Everything Dragon Ball Super Did Right!

[super michael]

I have to say that I enjoyed the Goku Black arc and the Tournament of Power!

Same here I enjoyed Goku Black and the ToP, maybe Toei could have toned down Goku being dumb and being childish but it was good.

[Gogeta SSJ Blue]

I have to say that I enjoyed the Goku Black arc and the Tournament of Power!

Same here I enjoyed Goku Black and the ToP, maybe Toei could have toned down Goku being dumb and being childish but it was good.

Well, Goku being dumb is part of his character already, but obviously it can be always toned down a bit.

And when he has to be really serious he is too!

[ChronoTwigger]

(you practically said tha the only good thing was the movie... a remake, anyway...).

So, what Super did right.

A: After Namec the tension in DBZ became atrocious. Namec saga was incredibly good storywise, but in the end they abused of it. Tension tension tension everywhere. In the hope of creating the same narrative escalation, forgetting Namecc saga was built on top of the entire franchise so far.
Super toned down the thing. Less tension, less story geometry, it's a tranquil sunday show you can watch with your kids.

B: GT was a parody of Dragon Ball. Clearly. Super instead try and sometime succeed into being an actual sequel.
It's the same issue I had with the last Star Wars trilogy. It wasn't a story, it was the SW Park Theme. "I wanna be a Jedi" "Oh no, I'm the stormtrooper, can I use a laser sword the same?" "I want to ride the Millennium Falcon!" "Hey, look, Chewbacca!", "Dad, we want to shoot the DeathStar!" ... 'And all those legends are real, you're living them right now!' said the testimonial.
GT is the same. They didn't a Dragon Ball story. They did Dragon Ball Circus.
Super felt so far more contextual, and less meta-narrative.

C: For the whole serie (at least so far) they started with a theme (the Gods) and continued with that.

D: No genius kid around. It was so '80!

E: If there are minor issues, the overall story is consistent anyway. I mean, no one become a kid and the Earth detonate for no reason.

[Peach]

I thought they did a great job with Android 17. Particularly, when they fought against Jiren's universe.

Android 17 was cool, strong, and badass after all these years. Exactly what i wanted from a returning character after so long.

I also felt the stories with Master Roshi in the tournament of power were pretty cool.

[Cursed Lemon]

Some of the animation is better than anything DBZ ever brought to the table, minus a couple of the DBZ movies. Goku vs. Kale/Caulifla/Kefla comes to mind, as well as Goku vs. Jiren. It actually took me a second watch through some of these parts to appreciate it more.

The Zamasu story is good. Not great, but good. Frankly if they would've axed the entirety of the movie retellings and gave that screen time to a proper multi-arc Zamasu build, that could've made for one of the greatest storylines in anime.

Umm...yeah that's all I got.

[Thani]

Just wanna say I disagree completely about the manga being "godlike" compared to the anime, especially where the ToP and the Future arc are involved. It's rough on the edges, with MANY subparly executed scenes, but even then, it's much better for me than the rushed mess of the manga. Agree to disagree, though.

What Super did right imo, frankly, was the world building. Not only that, but a MUCH NEEDED power ceiling and stabilished methods to get to said ceiling or close to it.

Unfortunately, we're might be getting close to completely shatter it for the sake of shonen escalation. Pity.

Hit and Goku Black (the anime one, not the Xicor expy of the manga) were formidable opponents and, imo, very iconic characters.

Broly was a gread addition because of his new depth as a character, HOWEVER, I sadly don't see Toriyama wanting to do anything with him - even though it would be mighty interesting see how he, Cheelai and Lemo are doing.

I still think Jiren is kind of an empty character, but I enjoy his status of the "Saitama" of the DB franchise, so to speak. He's this ridiculous wall that can easily one shot almost every single opponent with barely any effort, and thus, to surpass it you absolutely need something that goes beyond just power (aka Ultra Instinct). That he was supposedly surpassed so quickly really bothers me.

