Does it feel odd for anyone else to see Goku and co. using cell phones?

[precita]

Yes Dragon Ball has always had advanced technology (capsule corps, video phones, etc), but in Super they give Goku what looks like a modern cell phone. Since Dragon Ball came out in the 80's, you have Roshi watching exercise programs and VHS tapes on an old 80's TV and looking at magazines. Modern Roshi would be on a laptop spending 24/7 on his favorite porn website.

A similar thing happens on The Simpsons. Despite being set in the 80's, they started modernizing everything to modern technology where they have a flat screen TV, cell phones, etc. because the show is still airing.

It's something that bugs me despite the Dragonball universe having advanced sci-fi technology, to see "real-world" advances from the 2000's included in an 80's/early 90's era series. Or Zamasu mentioning "Godtube" as a reference to youtube.

God help me if we ever start seeing things like Krillin having a twitter account in modern Dragon Ball.

[ZeroNeonix]

Yes Dragon Ball has always had advanced technology (capsule corps, video phones, etc), but in Super they give Goku what looks like a modern cell phone. Since Dragon Ball came out in the 80's, you have Roshi watching exercise programs and VHS tapes on an old 80's TV and looking at magazines. Modern Roshi would be on a laptop spending 24/7 on his favorite porn website.

A similar thing happens on The Simpsons. Despite being set in the 80's, they started modernizing everything to modern technology where they have a flat screen TV, cell phones, etc. because the show is still airing.

It's something that bugs me despite the Dragonball universe having advanced sci-fi technology, to see "real-world" advances from the 2000's included in an 80's/early 90's era series. Or Zamasu mentioning "Godtube" as a reference to youtube.

God help me if we ever start seeing things like Krillin having a twitter account in modern Dragon Ball.

Krillin doesn't have a Twitter account, but Piccolo does have a MySpace account.

Nah, it doesn't bother me. A lot of time has passed in the show, so it's not unreasonable to think technology would continue to advance, just like in real life. By the way, if you've never read the Jaco manga, it reveals that the only reason Capsule Corp has its futuristic technology is because Bulma was allowed to reverse engineer Jaco's ship. That guy really sucks at his job. lol

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

Show's need to update their look. The characters using cellphones shouldn't be any weirder than Bulma ditching the shoulder pads she briefly wore during the Saiyan Arc.

Besides, the really weird bit was seeing them aboard a cruise ship for Bulma's birthday. Looked like something straight out of a VegeBul fic.

[DragonBallFoodie]

It feels slightly odd to me, I admit.

But all must move with the times, and that includes TV universes. All we can hope for is that the increased tech dependency of the 2000s-2010s does not really make a significant change to DB.

[SupremeKai25]

Well as you said Zamasu watched Godtube, and it looks like there's a concept of a "Godtuber" too (Gowasu wanted to become a Godtuber). It wouldn't surprise me if there was a God Twitter and a God Reddit too, there's a God Youtube after all

[KBABZ]

It does feel odd, although it's important to remember that Dragon Ball's timeskips mean that it's technically much further ahead than it's supposed to be.

If we imagine that Chapter 1 takes place in 1984, then the RRA Arc is 1985, the 22nd TB is 1988, the 23rd TB is 1991, the Saiyan and Namek Arcs are 1994-1995, Androids is 1998, Buu is 2005, Super is 2009-2011, End of Z is 2016, and GT is 2021.

So under that logic it makes sense that everyone would have mobile phones in Super, especially given the futuristic setting. But at the same time... the "future as seen by the 80s" perspective is part of what makes Dragon Ball's setting so unique, and the designs for the various technologies in Super make no attempt to at least be flavoured in the 1980s.

[Alruneia]

Yeah, I find the inclusion of current-era smartphones and laptops in DBS off-putting. I don't think it meshes well with the rest of Dragon Ball's Earth technology, there's an aesthetic mismatch. I'm fine with GodTube and stuff like that, though, since it's not bound to Dragon Ball Earth, it just references something that exists on real world Earth.

