Fan Service Tipping Point in DBS

[climatestrange]

A lot of people have argued that Dragon Ball Super relies on excessive fan service. I tend to agree with this assessment, but I'm curious to hear your opinions on whether or not there was a specific moment (or moments) when the fan service went too far.

For me, it came around the end of the Future Trunks arc. The concept for the arc was incredibly fan service-driven to begin with, but it actually seemed like they were going to pull it off in an interesting way. Unfortunately, they didn't know how to stick the landing and just gave us excessive fan service during the last portion of the arc. Trunks getting a new transformation with no explanation. Bringing back the Mafuba and not having it go anywhere. Vegetto pointlessly coming back for five minutes. Trunks somehow learning how to make a Genki Dama sword out of nowhere. They flushed away all of the interesting ideas the arc set up previously and just threw a bucket of fan service at the wall to see what would stick. It was made even worse because none of it mattered in the end after everything got erased.

[BlueBasilisk]

I thought the blatant Namek references when Frieza was getting wombo combo'd by Toppo were a little too heavy but nothing's really hit a tipping point for me yet. If Broly didn't do it I'm not sure if anything will. Well...bringing back Bardock as a major character might.

[Skar]

When Beerus mentioned that there were 11 other universes at the end of BoG, I assumed that was the start of the new exciting adventure. Then the next story was just Freeza being resurrected and coming back for revenge again with an army of fodder so that long time fan favorites like Tien, Krillin, and Master Roshi could get a chance to fight. I don't know that was necessarily the tipping point but it was when I started feeling that DBS cared more about fan service than anything else.

[Kataphrut]

Vegeta's Blue Evolution and beating Toppo were the big ones to me. It reeked of "shit, we haven't given Vegeta anything cool to do this arc because we've been focused so much on old returning characters who haven't been done to death." The ideas weren't bad, but they executed it in the most ham-fisted way possible.

At the time I thought the spotlight 17 was getting in the tournament was bordering on excessive fanservice, but the way it ended turned me around on it. Basically the difference between him and Vegeta is Vegeta was fanservice for it's own sake, while 17 was building to something.

[MozillaVulpix]

The first time I noticed something that seemed excessively too much like fanservice was probably episode...49? The one before Goku Black showed up in the present, where Trunks explained he had gotten Super Saiyan 2 and beaten Dabura and Buu in his timeline. It was one of those things where I didn't think I needed an answer to it, much less having it taking up a chunk of the story when it had basically only just begun. And then you had Goku and Trunks sparring to test his strength, which felt so much like something they'd do in fanfiction to me. Like, if you've got a (relatively) new character, the story normally shows off how strong they are by their actions in the narrative, not by stopping the story dead in its place for a while to make the main characters spar to test it.

That or bringing Ginyu back basically (seemingly) just so Vegeta could say that he killed all the members of the Ginyu Force.

But in terms of eyeroll-inducing, Kale's appearance in Episode 93 was probably the worst. I thought her Broly-form wouldn't be the worst if they didn't play too hard on the homages, but every action she took after she transformed in that episode *was* a homage.

[Shaddy]

Dragon Ball has been fanservicey since GT ended (and even originality couldn't save that show), Super is neither unique in it's position nor the worst offender. It's currently caught in a cycle of doing something new and interesting, then going back to something we've already seen, and repeating. We get opened up to eleven other universes, then we fight Frieza. We do a whole tournament with U6 and a bunch of it's kooky characters, then we get original concept™ evil Goku and Future Trunks. We get a massive 8-universe tournament, then we get Broly.

Ultimately, I watch/read Dragon Ball to be entertained. As long as it's still fun, it won't make a huge difference to me. If I want wildly inventive and original storytelling I'm not going to watch DB in the first place. Arbitrary discussions of what's more "original" should never overtake what's tried and true better. I can say that Super's not great, but it's problems are much more than what it decides to bring back or repeat, the same way GT wasn't really a good show just because it had interesting concepts.

[SupremeKai25]

Goku Black. It's easy to see why this concept was entirely made to impress the masses. The idea of an "evil" Goku is a very old one, I saw fan-fictions of Goku turning evil back in 2003, I'm sure they were around way before that year too. I was skeptical at first that Goku Black would entertain me, and I certainly found the very idea of this character quite ridiculous and unoriginal. I almost wanted to drop the show for a few months because I thought that I would just find the Future Trunks arc boring and painfully uninteresting, with all that blatant fan-service. I am so glad that I didn't.

