What is the lamest thing to come out of modern DBZ?

[ABED]

I find it baffling that so many are bothered by something like Trunks and Mai living in a timeline with other versions of themselves. Was that even established? We don't see it. Why do you care so much? It doesn't rank high on the list of lame stuff to come out of modern DB.

[ArmenianPepsi]

5 years later, my topic still lives!

Anyways, that entire Super Dragon Ball Heroes anime special was such a mess. It actually made me miss Super.

I've been watching through SDBH and it's a real piece of work.

[Matches Malone]

5 years later, my topic still lives!

Anyways, that entire Super Dragon Ball Heroes anime special was such a mess. It actually made me miss Super.

I've been watching through SDBH and it's a real piece of work.

I had to stop because I was losing too many brain cells.

[Jiren The Alpha]

5 years later, my topic still lives!

Anyways, that entire Super Dragon Ball Heroes anime special was such a mess. It actually made me miss Super.

I've been watching through SDBH and it's a real piece of work.

I had to stop because I was losing too many brain cells.

Why did you use your brain when you were watching SDBH? that is not healthy .

[Yuli Ban]

Super Dragon Ball Heroes' promotional anime doesn't bother me too much because it's just fanservice and fanfiction.

What bothers me is that it's an official product. And even in that case, it's somehow less well produced than actual fanfiction. I clocked out around the time we got Golden Cooler because he just came, did one thing, and backed off with no fanfare. It was the literal grossest example of "Modern DBZ" I can imagine— flashy new colors that does nothing. Complete with the crappy overly shiny and stiff art & animation of the Yamamuro era.
Super Saiyan 8 is a 400 trillion multiplier? Cool, now let's go to Super Saiyan 9, an 800 trillion multiplier. Awesome, but Super Saiyan 10 is cooler at— whatever.

But yeah, if I was 10 years old, I'd have loved it just for being basically fanfiction come to life.

Look at this: it might be the closest we ever come to a "Golden Super Saiyan 4" in canon

[Yuli Ban]

The Zamasu arc didn't need fleshing out. It's a plot heavy complicated arc as is. It lasted as long as it needed. The problem wasn't the episode count.

The problem absolutely WAS the episode count, but in the other direction.
Any competent writer could've told the same story in seven or eight episodes. TORIYAMA could have done it in a few chapters at most. Indeed, if there ever is a "Dragon Ball Super Kai," that's exactly about as long as I expect it to be. Instead, they constantly chaffed about with useless crap that goes nowhere and some of the lamest gags of the series, as well as one gag that was set up to be amazing but fell apart spectacularly.
And then it ended on a literal Deus Ex Machina because they wrote themselves into a corner.


As far as I'm concerned, the Goku Black/Future Trunks arc is the "Sonic Forces" of Dragon Ball— a desperate attempt to be darker and more epic in a little children's franchise that misunderstands the fundamentals of just how to do that, even though it once did and even did it fairly well.

[JulieYBM]

The Zamasu arc was definitely too long. It fits far better as eight or nine episodes, not twenty-two.

[Matches Malone]

Super Dragon Ball Heroes' promotional anime doesn't bother me too much because it's just fanservice, What bothers me is that it's an official product. And even in that case, it's somehow less well produced than actual fanfiction.

As bad as Heroes is, it's nowhere near as bad as Super's early episodes. Despite being so long, I'm still shocked some of those episodes (5 & 24 for example) were allowed out the door. When it comes to storytelling, I think the ideas in Heroes are by far superior to what we've gotten in the main series, apart from BOG and Moro.

[Skar]

I was checking the credits for Heroes and all episodes so far were written by Atsuhiro Tomioka who also wrote the script for 22 DBS episodes (eps 47-51, 55, 58, 60 -61, 65-67, 75-81, 85, 92, 97). I was curious because lack of coherent writing wasn't only a problem in Heroes unfortunately. I do hope we get a DBS Kai one day that has fewer writers and sticks closer to Toriyama's outline.

[JulieYBM]

I was checking the credits for Heroes and all episodes so far were written by Atsuhiro Tomioka who also wrote the script for 22 DBS episodes (eps 47-51, 55, 58, 60 -61, 65-67, 75-81, 85, 92, 97). I was curious because lack of coherent writing wasn't only a problem in Heroes unfortunately. I do hope we get a DBS Kai one day that has fewer writers and sticks closer to Toriyama's outline.

Super Dragon Ball Heroes' runtime combined with the number of things it must do make it hard to do much with. On Dragon Ball Super, Tomioka wrote the best episodes and was also clearly the most dedicated to writing episodes consistently. He was probably uncredited as the series composition, a role he normally holds on other series but was not used for Dragon Ball Super. My guess is if Dragon Ball Super wasn't being made by the seat of its pants the story would have overall been more cohesive, too.

