Unpopular DB opinions

[WittyUsername]

On the subject of Dragon Ball vs Power Rangers:

Power Rangers is extremely schlocky, but in all honesty, how could it not be? It’s a low budget live-action children’s program that uses stock footage and rubber monster suits and spandex from a low budget Japanese children’s program. It’s such a ridiculous entity that I personally got over it when I was seven. Still, I suppose you could argue that Power Rangers can be appealing in the same way as Adam West’s Batman. It’s stupid and unbelievably cheesy, but that can be endearing for some people, and it’s not without some self-awareness.

Of course, some Power Rangers seasons have tried to be more than just disposable schlock, which can get awkward. There was even one season of the series that had an episode that was basically an Alien knockoff. It was still kind of schlocky, but it was a weird case where it seemed like Power Rangers was trying to break away from its usual reputation.

Anyway, I certainly wouldn’t consider Dragon Ball to be nearly as cheesy as Power Rangers. I have an easier time taking it seriously than I do with Power Rangers.

[MyVisionity]

I think part of the problem with DB versus Power Rangers is that it isn't DB versus Super Sentai. Things would be much easier to defend/dismiss in that scenario. Unfortunately, there's no getting around that inherent aspect of Power Rangers productions, despite whatever work that has been done to make Power Rangers stand on its own two feet.

Perhaps if it were FUNimation DB versus Power Rangers, centered around nostalgia, you would get better results.

[Hellspawn28]

I think Power Rangers is hot garbage because it's pretty much Robotech of the 90s. They both took two franchises from Japan and badly Americanize them for dumb kids. I grew up with the series when I was little and even I thought the series was bad outside the fight scenes. Dragon Ball has more substance going for it than Power Rangers if you ask me. It's the Funimation dub that makes DBZ feel like a dumb mindless show with people always screaming 24/7.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

I wish Goku were a more sinister battle junkie (like HxH's Hisoka) instead of Peter Griffin, Kung Fu Master. What I find most fun about selfish, amoral (and I do mean amoral as opposed to immoral) characters is just how they warp what would otherwise be "good" ideals and play with how the world expects things/people to work.

Goku doesn't really twist anything. He's just a lousy dad (according to Toriyama. I think he's decent) with no idea how to function in society. I don't really find it endearing (I did when he was a kid but that might have been because I could relate to being thrown into a world that was a lot bigger than I expected) and I consistently find myself wishing he'd double down on his selfishness.

[WittyUsername]

I wish Goku were more a more sinister battle junkie (like HxH's Hisoka) instead of Peter Griffin, Kung Fu Master. What I find most fun about selfish, amoral (and I do mean amoral as opposed to I'mmoral) characters is just how they warp what would otherwise be "good" ideals and play with how the world expects things/people to work.

Goku doesn't really twist anything. He's just a lousy dad (according to Toriyama. I think he's decent) with no idea how to function in society. I don't really find it endearing (I did when he was a kid but that might have been because I could relate to being thrown into a world that was a lot bigger than I expected) and I consistently find myself wishing he'd double down on his selfishness.

Even as far as Goku’s selfish actions are concerned, the only character who’s ever really called him out for it has been Bulma, and she’s not exactly the most moral person on the planet. I don’t know if that was an attempt by Toriyama to inexplicably turn Bulma into the moral center of the series, or if it was supposed to suggest that she has a stick up her butt, but I’ve never been too crazy about it. I wish more characters would’ve called attention to Goku’s selfishness, instead of falling in line with it.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

Even as far as Goku’s selfish actions are concerned, the only character who’s ever really called him out for it has been Bulma, and she’s not exactly the most moral person on the planet. I don’t know if that was an attempt by Toriyama to inexplicably turn Bulma into the moral center of the series, or if it was supposed to suggest that she has a stick up her butt, but I’ve never been too crazy about it. I wish more characters would’ve called attention to Goku’s selfishness, instead of falling in line with it.

