I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

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AnimeNation101
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I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

Post by AnimeNation101 » Sun Feb 17, 2019 3:43 pm

I was on twitter looking at my feed when the results for the “Best Fight” came from Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards. A My Hero Academia fight won and many were outraged with most saying either Goku vs Jiren should have won or Naruto and Sasuke vs Momoshiki. The later fight peaked my interest and so i watched it and like many other Naruto fights, it made me realize again how much better Naruto fights are than DB fights when it comes to the actual choreography.

With Modern DB, the majority of fights are just a flurry of punches going back and forth between the 2 characters. With Naruto fights, each punch, kick, dodge, flip, etc all feel unique and flow really well as if it were an actual martial arts fight. It annoys me that DB, a show more about martial arts than Naruto, has inferior fighting scenes and choreography than Naruto.

I theory i have is that due to modern DB’s scale, fights like Naruto are just impossible. Like how DB hard flight, blasts, and super powered warriors, it strips away the ability to just have your average “down to earth” classic martial arts fights. Well, that would be the in-universe reason. I mean, just thinking about it, even taking away flight and having a fight only be on the ground can introduce a whole plethora of choreography to a battle. The T.o.P wasn’t really a good example of the potential ground battles can bring though. Heck, half way through the T.o.P, the characters were fly-fighting anyway. Or as we like to call it, “falling with style.”

I just really wish DB would introduce more diverse and actual “Martial arts-like” choreography to battles on the level of Naruto.
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Re: I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

Post by Miracles » Sun Feb 17, 2019 5:41 pm

Dragonball/Dragonball Z had some choreography that was second to none. The sound effects just put it even more in a class of it's own. I agree, Naruto anime has good choreography too. Go check out Kakashi vs Obito and you are going to be doing push ups!

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Re: I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

Post by emperior » Sun Feb 17, 2019 6:12 pm

This is an exaggeration. Naruto has some very well choreographed fights indeed, but they are few and rare, as the characters rarely use Taijutsu. But I can’t deny that there are some incredible examples of Naruto fights with incredible choreography and animation.
Dragon Ball, on the other hand, has lots of well choreographed fights. Sure, there are also the repeated frames but you are exaggerating it with your examples.

That said, I actually agree with you that Dragon Ball could benefit from some more martial arts focused fights, and I agree how the ToP with its no flying rule was a wasted chance to have more grounded fights rather than the fast ones we got, which were the majority. Although there were also some well choreographed fights.

I think that what you would like too see the most is some Wing Chun focused fights in Dragon Ball.
Whis is based on that martial art so maybe if in the future we see him and the other Angels fighting, we could get some nice Wing Chun choreographed fights.
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Re: I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

Post by Lord Beerus » Sun Feb 17, 2019 6:38 pm

It's all about having the right talent and giving them enough time to their shit. You should yourself a favour and watch the Precure series. That series has some of the best animated battles to ever come out of Toei animation.

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Re: I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

Post by AnimeNation101 » Sun Feb 17, 2019 8:23 pm

emperior wrote: I think that what you would like too see the most is some Wing Chun focused fights in Dragon Ball.
Whis is based on that martial art so maybe if in the future we see him and the other Angels fighting, we could get some nice Wing Chun choreographed fights.
YES PLEASE! I really rather see less blasts and over-the-top flashiness and more grounded straight up martial arts combat. Maybe give us a new villain who’s main gimmick is that they have gone throughout the multiverse learning tons of martial arts styles. A jack of all trades AND master of all.
I called it that Gogeta, Bardock, and something Broly related would be in the movie before it was even announced that it was a Broly movie. 8)

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Re: I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

Post by emperior » Mon Feb 18, 2019 3:16 pm

AnimeNation101 wrote:
emperior wrote: I think that what you would like too see the most is some Wing Chun focused fights in Dragon Ball.
Whis is based on that martial art so maybe if in the future we see him and the other Angels fighting, we could get some nice Wing Chun choreographed fights.
YES PLEASE! I really rather see less blasts and over-the-top flashiness and more grounded straight up martial arts combat. Maybe give us a new villain who’s main gimmick is that they have gone throughout the multiverse learning tons of martial arts styles. A jack of all trades AND master of all.
I am of the same opinion. I have been craving for more martial arts focused fights with techniques being used as the trump card, as it more or less was in the whole original manga.
Ever since Ultra Instinct was introduced, I have been hoping that in the future it can be the technique that brings about this change, considering its seemingly focused on hand to hand combat.

Your idea of a villain who is strong more because of his excellent martial arts technique than because of his raw power is intriguing. Sure, DB is about power but they could always say that a big Ki also comes from knowledge of martial arts and that would be totally fine and in-line with Goku’s trainings under Roshi, Korin, Kami, King Kai and Whis too.
It would also be interesting to have a fighter using Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Attack on Titan did some nice things with the art, so I think it can be interesting and cool to have someone use it in Dragon Ball some times.
Wrestling moves also seem to be very effective in Dragon Ball (ex. Goku using a Full Nelson to hold Raditz, or Toppo also using various grappling moves to hold Goku and later on Vegeta, or Nink forcing Goku to go Blue to be let free from his grapple).
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Re: I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

Post by BWri » Mon Feb 18, 2019 6:07 pm

AnimeNation101 wrote:I was on twitter looking at my feed when the results for the “Best Fight” came from Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards. A My Hero Academia fight won and many were outraged with most saying either Goku vs Jiren should have won or Naruto and Sasuke vs Momoshiki. The later fight peaked my interest and so i watched it and like many other Naruto fights, it made me realize again how much better Naruto fights are than DB fights when it comes to the actual choreography.
I can't see any My Hero fight topping a DB or Naruto fight at this point. My Hero is good, but its fight choreography is highly overrated IMO.
With Modern DB, the majority of fights are just a flurry of punches going back and forth between the 2 characters.