And I'm sorry to say, the only Moro I really enjoyed was the elder Moro. His young self just ticked too many "generic dbz villain" boxes to me. He was at his best when vulnerable and weaker than the cast, having to rely on his scraps of magic and his intellect to outsmart Goku and Vegeta. When he got younger again, he pretty much threw all that away since he was beefy enough to beat people up by himself.

And Merus, re-reading the arc, is a treat. Best boy, 10/10 did not deserve to die. I don't mind the Grand Priest bringing him back, I can buy him being able to, in fact, but he was still disobeyed. Taking Merus' power and immortality away felt too easy - Merus never really needed or seemed to care about it all that much throughout the story anyway.

I thought they did a great job with Android 17. Particularly, when they fought against Jiren's universe.

Android 17 was cool, strong, and badass after all these years. Exactly what i wanted from a returning character after so long.

I also felt the stories with Master Roshi in the tournament of power were pretty cool.

Couldn't agree more. Roshi, in both mediums, really shone in the ToP. And Toyo made the obvious (but brilliant) decision to have 17's detonation being the defining strategy. The anime could have simply did the same and, when 17 reappeared, instead of saying "Looks like I survived" he could say "Guess I can't remain hidden anymore, or we're losing this". Apart from that, I just think that 17 was really strong, and that's not a compliment. There were no need for him to be as strong as he was.

Some of the animation is better than anything DBZ ever brought to the table, minus a couple of the DBZ movies. Goku vs. Kale/Caulifla/Kefla comes to mind, as well as Goku vs. Jiren. It actually took me a second watch through some of these parts to appreciate it more.

The Zamasu story is good. Not great, but good. Frankly if they would've axed the entirety of the movie retellings and gave that screen time to a proper multi-arc Zamasu build, that could've made for one of the greatest storylines in anime.

Umm...yeah that's all I got.

Indeed, the animation when it was good, it was indeed excellent. Also, I really enjoyed the Zamasu story. I just thought that, both anime and manga, played too much on his villainous side. He hates mortals, yes, because they're dangerous and have shown able to amass a lot of power.

But he still believes he's doing what he does for the good of the universe. Hell, he was SHOOK when he killed that Babarian. That was after losing to Goku, wasn't it? They should go with that! Having both Zamasus feeling conflicted about what they're doing, taking no pleasure on killing mortals (life is life after all, and they do value life, they make a point of avoiding hurting the planets in their crusade). Don't have them gleefully and sadistically explain to Goku how they killed his family.

Zamasu could spite Goku out of pettiness, sure. But the anime wanted to paint him as some kind of misguided anti-villain that is too far gone at the end. He could easily have killed them all at the time because that was the objective, but take no pleasure from it.

Zamasu could work as the type of villain that makes the very protagonists sympathize somewhat with him, despite understanding that he needs to go down asap - have both of them being honorable, sober, etc. These little moments where you wonder if they couldn't actually see the fucked up things they're doing, you know? They won't, of course, the idea is certainly that they're getting more and more deranged as time passes, but still... Give this false hope.

SupremeKai25 can definitely say better about this, seeing how much he likes the character.

[MasenkoHA]

10. Sean Schemmel and Christopher Sabat screaming their lungs out will never cease to amaze me. Seriously, how do they hire Dragon Ball voice actors? I bet they're like

Toei: あなたは長い間悲鳴を上げることができますか？(Are you good at screaming for a long time?)

Random voice actor they found on the street: はい、できます。 (Yes, I can.)

Toei: すごい！あなたは採用されました！(Great! You're hired!)

Need I go on?

Well Funimation hired them not Toei and it was more like

Funimation: Can you imitate these Canadian guys we’ve been using for two years and have dropped to save on air fare?

Random people from the street that will be paid in cigarette coupons and Funi Fun Bucks: Ummm maybe?

Funimation: Hired!!!

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

Ultra Instinct

Being a while since DB ever introduced new stuff rooted on the martial arts spirituallity and this transformation/technique has been one of its biggest contribution. Extra credits for being something that any combatant can potentially achived and is not limited to genetics.