Goku Black, behold how a character whose main purpose of existence is fan-service, can still be unique, creative and fascinating in his own right. With his unique divine powers, his mysterious backstory tied to the young Supreme Kai in-training, the God Zamasu, and his calm, sassy and rational personality (at least in the anime), this character completely captivated me.

[theTUN]

I'd say it started back in Z, when the purple-haired, time traveling sword wielding son of two main characters came back from a dark future, and then immediately turned into a Super Saiyan and murdered Frieza as a cyborg and his dad.

Or even earlier, when Goku and Piccolo teamed up to fight Goku's evil brother from space.

Dragon Ball has always been like this.

[theTUN]

Dragon Ball has been fanservicey since GT ended (and even originality couldn't save that show), Super is neither unique in it's position nor the worst offender. It's currently caught in a cycle of doing something new and interesting, then going back to something we've already seen, and repeating. We get opened up to eleven other universes, then we fight Frieza. We do a whole tournament with U6 and a bunch of it's kooky characters, then we get original concept™ evil Goku and Future Trunks. We get a massive 8-universe tournament, then we get Broly.

Ultimately, I watch/read Dragon Ball to be entertained. As long as it's still fun, it won't make a huge difference to me. If I want wildly inventive and original storytelling I'm not going to watch DB in the first place. Arbitrary discussions of what's more "original" should never overtake what's tried and true better. I can say that Super's not great, but it's problems are much more than what it decides to bring back or repeat, the same way GT wasn't really a good show just because it had interesting concepts.

I mean, if you're not judging Goku Black entirely on aesthetics he's pretty original as far as Dragon Ball is concerned, unless you count Captain Ginyu I guess.

[Master Xar]

I'd say it started back in Z, when the purple-haired, time traveling sword wielding son of two main characters came back from a dark future, and then immediately turned into a Super Saiyan and murdered Frieza as a cyborg and his dad.

Or even earlier, when Goku and Piccolo teamed up to fight Goku's evil brother from space.

Dragon Ball has always been like this.

It was winging it in the best possible way he could. He can’t decide the variables of what can or cannot happen, contingencies and anomalies popped up all over the place. And sometimes some extra contingency plans were over-used in the face of his plan. His plans and fate itself kind of just works against him. Hope and despair go hand-in-hand for an ever-long battle of getting overly excited and messing up. Sometimes he needs his Hope in shorter arcs can start him off rather than take too much in trying. He will be busy.

[climatestrange]

I'd say it started back in Z, when the purple-haired, time traveling sword wielding son of two main characters came back from a dark future, and then immediately turned into a Super Saiyan and murdered Frieza as a cyborg and his dad.

Or even earlier, when Goku and Piccolo teamed up to fight Goku's evil brother from space.

Dragon Ball has always been like this.

While I agree that Dragon Ball has always been a whacky story with plenty of twists and turns, I would not necessarily consider either of those examples to be fan service. I consider fan service to be gratuitous material that only exists to please fans. Goku and Piccolo teaming up might have been something that fans wanted to see, but it also served an important role in the plot and created character arcs for Piccolo and Gohan. Likewise, the introduction of both Raditz and Trunks were huge turning points in the series and expanded the universe considerably. You could could make a case that those characters and the concepts they established were corny, but I wouldn't say they were pandering to the fans.

[theTUN]

I'd say it started back in Z, when the purple-haired, time traveling sword wielding son of two main characters came back from a dark future, and then immediately turned into a Super Saiyan and murdered Frieza as a cyborg and his dad.

Or even earlier, when Goku and Piccolo teamed up to fight Goku's evil brother from space.

Dragon Ball has always been like this.

While I agree that Dragon Ball has always been a whacky story with plenty of twists and turns, I would not necessarily consider either of those examples to be fan service. I consider fan service to be gratuitous material that only exists to please fans. Goku and Piccolo teaming up might have been something that fans wanted to see, but it also served an important role in the plot and created character arcs for Piccolo and Gohan. Likewise, the introduction of both Raditz and Trunks were huge turning points in the series and expanded the universe considerably. You could could make a case that those characters and the concepts they established were corny, but I wouldn't say they were pandering to the fans.

I could say the same about Trunks' Sword of Hope, I don't see how you could call the finishing blow of an arc gratuitous. I'll agree with you on Vegito, although I think his appearance against Super Buu in Z and the concept of fusion itself suffers from the same problems. The Mafuba, I think, was just plothole prevention, so people wouldn't ask why they didn't use it against Zamasu.

My comment wasn't really responding to you directly though. It was more towards people with broader definitions of fanservice which seem to include anything that resembles something that could happen in a fanfiction.

