Unpopular DB opinions
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- Ringworm128
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
You could solve every power scaling inconsistency in the franchise by going "The big numbers don't actually mean what you think they do, and Freeza probably isn't *that* much more powerful than Raditz.
Re: Unpopular DB opinions
Well, different strokes for different folks.Matches Malone wrote: ↑Wed May 06, 2020 8:56 pm Despite it not being perfect, Kai still removes 120+ episodes worth of filler, the equivalent of one long anime or multiple short ones. I'd take that any day over Z's 291 episodes that are just a waste of time at this point.
As I would never prefer a condensed version with poor music replacement and voice actors far from their peak as they were on the original runtime.
Z anime had it's problems, but still a better a version of the story than Kai. Some fillers may be unbearable and others may just do justice to characters poor developed even in the original manga.
My thoughts exactly. I re watched InuYasha last year and sometimes was annoying how many episodes didn't move the plot at all, but some of those had plenty of character development, so I never felt like skipping at all
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
- Toriyama is a bad writer, and without his editors, the OG manga would have been worse.
- Much of the current new found love for GT among much of the fandom is largely driven by resentment/contempt for Super, not because GT is as good as they think it is.
- Z Broly was never that bad of a character. He's an alright villain (especially in M8), has arguably the best character design (any of his transformations) of any villain in the series, and had huge potential to have been a truly great villain.
- Piccolo is overrated, not because he's a bad character (he's good overall and top 10 in the series), but because since the Namek arc, his writing has never been particularly strong and is filled with missed opportunities (Totally Not Mark explained this better than I could in his video).
- Much of love for OG DB in the Western fandom stems from a contrarian (often hypocritical) dislike of Z, and is fairly overrated as a result.
- Much of the complaints about powerscaling in the series are overblown and based on false assumptions on how strong certain characters are supposed to be.
- There's nothing inherently wrong with the concept of Power Levels (execution is key). Much of the hate for it (which seems to only exist in the Western fandom) seems to come from an implicit egalitarian bias and a contempt for the notion that some people are unreachably better than others.
- From a storytelling point of view, the Baby Saga is the most underrated arc in the franchise, and is narratively better overall (despite its own flaws) than the 2nd half of Z, the pre-22nd TB parts of OG DB, and the majority of Super.
- Mr. Satan (from a writing standpoint) is the most underrated character in the franchise, and ties with Vegeta as the best writen character of the Buu Saga.
- Android 21 is overall the best Modern DB character (aka anyone introduced since Yo Son Goku & Friends in 2008), and is more likeable than 90% of the classic cast.
- Goku vs Cell > Gohan vs Cell
- Much of the current new found love for GT among much of the fandom is largely driven by resentment/contempt for Super, not because GT is as good as they think it is.
- Z Broly was never that bad of a character. He's an alright villain (especially in M8), has arguably the best character design (any of his transformations) of any villain in the series, and had huge potential to have been a truly great villain.
- Piccolo is overrated, not because he's a bad character (he's good overall and top 10 in the series), but because since the Namek arc, his writing has never been particularly strong and is filled with missed opportunities (Totally Not Mark explained this better than I could in his video).
- Much of love for OG DB in the Western fandom stems from a contrarian (often hypocritical) dislike of Z, and is fairly overrated as a result.
- Much of the complaints about powerscaling in the series are overblown and based on false assumptions on how strong certain characters are supposed to be.
- There's nothing inherently wrong with the concept of Power Levels (execution is key). Much of the hate for it (which seems to only exist in the Western fandom) seems to come from an implicit egalitarian bias and a contempt for the notion that some people are unreachably better than others.
- From a storytelling point of view, the Baby Saga is the most underrated arc in the franchise, and is narratively better overall (despite its own flaws) than the 2nd half of Z, the pre-22nd TB parts of OG DB, and the majority of Super.
- Mr. Satan (from a writing standpoint) is the most underrated character in the franchise, and ties with Vegeta as the best writen character of the Buu Saga.
- Android 21 is overall the best Modern DB character (aka anyone introduced since Yo Son Goku & Friends in 2008), and is more likeable than 90% of the classic cast.
- Goku vs Cell > Gohan vs Cell
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
1- It's not really fair to single out Toriyama when every mangaka works with editors. In Naruto for example, it was Kishimoto's editor who encouraged him to give Naruto a rival in Sasuke, who's the 2nd most important character in the franchise. Does that mean Naruto would've been worse without the editors ? no one knows, just as no one knows how DB would've turned out without them.Sadala Elite wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 12:15 am 1-Toriyama is a bad writer, and without his editors, the OG manga would have been worse.