Fresh Visual Update

While it took until DBS Broly for it to come, good Lord is it gorgeous, please stay.

[MrSatan2099]

I actually have a great appreciation for one off stories and little side bits. I really enjoy being able to throw on a single episode or a two-three episode arc and get a relatively complete, contained story, even if it is filler. I really like the planet Arlia, I like the space orphans, and I really like Tao Pai Pai popping back up before the Cell Games. (I Know I'm probably in the minority on most of those.) So one of the things I liked most about Super was getting those fill in stories, but just a little better planned out. Even if they were unnecessary, stories like Vegeta cooking for Whis, or collecting the Dragon Balls after Zamasu is defeated seem like they're part of the plan. As a fan of Tokusatsu, I particularly enjoyed the Great Saiyaman vs Mr. Satan movie episodes. I thought that was a really great homage to the Sentai team-up films, and just something out of the ordinary for the franchise.

[Cursed Lemon]

Indeed, the animation when it was good, it was indeed excellent. Also, I really enjoyed the Zamasu story. I just thought that, both anime and manga, played too much on his villainous side. He hates mortals, yes, because they're dangerous and have shown able to amass a lot of power.

But he still believes he's doing what he does for the good of the universe. Hell, he was SHOOK when he killed that Babarian. That was after losing to Goku, wasn't it? They should go with that! Having both Zamasus feeling conflicted about what they're doing, taking no pleasure on killing mortals (life is life after all, and they do value life, they make a point of avoiding hurting the planets in their crusade). Don't have them gleefully and sadistically explain to Goku how they killed his family.

Zamasu could spite Goku out of pettiness, sure. But the anime wanted to paint him as some kind of misguided anti-villain that is too far gone at the end. He could easily have killed them all at the time because that was the objective, but take no pleasure from it.

Zamasu could work as the type of villain that makes the very protagonists sympathize somewhat with him, despite understanding that he needs to go down asap - have both of them being honorable, sober, etc. These little moments where you wonder if they couldn't actually see the fucked up things they're doing, you know? They won't, of course, the idea is certainly that they're getting more and more deranged as time passes, but still... Give this false hope.

SupremeKai25 can definitely say better about this, seeing how much he likes the character.

What they got wrong was that Zamasu should've been involved in a couple of arcs before his story took place. He should've established his views and his villainhood while watching over the heroes battling against other antagonists, with the story allowing him to have a light touch in each situation, i.e. like a god would. This would "justify" his misanthropy far more to the viewer than the dumb little cutaway to Planet Hugivsafuk. Multiple stories in sequence are supposed to run together to create one coherent narrative, e.g. the saiyan saga through the Namek arc. That way, the audience has a reason to sit and re-watch the entire story, rather than pick and choose which sections are good or not.

[SupremeKai25]

Zamasu could spite Goku out of pettiness, sure. But the anime wanted to paint him as some kind of misguided anti-villain that is too far gone at the end. He could easily have killed them all at the time because that was the objective, but take no pleasure from it.

Zamasu could work as the type of villain that makes the very protagonists sympathize somewhat with him, despite understanding that he needs to go down asap - have both of them being honorable, sober, etc. These little moments where you wonder if they couldn't actually see the fucked up things they're doing, you know? They won't, of course, the idea is certainly that they're getting more and more deranged as time passes, but still... Give this false hope.

SupremeKai25 can definitely say better about this, seeing how much he likes the character.

The "heroes" in this show are just not capable of understanding what's right and what's wrong, or rather they don't care.

Zamasu is objectively right. Ningens are not allowed to time travel. Future Trunks time travelled. As a result, he shattered the time-space continuum. Thus, ningens need to be punished.

Trunks even recognizes that he is an evil sinner, he just doesn't care. He doesn't try to counter Zamasu's arguments, because he knows he's right. Even Gowasu said that whoever time travelled was a foolish sinner.

Ultimately the protagonists of Dragon Ball are not "good" people, they are selfish and arrogant. They are more than willing to shatter reality itself if they can save their little world. Dragon Ball just isn't the kind of story where the protagonists can sympathize with the villain and admit they're right, even though in this case Zamasu was objectively right as I explained.

