed. Whether you can see that or not is immaterial.

Why are people excited for this? Have people forgotten how he handled the cast in the tournament of power?

Krillin does nothing and flies off stage. Tenshinhan is defeated even worse than the anime. Piccolo and 18 barely do anything in the manga. Gohan’s fight with Kefla is almost entirely off panel. Roshi then dodges Jiren’s attacks.

heavy sigh

To borrow a term from pro wrestling, you're being a mark right now. Don't be a mark.

I will argue to death that their role in the tournament of power in the manga was better than anything they did in the anime, or any stupid fan rewrite that has them being "kewl" or "epic". Tenshinhan being used as bait by Frieza? Fucking great. Gohan being strong enough to tango with Kafla, following up on him starting to train hard during the Trunks arc? Fucking great. 18-Krillin-Ribrianne stuff? Also amazing.

Roshi dodging Jiren (while he was severely holding back so as not to kill him), and then giving Goku a hint as to how to beat him? Great.

You wanna know why these are all great? Because they're about character and not power levels, pew pews or pointless fighting. They are things only these specific characters can do in these specific scenarios. That is far more interesting than seeing the earthboys squash 50 nameless, faceless aliens.

But that's the kind of cheap fanservice this fandom seems to relish in.

[DiscountDabi]

I will trust Toyotaro since he's been on a roll.

This one sentence makes me so happy. People have been clowning on Toyotaro for the longest time, calling him incompetent and a horrible mangaka. And when he does something good it goes largely ignored by the community or the praise is put on Toriyama instead. Its good to see someone giving Toyotaro the Credit he deserves at this point.

[TKA]

Toyotaro has proven to be the only non-Toriyama writer who can make good dragonball (obviously not as good as Toriyama's, but close enough). We've seen what Toei's writers do, and it's always some variation of the typical bad Toei movie.

[wolflonnie]

Tenshinhan being used as bait by Frieza? Fucking great.

Huh?
So you're saying a character that is shamed after god knows how many years of inactivity is a good thing. No, it's not.
As it wasn't good not showing Gohan fighting Kefla, Krillin being sidelined immediately, etc..
A character partecipating in a story needs to have quality screentime, otherwise it's useless and detrimental. You can't just throw a character in and expect the best.
But still, that is the past, and Gohan and Piccolo finally showed, on screen, a tactic to overwhelm an opponent, which was great. Let's trust Toyotaro. I think he was rushing through stuff in the ToP, and now he's not.

[Majin Jator]

I find it weird to see people dismiss this chapter as "fan service" when all of Super has been nothing but. For me, despite not being a fan of the manga, this has been a very pleasurable read, the kind of DB fanservice I wanted.
I reckon I have a fond spot for the underused and the B-list fighters, and these chapters give them some screentime without any unbelievable power-up. Yamcha kicking some unnamed mooks is perfectly believable (or it was before the series decide to roll up with his meme status), and the Piccolo/Gohan team-up was a good pay-off for their previous unflattering performance (although I still like their anime team-up against U6's namekians better).

And for me, that's what is making the arc entertaining: The wider use of its vast range of characters.

Sure, fan-service by itself doesn't make a story any good, but the arcs centered on Goku and Vegeta didn't offer anything innovative or mind-blowing either.

[JulieYBM]

If Toyo-tarou doesn't make Chaozu as powerful as Mob from Mob Psycho 100 then there really is no point to anything, ever. I might as well revert back to the puddle of goop.

Please, for the love of fuck, throw a curve ball you corporate hack.

[Miracles]

Shaming characters who were already deemed nothing, using them for a bigger purpose by the more powerful was great for the plot. It demonstrated Freeza's craftiness at getting rid of the opposition while making a realistic use of the weaklings to aid their universe.

I'm sorry, TOEI's dragged out version of giving the secondary some shine through monotonous fights was lame.

[Kinokima]

The humans with the exception of Roshi didn’t do much in the anime TOP either despite all the extra time they had compared to the manga.

I didn’t really like the manga TOP because it was too rushed (although did I really want to experience it all again for months with just slight changes...not really) but the anime had the opposite problem too drawn out with too much pointless stuff.

Not a fan of the arc in either medium


As for the humans them being here now makes perfect sense. They need as many fighters as they can use and these villains are ones they can realistically help out with so I don’t think their inclusion in this chapter is a bad thing.

[Lionel]

Considering how solitary wilderness training was still deemed acceptable for growth by early Mecha Freeza arc Piccolo and Vegeta in addition to Goku leapfrogging from parity with Kid Buu in his strongest form to throwing himself at the Majin with run-of-the-mill SSJ1 after 3 years of intermittent image fights, I don't think the humans making substantial leaps in power should be all that unreasonable. Why shouldn't they be stronger than the kids, I say? They seem to be more earnest about the training lifestyle than the children are at this point in time.