2- Much of the current new found love for GT among much of the fandom is largely driven by resentment/contempt for Super, not because GT is as good as they think it is.
3- Z Broly was never that bad of a character. He's an alright villain (especially in M8).
4- Much of love for OG DB in the Western fandom stems from a contrarian (often hypocritical) dislike of Z, and is fairly overrated as a result.
5- There's nothing inherently wrong with the concept of Power Levels (execution is key).
6- Mr. Satan ties with Vegeta as the best writen character of the Buu Saga.
7- Goku vs Cell > Gohan vs Cell
8- Much of the complaints about powerscaling in the series are overblown.
2- I definitely agree with this one. I personally don't like GT, but there's no denying that it's gotten a second chance from a lot of fans due to modern DB's lackluster quality.
3- A lot of the Broly hate comes from his other 2 movies and constant inclusion in everything.
4- DB and Z are one story, so the idea that one is better than the other never made sense to me. If they were presented as they were in the manga, as one 444 episode show, no one would say the first 153 episodes are better than the next 291.
5- Power levels are extremely important in order to know where characters stand compared to each other, not only in DB, but fighting anime in general. I don't care about raw numbers (Goku is 8000 while Nappa is 6739), but it's important to establish who's stronger than who so that as a viewer I'll know how to react to a fight.
6- Mr. Satan is without a doubt an amazing character in the Buu arc. He's the first character in the manga to ever think "why don't I just ask the villain to stop instead of punching him".
7- Gohan's fight was a one sided beat down, while Goku's was an actual fight were both him and Cell were constantly one upping each other. I like both, but Goku's takes the top spot for me.
8- The issues I have with power levels are mostly exclusive to Super. They'll establish that A=10, B=100, C=1000, yet not only is A able to fight equally alongside B, he's able to hold his own against C. Again, I'm not asking for raw, detailed numbers, just basic consistency that's found in any other anime, including the original manga.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
As much as I used to fixate on which character is stronger than which other character, I’ve come to realize that they really don’t matter. Characters in Dragon Ball are as strong as the plot requires them to be. That’s all there is to it. Even in the case of the original manga, this was true. How else would Goku conveniently go from having a power level of 90,000, to having a power level of three million, after a single near death power up?
Re: Unpopular DB opinions
I like to assume the 3M was counting Kaioken x20WittyUsername wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 1:09 am As much as I used to fixate on which character is stronger than which other character, I’ve come to realize that they really don’t matter. Characters in Dragon Ball are as strong as the plot requires them to be. That’s all there is to it. Even in the case of the original manga, this was true. How else would Goku conveniently go from having a power level of 90,000, to having a power level of three million, after a single near death power up?
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
That doesn’t really work though. Goku was more or less fighting evenly with Freeza, before the latter decided to use 50% of his power. Plus, the Super Saiyan transformation supposedly gave Goku a 50x boost in his power, and his PL in that form was officially listed as 150M.Dbzfan94 wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 4:40 pmI like to assume the 3M was counting Kaioken x20WittyUsername wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 1:09 am As much as I used to fixate on which character is stronger than which other character, I’ve come to realize that they really don’t matter. Characters in Dragon Ball are as strong as the plot requires them to be. That’s all there is to it. Even in the case of the original manga, this was true. How else would Goku conveniently go from having a power level of 90,000, to having a power level of three million, after a single near death power up?
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
I agree. I love to power scale still, but this is the mistake I did a while ago. I was exhausting myself with over complex analysis in order for things to work out numerically, ignoring what the plot demanded.WittyUsername wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 1:09 am As much as I used to fixate on which character is stronger than which other character, I’ve come to realize that they really don’t matter. Characters in Dragon Ball are as strong as the plot requires them to be. That’s all there is to it. Even in the case of the original manga, this was true. How else would Goku conveniently go from having a power level of 90,000, to having a power level of three million, after a single near death power up?
If Goku can defeat someone 10 times stronger than him in Base, but in another instance a difference of 2 times changes the courses of a fight, so be it.
I still try to remain consistent, but if I have to, I will add the 'Metapotence' part to my scaling, as in characters doing stuff without justification (in the power spectrum at least).
An example would be Rilldo. Goku can defeat him in Base at all forms. He only uses SS or SS2 to instantly overwhelm his enemy.
So yes, scaling wise it won't make sense for Goku to defeat him in Base. And even if he goes SS, he massively overpowers Rilldo but never one shots.