But really this is also a community problem. So many people don't understand how complex and morally grey Zamasu is and reduce him to just another Dragon Ball villain, even though Toriyama himself said that he's meant to be different from the other villains.

[sunsetshimmer]

Zamasu could work as the type of villain that makes the very protagonists sympathize somewhat with him, despite understanding that he needs to go down asap - have both of them being honorable, sober, etc. These little moments where you wonder if they couldn't actually see the fucked up things they're doing, you know? They won't, of course, the idea is certainly that they're getting more and more deranged as time passes, but still... Give this false hope.

The main problem is, people did nothing wrong. The only evil person in entire story was Zamasu and the only person with any degree of agreement regarding his actions was himself from another timeline. It's the same thing as with Shadow Dragons. Syn was repeating the same nonsense bs "This is your fault", "You deserved that", "We exist because of you". The only difference was, the dragons did not pretend to be good. And that's it basically. And even there you had Nuova Shenron who actually questioned their actions and at least didn't kill children and woman, also being very honourable fighter. Sure, using dragon balls or traveling in time is cheating, but all this was made with good intentions. Except of course villains who used dragon balls like Piccolo, Baby or Pilaf, or villain like Cell who traveled in time. But it was the protagonists who got blamed anyway, not villains.

There was potential in this arc, but pretty much all of it was wasted, turning someone with potentially understandable motive, to basically random sociopath. There is a huge difference between aiming for good intentions with evil actions and trying to justify evil actions with a selfish goal that won't be good for anyone but you.

Want a good example of villain that you can actually sympathize with? The old PS1 ninja game "Tenchu 2". You have protagonists ninjas serving their lord with their own life, accepting the way they live in the shadows, and you have a main villain, woman who is gathering ninjas to fight for their freedom, so they can step out of shadows and live independent from those with higher authority. There is a conflict between following a codex you swore to never break, not questioning any orders and simply being free, not being forced to defend or kill someone you don't want to. This way you actually can pick your side and seeing main villain killed can actually make you sad and question who was right. She was even trying to convince protagonists to join her and did not kill them early despite having opportunity. She didn't want to kill other ninjas, unless they tried to actually stop her as even those who didn't join her, would potentially get freedom. After slaughtering entire village as a revenge for protagonists interrupting her plans and killing her people, she actually felt disgusted by her actions and started vomitting. She also never threated her people as someone worse than her despite being leader, showing respect to every follower. The best part of all of it? She was actually right which was proved years later in series.

Now let me ask how am i supposed to ever sympathize with villain like Zamasu? Sure, he also broke out of rules, but it was never made with intention of doing anything good for anyone and at no point in series after his defeat, anything or anyone suggested that he might've been right, not even in the slightest degree. He never shown any remorse and never questioned his actions. He always felt like someone better than everyone, like the only person that understands how things should've been. Never also gave anyone a chance to join him or simply survive as he didn't accept anyone not agreeing with him, not even his own teacher. He already had a better life than all of mortals, yet he still chose to kill them for no reason. This is basically Lucemon from Digimon Frontier (voiced by Frieza's VA, worth noting). A corrupted god who wanted to create "better" world, which is, of course, the one where he rules over everyone by killing every living creature as according to him, everyone but him was corrupted and should die. Every, and i mean every action made by Zamasu, was evil and selfish.

tl;dr Zamasu is as evil and simple written as any other DB villain, but had potential to be something more

[Cursed Lemon]

Aaaaaaaaaaaand

[sunsetshimmer]

Aaaaaaaaaaaand

Spoiler:

I'm not really sure how am i supposed to react to that and if it's aimed at my comment somehow? If it was too long or you didn't agree you could've just ignored that you know or if it's just the latter you could even tell me why do you think i'm wrong and share your own opinion. Feel free to join discussion any time bro or just ignore it.

