Do you prefer many short arcs or fewer long arcs?

[GodVegetto91]

Please cast your vote and tell me why.

I know what I prefer..

I definitely prefer many short arcs over fewer longer ones.

I just.. don’t enjoy having one single story line taking well over 2 years.. It’s just.. unnecessary in my opinion.. (In my opinion) an Arc should only take 1 year TOPS. And that’s being on the long end!

I just want a story to move on quicker and progress quicker.. There’s so much potential and content that they could explore afterall, why waste all that time on one single storyline for several years?

At least when you have many shorter story arcs, the actual plot can progress much quicker and we won’t get bored and lose interest!

I like “Variation”..

What do you like?

Do you prefer longer or shorter story arcs?

[Chuquita]

I'm in agreement with the original post on a preference for many short arcs over few long ones.

Imagine if we had a new arc in the manga every 6 months! We'd be about to start our 5th (6th if you count Brolli) new storyline next month instead of only our 2nd since the anime ended two years ago.

[SupremeKai25]

Some arcs are definitely too long for their own good. The first 20 episodes of the Tournament of Power arc are so boring, it took like 4 months for the actual Tournament to start. The Recruitment phase is literally like 20 episodes, that is the duration of the entire Future Trunks arc...

It is kind of an obvious question to answer to be honest. Long arcs usually have a lot of filler, side fights, flashbacks, etc. so short arcs are generally preferable.

By "short" I mean like 20-25 episodes. That is a decent amount of episodes to tell a full story. NOT the 60 or so episodes of the ToP arc.

[Magnificent Ponta]

I don't think length, as such, is the issue - it's really more about pacing.

The Tournament of Power arc was 15 and a half Chapters (720 pages), but in the end, it's a good length for the story being told. The Universe 6 Tournament arc, by contrast, was 9 rather shorter Chapters (230 pages), and that's a good length for that arc.

The issue with the Moro arc's length was that there was a stretching/repetition of the plot beats across the 25 Chapters allotted, rather than simply it being the length it was. There just wasn't enough plot there to justify its length; it could easily have shaved off some Chapters-worth in the middle, most probably between Chapters 49 to 58, with some beneficial effect to the pacing. It didn't need 1100+ pages to tell that story.

However, there certainly could be an arc that might need that sort of length (or at least could sustain it), and if there's a story that can only be well told in 1000+ pages of content, I'm happy to sit through it: the Freeza arc, for instance, is 1200 pages long, the Cell arc about 1400, and the Buu arc is about 1300. I don't think there's a set "good length" for an arc, in principle.

[GodVegetto91]

I'm in agreement with the original post on a preference for many short arcs over few long ones.

Imagine if we had a new arc in the manga every 6 months! We'd be about to start our 5th (6th if you count Brolli) new storyline next month instead of only our 2nd since the anime ended two years ago.

6 months for an arc is exactly the kind of length that I prefer. It’s perfect imo. Some may take a few months longer if they’re really good like 8 or 9 months, but by and large, I’d say with 6 months we could move on pretty quickly and have far more variety so that we won’t get bored.

[GodVegetto91]

Some arcs are definitely too long for their own good. The first 20 episodes of the Tournament of Power arc are so boring, it took like 4 months for the actual Tournament to start. The Recruitment phase is literally like 20 episodes, that is the duration of the entire Future Trunks arc...

It is kind of an obvious question to answer to be honest. Long arcs usually have a lot of filler, side fights, flashbacks, etc. so short arcs are generally preferable.

By "short" I mean like 20-25 episodes. That is a decent amount of episodes to tell a full story. NOT the 60 or so episodes of the ToP arc.

I agree. The leading up to the ToP arc in the Anime was just WAY too long (not to mention boring aswell!) it actually managed to make me lose interest in Dragon Ball Super for a while. These saturday nights we’re not particularly “enjoyable” to me at least.

[ChronoTwigger]

It depend on the premise and density of content.

It's hard to tell for DBS, as the manga should be somehow a "comicalization" of the anime, and jumped from short to long arcs randomly and probably a chaotic schedule. And that didn't matched the density of content (Zamasu arc should have been twice longer, Moro halved).

At this stage, probably a short arc will look just like a filler and people probably want *meaningfull* longer arcs.

[BWri]

Do you prefer longer or shorter story arcs?

I love a nice long arc especially one with many twists and turns over the course of the story being told. I like when it's all given time to breathe and allow development for the rich cast of characters that the series has accrued.

[Matches Malone]

I think it depends on the story they're trying to tell. The Zamasu arc would've greatly benefited from a longer arc, while the TOP would've benefited from a shorter one.

[MaGyunia]

Honestly I always saw things in a more complex way, like most things I take a look at. Regarding DB/DBZ/DBS arcs, most small phases of a few episodes, or sometimes over ten or even what seems to be an arc by itself preceding the big one where the main villain is confronted, can and perhaps should be chosen to be seen individually as a ramification of the actual, main arcs, or not. I personally choose to do it. For the sake of example: I choose to see the Raditz and Nappa/Vegeta arcs as part of an overall MAJOR arc - the Saiya-jin arc -, then the Namek and Ginyu Tokusentai arcs as part of an overall MAJOR arc - the Freeza arc -, then (ignoring Garlic Jr.) the Trunks, Androids, Imperfect Cell and Perfect Cell arcs as part of the MAJOR ARC - the Androids/Cell arc, then the Babidi, Majin Buu, Fusion arcs as part of the overall BUU arc.