This is going to sound like a bad analogy but

You know how in stories like 50 Shades of Grey the narrative doesn't seem to realize its protagonists are selfish, cruel idiots? That no matter what's actually happening on the page or much Christian and Ana emotionally abuse each other the actual prose insists this is normal and fine? That's how DBS and late Buu feel to me. I fully admit it could just be me missing the joke but there's a lot of dissonance between who we're told these characters are and how they end up behaving. Like with 50 Shades I wouldn't care so long as the story would just be upfront. I don't mind anti-heroes, I don't mind anti-villains, and I sure as hell don't mind straight up monsters (hello, namek era Vegeta! you beautiful self serving psychopath). But I need the story to realize that's what its doing.

Oh well at least the video games are finally good again lol

[Dr. Casey]

Nah, Bulma is definitely supposed to be speaking for the audience in the "Why not just kill Dr. Gero?" scene. The character that doesn't operate by Wuxia logic, but goes by the same common sense real world moral code that most actual people would.

Bulma's really only vain and selfish during early Dragon Ball as a 16 and 17 year old. By the time Goku starts doing controversial stuff (the 23rd Budokai, though that only barely counts since it was necessary to keep Kami alive), she's a decent person.

[ABED]

By the time Goku starts doing controversial stuff (the 23rd Budokai, though that only barely counts since it was necessary to keep Kami alive

Not the reason why he didn't kill Piccolo. That's clearly a rationalization on his part.

I think Power Rangers is hot garbage because it's pretty much Robotech of the 90s. They both took two franchises from Japan and badly Americanize them for dumb kids. I grew up with the series when I was little and even I thought the series was bad outside the fight scenes. Dragon Ball has more substance going for it than Power Rangers if you ask me. It's the Funimation dub that makes DBZ feel like a dumb mindless show with people always screaming 24/7.

Irony being that Super Sentai came about because Toei wanted to adapt a few Marvel characters after Spidey, couldn't, so they created their own Superhero team.

[Scsigs]

Spoiler:

On the subject of Dragon Ball vs Power Rangers:

Power Rangers is extremely schlocky, but in all honesty, how could it not be? It’s a low budget live-action children’s program that uses stock footage and rubber monster suits and spandex from a low budget Japanese children’s program. It’s such a ridiculous entity that I personally got over it when I was seven. Still, I suppose you could argue that Power Rangers can be appealing in the same way as Adam West’s Batman. It’s stupid and unbelievably cheesy, but that can be endearing for some people, and it’s not without some self-awareness.

Of course, some Power Rangers seasons have tried to be more than just disposable schlock, which can get awkward. There was even one season of the series that had an episode that was basically an Alien knockoff. It was still kind of schlocky, but it was a weird case where it seemed like Power Rangers was trying to break away from its usual reputation.

Anyway, I certainly wouldn’t consider Dragon Ball to be nearly as cheesy as Power Rangers. I have an easier time taking it seriously than I do with Power Rangers.

Spoiler:

I think part of the problem with DB versus Power Rangers is that it isn't DB versus Super Sentai. Things would be much easier to defend/dismiss in that scenario. Unfortunately, there's no getting around that inherent aspect of Power Rangers productions, despite whatever work that has been done to make Power Rangers stand on its own two feet.

Perhaps if it were FUNimation DB versus Power Rangers, centered around nostalgia, you would get better results.

