ToP Arc: The Worst and most boring Arc of Super so far?

[DHM211]

Having just got done re-watching Super episodes 1 - 76, and with the ToP still pretty fresh in my mind, I feel like I can fairly judge the ToP in comparison to Supers other arcs.

For me, its not Super worst arc by a far margin. Not sure how anybody could sit through the atrocity that was R'F' arc and say the ToP is worse than it.

If I had to rank Super's arcs (plus the Broly movie for the hell of it) I would say:
Broly: 9.5/10
9 weeks of Peace: 9/10
Future Trunks: 8/10
Tournament of Power: 7.5/10
Battle of Gods: 7.5/10
Tournament of Destroyers: 4/10
Resserection 'F': 2/10
Potaufeu: 1/10

The ToP has a a lot of boring, unnecessary filler. However, it has a lot of great episodes, some of my favorites in all of DB, such as 95, 107, 109/110, 130, and 131.

[Doctor.]

Definitely the worst one for me personally, out of the entire franchise. Its highs may be great, but its lows are really lows. Every episode was full of nonsensical characterization, felt disjointed from the previous ones and had some kind of asspull or inconsistent plot point.

[BWri]

For me, its not Super worst arc by a far margin. Not sure how anybody could sit through the atrocity that was R'F' arc and say the ToP is worse than it.

If I had to rank Super's arcs (plus the Broly movie for the hell of it) I would say:
Broly: 9.5/10
9 weeks of Peace: 9/10
Future Trunks: 8/10
Tournament of Power: 7.5/10
Battle of Gods: 7.5/10
Tournament of Destroyers: 4/10
Resserection 'F': 2/10
Potaufeu: 1/10

Nice! That's almost identical to how I'd rate it. I'd bump ToP up to 8 for pure spectacle and BIG series moments and leave RoF and Pontefeu blank, since I only watched half of RoF til the quality drop and only clips of Pontefeu since I was ready to drop the show at that point.

9 weeks of peace was the best! And that was all Toei. And people wonder why I tend to rate Toei writers so highly.

[DHM211]

For me, its not Super worst arc by a far margin. Not sure how anybody could sit through the atrocity that was R'F' arc and say the ToP is worse than it.

If I had to rank Super's arcs (plus the Broly movie for the hell of it) I would say:
Broly: 9.5/10
9 weeks of Peace: 9/10
Future Trunks: 8/10
Tournament of Power: 7.5/10
Battle of Gods: 7.5/10
Tournament of Destroyers: 4/10
Resserection 'F': 2/10
Potaufeu: 1/10

Nice! That's almost identical to how I'd rate it. I'd bump ToP up to 8 for pure spectacle and BIG series moments and leave RoF and Pontefeu blank, since I only watched half of RoF til the quality drop and only clips of Pontefeu since I was ready to drop the show at that point.

9 weeks of peace was the best! And that was all Toei. And people wonder why I tend to rate Toei writers so highly.

Tbh the only reason I gave R'F' even a 2 out of 10 is because of how much I liked episodes 15,16 and 18. Take that away and it drops to 0.5/10.
The only remotely interesting things about the Potaufeu arc was Funimation getting Brian Drummond to play copy Vegeta, and the 30 second Future Trunks arc preview at the end of episode 46 .

[Goten_jr]

ToP is literally my least favorite Arc in the franchise because I have absolutly no interest in 50-60 Episodes Fighting Overdose but if I would rate it based on Animation&Fights it’s one of the best

[MyNiggaGoku]

Well I personally loved the ToP, both anime and manga.
If I really had to choose one over the other, I'd pick the manga. The manga's pacing is just like it was supposed to be: a 48 minute long battle royale.

There are some things ofc I dislike in both versions like Toppo's poorly executed Hakai energy thing, Vegeta's stupid looking form, the whole stamina thing in the anime and Gohan vs Kefla glossed over and not having the revived universes' reaction in the end in the manga, to name a few.

If I were to rank the ToP arc among the Super original arcs, I would have to place it second, below the Goku Black arc and above the Universe 6 Tournament.

[SaiyanGod117]

Some people say the TOP had spectacle, can't say I agree spectacle would be something like OPM, Mob Psycho 100, FMA or the Fate series.

[BWri]

Tbh the only reason I gave R'F' even a 2 out of 10 is because of how much I liked episodes 15,16 and 18. Take that away and it drops to 0.5/10.
The only remotely interesting things about the Potaufeu arc was Funimation getting Brian Drummond to play copy Vegeta, and the 30 second Future Trunks arc preview at the end of episode 46 .

Lmao! Indeed, Brian Drummond vs. Chris Sabat is the only good thing about that miniarc, but I watched Super in JP so I didnt really get to enjoy that part.

And yeah, I did like certain aspects of RoF towards the beginning but it was mostly a time waster. Everything I wanted they dropped the ball on including Goten and Trunks, Frieza's training, expanded Z-fighters vs. Frieza Force fight, and Frieza vs Gohan. Frieza didnt even really interact with Piccolo and Gohan, two characters that gave him a hard time on Namek. I did love the Krillin interaction though.

Some people say the TOP had spectacle, can't say I agree spectacle would be something like OPM, Mob Psycho 100, FMA or the Fate series.

You wouldnt consider Goku vs Jiren spectacle? Or Goku vs Kefla?

[supersaiyanZero]

Definitely the worst one for me personally, out of the entire franchise. Its highs may be great, but its lows are really lows. Every episode was full of nonsensical characterization, felt disjointed from the previous ones and had some kind of asspull or inconsistent plot point.

One of the rare monents I agree with you.