It's up to each fan to determine what they consider to be an arc, it's a very subjective concept.

According to my logic, there are 4 main arcs in DBZ: Saiya-jin, Freeza, Androids/Cell, Buu. Each one of them with a major, final battle with the respective main villain (Vegeta, Freeza, Cell, Kid Buu). Sometimes I even incorporate the Saiya-jin arc in the extremely connected Freeza arc, because it's a predecessor and directly connected to it in terms of developments and enemies/threats, just in same way we can look at the Androids arc as a predecessor to the Cell arc, if you want to put it that way (preceding it and highly connected, in fact, overlapping).

Regardless of the "method" you choose to determine a list of arcs, I can see the logic behind it so long as there is a solid one. There is no universal truth here. The thing that comes closer to resembling a "unanimous" belief in absolute major arcs in DBZ (for example) is: Saiya-jin, Freeza, Androids/Cell, Buu.

[ZeroNeonix]

I prefer longer arcs, but only when they're warranted. The Future Trunks arc was the closest Super came to feeling like Z, and while they didn't stick the landing, I prefer that they try stuff like that. In Z, you had these longer plot lines. Like in the Frieza arc, you have the looming threat of Frieza, but first they deal with smaller threats like Dodoria and the Ginyu Force. Problems come up, and the heroes have to use their brains to solve them. You don't get much of that in the smaller arcs. Heck, the Future Trunks arc was missing some of those elements, and it got repetitive since we only had two villains, plus their fusion. But despite its problems, it's still the best arc in the anime so far.

[RobinTheMighty]

Depends. The DBS manga is constrained by the monthly release schedule, if it was weekly then I would prefer longer arcs.

[Magnificent Ponta]

Imagine if we had a new arc in the manga every 6 months! We'd be about to start our 5th (6th if you count Brolli) new storyline next month instead of only our 2nd since the anime ended two years ago.

I've thought about this comment occasionally since it was posted - each month gives us 45 pages, so following this suggestion would basically mean that an entire arc would be no more than 270 pages. The only arcs that clock in under that page count from all of Dragon Ball (original and Super) are tournament arcs, which have their set-up, conflict and structure built in without having to do that much narrative work to establish any of it.

Really, the only fully-fledged arc with less than 270 pages is the Universe 6 Tournament arc, which is 230 pages long.Kanzenshuu counts Uranai Baba as an arc unto itself (as opposed to a sub-arc of the broader Red Ribbon arc), and that's 226 pages long. Even at 60 pages per month on a weekly release schedule, only the Son Goku arc (358 pages) and the 22nd Budokai arc (329 pages), which both still took almost 6 months to tell, get added to the list of arcs that were completed within 6 months (The manga adaptation of Battle of Gods hardly counts as a whole arc - more like a 'comic event' - but for completeness, it's 65 pages long).

Other than that, every single arc takes a notably greater page count to tell its story than that. Imagine telling even the 23rd Budokai (495 pages) in around half the page count, or the Saiyan arc (705 pages) in about a third of the space, and what kind of story product that would've been. Really, that kind of brevity seems like it would just lead to a bunch of seriously underdone arcs.

[Chuquita]

Imagine if we had a new arc in the manga every 6 months! We'd be about to start our 5th (6th if you count Brolli) new storyline next month instead of only our 2nd since the anime ended two years ago.

I've thought about this comment occasionally since it was posted - each month gives us 45 pages, so following this suggestion would basically mean that an entire arc would be no more than 270 pages. The only arcs that clock in under that page count from all of Dragon Ball (original and Super) are tournament arcs, which have their set-up, conflict and structure built in without having to do that much narrative work to establish any of it.

Really, the only fully-fledged arc with less than 270 pages is the Universe 6 Tournament arc, which is 230 pages long.Kanzenshuu counts Uranai Baba as an arc unto itself (as opposed to a sub-arc of the broader Red Ribbon arc), and that's 226 pages long. Even at 60 pages per month on a weekly release schedule, only the Son Goku arc (358 pages) and the 22nd Budokai arc (329 pages), which both still took almost 6 months to tell, get added to the list of arcs that were completed within 6 months (The manga adaptation of Battle of Gods hardly counts as a whole arc - more like a 'comic event' - but for completeness, it's 65 pages long).

Other than that, every single arc takes a notably greater page count to tell its story than that. Imagine telling even the 23rd Budokai (495 pages) in around half the page count, or the Saiyan arc (705 pages) in about a third of the space, and what kind of story product that would've been. Really, that kind of brevity seems like it would just lead to a bunch of seriously underdone arcs.