Although i agree with you that showing Zamasu before his arc could help it a bit instead of him appearing completely randomly, like he wasn't teased in any way. He watched U7 vs U6 tournament on TV, why not introduce him in this arc or maybe even make him be there? Of course the second option would force Zamasu to be kaioshin of U6 instead of whatever universe he was from, but i don't see why would him being from U6 change anything really. His arc took place in U7 anyway.

[Cursed Lemon]

I'm not really sure how am i supposed to react to that and if it's aimed at my comment somehow?

Just wait. lol

[Kagari]

Gohan's development as a fighter. He's got a great balance and it shows in the writing with how serious, focused and tactical his battles have become. Easily the most interesting one to watch for me, along with some of the stuff he did with Piccolo and Goku.

And no, he doesn't hate fighting. He just doesn't like senseless death matches like what Cell wanted.

[Trouser]

1. Dragon Ball Super: Broly.
2. Dragon Ball Super manga version (from BoG to Black Arc, after that it's pretty bad).
3. Future Trunks. I'm fan of every version of Trunks so it was nice to see him again. I really like his new design.
4. "The Birth of Merged Zamasu" ost though I prefer the name "Goku Black Theme". It debuted with Black so imo this name suits better.
5. Slice of life stuff.
6. Openings and endings are nice.
7. Other hero's are fighting (nice to see them but they are still fodder that does nothing relevant).
8. Android 17. He was the only reason I didn't drop Tournament of Power. He's cool but him being on par with Blue is bs.
9. That it ended (at least anime version).
10. It was so bad that it made people appreciate GT more.

[Thani]

Zamasu could work as the type of villain that makes the very protagonists sympathize somewhat with him, despite understanding that he needs to go down asap - have both of them being honorable, sober, etc. These little moments where you wonder if they couldn't actually see the fucked up things they're doing, you know? They won't, of course, the idea is certainly that they're getting more and more deranged as time passes, but still... Give this false hope.

The main problem is, people did nothing wrong. The only evil person in entire story was Zamasu and the only person with any degree of agreement regarding his actions was himself from another timeline. It's the same thing as with Shadow Dragons. Syn was repeating the same nonsense bs "This is your fault", "You deserved that", "We exist because of you". The only difference was, the dragons did not pretend to be good. And that's it basically. And even there you had Nuova Shenron who actually questioned their actions and at least didn't kill children and woman, also being very honourable fighter. Sure, using dragon balls or traveling in time is cheating, but all this was made with good intentions. Except of course villains who used dragon balls like Piccolo, Baby or Pilaf, or villain like Cell who traveled in time. But it was the protagonists who got blamed anyway, not villains.

There was potential in this arc, but pretty much all of it was wasted, turning someone with potentially understandable motive, to basically random sociopath. There is a huge difference between aiming for good intentions with evil actions and trying to justify evil actions with a selfish goal that won't be good for anyone but you.

Want a good example of villain that you can actually sympathize with? The old PS1 ninja game "Tenchu 2". You have protagonists ninjas serving their lord with their own life, accepting the way they live in the shadows, and you have a main villain, woman who is gathering ninjas to fight for their freedom, so they can step out of shadows and live independent from those with higher authority. There is a conflict between following a codex you swore to never break, not questioning any orders and simply being free, not being forced to defend or kill someone you don't want to. This way you actually can pick your side and seeing main villain killed can actually make you sad and question who was right. She was even trying to convince protagonists to join her and did not kill them early despite having opportunity. She didn't want to kill other ninjas, unless they tried to actually stop her as even those who didn't join her, would potentially get freedom. After slaughtering entire village as a revenge for protagonists interrupting her plans and killing her people, she actually felt disgusted by her actions and started vomitting. She also never threated her people as someone worse than her despite being leader, showing respect to every follower. The best part of all of it? She was actually right which was proved years later in series.