The common argument I'm seeing in these is that it's Power Rangers, so it's automatically trashy, kiddy shit because of MMPR, which has colored everybody's perception of the franchise as a whole. MMPR is the series that's in most of the public consciousness because of how popular the franchise was initially when it started being made, and yet none of you are even entertaining the fact that the level of maturity & adaptation took a big step up after that era. Certainly, there are cheesy elements that hang around, &, no, in most seasons, it's not like Adam West Batman. Honestly, I think Super Sentai can be just as, if not more cheesy mostly because of the differences in humor between the 2 franchises in most seasons. Hell, they have scenes where the rangers, demorphed, will straight-up talk to rubber-suited monsters dubbed over later in post by their voice actors &, in one case I know of, had a monster marry an old Japanese woman played entirely for comedy. I'm dead serious about that. Pretty sure Power Rangers wouldn't do that. Hell, they straight-up make new villains played by normal people just to avoid that stupidity most of the time, budget, time, creativity notwithstanding. Though, in PR, there are certainly seasons that are more comedic than others when it comes to adaptation of their source materials or are more overtly comedic or are just outright bad, but that's not most of them. PR has been in the same realm as the MCU most of the time since around In Space, honestly, yet people take that franchise seriously despite it being cheesy as hell & knowing it. Even DB has a lot of cheesiness to it, yet people like it & treat it seriously. I mean, we wouldn't be on a Dragon Ball forum having this discussion if not for that.

Hell, Dragon Ball isn't even above some of the things PR does, whether you're talking subbed or dubbed. We're talking about the series that started out as a comedy adventure manga that has Roshi regularly go gaga over hot chicks (to the point where Krillin used his nose bleeding gag as a way to help Yamcha defeat an invisible opponent), had Krillin fight a disgusting brute & be disgusted by his smell until Goku pointed out he doesn't have a nose, had the Ginyu Force as a pretty on-the-nose parody of Super Sentai, & has all of the weird, bad, & mood whiplashy comedy of the Buu Saga. Dragon Ball isn't above being hokey or schlocky, or remembering it's mainly for kids &/or families despite all of the seriousness the arcs eventually included in their writing. You can like DB more, that's fine, but I think you misremember how out there DB can be at points. Hell, Goku used the Power Pole to take a rabbit man to the moon where he now lives (maybe?) & they had several episodes of a few different series of DB crossing over with Doctor Slump, the latest one going so out of its way with the stupidity & slapstick humor that most people outside of Japan hated it because it's too radically different than the rest of Super for their liking, which I can get. That kind of extreme humor is incredibly mood whiplashy & can make or break what you're watching. It's why the Buu Saga's so polarizing with its humor, after all.

Anyways, I just find the notion of liking DB but trashing PR for things DB itself has been guilty of at one point or another a little more than a bit hypocritical. If you find one to be more internally consistent than the other, ok, but I don't think that absolves DB of what it's done in its stories in the past.

Spoiler:

I think Power Rangers is hot garbage because it's pretty much Robotech of the 90s. They both took two franchises from Japan and badly Americanize them for dumb kids. I grew up with the series when I was little and even I thought the series was bad outside the fight scenes. Dragon Ball has more substance going for it than Power Rangers if you ask me. It's the Funimation dub that makes DBZ feel like a dumb mindless show with people always screaming 24/7.

And this is the kind of elitism I don't care for. Not a lot about this comment either makes sense or holds up to scrutiny.

"PR is hot garbage because Robotech comparison."
While I haven't seen Robotech personally, I know about how it was produced & PR isn't anything like that...mostly. While I can give you that it's an adaptation of Sentai in that it uses plots, elements, suits, & footage from Super Sentai, it stays within the Sentai 99% of the time. Only twice did they go out of their way to include other properties; Kamen Rider & TMNT, which were only for a handful of episodes meant to act as crossover backdoor pilots other shows Saban was producing at the time. Robotech took footage from 2 different Super Dimension series & a completely unrelated 3rd series produced by 1 of the same production studios. While I can see if you'd prefer a more straight-forward dub of the anime shows that made up Robotech, or if you'd just rather watch them vanilla subbed, PR only uses footage of the fight scenes & films new stuff around them, adapting episodes or completely making new stuff up wholesale, which grants them a freedom not afforded to Robotech.

Power Rangers is something you more so talk about in terms of an adaptation. Robotech is something you talk about in regards to bad anime dubs & trying to turn already finished products into something they're not.

