Dragon Ball Super: Manga Chapter 87 - Official Discussion Thread

[kemuri07]

Did Freeza just get character development? The old Freeza would have wasted no time killing Goku and Vegeta if he had the chance, but he let them go. And he smiled, I'm pretty sure that's never happened; a smug smirk, yes, but never a smile.

I would imagine that, especially if he went out of his way to train, that he wants Goku to get stronger--and then put him down.

Just like Goku did all those years ago on Planet Namek.

[Grimlock]

So Toyotaro is gonna take a break, huh? Is that a common thing? First time I heard it was with Eiichiro Oda, and it was for the last saga (which will take years to finish...).

This next saga better be great (not good, great) if he needs time for "preparations", then. No more old formula, no keeping things tight and contained, not a main villain for just Goku and Vegeta to deal with. And please may it take place at least after Movie 2, so that if Goten and Trunks are involved, we won't have to put up with their kids designs.

[JulieYBM]

Gokuu and Vegeta are toys for Freeza to play with. In a lot of ways Freeza is now back on top, like he was in the early Namek arc. I think for Freeza he might not see a reason to get rid of his two best toys. They prove his superiority.

That or he's simply become a more decent guy, which would be a nice change of pace.

I do wish that Gas had survived and killed Elec himself. Gas just winds uo becoming a Nothing character. Maybe the cartoon will give him a more fitting arc.

[UpFromTheSkies]

Did Freeza just get character development? The old Freeza would have wasted no time killing Goku and Vegeta if he had the chance, but he let them go. And he smiled, I'm pretty sure that's never happened; a smug smirk, yes, but never a smile.

I would imagine that, especially if he went out of his way to train, that he wants Goku to get stronger--and then put him down.

Just like Goku did all those years ago on Planet Namek.

Having a fair or challenging fight isn't something Freeza would have ever cared about before, he's definitely changed. At first I was disappointed when I heard he was back, but this seems like a whole new Freeza, so I don't mind it.

[UpFromTheSkies]

So Toyotaro is gonna take a break, huh? Is that a common thing? First time I heard it was with Eiichiro Oda, and it was for the last saga (which will take years to finish...).

I know Oda took a break once when he was hospitalized for sleep deprivation and overworking. He really puts everything he's got into One Piece.

This next saga better be great (not good, great) if he needs time for "preparations", then. No more old formula, no keeping things tight and contained, not a main villain for just Goku and Vegeta to deal with. And please may it take place at least after Movie 2, so that if Goten and Trunks are involved, we won't have to put up with their kids designs.

With this new Freeza development, I don't think they're going to jump ahead in the timeline for awhile, at least not in the manga.

[JulieYBM]

Breaks don't happen enough in this industry. Sleeping only four or six hours a day and working the rest isn't good for anyone, especially someone that has to do it for years at a time.

[Xeogran]

Whis didn't deny Frieza being the strongest, and his next statement is probably just typical motivational stuff for Goku and Vegeta.
The whole point is that "the strongest" position changes often.

[LightBing]

Arc is over and from me, it's the worst arc in the manga easily.

It went nowhere.
Shoved in Bardock with no benefit, might have assassinated Freeza's character with him not killing Goku and Vegeta, was for the most part boring and dragging; the new lore appears to be self-contained since the new Dragon Balls are going to be destroyed and Granolah probably won't ever matter for the plot again.
Monaito couldn't even stay dead for a little bit of consequence.

With the rhythm of the last two chapters, I believe there was some external influences. Toyotarõ drags this forever only to finish the job with a snap.

Because of level of writing on display, I'm not hopeful for the future. Black Freeza and new Universal thread don't bode well. Probably Goku and Vegeta getting beaten down 5 times while Goku unlocks UI 2 or something.

Good thing about the chapter.
Zombie Gas was unsettling and a good consequence of abusing Dragon Balls with such boring wishes. I would have preferred if this all ended with him turning to dust just before killing everyone. Probably would have improved my opinion of the arc quite a bit.

[Jack Bz]

It's wild that this arc went from looking like it could be my favourite of the manga, to nose-diving in quality after Vegeta vs Granolah ended/Bardock was brought into the story, to eventually being easily my least favourite arc of the whole thing. I'm really struggling to grasp any wider point or themes here.

[Super Saiyan Swagger]

Yep. I like this chapter a lot. It is sudden and takes a massive left turn, but this arc desperately needed something to shake it up. Shame that it happened at the very end of the story.