[Krillin1994]

Maybe the general leap in entertainment tech in dragonball has been a bit too rapid when we compare the level of the smart phone Goku bulma gives goku when we compare it to video game tech.

We have Mr Satan giving buu basically a gameboy then (ambiguous timeline) anime version of BoG isn’t the 4 years and is instead months right? But we can say bulma’s smart phone is beyond rest of world generally. But as a corp they’d market the heck out of them.

In the manga of Black arc the console the gang play Dragonball Kart on appears to be a switch.

[MyVisionity]

Nah it don't seem odd to me. Super isn't an 80s/90s show, it's a 2010s show. Smartphones and so forth make sense because Dragon Ball has always included contemporaneous technology.

Kuririn having a Twitter account is totally something I could see happening in a show as silly as Super.

[KPike87]

Honestly, yes, at least at first. I thought it was strange they do the Family Guy/Simpsons thing where the world evolves around them while they're the same age, like Satan giving Buu an OG Game Boy but five years using an iPhone (basically). This was weird to me because to me Dragon Ball was all about seeing the characters gradually age and grow up throughout the years, respecting actual time.

[MasenkoHA]

Honestly, yes, at least at first. I thought it was strange they do the Family Guy/Simpsons thing where the world evolves around them while they're the same age, like Satan giving Buu an OG Game Boy but five years using an iPhone (basically). This was weird to me because to me Dragon Ball was all about seeing the characters gradually age and grow up throughout the years, respecting actual time.

If anything the Dragon Ball world always had the opposite problem of Family Guy/Simpsons. Time is passing but until Super we saw very little of it.

Goku is 12 at the start of Dragon Ball and roughly 35 by the Boo saga. That’s 23 years that have passed but society and technology only seemed to have advanced 10 years....because in the real world that’s all the time that has actually passed,

So smart phones and references to dvds and blue rays makes it seem like, oh yeah, these characters have known each other for roughly 3 decades now.

[KPike87]

Honestly, yes, at least at first. I thought it was strange they do the Family Guy/Simpsons thing where the world evolves around them while they're the same age, like Satan giving Buu an OG Game Boy but five years using an iPhone (basically). This was weird to me because to me Dragon Ball was all about seeing the characters gradually age and grow up throughout the years, respecting actual time.

If anything the Dragon Ball world always had the opposite problem of Family Guy/Simpsons. Time is passing but until Super we saw very little of it.

Goku is 12 at the start of Dragon Ball and roughly 35 by the Boo saga. That’s 23 years that have passed but society and technology only seemed to have advanced 10 years....because in the real world that’s all the time that has actually passed,

So smart phones and references to dvds and blue rays makes it seem like, oh yeah, these characters have known each other for roughly 3 decades now.

That is true, but I mostly was thinking in terms of Super, from the Buu arc specifically, just the drastic change, but to be fair, the only thing I have to go off there is the explosive Game Boy. But yeah that's my point: They did respect it, until Super came around, but they were always using modern devices and whatnot.

[JewyB]

It feels odd for sure, but i think the reason it feels odd is that they made the lead straight to supercomputer level iphones. I have an awful memory but i'm pretty sure we never saw any like, advancement in the phone world, or similar tech, we just jumped straight to them.

Also with Dragon Balls love for overly detailed tech stuff, they feel too smooth.

[WittyUsername]

I completely forgot about Godtube. I realize that’s meant to be silly, but it just comes across as a forced attempt at being “modern.”

[dario03]

Personally I always thought it was a little weird that some of this stuff wasn't in earlier DB more. Things like Cell phones, lcd screens, and laserdisc existed in the 80s. So since they have a lot of future tech kinds of things I would think Toriyama would have included better versions of those kinds of things more. Maybe not godtube and social media types of things, but flat panel tvs and optical video discs would make sense. But I guess maybe we just didn't see Cell phones that much (probably no signal up in the mountains and random islands), and maybe Roshi has had that TV and VHS forever. Or maybe he just wanted to include some everyday things that readers would be more familiar with...