I think the usefulness of the humans shouldn't be summed up as basic strategic ground coverage, they have a track record of improving leaps and bounds within a short period of time as well. While they may not be taking on Moro directly, I don't see why they couldn't be made powerful enough to contend with Moro's second-in-command or any of the bandit brigade sans Seventhree with Gohan and Piccolo's copied power.

[RandomGuy96]

Can't say I'm happy with the manga wasting its time on these filler fights. Any henchman that the humans can fight can be blinked away by Piccolo, and any henchman that Piccolo can fight can be blinked away by Kaioshin, and any henchman that Kaioshin can fight can be blinked away by Buu and the new 17, and so on and so forth. Henchmen kinda-sorta-not-really worked in the Freeza arc because that was a game of cat and mouse, in the Saiyan and Cell arcs because they weren't so much weaker than the main villain that they couldn't help out in a mob, and in the Buu arc because they were intentionally called out as useless and played for comedy.

One of the Cell Juniors on 17's island could end this quickly, much less any of the main characters.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

I think the usefulness of the humans shouldn't be summed up as basic strategic ground coverage, they have a track record of improving leaps and bounds within a short period of time as well. While they may not be taking on Moro directly, I don't see why they couldn't be made powerful enough to contend with Moro's second-in-command or any of the bandit brigade sans Seventhree with Gohan and Piccolo's copied power.

The reason it's a hard sell, for me at least, is that during DB they were only ever shown as abale to close the gap between where they were and where Goku had been. During the 22nd Yamcha is where Goku was during the 21st and during the 23rd Krillin is where Goku had been during the 22nd. That roughly held up until the Saiyan Arc where the humans manage to close the gap between where they were and where Raditz was. But after Freeza that clearly becomes impossible. We're even shown as much when Yamcha is effortlessly defeated by Robo-Gero. Gero is roughly a Freeza level threat and even with four years (the year following the battle on Namek and then the three years of warning Trunk gives them) the gap remains. And the series only continues to escalate from Gero's other creations, the revelation of two new Super Saiyan states, and more.

I still love the characters and am happy to see them finally get some long overdue love but the potential of the half saiyans has been repeatedly shown to exceed whatever the humans are capable of. By all rights it should be them and the Androids fighting off Moro's henchmen. Thankfully that's not the route the manga took but following the logic of DB it should have been

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

Shaming characters who were already deemed nothing, using them for a bigger purpose by the more powerful was great for the plot. It demonstrated Freeza's craftiness at getting rid of the opposition while making a realistic use of the weaklings to aid their universe.

That's just asinine and it further underscores that Goku's speech against Jiren was complete bullshit.

"Good for the story." What a joke.

[Lionel]

I think the usefulness of the humans shouldn't be summed up as basic strategic ground coverage, they have a track record of improving leaps and bounds within a short period of time as well. While they may not be taking on Moro directly, I don't see why they couldn't be made powerful enough to contend with Moro's second-in-command or any of the bandit brigade sans Seventhree with Gohan and Piccolo's copied power.

The reason it's a hard sell, for me at least, is that during DB they were only ever shown as abale to close the gap between where they were and where Goku had been. During the 22nd Yamcha is where Goku was during the 21st and during the 23rd Krillin is where Goku had been during the 22nd. That roughly held up until the Saiyan Arc where the humans manage to close the gap between where they were and where Raditz was. But after Freeza that clearly becomes impossible. We're even shown as much when Yamcha is effortlessly defeated by Robo-Gero. Gero is roughly a Freeza level threat and even with four years (the year following the battle on Namek and then the three years of warning Trunk gives them) the gap remains. And the series only continues to escalate from Gero's other creations, the revelation of two new Super Saiyan states, and more.

I still love the characters and am happy to see them finally get some long overdue love but the potential of the half saiyans has been repeatedly shown to exceed whatever the humans are capable of. By all rights it should be them and the Androids fighting off Moro's henchmen. Thankfully that's not the route the manga took but following the logic of DB it should have been

I would say that they were more powerful than Goku's past tournament iterations. Both Yamcha and Krillin were astounding Goku with their progress in the 22nd tournament, this after having easily taken down Mummy Man and Akkuman years prior. As well in the 23rd tournament, both of these fighters were capable of following Goku and Tenshinhan's initial movements as they fought; movements that are acknowledged as being of the same intensity as what Goku displayed against young Daimou three years ago. If they were only on-par with 22nd Goku then an old Daimou's speed shouldn't register to them, much less fighters displaying parity with young Daimou at his strongest.