Tomioka's in charge of series composition for Digimon Adventure: and it's been a really good story so far.

[Skar]

Tomioka's in charge of series composition for Digimon Adventure: and it's been a really good story so far.

That's good to know. I checked his credits and he's worked on anime for many years. I always thought it was the rushed schedule that hurt DBS the most. I haven't watched a lot of anime but I'm not aware of any series that was handled that way and could've lasted that long.

[JulieYBM]

Tomioka's in charge of series composition for Digimon Adventure: and it's been a really good story so far.

That's good to know. I checked his credits and he's worked on anime for many years. I always thought it was the rushed schedule that hurt DBS the most. I haven't watched a lot of anime but I'm not aware of any series that was handled that way and could've lasted that long.

It's definitely an issue with the schedule. Tomioka himself has been writing anime for decades at this point and even then some of his best work has been in recent years. When he took over series composition for Pokemon: Diamond & Pearl (and also began to personally write more episodes himself) the battles instantly became more exciting. Even in Pokemon: Sun & Moon and Pokemon (2019) he is still assigned the big battle-centric episodes despite no longer being in charge of series composition.

Tomioka Atsuhiro has written 242 scripts for the Satoshi series, two movies (#18-19) and Pokemon: Generations. He's incredibly tied to the franchise. His DP scripts were really on fire, especially the Shinji episodes. I'd honestly suggest watching all of the episodes he's written but since time is limited here's a small sample:

Highlights to watch if you ever get a chance:

Spoiler:

DP Series:

Episode #3: Rival Battle! Three vs. Three!!

Episode #15: Kurogane Gym! Hyōta vs Shinji!!
Episode #16: Zugaidos vs. Pikachu
Episode #17: Big Charge of Ancient Pokemon!
Episode #18: Return to Kurogane Gym! Decisive Match with Rampard!!

Episode #40: Champion Shirona Appears!!

Episode #128: Battle Pyramid! Shinji VS Jindai!!

Episode #131: Full Battle! Shinji VS Satoshi!! -Part 1-
Episode #132: Full Battle! Shinji VS Satoshi!! -Part 2-

Episode #185: The Trick Room of Terror! Satoshi VS Kohei!!
Episode #186: Decisive Rival Match! Satoshi vs Shinji!!
Episode #187: Fierce Full Battle! Satoshi VS Shinji!!
Episode #188: Rival Battle Conclusion! Satoshi VS Shinji!!

[ArmenianPepsi]

I was checking the credits for Heroes and all episodes so far were written by Atsuhiro Tomioka who also wrote the script for 22 DBS episodes (eps 47-51, 55, 58, 60 -61, 65-67, 75-81, 85, 92, 97). I was curious because lack of coherent writing wasn't only a problem in Heroes unfortunately. I do hope we get a DBS Kai one day that has fewer writers and sticks closer to Toriyama's outline.

Super Dragon Ball Heroes' runtime combined with the number of things it must do make it hard to do much with. On Dragon Ball Super, Tomioka wrote the best episodes and was also clearly the most dedicated to writing episodes consistently. He was probably uncredited as the series composition, a role he normally holds on other series but was not used for Dragon Ball Super. My guess is if Dragon Ball Super wasn't being made by the seat of its pants the story would have overall been more cohesive, too.

Tomioka's in charge of series composition for Digimon Adventure: and it's been a really good story so far.

That's also what i'd most likely attribute to SDBH's messiness. When you have to create a story, somehow cram it into the time of an average Youtube video, along with i'd imagine to be some corporate suits handing you a checklist of "Stuff you must include to sell cards" to strictly abide by, it probably would kill the creative flow of any writer no matter how good. Living Hell.

[Magnificent Ponta]

The Super Dragon Ball Heroes anime tie-in is the current answer to this question, for sure. I can't think of anything else that compares.

It's tough to decide what is the single worst thing about Super Dragon Ball Heroes, but if I had to pick, I'd say it's the constant, relentless teasing that there might be an enjoyable moment juuuust over the next hill, only to drop that and move on to the next lame tease:

"Hey, you guys think Hit and Jiren are cool, right? We'll have them both show up in this episode!"
"Okay, that's fine and all - are they going to, you know, do anything?"
"If standing around for a 3-minute villain monologue and then getting kicked once before the villain starts his next power-up counts as 'doing stuff', then they sure do! Oh, Jiren says "Son Goku" once that way he does, too! Strap yourselves in!!"
*SCREAMING INTENSIFIES*

It's all wind-up, no pay-off. The only exception I've seen to this general pattern so far is Series 1, Episode 13; I actually quite like that clash between Goku and Hearts. But that's literally it - the rest of it is almost perfectly contrived to make me feel like a complete sucker for bothering to even sit in the same room while it plays out.