Overall, the Granolah arc is a bit of a mixed bag. It starts off strong and has possibly the best fight in all of Super (Vegeta vs Granolah) but the second half really bogs it down. It just didn’t have enough content to justify how long it went for. There were some cool developments like Goku remembering his parents, but these moments are undermined by drawn-out fight scenes that overstay their welcome. Gas is a very appropriate name for him because the guy stinks. No character that boring deserves that many chapters worth of fights. At least Jiren made up for his plain personality by being menacing and cool.

By no means a bad arc, but it just doesn’t do enough to make me like it. There are some stellar moments, though.

[Anomandaris]

I enjoyed this issue - I'm here for Black Frieza (I wonder how they dub that in eng) and liked that little twist and how he just blew off Goku and Vegeta after slapping them.

Interested to see where we go from here - and once again I'll say it, the negativity here really shocks me, I thought this was a place for fans of dragon ball lol

Really hope we get the new Gohan and Piccolo involved in the next arc

[Lord Beerus]

Random and scattered thoughts of Chapter 87:

- Decrepit Gas may just be the best drawing Toyotaro has ever provided for any piece of Dragon Ball media. Really sells the effects of being comprehensively defeated extremely well.

- Absolutely loved the little effect of Gas decrepit skin peeling and breaking apart every time Goku and/or Vegeta hit him.

- Everything about Gas finding out he's dying to Freeza coming in and killing him and then Gas' body disinterring as his life span ended was illustrated incredibly well. If the Heeters, and Gas specifically, well better written I would have considered this quite a tragic outcome. As it stands, Gas is just a one-note character who's now just dead and had little to no impact on the plot itself. What a waste.

- So Freeza knew about what the Heeters were doing and still let them fuck around? Huh? That is so out-of-character. This is the same Freeza that committed mass the moment he thought the Saiyan could potentially become too strong. And for 40 years Freeza deliberately turned a blind eye to a person (or really a group) who was planning to kill Freeza and take over his empire? That makes no fucking sense at all. Freeza has killed for FAR less in the past but he lets a planned hostile taker slide for decades? What?

- Elec has to go down as one the most disappointing characters ever created in Dragon Ball, he's introduced with this Chessmaster-like personality, but that gets quickly abandoned for the generic card-carrying villain. And the reveal of him being the weakest of the Heeters, just pours salt into the wound because if he doesn't have the strength the cover-up for what is very clear to be his lack of planning, inter gathering and forethought as he wasn't aware that Freeza knew what he was for 40 years. And he ultimately gets quickly killed and treated like an afterthought instantly, despite the fact he kicked started the entire arc. What a disappointment of character Elec was. Without a doubt, the worst antagonist Super has had yet and one of the worst villains in all of Dragon Ball.

- I stand by my opinion that Freeza coming in the 11th hour and murdering the major villains of the arc was such a terrible narrative decision. There was no build-up to this. Freeza killing Gas and Elec don't provide any kind of satisfying resolution for any characters arcs or any themes this narrative may have trying to portray. It just comes across as a twist ending for the sake of a twist ending.

- Black Freeza epitomizes everything wrong with modern Dragon Ball: using uninspired transformation as a shortcut for character growth and plot development. I could digest Golden Freeza because its design was intentionally a tongue-in-cheek reference to Super Saiyan from an in-universe perspective, and it would be in Freeza's character to act that petty and vindictive to create a new transformation with that aesthetic. But what is Black Freeza supposed to represent for Freeza's character? That he wants to keep up with Goku and Vegeta? He's already done that in past.

- I don't get what endgame is Freeza. It better be something really good if he's willing to let Goku and Vegeta live because that is just so out of character if he doesn't have anything major planned and needs those two alive. Unless... the plan is for Freeza to pull a heel-face turn. And that is just... I mean, throwing a bone to Oil and Macki and not only letting them live but employing them as a waiter and cook and not killing Goku and Vegeta, certainly seems to like Toyotaro wants Freeza to become a good guy down the line. I hope to God that doesn't happen. That would be fucking terrible. Some characters are better off as villains in Dragon Ball and Freeza is one of them. And even if you did want to do that, you would need to have truly exceptional writing to pull that off, and as much as I like Toyotaro, I don't have that faith in him doing something like that without it coming across as trite, irrational and forced.

- Honestly, at this stage, Freeza's character is just spinning his wheels and is morphing into archenemy-like status in Dragon Ball, and I really don't want that. I don't want to turn in the Joker of Dragon Ball where he just sticks around as a recurring villain to get into shenanigans with Goku and Vegeta.

- Goku smiling at seeing an image of Bardock in his scouter is the kind of sentimental shit that I don't just fuck with. Especially since Bardock was such a non-factor in the story.