Now let me ask how am i supposed to ever sympathize with villain like Zamasu? Sure, he also broke out of rules, but it was never made with intention of doing anything good for anyone and at no point in series after his defeat, anything or anyone suggested that he might've been right, not even in the slightest degree. He never shown any remorse and never questioned his actions. He always felt like someone better than everyone, like the only person that understands how things should've been. Never also gave anyone a chance to join him or simply survive as he didn't accept anyone not agreeing with him, not even his own teacher. He already had a better life than all of mortals, yet he still chose to kill them for no reason. This is basically Lucemon from Digimon Frontier (voiced by Frieza's VA, worth noting). A corrupted god who wanted to create "better" world, which is, of course, the one where he rules over everyone by killing every living creature as according to him, everyone but him was corrupted and should die. Every, and i mean every action made by Zamasu, was evil and selfish.

tl;dr Zamasu is as evil and simple written as any other DB villain, but had potential to be something more

I can agree with this. Zamasu was intended to have the "fall from grace" arc, a hero-like character slowly turning into a villain. In the end, Zamasu even became worse than the Babarians he was disgusted by. If early arc Zamasu saw Fused Zamasu at his very end, he would no doubt feel nauseous.

Early Zamasu had enormous potential, he was a pure hearted shinjin who wanted to do right by the universe and thought that mortals could do nothing but waste their gifts of wisdom with violence and brutality. He was SHOOK when he killed a mortal in self-defence. If Black, who WAS that Zamasu, could keep that way, it would be beautiful. It would even be a HUGE TWIST on the whole "evil" Goku concept of the arc - that evil Goku wasn't evil at all! At least not at the beginning.

Still, I adored him as a suave and intelligent villain. Fused Zamasu also remains one of my favorite characters design-wise.

[SupremeKai25]

I can agree with this. Zamasu was intended to have the "fall from grace" arc, a hero-like character slowly turning into a villain. In the end, Zamasu even became worse than the Babarians he was disgusted by. If early arc Zamasu saw Fused Zamasu at his very end, he would no doubt feel nauseous.

Early Zamasu had enormous potential, he was a pure hearted shinjin who wanted to do right by the universe and thought that mortals could do nothing but waste their gifts of wisdom with violence and brutality. He was SHOOK when he killed a mortal in self-defence. If Black, who WAS that Zamasu, could keep that way, it would be beautiful. It would even be a HUGE TWIST on the whole "evil" Goku concept of the arc - that evil Goku wasn't evil at all! At least not at the beginning.

Still, I adored him as a suave and intelligent villain. Fused Zamasu also remains one of my favorite characters design-wise.

There are several scenes where Black laments how the destruction he is causing is very unfortunate and how much it saddens him that he has to ruin the worlds so much. We also know that Black thinks he's being merciful towards the ningens by killing them. He sees their existence as a never-ending cycle of stupidity and madness from which he's freeing them through death. You could say that these are traces of the "old Zamasu", and they definitely put him in a sympathetic light.

I think maybe the writers could've focused more on the fact that Black built his hideout in a lush and beautiful forest (definitely NOT your typical evil hideout), but overall there are several scenes that convey the idea that Black is sympathetic.

[Kataphrut]

1. It has a really good track record for antagonists- starting with Beerus (who we'll count as the first Super antagonist for the sake of argument) most of them are more layered than their original series and GT peers. Moro is the exception since he's meant to be a deliberate throwback to that type of villain.

2. Making Goku a more active protagonist.

3. Being less tight about power scaling- yes, that's a good thing. It allows for more creative fight sequences when characters fighting at a disadvantage can still be shown putting in the effort rather than having their attacks bounce feebly off the opponent because his number's 0.25% bigger than theirs.

4. Related to the above, more interesting fight direction and techniques in general, at least when it's on.

5. Ultra Instinct- see above.

6. Interesting development and relationship-building for old characters- I'm disappointed the Gohan and Krillin arcs in the anime version most likely won't get followed up on due to only being part of that medium, because it was a really interesting exploration into their insecurities and how they overcame them. Other good examples that were featured in multiple version were Trunks, 17 and especially Freeza. I also liked the deepening relationship between Vegeta and Trunks, and Goku's dynamics with his rivals, particularly Freeza, Hit, Jiren, and Caulifla and Kale in the anime.