[climatestrange]

I'd say it started back in Z, when the purple-haired, time traveling sword wielding son of two main characters came back from a dark future, and then immediately turned into a Super Saiyan and murdered Frieza as a cyborg and his dad.

Or even earlier, when Goku and Piccolo teamed up to fight Goku's evil brother from space.

Dragon Ball has always been like this.

While I agree that Dragon Ball has always been a whacky story with plenty of twists and turns, I would not necessarily consider either of those examples to be fan service. I consider fan service to be gratuitous material that only exists to please fans. Goku and Piccolo teaming up might have been something that fans wanted to see, but it also served an important role in the plot and created character arcs for Piccolo and Gohan. Likewise, the introduction of both Raditz and Trunks were huge turning points in the series and expanded the universe considerably. You could could make a case that those characters and the concepts they established were corny, but I wouldn't say they were pandering to the fans.

I could say the same about Trunks' Sword of Hope, I don't see how you could call the finishing blow of an arc gratuitous.

That's a fair point. I guess my issue with that scene was less about it being fan service and more about the lack of build up and that its purpose was effectively undone by the erasure of the future timeline.

[theTUN]

While I agree that Dragon Ball has always been a whacky story with plenty of twists and turns, I would not necessarily consider either of those examples to be fan service. I consider fan service to be gratuitous material that only exists to please fans. Goku and Piccolo teaming up might have been something that fans wanted to see, but it also served an important role in the plot and created character arcs for Piccolo and Gohan. Likewise, the introduction of both Raditz and Trunks were huge turning points in the series and expanded the universe considerably. You could could make a case that those characters and the concepts they established were corny, but I wouldn't say they were pandering to the fans.

I could say the same about Trunks' Sword of Hope, I don't see how you could call the finishing blow of an arc gratuitous.

That's a fair point. I guess my issue with that scene was less about it being fan service and more about the lack of build up and that its purpose was effectively undone by the erasure of the future timeline.

Oh, I don't disagree with that at all.

[Shaddy]

I mean, if you're not judging Goku Black entirely on aesthetics he's pretty original as far as Dragon Ball is concerned, unless you count Captain Ginyu I guess.

My whole point is that it's not really important what they do as long as it's done well.

[sintzu]

I think the first time I saw Kale's Broly looking form was when I thought it finally jumped the shark and now it's going a step further with the "real" Broly being brought on board, both of which were said to be due to popularity. I think the fan service started in RF by bringing back Freeza which was followed by an alternate version of him and the saiyans from U6. Vegetto coming back was outright stated by Toyotaro to have been done to make fans happy.

Dragon Ball has always been like this.

No it hasn't and the examples you mentioned are simply plot developments. Are you going to say that Goku's fight with Krillin was fan service cause people were anticipating the 2 friends to eventually fight in a tournament ? I wish you and others would stop trying to bring down the original DB to justify Super's shortcomings cause all you're doing is spreading misinformation around a community that's already full of it.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Definitely Kale, and the fact were now getting the actual Broly just makes it painfully obvious Super's writing team want to.appease the fans every chance they get.

I fully expect the return of Bardock to be just around the corner.

[sintzu]

I fully expect the return of Bardock to be just around the corner.

Bardock will probably be in Broly's movie in a flashback. I expect Cooler and Ssj4 to be in Super once it returns.

[theTUN]

I think the first time I saw Kale's Broly looking form was when I thought it finally jumped the shark and now it's going a step further with the "real" Broly being brought on board, both of which were said to be due to popularity. I think the fan service started in RF by bringing back Freeza which was followed by an alternate version of him and the saiyans from U6. Vegetto coming back was outright stated by Toyotaro to have been done to make fans happy.

Dragon Ball has always been like this.

No it hasn't and the examples you mentioned are simply plot developments. Are you going to say that Goku's fight with Krillin was fan service cause people were anticipating the 2 friends to eventually fight in a tournament ? I wish you and others would stop trying to bring down the original DB to justify Super's shortcomings cause all you're doing is spreading misinformation around a community that's already full of it.

Yeah, how dare I...describe things that happened in the show. I wasn't trying to "bring down" the original DB, whatever that means, I'm just saying if you look at it in a vacuum Dragon Ball sometimes looks like a fanfic of itself, and that didn't start with Super. Is Frieza coming back not also a plot development?

[Spider-Man]

SSBE is just there to make Vegeta looks cool and it has no build up, the ideas of the transformation was not bad but the execution was laughable. Berserker Kale is another fan service with homages of Broly and having the form to beat up SSB Goku.