I wanna disagree with that "mood whiplash isn't a thing in DB, or at least not a negative one" bit.ABED wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 5:24 pm Mood whiplash isn't really a thing in DB, or at least not a negative one. It's always mixed tones, even in the most dire of moments and for anyone thinking Goku and Vegeta always take fights for the fate of the world seriously, I implore you to remember that Goku cared more about winning the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai than he did the fate of the world.
I don't think mood whiplash is a bad thing. In fact, it's often the mix of comedy and drama that allows more earnest moments to land. Humor is a wonderful thing.
First of all, if you're arguing that it helps with some of the comedy, then it's definitely a thing that's there in the writing & story-telling. And, yeah, I can name some of my favorite jokes in movies & TV that use mood whiplash as a catalyst for them. However, to say it's fine all the time, or that it always happens in the pursuit of comedy is clearly ignoring that it happens because of fast shifts in stories that make it jarring & not always are they funny. If anything, they're frustrating.
Second, while I can give that some comedy works really well with that, when a story needs to be serious, generally you don't break tone unless it's supposed to be a farce. Plus, mood whiplash can work in the opposite direction as well. If you're supposed to find a moment funny, but then you're told by the writing that it's then supposed to just get serious, it can feel just as, if not more jarring. Generally, this kind is reserved for making a story more serious. The Buu Saga, however, features way too much of both switching back & forth & not all of it's on purpose. We know not everything Toriyama did when he wrote the manga was on purpose as well, as he generally wrote on the fly rather than having anything really mapped out. Thus, I don't know if you can say it's not a problem. Super's anime adaptation as well, as, while it doesn't use mood whiplash for comedy that often, it will use it for creating drama & tension. Sometimes it's needed, sometimes it's by accident or just not thought through.
When it happens in the Buu Saga, I can give you that it's for helping some of the comedy, but what about when it's not for comedy? Because some of the mood whiplash comes from when Toriyama forces the plot along. 1 I can remember off the top of my head is when Super Buu reverts to a form more similar to his original form, but with a more Piccolo influence. Goku immediately acts like it's no big deal, despite the fact that both he & Gohan are hurt & lacking energy & the fact that Buu's the most powerful & dangerous enemy they've come across in a while. While I can get him having a minor relieved feeling, he should still have his guard up & not be so nonchalant. See, I get Goku being like that if he's just as strong, if not stronger, than his enemy, but not that situation. That kind of shit creates a dissonance. There's another moment later with Vegeta also acting like this when Super Buu turns into Kid Buu, despite the fact that they should just be confused at best rather than confident. Especially Vegeta, who's not only smarter than Goku, but is someone who also faced Buu with the intent of trying to kill him, failed, & should know that there's more to him than what meets the eye by then. Especially when they realize his power's just going up rather than down. They sense energy whether they want to or not, so that should've been one of the first things that happened.
This is what I mean by whiplash. It's characters acting out of character, or not reacting to the situation as you'd expect them to. The situation's tone is serious, so it SHOULD be more serious. If it was comedic, the tone would be more apparent & the stuff I listed wouldn't feel so jarring. The problems stem from Toriyama trying to influence more overt comedy than he'd done in years & not mixing it in right with the more seriousness the story had been using for years at that point. You either need a mostly serious story with comedy sprinkled in, or you need a more lighthearted story that can have some serious moments, but is more fitting for comedy. You can't have both at once fighting for control of the tone. Otherwise, it just becomes a jarring mess. The original cut of the Z anime didn't help with this, where the writers threw in filler scenes that were just too try-hard for the comedy. I'm thankful Super's jarring problems stem mostly from characters being flanderized in certain ways rather than seriously jarring inconsistencies in tone. I'm not saying the storytelling in Super doesn't have problems, as it does, but it has less problems than Buu's storytelling.