"They both took two franchises from Japan and badly Americanized them for dumb kids."
Again, bad argument. DBZ's dub didn't necessarily Americanize much, as much as it did censor & change things very unnecessarily. I wouldn't say a bad dub makes for automatic Americanization.
As for PR, taking the Sentai concept & adapting it for an American audience was bad. I agree that, at first, they didn't know how to do it because they were just winging it as they went & the low budgets often forced their hands with certain things, once they figured things out, put their budgets towards certain things, got more creative & experimental with the writing, it got better as they went, as you'd expect with any series. Nothing wrong with that. To not give the earlier seasons leeway because it was new, as well as the time it was made in & the kind of show it is/was, is, I think, being unnecessarily harsh & having the wrong level of expectations. Please note, I said EARLIER seasons, when it was more forgivable. Later seasons, where it's not, are a different beast entirely.
It's like expecting early DB to be a martial arts show where the protags fight supervillains from space or cyborg clones. There's just not a good basis for doing that when it was new, completely different on a fundamental level, & built up gradually to what it eventually became.

"I grew up with the series when I was little and even I thought the series was bad outside the fight scenes."
And an argument that everything is still as bad as you remember because MMPR (I assume) was, objectively, not a good series. Already responded up top.
To add to it shortly, though, I grew up with PR too, but after the initial era of MMPR, since I was born 1996. I grew up on the era of post-Zordon all the way to the first half of the Disney era, which is still remembered fondly by fans today as the most consistent & better written of all of the eras in the show & I can tell you that, minus some aspects that date the seasons, most of them hold up decently well if not very well because the writing is more than, "it's a dumb kid's show." A shortlist of seasons I recommend people at least give a shot are Time Force, Wild Force, Dino Thunder, & SPD. They require no watching of previous seasons to fully enjoy, though it helps for crossovers & to know at least who Tommy is in Dino Thunder, but they cover that in a recap episode to catch people up to speed. There's some dumb shit, yes, I'm not gonna argue they're 100% perfect, as no TV show truly is, but they do more good than bad & are very good watches.

"Dragon Ball has more substance going for it than Power Rangers if you ask me."
And a baseless argument that provides no actual examples & relies on people having only seen the earliest seasons of the show, to which I've already debunked & argued against & can offer more examples of...

"It's the Funimation dub that makes DBZ feel like a dumb mindless show with people always screaming 24/7."
This isn't even remotely true. The FUNi dub is BAD, & dumbed down from the original Japanese, yes, but it is the reason people remember Z for nothing but mindless screaming? Dude, you clearly need to rewatch the original version of DBZ because there are entire EPISODES devoted to little happening other than power-ups with screaming, extended fight sequences, stare downs, &/or other such stuff with little much else in the way of actual substance, particularly during the Frieza fight. What was stated to be 5 minutes turned into over 20 episodes if I have my numbers correct there. Talk about the nostalgia filter & not actually watching something at least in a while if ever coloring your perception of something, jeez.

Most people criticize the show for things that are the results of the animators & original Japanese writing staff stalling for time regardless of what dub they're watching. If the pacing is slow & what the characters do in filler is repetitive & boring, I don't care what dub you're watching, it's still slow, repetitive, & boring. End of discussion. Just look at MistareFusion. He HATES the dubs of DB just for the fact that he's a purist & hates all of the changes made to Z back when it was being dubbed, don't we all. He just did 5 videos for his Dragon Ball Dissection series discussing the merits of Z's filler in the Frieza Arc & it had NOTHING to do with any dub, 2 of which were exclusively about the Frieza anime adaptation's slow ass pacing & padding, as well as what could make or break filler for people. The dub just had to work with the animation, the animation wasn't created for the dub, dude. This logic just makes NO sense.

[ABED]

You're still on this? Can we move on?

But I do have to ask, what do you think constitutes good writing and depth? What is with your insistence in pointing out humor as some negative attribute? DB is apparently cheesy and lacks depth because it's full of gags.

I would like to point out that Adam West's Batman was a satire of not just the terrible serials of the 40s, it also satirized the source material, much like Deadpool. I think it even satirized the procedurals in its day. It's not "cheesy".