- Well... that prediction from the Oracle Fish about the strongest warrior in the universe went nowhere...

Overall thoughts... the arc is finally over, and man, I have never seen a Dragon Ball arc fall off a cliff so fast and hard after such a promising start as badly as the Granolah The Survivor arc. This arc set up so many interesting narrative prospects in the beginning and just abandoned it all for fan service and for a fight that went on for WAAAAAAYYYY too long. Character development was either non-existent or unsatisfying concluded, the pacing was atrocious, narrative themes were discarded and retroactively pissed on, and the ending was incredibly rushed and provided no catharsis for anyone or even any tangible set-up for any future arc.

Yeah... I really didn't like this arc when all is said and done. But at least the art was consistently good.

The final score for the Granolah The Survivor arc:

3/10

- One point for the great set-up/beginning
- One point for the consistently good art
- One point for the hilariously bad and yet somehow entertaining twist ending).

Brief thoughts for the future:

- If it hasn't been made clear before, it certainly has now... that 10-year period has run its course. There's simply no room left the develop the current cast of characters. A big time skip is needed, in my opinion.

- A shake-up of the central cast is also desperately needed. Give me Pan, give me Oob, give me Bra... just somebody to mix up the dynamic beyond just Goku and Vegeta. DBS Superhero did this and it paid off really well.

- I hope the next arc takes place after the end of the manga because Super really needs to create an identity for itself rather than relying on the trappings of the past. It was already becoming quite detrimental to the quality of the storytelling in Super but this arc epitomized that more than any other story arc Super has provided so far of how much relying on the past can really harm the kind of story you want to tell.

- Dragon Ball Super in general needs to seriously slow the fuck down when it comes to transformations. Especially when it comes to recolour transformations.

- Toyotaro is better than this and I hope he takes this break to really plan out the next arc better.

[Wrigglything]

Hmm, it looks like this arc is finally done and sealed. Honestly, this last chapter was probably the most disappointing part of this arc for me, and believe me I was pretty tolerant towards most things in this arc from the Bardock stuff (which I actually really like, always a sucker for the character learning their lineage trope) to the chapter long fights. But I have to put the foot down at the sudden reveal of Black Freeza, which made me laugh when I first saw it. It's almost comical how sudden it is, like it almost makes those critiques of people complaining that Super is all about rainbow coloured forms and without narrative build up justified.
I do see some note that Freeza could have killed Goku and Vegeta right there and there, or at the very least physically pummel them to paste over time, yet he wants them to also get stronger. I just hope that the future gives some justification on this.
Overall, though, I thought this arc was fine, but wished that the strengths and themes of the first half was kept throughout. Given that this will be Toyotaro's last chapter before he takes a break, perhaps he was burned out during the Granolah arc to where the plot just became a mess of half baked ideas. I just hope that he uses this break to do something outside of Dragon Ball, since the monotony of working on one thing for so long is inevitably going to wear someone down to a crisp and make them too much of a husk of themselves. Assuming the worse case scenario that is, I just hope he can at least pick himself back up in his personal life and maybe even find some new passions in life, maybe. The bad working conditions certainly make things worse, and just makes me wish that Labour laws are fair towards artists too. My condolences to Toyotaro and a good rest.

[kemuri07]

The thing with Golden Frieza is that, yeah he did train a bit, but he didn't take it that seriously which is why he got his shit kicked in by both Goku and Vegeta.

Frieza was willing to spend 10 years training, which is very un-Frieza of him to do. That's a significant character change that could make for a good arc. Again, we don't know a lot and likely won't know until the next arc starts up. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt to do someting cool with it, which is--yes I know--way more than they deserve.

I am fine with the Black Frieza reveal because it has the potential to do the thing I wanted this series to do and that's shake up the status quo.

[Toxin45]

Random and scattered thoughts of Chapter 87:

- Decrepit Gas may just be the best drawing Toyotaro has ever provided for any piece of Dragon Ball media. Really sells the effects of being comprehensively defeated extremely well.

- Absolutely loved the little effect of Gas decrepit skin peeling and breaking apart every time Goku and/or Vegeta hit him.

- Everything about Gas finding out he's dying to Freeza coming in and killing him and then Gas' body disinterring as his life span ended was illustrated incredibly well. If the Heeters, and Gas specifically, well better written I would have considered this quite a tragic outcome. As it stands, Gas is just a one-note character who's now just dead and had little to no impact on the plot itself. What a waste.