To be fair, we don't know the exact gap that exists between the Android/Cell arc humans and the Saiyans. Our closest equivalent to a feat is Tenshinhan avoiding a beam projectile from Gero in tandem with base Goku. Piccolo's rapid progress was likely only possible thanks to his direct interaction with a Super Saiyan. Who knows how strong the humans got, though. From a practical standpoint, they should have learned the Kaioken and taken Goku up on his offer to train together. Under those circumstances, I could see them easily reaching the 10s of millions then supplementing said power with Kaioken.

Lack of initiative due to authorial negligence is what's doomed the humans the most, in my opinion.

[Miracles]

Shaming characters who were already deemed nothing, using them for a bigger purpose by the more powerful was great for the plot. It demonstrated Freeza's craftiness at getting rid of the opposition while making a realistic use of the weaklings to aid their universe.

That's just asinine and it further underscores that Goku's speech against Jiren was complete bullshit.

"Good for the story." What a joke.

It's always good when you can change things up. The humans unintentionally contributed through a mental scheme instead of physically ousting opponents. It was a surprisingly different approach.

What does Goku's speech to Jiren have to do with this again?

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

From a practical standpoint, they should have learned the Kaioken and taken Goku up on his offer to train together. Under those circumstances, I could see them easily reaching the 10s of millions then supplementing said power with Kaioken.

But we have no reason to believe any of them asked Goku for guidance. When the Androids attack Goku is still the only one with Istantaneous Movement, a technique so potent every DB fan has thought of at least ten ways to abuse it. (I mean, Krillin+I'm+Kienzan would have resulted in the shortest arc in DB's run.) So if they didn't even bother to ask to learn such a game breaking technique why would they have bothered to learn the Kaioken?

Sure, if the characters behaved rationally between arcs, they'd likely be genuine threats in story. But we have't seen them do that since the 23rd WMAT. I mean, Goku spends 5 years being a dad and even Tenshinhan fails to catch up to him before Raditz lands. To say nothing of Krillin who doesn't advance at all and Yamcha who seems to actually regress.

[Kagari]

I find it weird to see people dismiss this chapter as "fan service" when all of Super has been nothing but. For me, despite not being a fan of the manga, this has been a very pleasurable read, the kind of DB fanservice I wanted.
I reckon I have a fond spot for the underused and the B-list fighters, and these chapters give them some screentime without any unbelievable power-up. Yamcha kicking some unnamed mooks is perfectly believable (or it was before the series decide to roll up with his meme status), and the Piccolo/Gohan team-up was a good pay-off for their previous unflattering performance (although I still like their anime team-up against U6's namekians better).

And for me, that's what is making the arc entertaining: The wider use of its vast range of characters.

Sure, fan-service by itself doesn't make a story any good, but the arcs centered on Goku and Vegeta didn't offer anything innovative or mind-blowing either.

Goku and Vegeta have consistently been the most boring part of Toyotarou's manga for me so anything without them tends to be exponentially better by default.

[Lionel]

From a practical standpoint, they should have learned the Kaioken and taken Goku up on his offer to train together. Under those circumstances, I could see them easily reaching the 10s of millions then supplementing said power with Kaioken.

But we have no reason to believe any of them asked Goku for guidance. When the Androids attack Goku is still the only one with Istantaneous Movement, a technique so potent every DB fan has thought of at least ten ways to abuse it. (I mean, Krillin+I'm+Kienzan would have resulted in the shortest arc in DB's run.) So if they didn't even bother to ask to learn such a game breaking technique why would they have bothered to learn the Kaioken?

Sure, if the characters behaved rationally between arcs, they'd likely be genuine threats in story. But we have't seen them do that since the 23rd WMAT. I mean, Goku spends 5 years being a dad and even Tenshinhan fails to catch up to him before Raditz lands. To say nothing of Krillin who doesn't advance at all and Yamcha who seems to actually regress.

There really isn't much of a sensible answer to that question outside of deferring to the original authorial source, i.e Toriyama. After a certain point he just seemed to hold no interest in maintaining the legitimacy of the humans. His mind may have come to the conclusion that it was easier and reputationally more practical to emphasise the Saiyans, sans Piccolo early on, rather than conceive of a way to keep the humans in the running.

What was their maximum power level at the time? We know they could consciously restrict their strength dating back to the first tournament. It's unlikely they were projecting their full strength at precisely that moment. Who's to say they didn't surpass the benchmark of the 23rd tournament or at least came close to it?

[Toxin45]

So it seems like it was an okay chapter yamcha did something at least