[MasenkoHA]

The common argument I'm seeing in these is that it's Power Rangers, so it's automatically trashy, kiddy shit because of MMPR, which has colored everybody's perception of the franchise as a whole. MMPR is the series that's in most of the public consciousness because of how popular the franchise was initially when it started being made, and yet none of you are even entertaining the fact that the level of maturity & adaptation took a big step up after that era.

You keep saying this but no I was the perfect age for the supposed golden era of In Space-Time Force (kindergarten to 4th grade for me) and while they were certainly better than MMPR they still had hackney dialog, bad acting, and cheesy effects and writing. At best they had all the charm of a cheesy silver age comic book.

I also gave RPM, the supposed dark serious super mature season of Power Rangers, the ol college try when it came out and stopped around episode 4 or 5 after laughing so hard at hard at their try hard attempts to make the Black Ranger seem like a bad ass

it's not like Adam West Batman

The Adam West series was intentionally cheesy and making fun of the comics. It also had high calibre actors in the time period appearing. It’s far more intelligent than any Power Ranger seasons could ever hope to be.

. Hell, they straight-up make new villains played by normal people just to avoid that stupidity most of the time,

They also tended to be played by piss poor actors. The lead villainess in In Space had all the acting charisma of a porn actress doing a Power Rangers XXX parody.

PR has been in the same realm as the MCU most of the time since around In Space, honestly, yet people take that franchise seriously despite it being cheesy as hell & knowing it.

I say this as someone who thinks the MCU is overrated and is disposable popcorn fluff at best but no no Power Rangers isn’t.

Hell, Dragon Ball isn't even above some of the things PR does, whether you're talking subbed or dubbed. We're talking about the series that started out as a comedy adventure manga that has Roshi regularly go gaga over hot chicks (to the point where Krillin used his nose bleeding gag as a way to help Yamcha defeat an invisible opponent), had Krillin fight a disgusting brute & be disgusted by his smell until Goku pointed out he doesn't have a nose, had the Ginyu Force as a pretty on-the-nose parody of Super Sentai, & has all of the weird, bad, & mood whiplashy comedy of the Buu Saga

You’re confusing being a gag series with Power Rangers hackneyed dialog and bad acting.

Anyways, I just find the notion of liking DB but trashing PR for things DB itself has been guilty of at one point or another a little more than a bit hypocritical. If you find one to be more internally consistent than the other, ok, but I don't think that absolves DB of what it's done in its stories in the past.

You could try good faith argument instead of lol Dragon Ball is a gag series so it’s just as bad as Power Rangers Z-grade production

"PR is hot garbage because Robotech comparison."
While I haven't seen Robotech personally, I know about how it was produced & PR isn't anything like that...mostly. While I can give you that it's an adaptation of Sentai in that it uses plots, elements, suits, & footage from Super Sentai, it stays within the Sentai 99% of the time. Only twice did they go out of their way to include other properties; Kamen Rider & TMNT, which were only for a handful of episodes meant to act as crossover backdoor pilots other shows Saban was producing at the time. Robotech took footage from 2 different Super Dimension series & a completely unrelated 3rd series produced by 1 of the same production studios. While I can see if you'd prefer a more straight-forward dub of the anime shows that made up Robotech, or if you'd just rather watch them vanilla subbed, PR only uses footage of the fight scenes & films new stuff around them, adapting episodes or completely making new stuff up wholesale, which grants them a freedom not afforded to Robotech.

Robotech took 3 different Japanese series and forced them into one show. MMPR took three different Japanese series (yes all 3 are Super Sentai but they’re all different shows with no continuity between each other) and forced them into one show. Hellspawn’s comparison is 10000 percent spot on.

"They both took two franchises from Japan and badly Americanized them for dumb kids."
Again, bad argument. DBZ's dub didn't necessarily Americanize much, as much as it did censor & change things very unnecessarily. I wouldn't say a bad dub makes for automatic Americanization.