[Xeogran]

The only exception I've seen to this general pattern so far is Series 1, Episode 13; I actually quite like that clash between Goku and Hearts. But that's literally it - the rest of it is almost perfectly contrived to make me feel like a complete sucker for bothering to even sit in the same room while it plays out.

Golden Cooler vs Cumber the episode before was surprisingly good too even if short.

[ABED]

The Zamasu arc didn't need fleshing out. It's a plot heavy complicated arc as is. It lasted as long as it needed. The problem wasn't the episode count.

The problem absolutely WAS the episode count, but in the other direction.
Any competent writer could've told the same story in seven or eight episodes. TORIYAMA could have done it in a few chapters at most. Indeed, if there ever is a "Dragon Ball Super Kai," that's exactly about as long as I expect it to be. Instead, they constantly chaffed about with useless crap that goes nowhere and some of the lamest gags of the series, as well as one gag that was set up to be amazing but fell apart spectacularly.
And then it ended on a literal Deus Ex Machina because they wrote themselves into a corner.


As far as I'm concerned, the Goku Black/Future Trunks arc is the "Sonic Forces" of Dragon Ball— a desperate attempt to be darker and more epic in a little children's franchise that misunderstands the fundamentals of just how to do that, even though it once did and even did it fairly well.

Fair point. I really wish it had ended with Trunks' spirit sword instead of Zeno. The sword doesn't make literal sense but it's on theme.

[Yuli Ban]

I also feel Xenoverse 2 has worn out its welcome for me many times over. I suppose Xenoverse 1 is a worse offender since it didn't even get several years' worth of DLC; they were trying to do the yearly release thing again and it suffered for it right as the devs realized DLC was a better means of following the ongoing development of Super than brand new games that are quickly outdated. But the thing is: Xenoverse 2 calls itself Xenoverse 2. At the very least, Xenoverse 1 had something of an excuse being that it was the first in the series and the formal end of the "Dark Age" of DB games.

I know I've said it over and over again, but I really am just kinda retroactively in awe at how lazy of a story it is. It almost reminds of that time when they tried saying that Dragon Ball Z: Sagas was a "free-form open-world fully-destructible sandbox".
The """original""" storyline of the series is literally just two things:
1: What if [Villain]... but GOFFIK?!?!
2: Play through Raditz to Boo (plus GT and, with DLC, Super) but now self-inserting your own original character, Donut Steel.

I don't even get why they bothered ruining the color scheme for many of these villains during the story either because there's ZERO consequence to your character appearing out of nowhere, beating up a major character, and then disappearing. I know it tries handwaving it away as "the timeline's been corrected," but that's not how it works! That's not how any of this works!! That's not how an "original story" works!!! We didn't even get a truly original story until the very end of the story and then with the DLC. Otherwise, it might as well be a poorer Sparking!/Tenkaichi game with a modded fanfic character. Just WOW, now THAT'S lame.

Heaven forfend the day they decide to make a Xenoverse anime. If they did it for Heroes, you just know that there might be an entire promotional Xenoverse anime for the third game should it come. And it would make all of the latent problems even more glaringly obvious.

[Jiren The Alpha]

Toyotaro's tracing is the lamest thing coming out of modern Dragon Ball.

[Noah]

Anyways, that entire Super Dragon Ball Heroes anime special was such a mess. It actually made me miss Super.

I think you're exaggerating, we can't compare the two... Also SDBH has better concepts than those used on Super for sure.

[ArmenianPepsi]

Super Dragon Ball Heroes' promotional anime doesn't bother me too much because it's just fanservice and fanfiction.

What bothers me is that it's an official product. And even in that case, it's somehow less well produced than actual fanfiction. I clocked out around the time we got Golden Cooler because he just came, did one thing, and backed off with no fanfare. It was the literal grossest example of "Modern DBZ" I can imagine— flashy new colors that does nothing. Complete with the crappy overly shiny and stiff art & animation of the Yamamuro era.
Super Saiyan 8 is a 400 trillion multiplier? Cool, now let's go to Super Saiyan 9, an 800 trillion multiplier. Awesome, but Super Saiyan 10 is cooler at— whatever.

But yeah, if I was 10 years old, I'd have loved it just for being basically fanfiction come to life.

Look at this: it might be the closest we ever come to a "Golden Super Saiyan 4" in canon

I would lump SDBH in the same boat as something like Episode of Bardock. Both are quite poor, both have equally cynical origins, but at the end of the day their bearing on the actual main series is minimal if anything at all. They just stay in their own corners not really hurting anything, so we can give them a pass.

I believe once SDBH's time in the sun is over it'll become another curiosity for those exploring all the nooks and crannies of what DB has to offer, a small symbol of what the franchise was like, and what it was going through at a specific point in it's history. Like right now it serves as just the smallest of drip feeds for ANY new animated DB content while we wait for Super to return. Atleast we have the Moro arc in the manga still going. (No clue if it's any good or not, I don't read the manga )