So my piece of advice 'flow with it'. And your life becomes easier. No need to justify everything. That happens and people have heated debates for nothing.
Don't get me wrong, debates are fun. You improve yourself by debating. But pointless fights are not the same.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
Ahhh right, I forgot. My bad.WittyUsername wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 4:48 pmThat doesn’t really work though. Goku was more or less fighting evenly with Freeza, before the latter decided to use 50% of his power. Plus, the Super Saiyan transformation supposedly gave Goku a 50x boost in his power, and his PL in that form was officially listed as 150M.Dbzfan94 wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 4:40 pmI like to assume the 3M was counting Kaioken x20WittyUsername wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 1:09 am As much as I used to fixate on which character is stronger than which other character, I’ve come to realize that they really don’t matter. Characters in Dragon Ball are as strong as the plot requires them to be. That’s all there is to it. Even in the case of the original manga, this was true. How else would Goku conveniently go from having a power level of 90,000, to having a power level of three million, after a single near death power up?
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
I thought 150M was an error, and it was actually 15M. And that his base post-Ginyu was 300,000.WittyUsername wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 4:48 pmThat doesn’t really work though. Goku was more or less fighting evenly with Freeza, before the latter decided to use 50% of his power. Plus, the Super Saiyan transformation supposedly gave Goku a 50x boost in his power, and his PL in that form was officially listed as 150M.Dbzfan94 wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 4:40 pmI like to assume the 3M was counting Kaioken x20WittyUsername wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 1:09 am As much as I used to fixate on which character is stronger than which other character, I’ve come to realize that they really don’t matter. Characters in Dragon Ball are as strong as the plot requires them to be. That’s all there is to it. Even in the case of the original manga, this was true. How else would Goku conveniently go from having a power level of 90,000, to having a power level of three million, after a single near death power up?
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
I’m pretty sure the 15M one was the error.MyVisionity wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 1:47 amI thought 150M was an error, and it was actually 15M. And that his base post-Ginyu was 300,000.WittyUsername wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 4:48 pmThat doesn’t really work though. Goku was more or less fighting evenly with Freeza, before the latter decided to use 50% of his power. Plus, the Super Saiyan transformation supposedly gave Goku a 50x boost in his power, and his PL in that form was officially listed as 150M.
https://www.kanzenshuu.com/battle-power/databook/
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
So that was it, thanks. I think it probably would have made better sense the other way around though.WittyUsername wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 1:53 amI’m pretty sure the 15M one was the error.MyVisionity wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 1:47 amI thought 150M was an error, and it was actually 15M. And that his base post-Ginyu was 300,000.WittyUsername wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 4:48 pm
That doesn’t really work though. Goku was more or less fighting evenly with Freeza, before the latter decided to use 50% of his power. Plus, the Super Saiyan transformation supposedly gave Goku a 50x boost in his power, and his PL in that form was officially listed as 150M.
https://www.kanzenshuu.com/battle-power/databook/
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
[/quote]
....When I first watched Z, that was by far the hardest part to get through, as the story never moved forward. Despite cutting out half of those episodes, they still managed to keep the majority if not all of what took place in the fight. There's 10 episodes worth of constant cutting to what was happening on earth, or to someone commenting on the fight, by just saying what we can clearly see. This is my biggest issue with Super's pacing, as anytime someone would do something, they'd cut to a character telling us what just happened, despite us clearly seeing it.
[/quote]
This point specifically speaks to me on a spiritual level. This just bothers me in any show really, when some action happens and a character takes like 20 seconds to explain what we just saw, instead of carrying on. Like I know that DB is made primarily for a youth audience, but do they really think a kid would have such a bad attention span that they need to be refreshed on what happened literally seconds ago?
(Crap, messed up the quoting, sry Matches Malone)
....When I first watched Z, that was by far the hardest part to get through, as the story never moved forward. Despite cutting out half of those episodes, they still managed to keep the majority if not all of what took place in the fight. There's 10 episodes worth of constant cutting to what was happening on earth, or to someone commenting on the fight, by just saying what we can clearly see. This is my biggest issue with Super's pacing, as anytime someone would do something, they'd cut to a character telling us what just happened, despite us clearly seeing it.
[/quote]
This point specifically speaks to me on a spiritual level. This just bothers me in any show really, when some action happens and a character takes like 20 seconds to explain what we just saw, instead of carrying on. Like I know that DB is made primarily for a youth audience, but do they really think a kid would have such a bad attention span that they need to be refreshed on what happened literally seconds ago?