- So Freeza knew about what the Heeters were doing and still let them fuck around? Huh? That is so out-of-character. This is the same Freeza that committed mass the moment he thought the Saiyan could potentially become too strong. And for 40 years Freeza deliberately turned a blind eye to a person (or really a group) who was planning to kill Freeza and take over his empire? That makes no fucking sense at all. Freeza has killed for FAR less in the past but he lets a planned hostile taker slide for decades? What?

- Elec has to go down as one the most disappointing characters ever created in Dragon Ball, he's introduced with this Chessmaster-like personality, but that gets quickly abandoned for the generic card-carrying villain. And the reveal of him being the weakest of the Heeters, just pours salt into the wound because if he doesn't have the strength the cover-up for what is very clear to be his lack of planning, inter gathering and forethought as he wasn't aware that Freeza knew what he was for 40 years. And he ultimately gets quickly killed and treated like an afterthought instantly, despite the fact he kicked started the entire arc. What a disappointment of character Elec was. Without a doubt, the worst antagonist Super has had yet and one of the worst villains in all of Dragon Ball.

- I stand by my opinion that Freeza coming in the 11th hour and murdering the major villains of the arc was such a terrible narrative decision. There was no build-up to this. Freeza killing Gas and Elec don't provide any kind of satisfying resolution for any characters arcs or any themes this narrative may have trying to portray. It just comes across as a twist ending for the sake of a twist ending.

- Black Freeza epitomizes everything wrong with modern Dragon Ball: using uninspired transformation as a shortcut for character growth and plot development. I could digest Golden Freeza because its design was intentionally a tongue-in-cheek reference to Super Saiyan from an in-universe perspective, and it would be in Freeza's character to act that petty and vindictive to create a new transformation with that aesthetic. But what is Black Freeza supposed to represent for Freeza's character? That he wants to keep up with Goku and Vegeta? He's already done that in past.

- I don't get what endgame is Freeza. It better be something really good if he's willing to let Goku and Vegeta live because that is just so out of character if he doesn't have anything major planned and needs those two alive. Unless... the plan is for Freeza to pull a heel-face turn. And that is just... I mean, throwing a bone to Oil and Macki and not only letting them live but employing them as a waiter and cook and not killing Goku and Vegeta, certainly seems to like Toyotaro wants Freeza to become a good guy down the line. I hope to God that doesn't happen. That would fucking terrible. Some characters are better off as villains in Dragon Ball and Freeza is one of them. And even if you did want to do that, you would need to have truly exceptional writing to pull that off, and as much as I like Toyotaro, I don't have that faith in him doing something like that without it coming across as trite, irrational and forced.

- Honestly, at this stage, Freeza's character is just spinning his wheels and is morphing into archenemy-like status in Dragon Ball, and I really don't want that. I don't want to turn in the Joker of Dragon Ball where he just sticks around as a recurring villain to get into shenanigans with Goku and Vegeta.

- Goku smiling at seeing an image of Bardock in his scouter is the kind of sentimental shit that I don't just fuck with. Especially since Bardock was such a non-factor in the story.

- Well... that prediction from the Oracle Fish about the strongest warrior in the universe went nowhere...

Overall thoughts... the arc is finally over, and man, I have never seen a Dragon Ball arc fall off a cliff so fast and hard after such a promising start as badly as the Granolah The Survivor arc. This arc set up so many interesting narrative prospects in the beginning and just abandoned it all for fan service and for a fight that went on for WAAAAAAYYYY too long. Character development was either non-existent or unsatisfying concluded, the pacing was atrocious, narrative themes were discarded and retroactively pissed on, and the ending was incredibly rushed and provided no catharsis for anyone or even any tangible set-up for any future arc.

Yeah... I really didn't like this arc when all is said and done. But at least the art was consistently good.

The final score for the Granolah The Survivor arc:

3/10

- One point for the great set-up/beginning
- One point for the consistently good art
- One point for the hilariously bad and yet somehow entertaining twist ending).

Brief thoughts for the future:

- If it hasn't been made clear before, it certainly has now... that 10-year period has run its course. There's simply no room left the develop the current cast of characters. A big time skip is needed, in my opinion.

- A shake-up of the central cast is also desperately needed. Give me Pan, give me Oob, give me Bra... just somebody to mix up the dynamic beyond just Goku and Vegeta. DBS Superhero did this and it paid off really well.

- I hope the next arc takes place after the end of the manga because Super really needs to create an identity for itself rather than relying on the trappings of the past. It was already becoming quite detrimental to the quality of the storytelling in Super but this arc epitomized that more than any other story arc Super has provided so far of how much relying on the past can really harm the kind of story you want to tell.

- Dragon Ball Super in general needs to seriously slow the fuck down when it comes to transformation. Especially when it comes to recolour transformations.