[SaiyanGod117]

Tbh the only reason I gave R'F' even a 2 out of 10 is because of how much I liked episodes 15,16 and 18. Take that away and it drops to 0.5/10.
The only remotely interesting things about the Potaufeu arc was Funimation getting Brian Drummond to play copy Vegeta, and the 30 second Future Trunks arc preview at the end of episode 46 .

Lmao! Indeed, Brian Drummond vs. Chris Sabat is the only good thing about that miniarc, but I watched Super in JP so I didnt really get to enjoy that part.

And yeah, I did like certain aspects of RoF towards the beginning but it was mostly a time waster. Everything I wanted they dropped the ball on including Goten and Trunks, Frieza's training, expanded Z-fighters vs. Frieza Force fight, and Frieza vs Gohan. Frieza didnt even really interact with Piccolo and Gohan, two characters that gave him a hard time on Namek. I did love the Krillin interaction though.

Some people say the TOP had spectacle, can't say I agree spectacle would be something like OPM, Mob Psycho 100, FMA or the Fate series.

You wouldnt consider Goku vs Jiren spectacle? Or Goku vs Kefla?

I meant "was a spectacle", so it should have been, " some people say the TOP was a spectacle" meaning it looked good mostly or all the way through and no I wouldn't consider Goku vs Kefla a spectacle.

[Doctor.]

Definitely the worst one for me personally, out of the entire franchise. Its highs may be great, but its lows are really lows. Every episode was full of nonsensical characterization, felt disjointed from the previous ones and had some kind of asspull or inconsistent plot point.

One of the rare monents I agree with you.

When have you disagreed with me, out of curiosity?

[Marlowe89]

I've discussed it more in other threads, but it suffers from the same problem that the retellings did; the whole arc is unadulterated bloat. It's quantity over quality. It's empty spectacle, sometimes at the story's own expense. The thing about Toriyama's modern stories is that they're structurally just not that long, so when you leave it to Toei to try and pad them out into some lengthy dramatic narrative, you get a lot of meaningless bullshit and meandering plot points that go absolutely fucking nowhere. All this talk about inconsistent characterization is true, but it's just the pellet poop sprinkles on the shit cake.

And even though I greatly prefer the manga's version of the arc, I honestly wouldn't claim that compares very favorably to most other tales in the franchise either. At its core, the story just feels like it's trying to appeal to preferences that Dragon Ball doesn't excel at, quite frankly, although I do feel its premise plays with some interesting ideas.

Let's please avoid any more long-winded tournament settings for a while. I don't think Super is equipped to handle them.

[Doctor.]

I've discussed it more in other threads, but it suffers from the same problem that the retellings did; the whole arc is unadulterated bloat. It's quantity over quality. It's empty spectacle, sometimes at the story's own expense. The thing about Toriyama's modern stories is (structurally speaking) they're just not that long, so when you leave it to Toei to try and pad them out into some lengthy dramatic narrative, you get a lot of meaningless bullshit and meandering plot points that go absolutely fucking nowhere. All this talk about inconsistent characterization is true, but it's just the pellet poop sprinkles on the shit cake.

And even though I greatly prefer the manga's version of the arc, I honestly wouldn't claim that compares very favorably to most other tales in the franchise either. At its core, the story just feels like it's trying to appeal to preferences that Dragon Ball doesn't excel at, quite frankly, although I do feel its premise plays with some interesting ideas.

Let's please avoid any more long-winded tournament settings for a while. I don't think Super is equipped to handle them.

The problem is Toriyama trying to tell concise, character-driven stories with only two or three characters in the spotlight, yet he chooses these massive scale scenarios as the backdrop. The Goku Black arc was essentially future Trunks' and Zamasu's story, yet the story had to involve time travel, universe-hopping and genocide; it's full of holes and contrivances because of this. The Tournament of Power, obviously, had a million implications on its world and characters because of the concept alone, yet it was essentially a story about trust and Jiren's growth as a person.

It's why I appreciate that he scaled down a bit with the Broly movie. I may have problems with its script, but I like that it's essentially a story about Broly and it's confined to Earth; nothing crazy, the story doesn't pretend to have a large scope. It may feel a bit disconnected from what came before, but if Toriyama wants to focus on these kinds of narratives, then that's the way to do it; it's appropriate considering Super is nothing more than a side-story as long as it remains in the 10 year gap. No large scale means less holes, less contrivance and less convenience. It's incredibly infuriating to have these incredibly interesting premises be squandered because Toriyama is not interested in the implications his story arcs produce and Toei and Toyotaro lack the talent to properly take advantage of them.

[Kinokima]

Seems to be very mixed opinions about this arc but I am
also one of the naysayers. For me while it had its moments & episodes that I really enjoyed and I liked the look of the arc (best and most consistent looking arc in Super) it went on for far too long and there were way too many pointless characters. Like the idea of a huge battle royale sounds great on paper but in the end most of the new characters weren’t memorable at all. I wish they went with a smaller scale but gave everyone proper development then what we got.

Also unlike most people I also didn’t like the ending.

I just hope we don’t see another tournament arc for a very long time.


And I won’t say the manga arc was better (it was boring for me too) but at least it had the mercy to be short.

[PFM18]

I frankly don't understand all of this criticism of the characterization in this arc. I don't recall any characterization in this arc that was demonstrably inconsistent with other portrayals of the respective character. The only moment that so much as raises an eyebrow is 18's confusion regarding 17's wish. Even then, 18 has always been a very superficial character, so at worst this is mild flanderization.

I do think there were several missed opportunities in this arc that could have made it much better, but as far as I'm concerned that just holds it back from being by far the best arc in the franchise rather than making it a bad arc. You could nitpick aspects of literally every arc in this franchise and manage to come up with a sizable list of "problems" and so the ToP is no exception. I would only rank the Saiyan and Namek arcs ahead of it. I use to rank the Cell arc above it too, but after rewatching/rereading it, I dropped it several spots.