(Crap, messed up the quoting, sry Matches Malone)
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
As time has gone on, I have come to prefer the look of the Dragon Boxes to that of the Level Sets for the sparse amount of episodes we have in Level Quality. I have absolutely nothing against film grain, but the Levels have too much. FUNi's multi-generational masters, for obvious reasons, have several more layers of grain than the show should, and I'm sorry, I think it looks ugly.
Dragon Ball Arc Rankings: 1. Piccolo Daimaō 2. Saiyan 3. 22nd Budōkai 4. 23rd Budōkai 5. Hunt For the Dragon Balls 6. Zamasu 7. Moro 8. Tournament of Power 9. 21st Budōkai 10. Broly 11. Battle of Gods 12. Boo 13. U6 Tournament 14. Freeza 15. Red Ribbon Army 16. Artificial Humans/Cell 17.Golden Freeza
Kunzait_83 wrote:No matter what twisted pretzel logic you contort yourself into to try and convince yourself otherwise, Raditz landing on Earth is the middle of the fucking story. Zero context, zero setup. Its in NO way meant to be seen as a "beginning point" for ANYTHING other than the next story arc. It flows precisely and fluidly from where things left off in the aftermath of the 23rd Budokai and mostly hits the ground running from there without really stopping to look back. You're plopping someone into the middle of a book starting at chapter 195 out of 519 for absolutely no good goddamn reason, with very minimal opportunity to look back at much needed context and character/story growth.
Re: Unpopular DB opinions
Not sure if this is unpopular, but the Frieza saga is my least favourite of the four main sagas.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
Yeah it's a bit unpopular. Mine least favourite is Cell saga and most favourite is Buu saga. I don't even know which one is more unpopular opinion. I enjoyed the tension of Frieza saga a lot, but it was too long (at least in anime) and pretty much all the villains except for Frieza were bad imo, maybe except Zarbon and Recoome and obviously Frieza himself. But tension and Frieza saved this saga and made it worth watching to me.
"I will concede that your feelings are worthy of the mightiest of Saiyans. However, there is more to my power than just this. Before you die, I will show it to you. This is the difference in power, between the primitive Saiyans and the evolved Tsufruians." ~Baby Vegeta
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
The Buu arc is much longer than the Freeza arcsunsetshimmer wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 7:57 pmYeah it's a bit unpopular. Mine least favourite is Cell saga and most favourite is Buu saga. I don't even know which one is more unpopular opinion. I enjoyed the tension of Frieza saga a lot, but it was too long (at least in anime) and pretty much all the villains except for Frieza were bad imo, maybe except Zarbon and Recoome and obviously Frieza himself. But tension and Frieza saved this saga and made it worth watching to me.
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
Yeah but it had more variety to me. Scenery was changing, Buu was changing (and not just visually) and main protagonists fighting were changing, so i didn't feel bored watching it. For Frieza saga, you see the same scenery which gets boring after time. It was the same for tournament of power, even worse. Frieza saga simply felt very slow to me. The tension of Frieza being somewhere around all the time was great though, you never knew when characters meet him.ABED wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 8:18 pmThe Buu arc is much longer than the Freeza arcsunsetshimmer wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 7:57 pmYeah it's a bit unpopular. Mine least favourite is Cell saga and most favourite is Buu saga. I don't even know which one is more unpopular opinion. I enjoyed the tension of Frieza saga a lot, but it was too long (at least in anime) and pretty much all the villains except for Frieza were bad imo, maybe except Zarbon and Recoome and obviously Frieza himself. But tension and Frieza saved this saga and made it worth watching to me.
"I will concede that your feelings are worthy of the mightiest of Saiyans. However, there is more to my power than just this. Before you die, I will show it to you. This is the difference in power, between the primitive Saiyans and the evolved Tsufruians." ~Baby Vegeta
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Re: Unpopular DB opinions
I did feel bored by it. It takes forever to get going, and somehow manages to feel like it's dragging while simultaneously rushing towards the finish line. Toriyama keeps throwing shit at a wall and so little of it sticks. By the time Buu dies it's like "jesus, finally" whereas with Freeza, it felt like a cathartic fitting end.sunsetshimmer wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 8:25 pm Yeah but it had more variety to me. Scenery was changing, Buu was changing (and not just visually) and main protagonists fighting were changing, so i didn't feel bored watching it. For Frieza saga, you see the same scenery which gets boring after time. It was the same for tournament of power, even worse. Frieza saga simply felt very slow to me. The tension of Frieza being somewhere around all the time was great though, you never knew when characters meet him.
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