In light of this math (I appreciate it as the only chapter math I'd done was checking to see which arcs were longer than Moro--motivated by me wishing that arc would end as it wasn't to my taste and I was really tired of the arc) I revise my opinion.

Ok, so Moro went from 43 to 67 (24 chapters) at 45 pages each. That's 1,080 pages or an equivalent 72 chapters of the original Dragon Ball manga.

As you said the Saiyan arc is 705 pages. The Freeza arc is 38 chapters at 15 pages each or 570 pages.

I now propose instead 2 story arcs in place of Moro. One larger one in the vein of the 4 big arcs and another smaller arc more on the Great Saiyaman length (which comes in at 360 pages). 1080 - 360 is 720, or a little larger than the Saiyan arc, so for the same amount of space Moro takes up you could have two arcs, one heavier, one light.

[Magnificent Ponta]

In light of this math (I appreciate it as the only chapter math I'd done was checking to see which arcs were longer than Moro--motivated by me wishing that arc would end as it wasn't to my taste and I was really tired of the arc)

That's fair enough - the Moro arc is unarguably over-long for the story it's telling, since it goes in for what seems like a "show, and tell" approach (even for the story as told, they could probably have excised a couple of hundred pages without a great deal of storytelling impact), and I guess it must feel like forever to wait for something you're not enjoying to end when it's in the middle of serialisation. I feel that I'd happily sacrifice 5 pages from the monthly output to get 20-page Chapters every other week, which I think would help the pacing of the format (and fan response to it) a bit - crafting one Chapter of 45 pages means there's only one-third the natural structural opportunities to land story hooks and suspenseful beats of the original Manga, which exposes (exacerbates, perhaps?) the weaknesses of an arc like the Moro arc, in my opinion.

But yeah, I think it's important to keep at the front of one's mind just how much plain old time it takes to adequately set up scenarios, characters and conflicts, even before we get anywhere near the process of resolution. For all the claims I see from some fans that Tournament arcs are 'played out' (hence why I see the Tournament arcs for Super getting dismissed out of hand by some as a tiresome retread - very wrongly, in my opinion), they have a certain economy and structure going for them that makes them an attractive device to this end.

The Freeza arc is 38 chapters at 15 pages each or 570 pages.

I mean, technically that just covers the Freeza fight, pretty much. It relies on the work of another 700+ pages before it for much of its heft and sense of 'epic' culmination (Kanzenshuu separates a "Namek arc" from a "Freeza arc" - while I'm sure they have a perfectly sound reason to do so, this feels like quite an artificial distinction, to me). So the real big arcs of Dragon Ball are all around the 1200-1400 page mark, when aggregated. It mostly works for the kind of stories being told in them, in my opinion, but it needn't be the rule by any means.

I now propose instead 2 story arcs in place of Moro. One larger one in the vein of the 4 big arcs and another smaller arc more on the Great Saiyaman length (which comes in at 360 pages). 1080 - 360 is 720, or a little larger than the Saiyan arc, so for the same amount of space Moro takes up you could have two arcs, one heavier, one light.

I could get behind this. My own favourite arcs for the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Super Manga are the Saiyan arc and Tournament of Power arc, respectively, and both are around the 700ish page mark - that sort of page count should definitely be enough to craft a smart, punchy arc with enough length for set-up, good character work, twists, and scope while not trying the reader's patience. It certainly doesn't need epic length to be good.

I do also think that Dragon Ball Super could do with another arc that is almost utterly inconsequential and light - some sort of tonal counterpart to the Universe 6 Tournament arc, which is becoming something of an outlier in that respect, as it's been crowded out by a succession of 'high stakes and peril!'-type offerings.

[Super Murjin]

variation

[sunsetshimmer]

Depends. ToP arc was way too long lol. It was like half of DBS and almost as long as entire GT, when in reality entire arc could've been told in 15-20 episodes easily as no one needed all those preperation episodes or seeing forgettable weaklings fighting in tournament.

Other arcs in DBS had proper length if we exclude typical anime filler episodes between main arcs, like Copy Vegeta, but i assume we are talking about main arcs here. Maybe BoG arc was a bit too long since Goku vs Beerus fight could've been shorter as it started to get boring later.

But making too short arc also isn't good as Super 17 arc proved. With BoG, there was simply not much to do in arc except for them fighting Beerus. In case of Super 17 arc, there were a lot of villains escaping hell and most of them were either handled offscreen or very quickly. Like they could make a half-episode long fight between Gohan and Rildo, instead of just showing some of its fragments between fragments of other fights. That arc actually could've been longer by few episodes which would still make it shortest arc in franchise anyway.

[Gogeta SSJ Blue]

Usually, I prefer short arcs, so we can have some variation.

Longer arcs might simply be boring!

Depends mainly of the concept of it.

[Cursed Lemon]

You need shorter "segments" that form one long arc to produce satisfaction as well as investment.

The saiyan saga through the Namek saga is one long "arc" with different divisions. That way we got one long interesting story with short-term payoff in the form of Raditz, Vegeta + Nappa, Freeza's underlings, the Ginyu Force, and finally Freeza.