Well, sure, but that's only if we ignore the best fights. I'd say 80% of the fights boil down to this template, but that top 20% is so much better, and its mostly a Z and Super problem.
With Naruto fights, each punch, kick, dodge, flip, etc all feel unique and flow really well as if it were an actual martial arts fight.

Not always. Like DB, Naruto has many instances of conservative animation meant to save money. It's only fair to compare the best of DB to the best of Naruto and the worst of DB to the worst of Naruto.
It annoys me that DB, a show more about martial arts than Naruto, has inferior fighting scenes and choreography than Naruto.
Modern day DB is just of a general fighting show. They moved past technical martial arts around the time the Earthlings were surpassed. But still, they haven't completely abandoned the martial arts technicality like GT did. They still add some of that dazzling choreography ocassionally.
I just really wish DB would introduce more diverse and actual “Martial arts-like” choreography to battles on the level of Naruto.
Meh, I prefer Dragon Ball martial arts, especially OG DB martial arts. DB always had a style all its own, closer to old school kung fu movies. I will say that modern day DB lost much of the technical detail for the fighting scenes that OG DB fights had (ever since Buu saga IMO), but Super seems to be trying to provide a middle ground between the super powered Z fights and the more technical OG DB fights.

Naruto fights are really good, but typically only in short bursts of exceptional animation and there's not a lot of hand to hand. DB fights are typically more engaging for me over a longer period of time.

I will say that the strategic component of Naruto fights are much better than even early DB. If anything, that's the component I want added to the DB series so that unique abilities and fighting intelligence actually matter.
I theory i have is that due to modern DB’s scale, fights like Naruto are just impossible. Like how DB hard flight, blasts, and super powered warriors, it strips away the ability to just have your average “down to earth” classic martial arts fights.

I don't think it strips it away, its just stylistically not what Toriyama wants to do anymore. The show is mostly aliens now and they don't seem to use "traditional" martial arts, at least traditional in how we think of it. The Earthlings, Goku, and Piccolo still fight with modified kung fu though. We saw this in the RoF movie.
Well, that would be the in-universe reason. I mean, just thinking about it, even taking away flight and having a fight only be on the ground can introduce a whole plethora of choreography to a battle. The T.o.P wasn’t really a good example of the potential ground battles can bring though. Heck, half way through the T.o.P, the characters were fly-fighting anyway. Or as we like to call it, “falling with style.”
I mostly agree with this, but the caveat is that "falling with style" has always been a part of DB battles since everyone relevant can jump super high. But ToP could've done a better job at showing those imposed limitations.
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Re: I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

Post by supersaiyanZero » Wed Feb 20, 2019 12:44 am

There is McDonalds vs Bk king fan animated fight in the style of Dbz that allowed for composition, expression, and tension that used to be and should still be the foundation of any fight. It blew anything I saw from Super out of the water, even if it was prettier.

(https://youtu.be/UAjTOthKfd4)

Id be happy to keep the regular punches and kicks and instead focus on ki manipulation which I think used to be a treasure cove of creativity (especially for back and forth chess matches) for the series but started to die out during the cell games and it's nowhere to be found in Super. People are much too focused on it looking extremely "fluid" (which rarely happens in Super) or like some sort chaotic Gurren Lagen fight with a bunch of flashy shit and cool lasers. There is no weight to any of the attacks anymore.

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Re: I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

Post by Kanassa » Wed Feb 20, 2019 1:21 am

supersaiyanZero wrote:There is McDonalds vs Bk king fan animated fight in the style of Dbz that allowed for composition, expression, and tension that used to be and should still be the foundation of any fight. It blew anything I saw from Super out of the water, even if it was prettier.

(https://youtu.be/UAjTOthKfd4)
...How much of Super have you watched? I think you're giving that fan animation way too much credit
When Super apparently shoves Goku down our throats:

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Re: I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

Post by Bullza » Wed Feb 20, 2019 3:07 am

For a series that focuses so much martial arts, I do wish they would put more emphasis on it in the choreography.

They always fight but it's always the same kind of thing, super speed, frantic clashing, sonic booms in the sky, punching one another through buildings and rocks, energy blasts etc.

It would be nice to see some actual martial arts now and then. Kakashi vs Obito is obviously an exception but that was a proper fight. Dragon Ball needs more of that and less super powered smackdowns all the time.

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Re: I wish Modern Dragon Ball had fight choreography on par with Naruto...

Post by SupremeKai25 » Wed Feb 20, 2019 9:29 am

What about Goku vs. Present Zamasu in episode 53? Not the best animated fight in the series, but it was a very down-to-earth with no blast, flashy effects, or landmasses being torn asunder. It was a very simple fight actually, with Zamasu just gracefully parrying each attack from Goku until he was eventually overpowered by the Saiyan's superior physical strength.

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