- Toyotaro is better than this and I hope he takes this break to really plan out the next arc better.

Nah it is already happening anways besides uub is not gonna be the strongest fighter,bra will never be a fighter and we will have neko majin z and kuriza apart of the cast soon means that Frieza is already the joker anyways

[PurestEvil]

Gas’ character arc represented this saga pretty well: flashy but without substance, withering in quality as the arc goes on, and in dire need of that coup de Freeza in the end.

The illustration for this chapter was actually enjoyably good, though. The imagery of decrepit Gas and his death was mortifying and especially well done.

It is a bit of a shame that Elec was annihilated like that, though perhaps it was the point: he was just a useless poser who amounted to nothing. It may seem weird that Freeza would let a guy like him hang around for 40 years, but maybe it was meant to show just how much of an insignificant runt he was.

I think Freeza’s new form is funny as hell, really. We got Goku Black, now Black Freeza. Yeah, it was kind of cheap, but the memes this will produce will be endless. Although, I am not sure about the whole thing with him randomly finding another RoSaT, but then again, this arc did start out because of a “random” new set of DBs.

In the end, I’m actually looking forward to the further development of Freeza and his relationship with the Saiyans! I mean, it can’t be as lackluster as this arc, right? Right?

[Jack Bz]

I'd just like to point out there was already another planet with its own rosat in the Moro arc, so it's not an entirely left-field concept. It's where Goku and Merus train.

[TKA]

Yeah, this arc is a master class in how to not write stories.

Building up Elec’s motives for a year only to reveal that… he’s exactly your first impression of him. No depth.

Having Gas fight for months without any characterization, then when he starts to develop it, that gets put on the back burner for Bardock, and then Gas keeps fighting until he dies. No depth.

Granolah sacrificing his “lifespan” for power, but since he isn’t a main character and isn’t a series mainstay, it may as well have just been a power up since he didn’t die here. He’ll instead die in 3 years. Cool. So it’s a pointless stipulation since it’ll happen offscreen or, at best, it’ll be brought up in a situation where it can’t possibly matter as much as if he’d died here.

Absolutely nothing to say about Monaito. There’s nothing there.

The ending being “rocks fall; everybody dies” is the kind of ignominious end this arc deserves tbh. Frieza coming in, breakdancing and then peacing out is probably the most fun way to end this trainwreck. The arc even ended in a way as to say “this nonsense side story is over. Back to shit you actually care about!)

Absolute garbage arc. I’ll give Toei this: at least their movies are short. This was only one level above the Super anime, and that is no praise.

[Draconic]

I'm just gonna say, the panel of Freeza killing Gas and the fact the speed lines are used as some kind of mask, implying Freeza turns into his Black form for a moment in order to get the kill, is pretty clever.

[ZeroNeonix]

I wonder how Frieza managed to find the Room of Spirit and Time. So there are other ways to get in, other than Kami's Lookout? Will they tell us later, or are they just throwing this bit of information at us and dropping it forever? Well, it was clever, at least, that Frieza being in the RoSaT meant that he wasn't counted as one of the beings in the universe when Granola and Gas made their wishes. Not sure that would have mattered anyway, since he'd still be growing more powerful while in there. He'd have passed them up anyway.

Oh well. Is there any official colorized version of Black Frieza? I'd like to see that. If we're going by the logic that Golden Frieza was meant to be a mockery of Super Saiyan, maybe Black Frieza is based on Ultra Instinct. Although if Frieza has a say in its appearance (which is unclear), silver would have made more sense, since that form was the strongest Frieza had last seen Goku.

I absolutely loved the walking corpse that was Gas in the end. The way his body falls apart as the fight goes on, bones breaking, skin falling off, there's no way the anime would be that graphic. Makes me wonder how they'd handle this if/when they adapt this arc. It would probably be heavily censored.

Granola still only has a few years left to live, but he seems with that. Really surprised Monaito survived until the end. I was sure he was going to make a noble sacrifice, taking his overpowered Dragon Balls off the table. Instead, he gets super healing after a few minutes of practice, and Whis shows up out of nowhere to save him from death. Weird, but okay. It sounds like he's going to just deactivate the Dragon Balls after using them once more to restore the planet. Don't know why they felt the need to keep him alive. Is he even going to serve a purpose after this? Are himself and Granola going to appear again? Kinda doubt it, so why not give the character a satisfying ending?

What happened to that robot guy? The one Granola was hired to retrieve. Did...everybody just forget about him? What information did he have that Elec needed? I guess it doesn't really matter now that Elec is dead.

I dunno. Mixed feelings all around. I enjoyed it, but it also feels off at times.