It removed most of the eastern elements like Buddhism and chi so I would say it did.

[ABED]

I also gave RPM, the supposed dark serious super mature season of Power Rangers

In fairness to that season, it didn't sell itself as that. That's one of those labels given to it by fans who lack perspective of what dark and serious subject matter really is. It's more mature than previous seasons, but in the way a 9 year old is more mature than a 6 year old. It still contains the fun and silliness of previous seasons, but it is more self aware which makes its attempts to be darker (for lack of a better word) not tone deaf. It knows what kind of show it is. The biggest positive of that season is Rose McIver who is genuinely great in iZombie.

DB is a goofy show, but it knows what it is and its versatility of tone is one of the best things about it. It can be super goofy but also at times macabre like when we see the elderly and children murdered for sport, and still feel like the same story. I've come around on much of the Buu arc even though there are times when the humor undercuts things too much, but moments like Vegeta giving his life, or the old couple being gunned down are surprisingly effective.

[jjgp1112]

I haven't watched a solitary second of Power Rangers since 1999. Even at seven it became clear after a certain point that it was cheesy garbage.

I have some nostalgia for the Mighy Morphin theme song and movie but that's about it. I have a strong feeling if I ever wanted to go back and watch it, I'd feel completely embarrassed for myself and the show.

[WittyUsername]

By the time Goku starts doing controversial stuff (the 23rd Budokai, though that only barely counts since it was necessary to keep Kami alive

Not the reason why he didn't kill Piccolo. That's clearly a rationalization on his part.

That doesn’t really contradict Dr. Casey’s statement. I don’t think anyone was really arguing against the idea that it was a selfish decision on Goku’s part.

[MyVisionity]

Hell, they have scenes where the rangers, demorphed, will straight-up talk to rubber-suited monsters dubbed over later in post by their voice actors &, in one case I know of, had a monster marry an old Japanese woman played entirely for comedy.

Again, it's a fantasy show. It makes sense to have human characters interact with monster characters. It also, like DB, has comedy in it. Your example is clearly comedy. What matters is if it is written well, not how silly it may appear.

I would like to point out that Adam West's Batman was a satire of not just the terrible serials of the 40s...

I wouldn't call them terrible. Certainly not in terms of faithfulness to the source material. Maybe the production values could have been better.

[Scsigs]

Again, it's a fantasy show. It makes sense to have human characters interact with monster characters. It also, like DB, has comedy in it. Your example is clearly comedy. What matters is if it is written well, not how silly it may appear.

Well, at first, yes, it was just fantasy, but later mixed in sci-fi elements. Power Rangers has been sci-fi since day 1 with fantasy elements thrown in. That really shouldn't be too hard to accept that monsters are in that world as well like DB, just in a different way. And I think PR, though it CAN be goofy, isn't that bad when it comes to the writing & it can even be good most of the time outside of the more...questionable seasons, to say the least.

[ABED]

I wouldn't call them terrible. Certainly not in terms of faithfulness to the source material. Maybe the production values could have been better.

You forgot the racism.

[MasenkoHA]

I would call the 1940s serials pretty terrible. Horrid production values and uncomfortable WWII era racism in the case of the first film.

This makes me think of the thread when an argument was made the original funi in-house dub with the Toonami edits was worth preserving because it’s “historically important” and while that sentiment is hilarious to me I do think its apt for the 40s Batman serials. Terrible, but historically significant.

[MyVisionity]

Does the racism really count towards making a film terrible? Regardless, I thought it was a decent attempt at a Batman adaptation minus the production values. Burton and Schumacher could have learned a thing or two from them at least.

[MasenkoHA]

Does the racism really count towards making a film terrible? Regardless, I thought it was a decent attempt at a Batman adaptation minus the production values. Burton and Schumacher could have learned a thing or two from them at least.

What exactly made them a decent attempt at a Batman adaptation but not the Burton/Schumacher films?