[Vijay]

Yes Dragon Ball has always had advanced technology (capsule corps, video phones, etc), but in Super they give Goku what looks like a modern cell phone. Since Dragon Ball came out in the 80's, you have Roshi watching exercise programs and VHS tapes on an old 80's TV and looking at magazines. Modern Roshi would be on a laptop spending 24/7 on his favorite porn website.

A similar thing happens on The Simpsons. Despite being set in the 80's, they started modernizing everything to modern technology where they have a flat screen TV, cell phones, etc. because the show is still airing.

It's something that bugs me despite the Dragonball universe having advanced sci-fi technology, to see "real-world" advances from the 2000's included in an 80's/early 90's era series. Or Zamasu mentioning "Godtube" as a reference to youtube.

God help me if we ever start seeing things like Krillin having a twitter account in modern Dragon Ball.

Just another "ehhh" thing outta 10,0000 stuff from dbs lol

Classic DB & DB world was build with respect to their era. Or even if Toriyama mixes up with sci-fi...he keeps it rooted to classic ancient DB always...

Dbs is those cheap wannabe product placement tryin to cater to whatever or anyone who would take it up

[Big Boss]

I'll admit, at first it did feel a bit strange because it was, in my cynical eyes, quite obviously a ploy by Toei to rather shallowly show how modern and with-the-times the franchise had become. But then I thought about it from an in-universe perspective and thought, with all the futuristic gadgets that exist in the DB universe, was it REALLY outside the realm of possibility that Capsule Corp invented Smart Phones between the end of the Buu Arc and Super? That seemed reasonable to me and my resistance to the idea lulled somewhat. That being said, I'd rather Toei/Toriyama/Toyotaro not take this any further and incorporate any ridiculous shoe-horned social media references into the franchise. GodTube was already pushing it for me and lord have mercy if there's a Zenogram or something similar.

[Cold Skin]

Some of you guys talk about the possible existence of social media in DB, but actually, that's already confirmed.
In the anime, when everyone boards the cube to be transported to the tournament between Universe 6 and Universe 7 and ends up at Beerus' place, Whis says it's okay to take pictures but asks people to refrain from posting those on social networks.

So there you have it, equivalents to Facebook and Instagram likely exist (although we don't have any more specifics, we just know that there are social networks allowing people to share photos, the rest of how they work remains a mystery).

None of it bothers me, I'm glad my favorite show keeps up with what feels natural to us.
It's sticking to old 80s technology that would feel weird to me.
And for those looking for a logical explanation, I think the invention of capsules was already something that became part of the world very quickly if I remember well. It has already implied how new inventions take the world by storm in DB and they quickly integrate society and everyone's lives within a groundbreaking record time.

[jjgp1112]

It's honestly weirder to me that the type of technology that existed in the DB world also co-exists with fax machines and big ol' brick cell phones.

Even the technology in futuristic, high-tech TV shows are products of their time, because a lot of little practical advances of technology are usually the stuff that's farthest from the average person's mental scope. We can conceive flying cars, robots, capsules and holograms because they're so fascinating, but don't think about a phone that can send pictures immediately when a fax machine is already good enough for that. It's not until after something easier comes around that we realize the inconveniences of what's presently available. And even when we do, we just deal with it and complain.

So it honestly makes more sense to have modern cell phones and shit in the DB world. I'm cool with long-running cartoons and comics kind of operating on a "sliding timeline" when it comes to the world around them.

Bring on Cell's discovery being retconned from a picture faxed to Capsule Corp and then to Trunks, to an e-mail Bulma forwarded to Trunks that he pulled up on his cPhone

[Krillin1994]

I’m picturing Goku getting spam email on his smartphone or some pop up.

“Get Jacked using this incredible method, become the strongest”

Then him freaking out for it.

......wouldn’t put it past Super Goku